Three lessons from two years

Hard new questions for policy makers in a post-Ukraine War world

In the two years since the Russian Federation sent relationship has grown stronger.. The North Atlantic I tanks into Ukraine, how has the world changed? tanks into Ukraine, how has the world changed? Treaty Organization, for example, has expanded.

President Joe Biden of the United States has been careful to ensure Washington's outreach to its European allies on security matters has expanded. But it is possible that this too misses the longer-term trends. The Russian invasion has reminded Europe of the need for it to develop hard power; and, meanwhile, the act of supporting Ukraine and thereby underwriting European security is less and less popular in the United States. The natural endpoint of these processes is a Europe less able to rely on Washington and more incentivised to make its own way in the world. The Americans are helping this process along economically by enhancing their own industrial policy and subsidising their own industry at the expense of European competitors.

Meanwhile, some countries such as India which appeared to be slowly shifting into an anti-Beijing (and thus pro-West) position in global affairs have had this progress slowed by the success domestically of a proMoscow narrative over the past two years. Instead of a consolidation with the West around a defence of sovereignty- such a defence being long the primary pillar of India's interventions in world affairs - the Indian government has been at pains to demonstrate its independence from Western approaches to the Ukraine war. Policies, in India and beyond, have shifted towards asserting autonomy and independence from both possible poles of a bipolar order and thus made a bipolar order less likely.