Russia began to wage war on Ukraine just over a month ago. This is the closest to nuclear war we have come in my lifetime. On social media it is depressing how many people appear to think risking nuclear war would be worth it for America to show Russia who is boss globally.
Of course this is not the first war in my life, it is only the first one where a potential enemy country with nuclear weapons has started a serious war. Russia has had wars before but smaller ones in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
America has also started wars in my lifetime, but as we consider them a friend it was not as worrying that a large power with nuclear weapons was going around starting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
The 19th Century Crimean War (1853-65) took place at a time when the power relations in Europe and the Middle East were changing, much as in today’s world. The Ottoman Empire was in decline and it’s territory was potentially spoils for other Empires and nations. The UK and France fought against Russia alongside the Ottoman Empire, only to agree to carve up the Ottoman Empire between themselves in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.
The Crimean War’s Charge of the Light Brigade was portrayed as a heroic failure much as Australia portrays the WW1 Gallipoli campaign. The medical conditions in the battlefields were so bad that Florence Nightingale determined to reform practices and sanitation.
It is almost a surprise that Russia has started a serious war on an American ally, as while international politics has become more fractious in the last 15 years, American attention has been on China, who it sees as it’s current biggest international rival. Obama in 2012 directed American foreign policy to “pivot to Asia”.
However it is not 100% a surprise because Russia was involved in the Syrian War, as well as the war in Chechnya and annexing the Crimean Peninsula, plus poisoning people seen as threats like Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
It is impossible to know how long the war in Ukraine will go for. It seems certain Ukraine will not gain anything from the war other than perhaps managing to save its independence from Russia. Russia will lose a lot of money and lives and at best will gain a bit more territory, yet the only bit being useful to it is Crimea which has a port.
Russia states it doesn’t want NATO and NATO missiles so close to its borders, which on the surface seems reasonable because it’s similar to the position the USA had in regard to Cuba having Soviet missiles in the Cuban Missile Crisis. However it is difficult to know if this is really all Russia wants.
America and its allies in Europe look weakened from their inaction. While sanctions will economically affect Russia, and military aid will assist Ukraine, this war is showing that if a nuclear country wages war on a smaller non-nuclear country, America and its allies are unlikely to militarily assist the smaller non-nuclear country.
For Australia this is a relevant lesson when we think about our future Defence planning. Like Ukraine we are a small non-nuclear country. We rely on the idea that America would defend us militarily if it ever becomes necessary.
Now we have climate change, a pandemic, and Russia waging a war, and honestly I think this is the worst year in my whole life in terms of these exterior global things.
I try to take comfort in the pleasant things of every day life like picking quinces and enjoying the beautiful Autumn days, but doing so reminds me so much of the people in the Belle Époque who focused on all their lovely things as WW1 crept up on them. Let that not be us.
Zoe Emily Mithen 