Editor’s note: This commentary was provided to Global Atlanta by Marcus Marktanner, a German-born professor of Economics and International Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has regularly cited security concerns as a pretext for what he still won’t admit is an invasion of Ukraine, but there is a simpler rationale for his aggression: distracting from Russia’s own economic failures under his watch.
Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but the prospect of membership is seen as a threat by Russia. That’s not simply about NATO’s military capabilities; it’s about the promise of prosperity in the West, and how it reflects on the Russian government’s use of natural resources to suppress its own people.
Economically, Russia is an unattractive monoculture, a filling station to the world. Its global position in natural resources is overrated. While sufficient for enriching a small minority and entrenching undemocratic leadership, its resource wealth is not sufficient to permanently dictate energy prices or threaten the West’s prosperity. In the long run, the West holds more cards because of the diversity of its economies — as well as the interconnectedness of the global economy.
With that in view, it could easily be argued that more should have been done to bring Ukraine into the Western fold sooner via European Union and NATO membership. This runs counter to an argument propagated by Putin (and embraced by some in the foreign-policy community) that the West went too far too fast in luring Central and Eastern European countries into the Western political and economic order. They argue, moreover, that peace in Europe requires that Ukraine functions as a neutral buffer country between the West and the East. In other words, the West is to blame for Russia’s aggression.
Such a perspective is a cynical disrespect for the Ukrainian people’s free will. What entitles the West or Russia to assign another country the role of a buffer country? What is a more fundamental value to defend – a people’s freedom aspirations or the delusions of grandeur of a dictator like Putin, whose pretext lives on only because he has strangulated independent media in Russia?
Remember, the Cold War had no buffer countries. The Berlin Wall and barbed-wire fences were the fault lines. There is no reason to assume that the Cold War would have been less bloody or ended more quickly if East and West had been separated by buffer countries. The contrary may be true. The Cold War ended because the West stood its ground and defended its values. The West showed the East a better way of living, articulated perfectly by President Ronald Reagan. There were no buffer countries that would have distorted East Germans’ view on the wealth and freedom gap to West Germany. For Germany’s unification, the absence of buffer countries was a blessing, not an obstacle.
Russia would like a buffer-zone in Ukraine to make it more difficult for Russians to see a better life, thereby protecting its own corrupt dictatorship. The West should never give in to such an idea. Instead, the West should envision what the world could look like if Russians were seeking freedom and democracy as heroically as Ukrainians do these days.
Marcus Marktanner is Professor of Economics and International Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of Economics, Finance, and Quantitative Analysis of the Coles College of Business and the PhD Program in International Conflict Management of the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding, and Development. He received his PhD from the Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany in 1997. In his doctoral thesis he examined the political economy of the economic transformation process of former socialist economies. Before joining the faculty of Kennesaw State University in June 2011, he held teaching and research positions in Lebanon, the USA and Germany. His research focuses on comparative economics, economic development, and conflict economics. He has consulted the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), the World Food Program (WFP), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He also regularly contributes to the work of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation as an author and speaker on the topic of the Social Market Economy.
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