Gray Wars
By Othman Mirghani
It is difficult to view the war in Ukraine only through a black and white lens. The picture has a lot of gray, and intersections in the current and future calculations.
In principle, the invasion of one state by another is unacceptable, and the matter would be worse if there was a powerful party such as Russia taking advantage of this situation and threatening the world with nuclear weapons if someone intervened to oppose its invasion. Therefore, whoever sympathizes with Russia’s long-standing grievances and complaints that the West did not abide by the commitments it made upon the collapse of the Soviet Union not to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and approach its borders in a way that becomes a direct threat to it, this does not justify its resort to force The invasion of Ukraine and the redrawing of the borders.
Just as the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the logic used by Saddam Hussein’s regime to justify the aggression were rejected, the same applies, in my estimation, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Other than this point in the initial rejection of the aggression, there are many gray spots in the current war and its many repercussions. While some say that the Ukrainian war revived the Cold War, the reality is that the world left that stage for a new type of war.
Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, other expressions and concepts have emerged to define the ongoing conflicts between the international poles, such as the term “gray war” which is sometimes referred to as the gray area war. This war does not take the character of a conventional armed conflict, but it aims to achieve goals that weaken the other side.
Gray wars include areas such as cyber attacks, espionage work, theft of military and industrial information, information wars and fabricated news on Internet and social media platforms, and any other “covert” operations that do not reach direct armed aggression.
The danger is that such actions taking place in “grey areas” may push tensions close to the flashpoint because what one person may see as “acceptable pressure,” another person may interpret as an act of aggression and a direct threat that amounts to a “hot war.”
Gray wars were and still are taking place between countries, especially between Western countries on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. But the Ukrainian war has moved the conflict between the West and Russia to another, more dangerous stage, and put them in a region that could lead to a disastrous direct war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin brandished his nuclear weapon at the West if it intervened to prevent it from achieving its goals and expanding, and the challenge for the West is how to confront Moscow and its aggression without being drawn into igniting a third world war.
The weapon that the West has resorted to is economic warfare by imposing harsh sanctions on Russia to confuse its economy and weaken its military capacity, in the hope that these pressures will fuel domestic opposition to Putin. And if we take Western statements, this war will be long, because the impact of the sanctions intensifies with the passage of time.
On the military level, Western countries rushed According to these accounts, Beijing does not want to see Russia defeated and prefers a negotiated solution, so it has expressed its willingness to participate in any diplomatic effort to resolve the crisis and has engaged in talks with the French president and the German chancellor, who are continuing contacts and efforts with Putin.
At the same time, China blamed the outbreak of the war on the United States, accusing it of inflaming the situation, and of not taking into account Russia’s “legitimate” security concerns as a result of NATO’s expansion to its borders. It went further, adopting a position rejecting what it called the “sanction wand.” Its foreign ministry said that using this baton “at every turn will never bring peace and security.”
But China, on the other hand, believes that the Russian invasion created complications. As a major economic power, it has an interest in stabilizing global economic conditions and does not want to see confusion that harms its interests and affects its trade. Beyond the economic influences, Beijing, and indeed the whole world, is afraid of things going wrong.
The repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will inevitably lead to fueling the gray wars in all their aspects, and with them the economic war, between Moscow and the West.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that regardless of Russia’s military strength and any field victories in Ukraine, “Putin will fail and Russia will suffer a strategic defeat.”
The problem is that the greater the pressure on Putin, the more aggressive this may make him, which may push matters towards an uncalculated confrontation with the West that will lead the world to a devastating Third World War, from whose consequences no one will be spared to supply Ukraine with large quantities of advanced weapons in order to defend itself and make the cost of the war prohibitive for Putin.
The goal is to confuse Putin’s calculations and plunge him into a long war of attrition, exhausting him and weakening Russia’s economy and thus its military capabilities.
The Russian president, when planning to invade Ukraine, may have relied on the fact that his army could achieve a quick victory over the smaller and less well-equipped Ukrainian army, and thus achieve its goals with minimal losses.
He may also bet that NATO is in a state of severe weakness due to the positions of former US President Donald Trump, and the differences over the manner in which Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan. To further ensure that NATO will not send troops to help Ukraine, he has repeatedly brandished nuclear weapons. In addition, he bet that some European countries that rely heavily on oil and gas from Russia would be reluctant to join the countries that demand tough sanctions.
But what happened after the invasion of Ukraine turned Russia’s calculus upside down.
Western weapons enabled the Ukrainian army to withstand and slow the progress of the Russian forces, and the invasion brought NATO out of its differences and made it close its ranks and unite under the American umbrella in a way that it had not known for years. The next blow was to unite the West around broad and harsh economic sanctions.
After President Biden announced that his country had decided to ban the import of Russian oil and natural gas, Britain said it would stop importing Russian oil by the end of this year. Then came the strongest blow from the European Union, which announced proposals that will be discussed at a summit of its leaders today to diversify its sources of supply of natural gas and accelerate plans to develop alternative energy, making it able to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by two-thirds before the end of this year. This step, despite its difficulty and cost to Europe, which gets about 40% of its gas needs and a quarter of its oil imports from Russia, will have a strong impact on Moscow.
It is true that Putin will find buyers for Russian oil and gas, especially in light of the contracts signed with China, but the European move is considered a blow to his logistical accounts and has economic and moral repercussions.
This leads us to talk about China, which is closely monitoring the situation for more than one reason. On the one hand, it can be said that China is the biggest beneficiary of the current crisis that confuses the West and preoccupies Washington. Beijing realizes that America’s eye is fixed on it, and that the current economic war against Russia may be a rehearsal for a similar war against it in the future. It is also a nuclear military power, and the West will not risk entering into a direct military confrontation with it, so it will resort to “gray wars.”
According to these accounts, Beijing does not want to see Russia defeated and prefers a negotiated solution, so it has expressed its willingness to participate in any diplomatic effort to resolve the crisis and has engaged in talks with the French president and the German chancellor, who are continuing contacts and efforts with Putin.
At the same time, China blamed the outbreak of the war on the United States, accusing it of inflaming the situation, and of not taking into account Russia’s “legitimate” security concerns as a result of NATO’s expansion to its borders. It went further, adopting a position rejecting what it called the “sanction wand.” Its foreign ministry said that using this baton “at every turn will never bring peace and security.”
But China, on the other hand, believes that the Russian invasion created complications. As a major economic power, it has an interest in stabilizing global economic conditions and does not want to see confusion that harms its interests and affects its trade. Beyond the economic influences, Beijing, and indeed the whole world, is afraid of things going wrong.
The repercussions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will inevitably lead to fueling the gray wars in all their aspects, and with them the economic war, between Moscow and the West. Yesterday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that regardless of Russia’s military strength and any field victories in Ukraine, “Putin will fail and Russia will suffer a strategic defeat.”
The problem is that the greater the pressure on Putin, the more aggressive this may make him, which may push matters towards an uncalculated confrontation with the West that will lead the world to a devastating Third World War, from whose consequences no one will be spared.
