Ukraine Is Now a World War. And Putin Is Gaining Firends

Ukraine Is Now a World War. And Putin Is Gaining Firends.Foreign policy experts have worried for decades about a second Korean War. No one ever imagined it would happen in Ukraine. Today, Seoul and Pyongyang are waging their decades-long struggle on Ukrainian battlefields. It is a microcosm of the world proxy war underway. Since 2022, the two Koreas have made themselves central to a raging war in Europe. South Korea has indirectly given Ukraine a small mountain of artillery ammunition — solid gold in a protracted ground war. North Korea has served as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armory, supplying ballistic missiles used to ravage Ukraine’s cities and artillery shells used to pound its troops. Both countries, moreover, are part of clashing coalitions that have turned the fight between Ukraine and Russia into a grander, more encompassing test of strength. The notion of the Ukraine war as a proxy war isn’t new, of course. From the outset, Kremlin officials have alleged that the US is using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia. Two years ago, I explained that they were basically correct: In helping Ukraine defend itself, America is also imposing heavy costs on one of its fiercest enemies. What has changed since 2022 is that the proxy war has expanded — and been fully joined by both sides. Ukraine has the support of democracies spanning North America, Europe and the Indo-Pacific — countries committed to sustaining Kyiv’s independence and punishing Putin severely in the process. Yet that support is being matched and blunted by a cohort of Eurasian autocracies lending vital aid to Moscow and making life more difficult for the West. Two vast alliances are squaring off, albeit indirectly, on European battlegrounds. The fight in Ukraine has become the first global conflict of a new cold war. Washington’s Proxy War During the first Cold War, proxy conflicts were ubiquitous. The superpowers dueled indirectly because direct confrontation was too dangerous in the nuclear age. Moscow and Washington backed local partners — and bled each other — in the conflicts that ravaged the Global South. The wars of decolonization in Africa and Asia, the insurgencies and civil wars in Latin America, and the brutal fights in Korea and Vietnam became arenas in which the superpowers maneuvered for advantage. Now, the war in Ukraine is deepening another struggle to set the terms of global order, and pitting the rival coalitions — advanced democracies and Eurasian autocracies — against each other. To be sure, the war in Ukraine wasn’t supposed to become a sprawling proxy war, because it wasn’t supposed to be much of a war at all. When Putin’s forces invaded in February 2022, they expected to take Kyiv in days and finish off remaining resistance in weeks. Putin hoped that a weak, divided West would acquiesce in this show of strength. But a desperate Ukrainian defense, combined with head-scratching Russian blunders , produced a messier, more protracted conflict, one that quickly became internationalized. First to enter were the US and its allies, which scrambled to sustain Ukraine after having failed to deter Russia’s attack. A Russian victory, they feared, would subject a vulnerable democracy to conquest and atrocity, while also shattering the balance of power in Eastern Europe and energizing dangerous aggressors everywhere. So they rushed in economic assistance, intelligence support and weapons to help Ukraine hang on. This was a far-flung coalition. Poland was its key logistical hub; Germany, France, Britain and other European countries gave aid and arms. But allies on the far side of the world also did their part, with Australia, Japan, South Korea and others providing — directly or through the US — money and military gear. The war thus fused the community of advanced democracies together.