Russian forces continue to push toward the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. While both its initial blitzkrieg and subsequent efforts to decapitate Ukraine’s government have failed, Russian forces grind on. The West focuses its attention on that fight, but the immediate reverberations of the Ukraine fight go further.
While many analysts (myself included) have speculated about what opportunities China might seize, two other regions may soon erupt as a direct result of the Ukraine fight.
First, fighting might soon resume in the South Caucasus where 16 months ago, Russian peacekeepers entered to separate Azerbaijani and Armenian forces. In November 2020, I spoke to Russian peacekeepers as Armenians withdrew and set up positions outside the Armenian Dadivank monastery in the Azerbaijani district of Kalbajar. The Russians were relaxed and seemingly happy for the duty they saw as both easy and career-enhancing. They were elite forces and stretched out along the new front lines, not only outside cultural heritage sites the Azerbaijanis might target in their war against Armenian heritage and Christianity but also between the clifftop city of Shushi (Shusha to the Azerbaijanis) and Stepanakert (Khankendi to the Azerbaijani), the capital of the self-declared Armenian Artsakh republic in Nagorno-Karabakh.
There may have been a ceasefire agreement, but there is no peace. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claims the entirety of Nagorno-Karabakh and much of Armenia, including its capital Yerevan. Should Russian President Vladimir Putin order the peacekeepers withdrawn to redeploy them to Ukraine — he needs all the trained soldiers he can get — it may be only a matter of weeks before Aliyev decides to continue his war of conquest and ethnic cleansing.
Nor are the South Caucasus the only problem. The American Foreign Policy Council’s Ilan Berman deserves credit for raising alarm bells, almost immediately, about what the Ukraine war could mean for the Middle East. Ukraine and Russia provide the bulk of grain to several Arab states, many of whom have no immediate alternative without significantly raising prices. While Persian Gulf states might have enough savings to soften the blow, other countries — such as Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq — do not. Protests have already begun in Iraq, and Egypt has a long history of bread riots when subsidies decline and/or bread prices rise.
The Arab Spring broke out because of a general belief that society and the economy were leaving people behind. Protesters ousted rulers in Egypt and Tunisia, and civil war erupted (and continues) in Syria, Yemen, and Libya. However, no country made substantive economic reform. Egypt remains a security state and Tunisia has turned its back on its brief democratic spring. The question now is less if a renewed round of protests will occur than if governments can contain them when they do. Either way, the Middle East is set for a rocky ride sooner rather than later as food prices rise sharply.
U.S. administrations like to compartmentalize. The State Department and Pentagon divide the world into different geographical bureaus and commands, not all of whom talk to each other and coordinate as well as they should. Unfortunately, what happens in Ukraine does not stay in Ukraine. Russia created the earthquake — the tsunami may now be about to strike.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
