There were many who believed that Russia would do... walk in Ukraine after the Feb. 24 invasion, but today marks 108 days of fighting.
In this war the surprises are many, with well-known New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggesting, in an article, that the biggest one has yet to come and it may involve Vladimir Putin.
Although Americans can agree on almost nothing else, most agree with the U.S. move to provide generous economic and military aid to Ukraine, Friedman notes. Most Americans could not have put Ukraine on the map until a few months ago, the NYT columnist recalls.
The war resembles a sumo match
However, according to Friedman, maintaining that support throughout the summer will be doubly important as the war now enters a phase that resembles a sumo match. A phase in which two giant wrestlers try to throw each other out of the ring without succeeding but also without giving up.
Friedman himself is optimistic in the short term when he expresses the hope that the majority of Americans will continue - despite the rise in energy and food prices - to support Ukraine until it can regain its sovereignty militarily or reach a decent peace agreement with Putin.
To justify this optimism, Thomas Friedman cites what the American academic Michael Mandelbaum, who teaches American foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, writes in his new book "The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy".
No one knows how it will end
After more than 100 days of fighting, no one can say how this war that started inside Putin's head will end and will likely end only when Putin says he wants it to end, Friedman argues.
The Russian president most likely feels he is pulling the strings and has time on his side because he can withstand more pain than Western democracies. Great wars are, however, a strange thing. However they start, they can end in totally unpredictable ways, Friedman reminds us.
The 27 of the European Union, which is not only a key ally of the US and the largest trading bloc in the world, have already moved decisively by restricting trade (trade, investment) with Russia. On 31 May, EU member states agreed to cut oil imports from Russia by 90% by the end of 2022.
"Two-edged sword" sanctions
Thomas Friedman acknowledges that this move will hurt Moscow but will also cause pain within the EU, to consumers and manufacturers who are already paying astronomically high prices for gasoline and natural gas.
The role of renewable energy
All this is happening, however, as the NYT columnist points out, at a time when renewable energy sources such as solar and wind have become price-competitive with fossil fuels, and while automakers worldwide are investing in the production of electric vehicles and new batteries.
In the short term, renewables are not enough to offset the decline in Russian supplies. But if a year or two of astronomical gasoline and heating oil prices due to the war in Ukraine follow, then "you will see a huge shift in investment in directions that can move the entire market away from dependence on fossil fuels," says Tom Burke, director of the research group E3G - Third Generation Environmentalism.
"The war in Ukraine is already forcing every country and every company to push ahead with their decarbonisation plans in a drastic way," he notes.
What a recent report says
A report released last week by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air and the think tank Ember finds that 19 of the 27 EU states "have significantly stepped up their renewable energy ambitions while also reducing planned fossil fuel production in an effort to protect themselves from geopolitical threats."
What the evolution of past wars shows
A recent article in McKinsey Quarterly, cited by Friedman, notes: "The naval wars of the 19th century accelerated the shift from sailing ships to coal-powered ships. Subsequently, World War I brought about a shift from coal to oil."
And then World War II introduced nuclear power as the main source of energy. In each of these cases, wartime innovations carried over into the economy and ushered in a new era. The war in Ukraine is different in the sense that it does not challenge energy innovation itself but makes the need for it clearer. The potential impact of this war could, however, be just as transformative."
If this war does not inadvertently blow up the entire planet, it may inadvertently contribute to its survival. And, over time, it may also contribute to the shrinking of Putin's own main source of money and power, Thomas Friedman concludes.
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