It’s Not Just About Ukraine
(Originally published April 4th, 2022)
Beyond the suffering and humanitarian crisis from the war in Ukraine, the entire planet and every society on it will feel the effects of the Russian invasion. Not just Ukraine. Not just Russia. As bad as this war is, people have said that it doesn’t really measure up to the destructiveness of past wars, but I disagree. I think the potential devastation from this war can be quite great indeed.
Set aside the horrible things happening to the people of Ukraine. Brush away the damage Vladimir Putin has done to his own people and their country. Forget, even, about the looming specter of Nuclear exchange involving the world’s largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And look at what remains. This may not be a world war (yet) but make no mistake, it is a war on the world. The effects downstream of the actual conflict are going to reverberate around the globe, some of them already are. This comes as the world is already reeling from the pandemic, supply chains are in shambles, economies have been artificially inflated, tensions among people in society are inflamed, politics and media have become an actual shitshow, and we have received so many “dire warnings” from the IPCC that the term is beginning to lose its shock effect.
For those of you who have read my opening position paper for this blog, you already know the kind of danger I am talking about. Repeated shocks to the system of interdependent complex networks civilization relies on, insufficient time to repair in between, each one stressing the system more and more until…cascading failure. Followed closely by the rapid and total collapse of civilization as we know it. This conflict is a major blow to our system, and it hasn’t even fully landed yet.
The impacts are many and will be coming from multiple channels. For a truly all-encompassing view of this war on the world, let’s examine them one by one.
Economics
The entire global economy is already reeling from the effects of slower growth and faster inflation, shortages of commodities, and supply chain disasters. And now this war brings us closer than ever to an economic catastrophe.
Higher prices for things like food and energy will speed up inflation further, eroding the value of incomes and currencies, which will in turn weigh heavily on demand. Those nations neighboring the conflict zone will have their economies hit massively by disrupted trade, and supply chain chaos, in addition a historic surge in refugee migration. Reduced business confidence and increased investor uncertainty will shock the prices of assets, tightening the financial situations for everyone and even spurring capital outflows from emerging and developing markets.
The warring parties themselves are not third-world backwaters, oh no. They are major commodities producers themselves, and disruptions have already caused prices to soar across the globe, especially for oil and natural gas. Food costs have rocketed upwards, with wheat reaching a record, due to the fact that Ukraine and Russia together make up 30% of global exports. Metals such as Nickel, lead, tin, uranium, zinc molybdenum, iron ore, cobalt, copper, and aluminum have shot up as well. Don’t even get me started on fertilizer…
Countries with direct trade, tourism, and financial exposures will feel additional pressures. Economies reliant on oil imports will see wider fiscal and trade deficits and more inflation pressure. Steeper costs for food and fuel will spur a greater risk of unrest in some regions, as will decreased availability, from Africa and Latin America to the Middle East and Central Asia. Such food insecurity is likely to further impact in other economic ways as well.
In the longer term, the effects of the conflict may fundamentally alter the global economic and geopolitical order, especially if energy trade shifts, trade agreements get reconfigured, payment networks undergo fragmentation, and nations of the world begin to rethink their reserve currency holdings. Increased geopolitical tension further raises risks of economic meltdown, especially as access to trade and technology moves the pieces on the board.
The quickly placed and untested sanctions placed on Russia will impair financial transactions, trade, and so much more, not just in Russia but inevitably spreading the chances for deep recessions the world over. The ruble’s depreciation is fueling inflation, not only affecting the people there but also further diminishing living standards for populations around the world.
Energy shortages and costs will be the earliest spillovers for Europe since Russia is a critical source of natural gas imports. They will feel that first and hardest, but they will also see rising financial costs due to the unprecedented refugee surge. Europe has already absorbed most of the 4 million people who fled Ukraine so far, and while the flow has slowed, the impacts have yet to be truly felt. The individual governments within Europe will also confront major fiscal pressures from additional emergency spending on energy security and defense budgets.
Beyond the localized area of the conflict, other nations are hardly immune and will feel similar consequences from Russia’s economic strife and the sanctions. Complex ripple effects from higher food and energy prices, as well as shortages, will tighten global financial conditions. Egypt, as an example example, imports about 80 percent of its wheat from the warring nations, and they already had brewing issues regarding Ethiopia’s new dam project.
Government policies to try and manage inflation, like raising subsidies, will put pressure on fiscal systems already weakened by the pandemic. And let’s not forget that COVID isn’t over either. Rising inflation, shortages, and higher prices for goods may raise social tensions in many countries, such as those with weak social safety nets, limited job opportunities, and unpopular governments. Take the current situation in Sri Lanka, and imagine it magnified and spread.
And all of this is just from the disruption, not even the direct effects of the war. What of the billions in aid given to help the Ukrainian government defend itself from the Russian invasion? Or the desperate search for energy options now giving coal a boost? And how will the influx of 4 million refugees hit the economies of Europe? Where will the money for renewed focus on defense spending come from?
And think about what happens as this war drags on, which it surely will. The economic effects will be devastating. But they are not alone. Let’s move on…
Climate Change
Just today, the IPCC kicked off the presentation of its 2022 report on climate change, and it did so against the backdrop of a new war in Europe that was not calculated into the findings. And those findings, even after the watering down of political appeasement, were still dire. Actually, I thought they should have delivered it a little more along the lines of this interview here. That would have been more realistic. Still, it was over 3600 pages of bad news delivered in the most polite way possible, and I look forward to cozying up with the printed-out version and using it to roast some iguana-on-a-stick out in the wasteland someday soon.
They say that it is “now or never” and from what I see, never is the more likely way we will go. Take this quote from the IPCC press release today. April 4th 2022:
“In the scenarios we assessed, limiting warming to around 1.5°C (2.7°F) requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030; at the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third. Even if we do this, it is almost inevitable that we will temporarily exceed this temperature threshold but could return to below it by the end of the century.”
Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in 2.5 years? And even then, we still overshoot the target until the end of the century? There is just no way…
Now, we have to look at this war differently, both because of its timing and the participants. We have been waging wars over various fossil fuels reasons for some time now, but this is a whole new deal. This war is taking place in one of the world’s great bread baskets. It involves, in some fashion or other, some of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers and consumers. The timing with the release of a climate report that basically boiled down to “damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” is scary, to say the least.
We don’t really need to go into detail about the coming effects of climate change here, most who are reading this are already familiar with just how serious it is, and even with the report reduced to saying it nicely, the IPCC findings are still dire. The link goes to their site where you can read through it at your leisure, and break it up nicely into various parts.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that, according to the IPCC report, a “livable future” doesn’t just depend on these close-to-impossible emissions goals in the next 36 months, but also upon the deployment of new carbon capture technologies to pull some of the carbon dioxide that we have already released back out of the air? Technologies that, right now, are not feasible at all? Techno-hopium at its best.
So, the effects are already well known. Here, we are looking at how this war, and its continuing aftermath, will be exacerbating what was already going to happen. How it makes the coming collapse come just a little bit sooner and faster. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is just a little more than a month old now, but it’s already created momentous shifts in the global order. Western nations have started trying to unshackle themselves from Russia both economically and politically, and in doing so a lot of attention is focusing on energy security and increasing the production of fossil fuels.
At literally the same time that we are hearing about the existential crisis of climate change and the dire need to decarbonize the global economy, we are also seeing leaders basically say, “Well, we can get back to that later.” What little efforts we had put forth to help ourselves avoid total climate collapse has become collateral damage of the war, and now even the idea of trying to mitigate some of the worst effects of the catastrophe is being brushed aside in the face of political realities.
But it won’t stop there. The war has only just begun, and things such as the peace talks seem more for political points than actually negotiating an end, as both sides have pretty much stated that the only end they will accept is the end of the other.
So, where does climate change fall? By the wayside is where. Even in the face of these “unprecedented” sanctions imposed on Russia, oil and gas have been left alone, for now. Cutting them will no doubt cripple Russia, but it will trigger economic and energy meltdown in Europe. Some have seen this war as an opportunity to make the break away from fossil fuels entirely, but in a stark demonstration of how deeply embedded fossil fuels remain in decision making even President Biden in the US is now bragging about how we are now drilling more oil now than we were under Donald Trump. How is that a good thing?
Today in the US, right after the drop of the IPCC report, Senator Manchin sent a letter opposing a rule that would require companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions. From his letter, “The most concerning piece of the proposed rule is what appears to be the targeting of our nation’s fossil fuel companies.” Well, duh. Guess he wants to fight that. I guess even some progressives in the House of Representatives agree because it seems he will get some of what he is aiming for. I mean, come on, we need cheap gas, right? So said Rep. Ro Khanna of California, of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “It’s not ideal for the climate, but I am not comfortable with Americans paying 6, 7 bucks for gas.” Not comfortable? Amazing.
And in Europe, once so proud of how many cutbacks to the use of coal had been just recently achieved, they are actually desperate enough that coal is making a dramatic comeback to levels of use greater than before the cutbacks. Down in Brazil, home to President Jair Bolsonaro, I don’t have much to say other than he is the world’s most dangerous climate denier bent on destroying the Amazon, who even once suggested that people “Eat less and poop every other day” to protect the environment.
I could go on, almost nation by nation with bad examples, but the point I make with this is that these are the types of world leaders that we are dealing with, and the ones the IPCC reports are watered down to appease.
Around the world, the use of fossil fuels is increasing as a result of this war. The UN Secretary-General has been quoted as saying that the rush to use more fossil fuels due to the war is “madness” and threatens global climate targets. To even have a hope of keeping those goals alive, not only must emissions peak in 2.5 years, but global carbon output needs to be cut in half by the end of the decade. That is simply not going to happen. It is, in my opinion, only the most rank hopium to think otherwise.
Read the report findings. Then look at how the recent development of the war is not factored into those dire predictions. After that, take a minute to realize that the report was also weakened to become politically palatable to world leaders, and then imagine what it must have looked like before they started cutting it down. Then, when you get to the end of that mental exercise, think about how we had gotten hit by the pandemic, and then again by this war before we were even fully done suffering the effects of COVID, and neither of those is going to just disappear soon. What did you come up with?
Now let me ask you this: What happens if we get hit with yet a third “world-altering” event in the next year or so?
Climate change is over. It has changed. This is now climate collapse. But let’s move on…
Food
The global threats to food security are metastasizing like the fastest-spreading cancer right now. Economic and supply chain issues were already stirring that pot. The effects of climate change and disasters on crops are finally starting to hit home in noticeable ways. And now war in the European breadbasket.
And that breadbasket is burning. The farmland across Ukraine is being shattered by bombs, its ports taken over or disrupted by blockades, and its adult population is increasingly focused on digging holes for bodies instead of seeds.
The spreading effects of this will hit the world hard, with high wheat-importing regions like North Africa and poorer nations around the world being especially vulnerable. Almost 50 nations, including some of the world’s poorest countries, depend on Russia and Ukraine for more than 30 percent of their wheat needs, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. The war in Ukraine is playing out as climate change alters the contours of global agriculture, with rising temperatures and dramatic weather swings already affecting crop yields and quality, all of it acting as a massive drag on agricultural productivity.
Food prices were already jacked up, and expected to get worse even without this. Now, two nations that produce around 30% of the world’s wheat are waging war with each other, and various other nations are compounding the problem with more and more wrenches being thrown into the global economic works.
With Ukraine being invaded, Russia getting sanctioned in hastily thought-out ways, energy prices soaring, inflation blowing up the cost of other commodities, and shortages or supply bottlenecks disrupting pretty much everything else, it’s a violent series of price shocks and food policy analysts warn the worst is still ahead. The simultaneous disruptions to harvests, trade, and fertilizer production are driving up food prices and sending economic shock waves throughout the world.
Oh, did I forget the fertilizer crisis? Silly me, so many crises, so little time. Fertilizer prices were already climbing to record levels before the conflict due to shipping constraints, high energy costs, and natural disasters, and shortages. Supply was further strained when the war began with President Vladimir Putin urging Russia’s fertilizer producers to temporarily suspend exports. Russia is the world’s top exporter of fertilizer, so that’s a big hit by itself. Belarus, basically a Russian vassal state, is also a massive source of ingredients for fertilizer, so when the EU banned all imports from Belarus of potash, a key fertilizer that is largely lacking in Europe, it was a move that put even more pressure on an agriculture sector that was already struggling. Energy and food, two shots right into their own foot for Europe, and the rest of the world as well.
Multiple breadbasket failure around the world was already a big risk of climate change. Here is a good paper to read about it, and while you do so, keep in mind that this was written a few years back, before the pandemic, before the war, and before the recent IPCC findings.
So, we have trashed financials for most nations and rising inflation to affect people’s ability to buy food. We have huge shortages of food and disruptions to the supply chains and trade agreements to affect the availability of the food to buy, we have the price of the food going up and up, and we have climate change knocking down the crops that we don’t have the material to fertilize anyway.
Still with me? ELI5? Basically, there’s very little food. We cannot find or afford what food there is. And we don’t even have the food to feed to the food that we can plant, which is going to be wrecked by climate change anyway. Got it?
But wait! There’s more…
Violence
War. Civil unrest. Resource conflicts.
All are either currently raging, or soon to come. Pretty much every factor for increased violence in the world is something we are dealing with right now. There is currently a massive rewriting of the world’s security architecture taking place in Europe, courtesy of Russia. We have inflation rising out of control everywhere. Fierce political divisions in nations, and not the usual nations either, I’m talking about our big stable, and peaceful ones. A global famine is about to hit the world, creating massive food insecurity. Climate change is getting close to sending entire populations streaming across borders as refugees. And more, always more.
It all leads to violence. Person upon person and nation upon nation.
But it’s not all bad! Just today, a report emerged that the global market for nuclear missiles and bombs should surpass $126 billion within ten years, up nearly 73% from 2020 levels, as Russian aggression in Ukraine spurs military spending.
Seriously. That’s the response to things, bullish sentiment in the market for nuclear bomb sales. Here is my favorite quote from the article:
While North America dominated more than half the global market in 2020, the report predicted the fastest growth would come from the Asia-Pacific region on initiatives by India, Pakistan and China to bolster their nuclear arsenals.
“However, international treaties and consortiums discourage nuclear testing,” the firm said in a report summary. “This hampers the market growth.”
Even the markets are excited by the prospect of the coming violence, and as we here have all learned, what the market wants, the market gets.
There are going to be a lot of causes for violence in the changing world, and remember that it is a world that is changing much faster than expected. Rapid change in an ultra-complex world will inevitably lead to problems, and that will lead to conflict.
One of the things that is startling to me is that I do not see this just being about Ukraine. I wrote a previous article that I had posted online to Reddit, and it detailed more of how I see it. But to me it looks more like an attempt by Russia, along with their silently waiting partner China, to upset the world order and then rebuild it from the rubble newly dominated by the east rather than the west. Let us not all forget the phenomenal joint statement delivered by both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping just three weeks before the Russians invaded Ukraine. Literally declaring a partnership to bring down Western hegemony in the world and replace it with a “New Era” led by themselves. It is an attack not just on Ukraine, but on the entire world.
No matter how you perceive the war in Ukraine, there can be no doubt that it is totally changing the entire world’s geopolitical order. And it will just be the first conflict of many to come.
Speaking of violence, we have the continuing rise of it seen all over just in regular people’s lives. Look at the poor mass shootings tracker for the US, they haven’t had very many days in the last year where the sign could show anything other than “0” in the “days since last mass shooting” column. At best, they get to 1 before dropping right back down.
People are seeing general “unrest” everywhere, from the overly aggressive traffic, with its climbing fatalities, to just general attacks and assaults all over the place. Sometimes it’s a murder/suicide over a snow shoveling dispute, other times it’s about mask requirements in convenience stores, and then there is just shocking craziness.
We also know how the specter of food insecurity contributed to the wave of violent anti-government revolutions we now call the “Arab Spring.” And now, with this new war shocking the world’s food security and prices to a much higher degree, it is not too hard to see where it is leading.
We are waging war in Europe right now. China still has unfinished business with Taiwan, and I am certain the Taiwanese are watching closely as the results of “security promises” from the West play out in Ukraine, while the silence from Beijing seems deafening. Pakistan is currently swirling their government around again, India is trying to maintain its straddle on both sides of the US/Russia fence, North Korea is putting out cool videos of Kim’s newest missile tests, and who knows what will spring up in the Middle East, or in North Africa, and of course South America.
Violence in every form is rising, in every corner of the globe. Is this the beginning of the Resource Wars? That article is from 2006, by the way. Think about some of the predictions from back then…how optimistic we were!
Conclusion
We have to look at a more complete picture. Not just climate change, not just war, and not just the economic chaos currently running rampant. We need to focus on all of it as a whole and see how the collapse of civilization will not come from just one of those things but from a confluence of events that eventually reaches the point of catastrophic failure.
We are stretching everything right to the limit, and beyond. We are pushing, every day and every news cycle, the boundaries of what our complex and interdependent systems can handle. How close to nuclear war can we get? Just how much money can we print? How much more pressure can we put on everything, from global food supply to employee wage reductions? We are running through the woods lighting fire after fire, gleefully unaware of what could be happening because we never stop to look back. Shareholder profits, political power, who gets to be in charge of whom, all of it just straining the back of that metaphorical camel until one day we drop the straw that breaks it all.
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