The Russian assault on Ukraine must be seen not only as a vicious aggression against a sovereign state violating international law, but a challenge to the entire Western-led global security order since World War II. As such this is the biggest challenge to that order since the Cuban Missile Crisis 60 years ago.
The issue is not so much how much of Ukraine Putin seizes. Taking the whole country would give Russia a few percentage points more economic and demographic strength and some geo-strategic advantages, but at more cost in occupation. A smaller seizure would limit more his gains, but cost less.
Some close to the administration believe that if the Russians attempt to occupy the entirety of Ukraine, they will be bogged down in an insurgency faced with resistance from the Ukrainian people, especially if supported by weapons and other support from NATO countries across the border. That is possible, but with two major caveats Washington needs to consider. First, Russia effectively beat down the Syrian opposition between 2015 and 2018 by a mix of extraordinarily brutal air strikes targeting civilian populations, supporting insurgents along with very flexible transactional diplomacy with both resistance groups and foreign supporters to “divide and conquer”. Second, Russia could well retaliate militarily against NATO states supporting Ukrainian opposition fighters, risking a general European war between Russia and NATO
But the real risk is not a minor increase in Russian strength, but Russian success challenging and partially undercutting that international security order. Thus, in the first instance the reactions of Washington, then of its NATO allies, and then of most of the rest of the world, are critical. If the world remains united behind the position the UN Secretary General just bravely took, and not just inflicts sanctions and diplomatic pain on Russia, but decouples that state from the international system, similar to its treatment in the Cold War, then relatively weak Russia will have few options to further challenge the security order. But this is a big "if" and we will see better once we know how the world reacts to a likely energy crunch.
Putin acted this way after his more cautious gambits in Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2014 paid off with almost no pain. He thought the West was too weak and too dependent on Russian hydrocarbons to respond. The entire international community thus must either unite to wound him now or have to expend much more risk and effort against him later, or else, like all of Western and Central Europe, except Britain, by the summer of 1940, collapse or make common cause with the aggressor.
In the Middle East, the enormity of the Russian attack, not just on Ukraine, but on the long-term global security order, is increasingly clear, and puts pressure on the "hedging" between the US, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other, commonplace by regional states in recent years. Some hedging can still be seen in reluctance to call out Moscow by some Middle Eastern capitals, but the dangers to the region of an entire world in limbo are immense.
Thus if the US maintains its so-far smart policies to make Russia pay economically and diplomatically for its aggression, regional states will eventually rally behind Washington. Turkey is most impacted by this Russian move and thus, its reaction is clear and strong. Iran has clearly sided with Russia and that will have repercussions in the US and particularly Europe. The economic impact will be a two-edged sword; likely higher energy prices will benefit hydrocarbons exporters, but badly hurt importers. A possible global economic downturn stemming from the aggression and the international reaction will hurt all regional states significantly.
