The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is the defining defense and geopolitical crisis of the decade, altering defense policies, alliances, and indeed the overall architecture of global security. It began as a regional war but evolved into a battle of wills between great powers, and its implications have rippled from Eastern Europe to the Caribbean and the Arctic.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a turning point for warfare that had smoldered since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Kremlin’s motivations are rooted deep: Ukraine is not only a neighbor but also a hinge in Russia’s historical, cultural, and strategic sense of self. The loss of Ukraine to the West is seen by Moscow as a reverse to its superpower status and a challenge to its vision of a stable sphere of influence. To defense analysts, Russian ambitions have ranged from recovering strategic ground—such as Crimea and the Donbas—to undermining the democratic growth of Ukraine and deterring NATO’s push east.
NATO’s reaction has been hesitant but resolute. The alliance, the prime victim of Russian disinformation in years of purported aggressive actions, has remained resolute in the face of such accusations as a defense alliance. In 2016, NATO deployed four battlegroups of multinational forces to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, a move requested by host nations and aimed at reassuring them in the wake of Russian military assertiveness. Such deployments, totaling over 4,500 North American and European soldiers, are rotational and strictly defensive, remaining open through arms control verifications even under Russian monitors. For NATO, “NATO is a defense alliance whose mission is to defend our members. Our official policy is that ‘NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to the Russian Federation.'”
The United States has stepped onto the front stage in defending Ukraine, both militarily and diplomatically. In the post-Soviet collapse era, Washington was concerned with denuclearizing Ukraine and enhancing its sovereignty. Since 2022, U.S. aid to Ukraine has exceeded $50 billion in advanced weapons, intelligence sharing, and humanitarian aid. The Biden administration, and now the Harris administration, have sought to combine robust backing for Kyiv with caution against direct conflict with Russia, especially in the face of nuclear war danger. Struggling to keep that balance has at times irked Ukrainian officials, who crave faster and less conditional delivery of Western arms and more concrete assurances of NATO entry.
Along with these advances in Europe, Russia has not limited its strategic maneuvers there. The recent postings of the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and Kazan nuclear submarine to Havana are a signal from Moscow that it will assert influence in the Western Hemisphere. This “symbolic reciprocity” is a strategic response to NATO support of Ukraine and a demonstration that Russia can operate near U.S. shores. The deployment of new missile technology, including hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles, portrays the menace of escalation and strategic instability. As CSIS analysts explain, “Russia’s military flex in the Caribbean is part of a ‘symbolic reciprocity’ policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean.”
There is also a new theater of rivalry in the Arctic. President Trump’s recent renewed interest in buying Greenland, as turned down by Denmark and Greenland, is one aspect of a broader U.S. strategy of securing its northern border from Russian and Chinese expansionist aims. The Pentagon’s Arctic policy now places China at the top of the list of regional security issues, and the prospect of expanded U.S. territorial influence is framed as a bid to gain strategic positions and key resources in a warming climate.
The effects of the war on civilians have been disastrous. Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have resulted in blackouts nationwide, with up to 40% of facilities destroyed in a single campaign. Such attacks, aimed at wearing down morale and disrupting everyday life, have been condemned as war crimes. As Amnesty International’s Marie Struthers summarized, “Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure are illegal. Civilians’ morale is not a legitimate military target, and to use them with the exclusive aim of spreading terror among civilians is a war crime.”
In the coming years, the Russia-Ukraine war will be at the center of great power rivalry. NATO’s position keeps shifting, with new battlegroups and enhanced deterrence in Eastern Europe. The U.S. and its allies have to weigh maintaining support for Ukraine against the potential for escalation. Russia, on the other hand, is leveraging both hard and soft power—from army deployments to disinformation operations—to push back against Western influence not only in Europe but throughout the entire world.
The stakes are high: the outcome of this war will determine the future of security alliances, the principles of international law, and the twenty-first-century balance of power. As the world watches, the lessons of Ukraine will influence military planning and diplomatic action for a generation to come.