From Ukraine to North Korea, Leaders Eye Next Moves in the Great Game

SEOUL — Cagey leaders are wondering how much to lose or gain from a war that could get a whole lot worse than the entry of Russian troops first into Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region, then from above Ukraine’s northern frontier with Russia’s quasi-satellite, Belarus, and from the south, Crimea, wrested from Ukraine eight years ago. President Putin, holding the cards, can always count on fawning support from the Belarus dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, his only real friend among all the East European countries that broke off from the old Soviet Union 30-plus years ago. On their side, the leaders of the NATO states by no means think alike despite protestations to the contrary. The Germans worry about their relations with Russia. They had wanted to buy natural gas via a new pipeline but refused to certify the project long after America had warned against it. They may support sanctions but still buy natural gas piped through Belarus and Ukraine to heat millions of homes and offices. And who imagines that Turkey under President Erdoğan, cozying up to Russia, will be rushing to Ukraine’s defense under any circumstances?Overriding the considerations of all these NATO allies is that none wants to shed blood for Ukraine, and Mr. Putin knows it. President Biden’s decision to send a few thousand more U.S. troops to Europe did nothing to deflect upward of 190,000 Russians menacing Ukraine. Inside Ukraine, the spectacle of aggrieved citizens buying up rifles and vowing to stand up to the Russians conjures images of the slaughter of millions.The game is played worldwide, nowhere more assiduously than in Northeast Asia. China and Japan are careful not to show their real hands beneath rhetoric, diplomatic posturing, and alarming movements of planes and ships. China’s president has to be watching carefully for weakening inside NATO while also eyeing the Russians, whom he can never trust despite the good-will he and Mr. Putin displayed in their conversation before the Beijing Olympics.North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has his own hand to play. Having held off on test-firing missiles during the Beijing Olympics for fear of upsetting China, he’s free to resume testing now that the games are over. He knows the U.S., focusing on Ukraine, won’t do anything to stop him. Even if he orders the test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Americans would only call for more U.N. sanctions, which China and Russia would veto.In the Great Game, China’s sure to intensify pressure on Taiwan, the breakaway island state to which Chiang Kai-shek’s forces fled after their defeat by Mao Zedong’s Red Army in 1949, but President Xi is not about to risk armed conflict right away. Still, if real war breaks out in eastern Europe, he could see the timing as propitious for advances everywhere around China’s periphery, including the South China Sea and China’s frontier with India and Pakistan.The Belt and Road Initiative calls for a highway linking China across the high Himalayas all the way to the Pakistan Arabian Sea port of Gwadar and on to Europe. It’s a spectacular project that’s drawing Pakistan, years ago an American ally, firmly into China’s orbit while the U.S. counters by tightening ties to Pakistan’s arch-foe India.The U.S. has other cards to play. Mr. Biden and his team are considering all sorts of reprisals, ranging from drastic sanctions to cutting off Russia’s access to markets to stifling bank accounts. Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, has indicated he would stop Russian oligarchs from wheeling and dealing in British property and companies, as they’ve been doing with increasing zeal ever since the end of Communist rule.None of which is stopping Mr. Putin from ordering his forces deep into Ukraine. He’s got plenty of cards to play against sanctions. The NATO members rely on Russian oil and gas and other raw materials. For sure, the Russians would disrupt NATO nations, including the U.S., with cyberattacks.Much will depend on what Mr. Biden does if economic measures fail and Russian forces, crashing through Ukraine, menace NATO members. Mr. Putin may be thinking that Mr. Biden’s mostly talk, little action, and shrug off U.S. threats of economic retaliation, assuming eventually economic relations will resume even if the Russians occupy Ukraine.The rhetoric, though, suggests otherwise. Mr. Johnson told the BBC that Russia was on the verge of “the biggest war in Europe since 1945” and warned of “the sheer cost in human life that could entail.” Mr. Biden declared, “If we do not stand for freedom where it is at risk today, we’ll surely pay a steeper price tomorrow.”In the Great Game, bluffing is a standard tactic. Mr. Putin has already gained a victory of sorts by showing how useless it would have been for Ukraine to join NATO, which he said was one reason for the huge Russian build-up.Mr. Putin has already called Mr. Biden’s bluff, advancing far beyond the Donbas region, sure that NATO nations were not going to repel his forces. In the bluffing that’s so important in playing the Great Game, he can be confident Mr. Biden is not willing to play the trump card and go to war while America’s paper allies seriously consider whose side they’re on.

From Ukraine to North Korea, Leaders Eye Next Moves in the Great Game

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