Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given rise to the most significant military conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Its effects have reverberated around the Asia-Pacific, providing lessons on the nature of potential future armed conflict in the region and prompting geopolitical realignments that could substantially alter elements of the regional balance of power.
DIPLOMATIC AND STRATEGIC LESSONS
The diplomatic response to the conflict has revealed a series of global geopolitical fault lines and raised issues from the potential use of nuclear weapons and the effectiveness of deterrence to the use of pre-emptive intelligence disclosure in the run-up to conflicts.
OPERATIONAL AND TACTICAL LESSONS
The war offers potentially important lessons for future conflicts in Asia, in areas including maritime security, information warfare, logistics and military capacity-building, among others.
GEOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS AND THE REGIONAL BALANCE
Russia’s military fortunes in Ukraine have implications for its status as an Asia-Pacific security actor. Its rapidly deepening relationship with China and its changing military ties to countries like India and Vietnam could affect the regional balance of power.
THE US AND EUROPE IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
The Ukraine war has sharpened concerns about the ability of the United States and its European partners to manage commitments in both the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific theatres.
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio used his keynote address at the 19th IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2022 to deliver a warning about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, arguing that ‘Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow’.1 Since the conflict’s outbreak in February 2022, defence establishments across the Asia-Pacific have watched it closely to glean operational and strategic lessons and assess consequences for the global and regional balance of power. This chapter provides a preliminary analysis of those lessons and consequences. The fact that the war is ongoing means any lessons must be drawn with caution; its implications, both in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific, will depend on whether Russia or Ukraine is ultimately seen to have prevailed. Moreover, there are obvious differences between the two theatres, not least the fact that the conflict in Ukraine is largely land-based while many Asia-Pacific flashpoints are maritime in nature. Broadly speaking, however, the lessons offered by the Ukraine war that are relevant to Asia-Pacific states may be divided into four categories. Firstly, there are diplomatic and strategic lessons – regarding the role of deterrence, nuclear signalling, capacity-building and intelligence disclosure. Secondly, there are operational and tactical lessons, including in the maritime and information domains. Thirdly, there is the geopolitical impact of the war with respect to Russia’s ties to India and China. In the case of the latter, there are also possible implications with respect to Taiwan. Finally, there is the likely impact of the war on the Asia-Pacific strategies of the United States and larger European countries, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
DIPLOMATIC AND STRATEGIC LESSONS
Linkages between European and Asia-Pacific security were being asserted in Western policy debates long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.2 The war has generally strengthened such convictions, including concerns about international precedent regarding the future use of military force and territorial annexation. However, it has also sharpened pre-existing concerns about the ability of the US and its European partners to apportion finite defence resources between the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific regions. A few non-aligned countries in the region, notably Singapore, have drawn links between Russia’s actions and their own defence security – and have therefore supported sanctions against Moscow.3 Japan and South Korea – both US allies – sent logistical and humanitarian support to Ukraine (see Table 1.1).4 Australia and New Zealand went further, providing defence equipment (in Australia’s case) and training to Ukrainian forces.5 Although Seoul has not sent arms to Ukraine, in 2022 it concluded a US$5.8 billion deal to sell 180 K2 tanks, 212 K9 self-propelled howitzers and 48 FA-50 jet aircraft to Poland.6
Table 1.1: Major pledges of assistance to Ukraine by non-NATO Asia-Pacific governmentsSource: IISS
Asia-Pacific countries’ varying stances on the war came to light at the United Nations via a number of Ukraine-related resolutions, including one in early March 2022 criticising Russian ‘aggression’ that passed with backing from 141 states.7 Many in the region abstained, including China, India, Laos, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Generally, most states in South and Southeast Asia have hedged their positions and are wary of criticising Moscow. A number of countries, including Cambodia, China, India and Indonesia, have sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine. However, there is also sympathy in some regional security establishments for the Russian position that NATO’s eastward expansion constituted a strategic provocation to Moscow, alongside distrust of Western motivations and actions, including military support for Ukraine.8
Although fought with conventional weapons, the war in Ukraine has raised significant questions relating to nuclear weapons, with implications for the Asia-Pacific. Moscow’s repeated nuclear threats set an ominous precedent at odds with the Soviet Union’s largely responsible approach to nuclear doctrine.9 The threat of a nuclear confrontation with Russia – personally reinforced in a warning issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the eve of the invasion – is likely the most important consideration that has prevented NATO countries from undertaking a direct combat role in Ukraine.10 Nuclear deterrence has worked in Russia’s favour in this regard. Notably, however, Ukraine has not been deterred from attacking military targets inside Russia, nor have NATO states and other countries been discouraged from offering increasingly potent weapons systems to Ukrainian forces, although they have supplied arms with caution.11
China has publicly expressed its opposition to the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear threats in Ukraine.12 The significance of these declarations is unclear, given that Russia would determine nuclear-weapon use according to its own calculus. Viewed more broadly, Moscow’s aggression can be seen as one element of a broader challenge to the existing global order posed by a ‘triple entente’ of geographically contiguous authoritarian states – China, North Korea and Russia. This growing alignment is particularly concerning given that all three states possess nuclear weapons. Based on the precedent established by Russia in Ukraine, in a future crisis or war both China and North Korea could be tempted to issue their own nuclear threats to ward off third-party intervention. For China, this could apply to contingencies involving Taiwan, which – like Ukraine – has no formal security guarantees from the US. In general, the war’s momentum appears to be driving closer relations between not only Russia and China but also Russia and North Korea.13 In December 2022, Washington accused Pyongyang of directly supplying arms to the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company operating in Ukraine.14
The failure to deter Russia’s invasion is likely to lead to a re-examination of the United States’ (and its partners’) approaches to China as they seek new methods to deter Beijing – including over the use of force against Taiwan.15 This development could have a positive influence on regional stability providing US allies and partners are persuaded to increase investment in conventional defence capabilities.16 Conversely, Russia’s nuclear threats over Ukraine may have compounded existing doubts about the long-term viability of the United States’ extended nuclear-deterrence framework in the Asia-Pacific. In January 2023, Yoon Suk-yeol became the first sitting South Korean president to warn publicly that Seoul could develop its own nuclear weapons in extremis.17 Seoul’s strategic anxiety should be read primarily as a response to North Korea’s accelerating nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile capabilities.18 However, Russia’s nuclear brinkmanship and its erosion of nuclear taboos adds further pressure to the global non-proliferation regime, including in Northeast Asia.
Ukraine’s military successes suggest a further, potentially preventive lesson for the Asia-Pacific: Western military training and capacity-building efforts – as provided to Ukraine after 2014 – can bear strategic fruit. While media attention has focused on the provision of weapons systems since the invasion,19 Ukraine’s armed forces benefitted from US- and UK-led training, equipment and skills transfer in the pre-war phase, thus forestalling a rapid Russian fait accompli in 2022. Ukraine may come to be seen as one of the most successful cases in recent history of military capacity-building prior to full-scale hostilities – with potential lessons for Taiwan.20 In this regard, developments in Ukraine contrast starkly with those in Afghanistan, where the Western-trained and -equipped Afghan National Security and Defence Forces promptly collapsed following the departure of Western forces from the country. While some commentators have complained that Ukraine has drawn military assistance away from Taiwan and other US regional partners and therefore undermined deterrence, post-Afghanistan, military-assistance programmes in the Asia-Pacific might have been less politically supportable in the US absent the galvanising experience of Ukraine.21
Finally, many in the Asia-Pacific will learn from the successful pre-emptive intelligence-based assessments of the US and its security partners – and their public disclosure – which highlighted Russia’s aggressive intentions and its pre-invasion military build-up.22 This was a high-risk strategy for Western governments given the reputational consequences had Russia’s build-up turned out to be a bluff, or had the disclosures themselves changed Putin’s mind about mounting an invasion. The fact that these warnings were proven accurate spurred a robust diplomatic response in Europe – despite the scepticism of some European NATO member states’ governments right up to the invasion.23 Reportedly having discounted Western warnings, some Asian governments were caught off guard by the invasion and had to hurriedly evacuate diplomatic staff and nationals.24 The Ukraine war has helped to rehabilitate the international credibility of Western intelligence organisations, which had been seriously hampered by intelligence failures in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Although Western intelligence-based warnings did not prevent Russia’s invasion in February 2022, a clear lesson for would-be aggressors in Asia is that large-scale military preparations are virtually impossible to disguise, with surprise very likely to be unattainable except in the case of small-scale operations. As a result of the Ukraine experience, pre-emptive intelligence disclosure is likely to be factored into the Asia-Pacific strategies of the US and its allies – for deterrence purposes but also with a view to shaping the diplomatic environment during a major regional security crisis.
OPERATIONAL AND TACTICAL LESSONS
The war in Ukraine has yielded a multitude of military lessons at the operational and tactical levels. While many are specific to the geography of Ukraine, a few are transposable to other regions. One example is Ukraine’s ability to adapt its military strategy and tactics to changing battlefield circumstances while integrating a diverse plethora of donated equipment. Following announcements by the German, UK and US governments (as well as others) in January 2023, the Ukrainian army is now in line to receive three different Western-made main battle tanks (MBT) – the UK’s Challenger II, the US-made M1A2 Abrams and the German-made Leopard 2A6 – adding to the ex-Soviet tanks it currently operates (as well as a number of new T-90 MBTs captured from Russia).25 Some Challengers and Leopards have already arrived in Ukraine, with deliveries of Abrams to start later in 2023. Ukraine’s eclectic stock of MBTs provides an extreme example of the integration and logistics challenges it faces, though the long-term trend points towards the country adopting NATO-standard equipment across its inventory. This ability to integrate mixed-origin equipment – and its experience of the process of transitioning away from Russian/Soviet designs – is likely to be of interest to India, Vietnam and some other countries in Southeast Asia.
The war in Ukraine has been predominantly fought on land and it is in this domain that the conflict’s outcome is most likely to be decided. That said, the naval war in the Black Sea, although some way off the war’s centre of gravity, arguably has more relevance for many Asia-Pacific countries, not least because instances of actual naval combat on any scale have been rare in recent history. The naval war has featured a Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports and the use of sea mines by both sides. Most strikingly, in April 2022, Ukraine sank the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moskva, with coast-based, domestically developed Neptune anti-ship missiles. Moskva is the largest warship to be sunk in combat since the Falklands War in 1982. In October 2022, Ukraine also mounted a long-range strike against Russia’s fleet base at Sevastopol in Crimea using small low-observable remote surface vessels. Ukraine recaptured the strategically located Snake Island despite losing most of its small navy in the early stages of the conflict. While ships and submarines from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet have continued to launch missiles into Ukraine with relative impunity, the naval war has demonstrated the viability of improvised, asymmetric ‘sea-denial’ capabilities and served as a reminder of the potential vulnerability of surface ships to land-based missiles. These are important considerations for force concepts and force design that will be of relevance to several armed forces in the Asia-Pacific, including those of China and the US.
Turkiye’s ability to control naval movements through the Bosporus Strait during wartime, under the 1936 Montreux Convention, has become relevant in the Ukraine conflict – a reminder of the strategic importance of choke-point straits and the leverage that third-party littoral states can bring to bear through legal as well as military instruments.26 Ukraine’s partial success in countering Russia’s blockade during 2022 required a subtle blend of diplomatic and military pressure, demonstrating that non-combatants – in this case including the US and its partners – can exert meaningful influence through non-military means.27 Russia has conducted unopposed amphibious operations to support its offensive against the port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.28 More significantly, however, Russia has not attempted landings anywhere along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, despite Odesa being earmarked as one of Moscow’s original military objectives.29 The various elements that have shaped the naval war in Ukraine are all potentially relevant to the Asia-Pacific, where blockade is widely assumed to be one of China’s most likely actions – against Taiwan directly, or against smaller features in the South China Sea.30
One clear lesson from the battlefields of Ukraine that is being absorbed by Taiwan’s armed forces, among others in the Asia-Pacific, is the importance of reserves for regenerating combat forces during a protracted conflict.31 Without its effective reserve structure, Ukraine’s armed forces would have struggled to adjust to the early loss of experienced personnel, which in turn would have made it much harder to launch rapid offensive operations in areas like Kharkiv and Kherson.32 The logic here is broadly similar to the importance of maintaining a ‘deep magazine’ of munitions stocks – a need highlighted by the prodigious consumption rates of both sides in Ukraine, particularly with regard to artillery. However, trained soldiers, sailors and air-force personnel are much harder to reconstitute than equipment once hostilities commence unless reserves are already in place. In late December 2022, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen referenced Ukraine when she announced a force-realignment plan, extending the minimum term of conscription in Taiwan from four months to one year and creating a ‘standing garrison force’.33
For several of Asia’s smaller countries and armed forces, the difficulty of resupply is likely to be compounded by the far greater distances involved compared to those in Europe. For some, their circumstances mean exclusive reliance on seaborne and airborne supplies. The risk of regional armed forces being obliged to fight for the duration with the forces and stocks in place from a conflict’s outbreak is significantly greater than in Ukraine, which has benefitted enormously from land borders with NATO countries. Before the war, this vulnerability had already been acknowledged, with Australia for example seeking to increase investment in onshore weapons storage and production.34 The war in Ukraine has further underlined the importance of a national defence-industrial base for winning a protracted, high-intensity conflict. It has also highlighted the related risk that the United States’ defence industries may not be able to meet the demands of its allies, especially if there are concurrent conflicts occurring in different regions.35
Finally, in addition to kinetic exchanges on the battlefield, Ukraine’s information-warfare techniques are certain to be studied and perhaps widely emulated, including in Asia. This has emerged as another notable and perhaps unexpected strength of Ukraine, helping Kyiv to garner and maintain international support at the level of the general public as well as among elites. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s personal leadership style and commitment to public communication has clearly been a singular asset in this regard, as was the pre-war existence in Ukraine of a large advertising industry, which the government has been able to mobilise in order to prosecute a sophisticated communications strategy, making highly effective use of social media. The Ukrainian government’s mastery of the information domain has been augmented by a mass of online supporters and sympathisers – adding a spontaneous and self-organising dynamic to Ukraine’s information operations.36
Russia’s information-warfare efforts have appeared clumsy, antiquated and self-defeating by comparison, though Moscow continues to invest in disinformation and misinformation campaigns that find some purchase internationally, including in the Asia-Pacific.37 Ukraine’s success in the information domain suggests that this could actually be an area of comparative advantage for democratic systems (over authoritarian systems) under the unifying conditions of an unprovoked external attack, in sharp contrast to the peacetime trend of open societies more often appearing vulnerable to information warfare. If this is indeed a conclusion from Ukraine, it should be of particular interest to Taiwan and South Korea with regard to their relations with China and North Korea respectively, where in both contexts the information ‘battlespace’ is already well developed and where – akin to the Russia–Ukraine dynamic – relations are characterised not simply by the dichotomy between democracy and dictatorship but also by a high degree of linguistic and cultural familiarity.
GEOPOLITICAL IMPLICATIONS AND THE REGIONAL BALANCE
Russia’s military fortunes in Ukraine have implications for its status as an Asia-Pacific security actor. Its military power has been degraded due to battlefield attrition, while organisational weaknesses and incompetence have been exposed. As Russia is an Asia-Pacific power, these developments will impact the conventional military balance in the region. It remains militarily active in its Far East region, where activities in 2022 post-invasion have included conducting exercises in the southern Kuril Islands38 and mounting long-range aviation and naval deployments in the vicinity of Japan, South Korea and, occasionally, further into the Western Pacific.39 Some of Russia’s Pacific units have already been deployed to Ukraine, raising the possibility that its regional military posture (or at least its ground-force elements) will become hollowed out as the conflict continues.40
Beyond its own defence requirements, Russia’s regional influence has long rested on its role as an energy and weapons exporter. Moscow’s strongest defence-supplier relationships in the Asia-Pacific are with India and Vietnam, alongside others including China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar.41 While China imports weapons from Russia, the value of those imports has generally decreased in recent decades, meaning Beijing is rarely reliant on Moscow for supplies.42 By contrast, India’s and Vietnam’s diplomatic caution over the Ukraine war – indicated by abstentions on Ukraine-related UN votes – is likely influenced by their ongoing dependence upon Russia for imported equipment (see Figure 1.1).43 Moscow’s position as a prime supplier was already under pressure prior to the invasion, as its partners sought more diverse sources of equipment. For instance, for many decades Hanoi bought almost all its weapons systems from Russia; in the five years to 2021, this proportion fell to two-thirds.44 The conflict in Ukraine will likely accelerate this trend in Vietnam, India and other regional countries. Russia’s weak performance in Ukraine has also undermined the reputation of its armed forces, while the difficulties it has encountered in replenishing its forces have generated supplier-reliability concerns.45 In addition, Western sanctions have made it much harder for Russian contractors to source components – a development that will hamper future deal financing.
Figure 1.1: Selected equipment operated by India’s and Vietnam’s militaries by country of origin, 2002–22Source: IISS
The aftermath of Moscow’s invasion has generated difficult questions for India’s strategic positioning between Russia and the West. New Delhi and Moscow have long enjoyed a ‘Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership’.46 More recently, as its concerns about China have grown, India has drawn closer to the West.47 In the Asia-Pacific this is seen via its membership in the Quad grouping alongside Australia, Japan and the US. Many in Western capitals assumed these ties would lead New Delhi to join in the international condemnation of Moscow’s actions. Instead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stuck to a carefully calibrated strategy, avoiding criticism of Russia and abstaining in UN votes (see Figure 1.2, for example). India has also been robustly critical of assumptions regarding its stance on the conflict, especially from European capitals.48
India’s position on the Ukraine war also reflects a calculation of strategic interests. India and Russia share some geopolitical assumptions, including support for a future multipolar global order featuring a less dominant US. Putin made a rare visit to New Delhi in late 2021 designed to shore up bilateral ties. India welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for a high-profile visit in April 2022. New Delhi continues to assess China to be its primary security threat and is particularly concerned by the risk of further, more intense clashes in disputed areas along India’s long Himalayan border. A future confrontation with China would be especially challenging for India without supplies of Russian arms. Viewed from New Delhi, any Russian defeat in Ukraine would be likely to push Moscow and Beijing closer together. Maintaining ties with Moscow might blunt that risk by providing Moscow with options for geopolitical partnership beyond its reliance on Beijing. India has also benefitted from purchases of discounted Russian oil since the invasion of Ukraine.49
Figure 1.2: Asia-Pacific countries' votes on UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1 (‘Aggression against Ukraine’), 2 March 2022Source: UN Digital Library, digitallibrary.un.org
New Delhi’s ambivalent reaction to Russia’s invasion rekindled doubts among Western strategists about both India’s reliability and its willingness to be part of a balancing coalition against China.50 These concerns should not be overplayed, however. Excessive reliance on Russian arms curtails India’s strategic autonomy with respect to China, a fact many policymakers in New Delhi recognise. Russia’s share of Indian arms imports had already dropped from a recent high of 77% in 2018 to around one-third in 2021.51 India has reportedly suspended plans to purchase Russian systems, including helicopters. Delays to some existing weapons orders, including temporary hold-ups for a batch of S-400 surface-to-air missiles, have raised reliability concerns.52 Although New Delhi currently remains reliant on Russian equipment, it is likely to try to reduce its dependence over time, both by seeking alternative suppliers and by boosting domestic defence production wherever practicable.53 India’s patience with Russia has its limits too: in December 2022, Modi cancelled a planned meeting with Putin following concerns in New Delhi over Russia’s war conduct.54
Russia’s deepening relationship with China since the invasion of Ukraine also carries potentially far-reaching strategic implications. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin unveiled a manifesto for broader cooperation in February 2022. The document stated: ‘Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no “forbidden” areas of cooperation.’55 In the conflict’s early stages, political leaders in Europe and the US harboured hopes that China might be persuaded to distance itself from Russia. Indeed, Washington launched various diplomatic overtures, first asking China to dissuade Russia from invading and then attempting to dissuade Beijing from sending military equipment to support Russia’s war aims.56 Beijing, however, generally refused to condemn Moscow. Although China has mostly avoided providing to Russia the kind of material and military support that might trigger US-led sanctions,57 in January 2023 the US imposed sanctions on a Chinese company for allegedly supplying satellite imagery of Ukraine for use by the Wagner Group, via a Russian third party.58 Media reports subsequently alleged that Chinese companies were supplying defence equipment to Russia, including via trans-shipment through third countries.59 China has called for peace talks while blaming the West and NATO expansion for starting the war.60
Russia’s invasion has at times strained bilateral ties with China. While Beijing has provided diplomatic support at the UN, it is still not clear to what extent China’s leadership supports Russia’s war aims.61 There has been debate within China’s ruling elite about how much Beijing should embrace or distance itself from Moscow.62 China’s dilemma relates in part to Beijing’s long-standing declaratory support for claims of national territorial integrity, while Russia’s weak battlefield performance has also put Beijing in the awkward position of supporting a military operation that has failed to achieve its central objectives. China is also concerned about Putin’s nuclear brinkmanship.63 Moreover, existing Sino-Russian pledges to co-develop new technological capabilities have made little progress and are now likely to be further hampered by sanctions and export controls on semiconductors and other technologies.
Whatever qualms Xi may harbour about Putin’s modus operandi in Ukraine, Beijing’s bottom line is that it does not want to see Russia defeated or Putin replaced by a new Russian leader less amenable to Chinese interests.64 Despite occasional bilateral strains, China and Russia have also deepened their partnership in several ways since the start of the war. In economic terms, sanctions have forced Russia to increase its dependence on its neighbour, which now consumes a larger portion of Russian energy exports.65 Military cooperation has also deepened (see Map 1.1). In May 2022, the two countries flew a joint bomber sortie close to Japan, signalling displeasure at a leader-level Quad summit being held in Tokyo on the same day.66 In early November 2022, they flew bombers to each other’s air bases for the first time during joint military exercises, hinting at future reciprocal access arrangements that could extend their respective operational reach in the Northwest Pacific.67 The two countries have also conducted joint live-fire exercises in the East China Sea, while the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) participated in Russia’s Vostok 2022 military exercises.
Map 1.1: China and Russia: military cooperation activities, 2022Source: IISS
Asia-Pacific leaders remain concerned that Russia’s actions in Ukraine have lowered the threshold for armed conflict in Asia – an argument clearly embraced by Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida. Such worries centre most obviously on China and the prospect that Beijing might be emboldened to use armed force against Taiwan or its other neighbours. China’s willingness to pressure Taiwan militarily has grown in 2022 and early 2023, most clearly evident in its military response to then-speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in August 2022. Assessing Beijing’s strategic intentions with any precision remains difficult, however.
At one level it seems reasonable to conclude that Russia’s battlefield frustrations in Ukraine would give pause to those in Beijing who might be mulling military adventures of their own. Chinese officials rarely comment on such matters in public, however, so there is little conclusive evidence as to how Russia’s ‘special operation’ against Ukraine will affect the odds of any possible future Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Instead of focusing on the potential for China to engage in military adventurism, it may be more profitable to examine the broader developmental lessons that the PLA might take from the performance of Russia’s and Ukraine’s armed forces. In many cases those lessons are likely to support existing PLA priorities and modernisation plans, for instance concerning the importance of developing greater expertise in combined arms or joint operations, and how to integrate new technologies in innovative ways.68 The onus placed on new technologies – such as drones – in Ukraine also chimes with China’s existing modernisation plans.69
THE US AND EUROPE IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
The administration of US President Joe Biden has long denied any tension between US activities in Europe and its aim of increasingly focusing resources on the Asia-Pacific and China. The US National Security Strategy published in October 2022 underlined China as Washington’s primary focus, as did the related National Defense Strategy released in the same month.70 Senior US officials claim that developments in Ukraine have not altered their focus.71 In many ways, Ukraine’s military success has bolstered the United States’ reputation in the Asia-Pacific. Indeed, while the chaotic military drawdown from Afghanistan in 2021 dented perceptions of Washington’s competence, in contrast, the Ukraine war has highlighted US strengths in alliance management, technological leadership, equipment provision and intelligence disclosure. When US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin noted in April 2022 that the US ‘want[s] to see Russia weakened’, the reasoning was presumably that Washington would then be more able to focus on China.72 Pushing back against Russia’s challenge to the international order could enhance the credibility of US security guarantees in Asia (although the opposite is likely to be the result if Ukraine loses the war despite US assistance).
Nonetheless, the war risks distracting Washington from its focus on the Asia-Pacific. Ukraine is a drain on US finances, munitions and policy bandwidth. The US has reportedly ordered some of its military equipment stockpiled in South Korea to be moved to Ukraine.73 Washington’s allies in the Asia-Pacific have long watched carefully for signals that the US may not be able or willing to deliver on its existing security guarantees. Successive US administrations have pledged greater US focus on and resources to the Asia-Pacific for more than a decade. That shift has happened slowly,74 although one senior US defence official recently predicted that 2023 would be ‘the most transformative year in US force posture in the region in a generation’.75
For European powers, the war raises similar questions pertaining to US focus and resources, albeit on a much smaller scale in terms of military presence and assets that can be deployed to the region. France, Germany and the UK have unveiled strategies for the region, although these arguably appear less sustainable following the invasion of Ukraine. In March 2023 the UK published a ‘refresh’ of its 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, the security strategy that announced its ‘tilt’ to the Asia-Pacific. Echoing earlier statements from officials, the refresh underlined that the UK’s enhanced focus on the region will continue.76 Other European NATO members, most notably Germany, have pledged to increase defence spending. These promised steps could provide additional resources for security engagement in the Asia-Pacific. However, fiscal constraints and the overwhelming need to focus on Ukraine make it unlikely that European states will be able to develop more ambitious approaches to the Asia-Pacific in the short to medium term. In the face of fiscal pressures and competition for extra resources in Europe, the likes of the UK and France are more likely to focus on maintaining existing and planned commitments in the region.
The Ukraine war also has implications for US partners in the Asia-Pacific. NATO’s Madrid Summit in June 2022 was attended by the leaders of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.77 Their decision to engage NATO more closely reflects mutual concerns over China but also interest in understanding NATO’s response to Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg visited Japan and South Korea in January 2023, calling on the latter to do more to support Ukraine.78 Heightened perceptions of global insecurity following Russia’s invasion may be a contributing element behind increased defence spending among the United States’ regional allies and partners. However, this factor should not be overemphasised: Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were all on a path to higher defence spending before the Ukraine conflict, largely reflecting their perceptions of rising threats within the region. That said, Kishida has cited the Ukraine war as one of the justifications for his government’s commitment to doubling Japanese defence spending – to 2% of GDP – by 2027.79
CONCLUSION
Although geographically limited to Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, the war in Ukraine is a major inter-state conflict that is likely to have long-term global ramifications, including for the Asia-Pacific. One universal lesson is that unprovoked aggression and territorial conquest by major powers remains an active risk and a salient feature of international relations in the twenty-first century. Perceptions of military threat have thus deepened in the Asia-Pacific. While trends of higher defence expenditure in the region pre-dated Russia’s invasion, deepening feelings of insecurity, driven in part by the war in Ukraine, may now accelerate these trends and lead to faster military modernisation and capability development. Russia’s failure to achieve a quick victory in the face of Ukraine’s determined and competent defence – aided by substantial assistance from Western countries – has also emerged as a fact of the war’s first year. Russia has already paid a heavy price, on the battlefield and reputationally, while Ukraine’s civilian and military leadership has consistently outperformed expectations. If Ukraine ultimately prevails, it will provide a considerable boost for the existing rules-based order in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific. By contrast, if Russia achieves some measure of victory, Moscow’s gains in Ukraine will likely lead to a weakening of those same rules and norms in the Asia-Pacific, setting revisionist precedents from which China and North Korea are likely to benefit. While the war is unlikely to produce new flashpoints in Asia, it is already having direct impacts on regional strategic alignments, defence policies, doctrines and equipment-purchase decisions. Whatever else happens, the growing strategic interplay between the Asia-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic looks likely to endure long after Russia’s conflict in Ukraine has concluded.
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