First, a few qualifications that shouldn’t be necessary but apparently are. Obviously the Russians are clearly the bad guys here. Considering how and why they’re doing what they’re doing is not a justification. Speculation about what may happen is not an endorsement.
Will sanctions work against Russia?
They will work in the sense that they harm Russia, but I don’t think they will, as their more enthusiastic proponents suggest, cause an immediate to the fighting or topple the Russian regime.
For one, the most damaging sanction is certain to be freezing the RCB's assets. But as a practical matter, they're freezing, not seizing. Rather than believing they will "never" get paid if they deal with Russia, a trading partner will, I'd assume, simply charge them interest for delayed payment.
If the trading partner has reason to discourage the use of this kind of economic warfare in the future (this would be China) it might even be more generous than it otherwise would be. In fact, Chinese analysts are saying as much, and China has a currency swap deal in place that will mitigate some of the impact of the central bank sanctions. This is all to say that I don’t see how the sanctions are a mortal threat the the regime. Russia’s internal economy is large and they don’t have an obvious need to import food or fuel.
On the other hand, Europe has an obvious need for Russian fuel. I can’t help but to think that a Russian embargo of gas and oil would impose much more pain on Europe than on Russia. That’s a card Russia can still play.
Will the conflict spillover into NATO?
This seems less likely today. After reading this alarming Twitter thread this morning, I see multiple sources saying Poland and Slovakia backed off providing fighter jets to Ukraine at all. A subsequent, kind of strange effort to funnel Polish MiGs through the US seems to have fallen apart too.
Elsewhere, both the US and UK today are ruling out a no-fly zone. But the US today did confirm more anti-tank missiles reached Ukraine.
My guess is this represents a pattern of stabilizing responses. That is, NATO’s threat of fighters provoked a threat of retaliation and escalation that NATO wasn’t willing to cross (e.g. Russia said it wasn’t going to wait around for the Ukrainians to get the planes and would simply attack them on the ground in Poland). So, we’re reached a point where NATO is unlikely to further escalate, at least in the short run. My guess is that as the war “normalizes” and other issues creep back into the US news cycle and we get further from the initial shock and anger from the invasion, the odds of NATO intervention continue to fall.
In the longer run, my beliefs are that Russia sees itself as in a weakening position. It struck now because it believes time’s not on its side with respect to the West. Not attacking Ukraine meant Ukraine could escape its sphere of influence the way Eastern Europe has. Countries like Poland and Bulgaria are now significantly wealthier than Ukraine, and have none of the close cultural or historical affiliation with Russia that Ukraine has. And Russia’s military has shown that while it can destroy a lot and perhaps take Ukraine, it’s very unlikely to be able to hold it in its entirety. Taken together, these factors suggest that NATO and even Non-Nato Europe (with the possible exception of tiny, poor countries like Georgia and Moldova) don’t have much to fear from outright invasion.*
* I mean, obviously it would be bad, but it would predictably be a failure, and as such, it seems unlikely Russia would try.
What is the current state of the war and how quickly can it end?
First, understand that military objectives are different than political objectives. For example, the Russian military objective of “Take Kyiv” is probably not because Kyiv is a place the Russian have to have, but because they expected to be able to overthrow the government and install a more friendly one (political objective).
Second, then, war can end when the political objectives are met or given up. So to figure out how the war can end, we have to figure out what are acceptable political outcomes for each side. What are their victory conditions.
Russia obviously wanted a Ukrainian puppet state, which it felt it mostly had pre-2014. In the more abstract sense,
Russia doesn’t want an enemy on its borders. Whether one considers this legitimate or not is irrelevant. The fact that, within a week, significant elements of Western society are talking about “Regime Change” in Russia simply reinforces why Russia wants a barrier against the West.
Russia doesn’t want economic competition (it would like to be able to deal with Ukraine from a kind of Neo-mercantilist trade perspective in which Russia(n oligarchs) get rich.
Apart from the second point, a prosperous Ukraine that deals closely with the West simply undermines the legitimacy of the Russian oligarchs. Because it would be a clear example to the Russian population that hey, a pro-Western Russian speaking country can do well. The guys in charge are holding you back from the prosperity you deserve.
These points can be expressed in various ways, but I think they get to the core reasons for the invasion and the core issues that have to be addressed if the War is to end. Again, this isn’t a matter of saying Russia is “justified” to act this way but rather that if we want Russia to stop, it must either give up these goals or feel confident that it has achieved them.
From that perspective, let’s consider the military objectives. My guess is that Russia started out thinking the invasion had several paths to victory.
The Ukrainians simply didn’t fight back effectively and the Russians waltzed into Kyiv, installed a new government, dictated terms, and restored the old status quo. That seems fundamentally out of the question now. Even if the Russians knocked off the Ukrainian government, it seems likely the puppet government wouldn’t have any staying power and the Russians wouldn’t have the ability to occupy and hold such a large and hostile population.
Less fantastically, they can simply conquer the territory and kill anyone who opposes them. With overwhelming military superiority, they can slice off the parts of Ukraine they want to keep for themselves, establish overwhelmingly defensible positions, and damage the rest of the country so badly that it can’t do anything about it. At that point, it simply declares victory, retreats to those defensive positions and ends the fighting. It would be preferable but probably not essential for them to have a negotiated agreement to end the fighting in this scenario. Unfortunately, I think this kind of Russian victory is still a possibility.
A key issue is the nature of their thrust at Kyiv. This is almost entirely the Western focus, and by necessity, it’s a focus for Ukraine. My suspicion though, is that it’s a secondary objective. Russia has military forces to spare. By forcing Ukraine to invest its smaller forces in defending Kyiv, there are fewer to defend the East, which is a more likely and feasible target for Russian occupation and annexation. If Russia can cut off the East from effective support it can eventually overwhelm and defeat the Ukrainians.
A second issue is “how much” territory and weakening of the Ukrainian state would be sufficient for Russia. It seems unlikely that it can hold unfriendly territory indefinitely, and it seems likely that even if they succeed in destroying the current Ukrainian government and installing a friendly puppet, this government wouldn’t have long-term staying power. The Ukrainians will kick them out as soon as they can. Russia can respond with brutality, but even they’ve shown a desire to limit civilian casualties which indicates that they recognize overt and lasting brutality and oppression will be bad for business.
This is an inexact balance, obviously, but in light of the political objectives above, Russia can probably still establish a military buffer. It’s less likely that it can enforce an alliance with hostile Ukraine or prevent its development in the long run, and the war has probably been counterproductive to those goals. However, Russia could still achieve them in the short run by simply inflicting a lot of damage.