Stellen Sie sich eine ukrainische Niederlage und ihre Auswirkungen auf Europa vor

A 1931 book of essays titled *If It Had Happened Otherwise* contains German-Swiss writer Emil Ludwig’s chapter, “If the Emperor Frederick Had Not Had Cancer.” Ludwig has the German ruler living past 1888 and, together with his wife Empress Victoria, leading a liberal German empire with a British-style cabinet. As a consequence, there’s no belligerent “New Course” from son Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm’s tactless statements, the erratic foreign policy, the naval build-up, the colonial expansion, and the posturing and brinkmanship that helped lead to World War I—all this gets deleted from history and 1914 becomes a year of peace.

Winston Churchill investigates in the same volume what might have happened had the Confederacy won the American Civil War. Churchill has an ironic twist: The South’s own abolition of slavery. Along similar lines, Abraham Lincoln had concluded, “If willing faithfully to cleanse this continent of slavery, and if they will dwell beside us in goodwill as an independent but friendly nation, it would not be right to prolong the slaughter on the question of sovereignty alone.” In Churchill’s counterfactual history, the two Americas and Britain form the “English Speaking Association” and prevent World War I.

*Swastika Night* was published in 1937. British writer Katharine Burdekin, writing under the pseudonym Murray Constantine, depicts a Nazi future with Jews eradicated, a cult of masculinity gone wild, and women confined in concentration camps serving reproduction purposes only. Burdekin used a pseudonym to protect her family from fascist attacks in England.

*The Man in the High Castle* came later. Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel is about a dystopian alternate reality where victorious Germany and Japan have divided America into two occupied territories after World War II. Japanese Pacific States are in the west with San Francisco as regional capital. New York is Greater Nazi Reich’s capital in the east. The Amazon-produced television series based on the book premiered in January 2015.

Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine began two winters ago with proclamations of “Glory to Ukraine.” Those blue and yellow flags were hoisted everywhere. We all knew that Russian revanchism had to be defeated. An end to Vladimir Putin’s imperialist project, we said, would send the signal that America and its allies were prepared to defend the rules-based world order. China and Iran would be chastened. Authoritarian populism would be dealt a blow. Liberal democracy across the West would rally and be revived.

What if Ukraine loses the war? We’re now getting used to the idea that yet another made-in-Moscow frozen conflict may lie in store. If this is where we’re headed, we’d profit from a wide lens and a long-term view of possibilities and probabilities of what’s apt to follow.

Vladimir Putin is almost certain to use a freeze as a tactical pause to start building back better. Russian armed forces performed miserably at the outset. But then Putin fired commanders, discovered Iranian drones, survived sanctions, and identified a secret weapon—the vast quantity of men he can chuck onto the battlefield. Ask Poland, the Baltic nations, and the Nordic states how secure they’ll feel if today’s Russia, led by an indicted war criminal, is allowed to sit at the table to negotiate peace through Ukrainian partition.

If Kyiv feels compelled to cede territory to invading, occupying forces, Ukrainians will finish the war divided with grievance rather than united and rejuvenated. A friend describes a bleak scene: a village in western Ukraine where inhabitants are women, the elderly, and young men back from war without limbs. Get used to the profile. Young amputees will feature in a future Ukrainian parliament. A decent number will be bitter from sacrifice without victory. The Ukrainian vision all along has been that all invading Russian forces must leave Ukraine. 

Absent this outcome, an angry political Right will get traction, blaming the West for temporizing and appeasement. We gave Ukraine just enough weapons, they’ll maintain, to prolong the war and settle for a draw. Growing ranks of radicals and neo-Nazis will go underground to fight Russian occupying forces in the east. Crimea will remain in Russian hands. The Black Sea will become a Russian lake.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Viktor Orbán will say I told you so. This was never our war, they’ll sermonize, and Russia was never to be defeated anyway. Pointing to what they describe as those corrupt, ungrateful Ukrainians, authoritarian populists will get a boost. This will include both the right-wing AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) and Sahra Wagenknecht’s new left-wing workers’ party in Germany. It will include Marine Le Pen’s comparably pro-Russian National Rally party in France. Le Pen will have a chance at the French presidency in three years. Michel Houellebecq’s last speculative novel *Destroy* actually has Le Pen stepping aside and a turn to an even harder Right in 2027.

It’s only a matter of when.