The Tripartite Realist War: Analysing Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

The book offers a detailed analysis on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A book needs to be written on this to make sense, from a theoretical perspective, why this invasion has occurred and what the main actors are pursuing. The originality rests on testing main international relations theories: realism, liberalism and constructivism to the war that emerges with the practices and approaches during the Cold War to date from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Soviet Union (and now Russia) and Ukraine. The monograph commences with a historical overview of NATO and how it has engaged in expansionism policy to further contain Russia in contemporary international affairs with the accession of additional former Soviet states. This helps to explain the current Russian invasion of Ukraine that would attract great readership. The main argument presented rests on the pursuance of realist interests by NATO, Ukraine and Russia for containment, national security interests and as a response to the security dilemma respectively. This has served as the main catalyst of this conflict that has made diplomacy, international law and collective security measures problematic to implement. Preface 5 Contents 7 About the Author 9 Abbreviations 10 1 Introduction 12 References 17 2 Main International Relations Theories 18 An Explanation of Realism 18 Political/Classical Realism 19 Neorealism: Offensive and Defensive Realists 22 Realist Ethics 28 Justification and Summary of Realism 32 An Explanation of Liberalism 35 Democratic Peace Theory and Cosmopolitanism 36 Neoliberalism, Regime Theory and Institutional Liberalism 38 The Responsibility to Protect 40 Summary of Liberalism 44 Constructivism: An Alternative Explanation 46 Conventional Constructivism 46 National Interest and US Exceptionalism 55 Norms, Language and Social Constructs 57 An Alternative of Realist Assumptions of the Security Dilemma 60 Summary of Constructivism 63 Contributions of International Relations Theory 64 References 67 3 NATO During the Cold War and Dissolution of the Soviet Union 77 Formation of NATO 77 The Counterbalancing Warsaw Pact 80 The Economic and Political Demise of the Soviet Union 81 NATO’s Expansionism and Containment of Russia 83 References 89 4 Ukrainian Desire for Political Autonomy and NATO Accession 93 Orange Revolution 93 NATO Membership Action Plan and National Security Strategy 94 Western Support for Ukraine 98 United States Motives of the War 102 Russian Opposition Towards American and NATO Interventionism 109 References 122 5 Russian Responses, the Invasion, Sanctions and International Law 131 Russian Retaliation 131 Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February 2022 142 Just War Debate 160 International Condemnation of the Invasion and Western Sanctions 167 International Law Efforts 177 References 197 6 Conclusion 218 References 225 Bibliography 226 Index 266