What makes the Russia–Ukraine war significant? Evaluation Note / Güven Sak

“So foul a sky clears not without a storm,” writes Shakespeare in the second act of King John.

I believe Russia’s invasion is just the sort of storm that clears the sky. This storm is caused by Russia’s failure to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbon exports, and it presages a new era in the global economy powered mostly by non-carbon energy.

The sight of Russian tanks rolling past the Ukrainian border was a very 20th century image. With global green policies in the works on both sides of the Atlantic to jumpstart growth, technological innovations to address climate change, and humanity trying to find ways to make our planet more sustainable, the Russian invasion of its neighbor has a very strange feel to it. It is not just on the wrong side of history; rather, it is a bad reenactment of the worst parts of it.

You may read evaluation note from here.

This note was published in The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune on July 2022.