Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine goes far beyond Javelins, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (i.e., HIMARS), and Russia’s campaign of destruction against the second-most-industrialized post-Soviet state.
Shock waves from the war now wash across the shores of maritime Asia, with years of unfolding impacts ahead. Accordingly, this article takes readers through a journey featuring ecosystems inhabited by oil barrels, gas pipelines, submarine technologies, jet engines, and basing access. It also will explore China and Russia’s centuries-old relationship cycle of fear, temporary bonds of common cause, and division anew. In coming months and years, China will tap the Russian raw material storehouse more deeply.
But a Moscow under duress and isolation could yield far more than cheaper oil and gas; Russian military pinnacle technologies—particularly in the undersea-warfare realm—could be coupled with China’s financial resources and industry to tip the Indo-Pacific security balance in favor of a Sino-Russian axis of autocracy at the expense of the United States and its allies and partners.
Recommended Citation:
Erickson, Andrew S. and Collins, Gabriel B. (2022) “Putin’s Ukraine Invasion: Turbocharging Sino-Russian Collaboration in Energy, Maritime Security, and Beyond?,” Naval War College Review: Vol. 75: No. 4, Article
8. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol75/iss4/8
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