An examination of maps of Europe and Eurasia helps to understand Russia’s geopolitical paranoia and its desire to conquer Ukraine, destabilize NATO and the EU and subvert democracy across the world. Russia is sandwiched between Europe’s “full” or “flawed” democracies with which it shares a 2,665-mile-long border; and the United States and Japan, with which it shares water borders. With the pending finalization of Finland’s admission into NATO, Russia will have 1,458 miles of land border with NATO countries, all of which are bound by the organization’s charter’s mutual defense obligations. Ukraine and Georgia are at the dialogue stage with NATO; if they join, the Russia-NATO border will more than double its present length.

RUSSIA’S PETRODIPLOMACY

So far, Russia has not faced the economic catastrophe expected from tightening international sanctions largely because of its extant oil-generated monetary reserves and income from continued oil exports. Russia is the third-largest producer and biggest exporter of oil to the global market, and oil prices spiked earlier this year. Russian oil has fueled invading tanks and armored vehicles and has propped up Putin’s regime.

Immediately upon the crossing of tanks and firing of missiles into Ukraine, Canada declared a ban on Russian oil imports; the United Sates followed a few days later, as did the U.K. The EU’s historically heavy dependence on Russian fuel sources slowed down the decision to impose its own oil sanctions until early June, when it declared a phased-in embargo against Russian and Belarusian fuel exports.

There has been much debate about the feasibility and effectiveness of such sanctions. Some argue that they will hurt Europe more than Russia because Russia has successfully expanded its oil markets, particularly in India and China. It is true that Europe will suffer much — far more than the one or two extra dollars per gallon at the pump Americans complain about — and fuel shortages and rising inflation are likely to generate social and political instability. But in the long term, current circumstances will expand the use of clean forms of renewable energy and nuclear energy.

Many people cringe at any mention of nuclear energy — I do not like it either — but dependence on oil and coal has already done seemingly irreparable damage to our planet and will destroy it if it persists. Germany, Western Europe’s most oil-import dependent nation, had planned to close its three remaining nuclear plants before the end of 2022, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz has recently acknowledged that it is no longer feasible. We may very well be witnessing the start of a worldwide return to nuclear energy.

CHINA’S BLOCK

It is important to look at China and its history the way the Chinese do, with a long-term perspective of decades and centuries rather than four-year terms or quarters, the way we have come to view time in the United States. The Chinese race to become the world’s largest economy and to boost its national wealth must be understood as the desire to restore China’s economic greatness as the world’s largest economy and wealthiest country (per capita) as it was for most of the 1200s through the 1700s. China also has a long memory, remembering the economic aggressions and humiliations it has endured at the hands of foreign powers: the British (Opium Wars, 1839-1860), Japan (First and Second Sino-Japanese Wars, 1884-1895 and 1937-1945) and the Eight-Nation Alliance trade impositions known as the Boxer Protocol (1901).

The resumption of civil war in China after WWII culminated in the 1949 triumph of communist forces over the Republic of China, which was forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan. Ten years later, China had a $59.92 billion GDP (sixth in the world), but it ranked dead last (99 out of 99) in GDP per capita. Beginning in 1994, but at a much faster rate since 2006, China’s GDP has grown geometrically to its present level of $17.7 trillion. With GDP per capita, which is a much better indicator of the population’s well-being, at $12,600, China ranks 77 out of 194 countries.

Unlike Russia, China shares land borders with countries that for the most part are friends and allies (i.e., Russia, Mongolia, Myanmar, North Korea); India (with which it has border disputes), Bhutan and Vietnam are the exceptions. Beyond its immediate perimeter, China finds a rim of adversaries in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

And let us not forget that its greatest rival, the United States, has numerous military bases in Asia and Oceania: in American Samoa, Australia, Guam, Japan, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands and South Korea. As powerful as China is, it boasts only one military base on foreign soil, in Djibouti, Africa. The United States, by contrast, has over 750 bases in over 80 countries.

Luis Martinez-Fernandez is the author of “Revolutionary Cuba: A History” and “Key to the New World: A History of Early Colonial Cuba.”