When Russia invaded Ukraine one year ago, there were immediate concerns about the effects on food and energy security, and on geopolitical alignment in other countries. The world was right to be concerned, but the repercussions have been much wider and deeper than many predicted. There are two main ways in which conflict dynamics have shifted, neither of them solely caused by the war but both exacerbated by it:
- Russian’s war on Ukraine has shone the lens on inter-state conflict and proxy war
- Compounding the pandemic and climate change, a war started in one corner of the world has resulted in a global cost-of-living crisis and increasing debt for almost every country worldwide—countries that had no hand in Russia’s invasion or in the failure to respond to public health and socio-economic crisis.
This analysis looks at the multiple and cascading crises (increasingly referred to as the polycrisis), and how we can take action in the face of polycrisis,