Vladimir Lenin liked to call the failed Russian revolution of 1905 the dress rehearsal for the successful Bolshevik revolution he led in 1917. So then what might the Ukrainian events of 2014 be a dress rehearsal for? The main consequence of the Ukrainian crisis is already clear (only its speed and degree are a matter of conjecture): The West is turning away from Russia, and Russia is turning from the West to the East. How much and how quickly Russia turns east depends at what stage the Ukrainian crisis is resolved. In stage one, the annexation of Crimea has already largely been accepted as a fait accompli, though the U.S. and some other governments say they will refuse to recognize the annexation as legal and that sanctions imposed in that connection will not be lifted. But Europe runs on Russian gas and sells its products to Russia. No one in Europe wants to sacrifice good business on the altar of high principle. In this scenario Russia and the West do not suffer a major schism, but do pivot away from each other. The Ukrainian crisis enters stage two if Russia invades eastern and/or southern Ukraine. For a time, at least, events will skid out of control, allowing for the possibility of atrocities by either side, the images of which will immediately go viral. Stage two will involve significant economic damage for both the Europeans and the Russians. Russia pivots even farther east. In stage three, the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia spills over into all-out war. The West would have to stand impotently by and watch Russia crush Ukraine, just as it did in 1956 when Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest and in 1968 when they entered Prague. The West will not risk a conflagration over Ukraine of which all parties are already well aware. Russia will crush Ukraine quickly, but the war will not be over all at once — after World War II the nationalist Ukrainian guerrillas fought Soviet power until the early ’50s. Russia takes control of Ukraine, which maintains some trappings of independence. International relations enter a period of prolonged hostility. No matter to what degree the Ukrainian crisis unravels before it is finally resolved, Russia will turn to the East for markets, allies and conquests. China is the obvious substitute for Europe as a buyer of Russia’s gas and oil and a seller of its manufactured goods. That will, of course, have its downside for Putin and his Russia, which are still smarting from its humiliating loss of the Cold War. As Bobo Lo, a British academic, put it: “It’s quite hard being a raw materials appendage to a country you felt superior to for the better part of the past 300 years.”

The Central Asian ‘Heartland’

China has shown itself willing to invest heavily in Russian gas and oil ventures while at the same time taking pains to create economic alliances with the states of Central Asia, which either supply gas and oil directly to China or serve it as energy conduits. But in no way will China allow itself to become dependent on Russia for energy. China, alarmed by its own restive western provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang, is always reluctant to approve of separatist actions, such as those in Crimea, but it must look with some satisfaction at the widening fracture between Russia and the West. For Beijing, few things could be worse than a strong U.S.-Russia relationship. Add the strong U.S. relationship with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, and China would be essentially encircled by land and by sea.

Controlling a chunk of Kazakhstan would allow Russia to exert considerable pressure on China and not have to serve solely as its junior partner and raw materials appendage.

In this context, Central Asia becomes all the more important. Halford J. Mackinder, sometimes called the father of modern geopolitics, famously said that whoever controls the Central Asian “Heartland” will ultimately “command the world.” His dictum now seems truer than ever.

A Russian-Chinese affair