Author: Gary Clyde Hufbauer, PIIE
In December 2021, most Americans were looking forward to a quiet and prosperous 2022. COVID-19 cases were down, the stock market was up and jobs were abundant. What could go wrong?
Many things did. Geopolitical trauma came first. After a chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, it seemed that US involvement in foreign wars was drawing to an end. Yet on 24 February 2022, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. The ground battle then morphed into a proxy war between NATO and Russia.
US President Joe Biden was quick to declare that US boots would not join Ukrainian soldiers, but he was equally quick to dispatch US armour and CIA advisors. By the close of 2022, NATO weapons manned by Ukrainians had successfully pushed Russian forces out of the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Kherson, and back towards Ukraine’s eastern border.
But battlefield success was coupled with…
