The Road to Becoming a Frozen Conflict: The Case of the Ukrainian-Russian War
Abstract
The discourse on coercion often focuses on the aggressor state’s (i.e., coercer’s) intentions to change the status quo of world affairs prior to the use of force. In doing so, scholars examine the intentions of the aggressor state while occluding the agency of the target state. My thesis addresses this by studying the behavior of both the coercer and the target state after the war’s conclusion but while tensions remain unresolved. Post-war tensions produce an unstable peace since the target state never conceded to the demands of the coercer state. In such instances, these conflicts become “frozen” and place the status quo in an indeterminate state. By tracing post-war relations, scholars can identify the factors that hinder the conflict resolution process and that prompt repeated armed conflicts, even after the coercer carries out their threat. This paper aims to discover how separatist blocs depend on international entities to survive in an anarchic world and inadvertently shape the conditions for a frozen conflict. How does the prolonged armed conflict shift the relationship between coercer and target state, and how does this influence the involvement of external actors? My research will also consider the role of informal empires and the legacy of colonial-drawn borders. In a post-imperial world, an informal empire is often a reconstructed albeit cloaked version of its past iteration as a colonizer. This means that it is accustomed to, or perhaps even expects, the continued subordination of former colonies. I will use the war in Ukraine, including the proxy war in the Donbas, as a case study to demonstrate the imperial impact of the Soviet Union on the making of a frozen conflict in Ukraine.
Subject
frozen conflictsarmed conflict
coercion
war
peace and conflict
separatists
de facto states
post-imperialism
Citation
Lewis, Essynce (2022). The Road to Becoming a Frozen Conflict: The Case of the Ukrainian-Russian War. Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /196592.