Whatever the origins of the Ukraine war, the West and Russia are now engaged in a broader confrontation that is not confined to the military struggle: the war has become a competition in pain-tolerance.
This is, as Thomas Schelling wrote, “a conscious process of dirty bargaining”, whereby each side tries to inflict pain and suffering on the other side until one or both yield. Put simply, the West and Russia are playing a violent version of the schoolyard game Mercy. The centrepiece of the West’s effort to inflict pain on Russia is what the historian Nicholas Mulder has called “the economic weapon”, which has been deployed at unprecedented scale. The centrepiece of Russia’s effort to inflict pain on the West is the commodities weapon. In this competition in pain-tolerance, it is not immediate whether the West or Russia has the upper hand.
