Navigating Within the Geopolitical Turning Point

The war of aggression in Ukraine has put cherished certainties into question. Swift learn learning curves are visible within many organizations across Europe. New priorities, beliefs, and worlds views are spreading. This process faces resistance and necessarily goes hand in hand with the debunking of beloved assumptions. In this introduction session, we want to go jointly on a journey and reflect on how and to what degree our views and those of our co-fellows changed in recent weeks – or where and didn’t. What strategic assumptions do we keep and what do we toss – and why? What did we learn and what did we already know? Where was our assessments correct? What did astonish and/or shock us – and how is the view of co-fellows on that? Apart from providing intriguing insights, this self-reflecting opening round serves as a “warm-up exercise” for the out-of-the-box thinking later needed in the scenario session.

Before moving to the scenario session, it is important to get a clear picture about the most crucial drivers that currently shape, the war in Ukraine, the ongoing conflict with Russia, and the future of the Post-Soviet Black Sea region. In this part of the conference, we therefore will try to identify these drivers and aim to evaluate to what degree and into which direction they will influence the situation on the ground in the future.
We will discuss topic-wise five different clusters of potential drivers: (1) strategic concepts & foreign policy ideas (2) the military situation (3) economic war consequences & sanctions (4) still a chance for diplomacy? (5) the role of civil society.
Following the interactive and open logic of our workshop, we will apply the fishbowl method in which all participants – invited speakers as well as members of the audience – are highly welcomed to contribute to the discussion. To document the findings, we will draw in parallel to the discussion a “driver map” which will later serve as a starting point for the scenario development.

In the current debate about the conflict with Russia, the war in Ukraine, and the future situation in the Black Sea regions, we see a high-frequency circulation of different sometimes contrasting strategic concepts and foreign policy ideas: NATO extension, EU enlargement, neutrality, security guarantees, “Finlandization”, systemic rivalry and imperial aggression, Cold War 2.0, restart of cooperative security in European, new concepts of containment, national security vs. regime survival … The list of ideas and concepts is long and seems to grow constantly. Moreover, the proposals are not only relevant for Ukraine, Russia and Western Europe but also affect Georgia and Moldova. As of early May 2022, what ideas and concepts are the most relevant currently in the strategic debate and therefore likely to shape the upcoming course of the conflict?

Putin’s original plan of a swift special operation in Ukraine seems to have failed within days if not hours. While Russia has by far a superiority in terms of manpower and military hardware, the Ukraine defense against the aggression is perplexingly strong – partly because of logistical problems and limited fighting moral on the Russian side and partly due to high fighting spirit among Ukrainians and ongoing supply for Kyiv’s troops by NATO weaponry. At crucial points at the front line the war seems currently to enter into a stalemate with urban battlefields at the center of the action – sadly, with terrible consequences for noncombatants The military situation is highly dynamic with potentials of further escalation – which could also affect Georgia and/or Moldova. And at the moment it is difficult to foresee who will in the end have the upper hand. As of May 2022, what are the major trends and developments on the battlefield, and do they have the potential to shape the future development of the military theater in Ukraine and the region?