So let's recount what Putin has achieved in the last 3 months:
1. Failed to conquer all of Ukraine;
2. Failed to capture Kyiv;
3. Failed to make meaningful gains in the Donbass;
4. Failed to decapitate Ukraine's leadership;
5. Suffered huge casulaties;
6. Done massive damage to the perception of Russia's military (and thus the power it can project);
7. Done more for NATO solidarity than probably anything else in the last 20 years when previous to this, there wasn't a lot as much fervour for NATO;
8. Prompted Finland and Sweden to join NATO when previously they were happy being neutral;
9. Russia is now subject to broad sanctions where previously Europe was looking to increase gas dependence on Russia (eg Nord Stream 2).
So Putin has quite literally achieved nothing. A lot of this was foreseeable too, which is why many (including myself) thought Putin wouldn't invade.
The question now is what is Putin's state of mind? Is he aware of the true position (as in, is he getting accurate assessments and intelligence or just "yes men")? Does he still think he can "win"? What does "winning" even look like now? A rational person would be looking for a face-saving exit (think "mission accomplished"). I thought that might be occupying the Donbass and negotiating for some autonomy for the region but even that is starting to look out of reach.
My concern is that someone cornered like this after making such a huge gamble at terrible cost is capable of doing something even more awful.
You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year). Russian military industry also lost access to the Western high tech (unfortunately, a lot of it has been used in their modern equipment, such as missiles, aircraft, etc). It will take at least a decade for them rebuild the armed forces after the war with Ukraine.
There is indeed a risk of Kremlin using the tactical nuclear weapons. The United States needs to have a very robust strategy for such possibility. However, such use cannot be left without a response. Most likely it would be a military response. No response would set a catastrophic precedent, as it would invite the use of nuclear weapons in pretty much any conflict which involves a nuclear power. Just think about South China Sea, Kashmir conflict, etc. It would also lead to an era of nuclear proliferation, as weaker states would see no other option than to obtain nukes.
I think even the nutcases in Kremlin (or at least the Russian Armed Forces) understand that there would be an unprecedented response.
>You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year
The conservative estimate was that the ruble would plunge about 30% as a result of the war. It's now bizarrely higher than its been in 5 years.
I dont remember anybody foreseeing that. Zero. Not one analyst. Ive only heard retrospective justifications for why it happened which any idiot can come up with.
I definitely cant believe Russia is coming out of this unscathed but economic predictions are a crapshoot at the best of times and these are very much uncharted territories.
>I dont remember anybody foreseeing that. Zero. Not one analyst. Ive only heard retrospective justifications for why it happened which any idiot can come up with.
It makes sense (in retrospect; I am certainly not an analyst who predicted this beforehand).
Right now, it is more or less impossible for any Russian to a) use the dollar to buy anything from outside Russia, and b) travel outside Russia to buy anything in the first place. That greatly reduces the demand for exchanging rubles for dollars, whether via official or unofficial means.
Consider Argentina, a country that for years has had its own serious economic issues. A huge skew between the official and black-market exchange rate for hard currency, such as in Argentina (the "dolar azul"), exists because a) there are capital controls but b) it's still possible to use those dollars/Euro/Swiss franc/whatever. Argentineans are free to use the US dollar to buy things, both inside and outside Argentina. This doesn't apply to Russians.
You wrote elsewhere:
>Im also really skeptical of the position that its an irrelevant economic indicator only when it goes in the opposite direction you expect it to. Everybody was saying the exact opposite when the ruble was plunging.
Agreed. It seems like Western analysts were completely wrong on both Russia's military strength versus Ukraine's, and the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.
Most countries choose to have two out of three things for a currency (having all three is impossible):
1. Control over the value
2. Control over inflation
3. Free trade
Russia has chosen to just go for one of the trifecta, and have lost all trade and has skyrocketing inflation - but manages to keep the ruble trading high for propaganda purposes as it's seen as the "quick way to measure" an economy.
This contradicts what Ive heard from inside the country which is that inflation spiked sharply to ~40% and then prices came down (now 15% up on prewar levels).
So, inflation is a bit higher than in the west but it is not runaway for us or them...yet.
It appears more as if this is due to the balance of payments. Imports are down due to sanctions while exports of gas/oil by value are up. Hence higher ruble.
Ruble is a weak indicator as the central bank has tools to control the exchange rate. Soviet ruble also had a strong and, for a long time, quite stable exchange rate with the US dollar. However, in Soviet Union you could not legally own foreign currency (nor you could buy Western goods and services). The exchange rate by no means indicated the economic situation in the USSR.
Weak or not it is an indicator and it is indicative of economic muscle - economic muscle we are frequently told Russia is supposed to have lost as a result of this war.
This indicator shot up in the exact opposite direction all western commentators said it would.
Id be interested in economic commentary by anybody who predicted this or even said it was a possibility but Im profoundly disinterested in economic commentary from people who were completely blindsided by it and are now scrambling to offer posthoc rationalizations. These are not thinkers they are sheep.
Im also really skeptical of the position that its an irrelevant economic indicator only when it goes in the opposite direction you expect it to. Everybody was saying the exact opposite when the ruble was plunging.
The other side: The ruble is up. This is indeed strange, and no one really foresaw this result. Explanations range from Putin has chosen to prop it up at the expense of other indicators to gaz trades are still high, and availability on foreign markets of rubles has dropped sharply.
Your side: Putin has shown economic muscle that no one expected he would have. There are definitely eggs on the face of the western analysts.
In my opinion it's destroying Ukraine as a country. Even if it takes years he's ready to keep this thing going until our economy collapses.
I mean, you're right, Russia hasn't succeeded in its goals. But if we take a look at Ukraine which will start to struggle economically in near future [1] you can change your opinion.
You bring up a good point. I've given this some thought. On its face I think it's a reasonable position: if Putin can't have Ukraine, nobody can (not even Ukraine). This is more believable when you consider that oil and gas reserves have been found in Ukraine but it lacks the capital to develop them. Shell was in Crimea prior to the annexation.
But this theory has a few problems.
1. The cost of wrecking Ukraine has been really high.
2. Ukraine was earning a significant amount of money (ie billions) from carrying Russian natural gas to Western Europe through pipelines. Russia has since built other pipelines to avoid this problem but I believe they were still 1-2 years away from completely bypassing Ukraine;
3. Arguably Russiaa can do more damage outside or Ukraine than in it. Russia has been stirring up trouble and supplying separatists in the Donbass since at least 2014. In some ways annexing the Donbass would solve a problem for Ukraine as they'd no longer have this divisive element within their borders. It's arguably more of a problem for Ukraine for the Donbass to be part of Ukraine and this required no further intervention from Russia and certainly no invasion.
It is absolutely a loss-loss situation for Russia and Ukraine. However, as long as the West maintains sanctions on Russia and provides a substantial support (both economic and military) to Ukraine, then Russia will not be able to sustain its war effort and pressure on Ukraine.
Europe is finally, for real (albeit slowly and painfully), moving away from the Rusian fossil fuels this time. It will take some time, but it's a tectonic shift.
Putin has been writing and speaking about this for years. He really thinks Russia should control other Slavic people, and former territories of Russia and Soviet Union etc. And it's not only Putin. Most of the other high ranking officials must have been supporting the attack into Ukraine, otherwise it would not have happened. If it was him alone against everyone else, Putin would simply have been replaced. A large portion of the Russian population also supports the attack.
It is no fluke. You can't pin it on one "madman". It's as if the majority Russian people in Russia genuinely think they should control the land and people that is Ukraine. It's not all people. There are anti-war protests, millions of people have left Russia, and there are dissidents.
To somehow recover from this, it would require some deep reflection on what Russia really is, and what is its role in humanity. I'm afraid it will take some drastic events before people are able to question themselves to that level. It would begin with the philosophers and poets.
A few days ago I saw a video where a Fin explained that in the last 1000 years, Russia tried to invade Finland 20 times (I didn't verify this data). He claimed that about every 2 to 3 generations, this happens.
This was a real eye-opener for me, and reminds me of a (probably Dutch) expression: A fox loses its hair but not its tricks.
Thousand years? 20 times seems like a comically tiny amount at that scale.
Finland had managed to be both part of Russian Empire, Sweden and hell a lot of other adventures in that huge period. That's like all the way back to Kievan Rus.
I don't put a lot of stock in the Russian Imperialism ambitions as being a serious factor in this invasion. I just don't think it adds up. I mean even if Putin was saying this, that doesn't mean a lot. The US, for example, says they're spreading democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, fro example.
I believe it's far more likely that Russia actually wanted (wants?) a buffer between it and NATO. They've been warning of this since 2008 (when Bush opened the door to Ukraine joining NATO).
Why do I find this more believable? Because it's exactly what imperial powers do. It's exactly what the United States has done. The US almost started World War Three over a Soviet presence in Cuba. The US for 200 years (ie the Monroe Doctrine) has considered the Americas the sole province of the US and any foreign military to be a threat.
China does this too. Mongolia is a buffer to Russia. North Korea is a buffer to South Korea (and the significant US military presence there).
For Imperialist ambitions to make sense, Russia would have to either occupy Ukraine on a long term basis or install a puppet regime (eg like Belarus). Both are doomed from the start. The Ukraine is too large to occupy and would be too expensive. The USSR couldn't even maintain a puppet government in Afghanistan (and nor could the US obviously).
You are buying too much into the Russian propaganda. First, it is not NATO which expanded "into" the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. These countries voluntarily applied and their diplomats lobbied very hard to get accepted into NATO, precisely because of Russia's aggressive and militaristic policies. Why do you think that these sovereign European nations actually want to be a "buffer"? Why do you think somebody should have a right to constrain their sovereignty?
Ukraine was not even close to joining NATO, despite all declarations (moreover, Russia firmly prevented it by orchestrating the War in Donbas). With Finland joining NATO, Russia will now have 1340 km border with NATO. What Putin is going to do about that? It was never about NATO. Look at the origins of the Russian-Ukrainian War (it wasn't just 2013, the cracks started as early as 2004). Moscow always had a distorted view of the Ukrainian history and its sovereignty as an independent nation (despite signing treaties and agreements recognizing it).
> For Imperialist ambitions to make sense, Russia would have to either occupy Ukraine on a long term basis or install a puppet regime (eg like Belarus). Both are doomed from the start. The Ukraine is too large to occupy and would be too expensive. The USSR couldn't even maintain a puppet government in Afghanistan (and nor could the US obviously).
This is precisely what they tried to do with this invasion, thinking that if the Ukrainian government gets decapitated, the majority of the Ukrainian population would not resist and cooperate. Kremlin massively miscalculated because they started believing their own propaganda and their intelligence would feed the dictator with the information he wanted to hear rather than reality.
Arguing NATO didn't expand into the Baltic states is semantics, at best. Sure the countries have to apply to join but the current NATO members have to acquiesce. Even with this relationship the US can (and has) communicated policy prior to expansion. The act of expnasion itself is evidene of US policy since the US could veto it fif it was something it didn't want.
My suspicion is you're viewing the US as a benign hegemony. The problem with this thinking is it makes it harder to see things from the other side, namely that another foreign power might reasonably perceive "benign" actions as hotile.
This is especially true of NATO, which was founded on the idea of screwing the USSR (quite literally). Well the USSR doesn't exist anymore yet NATO persists. Russia has to view that as aggressive especially with continued expansion. The standard response here is that NATO is a defensive alliance, which is complete BS (eg Libya, Kosovo, basing nuclear weapons capable of hitting Moscow in Turkey).
> Why do you think that these sovereign European nations actually want to be a "buffer"?
Because there are advantages to being neutral. You can't get roped into a war you didn't consent to. The great powers that border you tend to be happier with your neutrality than picking sides. Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Ireland are all countries in Europe who have policies of neutrality. A neutral state between great powers is by definition a buffer state.
And like I said, the US does exactly the same thing. Do you think the US would idly sit by if Mexico and Canada decided to join a military alliance with China and allow China to build forward operating bases along the US border? There's absolutely no shot.
So why if the US would never allow Chinese military bases on its border should the US be surprised that Russia would have the exact same objection?
> Why do you think somebody should have a right to constrain their sovereignty?
Because joining NATO requires mutual consent. No country has a right to join if NATO declines and NATO does have a right to decline. Germany in particular has indicated they had no intention of allowing Ukraine to join NATO for pretty much exactly the reasons we're seeing now.
> With Finland joining NATO, Russia will now have 1340 km border with NATO. What Putin is going to do about that?
That's my point: this has been a massive miscalculation by Putin. But not all borders are created equal. Geography matters. A border with Ukraine is of more strategic threat than a border with Finland just because most of Ukraine is flat.
> This is precisely what they tried to do with this invasion
My sense is they trid to decapitate Ukraine's leadership and pave the way for a pro-Russian regime. This was a massive miscalculation. TListen to anyone who knows anything about the military and you'll find estimates that Russia would probably need over 400,000 soldiers to occupy Ukraine. They don't have that. They couldn't afford it if they did.
> Arguing NATO didn't expand into the Baltic states is semantics, at best. Sure the countries have to apply to join but the current NATO members have to acquiesce. Even with this relationship the US can (and has) communicated policy prior to expansion. The act of expnasion itself is evidene of US policy since the US could veto it fif it was something it didn't want.
You talk about technicalities, but you ignore the key point here: these countries saw NATO membership being vital for their national security.
> My suspicion is you're viewing the US as a benign hegemony. The problem with this thinking is it makes it harder to see things from the other side, namely that another foreign power might reasonably perceive "benign" actions as hotile.
Perhaps it isn't, but it is benign for those countries who want to join (or joined) NATO. So, what is wrong with that?
> This is especially true of NATO, which was founded on the idea of screwing the USSR (quite literally). Well the USSR doesn't exist anymore yet NATO persists. Russia has to view that as aggressive especially with continued expansion.
If Russia would not be a dictatorship which threatens its neighbours, if it wouldn't demonstrate aggressive and coercive behaviour, then perhaps there would be no need for NATO. However, Russia did everything it possibly can to ruin its relationship with most neighbours and gave them every reason to join the military alliance. Now they blame NATO for it?
> Because there are advantages to being neutral. You can't get roped into a war you didn't consent to.
This is just absolutely not true. Baltic States were neutral before the World War II. They were invaded and occupied by Soviet Russia (and briefly by Nazi Germany). Neutrality does not guarantee sovereignty. Moreover, smaller countries which are close to large countries might simply not have numbers to resist a large aggressive neighbour. In such case, military alliances are their only option.
> Because joining NATO requires mutual consent.
Huh? I am talking about a third country. Why should a third country, especially a potential aggressor, have a right to veto the membership? It is a matter of NATO and the applicant country.
> That's my point: this has been a massive miscalculation by Putin. But not all borders are created equal. Geography matters. A border with Ukraine is of more strategic threat than a border with Finland just because most of Ukraine is flat.
Saint Petersburg will be about 100 km from the NATO border. Yet Ukraine is nearly 500 km away from Moscow. It just doesn't add up.
> My sense is they trid to decapitate Ukraine's leadership and pave the way for a pro-Russian regime. This was a massive miscalculation.
We are in agreement on this. Militarily they just didn't even have the right numbers (let alone other spectacular failures), yet Russians still opened wide fronts and went after the capital Kyiv.
The USSR “occupied” Ukraine for most of the 20th century, aided and abetted by the Holodomor, so there’s no obvious reason they couldn’t again.
Russian state TV is awash with pundits who are asserting the Russian empire should be re-created in Ukraine and the Baltics, and that Ukrainians are subhuman. There’s plenty of reason to believe Putin wants his empire.
Sure but in the Cold War period, as one data point, the Red Army had between 4 and 5 million soldiers [1].
A lot of people don't realize how much smaller the 21st century great power militaries are in pure manpower terms than the Cold War era, even for the US [2].
Additionally history is a huge factor here. Ukraine came under Soviet control as a consequence of the Russian Empire and this type of imperialism that had been rampant in human history up to this point largely died with World War Two and the onset of the nuclear age. European powers lost their remaining colonies (mostly) in the years following WWII.
The US has quite famously lost every war they've been in since 1945.
Ukraine as part of the USSR was really a vestige of a bygone era combined with a totalitarian government and a way stronger military than, say, exists now in Russia.
More people should be listening to Fiona Hill on this issue...she knows Putin better than any other outsider. And she has been saying the same thing for years: that if he doesn't get what he wants, he'll start using nukes. He wants to be seen as someone who restored the glory of the Russian empire, and he will use any tool at his disposal to get it. His lack of use of nukes up until this point doesn't really mean that he is bluffing, it is about timing and situational prudence; now is just not the right time. Also, she keeps saying that World War 3 has already started, we just haven't acknowledged it yet.
Those are positive, not normative analyses. The real question is what do we do about it. And I can't help but think that if it is more or less inevitable that he will use nukes before losing the war, and the only reason he hasn't used them yet is because of situational timing, then the approach that stands out to me is that we're in a better position to attack him now than we would be when he thinks the timing is right to blow up the world.
The worst part is that I can't see a valid "out" for Russia as a country from this.
Even if Russians, by some miracle, manage to pry Putin out of power, what then? Will anyone trust any of their leadership?
The level of sanctions on Russia is AFAIK unprecedented on a global scale, it's only been months and regular people are already feeling the effects. And if the sanctions go on for a few years, they'll be at Soviet Russia levels of living.
> Even if Russians, by some miracle, manage to pry Putin out of power, what then? Will anyone trust any of their leadership?
The only way that could happen is with some Germany post-WW2 level consequences and reckoning. All high level military, intelligence, civilian administration get one way tickets to The Hague for trial, with mandatory permanent exile for those not guilty of crimes. Full demilitarisation. Heavy economic sanctions for the rebuilding of Ukraine, and then Russia itself with loans
Why do you think there should be a "valid" (you mean face-saving?) exit from the war? I would argue that a full military defeat of Russia is a valid end of this war.
The Ruble is the world's top growing currency this year. The analysts seem to believe that it won't stay on top but that's certainly a positive note for Russia.
If he achieved "nothing" that would infact be preferable for Russia to the state they are in now. What he did is an equivalent of the manager of your team pulling a couple of all nighters over the weekend to do a "hero-refactor" on your codebase for "improvements" and then deploying it into production only for everyone to discover that the "improved" code has massive performance regressions, worse user experience and is harder to maintain... worse it can't be rolled back easily and the process of rolling it back will be slow and annoying, that is if the manager who made those changes even admits that it should be rolled back in the first place.
After all Putin's talk of the threats that other countries pose to Russia, the real threat to Russia is quite clearly Putin. He's a liability, and there's a very real possibility that he might make things even worse. Russia would be wise to remove him, but I have no idea how hard that would be.
> A lot of this was foreseeable too, which is why many (including myself) thought Putin wouldn't invade.
It was a gamble. Would Ukraine fold, or not? If they folded, Russia could have taken all of Ukraine, and the only price would be the sanctions. Putin could easily have thought that it would be worth the price.
The question was, what were the odds of Ukraine folding? Putin may have thought they were 90%, which would make it a worthwhile gamble. I'm not sure anyone in the West regarded the current situation as the most likely outcome, either.
So I'm not sure that it's fair to say that "a lot of this was forseeable". The sanctions were (though perhaps not to this level). NATO solidarity and Finland and Sweden joining were somewhat forseeable. I'm not sure that the rest were.
It doesn't matter if Ukraine folded. Why? Because what happens next?
If Russia installs a puppet regime and leaves, how long does that puppet regime last?
If Russia stays and maintains a military occupation, it faces the prospect of a decades-long counter-insurgency from a geographically large country with 44 million potential insurgents who are really unified by their hatred of Russians. Post-WW2 insurgencies have had an incredibly high chance of success against even far more numerous and technologically superior occupying forces. It's a bad bet.
I agree. The Putin regime has paid such an enormous price over the last three months that I'm now concerned they might take egregious and insane steps at any time. These steps would be to save face, and I think they can in part be avoided if the regime could somehow package together something that they can sell as a victory to the Russian people and their sympathizers abroad.
I've been keeping an eye on non-MSM sources, and I've of two minds:
* Is there any evidence that what you say is true? I find it hard to believe most news sources these days, and most nation states often boost their own bravado through press conferences.
* If it is true, then I'm glad that US representatives haven't wasted taxpayer money by sending military aid when it's obviously not needed. I lean libertarian like many others on this forum, so I resonate a lot with similar commentary here.
1. Failed to conquer all of Ukraine;
2. Failed to capture Kyiv;
3. Failed to make meaningful gains in the Donbass;
4. Failed to decapitate Ukraine's leadership;
5. Suffered huge casulaties;
6. Done massive damage to the perception of Russia's military (and thus the power it can project);
7. Done more for NATO solidarity than probably anything else in the last 20 years when previous to this, there wasn't a lot as much fervour for NATO;
8. Prompted Finland and Sweden to join NATO when previously they were happy being neutral;
9. Russia is now subject to broad sanctions where previously Europe was looking to increase gas dependence on Russia (eg Nord Stream 2).
So Putin has quite literally achieved nothing. A lot of this was foreseeable too, which is why many (including myself) thought Putin wouldn't invade.
The question now is what is Putin's state of mind? Is he aware of the true position (as in, is he getting accurate assessments and intelligence or just "yes men")? Does he still think he can "win"? What does "winning" even look like now? A rational person would be looking for a face-saving exit (think "mission accomplished"). I thought that might be occupying the Donbass and negotiating for some autonomy for the region but even that is starting to look out of reach.
My concern is that someone cornered like this after making such a huge gamble at terrible cost is capable of doing something even more awful.