I have been wrong about how far Putin was prepared to go.
So now I am considering that I may have to avoid being wrong in the future about how far he may be prepared to go.
History provides us with very few useful examples of conquerors that recognised the stop signals. Maybe Julius Caesar after his visits to Britain, but then he went home and started crossing other lines domestically.
Putin needs Ukraine to surrender in order to begin to stabilise his situation at home and abroad. If they don't comply in the short-term he may be drawn into a bigger test of resolve, his and the NATO nations, plus countries like Sweden and Finland who may now be inclined to sign up for the longer term response.
It may seem absurd and profoundly premature to call the start of WWIII, but something has definitely ended — the European security order post-1945. (If the Spanish Civil war was the beta test for WWII, could this be an long overdue V2.0?)
Ukraine is not Syria or Afghanistan. Putin has demonstrated that it is a territory of historical strategic importance to Russia yet in doing so has surely sprung open a greater significance to the whole continent.
The Russian leader made a clear threat to use nuclear weapons against interfering third parties. That changes everything, forever.
Russia's pariah status will be lasting and more profound than no more Grand Prix, UEFA finals, Eurovision etc.
And we should be prepared for things to get markedly worse.
Europe has a Russian gas dependency. Turn off the pipeline and supplies would run dry in six weeks, but if they get a move on now they can reduce the risk significantly and this is one area where Atlantic support remains extremely important.
The key institutions representing 'the West' have been caught out. I'd maintain that there were significant collective — institutional — failures that made this outcome more likely, but that is certainly not an excuse for Putin's actions this month.
We can argue about his motivations: the threat posed by an advancing alliance, the threat to his ambition of imitating Peter the Great and re-establishing 'Greater Russia', but underneath it all the real threat has always been transparent liberal democracy and human rights.
A neutral Ukraine would have been a decent enough idea before, but not any more, especially if Zelensky now signs up for that with a gun against his head.
Boris says the only acceptable result is for Putin's adventure to end in failure. But there are degrees of failure available here and one could argue that a superficially wounded Putin would present the greatest danger of all.
Meanwhile, the task ahead for Ukraine is recorded in the history books from the times when these lands were invaded by French and Germans. Avoid final defeat, retreat from or at least dodge around an advancing superior force, play for time and the seasons, wear them down until they lose track of their objectives and their motivation for conquest sags.
2 comments:
When he said he would go atomic on the west, he pretty much killed himself. His own people will kill him because they know, the west will fire first if they think for a second that Putin is going atomic. The man forgot the rules. His own people have to kill him to stay safe from the west's atomic arsenal.
If some of the reports from Ukraine about Russian losses are halfway true, Putin is already in a lot of trouble. This comes with the caveat that one sided reports from battlefields should often be taken with a pinch of salt. Indeed, even Napoleon himself would admit that declarations of victory at the very moment of triumph are not always a sure thing. But still. We can hope.
I think we’re both agreed that the possibility exists that a cornered Putin might order a tactical nuke be fired off. That order would test his authority, don’t you think? He doesn’t press the button himself. That’s the moment when those around him have to make a decision to obey or to overthrow. Maybe that moment could come earlier, if he ordered certain non nuclear munitions to be fired strategically in populated areas.
These are testing times. I’m sure we’re all rather glad to have gotten through to an age where we’re unlikely to be called up…
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