Various reports say that NATO is about to announce that Ukraine is on an "irreversible" course to gain membership just as soon as they get their corruption under control.
So out of an alleged fear of NATO encirclement, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and got (a) Sweden in NATO, (b) Finland in NATO, (c) NATO members finally spending 2% of GDP on defense, and (d) Ukraine on a clear course to join NATO.
Quite the geopolitical genius, Putin is.
True, and I don’t think Xi Jinping is the sharpest knife in the drawer, either — the recent purges suggest that many of his top military were siphoning off funds meant for procurement and/or operational readiness. Doesn’t seem he thought to look into this until he saw it had happened in Russia.
No wonder TFG admires Vlad so much.
Yes, When TFG finishes draining the swamp, I expect to find them both there, stinking like dead fish in the swamp muck.
Makes excellent fertilizer after you dry it in the sun.
The swamp he wants to drain is his septic tank. He will drain it into your back yard, or front yard if that is easier.
I'm sure Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great had a few setbacks along the way.
Ivan fought the Livonian war in an (ultimately failed) attempt to gain access to the Baltic Sea. He pretty much wrecked Russia's economy, and died shortly after it ended. This was after much more successful pushes into Central Asia.
So really, not a bad comparison at all.
Preventing Ukraine from joining NATO was just the fig leaf to justify territorial aggression.
As much as I'd like to agree with you, Kevin, I must note:
1. Vlad is still in the game...this may well be Great Power Suicide, (see LGM), but this patient is farfrom having bleed out
2. Chinese troops are currently in Belarus, on the Polish border, practicing war games, cooperation & coordination
3. North Korea is supplying shells and...soon if not already, an engineering battalion (with more to come?) There is s surfeit of young impoverished men to draw from.
4. Iran has been generous with the supply of war material to Russia...
5. Modi has just been kissing hands for the gift to India of well discounted Russian Oil.
These are but a few of the positives in Russia's favor, though they are the most important. Mr Putin has played, what I passionately saw as a weak hand, amazingly well.
Just Sayin` Traveller
"Mr Putin has played, what I passionately saw as a weak hand, amazingly well." Quite. And I think Ukrainians and we the public in the West have been lied to by our media-military-industrial complex. We should wake up now. Russia cannot be defeated, certainly not if we don't even define what victory means, nor does it appear to be intent on invading all of Ukraine let alone NATO countries. Sanctions hurt Europe more than they hurt Russia, now the fastest-growing economy on the continent. Russia and China now are looked up to by the Global South, not us, courtesy a.o. of Israel beside whose crimes those of Russia pale. And BRICS is going to change global trade in a way we can't foresee, but almost certainly Russia and China will be ascendant as the US loses the soft power of the dollar.
Putin I think is neither brilliant nor nice, but a fool he is not and we who let ourselves be led by the nose are. Most of all Boris Johnson with his Churchill fantasy was a fool when he sabotaged the peace talks that were held soon after Russia's initial invasion failed and which looked good.
The North Koreans, Chinese, Russians, Indians, Israelis, organized criminal gangs, and the “Islamic world” are all operating in opposition to liberal democracy. I don’t think they are all allies and the Israelis are a notable example of one fighting another, but they all operate from the same basic oppressive ideology and well organized corruption.
The western world seems to be slipping into similar dystopia.
I would point out that Ukraine started with and continues to have a weaker hand...two years into this war.
is there a chart showing russia is fastest growing world economy?
Here's a chart showing that Russia *isn't* the fastest growing economy--not by a long shot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate
Yah, thought so. Ruralhobo is a propagandist.
It is not and the only thing keeping its economy afloat is massive amounts of defense spending (about 6% of GDP, compared to about 3% for the US) funded by selling oil to the Indians and Chinese at massive discount to world prices. It's a crazy house of cards that will come crashing down as soon as the war is over.
Putin has effectively ruined Russia to pursue his quixotic megalomaniac dreams of reviving a tsarist empire.
Re: Russia can't be defeated.
No one wants a defeat like Japan and Germany in WW2.
If Ukraine does not attack - just defends it can punish Russia. My reading is that attack requires 3 times the manpower for defense.
No, we probably won't force Putin to come on to come onto a Ukrainian naval vessel moored in Sevastopol to sign instruments of surrender, but "winning" will essentially mean the withdrawal of all Russian forces from internationally-recognized Ukrainian territory (whether that will also mean Crimea remains to be seen), and official recognition by Russia of the legitimacy of those boundaries and Ukrainian sovereignty. For Putin, however, that will definitely amount to "losing" and he won't do it unless his military is ground down so badly that there is no other option.
Putin has added considerable real estate to Russia's holdings. There's not even any serious debate any more over whether he ought to be kicked out of Crimea, for instance.
And he has worked extraordinarily successfully to subvert opposition from the United States. Ukraine remains a big problem for him, no question, and maybe historians will look back on it as his Stalingrad. But a lot of damage happened before -- and after -- Stalingrad.
Putin traded in (what was perceived to be) the world's biggest military for a chunk of poor countryside in Eastern Ukraine. Even paying the pension obligations on those people would have been a strain on Russia's economy, but burning away its military superiority for it and having to defend it in perpetuity? That makes no sense as a trade.
Russia has vast land holdings. Anybody saying "see Russia got more worthless land" is out of their minds. What Russia needed is (1) a working economy, (2) markets where it could sell its fossil fuels for market prices [now gone as a result of this war], (3) economic and military power to influence its neighbors, which it's now largely traded away.
"There's not even any serious debate any more over whether he ought to be kicked out of Crimea" There was no serious debate on that point before the latest war.
You make the statements "Putin has played his weak hand well" and "Russia cannot be defeated" equivalent. You have one imply the other.
This is garbage. Putin desperately needs Trump to win and turn off the spigot of arms flowing to Ukraine. The loss ratio that Russia is sustaining now cannot be sustained indefinitely.
Russia has burned through a huge percentage of its reserve artillery and tanks (stockpiled over decades by the USSR) and is losing about 85 tanks per month, which substantially exceeds the rate at which they can refurbish them. The country is projected to run out of artillery barrels in about two years, and tanks not long after that. They've burned through 450,000 soldiers (that's casualty figures, maybe 100-150K dead.) They've also lost a shocking percentage of their Black Sea fleet, and total use of the port at Sevastopol.
In exchange for having reduced a global military power to a regional power, well on its way to being a disarmed power, Russia has obtained... can somebody remind me what they've wpn? When I look at the maps from early 2023 it looks like they controlled some patches of worthless land in Eastern Ukraine. And when I look at the maps today it looks like they now control almost exactly the same thing.
... can somebody remind me what they've wpn?
'Respect'. Respect and fear, at any horrible cost, and the spectacle of getting away with it. The social conservatives' deepest need.
Gratifying for wingnuts everywhere.
" certainly not if we don't even define what victory means" How can you be this ignorant. The Ukrainians clearly define victory as expelling Russia from their territory. The west defines victory as Ukraine being willing to stop dying. "nor does it appear to be intent on invading all of Ukraine let alone NATO countries."Again your ignorance is near100%. The Russians initial invasion plans involved conquering all of the Ukraine. Why else was Kiev it's main target. And of course the Baltic countries would have been the next targets if Ukraine had gone well. "Most of all Boris Johnson with his Churchill fantasy was a fool when he sabotaged the peace talks that were held soon after Russia's initial invasion failed and which looked good." contrary to bald face lies like this one, there ws never any interest in peace talks from the Ukrainians.
Russia the fastest growing economy on the continent? Did they figure out a way to monitize alcoholism?
putin is a modern biĺl w.
Pardon me, but I think you've left out the biggest asset Putin has - the RepubliQan Party. If they manage to get their criminal back into the WH - Putin has won. Not just in Ukraine, but in the USA also.
If Trump wins, any support for Ukraine from the USA will stop immediately. Trump may very well back out of NATO (he actually just admitted that he didn't know what it was until he was president), and Trump will almost certainly welcome Putin to take whatever he wants of Ukraine.
In the background, the ENTIRE RepubliQan Party will cheer for the demise of Ukraine, the demise of NATO, and all hail Putin.
Yes. Nick Cohen has this covered this morning: https://nickcohen.substack.com/p/donald-trump-the-only-quisling-vladimir
Does that mean Putin has the pee tapes?
Why would Trump actually care? His character flaws seem to be accepted by the sheeple who vote for him.
the pee tape is realer than the day the clown cried.
Kevin's right that Putin isn't a geopolitical strategist of maximum genius. But you're right: Kevin's too dismissive. Russia is still a very, very dangerous country, especially backed by Xi.
They're an extraction based economy which has been exposed as a relative paper tiger when it comes to military capability being run by a small group of individuals who partake in the extraction.
So sure they're dangerous, but they've shed the last of their World Power status and will pay a price for decades to come.
In other words - they are rather like Saudi Arabia - or Texas.
Russia has lost one-third of the Black Sea Fleet, including its flagship. It has lost the use of the Crimean ports, including the former headquarters port of the fleet at Sevastopol. Its warships are at risk, even in their alternate port of Novorossiysk.
Russia has not been able to occupy and hold any large Ukrainian city. The last city to fall to the Russian Army was Avdiivka, with a prewar population of ~30,000; Russian losses of personnel, armor and aircraft were enormous and unsustainable.
The Daily Mail and the Kyiv Independent reported on a claimed leak of a Russian peace plan calling for joint Ukrainian/Russian sovereignty over Crimea. If there is any truth to that, it could only be that Russia fears its occupation of Crimea is becoming unsustainable. That has clearly been a Ukrainian objective; Crimea is heavily dependent on supply from outside. Ukraine has attacked the Kerch Strait Bridge several times, has recently attacked the nearby ferry terminal and ferries. The railroad Russia has been constructing to supply Crimea overland will be vulnerable to long-range weapons with which Ukraine is increasingly being supplied. It is the same strategy Ukraine used to recapture Kherson with little actual fighting: cut supply lines to make occupation untenable.
I don’t view an invasion that was expected to achieve total victory within a week or two, that instead has become a multi-year quagmire of massive losses, counts as an act of genius.
None of these 5 items appear to indicate a well played hand.
5. How is having to sell its petroleum to India at a discount to the world price a win for Russia? It’s just trying to make the best of a bad situation.
how is any of that playing the game well or a net benefit to putin or russia? he's mired in a disastrous war that's killed 50k and wounded hundreds of thousands russians, spent hundreds of billions in direct costs while hobbling their economy (forcing them to sell discounted oil to india), and NATO has expanded and strengthened. the fact that china, iran and north korean are providing assistance isn't a benefit of the war, simply a necessity costing them more money. and all for what? putin's pipe dream of a new russian empire.
If only the Russian people could see it. Instead they stand by or support the barbarism. Some reports have over 100,000 dead Russian military. And yet there seems an inexhaustible supply of hatred and cowardice in Russia.
This happens all the time so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Humanity really has some dark forces operating today all over the world and right next door too.
Here’s another example which just boggles the mind.
“Reports that a powerful Rio drug lord known for his extremist religious beliefs ordered Catholic churches near his stronghold to close have spooked worshipers and security experts and exposed the advent of a “narco-pentecostal” movement made up of heavily armed evangelical drug traffickers. Claims emerged in the Brazilian press over the weekend that Álvaro Malaquias Santa Rosa – a notorious gang boss known as Peixão (Big Fish) – had determined that three places of worship should shut down in and around the agglomeration of favelas that he controls in northern Rio.”
Heavily armed evangelicals…. There you go! Putin uses similar religious ideology to justify his barbarism. And so will our neighbors and coworkers. I really don’t think optimism is warranted.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/10/brazil-gang-boss-drug-trafficking-closing-churches
A dictator wins every day he remains a dictator. There are no other variables that matter to them. Alliances with other dictators are irrelevant; outside alliances are irrelevant. So Putin is winning because Putin is in charge.
The west needs to decide how to engage with dictatorships moving forward. We used to eventually just fight a war with them, but that's off the table with nuclear weapons. The death of a dictators offers opportunity but outcomes are uncertain.
Dictatorships now have direct propaganda pipelines into democracies, and the profit motive gives them alliances with the domestic unscrupulous who prey upon the stupid / fearful. I'm not sure how to fight this but my only hope is the younger generation which seems more savvy than the 'olds' to internet / media bullshit. The left should be fighting this but their inability to understand the importance of 'pan-tribalism' in forming internal alliances is really worrisome. We will see.
I was about to post something along these lines but you beat me to it and said it better to boot.
+1
One way to "engage with dictatorships" is to become one yourself, which is what we are very much on track to doing.
It usually ends when the dictatorships do something stupid. Pearl Harbor is one example. The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is another. China pissing off all of its neighbors and forcing them into a US-aligned alliance is a third. Presumably whatever it does with Taiwan (whether successful or not) will be another.
The whole problem with these dictatorships is that, unlikely democracies, their entire nature is incompatible with cooperation and mutual flourishing. As a result, they force their neighbors (no matter how reluctantly) to align against them. This might work if you can achieve 100% global dominance in one big push before your neighbors can respond, but the Nazis showed how hard that is.
Actually, Putin’s hold on power would be more secure if he hadn’t invaded.
just wait til the kids start posting "vladimir putin was A PROBLEM #PROBLEM" highlight reels on tiktok.
I would have to disagree with Ruralhobo...Certainly Putin has played his hand well, but this does not mean he will win...he has already lost, actually...north of 500,000 wounded and dead....for a country with a severe demographic problem, these are men that well not raise families....or, as I just had to say further at my travel site:
....this war has properly been called a Great Power's Suicide....maybe so (from War on the Rocks, an analysis):
Throughout its history, Russia has rarely cared for its soldiers, on or off the battlefield. The Kremlin’s current attempt to do right by its veterans looks to be simultaneously insufficient and unaffordable, destined to leave behind armies of broken men while draining state coffers. After nearly two and a half years of grinding warfare, both Ukraine and Russia have taken horrendous casualties and spent hundreds of billions of dollars. Despite such a price, the conflict is unlikely to end soon, with both sides believing they have more to gain. This price is not just paid on the battlefield. Even if the fighting were to end today, the economic and demographic impact felt by the Russians would be generation-shaping.
Through open source information on the costs of health care and the state of the Russian medical system, alongside historical scholarship and medical publications, we examine the crushing economic damage of the war on Russia from the lens of military personnel. We conclude that the state is logistically, fiscally, and culturally unprepared for the tremendous burden of supporting veterans and their families, presenting serious questions about state capacity going forward.
Above all else, the Russian state has to financially support the families of fallen soldiers in perpetuity. Many of the wounded (to say nothing of the dead) will permanently be out of the workforce, and even those who return to it will require lifelong mental and physical health care. And the numbers of dead or wounded service members will only worsen the negative demographic trends in Russia. These challenges will grow larger as the war continues and the bodies pile up.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
More at the link
https://warontherocks.com/2024/07/wounded-veterans-wounded-economy-the-personnel-costs-of-russias-war/
Best Wishes, Traveller
I think Russia has been on the losing end of the war but Putin himself is doing fine. He’s still firmly in power and completely untouched by sanctions. And, as others has observed, he still has a potentially extremely powerful Trump card to play. Putin is beloved by the MAGA crowd and that gives him control over the country’s ruling party which, in turn, gives him effective control over the United States.
If Trump wins, Ukraine and Western Europe are doomed.
Agree with your analysis, but disagree with the outcome. I think Western Europe would become more heavily involved in Ukraine, and would suffer in consequence. But its economic and technological strength, and Russia’s poor performance in combined-arms operations and logistics, would ultimately lead to the latter’s being thrown back to its historic borders. I don’t think Putin would survive that.
putin actually is gripped by parkinson, or another such neurodegenerative ailment, though.
once more, every altright accusation stovepiped to credulous sulzberger advertiser stenographers is a confession.
Some good points have been made in these comments. Putin "wins" if he stays in power. CHECK. Putin has gained alliances with other powerful dictators. CHECK. Russia is not losing the war. CHECK.
However, Ukraine is not losing the war, either, and its allies, once it joins NATO, will far outnumber Putin's; they will also be collectively determined to prevent Ukraine's defeat and welcome it into the circle of liberal democracies. That looks almost inevitable now.
I'd call that a defeat for Putin, just as Kevin does. Gaining relatively weak alliances and demonstrating that you can do nothing about Ukraine despite hundreds of thousands of your citizens being sent to their deaths, being cut off from much of the global economy and losing face? Also defeats.
Putin has strengthened some alliances with other authoritarian regimes, but we don’t know the prices he has had to pay.
" just as soon as they get their corruption under control."
So NATO membership for Ukraine sometime in the mid-23rd century.
I was about to say... where does he get off saying that this is an irrevocable path? The corruption thing is a way out, but really, are we honestly interested in sending our children to fight and die defending Ukraine? Having a draft-age son, I am not convinced we should bring Ukraine into NATO unless there is some sort of defensible peace, for instance. Accepting countries into NATO, especially front line states, should not be undertaken lightly.
He remains a master strategist. IYKYK
Well, in Putin's defense, he certainly expected to win quickly and cheaply, and be able to impose his ideal settlement on Ukraine. He had every reason to expect success because of the investment he'd made in his military. He was undone by the incompetence and corruption of his own military establishment, and by the unexpectedly determined and competent resistance of the Ukrainians.
The incompetence and corruption shouldn't be surprising, given the nature of Putin's regime, but they're generally not visible until put to the test.
On the other subjects, I'm not sure of the significance of NATO membership. Certainly, the whole business has exposed some serious weaknesses in NATO. Forty years ago, NATO had a unified command structure with forces configured to resist Soviet aggression, and plans to deploy that force. Now, not so much. A few years ago, Germany, long the most capable land force in NATO after the US, had a total of one armored battalion that could be deployed to protect the Baltic states in the event of expected Russian aggression. But less than half its tanks were operational, and the railroad had only 3 cars capable of transporting tanks. It would have taken weeks to move that partial battalion to Lithuania.
NATO's fundamental weakness had been on display for years prior, though. Remember the "Duty to Protect" operation against Muammar Qaddafi back in 2011? The Germans and French ran out of precision-guided munitions fighting Libya, and their capability has only deteriorated since then.
And if Ukraine were admitted to NATO, and Article 5 invoked, then what? Would NATO rush American, German, and French ground forces into Ukraine? Would they launch airstrikes from Poland into Belarus and Russia? How much would they have to worry about defending the Baltic states?
I have no praise for Putin or any of his works, but he's not nearly as weak as some of the Western press and pundits would have us believe.
For decades NATO’s planning would have accepted Russian advances, while allies built up the capability to counterattack and drive the invaders back. Since the revelations of the brutality of Russian occupation in Ukraine, strategy is shifting to denial, to stopping an invasion at/very near the border. (I couldn’t quickly find the references I had read earlier; Google seems to me to be getting less effective)
If Russia were to attempt to retake the Baltics, my money would be on the Poles to spearhead NATO in making Putin regret it.
I'm not sure what claim you're making. Near as I can tell, the strategy from the 1950s through sometime in the 1970s was as you describe - retreat as fast as possible to avoid being over-run, while waiting for the US to deploy major forces to Antwerp and France. And probably go nuclear.
By the 1980s, though, the strategy was to fight and win a conventional war near the border, and that's what planning focused on. I say that with confidence because I was in the US Army in Germany at the time, and I saw the war plans and listened to the generals - their watchword was "We need to make sure the President doesn't have to decide to use nuclear weapons."
It may not have been a realistic plan, because the Soviets would have had their own choice to use nuclear or chemical weapons, but the forces were structured, trained, and maintained to be ready to fight a large conventional war.
At the moment, I wouldn't worry too much about Russia deciding to widen the operational area. Although the NATO armies aren't as capable as we'd like, they aren't currently engaged, and Russia appears about at the limits of its capability. But I'm not sure how willing the NATO countries would be to extend the operational area either. They also seem to be near the limits of their capabilities. Then there's the nuclear option to think about as well.
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying here. I didn’t know that the strategy had started to shift so early, but then I haven’t done any DoD work since the 1970’s.
I remain surprised at how long Putin is willing to let this war go on. Whatever Putin thought of his military, Russia has shown itself to be an extremely weak rival to the US and getting weaker by the month even as the Russian Federation destabilizes.
- Last year he saw the honest reaction of the public to embrace Prigozhin's march to Moscow, resulting in Putin having him assassinated.
- Most of his Black Sea Fleet is gone and the remaining have been moved out of Crimea.
- Russia has lost all leverage and ability to control Ukraine grain flows. You don't even hear anyone talking about grain deals anymore.
- Russia's influence of the Caucuses has plummeted with Armenia pulling out of the Russian CSTO, and ISIS-K groups hitting Moscow and parts of Dagestan.
- He's lost over a third of his strategic bombers, almost all of his operational tanks, possibly 1/4 of his mothballed fleet, and about 1/2 of all infantry fighting vehicles.
- Russia's lost so many anti-aircraft/radar units, they've had to pull them out from its border regions and from Syria, and relocating those in Crimea to Belgorod, no longer able to stop Ukraine's drone waves.
- With withering attacks on its refineries, Russia has placed a ban on gasoline exports and is increasing imports of gasoline.
- Russia's sustained over half a million casualties, averaging over 1000 a day this past year.
Still, he persists in his war against Ukraine as he watches them launch wave after wave of drone attacks deep into Russian territory including into Moscow.
And are no longer in active battle with Russia…
The refinery attacks are a smart move — Russia is forced to halt exports of more-profitable distillates and make up the revenue selling a greater quantity of less-profitable crude. World crude prices actually declined due to increased supply, undoubtedly forcing Russia to offer steeper discounts to sanctions-defying buyers.
I have to admit, I thought Vlad was more canny than he is. He does good villain PR.
But this seems like an example of believing one's own bullshit. His alternate history romance-novel-for-tyrants nonsense convinced him of some combination of historical determinism and "the decadent west is weak". Some people occupy roles that make them incapable of understanding why blue jeans are so powerful.
Inevitable consequence of choosing underlings for loyalty instead of competence.
Has Putin been diagnosed with some incurable ailment by his personal team of physicians?
Giving Dubya's invasion of Iraq under false pretences a run for its money.
As others say, Putin has kept himself in power, which is the main thing for him. Once a path of aggression is started, it may be necessary to keep fighting wars and keep nationalist fervor high to distract from the domestic harm that these wars cause. Napoleon acknowledged this explicitly.
This ability to retain power is probably why Trump admires dictators like Putin and Kim. He is not really interested in his country's benefit.
And if Putin can help Trump get reelected, it all goes poof.
"NATO members finally spending 2% of GDP on defense, " That never happened.
In 2014 - the year Putin invaded Crimea - there were three NATO member countries that met the 2% threshold. Last year there were 11.