Putin will play the same game he’s always done – pushing things a step further and banking on the fact that the west will be too divided, and their politics too dominated by the ’don’t escalate’ mantra, to give a proper response. Personally I don’t think he’ll use any nuclear weapon, but the prospect does highlight the importance of the independent nuclear deterrent. Article 5 still has a degree of uncertainty about it, especially if the member attacked was small, difficult to defend and perhaps temporarily unpopular within NATO. If Putin does push it any further, he would choose his target very carefully to sow maximum division in the west, and of course he’d never attack a nuclear power that could respond unilaterally.
He may have been slightly surprised at the reaction to his invasion of Ukraine. His experience in Syria and the Crimea told him that the west would barely do anything at all, and thus the widespread sanctions and extensive military aid to Ukraine are probably a bigger reaction than he was expecting. Combine this with Russia’s poor military performance and it means things aren’t where he probably expected them to be at this point. I think the most likely outcome now is that Russia secures most of the Donbass, even though it’s rubble, and eventually declares some sort of victory and/or end to the ‘special military operation’. The war then settles down to a mostly-static affair with occasional airstrikes and shelling across the new lines.
The big question then is whether the west begins to tire of the whole thing and seeks to normalise relations with Russia. A lot may depend on elections and the balance of power in the next few years in the major European countries. Only Johnson is taking a really hard line, and he may yet be toppled by his own party in the next year. Macron is the appeaser-in-chief, Scholz will continue to hold Europe back from taking meaningful action against Russia that might damage the German economy, and Draghi seems keen to be a peacemaker – probably because sanctions against the dirtiest Russian money affect Italy more than most.
If the appeasers really get a hold of the agenda in Europe, Zelensky is likely to be told that he needs to concede something to Russia. Macron et al will be up there shaking hands with Putin and painting themselves as the people who saved Europe from nuclear war. Then we go back to dirty Russian money sloshing around everywhere, and perhaps our economies start to recover.
A quite likely scenario @Graham and excellent analysis.
Graham wrote:
Putin will play the same game he’s always done – pushing things a step further and banking on the fact that the west will be too divided, and their politics too dominated by the ’don’t escalate’ mantra, to give a proper response.
True. Therefore the only language which will keep Putin from sooner or later overstep other red lines is a show of force and clear consequences.
Graham wrote:
f uncertainty about it, especially if the member attacked was small, difficult to defend and perhaps temporarily unpopular within NATO. If Putin does push it any further, he would choose his target very carefully to sow maximum division in the west, and of course he’d never attack a nuclear power that could respond unilaterally.
Russia has it’s eyes on Germany, particularly Putin who has extensive experience there. As we know he never got over the fall of the Soviet union and on top of that Germany, in the eyes of those kind of folks, is the archenemy of Russia, up from the times of Alexander Nevski. The way that the likes of Putin or Erdogan think, history is all important, particularly their vision of it. Germany may not be a target militarily at this stage but I would not be surprised if Russia will increase pressure there.
Graham wrote:
Combine this with Russia’s poor military performance and it means things aren’t where he probably expected them to be at this point.
That is the important bit. The “falcons” in Russia have received a massive and harsh reality check. If Russia wishes to continue it’s military ambitions with conventional warfare, it has to stop this war, pull back the rest of their army and regroup and rebuild military strength. This is not something they can do in years, it will take a decade or more. At the same time, it will be something NATO will have to watch carefully. Because they won’t make the same mistake twice.
Graham wrote:
If the appeasers really get a hold of the agenda in Europe, Zelensky is likely to be told that he needs to concede something to Russia. Macron et al will be up there shaking hands with Putin and painting themselves as the people who saved Europe from nuclear war. Then we go back to dirty Russian money sloshing around everywhere, and perhaps our economies start to recover.
I fully agree with your expectation that Zelenski will not get all of his country back, it is quite likely that Crimea is a done thing and that Donbass will fall to Russia. Anything other than that without massive outside intervention of which in reality only NATO is capable of is not realistic. Zelenski will also have to scrap his plans to join NATO, at least for a pretty long time. Not only would this continuous ambition prevent any way Russia would stop the war, as it is legally preventing Ukraine to join up, but also as there will be some vetoes. We can see now that also the ambitions of Sweden and Finland to join up are anything but safe home, with so far Turkey blocking them.
Macron represents the only nuclear power within the EU, so he can negotiate from a position of relative strength, as is the ability of the UK. As long as “appeasement” means to stop Putin from using nukes anywhere AND to stop further aggression towards Europe, then it is an acceptable way out. Clearly the focus has to be on the latter argument as the former is unlikely. Russia must understand that any further aggression towards it’s neighbors will be beyond it’s means to achieve militarily short of nuclear conflict. Only then can sanctions be partially retracted in order also to strengthen those, who in the wake of the current war have been massively paralyzed in their business undertakings. All in all, I think opposition to Putins war and it’s consequences will primarily come from those circles who have lost their economic empires and aim to get it back somehow.
If this comes to pass it may well open the way for replacing Putin’s guard for other, hopefully less backward leaders in Russia. All in all, Russia has had taste of economic freedom over the last decades and there are many who will want that back. Yes, this may involve shady characters but it is the best hope we have to get Russia out of it’s warpath. Even though it can be seen that the same problems do not keep fanatics from persuing their ways, such as Erdogan in Turkey, who is accepting the complete economic ruin of his country to achieve whatever ends he wants to get.
Appeasement in the form that was done with Hitler and others has shown to be ineffective in the long run, so while some “appeasement” may be required to stop the war, it can not be the long term strategy how to force Russia into behaving itself within the world community. As you rightly mention, it is not unlikely that the way the Ukrainian “adventure” as his generals called it has caused a big re-thinking in Russia, in terms of what they are strategically capable. For this it will be necessary for NATO to remain intact as a force and to increase their battle readiness massively to cold war levels, at least for a while.
This drone looks like it has DA42/62 diesels and Hartzell props… no wonder the props are on such a long lead time
Peter wrote:
Hartzell props… no wonder the props are on such a long lead time
Confirms pretty much the rumours we heard before.
This looks like a russian Altius drone so shouldn’t have any effect on current parts scarcity.
Putin won’t use nukes, because he isn’t in any way irrational or crazy. He knows very well that this would change the balance of power dramatically against him. But it doesn’t matter as long as there are enough people in their voting age in the west who think he might use nukes, which ultimately leads to pseudo-intellectual retards writing ‘public letters’ to the public like in Germany, instead to the Kremlin. That happens everywhere and is stupid, and he counts on it.
He won’t back down, because despite all the sanctions and perceived difficulties in his special operation, he still earns enough money by selling gas and oil, which by the way is being transported by European (Greek) tankers to new clients in the far East, and by selling his gold reserves through open channels in Dubai, for example.
He has invaded Ukraine to get access to and make money from one of the resource richest countries on the European continent; hold the world hostage by blocking off food and raw materials and thereby exercise power over western countries and drive the international geopolitical agenda, and to get access to huge reserves in oil and gas underneath the black sea south of crimea.
In parallel, he follows a ‘eurasia’ agenda which is popular among the military and political leadership in Russia (i.e. Aleksandr Dugin). Eurasia’s western borders should be, in their mind, the atlantic coasts of France, Spain and Portugal. The group that follows that kind of thinking will never stop.
As a German, I know I shouldn’t compare Putin with Hitler, but in many aspects the cold, rational and strategic process is similar. The sanctions sound nice, but aren’t effective. He will try to drive the public agenda in western countries in the winter in a very nasty way by cutting off energy supply.
EuroFlyer wrote:
He will try to drive the public agenda in western countries in the winter in a very nasty way by cutting off energy supply.
Agreed. And unfortunately Germany has painted itself into a corner by shutting down its nuclear plants.
EuroFlyer wrote:
That happens everywhere and is stupid, and he counts on it.
Divide and conquer…
EuroFlyer wrote:
In parallel, he follows a ‘eurasia’ agenda which is popular among the military and political leadership in Russia (i.e. Aleksandr Dugin). Eurasia’s western borders should be, in their mind, the atlantic coasts of France, Spain and Portugal.
I think his primary objective is Germany, to “pay back” for 2 world wars which did invade Russia. But long term, yes, the Eurasia concept is still very much alive. Putin is not alone: Erdogan wishes the Ottoman empire back too. China wishes to control South-East Asia including Australia and NZ but first and foremost get Taiwan “back”.
The key to all this is the US. Neither China nor Russia can really complete their goals while the US still is the backbone of NATO and while they do keep a strong presence in SE Asia. That is why the current situation in the US is significant: Seeing the massive rift within the population and the clear objective of some political activists there to divide the Union to the breaking point is of course very interesting for both China and Russia. And I would not be surprised if Russian propaganda has had a lot to do with quite a few goings on there in the last several years, but not only. If the US gets more and more occupied with it’s own internal conflicts, Russia and China will get emboldened to assume that the US has no time to answer to their strategic ambitions.
The amount of stupidity, strategic carelessness and outright naïvete of German political leadership in dealing with the ‘spotless democrat’ makes us speechless these days. Some of the social democrats were – and still are – so far up P’s behind, they’ll never see light again. It’s going to be a very harsh impact this winter.
EuroFlyer wrote:
Some of the social democrats were – and still are – so far up P’s behind, they’ll never see light again. It’s going to be a very harsh impact this winter.
Not only the social democrats. Their government was conservative (at least in name CDU/CSU) for a long time. Merkel is CDU.
