Just a random thought on this topic: Putin originally claimed (and his Western partisans still do) that the offensive in Ukraine was about countering NATO aggression. It's resulted in attacks on Moscow itself, occupation of Russian territory, and now, modern NATO weapons being used inside Russia. He's still in a fairly advantageous position militarily right. He could easily, I think, ask for and win strong restraints on NATO in a peace negotiation. But it never was actually about that, now was it?
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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He’s still in a fairly advantageous position militarily right.
For now yes, but he was in a much MUCH better position before he invaded Ukraine.
- Two fewer NATO members on his borders
- The full bounty of Soviet stockpiles of weapons
- The inherent fear about what the "second largest military on Earth" could do
- The power of threatening to use nuclear weapons
- hundreds of thousands of healthy men to drive a national economy
All of those are gone now for russia.
With russia abandoning its ally Armenia in a military time of need against Azerbaijan, it suggests russia is not capable of fighting wars on two fronts. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that Georgia marching forces to take back South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
But it never was actually about that, now was it?
No it wasn't. I think Putin started with Crimea because he was afraid of losing Russia's best warm water port after Euromaidan kicked the russian puppet out of Ukraine and Ukraine indicating it would not renew the russian lease of Sevastopol. When that was stunningly successful for russia to take Crimea, and the world mostly allowed it, he thought there were no limits on him taking Ukraine bit by bit. Luhansk and Donetsk invasion was to secure the petroleum and gas reserves found in Eastern Ukraine and prevent Ukraine from threatening Russia's only real economy power: fossil fuel energy deliveries to Europe and Asian. Again the world didn't really step in or sanction Putin very much, and he thought Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine would be an easy win.
You're right about why he took Crimea.
He tried to take Ukraine because Xi had finished subjugating Hong Kong and said he'd be moving on Taiwan soon, putin didn't want to look like the weaker partner, and if both moved at the same time they were positive the west would be paralyzed by fear, Afghanistan was already proof the west was weak.
His miscalculation was 2 fold: 1. Xi didn't understand how naval power worked, the PLAN needed another decade minimum to credibly threaten Taiwan, 2. Russia's army was decimated by decades of corruption itself.
We got lucky, if big daddy z took that ride the west would be in a bad place right now.
We got lucky, if big daddy z took that ride the west would be in a bad place right now.
I'm not so sure. Taking Crimea, but leaving the rest of Ukraine a sovereign state broke the pattern of historical European prelude to war.
- Napoleon started with the Italian campaign, consolidated power in France, pushed through the Czech and Austrian armies into Russia.
- Hitler invaded Poland, then Denmark, then Norway, then Belgium
Putin, by stopping at Crimea, made this look like a localized dispute between two sovereign nations, not the conquest of the entire nation, with more to follow. Had Putin taken all of Ukraine in 2014, that would look very much like a Napoleon or Hitler seeking European domination. The world would have responded very differently I think.
He would have had no choice, not taking ukraine would have required every country to start arming, Europe would have tooled up, Sweden and Finland too, they weren't thrilled with Russia before this.
Yeah putin might have imagined he'd keep Ukraine subjugated by fear alone, but they were moving to the western sphere ever since maidan, that was unlikely.
Putin was trying to command the tides to withdraw, that's futile, it's all over already.
Russians genuinely believe the only way to prevent being invaded is to invade and dominate all their neighbors as far as possible, for purely defensive reasons you understand.
Russia can never be safe, until the entire planet is subjugated by Russia.
Cultural paranoia as foreign policy.