This war goes Putin (Opinion)
Politicians are right to fear a weakened and humiliated Russia. But they must be even more cautious with a strong and emboldened Russia.
Editor’s Note: James Nixey is the director of the Russia-Eurasia Program at Chatham House, specializing in relations between Russia and other post-Soviet states. He previously worked as an investigative reporter at the Moscow Tribune. The opinions expressed in this comment are your own.
A desperate Putin will hope not to destroy
Russia is losing its war against Ukraine. It is not yet defeated. But it is in that direction and President Vladimir Putin has fewer and fewer cards to play.
The energy of recent arrivals with Western determinations – in particular, the battle that Europe will spend winter supplying its Russian reserves, and Western politicians who do not want to go back and can go back and admit defeat – has given Russia a double hit.
Their posting of military strength and their status as a superpower, to whom they were most committed, had been the most important – and who were committed – as promoted as being Russia’s strongest assets.
Therefore, Putin, an extremist understood by his subordinates about Russia’s real capabilities, was forced to “reduce Russia to the bar to make its last dangerous threats (5 years ago), and with its partial mobilization, with its mobilization partial, less politically risky, of certainties 300,000 reservists.
It is the threat of the use of poisonous weapons, of course, that makes Western decision-makers stop and, in some cases, intend to waver – as if to do so. This should not, after all, be a goal of heart for the level of a state that has turned to fascism and little else to nuclear weapons in the world.
However, a growing majority of Western and now non-Western powers are unaware of a nuclear war, and which as debilitating effects will last in security and globally. Many leaders can accept concessions on Ukraine’s leaders. But it is politically embarrassing when the perpetrator and victim are so clearly distinguishable from each other. And when Russia is on the run.
In any of the recent studies released by Chatham House to determine the threshold of using dangerous weapons is extremely high. The professional Russian military process has procedures and processes in place, which means that there are many bumps and bumps before the use of nuclear weapons is considered.
Threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike is one thing, but people built up in important positions in Russia know that the consequences would be extreme – and above all that it would bring many more countries into the war, with ever-increasing weaponry. The certainty of a nuclear weapon is not impossible is an inherently safe situation – but it remains an unsafe nuclear weapon.
That said, many Western politicians, fearful in real fear of the consequences either of the consequences of an appealing dictator, want actions from an imploded Russia (with an even more extreme leader of Russia). The American, German and French leadership, in particular, have not been bold enough to explicitly appeal to this, despite the undesirability of any outcome that favors or concedes to Russia.
Instead, I need Russia’s crimes speak more vaguely to Ukraine (“over time,” said German Chancellor Scholz encouragingly). But don’t conceive of a defeated Russia and speak ritually of the need not to humiliate Russia (or even) – without making a connection that successfully helping Ukraine restore its territorial authority would greatly humiliate the Kremlin.
Indeed, politicians are right to fear a weakened and humiliated Russia. But logic suggests they should be even more wary of a strong and emboldened Russia.
Putin’s Wednesday speech, therefore, changes little – certainly not a Ukrainian determination, although conceivably it assumes more of the Russian populace, still fearful of being caught in the middle. Many Russians still support him (or at least are ambivalent) but most do not want to fight.
Likewise, the referendums to be held in the parts of the Ukraine region of the Donbass were still controlled by Russia also had little effect. In fact, these vows” were not even designed to give the veneer of legality, “as with so many other” Russians. That would be too big a request from all but the most ardent Putin apologists. At best, it will offer a pretext for a greater Russian mobilization war – thus justifying the new impulse, thus justifying the new impulse, can offer a pretext for a greater Russian mobilization war.
Putin’s next likely next step, then, as new infrastructures will seek to re-shift the show in their favor, will be convenient with conventional weapons to their “traditional” hybrid wars against desperate ways – the enemy to their own. own words.
This is wait. Russia is down, but not out. The Red Army fought badly against Finland in 1939 and was pushed through the stages in 1941. But they regrouped and came back close in the last of the war. More recently, in Chechnya, in the late 1990s, Russia turned around (in part by increasing brutality) after a “poor” start. This is not the time for Western complacency.
Putin’s regime is externally stable. Only final fractures are seen these days (the strange defection of the middle level, the occasional subtext of dissent from its outer circles, and, of course, this latest announcement itself).
But the more defeats inflicted on him, the more his military will lose confidence in him – insofar as they haven’t already. This would be the best outcome – regime change from within, not at the hands of the West or even its policies. And that’s not out of reach. This war goes Putin.