The Missiles are Flying and the Tanks are Moving

So he’s done gone and done it. I can’t say that I believed this was the likely outcome, for reasons set out in previous posts. But there was enough uncertainty about Putin’s preferences and beliefs that it was always a possibility. And that possibility has become a reality.

Putin has appeared particular unhinged in his two most recent speeches. A combination of paranoia, grandiosity, and megalomania. The most bizarre aspect of his remarks is his portrayal of Ukraine as some existential threat, and in particular some existential military threat to Russia. It is hard to choose which would be worse: he believes it, or he doesn’t. The former would imply a paranoid man completely out of touch with reality, the latter a complete cynic willing to camouflage his covetous, irredentist, and history changing ambitions with transparently false justifications. (Similarly it is a no win situation in a choice between he is really unhinged or he is just playing it on TV.)

The recriminations in the West (and in the US in particular) are already underway. To be honest, Putin’s action suggests that there would have been little that anyone could have done to deter him. For reasons I’ve discussed, the action should have been self-deterring.

The only thing that could (not necessarily would) have made a difference would have been a concession by the US and Nato not to incorporate Ukraine now or in the future. It was stupid even to have contemplated Ukraine membership in Nato, so such a concession would have actually benefitted Nato and the US. Further, it would have deprived Putin of his pretext, and his reaction would have revealed more about his true agenda.

That said, such a concession was a necessary condition for avoiding the invasion, not a sufficient one: if Putin’s ambitions were truly larger, he would have proceeded regardless. But an invasion after a concession would have provided far more precise information about Putin’s goals than we have now. We are still in the dark as to whether seizing Ukraine will achieve Putin’s objectives, or whether those objectives are more expansive.

As my previous post indicated, Putin’s pre-invasion demands strongly suggest that his objectives are indeed more ambitious, and involve nothing short of rolling back Nato to its pre-1997 state. If that is indeed the case, the capitulation of Kiev would represent only a beginning and not an end. And that is a very disturbing prospect as it increases the odds of a Russia-Nato conflict in the near future.

Operationally, things are proceeding exactly as one would expect. The main outstanding question is how much opposition Ukraine’s armed forces will be able to mount.

I am also curious about what fraction of the invading forces are conscripts, and where they are in the conscription cycle. Those could influence how the campaign will proceed.

Back to Putin’s mental state. Recently he has been reprising what I referred to as “a man in a hurry” more than a decade ago. His haste seemed to have been in abeyance in recent years. So why has it returned?

A couple of possibilities come to mind. The first is that he just saw this as an opportunity. A weak and divided west, with a feckless and obviously mentally and physically limited American president. Germany compromised by its energy dependence on Russia, and its general Daimler über alles attitude. (BTW, Angela Merkel is probably grateful she left office–but she must called out on this mercilessly.)

A second possibility is that he is seriously ill. There have been rumors to this effect circulating recently–but there almost always are regarding strongmen. (There are rumors about Erdoğan’s health too.) But this precipitous, not to say maniacal, rush to war is something that a man on a mission would do if he believes the window to accomplish it is closing.

More later, as more information becomes available, and on what the options are available to the US and Europe, and what impediments may foreclose those options. (Re the latter, think of a country that begins with “G” and ends with “Y”.)