EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — Vladimir Putin wanted this war. The “special military operation” launched in Ukraine, is just another step toward confrontation and conflict with the West for which Putin has been preparing for almost two decades. He announced his view to the world in his alarming speech to the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, in which he strongly criticized the rules-based world order led by what he called a “monopolistic” United States.
He went on to cite alleged broken promises made to the Soviet Union about the eastward expansion of NATO and continued with strong criticism of US plans to build a missile shield in Europe. Putin followed his words with actions, withdrawing from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and then invading the Republic of Georgia in August 2008. He invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, and shortly after, supported secessionist forces in Ukrainian Donbas.
In 2015, at the invitation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia intervened militarily in the Syrian Civil War. This intervention gave Putin an opportunity to observe the performance of his military in quite a different combat environment than Crimea (essentially, a special operations forces action) and the Republic of Georgia (a relatively limited military operation against a vastly inferior military).
The Syrian intervention also gave Putin the opportunity to evaluate the performance of Russia’s Air Force and Navy. The latter, in launching cruise missiles from the Black Sea Fleet and vessels in the eastern Mediterranean - at targets in Syria. The former, in both precision and mass bombing of ISIS and Syrian opposition forces in urban and rural environments. As these interventions were taking place, Russia was exercising its considerable operational cyber, disinformation, and active measures capabilities.
Under Putin’s direction, Russia was modernizing its strategic and theater nuclear capabilities and developing advanced capabilities such as hypersonic systems. All this was clearly in preparation for the coming conflict with the West.
We are now at the brink of that conflict. That Ukraine was not the real target of Putin’s attention may have been indicated by his decision to observe a test of Russia’s strategic nuclear capabilities from a bunker in the days before the initiation of the “special military operation.”
Putin is now engaged in a deliberate all-out effort to re-engineer the world order. He is following a plan that he has outlined in repeated speeches since his remarks in 2007. Though his speeches and actions in recent months have appeared to many as irrational and suggest he is unwell and/or mentally unstable, I argue that he is convinced of his strategic genius and is executing a plan long in the making which — in his mind —will have rebuild the world order into a bi- or multi-polar world with Russia restored to its place at the top of one of those poles, presumably alongside the US/EU and China.
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If he succeeds, Putin will have also restored lands taken from Russia over the centuries, and he will have righted the ever-increasing list of injustices that he believes have been suffered by Russia over the centuries. Putin believes most of these injustices were inflicted on Russia by the West. In his September speech to the UN General Assembly in 2015, Putin said “I’m urged to ask those who created this situation, do you at least realize now what you have done?”
The decision to move again into Ukraine was not made by a madman, but rather by a leader supremely confident is his strategic vision and in the preparations for conflict made by his military, intelligence services, and the steps he took to protect Russia’s economy from the costs of the coming conflict.
Using the Soviet terms, Putin likely assessed the Correlation of Forces and Correlation of Means as being decisively favorable to the initiation of conflict. He might have even believed he would win without having to fight. In addition to assessing the capabilities and performance of his military, Putin certainly will have assessed the state of leadership of his opponents, deeming the U.S. President ‘weak’ and the man who, as Vice President, saw former President Barak Obama back down to President Assad in Syria. From Putin’s perspective, Europe’s most capable leader, Angela Merkel, is now off the stage, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is facing political trouble in the UK, French President Emmanuel Macron has been deemed as feckless, egotistical and focused on his own re-election.
Putin will have looked at the west’s military capabilities and seen NATO as a hollow shell; Germany, who can’t put military aircraft in the sky, the UK, with no anti-submarine vessels, and a US military exhausted from decades of conflict and reeling from the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Everywhere he looked, Putin will have seen division and discontent in the homelands of his opponents, also economically weakened by two and a half years of COVID and more dependent on Russian hydrocarbons than ever. Putin will also have believed promises of support made to him by Chinese President Xi Jinping when Putin visited him in Beijing just before the start of the war. His eastern front thus secured, Putin could turn to the West and execute his plan.
He will have viewed his previous decisions to intervene as successes - Crimea and Donbas were annexed, Georgia intimidated and Abkhazia and South Ossetia Russian fiefdoms, Assad remains President in Syria, his disinformation sowed serious divisions in the U.S. - and concluded that now is the time for his master stroke.
These are not the calculations of a madman or someone in less than full possession of his faculties, even if he expresses his ambitions in passionate or even messianic language. History may eventually judge Putin as having been mistaken, having made serious misjudgments and having been given bad information, but it is unlikely to judge him as a lunatic.
Many who have met Putin argue that he has changed in the past few years and describe him as being “different” than he was before. This may be true. He likely feels less need to engage in diplomatic niceties and may be engaging in more aggressive behavior as an intimidation tactic. Let’s not forget that he has ruled the world’s most powerful nuclear power for over twenty years and has made himself one of the richest men on the planet in the process. These are not necessarily indicators of a crazy man.
Putin has rolled the dice. Even if there were an “off ramp” he will not take it now. His only option is escalation. He is certainly still confident in his calculation of the Correlation of Forces, and that his first echelon opponent Ukraine, will eventually capitulate and that the West, unprepared economically, politically, and militarily for conflict, will eventually accede to Putin’s security guarantee demands as presented in December 2021.
Putin probably still believes the West will do anything, make any concession to avoid becoming involved in a war in Europe or a nuclear war. Putin has shown he is not afraid to go to war and we may well see he is not afraid to use a nuclear weapon. Faced with an opponent as convinced of both the morality of his cause and his ability to execute his plan, the West must quickly conclude there is no utility in negotiating with Putin. Attempts to engage will be met with contempt and will only reinforce his belief that a feckless West will inevitably concede.
Putin is clearly not infallible. He has made some serious misjudgments, a few of which are underestimating the resolve and unity shown by the West and the international community in sanctioning Russia not only economically, but in business, arts and sports as well.
Putin likely overestimated the capability of his military to occupy Ukraine and install a puppet government. He certainly underestimated the willingness of the West to support Ukraine with effective armaments and the willingness and efficacy with which Ukraine would defend itself. Putin now faces an increasingly united West and international community, and a reinvigorated NATO, which now, thanks to his own actions, may soon include Sweden and Finland.
Ukraine has applied for fast-track EU membership. Putin’s economy is being strangled, part of his support structure - Russian oligarchs – are beginning to criticize the war, and Russian cities are seeing increasingly large demonstrations against Putin’s war.
Russian casualties in Ukraine are becoming too numerous to conceal. Russia’s invasion may ultimately fail, or Putin may succeed in occupying the whole of Ukraine, but he will have lost in either case. There will be no going back to the status quo ante.
Putin has made himself, and by extension all of Russia, a pariah. He must be removed as President of the Russian Federation for this to end and for Russia to return to a place in the order of nations.
The end of Putin’s rule can come via resignation and exile, or by coup - of which there have been two attempted in Russia since the end of the USSR - or by death. Whatever way it comes, Putin must go for this war to end and not go global.
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