President Putin's Options

For John, BLUF:  Some political leaders achieve success by not doing what is expected, rather by doing what is not expected.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Outlier: What if Putin’s Real Target isn’t Ukraine?

From The Cipher Briefby Mr Tim Willsey-Wiley,♠ 4 Febrruary 2022.

Here is the lede plus three:

We have a long history of misreading Russian intentions.  The classic example was the judgement by the British Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) that Russia would not invade Czechoslovakia in 1968; based on a westernised view that it would not be in Moscow’s interests.  Similar misjudgements were made in the prelude to Putin’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014.

Vladimir Putin calculated this winter as the ideal time to confront the West over those parts of the former Soviet Union which he believes should still be in Moscow’s sphere of influence.  Winter inevitably puts Europe’s energy market under stress.  Meanwhile NATO has just made a humiliating and chaotic exit from Afghanistan led by a United States president who is struggling in the polls.

Having identified the best moment Putin followed up by mobilising an army of some 130,000 troops in midwinter, distributed in pockets along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus.  Putin never places great belief in diplomacy but he is willing to go through the motions because he does set store by assembling retrospective justification for any future action.  In the unlikely event of a major Western concession, he would be willing to stand down the army but the strong probability is that he will use it to facilitate a tangible political and military result.

The assumption of everyone in the West is that Ukraine is the target for either an invasion or an incursion. However, none of the options looks particularly good.  Yes, Russian troops could probably dash the 240 miles from Belarus to Kiev and seize the capital.x  But they would be unable to subjugate the whole of Ukraine, especially west of Kiev, and the invasion could lead to a long and costly insurgency.  Alternatively, Putin could try and capture Ukraine’s coast and the port of Odessa but it would leave a long strip of land to defend against future Ukrainian counter-attacks.

It is a short article and I save the two options the author suggests for your reading.

They are a couple of interesting options.

One wonders if he attended some course somewhere that taught about Australian Author Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Tim Willasey-Wilsey served for over 27 years in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is now Visiting Professor of War Studies at King's College, London.