Russia Has Options

For John, BLUF:  There aare a lot of different opinions out there about Russia and Ukraine, but Ukraine may not be the issue.  It may be NATO or it may be the US presence in Europe.  And President Putin has a number of different option, depending on what his deep itch is.  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 Brief, by Mr Tim Willasey-Wilsey,♠ 4 February 2022.

Here is the lede plus four:

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.  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.

The other problem with attacking Ukraine is that it lets NATO and the West off too lightly.  President Biden made it very clear at an early stage of this crisis that NATO would not fight to defend Ukraine. Instead, all the talk has been of economic and financial sanctions.  This approach has made it easier for Western countries to show a reasonably united front against Putin, although differences exist over supplying weapons to Ukraine and the exact nature of the sanctions. So, the focus on Ukraine has not worked for Putin.  Although some of the responses have been divisive the overall tendency has been to unite Western leaders.  It has also enabled them to undertake some showboating with Macron engaging directly with Putin in diplomatic talks and others making high-profile trips to Kiev. But Ukraine may not be Putin’s main target. Putin’s beef is with NATO which, he believes, has made more inroads into central and eastern Europe than was ever agreed following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  In fact the two draft treaties which Russia published on 17th December last year demanded that NATO withdraw its forces and weapons from any country which joined NATO since 1997.  That would include Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia.  It also embraces the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) whose secession from the old Soviet Union particularly rankles with Putin.

To see what alternatives President Putin might pick, read the rest of the short article.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Author 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.