What the Romans said. (Nicola Marfisi/AGF/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
As the first 250 days of Russia’s war in Ukraine have proved again, the logic of strategy is paradoxical. It has never been linear, as in the Roman Si vis pacem para bellum: if you want peace prepare for war. Because the logic of strategy is paradoxical, it is very easy to be wrong in matters of peace and war, and very hard to be right.
That was the first lesson of the war: Putin collided head-on with the paradoxical logic of strategy. Military alliances need a shared enemy. Once the Cold War ended, Nato became weaker and weaker, because diverse interests — including the desire to spend less — naturally arose once there was no enemy to threaten all. Nato became so weak that in Europe there was talk of a military alliance without the US. Only irrelevant Leftists said this straight out, but many mainstream politicians across Europe kept hinting that the time had come for Nato to be replaced by a European Union alliance.
By February 2022, Nato was evidently no longer strong enough to deter Russia, so Russia attacked Ukraine. Because Russia attacked Ukraine, Nato suddenly had a threatening enemy, and the alliance quickly became strong once more. Many Nato countries sent military aid to Ukraine rapidly, which was essential materially, and very encouraging morally. Some of it was for show, but much was useful and some was just smart. Norway, for example, immediately sent 5,000 LAW hand-launched anti-tank rockets. Old, cheap and limited in range but the perfect weapons for the first days of this war, because anybody could use them even without training. Just point and shoot at an armoured vehicle.
Not only did Nato wake up, but it also grew. Within days of the invasion, the alliance started expanding. Australia, not a Nato member but an official “partner”, sent military aid (including Bushmaster armoured cars by airlift over 19,600 kilometres). Japan, not a Nato member, sent important financial aid. Even before they applied for Nato membership, Sweden and Finland also sent military aid.
The second lesson of the war concerned the silent role of seapower. In April, the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva 80 nautical miles south of Odessa attracted much attention. Videos of the burning ship were everywhere. But there are no videos of aero-naval battles in the North Atlantic: even though Russia has effective attack submarines, both nuclear-powered and diesel-electric in Atlantic waters, the US and Canada have been able to support Ukraine by shipping aid entirely unmolested. Because Russian naval forces are totally deterred, Western Europe has its safe material and strategic depth in the Atlantic.
The third lesson of the war was a demonstration of the levels of strategy. Strategy operates at different levels: the tactical level, the operational level, the theatre-of-war-level, and finally, the level of Grand Strategy. It is possible to lose a war at any of those levels, but to be successful it is necessary to be at least adequate at each and every one.
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SubscribeI am at loss to understand the argument in some of the comments that Ukraine has been part of Russia for eons & therefore we should stay out of the war & let them sort it out. The argument I would put forward is that we, the UK, using the Russian justification have a far greater claim on southern Ireland than Russia has on Ukraine but we will not be aiming to recover Ireland anytime soon I suspect. Furthermore if we did march on Dublin I suspect we would have few if any friends in Europe backing the invasion & many enemies backing the south.
Your argument by analogy is compelling. Have an upvote.
True. Putin also keeps saying Russian speakers belong to Russia. Well in that case Britain could claim half the world.
Indeed you already are the desired home of half the world thanks to your shortsighted policy of insisting the natives all spoke English. If you were smart and longsighted you’d have had them all speaking French!
not necessarily. As an american on this earth for the better part of 68 years, to this day I still cannot understand a thing a born and bred scotsman is saying.
You have a greater claim on Southern Ireland? You still kept the most valuable part, Northern Ireland and refuse to give it up. Ireland was always an independent Island, had nothing to do with England, had a different culture and totally different language. It was so revolted by the English crimes of starvation of Ireland that when it became independent, it refused to join England in the second world war. By the way, how many more colonies and territories does England still have that are thousand of miles, no where near England. Why don’t you give back Gibraltar to the Spaniards? According to Stuart Mills, the English sociologist, England holds the world record for having filched more land by force than any country in the world, the US comes in second.
Ukraine, know earlier as Kievan Rus, spawned Russia, has much more in common with the Russians than England with Ireland. Ukraine is two countries in one, whose modern borders were set by the former Soviet Union, the west being pro Europe and the East being pro Russian. That aside, Ukraine is being used by the west for regime change, creating a war supposedly to have the Russian people revolt and force Putin out of power. The only problem is the flunkies in DC, namely clueless Victoria Newland who engineered the coup in Kiev and the war, has drastically miscalculated and due to her arrogance in refusing to admit she does not know what she is doing is now plunging the world into a nuclear holocaust. Presently thounsand of young Ukrainians and Russian are dying for her idiotic pleasure. At worst, we are looking at world war 3, at the least, Ukraine will never be what it was. Zelensky boasting they will fight until they take Crimea back is wishful thinking.
By the way, the US took half of Mexico, only one of its many conquests. They called it manifest destiny. If only Hitler had cried Manifest Destiny!, Sphere of Influence! or Defending German Interests! rather than Lebensraum, the west would surely have undertsood him and let him take whatever he wished.
This seems an eminently successful strategy, to use people who passionately want their freedom, against witless clowns who steal washing machnes.
As Lev Gumiliev wisely said, a nation’s “passionarnost” determines its fate.
Ukraine is full of it, while all of Russia just wants to sit on the stove and vegetate.
“You have a greater claim on Southern Ireland? You still kept the most valuable part, Northern Ireland”
The most valuable part? Are you deluded? Do you know what maintaining Northern Ireland costs the UK? What do they teach you in Russian schools?
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“and refuse to give it up.”
The people of the provinces which now constitute Northern Ireland have been given the option, more than once. They voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the UK. Nothing to do with the UK “refusing to give it up.”.
You’ve studied English, but, again, what do they teach you in Russian schools?
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“Ireland was always an independent Island, had nothing to do with England”
Geographically, if that’s what you mean (though I don’t know why you use a capital ‘I’ for Island), the Isle of Wight was always an independent island. Does that mean it’s nothing to do with the UK?
Novaya Zemlya and Sakhalin have always been independent islands. Is that nothing to do with the Russian Empire?
Politically, Ireland has never been a united island except as part of the UK.
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“a different culture and totally different language.”
If that’s one of the criteria, let’s look at how many parts of the Russian Empire have the same language and culture as the Rus. You think we in the west don’t know that Mongolia has a different culture and language from St. Petersburg?
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What you say is true: almost all, but not quite. Ireland functioned as a united island every bit as much as GB, ie with one overlord (high) king with many subordinate chieftains (kings). Unlike GB Ireland did have a united nationwide legal system. While we were most often not politically independent were were and remain culturally independent despite every effort to change that: with one exception: The ‘plantation’ of Ulster with Scottish Presbyterians and CoE overlords was successful. All other plantations failed. That spawned NI.. ie sheer numbers overcame native resistance cultutally even though the gerrymndered minority clung on.
The Irish have been quite lucky in one way over the centuries. Both William the Conqueror and Henry VIII planned invasions and occupations of Ireland, as they had both invaded and subdued Scotland, but died before their plans could come to fruition.
King William’s main motive was because Irish pirates were raiding the English coast and kidnapping Saxons by the thousand to sell into slavery. I imagine King Henry’s related to the threat (or actuality? ) of Ireland allying with catholic countries such as France and Spain to the detriment of England.
Sad that the interesting maps of the political changes since 300 BC (see YouTube for animations) have not caught your attention. Really was charmed by those mongol hoards the other day. The Roman team was on top for a very long time. Our language variances remain amusing artifacts.
“Tell me you have never been to Ukraine without telling it”. By your logic Ukraine has a claim on Russia, not the other way round. Eastern Ukraine is not pro-Russian and never has been. It is Russian speaking, yes (and Kyiv by large too, until recently) but the separatist movement was always marginal and even in 2014 the soldiers on the Donetsk frontline were 90% Russian speaking, at least as far as the positions I visited. Maidan though was truly mixed and your parroting about “engineered coup” (that term is being used word by word, always by the people with the same set of stock beliefs) is ridiculous when it started slow and escalation was largely on the government’s side and it actually took months of people camping throughout winter to get to that point where Yanukovich fled. Even if it was the US propaganda blabla, noone is ready to die for some abstract bullshit. Even Russians, whose fascist TV has been spouting hatred and outright lies for years, don’t want to go and “defend” their country and “liberate” their “comrades”. With the mobilisation Russia didn’t close borders so it could let off the steam, like million of those men who left and won’t be in the streets protesting. Ukraine doesn’t have such problem, there are no protests, there is unity like never before, East, West, North and South, with people even frustrated they cannot go and fight because the military is oversubscribed. Curiously, all the other Russia’s neighbours are on the same page in regards of this and the biggest supporters of Ukraine — don’t you think that tells something more substantial than your geopolitical fantasies? But yeah, how convenient for you to see the US finger everywhere.. Cause all you serve is your political convictions. I am angry at the US too, for many reasons but one is that posturing at the Maidan etc it did really made it easy for the Russians to fabricate those narratives we see going around and growing in absurdity.
Please see all those downticks as evidence of speaking truth to colonialism, delusion of Empire days, and good old fashioned denial!
Victor Whisky this is the most intelligent answer I’ve read so far. Well informed and free from mercenary press pollution. Indeed, Ukraine’s modern borders were arbitrarily established by Nikita Khrushchev (Ukrainian) for administrative convenience. Eastern Ukrainians are hard to distinguish from regular Russians. Of course this would be hard to understand by someone who thinks UK has rights over Ireland.
I don’t think anyone here claimed the U.K has rights over Ireland. As I read it, the pint was denying Russian rights to Ukraine by comparing it to Ireland vs Ukraine. And a lot of people in the Donbas is settlers brought in from Russia during the Soviet period, so you could compare it to Northern Ireland (with the difference that the Ulster Protestants have been there for three centuries instead of less than one).
What, Me Worry?
Victor–
Don’t mind the downvotes. Most commenters on this website are racist pro-colonialists and imperialists!
Loads of mainland Brits look forward to the day when Northern Ireland Protestants acknowledge that they are Irish and cease to want to be part of the UK. With the decline of church going and the nominally Catholic majority now in the 6 counties, that day could soon be here. Even when I was in N. Ireland with the Brit. army in the late 1970s, the consensus in the Officers’ mess was that an end to the Troubles would be effected by the N.I. protestants recognising that they are Irish.
If Ireland decided to join an alliance with a military alliance hostile to Britain, which could mean ballistic missiles next door to London, bombed and suppressed pro English minorities and proudly flaunted militia outfits with a certain funny logo, you might, you just might change your tune.
As it stands, Russia has more reason to wage war on Ukraine than Britain in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.
If you invade us we wouldn’t stand a chance. However, because our strengths are otherwise you could never hope to win the peace: not least because your chances of winning hearts and minds are zero. Remember there are 140m people who identify as Irish including many millions in the UK and a minimum of 20m in the US. You would instantly become the most pariah state on the planet. Things are bad enough for you so my recommendation is don’t even think about it!
At least for those who want good concise articles, Prof Luttwak is by far the best to read on the Ukraine conflict, IMO.
Agreed. Concise, informative, persuasive and written by a subject matter expert.
oh dear,you and many on here really are deluded.
Putin already owns Ukraine.
Once winter comes in the next few weeks , he will move.
Nato and the USA can do nothing.
Are you Putin troll?
So, are you paid or just stupid?
No, he is almost certainly correct. As I have said before, this will not end well for the west.
Except Putin is being humiliated on the battlefield and can only bomb civilians. He will pay a heavy price for his war crimes and his trolls will be considered collaborating filth for decades.
Please oh please just shut up & don’t engage with society!
And just who are you to make such
demands ?
Try thinking for yourself for once.
Does that last paragraph look tacked on? The cheery optimism seems completely out of kilter with the depth and seriousness of the rest of the article. Indeed it’s even in a different typeface. Looks to me like some sub has decided to ‘improve’ it by adding a happy ending.
Agreed, not a very subtle addition, and completely out of kilter with the rest of the essay.
I too did a double-take at the last paragraph. It refers to historical precedent rather than elaborating the military reasons for Russia’s ultimate failure, building on what he said before. It seems out of place with the rest of the article. Historical precedent isn’t the most convincing argument. It’s true until it isn’t.
Wars are won by the nation that spends the most; time, lives or money. It’s not sports.
It’s odd, isn’t it, to have two final paragraphs each beginning with “But …”. And the different typeface is indeed strange. Seems to me that c**k up is, as usual (but not always), more likely than conspiracy. Perhaps Unherd’s sub-editors would like to offer a quick explanation to their paying subscribers by replying to these comments? It would be very much appreciated.
Although I suspect most are not conversant with European history, that is how it ALWAYS works out.
Any nation that seeks to dominate Europe is crushed.
No exceptions for some 500 years.
Tough on the citizens of the nations that tried. But that’s just how Europe works.
Russia just needs to accept that it will expend a million people and then lose.
Then we can all be happy.
What the author should have said is that the Russian Army’s logistics are terrible and getting worse. For budgetary reasons, they shut down almost all of their massive military manufacturing, and also almost all of their military training after the USSR fell. Most of their tanks are over 20 years old. The T-62 tanks they are using in the South were made in the 1960’s.
Russia is buying drones and guided missiles from Iran because sanctions make it impossible for Russia to make their own guided weapons. They can’t get or make the electronic parts.
In addition, Russian Army corruption makes their logistics situation even worse. About 3/4 of armored vehicles shipped from storage to the front arrive in inoperable condition. There aren’t enough speare parts to repare them. In many cases, the missing parts have been stripped and sold. Some vehicles arrive without engines.
The quality of the steel used for cannon barrels is substandard, causing them to wear out and fail catastrophically before they’re due for replacement. Replacement barrels, when they exist, are of even poorer quality.
Russian soldiers must buy much of their own equipment, including uniforms in some cases. Russian sources say 1.5 million uniforms that were officially on the books vanished. They were either stolen or never made.
Some DPR and LPR infantry units have been issued bolt action Mosin rifles originally designed in 1891, last made in 1979.
Supply for units in the Kherson area, site of the latest Ukrainian offensive, depends on 4 bridges across the Dnipro river. Ukrainian long range missile attacks have rendered all 4 bridges unusable. This leaves at least 20,000 Russians with heavy armor and artillery dependent on ferries for their supplies and reinforcements. Ukrainians are using long range HIMARS missiles to attack the traffic jams waiting for the ferries on the south side of the Dnipro river.
Supplies for the Crimea depended on the 12 mile Kerch road and rail bridges across the Kerch Straight. After a Ukrainian attack, the rail bridge can no longer carry any traffic at all. Half of the road bridge is in the water. The other half can carry only cars, and not heavy trucks.
In short the Russians are screwed, and have no way to fix most of the mess for at least 2-4 years.
The sooner Mr Putin decides he has accomplished his mission the sooner we can relax a bit. Until then Ukraine will fight for what was once their house. As the article notes, Russia lost for the lack of an airfield.
As to your final paragraph: IF EVER. Assuming the Ukrainians re-take Crimea, which appears to be their plan, they’d be well-advised to make that entire Russian showpiece useless.
No not at all. Read it again, even without the paragraph break:
The history of eastern Europe has been the push and push back by Russia and against Russia for centuries. I agree that Putin took the opportunity to attack regarding NATO as both weak and divided. Not only that, but he had tested the waters with his annexation of Crimea.
The West would, at some point, have to intervene. Putin will keep pushing for as long as he can, going as far as he can. This war is tragic beyond measure, the allegations of corruption I am fairly sure are fairly close to the truth. But the fact remains that Putin must be stopped.
I believe, without evidence, that Putin is well aware of history. He knows he has a place in Russian history and wants that to be glorious. In an autocratic system such as Russia the standing and legacy of the leader matters. I suspect this is one of the factors driving Putin forwards. It also explains why he won’t stop willingly. And therefore, why the west have to push back.
Sweden did a bit of pushing, so did the Tartar Empire, which ruled Russia for centuries. What was later Ukraine was a punching bag between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and thevYaryars
The Yaryars were eventually defeated by the Gapyars at the Battle of Chundring-Evrywahr.
Putin’s “annexation” of Crimea ??
Perhaps you should remind yourself who the Crimean War was fought against. I don’t think it was Ukraine. But it just might have been Russia.
Crimea was given by Russia to Ukraine. It is attached to Ukraine and the majority of residents consider themselves to be UKRAINIANS.
Not only that, the Russian Federation signed the Budapest memorandum, which accepted and guaranteed the 1994 borders of Ukraine, and in exchange Ukraine gave up their nuclear missiles. That is the relevant fact, not whether the Crimea was part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century (or the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century).
Most of them are ethnic Russians, who have been there for many generations, so that is highly unlikely.
Many of the Russians there are retired military from that Russian base catering to vacationing Russians. Imagine how their business are doing now. Aside from that the area has a wonderful ethnic mix.
Clearly the residents consider themselves Russian as that was the outcome of the referendum. Crimea was gifted to Ukraine by the Ukrainian Soviet leader at the height of Soviet power. It was like England gifting Shropshire to Wales. Crimea along with the Four south eastern regions that also voted so are now Russia.
I suspect a referendum carried out under military occupation, when many of those opposed to Russian annexation had fled, may not have been the most reliable indicator of majority opinion. The last referendum carried out in anything like neutral conditions was in 1991, when 54% of Crimeans voted for Ukrainian independence from the USSR. Admittedly by far the lowest percentage of any region, but a bigger majority than, say, for Brexit.
While we sit here at our laptops folks, let’s not forget that war is hell.
Indeed it is. Thanks for the reminder.
“But because they had expected no resistance at all (as both Russian Intelligence and the always-wrong CIA had forecast …”
The CIA correctly predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the teeth of a great deal of scorn.
But apparently not that Russia would found it tough going.
So corrected to “sometimes-wrong CIA”
Oh my God! Everybodies human!
I question the view that Putin will be able to go on putting hundreds of thousands of reservists through the mincer regardless.
For anyone interested in the Russian post-communist context I’d recommend a truly amazing documentary available on BBC IPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2022/adam-curtis-russia-1985-1999-traumazone
Titled – “Russia 1985-1999 TraumaZone: What It Felt Like to Live Through the Collapse of Communism, and Democracy”.
Its in an unusual format – very long episodes with a bit of typed script here and there in an assemblage of scenes filmed at the time from all parts and levels of Russian life to try and explain the disaster that hit them after communism fell. Absolutely, flicking, amazing. I had no idea the Russian people had suffered so much in this period.
Relevance to this article – Russians can take extreme #hit for a long time, and they’re rather angry about being left by everyone to sort it out: Et voila, Putin.
Except Putin is not their saviour. He’s only interested in stealing for himself and his cronies.
So we have been endlessly told, though Russians overall seem to think the inverse.
Precisely. A point very few of us appreciate. It made post-Soviet Russia like Weimar Germany. And a lot had to do with severe US missteps. As I know from working for America on Russia just pre-and-post 1991, while unpopularly opposing Shock Therapy
I see Prigozhin, the man who started the Wagner terrorists, and who pays for so many St. Petersburg’s RIA/Glavset trolls, is now breaking ranks with Putin’s narrative, and praising Zelensky’s leadership skills. On Vkontatke he said,
“Although he is the president of a country that’s hostile to Russia right now, Zelensky is a strong, confident, pragmatic and nice guy.”
I wonder whether Putin or Prigozhin will be the first to trip and fall from a window.
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It has to do with “passionarnost” a concept developed by Lev Gumiliev.
Russia is a declining civilization, while Ukraine is a rising power. The number of draft dodgers at the Russian border highlights the difference. No Real Russian would volunteer to fight Ukraine.
Putin naively thinks that he can intimidate Ukrainians the same way he saw East Germans intimidated by the STASI.
But Ukrainians now have weapons. They hate Russians so much they will gladly go without heat and light just to destroy the nation that betrayed them.
It will take a long time to permanently damage the Russian state. I’d say not before at least a million casualties in Russia. But most Ukrainians now want to kill all Russians.
While all the Russians want is washing machines.
Guess who’s going to win….
It won’t be Ukraine.
Ukraine is a mere pawn is this ridiculous and dangerous game.
I admire your faith-based support for a declining, dysfunctional empire.
Any place we can send a cheque to failed authoritarians?
There will be no winners apart from the defence industries of the west.
The question therefore is who will be the biggest loser. It doesn’t look as the Ukrainians are going to just roll over, whatever Putin throws at them. Occupying a country against its collective will is rarely productive, particularly when that country has access to better military technology than you.
I am no student of warfare or the military, but I was puzzled and quite unconvinced by the four levels: tactical, operational, theatre-of’war strategy, grand strategy. Even the first sentence is confusing: “strategy operates at different levels: the tactical level,……”. I was aware of the difference between strategy and tactics but in this sentence the distinction seems to be ignored. And the language is odd: can strategy operate? Strategy is an overarching grand plan; it is by definition not operational. But the article states that one of the levels that strategy operates is ……. the operational level. The whole argument seems contrived and artificial.
US style Gobbledegook I’m sorry to say. It has been like this since his first major work ‘The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire’, more than forty years ago now.
See what you mean. One of the more capable people on this subject is Prof. Sally Paine at the US Naval War College, an expert on Japan and China, whose book on the Meiji Restoration is stunningly concise. She points out, for instance, that even the obvious operational-tactical successes of the Japanese military in Manchuria in 1931-1937 led to bad outcomes for Japan overall, in what seems here the higher strategic levels. Japan’s ultimate annihilation militarily, but beforehand, economically, was guaranteed by her military overreach in Manchuria when her entire objective there was surely to survive the Depression by integrating with Manchuria economically. In Grand Strategy the military is supposed to be a tool, not the driver. Perhaps this is the sort of argument that might cut more ice w.r.t. Russia than the crude militaristic stuff we see here. But Putin felt backed into a corner as the many respected and high profile U.S. Realist strategists maintain. A group not properly respected by Luttwak, despite their being the most influential US strategists throughout the Cold War, some as US Presidents. Very much the ‘people in the room’.
I interpreted it to mean roughly that strategies to achieve results at one level are various aspects of tactics at the next higher level.
For example, a corporal may have as one of their strategies the goal of ensuring that all the spuds are peeled in good time for the next meal, and apply suitable tactics to attain that result. But to their superior officer, instructing the corporal to ensure the availability of peeled spuds is but one tactic in their broader strategy of ensuring the troops are adequately fed. This in turn is one tactic of many their regimental commander adopts to achieve their strategy of battle readiness.
The commenters below take him very serious but Luttwak, writing for/from the US neocon corner, was the man who, in the mid seventies in the Times Literary supplement, proposed that the US send their marines to storm Saudi beaches to take their oil fields.
He has since become more fluid in his positioning seeing Bush & Blair’s middle eastern adventures as not very smart.
But look up his predictions over the years…(wiki).
And then think of Philip Tetlock’s book Superforecasting and its central message: regular, smart but not necessarily brilliant, people with an open mind, not hindered by ego and prepared to change their opinion as new information becomes available at the very last moment, outperform almost all talking heads on tv and in written media when it comes to creating accurate predictions.
Time and again.
It walks like Luttwak, it quacks like Luttwak ergo I conclude it is Luttwak, all of it. Read his Grand Milirtary Strategy of the Roman Empire if you are inclined to go all wobbly. Good stuff.
Vladimir Frolov had the best vision of an outcome.
Putin will keep Crimea, and the few scraps of territory he winds up with.
Then NATO sends in peacekeepers to separate the two sides, a la Bosnia and Kosovo. Eventually Ukraine joins NATO, and that’s where the new border stands.
Meanwhile, Prigozhin, Kadyrov and dozens of other Russians begin a mindless civil war to see who becomes the new Vozhd.
Instead of fairy tale endings, both outcomes are fully in conformity with past European and Russian history.
Deal with it.
West needs to help Ukraine, because Ukraine is fighting not only for itself, but for freedom and order. If Putin is allowed to break the world order established after WWII, the green light to do whatever they want will be given to totalitarian regimes with nuclear powers. USA, Britain as well as Russia signed Budapest Memorandum of 1994 to protect Ukraine and its borders (including Crimea) in exchange of Ukraine’s abandoning of its nuclear arsenal to Russia. Russia betrayed Ukraine. If UK and USA show weakness in fulfilling their part of agreement, the tyrants will know there’s no accountability for their war crimes and will put the world into chaos.
I’m not sure exactly how the invasion of Iraq fit into the picture of a “rules-based international order”, let alone the earlier invasions of Panama, Grenada etc.
Yes Ukrainians are probably better off under vicious neoliberal capitalism than under the vicious mafia state Putin would install, but supporting Ukraine’s national self-determination shouldn’t involve illusions in ‘the west’.
Putin claims he is a Christian. He claims he is protecting the values of Orthodox Christianity from far left liberals. This is the reason he is popular among some republicans/conservatives. But deeds speak louder than words. Look at the cathedral of the Armed Forces he has built. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/20/orthodox-cathedral-of-the-armed-force-russian-national-identity-military-disneyland. “It’s not an Orthodox cathedral, …it’s a cathedral of the new post-Soviet civil religion”. Putin wants people to believe he is the Saviour. “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” (Mark 13:6).
There’s a saying based loosely on, ‘always a plan until the first shot is fired.’
Ask someone in the street what to do. They’ll say “Putin you lost. Take your dead sons and go home. The money we froze will go towards rebuilding Ukraine. Oh, and resign.”
Error, deleted.
I personally believe that it was America pulling out of Afghanistan under Trump that gave Putin and China the courage to act and Biden finished it off.
As for Putin, he’s sneaky, cheats and is better at underhand tactics, being ex KGB (also that it is his basic personality). On top of this overconfidence or bloated certainty, always lets down those who are so sure of victory that they don’t have contingency plans for failure.
Trump was a useless president and Putin is a useless war leader. The proof of these puddings is in the eating or their obvious unsuccessful rules.
“Russia’s mass means that it can lose many battles and yet still keep fighting.” THE crucial point. If not ousted before (by whom ?), Putin has an endless suplly of time and cannon-fodder at his disposal.
No he doesn’t. More conscription risk public unrest. More defeat risks a coup. His economy is going to slowly collapse without Western tech. Dictators who destroy their country’s military and economy, for no gain, have short life-spans.
Why does the nation which has led the world in almost every area of aerospace for the last 60 years (remember Sputnik?) need Western tech?
Because they can’t produce a micro-chip. They can’t produce modern tanks without Western components. Their oil and gas industry depends on Western tech too.
They led the world in aerospace in 1958. They’re several generations behind now.
I wonder who is disseminating this crap. There are no Western components in their tanks of missiles. Do you think they are that stupid to be dependent on whom they have been preparing to get into war with? Wake up. There is no super-low nanometers tech in Russia, the chips they produce are like early 2000s level, but that might be just enough for guidance systems or whatever is there I guess.
You are wrong. Both Russia, China, the US and Europe is totally dependent on chips from Taiwan. Both China and the US has realized that it’s a problem, thus the recent legislation in the US to boost American manufacturing of chips.
The “Taiwanese” chips are actually made on the Chinese mainland by Taiwanese companies, I believe. Potentially, China could expropriate chip manufacture. Certainly they could supply Russia, if they chose. Whether it’s in their interest to do so is another issue.
They lead the world in rocketry, their aeroplanes were no better than ours and it took the sale of Rolls Royce engines by the then Labour government for them to produce good enough jet engines.
“Why does the nation which has led the world in almost every area of aerospace for the last 60 years (remember Sputnik?) need Western tech?”
It doesn’t. It was, however, relying on importing the chips for its missiles from another country, that being, er… Ukraine.
Hence it is now having to buy its missiles from Iran and North Korea.
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Is that why the US needed Russian rockets to get its astronauts to the international space station until recently? Quite a bit of regime change in the west too, not least in the UK, Sweden, Bulgaria, possibly with more to come.
The politico-economic decision to defund the Space Shuttle programme has no bearing on the relative levels of technological development. The superiority of ‘western’ armaments in particular seems fairly clear.
And even if you want to focus on space exploration, while Russia has been acting as a taxi service to the ISS, NASA has been sending probes to Mars, Pluto, Saturn’s moons and elsewhere.
That supply of canon fodder was also available to the Russians in WWI, and to the Soviets in Afghanistan, but eventually losing too many battles has bad consequences on the home front.
I’d add the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 to that list.
Great article from an author with an instinct for strategy.
But how does it end? Neither side now has the ability to score a knock-out. Both sides are being gradually degraded.
Zelensky has three victory requirements – full territory returns, reparations and war crime trials. Understandable after what his people have been through and would be justice for the bravery and ingenuity shown. But unrealistic. Putin can outlast him and the idea of an internal coup/replacement a pipe-dream.
An alternative – the West immediately allows Ukraine into NATO and EU, with security and economic guarantees but the Zelensky doesn’t get his three war aims. It is though a victory for the Ukranian people as it is what they have wanted for some time. And maybe a bigger victory. The border becomes another 38th parallel, and we help Ukraine become another South Korea with a new Marshall Aid package.
Putin and his mafia are left degraded but not fully defeated. But the world is changed, and for the better thanks to the valour of the Ukrainian people.
“By February 2022, Nato was evidently no longer strong enough to deter Russia, so Russia attacked Ukraine.” This is ludicrously, laughably one-sided. Russia and Putin are illustrated as Bond-film-like villains. Does Russia have any motivations other than malign ones? Is it possible that Europe’s largest energy trading partner might have security interests on its border? It might be wise to engage constructively with a crucial trading partner on matters they see as essential to their security. Russia has been almost literally begging for such engagement since 2014. And even now is still saying it is willing to negotiate. Europe, sadly, is full of buffoons like Prof Luttwak who are so Russophobic they will see all of us impoverished and freezing this winter.
Yes.
I know this Russian concern about “security interests on its border” has been cited often to justify Putin’s war, and I am also aware of Russia having been invaded through the centuries, and not just by Napoleon and Hitler. But how valid is that concern today? Is there a chance that Putin is resurrecting a dead horse, or erecting a straw man? I’m asking because it’s very hard to imagine, given today’s European politics and politicians, that Russia needs to be concerned about being invaded by any western powers. Who would want the place?
By ‘literally begging’ I take it you mean ‘actually invading and annexing part of its neighbour’?
Was that for ‘security interests’? More likely it’s because oil and gas have been discovered off Crimea!
Quite. And of course the Donbas has considerable natural resources. The economic consequences of Ukraine orienting to the EU are what triggered this whole intervention off back in 2014, let’s remember. Putin tried to use political means to retain Ukraine in Russia’s economic orbit; when that failed he transitioned to military.
Very interesting article. It is somewhat shocking that Russia did not take the usual precautions for a quick regime change. Nevertheless, a huge consequence might come out of this failed trench war. The new Cold War, which was somehow disguised under tensions with different parties, is now clear and threatens the hegemony of the United States. I believe that that is a first class consequence beyond the strategy. From that point of view, an unlikely first victim is Europe, finally dropping to the condition of a pawn in this new conflict.
The pawn seems to have checkmated the kin…er, Czar.
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All the bluster in the comments and mental gymnastics of the article itself feel awfully like cope to me.
We are blessed to have Prof. Luttwak explain all this to us, on the basis of the most secret war plans the Kremlin has shared with him, and to elaborate how the Russian Navy has been intimidated into not using its hypersonic missiles to sink the ships of the belligerents US and Canada.
So can we expect Mr. Zelensky triumphantly marching across Red Square by Christmas?
The author has such deep and complete understanding of all Russian plans in this war that I suspect that it’s mr Putin himself is co-authoring or consulting him.
It’s very telling that those that speak the truth on this thread are receiving down votes.
It proves that most people are brainwashed sheep, there is no hope for them.
Ah, yes. There couldn’t possibly be any other reason for downvoting such views, could there?
I mean, it’s not as if the downvoted comments stick out like a sore thumb as being those ridiculous views propounded by Glavset’s St. Petersburg trolls and the like. I mean, Glavset’s owner, Prigozhin would never agree with such views, would he?
“By February 2022, Nato was evidently no longer strong enough to deter Russia, so Russia attacked Ukraine. ”
NATO is far stronger than Russia. The problem is, the idea was never to deter Russia, it was in fact to provoke Russia (extending NATO and thereby NATO ballistic missiles to Russian borders, arming Azov, funding the violent “protests” for the removal of a democratically elected Ukraine leader).
And the objective was to start a war where NATO would fight using Ukrainian blood, just enough weapons to bog down Russia but not actually defeat them, pump money into the US military industrial complex, use sanctions to weaken Russia. Worked well except for the last part, as sanctions rebounded on Europe – though that was probably the plan all along.
Your last sentence rather lets the air out of the ‘secret US plans’ balloon.
Spot on. Have an upvote.
Sorry, you’re sounding like a Russian, demanding “justice.”
There is no justice in international affairs.
It’s kto–kovo.
Get used to it…
Exactly correct.
“The problem is, the idea was never to deter Russia, it was in fact to provoke Russia”
So you’re saying that Putin has been too stupid to realise this, and walked straight into the trap?
You’re saying that all the while, Putin has spent eight years stoking up anti-Ukrainian rhetoric on his tv channels because he’s been led by the nose by NATO?
Doesn’t that show how stupid he is?
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Yet again this is “a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing”.
We should have nothing to do with it because we simply cannot afford it. Additionally our once vaunted reputation for decency was utterly trashed by Blair & Co in the deplorable Iraq War. If the US wishes to provoke this crisis, let them do so, but we must “make haste slowly “.
The Foreign Office may rejoice in the sight of the ridiculous British pygmy ‘punching above its weight’, but for the rest of us it is frankly embarrassing, particularly as we cannot even defend our own borders.
It’s a conflict which both sides claim to be fighting against N4zis, and in order to do so are making extensive use of paramilitary groups that can credibly be called neo-N4zi (or were at least – I don’t know how much Azov’s been getting up to since Mariupol fell). And both sides’ ‘neo-N4zi’ paramilitaries are funded principally by wealthy people of the last ethnic background you’d expect to be putting their money in that direction.
My view is that anyone who thinks he understands this war is either a Russian, a Ukrainian, or a fool.
Or as Lord Palmerston put it about another obscure event:
“The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it”
Palmerson forgot all about Harry Flashman, as well.
I totally agree, Charles.
The west has pushed Russia into a corner.
This will not end well.
Putin sends an army into Ukraine for no good reason, the army commits war crime after war crime, and yet it’s “the West” that has “pushed Russia into a corner.”
You can’t make this dumb sh*t up.
You are so gulible.
You are the one making up dumb sh*t.
You clearly believe everything you see and hear from the MSM.
Don’t you understand the government and the MSM lie to you all of the time ?
Why do you fall for this ?
The MSM are lying about Climate Change,
they are lying about The COOF and now they are lying about Ukraine.
I suggest you go back and check the history of Ukraine since 2014.
But you won’t, you want to remain ignorant.
Ahhh. How sweet! A dinosaur with a red baseball cap.
Trump is about the only western politician who wants Zelenskyy to sit down and negotiate a peace settlement.
But you want war.
Instead of insulting everybody, why not just point us to the truthful and reliable sources that *you* get your information from? If they are that good and convincing, presumably they will convince us too?
I am not insulting anyone.
I suggest you do your own research. I really can’t do it for you.
Oh yes you can – if you’ve actually done it. And people with good sources and conclusions are always happy to share them, imho. Especially here.
I don’t thing it’s going to work with you. Most guys here I see are so deeply brainwashed it’s practically hopeless. Keep telling about “crimes” when only an idiot can’t see how things nicely staged for you to consume. OK, if you wish — start with Alexander Mercouris on youtube. What’s you gonna say? Oh I know, you will put some labels. “Putin troll”, “Red ass”, “propaganda”, “RT cronies” and hide your own inability to analyze behind that labeling. I am giving you alternative point of view. Are you ready to accept it — not blindly believe it – only accept it as a source of info? It’s of course uncomfortable because it is different from BBC sweet lies you accustomed to.
All I see is the Russian bit getting smaller.
Always happy to get a recommendation for research, but happier still if the recommendation isn’t accompanied by childish abuse. Ta anyway, I’ll have a look.
No, like I said you need to do your own research.
Do not trust the MSN or the government.
Tell us who we *should* trust, then. Come on, it is not that hard. If you have any reputable sources, of course.
RT and Sputnik obviously. 😀
And the victorious Allies pushed Weimar Germany into a corner, but it was still both morally right and necessary to fight the Nazis.
All through the 1990’s and even more recently I told anyone who would listen that Russia should have been treated as another captive nation newly freed from Soviet tyranny (Lenin uses Latvian troops against his fellow Russians, Stalin was a Georgian, Khrushchev was a Ukranian, and Marxism was most assuredly a foreign ideology imported into and imposed on Russia), that no longer Communist Russia should not be treated as a definitional enemy. Of course the foreign ministries of NATO had different ideas, and decide it would be a great thing to trample on Russian interests in the Balkans by picking out the Orthodox Christian Serbs as the sole villains in the dirty-on-all-sides wars of the Yugoslav dissolution, push the boundaries of NATO not merely into what had been the Warsaw Pact, but into countries which had once been part of the Soviet Union, and before that the Russian Empire, and foment “color revolutions” to overthrow pro-Russian governments, including legitimately elected ones.
The wrong ideas prevailed then, even as the wrong ideas about treating Germany prevailed at Versailles. Unfortunately the West now need to clean up the resulting mess by opposing Putinist revanchism, even as the world had to fight the Nazis.
“The west has pushed Russia into a corner.”
Putin has spent eight years painting himself into a corner over Ukraine with his daily propaganda on his domestic tv channels for home consumption.
” This will not end well…” for Russia.
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No, the west has been conducting a proxy war against against Russia since the Ukrainian president was overthrown by the US State department, NATO and the EU back in 2014.
You have it backwards.
Euromaidan was not a coup, it was an authentic action by the Ukrainian people. Do you deny any people have agency?
Only people in ‘western’ countries have agency, dontchaknow? Anyone who lives in a country opposed to the US is expected to put up with whatever government might be in place, whether democratic or dictatorship.
It’s not everyday that someone cites Mr. Chamberlain’s idiotic and myopic quote favourably, as though it were something to live by.
In your humble opinion, just how much better could Chamberlain have acted, given the dreadful financial, position we were in?
Hitler was in even worse economic shape.
Agreed.
You take Neville Chamberlain as a serious role model?
You might like to reflect that if Chamberlain hadn’t played for time over “a little country far away” we should undoubtedly have lost the Battle of Britain.
(At the time of Munich, the RAF had just 5 squadrons of Hurricanes, and no Spitfires at all. And the Chain Home radar was still under construction. Of course, all that was a top military secret in 1938.)
And Germany lacked the military power to beat Czechoslovakia and France and the UK simultaneously. No Battle of Britain would have been fought. Hitler’s generals knew this and were ready to depose him as soon as the Allies showed backbone. Alas they never did until it was too late; Hitlers string of successes (Rhineland, Anschluss, Sudetenland) made him too popular for the generals to act..
‘On paper’ we and France should have thrashed Germany in 1940.
In the event ‘we’ were driven into the Channel with little more than our underpants.
Well said, but sadly national mythology, as enunciated by Messrs Storm & Gustavsson says otherwise.
As they say “tis folly to be wise where ignorance is BLISS!
But Chamberlain together with Baldwin had created that sorry state. So it may have been necessary to stall for time in 1938. Or not. Germany military machine was helped enormously by getting control of Czechoslovakias Skoda works.
“But Chamberlain together with Baldwin had created that sorry state”. No, they hadn’t, we had been on the cusp of bankruptcy since late 1916.
Do you really think ‘we’ would have done any better in 1938, than we ultimately did in 1939?
Had it not been for yet another US ‘bail out’ in 1940 it would & should have been all over.
It is difficult to say if a war in 1938 could have gone better than the one in 1939, since the war in 1939 could have gone very different. If the U.K and France had started a real war in September 1939 while Hitlers forces where totally tied down by Poland, the war might have ended far earlier.
And if the Czechoslovakian army had fought in 1938 together with the U.K and France, the result would have been so bad for Hitler (who would not have been able to use the Skoda works) that he would have been toppled by the Wehrmacht.
‘We’ should have picked an easier target, say the ridiculous Benito Mussolini during his assault on Ethiopia in 1936
Even the French Army farting in his general direction would have been enough to ‘see him off’ and it may even have given Adolph pause for thought!
On that one I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Supporting the Spanish government against Franco might have been a smart move also….
Well he was considerably more astute than gung -ho, brain dead Churchill.
No, he wasn’t
Academically, by his own admission, he was hopeless.
He was gaslighted by his cruel parents. Records show his achievements were not as bad as he himself claims.
And even if he was academically hopeless, that is not the same thing as being brain dead.
He took three attempts to even get into the Army, and absolutely NO thought of Oxbridge despite the prestige/nepotism of the Marlborough’s.
No, he was an academic dunce, pure and simple! Poor chap.
I have been against this war from the first rumblings of it, in fact once it began fully my ability to give my anti war point of view was canceled here and elsewhere – this fight is universally part of some great agenda it seems.
This was the wrong war for our Neo-Con, Neo-Lib warmongers to join – have we learned nothing from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan? But of course this one is much more destructive to the global well being, and the West, than all three of those. This was not in our vital area of interest. This was a regional war that everyone with any sense could see it was like touching the trigger of a mouse trap. And it is a WWIII. You have the axis and the allies – the world has formed into camps. The economic carnage will be unimaginable, as well as the wrecking of the global food economy, and the global supply chains.
BUT – here is what I think:
USA sent in, say $60 Billion so far to create this WWIII. The estimates to rebuild I heard are 1 $Trillion minimum. So what is that? 16/1? Every $ of gas we pour on this fire causes $16 of damage to the Ukrainian infrastructure and economy.
Zelenski wants another $50 Billion from Biden – so what is that, 16/1 means $800,000,000,000 more needed to rebuild afterwards? OK, But who is going to pay that $800 Billion extra to rebuild? It cost us $50 Billion more to cause the additional damage – does Zalenski think USA – with its $40 Trillion of debt, and $120 Trillion of unfunded mandates – and the Reserve Currency being attacked by Biden’s Insane SWIFT sanctions, will pay?
”You broke it you bought it” was a sign in a chain of USA shops that had lots of breakable things. Does this apply to these lovely Westerners the writer congratulates for being so nice about sending in war materials? How about it – when rebuilding time comes, just calculate every $ everyone sent in to the Ukraine conflict – multiply that by $16, and that is their bill for the reconstruction? Fair enough? Ha – with massive recession breaking in 2023 I doubt they will send fifty cents for every dollar they sent – forget the $16….
Anyway it is obvious this is what Putin sees – and is why he is fighting this new way. Power Plants, dams, bridges – make it Expensive, and more expensive, more bang for his and our Bucks. More to rebuild. Easy to take an ax to a china shop – not so easy to put the broke stuff back together. One day we will see this Very Expensive gasoline we keep pouring on this fire, and the cost of repairing the mess, is just too expensive and has to stop. This is Putin’s game now. He cannot win militairally – so will just make it too Pyrrhic to continue, and then it will stop……….inshalla..
Nov 8 will give us the start of that timetable.
This will be the Pyrrhic victory of all Pyrrhic victories put together if we just keep at it till victory, but that will be too stupid I think…; but who knows – Neocons gotta neocon I guess, and Biden has this as a crusade, costs do not matter – it is his holy war….or else this is about something else….there are lots of conspiracy theories what that could be.. The Pipeline thing is very scary…
And the real costs are not to Ukraine – they are to making the world into two camps. BRICs, KSA, Iran, Russia, Venezuela………, all the resource extraction AND the Industrial nations on one side, the ‘Axis’. The Service/Finance Nations on the other. (The West, the ‘Allies’) Good Luck with that mess……and the starvation and depression this will likely being to the developing nations.
Enjoy your heating bills you European NATO guys…..
Putin broke it, we did not. Russia should pay.
Fair enough but look what happened after Germany was made to pay for the 1914-18 war.
Germany wasn’t made to pay, hence their successful rearmament. They should have been treated the same way as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk treated Russia.
Precisely.
Except that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk lasted only 8 months; it was signed March 3rd 1918 and it was annulled after the armistice on November 13th 1918. While it was in force for those 8 months it also gave Lenin time to increase his power. Then Russia gradually took back *almost*all that it had ceded.
Not true. The Soviets were only able to take back the eastern part of then-Poland during the latter part of the Second World War.
I admit I should have said *almost* all, but your comment is misleading; Russia took back Ukraine in 1919, Belarus by 1921, Eastern Poland 1939, Eastern Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, parts of Romania by 1940.
I never thought that ‘Russia paying’ was a realistic plan. But it was the most obvious answer to Aaron James interminable ‘You broke it – you pay for it’. We did not break it. Putin did.
I suppose if Russia wins, at least part of Ukraine, then it will pay for it’s own interests. If Russia loses will it be able to afford to pay ? If there is a negotiated peace in a year, two, three years hence then perhaps some compensation might be part of the deal.
The second outcome, ie, “If Russia loses” and we make them pay (reparations), then the warning from history of the League of Nations and Germany after WWI signals to us NOT to make that mistake again.
There is a crucial difference between Germany in 1918 (and indeed in 1945) and Russia (hopefully) very soon. Germany had no cash left just debts, so reparations were taken from its industrial capital and future earnings. Russia seems to have not far short of $1tr of dollar and gold reserves in ‘Allied’ treasuries on hold, and plenty of earning power from its energy resources (until such time as we come to our senses and reduce dependence of fossil fuels). Using that money held overseas to rebuild Ukraine would, I assume (I await expert economic words), not impact the economy of Russia unduly.
We cannot reduce our dependence on FF.
That how the economy works and FF is not going away anytime soon.
EVs, wind turbines are wishful thinking.
Nether can deliver.
In the immediate yes. But you have to look a touch further back to the intervention of the US in matters Ukraine, and especially the 2014 so-called Maidan revolution. So in truth, it is the US under Obama with Victoria Nuland leading the charge that broke it, by placing their hand on the scales in a matter that should have been of absolutely no cern to the US.
You simply can’t go on thinking the West and the US in particular is all virtuous, and the Russians are all evil. There are two sides to every conflict, and the build-up and root causes of this conflict have the US written all over it.
Also worth remembering that Ukraine and Russia have been intertwined for aeons. Kiev is the cornerstone of Russian/Rus civilization dating back to the middle ages. Odessa is a Russian city built by Catherine the Great. Russia and at least eastern Ukraine are not really separate entities. And recall that Khrushchev was Ukrainian and donated Russian Crimea to Ukraine in 1955. Of course at that time this was no big deal since Russia and Ukraine were part of the USSR.
In essence the current Russia/Ukraine war should not be regarded so much as a war between states but a civil war (analogous to the US civil war if you will). And as such we in the West, and the UK in particular, should not intervene in what is entirely a local regional conflict. Let Russia and Ukraine sort it out and reach some sort of negotiated settlement. Because the fact of the matter is that that is going to be the eventual outcome. Ukraine can win some/many battles but it can’t win the war, and eventually support for Ukraine in the West will start to drop as heating and petrol supplies go down the drain. One can already see the beginnings of this in the Czech republic.
Why do you imagine Putin would stop at Ukraine? Why do you think Sweden and Finland have abandoned a century of neutrality that, by your reckoning, would have kept them safe from Russia? How do you explain the Baltic States’ anxious response to your civil war in a distant land?
Why wouldn’t he stop at Ukraine ?
That ludicrous question is just an excuse to prolong the conflict. People like you have been brainwashed into accepting a never ending war.
If Russia was able to extend their dominion over the Baltic states, or Moldova, or Finland, or Poland, without having to fear any pushback from the west, what would prevent Russia from thus increasing their power? Moral scruples??
If, if, if.
This is proganda from the western media
to justify the US’s proxy war on Russia.
Why not just answer my question? I answered yours.
The ambitious and expansionist entity in Europe is the EU not Moscow. The EU won’t be happy until it sucks in every country in Europe into its malignant web.
You have still not answered mr Fogh
I have no intention of doing so.
You and Mr Fogh need to look at the facts and stop believing the nonsense that you are spoonfed.
The history is there for anyone to check.
Yes it is, so please check it!
Oh it’s simple. Just drop idea of expanding greed. It does not exist. Russians can’t care less about expanding or dominating by governing some unfriendly territories. Why Ukraine, you ask? Just because it became super unfriendly totally corrupt puppet state with nuclear ambitions which is no less than a serious threat. Of course Putun would prefer to have Donesk in federalized Ukraine – as a tool to provide his interests. How many times Lavrov was pushing for Minsk to be implemented? Nobody wanted that war except the guys who are making billions as we chat.
BTW if I’m wrong we all are going to die. If the world is dealing with an insane person with a red button — start writing your last letters now. But I hope it’s not.
Khrushchev was not Ukrainian. But he was party chief in Ukraine as part of his career.
An excellent post.
They won’t.
Russia is in this for the long game.
Russia knows that the imbecile in the WH
won’t be there for much longer.
The idiocy of Washington and Kiev’s policy is that they could have achieved permanent peace and independence if they had taken Russian interests into consideration.
I remember when it all kicked off, way back in the 2000s when Kiev started messing around with the Russian Navy’s lease of the Port of Sevastopol. I distinctly recall listening to the radio and thinking “ who the hell cooked up that idea, don’t they realize that it will lead to war?” And now we can see that war was the point, to harm Russia. Funny how it all works out ain’t it.
There is no permanent peace with a powerful nation whose autocratic leader has the mindset of Putin.
You just don’t get it do you? This war was instigated by the US, NATO and the EU.
If it fatally weakens Russia, isn’t that a good thing?
No, it is not.
All that is going to happen is that Ukraine will be destroyed.
That is the fault of that crook Zelenskyy and foolish western politicians.
Sorry, to parallel quote an experienced observer from the past:
” No Putin, no problem. “
It weakens Russia, Germany and the whole EU which could cease to exist at some point. It is good for the USA, although we are yet to see what happens in ’23
Wait until you see the next guy. Putin will be remembered as a nice guy “we should have talked to”. I see a new generation of Russian politicians brewing and it gives me shivers. You have no idea how Russians are pissed off. Stealing that National Fund money was a huge mistake and it is another idiotic mistake to think that it’s one person driving the whole thing. He is a main player but with 80%+ support of the population and you can’t just dismiss it. Wait until the next guy.
Some people just cannot handle the truth.
As for energy, the UK could have easily been energy independent even without sufficient nuclear.
Indeed. People like you.
You just keep buying your Daily Express and watching the BBC, Harry. You will remain willfully ignorant.
Perhaps you should read Putin’s writings and watch internet video of Lavrovs utterances. Their intentions are definitely expansion probably even beyond the old borders of the USSR. The only way to stop that happening is to stop it starting. EU/NATO weakness over Ukraine would give Russia the green light and then there could be a ‘forever war’. any talk of a “peace” leaving Putin (or his sucessor) gaining land would be appeasement and I’ll repeat part of a previous post – It didn’t work when it was called Danegeld, it didn’t work in the last century and it won’t work in this one. (Sorry friendly Denmark, It’s just a lesson from history.)
>Perhaps you should read Putin’s writings and watch internet video of Lavrovs utterances. Their intentions are definitely expansion probably even beyond the old borders of the USSR.
Why are you inventing this? What might be a reason? Money? Neither of them AFAIK ever stated anything like it.
East German Uprising 1953, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Zhenbao Island 1969, Afghanistan 1979, Georgia 1991, Abkhazia 1991, Transnistria 1992, East Prigorodny 1992, Abkhazia 1992, Tajikistan 1992, Chechnya 1994, Dagestan 1999, Chechnya 1999, Ingushetia 2007, Georgia 2008, Caucuses 2009, Ukraine 2014, Central African Republic 2018, Ukraine 2022
Of course the west has never been involved in wars overseas, have they ?
Nah, not working. Most of that list is about breaking of the USSR (not going into why that happened and whom to thank) or related to that. TG we did not see a total war all-against-all. If you remove that (consider it a civil war inside USSR) and wars to get safety in buffer zones (like Afganistan 79) not much left. Also you are clearly trying to massage facts here. Transnistria and Georgia you mentioned there: Russian presence there was/is covered by the UN mandate, so if you are putting those in your “aggression list” think again. Sorry, but C- only.
Global Times, 25th February 2022
Russia says will only talk to Ukraine once Ukraine’s military lays down arms
“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow would be ready to hold talks with Kyiv, but only once Ukraine’s military had laid down its arms.”
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202202/1253207.shtml?id=11
Sheer fantasy.
There is always an excuse for warmongering.
You cite wars in which the West sought to impose changes on other countries in the face of opposition from at least a significant and powerful part of the population of the country in question. Is not the more apt analogy for Ukraine, a different war in Afghanistan? As I recall that went rather well and the opponent the West engaged via proxies (the Soviet Union) collapsed in the wake of failure in that war.
“Enjoy your heating bills you European NATO guys…..”
So you’re not in a European NATO country, then, “Aaron”? What a surprise!
Oh, and I saw a Russian woman being interviewed a couple of days ago, complaining that, living in a Russian city, her only form of heating was a wood burning stove, and she was complaining that gas rich Russia was selling its gas abroad, rather than heating its people.
So, rather like Russia’s Sputnik jabs being sold to the Hungarians, then.
Just out of interest, how are folks in St. Petersburg doing for sugar these days?
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Oh I see it now! Constant diminishing done by mass media – that is the core of chronical underestimation. It goes for centuries, but let’s just think about the latest. Of course you can find a woman with a wood burning stove if you are looking for one! You can find a woman without it if you want and create the picture you want. And being guided by BBC you project that to the whole country .. And you want to think, it’s sweet to think that
As for the stove lady, just google things sometimes. For starters: “gas consumption per capita by country”. But yes, you can find that lady. In any country.
Ah, the strawman. Where is anyone in the west saying that you have NO food, NO storage NO cruise missiles, etc.?
Though I note you’re answering on behalf of ‘Aaron James’ you haven’t told me how plentiful sugar is in Russia. Oh, I’m sure there’s more availability than there was a while ago, but is it freely available yet?
Sugar? I have no idea. Go find for yourself. I know that Russia is self-sufficient on most agricultural products, probably sugar as well, unless you meant some other kind of sugar.
As for “No this no that” – I took frontpage titles of drudge report for a few months and I guess it’s a miracle that country still exists according to those.
I’m confused. When you say you’re against the war, do you mean that you oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the Ukrainians defending themselves with the West’s assistance?
If you were against this war from the start you must really have been pissed at Russia on Feb 24