Interesting (if true) - Economist is in the major leagues in terms of reliability. There is a “They”, and it’s probably the intelligence services. And the actual method would probably be less dignified than a hanging.
Not only is there a “they”, but it says Putin is entirely self-aware about the situation, and that he understands that he is personally accountable for this war.
This isn’t an optimistic post - frankly the grim truth has always seemed that this industrial murder festival will go on as long as he does. Russia of the last hundred years has been essentially a crime syndicate. To say he’s a Tsar kind of misses the point - the REAL power is the intelligence servies, and the Tsar-proxy is kind of a figurehead.
If he said this, it’s very telling. He knows the war is going badly, he knows his life is personally depenent on the outcome, he fears “they”, he wants to live and he doesn’t know what to do. Seems highly likely he’ll conitnue to escalate until…? Russian history suggests that when things don’t go well, they purge the leader and put all the blame on him in retirement. Don’t think Putin will get the “Kruschev Dacha Retirement” package - he’s done WAY too much damage.
Hopefully “They” are paying attention too, and are getting tired of the lack of progress.
Dude probably could have ended the war after a week or two, taken a portion of the east, and called it a day. So much discussion of giving Putin off-ramps back then.
This was back when Germany was supplying nothing more deadly than helmets and all of Russia’s navy was still floating.
Ain’t that the truth. Putting on your Black Hearted Ghoul hat for a moment - the smart thing for him to do would have been to pause and get firm concessions on the Donbas territory they already controlled plus Crimea. Something prior to the 2022 Kharkiv counter attack, annouce a ceasefire, say that you’d made your point that they are serious about Russian boundaries. They could have claimed they punched NATO in the nose and showed them to be toothless - which they were until it became clear Ukraine wasn’t going to slip away into history. Reserve your future strength, not showcase how terrible and now ultimately spent their army is. All those billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of men and machines that he’d still have to threaten the West with. Now, the west is financially and materially invested in Ukraine - disengagement will be slow, gradual, and only in the face of a Ukraine-friendly settlement.
But - they’re greedy and stupid, and only know how to escalate. Because they’re gangsters, not strategic military geniuses. It’s often said that Putin is a chess player - that’s horseflop. He’s a poker player who always bluffs, punches down on opponents he doesn’t think will hit back, and counts on his fat chip stack scaring others. Well - now he has blown that stack. His own hubris didn’t allow for a long version of this war.
And now what? Lost the Black Sea fleet. Lost 1.5 million men. Lost their entire soviet hardware inheritance. Became junior partners to China. Lost effective control of Crimea and the Black Sea. Lost allies in Syria, Armenia, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Venezuela. Lost their mischief-making franchise Wagner. Lost their AWACS fleet. Lost 1/2 of their strategic bombers. Lost their 30-year war chest of oil revenues. Lost their primary energy export markets to europe. Lost their ecommerce industry. Lost their oil and gas infrastructure. Lost any young Russian men smart enough to make their way out of the country prior to mobilization. Lost any relationship with Ukraine forever. Lost their fearsomeness. Enlarged NATO. The list goes on.
China has done this kind of short, snap, “prove a point” invasion several times in the last 75 years - against the USSR, Korea, Vietnam, India. China are smart enough to see that the threat of war is worth more than the more uncertain realization of it.
That is an exceptionally good piece of writing. And the insight on Putin is my favourite:
oh you with the flattery. cheers.
Fucking beautiful. I mean it.
I respect when folks can take a step back and look at it through the eyes of the “bad guy” and say “this is where they went wrong.”
Fucking beautiful piece of writing right there.
You are very kind! But my two cents isn’t chest thumping triumph in the near term. Quite the opposite. Sort of.
The point of the Economist article is that he fully understands it’s going badly, he understands he is not conquering Ukraine, but the scary part is is completely commited to - put simply - getting more in order to stay alive. It would be better for the world if he continued bashing his brains in against Ukraine chasing a delusional theory of victory.
The fact that they’re unable to advance in Ukraine GREATLY increases the chances he attacks the Baltics, and I mean soon. Like, in the next 1-2 months. And the point of that attack isn’t to take and hold territory.
It’s to try and salvage exposing NATO Article 5 as toothless words on a page. This window of a hollow ‘victory’ is a sweet spot of Trump still holding all the levers of power in the US until the midterms, and the relative unpreparedness of strong, unilateral NATO respons to an attack on Latvia, Lithuania and/or Estonia. Most serious minded thinkers agree that even a U.S. exempt response by European NATO partners will smash the current version of the Russian army in the case of a Baltic invasion.
But that’s not the point. Trump holds the U.S. out of Baltic attack, some Danes, Canadians stationed there die. Finland and Poland probably say “fuck it” and immediately implement air strikes because clearly it’s better to fight an inevitable opponent in someone else’s yard instead of your own. What do Paris, Berlin, London and Rome do? Who knows. They don’t have a lot of new capabilities to offer Ukraine, just more of what they’re already providing. I don’t see those large European NATO forces putting boots on the ground in the Baltics, at least not right away while they assess what Crazy ol’ Vlad is doing. Maybe they sink a few ships in the Baltic fleet and seize more shadow fleet vessels. Trump is going to die - soon. And he might be neutered politically before then. It’s urgent that Russia move while their armies are deployed and he exists to interfere with a unified Western response to their brazen attacks.
Point is - Russia is already pot committed to this war. It has become existential for their miserable hell on earth petromafia project. A defeated, post Putin Russia is headed for a power struggle, and EVERYONE understands that. They have more pragmatic cruelty unifying them than we give them credit for. Russia won’t be any stronger than they are right now for another centrury.
All that to say - he hasn’t made his last move. He will probably invade the Baltics in the next 1-2 months, regardless of a military outcome, and claim the prize is shattering NATO unity and further eroding U.S. partisan politics. Whether that would be enough for “They” to let him live is highly debatable, as that seems a goal of personal vengeance more than it does an issue of Russian strategic triumph.
Moreover, invading the Baltics essentially means much less pressure on the Ukrainian lines, and gives the UA options to think about their next steps. Opening even a brief new offensive will suck scarce resources away from the current fronts. Whatever support Ukraine is getting today might be enhanced signficantly if Russia invades the Baltics, even after that portion of the attack is brief.
But what do I know? What’s your thoughts?