In his calculus, the only powers that can stand against the West are Russia and China. In Putin’s eyes, the West has been dismantling any threats to its global domination, including Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran, through revolution, invasion, or economic tools. For him, democratic movements were merely the orchestration of covert forces, not genuine public uprisings they were the products of US and Western intelligence - because that is exactly how he would make use of them. Putin evaluated Western power as geographical ‘expansion’, not the result of Eastern European popular opinion. Once Ukraine was conquered, conventional forces would be placed on borders of Ukraine and Belarus, and nuclear forces moved into Belarus to counter NATO. What Putin was aiming for was no less than the end of Western global domination. But few took Russia’s consequent threats seriously, simply because they were based on false premises In Moscow, there was a growing sense of grievance and fear – grievance at the west’s ‘global domination’, and fear that Russia was going to be next. After all, what Russia wanted was impossible to deliver: the demand to withdraw all allied forces back to a line established before 1997, effectively demilitarising Eastern Europe and creating a realm of influence and control for Moscow that, in effect, would re-establish the Soviet sphere. The West hoped diplomacy could resolve the crisis, but the majority opinion was that Russia would never take the risk of launching a war. Putin simply could not accept that small nations could voluntarily join an alliance: in his world view only strength, and strong powers, matter. This was followed, in December, with a list of demands, and accusations that the West had ‘aggressively expanded’ NATO, even alleged ‘assurances’ in 1990 were an invention. He demanded it should never be permitted to join either the European Union or NATO. Last summer, the Russian leader wrote an essay on Ukraine which diminished its significance as a nation through his own falsified history. But few took Russia’s consequent threats seriously, simply because they were based on false premises. Russia’s miscalculations had long been there. China would lend support in a new Asian axis.Īs the world looks on in horror at events in Ukraine, it was clear the Russian army’s failure to take Kyiv in a blitzkrieg campaign, the foundation stone on which Putin’s strategy rested, has led to a very different war – one of attrition rather than one of decision.Īs the world looks on in horror at events in Ukraine, it was clear the Russian army’s failure to take Kyiv in a blitzkrieg campaign, the foundation stone on which Putin’s strategy rested, has led to a very different war – one of attrition rather than one of decision.Russia would return almost to its Cold War size and strength.The Ukrainians would capitulate, and get no support.To present NATO with a fait accompli: it would have to accept a ‘greater Russia’.To create a new world order with Russia as a dominating power, a rival to the US and NATO. Putin clearly cares nothing for public opinion or heavy civilian casualties, but his original strategy has failed. Russia has become the reviled aggressor in a war it seemingly cannot win, rather than the clever player of international strategy and diplomacy it set out to be.
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