#putin's fail

Like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin is a whiner who thinks the world is unfair to him. He thinks Russia automatically deserves great power status – despite its relative weakness.

What Putin doesn't see, or chooses not to see, is that the power of the Soviet Union was not as great as it looked. Those Mercator projection maps covered up a lot of deficiencies – even to many insiders like Putin who failed to notice the rot.

For decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin railed against the world that the United States built after the Cold War. In his account, an international order run by a single power would hinder Russia and produce needless conflict, especially when that power was as self-serving and duplicitous as America. Now Donald Trump is dismantling the order that Putin had so long abhorred, and a new multipolar world is emerging in its place. Putin had thought he could rise to the top of such a system, in which raw economic and military might outweigh diplomacy and alliances. But he was mistaken: The norms and institutions of the postwar order actually masked Russia’s vulnerabilities. Putin has gotten the world he wished for—and it’s threatening to crush him.

Nukes and satellites made it look like the USSR was the equal of the US on the surface. But underneath the glitz was a rather poor country. The Soviets had a lower standard of living than the Eastern European countries it controlled from 1945 to 1989.

Moscow had assumed that its immense nuclear arsenal, unparalleled natural resources, and extensive territory in the heart of Eurasia would keep Russia competitive with China and the United States. But these assets have been unable to slow its rapid decline. Russia’s economy is at best one-quarter the size of China’s and America’s, and the gap is growing. Meanwhile, it risks becoming an afterthought in the race for technological supremacy in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing. The country’s economy and technology base are even slowly losing ground to India’s.

A fifth of all rural Russians still do not have indoor plumbing. Now you know why Russian troops were looting toilets from Ukraine. Russia's wealth has been going to an incompetent military, corrupt oligarchs, and into the pockets of Putin and his cronies.

Putin, a onetime lieutenant-colonel in the Soviet secret police (KGB), may indeed have kompromat on Donald Trump. But Trump is still a loose cannon who does what he can get away with – sometimes to Putin's disadvantage.

Moscow is at the mercy of an American president who circumvents traditional channels of power and obliterates the constraints that once regulated their use. For example, Trump could attempt to use his recently constituted Board of Peace to bypass the United Nations Security Council—and Russia’s veto—and muscle through his preferred policy in the Middle East, eroding Moscow’s influence in the region. Thanks to decisions by both Trump and Putin, moreover, the two powers no longer have any functional arms-control agreements. Without these, Trump could choose to accelerate his “Golden Dome” missile-defense program, which Russia fears could undermine its own nuclear deterrence.

Trump is causing European countries to cooperate more with each other. And horrifyingly for Putin, this has led to Europe strengthening its own defense capabilities.

As U.S. security assurances wane, European countries are developing their hard-power capabilities. Germany has committed 100 billion euros to modernize its military, and Poland is building up its armed forces with a goal of amassing 300,000 troops. Putin has long wanted to split the U.S. and Europe. But he might soon find that the continent—which collectively dwarfs Russia in population and wealth—poses a significant challenge even if it doesn’t belong to a U.S.-dominated alliance.

It's not like Russia has that great a military in the first place. February 24th is the 4th anniversary of Putin's "3-day special operation" in Ukraine. He seems to be way behind schedule.

Ukraine did not have the weaponry during the first few months of the invasion it has now. But after Russia's 2014 illegal takeover of Crimea, Ukraine reorganized its military along the lines of NATO; Ukrainian troops occasionally took part in joint training exercises in NATO countries in Europe. Because of this they were able to avoid annihilation and even made Russia withdraw from much of the north and northeast which it had initially occupied. Ukraine showed the world that the Russian Army is overrated shit.

If Putin had done absolutely nothing after taking power, Russia would probably be better off today.

In those rare moments of personal honesty with himself, Putin may wistfully daydream about the good old days before he decided to become a hybrid of Joseph Stalin and Peter the Great. Putin is not returning Russia to its imagined glory days of the Soviet Union but to the time of Russia's embarrassing defeat in the Russo-Japanese War.

— Historian Michael Kimmage at the New York Times.

There are still people who consider Putin to be a powerful genius – including one celebrity who considers himself to be a "stable genius".

But few people have harmed Russia more than Vladimir Putin in the past 80 years. And the only people who are responsible for more deaths of Russians than Putin since World War I are Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. Putin is not a Russian success story – except when it comes to lining his own pockets.

Those who claim that Ukraine can't win simply don't understand the extent and sophistication of Ukraine's defense and tech industries.

This is from Foreign Policy (archived)...

The new ace in the hole is Ukraine’s superlative defense sector, which has blossomed into one of Europe’s most ingenuous and advanced arms industries—and produces much of what its military requires (including roughly 40 percent of all weaponry) at a fraction of the cost and twice as fast. For every billion that the United States has paid out to its own industry, the Europeans can get several times as much from the Ukrainians—and without the same transfer headaches and costs. In addition to its hailed drone production, Ukraine reports that it produces more howitzers and artillery systems than all of Europe combined. The Ukrainians know exactly what they need and are constantly tweaking their hardware to conditions on the battlefield.

Sweden officially joined NATO on Thursday. It had been neutral since 1814.

One of Putin's pretexts for his illegal invasion of Ukraine was to prevent NATO expansion. What the invasion really did was to cause NATO to become reinvigorated and expanded.

With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the land border between Russia and NATO has doubled in length. And the Baltic is now a Sea of NATO with Russia holding only a couple of relatively short strips of coastline near Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg. This represents a spectacular strategic failure for Putin.

Sweden on Thursday formally joined NATO as the 32nd member of the transatlantic military alliance, ending decades of post-World War II neutrality as concerns about Russian aggression in Europe have spiked following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Secretary of State Antony Blinken presided at a ceremony in which Sweden's "instrument of accession" to the alliance was officially deposited at the State Department. "This is a historic moment for Sweden. It's historic for alliance. It's history for the transatlantic relationship," Blinken said. "Our NATO alliance is now stronger, larger than it's ever been." Kristersson wrote in a social media post that "we are therefore a safer country." Later Thursday. Kristersson will visit the White House and then be a guest of honor at President Joe Biden's State of the Union address to Congress.

Ukraine will eventually join NATO but it probably won't happen while active hostilities continue. Expect to hear Sweden mentioned at the State of the Union address.

Biden, in his speech to Congress, is expected to cite Sweden's accession to NATO as evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin's intent to divide and weaken the alliance has failed as a direct result of the Ukraine invasion. And, the Democratic president is expected to use Sweden's decision to join to step up calls for reluctant Republicans to approved stalled military assistance to Ukraine as the war enters its third year. Biden and his NATO counterparts have vowed that Ukraine will join one day, too.

One of Putin's excuses for his illegal invasion of Ukraine was to halt the expansion of NATO. Since his 3-day "special operation" began about 526 days ago, Finland has joined NATO, Sweden will be a member in a few months, and for all practical purposes Ukraine is a candidate for membership.

The alliance is probably the strongest it has ever been with almost all members increasing their defense budgets.

Putin is more insecure at home now than he has been at any time since rising to power.

Putin's latest stunt is to try to drive up world food prices by bombing Ukrainian grain depots. He's hoping to blackmail countries into abandoning support for Ukraine. What will happen instead is that NATO will supply more military equipment and ammo to bolster Ukraine's defense against these Russian attacks.

Putin's lunacy just makes this more inevitable after the war.

The US has started the process of upgrading its security commitment to Ukraine.

British military analyst Col. Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon was interviewed by Vazha Tavberidze at RFE/RL.

Col. de Bretton-Gordon has some stark observations about the war which Putin would not want Russians to read. 

I don't even know what a "Russian victory" would look like. I assume the "special military operation" that was started in February last year, where Putin said it was to prevent the expansion of NATO, of NATO moving further eastwards, and also to reclaim Ukraine for Russia. If that is what Putin is still trying to achieve, then he has no chance of victory. On the expansion of NATO, his actions have had exactly the opposite effect. Only two weeks ago, Finland joined NATO, the most powerful army in Europe, and also gave Putin another 832 miles (1,339 kilometers) of borders to worry about. He galvanized the whole of NATO, if not the Western world, to support Ukraine to throw the Russians out of Ukraine. So, I don't think there is any chance of Putin gaining victory from what he was trying to achieve in February last year.

It became apparent early on that Russia could not achieve its goal of overrunning all of Ukraine. Yet Putin continues to sacrifice troops to suit his ego.

In the history of warfare, commanders, when they have set out so clearly an objective for victory and have already spilt so much of their young people's blood -- now it would be an almost worse defeat. So, I think Putin and his generals are in the vain hope that they can eke out some sort of victory.

Putin thinks he can win the war the way some mathematically-challenged people think they can pay the rent by buying lottery tickets and hoping for a long shot bonanza. Putin’s lottery tickets are troops who he finds expendable. They are classic cannon fodder.

The meat grinder is almost medieval, it's certainly World War I, the amount of manpower that Russia is throwing into it. I've had credible information that the Russians are identifying lots of young men who they think will not be noticed if they're lost, because they are either homeless or of low intelligence, or they might be suffering drug problems. And throwing those into the front, as you say. In Bakhmut, the casualty rates are unbelievable, astronomically high.

I find it amazing that the mothers of Russia are not causing more of a stir. I get the feeling that I expect most of these young men are not from the elites in Moscow or St. Petersburg; they're probably from far in the east where people are less in communication with social media to be able to complain about these things.

An underreported aspect of the invasion is that Putin is disproportionately using ethnic minorities from east of the Ural Mountains to fight and die in his war. I’ve never heard tankies criticize Putin’s racism.  

It's shocking that those people have even lesser a voice in Russia. Ethnic minorities are being used as cannon fodder. I think I called it an "own goal," an "own genocide" that Russia is creating. But not [against] the...elite Russians -- I expect predominantly white -- but at the cost of people from the Far East who have less of a vote in Russia, probably less educated, and certainly less of a voice, that Russia is using to try to prolong this war almost to use up Ukrainian bullets until they run out. And it is a shocking state, which is why I and all sorts of others are calling on NATO to do everything it can to ensure that Ukraine prevails as quickly as possible so we can get to a peace, and to stop the bloodshed on absolutely unbelievable scales.

Helping Ukraine win the war quickly reduces Putin’s genocide of Russians of color.

Col. de Bretton-Gordon looks at Putin in the context of Russian history.

From what we read and learn, he sees himself very much as a Peter the Great of the modern era, being able to expand Russian influence across the rest of Europe. And undoubtedly, he's been focused on how Stalin ruled Russia in World War II, with an absolute iron grip.

[ ... ]

Putin's rule is an autocratic dictatorship and maybe born out of his time in the KGB, where you could get away with anything as long as it's successful. He is now 70 -- whether he's ill or not, who knows -- but he's in the last part of his life and probably feels he must achieve something like the great Russian leaders. And at the moment, it's all going the wrong way. So, he will presumably try to do everything he can to eke out some sort of victory. But I'm not quite sure how you can do that. He's operated very much like [Adolf] Hitler in World War II and he may well have a similar end.

Do you need an interesting stat or two to share with friends and relatives over Thanksgiving weekend? Here’s something from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). [Emphasis added]

Altogether, the Biden administration received Congressional approval for $40bn in aid for Ukraine for 2022 and has requested an additional $37.7bn for 2022. More than half of this aid has been earmarked for defense. 

These sums pale into insignificance when set against a total US defense budget of $715bn for 2022. The assistance represents 5.6% of total US defense spending. But Russia is a primary adversary of the US, a top tier rival not too far behind China, its number one strategic challenger. In cold, geopolitical terms, this war provides a prime opportunity for the US to erode and degrade Russia’s conventional defense capability, with no boots on the ground and little risk to US lives. 

The Ukrainian armed forces have already killed or wounded upwards of 100,000 Russian troops, half its original fighting force; there have been almost 8,000 confirmed losses of armored vehicles including thousands of tanks, thousands of APCs, artillery pieces, hundreds of fixed and rotary wing aircraft, and numerous naval vessels. US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment. If we divide out the US defense budget to the threats it faces, Russia would perhaps be of the order of $100bn-150bn in spend-to-threat. So spending just $40bn a year, erodes a threat value of $100-150bn, a two-to-three time return.  

In short, President Biden’s military assistance to Ukraine is just 5.6% of the US defense budget. Yet that small investment in democracy and independence for Ukraine has eroded the non-nuclear threat from Russia by almost half. In terms of military spending, this is probably the most cost-effective overseas defense investment by the US since World War II.

Giving credit where it’s due, Ukraine has made impressive use of the military aid it’s gotten from the US, NATO, and other friendly countries. Ukrainians have been brave, resourceful, and relentless in defending themselves and in pushing back Putin’s slovenly fascist invaders.

Even Ukrainian grannies, famous for feeding poisoned pastries to Russian invaders, have no qualms about taking up arms.

So the next time you hear some Fox News zombie complain about aid to Ukraine, let them know that Ronald Reagan would be envious of how Joe Biden is owning the Evil Empire – and doing it on the cheap and without loss of US lives.

@Defence of Ukraine (Ukraine's Ministry of Defense) on Twitter announcing the sinking of another Russian warship near Snake Island.

Not sure why Russians are still on Snake Island. It’s 165 km from the nearest Russian-held territory on the mainland. The occupiers are sitting ducks for Ukrainian missiles and UAVs. 

May 9th is Victory Day in Russia. It certainly isn’t a Putin Victory Day.

The annual Victory Day military parade in Moscow may be a little smaller this year.

Vladimir Putin has tried to intimidate Ukraine and NATO by moving a lot of tanks and troops around over the past few months. Here’s what he actually accomplished:

Putin has unintentionally helped unify NATO in a way we haven’t seen in over five years.

NATO and other Western countries have now sent billions of dollars in arms and other aid to Ukraine.

Neutral Sweden and Finland are now giving consideration to joining NATO.

International reaction to Putin’s threats has caused the Russian currency to sink.

Putin has reminded the world that he is little more than a bully with a 19th century imperialist mindset.

With increased international attention on Russia, the world’s attention is focused on Putin’s abysmal record on human rights.

The UK and Poland have signed a defense pact with Ukraine. While Ukraine may not yet be in NATO, it now has two NATO military allies.

Countries in Europe are now looking for alternative energy sources to reduce their dependence on Russia’s natural gas.

[S]tarting in November (perhaps earlier), he moved dozens of tank battalions, rockets, infantry fighting vehicles, and tens of thousands of the troops to go with them toward the border of Ukraine. We do not know whether he planned to invade or merely use the threat of an invasion to force concessions on his demands—for NATO to stop expanding its membership eastward and for the American military to roll back its presence in areas once held by the Soviet Union.

He may have figured that, even if Biden raised a fuss, the Europeans would be split. Some, including Germany, would be fearful of alienating Moscow, lest oil and gas supplies be cut off just as the winter temperatures were plunging. Certainly they wouldn’t risk hardship for the sake of Ukraine, which few Europeans wanted as a fellow NATO member and which most understood was of special importance to Russia.

In other words, Putin may well have expected resistance to fold before it mounted—compelling Zelensky to succumb to Moscow’s pressure without having to fire a shot.

Putin hates Ukraine and its government not just for geopolitical reasons but because it represents a democratic alternative to Putin’s de facto dictatorship. Being adjacent to Russia and having a significant number of Russian speakers with access to a free press, Ukraine has the potential to give nearby citizens of Russia ideas about democracy which authoritarian Putin doesn’t like.

Putin may have wanted to put the squeeze on Ukraine eventually but his timetable got speeded up by the defeat of his stooge Donald Trump. Putin’s hackers contributed to Trump’s win in 2016. Having an incompetent imbecile like Trump who was politically in hock to Putin gave the latter free rein to do what he wants on the world scene.

President Biden’s response has been stronger than Putin expected. Perhaps Putin has been getting too much of his advice about the US from Tucker Carlson.