The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Ukraine war: Not "crazy" because of - Putin is pursuing a clear strategy in the Soviet tradition

2022-03-04T16:50:39.354Z


Ukraine war: Not "crazy" because of - Putin is pursuing a clear strategy in the Soviet tradition Created: 03/04/2022, 17:48 By: Sonja Thomaser Russian President Vladimir Putin. © Sergei Guneyev/dpa Vladimir Putin will only withdraw in the face of credible threats of violence. But not because of largely ineffective sanctions against Russia. An analysis. MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Puti


Ukraine war: Not "crazy" because of - Putin is pursuing a clear strategy in the Soviet tradition

Created: 03/04/2022, 17:48

By: Sonja Thomaser

Russian President Vladimir Putin.

© Sergei Guneyev/dpa

Vladimir Putin will only withdraw in the face of credible threats of violence.

But not because of largely ineffective sanctions against Russia.

An analysis.

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin*'s foreign policy bears an uncanny resemblance to that of his Soviet ancestors in its hostility towards the US, Western Europe and democratic ideas and institutions.

Central to Putin's worldview is what respected diplomat George Frost Kennan called "Russia's traditional and instinctive sense of insecurity."

According to the online portal Daily Beast, he once said about Russia*: "And they learned to seek safety only in patient but deadly struggle for the destruction of the rival power, never in treaties or compromises with her."

Vladimir Putin, a former senior KGB officer, famously said that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, and he has worked tirelessly for 22 years to restore Russia's status as a great power.

There is no question that he has made great strides.

Ukraine: Vladimir Putin and Hybrid Warfare

Under Putin, the Russian state had developed an impressive ability to integrate multiple tools to pursue its goals, often at the expense of the US* and NATO. 

"Hybrid warfare," the Daily Beast analyzes, is perhaps the best name for the Kremlin's current approach to conflict.

It combines conventional military operations and military intimidation with political front movements, multimedia propaganda campaigns, fake news, cyber warfare and traditional diplomacy.

Ukraine War: Russia and Air Sovereignty

Russia now has a formidable conventional armed forces tailor-made for operations in Eastern Europe.

Perhaps the most ominous capability of the Russian army in the eyes of NATO command is air defense.

According to the Daily Beast, its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) systems are very robust and are becoming more sophisticated all the time.

Western forces now take air superiority for granted wherever they are stationed.

In a war against Soviet forces, this would not necessarily be the case. 

According to the US Army's Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook, “Russia uses a very dense network of air defense systems that overlap in layers to increase their protective capabilities.

Gaps in coverage can be filled… by new [electronic warfare] systems that confuse incoming missiles… or cause electronic fuses to detonate prematurely.”

Ukraine war: Putin sees the rule-based order as manipulated

Western media see Putin's decision to wage an all-out war on Ukraine as an outrageous affront to both the rules-based international order and Ukrainian sovereignty.

Putin sees the rules-based order as rigged against Moscow's legitimate interests and Western powers unwilling to acknowledge Russian security concerns about NATO, by far the world's largest military alliance. 

Clearly his most pressing concern is Ukraine's slow but unmistakable slide westward.

A slide that has gained significant momentum since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Putin is determined not only to stop this slide, but to reverse it.

Resolutely oppose Russian expansion tendencies

Kennan, who advised the US on the Soviet Union, has been very critical of the West's fragmented and reactive response to Putin's grievances, both real and imagined, in recent years, the Daily Beast said.

Kennan advised that the US and its allies "must pursue a policy of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansionist tendencies."

He also stressed imperial Russia's long history of expansionism and paranoia about the intentions of foreign powers - and that they see the capitalist West as Russia's implacable enemy, bent on its humiliation and destruction.

Kennan firmly believed that the West must counter Russia's entrenched expansionist tendencies with counterforce, determination and unanimity.

Otherwise Moscow would certainly try to fight Western encroachments on areas that Russia sees as within its legitimate sphere of influence.

"The Kremlin," he wrote according to the Daily Beast as early as 1946, "has no qualms about withdrawing in the face of overwhelming odds."

Ukraine war: Diplomat was critical of the expansion of NATO's eastern border

In 1997, eight years before his death, Kennan wrote in his diary, according to the Daily Beast: "The admission of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary into NATO made me very unhappy." How about such a development "with the assurances to the Russians to agree that they need not worry that the eastward expansion of NATO's borders has no military implications"? 

Kennan saw in the rapid and reckless expansion of NATO* "nothing more than a new cold war, which will probably end in a hot one, and the end of the efforts for a functioning democracy in Russia".

Ukraine war: Putin won't step down over sanctions

Kennan, who saw things coming, would probably say today that Putin, like his Soviet and Tsarist predecessors, would only act with restraint in the face of credible threats of violence.

But not because of largely ineffective sanctions against Moscow in the wake of the annexation of Crimea and its support for the Russian separatist minority in eastern Ukraine.

The largest land grab of post-Cold War Europe resulted in little more than a slap in the face for the Russian strongman.

In fact, deterrence was an essential element of Kennan's concept of containment.

As he repeatedly said during the Cold War, Western politicians had to see their red lines with absolute clarity and back them up with credible threats of military force.

The recent Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to prove Kennan right.

Putin with track record in wars

Chris Miller, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School, wrote in a recent essay in The New York Times: “There is no world leader today with a better track record when it comes to the use of military might than … Putin.

Whether against Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014, or in Syria since 2015, the Russian military has consistently turned battlefield successes into political victories.” 

Since the end of the Cold War, Putin's main adversary – the United States of America – has a far more extensive record of using military force to achieve its goals than Russia.

The problem is that the US has usually not achieved its goals and has failed miserably.

Ukarine war: Putin knows what he wants

Putin realizes, according to the Daily Beast, that the US is now a war-weary superpower trying to move the bulk of its armed forces to the Indo-Pacific region to deter China.

And he knows that under the American security umbrella, Europeans have become soft and comfortable. 

He doesn't think the West is ready to make diplomatic concessions.

And so he has chosen to get what he wants in a way that has worked very well for him so far: military force.

(Sonja Thomaser)

*fr.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-03-04

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.