As Russia’s Ukraine Campaign Struggles, the West Must Neuter Putin’s Nuclear Threat – Opinion

Vladimir Putin has placed Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert, raising tensions to levels not seen since the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. At this stage, the Russian leader feels irrational. He is frustrated by his failed plan to invade Ukraine. He’s desperate to get the West out of the way so he can claim his prize.

It is insane. It is not worth the risk of destroying Ukraine. No. By pursuing this aggressive path, Mr. Putin is making a grave mistake, both to the world and to Russia.

Putin believed that Putin would count on the West to be compliant and that there was no weakness in US leadership after our failure in Afghanistan. This assumption simply wasn’t true. That’s not how the world works. It is still illegal to act outside the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.

Putin, however, transformed the West to a united opponent and now draws in neutral nations such as Switzerland. Defying Putin’s nuclear threat, military and humanitarian aid continue to pour into Ukraine.

On Monday, February 28th, Ukraine’s leader, Mr. Zelenskyy, signed his country’s application to join the European Union on an expedited basis; something that the Europeans will most likely act on that will again raise the stakes in the battle of wills between Mr. Putin and his neighbors. Indeed, by late Monday, the EU’s energy commission announced that the integration of Ukraine’s power grid with Western Europe’s instead of the Russian power grid would begin.

These stakes are now so high that I believe the world has reached the point where it now boils down to the Russians themselves to ponder if the time has come to say enough is enough and begin the process of ending Mr. Putin’s reign before he plunges everyone into darkness.

Annexing Ukraine Does Not Work as Planned

As both parties prepared for delegations to Belarus, the ground war in Ukraine intensified this weekend. While Russian forces continued to flood into Ukraine, and the infrastructure was improved, fake and true news about attack erupted in more Ukrainian cities exploded on the internet. There were stories of heroic acts of courage and bravery by Ukrainian defenders, mixed with reports of Russian troops encircling population centers.

Through this fog of war, the calculus of warfare is revealing that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assumption that Ukraine would be an easy takeover target was wrong.  Ukrainian forces are showing to be strong and resilient defenders.  In Ukraine, it is also proving that the military theory that anti-tank weaponry can be used to counter mechanized tanks armies has been proven to be accurate.  Russian forces have been increasing their bombardment to try to reduce defenses. There are numerous reports on this.

The truth is, unless the Ukrainian delegation gives up unconditionally in Belarus, Russia may face a scenario where they have to use siegecraft to take down the Ukrainians. A methodical destruction and destruction of entire towns is usually required to win such a battle. The latest reports show that a 40-mile long column of Russian military vehicles is standing outside Kyiv, the capital. Ukraine’s cities, formerly thriving urban centers, will be reduced to rubble and look more like Aleppo, Syria today, or Berlin, Germany in 1945.

Putin hopes to capture the capital and break the Ukrainian will. It could. It could be.

Bad Math, or Ignoring The Facts

Russia’s apparent determination to win is reflected in the requirements of force elements.  The modern siege is a combination of urban small arms and artillery duel. An attacker must possess a force ratio of between three and five times that of a determined defender.  The Russian general staff, who are masters at the art of calculating what’s called the “correlation of forces,” know this all too well.

The Russian military contingent that was sitting on the border of Ukraine numbered around 130,000 troops out of Putin’s estimated total potential of around 900,000 troops in the entire Russian military.  According to estimates, the Ukrainian army has around 196 800 active personnel and a reserve of approximately 7 million male military-aged men to help it out in a prolonged war.

Putin had to always be ready to mobilize 600,000. troops in case the Ukrainians attacked.  Putin must be prepared to mobilize his whole armed force if Ukraine begins to draw upon its people to resist.

This would expose all of Russia’s flank to vulnerability not only from obvious border foes like China, but to loss of influence over Russia’s many satellite states who would begin to see opportunities to also try for a breakaway from Moscow.

Personally, I would have advised Vladimir Putin that the correlation calculation of the many potential outcome options for initiating a conflict in Ukraine were more likely to turn into a morass; that an easy win was the long shot, and that it wasn’t worth the gamble.

I’m at a loss to interpret why such an obvious COF calculation did not prevail when it certainly had to have come up during deliberations. The basic math of war was overturned by Mr. Putin somewhere. It’s now costing him more than he bargained for.

Mad Hatter Behavior

Mr. Putin’s invocation of the threat of preemptive use of nuclear weapons as a ploy to keep Western powers away from Ukraine and his gamble that the Zelenskyy government would go quietly into the night are irrational pillars upon which to build a house of cards.

He has shown every satellite of Russia, even if he is able to take Ukraine short-term, that his power does not have limits. It is now clear that the USSR dream of restoration has fallen apart. Putin’s only achievement is to form a united coalition against this possibility. Putin’s adventure is likely to start the questioning of his leadership in the future of Russia.

It didn’t have to go this way. Only a few days back, Russia had begun to move towards the global economy. All that has now been thrown into the trash for the foreseeable future as a range of sanctions devastates the Russian economy in a way that will be felt by all Russians, who are also victims caught in the whirlwind of Putin’s brashness.

Putin’s seeming lunacy has also clearly descended to his dark terminology for his imaginary enemies.  He calls Europeans Nazis. He speaks of the United States as the “empire of lies.” His speeches are laced with strong animus using severe terms denoting the kind of deep hatred that can only be satisfied by the utter conquest of his foes.

Putin made it clear to the world, in his own words. He has shown that he does not pretend diplomatically anymore, but is acting intentionally. Putin has been made an unlegitimate poacher who is out to get the meat. This is alarmingly depotic.

I don’t know what caused Vladimir Putin to change from his prior calculating persona to the unrestrained dangerous animal he looks to have become. I’ve heard the observations that he became very isolated over the last two years of COVID-19. Being isolated can lead to irrationality. Most people can only hurt themselves when they are in pain. But Vladimir Putin is a man with the ability to turn his untoward feelings into suffering on a large scale, which he has done — and he’s capable of creating more pain.

Putin decided to put his life at risk by entering Ukraine. It won’t turn out well. In the aftermath of pariah sanctions and, by the time Russian military bodies are counted and questions are asked, a drained of moral purpose military machine, Mr. Putin’s Russia could suffer a collapse even more devastating than the one that beset his country after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Others I’ve discussed the matter with go beyond questions of whether Russia can hold onto the allegiance of its satellite partners to conjecture about whether the Russian Federation itself can survive. Common question: When will Siberia be part of China? An analytical mind might think that this is nonsense.  It would have been two weeks ago. Something has happened to the way that life is on Earth. At this point, there is no way to predict the future. The Chinese, however, are not allowing Russia to be discouraged.

There’s so little morality to be found in Mr. Putin’s actions. It’s like looking into a void. In my time as a military analyst, I’ve been through countless theoretical scenarios that explored many aspects of “means justifying ends” options as part of doing analytics. The moral filter has always been something that maintained the barrier between sensible and infeasible options by all sides when it came to US and USSR relations — particularly when it came to the subject of nuclear weapons.

This barrier seems to have broken down inside Mr. Putin’s calculus and his most recent speeches clearly show that his head is in a different space from everyone else’s world reality. Russia and its citizens deserve more than this.

Bomb Neutering

It is vitally important to end Mr. Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling. His conventional war plan to attack Ukraine is failing. He may lose the campaign.  That isn’t a reason to take more aggressive action against theater nuclear weapons. Then, it’s no longer a squabble over control of a buffer state. The fight is for humanity’s survival.

Many European countries have taken the attitude that they’ve already been directly threatened.  They are heeding Mr. Putin’s words in his speeches about thinking and acting preemptively. They are now openly supplying Ukraine with weapons and looking at the danger in front of them. They’ve committed themselves to being targets. Or, noting that they’ve probably always been targets in Mr. Putin’s view, even in the years he acted with more constraint. It’s put up or shut up time. They made a moral choice. These countries are willing to take a significant risk.

It is highly recommended that President Biden stop ghosting President Putin. A part of what might have hindered the Russian is positional bargaining that forces Putin into a corner. To me, it would be remiss of Mr. Biden to ignore the direct line. He should insist that there is a continuous discussion about the nuclear problem until it is solved.

US policy should state that all countries must agree that they will not consider using nuclear weapons to resolve the Ukrainian issue. While there are tensions, emotions and concerns about Ukraine, it isn’t a reason for us to begin World War III. It is a simple truth that all parties must step back from the edge of danger or escalate. It is possible to have an open dialogue with others.

This moment should not be missed by Mr. Biden or Mr. Putin. Although I know that not all Americans agree with Biden’s decision, the reality is that world events can be a come-as you-are event. The Office of the President of the United States doesn’t care who sits in it.  It is up to the nation to do its job.  It is now that the Oval Office can be transformed into another Kennedy.

Looking for a Solution?

It is dangerous to be proud and Putin is no exception. It is important that Mr. Putin, and more importantly all Russians, realize that the world doesn’t end if this misadventure in Ukraine doesn’t work. Russia will continue to exist. Russia will continue to exist even if it is a pariah economic nation. Russia and its people can resume their journey back towards becoming part of a peaceful Eurasia.

The United States’ world leadership will be either vital or ineffective in this area. The only person on the international stage that can make a positive difference in this situation for Russia is us, and it’s not for the better.

We are slowly putting the stick to sanctions. Let the Europeans take the initiative in increasing these sanctions and have tested the waters at every step. The crescendo continues to grow. Russian rubles are now in crisis. Mr. Putin’s patience grows thinner, less due to sanctions than to the Ukrainians still resisting.

This isn’t a time for prideful US behavior.

Biden must also figure out how to make a de-escalation carrot. This option must be implemented sooner than expected. The world is currently questioning whether America can be still relevant.  After many years of internal acrimony, we have lost our ability to cohesion. Recent setbacks in the tenacity of our foreign policy haven’t helped either.

However, the bottom line remains that somebody must take responsibility for restoring global stability. It is necessary to show Mr. Putin that we are not the “empire of lies” who must be destroyed.  We need to prove that we are not the “empire of lies” who must one day be destroyed, as Mr. Putin coldly asserts, but that we are still capable of being a beacon of hope for people who want to pursue freedom and self-determination in open societies.  As a symbol for the planet, we must not forget our humanity and remember what we have done.

It’s important that the United States take the high road and use every means available to tell the Russian people that, if this crisis can be resolved, it is possible to get past the damage done by this episode and integrate Russia back into the global economy.

It is important to talk about this as part of the foreign policy narrative. Is Russia able to join and thrive in the global community of nations? If Mr. Putin or Russia are able to find the courage to step back, we should be like him.

Also, we must be prepared to do substantive work on any promises we make so that they don’t seem hollow as the time Russia believed the West would bring peace dividends.

Such a promise isn’t so hard particularly when you factor in other lofty ideas for mankind like transforming the world into a mineral-intensive economy, whether you believe in this version of climate change strategy or not. This creates hope and a carrot for Russia’s future.

Russian Dilemma

If Mr. Putin’s thirst for confrontation cannot be averted, the reality is that only his own people can stop him from plunging the world into chaos. It’s a difficult dilemma.

He is a great leader, whether you agree with him or disagree. Russia was devastated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and many Russians were killed. It was a great honor for his country to pull things together in those turbulent times. Russians have a right to be proud of him.  This makes the moment he led Russia down an unfavorable path for Russia a pivotal event in his country’s history.

The events have surprised ordinary Russians just as much as everyone else. I don’t believe for an instant that most Russians want to be the people who destroyed planet earth in a nuclear holocaust because an attack on a brother former republic went wrong. It doesn’t make any sense.

It begs the difficult question, is it time for the Russian people to question Mr. Putin’s fitness to lead? This is his mistake. His speeches describe his decisions with the word “I.” From a leadership acumen perspective, his thinking that the world would let him get away with taking Ukraine cheaply is clearly flawed and has only served to doom the near future of his county’s position in the world. It is hard to imagine anyone trusting him in another situation. It’s just too rogue.

It’s also important to remember that Ukraine and Russia really are brothers. The border between the two countries is shared by extended families. In the US, Mr. Putin pitted close-knit families against each other in a manner that is similar to how family members fought for their kin in the US Civil War.  One must ask what kind of a leader of any society could sanely condone such a thing, much less toy with people’s lives so callously. It is clear, however that Putin has lost respect for the people whom he had sworn to serve.