The migrants at the Belarusian border are pawns in a wicked and heartless ruse. Russian troops are massing on Ukraine’s border. What is Putin trying to do?
“ What Obama’s belief in the possibility of deals with countries like Russia and Iran leaves out is that some countries around the world may count the reduction of American power and prestige among their vital interests. They may not be hampering and thwarting us because we are unnecessarily and arbitrarily blocking their path toward a reasonable goal; they may be hampering and frustrating us because curbing our power is one of their central objectives…American power is not a good thing if you hate the post-Cold War status quo, and it can make sense to sacrifice the advantages of a particular compromise with the United States if as a result you can reduce America’s ability to interfere with your broader goals...
When Ukraine escaped from the Soviet Union in 1990, Soviet nukes from the Cold War were still stationed on Ukrainian territory. After a lot of negotiation, Ukraine agreed to return those nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for what (perhaps naively) its leaders at the time thought would be solid security guarantees from the United States and the United Kingdom. The “Budapest Memorandum” as this agreement is called, does not in fact require the United States to do very much. We can leave Ukraine twisting in the wind without breaking our limited formal obligations under the pact.
If President Obama does this, however, and Ukraine ends up losing chunks of territory to Russia, it is pretty much the end of a rational case for non-proliferation in many countries around the world. If Ukraine still had its nukes, it would probably still have Crimea. It gave up its nukes, got worthless paper guarantees, and also got an invasion from a more powerful and nuclear neighbor.“
Who were the biggest advocates for the Budapest Memorandum? Globalists in the United States and the United Kingdom that’s who. Ukraine’s fate was sealed the moment that agreement was signed. The American and British gift to Russia was enormous.
The problem Wig Wag I would argue is actually greater in that MOST countries actually want a reduction of American power and prestige. Included in this group are countries including Macron's France, Trudeau's Canada, Amlo's Mexico, and Merkel's Germany. On the flip side the countries that do want continued American prestige and power are relatively weak nations totally dependent on American supports such as the GCC, Taiwan, Israel, and portions of Eastern Europe or lastly for cultural and tradition reasons the United Kingdom. The thing is the former are a huge burden to the United States financially and militarily and the later in the context of Brexit just dumped a barrel of gasoline over it's head and lit a match.
In Eastern Europe what is even more remarkable is if you look beneath the surface the most visible "pro American" politicians like Toomas Ilves are to be quite frank "has been" i.e. basically "former" politicians not current. As I have long pointed out if Estonia was so concerned about American prestige and power why did it join the Euro in 2010 when Toomas was President. And I don't think I misrepresenting Toomas "former" political status he is quite open on Twitter that he disagrees with the current govt in Tallinn on just about everything.
Happy Hanukkah, Tim, to you and Claire and all of Claire’s readers whether Jewish or not. The holiday started at sun down this evening. As a small token of my appreciation for the Cosmopolitan Globalists and people like you, Tim, who always provide interesting comments (even if I often disagree with them), I am providing this link to an article in “First Things,” (one of my favorite websites) that I hope you and Claire’s other loyal readers will find entertaining and enlightening.
A storm is brewing and the Biden Administration believes that they can head it off by huffing, puffing, gesticulating and making strong pronouncements.
It’s not just Ukraine. We’re witnessing disturbing tidings in Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo. Then there’s Poland and Belarus.
Has anyone considered the possibility that a Russian invasion of Ukraine might be the perfect time for China to move against Taiwan?
Biden and Blinken seem to think that the United States is so powerful that merely by suggesting that the American commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine is “ironclad”that words alone are sufficient to deter Russia. They seem to think that the same empty assurances are enough to deter China. Of course, they’re wrong.
The post World War order is finito. Stick a fork in it. It’s done. The rules-based world that prevailed so recently is like an aged man, a paltry thing upon a stick.
Globalists need to wake up and realize that it’s the ideology that they hold so dear that’s responsible for the collapse of the world-order who’s demise they lament. Trump, in his own buffoonish way, recognized that the coalition that ruled the world since the end of the Cold War was in extremis and needed to be replaced by something else.
Biden and his globalist ilk act like the United States (with its ailing allies who won the Cold War-Western Europe and Japan) are as powerful as ever. If only it were so.
Historians will spend generations debating who destroyed the liberal order that prevailed after the demise of the Soviet Union, but those of us living in the here and now already know the answer. The blame lies firmly in the laps of globalists (whether of the neoconservative or liberal internationalist variety) and the neoliberal economic policies championed by those globalists.
It’s time for globalists to admit that the world is reaping what they have sown.
Excellnt and interesting read. I fear the US is too deep in its cups to be of much use to Ukraine and Europe. Biden will play at it, but hasn't the chops to do anything serious. The Republicans are far too Trumpian to give a rip, on balance.
Again I say: one could be forgiven for thinking we might be on the verge of The Great War.
That's what it feels like. Ukraine military issued a warning of possible strikes to civilian positions in Crimea. I haven't checked it yet (I've been prepping for an interview) but it's also been issued by the US Embassy in Kyiv.
What Putin is doing seems clear enough. He's moving to emasculate and humiliate Biden-Harris--zir don't have the grace to know embarrassment, much less humiliation, but that doesn't matter; Europe will see it clearly enough--as a step toward isolating Europe and the US from each other.
Poland-Belarus is only a distraction at this point, a shaping of the battlefield for future reference. He'll make his move into Ukraine and the Baltics in his good time, but not until after he's frozen (perhaps literally) Europe by denying them oil and gas, which freeze will become especially available once Nordstream 2 is up and running, cementing Europe's dependency on Putin's good offices for their welfare. Those good offices have and will have nothing to do with his good nature.
Given Germany's decision not to bother with its own defense (see their military's OR rate, which is worse than the USSR's ever was) much less play a serious role in Europe's collective defense (see their decision to welch, again, on their own commitment to fund NATO), the energy blackmail will have the EU begging for mercy and accepting Russian reoccupation of Ukraine and the Baltics.
Meantime, Biden-Harris will satisfy zirselves with having zir UN ambassador emit a series of sternly worded press releases.
Regarding the Belorus portion of the Poland-Belorus distraction, there's a fair amount of personal friction and mutual extortion, such as it is, between Putin and Lukashenko, but once the dust settles (my estimate is that Putin sees late 2024 as a potentially serious deadline), Lukashenko will suffer a brief series of unfortunate events that will remove him from office.
Thanks for commenting Eric and you find me in agreement with a lot of points. I was reading something interesting that I didn't have time to include in the piece. Putin would like to destabilize Belarus, insert his own leader and get rid of Lukashenko. That makes sense to me.
If the goal here is "embarrassing Biden, but that's all that matters to him, so he's not actually going to move those troops out of Russia," it has very different implications than if the goal is "invading the rest of Ukraine, occupying it, then moving on to the next tasty morsel of Europe." You seem to be firmly in the camp of, "This is just bluff." You allow that his long-term goal is territorial, but you don't seem to think this is the moment. Do you have a reason for this based on Russian sources, or might you be mirror-imaging: Looking at this the way *you* would if you were Putin and wanted to choose the best moment for an invasion? I don't know how he thinks; I truly don't. Your generalship, so to speak, may be better than his, and more prudent. I don't feel much confidence that he's patient enough to bide his time.
I don't know where the idea came from that embarrassing Biden-Harris (his term, not mine: https://bit.ly/30XUS9c and https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/ ) is the goal; what I said was "as a step toward isolating Europe and the US from each other". Which itself is a prelude to aggression. There's no bluff.
I don't have anything specific from any magical Russian sources, but I do have many years of sitting across the fence from Russians (Russians, not Soviets; the SSRs all did Russian bidding, and so did eastern Germany (which my GAF counterparts referred to as "occupied Germany," we having killed the wrong pig) and "Soviet" occupied Poland and the Baltics) reading the intel of the time and, at the time prior intel, to which I had access. I understand something of Russian thinking. Building a favorable confluence of forces has been Russian doctrine for a century.
Putin has been patient, biding his time, shaping the coming political and "physical" battlefield since before he took office. He's also a skilled opportunist, and as such he's a reflection of Russia.
Russia is territorial, and Putin is bent on rebuilding the Russian empire. He's also bent on clearing the humiliation of the Soviet collapse by restoring the empire--that's his short-, intermediate-, long-, and permanent-goal.
He's already moved to partition Georgia and Ukraine, occupying what he's separated out, he's creating the conditions for Anschluss in the Baltics and further in Ukraine--openly claimed Anschluss in Crimea--he's testing cyber techniques in the Baltics, Poland, and the US (where he found Biden-Harris suitably compliant with his shutdown of Colonial Pipeline in order to persuade Biden-Harris to stop blocking Nordstream 2).
As I suggested, the next three years will be especially dangerous, as he may anticipate a much less compliant administration replacing Biden-Harris'.
In the end, too, "moving troops out of Russia" may well be a last step. Joe Collins was a firm believer in "Send a bullet, not a man." It's looking increasingly like Putin is developing the means to "Send an electron, not man; withhold an erg, don't send a man." A confluence of forces isn't only with soldiers and guns. Sometimes, too, effective doctrine is arrived at independently, mirroring not, of necessity, involved.
There's always a risk of projecting, even when reading their intel--they're under risk of projecting onto us, too, so there's also the extended risk of looking into the infinity of mirror images reflected back onto each other, especially when we're reading what they say they anticipate us doing.
I understand what you mean better, now. This would make for an interesting article, actually: To what extent is Putin expressing a Russian doctrine that has essentially been unchanged for a century? Does it matter who the Russian leader is? Or is this baked so deeply into Russian institutions and thinking that no matter who's in charge, you get the same foreign policy? It's an interesting question.
Yes, but only for the skill, or lack, of implementation (as opposed to execution (for which the skill of the leader also matters critically) but execution is in the here and now; implementation includes execution and extends into an indefinite future*) by the man occupying the chair.
It's not intrinsic (nobody's is), but it's deeply ingrained into a system that's even more resistant to evolution, much less change, than even the current West.
*My definitions, not necessarily those of "conventional wisdom"
While in the case of the Baltics they have signed up to the more Federalist/Integrationalist version of the EU that the Poles, Swedes, and Brits(when they were members) refused to. So if giving up more power to France, Germany, the EU Commission, and there European Central Bank bites the Baltics in the ass they will have no one but themselves to blame.
**My personal opinion is the Balts know perfectly well what they are doing which is making sure Ukraine takes there place under the Russian guillotine. The Balts know that NATO membership on it's own won't save them but perhaps NATO+EU+Euro membership will cause Russia to flinch and focus on easier prey i.e. Ukraine. The thing is Baltics are defacto taking the side of Germany and France and going against the pro Ukrainian lobby in the US Congress. Just think about the Balts becoming Euro members and how much Margaret Thatcher hated the idea of a single European currency.
The Baltic States already are EU members, as well as members of the Eurozone.
NATO+EU+Euro(zone?) have so much overlap, that, absent the US and Canada, they can be taken, in this context, as pretty much the same thing.
With Germany disdaining NATO, the Baltics cannot count on much help. That especially will become apparent as Putin starts inflicting increasing levels of energy pain, which he will do at faster rates of increase than the Europeans can adapt.
That the Baltics have only themselves to blame may or may not be true--a lot depends on the promises others made them to get their accessions--but it's irrelevant to the strait they're in and about to be in. What matters here and in the coming future is what the US (for instance) will do about it. Biden-Harris won't be doing much, hence the potential deadline of late 2024.
Well let's be blunt no one in the US not Biden, not Harris, not Trump are going to be doing anything about it militarily. In fact to the extent that the Balts themselves have diminished US economic leverage by joining the Euro within the EU and supporting efforts by the ECB to develop alternatives to the SWIFT system and US Dollar's reserve currency status I am not exactly sure why the US SHOULD help the Balts if Germany and France will not given how supportive the Balts have been towards France, Germany, and the ECB.
I think the current hope in Brussels and Washington is as the Cosmopolitan Globalists suggested back in April on one of there podcasts that taking and fully digesting Ukraine(i.e. taking Kiev) is probably out of reach of Russia short of maybe throwing their entire military at it.
"I am hoping others will respond before I write more comments because I could literally right a whole book about the "Tim Smyth theory of European politics.""
We keep telling him just to write the *article,* which we would be pleased to publish. We'll keep waiting for it, Tim ... but seriously, just stop procrastinating and write it.
I will try to make some progress over the US Thanksgiving break. I do need some feedback from Claire, Owen, Monique, anyone to tell me though whether or not I am totally crazy.
Along these historic lines has anyone taken note of the fact that the UK which is the third signatory to the Budapest memorandum is no where to be found at the moment. Boris Johnson must be off Brexiting someplace. Perhaps he is helping his brother and father prepare for their big Silk Road documentary which they have already assured the Chinese govt is NOT going to mention anything about Chinese human rights abuses of the Uiguyrs in Xinjian. At least though John Major who was the British leader who actually signed the Budapest memorandum could be said to have apologized to the Ukrainian for the lack of any British involvement in the current crisis by calling Boris Johnson the worst Prime Minister in his lifetime.
Macron at least has the excuse the Francois Mitterand refused to sign the Budapest memorandum in 1994.
I will also add the moves towards developing alternatives to SWIFT and "bulking up" the European Central Bank are not solely drives by anti-Americanism and desire to dethrone the US Dollar's reserve status but many other practical reasons that are/were probably inevitable(i.e. the perception that SWIFT's management acts anti competitive and resists new technology) but the net effect is transferring European financial power from institutions like the City of London and SWIFT which the US Treasury has longstanding relationships towards more autonomist minded continental European institutions in Paris and Frankfurt. There was a reason every living US Treasury Secretary strongly came out in opposition to Brexit.
I am happy that the Globalist has published this piece as I have wanted to debate this subject for a long time as I have some pretty sharp disagreement with Monique, Toomas, and other Globalists on this subject. First the only way the EU can reduce the ability for Russia to blackmail them is by a either a complete or massive reduction on there dependence on Russia for natural gas. It is not relevant whether the gas comes through Ukraine or Nordstream 2(something I disagree with Monique on strenuously) Europe needs to go off Russian gas cold turkey. Ironically the country with the most success in doing this is France but France has used this success to further it’s own autonomy in foreign policy i.e. France is more interested in sitting at the grown-ups table with the US, Russia, and China than being the oldest kid at the kid’s table with the Ukraine’s and Poland’s.
In terms of the mandatory sanctions against NordStream 2 that Monique is a big fan of I am not sure what the effect would be. One possibility is at this point there would be purely symbolic given construction of the pipeline is complete essentially closing the barn door after the horse is left. Could the sanctions be re-interpreted as trying to sanction entities from “using” the pipeline once it is operational perhaps, but I think would be an interpretation none of the parties involved would like to see happen. It is quite imaginable that in a shortage situation there would be enormous public pressure in Europe on govts and companies to “bust” the US sanctions which in turn would put both the US Congress in a Biden in a difficult position as to whether to engage in escalation dominance or to backdown in defeat. This could very well lead to the end of NATO and people like France’s Macron even to the extent they might be unaffected politically will use the situation to try to further there longstanding goal of more French and European foreign policy autonomy. Even some of the more pro American foreign policy thinkers in France like Bruno Tertrais and Francois Heisbourg now praise France’s refusal to sign the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine’s independence for giving up nuclear weapons as a grand and great decision of French foreign policy(Admittedly after a "certain" individual prompted the response).
Lastly I think it has to be acknowledge that Brexit is and was a disaster for Eastern Europe. The UK was the closest friend a lot of these countries had in Western Europe even with all the Russian money sloshing around in London and even outside of the EU now the UK is a much different country from what you might called the Atlanticist pro democracy orientation that every British leader had from Thatcher to Theresa May. This tradition has now been broken. A really key metric I would also look is not get drawn into the fight as to how many banks and bankers have left London since Brexit but look at which of the remaining EU countries they have relocated to. Almost all of them relocated from London to places like Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin, even Milan and Madrid not the more Atlanticist skeptical of Russia countries to the East. The few crumbs that places like Estonia and Lithuania get in the post Brexit financial services spoils are things like cryptocurrency which itself is largely a tool for Russian influence and domination. The more “legitimate” banking industry all went to the Western countries and cities like Frankfurt and Paris that are ironically “soft” on Russia in the eyes of Monique, Toomas, Paul Massaro, and Olga Lautman. This is an important implications in terms of sanctions, counter-sanctions, and kleptocracy.
I am hoping others will respond before I write more comments because I could literally right a whole book about the "Tim Smyth theory of European politics." I would recommend people watch at least the later parts of the old BBC documentary called the Poisoned Chalice. In particular I think the fact that way back in 1991 during the Maastricht negotiations that the supposedly pro American Atlanticist Dutch were actually leading the charge to force Britain out of the EU way back then and there(and the UK's opt out from the Euro only came about after the personal intervention of Helmut Kohl) over John Major and Conservative Party's opposition to the UK joining a European Single Currency is a story that needs to be told and understood a lot more.
In particular this is an element of European history I wish people like Monique, Paul Massaro, and Irene Kenyon would understand and study much more. I will also note as I have done repeatedly before that even Helmut Kohl's commitment to keeping the UK in the tent was not as strong as perhaps it was remembered as recounts economist Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute who was in Helmut Kohl's office the day the UK crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. A question I have always wondered about is would have the Eastern EU members have joined in 2004 if the UK had left in 1992 and perhaps some Cosmopolitan Globalists might have some thoughts on.
This 2014 essay from Walter Russell Mead is worth a re-read.
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/03/03/putin-invades-crimea-obama-hardest-hit/
Mead’s take is spot on. Mead explains,
“ What Obama’s belief in the possibility of deals with countries like Russia and Iran leaves out is that some countries around the world may count the reduction of American power and prestige among their vital interests. They may not be hampering and thwarting us because we are unnecessarily and arbitrarily blocking their path toward a reasonable goal; they may be hampering and frustrating us because curbing our power is one of their central objectives…American power is not a good thing if you hate the post-Cold War status quo, and it can make sense to sacrifice the advantages of a particular compromise with the United States if as a result you can reduce America’s ability to interfere with your broader goals...
When Ukraine escaped from the Soviet Union in 1990, Soviet nukes from the Cold War were still stationed on Ukrainian territory. After a lot of negotiation, Ukraine agreed to return those nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for what (perhaps naively) its leaders at the time thought would be solid security guarantees from the United States and the United Kingdom. The “Budapest Memorandum” as this agreement is called, does not in fact require the United States to do very much. We can leave Ukraine twisting in the wind without breaking our limited formal obligations under the pact.
If President Obama does this, however, and Ukraine ends up losing chunks of territory to Russia, it is pretty much the end of a rational case for non-proliferation in many countries around the world. If Ukraine still had its nukes, it would probably still have Crimea. It gave up its nukes, got worthless paper guarantees, and also got an invasion from a more powerful and nuclear neighbor.“
Who were the biggest advocates for the Budapest Memorandum? Globalists in the United States and the United Kingdom that’s who. Ukraine’s fate was sealed the moment that agreement was signed. The American and British gift to Russia was enormous.
To quote Yogi Berra, it’s deja vu all over again.
Do globalists ever get anything right?
The problem Wig Wag I would argue is actually greater in that MOST countries actually want a reduction of American power and prestige. Included in this group are countries including Macron's France, Trudeau's Canada, Amlo's Mexico, and Merkel's Germany. On the flip side the countries that do want continued American prestige and power are relatively weak nations totally dependent on American supports such as the GCC, Taiwan, Israel, and portions of Eastern Europe or lastly for cultural and tradition reasons the United Kingdom. The thing is the former are a huge burden to the United States financially and militarily and the later in the context of Brexit just dumped a barrel of gasoline over it's head and lit a match.
In Eastern Europe what is even more remarkable is if you look beneath the surface the most visible "pro American" politicians like Toomas Ilves are to be quite frank "has been" i.e. basically "former" politicians not current. As I have long pointed out if Estonia was so concerned about American prestige and power why did it join the Euro in 2010 when Toomas was President. And I don't think I misrepresenting Toomas "former" political status he is quite open on Twitter that he disagrees with the current govt in Tallinn on just about everything.
Happy Hanukkah, Tim, to you and Claire and all of Claire’s readers whether Jewish or not. The holiday started at sun down this evening. As a small token of my appreciation for the Cosmopolitan Globalists and people like you, Tim, who always provide interesting comments (even if I often disagree with them), I am providing this link to an article in “First Things,” (one of my favorite websites) that I hope you and Claire’s other loyal readers will find entertaining and enlightening.
Happy holidays to all!
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/12/happy-hanukkah
A storm is brewing and the Biden Administration believes that they can head it off by huffing, puffing, gesticulating and making strong pronouncements.
It’s not just Ukraine. We’re witnessing disturbing tidings in Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo. Then there’s Poland and Belarus.
Has anyone considered the possibility that a Russian invasion of Ukraine might be the perfect time for China to move against Taiwan?
Biden and Blinken seem to think that the United States is so powerful that merely by suggesting that the American commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine is “ironclad”that words alone are sufficient to deter Russia. They seem to think that the same empty assurances are enough to deter China. Of course, they’re wrong.
The post World War order is finito. Stick a fork in it. It’s done. The rules-based world that prevailed so recently is like an aged man, a paltry thing upon a stick.
Globalists need to wake up and realize that it’s the ideology that they hold so dear that’s responsible for the collapse of the world-order who’s demise they lament. Trump, in his own buffoonish way, recognized that the coalition that ruled the world since the end of the Cold War was in extremis and needed to be replaced by something else.
Biden and his globalist ilk act like the United States (with its ailing allies who won the Cold War-Western Europe and Japan) are as powerful as ever. If only it were so.
Historians will spend generations debating who destroyed the liberal order that prevailed after the demise of the Soviet Union, but those of us living in the here and now already know the answer. The blame lies firmly in the laps of globalists (whether of the neoconservative or liberal internationalist variety) and the neoliberal economic policies championed by those globalists.
It’s time for globalists to admit that the world is reaping what they have sown.
Excellnt and interesting read. I fear the US is too deep in its cups to be of much use to Ukraine and Europe. Biden will play at it, but hasn't the chops to do anything serious. The Republicans are far too Trumpian to give a rip, on balance.
Again I say: one could be forgiven for thinking we might be on the verge of The Great War.
That's what it feels like. Ukraine military issued a warning of possible strikes to civilian positions in Crimea. I haven't checked it yet (I've been prepping for an interview) but it's also been issued by the US Embassy in Kyiv.
What Putin is doing seems clear enough. He's moving to emasculate and humiliate Biden-Harris--zir don't have the grace to know embarrassment, much less humiliation, but that doesn't matter; Europe will see it clearly enough--as a step toward isolating Europe and the US from each other.
Poland-Belarus is only a distraction at this point, a shaping of the battlefield for future reference. He'll make his move into Ukraine and the Baltics in his good time, but not until after he's frozen (perhaps literally) Europe by denying them oil and gas, which freeze will become especially available once Nordstream 2 is up and running, cementing Europe's dependency on Putin's good offices for their welfare. Those good offices have and will have nothing to do with his good nature.
Given Germany's decision not to bother with its own defense (see their military's OR rate, which is worse than the USSR's ever was) much less play a serious role in Europe's collective defense (see their decision to welch, again, on their own commitment to fund NATO), the energy blackmail will have the EU begging for mercy and accepting Russian reoccupation of Ukraine and the Baltics.
Meantime, Biden-Harris will satisfy zirselves with having zir UN ambassador emit a series of sternly worded press releases.
Regarding the Belorus portion of the Poland-Belorus distraction, there's a fair amount of personal friction and mutual extortion, such as it is, between Putin and Lukashenko, but once the dust settles (my estimate is that Putin sees late 2024 as a potentially serious deadline), Lukashenko will suffer a brief series of unfortunate events that will remove him from office.
Eric Hines
Thanks for commenting Eric and you find me in agreement with a lot of points. I was reading something interesting that I didn't have time to include in the piece. Putin would like to destabilize Belarus, insert his own leader and get rid of Lukashenko. That makes sense to me.
If the goal here is "embarrassing Biden, but that's all that matters to him, so he's not actually going to move those troops out of Russia," it has very different implications than if the goal is "invading the rest of Ukraine, occupying it, then moving on to the next tasty morsel of Europe." You seem to be firmly in the camp of, "This is just bluff." You allow that his long-term goal is territorial, but you don't seem to think this is the moment. Do you have a reason for this based on Russian sources, or might you be mirror-imaging: Looking at this the way *you* would if you were Putin and wanted to choose the best moment for an invasion? I don't know how he thinks; I truly don't. Your generalship, so to speak, may be better than his, and more prudent. I don't feel much confidence that he's patient enough to bide his time.
I don't know where the idea came from that embarrassing Biden-Harris (his term, not mine: https://bit.ly/30XUS9c and https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/ ) is the goal; what I said was "as a step toward isolating Europe and the US from each other". Which itself is a prelude to aggression. There's no bluff.
I don't have anything specific from any magical Russian sources, but I do have many years of sitting across the fence from Russians (Russians, not Soviets; the SSRs all did Russian bidding, and so did eastern Germany (which my GAF counterparts referred to as "occupied Germany," we having killed the wrong pig) and "Soviet" occupied Poland and the Baltics) reading the intel of the time and, at the time prior intel, to which I had access. I understand something of Russian thinking. Building a favorable confluence of forces has been Russian doctrine for a century.
Putin has been patient, biding his time, shaping the coming political and "physical" battlefield since before he took office. He's also a skilled opportunist, and as such he's a reflection of Russia.
Russia is territorial, and Putin is bent on rebuilding the Russian empire. He's also bent on clearing the humiliation of the Soviet collapse by restoring the empire--that's his short-, intermediate-, long-, and permanent-goal.
He's already moved to partition Georgia and Ukraine, occupying what he's separated out, he's creating the conditions for Anschluss in the Baltics and further in Ukraine--openly claimed Anschluss in Crimea--he's testing cyber techniques in the Baltics, Poland, and the US (where he found Biden-Harris suitably compliant with his shutdown of Colonial Pipeline in order to persuade Biden-Harris to stop blocking Nordstream 2).
As I suggested, the next three years will be especially dangerous, as he may anticipate a much less compliant administration replacing Biden-Harris'.
In the end, too, "moving troops out of Russia" may well be a last step. Joe Collins was a firm believer in "Send a bullet, not a man." It's looking increasingly like Putin is developing the means to "Send an electron, not man; withhold an erg, don't send a man." A confluence of forces isn't only with soldiers and guns. Sometimes, too, effective doctrine is arrived at independently, mirroring not, of necessity, involved.
There's always a risk of projecting, even when reading their intel--they're under risk of projecting onto us, too, so there's also the extended risk of looking into the infinity of mirror images reflected back onto each other, especially when we're reading what they say they anticipate us doing.
Eric Hines
I understand what you mean better, now. This would make for an interesting article, actually: To what extent is Putin expressing a Russian doctrine that has essentially been unchanged for a century? Does it matter who the Russian leader is? Or is this baked so deeply into Russian institutions and thinking that no matter who's in charge, you get the same foreign policy? It's an interesting question.
Short answers, wholly unsubstantiated:
Fully.
Yes, but only for the skill, or lack, of implementation (as opposed to execution (for which the skill of the leader also matters critically) but execution is in the here and now; implementation includes execution and extends into an indefinite future*) by the man occupying the chair.
It's not intrinsic (nobody's is), but it's deeply ingrained into a system that's even more resistant to evolution, much less change, than even the current West.
*My definitions, not necessarily those of "conventional wisdom"
Eric Hines
While in the case of the Baltics they have signed up to the more Federalist/Integrationalist version of the EU that the Poles, Swedes, and Brits(when they were members) refused to. So if giving up more power to France, Germany, the EU Commission, and there European Central Bank bites the Baltics in the ass they will have no one but themselves to blame.
**My personal opinion is the Balts know perfectly well what they are doing which is making sure Ukraine takes there place under the Russian guillotine. The Balts know that NATO membership on it's own won't save them but perhaps NATO+EU+Euro membership will cause Russia to flinch and focus on easier prey i.e. Ukraine. The thing is Baltics are defacto taking the side of Germany and France and going against the pro Ukrainian lobby in the US Congress. Just think about the Balts becoming Euro members and how much Margaret Thatcher hated the idea of a single European currency.
The Baltic States already are EU members, as well as members of the Eurozone.
NATO+EU+Euro(zone?) have so much overlap, that, absent the US and Canada, they can be taken, in this context, as pretty much the same thing.
With Germany disdaining NATO, the Baltics cannot count on much help. That especially will become apparent as Putin starts inflicting increasing levels of energy pain, which he will do at faster rates of increase than the Europeans can adapt.
That the Baltics have only themselves to blame may or may not be true--a lot depends on the promises others made them to get their accessions--but it's irrelevant to the strait they're in and about to be in. What matters here and in the coming future is what the US (for instance) will do about it. Biden-Harris won't be doing much, hence the potential deadline of late 2024.
Eric Hines
Well let's be blunt no one in the US not Biden, not Harris, not Trump are going to be doing anything about it militarily. In fact to the extent that the Balts themselves have diminished US economic leverage by joining the Euro within the EU and supporting efforts by the ECB to develop alternatives to the SWIFT system and US Dollar's reserve currency status I am not exactly sure why the US SHOULD help the Balts if Germany and France will not given how supportive the Balts have been towards France, Germany, and the ECB.
I think the current hope in Brussels and Washington is as the Cosmopolitan Globalists suggested back in April on one of there podcasts that taking and fully digesting Ukraine(i.e. taking Kiev) is probably out of reach of Russia short of maybe throwing their entire military at it.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-coffee-talk-politics-65256988/episode/e5-the-cosmorussyacast-what-is-81234698/
"I am hoping others will respond before I write more comments because I could literally right a whole book about the "Tim Smyth theory of European politics.""
Write the book. It'll be interesting.
Eric Hines
We keep telling him just to write the *article,* which we would be pleased to publish. We'll keep waiting for it, Tim ... but seriously, just stop procrastinating and write it.
I will try to make some progress over the US Thanksgiving break. I do need some feedback from Claire, Owen, Monique, anyone to tell me though whether or not I am totally crazy.
Along these historic lines has anyone taken note of the fact that the UK which is the third signatory to the Budapest memorandum is no where to be found at the moment. Boris Johnson must be off Brexiting someplace. Perhaps he is helping his brother and father prepare for their big Silk Road documentary which they have already assured the Chinese govt is NOT going to mention anything about Chinese human rights abuses of the Uiguyrs in Xinjian. At least though John Major who was the British leader who actually signed the Budapest memorandum could be said to have apologized to the Ukrainian for the lack of any British involvement in the current crisis by calling Boris Johnson the worst Prime Minister in his lifetime.
Macron at least has the excuse the Francois Mitterand refused to sign the Budapest memorandum in 1994.
I will also add the moves towards developing alternatives to SWIFT and "bulking up" the European Central Bank are not solely drives by anti-Americanism and desire to dethrone the US Dollar's reserve status but many other practical reasons that are/were probably inevitable(i.e. the perception that SWIFT's management acts anti competitive and resists new technology) but the net effect is transferring European financial power from institutions like the City of London and SWIFT which the US Treasury has longstanding relationships towards more autonomist minded continental European institutions in Paris and Frankfurt. There was a reason every living US Treasury Secretary strongly came out in opposition to Brexit.
I am happy that the Globalist has published this piece as I have wanted to debate this subject for a long time as I have some pretty sharp disagreement with Monique, Toomas, and other Globalists on this subject. First the only way the EU can reduce the ability for Russia to blackmail them is by a either a complete or massive reduction on there dependence on Russia for natural gas. It is not relevant whether the gas comes through Ukraine or Nordstream 2(something I disagree with Monique on strenuously) Europe needs to go off Russian gas cold turkey. Ironically the country with the most success in doing this is France but France has used this success to further it’s own autonomy in foreign policy i.e. France is more interested in sitting at the grown-ups table with the US, Russia, and China than being the oldest kid at the kid’s table with the Ukraine’s and Poland’s.
In terms of the mandatory sanctions against NordStream 2 that Monique is a big fan of I am not sure what the effect would be. One possibility is at this point there would be purely symbolic given construction of the pipeline is complete essentially closing the barn door after the horse is left. Could the sanctions be re-interpreted as trying to sanction entities from “using” the pipeline once it is operational perhaps, but I think would be an interpretation none of the parties involved would like to see happen. It is quite imaginable that in a shortage situation there would be enormous public pressure in Europe on govts and companies to “bust” the US sanctions which in turn would put both the US Congress in a Biden in a difficult position as to whether to engage in escalation dominance or to backdown in defeat. This could very well lead to the end of NATO and people like France’s Macron even to the extent they might be unaffected politically will use the situation to try to further there longstanding goal of more French and European foreign policy autonomy. Even some of the more pro American foreign policy thinkers in France like Bruno Tertrais and Francois Heisbourg now praise France’s refusal to sign the Budapest Memorandum guaranteeing Ukraine’s independence for giving up nuclear weapons as a grand and great decision of French foreign policy(Admittedly after a "certain" individual prompted the response).
https://twitter.com/FHeisbourg/status/1462681004058071044
Lastly I think it has to be acknowledge that Brexit is and was a disaster for Eastern Europe. The UK was the closest friend a lot of these countries had in Western Europe even with all the Russian money sloshing around in London and even outside of the EU now the UK is a much different country from what you might called the Atlanticist pro democracy orientation that every British leader had from Thatcher to Theresa May. This tradition has now been broken. A really key metric I would also look is not get drawn into the fight as to how many banks and bankers have left London since Brexit but look at which of the remaining EU countries they have relocated to. Almost all of them relocated from London to places like Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin, even Milan and Madrid not the more Atlanticist skeptical of Russia countries to the East. The few crumbs that places like Estonia and Lithuania get in the post Brexit financial services spoils are things like cryptocurrency which itself is largely a tool for Russian influence and domination. The more “legitimate” banking industry all went to the Western countries and cities like Frankfurt and Paris that are ironically “soft” on Russia in the eyes of Monique, Toomas, Paul Massaro, and Olga Lautman. This is an important implications in terms of sanctions, counter-sanctions, and kleptocracy.
I am hoping others will respond before I write more comments because I could literally right a whole book about the "Tim Smyth theory of European politics." I would recommend people watch at least the later parts of the old BBC documentary called the Poisoned Chalice. In particular I think the fact that way back in 1991 during the Maastricht negotiations that the supposedly pro American Atlanticist Dutch were actually leading the charge to force Britain out of the EU way back then and there(and the UK's opt out from the Euro only came about after the personal intervention of Helmut Kohl) over John Major and Conservative Party's opposition to the UK joining a European Single Currency is a story that needs to be told and understood a lot more.
https://youtu.be/LKqfWeSXUkI?t=1584
In particular this is an element of European history I wish people like Monique, Paul Massaro, and Irene Kenyon would understand and study much more. I will also note as I have done repeatedly before that even Helmut Kohl's commitment to keeping the UK in the tent was not as strong as perhaps it was remembered as recounts economist Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute who was in Helmut Kohl's office the day the UK crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. A question I have always wondered about is would have the Eastern EU members have joined in 2004 if the UK had left in 1992 and perhaps some Cosmopolitan Globalists might have some thoughts on.
https://youtu.be/EcIkIz98zXU?t=911
Also follow my Twitter feed on this subject.
https://twitter.com/Tpsmyth01/status/1463278076079616008