What does Vladimir Putin want? In the broadest sense, we know: He wants to reclaim the glory of the old Soviet Union. It truly does suck that a major crisis can be sparked by some cranky, old guy who can’t get over some shit that happened 30 years ago. It’s like if Narendra Modi was still pissed that grunge replaced hair metal and was threatening to invade Bangladesh unless Dokken gets back together.
Unfortunately, what Putin hopes to get out of the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border is a mystery. At least, that’s what just about everything I’ve read on the topic says. Which brings me to an important note about my method: When I do one of these “explainer” columns, I just read a bunch of stuff and then synthesize what I’ve read. This is a summary, not my own thoughts. I’m not here to claim expertise; I’m here to condense what I’ve read and to photoshop funny hair onto the Prime Minister of India. And the bottom line is: 1) The standoff with Russia is a highly delicate situation with many unknown variables, and 2) There are a lot of haircuts that look funny on Narendra Modi. Behold:
Putin seems to be worried that Ukraine is drifting into the West’s orbit. What does it mean to be “drifting into the West’s orbit”? It's hard to say — this conflict is characterized by vague phrases like “drifting into the West’s orbit”, “sphere of influence”, and “orientation”. Those terms include tangible steps like EU or NATO membership — Ukraine has neither — and also ephemeral things like pride and general chumminess of relations. Again: We’re dealing with a weird old guy who’s stuck in the Cold War and wants to go back to when Russia was cool. I almost think that this conflict might end if every country on Earth would issue a joint statement saying: “Hooray Russia: You are so awesome and big.”
Of course, nothing is driving Ukraine away from Russia faster than Putin’s aggressive efforts to draw Ukraine closer. You’re not going to believe this, but Russia’s threat to turn Ukraine into a scorched battlefield littered with the bones of the innocent is turning Ukrainian public opinion against them! Shocking! What does Russia have to do to get Ukraine on its side? Maybe Putin could win hearts and minds by personally kicking every Ukrainian down a flight of stairs. Or force-feeding them chili until their stomachs explode. Or — and I’m spitballing here — maybe Putin could travel to senior centers around Ukraine and gently dip his balls in the tapioca pudding just before it's served to Ukrainian grandmothers. There must be something Putin can do to win over the people of Ukraine!
One thing Russia definitely doesn’t want is for Ukraine to join NATO. Not that Ukraine was on the cusp of joining; Russia’s actions might be inciting something no-one had seriously been considering, in much the same way that hanging a “NO MASTURBATING” sign on an office supply closet might give people ideas. At any rate, Putin feels threatened by a possible NATO presence in Ukraine. Which is odd; Russia, not NATO, has started wars and annexed territory, so for Russia to be antsy about invasion seems a bit like John Wayne Gacy kvetching about some shady-looking teens loitering on his block. Still, it’s the concern they have. Russia wants a buffer zone; they want Ukraine to be their invasion-early-warning system, much the way Belgium has traditionally been for France. And who wouldn’t want to emulate the military tactics of the French?!
Russia wants a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO. This continues the recent trend started by Iran of countries asking for promises that literally cannot be made. I mean…they want us to promise that Ukraine will NEVER join NATO? Never is a long time. And, at the risk of stating the obvious: Joe Biden is not going to be around for the end of Never. Countries keep trying to extract long-term promises from a president who will not necessarily outlast the items currently in the White House fridge.
Biden has said that a promise about NATO’s future is a non-starter. He’s also ruled out sending troops to defend Ukraine. This isn’t particularly controversial; even members of Congress who are calling for Biden to be more aggressive stop short of calling for troop commitments. So, there’s basically no chance of NATO meeting Russia in battle, which makes sense, because NATO defense is the thing you get when you join NATO. Imagine if we just handed out NATO defense to everyone! That would really piss off allies like Iceland, who went through the whole NATO initiation process — they swallowed ten live goldfish and walked through the quad pinching a lit candle between their asscheeks specifically so that they could join NATO and get protection. And, of course, other NATO countries are also defended by the formidable military might that Iceland brings to bear.
So, troops are out. But what would we do if Russia invaded Ukraine? We would sanction them. There are already substantial sanctions on Russia stemming from their annexation of Crimea and their stoking of the separatist fighting in eastern Ukraine that has left about 14,000 dead. But Biden is threatening new sanctions that basically fall into three categories:
Financial sanctions. The US and Europe still have cards to play that could damage Russia’s economy and hurt the bottom line of Russia’s ruling class. Sanctions might have real bite, because Putin’s government is basically a kleptocracy, and what’s the point of stealing trillions of rubles if you can’t spend that money on stupid stuff abroad? On the other hand, Russia is used to living with sanctions and has developed ways of partially getting around them. The so-called “nuclear option” — which should really, really, really be given a different name in this context — would be to cut Russia off from the SWIFT banking system. SWIFT is one of those opaque-but-important financial things that I’m tempted to break down because it would give me a patina of real gravitas. “Whoa,” you’d think, “He’s explaining the SWIFT system — this newsletter is some major shit!” Unfortunately, I don’t really understand the SWIFT system. But, we’re probably not going to use it as leverage anyway because it would hurt Europe, so let’s all just go ahead and continue not knowing about SWIFT!
Sanctions on technological components. Airplanes without microchips in them are basically the doghouse Snoopy flew against the Red Baron. Airplanes need microchips, and specifically, they need American-made microchips. We’re considering cutting those off. That would hamstring the Russian defense and electronics industries. My hope is that it would also activate the Russian equivalent of Bernie Bros, who would generate egregiously obnoxious tweet threads like they did in the early days of Covid about how recent events prove that we need to end global supply chains. If Russian Bernie Bros (Boris Bros?) can create similar tweets — in which they inevitably fail to mention what adjusting supply chains would cost, what mechanism could bring that change about, or how the fuck you predict which spot in the world won’t be affected by the next pandemic — then I’m confident that the Russian public will be so annoyed that they’ll demand that Putin change course.
Sanctions on high-tech products. Now we’re hitting people where they almost-literally live: Their iPhones. We could keep Russia from importing the phones that most Russians use. They’d have to use Russian phones; they’d look like a bunch of dorks and all the other kids at school would laugh at them. This measure would mostly hit the public, not the Russian ruling class, so it would only affect Putin indirectly. Putin is sort of an autocrat; he basically controls the media, and Russian elections are about as competitive as a Harlem Globetrotters game, but all indications are that Putin has to worry about public opinion a bit. The Russian people might not be willing to sacrifice their phones to support Putin’s Ukrainian dream just when they were getting into Wordle.
There’s another option available to Biden that he probably won’t take: Republicans in Congress want him to sanction an almost-finished pipeline that would deliver natural gas directly from Russia to Europe. Ukraine opposes the pipeline because it would give Russia more leverage over Europe. Senate Democrats will probably kill the measure because Europe wants the pipeline and sanctions probably won’t stop it anyway. At any rate, put pipeline sanctions in the ever-expanding category of “shit that definitely won’t pass the Senate but that people keep talking about anyway.”
Will sanctions be enough to deter Putin? Nobody knows. Annexing Crimea was popular in Russia, and their involvement in the Donbas region of Ukraine isn’t noticeably unpopular, but a full-scale invasion would be different from anything Russia has done so far. Crimea and Donbas were relatively bloodless for Russia; their initial involvement came via so-called “little green men,” i.e. soldiers who showed up without any national markings but who noticeably spoke Russian and carried Russian military equipment. For months, the official Russian government line was that Ukraine just happened to be beset by many extremely well-armed Russian tourists, all of whom happened to be male. Who knows why? Maybe there was a Groupon. At any rate: From Russia’s perspective, Donbas was less a shooting war and more of a senior trip to scenic Eastern Ukraine open only to members of the military.1
If Russia invaded Ukraine, many Russian soldiers would die. There’s little doubt that Russia would win the conflict, but Ukraine would extract a price; the Ukrainian army is twice as big as it was in 2014, better armed, and more experienced. If Russia invaded, the West would almost certainly ramp up military assistance. Even if Russia were to win a force-on-force conflict, attempting to annex Ukraine might present a real problem. If I may talk advanced military strategy for a minute, please consider this map:
Ukraine is strategically important; it’s the linchpin to Europe’s big, fat, juicy five points. Bordering six countries, it’s relatively easy to conquer, but holding Ukraine…holding it is the hard part. And so Russia may come to learn, as I did at my friend Ryan’s tenth birthday party. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are ex-military, and a partisan conflict could develop if Russia tries to exert control. A drawn-out conflict that kills a lot of soldiers would probably be extremely unpopular in Russia. And, for once, Putin’s Cold War memory is playing to our advantage: He remembers the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and reportedly wants to avoid repeating the conflict that people used to call “Russia’s Vietnam”, though they could probably now call it “Russia’s America’s Afghanistan”.
At the moment, the US and NATO are trying to broaden the conversation. Are there issues about missile deployment that should be discussed? Could an agreement about military exercises be reached? Hey, did you see White Lotus — did you think it was woke or anti-woke, it was kind of hard to tell, wasn’t it? Talking is preferable to shooting, but NATO is also trying not to reward aggressive behavior with policy concessions. The outcome that allows everyone to save face is probably a broad-but-shallow2 agreement with concessions made by both sides. That would let Putin act like a big shot at home, but NATO would let Russia know that they can’t get anything too significant by threatening war. After all: Getting what you want by threatening war is North Korea’s schtick. From where I’m sitting, Kim Jong-un has a pretty solid trademark infringement case.
I’m going to end with a prediction, because hey: Why not? Just remember that this is a free newsletter, and you get what you pay for. I think that Putin is bluffing. I think an invasion could turn into a long, costly conflict that makes him unpopular, and he doesn’t actually want to do it. I think his goal is to tell NATO: “Ukraine joining NATO is my red line.” IF that’s his goal, then I think the message has been received. I mean, if a random Substack writer who spends most of his time photoshopping boobs onto Narendra Modi can pick up the signal, then I’m sure that the State Department can, too.
But maybe I’m wrong! Maybe Putin is so desperate to return to the ‘80s that he’ll do something drastic. After all, we’ve rebooted what we loved most about the Cold War — space travel and Rocky movies — so maybe Putin will risk everything to annex Ukraine. It’s honestly hard to think of ways that Putin isn’t Johnny Lawrence from Cobra Kai; he’s a sad, aging guy who wants to go back to his ‘80s glory days. He even does martial arts. Unfortunately, the Cobra Kia spinoff that’s taking shape on Ukraine’s eastern border is one of the least-funny things I’ve ever seen.
It should be noted: A significant number of Russian soldiers have died in Donbas. But the Russian government has gone to great lengths to hide those deaths. So, when I say “from the Russian perspective,” I really am talking about the common perception in Russia, which differs from reality.
By “broad but shallow”, I mean something that touches on several issues but perhaps doesn’t contain any game-changing provisions on any of them.
"Joe Biden is not going to be around for the end of Never. Countries keep trying to extract long-term promises from a president who will not necessarily outlast the items currently in the White House fridge."
One of the problems that we have is that we have an international relations system that dates back to before the French Revolution[1] - permanent ambassadors, treaties, etc. We have added a few kluges onto it - first, we got instant communication between principals with telegraphy (and then telephony) and then we got face-to-face summit meetings. We also added the big international conferences, first occasionally (Vienna in 1815 or Berlin in 1878) and then permanently (League of Nations then the United Nations).
But the core system is designed for states that have a single ruler for life and a predictable succession (i.e. absolute monarchies). It assumes that when the President makes a commitment, the United States of America makes a commitment, and therefore each President is bound by the promises of his predecessors.
Since - for domestic political reasons - it's essentially impossible for the United States to ratify treaties any more, the rest of the world, rather than being honest and recognising that the USA is incapable of making any permanent commitment to anything, instead pretends that an agreement with the USA is a permanent commitment.
Back in the nineteenth century, Britain was the only democracy among the major European powers (until France became a democracy in the 1870s) and diplomats regularly complained that Britain was unreliable because there would occasionally be an election and the policy would change. The USA didn't meddle in European power politics in this period (it wasn't really powerful enough until the Civil War, and was deeply isolationist until TR), but once it did get involved, it quickly acquired the same reputation, especially after the refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. It took the Cold War consensus (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan had very minor differences in policy as seen from, say, Germany) for the US to be seen as a reliable partner. That attitude is not doing well any more.
Lots of other democracies have much more consistent foreign policies - this is often because their strategic constraints give them very limited options (if you're Belgium, then what could you really change about your foreign policy) but also their political leadership still comes from a single unified elite that all develops the same attitudes to foreign policy, even as they vary more domestically (look at all the graduates of ENA in France, or Oxford in England, or how small the differences are between the SPD and CDU in Germany). There are politicians from outside that elite (Corbyn in Britain, Le Pen in France, Grillo in Italy), but they - unlike Trump - have not won.
Like you, I'm not an expert, and I'm not even a comedian on substack ... but let me offer a different perspective, also synthesized from multiple sources.
Putin is a tyrant, a bully, an authoritarian and a dictator. He is also a Russian patriot with a keen sense of history. He looks back at "Mother Russia's history through the last 500 yrs and sees nothin' but invasions - Mongols, Swedes (Charles XII - read Robert Massie's biography of Peter the Great to get a sense of this man), Poles, Napoleon, Hitler - each of whom have invaded Russia and posed an existential threat to it at various points in its history.
Fending off the last of this bunch cost Russia 20 MILLION lives in WW2. For those who don't have calculators, that's 50x (!) the number of humans we lost in that war. You don't have to normalize for population OR duration of the conflict to see that that's a MASSIVE sacrifice that Russians had to make, and one they would have had to make even if a monster like Stalin was not in charge.
The way Russia has historically adapted to these threats is by creating massive buffer zones between them and their enemies. Until Hitler, the satellite republics (Ukraine, the 'stans, etc.) provided that buffer. When that was (almost) not enough to hold back Hitler, they then created the whole Soviet bloc to protect the Mother Ship.
Fast forward to 1991, and the whole buffer is gone "poof", but at least some parts of them were "friendly" ('stans, Belarus) and "neutral" (Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, etc.). A Russian with a sense of history that is not as short as most Americans' - most of whom (e.g. Dana Perino, W's WH Press Secy.) don't even know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was - might well have been alarmed at this outcome.
"But, but ..." we say with bewilderment, "... that is all HISTORY, tovarich. We're not Napoleon or Hitler. No way we're going to take apart Russia like those guys did. This is the 21st century, for Ivan's sake. We don't operate like that. We're the good guys!"
Putin rolls his eyes and goes, "Really? So, tell me, were you not the fellas that dismembered my Serbian friends' country; invaded and despoiled Iraq (and the whole frikkin' region) on false pretenses; gratuitously fomented chaos in countries that did you no harm (Syria, Egypt) giving space to ISIS; buggered up Libya when it posed no threat to you; did a deal with Iran and then broke it on the flimsiest of pretexts and then bullied everyone else in the world who dared defy you by threatening to cut them off from the dollar ... NEED I GO ON? And I'm supposed to trust in YOUR goodwill? Give me a break so I can laugh my ass off."
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I don't know if Putin really thinks this way. But I suspect that it's a part of their calculus, and why it won't be that easy to cajole/bully/threaten our way out of this.
I am in the camp of those who think that NATO succeeded wildly during the Cold War ... and should have snuffed itself out of existence in 1991 after the Soviet Union broke up. And that Ukraine, et al, should never have been our problem. But now that we've made it our problem, we can't just walk away either.