The Russian Checkmate

 

You've heard of Peking duck? How about Moscow goose?

Vladimir Putin’s goose is cooked. 

He had to win in Ukraine quickly and relatively bloodlessly. He did not.

It is not just that Ukrainian resistance will stiffen, with the element of surprise gone. 

The invasion has revealed the Russian military’s weakness. 

Now there is both opportunity and every reason for NATO to pour support into Ukraine. They need not be as cautious as they have been. So long as they can preserve plausible deniability, they can engage at will. It is hardly in Putin’s interest to call them out. Declare war on any of them, and he has twenty new adversaries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, built up on the border and ready to go. And they all see he can barely manage Ukraine.

Meantime, they can ensure that Ukraine has all the support it needs to hold out. All the supplies can be stacked right across the border, invulnerable to attack—like the Ho Chi Minh Trail that so bedeviled the Americans in Vietnam. Ukrainian-marked planes might even take off and land from air bases across the border. Putin has already warned against anyone doing this—showing that he fears it.

All Russia can do against all this is threaten to go nuclear. But the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction still applies: it would be suicidal. Threaten is all they can do.

All possible ways, Russia loses. 

If they ever get close to overwhelming Ukraine, Europe can simply ratchet up their participation as needed. Popular opinion, as well as strategic self-interest, would demand it, would demand it. Meantime, so long as the Ukrainians can do the heavy lifting, why not leave them to it? This way NATO can limit its own costs and losses.

As the war drags on, Russia’s economy will decline, and domestic unrest will grow. It will end in collapse, either of the country or the regime.

This invasion might have been a plot between Russia and China. Otherwise why invade in the winter? It may have been intended to draw Western resources away from a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the spring.

If so, the scheme has probably failed. The weakness revealed in the Russia armed forces suggests the European land and air forces are adequate to the task in Ukraine, leaving the US to manage Taiwan if necessary, along with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India.

In fact, it all opens up a new possibility for China. Putin had better hope that there is honour among thieves. If Russia is so weak, and so committed elsewhere, why not lunge instead for Vladivostok? China has always claimed as its territory. 

And they get to cash in on joining the winning side.