Category: Geopolitics

Monday Wake Up Call – March 28, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Soaptree Yucca at sunset, White Sands, NP – March 2022 photo by SkyVista Photography by Steve Luther

Biden ended his four days in Europe with a speech. It was designed as a call to democratic countries to stay unified even as Putin’s forces trash Ukraine. But with nine ad-libbed words at the end of a 27-minute speech, Biden created a furor by calling for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to be pushed out of office. Biden said:

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,”

That last line was a logical conclusion to Biden’s argument in the speech about the struggle between democracy and autocracy. But it prompted many pundits to treat what Biden said as a gaffe, since it changed his long-standing insistence that the US is not engaging in regime change but is supporting Ukraine’s right to exist.

From Charlie Sykes:

“The moment was electrifying — a sort of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” moment — until the White House hastily walked it back, insisting that what the president really meant to say was that the butcher of Ukraine should not be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors.“

Sykes says: “Biden had it right the first time.” David Rothkopf hit the nail on the head with his reaction:

“There is within Biden’s comment a kernel of truth….Vladimir Putin can’t lay waste to a country, kill tens of thousands of civilians, commit serial war crimes, and expect to be welcomed back into the community of nations. If Russia wants to be part of the community of nations, then they are going to have to produce change.”

Support for Biden’s idea also came from former Russian Chess champion Gary Kasparov, who said what the world is thinking:

This is precisely correct. Many pundits are critical of Biden for saying something provocative. But there shouldn’t be a resumption of the status quo ante, even once there’s an agreement between Russia and Ukraine. By attacking Ukraine, Russia has become a pariah state. It will remain so as long as it threatens its neighbors and as long as Putin is in power.

There can be no lifting of sanctions or concessions of territory (unless Ukraine insists on conceding it), and no reward or face-saving after the fact for Putin’s War.

Biden’s goal isn’t to negotiate an end to the war. If Ukraine wants to make concessions to Putin which allow him to keep huge chunks of their country, pay no price for the damage he’s done, do nothing to rebuild Ukraine’s flattened cities, and wait a minute until the sanctions are lifted, they can make that call themselves. Neither Biden nor our allies should press that kind of decision on them.

But let Wrongo be the first to say that Russia must be made to pay reparations for the destruction of infrastructure in Ukraine. And keeping sanctions in place until Russia pays up is the right thing to do. You don’t just get grounded for a week when you invade another country.

Russia must leave Ukraine and pay reparations. Russia must work to rejoin the community of nations. That means reestablishment of normal diplomatic and economic relationships. That won’t be possible with Putin in charge.

Russia’s military leadership certainly understands this. And they’re the ones who will have to remove Putin from power and negotiate the peace. So Biden’s frank talk makes transparent what was sub-rosa: The West is using Putin’s War as a way to weaken him to the point where he is ousted from power.

So, when pundits and foreign policy experts get upset with Biden, saying that he gave Putin less reason to negotiate, you have to ask what is there to negotiate? And who, other than Zelensky, should be negotiating with him?

Putin will leave office one way or another, and what Biden said didn’t change that.

It’s time for the pundits and foreign policy wonks to wake up! While it’s true that words matter and can sometimes express risky things that cannot be taken back, what Biden said was worth saying. Biden wasn’t talking to Putin; he was speaking to Russians with the power to remove Putin. And that’s the right strategy.

To help them wake up, listen to Sting reprise his song “Russians” originally from his 1985 debut album titled “The Dream of the Blue Turtles”. The tune was based on the Cold War. Here is his March 2022 version for guitar and cello:

Sting says:

”I’ve only rarely sung this song in the many years since it was written, because I never thought it would be relevant again. But, in the light of one man’s bloody and woefully misguided decision to invade a peaceful, unthreatening neighbor, the song is, once again, a plea for our common humanity.”

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Russia’s Repeating its Syrian Strategy in Ukraine

The Daily Escape:

Quiet stream, rural NH – March 2022 photo by Betsy Zimmerli

There are lessons from history that inform what Putin is doing in Ukraine. First, Syria demonstrates how Putin intends to operate. Putin got Russia involved in Syria in 2015 and helped Bashar al-Assad take back control of most of the country.

One part of Syria that isn’t under control is Idlib Province. That’s because Russia’s Syrian strategy was intense aerial bombardment of cities, followed by the establishment of temporary “humanitarian corridors”. That pushed civilians and fighters eventually into Idlib.

During the Syrian civil war, the Russian and Syrian militaries systematically besieged opposition-held cities, towns, and districts. They rained destruction on the populations with airstrikes, artillery and rockets blasting residential districts, hospitals, and infrastructure.

Eventually, the Russians and Syrians offered humanitarian corridors, allowing civilians and fighters to leave, and be funneled into the northwest province of Idlib. Idlib remains today the last opposition-held part in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people used the corridors to get out of the war zones. The largest and most notorious example was the evacuation of Aleppo City in 2016, ending four years of siege. These internally displaced Syrians now make up about two-thirds of the 3 million people living in Idlib province. It is still surrounded by Syrian forces and is still hit by Russian airstrikes.

It’s now clear that Putin will bomb Ukrainian cities much like the carpet bombing of Grozny in Chechnya, or Aleppo in Syria. What’s happening on the ground in Ukraine should sound familiar to anyone who watched Russia in Syria. Here’s an up-to-date map of the military conditions in Ukraine from the UK Defence Intelligence Agency:

The map shows that despite many setbacks, Putin’s forces are close to (if they are not already) surrounding Kyiv. If you note the map legend showing “Assessed Encirclement” areas, those are places that the Russians have either captured, or are close to surrounding. They include most major Ukrainian cities.

In response, the Ukraine government in conjunction with the Russian military, have announced humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave cities where there is fighting between the Russian and Ukrainian armies.

In Syria, this strategy was effective. The Syrian government regained control by removing large opposition populations, many of whom remain unable to return to their home cities and towns.

This is Putin’s plan for Ukraine. Create a pocket within Ukraine that can be cut off from most resources, a rump state where most of the opposition is located. Damage or destroy most of its infrastructure. Leave it as a broken state unable to exist without outside humanitarian support. That rump state might be as small as a province, or as large as the majority of Ukraine west of the Dnieper river, as Wrongo has suggested.

A second lesson was learned by the Soviet Union’s military in Hungary. Russia’s military won’t repeat their Hungarian experience in Ukraine. In 1956, Hungarians attempted to overthrow their pro-Soviet leadership. In October 1956, the Soviets sent tanks into Budapest to crush the uprising. Many Hungarians, (called “freedom fighters” by the West), rose up against the Soviet invaders. From History.net: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Incorrectly assuming that the sight of Soviet armor rumbling through the Hungarian capital would quickly cow Budapest’s restive population, Kremlin leadership sent in tanks without the support of infantrymen….Over the next several days, small teams of Hungarian freedom fighters throughout Budapest took on the Soviet tanks, sniping at…crewmen or destroying the vehicles with Molotov cocktails.”

The freedom fighters’ most effective tactic was the “decoy and ambush,” where a decoy team fired at a Soviet tank to attract the crew’s attention and then fled down a side street to lure the tanks into a predetermined “kill zone.” This hubris on the part of the Soviets was a mistake that wasn’t repeated in Grozny and will not be repeated in Ukraine. Hungary didn’t achieve its freedom until 1991 when the USSR collapsed.

But have the US and NATO learned any useful lessons? The West has two conflicting goals in Ukraine. First, imposing strategic defeat on Russia. And second, defending Ukraine’s sovereignty. If our only goal was protecting the sovereignty of Ukraine, then our available options might include putting boots on the ground or imposing a No Fly Zone. But we’re not willing to do either one.

Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born British journalist said the West:

“is doing an AMAZING job…of responding to 2014. That’s when we needed sanctions and arming Ukrainians. We’re ‘winning’ the last war. Not sure we’ve quite caught up with this new one yet.”

The US has discussed an arms lend-lease program for Ukraine. Alexander Vindman asks where are the: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“…medium- and long-range air defense systems, antitank weapons (beyond the Javelins that have already been provided), advanced extended-range antiarmor capabilities, coastal defense systems, high mobility artillery, and critically important UCAVs” (drones)?”

The West is dithering on the correct level of support for Ukraine. If the US and NATO provided lethal aid via lend-lease, there’s a risk that Russia will escalate. But there’s a better chance that they will not.

It would be a gamble for Putin to escalate, and it’s a gamble for Biden to provide the weapons. Our reaction so far says that the US has lost its nerve without saying the US has lost its nerve.

Sorry Ukraine, we can’t follow your example.

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Russian Sanctions: Who Blinks First?

The Daily Escape:

Secret Canyon, Moab, UT – February 2022 photo by Klaus Priebe Photographer

Collateral damage from the US and European sanctions is growing. One question is whether the West will blink before Russia.

First, a few words about Putin’s strategy. It doesn’t seem that Putin was intent on “recreating the Russian Empire” as many pundits said. Instead, he’s going to partition Ukraine, with Russia controlling Ukraine east of the Dnieper River. That includes much of Ukraine’s industrial base. The southern part of Ukraine contains 13 seaports. In 2021, they exported over 150 million tons of cargo, representing 60% of exports and 50% of imports for Ukraine. Russia has already ended Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea.

When hostilities end, Ukraine will be a land-locked country.

The Russian army will ensure that what is left of Ukraine west of the Dnieper is a broken, third-world country. The indiscriminate missile, artillery and bombing in Ukraine’s west shows that is their intent. Whatever remains of western Ukraine will be the buffer state that Putin wanted prior to the start of his war. In the end, NATO will be forced to agree to a buffer state that is smaller and much weaker than the one NATO originally refused to agree to.

The US strategy for Ukraine had several elements. First, to make the cost of Putin’s War so harsh that he wouldn’t proceed, or after proceeding, would cause him to look for an early way to end hostilities before both were badly damaged: Ukraine by Russian weapons, and Russia by Western sanctions.

Another strategy was to get Germany to reduce its dependence on Russian gas. That has begun. Last week Germany unveiled plans for a terminal to import liquefied natural gas (LNG). Germany currently has no LNG import terminals.

It shouldn’t be a surprise then to learn that the US is the prime producer and exporter of LNG, ahead of Qatar and Russia. But LNG delivered to Europe is 50% more expensive than the gas delivered by pipeline from Russia. It’s true that there’s plenty of European LNG capacity besides Germany’s new planned facility. From the National Law Review: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The current large-scale LNG receiving countries in Europe are Belgium (one terminal), France (four terminals), Greece (one terminal), Italy (three terminals), Lithuania (one terminal), Malta (one terminal), the Netherlands (one terminal), Poland (one terminal), Portugal (one terminal), Spain (six operational), Turkey (four terminals) and the UK (three terminals). Collectively, their overall LNG capacity is 237 billion cubic meters (of gas)…which is sufficient to cover approximately 40% of Europe’s gas demand.”

It’s possible to reduce German reliance on Russian gas imports, but they can’t easily achieve total independence. Substantially higher gas prices would definitely hurt the competitiveness of German industry, and slow global economic growth. It could become German economic suicide.

A third US strategy was that Putin’s rush into Ukraine would lead to a stalemate on the ground, and that sanctions would lead to a change of government in Russia. Then the new government might turn more towards the West.

The calculation was that Russia can’t win a major (non-nuclear) war without the economic support of the West through purchases of gas, and exports of technology. We’ve discussed natural gas. Protocol’s report on Russia’s dependence on foreign chips found that European and US companies sell them a lot of microprocessors, while their memory chip imports come mostly from South Korea and the US. All are now embargoed.

It’s possible that in executing these strategies, we’re burning up the world’s economy at the same time. These strategies have helped push oil prices above $130 a barrel. Natural gas prices have shot up to over $3,900 per 1,000 cubic meters for the first time in history. This will destabilize more than a few EU countries. As we wrote, the Ukraine war has slashed wheat exports, which will lead to high food prices and shortages in countries that rely on wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

We must be careful that we aren’t sanctioning ourselves. We already have a blowback effect on the sanctions inflicted on Russia. We may see double-digit inflation globally before the end of the year.

It’s possible that every dollar of Republican and Democratic campaign spending for the November mid-terms will be spent on stickers for gas pumps: The Republican sticker will feature Biden saying “I did this” while pointing at the price on the gas pump.

The Democrats’ sticker will feature Putin pointing at the gas prices and saying, “I did this”.

Then campaign workers will spend all of their time pasting one over the other’s sticker.

Pick your poison.

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Monday Wake Up Call – February 14, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Red barn, white snow, in Spatford, NY – 2022 photo by Michael Erb

In last night’s Superb Owl, the LA Rams won. Your guacamole was probably better than the commercials.

Today is Valentine’s Day, a marketing triumph for the greeting card industry. There are no other triumphs to celebrate this morning, so let’s talk about a less than triumphal situation: Is something big about to happen in Ukraine?

Biden says America won’t fight for Ukraine; that would lead to “a world war.” Putin reads that as saying he’s got a free hand there assuming that he’s willing to take on whatever pain the West’s sanctions bring. Assuming Russia has economic support from China, Russia will probably be able to cope with the strain of new sanctions.

Wrongo has no crystal ball but thinks that Russia will formally recognize Ukraine’s disputed Eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. Today, Russia acts as if they are a part of the Russian Federation. The people living in these ethnically Russian provinces already speak Russian and carry Russian passports.

But Ukraine doesn’t recognize these provinces as independent. That has been a stumbling block in the current negotiations between France, Germany Russia, and Ukraine around what were formerly known as the Minsk accords, agreed in 2015, but never implemented.

Ukraine could be lured into trying to regain control of both provinces. At that point Russia would help defend them against Ukraine, most likely assuring that they would remain independent, although still technically part of Ukraine. That would be a huge win for Putin since its long been clear that NATO will not accept any new member that has a substantial Russian population.

That would achieve what Putin wants without the US having to put it in the form of a written guarantee.

Finally, it is hard to believe that Russia really wants to become responsible for the economic basket case called Ukraine. Here’s a comparison by Adam Tooze, of Ukraine’s GDP per capita compared to Russia, Poland, and Turkey:

From Tooze: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Ukraine’s performance between 1990 and 2017 was not just worse than its European neighbors. It was the fifth worst in the entire world. Between 1990 and 2017 there were…only 18 countries with negative cumulative growth and…Ukraine’s performance puts it in the bottom third…. amongst the four countries that delivered less growth for their citizens than Ukraine were the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Yemen.”

Why are things so terrible in Ukraine? It’s due to corruption, demographic decline, and lack of investment in most industry sectors.

Disputes are negotiated when each side can call it a “win”. It’s obvious that an invasion of Ukraine would not be a win for Putin, so what he’s doing now seems more like a negotiating tactic. If he declares these two breakaway provinces to be an independent part of Russia, look for Belarus to be next.

Since the US and NATO have put up such a big stink, Russia probably won’t try to overthrow the government in Kyiv. OTOH, Putin doesn’t want to be seen as losing in this standoff over Ukraine, so recognizing the disputed provinces is an available middle ground.

And the US has already tacitly agreed to this once before when Russia annexed Crimea.

A Morning Consult Poll — done on February 7th that sampled 2,005 registered US voters showed that if there was a complete Russian occupation of Ukraine, then 42% of Americans support sending in troops. That’s a plurality, but not a majority.

The Morning Consult found a different response in Europe. Respondents in France (31%), Germany (37%) and the UK (37%) support the primary sanction, closing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Interestingly, in Germany, another 37% also opposed closing the pipeline if Russia invades.

So viewpoints are more nuanced the closer you get to the front lines.

Time to wake up America! Ukraine isn’t core to US strategy in Europe or in NATO. Yes, Ukraine’s right of self-determination is at stake. But given the GDP rankings above, you could say it’s already a failed state. And what about US support in other low income countries looks like the ticket out of failed state status for Ukraine?

To help you wake up, listen to Billy Bragg perform “Ten Mysterious Photos That Can’t Be Explained” from his 2021 album “The Million Things That Never Happened”.

Sample Lyrics:

I’ve been down rabbit holes
I’ve seen the rabid trolls
Cackling in the twilight
Of the Age of Reason
One thing I’ve noticed
As I get older
Common sense like art
Is in the eye of the beholder

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Monday Wake Up Call – Ukraine Edition, February 7, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Winter in the Palouse, near the town of Oakesdale, WA – January 2022 photo by James Richmond Photography

We talk a lot about a nation’s credibility in foreign policy. The US strives to be credible regarding its positions with allies and foes alike. We have often failed. Russia has also proven many times over that it isn’t a credible partner.

Consider a report from Numbers Stations showing that Russia has invaded its neighbors and a couple of distant countries 58 times since 1917. One element of clear credibility for Russia is its willingness to invade others. How does knowing this history inform the current situation between Russia and Ukraine?

The world is well-aware of Russia’s ostentatious military buildup along Ukraine’s border. Putin added to the tensions by making demands requiring a new European security order. He wants Russia to be allowed its own sphere of influence that roughly corresponds to the old Soviet Union. That means NATO should certainly not expand, and possibly should contract.

Let’s look at history between the US and Ukraine:

  • In 1994, President Clinton asked Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. In return, Ukraine got a financial settlement and the Budapest Memorandum which provided non-aggression assurances by both the US and Russia. Ukraine shipped 1700 or so nuclear warheads back to Russia and destroyed the missiles.
  • In 2014, President Obama looked at the big, muddy land called Ukraine and asked if its strategic importance was worth war. Meaning a real war, with an enemy that could fight back. He decided on economic sanctions.
  • In 2020, President Trump attempted to blackmail the Ukrainian president into interfering on his behalf in an American election.
  • In 2022, President Biden rules out military intervention should Russia invade Ukraine, talking mostly about more economic sanctions as the consequence.

Regardless of whether Russia invades Ukraine or not, the US is walking down a perilous path. It faces efforts to divide and neutralize its alliances in both Europe and Asia.

In Europe, Russia wants to bury the post-Cold War order. Putin wants Europe to recognize its sphere of influence in the former Soviet countries. Putin wants to separate Ukraine from NATO permanently. He would like to fracture the European alliance by making Germany a more neutral party as Russia attempts to create its western buffer zone.

Europeans think that Putin won’t invade but will follow a hybrid strategy — keeping a military presence on the border, continuing weaponization of Russia’s European energy supply and increased cyberattacks — which will serve to keep NATO from becoming fully anti-Russian the way an invasion of Ukraine would. From the NYT:

“Before the crisis, Germany was America’s closest ally in Europe, boasted a special relationship with Moscow and was the most important partner for Eastern and Central Europe. Today…Berlin’s relationship with Moscow is fast deteriorating….Germany’s difficulties are a hint of what could come if Mr. Putin continues his brinkmanship, without providing the certainty of an actual invasion.”

The US and Germany aren’t singing from the same choir book right now, so Putin may be on to something.

In Asia, China would like to drive a wedge between the US and some of its Eastern allies. It already has agreed with Russia on the demand for NATO to pull back in Europe.

India tilted toward Russia at the UN Security Council meetings last week. After China and Russia cast “no” votes in the Security Council on whether to hold an official session to discuss the Ukraine crisis, Responsible Statecraft says that India abstained. It was effectively a rejection of the US attempt to hold Russia accountable.

In the Philippines, the front-runner for president says he wouldn’t accept any offer of help from the US in negotiations with China over the South China Sea if elected president in May.

Any person can see what’s coming in cold war 2.0 and should be very wary and worried. We need to learn to navigate in what has become a multi-polar world, one with worthy competitors in Russia and China.

We should remember that during cold war 1.0 in 1962, the stationing of Russian missiles in Cuba let to a great power deal. Russia took its missiles out of Cuba and the US pulled its missiles from Turkey and Italy. Back then, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was willing to consider Kennedy’s fears about Moscow’s missile deployment in Cuba. That became the basis for ending the confrontation.

The enormity of how close the world came to thermonuclear war led to an easing of tensions.  The next 50 years were a period of relative calm in US/Russian relations.

Today’s warlike tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine have most of the same elements present, with the roles reversed. Now, Putin is telling the West that Ukraine should not be allowed to join NATO. He also demands that the US should not place offensive weapons in Ukraine.

Like Cuba in 1962, is Ukraine now the chessboard for these superpowers? Is there a lesson here from that history?

Time to wake up America! You aren’t uniquely qualified to run the world, and there are competitors who will work really hard to prevent you from trying to continue doing so. To help you wake up, listen to Pink Floyd perform “Dogs Of War” from their album “Delicate Sound Of Thunder” at the Nassau Coliseum, NY in 1988. While the singing is a bit muffled, the band sounds fine, and there’s a great saxophone solo by Scott Paige:

Sample Lyric:

Invisible transfers and long distance calls
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can’t stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion

The dogs of war won’t negotiate
The dogs of war don’t capitulate

Still relevant, 34 years later!

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 30, 2022

Well, this was predictable. NPR reported that China’s ambassador to the US warned that the US could face a possible “military conflict” with China over Taiwan:

“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the US, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”

It isn’t a coincidence that China raises the specter of war while the US is focused on a possible threat by Russia in Ukraine. This week, 39 Chinese military aircraft flew near Taiwan, including two of China’s most advanced warplanes, their J-16D jets. Military analysts think that the J-16D has capacity to interfere with Taiwan’s defense radar systems and could make a huge difference in combat.

This is more evidence of how strategically fraught America’s legacy global policies are in a multi-polar world. Russia is threatening NATO and our Western allies, while simultaneously, China threatens our strategic position in Asia. We haven’t fought a two-theater war in 77 years, and haven’t won a war since.

It’s ironic that neither Taiwan nor Ukraine are formal mutual defense treaty partners with the US, yet US defense hawks think we should defend either or both. On to cartoons.

Surviving is difficult when you live in the wild:

Some voices on the Right support Russia:

Breyer retires, but opinions differ on who owns the right to replace him:

There seems very little Republicans can do to stop Biden from filling this seat, since there’s no filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. That was taken away by Mitch McConnell, during the nomination of Neil Gorsuch.

Mitch looks for a loophole:

The never-ending Republican hissy fit:

Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “MAUS”, is a memoir about the Holocaust. It was banned last week by a school board in Tennessee. In the book, the cats are the Germans while the mice are the Jews:

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Monday Wake Up Call – NATO edition, January 24, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Landscape Arch, Arches NP, UT – January 2022 photo by Peter Ferenz

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room in the standoff between Russia and Ukraine: NATO. Back in the early 1990s, Clinton wanted to have it both ways with his Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin. He wanted to expand NATO while at the same time, partnering with Russia.

Yeltsin wasn’t having any of that. He accused Clinton at a summit of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, (CSCE) that the US was “trying to split [the] continent again” through NATO expansion. Putin believes that today.

NATO’s expansion, either in the form of full members (or in increased military activities), has now been the policy of five US presidents: Clinton, GW Bush, Obama, Trump, and now, Biden. So, a couple of questions:

  • Did NATO’s expansion to the east of a reunified Germany increase the security in Europe and reduce the risk of a major war in Europe?
  • Did NATO’s expansion in membership increase the safety and security of the American people?

The answer to both is a no. NATO expansion post 1990 hasn’t helped the original European allies and has done nothing to improve the security of the US. Arguably, we’re worse off today than in 1990.

Today there are true splits within NATO. Germany, its most important country, isn’t on the same page about Russia. From Der Spiegel:

“The US wants to impose harsh sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine. But the German government is putting on the brakes out of fears over the economic consequences and what punitive measures could mean for energy supplies for a country that gets much of its gas from Moscow.”

Germany’s conflicted about Ukraine. Der Spiegel reports that last week, the US CIA director William Burns held a meeting in Bonn with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Burns told him that if Russia attacks Ukraine, Berlin must take a clear stand.

Biden also wanted to meet with Scholz in Washington. It would have been an opportunity for them to closely coordinate steps in dealing with Russia, but Scholz refused to go and meet him. We have a problem when Russia is building up to the biggest European military threat since the end of the Cold War, and the German Chancellor is unable to clear his schedule to meet with the American president.

Having declined the Washington visit, Biden dispatched Secretary of State Blinken to Berlin, and like the CIA director, his message was – Germany must participate in tough financial and economic sanctions if Putin strikes.

Despite the European ambivalence, Russia’s move to surround Ukraine with troops may be a strategic error. Europe has wanted to become a kind of giant economic Switzerland, independent but neutral. Today, it’s trying to come to grips with the fact that Russia wants to push NATO as far back as it can by recovering former Soviet territory.

Russia making NATO into a target seems to have revivified NATO a bit. It was more or less in slumber before Putin’s move against Ukraine and his demands of NATO and the US. Europe, the US, and NATO are walking a tightrope now, since there’s a fine line between diplomacy and “appeasement”.

The US and NATO countries all have entrenched maximalist military hawks who will attack any politician that surrenders an inch to Russia in the current situation. That’s an understandable position. In the last decade, Russia broke up Georgia, it ended the revolution against Assad in Syria, while securing its naval base there. It annexed Crimea albeit with local popular support, sent troops to Libya and Africa, supported Armenia against Azerbaijan, and recently “preserved” the non-elected government of Kazakhstan.

Can/should this be allowed go on forever? Is this the right time to push back hard?

There is no military solution that will keep Russia out of Ukraine. When Wrongo was a member of the NATO forces, the accepted strategy was that US and European troops on the ground were a “tripwire”. It was clear that the Soviet Union had vastly superior military assets amassed on Europe’s border. And Europe’s border was at that time, East Germany. Berlin was just 300 miles from Bonn, a day’s trip.

The counter to the Soviet’s military superiority was NATO’s potential use of tactical nuclear weapons. We could stop their ground forces reasonably effectively before they could get to Germany’s capital. The basic NATO position was to fight long enough with conventional forces to make the possibility of nuclear escalation plausible.

Today the situation is similar. Russia has vastly superior military assets amassed on Europe’s border, but the distances are greater: From Smolensk on Russia’s western border to Warsaw in Poland is about 500 miles, and it’s 1,075 miles from Smolensk to Bonn, Germany.

That breathing room explains Clinton’s flawed reasoning for NATO expansion. But, since the West has said that it will no longer use tactical nuclear weapons, it has limited options if it faces a limited invasion of say, Ukraine, a non-NATO member.

This leaves the US with trying to find a diplomatic solution, one which doesn’t look like appeasement, one that the many NATO members will also find acceptable. Having to compromise will mean finally admitting that we are part of a multipolar world.

Is Washington ready to go there yet? Very doubtful. Our path is fraught with danger as we careen from crisis to crisis. Something has to change or we’ll misplay a hand and be back where we were in 1939.

It’s time for NATO, Europe, and the US to wake up! It’s hard to see a sensible compromise that doesn’t look like appeasement, but it’s their job to find it for the rest of us.

To help them wake up, listen to John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen perform “Wasted Days”, from Mellencamp’s “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack” album, released this week, it’s one of the three songs featuring Springsteen:

Sample lyric:

How much sorrow is there left to climb
How many promises are worth a dime
Who on earth is worth our time?

Think about that NATO!

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War With Russia? Over What?

The Daily Escape:

Bailey’s Island, ME – January 7, 2022 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Russia has decided the time is right to challenge the balance of power in Europe. The talks between Moscow and the US, and between the EU, NATO and Russia were motivated by two reasons. First, Russia’s long time concerns about NATO encroaching on their Western border. Second, the view in the West that Russia, after massing troops on the Ukraine border, is going to invade Ukraine and absorb it.

Putin told Biden in early December that he was looking for European security guarantees. They were later presented by Moscow in the form of two draft treaties, one a Russian-US security treaty, the other a security agreement between Russia and NATO. That led to the recent talks that seemingly went nowhere.

The pawn in this diplomatic game is Ukraine. The basic options for Ukraine are the same as were discussed in 2014: Alignment with Russia, alignment with the EU/NATO or balancing between the two.

But to Moscow, Ukraine isn’t the problem. Putin thinks it’s Washington.

We should remember that Putin laid out his position to not accept any further eastward expansion of NATO in his speech to the Munich Security Conference in February, 2007. He hasn’t changed his thinking.

Both sides know that Ukraine is an impoverished, de-industrialized, divided, and corrupt mess. Ukraine ranks 117 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s corruption index. Why would either side want to take over responsibility for Ukraine?

Also, Russia understands that the NATO expansion hadn’t been on the table for years until Putin brought it up. Suddenly, he has the West debating an issue that wasn’t an issue for a long time. Ukraine hardly qualifies as a potential NATO member – it doesn’t have the resources to defend itself. There’s no way it could really contribute to defending other countries in Europe, even though they did send a few troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

So why would Russia attack Ukraine? Moscow is fully aware that while its troops would be welcomed in Eastern parts of Ukraine they wouldn’t be in others. Yet, we learned yesterday that Russia withdrew its diplomats and their families from Kyiv:

“According to one senior Ukrainian security official, 18 people — mostly the children and wives of Russian diplomats boarded buses from Kyiv back to Moscow. About 30 more Russians left within the ensuing days, from the Kyiv embassy and a Russian consulate in Lviv. The Ukrainian security official said Diplomats at two other Russian consulates have been told to prepare to leave Ukraine.”

Anatol Lieven, writing in Responsible Statecraft, wonders what the US, NATO and the Europeans are thinking. They’ve rejected Russia’s conditions for an agreement since they were not willing to rule out expansion to Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…NATO has no real intention of admitting Ukraine, nor of fighting Russia in Ukraine. Both Washington and Brussels have openly ruled this out. Indeed, NATO could not do so even if it wanted to. US forces in Europe are wholly inadequate to the purpose, as are what is left of the British and French armies.”

It’s possible that Russia is attempting to split Germany from the rest of Europe. Germany is reliant on Russia’s natural gas to a greater extent than other European countries. Assuming that Lieven is correct about NATO military weakness, it’s also possible that Russia is trying to intimidate NATO. According to Adam Tooze, Russia accounts for about 40% of Europe’s gas imports. And a rupture of relations will result in the complete embargoing of Russian gas and oil to European customers.

While the US, NATO, and the EU have all promised “unprecedented sanctions,” against Russia if they invade Ukraine, sanctions only matter if the other side cares. If Russia decides to rupture relations with the West, it will have calculated that it would survive more economic sanctions. The primary Western threat is to block Russia from using the SWIFT electronic payments system. But it’s possible that Russia could survive being blocked from SWIFT for longer than Europe can survive without Russian energy.

Despite that threat, Western allies are sending dangerously contradictory messages about their willingness to impose anything on Russia beyond a financial slap on the wrist. One variable that sums up Russia’s commanding position in a sanctions environment is Russia’s foreign exchange reserves:

With north of $600 billion in reserves, Russia is just behind China, Japan, and Switzerland. This gives Putin the capacity to withstand sanctions on the rest of the Russian economy.

Putin has a timeline. In 2024 he faces a choice as to whether to continue in power or to begin to prepare for his final exit. At that point, he will be 72. We have to assume that by then, he would like to have drawn a line on Western expansion.

Also, 2024 overlaps with the end of Biden’s first (only?) term as president. So, setting the terms of Russia-US relations on the expansion issue must be a priority for the Kremlin. Biden has clearly signaled that his priority is China and that he is willing to pay a political price for retrenching its strategic position (Afghanistan). Perhaps that opens the door for a Russian deal in Europe.

Lost in this discussion is the possibility that directly confronting Russia could drive them to sign a joint defense treaty with China. That would be a world-changing diplomatic move, assuming it included a mutual defense provision.

It would be a balance of power earthquake, a real-life demonstration Mackinder’s Heartland theory, which states that:

  • Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland
  • Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island
  • Who rules the World Island commands the world

Mackinder thought of the heartland as the core of Eurasia, and he considered all of Europe and Asia as the World Island.  Think of such an alliance controlling much of the world’s natural resources, having global leadership in manufacturing, and the best of STEM education. Imagine their combined military and naval might joined in a military pact.

There is still a chance that US flexibility in two areas may avert a diplomatic meltdown with Russia. The first would be a NATO commitment to deploy no new forces in NATO countries close to Russia’s borders, in return for Russian limits on new deployments and the stand-down of the troops now deployed on Ukraine’s borders.

The second would be genuine US support for the failed Minsk II agreement which focused on autonomy for a demilitarized Donbas region within Ukraine. Donbas autonomy within Ukraine would be a serious barrier both to Ukraine seeking NATO membership and would therefore indirectly meet Russia’s key concerns.

NATO, the US, and the EU need to come to a more modest view of themselves and their role in the world. We should abandon the empty and hypocritical false promise of further NATO expansion and seek a reasonably cooperative relationship with Russia.

Otherwise, we can go on living in our world of make-believe, a world that may easily be shattered by harsh realities.

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Biden and Putin Talk Ukraine

The Daily Escape:

Dawn sky, North Shore of Lake Superior – November 2021 photo by Ken Harmon

Biden and Putin had their heads-of-state version of a Zoom call yesterday. It lasted more than two hours. From the WaPo:

“In an email readout of the call, the White House said that…Biden voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European Allies about Russia’s escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine and made clear that the US and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation.”

It seems that the two leaders simply assigned their respective teams to follow up. The White House said Biden and Putin also discussed ransomware attacks and the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Wrongo doubts that Russia intends to invade Ukraine. There are too many downsides to a full-scale invasion for both sides. It would be costly militarily. Ukraine’s military would not be a match for Russia. But it’s in much better shape than it was in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, and entered Ukraine’s Donbas region. With help from the West over the past seven years, Ukraine’s regular units and reserves have come a long way.

It’s difficult to imagine why NATO would respond militarily to support Ukraine. Germany certainly doesn’t want a war with Russia. Rather, they want Russia’s Nordstream 2 gas pipeline to begin supplying energy to them. It’s even unclear whether a war in Ukraine would be supported strongly by the Russian people.

Understandably, Putin doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO. And so far, it doesn’t look like NATO wants Ukraine in NATO, either. It’s doubtful that Biden would insist that NATO ask Ukraine to join it. OTOH, Ukraine has leaned toward the EU and NATO since its independence in 1991.

Putin has observed that if Ukraine joined NATO, then NATO would be closer to Moscow than the USSR was to the US when they placed missiles in Cuba. Putin’s thinking that a nuclear warhead launched from Ukraine would have about a 5 minute flight time to Moscow.

That should be a threat Americans understand. If NATO had cruise or ballistic missiles in Ukraine or the Balkans it would be a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis. And we should understand that Putin would react as JFK did in 1962.

It’s ancient history, but when Wrongo ran a nuclear missile unit in Germany, our role was a total defense strategy against a potential invasion from the Soviet Union. It seems logical to Wrongo that national defense in Ukraine and the Balkans is similar, a poison pill to deter Russian aggression.

A way out for Biden is to promise Putin that he won’t supply Ukraine with offensive weapons. The definition of what constitutes an offensive weapon has been clear for some time. It’s unlikely that Putin would be happy if Ukraine received state-of-the-art air defense weapons from NATO, but that crumb from Biden may have to be sufficient.

We in America should understand that NATO Chief Stoltenberg has been pushing to admit Ukraine into NATO. He’s also parroted what Biden has said about Russia paying a high price if it made a move against Ukraine. What about the US strategy for Ukraine? Reuters reported last week that Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried said that:

“As you can appreciate, all options are on the table and there’s a toolkit that includes a whole range of options…”

Donfried knows that there’s no “all options on the table” plan for the US. If Russia decided to invade, the US has neither forces nor resources in Europe to do much to stop it, unless NATO was to unleash a European-wide war.

Neither side wants that, because it wouldn’t necessarily be limited to Europe. There is something in the military called “Escalation Dominance”. That implies that when escalation begins, it can remain limited only if your side has a dominant nuclear capability. No one who looks at the US and Russia believes there’s any way to guarantee that an escalation will remain limited between these two powers.

There are no easy answers on how to avoid that. As long as we view this as primarily a military problem, we will see only military solutions. But if Ukraine falls to Russia, it would be a catastrophic reputational loss for the US, one that demonstrates our weakness in power and influence across our post-WWII empire.

Nobody knows what will happen, but we should expect Biden will do whatever he can to prevent direct confrontation. Russia has been deploying troops along its border with Ukraine, particularly around the Donbas region, where they have been carrying on a small war with Ukraine since late 2014.

In the middle of a pandemic in which millions have died, with no end in sight,  it would be a hell of a time to start a war.

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Saturday Soother – November 13, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, UT – November 2021 photo by Byron Jones

This week’s Veteran’s Day apparently isn’t finished with Wrongo just yet. It’s important to remember that when the US war in Afghanistan ended in August after nearly 20 years, there were both hard and soft costs that had been paid, and much that remains to be paid.

The Pentagon reports the hard costs of our Afghanistan adventure to be $825 billion. However, the “Costs of War” project at Brown University estimates those costs at $2.313 trillion. But it gets worse: They estimate the costs of all US post-9/11 war spending at $8 trillion, including future obligations for veterans’ care and the cost of borrowing on the associated federal debt for roughly 30 years. They also estimate the human costs of the “global war on terror” at 900,000 deaths.

Those are all truly staggering numbers.

And Congress is now considering next fiscal year’s military budget. Defense One is covering this so you don’t have to. They’re saying that the proposed 2022 defense budget will be another bipartisan effort by the old-timers in the House and Senate to add more money than was asked for into the pot. And it’s part of a long history of hiding flimsy arguments behind dramatic rhetoric: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“This year, both the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and House Armed Services Committee (HASC) have displayed a similar unwillingness to distinguish between needs and wants in their versions of the National Defense Authorization Act, which recommend adding $25 billion and $24 billion, respectively, to President Biden’s recommended $715 billion Pentagon budget.”

More:

“It is difficult to imagine how either the SASC or HASC could convincingly demonstrate the necessity of such military spending increases when none of the most urgent crises facing the United States today have military solutions. Furthermore, the credibility of both the Pentagon and Congress on this subject is, to put it mildly, underwhelming: one has an extensive history of budgetary boondoggles, and the other is openly cozy with the U.S. arms industry.”

Defense One says that the most frustrating aspect isn’t the exorbitant amounts, but the lack of any substantive strategic justification for the increased spending by either Chamber. In specific, Defense One argues that  there’s been no effort to demonstrate that the Senate’s billions are funding needs instead of simply political wants.

Remember this is from Defense One, a stalwart defender of America’s military.

We shouldn’t assume legislators think carefully about the public’s interest when crafting the defense budget. Over the years, the defense budget process is driven partly by what the administration and the Pentagon ask for, and by what the defense industry wants for its bottom line. (Full disclosure, Wrongo holds a significant number of shares in a large defense contracting firm.)

US military spending in 2020 was $778 billion. The next closest nation was China, at $252 billion. In third place was India at $72.9 billion. Another perspective is to compare what we spent to fight in Vietnam to the costs of our Apollo moon landing. Apollo 11 got to the moon in July of 1969. That feat cost the US about $25.8 billion.

During the same era, it’s estimated that the Vietnam War cost the US $141 billion over 14 years. That means that we spent about as much in two years in Vietnam as we spent on the entire space race!

When we think about accountability for the costs of the Pentagon, we should remember that the Pentagon has never passed an outside expense audit. Waste is endemic; and the Pentagon simply fabricates numbers, but receives nearly zero pushback from Congress.

There’s so much corruption in the halls of Congress that we will never know how little we could spend on defense. Maybe we should just make some deep cuts to the defense budget and force real strategic decision-making down their throats.

Enough! It’s Saturday, and we need to take a break from trying to figure out whether Steve Bannon or Kyle Rittenhouse will ever go to jail. It’s time for our Saturday Soother.

With a soaking rain in Connecticut today, we’re limited to indoor sports. Most of our fall clean-up is still ahead, but today, let’s grab a seat by the window and listen to pianist Max Richter’s “Mercy” with Richter on piano and Mari Samuelsen on violin. Richter originally wrote the piece 10 years ago for violinist Hillary Hahn. For Richter, “Mercy” places the need for mercy and compassion firmly within our view:

 

 

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