“hey guys you know how I’m losing this war and all? Well I just had a great idea: Let me win. Yeah you just, let me win. And then forget any of this ever happened.
Does thst sound like a great deal or what!? I am super pumped about this.”
Yes, Russia would prefer other countries to stop supporting Ukraine, so it can wear Ukraine down and achieve some frozen conflict, indefinite-but-often-violated ceasefire, similar to the ones it achieved in Ukraine’s Donbas in 2015.
This is the exact reason why the leadership of lots of ‘Western’ countries understands they must keep supporting Ukraine. But because of elections, leaderships change.
Putin’s gamble is based on his belief that Western democracies have attention spans that are shorter than his. His hope is that his efforts to sway some Western voters, whether with economic pain or with words, is enough to tip the scales in enough countries, before Russia itself runs out of resources and internal maneuvering room.
Swayed countries won’t just scale back aid to Ukraine; they’ll face internal discontent from divided electorates, and diplomatic frustrations over diverging views from peer countries, further weakening the coalition of countries that are actively doing things to discourage Russia from wars of aggression.
This is the culmination of the playbook that Russia is documented to have used for the past two decades: sew discontent and division abroad, because the noise is more valuable than the signal. Exploit elections to ensure that adversaries cannot maintain a consistent approach indefinitely. Paint everything as the West’s attempts to impose their will on everyone, to further discourage a higher level of intervention from Western leaders who, among many other more important goals, don’t want to prove Putin right.
If we want to deny Putin his goals and his vision of a bloody, might-makes-right world, then all countries vested in today’s system need to do even more to freeze Russia out of the world economy and global politics. And, they need to maintain that approach as long as it takes, regardless of self-interest or voter discontent.
If we can’t do this, as a world, then Putin’s approach will be proven right by our collective failure. And then any future strongman knows the same hostage tactics work: get nukes, say the ‘West’ is trying to destroy you, and start destroying your neighbor with impunity.
The wrold wants to forget Putin.
Well..take your damn troops out then!
Commenting just on title before I get into article: you don’t make something forgettable by making it the centre of action.
People say the he failed which is true but it is also true that before this much of the world did sort of forget about Crimea and 2014 so before the invasion he had every reason to believe that no one would care sadly
8 comments
well he is doing a shit job of it ^^
Instead the opposite is true
“hey guys you know how I’m losing this war and all? Well I just had a great idea: Let me win. Yeah you just, let me win. And then forget any of this ever happened.
Does thst sound like a great deal or what!? I am super pumped about this.”
Yes, Russia would prefer other countries to stop supporting Ukraine, so it can wear Ukraine down and achieve some frozen conflict, indefinite-but-often-violated ceasefire, similar to the ones it achieved in Ukraine’s Donbas in 2015.
This is the exact reason why the leadership of lots of ‘Western’ countries understands they must keep supporting Ukraine. But because of elections, leaderships change.
Putin’s gamble is based on his belief that Western democracies have attention spans that are shorter than his. His hope is that his efforts to sway some Western voters, whether with economic pain or with words, is enough to tip the scales in enough countries, before Russia itself runs out of resources and internal maneuvering room.
Swayed countries won’t just scale back aid to Ukraine; they’ll face internal discontent from divided electorates, and diplomatic frustrations over diverging views from peer countries, further weakening the coalition of countries that are actively doing things to discourage Russia from wars of aggression.
This is the culmination of the playbook that Russia is documented to have used for the past two decades: sew discontent and division abroad, because the noise is more valuable than the signal. Exploit elections to ensure that adversaries cannot maintain a consistent approach indefinitely. Paint everything as the West’s attempts to impose their will on everyone, to further discourage a higher level of intervention from Western leaders who, among many other more important goals, don’t want to prove Putin right.
If we want to deny Putin his goals and his vision of a bloody, might-makes-right world, then all countries vested in today’s system need to do even more to freeze Russia out of the world economy and global politics. And, they need to maintain that approach as long as it takes, regardless of self-interest or voter discontent.
If we can’t do this, as a world, then Putin’s approach will be proven right by our collective failure. And then any future strongman knows the same hostage tactics work: get nukes, say the ‘West’ is trying to destroy you, and start destroying your neighbor with impunity.
The wrold wants to forget Putin.
Well..take your damn troops out then!
Commenting just on title before I get into article: you don’t make something forgettable by making it the centre of action.
People say the he failed which is true but it is also true that before this much of the world did sort of forget about Crimea and 2014 so before the invasion he had every reason to believe that no one would care sadly