An old general's musings on where the world may or may not be headed in the next several weeks.
CAUTION: probably not a good idea to listen to this before bed.
An old general's musings on where the world may or may not be headed in the next several weeks.
CAUTION: probably not a good idea to listen to this before bed.
High stakes poker or Putin and Ukraine
Should we, as Americans, care about what happens in Ukraine?
Where?
That’s what I thought you’d say. Where indeed.
Let’s start with what appear to be some ground truths to me.
1. Most Americans couldn’t find Ukraine with a map and both hands.
2. Even fewer, average Americans, other maybe than World War II buffs, know much about its history or strategic importance to Russia or to Western Europe.
3. Ukraine is of great strategic importance to Russia.
4. Most Americans spend a whole lot more time thinking about the price of gasoline, finding a COVID test site or whether their kids will be in school tomorrow than the current crisis boiling in Eastern Europe. This is borne out by the fact that while Russia is massing more than one hundred thousand troops and hundreds of tanks on the Ukrainian border, CBS Evening News, NBC Evening News and even the usually diligent PBS News Hour, devoted not one second to covering the story on the evening of January 16, 2022.
Ten seconds worth of history. I know, I know, history is boring, at least to most of us, but like the man said,” if you don’t know where you been, you don’t know where you are.”
Ukraine and Russia have been intertwined for centuries. Ukraine has been part of the Russian Empire for more years than a free state. Nikita Khrushchev, long serving Soviet Union prime minister, was Ukrainian by birth. I won’t bore you with the centuries of divisions, partitions and invasions, but suffice it to say that Ukraine has long been a buffer between other European powers and Russia. And as a buffer has been buffeted by the vagaries of war between the parties.
Ukraine served as the route through which Napoleon and later Hitler invaded Russia.
I give you this very abbreviated history lecture so that you can begin to understand Russia and thereby Putin’s views on Ukraine. I don’t pretend to be an expert on Ukraine or Russia, but I’ve had some muddy boots on the ground in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
I served on a NATO exercise in Ukraine, commanding the exercise observer/controllers (that’s the referees/umpires/zebras, for those of you not familiar with military speak) in a twenty-two-nation war game, and later attended the US-Russia Relations Executive Seminar at Harvard University with a dozen or so US generals and senior intelligence folks and a like number of Russian senior military members. I also spent thirty-five years in the military considering the lessons of past wars and the mistakes that lead to them happening. Oh yeah, then there was my two-year stint on the House Armed Services Committee.
So, while it’s unlikely that the folks in Foggy Bottom or at Harvard would consider me any kind of expert, for a good old boy sitting on his porch watching the Mississippi River flow by, I reckon my two cents is worth just about that.
Here’s what I’d do if I were Putin.
First, we must understand Putin’s point of view. Putin believes the collapse of the Soviet Union was an unmitigated disaster. He sees Mother Russia surrounded by mortal enemies who want to keep Russia cowed.
You say that’s silly. America or Great Britain or Germany or NATO isn’t going to attack Russia. Well let’s take a look at it from Putin’s view. Since that’s hard for us to do, let’s say that instead of the USSR collapsing, the USA collapsed. Instead of the Warsaw Pact dissolving, NATO dissolved.
Texas is now an independent nation. Mexico has joined the Warsaw Pact, buys its weapons from the USSR and houses Soviet troops and military training exercises. Texas is making noises about joining the Warsaw Pact and has hosted small delegations of Soviet troops on training missions.
In this scenario, Mexico is essentially Poland, and just as the Mexico and the US fought a war, Poland and Russia have fought multiple wars over the centuries. Texas represents Ukraine. Ukraine was part of the Russian empire and the USSR for far longer than Texas has been part of the US.
The eastern half of Ukraine speaks Russian. For much of the twentieth century it was illegal to speak Ukrainian or publish books in Ukrainian. Stalin and Russian policies led to the death of millions of Ukrainians in the 1930’s due to starvation. Keeping that history in mind, Putin clearly would like to keep Ukraine subservient, if not part of Russia, for the simple reason that a Ukraine as part of NATO, armed and equipped by NATO would be a danger to Russia or at least clearly a threat.
Just as Hitler used the German-speaking citizens of the Sudetenland as a pretext to dismember Czechoslovakia in 1938, Putin has taken Crimea and is waging low-level war in two Russian-speaking, eastern Ukrainian provinces bordering Russia.
Keeping geography in mind, Ukraine is bordered to the east and north by Russia and Belarus, which is essentially a Russian protectorate. Thus two-thirds of Ukraine’s borders are shared with Russia and Belarus.
There are at least a hundred-thousand Russian troops sitting on Ukraine’s north and east, most, recently moved there. Ukraine is simply outgunned and outmanned by Russia. The Russian military is three times larger than the Ukrainian, while Russia’s tanks outnumber Ukrainian tanks ten to one.
Russia could conquer Ukraine within a matter of weeks, although likely not without significant military losses and the threat of economic sanctions from NATO countries.
Again, remember here’s what I’m thinking as Putin. Would the US or NATO militarily intervene? Not a chance. First, for NATO or European nations to intervene, the US would have to be willing to intervene. After twenty years of Afghanistan, Iraq and other military actions in remote locations there is little political will nor public support for US intervention in yet another war. Few Americans could find Ukraine on a map and fewer still could identify a reason why they should care about whether it’s part of Russia or an independent nation.
Politically, Putin would want to see a lightening quick conquest. It would not be wise for him to get bogged down in a long, drawn-out conflict, like the USSR’s war in Afghanistan, which, much like the US conflict in Viet Nam created discontent at home as well as economic strain.
Putin, like all Russian leaders wants subservient states surrounding Russia and neutral states buffering the Russian sphere of influence from the west. Based on that assumption, he doesn’t need to conquer all of Ukraine. He could simply split Ukraine roughly in half, north to south, seizing the Russian-speaking east and setting up a vassal state there, to be incorporated into Russia, much as Crimea has been incorporated.
The western half could remain a nominally independent but neutral state, providing space between NATO member Poland and Russian-controlled Eastern Ukraine.
The peace treaty with Western Ukraine would require that Ukraine not join NATO nor host NATO troops nor exercises and maintain close economic ties with Russia.
A quick victory would enable him to proclaim he is returning Russia to grandeur and protecting the motherland from the arrogant encroachment of the West. It would secure his western flank while enabling him to deal with Islamic forces on Russia’s southern borderlands.
Were Putin to desire to further humiliate the west and particularly the US, he might well encourage both China and North Korea to belligerency in the Pacific. Suggesting that while there would be no alliance, they would act in concert with North Korea invading South Korea while China invades Taiwan. While this risks world-wide war with the possibility of nuclear war, Putin’s calculation might well be that the distraction to the US is worth the risk. Further calculating that none of the three conflicts is a direct attack on the US, although a Korean attack would be a direct attack on a US ally with US forces in the line of fire.
His calculus would be that there is no stomach in the US for a nuclear attack to defend Ukraine, Taiwan or even Korea. Further, that US forces would be spread so thin by three simultaneous or nearly simultaneous military crises that they could not effectively respond to all three and would in all likelihood focus on Korea as the US has 28,500 military members stationed there, many with accompanying family members.
Does Putin need China and North Korea to act in order to invade Ukraine? No. Logistically the US and NATO are at such a disadvantage they would not be capable of mounting an immediate response to a Russian invasion of Ukraine, even if they wanted to do so. Nor does the US perceive a vital national interest in Ukraine. Much like Great Britain in 1938, the US response would be non-existent, other than words.
Were China to invade Taiwan, North Korea would almost certainly attack South Korea. With the US distracted by Taiwan the North Koreans would believe the time ripe. The big question is what would China do?
Likely China would properly see that the US has little interest in Ukraine but a Russian attack there would cause disarray among the NATO allies. With US NATO allies focused on Ukraine the US would not be able to enlist cooperation from European allies in response to a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Since the US has no military presence on Taiwan, a Chinese attack there would not be a direct attack on the US. Additionally, virtually all major US corporations have significant business interests in China, those major corporations would likely seek to deter a military response by the US to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. In light of those factors a US nuclear response to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, particularly considering Japanese sensitivities to nuclear weapons, is unlikely.
Does the converse hold true? That is if North Korea were to attack South Korea would China attack Taiwan? Were I Xi Jinping, the answer is: probably. The question is: would China act immediately, thus forcing the US to decide between defending South Korea and the US forces stationed there or defending Taiwan, or does China wait until the US is fully engaged in Korea, thus weakening its ability to respond to an attack on Taiwan, before attacking.
US public sentiment would likely be opposed to intervention in Ukraine and only slightly less opposed to defending Taiwan. How would US public opinion respond to an attack on South Korea, with its multiple US bases and twenty-eight-thousand-five-hundred US servicemembers? Would it be viewed as another Pearl Harbor or 9-11, raising the ire of the “sleeping giant”?
If it were to happen would US focus remain on Korea, or, as happened with Iraq, the focus move elsewhere. Would the policy makers put ninety percent of the effort into one theater, as was done during WW II, with the goal of defeating Germany first? Divide efforts? Or not even engage, deciding there is no US vital interest involved in Ukraine, Taiwan or Korea.
Will Xi view this as a golden opportunity too good to pass up or will he view it as a risk too great to take? My bet is golden opportunity. By retaking Taiwan, China would become the dominant power in the region. A goal clearly held by Xi.
That’s a mighty long string of dominoes from Ukraine to Korea to Taiwan, but remember World War II or World War I or the Napoleonic Wars. Stranger things have happened.
Is Putin bluffing? Maybe, but he’s got a pair of aces showing.
(c) William L. Enyart, 2022
www.billenyart.com
Email: bill@billenyart.com