Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen, 25 October

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With some help from a diligent member of the Community, I am now able to share with you the link to yesterday evening’s discussion of deterrence with Professor Diesen. The proposition is that Mr Putin is damaging Russia’s deterrence by his failure to respond adequately to the dangerous provocations against Russia going back to the first days of Trump’s first term in 2017.

Moreover, Russia’s style of war from the opening days of the Special Military Operation was too original, too far removed from what the West understands by war and this originality came at the price of scorn for Moscow’s deterrent strength in Berlin, London and Washington. This has mounted with each failure of Putin to play by the rules and strike back. The latest manifestation is his behavior following the imposition of secondary tariffs on Russian oil exports to India and China which may do great damage to the Russian budget. And in response Putin sent Dmitriev to the States to talk with business leaders about the great future for US-Russian trade. In terms of traditional statecraft, this is self-defeating.

(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ttYcjybLWBY)

Russian voice over: https://rutube.ru/video/2f681c947481e2f6f334a0a43b197c57/?ysclid=mh7qwglvwd832277132

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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2 thoughts on “Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen, 25 October”

  1. I don’t know Gilbert, but dimitriev in DC might just be two can play the bullshit game. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Hopefully without duking it out more than already.

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  2. I think having Dmitriev and Witkoff out there is smart diplomacy since unlike the previous administration there is at least a line of communication between two trusted emissaries, or boyars if you will. I get the idea that Trump has decided to let the neocon wing have their chance to bring the Russians to heel since they are the ones pushing the idea that Russia has a weak economy with a pathetic military that will crumple in a short time. Will this work? I have no idea.

    I would say that I see a fair number of Ukrainians where I reside and all of them definitely speak Russian as a first language and the men have escaped death or injury on the front by getting here with their families. With the exception of some much younger Ukrainians who are surprisingly anti Russian the majority are clearly not savagely Russophobic and just want to get on with life. I have been to eastern Europe including Russia and my view on this is that VVP does not want to annihilate the Ukrainians since this would have unpredictable consequences with a power vacuum and also pose a huge cost to rebuild.

    Of course no one expected that this would turn into the savage war that we have now. No one except those who paid attention to Azerbaijan vs Armenia would have expected the drone war. Unlike the previous conflict in Ukraine here there is no Von Manstein or Zhukov that has suddenly moved into open space to enable operational freedom and overcome the drone shield. Of course some argue that drones have made such operations obsolete and others point out that Russia is perfectly happy to slowly draw the Ukrainians into the meat grinder and destroy them and there are those who think the Russians are unimaginative thugs and their army is weak and so here we are.

    Your idea on using Oreshnik is an interesting one since we have practically zero knowledge of what the results of the previous strike were. The video looked impressive and there is no doubt that kinetic energy alone would have dealt out a lot of damage, but there are those who insist that even this weapon was nothing but a demo that caused little damage. Of course unless someone has better data I am not aware of any good video or damage assessment from the old Soviet complex that was struck. If Oreshnik damage is immense then this is indeed quite the weapon and should be feared by all. The problem is that there are many doubters so maybe another demo would be useful although I am not sure if decapitating the regime would not create new problems. I would be much happier if the Russians could have convinced the neocons and this whole thing would end. Europe would benefit immensely but no one appears to see that. Keep up the good work Professor. Cheers from western Canada.

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