For the first twenty years of the new millennium, it was obvious that Vladimir Putin and his team in the Kremlin were reactive, rather than proactive in nearly all dealings with the Collective West.  Of course, I mean to say that was obvious to the substantial minority of professionals who trade in facts and follow causality, action and reaction, from start to finish, rather than just trade in ideologically driven propaganda.  As for U.S. government press releases and the mainstream media, what was fed to the general public in the USA, in Europe all these years, always systematically reversed cause and effect. Off camera, the U.S. poked the Russians in the eye; on camera, we were shown only the Russians’ aggressive reaction. 

We, professional Russia watchers knew Vladimir Putin to be very cautious.  His most commonly used word relating to conduct of any policy has been “аккуратно”, meaning “careful.”

In 2021, a new Putin came before us, one who looks assertive if not aggressive and who seems to be ready to take enormous risks without much hesitation while moving two or more steps ahead of his Western talking partners, not two steps behind as had been the case till now.

 I intend in this essay to explain in what way Russia is proactive today. However, before proceeding, let us take a backward glance at the two instances in what may be called the ‘age of Putin’ when Russia indeed took the initiative and moved boldly on its own foreign relations and military course.  The dates in question are 1999 and 2015.

                                                                      *****

      There were in the last 22 years two outstanding instances of Russia taking the initiative in international affairs and not just reacting to some step by the West, and by the USA in particular.  The first was in June 1999 when a detachment of 250 Russian troops based in Bosnia on a peacekeeping mission  marched into Kosovo to prepare the way for reinforcements of paratroopers expected to arrive by plane to Pristina airport, where together they might establish a Russian “zone” in what could become a partitioned Kosovo. At the time, Yeltsin was seriously ill and not in control of daily business, and his minister of foreign affairs seemed to be unaware of the movements on the ground in Former Yugoslavia, while contradictory messages came from the military.  A certain Vladimir Putin, then serving as director of the intelligence services, but two months later named Prime Minister and six months later named successor to Yeltsin as President of the RF, was involved in meetings with the visiting Assistant Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. While Talbott was still in Moscow, news of the Russian move on Pristina airport became known. Putin is said to have given assurances that this was all a misunderstanding, not to worry.  And so Talbott flew off, only to return to Moscow in mid flight when it became clear that a potentially dangerous standoff was taking place in Kosovo between the NATO detachment and the Russians.

As it turned out, the Russian bid to capture Pristina airport and enforce Russian interests inside or together with KFOR was stymied by failure to get overflight rights from Hungary for the planned transportation of reinforcements. The United States had ensured Hungarian compliance with its wishes to spite the Russians.

 The second instance of Russian initiative that comes to mind was in September 2015 when Russia unexpectedly announced its entry into the Syrian civil war with air strikes intended to support  the failing Assad regime. This time, the Russian military action was enabled precisely by their having obtained prior agreement of Iraq and other regional powers to overfly their territory. And Bagdad complicity, already established within a joint Russian-Iraqi intelligence unit, proceeded without the slightest knowledge of the massive U.S. embassy in Bagdad.  Russia’s subsequent mission to save the Syrian regime over the following two years was a complete success and there is no question who moved the chess pieces on the board:  Vladimir Putin.  The ability of the Russians to operate in total secrecy under the noses of the United States command puts in question all claims from Washington today that it has inside sources of intelligence on Russia’s plans for Ukraine.

                                                                              *****                       

Russian actions at the Ukraine border beginning in November 2021 and continuing to present are proof positive of a new stance as initiator of change in global affairs.

At first, we could speculate that the massing of the 100,000 Russian troops was just a reaction to the Ukrainians’ massing 120,000 troops, more than half of their army, at the line of demarcation with Donbas, poised to strike and retake the rebel provinces by force of arms and also potentially threatening Russian Crimea. However, when on 15 December the Russians responded to President Biden’s invitation during a virtual summit with Putin nine days earlier to submit on paper their concerns and motivation for their troop movements, they delivered two draft treaties on revising the architecture of European architecture which have been called an ultimatum, but might equally be called brazen demands having much broader scope than the Ukraine alone.

Immediately afterwards, Russia pursued a two-track strategy of negotiations over the demand to roll back NATO and simultaneous escalation of its military threat to Ukraine.  Additional functional units essential to an invasion such as transport of fuels and blood banks arrived. A new potential front was created at the Ukraine-Belarus border, just 100 km from Kiev, as 30,000 additional Russian troops arrived together with some of their latest hardware for joint military exercises with Belarusian forces.  And naval exercises were announced in the Black Sea involving landing craft coming from the Pacific fleet. Shipping was banned in the area for the duration, so that a kind of blockade was put into effect, reminiscent of the American blockade imposed on Cuba during the Missile Crisis of 1962, to those of us with memory of history to match the “never forget, never forgive” mindset of the Kremlin.

The effect of these measures, which we may call Putin’s Plan A, was dramatic, though the goal of capitulation to Russia’s demand for the roll-back of NATO and denial of NATO membership to Ukraine was not achieved. What Russia got by holding a gun to the head of Ukraine for the sake of raising its security concerns to top of mind among Western interlocutors was recognition from the United States as a major military force to be reckoned with in conventional as well as nuclear arms. And there were indications in the written U.S. response to the Russian draft treaties that significant agreements could be reached on limiting war games in Europe, on controlling or banning intermediate range nuclear capable missiles in Europe, on maintaining normal channels of communication open between the military and civilian leaders on both sides. The policy of isolation, denigration of Russia and dismissal of its security interests that dated from the Bush and Obama administrations, and in which Biden himself had participated as formulator and implementer, was now abandoned so long as Russia did not in fact invade Ukraine.

A secondary effect of the Russian actions had been the shattering of Ukraine’s standing among its Western backers. In the midst of the mounting crisis, Biden stated with crystal clarity that not a single U.S. soldier would be sent to Ukraine to defend it in case of Russian attack. America’s insistent repetition of the message that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent rose to a hysterical pitch when Washington called for all American citizens to leave the country now, on commercial flights, because military logistics would not be deployed to avoid any risk of conflict with the incoming Russians.

Subsequently more than 40 countries followed the U.S. lead in closing their embassies in Kiev and pulling out staff.  Ukraine’s dreams of Western backing were no longer tenable, and the first sounds of surrender began to appear when the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.K. said that perhaps they would withdraw their application to join NATO as the price for maintaining the peace. Though that little white flag was later retracted, the will of the Ukrainian nationalists was clearly undergoing shock therapy.

If we can step back a moment from the day to day stream of events, there is no doubt that the greatest damage to the Ukrainian economy and to the stability of its present government  was delivered not by the Russians, with their troop movements, but by Washington, with its daily warnings of a Russian attack on Ukraine.

My peers have tried to make sense of the dull, repetitious cries from the White House and Pentagon about an imminent Russian mass invasion of Ukraine. The best explanation I have heard is that this was a clever Information War strategy amounting to ‘heads I win, tails you lose’.  If Putin really proceeded with an invasion, it would be all the more costly to Russia in lives and treasure because there would be no surprise element. Moreover, the sanctions would bite Russia while providing the United States with enhanced control over its nominal allies in Europe to compensate for the loss of its investments in the Kiev regime. As Nancy Pelosi explained to a journalist, this policy would likely play well to the American public. Conclusion: the cries of ‘wolf’ were a cynical political ploy by the Biden administration.

However, the same facts can be read an entirely different way: as a great success of Russian Intelligence.  It could be that the vague references of State Department officials in Q&A with reporters to intelligence reports of Russian intentions to invade had meat on the bones.  It could be that the unnamed reliable sources of information about the schedule of Putin’s invasion were double agents carrying out their disinformation mission.  It could be that not only the less than brilliant American President was taken in by this charade but also his eminently brilliant National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as well as other high administration and Congressional officials. The net conclusion from this interpretation is that Vladimir Putin has played Biden like a fiddle and that the Russians have finally learned how to use PR to their benefit, without relying on consultants from Madison Avenue.

                                                                       ***

Yesterday we saw several very interesting developments in Moscow that have been reported separately by our media when they are in fact all interconnected and relate to Russia’s moving on from its Plan A, the invasion scare, to Plan B, the possible recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics as sovereign states independent of Kiev. This plan also can be allowed to play out over several weeks or months while applying further psychological pressure on the Zelensky government.

Several weeks ago, we read that a bill was being introduced into the State Duma calling upon President Putin to recognize the independence of the two Donbas republics. The bill, authored by parliamentarians in the Opposition party, the Communist Party of Russia headed by Gennady Zyuganov. We were told at the time by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov that this proposal was not welcomed by the President and it disappeared from the daily news.

Two days ago Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced that a vote would be held on two bills relating to recognition of the Donbas republics, the first bill by the Communists and a second bill authored by the ruling United Russia Party.  A free vote would be held and the version of the bill receiving the highest number of votes would be presented to the President. The difference between the two is that the Communist bill would send the Duma request directly to the President for action while the United Russia version would send the appeal first to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other top functionaries before it might be passed to the President.  The vote yesterday endorsed the Opposition bill, meaning that President Putin was given a free hand at any convenient moment to recognize the rebel provinces.

The logic of this entire exercise is that, if necessary, Russia can at any time put an end to the nightmare that Donbas residents have endured for the past seven years during which 800,000 of them chose to take Russian passports for the security blanket it promised.  If Russia recognizes the republics, and if the republics then formally request Russian military protection against the Ukrainian forces which are three times greater than their own at the other side of the border, then the Russian army could legally enter their territory and move up to the line of demarcation, putting an end to the bombardments and threats from Ukraine. This would be the case whatever Russia or the republics themselves otherwise might have in mind with respect to eventually holding a referendum on ‘reunification’.

The downside of the formal recognition of independence of these republics is that it would put an abrupt end to the Minsk Accords, which all involved parties in the West consider to be the only palatable solution to the Ukraine problem.

It is surely no accident that the Duma vote was held during the visit of German Chancellor Scholz to Moscow. As a guarantor of the Minsk Accords and participant in the Normandy Format to resolve the Ukraine problem, Germany would be the first to experience shock that the Kremlin is even thinking of sabotaging them in this manner. And so from joy over de-escalation that the Russian Minister of Defense Shoigu announced on Sunday, as units from the military exercises in the Crimea, along the Belarus border with Ukraine begin to return to their home bases was now mixed with distress over the possible Russian recognition of the independence of the rebel provinces.

Whereas in the preceding several weeks, Kiev had publicly denounced the Minsk Accords as posing a threat to their state if implemented, whereas President Zelensky himself had said before cameras that not a single line of the Accords was acceptable to him, no sooner than the Duma vote became known did the Kiev authorities start sending out appeals to all international organizations to help save those Accords from the Russian pull-out via recognition of the independence of the Donbas republics.

It is an open question how the Washington power elite will react to the Russian shift to Plan B.  How can they avoid looking foolish over their months of crying ‘wolf’ about an invasion that did not happen. Yet, let’s not underestimate their resourcefulness.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

In his first TV interview of 2022 given to NBC News on 10 February, Joe Biden urged all Americans to leave Ukraine now via commercial flights because the U.S. military will not come in to evacuate them. Why not? To avoid any possible direct military engagement with the expected Russian invasion forces:

“That’s a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another. It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization. We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”

This seemingly unexceptional statement is surely the most important pronouncement from Biden relating to the crisis at the Ukraine-Russian border since his saying in early December 2021 that the United States will not send a single soldier to assist Ukraine in case they find themselves in military combat with Russia.

In a U.S. political world which long ago moved beyond facts to wallow in some inner fantasy, what we have here in Biden’s latest statement is the beginning of a realization of the facts on the ground, namely that Russia is not “a gasoline station masquerading as a country,” as the viscerally anti-Russian Senator John McCain famously said, nor is it a country with only out of date nuclear weapons in its armory, weapons that by their nature cannot be used without bringing on Judgment Day for us all.

 In this regard, it appears that the psychological warfare being waged by Vladimir Putin against the United States and NATO is beginning to bear fruit. There is now an awareness of the danger posed by Russia’s conventional military forces, a danger big enough to warrant the extra measure of caution we see in President Biden’s remarks of yesterday.

Of course, the American administration’s analysis of the crisis remains simplistic, with the binary paths of diplomacy or war, invasion or no invasion.  It is now more than likely that the Kremlin will not stage a full-scale invasion. Indeed, it may not have to fire a shot.  Mr. Putin is engaged in psychological warfare and he is making slow but steady progress in applying ever greater pressure on Ukraine and through Ukraine on the USA and its NATO allies.

We have heard a great deal about the 100,000 Russian soldiers on the Russian border with Ukraine, northeast of Kharkiv. We learn daily about specialized fuel carrying units, blood banks and other detachments arriving in this territory and enabling an invasion should it occur.  We also now hear about the joint Belarus-Russian military exercises which began yesterday just to the north of the Belarus border with Ukraine and within 100 km of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.  That includes more than 30,000 Russian soldiers and a great deal of new military hardware which will likely remain behind after the exercises end on the 20^th and the Russian troops go back to their home locations. 

What is new today is detailed reporting on Russia’s growing naval detachments arriving for their own military exercises at sea just off the Ukrainian coast.  Yes, they could facilitate a landing of troops and tanks should Russia wish to seize Odessa or other towns on the coast having large ethnic Russian populations.  However, as an article by Amy Mackinnon in Foreign Policy magazine datelined 10 February explains, the Russian forces have now prohibited navigation, both commercial and military, during their own exercises, effectively establishing a naval blockade on Ukraine.  If that blockade were to be maintained after the closing date of the exercises, it could effectively strangle Ukrainian foreign trade.

No one knows whether this is merely a show of strength for purposes of enhanced argument at any negotiations with Kiev over implementation of the Minsk Accords or if it will be used to damage the Ukrainian economy sufficiently to bring about a regime change in Kiev.  In either case, Russia would not inflict a single casualty on its adversary by such PsyOps.

So far, so good.  With some luck, both the Americans and the Russians will continue to show restraint in use of force and spare us a kinetic war that could spiral out of control in the sense meant by Joe Biden yesterday.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

Post Script: 12 February 2022

I was delighted yeserday afternoon to be invited back onto TRT Turkish public television for an interview broadcast live devoted to the latest U.S. troop reinforcements in Eastern Europe and President Biden’s remark that no military evacuations are planned to get U.S. citizens out of Ukraine in case war breaks out.

I take pleasure in offering below the link to a panel show recorded earlier today.  The hosts:  TRT Turkish public television.  My fellow panelists:  Dana Lewis, Canadian News correspondent based in London and Sergei Markov, former State Duma member, professor of political science and international relations in Moscow where he is a well known public figure.

To anyone with eyes to see and a mind to interpret without prejudice the live broadcast of the Macron-Putin broadcast last night, which began at midnight Moscow time, it was evident that the French and Russian presidents were at the end of their tether – exhausted and frustrated with mutual incomprehension after nearly six hours of talks in isolation at opposite ends of a three meter long table with only the translation delivered through ear plugs to keep them alert.

 Utter fatigue was clear on the pained face of Emmanuel Macron as he gave his summation of the talks and as he answered journalists’ questions. A man who is never at a loss for words when standing before a microphone, he rattled on, delivering gibberish, for lack of concentration. It was clear that notwithstanding the complexity of the ongoing crisis at the Russian-Ukraine border, he had only one goal for the talks that had been agreed with the European Commission, NATO and Washington before his flight to Moscow:  to persuade the Kremlin to begin withdrawal of its military forces so that a de-escalation could be announced to the world.

On Macron’s face we saw in addition to fatigue, strain and animal fear. What could he fear? That he would leave Moscow empty-handed, with no concessions to boast.  Indeed, French government spokesmen put lipstick on the pig when they claimed a certain success well after the meeting ended, saying that Vladimir Putin would now order a large part of Russia’s 30,000 soldiers presently in Belarus back to their bases in Russia once the ten day military exercises soon to start are completed. Of course, that was always in the Russian game plan of exercises that prioritize training their Belarus colleagues on the latest Russian military hardware, which they brought with them and which will remain in Belarus to bolster the country’s southern flank.

The whole issue of reducing the Russian troop numbers was dealt with by Macron and his spokesmen as if that by itself would reduce the chances of armed conflict breaking out at any moment. The issue of the 150,000 Ukrainian forces massed at the border with Donbas and armed to the teeth with new Western toys for the boys was not addressed in any way by Mr. Macron, whereas it is precisely that which explains the Russian troop concentrations on their side of the border and explains why the bulk of the Russians are not leaving any time soon. We heard from Macron only upbeat and empty remarks on how the Normandy Format would be continued in further efforts to implement the Minsk Accords.

There was also a measure of animal fear on Macron’s face when he mentioned how disagreeable it is for the Russians to be planning to position nuclear arms in Belarus. Putin denied that such plans are afoot.

For his part, Vladimir Putin was also lacking the usual animation and humor with which he sprinkles his speeches through use of Russian folk expressions.  His face was drained of emotion and he was clearly exhausted from 5 hours of interchange with his incredibly ill-prepared and dense interlocutor. He also could have been paying the price of jet lag, considering that he had just come back from a two day trip to Beijing for an eventful meeting with President Xi before the opening of the Winter Olympics.

Kremlin news broadcasters have in recent weeks emphasized that Russia has ‘no one to talk to’ from among Western leaders, who are pygmies compared to their predecessors of just a couple of decades ago. Macron yesterday was a case in point: a finance specialist by training, a former interne at a major brokerage house, he came before the press conference yesterday looking and sounding like some minor stock exchange dealer, totally out of his depth.

Nonetheless, Mr. Putin remained the cordial host to the bitter end, thanking Macron repeatedly for his efforts to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the ongoing crisis.

Meanwhile, also yesterday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Washington meeting with Joe Biden in an effort to show loyalty to his country’s military defender and to dispel suspicions that Germany would not join the enforcement of ‘sanctions from hell’ that the Biden administration is preparing for the eventuality of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. True, in the press conference which followed, Scholz was silent on the question of scuttling Nord Stream 2, but Biden nonetheless claimed the countries were now fully aligned.

One question that was not addressed was one inadvertently raised by Biden himself a couple of weeks ago in what was called a ‘gaffe’ by his handlers and then swiftly buried: what happens if any Russian incursion into Ukraine is very minor? Still more relevant but still unspoken in our media, what happens if the Russian incursion, invasion, air strikes against Ukrainian troops or infrastructure, call it what you will, is a reaction to a Ukrainian armed assault on Donbas threatening to create vast numbers of civilian  casualties? What happens if the Russian action is framed in terms of the ‘obligation to defend’ that the United States and its NATO allies invoked when they embarked on their intervention in Libya against the Gaddafi regime? Where will Germany and the EU member states stand then?

 In what can only be categorized as a stunt display of frenetic diplomacy that denies the reality of fatigue, jet lag and fuzzy logic, Scholz, Macron and  Polish Head of State Andrzej Duda are going to meet this evening to review the results of the talks in Moscow and Washington and to plot further coordinated diplomacy in the long-neglected format of the Weimar Triangle.

The old remark that all foreign policy is ultimately just a projection of domestic policy holds true in all of these European diplomatic undertakings. Each of the principals has his own message to take back to his supporter base at home which far outweighs the prospects for any concrete contribution to Peace in Our Time. For none is this more true than Emmanuel Macron. Every appearance at home and abroad is a vital part of his re-election campaign.

To use a favorite term of former British Prime Minister and possibly future NATO General Director Theresa May, it is “highly likely” that the question of whether there will be war or peace between Ukraine and Russia is outside the control of any of these European civilian leaders and may well be outside the control of Vladimir Putin. The Guns of February or March will be fired, if they are fired at all, by actions taken by military authorities either in Kiev or at the line of demarcation independently of what President Zelensky may wish. The fuse may even be lit by detachments of British or U.S. special forces now circulating near the line of demarcation, also without the specific knowledge of their respective Prime Minister or President just as the February 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev was engineered by a certain State Department officer, Victoria Nuland, without the participation or detailed knowledge of her bosses.

In conclusion, we are involuntarily all watching the denouement of a conflict that has been decades in making, that is as deep rooted and possibly as unmanageable as any of the several cataclysms that shook the Western world in the past hundred and twenty years. A great deal will depend on the intelligence, sang froid and luck of the only “adult in the room”  – Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

On 26 January I published an article describing an Open Letter to German Chancellor Scholz issued the day before by a number of retired diplomats, military officers and educators affiliated with a Potsdam think tank. As I noted, the text was very much in the spirit of détente (Entspannungspolitik, in German) that can be traced back in the Socialist Party (SPD) to the early 1970s chancellor Willy Brandt and his ideas man Egon Bahr. However, given the address of the institute it should come as no surprise that a number of the signatories are associated with the leftwing Die Linke party.

Now a colleague in Berlin has alerted me to another Open Letter to Scholz on the same subject issued almost two months earlier, on 5 December 2021. That one, my colleague suggests, was more likely to have drawn the attention of the German leader because of the concentration of security experts and sprinkling of officials from his own SPD among its signatories.

With a view to the visit this week of the German chancellor to Washington, D.C., where he is suspected of being the weak link in the Western alliance as it confronts Russia, it is worthwhile considering what influences there may be on the overall thinking of Mr. Scholz as to the question of dealing with Russia today.

I offer below an edited machine translation of the German text of the Letter put forward by Professor Johannes Varwick, because it indicates both how far and at the same time how limited the imagination of the socialist wing of the German establishment is in seeking solutions to the present impasse over Ukraine and over Russian demands to revise the security architecture of Europe.

The overriding thought here is to tamp down the crisis by setting up conferences and lines of communication with Russia to find mutually acceptable compromises on its demands within a two year period during which all escalatory acts by all parties will be halted.

This is a noble concept, which may yet be implemented. However, it violates the sense of urgency that runs through the Russian demands for several straightforward reasons.  The Russian resentment over NATO expansion has been building up ever since 1997 and was embittered by their weak military and economic situation coming out of the turbulent 1990s. They have issued their ultimatum and massed their armed forces at the Ukrainian border precisely in order to take advantage of the ‘window of opportunity’ they see for themselves given their present strategic and tactical superiority over the United States and NATO, which they do not expect to last much beyond two years for a variety of reasons. Moreover, two years is also the time remaining in Vladimir Putin’s term of office and it would be understandable that he will not want to exercise his constitutional right and run again in 2024, meaning this existential question of European security architecture must be resolved in the coming two years not merely debated. Kicking the can down the road is not an option.  Regrettably, the German security and political experts seem not to take these Russian considerations into account.

At the same time, the solutions recommended here are worlds apart from the United States and U.K. actions of issuing threats of draconian sanctions, pouring more NATO troops into Eastern Europe and the ‘front line’ Baltic States, and sending vast quantities of munitions to Kiev on dozens of daily flights.

The text and list of signatories:

Out of the Spiral of Escalation! For a new beginning in relations with Russia (5.12.2021)

 We are watching with the greatest concern the escalation in relations with Russia, which is intensifying once again. We are threatening to get into a situation where war is within the realm of possibility. No one can profit from this situation, and this is in neither our nor Russia’s interest. Therefore, everything must be done now to break the spiral of escalation. The goal must be to lead Russia and also NATO away from a confrontational course again. What is needed is a credible Russia policy on the part of NATO and the EU that is not naïve or appeasement, but interest-driven and consistent. Now sober Realpolitik is called for.

One thing is certain: Russia’s threatening gestures toward Ukraine and its show of force toward NATO countries in exercises and especially through the activities of its nuclear forces are unacceptable. Nevertheless, indignation and formulaic condemnations do not lead anywhere. A one-sided policy of confrontation and deterrence has not been successful; economic pressure and the tightening of sanctions – as experience in recent years has shown – have not been able to persuade Russia to turn back. On the contrary, Russia sees itself challenged by Western policy and seeks recognition as a great power on a par with the United States and the preservation of its sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space through aggressive behavior. This significantly increases the dangers for the Russian economy (exclusion from the SWIFT system) and a destabilization of the security situation, especially in Europe. None of this should be taken as an excuse for the West to stand idly by or to accept the intensification of escalation. NATO should actively approach Russia and work toward de-escalation of the situation. To this end, a meeting without preconditions at the highest level should not be ruled out. In principle, we need a fourfold political approach:

– First, a high-level conference to discuss the goal of revitalizing the European security architecture, based on the continuing validity of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the 1990 Charter of Paris, and the 1994 Budapest Accord, but without preconditions and in different formats and at different levels.

– Secondly, as long as this conference is in session – and a period of at least two years would be realistic – there should be no military escalation on either side. The renunciation of the stationing of additional troops and the construction of infrastructure on both sides of the Russian Federation’s border with its western neighbors should be agreed upon, as should complete mutual transparency in military maneuvers. In addition, specialized dialogues at the military level must be revitalized in order to pursue risk minimization.

– Third, the NATO-Russia dialogue should be revived at the political and military levels without conditions. This includes a new approach to European arms control. Following the discontinuation of agreements essential for Europe’s security (INF Treaty, CFE Treaty, Open Skies Treaty), it is urgent, in view of Russian troop concentrations on the border with Ukraine, to agree on targeted measures to create more transparency, to promote trust by strengthening contacts at the political and military levels, and to stabilize regional conflict situations

Fourth, despite the current situation, consideration should be given to more far-reaching offers of economic cooperation. The decline in the importance of fossil fuels, on whose exports the Russian economy is heavily dependent, poses the risk of growing economic risks for Russia, which in turn could cause political instability. Economic cooperation could make an important contribution to European stability and could also be an incentive for Russia to return to a cooperative policy toward the West. Consequently, win-win situations must be created that overcome the current deadlock. This includes recognition of the security interests of both sides. With this in mind, a freeze should be agreed on questions of future membership in NATO, the EU and the CSTO for the duration of the conference. This would not mean a renunciation of the demand for fundamental standards agreed upon in the OSCE. This may not be easy for many, nor does it conform to pure doctrine. But any alternative is clearly worse. Germany has a key role to play here. Germany should refrain from anything that might weaken its firm anchoring in the transatlantic alliance, should work for de-escalation, and should press for agreements that preclude the use of military means in Europe beyond alliance defense. This should not be misunderstood as an invitation to Russia to change the territorial status quo in Europe, but there is no military solution to the Ukraine crisis that does not lead to uncontrollable escalation.

Ambassador (ret.) Ulrich Brandenburg, German Ambassador to NATO (2007-2010) and to Russia (2010-2014); Prof. Dr. Michael Brzoska, Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (2006-2016); Brigadier General (ret.) Helmut Ganser, Head of Military Policy Division at the German NATO Mission in Brussels (2004-2008); Prof. Dr. Jörn Happel, Helmut Schmidt University of the Bundeswehr Hamburg; Ambassador (ret.) Hans-Dieter Heumann, President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy (2011-2015); Ambassador (ret.) Hellmut Hoffmann, Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Geneva Conference on Disarmament (2009-2013); Ambassador (ret.). D. Heiner Horsten, Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the OSCE in Vienna (2008-2012); Brigadier General (ret.) Hans Hübner, Commander of the Center for Verification Tasks of the German Armed Forces (1999-2003); Prof. Dr. HeinzGerhard Justenhoven, Director of the Institute for Theology and Peace; Stephan Klaus, Spokesman of the Young SPD; Lt. Gen. (ret.). D. Dr. Ulf von Krause, Commander of the Armed Forces Support Command of the Bundeswehr (2001-2005); Ambassador (ret.) Rüdiger Lüdeking, Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the OSCE in Vienna (2012-2015); Prof. Dr. Gerhard Mangott, University of Innsbruck; Gen. (ret.). Klaus Naumann, Inspector General of the German Armed Forces (1991-1996) and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (1996-1999); Prof. em. Dr. August Pradetto, Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces Hamburg; Roger Näbig, Conflict and Security Blog; Prof. Dr. Götz Neuneck, Deputy Scientific Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (2009-2019); Jessica Nies, spokesperson of the Young SPD; Colonel (ret.) Harry Preetz, National Chairman Area I of the Society for Security Policy; Colonel (ret.) Wolfgang Richter, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Senior Military Advisor at the German OSCE Representation (2005-2009); Colonel (ret.). D. Richard Rohde, Bonn Section Chief of the Society for Security Policy; Ambassador (ret.) Dr. Johannes Seidt, Chief Inspector of the Federal Foreign Office 2014 to 2017; Brigadier General (ret.) Reiner Schwalb, Defense Attaché at the German Embassy Moscow (2011-2018); Prof. Dr. Michael Staack, HelmutSchmidt-University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg; Brigadier General (ret.). D. Armin Staigis, Vice President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy (2013-1015); Prof. Dr. Johannes Varwick, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg; Dr. Wolfgang Zellner, Deputy Scientific Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (2009-2019).

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

One of the consequences of the near hysteria prevailing in the United States media and political class over a supposedly impending Russian invasion of Ukraine is that the readership of my website has increased many times over in the past several weeks as a confused public seeks expert opinions from those outside the hopelessly propagandistic, ideologically driven mainstream. Moreover, the specifically American part of that readership has run way ahead of the rest of the world, so that U.S. readers are now three or more times greater in number than the nearest ‘competitor,’ Canada, whereas the traditional ratio was 2:1. The other top numbers of visitors are also coming from English-speaking  countries, namely the U.K. and Australia.  The rest of the world means about 50 countries where internet visitors turn up daily in significantly smaller numbers, meaning an order of magnitude fewer. Those countries may be large, like China and India, or absolutely tiny like Fiji, Mali and Rwanda. Nonetheless, I remain impressed that the entire world has the interest and finds the time to search for nonconformist views on what Russia and the Collective West are saying and may soon be doing to one another.

With increasing ‘hits’ comes increasing numbers of comments, which on average represent 1% of the readership.  I am appreciative of all comments which take issue with the logic of my essays or which provide supplemental information which I may have missed. I take these visitors as a proxy for the Vox Populi and they help guide my further research and writing.

 I take special pleasure in the remarks left by publishers-authors of peer websites. .  One such case occurred a day ago when www.breakingnews.com sent me a link to an online interview by the Russian state broadcaster Vesti FM dealing with Belarus, among other topics, that was posted on youtube :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rbYFMFjrw

The program, Solovyov LIVE, is a daytime show normally hosted by Vladimir Solovyov, the same presenter of late night political talk shows whom I frequently cite, though on the given day it was run by one of his assistants, a certain Golovanov.

What was remarkable in the given show was not the interviewee, the rather nondescript political scientist Mikheev, who is a frequent panelist on the evening talk show. Nor was it Golovanov himself. Rather it was the materials about Belarus that the production company prepared for the broadcast.

First, there was a video showing the Ukrainian spy drone that the Belarus military had brought down in the area of Brest, way inside their territory. Clearly the drone was operating in violation of all international rules. 

The Minsk authorities had, of course, issued a stern protest to Kiev about this clear but inexplicable provocation. Golovanov, for his part, asked why the Kiev regime could be so stupid as to totally spoil relations with Belarus considering how Minsk had been a convenient intermediary with Russia ever since the 2014 annexation of Crimea and Russian involvement in the civil war that broke out in Donbas.

The host and his interviewee then answered the question, saying that the spoiling of relations must have been instigated by the United States. Washington seems to have a talent for pushing together countries which have separate grievances with the West and giving them common cause to work against American interests.  Bad relations with Ukraine push Russia and Belarus much closer together.

Lukashenko had for years been sitting on two seats, flirting alternatively with the Kremlin and with Brussels.  The attempted color revolution in his country a year ago, which was nominally promoted by Lithuania but surely scripted from Washington, put paid to that balancing act.  Lukashenko by necessity threw in his lot with the Kremlin and has not looked back since, as the further materials presented on the Solovyov LIVE demonstrate.

For those who wonder how Washington could have so manipulated the Ukrainian leadership to arrange the break with Belarus, setting the stage for a joint Belarus-Russian invasion of Ukraine, I remind readers that the United States embassy in Kiev numbers over 900 staff, making it the largest U.S. diplomatic mission anywhere in Europe. Yes, CIA operatives are there in droves.  But then it is easy to imagine that other bureaucrats sent by Washington and perched in the embassy control key ministries in the Ukrainian government today just as their counterparts did in Russia during the Yeltsin years.

Now for the second video shown on the Solovyov LIVE program:  the meeting on Friday in Minsk between President Lukashenko and visiting Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.  Shoigu had come in connection with the pending start of massive Russian-Belarus war games, for which perhaps tens of thousands of Russian military personnel have been flown in, together with S-400 air defense missiles and other most recent weapons in the Russian inventory.  Pointedly the exercises will take place in the southern sector, that is to say just to the north of the border with Ukraine, which is itself just 100 km from Kiev.

In the video, Lukashenko is thanking the Russians for sending in their troops and most advanced military hardware, because he feels that the southern flank of Belarus is now vulnerable and needs reinforcement.  This will be the first time that Belarus military see the latest Russian equipment in front of them and not just in technical literature.  The exercises will provide the setting for Russians to provide training on this equipment to their Belarus colleagues, who will then operate it when the Russians return to their home bases. Moreover, Lukashenko said he will be purchasing this equipment in greater numbers in the coming year.

Lukashenko then spoke more broadly of the Russian-Belarus alliance as creating a unified defense territory from Brest to Vladivostok.  He made it clear that he intends to take concrete steps towards realizing the political integration with Russia that was sketched on paper two decades ago but had been dead letter.

From this the show moved on to deal with the old question of what would closer ties with Russia up to and including shared sovereignty bring to the principals.  It was always doubtful that Lukashenko would agree to accept a second tier role in such a combined state.  Now Golovanov and Mikheev were explaining the benefits to Belarus in broader terms than the immediate interests of one man.  As they pointed out, in the old USSR Belarus had a negligible share of leadership positions at the All-Union level, whereas the Ukraine was heavily favored.  Now that Ukraine is entirely out of play, some kind of merger with Russia would open up to the Belarus elites the possibility of playing leading roles in a country vastly larger than little Belarus.

From this perspective, the recent warnings to Belarus from the United States and the European Union not to get involved in any possible Russian attack on Ukraine would appear to be hopelessly ignorant of what they have wrought with their own hands: a Belarus-Russian union that was unthinkable just a couple of years ago.  And now, by way of the Belarus frontier, the Russians are capable of capturing Kiev within a day or two and liquidating the neo-Nazi forces that have held a knife to the throat of the civilian Ukrainian leadership before they know what hit them.

It would not be unreasonable to imagine that the departing staff from the U.S. and U.K. embassies in Kiev are not busy packing personal belongings before departure so much as burning all their incriminating office records.

                                                            *****

We may take as a given that none of the foregoing statements by Belarus President Lukashenko, not to mention the interpretation of Belarus interest in a closer union, will appear in Western mainstream media. After all, they totally ignored the assassination plot against Lukashenko a year ago which was foiled by a joint Russian-Belarus intelligence operation and then featured on Russian state television. Not only the broad public but political elites in the United States will be clueless.

In my last article posted on this website, I mentioned that close monitoring of Russian electronic and print media is a large part of the added value I strive to bring to my readers. This point was picked up by a retired U.S. lieutenant colonel who wrote to me that he also closely follows Russian media. He explained that he takes Russian press articles and runs them through google machine translation to understand what is being said.

As the Russians would say молодец ! meaning “bravo.” Such monitoring is much better than just reading Sputnik or Tass English-language editions, because they are cut to size to suit Western audiences and do not have the richness of Russian-sourced news and commentary addressed to the home audience in Russia. Yet, from my experience, the richest vein of information ore is not print media but electronic media, meaning television broadcasts that are reposted on youtube, like the Solovyov LIVE show discussed above or the political talk shows that I usually mine. And all of these are in Russian language only, without a text to run through google.

One day, Russian news managers may understand that it would be a far better investment in Soft Power to translate and broadcast with English subtitles their best domestic television shows, rather than spend money on Russia Today and pay second quality ex-Canadian, British and American newscasters to produce programs for distribution in the West based on their own limited understanding of what constitutes news.  Until then, I can only urge would be commentators to take Russian lessons and do their homework.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

As I have indicated en passant in prior articles devoted to the unfolding crisis in and around Ukraine, a substantial part of the added value I seek to bring to reporting and analysis is derived from my following the Russian-language electronic and print media closely, whereas the vast majority of commentators who populate Western television news and op-ed pages only offer up synthetic, rearranged factoids and unsubstantiated claims from the reports and analysis of their peers. Investigative reporting does not exist among mainstream. Reprinting handouts from anonymous sources in high places of the Pentagon and State Department is the closest they come to daily fresh “news.”

Last evening’s Vladimir Solovyov talk show on Russian state Channel One provided yet another justification for paying close attention to what they are saying in Moscow.  The program was dedicated to the Donbas and included several politicians and political scientists from both Kiev and the Donetsk-Lugansk republics. The most interesting remarks were made by a Russian speaking former Rada member, Spiridon Kilinkarov, who noted that Western mainstream is every day publishing maps showing the positioning of Russian forces at the several common borders of Russia/Belarus and Ukraine. They also carry maps showing the likely routes to be used by the Russian invaders. But Western media are never showing the positions of Ukrainian troops, which one might expect are there to counter Russian threats.  The speaker went on to say that now two-thirds of the Ukrainian military or about 150,000 troops are all concentrated on the line of demarcation with Donbas.  That is to say, there are almost no Ukrainian forces in the northeast around Kharkiv facing Russian military or to the north of Kiev to face the combined Russian-Belarus military.  If this is true, then Mr. Zelensky’s insistence that he does not expect a Russian invasion is justified by Ukrainian boots on the ground.  If Russia is holding a pistol to the head of Ukraine, as Boris Johnson stated earlier this week, then Kiev is holding a pistol to the head of the rebel provinces.

Solovyov’s guests further explained that after eight years of facing down one another across about 200 meters of no-man’s land at the line of demarcation, the situation between Ukrainian armed forces and Donbas forces is very tense and volatile, so that it would be very easy for a provocation staged by British or American special forces, who are known to be in the area,  to touch off a major conflagration. This is surely the accident threatening to upset the ongoing negotiations between the United States and NATO on one side and Russia on the other side. 

The guests further assert that in effect the Ukrainian forces at the line of demarcation are not under the control of President Zelensky, whose power is very circumscribed by other political actors, oligarchs and militia chiefs in Kiev, not to mention by U.S. and U.K. forces on the ground in his country.

Many of these general observations cannot be verified from here. But the map of Ukrainian military positions can be verified against images from U.S. spy satellites.  I challenge The New York Times, the Financial Times and others to post such maps on their pages now.

As for the host, Vladimir Solovyov, he continues pressing a hard line Russian response of action, not words to U.S. provocations such as yesterday’s announcement by White House Press Secretary Psaki of the fake video Russia is supposedly preparing to justify an invasion. He used the show to urge imposition by Russia of a ‘total economic blockade’ of Ukraine, putting an end to the dozens of daily flights from the West carrying many tons of armaments. Given that Russia views the present security crisis around Ukraine as a replay of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, such a blockade would be entirely in keeping with historical precedent. It would mean, of course, establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which Russia has the military capability to declare and enforce.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

The leak yesterday onto the pages of the Spanish daily El Pais of the contents of the U.S. written response to the Russian ultimatum on a roll-back of NATO and reorganized security architecture in Europe has prompted colleagues in the peace movement to raise higher the prospects for a negotiated settlement between Russia and the Collective West without recourse to a potentially devastating war.

In an essay published today on www.antiwar.com, Ray McGovern points to the American offer allowing Russian inspectors onto the missile sites in Romania and Poland that have been a major concern of the Russians going back more than six years. On-site inspections were a major confidence-building element in the disarmament treaties reached with Russia in the Reagan years (доверяй но проверяй – trust but verify!). It would be very helpful to see them reinstated, not only for purposes of efficacy of treaty enforcement but for a generalized relaxation of tensions that they confer through regular face-to-face meetings of expert personnel from both sides. The measure would reinstate communications channels that the United States cut starting in the Obama years with intent to isolate Russia and present it as a pariah nation to the world. That has proven to be a very misguided policy which finally may be abandoned as negotiations go forward.

Independently from the latest leaks, on the Russian side Alexei Gromyko, a recognized foreign affairs expert in his country who happens to be the grandson of the Soviet Foreign Minister about whom I wrote yesterday, has just published a thorough analysis of possibilities for the United States and Russia to agree on compromise solutions to the present confrontation that satisfy the main concerns and principles of both sides as regards reduction of security threats coming from each. On the side of the West these might include imposing neutral, demilitarized status on Ukraine and parallel concessions by the Russians as regards Belarus and Kaliningrad. I heartily recommend his paper to all readers.

It bears reminding that none of these possible compromises would have seen the light of day had it not been for Russia’s currently ‘holding a gun to the head of Ukraine,’ to use Boris Johnson’s graphic image.  Only application of maximum pressure on the West focused minds in Washington and Brussels to complaints over the evolving security arrangements in Europe that Russia had been making for more than fifteen years. And this application of maximum pressure by Moscow was made possible only by its new self-confidence in its strategic parity with if not superiority over the United States and the Collective West thanks to its modernized armed forces and state of the art new strategic weapons systems that already have been partly integrated into its field units. Even the Russophobe Financial Times yesterday featured an article detailing how the Russian armed forces have been transformed in recent years. The New York Times has done similarly. We see respect replace ridicule on their pages even as regards conventional arms and without discussion of the awe inspiring new strategic weapons systems.

For those who wonder  how Biden will be able to sell any compromise with the Russians to Congress, America’s current plumage display over ‘sanctions from hell’ that may be imposed on Russia for any incursions into Ukraine, the breast beating and saber rattling, including dispatch of an additional several thousand American troops will provide some cover.  Moreover, it is almost certain that Biden will be able to claim at the end of the day that the United States did not betray its principles (ideology above all in American political discourse!) so that the door at NATO would remain open notwithstanding Russian objections.  And likely, behind closed doors, the Pentagon will explain that Russia is armed to the teeth and possibly has first strike capability in its grasp. Then, of course, there is the China Factor, about which we will learn more tomorrow at the press conference given in Beijing by Presidents Xi and Putin following their face-to-face meeting. We are told they will roll out a joint statement on what ‘the new world order will look like.’

I have used the term ‘window of opportunity’ to explain the sudden aggressiveness of the Kremlin in pursuing a revision of the European security architecture.  This concerns Russia’s present superiority in arms which may be reduced if not erased by developments on the U.S. side two or three years hence. Moreover, the defenselessness of Ukraine may also be corrected through Western technical and materiel assistance in two or three years. It concerns the electoral calendar in Russia, where Vladimir Putin’s present mandate expires in 2024. If he is to have any chance to retire, he must solve the country’s vulnerability to further NATO encroachment in the coming year or two.  For his part, Alexei Gromyko very ably discusses the window of opportunity on the American side given the prospects in the November mid-term elections and the remaining time before the 2024 U.S. presidential elections get into full swing.

None of the foregoing negotiated settlement is more than a sketch of the possible and is no more certain to be realized than the war path we have discussed till now. A mishap along the way, a stumbling into armed conflict is always possible, though with each passing day that becomes less likely as all sides size one another up and appraise the consequences of their actions.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

https://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/diplomacy-vs-brinkmanship/

US Makes Putin Offer He Can Hardly Refuse

As the Cold War-2 unfolds, shades of the past return to haunt those of us old enough to recollect and not merely to have read about them.  One such recollection was brought to life on Monday at the session of the United Nations Security Council convened at U.S. demand to consider the ongoing threat of war at the Russian-Ukrainian border.

In his career as Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1985, a period of such length that the present incumbent Sergei Lavrov’s 18 years would seem to render him still a boy in short trousers, Andrei Andreevich Gromyko was the dour face of the world’s second superpower at the UN and at all other international gatherings. He held his own in the give and take of debate, and did not mince his words. Yet, by his intelligence, sophistication and steadfast pursuit of national interest he won the respect of adversaries as well as allies.

It is too early to speak of respect that Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya, appointed only in 2017, may or may not have earned with adversaries. But his severe mien and in-your-face denunciation of American and Western claims that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent at Monday’s session certainly drew the rapt attention of all. Surely Gromyko would be proud.

Let us not coddle the Russians. “Strategic empathy” is for fools. Clown though he may be, Boris Johnson was entirely accurate when he said in Kiev yesterday that “Russia is holding a gun to the head of Ukraine, by intimidating Ukraine, to get us to change the way we look at (European security)” [Reuters].

What we are witnessing today on the international stage is more than a re-run of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 with the roles of the United States and Russia reversed. It is an intentional reversal of roles and language up and down the line on Russia’s part.  Nebenzya’s brazen denial that his country is intimidating Ukraine by moving its armed forces around on its own territory was intentionally serving up to the USA and NATO the tripe that has been served up to Russia these past 25 years: that NATO is a purely defensive alliance which does not threaten Russia in any way when it holds massive war exercises at Russia’s borders or stages a mock recapture of the Kaliningrad enclave.

I have been in a friendly discussion with peers in the antiwar movement over Vladimir Putin’s end goal: will he settle for ‘half a loaf’ or is he truly  going va banque as the French and Russians say, meaning ‘going for broke’ in vernacular English. I believe in the latter interpretation:  Putin would never have delivered what is in effect an ultimatum to the United States to return to the status quo ante in Europe of 1997 if he were not persuaded that he can win most if not all of his objectives.   Moreover, the United States would not now be engaged in diplomatic discourse, however dissembling it may be on their part, were the Pentagon not aware of the facts it does not yet disclose to Congress, not to mention to the broad American public: that Russia is in a ‘gotcha’ position if things go to extremis, that it probably has a first strike capability, meaning it could so destroy the United States war-making capabilities on a first strike as to preclude an effective riposte. This is the so-called ‘window of opportunity’ that Russia has created for itself by developing and deploying hypersonic missiles and other cutting edge strategic weapons over the past twenty years while the United States poured its military budget into bloody wars on the ground in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Will there in fact be a war now in Ukraine?  No one can say.  The Russians have declared and should be believed when they say a war, if it comes, will not be of their choosing, but will be imposed on them by the United States using Ukraine as a tool, so as to enforce a cruel new round of sanctions from Europe.

How would that war end? No one is in doubt of absolute Russian victory, achieving any particular outcome they seek, but very likely ‘ending Ukrainian statehood.’ This is what Vladimir Putin warned more than a year ago if Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk Accords, which is manifestly the case now that Kiev said publicly a couple of days ago that implementation is off the table.

Would such a war trigger a broader conflagration at the global level?  Again, no one can say for sure, though from the foregoing it would appear to be very unlikely. This is so not only because of Russian strategic strength but also because of backing from the Chinese who can at any moment turn up the pressure on Taiwan and force the USA to confront a potential two-front war.

And so, We, the People can sleep soundly on our pillows even if the world order we have known for the past twenty-five years is about to come crashing down.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

You need a sense of irony, an open mind and sang froid to see what the Russians are doing in stoking the confrontation with the Collective West, which is what they are plainly doing all the while denying it. In what follows, I will try to apply these very approaches to answer the highly topical question of what comes next now that the United States formally rejected the essential Russian demand that NATO expansion to the East be halted in its tracks and that the Alliance backtrack to the status quo ante of the spring 1997.

Over the past couple of weeks, every few days I have given lengthy interviews or participated in half hour televised panel discussions of the East-West confrontation being played out at the Russian-Ukrainian border. My hosts included RT (Russia Today) in a chat at the Russian embassy, Brussels following the Russia-NATO Council talks of 12 December; TRT World, a Turkish public service global television channel broadcasting in English; Belarus television’s interview at my home this past Friday examining the implications for Minsk of its close military collaboration with Russia at the Ukraine border; PressTV of Iran; and anti-war radio of Scott Horton, a hero in the American peace movement.

As a consequence of all these interviews, I developed a 30 minute long talk on why the Russians are unlikely to stage a full invasion of Ukraine or even a brief incursion unless provoked by some military move on Donbas by the Kiev regime. I fleshed out this talk with retrospective analysis of how Vladimir Putin’s denunciation of the US-led unipolar world at the Munich Security Conference meeting of February 2007 led in a straight line to the delivery of the Russian ultimatum to the USA and NATO on 15 December last year in the form of its two draft treaties rearranging the security architecture of Europe in Russia’s favor.

Today I propose to take another tack, to move back a bit from what I and others have said about the stand-off at the Ukrainian border and to examine what the Russians will likely do next in their gambit to put the West back in its box by acting on their current position of strength and strategic advantage in armaments, as well as on their new strong alliance with the world’s number two economy, China.

In one of my recent essays, I invoked the term ‘Russian roulette’ as describing the game the Kremlin is playing but not in the sense of its usual understanding as testing one’s luck with the partly loaded, partly empty bullet chambers of a revolver pointed at one’s temple. That would hardly be in character for the ever-cautious, ever prudent Mr. Putin.  I spoke of roulette in the usual casino terms, meaning a game of chance loaded only in favor of the house and indifferent to the interests of separate players.  However, the game played by the Kremlin today on the world stage and before the klieg lights is a card game of skill more than one dependent on arbitrary distribution of winnings by Lady Luck. And while Washington lawyers turned statesmen like former Secretary of State Baker were surely skilled at poker as we saw from his handling of Gorbachev in oral agreements ending the Cold War, there was more than a whiff of outright card cheat in their behavior.  Putin is playing a mean game with the same degree of deception or imposed confusion being exploited to the hilt even if nearly all of my peers among political analysts are missing this point.

Russia has gotten the rapt attention not only of European capitals but of global media. Day after day, coverage of the latest Russian deliveries to the Ukrainian border dominates the news on television and the print press, jostling for number one position with the fading threat of Covid.  This, of course, has a certain collateral effect which the Russians surely do not mind: the economic harm war fever has on the Ukrainian economy and on Western investment there now that the U.S. and others are withdrawing their diplomatic missions. It may well be that the strongest voice for Western concessions on security will ultimately be Kiev, to stem its losses.

Sergei Lavrov and other spokesmen for the Kremlin insist that their country has no intentions to invade while every few days Russia is adding additional forces, equipment and capability to their positions near the Ukrainian border. Now that border covers 3 sides with the addition of the Belarusian front and the growing capability of staging landings on the Black Sea coast with the assistance of newly arriving specialized vessels from the Pacific fleet.  It is throwing back at the US and NATO the in-your-face NATO line that it poses no threat to Russia and is just a defensive alliance while NATO stages highly provocative war games to retake Kaliningrad or to energize Ukraine’s hostile ambitions by a series of ten games planned for this year.

Meanwhile, among our most celebrated pundits and strategists, the notion that diplomacy can prevail and prevent war is rolled out in our media.  The latest is an opinion article penned by Henry Kissinger’s intellectual heir, director of Kissinger Associates, Tom Graham. With all due respect, Mr. Graham is touting nonsense when he says diplomacy can finesse differences as stark as those separating Moscow and Washington today, thereby extinguishing the flames of war. One side has to capitulate in substance if not in appearances given the divide separating the principals. The capitulation can be masked for consumption by Capitol Hill through deft diplomacy, but its reality will nonetheless be seen in the concrete actions of the sides which follow.  Talk is cheap, always was and will be. Only lightweights can say otherwise.

I wager that the next step in Mr. Putin’s game will be in the Americas. This is not because establishing a military presence in the Caribbean basin is militarily more important than Russia’s other options like peek-a-boo surfacing of otherwise undetected Russian nuclear submarines off the East and West coasts of the USA to make the point of sudden death and 5 minute warnings which are insufficient for the American president to board Air Force One and make a getaway that preserves the decision-making hierarchy.  No, it is because establishing formally Russian air and port facilities in the Americas calls out the Big Lie embedded in Washington’s refusal to accept buffer states or a Russian sphere of influence at its borders and the neutering of countries like Ukraine and the Baltic States:  the US reserves to itself the sole right to a sphere of influence that takes in the entire Western Hemisphere and is known as the Monroe Doctrine.

Moreover, for the Russians to use a present, fully realized threat to America’s existence for purposes of negotiations like those aforementioned hypersonic missile carrying submarines could have the opposite effect from forcing capitulation, just as the notion of imposing ‘preventive’ sanctions on Russia as proposed by Kiev was dismissed as likely to be counterproductive by Washington.  Better to roll out for threat a project that is only partially realized so far, a project that involves not creation of Russian bases but use of existing local facilities to host Russian strategic bombers and surface or submarine vessels. Such arrangements would in the not too distant future enable Russia to maintain a permanent presence in the Caribbean Sea that is as threatening to the Continental USA as the stepped up presence of US navy and air force in the Black and Baltic Seas is to Russia. The time prior to realization would give breathing space to the negotiations for capitulation to end in a finessed public explanation.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022

P.S. – One reader of this essay on my LinkedIn account remarked that the Russians might make their first move together with Venezuela, where the air base on the island of Orchila was mentioned in 2018 by a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences speaking to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta as possible host to supersonic Tupolev TU-160 strategic bombers. That was in the context of Trump’s abandoning nuclear disarmament treaties. The same reader went on to say that another possible Russian move could be to stage joint patrols in the Caribbean with the Chinese navy. This would put flesh on the Russian-Chinese de facto alliance by both acting in parallel in response to the provocative sailing of British and US aircraft carriers and other attack vessels off their respective Black Sea and South China Sea coasts. All such measures would be entirely legal under international law but would bring howls of indignation from the American political classes and might provide the quid for an American quo on a pull back of NATO in Europe.