Ukraine: The Notion of “Victory” in a War of Attrition
The war in Ukraine remains a “war of attrition”—where the will of each side is trying to outlast the will of the other. So far, neither side has caved. Russia remains all in—despite the fact that its invasion of Ukraine had lost more soldiers in its first 11 months than had been lost from 9 years of warfare in Afghanistan. (Forbes reports an estimate between 200,000 and 270,000 either wounded, missing, or dead).
But the statistics of its war dead and other casualties have not been announced by the Kremlin since September—if even accurate then. For revealing these statistics would pull the sheets on Putin’s narrative that his deadly gambit in Ukraine is nothing more than a “special military exercise.”
On the home front, however, Putin has thus far been winning the propaganda war. For regardless of the body bags coming home, most Russians continue to support the war, and believe that the U.S. and NATO want to destroy Russia; and thus, that Putin was forced to do what he did. Thus Russian children sing the refrain of Uncle Vanya, we support you!—at Putin’s occasional political rallies.
Given the success of its domestic propaganda campaign, the war has succeeded in moving Russia further to the right. While those more politically astute, who have protested—either literally or literarily—have been either silenced, imprisoned, or forced to flee Russia.
Meanwhile, Ukraine soldiers on—suffering massive losses in defending its own turf—for it has nowhere else to go.Except, that is, for the 13 million Ukrainians already displaced, 8 million of them—mostly women and children—abroad.
While the will of Russian soldiers on the battlefield has suffered from a lack of morale—not only from their very real losses there and the lack of adequate strategy, training, and supplies, but also because most have no real idea of what they’re even fighting for.
For even when the Russians have taken over a Ukrainian town, and its officers have conducted round-ups of Ukrainian mayors and leaders—even torturing them—the Russians remain frustrated and bewildered—making them angrier. For they find no lurking Nazis. Just people who look very much like themselves, even capable of speaking the same language, trying to provide healthcare, shelter, and food for their people. (Which due to Russia’s “exercise,” are now in perilously short supply).
In terms of the comparative effectiveness of their military, you could say that Ukraine has been “winning” the war (since late June of 2022 when the HIMARS first entered the battlefield and helped Ukraine regain more territory in a lightning-quick counteroffensive than Russia had gained since April). Yet as winter descended, the war has stalled into a stalemate. And Ukraine would still need to win back twice the territory it recovered from its counteroffensive just to get back the territory it possessed prior to February 24, 2022 (“a day that will live in infamy”). In fact Ukraine’s losses--its attritions--are so heartbreaking and profound, any notion of “victory” remains elusive, at best.
Part II.
Military Stockpiles & the Delay of Providing More Potent Weapons to Ukraine
Most wars end with a negotiated settlement. But this war isn’t yet close to that. It goes on—for neither side is strong enough yet to win—nor yet weak enough to sue for peace. It continues as a war of attritions. And aside from the factors of domestic will and military skill, the attritions in this war also involve each side’s military stockpiles.
Russia has been running low on missiles and the more advanced semiconductor chips, and has had to turn to Iran for its low-tech drones and missiles. Lacking the more advanced chips, Russia’s missiles and drones have tended to be weapons of saturation, not precision--leading to widespread destruction of civilian targets with no real military value, and in ways that have violated the Geneva Conventions.
While Ukraine has been hindered by the ambivalence of its allies in terms of what weapons they’d be allowed to have—or when they’d be allowed to have them. The U.S. and its European allies, in the effort to not escalate the war or have it lead to a nuclear confrontation, have been consistently and cautiously delayed in providing Ukraine with the military weaponry it has asked for in order to fend off the Russians, and to retake the territory Ukraine has lost not only since February of 2022, but since Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014.
But this ambivalence on the part of the U.S. to provide Ukraine with more potent weaponry has actually been a constant for decades. (And once led a highly placed Ukrainian official to say of the U.S., you won’t let us drown, but you won’t let us swim). There has thus been a continuing gap between the weapons Ukrainian President Zelensky has been asking for—and what the U.S. and her other allies have been willing to provide.
At the one year anniversary of the war, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was making the rounds on the TV talk shows. He seemed a smartly confident and sober man. Yet he also seemed evasive in his attempt to sidestep this historically ambivalent and cautious trend still exhibited by his regime. For the message he’d been delivering told us two things. First, that most wars end by a negotiation, and thus, the goal of the U.S. is to provide Ukraine what it needs in order to be in the strongest position possible, when that negotiation finally takes place.
Secondly, Sullivan was saying that the U.S. only provides Ukraine what is needed for the current phase of the war. For example, at the war’s inception, Ukraine was provided with anti-armor systems to destroy the tanks starting to line up in the approach to Kyiv, as well as Stinger missiles to shoot down helicopters carrying paratroopers that might drop down on that capital city. Then in Eastern Ukraine, during the second phase of the war, the U.S. provided artillery for a more traditional form of land warfare to stop Russian advances. (Yet it was only when the U.S. began to supply Ukraine with the more advanced, longer range, and more precise HIMARS weapons systems that the U.S. possessed, and refused to give to the Ukrainians earlier, that the war began to tilt in Ukraine’s favor).
Sullivan also noted that the U.S. has now agreed to provide Ukraine with 31 Abrams tanks for the spring counteroffensive—which seemed in part a move to induce Germany to provide their Leopard tanks, as well as to give permission for other NATO allies to provide them also—which Germany previously refused to do, for fear of a Russian, retaliated escalation. These tanks won’t be arriving for months, and will take further months to train the Ukrainians how to use, as well as to repair them. But still yet, no F-16s.
For Sullivan said they’re not really needed now. Though Zelensky, and other allies think it wise to provide them now, the UK for one, and Poland for another. (Within two weeks of the war’s inception, the U.S. had already nixed Poland’s offer to Ukraine of all of its Mig-29 fighter jets—planes that Ukrainian pilots already knew how to fly). But if and when F-16s are finally deemed to be “needed,” shouldn’t training Ukrainian pilots in the employment of these “4th generation aircraft” be started well in advance—like now? (For the U.S. military estimates that it would take 18 months to properly train Ukrainian pilots to use them. And Sullivan failed to mention that).
Perhaps what’s skillful and true about supplying Ukraine with increasingly more potent weaponry lies somewhere between the perspective offered by Sullivan—and those critics of an overly cautious approach, such as Alexander Vindman, the Ukrainian-born, retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and former Director for European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council. Though Vindman’s perspective--give the Ukrainians more, and give it sooner—has thus far seemed prescient.
But what if Russia continues to be unwilling to negotiate a peace? As the war thus slogs on, how many Ukrainians will continue to die in the war due to a lack of more potent weapons provided sooner? And regardless of what continues to be incrementally supplied, should the war continue to drag on, it will also continue to drain the weapon reserves of Ukraine’s supporting nations—reserves that in many cases took several years to build.
Continuing to provide Ukraine with what it will continue to need would require a massive build-up of the production capacities by the world’s largest arms-producing companies. In terms of current revenues, the five largest of these companies are all American: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics—the very heart of America’s “military-industrial complex.”
Those unfamiliar with the turn-around time often involved in manufacturing and delivering military weaponry would be surprised at how long it can take. (For a recent example, the just-publicized treaty to provide Australia with nuclear powered submarines won’t be arriving for nine more years; and that’s not for a whole fleet—merely for three submarines, and those not with nuclear arms).
Aside from the time involved to manufacture the weaponry needed by Ukraine, this would also require massive funding. And importantly, both time and funding would be needed not only to keep the Ukrainian war effort sufficiently provisioned going forward, but also to resupply each allied country’s own weapon reserves. And currently, Ukraine is running out of ammunition—just as surely as Russia is running out of advanced semiconductor chips, and the kind of weaponry that requires them. (And it remains to be seen whether China will escalate its support of Russia by also supplying Russia with weapons). And aside from warnings, the U.S. has been barely talking with China of late, and ditto with Russia. Though much more than the past, the nations we’re squabbling with have begun to talk with, and support each other. This is a problem. (As I write, Putin is having a summit with Xi Jinping).
And just as Putin had underestimated Ukraine’s capacity to stave off having Kyiv overtaken at the onset of the war, Ukraine’s allies had underestimated Russia’s capacity to continue the war regardless of the losses and sanctions it’s suffered. And who knows what the eventual cost and time frame will be to keep supporting Ukraine as the sole ground force fighting to preserve the world order that has prevailed since the end of the second world war. This doesn’t suggest that Ukraine’s allies should stop providing Ukraine with what it needs. Putin needs to be stopped—or we’ll face a more perilous world.
Also needing to be stopped are any country’s unprovoked, military invasion of another —such as the military invasions of Vietnam and Iraq by the U.S. Those too were wars of attrition that seemed to go on forever. They were similarly costly to all, and based on lies—the putative Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the equally putative presence of Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” This is a Great Power Problem, a problem of hubris. Some learn its lessons faster than others...
Yet in terms of the weaponry supplied to Ukraine, it’s been like attempting to time the stock market--or Goldilocks’ attempt to find the ideal warmth of porridge: Hard to find the point in time where something finally seems... “just right.”
Part III.
Economic Sanctions & Forecasts--Warnings & Blame...
The above critical nature of weapon supply—and the timing of their employment--is significant in a view of this war. Economic forecasts also belong in the equation, along with the sanctions against Russia (that were thought to be so potent in the spring of 2022). Thus far, Putin has had more skilled hands handling his economy than he’s had in charge of his military. Which doesn’t mean the Russian military is incapable of learning from its mistakes; we might expect that going forward.
Looking backwards however, the sanctions against Russia haven’t yet contributed sufficiently to the attrition of its war efforts. In retrospect, the increased revenues Russia could get from its petroleum exports led the Russian GPD to only suffer an approximate 3% loss during 2022—while the U.S. stock market during 2022 tanked by several multiples of that. Meanwhile, Ukraine has suffered an enormous loss of its GPD since the war’s inception—30.4 percent during 2022, and is now spending twice what makes.
While the most significant loss suffered by Russia’s economy has been in its manufacturing sector—mostly for products that are technologically dependent. Otherwise, Russia has been propped up by trade with other countries that are not involved with the sanctions—principally India, China, Iran, and Turkey. Hence, looking forward, the International Money Fund’s Economic Forecast for 2023 is that Russia will have a 2023 year over year gain of 0.3 percent. (The same as the predicted gain for Ukraine in 2023—so again a relative stand-off). While the U.S. is predicted to have a 1.6% gain, and two of Russia’s economic partners—China and India—are expected to have whopping 5.2% and 6.1% gains, respectively. (And near the bottom of the economic forecasts is the UK, now suffering in the throes of its populist decision to leave the EU).
The MAGA wing of the Republican Party is warning us that America shouldn’t keep giving Ukraine carte blanche in continued economic and military support—which they portray as a bottomless pit. And instead of assisting in the defense of Ukraine’s borders against Russia, we should take better care of our own borders; and in our financial appropriations, consider America First. Plus they blame Biden for the war in Ukraine, arguing that if the Biden administration hadn’t botched the end game in Afghanistan, Putin wouldn’t have assumed that America was so weak that Ukraine could be invaded with impunity.
Of course this critique overlooks the fact that border controls and the lack of a viable immigration policy have plagued every presidential administration—both Democrat and Republican—for decades. And the same could be said for both party’s administrations in their botched policies for Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither was prescient--and there’s plenty of blame to go around. But in terms of Ukraine, the Biden administration is telling us that America has the resources and the will to provide both for our domestic needs, as well as to support other democracies abroad. That has been historically the case, and plausibly, still true.
However, unlike Russia, which has only one military theater to plan for, America needs to game-plan for Taiwan and the South China Sea, plus North Korea as well. And currently, the American loss of its weapon stockpiles has led the U.S. to fall behind in the provision of the weaponry promised to Taiwan—some of which had already been paid for. As mentioned, it could take months if not years just to ramp up America’s military-industrial complex enough to meet even the current geopolitical needs and commitments. While China and North Korea are ramping up their own military capacities on the other side of the world. And with China now allied with Russia, it frees China from its historical need to maintain a large troop presence to protect against Russian incursions.
In this way, the longer the war in Ukraine goes on, China potentially gains a strategic advantage. Plus, unlike either China or Russia, the U.S. administration currently in power has to contend with a hostile political party at home, constantly nipping at its heels, and attempting to obstruct it. Here, we might see how domestics politics and international relations go hand in hand. The former can limit what the other can do. And vice versa.
Yet we also might see the dicey tightrope which U.S. foreign policy is now trying to trod—as well as the weirdness of our current geopolitical world. For in order for the U.S. to preserve the remnants of its own hegemony abroad—which is to say the tenuousness of the current world order—it must prevent China and Russia from expanding their own. Again, a Great Power Problem. While the rest of the world places their bets, anxiously, from the sidelines.
And in a war of attrition where the war aims of each side remain mutually exclusive--a zero sum game--continuing to supply Ukraine with the weaponry it will need going forward would also require a massive and continuing commitment by the U.S. House of Representatives, a legislative body whose purse-strings are currently controlled by the Republican Party.
And speaking of bets, what are the odds that the Republican Party can be induced to sufficiently rise to the challenges of the war in Ukraine, and in a time-sensitive manner? For this is a political party that failed 14 times to even agree on its own leader in the House just weeks ago. And currently, the Republican Party is divided within itself in its regard of continuing support to Ukraine. Significant parts of the party are now more willing than even Biden to provide Ukraine with F-16 jet fighters, for example. While other loud voices on the right side of the aisle are taking a more isolationist, America First party line, threatening to limit further Ukrainian support.
As for Russia, it’s loss of reputation in the world—from a Great Power to a Rogue State-- and its military losses, the brain drain of hundreds of thousands of its intelligentsia that have fled the country, the loss now of 200,000 or more soldiers--have not stopped Russia in this war of attrition. Plus, there’s been the further attrition of the human rights of Russian citizens who remain in the country. So in this “war of attrition,” one must ask what would victory look like for all now caught up in it? What is the end-game here? And is it achievable?
Part IV.
The End-Game: What Would Victory Look Like--And For Whom?
For Putin, the concept of victory--and how to achieve it—has significantly shifted since the war began. Initially, he assumed Kyiv would be taken in a matter of days, and its government replaced by a Russian puppet regime. Hence there was little effort to destroy the infrastructure of an entire country that he thought Russia would soon have to administer.
But this war plan was actually a departure from the Russian military’s standard procedures—where you bomb the infrastructure of an enemy, its communication channels and its air command for several weeks first, before you send in the tanks and the infantry; rather like a boxer who first attacks the mid-section of an opponent, inhibiting the ability to breathe and generate energy, before launching the knockout punch to the chin.
But Putin didn’t think that would be required in Ukraine—instead, just the initial show of force, capturing the Capital and its president, if not killing him. He’d vastly underestimated the strength of Ukraine’s will to resist, and the multiple forms of support, including advanced intelligence and weaponry, provided by Ukraine’s allies, principally the U.S.
Plus, unlike the successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Russia had lost the element of surprise before the war ever began. The large troop presence of Russia’s army along Ukraine’s border for weeks prior to the invasion telegraphed what was about to ensue. Though Russian spokesmen either lied about Putin’s intentions or didn’t yet know them--the Biden administration had conveyed to President Zelensky in the weeks prior to the invasion the corroborating intelligence it had received--and to prepare for the upcoming attack. In fact, the real surprise here was that of the Russian military’s chain of command—the vast majority of whom had no idea of the scope and intent of the invasion-- for it was a decision derived by Putin and a relatively small number of advisors. Hence, there was a lack of military foresight in place for a Plan B or C to meet the conditions that the Russian army actually wound up encountering.
And prior to the war’s inception, there was no need to apply more draconian measures at home to insure domestic support for the war. And ever since it began, Putin’s version of “the big lie” has for domestic consumption seemed adequate enough--that Russia’s engagement in Ukraine was, and is, merely a “special military exercise.”
*
A year has since passed. Putin is now the wartime president of a war he started, yet can’t seem to win. And thus, his version of victory, has morphed—considerably—since February 24, 2022. Currently, it begins with staying in power—which has, domestically, led Russia to become even more a totalitarian state than it had been before the war. And this has begun to have a blow-back. The Russian people, though still largely supporting the war, have begun to suffer less from apathy, and to realize that (since Putin’s “partial mobilization”) they now have some skin in the game; it no longer seems a distant reality show on TV. There are body bags coming home, even if the numbers are not being reported by the Kremlin.
And if Russia can’t have Ukraine, the newly revised sense of “victory” would require that no one else can have Ukraine either. For Ukraine is no longer conceived as easily captured, low lying fruit --whose vast resources will only increase Russia as it is subsumed by the Kremlin. For now it will be left a bombed out rubble, and in ways that have also violated the Geneva Conventions.
A Russian victory would now be the complete destruction of Ukraine. And over the past several months, the onslaught of Russian missiles upon Ukraine’s civilian populations and energy grid has done everything possible to make that sense of victory not only seem likely, but the visual evidence that it is already emerging.
But Russian victory would also require the continuity of something that has long been the case. Namely, that Ukraine never becomes officially admitted into NATO, for that would entail a yet higher-pitched retaliation by other NATO states for present and any future threats upon Ukraine’s autonomy. Yet, as has become more apparent, Ukraine’s NATO allies are not about to roll over either, at least not without more fully engaging in the struggle than Putin had once anticipated. For the war has actually increased the resolve of NATO partners to stand up to Putin, just as it has increased and unified the will of the Ukrainian people to do the same.
In a war of attrition, the “long game” of extending the war, has now become part of the Russian strategy. In fact, Putin is counting on it. It’s his new path to something that might be claimed as victory—if nothing near the grandiose plan to vouchsafe a grand historical legacy—by restoring parts of the Russian empire that had been lost since the time of Gorbachev.
Yet continuing the war is also a continuation of Putin’s bet that America and Ukraine’s other NATO partners lack the resolve to endure in a long-term engagement--while the Russian people have historically been able to endure decades and centuries of oppressive conditions. Plus, unlike the U.S. or Ukraine’s other allies, Russia doesn’t have another political party to worry about domestically that could lose patience for the war, or threaten to limit or cut off appropriations.
(Though in truth, Russia does have its pro-Kremlin hawks. And the failure by Putin to win the war earlier, has forced Putin to side more with them now—and to take a far more aggressive stance).
And unlike other Western nations, the Russian government has complete control of the media. No alternative perspective is allowed to be published or broadcast. In Russia, there’s still no mention of a war—even using that three letter word could land you in prison for ten years. The assault upon Ukraine is still being termed “a special military exercise.” (These falsities of language—which is to say continual lying--is a diagnostic sign both of autocracies and psychopaths. And I’ll speak about them both a little more here, and more comprehensively in Part VI).
But for Ukraine, the prevailing notion of victory hasn’t really changed. And it is to drive the Russians off every inch of its soil lost not only since February 2022 but since 2014. And though the odds have seemed against them, in its favor is the distinctive weapon that no other nation can match. For never in my lifetime have I seen a nation so unified. Or as committed to this: Their collective will to win this war. It’s really their secret weapon, the one unneedful of foreign supply.
By comparison, America is not this unified about anything. While politically, the majority of Russians who haven’t left the country, or wound up in prison, still suffer from a troubled stew of misplaced patriotism, fear, apathy, and bewilderment. While compared to any other contemporary nation Ukraine is inspiring in its national unity—much as the U.S. had inspired other nations from its inception in 1776. But the baton of Give me liberty or give me death has been passed to, and now carried by the Ukrainians. For that is now the palpable, heroic, and embodied intention of every Ukrainian. And it has only increased as the war has gone on. And as long as it endures, and as long as its allies continue to support them, Ukraine is unlikely to lose--even if every building in Ukraine is bombed to smithereens. But should that take place, what kind of “victory” is this?
On the other hand, should a foreign power manage briefly to hold Ukrainian territory, they will find it far most costly, and perhaps impossible, to actually control it. This is a lesson Russia might have learned in Afghanistan.
And the losses that the Russians have already experienced in Ukraine should by now have made this more evident--though it hasn’t really changed anything in Putin’s calculus. And as long as Putin’s intention is to destroy Ukraine, nothing is likely to change for Ukraine either. And so the war drags on, like a bloody game without end. While a victorious outcome for Ukraine--and her NATO allies--aren’t necessarily quite the same.
Many forms of human communication involve both a surface level as well as an underlying one. The surface level currently being expressed by Ukraine’s allies is that they are willing to provide ongoing support without dictating to Ukraine what its war aims should be. Instead, that Ukraine should have some say, if not the final say, in when or how hostilities might come to a halt. Yet at an underlying level, Ukraine’s allies may be more willing to end the war without guaranteeing that Putin gives up not only territory Russia has gained since February 2022, but since 2014 as well. And I don’t see that happening.
In fact, for a settlement to ensue, Putin would likely need to come out of it with something he could point to as a victory. Yet, as mentioned, both Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a zero sum game. At present that means neither can afford to lose, yet neither are able to win. Which also means that the resources of each, as well as their allies, continue to be drained. In a sense, there’s no winners here.
Yet the more that seems the case, not losing becomes the new, highly motivated “end game”—the one no one can afford to accept. So each side has doubled down. Though at present, this is actually a losing proposition, and thus, both sides are engaged in what could seem an illogical “double-bind” --a “catch 22.” And it’s hard now to see the likelihood of it becoming other than it is.
Both Ukraine and her allies would like to hold Russia economically responsible for the losses Ukraine has suffered, and to see prosecuted those responsible for Russian war crimes. While for Ukraine, a yet more sustainable victory might seem equally a pipe dream, for it would seem to require a profound change of leadership in Moscow—that over decades might lead Russia to become more like a democratic, European country operating under the rule of law vs. the rule of a single person to whom laws don’t apply, as in an autocracy. These outcomes, however, would require Russia being brought to its knees, as Germany was in the second world war.
However, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Nor do I see this as a current and realistic war goal of the U.S. (Who knows what kind of Hell could emerge from a sudden power void—a lesson the U.S. might have learned in Iraq. If Putin falls he could be replaced by an even more reckless pro Kremlin hawk). Nor can I envision Putin hauled before an updated version of a Nuremburg tribunal.
For Russia currently has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. So how likely is Putin to be willing to surrender, or admit his own defeat? Like the prosecutions faced by Trump for years now, Putin has been stalling, playing a waiting game, and attempting to avoid accountability--while assuming that his adversaries will give up first, or that the odds will shift in his favor with the passing of time. But Putin, surrounded by yes men telling him only what he wants to hear, while sitting alone at the end of a 30 foot table, has already evidenced poor judgment in assessing the capabilities of the forces that oppose him. And should that become more apparent, you can’t dismiss the possibility of a desperate Putin finally playing—not just threatening, his nuclear option. The pro-Kremlin hawks have been calling for that since Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive.
While the long delay in welcoming Ukraine into NATO could viewed as the same overly cautious hesitance in giving Ukraine the weapons it’s asked for, and again out of the fear of a Russian nuclear retaliation. (In fairness though, caution can also be a sign of balanced discernment). And it’s easy enough for those on the sidelines to criticize one or the other, in a fraught political landscape where nothing is certain.
Historically, Putin has never regarded Ukraine as an independent entity, but rather as a part of Russia, going back to the days of Catherine the Great—and thus for decades he’s viewed Ukraine’s role to be a flanking territory protecting Russia against further incursions by the West. And there are critics of America’s foreign policy that have blamed the U.S. for planting the seeds of the current war in Ukraine –the blow-back for having taken advantage of Russia’s territorial hegemony during the brief period in the 1990s when the U.S. reigned alone in a unipolar world. (Again, a “Great Power Problem”). Though the current war is further complicated by issues of psychopathology, and on both sides—which obviate against an end to hostilities.
For with psychopathic, autocratic tyrants, political realities are always framed in terms of what they want, and feel entitled to. The problem with this now is that Ukraine wants the West—not Moscow and Putin. This casts Putin in the role of a rejected, aggrieved suitor. For if he can’t possess her, he won’t let anyone else have her either. That casts Putin as well in the role of an entitled, malignant narcissist—which of course, he is. Though another term for “malignant narcissist” is psychopath.
And then, there’s Trump—who just won’t go away—and who called Putin “a genius” for invading Ukraine. While more recently he claimed that the war in Ukraine wouldn’t have happened in the first place had the 2020 election not been “stolen” from him. And why? Because he and Putin “have a really good relationship.” Just as Trump termed his relationship with the psychopathic ruler of North Korea as “a love affair.” (A common diagnostic trait of psychopaths is “birds of this feather flock together” ). And the continuing impact of Trump’s MAGA wing of the Republican Party is potentially quite threatening for Ukraine--which continues to suffer an enormous loss --of lives each day, as well as losses of its infrastructure and buildings that will take several times its own GPD to rebuild.
Where is that money going to come from? The stalled economy of a morally bankrupt Russia, or America’s morally bankrupt Republican Party? Or will it come from European nations that for years refused to pay 2% of their GPD for even the defense of themselves? (Something Trump was actually right about).
The best prospects for the West and for Ukraine—which is also the perspective of Larry Summers, former U.S Secretary of the Treasury and President Emeritus of Harvard-- would be that relief comes from Russian reparations, and that a bulk of them could come from Russian state assets currently held by several of the world’s financial institutions. (As happened in the funds Russia garnered from Germany in the aftermath of WW2, or Kuwait from Iraq after the latter had invaded the former in the Gulf war. But Summer’s solution only seems to exist far into a less certain future. It’s but another fantasy—of “victory.”
Due to the right of free speech inherent in democracies, attempting to secure national unity can be more challenging in democracies than it is for autocracies. Yet it is vital in democracies for war-time presidents. It requires them to not only successfully plan for and prosecute the war, but also to successfully educate and win support for the war from their bully pulpit at home--as FDR did so pivotally in the second world war. In this regard, at least of late, Biden has seemed up to the challenge, regardless of his age. In fact, since his legislative victories in the summer of 2022, he seems to have accessed a deeper, more confident internal gear than many thought he had. While in Ukraine, President Zelenskyy is no less than a modern day Churchill. Yet thus far, the bully pulpit of Putin continues to prevail and inform the bulk of his population. So again--and in so many ways--the war remains a stalemate. Putin can’t seem to win the war—yet his very survival means that he also can’t lose. So even if Ukraine’s will remains resolute—as I think it will-- the state of our world could still be up for grabs. While Ukraine continues to suffer...
Part V.
The Bomb in the Background
More so than any time since the Cuban missile crisis, nuclear war looms as a conceivable possibility.
Though nuclear weapons haven’t been employed—only threatened—they’ve nonetheless framed the war in Ukraine. And this is reflected by Nina Tannenwald in an insightful article published by Foreign Affairs on February 24, 2023-- the one year anniversary of the war’s inception.
For she tells us that the background presence of Russia’s nuclear arsenal has impacted the war in two ways. It’s served as a deterrence to a greater lethality by the U.S. and Ukraine’s other NATO allies. But it has also served to prolong the war and make any more conventional resolution to it more difficult to attain. “As the past year of carnage and bluster has shown,” she writes, “nuclear weapons wield devastating power even as they remain in their silos.”
And those “bombs in the background” have mostly benefitted the Russians. For example, Ukraine’s allies have been unwilling to provide Ukraine with the longer-range weapons systems that could reach into Russia. While the Russians have had no such governor placed on its weapons that each day devastate Ukraine. Were it not for Russia’s nuclear weapons, and the threat of their use, the U.S. and NATO countries would be able to make use of their longer-range, more conventional firepower in assisting Ukraine to win the war more quickly. And if not for a nuclear arsenal as his ace in the hole, Putin might not have invaded Ukraine in the first place. And but for the fear of nuclear retaliation, Ukraine likely would have been admitted into NATO long before now.
At the same time, the availability of nuclear weapons by some NATO nations, as well as a version of the HIMARS with a much longer range than the version offered Ukraine (190 miles vs. 50) has served as a deterrence to Russia expanding the war to other nearby NATO countries that were once in the Soviet bloc. Yet Tannenwald warns that any talk of Ukraine recapturing Crimea, or winning an all-out victory over Russia while enabled to do so by NATO partners, could further fuel the paranoid perception of Russian leaders that a hostile West is seeking to destroy their country. Exactly the perspective advanced by Putin in launching the war.
Yet something unmentioned by Tannenwald is that Putin continues to conflate two things that aren’t really the same. Namely, that trying to stop Russia from invading or destroying other countries isn’t the same as wanting to destroy Russia. Though it might dash Putin’s view of Russia--which is different from how most countries view Russia. Just as most countries have a different way than Putin of viewing Ukraine. The war in this sense is a battle of fantasies, fantasies of identity, fantasies of entitlement and ownership, fantasies of victory, real victimhood and the fantasy of victimhood. And psychologically, nothing is more angry, more entrenched in its vision than a victim.
While the consensus of world leaders—even in Russian-friendly countries such as China and India—have made it clear to Putin that a first-strike employment of any nuclear weapon, or even its threat is totally unacceptable. And so, should Putin violate the ban that has thus far existed toward nukes, he would alienate the few countries that have supported Russia or remained neutral; leaving Russia even more a pariah state than it is already.
Tannenwald concludes: “The past year saw the continuation of the 77 year tradition of nuclear weapons not being used. Western leaders must do as much as they can to ensure this streak continues, even as the horrific war in Ukraine rages on.”
Part VI.
Are There Wild Cards—Jokers In This Deck?
At the inception of the war in Ukraine there was a widely-held perception that Putin must not be a “rational actor.” While elsewhere I’ve written that Putin is “as rational and calculating as a fox stealing chickens.” In fact, under his reign Russia became a kleptocracy. And in retrospect, this corrupted, predatory trait was visible in the early part of his career in Saint Petersburg where he served as a successful liaison between organized crime and that city’s government. And in the years since, he’s only become more seasoned, more polished in justifying his thefts.
Yet for decades now, no one who has actually known Putin has ever considered him irrational. Thus, I think many have misperceived him. As had many after viewing Oliver Stone’s Interviews With Putin. I myself was impressed by the refinement in which he embodied his role of interviewee. Rather than a monster, the self he portrayed was glib, even mildly charming, and in a way that likely meant to be disarming. He seemed to be cultivating the connection with the film’s director, ingratiating himself toward Stone—if not toward the audience Putin knew would be viewing the interviews--without making it clumsily apparent. Just granting such a lengthy and exclusive access was a recruitment; Stone the honored guest of a head of state. And if you just listened to Putin’s words, the guy was brilliant, and could lie without any loss of poise. There was no obvious bluster—say, as compared to Trump. His mind, and its manipulations were more subtle, like he knew what his audience believed and expected to hear, and could provide enough of it to then deflect their assumptions to his. Yet he avoided eye contact, as if from within a confident, self-absorbed mask.
And if Putin removed the mask and did make eye contact, it could be chilling—the flat reptilian stare into space that effectively veils the dark pathology within, and what that pathology has unloosed--not only in Ukraine, but in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria as well. These are the chilling eyes of a psychopath, a man who has poisoned and imprisoned his political opponents, a man who is both brilliant—yet lacking any inner guard rails against the commission of atrocities. And behind that vacant stare is the very heart of darkness. These are the eyes of something not fully human, but a two-legged creature that has undergone a moral root canal—a man also a former KGB operative well-versed in deceptions—while operating beyond the rule of law. In fact, he’s a thief, a liar, and a murderer on the vastest of scales—one where the scales of justice have lost any jurisdiction. And why, under his leadership, Russia has come to be viewed as a rogue state.
Numerically, psychopaths are fairly rare, less than 2% of the world population, and a central diagnostic trait is the commission of numerous acts that could make them subject to arrest. Yet politically, they punch well beyond their statistical ranking. And the highly functioning, most successful ones manage to find or create a cultural niche that is also lacking guard rails that could counter or restrain the psychopath’s own lack of guard rails--their lawlessness, lack of empathy, their lack of moral restraint. (No one in the Kremlin to moderate Putin, no opposition party, no alternative media sources but those of the state that he controls.).
Or in America for the years of Trump’s presidency, no one strong enough to restrain Trump’s impulsive transgressions of ethical, moral, and constitutional guard rails. He’d effectively managed a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, and anyone unwilling to kiss his ring ran the danger of being thrown under the bus. The Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln had become the party of Donald J. Trump. As president, there was no chief of staff, party chair, or cabinet member capable of keeping him in check. And significantly, no Attorney General able or willing to hold him accountable to the rule of law. In the first days of his presidency he got rid of the AG he’d inherited, Sally Yates. He replaced her with Jeff Sessions, whom he then grew enraged toward when Sessions recused himself from overseeing the investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election.
And finally, Trump found his man in William Barr, the kind of AG he’d been looking for, one who could be his own governmental-consigliere, and function much as Roy Cohn had in Trump’s formative, early days in the world of New York real estate. Barr became the governmental version of Trump’s personal, attorney-fixer Michael Cohen-- who fell on his sword for Trump—until he no longer could, and no longer world.
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In Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now that was based on Joseph Conrad’s short novel The Heart of Darkness, we can see in the figure of Kurtz a dramatization of the horror that can ensue in landscapes where psychopaths lack any moderating restraints.
Like Putin, Kurtz was brilliant, and had been on track to rise to the top of the military. But he goes rogue in a Southeast Asian jungle where there were absolutely no restraints. He becomes a cult leader. Those surrounding Kurtz idealize him, yet many are clearly crazy, as in the photojournalist played by Dennis Hopper.
In Conrad’s book, it wasn’t a photojournalist we meet before we get our first glimpse of Kurtz, but a half-crazed Russian trader who says that Kurtz has enlarged his mind, and thus can’t be subjected to the same moral judgments that would apply to normal people. Kurtz, in fact, has established himself as a god with the natives, and gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of ivory. And there are severed heads on fence posts evoking his methods. While in Apocalypse Now, the U.S. military recognized that Kurtz had “gone off the reservation”--and sent an assassin to take Kurtz out—the figure played by Martin Sheen.
Like Kurtz needing to extricate himself from the inherent command structures of the U.S. military, Trump five times managed to extricate himself from military service –and considered those who did serve to be “suckers.” And being who and what he is—he couldn’t continue to express his own heart of darkness within the existing framework of America’s democratic institutions. So he tried to bring down the democratic institutions so that he could reign as a leader without restraints. (And why Trump has idealized Putin, who’s managed to do just that).
In North Korea and Saudi Arabia, their psychopathic cult leaders are in a cultural context much like Kurtz in that jungle in Southeast Asia. No democratic guard rails. So it’s anything goes...If you’re Kim Jong-un, you’re free to assassinate your own uncle, and while at it your brother in law too, while attempting to free yourself from any international restraints through obtaining a nuclear arsenal, devoting your country’s limited resources to that, while your people starve.
Or for the Saudi version, you can round up the rest of the royals and hold them captive in a hotel, just to show them who’s the new boss. Now you’re free to send in a kill squad from Riyadh to take out a Washington Post journalist in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul —hack him into pieces, there’s nothing stopping you now. So, why not? Though speaking of Istanbul,..In Turkey leadership there is a little more constrained. Sure, Erdogan launched a wide scale crackdown on political opponents, arresting at least 160 thousand and curtailing the independence of the judiciary, and freedom of expression. And he had his own axe to grind—at the expense of other NATO members and favoring Russia--in attempting to keep Sweden from joining NATO.
But he did help broker a deal between Putin and the UN allowing Ukraine’s grain crops to be shipped out to those starving in developing countries. So his good guy mask got him a pass while Turkey remained a NATO country--while also maintaining Erdogan’s ties to Syria that can help him to murder the Kurds (who were so helpful in fighting ISIS).
But no reference to Syria should be made here without mentioning its psychopathic dictator who dropped bombs on his own people, along with internationally banned nerve agents. And of course, Assad’s greatest ally is Putin. While Hungary’s Viktor Orban is invited to inspire the CPAC gathering of American conservatives, who presently seem to like Russian-leaning, Anti-Semitic autocrats, and shower respect on one who can show them how it’s successfully done. In these many ways our geopolitical world is Apocalypse Now.
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I’m also suggesting that Putin and the world’s other leaders who share his personality disorder are currently the Psychopathic Joker cards in our deck. And so, we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this wherever the card is being shown. In our own minds at least, we should call a spade a spade, know one when we see one-- and not just with Putin. As the world turns, we should see the same in the other short, trigger happy psychopath in North Korea. The stumpy guy with the bad haircut, who at once wears the mask of a savior—his country’s Fearless Leader—though truly, he’s the bane of his oppressed people. And he wants to keep reminding the world that he’s a big boy member of the Nuclear Bomb Club too.
This metaphor of a mask was central in the seminal book written about psychopaths—The Mask of Sanity—published in 1941 as another psychopath, Adolf Hitler, was about to cause the death of tens of millions of people. Because of their “mask,” to the untrained eye psychopaths can be hard to recognize. So lest we turn a blind eye, there’s the other one with a bad hairstyle and pale eyes set in a sun-lamped face, who upset the nuclear applecart by backing the U.S. out of the nuclear deal with Iran—a deal that Iran had been keeping. This grandiose, self-proclaimed “genius,” further intensified the economic sanctions suffered by Iran, with a result being that cash-starved nation now sells armaments to Russia. Plus, it now appears that Iran is about to join the Nuclear Bomb Club too. Will Israel—a country in danger now of losing its democracy to its own autocratic leader—bomb Iran before Iran has a nuclear bomb of its own?
Or if not, how long will it be before the fabulously wealthy, psychopathic autocrat in Saudi Arabia—you know, the one rocking a red and white checkered headscarf who likes his journalists hacked into conveniently disposed pieces—how long will it be before Mohammed bin Salman gets nuclear armaments too; and in a part of the world already a tinder box? Trump loved the guy—who was the first foreign leader Trump visited upon attaining the presidency. Like I say, birds of this feather flock together. And MBS’s autocratic, psychopathic credentials are impressive. He rules an authoritarian country with no democratic institutions. And there’s been reports of his use of a group called the Tiger squad to carry out extrajudicial murders. Plus, he led an “intervention” in Yemen that worsened the already existent humanitarian crisis and famine there. (Psychopaths are sadistic, they enjoy the pain they cause. It’s an adrenaline high to feel that powerful, to torture, manipulate, and control others).
And with Trump no longer on the scene to do sword dances with, or Jared Kushner on scene to provide favorable treatment in subsequent return for MBS investing $2 billion in a Kushner venture, MBS then left Biden hanging by refusing to increase Saudi oil production following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as the Democrats were facing a midterm election where the price at the pump was a main attack point of the Republicans.
All these guys are part of the same lawless crew in the world-wide struggle between autocracies and democracies. And as I’ve attempted to evoke, there’s a strong correlation between autocrats and psychopaths. And though we might take some comfort when wiser heads tell us that a nuclear attack from Russia is highly unlikely, unfortunately psychopaths are never the wisest of heads.
As political leaders, they tend to be easily bored with actually governing, and the nations they lead are often badly governed—if not failed or failing states. Their proneness to boredom also tends to make them impulsive. Besides, they only really care about themselves—often lining their pockets, while trying to take what doesn’t belong to them. In run of the mill psychopaths this could take the form of defrauding other people of money, or with mass murderers it could mean taking their lives. And as we’ve recently seen, when psychopaths lead nations it can take the form of attempting to steal elections, or in fact other countries. Yet unlike other humans, psychopaths are incapable of feeling guilt, shame, or remorse. They feel nothing—and so are capable of doing anything.
Unlike other humans, the emotional centers in their brains don’t activate when shown shocking images of human suffering. So any human feelings they profess are fake. They have no conscience. They’re swindlers and erotic predators, wolves wearing sheep’s clothing. Lying is a go-to talking style. (A central part of their mask and their genius for conning others, gaming the system, and skating through life without being held accountable).
Because of their parasitic, predatory misuse of others, another diagnostic sign of psychopaths is that their lives are littered with lawsuits. But in countries where the rule of law isn’t established--or where it’s been sufficiently eroded, there’s no judicial guard rails to hold autocrats and psychopaths accountable. This accounts for the mass protests going on now in Israel. And also why I don’t think Putin is much worried about being tried for war crimes. For Putin has already achieved what Netanyahu is trying to do. And as for Trump, he’s already been involved with over 4000 lawsuits—which should provide first ballot qualifications for admission into the Psychopathic Hall of Shame
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Please forgive me if it seems I’ve strayed a bit from the war in Ukraine. But psychopaths are in our world, and we need to be better forewarned. Personally, when I sense I’m in the presence of a psychopath, I distance as fast as possible. Though geopolitically, we’re going to need an alternative way of relating to nations led by psychopaths and autocrats—who are often one and the same. Yet the lack of that alternative now seems a missing and needed Joker in America’s foreign policy deck.
For as Fareed Zakaria has pointed out, our foreign policy now needs to be something beyond issuing condemnations, threats, and sanctions, while isolating from nations led by such people that we treat as pariahs, the figure-heads of what amounts to the new Axis of Evil. For when we push them away like that, we lose the possibility to influence and moderate their behavior—while driving them to bond together against us—which is the threat happening now—as Putin meets with Xi Jinping.
This is a complete reversal of the diplomatic strategy employed by Henry Kissinger --which in opening the door to China had also pursued détente with Russia—while ensuring that the U.S. had a better relationship to both than either had with each other. And similarly, for decades of the Cold War, that war stayed cold--while the U.S. had better relations with Israel and the Arab states than they had with each other. And before the Iranian revolution, the U.S. had better relations with the Iranians and the Saudis than they had with each other.
Zakaria says we’ve lost that kind of flexibility, and are now led by a polarizing foreign policy that divides the world into friends and foes—while losing the ability to speak to everyone in the room. And are left only with the hope for the overthrow of regimes that are our foes—a version of what I call The Long Wait (a game with no end). Which brings us back to the war in Ukraine...
For there, without turning a blind eye to the dangers of psychopaths possessing nuclear weapons, the war of attrition in Ukraine has already devolved in significantly different ways than its major players conceived a year ago when it began. That’s one of the many problems with wars. They reflect failures of diplomacy, and once started, they almost always come with unforeseen consequences.
And no one can say how this one will evolve—or devolve-- from here. For the stakes have grown increasingly dire—and its uncertainties many. (And in nuclear conflicts, any semblance of “victory” morphs so much that it loses its meaning, becoming an oxymoron, and an obscene one at that).
So, if hoping for more decisive conclusions to be drawn from the first anniversary of this war, that’s beyond anyone’s paygrade, certainly mine. And if a deus ex machine ending waits in the wings, it has yet to appear. While those of us who aren’t oblivious, remain glued to the edge of our seats.