Has Putin outplayed the West
Strong title considering the western media is pushing the line that he has virtually lost the war with Ukraine.
Let's consider the causes first:
Russia claims that NATO and the EU have been moving further East every year with the ultimate ambition of regime change in Russia.
Part of this statement is definitely true, if not all of it. In fact ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall NATO and the EU have incorporated almost every ex-Warsaw Pact, that is with the exception of Georgia and the Ukraine.
Russia has consistently made it clear that both countries are a red line - there is no way that the Kremlin will ever allow either to join NATO or the EU.
NATO and the EU know this yet they have kept pushing, why?
In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia to make its point.
In 2014, after the NATO lead coup in Kiev which ousted the democratically elected pro Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Putin seized the Crimea. Since then he has been biding his time waiting for the opportunity to make Crimea's incorporation back into Russia official.
Meanwhile, US lead NATO has continued to push the Ukraine to join NATO and the EU even though there has been no real likelihood that it could ever actually happen simply because of the high levels of political corruption in the Ukraine, not to mention the presence of a strong Neo NAZI block in the country.
All of this, along with failed diplomatic pressure from Russia to persuade the West to give up on its ambitions, has just lead to a heightening in tensions in the region. Make no mistake this is a failure of Western diplomacy; the failure to see where things were heading.
Foolishly the Ukrainians believed that they were really being courted by the West when in reality all the West wanted was to destabilise Putin's regime.
Frustrated at Western intransigence and encouraged by the disastrous US lead withdrawal from Afghanistan Putin moved an army of 200k onto the Ukrainian border. This event signalled to the world that Putin believed the West was without strong and coordinated leadership.
This then was the West's first defeat at the hands of Putin; its diplomatic failure to recognise that he was serious. If the West had taken the warnings seriously and behaved with less arrogance then they would've backed off and Putin would've withdrawn his armies.
It is possible to argue that the West encouraged Putin to go out on a limb by invading Ukraine but this would suppose a level of clear thinking in the Whitehouse. If they thought that they could break Putin and force his downfall after imposing sanctions or if they thought he wouldn't actually invade then they have drastically misread the situation; another failure of Biden's team.
Putin has left the West with an incorrect impression of his strategic goals - before the invasion he let it be widely known that his troops could be in Kiev within 2 days and this has been the erroneous baseline of all western media analysis of the campaign.
Putin never intended to seize Kiev - he doesn't have the forces required to do it. He can destroy Kiev but not seize and hold it; he would need over a million men to achieve such an aim and he knows it.
His army of 200k had only limited tasks:-
Make contact with Ukrainian forces and wear them down in the field.
Seize and hold areas in the East that are loyal to Russia.
Destroy as much of Ukraine's infrastructure as he can get away with; basically return it to the Stone Age.
What then are Putin's geopolitical aims?
Reduce the effectiveness of Ukraine's armed forces going forwards.
Confirmation that the Ukraine will never join NATO and the EU.
Confirmation that the Ukraine will be neutral going forwards.
Crimea and other Eastern regions to be ceded to Russia.
Take as much of Ukraine as he can get away with.
Prove to the rest of the world that the West and the US are a leaderless and spent force
Ukraine will have to agree to these terms because at the end of the day the West dare not intervene militarily for fear of starting a nuclear war; if NATO and the US go to war with Russia then there is no way that Russia can win a conventional war so in the end it will have to utilise its nuclear arsenal and with its Mach 9 Zircon hypersonic missiles the destruction of the West is guaranteed, we can only hope that the ideologically driven Muppets in the Whitehouse understand this. If they have, which they should, then Putin really is in the driving seat.
How did he achieve this?
Although the West has been pushing the Ukraine to join NATO and the EU it did not sign any treaty of mutual assistance in the event of attack by a third party, therefore, the West has no treaty with the Ukraine giving Putin a free hand and the West cannot intervene.
Putin more or less told the West that if it tried to intervene he would launch a nuclear first strike. The West believes this to be likely because Putin has made it known that he sees the Ukraine as crucial to Russian survival and if there is any question of Russia ceasing to exist he will push the button. This has made NATO involvement impossible unless the West wants to face the consequences of WWIII.
America will never risk WWIII over the Ukraine.
In retaliation the West, fresh from its humiliation in Afghanistan, over reacted and issued instant sanctions and sent arms to Ukraine immediately declaring a partisan interest and ruling out any future involvement in peace talks. This has been particularly useful to Putin and China because it has revealed to the world that the Biden administration doesn't know how to deal with complex issues.
The same has to be said of the UK government, NATO and the EU.
This has left Putin with a free hand to destroy the Ukrainian armed forces and to bomb Ukrainian cities with impunity. Sure it has included Russian losses but the gains far out way the losses.
A further humiliation to the west has been the total futility of the sanctions; they have hurt the West more than Russia because Putin had already secured other markets for his oil and gas; China, India, Pakistan etc whereas the West has been left scrambling around in search of alternative sources. The vision of the Biden administration going cap in hand to Venezuela and Boris creeping around in Saudi Arabia just about sums it up.
Further Putin is now demanding Rubbles in payment for Russian oil and gas from hostile countries placing pressure on the petro-dollar and do not forget that Putin hasn't yet stopped sending gas and oil to the West - when he does expect a major economic crisis.
Saudi Arabia has recently offered to trade its oil in Yuan again threatening the petro-dollar.
China has doubled down in its support of Putin and Biden has recklessly allowed limited sanctions against China, admittedly in regards to the Uighurs but it has started the sanction process with the country that is the world's manufacturing base.
Importantly, going forwards, this will have permanent consequences for the West's global effectiveness and geopolitical presence.
Not only that, but the West has had to take a backseat whilst Russia negotiates the new Iranian nuclear deal for the world.
Now the final insult, Turkey is negotiating the peace treaty between Russia and the Ukraine sending the clear message to the world that America's day as the unipolar super power is over.
To summarise, Putin will get everything that he set out to achieve, the Ukraine will be reduced to an even poorer failed state and will be internationally recognised as a neutral power, the West will face ongoing economic decline due to the blow back from its sanctions, Russia and China will move ever closer together possibly including India, Iran and Pakistan.
The US global empire was in gradual decline, that decline has just speeded up and can only get faster. If the world turns its back on the petro-dollar then America will fall into the greatest recession the world has yet experienced and the West will follow suit.
Let's consider the causes first:
Russia claims that NATO and the EU have been moving further East every year with the ultimate ambition of regime change in Russia.
Part of this statement is definitely true, if not all of it. In fact ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall NATO and the EU have incorporated almost every ex-Warsaw Pact, that is with the exception of Georgia and the Ukraine.
Russia has consistently made it clear that both countries are a red line - there is no way that the Kremlin will ever allow either to join NATO or the EU.
NATO and the EU know this yet they have kept pushing, why?
In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia to make its point.
In 2014, after the NATO lead coup in Kiev which ousted the democratically elected pro Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Putin seized the Crimea. Since then he has been biding his time waiting for the opportunity to make Crimea's incorporation back into Russia official.
Meanwhile, US lead NATO has continued to push the Ukraine to join NATO and the EU even though there has been no real likelihood that it could ever actually happen simply because of the high levels of political corruption in the Ukraine, not to mention the presence of a strong Neo NAZI block in the country.
All of this, along with failed diplomatic pressure from Russia to persuade the West to give up on its ambitions, has just lead to a heightening in tensions in the region. Make no mistake this is a failure of Western diplomacy; the failure to see where things were heading.
Foolishly the Ukrainians believed that they were really being courted by the West when in reality all the West wanted was to destabilise Putin's regime.
Frustrated at Western intransigence and encouraged by the disastrous US lead withdrawal from Afghanistan Putin moved an army of 200k onto the Ukrainian border. This event signalled to the world that Putin believed the West was without strong and coordinated leadership.
This then was the West's first defeat at the hands of Putin; its diplomatic failure to recognise that he was serious. If the West had taken the warnings seriously and behaved with less arrogance then they would've backed off and Putin would've withdrawn his armies.
It is possible to argue that the West encouraged Putin to go out on a limb by invading Ukraine but this would suppose a level of clear thinking in the Whitehouse. If they thought that they could break Putin and force his downfall after imposing sanctions or if they thought he wouldn't actually invade then they have drastically misread the situation; another failure of Biden's team.
Putin has left the West with an incorrect impression of his strategic goals - before the invasion he let it be widely known that his troops could be in Kiev within 2 days and this has been the erroneous baseline of all western media analysis of the campaign.
Putin never intended to seize Kiev - he doesn't have the forces required to do it. He can destroy Kiev but not seize and hold it; he would need over a million men to achieve such an aim and he knows it.
His army of 200k had only limited tasks:-
Make contact with Ukrainian forces and wear them down in the field.
Seize and hold areas in the East that are loyal to Russia.
Destroy as much of Ukraine's infrastructure as he can get away with; basically return it to the Stone Age.
What then are Putin's geopolitical aims?
Reduce the effectiveness of Ukraine's armed forces going forwards.
Confirmation that the Ukraine will never join NATO and the EU.
Confirmation that the Ukraine will be neutral going forwards.
Crimea and other Eastern regions to be ceded to Russia.
Take as much of Ukraine as he can get away with.
Prove to the rest of the world that the West and the US are a leaderless and spent force
Ukraine will have to agree to these terms because at the end of the day the West dare not intervene militarily for fear of starting a nuclear war; if NATO and the US go to war with Russia then there is no way that Russia can win a conventional war so in the end it will have to utilise its nuclear arsenal and with its Mach 9 Zircon hypersonic missiles the destruction of the West is guaranteed, we can only hope that the ideologically driven Muppets in the Whitehouse understand this. If they have, which they should, then Putin really is in the driving seat.
How did he achieve this?
Although the West has been pushing the Ukraine to join NATO and the EU it did not sign any treaty of mutual assistance in the event of attack by a third party, therefore, the West has no treaty with the Ukraine giving Putin a free hand and the West cannot intervene.
Putin more or less told the West that if it tried to intervene he would launch a nuclear first strike. The West believes this to be likely because Putin has made it known that he sees the Ukraine as crucial to Russian survival and if there is any question of Russia ceasing to exist he will push the button. This has made NATO involvement impossible unless the West wants to face the consequences of WWIII.
America will never risk WWIII over the Ukraine.
In retaliation the West, fresh from its humiliation in Afghanistan, over reacted and issued instant sanctions and sent arms to Ukraine immediately declaring a partisan interest and ruling out any future involvement in peace talks. This has been particularly useful to Putin and China because it has revealed to the world that the Biden administration doesn't know how to deal with complex issues.
The same has to be said of the UK government, NATO and the EU.
This has left Putin with a free hand to destroy the Ukrainian armed forces and to bomb Ukrainian cities with impunity. Sure it has included Russian losses but the gains far out way the losses.
A further humiliation to the west has been the total futility of the sanctions; they have hurt the West more than Russia because Putin had already secured other markets for his oil and gas; China, India, Pakistan etc whereas the West has been left scrambling around in search of alternative sources. The vision of the Biden administration going cap in hand to Venezuela and Boris creeping around in Saudi Arabia just about sums it up.
Further Putin is now demanding Rubbles in payment for Russian oil and gas from hostile countries placing pressure on the petro-dollar and do not forget that Putin hasn't yet stopped sending gas and oil to the West - when he does expect a major economic crisis.
Saudi Arabia has recently offered to trade its oil in Yuan again threatening the petro-dollar.
China has doubled down in its support of Putin and Biden has recklessly allowed limited sanctions against China, admittedly in regards to the Uighurs but it has started the sanction process with the country that is the world's manufacturing base.
Importantly, going forwards, this will have permanent consequences for the West's global effectiveness and geopolitical presence.
Not only that, but the West has had to take a backseat whilst Russia negotiates the new Iranian nuclear deal for the world.
Now the final insult, Turkey is negotiating the peace treaty between Russia and the Ukraine sending the clear message to the world that America's day as the unipolar super power is over.
To summarise, Putin will get everything that he set out to achieve, the Ukraine will be reduced to an even poorer failed state and will be internationally recognised as a neutral power, the West will face ongoing economic decline due to the blow back from its sanctions, Russia and China will move ever closer together possibly including India, Iran and Pakistan.
The US global empire was in gradual decline, that decline has just speeded up and can only get faster. If the world turns its back on the petro-dollar then America will fall into the greatest recession the world has yet experienced and the West will follow suit.
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