Ukraine and Russia, Again
Published at 17:52 on 24 January 2022
The story is still in the news, in fact the situation seems to be escalating, so let’s look into it some more.
First, that it is escalating should be no surprise. As I wrote before, multiple factors favor Putin ordering the troops under his command to invade.
What could be done to stop him? Ultimately, not much. Putin is not stupid. To reiterate, knows that NATO won’t consider it worth their soldiers’ lives to contest the issue militarily. Putin is a dictator and the leaders of most NATO nations are freely elected. Putin does not have to answer to citizens nearly so much; this also gives him significantly more freedom to escalate.
Probably the best thing NATO can do is drive home that they are really willing to make Putin pay (via measures that nonetheless fall short of military ones) if he invades, even if that means some sacrifices on the part of the NATO nations. The question is how much sacrificing the European NATO nations are willing to make. Many of them are addicted to Russian natural gas; confronting Putin could well cause an energy embargo with all the attendant economic harm that does. The threats must be plausible; Putin will call the bluff for ones obviously unlikely to be followed through on.
Even for plausible ones, he may call NATO’s bluff. In that case, it is imperative to follow through. So it’s critical to get things right in terms of the sacrifices the NATO nations are willing to make. See how tricky this all is? It is why I believe Putin will go in.
All that said, if sanctions are tolerable enough on the NATO side to be followed through with, yet harsh enough to the Putin regime, they may well prompt a recalculation on Putin’s part as to the wisdom of aggression.(And note that the invasion would still happen. There would just be a recalculation on Putin’s part (and maybe, just maybe, the consequences would drive Putin from power). But all that, as they say, is a pretty big if.