Russia's Downfall, part 1

Russia's Downfall, part 1
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This whole russian military campaign reminds me a lot of how seasoned chess players talk about end games. Like the board is in this position, and "if I make these moves then I'll end up in checkmate. And if I make these other moves I'll also end up in checkmate." And they're convinced they have lost the game, 10-12 moves before the game is really over.

Putin knows all too well about the risks of overreaching, and every move he has made in years past has been a precision balance of risk and ambition. So when I saw this "full scale invasion" of ukraine being reported, it absolutely stunned me. It looked far too ambitious, putting far too much at stake, and is a bewildering departure from the carefully calculated strategies Putin is known for.

He claims his goal is demilitarisation of ukraine. Maybe he achieves that, but the moment he withdraws his army, western nations will re-arm ukraine ten-fold within a month. Admittedly, a disarmed country wouldn't need as many russian troops to maintain control, but there would still have to be a long-term occupation. In particular, heavily policing the ukraine-poland border, to prevent the influx of weapons to arm an insurgency. It seems inevitable that you'd get a heavily armed battle line forming across that border, with russian forces massed on one side, and nato forces on the other. And that just wouldn't remain stable, or be sustainable.

The more I thought this through, the more I have felt that this whole campaign will end in failure for russia. And I expect Putin fears this outcome as well. So yeah, this absolutely stunned me. And I've been trying hard this past week to make sense of it, by trying to get into his mind.

Putin talks a lot about his "red lines". And he has been pretty clear what his responses will be if they are crossed. He has so far followed through with his threats, and there's no reason to suspect that will change.

Let's look at some of the background to this conflict.

Over the past decade, I have often wondered what russia's place in the world will be in the future. The world is deperately trying to move away from fossil fuels, while fossil fuels seem to be the backbone of the russian economy. Putin has that to worry about. The uncertainty over the NS2 pipeline has surely been cause for concern for him, as it's approval would indicate a stable source of income from gas exports, and for a long time. The pipeline's disapproval indicates greater economic uncertainty for Russia.

Meanwhile, the US has been actively discouraging NS2 approval, but with vested interest. The US has been pushing hard for years, for europe to buy american LPG instead. It wants those gas contracts for itself, and has been quite happy to agitate europe-russia relations over the past few years to try and scare europe away from "russian dependency".

Various factors throughout 2021 contributed to rising gas prices in europe - decommisioning of coal fired power stations causing greater reliance on gas; Increased dependence on wind/solar energy when it was allegedly not windy/sunny enough; Low levels of gas in storage and the UK decommisioning it's north sea gas storage facility; Above-average demand as industry steps into top-gear to meet high demand, because of the the backlog caused by covid. So russia would have been making a fortune from gas sales, because of the wholesale price spike. It's military buildup on the ukraine border surely helped to keep the gas price high too, by stoking fears of supply disruption. I was convinced this was a significant part of the reason for the miliary posturing. A clever way of hedging against NS2 hesitancy.

Russia (and the USSR before that) fears nato and the west, far more than the west fears russia. Russia sees itse;f as the underdog. The cold war cemented this paranoia into the russian state's psyche. It's not something that should be dismissed. In just the same way that you shouldn't dismiss the feelings of a wild animal, should you find yourself stood alongside one. The reality that europe doesn't seem to fully grasp, is that it must recognise that paranoia, and deal with it sympathetically, else russia may feel threatened.

The US on the other hand knows very well how to push russia's buttons, as it has been doing that for decades. By walking away from diplomacy, and deliberately ignoring russia's fears, and being trollishly unwilling to compromise. The US is an agitator and that has been quite intentional in recent times.

It's not only about gas contracts. Russia does has long standing issues with nato - any expansion of the bloc means a shifting of alliances, inevitably leading to the forward deployment of missiles and anti-missile defences, the construction of new military bases close to a superpower's borders... Maintaining the "Balance of Power" is crucial for world security, and disturbing it leads to situations like the cuban missile crisis. No superpower wants enemy missiles on their doorstep - not the US, nor russia. No superpower wants to find their own alliance eroded and weakened while an enemy alliance is expanded and strengthened.

The rights of individual nations to determine their own alliances is all very good and noble, but we cannot ignore this bigger picture either. The balance of geopolitical power is no less precious than the rights of individual nations, and potentially has far greater consequences.

Ukraine is a legitimate concern for russia. But as is the way with all superpowers, delicate issues get biased treatment, selectively amplified and spun to fit political agendas. Politics is a process of taking reasonable concerns, and reforging them into sharper ideological instruments. Russia is in no way unique in that regard - the US does this sort of thing more than any other.

So.. putting all of this together. Putin fears that russia has no economic future, expecting declining demand for it's exports and low prospects for diversification. Putin fears that russia has no strategic security because the balance of power has been broken.

So I'm feeling that Putin's chess-like analysis of geopolitics has led him to conclude that 10 years down the line his country is going to be in checkmate, no matter what moves he makes in the present. The game is already lost in his mind. Russia is finished as he knows it.

What does one do in defeat? You resign yourself to the inevitable, but you also have this saving throw. You get to roll the dice, and if you're very lucky you escape the inevitable. A full scale invasion of ukraine is perhaps exactly this for Putin.

But there is something else one can do in defeat, which is to play out your end-game in the way you please. To lose the game in the way you want to lose it.

For example, full scale invasion of ukraine could be the opening move in a "scorched earth" end-game against europe. To hurt the nations and institutions he holds responsible for his defeat: The satellite states that have broken away from the eastern bloc (ukraine, poland and the baltics); the institution of nato (brussels); the nations which have actively tried to weaken russia (UK/US). So if this all ends in nuclear exchanges, I really won't be surprised.