But overall I think that Russia is the major power that has become most vulnerable as the result of the developments of the last few years. It sits between two large economic powers, the EU and China. The EU is launching accession talks with Ukraine, and is distancing itself from dependence on Russian supplies. NATO is enlarged, and Ukraine won't be far behind, probably impelled the most by Poland and Turkey, which border on Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia has become economically totally dependent on China, and if China becomes more aggressive in East Asia, supplies to Russia will diminish. Extreme Russian weakness in its far east will open the door for China to reestablish hegemony over the only Chinese territory which was ceded to western powers and never recovered. When there is talk about Chinese "humiliation," people forget this, but I'm sure China really doesn't.
In central Asia, it's the same story. Russia will lose influence relative to China.
A section of the American foreign policy establishment, and of the European, correctly diagnosed that it was in Russia's best interest to maintain a positive relationship with the West to counterbalance its weakness elsewhere. Putin chose otherwise, unwisely. Most ethnic Russians are socially, culturally, and economically, Westerners with a capital "W."
There is no viable Russian success possible in this aggression against Ukraine. It never made sense in the larger context of the total Russian geopolitical exposure, and I don't think it will last beyond Putin.
Thank you for writing about the pointlessness of Russia's war in Ukraine. No EU country was or ever will consider an attack on Russia. All the EU and the US wanted was stable borders and governments in Eurasia and open trade. Russia could have been a respected partner with a growing economy, perhaps even joining the EU and NATO.
I don't agree. Intervention in Ukraine was certainly motivated by a desire to draw the line as to how far the US (via NATO) could advance without an overt Russian reaction. Ukraine, after all, had been an integral part of the Russian Empire and of the USSR. But the Russian foreign policy establishment also detected that the West wasn't really convinced about the need for Ukraine, and that it would react as it did -- which it did mostly because Ukraine actually beat back the Russian invasion. Everyone was surprised, of course. The US and major EU partners saw the opportunity to embarrass the Russians at a low cost to themselves. Ukraine all of a sudden became important to the West in an unexpected way. As it now stands both Russia and the West bought into a contest neither side could have predicted two years ago. It's not really going well for either side, but neither can escape it.
But it's a bigger problem for Russia. It's been isolated, lost almost all the leverage it had with the EU, and been thrown into China's lukewarm embrace. Everyone is taking advantage of that.
NATO membership was always a red herring. Putin wars and invastions (Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, etc) for domestic political purposes, not geostrategic ones. A western-leaning Ukraine is a nest of thorns for Russian domestic politics and legitimacy.
"f Germany and France and the UK continue to talk big but let their militaries decay into nothingness, the future of Europe will likely be written in Moscow, despite all of Russia’s stumbles so far." Hear, hear! But how do we get more people to hear it? This is a message that needs to lead in the news and political debate but absolutely struggles to get airtime.
Also, I am not sure if more coverage of this in America would be helpful or just create talking points for neo-isolationist, Europe definitely needs to step up, but their lack of participation in their own defense causes domestic political issues in the US.
Didn't take the US long to lose interest in a war with no boots on the ground, I wouldn't be feeling too good if I was Taiwan, their sell by date is whenever the Friendshore onboards enough chip making to not need them anymore.
A real question is, if the Ukraine war gets frozen in amber, and Trump takes the US out of NATO, will Putin just move on to the Baltics without needing to complete a conquest of Ukraine?
It's not that the U.S. has lost *interest*. It's that America is *polarized and divided*. The MAGA faction has turned Ukraine aid into a culture war and litmus test, like abortion, immigration, etc. This creates paralysis, even though Americans still care about the war.
Many reasons but the biggest one is simply that conservatives have become enamoured with authoritarians and recognise themselves ideologically in Putin, Orban etc.
Fox is selling to these people. It may have started with Fox leading but now it got to give them what they want, just to stand still.
shades of "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader".
Unless Russia can return Kiev back to Moscow's orbit, a Baltics invasion would likely would give Ukraine just the opportunity it needs to break through. Kiev would be planning that for years.
"So Europe — most of all Germany — really needs to step up here. If Germany and France and the UK continue to talk big but let their militaries decay into nothingness, the future of Europe will likely be written in Moscow, despite all of Russia’s stumbles so far."
I don't get it. You describe in this article that "Ukraine wasn’t just much smaller and less militarized than Russia in 2022 — it was also much poorer.", and that Ukraine nonetheless managed to defend itself from the 1st invasion, and to resist afterwards.
So what makes you think that Russia could beat the armies of all the EU countries + the UK, whose combined GDP is more than 10 times greater than Russia's?
The Russian army would probably lose in a conventional war against only the French and German armies combined.
Against that of the 28, the result is clear. No need for NATO and the USA. They would certainly help, but would not be indispensable.
Noah’s point is that US and EU weapons were essential to helping Ukraine fight Russia. Those stockpiles are now badly depleted and must be replenished. Otherwise, if Russia attacks the wealthy EU, what are Europeans supposed to fight with, their bare hands?
OK but when Russia attacked Ukraine, it still had its entire stock of military equipment, including huge reserves from the Soviet era.
OK, Russia can produce a lot of shells now, great. But Europe gave away only a tiny fraction of its equipment, and still has vast reserves of equipment far more modern than that of the Russians.
And the stalemate in Ukraine also directly comes for the absence of any air superiority for any party, but in a case of a war of Russia against the EU + UK without NATO, this will not be the case : the air power is vastly in favor of the EU + UK.
The article also goes on to say that the advantage is now with the defenders, so the governments of the Baltic countries are likely to prepare to defend themselves, with the help of the EU and NATO.
"The kind of rapid, tank-led blitzkriegs that defined World War 2 are mostly a thing of the past, at least without overwhelming airpower. Land war has sort of gone back to what it was in WW1 — a slow grinding fight for small bits of territory where firepower and resources matter more than brilliant maneuvers."
Doesn't it contradict the idea that Russia could take the Baltic countries easily ?
Europe's preparedness is overstated, they don't have the spare parts for the equipment that they have and they never really bought large stores of munitions after the Cold War. Every defense article has a life span. Right now the rocket artillery that the Germans bought in the 1980s is so old that it's sweating nitroglycerine and can't be handled safely, let alone used in combat.
Finland is the most notable exception, if I had to guess the only countries in Europe that could repel the Russians in a land war are Finland and maybe France. UK certainly could not and they're better prepared than the rest.
Even if what you say is true, we are talking about the combined armies of 28 countries representing more than 10 times the GDP of Russia. Russia can’t even invade a country 10 times poorer. Come on.
GDP doesn't correlate directly to military equipment, and it absolutely doesn't correlate to military readiness. When the war started Ukraine had 1/5th the military equipment that Europe has, but it was in better condition than what the Europeans have. Some of the maintenance reports coming out of EU countries are appalling, in many countries none of the tanks are operational and spare parts for new systems like the German Puma are in such short supply that they can't meet NATO commitments, despite using a system that is currently in production. And that's before you get to ammunition.
The only thing the EU has going for it in this respect is that Eastern Europe and Finland hate the Russians with passion and have maintained larger military capabilities than most of Western Europe. But in a short campaign very little of that could be brought to bear in defense of the Baltic states. In a long campaign they'd run out of ammunition and spare parts before the Russians will, unless the United States fills our traditional role of building it for them, which we haven't quite gotten sorted out this time around.
Ukraine is the largest, most veteran, and most well armed force in Europe. France and Germany would not be able to do as well as Ukraine has ... unless they rearm and rebuild munitions capacity, among other things.
I would not put much faith in German forces especially. It can't field an armoured brigade, can't fight at night and doesn't have experience outside foreign bases. It's at best the 7th or 8th most capable military in Europe, and worse. Even its industrial capacity has been greatly undermined by the energy crisis.
The UK, Sweden, Finland and Poland are more likely to be effective against Russia, especially if they sew up JEF, their non-NATO alliance.
Generally Inwoukd avoid WW2 analogies for this context but I think there is some utility in thinking about what Russias actions represent using the run up to WW2.
First, I think it highly unlikely the Russia would invade Germany in the foreseeable future. However , is you think of Ukraine as a less willing Austria, and then the Baltic States would be the Sudetenland.
Quickly overrun it would be tought for NATO and impossible without America to stop them from being overrun. Finally Poland would be like Poland. Probably the ignition device for a larger global war. Especially id the US was engaged with China.
There obvious differences, due to NATO and other treaty obligations. But the broad contours are similar.
Finally, if China wanted Taiwan have Russia on their side would provide them with a greatly increased nuclear deterrence. So they may be willing to push Russia in the direction.
This is definitely not a prophecy. But represents a very dangerous potential outcome. The best way to prevent this is to:
1. Keep Russia tied up in Ukraine or even better run out of Ukraine (this is highly unlikely).
2. Posses sufficient weapons of a type that would discourage both countries from action.
3. Couple this deterrence with a greatly improved capacity to produce weapons.
4. Offer both countries (China and Russia) some kind of inventory save face and offer other benefits.
By fare the cheapest and most important of these is keeping Russia busy, and burning down its stockpile of weapons, in Ukraine. It prevents the other dominos from falling I the case of the Baltiics and Poland and lessens Russias value to China as an allly if they want to try for Taiwan (not to mention a more stable and well defended Ukraine let’s the US focus more on the Pacific).
PS sorry for all typos. Using my phone and have fat fingers.
Ukraine also had very little in the way of an air force. The planes it wanted and still wants, Europe has. I would be surprised if European air power, even minus the US, couldn't stop any Baltic invasion on day one. The measly European war productive capacity would not be an issue. But what do the military needs say about that? I'm not one, obviously.
An invasion of Poland in say a 10 year perspective, strikes me as a pure fantasy, supposing an American Pacific war, long-termTrumpist and post-Trump disengagement from Nato, long-term Putinist appetite for punishing adventureism, also post-Putin, troops removed from occupying Ukraine, new tanks, etc.
"With the notable exception of Poland" is a textbook case of "with notably rare exceptions". The frontline EU states alone have military capacity comparable to Russia and are building fast.
The US has been trickling in support. We started out sending Javelin missiles, which was controversial, we've now sent them a relatively small amount of equipment (two companies of tanks, some IFVs, 1% of our rocket launchers). The claim on munitions has been higher, the production rate on Patriot missiles, GMLRS, etc is so low that we've been running down our stocks to provide what we have. For 155mm ammunition, I estimate that we've sent more shells than we currently have in inventory, although the actual numbers are classified.
This has been a disaster because the longer the war goes on the more adapted the Russians become. ATACMs is a good example, we refused to send them for years. When we finally did, the first thing the Ukrainians did with them is hit a KA52 helicopter base and destroy a number of attack helicopters. This is most significant because those helicopters were the weapon which turned the Ukrainian counterattack, by hitting breaching vehicles from long range.
If we had sent those missiles earlier it is possible that they could have made a significant impact on the Ukrainian offensive.
I don't know why the Biden administration is bumbling its way through this crisis like so many others, but I agree that without US intervention the Baltics could be subsumed in a week. Europe doesn't have the ability to protect them, and the single most effective military in Europe, that of Finland, was designed to fight with its own borders. They aren't organized or equipped to leave Finland to fight.
As much as I would like to see Europe take its own defense seriously, they've shown that they have no interest in doing so and this war hasn't changed that. As a result, we are running down stocks on missiles that we would desperately need in a war with China, and that's bad.
The Finland winter war analogy is a good one….though remember that Finland was neutral toward Russia for many decades afterwards.
What you are missing is that Ukraine is a wedge issue for both Biden and Trump supporters and partisans generally. You yourself are looking at this with a heavy emphasis on Putin and Trump, which impedes rational analysis.
Remember that the 2014 invasion did not turn Putin into an evil Hitler for Dem pols (Obama and Kerry later cooperated with and entreated Putin in Syria and on other fronts), nor was Ukraine considered a strategic issue of national import for the US after 2014. Yes, at least they put on some sanctions against Russia (and helped train UA troops- albeit with no US weapons) rather than appeasing and kowtowing to Putin as Obama/Biden did during their famous “reset” after Putin’s invasion and effective annexation of Georgian territory (hey- I wonder what gave Putin the idea he could take what he wanted without consequences?).
It really was the Hillary campaign’s “Russian collusion” disinformation in 2016 (and after) that turned Putin into enemy number one with Dem partisans, and protecting Bidens’ ill-gotten gains and interference in Ukraine made plucky Ukraine a hero of Trump’s first impeachment.
Trump, to his credit, confronted Russia in Syria, opposed the Nordstream pipeline, sent weapons to Ukraine and harangued the EU on its inadequate defence spending. However, Putin was not afraid of Trump in Ukraine. Putin began his prep for invasion in 2020 during Covid- Russia cut fiscal policy and had a budget surplus (and the lowest debt to GDP amongst OECD countries) in 2020 when everyone else was spending money like water to offset the pandemic. He also built up a 300 billion war chest of special reserves (much of which now frozen in the US and Europe). He was preparing for a more confrontational/interventionist strategic in the CIS states that had more to do with Putin’s own legacy than whether Biden or Trump were elected- a re-litigation of the terms of the breakup of the Soviet empire that more heavily weighted Russian interests than the one Yeltsin acceded to in 1991. Crimea and the Donbas were just the beginning.
Biden, while Russia was massing troops on Ukraine’s borders and intervening in Belarus and Kazakhstan, signed a Russian-friendly nuke deal with Russia, summited with Putin and blessed Nordstream 2. More appeasement and entreaty. At the same time he made another NATO declaration with Zelensky (Nov 2021), said nothing as Zelensky implemented discriminatory and jingoistic anti-Russian legislation in Ukraine and fortunately sent more shipments of the MPADs the US had been sent under Trump.
However, despite believing that a Russian invasion was imminent by late 2021, Biden sent no heavy weapons to Ukraine, no air defense systems to Ukraine to protect civilians, and moved no additional US troops or planes to Europe in 2021 (this would have left the US and Europe spectacularly unprepared if Putin wanted more than just Ukraine). In fact, Biden and US Intel thought Ukraine would lose quickly and were more focused on evacuating Zelensky than arming him.
Fortunately, Putin chose a bizarre decapitation strategy in Ukraine rather than a well-resourced invasion.- believing his yes-men that the government would fall quickly and be replaced by a pro-Russian one. Russian assets (Ukrainian pols) in major cities were set to peacefully hand keys to Russian civil defense troops. This indeed happened in Kherson and several southern and NE towns but not in Kharkiv and Odessa. When the decapitation strategy failed and the UA fought valiantly (mostly with MPADs and western Intel), Russia changed its military leadership and strategy, withdrew to defensive lines (and behind natural barriers like the River) and heavily reinforced them with mines, barriers and the conscription of hundreds of thousands of new troops, and beefed up military production while annexing (in theory) the four provinces they partially occupied.
Russia has followed their botched decapitation with a very intelligent and sustainable strategy that plays to Russian strengths.
Biden’s strategy has wavered between capricious and pragmatic while consistently being dishonest. Taibbi had a great take on this a couple days ago. Painting Putin as Hitler and supporting Ukraine polled well with his base as a wedge issue and made Biden look decisive after the Afghan debacle, so his base became massive and bloodthirsty interventionist chicken hawks when it came to Ukraine as Biden and team fed them lies about the war and nice throwaway lines never ever linked to actual US policy (“Putin must go”, “Putin is a war criminal”).
Biden sent heavy arms to Ukraine…..usually at least six months later than necessary. He dithered on tanks, HImARs, ATAMCs, air defence, F-16s…..you name it. Moreover, he has let most of Europe get away (brazenly) with continuing to underspend on defense and allowing France to contribute almost nothing to Ukraine. If Ukraine is so important an issue, why is Europe not treating it like one. And why should it be America’s problem? A problem is that demonizing Putin and lying about Ukraine’s prospects keeps Biden’s base happy, but he has done far too little actual work with allies, with defense production, with armaments to convince any rational non-partisan analyst that Ukraine is a vitally important issue worth spending an extra $50 or $100 billion a year on in perpetuity while most of Europe continues to spend less than 2 pct of GDP on defense. Yes- the EU is spending a good amount on Ukraine (particularly Germany) but German and French companies stand to make bank during the rebuilding.
As for Ukraine, with no Air Force and a lack of manpower nobody serious believed they would ever be able to breach the heavily entrenched Russian lines last fall. These were lies told for political wedge purposes or (charitably) relied on the very low prob scenario of all of Russian conscripts running away and abandoning lines at the first sight of a Bradley. The latter scenario requires ignorance of the techniques Russia has used for 80 years to keep soldiers at the front from running away. Ukraine would have had more success if tanks and APCs had been sent in quantity 3-4 months earlier (before Russian defenses were complete and conscripts trained and deployed). Biden’s (and the EU’s) dithering destroyed chances for the offensive. All is not lost given the small bridgeheads across the river, but Russia is probably going to make more gains in Zap and the Donbas than the UA will make in the south unless the river freezes hard or dries up or Ukraine gets 50 F16s with thousands of missiles (unlikely in the near term). Hats off to the UK and much of E Europe for being more proactive and trying to push the laggards in the US, France and Germany.
As for Ukraine- it is a bankrupt, corrupt, heavily damaged country with a good portion of its population now living in the EU and with the surviving husbands of the women and children in the EU hoping to join them as soon as feasible. Free housing. Good work opportunities. No bombs. No conscription. Ukrainians are definitely more patriotic and nationalistic but they are also not stupid.
Russian sanctions were designed to be leaky. Gazprom and other metals and energy producers were never sanctioned nor prevented from receiving payments from the EU and US. Gas continues to flow through an undamaged pipeline in Ukraine to Europe while Europe imports large amounts of Russian LNG. French and German and Italian exporters see a windfall as their clients in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, China and India mysteriously double their orders for dual use components. .
The good news out of Ukraine is that it has proven that Russian conventional forces present no real threat to NATO (certainly not if Europe armed itself appropriately), Russia is weaker economically and militarily and Putin has learned that forcibly expanding his zone of interest can be costly. Of course, Obama/Biden could have taught him that lesson in 2014 (except then the base wasn’t anti-Putin and pro war back then- thank you Hillary, Brennan, Clapper, Comey for the false narratives to cover up your spying on the Trump campaign and justify continuing it through FISA when Rogers at the NSA learned of your 4th amendment civil rights violations via the NSA database and FBI “contractors”).
The bad news is that Biden has made no strategic case for long term Ukraine intervention - relying on emotional appeals (Putin is evil and a threat to NATO etc) that work on his base but nobody else - certainly not working on Defense ministers and PMs in the EU.
Even worse bad news is that NATO is indeed more threatened (though not seriously at risk conventionally) because Putin now has troops and nukes permanently stationed in Belarus, right alongside the Baltics. The potential risk from Russian forces in Belarus is far greater than Russian forces in Southern and Eastern Ukraine. NATO security is worse off rather than better as a result.
I’d like to see a ceasefire and a re-arming of Ukraine (with long range missiles, F16s, more air defense, C-Rams and armor) with some security guarantees (provided Germany, France, the UK and Poland at the very least also sign on). Anyone who would replace Putin now would be just as confrontational- after a few years of ceasefire perhaps someone more domestically-oriented will replace Putin. Wait him out. Ukraine should not be on the NATO fast track. That is a dream (in 20-30 years- who knows). I am sceptical about EU “fast track” (which seems like 20 years anyway - not least because Ukraine governs with actual Fascists and enforced discrimination against minorities - makes Orban look like a piker). Moldova should also get some security guarantees from European nations.
However, I’d be prepared to reduce the weaponry and security commitments sent to Ukraine in return for Russian withdrawal of forces and nukes from Belarus. That would actually be in NATO interest (Putin wouldn’t agree unless we had a Prez threatening to position nukes and more forces in Poland and the Baltics- Biden is not that guy- and that brinksmanship is probably stupid anyway as it seems clear that Europe should be in charge of its own defense over the long term (including Ukraine) with the US providing a supporting role but not the primary expense and risk. Asia is more important than Europe. Even the Mideast is. Latam surely is. Europe also needs to take the lead in N Africa and integrate that more tightly (economically and militarily) with the EU. It is a shame that Biden has not used his political capital in the EU (relative to the Orange man) to force European NATO allies to defend and arm themselves and play a more forceful role in Ukraine and Europe’s near abroad generally. His base loves it when he berates and micromanages Bibi or Israel, but not France, Germany and Holland
This seems like a reasonable analysis of the West’s missteps due to reluctance to escalate military aid, combined with a lot of weak and incoherent vibes-based Taibbi analysis. Specifically noting the weird idea that Biden “lied about the reasons for the war” which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Is the insinuation that the whole US support project was done for domestic political consumption? Cause that’s a dumb thing Taibbi would say, not knowing anything about geopolitics. Or is the claim that things would be in any way strategically different if Biden had sold the war differently to the US public, say by explaining his strategic reasoning in a series of fireside chats? None of it makes a lick of sense outside of Taibbi logic.
For the record: I don’t think Biden’s reasons for supporting Ukraine have much to do with domestic politics. I think he’s a conventional US politician and is a believer in the longstanding US military doctrine of pushing back against a destabilizing world power, taking into account that US voters don’t usually want US soldiers at risk. I think he’s also taking the opportunity to degrade Russia’s military capabilities in advance of a potential Pacific conflict (where Russia will absolutely use their military to tie down NATO forces and degrade the US’s readiness overseas.) I am also quite confident that if China invades Taiwan and we end up in a Pacific conflict, given a little time to get spun up, the Taibbis and Carlsons will eventually recast it as a Democratic political stunt - even if there’s strong bipartisan consensus at the outset.
(Finally, although I don’t think it’s significant at all to the reasoning behind this war, I also find the Taibbi-esque implication that Putin isn’t doing war crimes kind of gross. But that’s because Taibbi doesn’t know anything about war crimes.)
"Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are small countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union, and would offer Putin access to the [Baltic] Sea. They have tiny populations, and their only real defense is their NATO membership."
Hm. Putin thought he would roll Ukraine like a carpet and that didn't go well. Those countries have conscript armies, iirc. They can generate significant fighting force fairly fast. I wouldn't count on Russia just steam rolling them.
"After that, Putin would definitely at least think about attacking Poland. Poland has a population similar to Ukraine, and a bigger manufacturing industry and much higher GDP, so it could put up quite a fight, even without U.S. aid."
Hm. Putin is old, he won't live forever. How long do you think all this digestion of Ukraine (guerrilla warfare would be a given), conquest of the Baltic and rearmament would take? At least a solid decade?
"if it refuses to do so, and leaves itself open to Russian attack, Europe will have only its own ineffectuality to blame. If this happens, Europe will have proven itself to be a defunct civilization."
Right. Much as I like to shred Europe and the EU for its ineffectuality myself, we still have nukes. If Russia crosses into Germany, I'm pretty sure France and the UK will go nuclear. It doesn't end well for Europe but I'd say the US won't have to worry about Russia anymore for a couple of centuries either...
One of the best things I've read about Putin's reasons for invading was in William Burns' memoir "The Back Channel". In a meeting with Putin in 2008 (?) he goes off about Ukraine joining NATO as a threat to Russia and adds in "Didn't you know Ukraine isn't even a real country?". Goes to show his motivations and it's great that you touched upon the fact that self determination is something Ukraine will inevitably win out of this war.
I have mostly not found the argument "If we don't stop Ukraine here, Poland is next" Not to be credible. Russia has been stopped in Ukraine and if they can't handle Ukraine they certainly can't handle Poland.
But I think you make an excellent point that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are in danger of Russia keeps its chunk of Ukraine and NATO deterrence is not credible with a Trump administration.
Defeatism is never pretty, even when anodized with the sheen of concern.
1. The F-35 still has AT LEAST a 10x RCS advantage over China's J-20.
2. Most of China's combat ships are light littoral vessels. They can't raise a candle to our Arleigh Burkes, even in large numbers. They only have 89 destroyers and frigates, vs. our 98 cruisers and destroyers. They only have 3 more attack submarines than we do - 54 to our 51.
At most, it's an even fight. But we, y'know, actually know how to fight. I won't pooh-pooh the entire PLAN - some of their finest warriors and scrappiest upstarts will surely get the better of some of our lazier crews. But the edge goes to us.
And just ask the Iranians what happened the last time a bunch of gunboats tried to step to us.
3. China's vaunted hypersonic missiles have a key flaw: They can't hit the broad side of a barn at range.
4. The biggest single unknown is just the cyber capabilities on either side. The battle over Taiwan won't be decided by ships and missiles alone; it'll be decided by a bunch of nerds and hackers FIRST. If that ends in a stalemate, then the ships and missiles duke it out. But if not, then one side hacks/blinds/otherwise disables the other and curb-stomps the shit out of them.
I surely don't intend to be defeatist, but the reality of a naval and air war on the other side of the Pacific is completely unpredictable. Seth is right, we'd have to have our fleets in position at all times and on high alert, ready for the PRC to make their move. We couldn't sustain that tempo of operations for very long, both cost wise and human wise. Back in 1984 as a young ensign, my destroyer was in a NATO squadron on our way to Helsinki for a port visit. We had to stand port and starboard watches (6hrs on, 6hrs off) at a readiness condition just shy of general quarters due to all the Soviet and eastern bloc aircraft, subs, and patrol boats making passes at us. After three days of endless high-tension situations our crews were completely spent, and not one weapon was fired (a Finish sauna fixed us up). All the Chinese have to do is play with us out there, far from home, till they wear us down.
The PRC isn't going to manage a surprise invasion. This isn't like Normandy, where the major question was where *specifically* the Allies would land. TW only has so much shoreline, and the forces necessary to conduct a successful amphibious operation are impossible to muster without anyone noticing.
Any buildup of forces would happen slowly on both sides, so having our fleets in position really isn't as big of a delaying factor.
The big question IMO isn't whether the PLAN harasses us out in open waters, but whether they are able to draw us into the envelope of their shoreline batteries. That's the only place they can really muster an edge against us. In order to harass us, they have to leave that envelope, and I think we win most of those one-on-one fights out there. The big picture is that it's a cat-and-mouse game, and I would hope we have the strategic discipline to recognize that and not overextend ourselves as the cat.
Which brings us back to Noah's general contention that China probably has to attempt a decapitation strike against our Pacific bases. Rattle the hornet's nest enough, and sure, the cat will lash out and expose its weak underbelly.
But that only matters as far as we can contest the air war. The main challenge is just how quickly our F-35's can effectuate an SEAD campaign against the shoreline batteries. The faster we can push back the envelope, the less cat-and-mouse we have to play. It's basically a race between how fast our fighters can do that, and how fast the PLA can push its beachhead on TW.
Oh, and one more thing... Our air superiority also gives us a major leg up against their supposed 2:1 destroyer count. Hornets and Fat Amys fly a lot faster than destroyers can sail. Even if they shoot every single plane down, $100-150M planes are an EXCELLENT trade for $888M T55 destroyers.
Fighting experience is the most salient part of your response. That only counts for about a year worth of war, maybe two. This would not be a short war, unless the US bases are taken out before it begins.
China can outproduce the US in naval construction by a factor of 200x. The US is greatly outmatched in industrial capacity to fight a total war.
Even if the USN managed to bottle up China, I wouldn't bet on it failing to outproduce the US.
>>China can outproduce the US in naval construction by a factor of 200x.
That's a canard.
We may not have the infrastructure anymore, but the DPA and a hot war have a wonderful way of overruling our decadent NIMBYism when it counts. The shipyards will get built. And my hometown of St. Louis has hundreds of acres of defunct manufacturing facilities just waiting to be converted to F-35 factories.
Beyond that, we still have TONS of the physical resources -- iron that isn't being mined over environmental concerns, etc -- and a whole generation of young men who are currently busy playing COD in their parents' basements because they'd love to participate in a war effort but haven't been needed to.
And for once in our history of leadups to global conflicts, Germany and France aren't already busy bombing each other to shit. Their alliance, namby-pamby as it is, is the strongest it's ever been. The US alone might present a weakened-looking target, but the US and Canada, plus Europe, plus Japan, Korea, the Philippines, the Aussies, and probably the Indonesians and Indians under the table... yeah I think we'll be OK.
2x or maybe even 5x would be a canard. Not 200x. The greatest non-trivial scale up of any navy in a global conflict, by the way, is 50x. 84 years ago, and still few capital ships.
You don't spin up a modern navy in a couple years any more. Nor do you get the people to learn advanced manufacturing in an instant.
The US is starting *years* behind China on the inputs and human capital needed, and China has greater ability to scale up than the US has today or at any time in its past.
The history of WW1 and WW2 gives the US false confidence that it can repeat a performance of showing up late, scaling up, and making a difference. Modern warfare complexity and a genuine rival in heft and capacity are critical differences this time.
Worse, as divided as the US was in the 1930s, it's far more divided today. 2023 has demonstrated that even a chance to beat an arch-enemy isn't enough to keep its attention away from scrolling TikTok, or a minor conflict elsewhere.
As for counting on militaries that would operate in the Pacific, Japan is the only other one that can make a difference, although I'd add Australia by the 2030s. Korea and the Phillipines would have problems getting supplied. As for the likes of Europe - no. Canada - comically incapable
>>2x or maybe even 5x would be a canard. Not 200x. The greatest non-trivial scale up of any navy in a global conflict, by the way, is 50x. 84 years ago, and still few capital ships.
Not sure what you mean there. But I *will* note that even taking your "200x" number for the shipyards, that's still only something that can help them in the long run. It militates towards the US being *more* realistically able to catch up within the first year or two, not *less*.
Also, I'd note that if they still only barely have us to an even fight on capital ships -- and are still WAY behind us on carriers -- that means that most of their "200x" shipyards are being used for those dinky little missile boats. I won't act like it's impossible for those to make a difference, but as I said to Seth below, it's just as possible for them to simply make good target practice for our fighter pilots out in the open waters that are the only place they can hope to make a difference.
The only other thing those "200x" shipyards would help with would be building cargo vessels for shipping. And, uhh... China is a land power, yo. They've got *2* adjacent coasts, surrounded by hostile countries that control strategic straits. You think Singapore is going to stretch its neck out for them? Who do you think has the bigger blue-water navy to muscle up a global strategic blockade of Chinese wartime shipping? Where else are they going to ship stuff *to* if they're in a war? The more resources they have to devote to projecting power to maintain trade for their war machine, they more they have to sacrifice their vaunted numerical advantage, the more neighbors they have to piss off by subjugation or threats thereof, AND -- most importantly -- the further they have to venture out of their vaunted protective envelope.
America may have a depleted, creaky merchant marine, but China's merchant marine and "200x" shipyards won't do them any good bottled up with nowhere to go. Not to mention, our merchant marine is only depleted because our big multinationals all figured it was in their financial interest to re-flag and build ships elsewhere during peacetime. That logic changes when we're the only blue-water navy capable of guaranteeing their security anywhere in the world.
>>Modern warfare complexity and a genuine rival in heft and capacity are critical differences this time.
If that's true, then it also means that our technology advantage over the Chinese is still viable. Diminished perhaps, since they're a near-peer, but not lost. Anything that's too complex for us to scale up is also too complex for the Chinese to merely *leapfrog*, and is also too advanced for their quantity to overcome our quality.
We aren't the Nazis desperately trying to make superweapons work against a massive industrial machine. We're a semi-deindustrialized information-age superpower up against a massively industrializing information-paranoid upstart. We have legitimate superweapons. A lot has been made of China and Russia's cyber capabilities, but the fact that we've been so insanely tight-lipped about our own cyber capabilities means we've either got a trump card up our sleeves or we're desperately behind. You and I probably have no way of knowing which one it is, but I sincerely hope it's the former. We'll find out *eventually*, at any rate.
The point is, though, even if we can fight the cyberwar to a stalemate, our satellites are ages ahead of the Chinese. And the prospect of space debris makes any kinetic anti-satellite campaign a GLOBALLY toxically unpopular strategy - the number one way for China to piss India and Brazil off would be to scuttle all hope they have of building legitimate space programs.
All of that is to say, I suspect we've still got a decent edge in PGMs. I'm not naive/willfully-blind enough to say it'll win the whole conflict for us, but it's probably enough of a force multiplier to mitigate numerical disadvantages. One of the reasons people like to crow over or cower at notions like China's supposed swarms of missile boats, is that those ships are supposedly fast-moving and hard to hit. But if we can still hit them anyways with PGMs... that advantage is null and void. It's just a matter of how fast Intel can crank out guidance chips for Raytheon to put in the missiles.
>>As for the likes of Europe - no. Canada - comically incapable
Europe and Canada don't have to actually get their forces to the Pacific theater in order to make a difference. A mass mobilization of their forces in the Mediterranean alone would give us the breathing room to send our own forces to the Pacific.
So, they're not the AAA club that we'd be calling up to the majors to play a big triple-header series. No, they're the well-stocked farm system that helps the AAA team not skip a beat when we have to call up the rehabbing superstars we stashed on the AAA roster. Europe and Canada can't do everything, but they CAN do THAT. They can police the Med and the Atlantic just as well as we can.
Cheers for having a well-thought-out debate, sir. Just curious, what's your actual valence here? Concerned US stalwart? You don't come across like much of a troll or a China/Russia fanboy.
Anyways, just one last cheeky thought that made me chuckle... Our rednecks voted for Trump precisely because this is the kind of fight they've been spoiling for for decades and haven't really had in a while. No foreign power has ever won by betting against American rednecks.
The US will never have the entirety of our fleet available to fight. We have ships scattered all over the world and home ported in the Atlantic. It would take weeks to get them all assembled, and the largest naval battles would likely be over by then. As a result, we have to assume that they will outnumber the USN by 2:1 or more during the first missile salvo.
Counterattack with what? The rest of the USN is weeks away. The Chinese can bring their entire force to bear in the SCS and ECS, where they are under coverage of land based aviation and fires. We have the entire world to cover. And that's not including whatever attempts they make to disrupt us abroad, at maritime choke points or using fishing or cargo vessels with weapons.
Not a military analyst either but regarding the thesis of anti tank missiles making armored vehicles advance close to impossible it's worth following another important development from the Israeli-Hamas war. The Israeli Armoured Shield Protection - Active (בראשי תיבות: ASPRO-A is able to shield Israeli tanks almost hermetically from anti tank missiles (upwards of 95% success according to official data but really very few cases in which it failed so far) which is a game changer in this particular conflict and has allowed the Israelis to advance their armored vehicles with relatively minor losses from the many anti-tank missiles of Hamas
Great article Noah! I agree that if Russia is not stopped, it ultimately wants to reclaim its Soviet borders, which were the most manageable for Russia to ever hold and defend in history. As Peter Zeihan points out in The Absent Superpower (https://thexproject.substack.com/p/the-absent-superpower-the-shale-revolution-ccb), Russia is in its demographic "twilight" and, therefore, only has a few years remaining to make that happen before it the male fighting population ages out.
With that said, @Dr. Pippa has argued that WWIII started years ago, the nature of which is fundamentally different than prior world wars in that it is being fought in space, cyber, and undersea, and it is also an economic, financial, and technological war. She has said, "We have a hot war in cold places and a cold war in hot places." (https://drpippa.substack.com/p/a-hot-war-in-hot-places?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2; https://drpippa.substack.com/p/wwiii-winning-the-peace?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2). The US won the Cold War by outspending and bankrupting the Soviet Union. Putin and Xi surely know that recent history and the precarious state of the US Treasury market, which is under stress with the need to finance $2 trillion in deficits in a supposedly robust economy with low employment. So, maybe Putin is winning more than 18% of the Ukrainian territory at this point with the additional US deficit spending on the war and with the political discord.
But the Russia-Ukraine war is a small battle in the much bigger war for regional hegemony of the Eurasian landmass, and it may not be Russia but China that is the more significant longer-term threat to US strategic interests in denying such a regional hegemon. @Dr. Pippa suggested in a recent article on the Xi-Biden deal (which she claims was really a Xi-Newsom one) that part of the deal in thawing tensions with China in the short run to help service US domestic political interests is that the US will look the other way as China absorbs the resource-rich Eastern portion of Russia (https://drpippa.substack.com/p/deal-the-siberian-tiger-and-the-panda?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2).
If true, that is very concerning and short-sighted.
If China did end up making a move on the Russian Far East, I hope the West would allow Japan to reclaim Karafuto and Chishima (aka Sakhalin Oblast) in order to extend the "first island chain" barrier that stands between the PLAN and the open Pacific Ocean.
A bit of perspective: look at the change in the late 20th century map (USSR vs. stand-alone Russia). Now consider the addition of Finland to NATO, a doubling of NATO’s border with Russia.
Sure you can keep rapidly conscripting soldiers, but are they really soldiers who have had any decent training? And at some point, you’re forced to start conscripting from the middle class.
Attack Poland, where two million — a significant percentage of Russia’s young, educated tech-savvy — fled? If Russia thinks 30 Ukrainian drone hobbyists on bicycles were effective, it would be another mistake to underestimate Poland.
Putin has significantly damaged Russia’s economic prospects for two generations.
Again, China doesn’t have the conduits to take on the militaries outside the South China Sea. Who would be blockading who? They have provisioning reach of 1,000 nautical miles, hardly a world-beating conventional military force. Of course, China could use its modern missiles, but then all hell breaks loose and the whole world loses, an empty “victory” on an unprecedented scale. If Xi wants to stay in power, falling on his sword won’t work.
China likely will fall further behind on leading-edge chip manufacturing. American companies will invent better and safer batteries in this decade (e.g., silicon anode with thermal runway mitigation technologies, solid state). Its cheap labor has evolved into the middle-income trap.
Pollyannish? I don’t think so. Putin and Xi represent the worst of this generation of world leaders. The Silk Road Project is a failure, creating bad infrastructure and unsustainable debt in too many countries. It stands as an example of China’s failure in soft diplomacy as well as engineering incompetence.
But overall I think that Russia is the major power that has become most vulnerable as the result of the developments of the last few years. It sits between two large economic powers, the EU and China. The EU is launching accession talks with Ukraine, and is distancing itself from dependence on Russian supplies. NATO is enlarged, and Ukraine won't be far behind, probably impelled the most by Poland and Turkey, which border on Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia has become economically totally dependent on China, and if China becomes more aggressive in East Asia, supplies to Russia will diminish. Extreme Russian weakness in its far east will open the door for China to reestablish hegemony over the only Chinese territory which was ceded to western powers and never recovered. When there is talk about Chinese "humiliation," people forget this, but I'm sure China really doesn't.
In central Asia, it's the same story. Russia will lose influence relative to China.
A section of the American foreign policy establishment, and of the European, correctly diagnosed that it was in Russia's best interest to maintain a positive relationship with the West to counterbalance its weakness elsewhere. Putin chose otherwise, unwisely. Most ethnic Russians are socially, culturally, and economically, Westerners with a capital "W."
There is no viable Russian success possible in this aggression against Ukraine. It never made sense in the larger context of the total Russian geopolitical exposure, and I don't think it will last beyond Putin.
Thank you for writing about the pointlessness of Russia's war in Ukraine. No EU country was or ever will consider an attack on Russia. All the EU and the US wanted was stable borders and governments in Eurasia and open trade. Russia could have been a respected partner with a growing economy, perhaps even joining the EU and NATO.
I don't agree. Intervention in Ukraine was certainly motivated by a desire to draw the line as to how far the US (via NATO) could advance without an overt Russian reaction. Ukraine, after all, had been an integral part of the Russian Empire and of the USSR. But the Russian foreign policy establishment also detected that the West wasn't really convinced about the need for Ukraine, and that it would react as it did -- which it did mostly because Ukraine actually beat back the Russian invasion. Everyone was surprised, of course. The US and major EU partners saw the opportunity to embarrass the Russians at a low cost to themselves. Ukraine all of a sudden became important to the West in an unexpected way. As it now stands both Russia and the West bought into a contest neither side could have predicted two years ago. It's not really going well for either side, but neither can escape it.
But it's a bigger problem for Russia. It's been isolated, lost almost all the leverage it had with the EU, and been thrown into China's lukewarm embrace. Everyone is taking advantage of that.
NATO membership was always a red herring. Putin wars and invastions (Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, etc) for domestic political purposes, not geostrategic ones. A western-leaning Ukraine is a nest of thorns for Russian domestic politics and legitimacy.
Did Putin invade in part because he believed former comedian Zelensky would be a weakling, unlike his more nationalistic predecessor Poroshenko?
It’s the „Baltic Sea“ that Putin would get access to via the Baltic States. Not the „Black sea“
Yes! Yes yes yes
> Such non-powers can survive for a while, but eventually a conqueror will arrive, and the garden will burn.
"f Germany and France and the UK continue to talk big but let their militaries decay into nothingness, the future of Europe will likely be written in Moscow, despite all of Russia’s stumbles so far." Hear, hear! But how do we get more people to hear it? This is a message that needs to lead in the news and political debate but absolutely struggles to get airtime.
Also, I am not sure if more coverage of this in America would be helpful or just create talking points for neo-isolationist, Europe definitely needs to step up, but their lack of participation in their own defense causes domestic political issues in the US.
Didn't take the US long to lose interest in a war with no boots on the ground, I wouldn't be feeling too good if I was Taiwan, their sell by date is whenever the Friendshore onboards enough chip making to not need them anymore.
A real question is, if the Ukraine war gets frozen in amber, and Trump takes the US out of NATO, will Putin just move on to the Baltics without needing to complete a conquest of Ukraine?
It's not that the U.S. has lost *interest*. It's that America is *polarized and divided*. The MAGA faction has turned Ukraine aid into a culture war and litmus test, like abortion, immigration, etc. This creates paralysis, even though Americans still care about the war.
But that *is* 50% of the US populace indeed losing interest, or at least the portion that was previously interested.
To quote Kevin Drum, "In my opinion, Fox must be destroyed..."
Why would Fox News shill for Russian imperialism?
Many reasons but the biggest one is simply that conservatives have become enamoured with authoritarians and recognise themselves ideologically in Putin, Orban etc.
Fox is selling to these people. It may have started with Fox leading but now it got to give them what they want, just to stand still.
shades of "There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader".
If Fox News is adopting a Russophile stance to hang on to its audience, then Fox News itself isn't actually the problem.
Why (in your view) are ordinary Republican voters turning increasingly against Ukraine?
I don't think it's just a case of MAGA _politicians_ being bribed or otherwise compromised by Russia...
Unless Russia can return Kiev back to Moscow's orbit, a Baltics invasion would likely would give Ukraine just the opportunity it needs to break through. Kiev would be planning that for years.
"So Europe — most of all Germany — really needs to step up here. If Germany and France and the UK continue to talk big but let their militaries decay into nothingness, the future of Europe will likely be written in Moscow, despite all of Russia’s stumbles so far."
I don't get it. You describe in this article that "Ukraine wasn’t just much smaller and less militarized than Russia in 2022 — it was also much poorer.", and that Ukraine nonetheless managed to defend itself from the 1st invasion, and to resist afterwards.
So what makes you think that Russia could beat the armies of all the EU countries + the UK, whose combined GDP is more than 10 times greater than Russia's?
The Russian army would probably lose in a conventional war against only the French and German armies combined.
Against that of the 28, the result is clear. No need for NATO and the USA. They would certainly help, but would not be indispensable.
Noah’s point is that US and EU weapons were essential to helping Ukraine fight Russia. Those stockpiles are now badly depleted and must be replenished. Otherwise, if Russia attacks the wealthy EU, what are Europeans supposed to fight with, their bare hands?
OK but when Russia attacked Ukraine, it still had its entire stock of military equipment, including huge reserves from the Soviet era.
OK, Russia can produce a lot of shells now, great. But Europe gave away only a tiny fraction of its equipment, and still has vast reserves of equipment far more modern than that of the Russians.
And the stalemate in Ukraine also directly comes for the absence of any air superiority for any party, but in a case of a war of Russia against the EU + UK without NATO, this will not be the case : the air power is vastly in favor of the EU + UK.
The article also goes on to say that the advantage is now with the defenders, so the governments of the Baltic countries are likely to prepare to defend themselves, with the help of the EU and NATO.
"The kind of rapid, tank-led blitzkriegs that defined World War 2 are mostly a thing of the past, at least without overwhelming airpower. Land war has sort of gone back to what it was in WW1 — a slow grinding fight for small bits of territory where firepower and resources matter more than brilliant maneuvers."
Doesn't it contradict the idea that Russia could take the Baltic countries easily ?
Europe's preparedness is overstated, they don't have the spare parts for the equipment that they have and they never really bought large stores of munitions after the Cold War. Every defense article has a life span. Right now the rocket artillery that the Germans bought in the 1980s is so old that it's sweating nitroglycerine and can't be handled safely, let alone used in combat.
Finland is the most notable exception, if I had to guess the only countries in Europe that could repel the Russians in a land war are Finland and maybe France. UK certainly could not and they're better prepared than the rest.
Even if what you say is true, we are talking about the combined armies of 28 countries representing more than 10 times the GDP of Russia. Russia can’t even invade a country 10 times poorer. Come on.
GDP doesn't correlate directly to military equipment, and it absolutely doesn't correlate to military readiness. When the war started Ukraine had 1/5th the military equipment that Europe has, but it was in better condition than what the Europeans have. Some of the maintenance reports coming out of EU countries are appalling, in many countries none of the tanks are operational and spare parts for new systems like the German Puma are in such short supply that they can't meet NATO commitments, despite using a system that is currently in production. And that's before you get to ammunition.
The only thing the EU has going for it in this respect is that Eastern Europe and Finland hate the Russians with passion and have maintained larger military capabilities than most of Western Europe. But in a short campaign very little of that could be brought to bear in defense of the Baltic states. In a long campaign they'd run out of ammunition and spare parts before the Russians will, unless the United States fills our traditional role of building it for them, which we haven't quite gotten sorted out this time around.
Ukraine is the largest, most veteran, and most well armed force in Europe. France and Germany would not be able to do as well as Ukraine has ... unless they rearm and rebuild munitions capacity, among other things.
I would not put much faith in German forces especially. It can't field an armoured brigade, can't fight at night and doesn't have experience outside foreign bases. It's at best the 7th or 8th most capable military in Europe, and worse. Even its industrial capacity has been greatly undermined by the energy crisis.
The UK, Sweden, Finland and Poland are more likely to be effective against Russia, especially if they sew up JEF, their non-NATO alliance.
Generally Inwoukd avoid WW2 analogies for this context but I think there is some utility in thinking about what Russias actions represent using the run up to WW2.
First, I think it highly unlikely the Russia would invade Germany in the foreseeable future. However , is you think of Ukraine as a less willing Austria, and then the Baltic States would be the Sudetenland.
Quickly overrun it would be tought for NATO and impossible without America to stop them from being overrun. Finally Poland would be like Poland. Probably the ignition device for a larger global war. Especially id the US was engaged with China.
There obvious differences, due to NATO and other treaty obligations. But the broad contours are similar.
Finally, if China wanted Taiwan have Russia on their side would provide them with a greatly increased nuclear deterrence. So they may be willing to push Russia in the direction.
This is definitely not a prophecy. But represents a very dangerous potential outcome. The best way to prevent this is to:
1. Keep Russia tied up in Ukraine or even better run out of Ukraine (this is highly unlikely).
2. Posses sufficient weapons of a type that would discourage both countries from action.
3. Couple this deterrence with a greatly improved capacity to produce weapons.
4. Offer both countries (China and Russia) some kind of inventory save face and offer other benefits.
By fare the cheapest and most important of these is keeping Russia busy, and burning down its stockpile of weapons, in Ukraine. It prevents the other dominos from falling I the case of the Baltiics and Poland and lessens Russias value to China as an allly if they want to try for Taiwan (not to mention a more stable and well defended Ukraine let’s the US focus more on the Pacific).
PS sorry for all typos. Using my phone and have fat fingers.
Ukraine also had very little in the way of an air force. The planes it wanted and still wants, Europe has. I would be surprised if European air power, even minus the US, couldn't stop any Baltic invasion on day one. The measly European war productive capacity would not be an issue. But what do the military needs say about that? I'm not one, obviously.
An invasion of Poland in say a 10 year perspective, strikes me as a pure fantasy, supposing an American Pacific war, long-termTrumpist and post-Trump disengagement from Nato, long-term Putinist appetite for punishing adventureism, also post-Putin, troops removed from occupying Ukraine, new tanks, etc.
needs => nerds
"With the notable exception of Poland" is a textbook case of "with notably rare exceptions". The frontline EU states alone have military capacity comparable to Russia and are building fast.
https://crookedtimber.org/2011/03/30/with-notably-rare-exceptions/
The US has been trickling in support. We started out sending Javelin missiles, which was controversial, we've now sent them a relatively small amount of equipment (two companies of tanks, some IFVs, 1% of our rocket launchers). The claim on munitions has been higher, the production rate on Patriot missiles, GMLRS, etc is so low that we've been running down our stocks to provide what we have. For 155mm ammunition, I estimate that we've sent more shells than we currently have in inventory, although the actual numbers are classified.
This has been a disaster because the longer the war goes on the more adapted the Russians become. ATACMs is a good example, we refused to send them for years. When we finally did, the first thing the Ukrainians did with them is hit a KA52 helicopter base and destroy a number of attack helicopters. This is most significant because those helicopters were the weapon which turned the Ukrainian counterattack, by hitting breaching vehicles from long range.
If we had sent those missiles earlier it is possible that they could have made a significant impact on the Ukrainian offensive.
I don't know why the Biden administration is bumbling its way through this crisis like so many others, but I agree that without US intervention the Baltics could be subsumed in a week. Europe doesn't have the ability to protect them, and the single most effective military in Europe, that of Finland, was designed to fight with its own borders. They aren't organized or equipped to leave Finland to fight.
As much as I would like to see Europe take its own defense seriously, they've shown that they have no interest in doing so and this war hasn't changed that. As a result, we are running down stocks on missiles that we would desperately need in a war with China, and that's bad.
The Finland winter war analogy is a good one….though remember that Finland was neutral toward Russia for many decades afterwards.
What you are missing is that Ukraine is a wedge issue for both Biden and Trump supporters and partisans generally. You yourself are looking at this with a heavy emphasis on Putin and Trump, which impedes rational analysis.
Remember that the 2014 invasion did not turn Putin into an evil Hitler for Dem pols (Obama and Kerry later cooperated with and entreated Putin in Syria and on other fronts), nor was Ukraine considered a strategic issue of national import for the US after 2014. Yes, at least they put on some sanctions against Russia (and helped train UA troops- albeit with no US weapons) rather than appeasing and kowtowing to Putin as Obama/Biden did during their famous “reset” after Putin’s invasion and effective annexation of Georgian territory (hey- I wonder what gave Putin the idea he could take what he wanted without consequences?).
It really was the Hillary campaign’s “Russian collusion” disinformation in 2016 (and after) that turned Putin into enemy number one with Dem partisans, and protecting Bidens’ ill-gotten gains and interference in Ukraine made plucky Ukraine a hero of Trump’s first impeachment.
Trump, to his credit, confronted Russia in Syria, opposed the Nordstream pipeline, sent weapons to Ukraine and harangued the EU on its inadequate defence spending. However, Putin was not afraid of Trump in Ukraine. Putin began his prep for invasion in 2020 during Covid- Russia cut fiscal policy and had a budget surplus (and the lowest debt to GDP amongst OECD countries) in 2020 when everyone else was spending money like water to offset the pandemic. He also built up a 300 billion war chest of special reserves (much of which now frozen in the US and Europe). He was preparing for a more confrontational/interventionist strategic in the CIS states that had more to do with Putin’s own legacy than whether Biden or Trump were elected- a re-litigation of the terms of the breakup of the Soviet empire that more heavily weighted Russian interests than the one Yeltsin acceded to in 1991. Crimea and the Donbas were just the beginning.
Biden, while Russia was massing troops on Ukraine’s borders and intervening in Belarus and Kazakhstan, signed a Russian-friendly nuke deal with Russia, summited with Putin and blessed Nordstream 2. More appeasement and entreaty. At the same time he made another NATO declaration with Zelensky (Nov 2021), said nothing as Zelensky implemented discriminatory and jingoistic anti-Russian legislation in Ukraine and fortunately sent more shipments of the MPADs the US had been sent under Trump.
However, despite believing that a Russian invasion was imminent by late 2021, Biden sent no heavy weapons to Ukraine, no air defense systems to Ukraine to protect civilians, and moved no additional US troops or planes to Europe in 2021 (this would have left the US and Europe spectacularly unprepared if Putin wanted more than just Ukraine). In fact, Biden and US Intel thought Ukraine would lose quickly and were more focused on evacuating Zelensky than arming him.
Fortunately, Putin chose a bizarre decapitation strategy in Ukraine rather than a well-resourced invasion.- believing his yes-men that the government would fall quickly and be replaced by a pro-Russian one. Russian assets (Ukrainian pols) in major cities were set to peacefully hand keys to Russian civil defense troops. This indeed happened in Kherson and several southern and NE towns but not in Kharkiv and Odessa. When the decapitation strategy failed and the UA fought valiantly (mostly with MPADs and western Intel), Russia changed its military leadership and strategy, withdrew to defensive lines (and behind natural barriers like the River) and heavily reinforced them with mines, barriers and the conscription of hundreds of thousands of new troops, and beefed up military production while annexing (in theory) the four provinces they partially occupied.
Russia has followed their botched decapitation with a very intelligent and sustainable strategy that plays to Russian strengths.
Biden’s strategy has wavered between capricious and pragmatic while consistently being dishonest. Taibbi had a great take on this a couple days ago. Painting Putin as Hitler and supporting Ukraine polled well with his base as a wedge issue and made Biden look decisive after the Afghan debacle, so his base became massive and bloodthirsty interventionist chicken hawks when it came to Ukraine as Biden and team fed them lies about the war and nice throwaway lines never ever linked to actual US policy (“Putin must go”, “Putin is a war criminal”).
Biden sent heavy arms to Ukraine…..usually at least six months later than necessary. He dithered on tanks, HImARs, ATAMCs, air defence, F-16s…..you name it. Moreover, he has let most of Europe get away (brazenly) with continuing to underspend on defense and allowing France to contribute almost nothing to Ukraine. If Ukraine is so important an issue, why is Europe not treating it like one. And why should it be America’s problem? A problem is that demonizing Putin and lying about Ukraine’s prospects keeps Biden’s base happy, but he has done far too little actual work with allies, with defense production, with armaments to convince any rational non-partisan analyst that Ukraine is a vitally important issue worth spending an extra $50 or $100 billion a year on in perpetuity while most of Europe continues to spend less than 2 pct of GDP on defense. Yes- the EU is spending a good amount on Ukraine (particularly Germany) but German and French companies stand to make bank during the rebuilding.
As for Ukraine, with no Air Force and a lack of manpower nobody serious believed they would ever be able to breach the heavily entrenched Russian lines last fall. These were lies told for political wedge purposes or (charitably) relied on the very low prob scenario of all of Russian conscripts running away and abandoning lines at the first sight of a Bradley. The latter scenario requires ignorance of the techniques Russia has used for 80 years to keep soldiers at the front from running away. Ukraine would have had more success if tanks and APCs had been sent in quantity 3-4 months earlier (before Russian defenses were complete and conscripts trained and deployed). Biden’s (and the EU’s) dithering destroyed chances for the offensive. All is not lost given the small bridgeheads across the river, but Russia is probably going to make more gains in Zap and the Donbas than the UA will make in the south unless the river freezes hard or dries up or Ukraine gets 50 F16s with thousands of missiles (unlikely in the near term). Hats off to the UK and much of E Europe for being more proactive and trying to push the laggards in the US, France and Germany.
As for Ukraine- it is a bankrupt, corrupt, heavily damaged country with a good portion of its population now living in the EU and with the surviving husbands of the women and children in the EU hoping to join them as soon as feasible. Free housing. Good work opportunities. No bombs. No conscription. Ukrainians are definitely more patriotic and nationalistic but they are also not stupid.
Russian sanctions were designed to be leaky. Gazprom and other metals and energy producers were never sanctioned nor prevented from receiving payments from the EU and US. Gas continues to flow through an undamaged pipeline in Ukraine to Europe while Europe imports large amounts of Russian LNG. French and German and Italian exporters see a windfall as their clients in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, China and India mysteriously double their orders for dual use components. .
The good news out of Ukraine is that it has proven that Russian conventional forces present no real threat to NATO (certainly not if Europe armed itself appropriately), Russia is weaker economically and militarily and Putin has learned that forcibly expanding his zone of interest can be costly. Of course, Obama/Biden could have taught him that lesson in 2014 (except then the base wasn’t anti-Putin and pro war back then- thank you Hillary, Brennan, Clapper, Comey for the false narratives to cover up your spying on the Trump campaign and justify continuing it through FISA when Rogers at the NSA learned of your 4th amendment civil rights violations via the NSA database and FBI “contractors”).
The bad news is that Biden has made no strategic case for long term Ukraine intervention - relying on emotional appeals (Putin is evil and a threat to NATO etc) that work on his base but nobody else - certainly not working on Defense ministers and PMs in the EU.
Even worse bad news is that NATO is indeed more threatened (though not seriously at risk conventionally) because Putin now has troops and nukes permanently stationed in Belarus, right alongside the Baltics. The potential risk from Russian forces in Belarus is far greater than Russian forces in Southern and Eastern Ukraine. NATO security is worse off rather than better as a result.
I’d like to see a ceasefire and a re-arming of Ukraine (with long range missiles, F16s, more air defense, C-Rams and armor) with some security guarantees (provided Germany, France, the UK and Poland at the very least also sign on). Anyone who would replace Putin now would be just as confrontational- after a few years of ceasefire perhaps someone more domestically-oriented will replace Putin. Wait him out. Ukraine should not be on the NATO fast track. That is a dream (in 20-30 years- who knows). I am sceptical about EU “fast track” (which seems like 20 years anyway - not least because Ukraine governs with actual Fascists and enforced discrimination against minorities - makes Orban look like a piker). Moldova should also get some security guarantees from European nations.
However, I’d be prepared to reduce the weaponry and security commitments sent to Ukraine in return for Russian withdrawal of forces and nukes from Belarus. That would actually be in NATO interest (Putin wouldn’t agree unless we had a Prez threatening to position nukes and more forces in Poland and the Baltics- Biden is not that guy- and that brinksmanship is probably stupid anyway as it seems clear that Europe should be in charge of its own defense over the long term (including Ukraine) with the US providing a supporting role but not the primary expense and risk. Asia is more important than Europe. Even the Mideast is. Latam surely is. Europe also needs to take the lead in N Africa and integrate that more tightly (economically and militarily) with the EU. It is a shame that Biden has not used his political capital in the EU (relative to the Orange man) to force European NATO allies to defend and arm themselves and play a more forceful role in Ukraine and Europe’s near abroad generally. His base loves it when he berates and micromanages Bibi or Israel, but not France, Germany and Holland
This seems like a reasonable analysis of the West’s missteps due to reluctance to escalate military aid, combined with a lot of weak and incoherent vibes-based Taibbi analysis. Specifically noting the weird idea that Biden “lied about the reasons for the war” which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Is the insinuation that the whole US support project was done for domestic political consumption? Cause that’s a dumb thing Taibbi would say, not knowing anything about geopolitics. Or is the claim that things would be in any way strategically different if Biden had sold the war differently to the US public, say by explaining his strategic reasoning in a series of fireside chats? None of it makes a lick of sense outside of Taibbi logic.
For the record: I don’t think Biden’s reasons for supporting Ukraine have much to do with domestic politics. I think he’s a conventional US politician and is a believer in the longstanding US military doctrine of pushing back against a destabilizing world power, taking into account that US voters don’t usually want US soldiers at risk. I think he’s also taking the opportunity to degrade Russia’s military capabilities in advance of a potential Pacific conflict (where Russia will absolutely use their military to tie down NATO forces and degrade the US’s readiness overseas.) I am also quite confident that if China invades Taiwan and we end up in a Pacific conflict, given a little time to get spun up, the Taibbis and Carlsons will eventually recast it as a Democratic political stunt - even if there’s strong bipartisan consensus at the outset.
(Finally, although I don’t think it’s significant at all to the reasoning behind this war, I also find the Taibbi-esque implication that Putin isn’t doing war crimes kind of gross. But that’s because Taibbi doesn’t know anything about war crimes.)
"Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are small countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union, and would offer Putin access to the [Baltic] Sea. They have tiny populations, and their only real defense is their NATO membership."
Hm. Putin thought he would roll Ukraine like a carpet and that didn't go well. Those countries have conscript armies, iirc. They can generate significant fighting force fairly fast. I wouldn't count on Russia just steam rolling them.
"After that, Putin would definitely at least think about attacking Poland. Poland has a population similar to Ukraine, and a bigger manufacturing industry and much higher GDP, so it could put up quite a fight, even without U.S. aid."
Hm. Putin is old, he won't live forever. How long do you think all this digestion of Ukraine (guerrilla warfare would be a given), conquest of the Baltic and rearmament would take? At least a solid decade?
"if it refuses to do so, and leaves itself open to Russian attack, Europe will have only its own ineffectuality to blame. If this happens, Europe will have proven itself to be a defunct civilization."
Right. Much as I like to shred Europe and the EU for its ineffectuality myself, we still have nukes. If Russia crosses into Germany, I'm pretty sure France and the UK will go nuclear. It doesn't end well for Europe but I'd say the US won't have to worry about Russia anymore for a couple of centuries either...
One of the best things I've read about Putin's reasons for invading was in William Burns' memoir "The Back Channel". In a meeting with Putin in 2008 (?) he goes off about Ukraine joining NATO as a threat to Russia and adds in "Didn't you know Ukraine isn't even a real country?". Goes to show his motivations and it's great that you touched upon the fact that self determination is something Ukraine will inevitably win out of this war.
I have mostly not found the argument "If we don't stop Ukraine here, Poland is next" Not to be credible. Russia has been stopped in Ukraine and if they can't handle Ukraine they certainly can't handle Poland.
But I think you make an excellent point that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are in danger of Russia keeps its chunk of Ukraine and NATO deterrence is not credible with a Trump administration.
>> (Side note: Imagine what a war with China would look like.)
Ummm... mostly an air/naval battle over the Taiwan Strait and throughout the greater Pacific that involves missiles and barely any artillery?
...which we will definitely not be able to win.
Defeatism is never pretty, even when anodized with the sheen of concern.
1. The F-35 still has AT LEAST a 10x RCS advantage over China's J-20.
2. Most of China's combat ships are light littoral vessels. They can't raise a candle to our Arleigh Burkes, even in large numbers. They only have 89 destroyers and frigates, vs. our 98 cruisers and destroyers. They only have 3 more attack submarines than we do - 54 to our 51.
At most, it's an even fight. But we, y'know, actually know how to fight. I won't pooh-pooh the entire PLAN - some of their finest warriors and scrappiest upstarts will surely get the better of some of our lazier crews. But the edge goes to us.
And just ask the Iranians what happened the last time a bunch of gunboats tried to step to us.
3. China's vaunted hypersonic missiles have a key flaw: They can't hit the broad side of a barn at range.
4. The biggest single unknown is just the cyber capabilities on either side. The battle over Taiwan won't be decided by ships and missiles alone; it'll be decided by a bunch of nerds and hackers FIRST. If that ends in a stalemate, then the ships and missiles duke it out. But if not, then one side hacks/blinds/otherwise disables the other and curb-stomps the shit out of them.
I surely don't intend to be defeatist, but the reality of a naval and air war on the other side of the Pacific is completely unpredictable. Seth is right, we'd have to have our fleets in position at all times and on high alert, ready for the PRC to make their move. We couldn't sustain that tempo of operations for very long, both cost wise and human wise. Back in 1984 as a young ensign, my destroyer was in a NATO squadron on our way to Helsinki for a port visit. We had to stand port and starboard watches (6hrs on, 6hrs off) at a readiness condition just shy of general quarters due to all the Soviet and eastern bloc aircraft, subs, and patrol boats making passes at us. After three days of endless high-tension situations our crews were completely spent, and not one weapon was fired (a Finish sauna fixed us up). All the Chinese have to do is play with us out there, far from home, till they wear us down.
The PRC isn't going to manage a surprise invasion. This isn't like Normandy, where the major question was where *specifically* the Allies would land. TW only has so much shoreline, and the forces necessary to conduct a successful amphibious operation are impossible to muster without anyone noticing.
Any buildup of forces would happen slowly on both sides, so having our fleets in position really isn't as big of a delaying factor.
The big question IMO isn't whether the PLAN harasses us out in open waters, but whether they are able to draw us into the envelope of their shoreline batteries. That's the only place they can really muster an edge against us. In order to harass us, they have to leave that envelope, and I think we win most of those one-on-one fights out there. The big picture is that it's a cat-and-mouse game, and I would hope we have the strategic discipline to recognize that and not overextend ourselves as the cat.
Which brings us back to Noah's general contention that China probably has to attempt a decapitation strike against our Pacific bases. Rattle the hornet's nest enough, and sure, the cat will lash out and expose its weak underbelly.
But that only matters as far as we can contest the air war. The main challenge is just how quickly our F-35's can effectuate an SEAD campaign against the shoreline batteries. The faster we can push back the envelope, the less cat-and-mouse we have to play. It's basically a race between how fast our fighters can do that, and how fast the PLA can push its beachhead on TW.
Oh, and one more thing... Our air superiority also gives us a major leg up against their supposed 2:1 destroyer count. Hornets and Fat Amys fly a lot faster than destroyers can sail. Even if they shoot every single plane down, $100-150M planes are an EXCELLENT trade for $888M T55 destroyers.
Fighting experience is the most salient part of your response. That only counts for about a year worth of war, maybe two. This would not be a short war, unless the US bases are taken out before it begins.
China can outproduce the US in naval construction by a factor of 200x. The US is greatly outmatched in industrial capacity to fight a total war.
Even if the USN managed to bottle up China, I wouldn't bet on it failing to outproduce the US.
>>China can outproduce the US in naval construction by a factor of 200x.
That's a canard.
We may not have the infrastructure anymore, but the DPA and a hot war have a wonderful way of overruling our decadent NIMBYism when it counts. The shipyards will get built. And my hometown of St. Louis has hundreds of acres of defunct manufacturing facilities just waiting to be converted to F-35 factories.
Beyond that, we still have TONS of the physical resources -- iron that isn't being mined over environmental concerns, etc -- and a whole generation of young men who are currently busy playing COD in their parents' basements because they'd love to participate in a war effort but haven't been needed to.
And for once in our history of leadups to global conflicts, Germany and France aren't already busy bombing each other to shit. Their alliance, namby-pamby as it is, is the strongest it's ever been. The US alone might present a weakened-looking target, but the US and Canada, plus Europe, plus Japan, Korea, the Philippines, the Aussies, and probably the Indonesians and Indians under the table... yeah I think we'll be OK.
2x or maybe even 5x would be a canard. Not 200x. The greatest non-trivial scale up of any navy in a global conflict, by the way, is 50x. 84 years ago, and still few capital ships.
You don't spin up a modern navy in a couple years any more. Nor do you get the people to learn advanced manufacturing in an instant.
The US is starting *years* behind China on the inputs and human capital needed, and China has greater ability to scale up than the US has today or at any time in its past.
The history of WW1 and WW2 gives the US false confidence that it can repeat a performance of showing up late, scaling up, and making a difference. Modern warfare complexity and a genuine rival in heft and capacity are critical differences this time.
Worse, as divided as the US was in the 1930s, it's far more divided today. 2023 has demonstrated that even a chance to beat an arch-enemy isn't enough to keep its attention away from scrolling TikTok, or a minor conflict elsewhere.
As for counting on militaries that would operate in the Pacific, Japan is the only other one that can make a difference, although I'd add Australia by the 2030s. Korea and the Phillipines would have problems getting supplied. As for the likes of Europe - no. Canada - comically incapable
>>2x or maybe even 5x would be a canard. Not 200x. The greatest non-trivial scale up of any navy in a global conflict, by the way, is 50x. 84 years ago, and still few capital ships.
Not sure what you mean there. But I *will* note that even taking your "200x" number for the shipyards, that's still only something that can help them in the long run. It militates towards the US being *more* realistically able to catch up within the first year or two, not *less*.
Also, I'd note that if they still only barely have us to an even fight on capital ships -- and are still WAY behind us on carriers -- that means that most of their "200x" shipyards are being used for those dinky little missile boats. I won't act like it's impossible for those to make a difference, but as I said to Seth below, it's just as possible for them to simply make good target practice for our fighter pilots out in the open waters that are the only place they can hope to make a difference.
The only other thing those "200x" shipyards would help with would be building cargo vessels for shipping. And, uhh... China is a land power, yo. They've got *2* adjacent coasts, surrounded by hostile countries that control strategic straits. You think Singapore is going to stretch its neck out for them? Who do you think has the bigger blue-water navy to muscle up a global strategic blockade of Chinese wartime shipping? Where else are they going to ship stuff *to* if they're in a war? The more resources they have to devote to projecting power to maintain trade for their war machine, they more they have to sacrifice their vaunted numerical advantage, the more neighbors they have to piss off by subjugation or threats thereof, AND -- most importantly -- the further they have to venture out of their vaunted protective envelope.
America may have a depleted, creaky merchant marine, but China's merchant marine and "200x" shipyards won't do them any good bottled up with nowhere to go. Not to mention, our merchant marine is only depleted because our big multinationals all figured it was in their financial interest to re-flag and build ships elsewhere during peacetime. That logic changes when we're the only blue-water navy capable of guaranteeing their security anywhere in the world.
>>Modern warfare complexity and a genuine rival in heft and capacity are critical differences this time.
If that's true, then it also means that our technology advantage over the Chinese is still viable. Diminished perhaps, since they're a near-peer, but not lost. Anything that's too complex for us to scale up is also too complex for the Chinese to merely *leapfrog*, and is also too advanced for their quantity to overcome our quality.
We aren't the Nazis desperately trying to make superweapons work against a massive industrial machine. We're a semi-deindustrialized information-age superpower up against a massively industrializing information-paranoid upstart. We have legitimate superweapons. A lot has been made of China and Russia's cyber capabilities, but the fact that we've been so insanely tight-lipped about our own cyber capabilities means we've either got a trump card up our sleeves or we're desperately behind. You and I probably have no way of knowing which one it is, but I sincerely hope it's the former. We'll find out *eventually*, at any rate.
The point is, though, even if we can fight the cyberwar to a stalemate, our satellites are ages ahead of the Chinese. And the prospect of space debris makes any kinetic anti-satellite campaign a GLOBALLY toxically unpopular strategy - the number one way for China to piss India and Brazil off would be to scuttle all hope they have of building legitimate space programs.
All of that is to say, I suspect we've still got a decent edge in PGMs. I'm not naive/willfully-blind enough to say it'll win the whole conflict for us, but it's probably enough of a force multiplier to mitigate numerical disadvantages. One of the reasons people like to crow over or cower at notions like China's supposed swarms of missile boats, is that those ships are supposedly fast-moving and hard to hit. But if we can still hit them anyways with PGMs... that advantage is null and void. It's just a matter of how fast Intel can crank out guidance chips for Raytheon to put in the missiles.
>>As for the likes of Europe - no. Canada - comically incapable
Europe and Canada don't have to actually get their forces to the Pacific theater in order to make a difference. A mass mobilization of their forces in the Mediterranean alone would give us the breathing room to send our own forces to the Pacific.
So, they're not the AAA club that we'd be calling up to the majors to play a big triple-header series. No, they're the well-stocked farm system that helps the AAA team not skip a beat when we have to call up the rehabbing superstars we stashed on the AAA roster. Europe and Canada can't do everything, but they CAN do THAT. They can police the Med and the Atlantic just as well as we can.
Cheers for having a well-thought-out debate, sir. Just curious, what's your actual valence here? Concerned US stalwart? You don't come across like much of a troll or a China/Russia fanboy.
Anyways, just one last cheeky thought that made me chuckle... Our rednecks voted for Trump precisely because this is the kind of fight they've been spoiling for for decades and haven't really had in a while. No foreign power has ever won by betting against American rednecks.
The US will never have the entirety of our fleet available to fight. We have ships scattered all over the world and home ported in the Atlantic. It would take weeks to get them all assembled, and the largest naval battles would likely be over by then. As a result, we have to assume that they will outnumber the USN by 2:1 or more during the first missile salvo.
>>The US will never have the entirety of our fleet available to fight.
Neither will the Chinese. Pouring as much as a quarter of their forces into an assault would leave them open for a major counterattack.
Counterattack with what? The rest of the USN is weeks away. The Chinese can bring their entire force to bear in the SCS and ECS, where they are under coverage of land based aviation and fires. We have the entire world to cover. And that's not including whatever attempts they make to disrupt us abroad, at maritime choke points or using fishing or cargo vessels with weapons.
Counterattack from Japan. I thought that would have been obvious.
Not a military analyst either but regarding the thesis of anti tank missiles making armored vehicles advance close to impossible it's worth following another important development from the Israeli-Hamas war. The Israeli Armoured Shield Protection - Active (בראשי תיבות: ASPRO-A is able to shield Israeli tanks almost hermetically from anti tank missiles (upwards of 95% success according to official data but really very few cases in which it failed so far) which is a game changer in this particular conflict and has allowed the Israelis to advance their armored vehicles with relatively minor losses from the many anti-tank missiles of Hamas
Great article Noah! I agree that if Russia is not stopped, it ultimately wants to reclaim its Soviet borders, which were the most manageable for Russia to ever hold and defend in history. As Peter Zeihan points out in The Absent Superpower (https://thexproject.substack.com/p/the-absent-superpower-the-shale-revolution-ccb), Russia is in its demographic "twilight" and, therefore, only has a few years remaining to make that happen before it the male fighting population ages out.
With that said, @Dr. Pippa has argued that WWIII started years ago, the nature of which is fundamentally different than prior world wars in that it is being fought in space, cyber, and undersea, and it is also an economic, financial, and technological war. She has said, "We have a hot war in cold places and a cold war in hot places." (https://drpippa.substack.com/p/a-hot-war-in-hot-places?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2; https://drpippa.substack.com/p/wwiii-winning-the-peace?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2). The US won the Cold War by outspending and bankrupting the Soviet Union. Putin and Xi surely know that recent history and the precarious state of the US Treasury market, which is under stress with the need to finance $2 trillion in deficits in a supposedly robust economy with low employment. So, maybe Putin is winning more than 18% of the Ukrainian territory at this point with the additional US deficit spending on the war and with the political discord.
But the Russia-Ukraine war is a small battle in the much bigger war for regional hegemony of the Eurasian landmass, and it may not be Russia but China that is the more significant longer-term threat to US strategic interests in denying such a regional hegemon. @Dr. Pippa suggested in a recent article on the Xi-Biden deal (which she claims was really a Xi-Newsom one) that part of the deal in thawing tensions with China in the short run to help service US domestic political interests is that the US will look the other way as China absorbs the resource-rich Eastern portion of Russia (https://drpippa.substack.com/p/deal-the-siberian-tiger-and-the-panda?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2).
If true, that is very concerning and short-sighted.
If China did end up making a move on the Russian Far East, I hope the West would allow Japan to reclaim Karafuto and Chishima (aka Sakhalin Oblast) in order to extend the "first island chain" barrier that stands between the PLAN and the open Pacific Ocean.
A bit of perspective: look at the change in the late 20th century map (USSR vs. stand-alone Russia). Now consider the addition of Finland to NATO, a doubling of NATO’s border with Russia.
Sure you can keep rapidly conscripting soldiers, but are they really soldiers who have had any decent training? And at some point, you’re forced to start conscripting from the middle class.
Attack Poland, where two million — a significant percentage of Russia’s young, educated tech-savvy — fled? If Russia thinks 30 Ukrainian drone hobbyists on bicycles were effective, it would be another mistake to underestimate Poland.
Putin has significantly damaged Russia’s economic prospects for two generations.
Again, China doesn’t have the conduits to take on the militaries outside the South China Sea. Who would be blockading who? They have provisioning reach of 1,000 nautical miles, hardly a world-beating conventional military force. Of course, China could use its modern missiles, but then all hell breaks loose and the whole world loses, an empty “victory” on an unprecedented scale. If Xi wants to stay in power, falling on his sword won’t work.
China likely will fall further behind on leading-edge chip manufacturing. American companies will invent better and safer batteries in this decade (e.g., silicon anode with thermal runway mitigation technologies, solid state). Its cheap labor has evolved into the middle-income trap.
Pollyannish? I don’t think so. Putin and Xi represent the worst of this generation of world leaders. The Silk Road Project is a failure, creating bad infrastructure and unsustainable debt in too many countries. It stands as an example of China’s failure in soft diplomacy as well as engineering incompetence.
Economics trumps warfare over the long term.