I would be cautious of narratives and extrapolation. Should we ignore Russia’s success and excellent planning in Ukraine 2014, in Georgia (or its more Stalinesque bloodbaths in Syria and Chechnya)?
The most recent invasion of Ukraine was an ill-conceived decapitation strike. Russia actually thought its fifth columnists would deliver more cities bloodlessly (like Kherson was) and the Spesnatz would take out the Zelensky government. Western intelligence, AWACS and battlefield surveillance, Ukrainian fortitude and bravery and mostly Putin’s miscalculation made this a spectacular failure. The invasion force, outside of Donbas, was structured as an occupation and municipal governance force, not one meant to take land cm by cm against entrenched opposition, and Putin’s paranoia prevented even the alleged occupation forces from properly planning and training.
Putin now controls only the most strategic (to Russia) bits of Ukraine- a southern land bridge and a bit more of the Donbas than it had before. With the addition of a few hundred thousand troops and defensive lines built for depth, it will become much more difficult for Ukraine to dislodge these forces. The amount of artillery (ex Himars, MLRS) that NATO has donated is largely irrelevant along a front this large (Ukraine has thousands of artillery pieces, including captured Russian ones, while NATO has sent dozens). HIMARS and MLRS are vital but the missiles/rockets are in short supply and are being used judiciously. Ukraine and the US love the narrative about US weaponry…..because Ukraine wants and needs more and it makes the US/NATO donors look good. Let’s remember the fighting is being done by people risking their lives.
Ukraine is a basket case with an economy reliant on charity. That is not the case with the Russian economy (though as each year passes it may go backwards in time by a decade).
Putin has unleashed chaos within Russia and for Russia with this invasion, but its overall strategy is a simple one of regional hegemony and control, not chaos. Russia’s ties to the Middle East and Iran are much stronger than the EU’s, who should really be the power trying to influence and stabilize this region. Meanwhile, Putin is still very influential in the ex-CIS and has intervened in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan/Armenia successfully in the past year.
This conflict has revealed that (ex-nukes) Putin is no real military threat to NATO, and he has proved he can live alongside chastened but suspicious neighbors like Georgia. Meanwhile, his ties to Asia are deepening (necessarily) as a result of the conflict.
We don’t “need” Russia perhaps, but let’s not underestimate the role that its hegemonic power had in stabilizing the CIS which would certainly have descended into Syrian style sectarian civil war otherwise.
Russia’s future role is unknown and probably many years in the future - after Putin and probably his nationalistic successor. We shall see
But Russia is weakening by almost every indicator relatively to its position during the last 15 years.
GDP falls even as Gas/Oil prices soar. Russian GDP as share of world GDP declines. Most important customer (Europe) either permanently or partially lost, as Europe won't ever again become as dependent on Russia as it was.
Russian army takes massive losses in Ukraine, in many sectors a decade worth of production already. Perception of Russian power weakened, the brand of Russian arms severely damaged. Less potential for arms diplomacy.
Russia's diplomatic standing declined. Kazachstan, Armenia increasingly look for other partners and to reduce dependencies on Russia.
Russian access to technology increasingly difficult, hindering non-extractive industries.
Demographic problems increasing. Brain drain, additional deaths from war and economic problems. Likely lower birth rates due to economic problems and mobilization. Returning soldiers will be a welfare and crime liability.
Historically, Russia/USSR were able to come back due to their sheer infinite natural and human resources. Natural resources aren't as infinite as they used to be (oil extraction costs rising), and human resources are stagnant or declining.
This is a very favorable phrasing, "Putin now controls only the most strategic (to Russia) bits of Ukraine..." One could just as easily say, "Putin now controls about 5% of the part of Ukraine the he would like to control."
A well-researched piece. Who could forget that 30 drone hobbyists on bicycles stopped a 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks, troops, and assorted military vehicles. A Russian tank costs more than $3 million. What do you suppose 30 drones and 30 bicycles cost?
"A crumbling, aggressive, dysfunctional petrostate cannot be a balancing force in the world." - Wonderful words. Could start any text about Saudia, Iraq, Qatar, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, C.A.R. ... - petrostates tend to be dysfunctional (they can afford it for a while); crumbling and aggressiveness come as part of the parcel. - So who expects them to be a balancing force? Yep, some do. So? Next an analyse about aliens attacking? ;) I agree with most points, ofc.. Just: India for most of the time sees PAKISTAN (armed by USofA) as a much more acute threat than China. Pakistan, whose secret service build the Taliban and hid Osama bin Laden after 9/11 for years. The might of America is "balanced", indeed - balanced by the stupidity of its gov. agencies.
The US, despite recent decades of disinterest and backing destabilizing populist leftists, has been a stabilizing force in Latam, using its economy as a foundation.
The EU needs to do the same for North Africa and the Middle East.
By abdicating this responsibility, Russia and Iran fill the vacuum (aided by the US under Obama/Biden effectively recognizing and supporting Iranian and Russian hegemony and intervention in the region).
Two problems
1) outside of France, the EU has no military strength (as Poland has other priorities than the Mideast).
2) European states and the corporations it backs are mercantilist. US companies set up operations in Latam with the idea of becoming local companies and exporting back to the US. Europe wants more of a colonist type relationship where they sell stuff to poorer countries and import only commodities.
a perpetually weak russia becomes a 'pay what you like' resource pantry for china. (even with covid darwinism, the manpower will be unmatched, and china would have to undergo some similar inefficient\kleptocratic incompetence to realistically weaken)
not even sure war reparations could supersede claims china would make on the resources.
This is pretty brutal but necessary to say. Putin found a low-cost way to buttress Russia’s international sway in the 2010’s. He was successful, but only because of the problems he caused/contributed to (Georgia, Syria, Crimea, Brexit, Trump). In Putin’s multipolar world Russia would tread water as the rest of the world burned.
The problem with that strategy is Putin didn’t have a good grasp of Russia’s limits, since there was never meaningful pushback on each reach either from within or without. Like cryptobros over-leveraging themselves in the good times, he never understood how close he really was to the floor the whole time.
I agree that Russia is remarkably weak. Its economy has been weak and fading since the 1970s, if not longer. Its demographics have been in decline (if not collapse) since the 1980s, if not longer. It nevertheless maintained a large army, with modern equipment - often less advanced than American equipment, but nevertheless competitive. The large, poorly trained, indifferently led Soviet military showed its weaknesses in the 1980s in Afghanistan - but I suppose the US military did the same thing, in the same place, in the 00s.
However, I think it's irrelevant to talk about whether "the world" "needs" Russian power. Russian power (or weakness) is a fact, not a "need". Some people outside Russia imagine that Russia will fulfill a role they would like to see, but Russia (under Putin or someone else) will pursue Russian interests to the extent it can.
Noah can be forgiven for incomplete understanding of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but I think there's more continuity from Brezhnev's Soviet Union to Putin's Russia than Noah sees. He correctly points out that the USSR was mostly a conservative, status quo power, but it was at least as prone to foreign adventurism as is Putin's Russia. It also sowed chaos in Africa and the Middle East, and ruthlessly exerted military power in eastern Europe. It also supported revolutionary movements in Latin America, and actively supported Viet Nam in order to weaken the US. It interfered in American and European elections through propaganda and front organizations.
The USSR never had many friends. It had satellites, occupied by the Red Army. It had clients, dependent on Soviet financial and military assistance, but these tended to kick out the Soviets when their usefulness declined. It had allies of convenience, who would support the Soviets when it didn't cost them anything, but go their own way when it suited them.
Putin's clear policy for the last 20 years has been to re-establish as much of Soviet influence as he could. He tried reforming the military to make it an effective tool for this policy. It appears that he failed. Russia's loss of influence is more due to Russia's demonstrated weakness, not to moral revulsion from other countries.
There's little to admire in Putin's Russia. Certainly, I wouldn't want to live there, or be a small neighbor attracting his attention. However, our current focus on Russia is distracting us from our main geopolitical rival/threat: China.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I think the situation in Ukraine has made Americans more aware of the need for military capability, but we're using an awful lot of our capacity to deal with Russia. Biden has announced that our goal is to weaken and isolate Russia, which implies ongoing commitment of our resources against Russia, which means less available to deal with China. I think our allies and potential allies (Australia, UK, Philippines, Viet Nam, India, Thailand, Singapore) have been aware of the threat from China for a long time. They'll also have to take account of the resources that the US has available to commit.
Good take. And a correct frame of mind in thinking about Russia going forward. I think besides the containment, there needs to be a covert plan at pushing Russia to split up. The country is too big, too artificial, too sparsely populated to function in a modern world.
The USSR also took advantage of its role as the West's bogeyman, Reagan promoting the notion of USSR military advancements, with glossy artist's renderings of laser weapons in The Soviet Military Power book, in order to get his desired military budgets, the USSR didn't have to actually advance their militarily technology as long as the world thought they were.
It might be a silly question but I have to ask - why we don't see any real footage of the combats of the Ukraine/Russia war on the mainstream media channels? We have more footage of the battles of World War I than of this war? 🤷
I agree that Russia is no longer a superpower Noah, but I don't agree with the reasoning by which you get there: it is not because a country loses a war against a less powerful country that it is no longer a superpower.
If you replace the words "Russia" by "United States" and "Ukraine" by "Vietnam" in this article, you get a description that could have applied to the Vietnam war.
And what about the US disaster in Afghanistan?
Yet the United States is still a superpower, so what is the error of reasoning in this article?
That the loss of a war is a sufficient criterion for losing its superpower status. There are in fact many other parameters, most of which are not discussed in this article, or are mentioned just in passing.
Saying that Russia is fighting "all of NATO" in Ukraine is a huge exaggeration, but international aid to Ukraine is in fact large enough to make Ukraine's small native GDP functionally irrelevant. The Ukrainian government is largely propped up by international aid, and add up all of the military aid sent to Ukraine by various countries so far, and it adds up to more than $36 billion. https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/ That's more than half of Russia's total 2021 military spending, and about the same as France's 2022 non-nuclear military spending.
And even at the start Ukraine had a large quantity of military equipment inherited from the Soviet Union including more artillery than any other country in Europe other than Russia, the fifth largest tank fleet in Europe and, probably most importantly, multi-layered air defense systems that were specifically designed to contest air space and survive against much superior air forces. Who knew that the USSR's air defenses actually worked at their intended purpose? Plus a large number of Javelins and NLAWs and other Western weapons already donated before February 2022. Plus a starting army that in terms of manpower was as large as Russia's invasion force with nearly a million reservists, many of them veterans of the Donbas War, and many of them trained by NATO over the past 8 years, which Ukraine started mobilizing from day 1 whereas Russia waited until September to even start mobilizing.
Knowing in hindsight how well the ex-Soviet air defense systems work, and that for whatever reason Russia did not start out the war using the missiles that they had that could get through the air defenses to do a mini-"shock and awe" bombing campaign targeting soldiers in barracks and infrastructure and communications and so on, it honestly isn't very surprising that Ukraine's conventional army survived long enough for large amounts of Western military aid to start coming in, and that without Russian air superiority that aid included heavy weapons and vehicles and so on.
Russia absolutely underperformed expectations, but I think some perspective could be helpful.
Ukraine has gotten much of their equipment by capturing it from the Russians. They have more tanks than when they started the war, for instance, thanks to capturing lots of tanks.
A Tweet from the UK Ministry of Defense HQ from October 6:
"Ukraine has likely captured at least 440 Russian Main Battle Tanks, and around 650 other armoured vehicles since the invasion. Over half of Ukraine’s currently fielded tank fleet potentially consists of captured vehicles."
Do the math and this means that, given that Ukraine had around 900 tanks back in January, as of October 6 they had fewer tanks than they did before the invasion, despite 300+ donated ex-Soviet tanks and more than 400 visually confirmed captures of Russian tanks. (Of course, we don't know what % of captured tanks are actually usable.)
There aren't that many similar conflicts for comparison though - be that by total population, population ratios, or by gdp ratios.
If we exclude US - which is certainly not a level at which Russia can operate - who exactly will be ahead? It might still be world number 2 - just less impressive then the world expected it to be.
Russian history has multiple examples of their armies being "totally crushed" in battles (and even Moscow being put to fire) and still getting (costly) victories in the end.
Ukrainian military losses are still likely to be higher overall - and damage to Ukraine is most definitely higher compared to damage to Russia, even with all sanctions.
Maybe Russia cannot serve as balancing force alone... as it most certainly didn't since fall of USSR. But as it is forced into previously unlikely alliances as every other option gets denied by West resulting total counterforce might.
What emerged out of those doomed regimes still went on to become superpower though.
And in the end today any Russian adventure is still backstopped by nuclear weapons.
Russian elites felt that position given to them by West was unfair and dangerous, and decided to fight back. It is entirely possible that after making every mistake and uncovering all the corruption Russia will still win in the long run as those failing to get results and adapt get purged... even if they will not necessarily have Putin at the head.
There's no doubt in my mind the US could get up and simultaneously invade Afghanistan and Vietnam tomorrow, and it would the locals 20 years until the US gets bored and leaves. That's one difference - the US was never conventionally defeated, at worst it was fought off by long insurgencies, which it could have kept fighting forever.
I suspect Vietnam today would be a much harder place to invade than 50-60 years ago. It’s no longer impoverished, and plays some key roles in global trade.
Due to the fact that the Vietnamese were impoverished 50 years ago they fought like they had little to lose. They have more to lose now, maybe less reason to fight. But apart from that they would probably fight the same way anyway. They are a nation who have engaged in defensive conflicts with the USA, France and China in the last century. They are never to be taken lightly.
> And that’s OK. The multipolar world will include China, a newly united Europe, and India as poles of power to balance out the U.S.; Russia isn’t needed anymore to keep the system stable.
Europe is subservient to the U.S.
Frankly, I'd prefer if the US completely took over at this point. Now I live in the world where tech industry is largely about Silicon Valley... but I can't emigrate there... for work. As a tourist, sure, 90 days. _How is it not clear that it's blatant labor protectionism?_
Yet I can get extradited to the US if, for example, I develop open source software it doesn't like (see Tornado cash).
I assume even not respecting OFAC could be a problem soon.
This is so unfortunate. Russia could have been a counter to US imperialism if it was not a third-rate corrupt imperialist state and really wanted to build a multipolar order not dominated by superpowers.
This war has enormously damaged any claim Russia could have to being an anti-imperialist state but should not be seen in isolation. The destruction of Grozny and Aleppo and its intervention in Georgia are also examples of savagely executed regional imperialism.
A multipolar world mediated through institutions like the UN is a far better idea than Russia trying to revive imperial grandeur that its economy and corrupted military can’t support, and doing so in violation of international law.
The Russian sullen response: “Why can’t we be savage imperialists? Look what you let the US get away with.” assumes that we accept what the US has done in the past or that wrongdoing by one side justifies it by another.
Putin is increasingly looking more like Mussolini v2.0 rather than a reincarnation of Peter the Great.
Please stop doing the "Both sides" thing. The vast majority of the "modern" Republican Party are Putin Puppets, but there are only a small number of fringe "leftists" that support Putin.
I would be cautious of narratives and extrapolation. Should we ignore Russia’s success and excellent planning in Ukraine 2014, in Georgia (or its more Stalinesque bloodbaths in Syria and Chechnya)?
The most recent invasion of Ukraine was an ill-conceived decapitation strike. Russia actually thought its fifth columnists would deliver more cities bloodlessly (like Kherson was) and the Spesnatz would take out the Zelensky government. Western intelligence, AWACS and battlefield surveillance, Ukrainian fortitude and bravery and mostly Putin’s miscalculation made this a spectacular failure. The invasion force, outside of Donbas, was structured as an occupation and municipal governance force, not one meant to take land cm by cm against entrenched opposition, and Putin’s paranoia prevented even the alleged occupation forces from properly planning and training.
Putin now controls only the most strategic (to Russia) bits of Ukraine- a southern land bridge and a bit more of the Donbas than it had before. With the addition of a few hundred thousand troops and defensive lines built for depth, it will become much more difficult for Ukraine to dislodge these forces. The amount of artillery (ex Himars, MLRS) that NATO has donated is largely irrelevant along a front this large (Ukraine has thousands of artillery pieces, including captured Russian ones, while NATO has sent dozens). HIMARS and MLRS are vital but the missiles/rockets are in short supply and are being used judiciously. Ukraine and the US love the narrative about US weaponry…..because Ukraine wants and needs more and it makes the US/NATO donors look good. Let’s remember the fighting is being done by people risking their lives.
Ukraine is a basket case with an economy reliant on charity. That is not the case with the Russian economy (though as each year passes it may go backwards in time by a decade).
Putin has unleashed chaos within Russia and for Russia with this invasion, but its overall strategy is a simple one of regional hegemony and control, not chaos. Russia’s ties to the Middle East and Iran are much stronger than the EU’s, who should really be the power trying to influence and stabilize this region. Meanwhile, Putin is still very influential in the ex-CIS and has intervened in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Azerbaijan/Armenia successfully in the past year.
This conflict has revealed that (ex-nukes) Putin is no real military threat to NATO, and he has proved he can live alongside chastened but suspicious neighbors like Georgia. Meanwhile, his ties to Asia are deepening (necessarily) as a result of the conflict.
We don’t “need” Russia perhaps, but let’s not underestimate the role that its hegemonic power had in stabilizing the CIS which would certainly have descended into Syrian style sectarian civil war otherwise.
Russia’s future role is unknown and probably many years in the future - after Putin and probably his nationalistic successor. We shall see
But Russia is weakening by almost every indicator relatively to its position during the last 15 years.
GDP falls even as Gas/Oil prices soar. Russian GDP as share of world GDP declines. Most important customer (Europe) either permanently or partially lost, as Europe won't ever again become as dependent on Russia as it was.
Russian army takes massive losses in Ukraine, in many sectors a decade worth of production already. Perception of Russian power weakened, the brand of Russian arms severely damaged. Less potential for arms diplomacy.
Russia's diplomatic standing declined. Kazachstan, Armenia increasingly look for other partners and to reduce dependencies on Russia.
Russian access to technology increasingly difficult, hindering non-extractive industries.
Demographic problems increasing. Brain drain, additional deaths from war and economic problems. Likely lower birth rates due to economic problems and mobilization. Returning soldiers will be a welfare and crime liability.
Historically, Russia/USSR were able to come back due to their sheer infinite natural and human resources. Natural resources aren't as infinite as they used to be (oil extraction costs rising), and human resources are stagnant or declining.
This is a very favorable phrasing, "Putin now controls only the most strategic (to Russia) bits of Ukraine..." One could just as easily say, "Putin now controls about 5% of the part of Ukraine the he would like to control."
Typo mate, just helping out offering some free Sub-editor services 😀
Before the war, its military was believed to be the world’s third most powerful on the planet
You only need either ‘worlds’ or ‘on the planet’ not both
What about Space Force, EH? Didn't think of THAT, did ya? ;-)
A well-researched piece. Who could forget that 30 drone hobbyists on bicycles stopped a 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks, troops, and assorted military vehicles. A Russian tank costs more than $3 million. What do you suppose 30 drones and 30 bicycles cost?
Keep up the great work.
JVG
Thanks!
"A crumbling, aggressive, dysfunctional petrostate cannot be a balancing force in the world." - Wonderful words. Could start any text about Saudia, Iraq, Qatar, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, C.A.R. ... - petrostates tend to be dysfunctional (they can afford it for a while); crumbling and aggressiveness come as part of the parcel. - So who expects them to be a balancing force? Yep, some do. So? Next an analyse about aliens attacking? ;) I agree with most points, ofc.. Just: India for most of the time sees PAKISTAN (armed by USofA) as a much more acute threat than China. Pakistan, whose secret service build the Taliban and hid Osama bin Laden after 9/11 for years. The might of America is "balanced", indeed - balanced by the stupidity of its gov. agencies.
The US, despite recent decades of disinterest and backing destabilizing populist leftists, has been a stabilizing force in Latam, using its economy as a foundation.
The EU needs to do the same for North Africa and the Middle East.
By abdicating this responsibility, Russia and Iran fill the vacuum (aided by the US under Obama/Biden effectively recognizing and supporting Iranian and Russian hegemony and intervention in the region).
Two problems
1) outside of France, the EU has no military strength (as Poland has other priorities than the Mideast).
2) European states and the corporations it backs are mercantilist. US companies set up operations in Latam with the idea of becoming local companies and exporting back to the US. Europe wants more of a colonist type relationship where they sell stuff to poorer countries and import only commodities.
a perpetually weak russia becomes a 'pay what you like' resource pantry for china. (even with covid darwinism, the manpower will be unmatched, and china would have to undergo some similar inefficient\kleptocratic incompetence to realistically weaken)
not even sure war reparations could supersede claims china would make on the resources.
This is pretty brutal but necessary to say. Putin found a low-cost way to buttress Russia’s international sway in the 2010’s. He was successful, but only because of the problems he caused/contributed to (Georgia, Syria, Crimea, Brexit, Trump). In Putin’s multipolar world Russia would tread water as the rest of the world burned.
The problem with that strategy is Putin didn’t have a good grasp of Russia’s limits, since there was never meaningful pushback on each reach either from within or without. Like cryptobros over-leveraging themselves in the good times, he never understood how close he really was to the floor the whole time.
I agree that Russia is remarkably weak. Its economy has been weak and fading since the 1970s, if not longer. Its demographics have been in decline (if not collapse) since the 1980s, if not longer. It nevertheless maintained a large army, with modern equipment - often less advanced than American equipment, but nevertheless competitive. The large, poorly trained, indifferently led Soviet military showed its weaknesses in the 1980s in Afghanistan - but I suppose the US military did the same thing, in the same place, in the 00s.
However, I think it's irrelevant to talk about whether "the world" "needs" Russian power. Russian power (or weakness) is a fact, not a "need". Some people outside Russia imagine that Russia will fulfill a role they would like to see, but Russia (under Putin or someone else) will pursue Russian interests to the extent it can.
Noah can be forgiven for incomplete understanding of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but I think there's more continuity from Brezhnev's Soviet Union to Putin's Russia than Noah sees. He correctly points out that the USSR was mostly a conservative, status quo power, but it was at least as prone to foreign adventurism as is Putin's Russia. It also sowed chaos in Africa and the Middle East, and ruthlessly exerted military power in eastern Europe. It also supported revolutionary movements in Latin America, and actively supported Viet Nam in order to weaken the US. It interfered in American and European elections through propaganda and front organizations.
The USSR never had many friends. It had satellites, occupied by the Red Army. It had clients, dependent on Soviet financial and military assistance, but these tended to kick out the Soviets when their usefulness declined. It had allies of convenience, who would support the Soviets when it didn't cost them anything, but go their own way when it suited them.
Putin's clear policy for the last 20 years has been to re-establish as much of Soviet influence as he could. He tried reforming the military to make it an effective tool for this policy. It appears that he failed. Russia's loss of influence is more due to Russia's demonstrated weakness, not to moral revulsion from other countries.
There's little to admire in Putin's Russia. Certainly, I wouldn't want to live there, or be a small neighbor attracting his attention. However, our current focus on Russia is distracting us from our main geopolitical rival/threat: China.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I think the situation in Ukraine has made Americans more aware of the need for military capability, but we're using an awful lot of our capacity to deal with Russia. Biden has announced that our goal is to weaken and isolate Russia, which implies ongoing commitment of our resources against Russia, which means less available to deal with China. I think our allies and potential allies (Australia, UK, Philippines, Viet Nam, India, Thailand, Singapore) have been aware of the threat from China for a long time. They'll also have to take account of the resources that the US has available to commit.
Good take. And a correct frame of mind in thinking about Russia going forward. I think besides the containment, there needs to be a covert plan at pushing Russia to split up. The country is too big, too artificial, too sparsely populated to function in a modern world.
Excellent analysis, an area of concern is the Russian submarine force including SSBNs, are they as bumbling and corrupt?
Scary to contemplate.
The USSR also took advantage of its role as the West's bogeyman, Reagan promoting the notion of USSR military advancements, with glossy artist's renderings of laser weapons in The Soviet Military Power book, in order to get his desired military budgets, the USSR didn't have to actually advance their militarily technology as long as the world thought they were.
Off topic, and I suppose Noah must also be bored with refuting nonsense from Oxfsm. But did he see this?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/07/super-richs-carbon-investment-emissions-equivalent-to-whole-of-france
One must imagine Sisyphus happy...
It might be a silly question but I have to ask - why we don't see any real footage of the combats of the Ukraine/Russia war on the mainstream media channels? We have more footage of the battles of World War I than of this war? 🤷
The midterms!
I agree that Russia is no longer a superpower Noah, but I don't agree with the reasoning by which you get there: it is not because a country loses a war against a less powerful country that it is no longer a superpower.
If you replace the words "Russia" by "United States" and "Ukraine" by "Vietnam" in this article, you get a description that could have applied to the Vietnam war.
And what about the US disaster in Afghanistan?
Yet the United States is still a superpower, so what is the error of reasoning in this article?
That the loss of a war is a sufficient criterion for losing its superpower status. There are in fact many other parameters, most of which are not discussed in this article, or are mentioned just in passing.
Superpowers can lose wars, but they generally don't get their army totally crushed on the battlefield by much smaller and poorer countries.
Saying that Russia is fighting "all of NATO" in Ukraine is a huge exaggeration, but international aid to Ukraine is in fact large enough to make Ukraine's small native GDP functionally irrelevant. The Ukrainian government is largely propped up by international aid, and add up all of the military aid sent to Ukraine by various countries so far, and it adds up to more than $36 billion. https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/ That's more than half of Russia's total 2021 military spending, and about the same as France's 2022 non-nuclear military spending.
And even at the start Ukraine had a large quantity of military equipment inherited from the Soviet Union including more artillery than any other country in Europe other than Russia, the fifth largest tank fleet in Europe and, probably most importantly, multi-layered air defense systems that were specifically designed to contest air space and survive against much superior air forces. Who knew that the USSR's air defenses actually worked at their intended purpose? Plus a large number of Javelins and NLAWs and other Western weapons already donated before February 2022. Plus a starting army that in terms of manpower was as large as Russia's invasion force with nearly a million reservists, many of them veterans of the Donbas War, and many of them trained by NATO over the past 8 years, which Ukraine started mobilizing from day 1 whereas Russia waited until September to even start mobilizing.
Knowing in hindsight how well the ex-Soviet air defense systems work, and that for whatever reason Russia did not start out the war using the missiles that they had that could get through the air defenses to do a mini-"shock and awe" bombing campaign targeting soldiers in barracks and infrastructure and communications and so on, it honestly isn't very surprising that Ukraine's conventional army survived long enough for large amounts of Western military aid to start coming in, and that without Russian air superiority that aid included heavy weapons and vehicles and so on.
Russia absolutely underperformed expectations, but I think some perspective could be helpful.
Ukraine has gotten much of their equipment by capturing it from the Russians. They have more tanks than when they started the war, for instance, thanks to capturing lots of tanks.
A Tweet from the UK Ministry of Defense HQ from October 6:
"Ukraine has likely captured at least 440 Russian Main Battle Tanks, and around 650 other armoured vehicles since the invasion. Over half of Ukraine’s currently fielded tank fleet potentially consists of captured vehicles."
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1578263274730229760
Do the math and this means that, given that Ukraine had around 900 tanks back in January, as of October 6 they had fewer tanks than they did before the invasion, despite 300+ donated ex-Soviet tanks and more than 400 visually confirmed captures of Russian tanks. (Of course, we don't know what % of captured tanks are actually usable.)
There aren't that many similar conflicts for comparison though - be that by total population, population ratios, or by gdp ratios.
If we exclude US - which is certainly not a level at which Russia can operate - who exactly will be ahead? It might still be world number 2 - just less impressive then the world expected it to be.
Russian history has multiple examples of their armies being "totally crushed" in battles (and even Moscow being put to fire) and still getting (costly) victories in the end.
Ukrainian military losses are still likely to be higher overall - and damage to Ukraine is most definitely higher compared to damage to Russia, even with all sanctions.
Maybe Russia cannot serve as balancing force alone... as it most certainly didn't since fall of USSR. But as it is forced into previously unlikely alliances as every other option gets denied by West resulting total counterforce might.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, Tsarist Russia lost a series of ears that exposed the weakness of the regime and doomed it.
What emerged out of those doomed regimes still went on to become superpower though.
And in the end today any Russian adventure is still backstopped by nuclear weapons.
Russian elites felt that position given to them by West was unfair and dangerous, and decided to fight back. It is entirely possible that after making every mistake and uncovering all the corruption Russia will still win in the long run as those failing to get results and adapt get purged... even if they will not necessarily have Putin at the head.
.
>And what about the US disaster in Afghanistan?
There's no doubt in my mind the US could get up and simultaneously invade Afghanistan and Vietnam tomorrow, and it would the locals 20 years until the US gets bored and leaves. That's one difference - the US was never conventionally defeated, at worst it was fought off by long insurgencies, which it could have kept fighting forever.
I suspect Vietnam today would be a much harder place to invade than 50-60 years ago. It’s no longer impoverished, and plays some key roles in global trade.
Due to the fact that the Vietnamese were impoverished 50 years ago they fought like they had little to lose. They have more to lose now, maybe less reason to fight. But apart from that they would probably fight the same way anyway. They are a nation who have engaged in defensive conflicts with the USA, France and China in the last century. They are never to be taken lightly.
> And that’s OK. The multipolar world will include China, a newly united Europe, and India as poles of power to balance out the U.S.; Russia isn’t needed anymore to keep the system stable.
Europe is subservient to the U.S.
Frankly, I'd prefer if the US completely took over at this point. Now I live in the world where tech industry is largely about Silicon Valley... but I can't emigrate there... for work. As a tourist, sure, 90 days. _How is it not clear that it's blatant labor protectionism?_
Yet I can get extradited to the US if, for example, I develop open source software it doesn't like (see Tornado cash).
I assume even not respecting OFAC could be a problem soon.
Where will whistleblowers like Snowden flee now?
This is so unfortunate. Russia could have been a counter to US imperialism if it was not a third-rate corrupt imperialist state and really wanted to build a multipolar order not dominated by superpowers.
This war has enormously damaged any claim Russia could have to being an anti-imperialist state but should not be seen in isolation. The destruction of Grozny and Aleppo and its intervention in Georgia are also examples of savagely executed regional imperialism.
A multipolar world mediated through institutions like the UN is a far better idea than Russia trying to revive imperial grandeur that its economy and corrupted military can’t support, and doing so in violation of international law.
The Russian sullen response: “Why can’t we be savage imperialists? Look what you let the US get away with.” assumes that we accept what the US has done in the past or that wrongdoing by one side justifies it by another.
Putin is increasingly looking more like Mussolini v2.0 rather than a reincarnation of Peter the Great.
Please stop doing the "Both sides" thing. The vast majority of the "modern" Republican Party are Putin Puppets, but there are only a small number of fringe "leftists" that support Putin.