On the other hand, I also view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that the West would accept a “Kosovo” scenario where Russia is granted a peace deal where it keeps everything it’s annexed, because if the powers that be in the West were that appeasement-minded, they would presumable have opted for a “Cuba” scenario in 2021 by acquiescing to Russia’s demand that Ukraine never join NATO.
I can’t square my model of Russia with the idea that Russia genuinely invaded Ukraine because they were afraid of NATO expansion. Pre-invasion, Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO and NATO itself was likely only to become smaller and less significant.
Up until the invasion NATO was increasingly perceived as a relic—an organization that lost the reason for its creation. It was hard for me to even imagine chain of events would revitalize NATO. But then Russia sends columns of tanks straight to the capital of the largest country in Europe and yeah, I guess that would do it. Give every country near Russia’s the strongest possible reason and urgency to join NATO and increase their defense budgets.
That result seems likely even if Russia had conquered the entire country in 3 days. In fact I believe Putin felt comfortable invading Ukraine, knowing this would massively boost NATO, because he had absolutely no genuine concerns about NATO invading RUSSIA itself.
I can’t resolve the disconnect about NATO completely, but: I find it works a lot better if we do not focus on NATO per se, but rather consider NATO to be the heading under which Putin’s government talks about the basic geopolitical problems between Russia and Western Europe. For example, the Dugin school of thought views the European side of the security problem as being a fundamental one dictated by geography. For people in Russian leadership who subscribe to this notion, I expect the significance of NATO to them is as the current incarnation of a permanent problem.
It could be the classic issue of enemies misunderstanding each other/modeling each other very badly.
I think pre-invasion, Putin had a lot more effective options for bothering the US/NATO, causing them to slip, etc. For example, he could have kept moving troops around at his borders in ambiguous ways, or put a ton of nukes out on Kaliningrad, with big orange nuclear signs all over them, or etc, etc. But he misread the situation.
Which I think the US also does, and has done in more wars than it has not (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other place where “They’re going to throw down their weapons and welcome us as liberators.”)
Truly, knowing the psychological models of the enemy is rare and non-trivial.
I can’t square my model of Russia with the idea that Russia genuinely invaded Ukraine because they were afraid of NATO expansion. Pre-invasion, Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO and NATO itself was likely only to become smaller and less significant.
Up until the invasion NATO was increasingly perceived as a relic—an organization that lost the reason for its creation. It was hard for me to even imagine chain of events would revitalize NATO. But then Russia sends columns of tanks straight to the capital of the largest country in Europe and yeah, I guess that would do it. Give every country near Russia’s the strongest possible reason and urgency to join NATO and increase their defense budgets.
That result seems likely even if Russia had conquered the entire country in 3 days. In fact I believe Putin felt comfortable invading Ukraine, knowing this would massively boost NATO, because he had absolutely no genuine concerns about NATO invading RUSSIA itself.
I can’t resolve the disconnect about NATO completely, but: I find it works a lot better if we do not focus on NATO per se, but rather consider NATO to be the heading under which Putin’s government talks about the basic geopolitical problems between Russia and Western Europe. For example, the Dugin school of thought views the European side of the security problem as being a fundamental one dictated by geography. For people in Russian leadership who subscribe to this notion, I expect the significance of NATO to them is as the current incarnation of a permanent problem.
I can’t say for certain, but my hunch is that you’re dead on here.
It could be the classic issue of enemies misunderstanding each other/modeling each other very badly.
I think pre-invasion, Putin had a lot more effective options for bothering the US/NATO, causing them to slip, etc. For example, he could have kept moving troops around at his borders in ambiguous ways, or put a ton of nukes out on Kaliningrad, with big orange nuclear signs all over them, or etc, etc. But he misread the situation.
Which I think the US also does, and has done in more wars than it has not (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other place where “They’re going to throw down their weapons and welcome us as liberators.”)
Truly, knowing the psychological models of the enemy is rare and non-trivial.