One aim I could imagine having in Putin’s shoes, that seems better achieved by slow telegraphing of war over Ukraine followed by actual war (vs by a frozen conflict), is gathering information about how the West is likely to respond to any other such wars/similar he might be tempted by.
(I know nothing of geopolitics, so please don’t update from my thinking so. I got this idea from this essay)
I sort of get it and I want to believe it. But it makes no actual sense and that’s terrifying. The west would barely care if Putin was doing this in the *stans or Georgia. The only other target to go to after Ukraine is Moldova and then the Baltics.
If he goes in the Baltics that’s war with NATO. Nothing about the reaction to Ukraine makes a difference there. It’s black and white NATO vs not NATO.
I feel like the most parsimonious explanation is he’s not being very rational, rumors about him having terminal cancer are also pushing me towards that belief. It really doesn’t seem like anyone on the Russian side saw this coming either, which is extra scary.
The Baltic states are part of NATO, but I doubt it really makes a difference for the average American. Putin saying to the US “don’t get involved, or we will send nukes” may be just as effective before invading Estonia than before invading Ukraine.
That has been a key problem of NATO’s defense posture for many decades: How believable is it that the US will risk complete self destruction to protect the freedom of European countries? And iirc that was one reason during the cold war to switch from “massive retaliation” to “flexible response” as a deterrence doctrine.
As it was then, even now, I think, it is not about assuring the adversary that the US will be involved—there can’t be certainty about that. It is more about changing the probabilities for a US involvement. That is the main reason behind the troop movements to NATO’s eastern border, e.g. US F-35 fighter jets and an infantry batallion. An operation killing American soldiers in combat is massively more risky (and therefore, hopefully, much less likely) than an operation without this risk.
Telling the US “Get out of the Baltic states (even though you have guaranteed their safety), or else” is quite different from “Don’t get into Ukraine, or else”. Furthermore, there are troops in the Baltic states of other NATO countries with nuclear weapons, France and the UK.
One aim I could imagine having in Putin’s shoes, that seems better achieved by slow telegraphing of war over Ukraine followed by actual war (vs by a frozen conflict), is gathering information about how the West is likely to respond to any other such wars/similar he might be tempted by.
(I know nothing of geopolitics, so please don’t update from my thinking so. I got this idea from this essay)
I sort of get it and I want to believe it. But it makes no actual sense and that’s terrifying. The west would barely care if Putin was doing this in the *stans or Georgia. The only other target to go to after Ukraine is Moldova and then the Baltics.
If he goes in the Baltics that’s war with NATO. Nothing about the reaction to Ukraine makes a difference there. It’s black and white NATO vs not NATO.
I feel like the most parsimonious explanation is he’s not being very rational, rumors about him having terminal cancer are also pushing me towards that belief. It really doesn’t seem like anyone on the Russian side saw this coming either, which is extra scary.
The Baltic states are part of NATO, but I doubt it really makes a difference for the average American. Putin saying to the US “don’t get involved, or we will send nukes” may be just as effective before invading Estonia than before invading Ukraine.
That has been a key problem of NATO’s defense posture for many decades: How believable is it that the US will risk complete self destruction to protect the freedom of European countries? And iirc that was one reason during the cold war to switch from “massive retaliation” to “flexible response” as a deterrence doctrine.
As it was then, even now, I think, it is not about assuring the adversary that the US will be involved—there can’t be certainty about that. It is more about changing the probabilities for a US involvement. That is the main reason behind the troop movements to NATO’s eastern border, e.g. US F-35 fighter jets and an infantry batallion. An operation killing American soldiers in combat is massively more risky (and therefore, hopefully, much less likely) than an operation without this risk.
Telling the US “Get out of the Baltic states (even though you have guaranteed their safety), or else” is quite different from “Don’t get into Ukraine, or else”. Furthermore, there are troops in the Baltic states of other NATO countries with nuclear weapons, France and the UK.