I’ll grant that it’a an optimistic take. I have certainly seen military analysts say that Putin won’t be able to keep it up for very long, or won’t be able to hold the territory even if he does manage to grind the cities to rubble, like retired US Lt. Gen. Hodges, or indeed the linked article. But I’m sure the Russian armed forces could just keep shelling and bombing, and never really loose in the conventional sense, barring large scale desertion. But it’s political suicide for Putin to do that. Just like it is suicide for him to give up right now. One potential out from that dilemma might be for him to escalate like you say, and therefore it is of paramount importance that we don’t give him any excuse to do that. This might not stop him, he certainly has a track record of escalating all by himself, but without an excuse that is political suicide too. Hence the comment of digging his own grave. The tragedy of course, is all the other lives he is taking down with him. On both sides, I certainly don’t blame the Russian conscripts in this.
What our contingency should be if he does escalate is a tougher question. There I don’t know. Maybe that’s the time to enter militarily, after it’s been thoroughly established that he escalated first. Or maybe not, I don’t know. You are right, it does beg the question.
When you say “political suicide”, what exactly do you mean? I understand the term in the context of democratic countries; it means the person in question will lose the next election or be removed from office through impeachment/vote of no confidence. In the context of authoritarian countries, it usually means popular uprising or palace coup, but neither seems very likely. For comparison, the North Korea regime has been committing “political suicide” for decades, isolated diplomatically and economically and yet Kim Jong-Un is worshipped as a god.
I think a better way to express ‘political suicide’ is “The way Russia will have to prosecute the Ukraine campaign to win the military conflict, will assure the political objectives that were the reason for the war in the first place can not be achieved.”
A video from 4 days after the invasion that I think holds up. Start at 44 minutes. There’s a good tactical summary at 25 minutes too.
This is a good point, I have been using that term very loosely. I guess what I mean is a massive loss of support and legitimacy, as we have indeed seen already. I agree that for a dictator this probably means a shift to a more authoritarian style before it means being ousted, and that the likelihood of a coup depends in large part on things like palace security.
North Korea is indeed a chilling example, and Russia’s new economic reality has already been widely compared to North Korea in mainstream media. I think Russia has enough widespread internet access, and not enough Putin-worship for the comparison to hold very far, but it can indeed get very ugly in the meantime.
As for that prediction market, that looks low to me, considering how it’s worded. I’d expect at least that much chance of Putin dying a natural death before 2024, and that might well be described as a “regime change” by popular media, so that leaves no room for a coup. Also the fine print stating that it doesn’t count if Putin “voluntarily resigns”, is very vague, and indeed a way he might try to make it look if he sees that he is loosing power. Still I’m updating some.
I’ll grant that it’a an optimistic take. I have certainly seen military analysts say that Putin won’t be able to keep it up for very long, or won’t be able to hold the territory even if he does manage to grind the cities to rubble, like retired US Lt. Gen. Hodges, or indeed the linked article. But I’m sure the Russian armed forces could just keep shelling and bombing, and never really loose in the conventional sense, barring large scale desertion. But it’s political suicide for Putin to do that. Just like it is suicide for him to give up right now. One potential out from that dilemma might be for him to escalate like you say, and therefore it is of paramount importance that we don’t give him any excuse to do that. This might not stop him, he certainly has a track record of escalating all by himself, but without an excuse that is political suicide too. Hence the comment of digging his own grave. The tragedy of course, is all the other lives he is taking down with him. On both sides, I certainly don’t blame the Russian conscripts in this.
What our contingency should be if he does escalate is a tougher question. There I don’t know. Maybe that’s the time to enter militarily, after it’s been thoroughly established that he escalated first. Or maybe not, I don’t know. You are right, it does beg the question.
When you say “political suicide”, what exactly do you mean? I understand the term in the context of democratic countries; it means the person in question will lose the next election or be removed from office through impeachment/vote of no confidence. In the context of authoritarian countries, it usually means popular uprising or palace coup, but neither seems very likely. For comparison, the North Korea regime has been committing “political suicide” for decades, isolated diplomatically and economically and yet Kim Jong-Un is worshipped as a god.
I think a better way to express ‘political suicide’ is “The way Russia will have to prosecute the Ukraine campaign to win the military conflict, will assure the political objectives that were the reason for the war in the first place can not be achieved.”
A video from 4 days after the invasion that I think holds up. Start at 44 minutes. There’s a good tactical summary at 25 minutes too.
This is a good point, I have been using that term very loosely. I guess what I mean is a massive loss of support and legitimacy, as we have indeed seen already. I agree that for a dictator this probably means a shift to a more authoritarian style before it means being ousted, and that the likelihood of a coup depends in large part on things like palace security.
North Korea is indeed a chilling example, and Russia’s new economic reality has already been widely compared to North Korea in mainstream media. I think Russia has enough widespread internet access, and not enough Putin-worship for the comparison to hold very far, but it can indeed get very ugly in the meantime.
As for that prediction market, that looks low to me, considering how it’s worded. I’d expect at least that much chance of Putin dying a natural death before 2024, and that might well be described as a “regime change” by popular media, so that leaves no room for a coup. Also the fine print stating that it doesn’t count if Putin “voluntarily resigns”, is very vague, and indeed a way he might try to make it look if he sees that he is loosing power. Still I’m updating some.