I think the idea of NATO as an ideologically neutral, purely defensive alliance is a very western perspective. I think Putins perspective of NATO is more akin to our picture of the Warsaw Pact: Neutral defense on paper, but blatant ideological warfare and power projection in practice and intent. If you view NATO in that light (whether accurate or not), NATO’s expansion eastward following the fall of the USSR looks like a blatant power grab while Russia was weakened. If you also have a view of all the former parts of USSR as essentially part of the “real” Greater Russia, the expansion of NATO into not only former Warsaw Pact members, but USSR states as well looks exceptionally aggressive.
A faulty comparison, but perhaps useful as an intuition pump: Imagine if the USSR hade in fact “won” the Cold War in a similar fashion to how the West did; by essentially economically outproducing the USA, until it collapsed financially (only one limited version of events I know, but bear with me), resulting in many US states being left to their own devices after the shattering of the Union, all media being invaded by communist propaganda, and lots of Eastern thinkers and commentators having an opinion on the NewUS’s constitution and internal affairs. You asked them then to guarantee your safety, and in response got vague promises of being left alone. In the years that followed, before the NewUS had time to re-consolidate, the Warsaw Pact expanded (by propaganda and bribery) to include most of Europe, Central America, and Mexico. It didn’t change in character, instead it grew rich, but lazy and complacent with it’s own success, ever self-righteous and condescending. The newly (temporarily?) independent states of Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico followed a few years later, over your protests. By the time the NewUS is starting to emerge from the ashes and have some power to wield again, however hobbled and outmatched, the independent state of FloriTexas, representing a huge portion of former US population and influence, and by many considered part of the former USA’s “heartland”, starts the process of joining the Warsaw Pact. This process involves the careful dismantling of everything a patriot would call “American” about the place. You were a lowly CIA spy when the old US fell, but you’re now the President of the remaining 32 states, and have been pleading, arguing and maneuvering for the communist states to Just Leave The Fuck Alone, Like you Promised but to no avail. The people around you in government are weak and have lost vision. You yourself are growing old. If you ever want to realize the dream of a reunited USA, FloriTexas is the Line in the Sand, the Last Chance for that to ever be possible. A Fall from Grace, and a Destiny Unfulfilled. What do you do?
Of course there are many problems with this comparison. I won’t try to list them all here, think of it only as an intuition pump. But in this view, the Warsaw Pact/NATO looks very threatening.
Even taken at face value, this represents at best a caricature of the Nostalgic/Patriotic USSR perspective, and of course Putin is a shrewd intelligent man who probably won’t adhere to any such simplistic narrative. But to the extent that I understand what is going on at all, I think this tugs at similar heartstrings. Tugging heartstrings is of course not the same as legitimization. Among many other problems, this view of NATO and “westernization” doesn’t care about democracy or national self-determination at all. But of course, that seems to be quite true for Putin.
Now, that being said, I don’t agree with the view of NATO as purely a neutral defense pact. It in fact places clearly ideological conditions on it’s members, some of which are overtly political: (emphasis mine) “Countries aspiring for NATO membership are also expected to meet certain political, economic and military goals in order to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it.”. There is also the fact that the USSR tried to join NATO when it was first formed (or rather, they called the bluff on it’s neutrality), and both Gorbachev and Putin have allegedly floated the idea since (wikipedia source only, sorry no time), but it was dismissed as “a dream”.
So much for the historical backdrop. As for the war itself, it does of course look like a huge mistake right now, from the western media perspective. I am leaning towards that perspective holding up, but that is not quite settled yet I think. It is largely based on the premise that Putin thought he would win in a few days, which is often recited, but I have only seen a few smallish pieces of evidence for this myself (could easily be that I missed it, please enlighten me. Mainly the accidental(?) publishing and subsequent retraction of pre-written news articles lauding Russian success). If Putins plan all along was to slowly but surely take Ukraine using slowly advancing tank columns supported by heavy artillery, like the Russian army does best, then it would have been in the US interest to oversell Putins plan to start with, so that he looks weak now that negotiations are starting. There might be some of this going on, but in the end I think I basically buy the “huge mistake” theory. Taking Crimea was a huge success for Putin domestically, and was very easy for him to pull off at the time. It could have worked a second time.
This is only my take, apply salt as needed. I am but a lone keyboard warrior in a big big sea of history, propaganda and geopolitics.
“This is only my take, apply salt as needed. I am but a lone keyboard warrior in a big big sea of history, propaganda and geopolitics.”
It was a good one. But the main problems come, indeed, from its central metaphor, which flaws (which you acknowledge) can’t be ignored.
The US can’t be compared to the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. US states don’t have any history pre-US (not civilization-wise at least, and their former claimers have been ethnically anihilated too), whereas all of these Warsaw pact nations had a clear history outside of the connection to the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. A clear distinct identity, on all levels.
What is also obvious but can’t be ignored is the mere differences between NATO and Warsaw Pact. I’ll start by saying that NATO is far from perfect and the West is far from being free from corruption, but compared to the Russian dominance, they’re heaven. Democracy, human rights, economic development, freedom. It’s understandable that nations want to join NATO, but don’t want to join the Warsaw Pact or ally with modern Russia. They are seduced into the former, but coerced into the latter. That’s why you can’t compare NATO expanding West, with Warsaw Pact expanding East.
So I don’t really think that that comparison leads anywhere, nor do I think that Putin and the regime are naive enough to actually believe in it, aka to believe in their own propaganda. To pull a few heartstrings, that’s much more plausible. But then, my doubt still stands whether those heartstrings paint the full picture.
“Now, that being said, I don’t agree with the view of NATO as purely a neutral defense pact. It in fact places clearly ideological conditions on it’s members, some of which are overtly political: (emphasis mine) “Countries aspiring for NATO membership are also expected to meet certain political, economic and military goals in order to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it.”″
Well, neutral it isn’t. It certainly is pro-Western values, and its members must have such basic values like democracy, as well as some basic economic and military power “to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it” (self-explanatory). Doesn’t mean it wants to invade the world’s greatest nuclear power (aka commit planetary suicide).
But then, there’s once again the question whether these basic Western values of democracy and human rights are really specifically Western, or whether only the West has been fortunate enough to develop the political structure/ability to implement them. Are most Russians and Chinese, deep down, pro “Western” values? I believe they are. No wonder “everyone” wants to join NATO! Poor people just want freedom and protection. If that’s expansionism, then I’m all for it. (Still doesn’t equate to the suicidal act of invading the world’s greatest nuclear power because we don’t like them.)
In 1958, Hungary wanted independence from the Stalinist USSR, so the Pact threw over thirty thousand troops at the problem, resulting in “repression of the Hungarian Uprising killed 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet Army soldiers, and compelled 200,000 Hungarians to seek political refuge abroad.”
In 1968, Czechoslovakia wanted to enact liberal reforms, but the Pact interfered by invading Czechoslovakia with over a quarter million troops along with tanks and aircraft. As a result, I believe about a hundred civilians were killed, and the conflict lead to “a wave of emigration, largely of highly qualified people, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total)
Compared to that, NATO seems much more of a neutral defense pact—for example, despite the increasingly illiberal governments in Poland and Hungary today, I have heard no mention of using NATO to ~imbue their evil hearts with liberal values~ correct the situation.
Also, speaking to the “Poor people just want freedom and protection” point, from talking with my parents it seems like freedom is a lesser value (less understood, less sought after). The two big ones though are security, especially from the big, aggressive neighbor to the east, and prosperity, in which the difference between the West and those countries behind the iron curtain was vast.
Compared to that, NATO seems much more of a neutral defense pact—for example, despite the increasingly illiberal governments in Poland and Hungary today, I have heard no mention of using NATO to ~imbue their evil hearts with liberal values~ correct the situation.
There’s no way you can establish democratic norms directly by using offensive military power in Poland or Hungary. That’s in the nature of what democracy is about.
When it comes to more covert military power, it’s hard to know to what extent the surveillance powers get used to affect the politics of those countries.
I fully agree. My point was not that NATO and the Warsaw Pact were morally comparable or equivalent. They are not. They were comparable in a strategic, power-balance sense however. For some people, that is all they see. See also longer response above.
I basically agree. My aim was to provide a-way-to-see-the-war-that-makes-sense, not a solid argument for it’s moral validity. Which I don’t think is possible. Obviously. But doing my very best to steelman it might give hints as to the real reasons.
With that in mind, here are some further thoughts/nitpicks:
“The US can’t be compared to the Warsaw Pact and the USSR.” Can you compare apples and oranges? Well, famously not. And they taste very different. But they are still both food. As a matter of history, I totally agree that “the free state of FloriTexas” makes no sense whatsoever, and is a terrible analogue for Ukraine. That part was merely trying to pump intuitions. But NATO and the Warsaw Pact are both still power projections on the geopolitical stage, and in many ways the same sort of entity (Explicitly so: The Warsaw Pact was created to balance NATO), however different the values they represent. The US and the USSR/Russia (as well as both the EU and China for that matter) are also very different from each other. Yet they all have the superpower-competing-at-the-world-stage nature. If you view the world as a game board, they are the principal different colors that have amassed lots of pieces, and are posturing and threatening and playing each other for advantage, even if the types of pieces are often very different. Some pieces looks like ‘nuclear warheads’. Other pieces looks like ‘moral validity’. These are very different, yet both grant enormous power to the wielder, and can indeed sometimes be used as direct counters to each other. Now of course, you and I care about moral validity in itself, as an intrinsic value for it’s own sake, just like we are against nuclear warheads: But if all you see is the power game, they are both just pieces. This is not a complete view of their entire natures, but it is a true one. Narrow, but true.
It is indeed understandable that countries want to join NATO and the EU, and for all the right reasons. This involves Putin loosing pieces, thus he will oppose. It only makes sense for him to oppose, he is playing the game. Of course he feels threatened by NATO absorbing the old USSR states. He is loosing pieces. And of course we applaud and support this victory of democracy and moral values. This merely means that we are enemies of Putin. Thus the conflict. When people say that “the West started it” by expanding NATO, this is what they mean I think. And maybe, just maybe, the fledgling Russian Federation would have felt safer and less pressured if NATO hadn’t added Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to it’s territory in March of 1999, and maybe, just maybe, someone more diplomatic and friendly to the West than Putin would have then been chosen to replace Boris Yeltsin 6 months later. Maybe. Personally I doubt it. But I think this is a very reasonable line of argument. If the West won’t stop playing for power, then it’s hard to expect the weakened Russia to stop. Maybe if NATO had ben dissolved in the mid 90′s. Maybe if Russia had been formally asked to join. I would have liked to see more effort made in this regard. Either way, invasion is not the way in which NATO threatens Putin.
“NATO is far from perfect” My biggest gripe with NATO is not corruption or other such imperfections, but it’s intrinsic meddling-superpower nature. To be sure, the US had done it’s fair share of coercion too over the years. (I am not claiming that the US is “just as bad”. Merely that it is some degree of bad, and that I am vehemently against that part. The USSR, Russia and China are all clearly a lot worse. I am against that a lot more. If backed into a corner I will join the US/NATO every time. I hope I don’t get backed into a corner. And I hope that everyone can be less bad going forward.)
“No wonder “everyone” wants to join NATO!” I live in Sweden, which is not part of NATO. I really don’t want to have to join, and I would be very sad if it came to that. I think the world would be better if superpowers did less meddling and grandstanding (naive, I know, still), and NATO is directly contrary to that wish. Yet Putin acting the way he is acting now is pretty much the only thing that could force me to agree to a NATO membership. A perhaps more selfish reason that I don’t want to join NATO is that Sweden would be required to send troops if, for example, China took Guam. That would be a terrible development, but should not involve Sweden. At least not definitely, pre-determinedly, obviously, involve Sweden.
“[Are] Western values of democracy and human rights [...] really specifically Western” I think no, in the sense that they are not intrinsically western, or that no other people hold them. I think yes, in the sense that it is the values that the Western powers are in fact championing. Kind of like how the ideals of Communism weren’t inherently Eastern (there were and are still communists in both Europe and the US), but were in fact championed by Estern Powers.
“If that’s expansionism, then I’m all for it” I guess this sums up my point pretty neatly. That is indeed what Western expansionism is. I am not “all for it”, I am rather very conflicted about it. I’m all for the democracy and freedom and so forth, but not the geopolitical power projection that tends to come with it. On the other hand I’m definitely for defending those values against attack, and when non-democratic power tries to do it’s power projection, I am for countering it. We might have been able to play this better in the past, I’m not sure. In regards to Ukraine, this was a complicated question until Putin started overtly using force, then it became very simple (simple in principle, the game still has to be played on the object level).
Of course I’m aware of the geopolitical board game. I never doubted that Russia had a lot to gain with gaining back the pre-2014 Ukrainian loyalty. Or that Ukraine’s democracy threatens Putin’s regime. Or that such things are immoral (from Russia). Or that this war is immoral.
My only doubts come from the fact that I really don’t see this war a net-gain for Russia in those regards. It has nothing to do with moral shock or being oblivious about the geopolitical game. It is, indeed, a geopolitical consideration.
“Either way, invasion is not the way in which NATO threatens Putin.”
True, the threat of having a protected democracy on his doorstep is a potential political threat to his regime. But not eminent, and he won’t live forever. That’s why, while in other comments I’ve considered it one of the strongest “real motives” to me, it still feels insufficient.
We can be against Western expansionism as much as we want, but without it, half the world would be living much worse lives, from North America, to Australia, to Japan and South Korea (cultural expansionism), to even the rest of Asia who have also benefited from such cultural expansionism. Also, if the West hadn’t expanded this much, both culturally and politically, our way of life today would be in much more danger. We would stand a lot less strong today. Perhaps wouldn’t even exist as liberal democracies.
One thing is to try to do it while avoiding (nuclear) war. But to be against it is naive. Everybody wants to rule the world. It’s better if the good guys do it.
The way the war is currently turning out does not seem to be a benefit to Putin at all, almost regardless of what happens next. Thus I don’t think it is going according to his plan, whatever his motives were. I don’t think that is in question, and I’m not seeing anyone arguing differently. They question as I understood it is rather about why it might have seemed a good idea in the first place, and that is what I tried to address.
By the way, this is a good thread that has helped me clarify my own thoughts on the subject :) Don’t be discouraged by the fact that asking for an explanation of something that seems to break your world-model inevitably invites lots of arguments against that model. I also often find myself defending the position of the very question I posed, while trying to understand. Thank you for posting!
The different question about the cost-benefit analysis of western expansionism in general is a larger topic, that I won’t debate deeply here. If you want to have that debate, lets start a new thread or something, though I am not claiming to be a great source or representative against that view, merely that I don’t hold it unreservedly. Let it only stand that your motivation stated above is one side, the traditionally American side, and that not all westerners agree with that assessment. I can try to give a surface level summary of my position here if you would like.
“The way the war is currently turning out does not seem to be a benefit to Putin at all, almost regardless of what happens next. Thus I don’t think it is going according to his plan, whatever his motives were. I don’t think that is in question, and I’m not seeing anyone arguing differently.”
I’m a bit skeptical about that, even though you’re right about it being the general consensus. But of course, the Western media will say anything to make Putin look weak, so there is a bit of artificiality there.
Why I’m skeptical? Because why would anyone think that it would be cake to invade a country of 44 million when yours is only about triple the population, and whose military numbers are also about only triple? Russia sent 200.000 troops to Ukraine, that’s also the number is total active Ukrainian troops, but they have another 900.000 reservists, plus several million fighting-age men who have been prohibited to leave the country. This is not to question Russia’s superiority—of course air warfare is the most important, and that’s where Russia is clearly superior, and therefore will win the war. But to think they would win in a few days? C’mon, who really believes that?
It’s totally different from Crimea, a non-country of a few million where most are ethnic Russians, or Georgia, also just a couple million.
Even the invasion of Chechnya in 1999, which has only a million people, resulted in a bloody war that extended for 10 years.
Therefore, when Russians say “we’re gonna take Kyiv in 3 days”, that’s nothing but trying to intimidate the enemy. And when Westerners really believe that that was the plan, it’s both believing their propaganda and saying “A-ha, you’ve failed!” for political purposes.
Seriously, I don’t really know how so many people are buying this.
“They question as I understood it is rather about why it might have seemed a good idea in the first place, and that is what I tried to address.”
Maybe it always has seemed like a good idea, but for some less obvious reasons. That’s where I stand. Either that, or the plan was flawed from the beginning. Or irrational/passional.
I certainly believed that Russia could take Ukraine in a few days. That Ukrainian forces would be simply overwhelmed with heavy weaponry. So did the alleged Russian soldiers who packed parade uniforms rather than food, their alleged schedules of orders printed on paper in lieu of radio communication, and the apparently pre-prepared Russian media reports of Russian victory after only a few days. I acknowledge that some of this is probably propaganda, but I note that both sides seems to have been essentially saying the same thing here, and also that it seems much more plausible for Putin to come out on top if it had in fact gone according to that plan, and thus much more plausible for him to have gone ahead with the attack in the first place if he thought that was a likely outcome. After all, the Coalition forces took Iraq in only a matter of weeks with comparable numbers of troops. Of course, that is turning into a very inadequate comparison, but I was certainly under the impression of Russia as a “near peer adversary”, similar in capabilities to the US, a view that is falling apart rapidly. This change in optics in itself is a massive, massive loss for Putin, plausibly bigger than the outcome of the war itself.
If this was obviously false to you ahead of time I applaud your ability to (seemingly at least) do better than most public military analys in the west over the last decade or more. I certainly did not. And judging by how the war is going, neither did Putin. I agree that 10 years in Chechnya, or the US in Afghanistan for that matter, should be counted as evidence against this view, and that it is indeed not holding up. This incompatibility indicates to me that Putin really did think that he’d get a heroes welcome, at least by a sizable part of the population. If he did belive that, invading makes all the more sense.
I do agree that it is in the Wests interest to portray Putin as failing, and that spreading rumors of his plan being implausibly optimistic ahead of time might have been part of that strategy. A strategy like that might backfire though, if it demoralizes defending troops before the attack (I personally would be inclined to desert if my own leaders thought we would loose within days anyway). Right now it is clearly in the interest of the west to fuel and maintain a narrative of a weak, disorganized and outdated Russian army, and this incentive should make us look more closely at the evidence. As far as I can see (which is not very far, certainly not further than anyone else with an internet connection) it seems to more or less check out.
A note on Reservists: Many reservist forces take months to mobilize and retrain even at the best of times, and will have to be processed in batches. Ukraine only activated it’s reservists on the day of the invasion. Apparently they have temporarily stopped taking more people in, due to training facilities being flooded with more volunteers than they can process. Russia has not (yet) called for remobilization of reservist forces, that we know of. If they did, that would amount to Putin admitting that something has gone horribly horribly wrong, in a way impossible to hide from the general population.
“So did the alleged Russian soldiers who packed parade uniforms rather than food”
That’s not a good example. I’ve been hearing tons of reports of Russian soldiers who didn’t even know they were going into enemy ground. Soldiers usually know little, specially those of dictatorships.
“If this was obviously false to you ahead of time I applaud your ability to (seemingly at least) do better than most public military analys in the west over the last decade or more”
All it takes is a bit of common sense and, above all, being able to detect the propaganda on both sides (I’ve also been hearing plenty of military analysts saying the war could last years btw). How on Earth do you conquer in a few days a nation of 44 million who’s deeply adverse towards you, and who’s been receiving plenty of military aid from the West? It’s that simple. This is not Iraq. Sure, Iraq has a similar size and population, but it’s a war-torn hellhole in the middle of nowhere, where the whole world was against it, not supporting it. It’s night and day. (Or one could also think of Hitler breezing through Austria and being received with flowers, but again, you had a population/government who was in full support of him, which is pretty much the opposite of the current stance of Ukraine towards Russia ).
“That’s not a good example”, “Soldiers usually know little”
Fair.
“the war could last years”
Now that Putin is bogged down, apparently unable to make militarily advances, but politically unable to back out, it might well drag on for years. I didn’t hear anyone predicting that until after the advance seemed to stall out though (again, me not hearing about it is not proof of absence. I’d be very interested to find an analyst who predicted this from the start.).
“All it takes is a bit of common sense”
This is not how it looks to me. But if grant that it is obvious, and was well known to all involved players, then that really raises the question of what Putin thinks he is gaining from a long, unpopular, expensive war with his “beloved brother-nation”. Which I suppose was the question that you posed to start with, so fair enough :) Most of my probability mass is still concentrated around Putin simply being mistaken about how he would be received, and thus how things would turn out, like I’ve outlined above. I realize that this is basically the common western propaganda narrative, and I agree that that should make us extra critical. But the fact remains that it sure looks to me like he is deep in the shit now, which clearly implies that something didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to. See also new thread.
I think the idea of NATO as an ideologically neutral, purely defensive alliance is a very western perspective. I think Putins perspective of NATO is more akin to our picture of the Warsaw Pact: Neutral defense on paper, but blatant ideological warfare and power projection in practice and intent. If you view NATO in that light (whether accurate or not), NATO’s expansion eastward following the fall of the USSR looks like a blatant power grab while Russia was weakened. If you also have a view of all the former parts of USSR as essentially part of the “real” Greater Russia, the expansion of NATO into not only former Warsaw Pact members, but USSR states as well looks exceptionally aggressive.
A faulty comparison, but perhaps useful as an intuition pump:
Imagine if the USSR hade in fact “won” the Cold War in a similar fashion to how the West did; by essentially economically outproducing the USA, until it collapsed financially (only one limited version of events I know, but bear with me), resulting in many US states being left to their own devices after the shattering of the Union, all media being invaded by communist propaganda, and lots of Eastern thinkers and commentators having an opinion on the NewUS’s constitution and internal affairs. You asked them then to guarantee your safety, and in response got vague promises of being left alone. In the years that followed, before the NewUS had time to re-consolidate, the Warsaw Pact expanded (by propaganda and bribery) to include most of Europe, Central America, and Mexico. It didn’t change in character, instead it grew rich, but lazy and complacent with it’s own success, ever self-righteous and condescending. The newly (temporarily?) independent states of Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico followed a few years later, over your protests. By the time the NewUS is starting to emerge from the ashes and have some power to wield again, however hobbled and outmatched, the independent state of FloriTexas, representing a huge portion of former US population and influence, and by many considered part of the former USA’s “heartland”, starts the process of joining the Warsaw Pact. This process involves the careful dismantling of everything a patriot would call “American” about the place. You were a lowly CIA spy when the old US fell, but you’re now the President of the remaining 32 states, and have been pleading, arguing and maneuvering for the communist states to Just Leave The Fuck Alone, Like you Promised but to no avail. The people around you in government are weak and have lost vision. You yourself are growing old. If you ever want to realize the dream of a reunited USA, FloriTexas is the Line in the Sand, the Last Chance for that to ever be possible. A Fall from Grace, and a Destiny Unfulfilled. What do you do?
Of course there are many problems with this comparison. I won’t try to list them all here, think of it only as an intuition pump. But in this view, the Warsaw Pact/NATO looks very threatening.
Even taken at face value, this represents at best a caricature of the Nostalgic/Patriotic USSR perspective, and of course Putin is a shrewd intelligent man who probably won’t adhere to any such simplistic narrative. But to the extent that I understand what is going on at all, I think this tugs at similar heartstrings. Tugging heartstrings is of course not the same as legitimization. Among many other problems, this view of NATO and “westernization” doesn’t care about democracy or national self-determination at all. But of course, that seems to be quite true for Putin.
Now, that being said, I don’t agree with the view of NATO as purely a neutral defense pact. It in fact places clearly ideological conditions on it’s members, some of which are overtly political: (emphasis mine) “Countries aspiring for NATO membership are also expected to meet certain political, economic and military goals in order to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it.”. There is also the fact that the USSR tried to join NATO when it was first formed (or rather, they called the bluff on it’s neutrality), and both Gorbachev and Putin have allegedly floated the idea since (wikipedia source only, sorry no time), but it was dismissed as “a dream”.
So much for the historical backdrop. As for the war itself, it does of course look like a huge mistake right now, from the western media perspective. I am leaning towards that perspective holding up, but that is not quite settled yet I think. It is largely based on the premise that Putin thought he would win in a few days, which is often recited, but I have only seen a few smallish pieces of evidence for this myself (could easily be that I missed it, please enlighten me. Mainly the accidental(?) publishing and subsequent retraction of pre-written news articles lauding Russian success). If Putins plan all along was to slowly but surely take Ukraine using slowly advancing tank columns supported by heavy artillery, like the Russian army does best, then it would have been in the US interest to oversell Putins plan to start with, so that he looks weak now that negotiations are starting. There might be some of this going on, but in the end I think I basically buy the “huge mistake” theory. Taking Crimea was a huge success for Putin domestically, and was very easy for him to pull off at the time. It could have worked a second time.
This is only my take, apply salt as needed. I am but a lone keyboard warrior in a big big sea of history, propaganda and geopolitics.
“This is only my take, apply salt as needed. I am but a lone keyboard warrior in a big big sea of history, propaganda and geopolitics.”
It was a good one. But the main problems come, indeed, from its central metaphor, which flaws (which you acknowledge) can’t be ignored.
The US can’t be compared to the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. US states don’t have any history pre-US (not civilization-wise at least, and their former claimers have been ethnically anihilated too), whereas all of these Warsaw pact nations had a clear history outside of the connection to the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. A clear distinct identity, on all levels.
What is also obvious but can’t be ignored is the mere differences between NATO and Warsaw Pact. I’ll start by saying that NATO is far from perfect and the West is far from being free from corruption, but compared to the Russian dominance, they’re heaven. Democracy, human rights, economic development, freedom. It’s understandable that nations want to join NATO, but don’t want to join the Warsaw Pact or ally with modern Russia. They are seduced into the former, but coerced into the latter. That’s why you can’t compare NATO expanding West, with Warsaw Pact expanding East.
So I don’t really think that that comparison leads anywhere, nor do I think that Putin and the regime are naive enough to actually believe in it, aka to believe in their own propaganda. To pull a few heartstrings, that’s much more plausible. But then, my doubt still stands whether those heartstrings paint the full picture.
“Now, that being said, I don’t agree with the view of NATO as purely a neutral defense pact. It in fact places clearly ideological conditions on it’s members, some of which are overtly political: (emphasis mine) “Countries aspiring for NATO membership are also expected to meet certain political, economic and military goals in order to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it.”″
Well, neutral it isn’t. It certainly is pro-Western values, and its members must have such basic values like democracy, as well as some basic economic and military power “to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it” (self-explanatory). Doesn’t mean it wants to invade the world’s greatest nuclear power (aka commit planetary suicide).
But then, there’s once again the question whether these basic Western values of democracy and human rights are really specifically Western, or whether only the West has been fortunate enough to develop the political structure/ability to implement them. Are most Russians and Chinese, deep down, pro “Western” values? I believe they are. No wonder “everyone” wants to join NATO! Poor people just want freedom and protection. If that’s expansionism, then I’m all for it. (Still doesn’t equate to the suicidal act of invading the world’s greatest nuclear power because we don’t like them.)
Another point to the NATO-Warsaw Pact comparison:
In 1958, Hungary wanted independence from the Stalinist USSR, so the Pact threw over thirty thousand troops at the problem, resulting in “repression of the Hungarian Uprising killed 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Soviet Army soldiers, and compelled 200,000 Hungarians to seek political refuge abroad.”
In 1968, Czechoslovakia wanted to enact liberal reforms, but the Pact interfered by invading Czechoslovakia with over a quarter million troops along with tanks and aircraft. As a result, I believe about a hundred civilians were killed, and the conflict lead to “a wave of emigration, largely of highly qualified people, unseen before and stopped shortly after (estimate: 70,000 immediately, 300,000 in total)
Compared to that, NATO seems much more of a neutral defense pact—for example, despite the increasingly illiberal governments in Poland and Hungary today, I have heard no mention of using NATO to ~imbue their evil hearts with liberal values~ correct the situation.
Also, speaking to the “Poor people just want freedom and protection” point, from talking with my parents it seems like freedom is a lesser value (less understood, less sought after). The two big ones though are security, especially from the big, aggressive neighbor to the east, and prosperity, in which the difference between the West and those countries behind the iron curtain was vast.
There’s no way you can establish democratic norms directly by using offensive military power in Poland or Hungary. That’s in the nature of what democracy is about.
When it comes to more covert military power, it’s hard to know to what extent the surveillance powers get used to affect the politics of those countries.
I fully agree. My point was not that NATO and the Warsaw Pact were morally comparable or equivalent. They are not. They were comparable in a strategic, power-balance sense however. For some people, that is all they see. See also longer response above.
I basically agree. My aim was to provide a-way-to-see-the-war-that-makes-sense, not a solid argument for it’s moral validity. Which I don’t think is possible. Obviously. But doing my very best to steelman it might give hints as to the real reasons.
With that in mind, here are some further thoughts/nitpicks:
“The US can’t be compared to the Warsaw Pact and the USSR.”
Can you compare apples and oranges? Well, famously not. And they taste very different. But they are still both food. As a matter of history, I totally agree that “the free state of FloriTexas” makes no sense whatsoever, and is a terrible analogue for Ukraine. That part was merely trying to pump intuitions. But NATO and the Warsaw Pact are both still power projections on the geopolitical stage, and in many ways the same sort of entity (Explicitly so: The Warsaw Pact was created to balance NATO), however different the values they represent. The US and the USSR/Russia (as well as both the EU and China for that matter) are also very different from each other. Yet they all have the superpower-competing-at-the-world-stage nature. If you view the world as a game board, they are the principal different colors that have amassed lots of pieces, and are posturing and threatening and playing each other for advantage, even if the types of pieces are often very different. Some pieces looks like ‘nuclear warheads’. Other pieces looks like ‘moral validity’. These are very different, yet both grant enormous power to the wielder, and can indeed sometimes be used as direct counters to each other. Now of course, you and I care about moral validity in itself, as an intrinsic value for it’s own sake, just like we are against nuclear warheads: But if all you see is the power game, they are both just pieces. This is not a complete view of their entire natures, but it is a true one. Narrow, but true.
It is indeed understandable that countries want to join NATO and the EU, and for all the right reasons. This involves Putin loosing pieces, thus he will oppose. It only makes sense for him to oppose, he is playing the game. Of course he feels threatened by NATO absorbing the old USSR states. He is loosing pieces. And of course we applaud and support this victory of democracy and moral values. This merely means that we are enemies of Putin. Thus the conflict.
When people say that “the West started it” by expanding NATO, this is what they mean I think. And maybe, just maybe, the fledgling Russian Federation would have felt safer and less pressured if NATO hadn’t added Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to it’s territory in March of 1999, and maybe, just maybe, someone more diplomatic and friendly to the West than Putin would have then been chosen to replace Boris Yeltsin 6 months later. Maybe. Personally I doubt it. But I think this is a very reasonable line of argument. If the West won’t stop playing for power, then it’s hard to expect the weakened Russia to stop. Maybe if NATO had ben dissolved in the mid 90′s. Maybe if Russia had been formally asked to join. I would have liked to see more effort made in this regard. Either way, invasion is not the way in which NATO threatens Putin.
“NATO is far from perfect”
My biggest gripe with NATO is not corruption or other such imperfections, but it’s intrinsic meddling-superpower nature. To be sure, the US had done it’s fair share of coercion too over the years. (I am not claiming that the US is “just as bad”. Merely that it is some degree of bad, and that I am vehemently against that part. The USSR, Russia and China are all clearly a lot worse. I am against that a lot more. If backed into a corner I will join the US/NATO every time. I hope I don’t get backed into a corner. And I hope that everyone can be less bad going forward.)
“No wonder “everyone” wants to join NATO!”
I live in Sweden, which is not part of NATO. I really don’t want to have to join, and I would be very sad if it came to that. I think the world would be better if superpowers did less meddling and grandstanding (naive, I know, still), and NATO is directly contrary to that wish. Yet Putin acting the way he is acting now is pretty much the only thing that could force me to agree to a NATO membership.
A perhaps more selfish reason that I don’t want to join NATO is that Sweden would be required to send troops if, for example, China took Guam. That would be a terrible development, but should not involve Sweden. At least not definitely, pre-determinedly, obviously, involve Sweden.
“[Are] Western values of democracy and human rights [...] really specifically Western”
I think no, in the sense that they are not intrinsically western, or that no other people hold them. I think yes, in the sense that it is the values that the Western powers are in fact championing. Kind of like how the ideals of Communism weren’t inherently Eastern (there were and are still communists in both Europe and the US), but were in fact championed by Estern Powers.
“If that’s expansionism, then I’m all for it”
I guess this sums up my point pretty neatly. That is indeed what Western expansionism is. I am not “all for it”, I am rather very conflicted about it. I’m all for the democracy and freedom and so forth, but not the geopolitical power projection that tends to come with it. On the other hand I’m definitely for defending those values against attack, and when non-democratic power tries to do it’s power projection, I am for countering it. We might have been able to play this better in the past, I’m not sure. In regards to Ukraine, this was a complicated question until Putin started overtly using force, then it became very simple (simple in principle, the game still has to be played on the object level).
Of course I’m aware of the geopolitical board game. I never doubted that Russia had a lot to gain with gaining back the pre-2014 Ukrainian loyalty. Or that Ukraine’s democracy threatens Putin’s regime. Or that such things are immoral (from Russia). Or that this war is immoral.
My only doubts come from the fact that I really don’t see this war a net-gain for Russia in those regards. It has nothing to do with moral shock or being oblivious about the geopolitical game. It is, indeed, a geopolitical consideration.
“Either way, invasion is not the way in which NATO threatens Putin.”
True, the threat of having a protected democracy on his doorstep is a potential political threat to his regime. But not eminent, and he won’t live forever. That’s why, while in other comments I’ve considered it one of the strongest “real motives” to me, it still feels insufficient.
We can be against Western expansionism as much as we want, but without it, half the world would be living much worse lives, from North America, to Australia, to Japan and South Korea (cultural expansionism), to even the rest of Asia who have also benefited from such cultural expansionism. Also, if the West hadn’t expanded this much, both culturally and politically, our way of life today would be in much more danger. We would stand a lot less strong today. Perhaps wouldn’t even exist as liberal democracies.
One thing is to try to do it while avoiding (nuclear) war. But to be against it is naive. Everybody wants to rule the world. It’s better if the good guys do it.
The way the war is currently turning out does not seem to be a benefit to Putin at all, almost regardless of what happens next. Thus I don’t think it is going according to his plan, whatever his motives were. I don’t think that is in question, and I’m not seeing anyone arguing differently. They question as I understood it is rather about why it might have seemed a good idea in the first place, and that is what I tried to address.
By the way, this is a good thread that has helped me clarify my own thoughts on the subject :) Don’t be discouraged by the fact that asking for an explanation of something that seems to break your world-model inevitably invites lots of arguments against that model. I also often find myself defending the position of the very question I posed, while trying to understand. Thank you for posting!
The different question about the cost-benefit analysis of western expansionism in general is a larger topic, that I won’t debate deeply here. If you want to have that debate, lets start a new thread or something, though I am not claiming to be a great source or representative against that view, merely that I don’t hold it unreservedly. Let it only stand that your motivation stated above is one side, the traditionally American side, and that not all westerners agree with that assessment. I can try to give a surface level summary of my position here if you would like.
“Thank you for posting!”
My pleasure.
“The way the war is currently turning out does not seem to be a benefit to Putin at all, almost regardless of what happens next. Thus I don’t think it is going according to his plan, whatever his motives were. I don’t think that is in question, and I’m not seeing anyone arguing differently.”
I’m a bit skeptical about that, even though you’re right about it being the general consensus. But of course, the Western media will say anything to make Putin look weak, so there is a bit of artificiality there.
Why I’m skeptical? Because why would anyone think that it would be cake to invade a country of 44 million when yours is only about triple the population, and whose military numbers are also about only triple? Russia sent 200.000 troops to Ukraine, that’s also the number is total active Ukrainian troops, but they have another 900.000 reservists, plus several million fighting-age men who have been prohibited to leave the country. This is not to question Russia’s superiority—of course air warfare is the most important, and that’s where Russia is clearly superior, and therefore will win the war. But to think they would win in a few days? C’mon, who really believes that?
It’s totally different from Crimea, a non-country of a few million where most are ethnic Russians, or Georgia, also just a couple million.
Even the invasion of Chechnya in 1999, which has only a million people, resulted in a bloody war that extended for 10 years.
Therefore, when Russians say “we’re gonna take Kyiv in 3 days”, that’s nothing but trying to intimidate the enemy. And when Westerners really believe that that was the plan, it’s both believing their propaganda and saying “A-ha, you’ve failed!” for political purposes.
Seriously, I don’t really know how so many people are buying this.
“They question as I understood it is rather about why it might have seemed a good idea in the first place, and that is what I tried to address.”
Maybe it always has seemed like a good idea, but for some less obvious reasons. That’s where I stand. Either that, or the plan was flawed from the beginning. Or irrational/passional.
I certainly believed that Russia could take Ukraine in a few days. That Ukrainian forces would be simply overwhelmed with heavy weaponry. So did the alleged Russian soldiers who packed parade uniforms rather than food, their alleged schedules of orders printed on paper in lieu of radio communication, and the apparently pre-prepared Russian media reports of Russian victory after only a few days. I acknowledge that some of this is probably propaganda, but I note that both sides seems to have been essentially saying the same thing here, and also that it seems much more plausible for Putin to come out on top if it had in fact gone according to that plan, and thus much more plausible for him to have gone ahead with the attack in the first place if he thought that was a likely outcome. After all, the Coalition forces took Iraq in only a matter of weeks with comparable numbers of troops. Of course, that is turning into a very inadequate comparison, but I was certainly under the impression of Russia as a “near peer adversary”, similar in capabilities to the US, a view that is falling apart rapidly. This change in optics in itself is a massive, massive loss for Putin, plausibly bigger than the outcome of the war itself.
If this was obviously false to you ahead of time I applaud your ability to (seemingly at least) do better than most public military analys in the west over the last decade or more. I certainly did not. And judging by how the war is going, neither did Putin. I agree that 10 years in Chechnya, or the US in Afghanistan for that matter, should be counted as evidence against this view, and that it is indeed not holding up. This incompatibility indicates to me that Putin really did think that he’d get a heroes welcome, at least by a sizable part of the population. If he did belive that, invading makes all the more sense.
I do agree that it is in the Wests interest to portray Putin as failing, and that spreading rumors of his plan being implausibly optimistic ahead of time might have been part of that strategy. A strategy like that might backfire though, if it demoralizes defending troops before the attack (I personally would be inclined to desert if my own leaders thought we would loose within days anyway). Right now it is clearly in the interest of the west to fuel and maintain a narrative of a weak, disorganized and outdated Russian army, and this incentive should make us look more closely at the evidence. As far as I can see (which is not very far, certainly not further than anyone else with an internet connection) it seems to more or less check out.
A note on Reservists: Many reservist forces take months to mobilize and retrain even at the best of times, and will have to be processed in batches. Ukraine only activated it’s reservists on the day of the invasion. Apparently they have temporarily stopped taking more people in, due to training facilities being flooded with more volunteers than they can process. Russia has not (yet) called for remobilization of reservist forces, that we know of. If they did, that would amount to Putin admitting that something has gone horribly horribly wrong, in a way impossible to hide from the general population.
“So did the alleged Russian soldiers who packed parade uniforms rather than food”
That’s not a good example. I’ve been hearing tons of reports of Russian soldiers who didn’t even know they were going into enemy ground. Soldiers usually know little, specially those of dictatorships.
“If this was obviously false to you ahead of time I applaud your ability to (seemingly at least) do better than most public military analys in the west over the last decade or more”
All it takes is a bit of common sense and, above all, being able to detect the propaganda on both sides (I’ve also been hearing plenty of military analysts saying the war could last years btw). How on Earth do you conquer in a few days a nation of 44 million who’s deeply adverse towards you, and who’s been receiving plenty of military aid from the West? It’s that simple. This is not Iraq. Sure, Iraq has a similar size and population, but it’s a war-torn hellhole in the middle of nowhere, where the whole world was against it, not supporting it. It’s night and day. (Or one could also think of Hitler breezing through Austria and being received with flowers, but again, you had a population/government who was in full support of him, which is pretty much the opposite of the current stance of Ukraine towards Russia ).
“That’s not a good example”, “Soldiers usually know little”
Fair.
“the war could last years”
Now that Putin is bogged down, apparently unable to make militarily advances, but politically unable to back out, it might well drag on for years. I didn’t hear anyone predicting that until after the advance seemed to stall out though (again, me not hearing about it is not proof of absence. I’d be very interested to find an analyst who predicted this from the start.).
“All it takes is a bit of common sense”
This is not how it looks to me. But if grant that it is obvious, and was well known to all involved players, then that really raises the question of what Putin thinks he is gaining from a long, unpopular, expensive war with his “beloved brother-nation”. Which I suppose was the question that you posed to start with, so fair enough :)
Most of my probability mass is still concentrated around Putin simply being mistaken about how he would be received, and thus how things would turn out, like I’ve outlined above. I realize that this is basically the common western propaganda narrative, and I agree that that should make us extra critical. But the fact remains that it sure looks to me like he is deep in the shit now, which clearly implies that something didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to. See also new thread.