Putin’s Power Protection Racket

 

Extortion

May 21st. General Omar Bradley once famously said, “amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics”. To Putin’s mind amateurs talk casualties, professionals talk attrition.

An extortion racket offers to ‘protect’ property, in this case Russia’s neighbouring states, whilst threatening to inflict the very damage that Russia claims to be offering protection against. The ‘threat’ Putin cites is the false claim of Western ‘fascism’. Putin has thus embarked on a policy of long grey zone coercion with the West aimed at what he sees as the lands ‘in-between’ Russian and Western influence. Such is his hubris that even EU and NATO members and aspirants are included in his hybrid war of coercion. That is why Putin replaced Sergei Shoigu as Russia’s Defence Minister 2ith the economist Andrei Belousov.

It is also why the Moscow-friendly government of Georgia in Tbilisi has imposed so-called Foreign Agents legislation on its citizens, which is simply a cut and paste version of Moscow’s own draconian anti-dissent laws. For Putin this is his way of systemic war against the free West for if a state cannot be conquered by Russia it must be coerced into aligning itself with Moscow.

Theory of victory?

There is much talk these days in the bien pensant class of the West of the need for a ‘Theory of Victory’. Few of them have any idea what it means. It is just one of those phrases that is fashionable for a time. Those that do have an idea seem to suggest a rather vague theory that ‘victory’ in war is more a subjective appreciation of a situation than an objectively measurable fact.  In other words, how to be in a war whilst pretending one is at peace, in which case, such theories of ‘victory’ tend to be little more than a semantic justification for appeasement. The problem is that Putin IS at war with the West, and it is a real war as far as Moscow is concerned albeit one that is not as yet hot.  And, given the extortion racket he is running he needs the West to recognise he is at war with it to justify the enormous costs he is imposing on both Russians and Ukrainians. Given that the first dictum of war is to do what your enemy least wants, perhaps the best one can say is that the West’s refusal to recognise it is at war is a cunning plan to frustrate Putin.

Russians have a ‘nation at war’ doctrine which is very different to contemporary Western ideas of war. There is absolutely no such thing to Russians as a war of choice. ALL wars are existential and even if the balance between information, digital and physical war may shift it is only because the Russian theory of victory is either complete control or annihilation. Western democracies tend to see their armed forces as state-sanctioned mercenaries who act on behalf of their respective publics precisely so that said publics can be kept in a child-like state of blessed ignorance. For Putin he is Russia and if he is at war all of Russia is at war and must be directed towards realising his theory of victory.

False history

History is a particularly important weapon in Putin’s hybrid war arsenal. A vital part of his theory of victory is to impose the Russian historical narrative not just on Russians but on adversaries as well. Take World War Two as an example. Much of the self-loathing West has bought into the idea that Russia won World War Two because so many Russians were killed.  There can be no doubt that millions of brave Russians died fighting Nazism but many of those perished at the hands of an incompetent Stalin regime. Between November 1937 and June 1938 Stalin purged the Red Army officer corps of 35,000 experienced commanders with several thousand of the most senior officers executed. Then, in late November 1939, launched the “Winter War” and invaded Finland but was fought to a standstill by the Finns in much the same way as the Ukrainians have fought Russian forces close to a standstill today. Even though Hitler’s intentions were clear, an in-denial Stalin did little to modernise his forces between the signing of the Nazi Soviet Pact in August 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Much of the West has also bought into the idea that it was Russia’s sacrifice that really won World War Two in Europe. In fact, there is a very good reason Western casualties were relatively far fewer in World War Two than the Soviets. The Western Allies fought the war far more effectively and efficiently because they made a conscious decision to put steel and technology before flesh and people. Any Western theory of victory should concern how to convince Putin the West is not going to cave in to Russia’s protection/extortion racket? It will not be easy because Putin's theory of victory is the belief he can successfully exploit Western Europe’s lack of belief in anything much about anything anymore.

War aims

A twenty-first century technology before flesh strategy is needed. Between 1934 and 1943 the British constructed the world’s most advanced air defence system and most capable offensive strategic bomber force by building a technological and industrial surge capacity that saw radar and sonar invented, produced, and deployed. Recently, Anne Keast Butler, Director of Britain’s GCHQ warned that Russia was preparing for “physical attacks” on NATO countries, not just virtual attacks. Both China and Russia have undertaken systematic analyses of the many vulnerabilities with which Western states contend. Vulnerabilities which are at the very core of Putin’s theory of victory.

The paradox is that there is neither much new in the Russian way of war or the West’s lazy response to it. Russia’s inferiority complex with the West has traditionally led it to use coercion short of all-out war to force its neighbours to comply with its demands. The reason Moscow is endeavouring to turn the Russian way of war into an avenue is because Western leaders have created the opportunity for it to do so. For too many years the West has been in thrall to economics as the essence of statecraft whilst other Moscow-useful idiots have propagated the false belief that because security, prosperity and interdependence are intertwined war is impossible. One day these people will read a history book.

The West’s theory of victory should be simple, tried and tested: speak softly but carry a bloody big stick. Then there will be no need for these meaningless theories of victory. Unfortunately, the Western democracies prefer speaking loudly whilst carrying a small stick. Putin knows this, which is why his extortion racket might work. Yes, it is a bluff but never bluff a bluffer!

Julian Lindley-French