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
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.