Putin’s regime or the war: which will end first? - Anders Puck Nielsen (Kyiv Post)

Putin’s regime or the war: which will end first?https://youtu.be/iTxL4FlDlDA?si=uc6PFDa0-6v-qHHX

Anders Puck Nielsen’s Youtube channel (   / @anderspuck  ) is one of the most popular military channels and focuses heavily on the military strategy in Ukraine and what to look out for next in the world of warfare. According to his https://apnielsen.info/en/frontpage/, Nielsen is “a military analyst at the Royal Danish Defence College,” and has “a background as a naval officer.” 

In this exclusive Kyiv Post interview, Nielsen gives an outlook to viewers that may shock: Russia wishes to commit war crimes – and wants the world to know about them – as Moscow is seeking to challenge the international rules-based order. In that regard, Nielsen explains why the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for the Chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, and former Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, are so important to understanding Russia’s strategy. 

As such, Nielsen asks, “How can a real, lasting peace be developed with a country that rejects abiding by rules?” Nielsen gives deep insight into what is happening now in Ukraine, how the war is developing, and highlights the risks that Russia will face ahead. Despite all of the outward trimmings of power, Nielsen feels that there is something rotten in Moscow and the ability for Putin to maintain power is far more limited than what many might assume. 

Anders can be followed on    / @anderspuck  , https://x.com/anderspuck?lang=en,   / en  , or via his fascinating newsletter – https://www.logicofwar.com/.

Project Synducate tem um número especialmente interessante este 12/11/2023

 

This week at Project Syndicate, Nouriel Roubini warns that markets are assigning far too low a probability to worst-case scenarios in the Middle East; Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson criticize American leaders' failure to consider why China exhibits the strengths that it does; Melissa Parke shows how artificial intelligence can make nuclear war more likely; and more.

Economics & Finance The Economic Consequences of the Gaza War Nouriel Roubini outlines four scenarios for how the conflict could play out and affect markets and the global economy.

Economics & Finance America’s Real China Problem Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson shine a light on the institutions underpinning US rivals’ apparent strengths and comparative advantages.

Sponsored by De Gruyter The Oligarchs’ Grip: Fusing Wealth and Power By David Lingelbach and Valentina Rodríguez Guerra “The book argues oligarchs are opportunists. They seize their big chance during times of turmoil.” – Financial Times

Innovation & Technology Preventing AI Nuclear Armageddon Melissa Parke warns that applying artificial intelligence to weapons systems compounds an already unacceptable risk.

Economics & Finance Doing Economic Nationalism the Right Way Dani Rodrik touts East Asian developmentalism as an enduring model for shaping domestic strategies.

The Hidden Gender Wealth Gap Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollacdocument an underappreciated form of inequality that threatens to set women back once again.

Politics & World Affairs Preparing for a Russian Nuclear Meltdown Bennett Ramberg urges American policymakers to start planning for scenarios in which Vladimir Putin’s regime collapses.

Economics & Finance An Industrial Strategy for Europe Daniel Gros explains why the EU needs to look beyond direct subsidies to boost the continent’s tech sector.

Will the Israel-Hamas War Spread? Comfort Ero, Negar Mortazavi, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Sinan Ülgen assess the likely behavior of regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey.

Politics & World Affairs The Wars of the New World Order Brahma Chellaney examines the forces and trends that are driving a global geopolitical reckoning.

Economics & Finance Certain Uncertainty in the US Bond Market Barry Eichengreen thinks that investors who are piling back into US Treasuries could be in for a rude awakening.

Jayati Ghosh on greedflation, debt, corporate taxation, and more Jayati Ghosh argues that advanced-economy rate hikes were unnecessary and damaging, proposes ways to reduce the power of agribusiness, and more.

Innovation & Technology The Attention Economy Goes to Court J. Bradford DeLong examines the arguments being put to the test in the antitrust case against Google.

Politics & World Affairs How Poland Won Back Its Democracy Maciej Kisilowski highlights five critical factors that propelled the country’s anti-populist opposition to victory.

Despite war, Ukraine allows Russian oil and gas to cross its territory - David L. Stern, Sammy Westfall (WP)

The Washington Post, May 25, 2023 

By David L. Stern with Sammy Westfall   Email

Despite war, Ukraine allows Russian oil and gas to cross its territory A section of the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline, Russia’s main natural gas export pipeline, near Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, in 2014. (Vincent Mundy/Bloomberg News) KYIV, Ukraine — Despite a brutal Russian invasion that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and laid waste to swaths of the country, Ukraine continues to allow Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve its European neighbors — generating revenue for Kyiv and Moscow and illustrating how hard it is for the bitter enemies to cut ties. Senior Ukrainian officials have demanded that their Western partners impose tougher sanctions and cut virtually all economic ties to Russia, saying “more must be done” to cripple Moscow’s war machine. But as surreal as it might seem, Ukraine insists that it has virtually no choice but to maintain its own commercial deals and has lobbied to preserve them, arguing that they provide some leverage over the Kremlin and help constrain where the Russian military carries out airstrikes. Oleksiy Chernyshov, the chief executive of Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz, conceded the bizarre optics of Ukraine still doing business with Russia. “It is for me, it’s impossible, as a Ukrainian citizen — that is my first reaction,” Chernyshov said, adding that this was a personal and emotional response. But Naftogaz — and senior political leaders — insist that Ukraine cannot and should not shut the pipelines, both to lay claim to residual revenue (although the amount Moscow is paying, if anything, is not public information) and because some of Kyiv’s European supporters are still dependent on Russian oil and gas. Russia’s continuing profits, and Kyiv’s frustrations, were spotlighted recently in classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked on the Discord messaging platform, which said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered blowing up the Druzhba oil pipeline earlier this year. According to the document, which was obtained by The Washington Post, U.S. officials questioned the seriousness of the threats, which may have been an outburst of frustration at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has voiced pro-Kremlin positions and insisted on an exemption from a European Union effort to end purchases of Russian oil. Moscow sent about 300,000 barrels of oil per day last year through the Druzhba — or “Friendship” — pipeline, which crosses Ukraine. Russia is also obligated to pump some 40 billion cubic meters of gas annually through Ukraine’s gas transit system because of supply agreements that predate the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian officials say they are in a quandary. Russian hydrocarbons crossing their territory earn the Kremlin millions of dollars and help fund its war machine. But Kyiv also needs the money it earns on transit and wants to be a reliable economic partner to European nations, some of which could face destabilizing price increases if Russian energy supplies were suddenly cut off. Chernyshov said Kyiv must uphold its contractual obligations, and the decision to end the deliveries lies with the countries on the receiving end, such as Hungary, which need Russian oil and gas for heat in the winter. “This stream has not been stopped in order not to make other countries that are supporting Ukraine freeze,” he said. The Kremlin has used energy supplies as a weapon, including in the 2000s when it twice cut off supplies to Europe. But Kyiv has also insisted that Russia’s gas must continue to flow, even in the years since Moscow illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and fomented a separatist war in the eastern Donbas region. Ukraine insisted that it should sustain its role as a transit country, while also demanding that countries like Germany not help Russia build new pipelines — a view critics called hypocritical. Now, Ukraine says all of its supporters should reduce or eliminate their use of Russian energy. A working group on Russian sanctions, chaired by Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, and Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, published an “action plan” last month that laid out additional steps that should be taken to punish Russia — but the plan pointedly called for preserving the transit of Russian energy across Ukraine. It also called for suspending “all remaining Russian-controlled pipeline routes” taking Russian gas to the European market, as well as the TurkStream pipeline through Turkey. “End the direct supply of Russian gas to the European Union, except through Ukraine,” the action plan said.   Anders Aslund, an economic expert focusing on the former Soviet Union who was part of the sanctions working group, said the logic of maintaining transit across Ukraine was clear: Gas would go to European markets regardless, because the E.U. included several exceptions, or “carveouts,” to its embargo regime for countries like Hungary. What’s more, Russia is committed to paying Ukraine a total $7 billion over a five-year contract signed in 2019, called a “pump or pay” agreement, which requires Moscow to pay whether it ships any gas. “So why not get the money?” Aslund said. “The contracts have been agreed with the European Union for these carveouts.” The goal of the sanctions is not to introduce “a general ban against trade with Russia,” Aslund said, but “to cause Russia maximum damage without causing Ukraine more damage than necessary.” On May 10, E.U. envoys met in Brussels to discuss a new package of sanctions against Russia, its 11th so far. Previous measures targeted individuals, businesses and sectors of the Russian economy, and restricted exports and imports. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, at a news conference with Zelensky in Kyiv the previous day, said the E.U. would “continue to do everything” in its power “to erode Putin’s war machine and his revenue.” Zelensky praised the E.U. proposals, which he said would hit Russia’s atomic energy sector. But he and other officials have said this is still not enough. Under its gas contract with Kyiv, Russia is obligated to pay Ukraine some $1 billion to $1.5 billion annually. After the war began, one key entry point for Russian gas in occupied territory in the east was shut down, with conflicting claims over who was responsible. saying Ukrainian officials insisted there was capacity to send all Russian gas through another entry point. However, Russia drastically reduced the amount of gas that it pumped through Ukraine. In September, Naftogaz filed a case at the International Court of Arbitration in Paris, saying that “funds were not paid” by Russian state gas company Gazprom “neither on time nor in full” under the terms of the contract. Naftogaz declined to specify how much was missing from payments, however. “We will make Gazprom pay,” said Yuriy Vitrenko, the head of Naftogaz at the time. Gazprom, in response, said there were no “appropriate reasons” to pursue the case and threatened to impose financial penalties against Naftogaz. Gas has been at the center of Russia and Ukraine’s troubled relationship for decades. At one point, Russia sent more than 80 percent of its gas across Ukraine to European countries. Russia hoped to bypass Ukraine by opening two gas pipelines across the North Sea to Germany. As the second, called Nord Stream 2, was being built, Ukrainian officials argued that some of Russia’s gas should continue to traverse Ukraine as a way of preventing a full-scale war. Nord Stream 2 was built but never used. The war happened anyway. Still, Nataliia Shapoval, vice president for policy research at the Kyiv School of Economics, said Russia’s use of Ukrainian pipelines “creates some additional protection” and has appeared to limit Moscow’s airstrikes. “During their campaign against the energy sector this winter, gas transportation and storage were not their primary targets, for sure,” Shapoval said. The Druzhba oil pipeline has likewise been spared, halting operations for only “a couple of days, when they didn’t have the power to run the pumps,” said Matthew Sagers, an energy transport expert at S&P Global Commodity Insights in London. Sagers said Druzhba carried about 80 percent of oil for Hungary’s largest oil company, MOL, last year and is supposed to carry between 50 and 55 percent this year. In addition to Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia depend on oil shipped through Druzhba. Plus, Ukraine earned close to $180 million on transit fees from Druzhba last year, Sagers said. “Money is money.” In the end, Sagers said, the Ukrainians “don’t need to blow up the pipeline — they could just simply stop doing business if they wanted to.”

‘Why We Fight’ Review: Give Peace a (Bigger) Chance - Book Review, by Adam Kuper (WSJ)

‘Why We Fight’ Review: Give Peace a (Bigger) Chance

An economist’s analysis of armed conflict takes lessons from game theory to discover how to head off wars before they happen.

By 

Adam Kuper 

WSJ, May 6, 2022 11:05 am ET 

On July 30, 1932, exactly 6 months before Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Albert Einstein sent a despairing letter to Sigmund Freud. “Dear Professor Freud,” Einstein wrote. “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war? It is common knowledge that, with the advance of modern science, this issue has come to mean a matter of life and death for civilisation as we know it.” 

Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

Rulers and their arms-merchant cronies manipulate public opinion, Einstein reflected. But “how is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions?” Propaganda had to be part of any explanation. The government “has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb,” he wrote. “This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and makes its tool of them.” But as a rationalist, Einstein was still baffled. “How is it these devices succeed so well in rousing men to such wild enthusiasm, even to sacrifice their lives?” Is it down to human nature, he wondered? Perhaps “man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction.”

In his response, Freud wrote that men, like all male animals, are programmed to settle conflicts by fighting. “Violent compulsions” may sometimes be counterbalanced by “ties of sentiment,” but only within narrow bounds. 

An economist looks at the causes of war, a mismatched pair seek the source of the Nile and an essayist considers the end. 

In “Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace,” Christopher Blattman, an economist and political scientist at the University of Chicago, draws on recent economic theories to address the great questions of war and peace that have been debated for millennia.

Mr. Blattman agrees with Freud that male aggression is easily aroused and that all sorts of intergroup violence follow a similar pattern. “When I say war, I don’t just mean countries duking it out,” Mr. Blattman writes. “I mean any kind of prolonged, violent struggle between groups. That includes villages, clans, gangs, ethnic groups, religious sects, political factions, and nations. Wildly different as these may be, their origins have much in common.”

Mr. Blattman offers a string of anecdotes about feuding gangs in Chicago and Medellín, Colombia. But scale matters. Gang wars, punch-ups between two lots of sports fans, even medieval sieges (among the author’s other examples) are very different in many important ways from the total wars of the modern world. As Mr. Blattman observes, wars between nations are less common now than ever before precisely because the consequences are so terrifying. And there is another critical difference: National governments can, in theory, control violence within their boundaries; but there is no international government that can put an end to wars between nations.

Perhaps men are indeed easily roused to martial fervor, but it is up to the leaders of nations to make decisions about war and peace. “In my view, there are no good or bad leaders,” Mr. Blattman writes. “There are only constrained and unconstrained ones.” Democratic leaders have to take their voters into account. The media ask hard questions. The system imposes checks on executive power. And so, for nearly a century now, democracies have not gone to war against other democracies.

Autocrats, meanwhile—particularly if they run resource-rich economies— find it easier to let their soldiers and civilians bear the costs of war while they indulge their own ambitions and fantasies. Consequently, Mr. Blattman writes, “it’s the places ruled by strongmen with few checks that appear to be the most warlike with neighbors.”

Some autocrats may go to war to distract the population from more immediate concerns. Others are out for vengeance or glory, or are committed to some religious crusade. These are but a few examples of what economists call the agency problem. (You expect your agent to act in your interests, but he has interests of his own.)

As an economist, Mr. Blattman assumes that, leaving aside the occasional madman, leaders—democratically elected or otherwise—weigh their options and seek to make optimal choices. Game theory, the science of strategy, “works out how one side will behave based on what it believes its opponent will do.” Applied to the study of auctions and bargaining by John Nash, winning him a Nobel Prize in economics in 1994, game theory lays down strategies for predicting and countering your opponent’s moves in any negotiation, helping you decide when to push your luck, when to bluff and when to fold. Most leaders don’t know anything about the arcane models of economics, but experience has taught them the logic of deal-making.

Game theory assumes, among other things, that “both groups have the same information and agree on the probabilities” of outcomes. As Mr. Blattman points out, however, “the world is seldom so stable, transparent, or easy to assess.” Negotiators often operate in semidarkness, where crucial information is lacking or potentially misleading. When much is uncertain, judgments are more likely to be impulsive, directed by habit, emotion and prejudices. Confirmation bias takes over, along with other cognitive shortcuts. Groupthink rules.

To understand decision-making under these conditions, Mr. Blattman turns to the work of Daniel Kahneman, who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics for his work on how people make decisions in the real world. “Humans are not well described by the rational-agent model,” Mr. Kahneman observed in his 2011 bestseller, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” We are all sometimes less than rational. Every cool Dr. Jekyll is liable to turn into a hot Mr. Hyde, particularly when he is pressed for time and operating with partial and conflicting information. The slow thinker in us is logical, respectful of evidence, ready to consider objections. The fast thinker is impulsive and passionate. And, of course, the fast thinker is more likely to make a catastrophic misjudgment. 

The cause of peace is best served, Mr. Blattman concludes, through a mix of institutional constraints and slow thinking: “interdependence, checks and balances, rules and enforcement, and interventions.” Both Einstein and Freud looked forward, more in hope than expectation, to an effective role for international bodies. Mr. Blattman accepts that these institutions may have moral influence, but it is seldom decisive. Economic interdependence raises the cost of conflict and gives negotiators bargaining tools, but leaders who control oil and gas fields are largely unaccountable to their citizens. Financial punishment will sometimes bring vulnerable governments to the negotiating table, but sanctions are leaky, and it is hard to target only the right people. Mediators may build trust and facilitate discreet communication, yet they can only give a helping hand.

Almost at the very moment that “Why We Fight” was published, its conclusions were being put to a grim real-world test as Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine. Mr. Blattman’s list of war’s precipitating causes seems to fit the case well enough. The political opposition, the media—even Mr. Putin’s inner circle of generals and spooks—had been silenced. The Russian public was fed fake news. Wishful thinking took over. In thrall to a fantastic dream of a greater Russia, Mr. Putin miscalculated. He overestimated the fitness of his own armed forces and underestimated the resilience of his opponents. He was too confident that Russia’s natural resources and financial reserves would insulate his regime from sanctions. Will he now accept that he blundered, act rationally and cut his losses?

The terrible logic of war suggests that a genuine negotiation will begin only when both parties are forced to recognize that a stalemate has been reached. If Mr. Putin has to withdraw, other autocrats may rethink their options. But should he be able to claim a win, the demonstration effect could be catastrophic.

—Mr. Kuper is a fellow of the British Academy. His next book is “The Museum of Other People.”

 

O mundo confrontado à loucura de um único déspota - Tom Friedman (NYT)

 Só existe uma maneira de interromper a marcha da insensatez: os militares  russos tomarem o controle militar do Kremlin para depor o insano tirano. Como eles não o farão, o mundo caminhará to the brink…

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Putin Has No Good Way Out, and That Really Scares Me

Thomas L. Friedman

The New York Times – 10.3.2022

 

If you’re hoping that the instability that Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has wreaked on global markets and geopolitics has peaked, your hope is in vain. We haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until Putin fully grasps that his only choices left in Ukraine are how to lose — early and small and a little humiliated or late and big and deeply humiliated.

I can’t even wrap my mind around what kind of financial and political shocks will radiate from Russia — this country that is the world’s third-largest oil producer and possesses some 6,000 nuclear warheads — when it loses a war of choice that was spearheaded by one man, who can never afford to admit defeat.

Why not? Because Putin surely knows that “the Russian national tradition is unforgiving of military setbacks,” observedLeon Aron, a Russia expert at the American Enterprise Institute, who is writing a book about Putin’s road to Ukraine.

“Virtually every major defeat has resulted in radical change,” added Aron, writing in The Washington Post. “The Crimean War (1853-1856) precipitated Emperor Alexander II’s liberal revolution from above. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) brought about the First Russian Revolution. The catastrophe of World War I resulted in Emperor Nicholas II’s abdication and the Bolshevik Revolution. And the war in Afghanistan became a key factor in Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms.” Also, retreating from Cuba contributed significantly to Nikita Khrushchev’s removal two years later.

In the coming weeks it will become more and more obvious that our biggest problem with Putin in Ukraine is that he will refuse to lose early and small, and the only other outcome is that he will lose big and late. But because this is solely his war and he cannot admit defeat, he could keep doubling down in Ukraine until … until he contemplates using a nuclear weapon.

Why do I say that defeat in Ukraine is Putin’s only option, that only the timing and size are in question? Because the easy, low-cost invasion he envisioned and the welcome party from Ukrainians he imagined were total fantasies — and everything flows from that.

Putin completely underestimated Ukraine’s will to be independent and become part of the West. He completely underestimated the will of many Ukrainians to fight, even if it meant dying, for those two goals. He completely overestimated his own armed forces. He completely underestimated President Biden’s ability to galvanize a global economic and military coalition to enable Ukrainians to stand and fight and to devastate Russia at home — the most effective U.S. coalition-building effort since George H.W. Bush made Saddam Hussein pay for his folly of seizing Kuwait. And he completely underestimated the ability of companies and individuals all over the world to participate in, and amplify, economic sanctions on Russia — far beyond anything governments initiated or mandated.

When you get that many things wrong as a leader, your best option is to lose early andsmall. In Putin’s case that would mean withdrawing his forces from Ukraine immediately; offering a face-saving lie to justify his “special military operation,” like claiming it successfully protected Russians living in Ukraine; and promising to help Russians’ brethren rebuild. But the inescapable humiliation would surely be intolerable for this man obsessed with restoring the dignity and unity of what he sees as the Russian motherland.

Incidentally, the way things are going on the ground in Ukraine right now, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Putin could actually lose early and big. I would not bet on it, but with every passing day that more and more Russian soldiers are killed in Ukraine, who knows what happens to the fighting spirit of the conscripts in the Russian Army being asked to fight a deadly urban war against fellow Slavs for a cause that was never really explained to them.

Given the resistance of Ukrainians everywhere to the Russian occupation, for Putin to “win” militarily on the ground his army will need to subdue every major city in Ukraine. That includes the capital, Kyiv — after probably weeks of urban warfare and massive civilian casualties. In short, it can be done only by Putin and his generals perpetrating war crimes not seen in Europe since Hitler. It will make Putin’s Russia a permanent international pariah.

Moreover, how would Putin maintain control of another country — Ukraine — that has roughly one-third the population of Russia, with many residents hostile to Moscow? He would probably need to maintain every one of the 150,000-plus soldiers he has deployed there — if not more — forever.

There is simply no pathway that I see for Putin to win in Ukraine in any sustainable way because it simply is not the country he thought it was — a country just waiting for a quick decapitation of its “Nazi” leadership so that it could gently fall back into the bosom of Mother Russia.

So either he cuts his losses now and eats crow — and hopefully for him escapes enough sanctions to revive the Russian economy and hold onto power — or faces a forever war against Ukraine and much of the world, which will slowly sap Russia’s strength and collapse its infrastructure.

As he seems hellbent on the latter, I am terrified. Because there is only one thing worse than a strong Russia under Putin — and that’s a weak, humiliated, disorderly Russia that could fracture or be in a prolonged internal leadership turmoil, with different factions wrestling for power and with all of those nuclear warheads, cybercriminals and oil and gas wells lying around.

Putin’s Russia is not too big to fail. It is, however, too big to fail in a way that won’t shake the whole rest of the world.

O novo Hitler europeu: Putin, o psicopata russo - Uwe Bott, Stephan Richter (The Globalist)

Europe’s New Hitler: Another Psychopath at Work

 Vladimir Putin is a murderous despot: Why the West’s response to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine matters. And why we must deal firmly with his European enablers.

By Stephan Richter and Uwe Bott 

The Globalist, February 24, 2022 

https://www.theglobalist.com/europes-new-hitler-putin-invades-ukraine/

Let there be no doubt, Putin is cunning and brutal. He is an abuser, a killer, an assassin. He completely lacks any shred of human decency. He is Europe’s new Hitler.

A bad leader, even by Soviet standards

Under his reign, the fatal Dutch disease has only spread further, piling hardship over hardship on the Russian people. Putin’s only skill has been consolidating power by eliminating all those opposed, all the while offering a steady diet of making empty promises population at large.

There is a darkness to Putin’s personality that is unsettling even to many Russians who certainly had their share of leaders with dark souls.

A sociopath in a clinical sense

Now, it is critical to understand the underlying pathology of Vladimir Putin. Putin is a sociopath in a clinical sense, with strong tendencies towards paranoia and narcissism.

His actions are driven by the deep insecurities of his own personality, by his constant need for external affirmation.

Putin constantly has to publicly prove his own virility, which – in his mind – is done by displaying violence and cruelty (and getting away with it).

In this vein, Putin is a very simple man. He is also, if one is willing to understand his personal profile, a very predictable man.

Of course, he craves the opposite. He craves to be admired for his smarts and for his vision, but deep inside he knows that he possesses neither.

Enter Western enablers

For more than ten years after the “end” of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the American part of the Western world was inebriated by its sense of complete and utter superiority.

And the European – especially German – part of the Western world deluded itself that there was no more reason to have an army.

Germany’s pro-Russian fifth brigade

Initially, all the rage was talk about a “peace dividend.” Subsequently, Germany’s pro-Russian fifth brigade (including a significant segment of the SPD, now the majority party in the German government) shifted its empty-headed rhetoric.

Ever eager to please Putin, the SPD’s demand was that, any time Putin’s Russia acted in a despotic fashion, the West should not engage in “escalation”.

The big error

Falsely assuming that the Russian Bear had been put to sleep at the burial of communism, Western leaders took their eyes of the growing, incrementally mounting threat that Vladimir Putin built.

Western leaders closed their eyes to Russian attempts to intimidate Georgia and the Baltic states and other former states of the Soviet Union.

Western money hustlers

Instead of keeping the eye on the ball, the Western world got all enamored by the – almost always illicitly gained – riches of Russian oligarchs.

London, in particular, became a major money laundering center for their dirty profits, with Germany being a close second aider and abetter.

Angela Merkel, Gerhard Schröder top aide-de-camp

That Angela Merkel ever dared to claim that the North Stream 2 pipeline was strictly a “private sector project” is the height of conceit.

It leads one to wonder which side, the Russian or the Western one, the long-time German Chancellor was actually working on.

After the beginning of the (continued, now massive) invasion of Ukraine, her legacy is forever tarnished.

Self-prostituting sports teams

Sports teams got lucrative sponsorships especially from Russian fossil fuel giants to cement their own legacies, particularly on the European soccer stage.

European soccer stadiums are soiled by Russian oligarchs who occupy the owners’ suites. Europe’s soccer pitches are soiled by players running around in Gazprom jerseys, all in pursuit of grabbing a piece of that deeply human-despising Russian cake of criminal wealth.

Mere spinelessness – or active collaboration?

All of this normalized continuous Russian abuses to such extent that the reactions to Russian “overreach” such as Putin’s annexation of the Crimea region or murders or attempted murders of dissidents on foreign soil received little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

This stance was so engraved in the lazy heads of Western electorates that they voted or kept in power the forces that idly stood by the mounting atrocities of the serial killer, Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump, Russia’s very active, ex-sleeper agent

Putin-puppet, Donald Trump, was even elected President of the United States with the help of Russian intelligence.

While none of this has gone unnoticed and some of it has been – at least temporarily – reversed through the “unelection” of Donald Trump, who just a couple of days ago praised Putin as a “genius” for his Ukraine actions, it is mystifying, to a degree, how it was and is possible.

But is it too late now?

The invasion of Ukraine is in full effect. It is difficult to imagine that it will be reversed or stopped because only a NATO military response could bring that about. The risks of a nuclear war would seem too great for that to happen.

But by understanding the key takeaways from how we got here and why, we ought to be able to design the kind of actions that would contain Putin’s westward drive.

Four main principles

Without delving into a detailed list of sanctions/actions that the West must take (the list is long), these sanctions/actions should be guided by a set of four main principles.

1. The long-term goal of these actions must be to contain Russia beyond Putin. This implies, for example, that Europe must develop a detailed long-term plan to completely and permanently end energy dependence on Russia.

Obviously, an aggressive (and credible, meaning executable) move towards renewable, clean energy sources would not only meet that goal but also help saving the planet.

2. Europe must understand that self-defense, credible self-defense is the most effective weapon in preventing war.

To discard ill-advised pacifism or to overcome reasonable historic guilt does not equate imperialism. Rather, it is in full recognition of all historical lessons ever learned. It’s the best guarantee for peace, we have.

3. While fully aware of the unlikelihood of Russian adoption of democratic values anytime soon, Europeans and Americans must launch a full-fledged effort to highlight that Putin’s aggression, or the aggression of future Russian leaders will only further impoverish the Russian people.

And they must directly address the Russian people to drive this point home. Social media are an excellent medium to promote such campaign. Radio Free Europe played a role during the Cold War, but it was a bit player when compared to today’s social media.

4. Everything has a price. Nothing comes for free. These are not catch-phrases. These are “unconventional truths”.

Conclusion

We are all creatures of comfort. The recent pandemic should have steeled us though, teaching us that the unexpected does happen and that we must take sometimes controversial and always painful actions in order to protect the greater good.

In following these principles, the actions/sanctions against Putin and – yes, Russia itself – become fairly self-evident.

Our response will determine not only how Russia’s flappy wings will effectively be clipped, but also how we are going to address the looming threat of China.

More on this topic

• The Transatlantic World is Falling Apart 
• Ukraine and the Return of Geopolitics 
• Russia and Globalization

About Stephan Richter

Director of the Global Ideas Center, a global network of authors and analysts, and Editor-in-Chief of The Globalist.

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