War

The White House might have issued the fastest correction of a sitting US president’s remarks in history this weekend. But it doesn’t matter one bit. The bottom line is Joe Biden — and most of the civilized world — wants to see Vladimir Putin out of power in Russia. More to the point: they want to see his regime changed and him most likely Gaddafi'd for his sins. And, to be frank, who can blame them? There is just one problem: getting rid of Vlad means World War Three. And I can tell you from gaming out such a conflict countless times in simulators, such a conflict leaves tens of millions of people dead. But let’s step back for a moment. I'm going to cut the president a little bit slack for saying out loud what we are all thinking.

As the Russian invasion enters its fourth week it is clear that its forces are running out of momentum, although they continue to make limited territorial gains in the south and east of Ukraine. Having been denied a quick victory over Ukraine itself, Putin now needs to force the Ukrainian government to accept a ceasefire agreement that largely freezes the frontlines and allows him to claim a victory domestically. His strategy now appears to be to cut off the Ukrainian forces fighting a desperate battle to hold the line in Donbas in the east against combined Russian and separatist Donetsk and Luhansk forces from the rest of Ukraine, and to concentrate more firepower on the besieged cities of Mariupol in the south and Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv in the north.

Liberal internationalists, neoconservatives and NeverTrumpers are having the time of their lives these days, ridiculing anyone on the political right who has ever said a good thing about Vladimir Putin. Those “Putin groupies” as a Wall Street Journal columnist described them, include former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and, of course, Trump himself. Trump described Putin as a “genius” and said he was a better president than Barack Obama — and he isn’t the only American president to compliment the Russian leader. President George W. Bush said about Putin, “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.

Vladimir Putin’s motives in attacking Ukraine have become the subject of many deep and searching speculations. Is he seeking a personal legacy by attempting to reassemble the parts of the Soviet Union that fell asunder? Is he pursuing Russian national security by making sure Ukraine never becomes the frontline of NATO? Is he gleefully taking advantage of a weak and incompetent US president? Is he vindicating the glorious history of the KGB? These theories are not mutually exclusive, and there are many more possibilities. I want to enter the discussion from my nearly pristine ignorance of Russian geopolitical designs.