It's Sheer Nonsense that Russia Plans to Invade NATO
Let's put this whole war into perspective and stop believing Putin's propaganda about WWIII.
Remember when then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice eerily warned that the smoking gun proving Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons might only be realized when a “mushroom cloud” was rising above the earth? If you recall that, then most likely you also remember how that war in Iraq worked out for us — and the 300,000 Iraqi citizens who died since our invasion in 2003.
To sum up the uselessness of that war, let me ask this question: Is the Middle East a safer, more peaceful place today thanks to the deposing of Saddam Hussein? Without getting into this question’s many nuanced layers, a simple no-way man will suffice.
Russia.
I read over and over in reaction to my articles and in articles by many of the so-called experts that Russia’s intentions for invading Ukraine are two-fold: 1) to recreate the Soviet Union; and 2) to invade NATO and take over Europe. Both of these presumptions are, and I am trying to be nice, ridiculous. If I put a jet engine onto a skateboard, will I be able to outrun a speeding train? Will I be able to jump the Snake River Canyon like Evel Knievel once tried? Like Evel and Wile E. Coyote, no to both. The same logic, or lack of it, holds for Putin’s army.
There is simply no way that Russia can entertain any hopes of invading any NATO nation, even the smallest and seemingly weakest. Despite the hype coming out of Poland the last few months and the latest warnings that Putin is planning a “mini-invasion” — like sending troops across the border into Narva, Estonia, to test NATO’s willingness to defend its members — of course, the United States and NATO will defend their members so long as Biden is president. Secondly, while it’s very questionable just how sane Putin is, even he understands that his military has performed shockingly poorly against what was then a poorly-supplied and less-motivated Ukrainian army.
Thanks to Western support, the superiority of Ukraine’s officer corps, the bravery of Ukrainian troops, and the incompetence of Russia’s officer corps, Russia has gotten its ass kicked consistently since late summer 2022. Even when Russia is advancing, it is not because of some superior strategy or betting fighting skill; it is because of its endless meat waves and, of late, a firepower superiority.
A well-armed, well-trained Estonian platoon will stop a Russian battalion for hours, if not days, while it awaits reinforcements. Currently, Russia has very few well-trained, efficient battalions remaining, and it will take decades for them to rebuild their military. The big question, though, is rebuilding it to what? In modern times, Russia’s army has seldom, if ever, beaten its enemies with superior tactics and weaponry. Russia’s greatest resource, and its truly secret weapon, is its willingness to sacrifice thousands of its own soldiers to make strategic advances. Russian officers will think nothing of losing 90 percent of a platoon if it means taking out a 3-man machine gun nest holding up the army’s advance.
Dangerous talk
Since the beginning of the war, the barely-sober lunatic and former president Dmitry Medvedev (aka Thumbelina, Half Pint, or Squirt, depending on when you met him) has been warning anyone awake during his drunk-texting tirades that “the fury of hell will befall he who dares blah-blah-blah attack Russia’s heroic knights blah-blah-blah.” Medvedev, and on occasion Putin, and daily the loons on Russian TV talk about “war with the West” and “beginning of World War III.”
Putin is selling this losing war to the Russian people, and so he needs them to unite around a “great existential moment,” which is war with the West. Nonetheless, he can’t sell this too much because if he convinces even the war planners in Western capitals that this is indeed what he says it is, then why not introduce NATO troops into Ukraine? Putin understands that if NATO boots hit the ground, the war will be over in weeks, and his role as the leader of a terrorist state will be close to an end.
It is naive to think that Russia wants to, and even can, re-create the Soviet Union. Putin would love to have Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, the three Slavic nations, united in a “holy alliance.” Still, he doesn’t want Armenia, Azerbaijan, or any of the “stans” simply because of all the potential problems he might have with Muslims. Russia has enough Muslims, and it doesn’t need another 50 or 60 million of them. It also understands that the Baltic states would be just as much a burden for him as for Soviet rulers. Putin probably wants more of a “Monroe Doctrine” type of relationship wherein the West recognizes Russia’s preeminence in the region.
Putin has no desire or wherewithal to take over Europe. Does he enjoy rabblerousing and upsetting the powers that be? Of course, he does, but he cannot invade Poland, Germany, France, or Spain — not now and not ever. Too many poorly informed people in the West are mentally and even physically preparing for such an attack, and it is actually more unsettling. Putin knows that he is just bullshitting. He knows that he is just spouting rhetoric that is almost always for domestic consumption with the small hope that it will leave the West just off balance enough not to go full-scale war on him.
If we walk around preparing for all-out war, then that actually makes things less stable, and it just might give us what we should be trying to avoid.
We need to concentrate on Ukraine and, as “Mr. X,” George Kennan said, “push back at Russia whenever and wherever,” but we must avoid overreacting lest Condoleezza Rice’s words take on a new meaning.