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Why War Might Go On Longer

Barkley Rosser | March 24, 2022 9:50 am

Politics

US/Global Economics

Why War Might Go On Longer

An unfortunate reason the current war in Ukraine might go on longer than it should (with the should here being that it should never have happened in the first place, and the sooner it stops the better, with the onus here clearly on V.V. Putin to stop it as he started it without any justification), is that wartime leaders get a puff in their popularity at least for awhile and are let off the hook on domestic problems. From the outside it may look that V.V. Putin is indeed in trouble with much of the world denouncing his Ukraine invasion and imposing economic sanctions on Russia. But with his total control of the media, reports have his poll results up some, despite various prominent figures expressing opposition, with the economic adviser Anatoly Chubais the latest to resign and reportedly depart Russia. Children all over Russia are making Z formations in their schools, and Putin is able to purge enemies and impose an even longer jail sentence on his most threatening political rival, Navalny.

It must be noted that something similar, arguably even more dramatic, has happened with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He is now being hailed as a new “Winston Churchill,” and is compared favorably with virtually all western leaders who are apparently shamed by the comparison. Now I shall grant that there is much more to admire with him than there is with Putin, with his willingness to remain in Kyiv from the beginning of the invasion at the time when many were predicting a rapid conquest of the city by the invading forces and reports that Putin was actively seeking not only to depose him but to kill him showing real personal bravery. So his reputation is not all that undeserved. But it must be noted that shortly before the invasion started his positive poll rating was an abysmal 21%. He had come into office promising various reforms and changes, but his government had gotten bogged down in many ways. His poll results are much higher now. I do think he wants peace, but it is also the case that he may not be all that keen on going back to what he was. After all, Winston Churchill was defeated in the election of 1945.

Barkley Rosser

13 Comments

rick shapiro says:

March 24, 2022 at 10:35 am

The most important reason for the war to drag on is that an equilibrium with a constant but manageable level of Russian casualties, and a Ukraine still independent but with economic, social and political stagnation, is a win for Putin. It’s not that Putin isn’t a Trump-like narcissist who kills to feed his imperial fantasies (he is), but that Ukraine’s recent trajectory toward democracy, freedom and prosperity was a mortal threat to the KGB kleptocrats ruling Russia, precisely because Ukrainians are so similar to Russians, and because there are many Russophones there with friends and relatives in Russia. The Russian people’s learned helplessness in the face of government corruption and viciousness was under threat by the Ukrainian example.
Jim Hannan says:

March 24, 2022 at 11:54 am

Apparently Zelensky was elected to pursue a peaceful resolution of the eastern Ukraine area, along the lines of the Minsky Accords. This would mean giving some autonomy to the two separatist states. Zelensky was either unable or unwilling to move the ball forward in this regard. He also advocated for NATO status and recently talked about Ukraine acquiring nuclear weapons.

The war will continue until there is an agreement around eastern Ukraine, Crimea, and NATO neutrality.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 25, 2022 at 10:32 am

(I think the title is somewhat misleading.)

America Thinks the War Is About Ukraine. Russia’s Neighbors Disagree.

NY Times – March 25

… how Eastern and Western NATO member states view the war in Ukraine. For Western countries, not least the United States, the conflict is a disaster for the people of Ukraine — but one whose biggest danger is that it might spill over the Ukrainian border, setting off a global conflict.

For Central and Eastern European countries, it’s rather different. These neighbors of Russia tend to see the war not as a singular event but as a process. To these post-Soviet states, the invasion of Ukraine appears as a next step in a whole series of Russia’s nightmarish assaults on other countries, dating back to the ruthless attacks on Chechnya and the war with Georgia. To them, it seems foolhardy to assume Mr. Putin will stop at Ukraine. The danger is pressing and immediate.

While the West believes it must prevent World War III, the East thinks that, whatever the name given to the conflict, the war against liberal democratic values, institutions and lifestyles has already started. Both positions have merit. But Mr. Biden’s visit to Poland on Friday, a day after an emergency NATO summit, is a vital opportunity to forge a common understanding. Both sides, West and East, must present a united front against Russian aggression. The alternative is disarray and destruction.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  March 25, 2022 at 10:33 am
  
  At the root of the divide is history. Across centuries, Central and Eastern Europe have experienced the chilling effects of Russian imperialism. From czarist Russia to the Soviet Union, many countries through the region had their independence stamped out, their societies oppressed and their cultures marginalized. The trauma caused by the cyclical loss of territory and statehood is one of the most important elements of collective identity across the region.
  
  Many Central and Eastern Europeans share an anxious sense of themselves, a nervous sovereignty. Their independence, restored with such great effort after 1989, could easily be lost again, as the 20th century proved all too painfully. In the tragic fate of Ukraine, and earlier of Chechnya and Georgia, they see not only their own traumatic past but also their possible future. “We will be next” is the phrase on many lips.
  
  In this febrile atmosphere, NATO’s cautious steps look to many Central and Eastern Europeans like an echo of the phony war of 1939, when France and Britain undertook only limited military actions and did not save their eastern ally, Poland. At that time, too, horrible stories from bombed Warsaw and other cities filled the media. Yet the allies were determined not to be drawn in too deeply. Their military inaction temporarily delayed the spread of the war across the globe, but did not stop it.
  
  Whether the analogy is apt matters less than the fact that it expresses a deeply felt intuition about what might come next. That’s been visible in the way East and West have approached the war. Throughout, those geographically closer to Russia have urged a tough response. Now that Russia’s full brutality has been revealed, Western countries are weighing whether to impose more sanctions on Russia, send more weapons to Ukraine and intensify diplomatic efforts to end the war.
  
  But Eastern countries would prefer to go further still. Suggested measures in the region include imposing a no-fly zone — as President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly urged — or sending NATO troops across the Ukrainian border, even if only as a peace mission. The Polish government recently offered its MIG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, something Western allies considered a move too far. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  March 25, 2022 at 11:04 am
  
  The perspective of the writers of the piece above, who are central Europeans, seems to be that WW3 has probably already begun, and the US (if not more western European nations) is pretending it has NOT. Or, as Americans might say, ‘hoping’.
  
  As in the months leading up to WW2, the US will hold out as long as possible. Which may be a fairly ridiculous way of looking at things, given the existence of NATO, which now includes most of the former Soviet ‘Iron Curtain’ nations.
  
  If the former Iron-Curtain nations want to join Ukraine & go to war with Russia, do the rest of us have to go along?
  
  Near term, maybe this is how Trump gets re-elected, if it isn’t already too late.
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    March 25, 2022 at 1:27 pm
    
    do the rest of us have to go along?
    
    Yes, we do, but only if Russia attacks one or more of them first.
    
    That’s a big if.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 25, 2022 at 11:55 am

… Not long after Mr. Biden arrived in Poland, the Russian military signaled that it might be reducing its war aims. After a month of a grinding war in which Russian forces have been met by unexpectedly fierce Ukrainian resistance and have failed to capture major cities across the country, Maj. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Russia would now be focused on defeating Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting a war since 2014.

He said the “first stage of the operation” had been “mainly accomplished,” with Ukraine’s combat power “significantly reduced.” But it is far from clear that the larger conflict might wind down: He added that Russia “does not exclude” that its forces will storm major Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv, the capital, though he said that taking them over was not a primary objective.

Russia’s announcement came as the dire effects of the war on civilians have been called into ever sharper relief. On Friday, officials in the besieged city of Mariupol announced that at least 300 people had been killed in last week’s attack on a local theater that was being used as a shelter. …

Here are the latest developments.

NY Times – March 25
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 25, 2022 at 1:42 pm

Poland Takes Center Stage as War Rages in Ukraine

NY Times – March 25

After the White House announced this week that President Biden would visit Poland, the Kremlin let rip with a belligerent tirade: Polish leaders were a “vassal” of the United States, gripped by “pathological Russophobia,” and their country a “community of political imbeciles.”

Instead of fearful jitters, however, the broadside by Dmitri A. Medvedev, deputy head of the Kremlin’s security council, stirred a burst of pride in Warsaw.

“This is further proof that the Russians treat Poland seriously and see its growing importance in the West,” said Stanislaw Zaryn, director of the Department of National Security and spokesman for the coordinating minister for security. …

… “Poland is the center of gravity. Just look at the map,” said Jacek Bartosiak, founder of Strategy and Future, a Warsaw research group. “Without Poland there is no NATO eastern flank.”

To fortify that flank, the Pentagon has sent more than 5,000 additional troops and Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries to Poland, more than doubling the number of U.S. military personnel in the country. …

And the Polish government … has received visits and praise from Vice President Kamala Harris; the head of the C.I.A., William Burns; Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III; the president of the European Council, Charles Michel; and a host of other senior U.S. and European officials. …

Poland’s sudden prominence as NATO’s most exposed frontline state has stirred alarm that it could be sucked into the conflict, particularly after Russian missiles last week obliterated a Ukrainian military base near the border. Among those most worried are some of the Ukrainians who fled to escape fighting at home. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 25, 2022 at 7:29 pm

NY Times: NATO sharply increases its forces in Eastern Europe

NATO announced it was doubling, to eight, the number of countries in Eastern Europe where it has battlegroups. The decision to bolster its presence in the region signals growing concerns for how Russia may respond to the increasing diplomatic and economic penalties it is facing over its monthlong invasion of Ukraine. …

A little more than a quarter of all troops under direct NATO command are now in Poland, which shares a large border with the western part of Ukraine. An additional 120,000 troops from Poland’s military are at the ready — the most of any host country in the alliance. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 26, 2022 at 9:24 am

Putin and ‘The Cancel Culture’

NY Times – March 25

Beyond Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin is also fighting cultural battles.

In a speech on Friday from the nondescript, beige-walled office in which he has been conducting much of his public business this month, Mr. Putin made no mention of Ukraine. Instead, he expanded upon a personal obsession: “cancel culture.”

Western elites “canceled” the author J.K. Rowling because she “did not please fans of so-called gender freedoms,” Mr. Putin said in his nationally televised remarks, flanked by two Russian flags. …

Japan, he claimed, “cynically decided to ‘cancel’” the fact that it was the United States that dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. And now, he said, the West is busy “canceling” Russia, “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people.”

That the Russian president delivered a disquisition on Western public discourse on Friday may seem odd at a time when Russia is fighting what some analysts believe to be its bloodiest war since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. But it underscores how Mr. Putin tries to channel cultural grievances and common stereotypes for political gain — while using language that also allows him to speak directly to possible allies in the West. …

(Supposedly, this is intended to appeal to the sentiments of Trump and his supporters in the US or wherever they may be.)
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 26, 2022 at 9:57 am

Russia signals redefined goals in Ukraine as its attacks stall.

NY Times – March 25

Russia signaled a possible recalibration of its war aims in Ukraine on Friday as the Kremlin faced spreading global ostracism for the brutal invasion, hardened Western economic punishments and a determined Ukrainian resistance that appeared to be making some gains on the ground.

A statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry said the goals of the “first stage of the operation” had been “mainly accomplished,” with Ukraine’s combat capabilities “significantly reduced,” and that it would now focus on securing Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting for eight years.

The Defense Ministry statement was ambiguous about further possible Russian territorial ambitions in Ukraine, where its ground forces have been mostly stymied by the unexpectedly strong Ukrainian military response.

But on a day when President Biden was visiting U.S. soldiers in Poland near the Ukrainian border, the statement suggested the possibility that the Russians were looking for a way to salvage some kind of achievement before the costs of the war they launched a month ago became impossibly onerous.

While Russia “does not exclude” that its forces will storm major Ukrainian cities such as Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and the capital, Kyiv, the Defense Ministry statement said that taking them over was not the primary objective. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 26, 2022 at 10:06 am

Biden stresses the need for ‘a united Europe’ in a meeting with Poland’s president.

NY Times – March 26

President Biden told the Polish president on Saturday that the United States treated its duty to defend its NATO allies as “a sacred obligation” as the two leaders met at Poland’s presidential palace on the third day of Mr. Biden’s wartime diplomatic trip to Europe.

“America’s ability to meet its role in other parts of the world rests upon a united Europe,” Mr. Biden told President Andrzej Duda.

The meeting between the two leaders took place as Mr. Biden prepared to deliver what White House officials said would be a “major speech” on Saturday evening about the need for the world to remain united to confront Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Biden is scheduled to visit later in the afternoon with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 26, 2022 at 2:37 pm

‘This man cannot remain in power’: Biden calls for Putin’s removal in Warsaw speech

Boston Globe – March 26

(AP) — President Joe Biden on Saturday called for Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s removal, saying, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

Biden also used a speech in Poland’s capital to make a vociferous defense of liberal democracy and the NATO military alliance, while also saying Europe must steel itself for a long fight against Russian aggression.

In what was billed by the White House as a major address, Biden spoke in front of the Royal Castle, one of Warsaw’s notable landmarks that was badly damaged during War II.

He borrowed the words of Polish-born Pope John Paul II and cited anti-communist Polish dissident and former president, Lech Walesa, as he warned that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to bring “decades of war.” …

Russia continued to pound cities throughout Ukraine. Explosions rang out in Lviv, the closest major Ukrainian city to Poland and a destination for the internally replaced that has been largely spared from major attacks. …

Biden called the “collective defense” agreement of NATO a “sacred commitment,” and said the unity of the Western military alliance was of the utmost importance.

“I’m confident that Vladimir Putin was counting on dividing NATO,” Biden said. “But he hasn’t been able to do it. We’ve all stayed together.”

European security is facing its most serious test since World War II. Western leaders have spent the past week consulting over contingency plans in case the conflict spreads. The invasion has shaken NATO out of any complacency it might have felt and cast a dark shadow over Europe.