by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Nothing has happened yet in any real terms that would lead me to believe Putin would risk everything to wage a general war this winter against Ukraine. He scares the shit out the West every once in a while, but he always, to date, blinks.
For Putin to change his mind and actually start a general war with Ukraine, some long-term calculation would have to change in his mind. He would have to believe that the West is so divided and ineffectual that should he attack Ukraine he could not only get away with it, but survive.
On paper, however, that is just not viable.
Russia’s economy is tiny. Ukraine has a pretty big population. There is a real chance that after Russia “takes Kiev in two weeks” and the current moderate government is forced to sue for peace, that there will be mass chaos and a new far, far right fascist government based on irredentism.
If a dumb dumb like me in the middle of nowhere can see how obvious is that any Russo-Ukrainian war would be nothing more than the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan but with a bigger population a strategic portion of Europe and, lulz?
What could possibility have changed that would lead him to think he could engage in a major regional war in a huge chunk of Europe and there would not be some pretty severe geopolitical consequences.
If you wanted to be tinfoil hat in your hot take, you might believe that something that Putin learned from his good buddy Trump. Or something. If Putin does, in fact, attack Ukraine, he will either have far more modest war aims than we’re being lead to believe, or he believes something has changed to the extent that he can do it and get away with it.
But there is the possibility that what we don’t know is just as Putin gets ready to attack in a general war in January 2022, Xi in China will strike Taiwan as well. Putin’s thinking would be that two regional wars at the same time (AKA, WW3).
Yet, if that’s not what’s going on, I’m at a loss as to what may be Putin’s change in reasoning.
