Putin, Zelensky, NATO, EU, US and the Rest of Us

By Alexander Ekemenah, Chief Analyst, NEXTMONEY

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen,” 

• Lenin – during his exile prior to the 1917 Revolution.

It is almost three months that Russia invaded Ukraine. Within this period, it has become possible to study the nature, characteristic features and the battlefield dynamics and patterns including the general direction that one can safely predict the war would follow.

This article is the general introduction to the series that will follow till the end of the war which nobody can predict for now – for the battle is still raging and which nobody can predict how it will end. In the forthcoming series the author will examine (1) the geopolitical implications of the War for Western Alliance or the geostrategic restructuring of Europe with the case study of Finland and Sweden joining NATO (2) the cloak-and-dagger was role of intelligence and counterintelligence in the Ukrainian War (3) the satellite war (4) threat of nuclear war by Russia (5) the sinking of Moskva warship in the Black Sea (6) China and the War in Ukraine, etc)

Introduction

It can only be regarded as a brain-splitting or brain-fracking decision, one of those momentous decisions that often re-write modern history.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, on the 24^th to be precise, above all else, aimed at preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, apparently fearing the impending Ukrainian membership of NATO more than anything else because according to Putin, it poses existential threat to Russia, came like a thunderbolt from the firmament, though the tell-tale signs have always been there for long.

But the right of any nation, including Russia itself, to belong to any regional or international organization irrespective of whether such is palatable to another nation or not is incontrovertibly inalienable and non-negotiable under international law to which Russia is also a signatory.

To deny a nation membership of any organization of its preferred choice is to deny its sovereignty and integrity, to discard the normative values that undergird international relations as worthless. In the case of Russia asserting that Ukraine cannot join NATO because it poses existential threat to the Russian State is analogous to denying Russia its permanent membership of the Security Council of the United Nations which guarantees its superpower status because it poses existential threat to other superpowers. Such a denial can only be interpreted as a direct affront to the sovereignty and integrity of Russia especially as a superpower.

Russia has even arrogantly claimed that Ukraine is not a nation-state because it is historically tied to, or part of Russia. They are “brothers”, Russia claimed! Yet, Russia has decided to attack its own brother. Such can only be a propaganda meant to fool the unwary. Such a claim cannot stand under international law.

Whether they are “brothers” or not, Russia and Ukraine maintain two separate sovereign and independent identities. They may share same cultural or social similarities; they may understand each other’s Mother Tongue, but ultimately they maintain two separate systems of government, two separate economic systems, two separate currencies, two different defense and foreign policies, etc. Their Armed Forces are not the same and they are not joined by any pact or alliance. They obviously do not share the same feelings and do not share the same normative values. One (Russia) is autocracy (authoritarianism under a thin veneer of electoral democracy) while the other (Ukraine) is a full-blown democracy with all pillars of democracy sustainably intact and evolving. Different Presidents have been elected in Ukraine since 1992 while Vladimir Putin has alternated as President or Prime Minister from the same period as Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine are two poles apart, occupying separate “cosmic firmament” or worldview and mindset. At any rate, two brothers are never the same since they have two separate DNAs. The “brotherly” line of argument is perhaps too petty and simplistic in notion. It is not worthy of further consideration.

Thus this Russian war against Ukraine has reawakened the ancient hostilities, hatred and animosities between the two people, hitherto regarded as “brothers” – and it will take up to three or four generations of Ukrainians to forget this unjust act of aggression against them, if ever they can forget, to heal the wounds that have been willfully inflicted by this war.

Russian invasion of Ukraine, no matter under what pretext, is a gross violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Ukraine, therefore, has all the rights under the celestial or cosmic sun to defend itself, to fight to protect its homeland and its people – to the last soldier standing if need be.  There is no more glorious death than to die for one’s homeland in defense of its security as the brave Ukrainians have done at the battlefield. Despite the overwhelming force and destruction of Mariupol, despite the growing encirclement of Kyiv by Russian forces, the citizens refused to leave the cities. Thousands have been killed senselessly; millions have been displaced from their homes; turned to refugees and forced into foreign countries. But despite all persuasions, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine refused to go into exile, preferring to stand with his people and fight to finish.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine this time around, unlike the previous one in 2014, has had very profound impacts on international relations and politics. It has shaken international relations and politics to their very foundations. Geopolitical relationships in Europe have been unwittingly disrupted. Assumptions and presumptions have been shattered. There are many angles from which the invasion can be viewed, especially from geopolitical and geo-strategic points of view, including political economic angle. The Russian invasion of Ukraine can be likened to the United States-led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan aftermath the Al Qae’da attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 which became a decisive turning-point in the history of international relations and politics. Al Qae’da attack led to global war on terror. Unfortunately, there was no direct threat from Ukraine against Russia, no direct provocation – except the perception that Ukraine’s impeding membership of North Atlantic Treaty Organization would constitute existential threat to Russia.

In a broad sense, there are several groups or forces at dynamic interplay of which four major blocs have emerged.

The first is the aggression of a superpower (Russia) in its Manichean quest to impose its will on another sovereign nation – albeit not a superpower; to conquer its territory and carve it out unto several units under the control of Moscow; to dislocate its population and scatter them across space and time.

The second is the right of another sovereign nation (Ukraine) to defend its homeland and people at all costs; the right to chose membership of any regional or international body or socio-economic, political and security bloc.

The third is the international community under the rubric of rules-based international order and the right to intervene to mediate in the conflict. Russia has peremptorily brushed aside the international community largely represented by the United Nations and its right to intervene to mediate for peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two protagonists. But the international system also revealed its limitations, impotence and/or frustration in not been able to prevent Russia from attacking Ukraine. United Nations was wringing its hands petulantly.

It was only the United States, European Union and NATO that rose up like Poseidon from the Atlantic Ocean to stand up to Russia, imposing raft of sanctions against Russia. Yet, the sanctions despite their hurt did not and could not prevent Russia from invading and withdrawing from Ukraine. Without the US, EU and NATO, Russia would have most probably crush Ukraine.

The fourth group is the fence-sitters to which most African countries belong who rather believe they are obligated to Russia because of the historical support they claimed to have received from the former Soviet Union during the era of anti-colonial struggles. Here we see African leadership imprisoned by the past histories of their countries but never able to bring themselves into contemporary reality to distinguish between aggression and the right to defend oneself. These countries are not able to break free from the mental enslavement camp of the past. They are rather stuck in it by saying it is not their business to condemn any of the two parties – a situation that is ultimately beneficial to the Russians. It is not even known how some of these African countries are taking advantages of the conflict to advance their own national economic interests. For instance, many Western European countries have indicated without mincing words that they are no longer going to import gas from Russia anymore. They are already exploring alternative sources for their energy (especially gas) supply. There are indications that they are already looking towards the oil-producing Middle East countries but not African countries like Nigeria and Angola that have abundance of gas for export. Such is the calamity of African leadership in its inability to manage and exploit international conflicts to its advantage.

It is without doubt true that the former Soviet Union helped many African countries to fight off colonialism in the 1950s and 60s. But it is the same Soviet Union that launched attack against Hungary in 1958 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush democratic revolutions in these two countries; attacked Afghanistan in 1979. To use the historical support for referenced African liberation from colonialism in the 50s and 60s to condone the Russian act of aggression against Ukraine in 2022 is to miss the point entirely. The Russian war against Ukraine is an act of aggression pure and simple and must be condemned for it is.

Thus the sympathy for Russia by African countries does not in any way vitiate the noxious character of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Russian invasion is evil, pure and simple while the fence-sitting by African countries shows total lack of character, the weakness of will or lack of force of will to condemn what is evidently evil. The Russians have behaved exactly like the former colonial masters in trampling underfoot the sovereign right of an independent country to determine a particular course and/or trajectory in its foreign policy.

Yet the invasion of Ukraine is not just about Ukraine. It will be a gross misunderstanding to narrow it down to Ukraine alone. Ukraine is just part of the larger “Russian problem” though the most important. It is more about changing the balance of forces and power with the Western Alliance (US, EU and NATO) favourable to Russia. Russia believed that it has no more influence in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe which it hitherto considered its natural sphere of influence. Indeed, it has virtually lost its sphere of influence or has become extremely narrowed down. There is no more Warsaw Pact that had hitherto acted as the buffer for its strategic interests. Soviet Union collapsed followed by the collapse and disappearance of Warsaw Pact – whereas NATO and European Union continue to exist and has expanded its sphere of influence into the very boundaries of Russia. Russia feels encircled and as such threatened by the growing encirclement. If it does not do something very fast, it might be squeezed and choked up strategically. This is the fulcrum of the Russian pugilist foreign policy thrusts that can be seen often demonstrated against its immediate neighbours: Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus. It is this same Manichean geopolitical ambition that took it to Syria to carve out a sphere of influence there.

So Ukraine is the sacrificial lamb for a larger but incipient conflict with NATO that has not taken place as such. According to Michael Kofman, a Research Scientist and director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA Corporation and a Fellow at the Wilson Center, Kennan Institute “this crisis is not about NATO or Ukraine, but about NATO and Ukraine. Russia wants Washington to agree to a revised European order in which Russia has a veto over security arrangements and in decisions over security outcomes. By closing NATO’s open door, and halting defense cooperation with non-members, Washington would be acknowledging that Moscow’s security considerations supersede the right of its neighbors to choose their strategic orientation, and that security in Europe must be negotiated with Moscow.¹

Yet Russian demands for legally binding guarantees raise questions. On the one hand, Putin has railed against successive rounds of NATO expansion, encroaching military infrastructure, military exercises, and defense cooperation with countries like Ukraine. But he has also said that he does not believe in U.S. security assurances, and according to him Washington easily withdraws from treaties with or without explanation. So, why pursue such agreements with urgency when he believes that Washington may just bin them one day anyway?²

There is also the nagging problem that no U.S. Congress, or any legislature in Europe, is likely to ratify a legally binding agreement with Russia based on such demands. Perhaps Moscow still assesses that the United States and its European allies might sign politically binding agreements that fall short of a treaty. While not legally binding, such agreements would hold strategic implications for European countries that are not NATO members. Those states would find their room for maneuver shrinking and would seek to hedge or to pursue a foreign policy that includes balancing relations between Europe and Russia.³

Russia’s demands for a halt to NATO expansion, a rollback of defense cooperation with non-NATO members, and a return to force posture prior to 1997 (essentially a “go back to Germany” clause) seem to have little relationship to the deadlock over Minsk II implementation. These demands won’t secure a say over Ukraine’s domestic policy, or even get Russia out of the current sanctions regime. Furthermore, why didn’t Moscow make any of these demands during the spring buildup? The timing was no less auspicious. Why wait until the end of 2021 to come up with rushed proposals and demand rapid progress?⁴

The above is the strategic conundrum in which Russia finds itself and from which it has not been able to break through. Ukraine is both a product and function of this conundrum, caught between a hard rock and the devil.

There is no doubt that Russia has mortal fear of NATO. Russia secretly worries that NATO may wish to surprise it with an attack (when Russia is least prepared for its own defense) one day in order to finally crush it or break its military backbone. Russia is forced to constantly having to look over its shoulders furtively towards the West. One  country after the other, Russia’s neighbouring countries (with very few exceptions) have fallen into the mesmerizing or hypnotic embrace and orbit of the Western Alliance; have embraced democracy as a way of political life from one degree to another; and have opened up their economies to prosperity through adoption of Western economic model, etc.

This is why it is constantly seeking assurance from the West, an assurance it has not been able to get so far. NATO-Russia Founding Treaty of 1997 was cast into the waste basket by NATO without implementing any of its provisions. But in the obvious face of West’s reluctance to give such assurance but indeed constantly encroaching on the territory of Russian strategic interests, it should not surprise anybody that Russia has become exceedingly hostile while adopting a hard stance against the West, especially NATO.

Even though NATO has been seemingly stagnant in the past decade, framed by its own strategic ambiguity and benumbed by relative economic stability by EU members, it is still a very deadly war machine to contend with especially when backed up by the might of the US military power. The United States is a war veteran, much more experienced than Russia. Even when the US has pivoted away from Europe to South East Asia also in the last decade to focus on combating the growing influence and menace of China, NATO (without the might of the US behind it) can still not be walked over by Russia. Russia does not have such effrontery to launch attack on NATO.

This is why it is very doubtful to this author that Russia has overwhelming advantage of conventional superiority over NATO. Russia has no such courage to launch a full-scale attack on NATO through any of its members because of the consequences both known and unknown. If it comes to exchange of blows, Russia might be surprised with a broken nose or bloody face. And that may have been what accounted for raising the nuclear Sword of Damocles to frighten or scare NATO from ever thinking the unthinkable: a surprise attack on Russia on the other hand. It is a situation of binary opposites that can lead to mutual assured destruction.

A lesson from the Second World War might be apposite here. The former Joseph Stalin-led Soviet Union might not have been able to beat back Hitler’s Wehrmacht from Leningrad and Moscow if Germany had not been hard pressed from the western flanks by American, French, British and other Allied forces. In fact Germany was defeated in the Second World War by been encircled from all fronts and from all domains. In the context of this historical lesson, Russia has also revealed its soft underbelly. Within a month of its campaign of destruction in Ukraine, it has become stalled in the battlefield. What happens when it faces the whole of NATO?

Overall, in response to the Russian invasion, US and NATO, apart from the raft of sanctions already imposed, have forward deployed thousands of troops to the eastern-most NATO members not in anticipation of war with Russia but to bolster the morale of these countries in face of increasing intimidation from Russia. US in particular has increased its military manpower to about 100, 000 troops in Europe since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. In particular, it has forward deployed 3, 000 paratroopers from the 82^nd Airborne Division located in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland in addition to 1, 700 troops from the same Division already stationed there.

In the constellation of forces can be seen deployment of F-15 Eagle fighter jets from the US, F-16 Falcon jets from Belgium including Leopard tanks, Abrams tanks and Bradley armoured vehicles. There are a number of Eurofighter jets from Germany, F-35 Lightning II Stealth jet fighters from the US. US 2^nd Calvary Regiment which has moved from Vilseck, Germany to Romania, while a Stryker squadron of 1, 000 US servicemen have been forward deployed to Vilseck, Germany. UK already sent around 2,000 anti-tank weapons and 30 elite commando troops to Ukraine. There are also 300 members of 18^th Airborne Corps headquarters from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Eight American F-15 Eagle jet fighters along with 130 troops with the 493 Fighter Squadron based in the UK had arrived Poland. Eight additional F-15s from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina have flown to Lask Air Base, Poland, to augment 8 F-15s already there. Eight F-16 Falcons usually based in Spangdahlem, Germany, have also forward deployed to Fetesti Air Base, Romania. US Air Force authorities said F-35 jet fighters from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, had deployed to Germany including 2 B-52 Stratofortress long-range stand-off strategic nuclear bombers from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota that have already forward deployed to Britain.

Yet there are sufficient reasons to be worried on the part of NATO. It is tacitly acknowledged that the three eastern-most countries bordering Russia: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are exposed to Russian attack. How can these Baltic States who are members of NATO be defended against Russian attack within a very short notice?

In a series of war games conducted between summer 2014 and spring 2015, RAND Arroyo Center examined the shape and probable outcome of a near-term Russian invasion of the Baltic States. The games’ findings are unambiguous: As presently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members. Fortunately, it will not require Herculean effort to avoid such a failure. Further gaming indicates that a force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades — adequately supported by airpower, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready to fight at the onset of hostilities — could suffice to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states.⁵

Russia’s recent aggression against Ukraine has disrupted nearly a generation of relative peace and stability between Moscow and its Western neighbors and raised concerns about its larger intentions. From the perspective of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the threat to the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — former Soviet republics, now member states that border Russian territory — may be the most problematic of these.⁶

The key findings are that as presently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members, even though it is possible to avoid such consequences. What that required is that the expense only needs to be balanced against the consequences of not rethinking the current posture.⁷

• Across multiple games using a wide range of expert participants in and out of uniform playing both sides, the longest it has taken Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian and/or Latvian capitals of Tallinn and Riga, respectively, is 60 hours.
• Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad.
• A force of about seven brigades, including three heavy armored brigades — adequately supported by airpower, land-based fires, and other enablers on the ground and ready to fight at the onset of hostilities — could suffice to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states.
• While not sufficient to mount a sustained defense of the region or to achieve NATO’s ultimate end state of restoring its members’ territorial integrity, such a posture would fundamentally change the strategic picture as seen from Moscow.
• While this deterrent posture would not be inexpensive in absolute terms, it is not unaffordable, especially in comparison with the potential costs of failing to defend NATO’s most exposed and vulnerable allies.⁸

But there is now course-correction with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022.

Sea, land and air forces have been deployed to reinforce NATO battlegroups in Eastern Europe in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since 2014, the NATO Response Force (NRF), which is designed to provide a rapid military response in a crisis, has grown from 13,000 to 40,000 troops. Following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Russia’s neighbour, NATO activated elements of the NRF for the first time in a “deterrence and defence” role. Thousands of additional troops, armoured vehicles, artillery units, ships and aircrafts, have been placed at high readiness. Across the entire alliance, NATO can count on nearly 3.5 million troops and other personnel, but it is targeted deployments in Eastern Europe, both through the NRF and elsewhere, which are being used to ease fears along the military bloc’s border with Russia.⁹

An important component of NATO’s strengthened deterrence and defence posture is military presence in the eastern and south-eastern parts of Alliance territory. Allies implemented the 2016 Warsaw Summit decisions to establish NATO’s forward presence in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and to develop a tailored forward presence in the Black Sea region. These decisions demonstrate Allies’ solidarity, determination and ability to defend Alliance territory.¹⁰

• NATO has enhanced its forward presence in the eastern part of the Alliance, with four multinational battalion-size battle groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, on a rotational basis.
• These battle groups, led by the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the United States respectively, are robust and combat-ready forces. They demonstrate the strength of the transatlantic bond and make clear that an attack on one Ally would be considered an attack on the whole Alliance.
• NATO also has a forward presence tailored to the southeast of Alliance territory. Allies are contributing forces and capabilities on land, at sea and in the air.
• The land element in the southeast of the Alliance is built around a multinational brigade, under Multinational Division Southeast in Romania. At sea, NATO has deployed more ships and has conducted more naval exercises. In the air, Allies have intensified their training, which contributed to improved situational awareness and enhanced readiness.
• NATO’s forward presence was part of the biggest reinforcement of Alliance collective defence in a generation.
• In response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Allies are sending additional ships, planes and troops to NATO territory in eastern and south-eastern Europe, further reinforcing the Alliance’s deterrence and defence posture.^{11, 12, 13, 14}

Yet all these troop deployment and movement cannot be termed declaration of war against Russia, at least legally speaking. US President has not gone to the Capitol Hill in a joint session of the Congress to declare war on Russia. The British Prime Minister has not gone to address the House of Commons to declare war on Russia. Even though Chancellor Olaf Scholz has gone to the Bundestag to address it but he did not declare war on Russia. Russia itself has not declared war on NATO. Thus, it is not a full military mobilization for war. NATO is not, at least not yet, on war-footing with Russia. But it is a massive and united show of resolve on the part of the US and NATO. It is a clear and loud message being sent to Moscow: we will defend every inch of our territories against you if you dared to violate them! It is the first of its kind since the end of the Second World War and not just the Cold War. However, even when Russia has raised the nuclear threat (meaning it has placed its nuclear forces on high alert), it is not known that US and NATO have done the same. There is no report anywhere that the US and NATO (especially the United Kingdom and France) have raised their nuclear alerts to any known level, though it may be speculated that they are also on alert. The nuclear Triad remained synchronized and ready but no red warning light flashing on the radar!

It is in this context that one can also view the refusal of US/NATO to impose a no-fly zone on Ukraine’s air space as this would be considered a direct military confrontation with Russia – a confrontation that the US/NATO want to avoid at all cost. A no-fly zone must be strictly enforced to be seen to be effective and this means moving air-defense weaponry including sophisticated combat aircrafts to defend Ukrainian air space. Movement of such weaponry such as anti-aircrafts, howitzers or artillery guns to Ukrainian territory by US/NATO under any guise would be considered a declaration or act of war which would inevitably escalate the already existing conflict.

It is the same reasoning that can be seen to serve as premise that underpins US President’s semi-policy statement that the US does not want to go into ground battle or nuclear war with Russia for any reason. The same rationale underwrites the whole gamut of policy attitude and direction towards Russia while the US/NATO overtly funnels arms and other materials to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.

On the surface, this might look double-standard. But a closer examination would reveal it to be a hard-nose policy thrust of self-preservation meant to avoid direct military confrontation with Russia while undercutting its ability to quickly win the war in Ukraine.

The saving grace so far is the fact that Ukraine has not been admitted yet to NATO. Had Ukraine been a member of NATO and with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, war would have broken out in Europe as US and NATO would have gone to war with Russia – because in accordance with the NATO’s “articles of faith”, an attack on a member would have been considered an attack on all: one for all, all for one! NATO would not have hesitated to go after the jugular of Russia no matter the sacrifices that might be involved. NATO would not have allowed any of its members to be attacked without prompt response from the collective whole. Perhaps, Third World War would have broken out by now which may have involved nuclear war no matter how limited.

Another saving grace is that Ukraine is not a nuclear power. Prior to the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991/92, Ukraine harbored a substantial number of Soviet nuclear weapons and forces. But after the collapse, Ukraine surrendered these weapons back to Russia that inherited the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union. If Ukraine had been a nuclear power, Russia would not have been grandstanding it the way it has done prior to the invasion either in 2014 or now.

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, there are two broad groups of analysts watching the unfolding scenario

The first group consists of those analysts (including this author) who believe that Russia would not invade Ukraine at the end of the day; that Russia is merely bluffing or grandstanding Ukraine; arm-twisting and/or coercing it with threat of invasion to back away from its commitment to join NATO; to make the Zelensky-led government in Kyiv more amenable to its diktats by wrestling certain concessions from it. This group also believes that with the threats of heavy sanctions from the West dangling over its head like a Sword of Damocles, Russia would refrain from invading Ukraine. The group also believes that the fear of drawing or dragging NATO into the conflict with Russia and the general implications of this would persuade Russia from finally invading Ukraine.

The second group is those who believe that war has become inevitable if historical antecedents of Russia in this ugly business of war and invasion and geopolitical enterprise in interference in other sovereign countries’ internal affairs are anything to go by. Indeed Russia inherited the Soviet legacy of invading other countries even members of its own Warsaw Pact of yore: Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1979-89. Russia invaded Chechnya in 1994, 1999-2009, Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Thus, it would not be surprising if Russia should invade Ukraine again which it eventually did. This group is of the view that with the massing up of Russian forces at the borders of Ukraine and its display of sophisticated-looking habiliments of war, it would just be a question of time before the tinder box will start to explode and war would start as it always start when such strategic reasons as canvassed by Russia are at stake – or when two States are caught in a mini-Thucydides Trap from which they find it difficult to extricate themselves. An established Power (Russia) is being challenged by a slowly rising power (power with lower case) (Ukraine) showing its ambitions to join another already established Power (NATO) and backed up by the global military behemoth (arguably the greatest Superpower (USA) thus creating the referenced mini-Thucydides Trap. It would be a surprise if Russia suddenly turn round to retreat and withdraw its forces from the Ukrainian borders and go back to Moscow without achieving its strategic aims it had earlier set out to achieve in the first place. Such a scenario would be inconceivable for a Superpower given the emotional investment it has deployed against the prey (Ukraine). It would be interpreted to mean that Russia has no balls under its knickers in the first place and therefore should not have wasted people’s time by empty grandstanding or braggadocio.

There are equally another two broad groups: those who support Russia and its predatory goals against Ukraine who argued that Ukraine has no right to threaten the national security interests of Russia by proposing to join NATO, a sworn enemy of Russia that is only waiting for the opportunity to smash Russia to pieces on the one hand; and those who support Ukraine and argued that it may even have the right to sign a pact with the Devil if that is what it desires for itself and whether this is palatable and acceptable to anybody else or not. The latter group also argues that Ukraine in the final analysis has the right to defend itself against all odds. These two groups can be seen in their various outbursts on mainstream and social media.

The first group here was against what it called the meddlesomeness of the United States and EU/NATO, citing the various atrocities that they have committed all over the world without anybody been able to call them to order. Of course, there is no doubt that Western powers have committed atrocities and other types of infamies around the world. But that cannot be a justification to stand by while Russia gobble up Ukraine, while the rest of world should cheer on Russia in this naked display of raw power against arguably a weaker neighbor, albeit its so-called brother.

America went to war with Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the global war on terror aftermath the terrorist attack on New York City and Washington on September 11, 2001. The search for weapons of mass destruction became part of the alibis for attack on Iraq and also for regime change. Pursuit of Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qae’da served as the conveyor belt to Afghanistan. In both cases, both countries played into the United States and amidst war hysteria of the time, it was inevitable that these countries would have to pay the ultimate price for whatever might have been their immediate or remote contribution to the attack on America. Indeed, nobody attack homeland America in such a manner and get away without paying heavy or steep price for it. Japan paid with atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki for its ill-advised attack on Pearl Harbour. Whether it is a deserved punishment or not is another matter for separate consideration.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused massive political and socioeconomic earthquakes in Europe (Western Alliance to be specific) creating shockwaves even across the Atlantic. It has caused unexpected unintended consequences – consequences probably never contemplated within the realm of possibility of East-West’s hitherto relative friendly relationship since the Fall of Berlin Wall in 1989.

Interestingly, it is precisely in Berlin that the earthquake has caused the major impact. It has caused the shifting of the political tectonic plates of the German Establishment. On February 27, 2022, four days after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the new German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz went to address the Bundestag (German Parliament) and in a thirty minute speech, shattered all previous guiding principles behind German foreign and defense policies, including the economy.¹⁵

Ostpolitik has been the major guiding and abiding philosophy of German foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. Basically Ostpolitik is steering a middle course between the major Superpowers (USA and Soviet Union/Russia) even though (West) Germany was technically and substantively part of the Western Alliance and a key member of NATO. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991/92, the new Germany (East and West) did not abandon Ostpolitik. This has enabled it to safely navigate the turbulent sea of the Russo-American superpower rivalry and competition. It particularly enabled Germany to have considerable friendly relationship with Russia especially in the realm of economic cooperation through which German-Russian trade blossomed powerfully. Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe that the two major superpowers would like to do business with.

But the crisis in Ukraine has broken the Camel’s back of this economic cooperation that has served as a major cornerstone of Ostpolitik.

In his Bundestag address, Olaf Scholz abandoned and renounced Ostpolitik as the guiding philosophy of German foreign policy and opted for a more pugilist approach in view of the latest aggressive turn of Russia not only towards Ukraine but also against Europe and damning all the consequences. Germany is now in the era of post-Ostpolitik, in the early stage of the era of Realpolitik. In another speech marking the 100^th birthday of Egon Bahr, Olaf Scholz said that “Ostpolitik was never a German Sonderweg, a course pursued by Germany alone. And nor must it ever be.”¹⁶“We’re willing to engage in constructive dialog,” Scholz told the Bundestag. “This must not be misunderstood as a new German Ostpolitik,” he added. “In a united Europe, Ostpolitik can only be a European Ostpolitik.” As Russia deploys troops on its border with Ukraine, the new German leader has declared his support for harsh retaliatory measures if the Kremlin steps up aggression against the former Soviet republic.¹⁷

According to Judy Dempsey, a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of Strategic Europe, “In an extraordinary speech made during a special session of the German parliament on Sunday, Scholz ended the decades-long Ostpolitik of his Social Democratic Party (SPD), with immense ramifications for Europe and NATO. Ostpolitik, or “eastern policy,” was forged in the early 1970s and intended to bring the Soviet Union politically and economically closer to Europe. One major component was building a gas pipeline, which the United States opposed, that West Germany hoped would bring confidence, stability, and predictability with the USSR. But Ostpolitik also meant that Germany’s ruling left wing had little sympathy for dissident movements in communist Eastern Europe, as these movements upset the Cold War status quo. That belief in having a special relationship with Russia persisted even when President Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 and annexed Crimea in 2014. Germany’s powerful and influential business lobbies and pro-Russia left-wingers preferred to protect their interests with Russia, despite the Kremlin’s crackdown on human rights, press freedom, and civil society.¹⁸

But what does Scholz’s speech mean in practice?

First, Russia has lost one of its most important supporters in Europe, and Germany no longer sees Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine through the prism of Russia. The time when the SPD tacitly acknowledged Russia’s sphere of influence over these sovereign, independent countries is over. In addition, Germany’s relations, particularly with Poland and the Baltic states, will markedly improve. These countries were highly critical and distrustful of Berlin’s commitment to Nord Stream 2, the $11 billion project to bring Russian gas directly to Europe that was finished and awaiting certification when Scholz halted it. They, along with Ukraine, believed the pipeline would increase their vulnerability in terms of energy supplies and make Germany more dependent on Russia for its energy, pushing Germany to lean more Russia-friendly inside the EU and NATO.¹⁹

In addition, these decisions are a boost for NATO, with Germany now fully committed to the defense of Europe via the U.S.-led military alliance. The change shows that Germany no longer wants to be seen as a “free rider,” always relying on the United States to be Europe’s security guarantor without paying much for that security umbrella. Germany was repeatedly criticized for its unwillingness to spend 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, and this raised questions among allies if Germany was taking America’s protection for granted. One caveat to the increase in defense spending. The 100 billion euro “special fund” will kick-start a long overdue modernization of Germany’s armed forces. This is no joke: German soldiers were sent recently to the Baltic States lacking thermal underwear and other basis clothing. But spending more over the next few years will not be useful if it leads to more duplication of equipment among allies instead of focusing on adapting weapons systems to cyber attacks, modern aircraft fighters, and the changing nature of warfare.²⁰

Germany could now shape the future direction of EU foreign policy. The war in Ukraine has shown how the EU, pushed by Germany, needs a revamped “Eastern Partnership” policy that entails not only reducing Russian interference, especially by pro-Russian and local oligarchs in politics and the economy, but also strengthening the state institutions and combating corruption. Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine—countries in which Russia has consistently meddled—want to join the EU, or failing that, some special relationship that will make their trade, economy, political, and social structures more closely tied to Europe. Scholz’s policy change indicates that Germany will no longer stand in the way of these changes, and could even lead them.²¹

However, this post-Ostpolitik era is still unfolding. But one of its basic ingredients is the move away from economic dependence on Russia for energy supply especially gas. Olaf Scholz abruptly terminated the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline mega project with Russia. It was a big blow to Russia. Russia was not expecting such a heavy blowback from Germany for its war with Ukraine. It was a classic economic coup by Germany against Russia. Russia was hit below the belt. Russia could find no means to retaliate and was thus left to lick its wound alone. The full consequences of the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 project will be long in coming to fruition though it has started in earnest, changing the dynamics and fundamentals of global oil and gas market.

Russia is the architect of its own misfortune in Germany for its intemperate actions in Ukraine. Russia perhaps never imagined that Germany could find the courage to hit back at it for its actions in Ukraine. The blow came almost from nowhere – but definitely from Berlin. Scholz had earlier been pussy-footing, trying to avoid any form of head-on collision with Russia. Scholz had earlier avoided getting too deeply involved with Ukraine in its face-offs with Russia. He merely supplied about 5, 000 helmets to Ukraine for which he drew a barrage of criticisms and ridicule from all political fronts within Germany itself and from across the Atlantic for been so cowardly.

But it was Russia that perhaps unintentionally triggered off the punchy Scholzian actions from Berlin. Putin had referred to “denazification” of Ukraine as one of its reasons for invading Ukraine. This “denazification” statement has been largely and correctly interpreted to be a veiled reference attack on Germany. It is opening of an old wound for which there is no just cause for it especially when the same Germany is the best friend of Russia in the Western Alliance. It was a thoughtless and stupid statement for which it is hard to decipher the reason for the blundering statement.

The statement can now be seen as the main angst contained in the speech at the Bundestag by Scholz that served as the draconian punishment for which the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project (already awaiting certification) was terminated, a punishment analogous to Mosaic Law of “an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth”. This is the biggest blow of all to Russia. Germany is now charting a new era in which there will be no more dependence on Russian gas or oil.

Germany occupies a central position in Europe not only by the account of the fact that it has the largest and strongest economy on the continent, it is also the most strategic in relation to the Western Alliance and NATO including serving as a bridge to Russia and its sphere of influence. Thus whatever Germany says or does carries enormous weight and must be accorded strategic consideration for its ability to alter the balance of forces in Europe.  Helmut Anheier, an adjunct professor of social welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, and a professor of sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, commented:  “Responding to Russia’s invasion and the threat of regional instability, he announced an epochal change in German security policy. The Bundeswehr, the long neglected armed forces of this deeply pacifist country, will now receive the financing it needs to close the gap between Germany’s economic might and its strategic weight. Scholz has already set aside €100 billion ($148 billion) in a special trust fund to modernise the armed forces and to meet Germany’s commitment, under NATO, to spend 2% of GDP on defence.²²

With this decision, Scholz not only orchestrated one of the most significant policy shifts in Germany’s post-war history; he did so with hardly any parliamentary or public debate. Nor is this the only recent decision that has shocked his own party, the traditionally détente-minded SPD. The Scholz government has also killed off the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and joined with the United States and the rest of Europe in subjecting Russia to stringent sanctions. Germany’s decades-old policy of Wandel durch Handel (‘change through commerce’) has effectively been buried—and former West German chancellor Willy Brandt’s détente-era Ostpolitik with it.²³

The Bundeswehr revitalization effort will be underpinned by a proposed EUR100 billion ($113 billion) special defense fund that will finance major procurements of advanced platforms such as the joint European Future Combat Air System (FCAS). Another big-ticket purchase will most likely be the F-35 Lightning II stealth combat aircraft to fill a niche that will emerge with the retirement of the German Air Force’s fleet of Tornado fighter-bombers, which are declared to NATO as a Dual Capable Aircraft, meaning they may be tasked with the nuclear-delivery role utilizing the B61 nuclear gravity bomb.²⁴

The aim is to provide Germany with the military credibility not only to deter potential threats, but to underwrite a foreign policy long vested in soft power without the commensurate hard power. The long-practiced Ostpolitik dating back to former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and utilized by Berlin when dealing with Vladimir Putin has now given way to Realpolitik.²⁵

Judy Dempsey, was of the view that “Germany’s special policy toward Russia is over. The belief that Germany’s decades-long economic, trade, and political relationship with Moscow would lead to the country’s modernization has been debunked. The belief that its Ostpolitik, or Eastern policy, forged during the Cold War, could continue without reassessment by Germany’s political elites, particularly the governing Social Democratic Party, has been discredited. Until the past few days, some political elites and lobbies claimed that it was NATO and the United States, not Russia, that were saber-rattling.”²⁶

The other stark reality for Germany is the instability now facing Eastern Europe. What is unnerving for the political establishment in Berlin is that the European and Western order enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, which made the upholding of territorial integrity so central, is over.²⁷ This is an immense blow to Berlin. As the EU’s largest economy, Germany had hoped diplomacy and the architecture of multilateral institutions would suffice to maintain the status of the post–Cold War period.²⁸

German governments repeatedly gave Russia, particularly Putin, the benefit of the doubt, whether it was over the 2008 invasion of Georgia, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, or the subsequent invasion of eastern Ukraine. Yes, former German chancellor Angela Merkel got all EU member states to impose sanctions on Russia, but without putting in place a strong strategy based on a mix of hard power and deterrence.²⁹ If its delusions about Russia are over, Germany has the chance to start shaping a new EU policy toward Eastern Europe that is no longer seen through the prism of Russia. That won’t happen tomorrow.³⁰

For Germany, a nation does not commit suicide twice especially in a generation. German reticence towards Russia could therefore be understood in this broad context. Germany does not want to its soil to be turned into another battleground between NATO and Russia after the soul-shattering experiences of the Second World War where Germany was crushed in total defeat by both Allied and Soviet soldiers. Germany was divided into two (West and East) for many decades. Its militaristic tendencies have now given way to détente (Ostpolitik) after reunification of the divided nation. Ostpolitik is anchored on the belief that never again would Germany be divided for any conceivable reason. This belief is the primal motive force behind Ostpolitik.

But Russia has unwittingly started a new arms race in Europe because Russia is now been seen as a new threat. It would not be too far in the future when Germany may contemplate having its own nuclear arsenal which will be inevitably be directed or targeted mainly at Russia. Great Britain and France are already nuclear powers with their nuclear weapons directed at the same Russia.

The “nice boys” of Europe are already abandoning Russia. But more poignant is the fact that the Russian invasion has unwittingly brought some of the “bad boys” of Europe to the fore and more or less together in support of Ukraine from one degree to another. Europe is now unarguably united against Russia. Poland, Hungary and Turkey fall into this classification. Poland has thrown open its border for the influx of Ukrainian refugees fleeing from the Russian invasion. Poland has even donated its MiG jet fighters to Ukraine to the utter surprise of other European countries including the US. Turkey too has provided drone named Bayraktar to Ukraine playing the same role in the war that “the Stinger played in the war against the Soviet Union and Afghanistan”, even when Turkey has previously bought S-400 missile defense system from Russia. Turkey has also played diplomatic roles in the attempt to help resolve the conflict between the two parties.³¹

What this means is that Russia is fast losing more friends as part of the cumulative effects of its ill-advised invasion of Ukraine. Even after the war might have ended, it would take Russia many years to repair the damages it willfully inflicted on itself. In short, Russia has disrupted the strategic landscape of Europe overnight for advantages it could not achieve. 

The Russian invasion has created an urgency to take another in-depth look at the NATO’s strategic concept. The Strategic Concept is a key document for the Alliance. It reaffirms NATO’s values and purpose, and provides a collective assessment of the security environment. It also drives NATO’s strategic adaptation and guides its future political and military development.³²

Politically, the Strategic Concept occupies a place second only to the Washington Treaty which forms the basis of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.³³ The Strategic Concept is reviewed and updated regularly. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been updated approximately every 10 years to take account of changes to the global security environment and make sure the Alliance is prepared for the future.³⁴ The world has fundamentally changed in the past decade and strategic competition is rising, so the time has come to update the Strategic Concept.³⁵ The last Strategic Concept was adopted at the Lisbon Summit in 2010; the new one will build on elements of the 2010 Concept that are still relevant. At the Brussels Summit in June 2021, NATO Leaders agreed to develop the next Strategic Concept in time for the Madrid Summit in June 2022.³⁶

The Strategic Concept sets the Alliance’s strategy. It outlines NATO’s enduring purpose and nature, its fundamental security tasks, and the challenges and opportunities it faces in a changing security environment. It also specifies the elements of the Alliance’s approach to security and provides guidelines for its political and military adaptation.³⁷

• Strategic Concepts equip the Alliance for security challenges and guide its future political and military development.
• They reiterate NATO’s enduring purpose and nature, and its fundamental security tasks.
• They are renewed to take account of changes to the global security environment and to ensure the Alliance is properly prepared to execute its core tasks, making transformation in the broad sense of the term, a permanent feature of the Organization.
• The current Strategic Concept “Active Engagement, Modern Defence” (2010) outlines three essential core tasks – collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security.
• At the Brussels Summit in June 2021, NATO Leaders agreed to develop a new Strategic Concept in time for the Madrid summit in June 2022.
• Over time, the Alliance and the wider world have developed in ways that NATO’s founders could not have envisaged, and these changes have been reflected in each and every strategic document that NATO has ever produced.³⁸

On the other hand is the European Union Strategic Compass.

On March 21, 2022, at the EU Headquarters in Brussels, the Council of the European Union formally approved the document “A Strategic Compass for Security and Defence: For a European Union that protects its citizens, values and interests and contributes to international peace and security”. The Strategic Compass sets out a plan to strengthen the EU’s security and defence policy by 2030 aiming to become a “more assertive and decisive security provider”. It assesses the EU’s strategic environment and entails policy objectives, means to achieve these and timelines to measure progress.³⁹ The European Union has formally approved the Strategic Compass, at a time when we witness the return of war in Europe.⁴⁰ The Compass gives the European Union an ambitious plan of action for strengthening the EU’s security and defence policy by 2030.⁴¹

The Compass says the more hostile security environment requires the EU to make a quantum leap forward and increase its capacity and willingness to act, strengthen its resilience, and invest more and better in its defence capabilities.⁴² “The strength of our Union lies in unity, solidarity and determination. The objective of the Strategic Compass is to make the EU a stronger and more capable security provider. The EU needs to be able to protect its citizens and to contribute to international peace and security. This is all the more important at a time when war has returned to Europe, following the unjustified and unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as of major geopolitical shifts. This Strategic Compass will enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy and its ability to work with partners to safeguard its values and interests.”⁴³

A stronger and more capable EU in security and defence will contribute positively to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to NATO, which remains the foundation of collective defence for its members. It will also intensify support for the global rules-based order, with the United Nations at its core.⁴⁴ The Strategic Compass provides a shared assessment of the strategic environment in which the EU is operating and of the threats and challenges the Union faces. The document makes concrete and actionable proposals, with a very precise timetable for implementation, in order to improve the EU’s ability to act decisively in crises and to defend its security and its citizens.⁴⁵ The Compass covers all the aspects of the security and defence policy and is structured around four pillars: act, invest, partner and secure.⁴⁶

This war has driven a wedge between the West and the East, especially between the Western Alliance and Russia and its satellite states. A new ideological war has started in earnest. Russia ostensibly did not learn any lesson from the previous ideological war between the Western Alliance and former Warsaw Pact countries in which the latter succumbed, crumbled and disappeared from the scene of history or become historical footnote. Former President Ronald Reagan of the United States called the former Soviet Union an “evil empire” – an empire of evil already inherited by Russia.

President Joe Biden has already called President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” that should be “removed from power”. That is a declaration of political and ideological war, with economic punishment to boot, against Russia that will survive even both Presidents. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has thrown rocks into the machinery of the extant relationship between Western Alliance and Russia, grinding it to a halt.

In short, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rather than frighten the Western Alliance (US/North America, NATO and EU), has merely emboldened and increased its resolve to defend itself against all visible and invisible odds – although it is still largely reluctant to have a military confrontation with Russia over Ukraine despite the sufferings of the Ukrainians. Indeed, what the invasion has done is to further lend credence and/or legitimacy to these various security and political frameworks for Europe in view of the disruption to the strategic landscape that the invasion has caused in Europe – despite the various criticisms of these security frameworks by several analysts from strategic think-tanks. On the other hand, Russia now finds itself at an impasse and at a crossroad having lost nearly all friends over its ill-advised invasion of Ukraine.

The Nuclear Spectre

One of the alarming issues that arose from the Russian invasion of Ukraine was the threat of nuclear war should NATO and by extension the US intervenes in the war with Ukraine. As at the time the nuclear threat was raised, Russia was of the firm belief that it was just a question of days that its forces would overwhelm and overrun Ukraine. Thus by the nature of this belief, the threat could not have been directed against Ukraine because Ukraine posed no possibility of defeating Russia militarily.

The threat was obviously directed at NATO and by extension against the United States to dissuade them from directly intervening in the conflict with the aim of stationing their troops on Ukrainian territory in order to help defend the Ukrainian people against Russian attack.

The nuclear threat, however, did not receive sufficient media coverage amidst daily reportage about the war. But it did loom writ large in the strategic quarters across the world.

Why did Putin raise the nuclear war spectre? What really was on his mind when he was raising the threat? Was it to intimidate and frighten the West and prevent it from intervening in its war with Ukraine? Did Putin sincerely believe it can intimidate the West? Did Putin really think he can win a nuclear war with the West (US, Great Britain and France combined)? What is the limit of such “madness” as contained in the advocacy or threat to use nuclear weapons by Putin? Has the US ever threatened nuclear war with the countries it had invaded in the past years, even Vietnam where it lost the largest number of soldiers in its modern history?

The threat can be taken to be real enough because the West could not be sure that Putin might be bluffing or not. There is something really sinister about it. And that is why the West resisted the provocation by directly deploying its forces on Ukrainian soil to fight the Russians. That is also why the West also refused to impose “no flight zone” over Ukraine which would be mean shooting down any Russian aircraft by West’s forward deployed jet fighters on behalf of Ukraine. Russia wants to provoke or is waiting for the West to deploy NATO troops directly to Ukraine for it to cross the nuclear threshold.

Russia with the nuclear threat has crossed the Strategic Rubicon. Putin can no longer be trusted with his hands on the nuclear buttons given his riotous fanciful but suicidal imagination. But the West refused to swallow the bait and rush headlong to cross the nuclear Rubicon to challenge the Russians to a duel. Putin needs to be astutely managed so as to have him under sanity and control. This is perhaps strategically the best way of avoiding nuclear war and therefore suicidal mutual assured destruction. The West is not mad enough to go the path of mutual assured destruction. Putin knows that the West would like to avoid nuclear war with Russia at all costs. But would Putin have issued the nuclear threat if former President Donald Trump were to be still in the White House? It is very doubtful not because there is known affinity between Trump and Putin but because Trump could be considered mad as well as Putin. And when two mad men collide, a mutual assured destruction may happen. Donald Trump had threatened nuclear attack on North Korea if the latter should threaten South Korea and/or Japan with nuclear weapons. Of course, we all know the result. North Korea immediately climbed down from its commanding height of madness – though it is still testing and shooting its nuclear ballistic missiles.

But there is another worrisome dimension. How really prepared are US and NATO for a nuclear war with Russia when and if it ever happens – no matter how limited the nuclear might be calibrated to avoid total annihilation of one another? For the uninitiated in the troubling problematique currently haranguing the US nuclear forces at the moment, it is easy to hastily jump into the conclusion that the US is ever ready to face the challenge of nuclear war with Russia that has comparative strength in such domain unlike China that is still building up its nuclear arsenal. But for the initiated via access to open source information on such matter, there is cause to pause for reflection about the state of readiness of the US nuclear forces in face of such Russian challenge.

First, there is growing concern in the US policy decision making circles that the US nuclear force is aging even when modernization process has been ongoing in recent years. Second, there is a robust debate about how to “re-engineer” the Nuclear Triad to make it fit for modern purpose in face of increasing Russian modernization of its own nuclear arsenal and China relentless quest to bring its own nuclear arsenal to modern status. Third is how to situate this unfolding process within the framework of strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT) without jeopardizing the US ability to respond promptly in a nuclear emergency and to maintain its superiority edge in delivery systems.

In January 2022, RAND Corporation released a report titled “Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Triad: The Rationale for a New Intercontinental Ballistic Missile” authored by Frank G. Klotz and Alexandra T. Evans. (It is noteworthy that Frank G. Klotz was a former Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration and former Commander of the US Air Force Global Strike Command). The report is said to be a product of expert’s perspectives and insights on a very timely and topical issue. The report came out precisely when the storm was already gathering on Ukraine – when Russia has already massed its troops at the borders of Ukraine waiting for order from the Kremlin to cross the borders to start invasion of Ukrainian homeland.  

Since the late 1950s, the United States has fielded a Triad consisting of air-, sea-, and land-based nuclear delivery systems. After multiple decades of service, major components of all three legs are now nearing the end of their scheduled service lives. Several nuclear modernization programs are well underway, but the decision to replace the aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a new system, called the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), has catalyzed a debate over the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy and the composition and costs of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.⁴⁷

This Perspective presents an overview of the principal arguments publicly advanced for and against continuing the GBSD program of record. Intended to assist U.S. Air Force officials, it presents an overview of the role of the Triad in U.S. nuclear weapons policy, a survey of the current strategic landscape, and an outline of the major nuclear modernization programs of record, in addition to describing and assessing the major points of disagreement related to fielding a new ICBM.⁴⁸

For the past six decades, the United States has maintained a Triad of long-range nuclear delivery systems, including nuclear-capable bomber aircrafts, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and nuclear-powered submarines armed with submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Beginning with the Obama administration and continuing through the Trump administration, the United States has pursued multiple programs of record to modernize all three legs of the existing Triad, including fielding a new class of ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), a new bomber, a new version of the nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile (ALCM), and a new ICBM. These investments represent the first sustained efforts to replace U.S. strategic nuclear delivery systems since the end of the Cold War more than 30 years ago.⁴⁹

The fate of GBSD—and the Triad—will depend not only on the outcome of the Biden administration’s NPR but also on the degree of continuing support for the current modernization programs within the congressional committees that exercise jurisdiction over the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)⁵⁰

Despite changes in U.S. nuclear posture, doctrine, and technology over the past 75 years, several core aspects of U.S nuclear policy have endured. The first is the belief that the fundamental purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, its military forces, and its allies. The second is the calculation that the United States can best deter aggression and achieve strategic stability by maintaining nuclear forces capable of surviving a nuclear attack and retaliating in a way that denies the attacker its objectives and imposes devastating consequences in the process. Similarly, U.S. strategists have long held that decreasing an adversary’s confidence in its ability to decapitate U.S. nuclear forces reduces the incentive to launch a first strike in a crisis or conflict. Lastly, U.S. nuclear policymakers have repeatedly asserted that the survivability of U.S. nuclear forces can best be ensured by maintaining a mix of nuclear delivery systems, each of which complements the others’ attributes and compensates for any vulnerabilities or technical failures of the others.⁵¹

The development of the hydrogen bomb, coupled with improvements in the range, precision, and quantity of Soviet missile systems, weakened U.S. strategists’ confidence in the bomber force’s ability to survive a preemptive first strike, thereby undermining a fundamental precept for maintaining deterrence. This concern led to calls for more-secure, survivable nuclear forces—including their associated command, control, and communications systems—to ensure the ability to respond to a nuclear attack under all circumstances and provide the President with a wider variety of options for doing so.⁵²

Even with significant reductions in the number and type of U.S. nuclear forces after the end of the Cold War, successive presidential administrations—both Democrats and Republicans—have chosen to retain the Triad. Every NPR conducted since the practice began in 1993 has concluded that maintaining a mix of delivery systems, each possessing different characteristics and attributes, enhances strategic stability by ensuring that no adversary can (or believes it can) conduct a successful disarming first strike and thereby eliminate the United States’ ability to respond to a nuclear attack. The redundancy inherent in the Triad is also described as a means to hedge against unforeseen technical issues, guaranteeing that the United States retains the ability to conduct nuclear operations even if one or more delivery systems becomes unavailable for a period of time. Finally, maintaining a variety of systems with different operational capabilities (including range, flight profiles, and weapons yields), it has been argued, enables the United States to tailor its strategies for deterring strategic attack, assuring allies, and achieving objectives should deterrence fail.⁵³

Nuclear weapons have played a central role in Soviet/Russian military doctrine since the 1950s. According to the U.S. Intelligence Community, the Russian government today views its strategic and nonstrategic nuclear forces as essential to maintaining deterrence, securing the country’s territorial integrity, and achieving its goals in the event of conflict involving the United States and NATO forces. Moreover, Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict to achieve those objectives. A previous analysis by RAND researchers suggests that Moscow likely would consider or threaten nuclear responses to nonnuclear attacks that it perceived as grave threats to its territorial integrity and sovereignty, continuity of government, or the viability of its strategic nuclear deterrent. Although there is no indication that Russia would deliberately seek a large-scale conflict, “[d]eepening distrust” of the United States and its allies has characterized recent Russian security guidance and could color decision-making in a crisis.⁵⁴

For the foreseeable future, Russia will remain the largest and most capable nuclear-armed rival to the United States as it continues to expand and modernize its strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons capabilities. Indeed, the country already has made substantial progress toward upgrading or replacing Soviet-era systems. Although U.S. officials might differ with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that more than 88 percent of Russian nuclear weapons and equipment will be modernized by the end of 2021, they generally concede that the country’s efforts to upgrade or replace its Soviet-era systems are well advanced. ADM Charles A. Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), recently testified that Russia is “strengthening its overall combat potential with an imposing array of modernization efforts and novel programs designed to ensure a retaliatory strike capability by all three triad legs.”⁵⁵

While the RAND report focused more exclusively on Russia, Patty-Jane Geller contend in her brief that ignoring the Chinese dimension could be dangerous (even though this is not directly connected with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its strategic implications for Europe (EU/NATO).

Geller was of the view that “since Biden took office, the threat environment has markedly deteriorated, with the revelations of China’s strategic nuclear breakout—a change not accounted for in the Trump Administration’s 2018 NPR—and Russia’s continued nuclear expansion. If, as has been advertised, the NPR is to truly be “informed by the current and projected global security environment,” these new developments should logically lead the Administration to conclude it needs at least the nuclear programs proposed in the previous NPR—and quite possibly more.”⁵⁶

According to Geller, the nuclear threat environment has considerably worsened since the 2018 NPR.

• Most significantly, analysts have discovered that China is building over 300 new missile silos capable of carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that can hold multiple warheads each, and the Pentagon’s 2021 China Military Power Report revealed that China is on its way to becoming a nuclear peer to the United States and Russia, as it might have at least 1,000 nuclear weapons by the end of the decade. For the first time in its history, the United States will have to face two peer nuclear competitors at once.
• China has improved its arsenal of medium- to intermediate-range dual-capable missiles capable of striking U.S. assets in the Indo–Pacific region. It has also tested nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, including one that orbited the globe before reentering the atmosphere to glide to its target.
• Russia has tested and begun to deploy multiple types of hypersonic nuclear weapons, in addition to new exotic capabilities such as a nuclear-powered cruise missile. It also continues to grow its stockpile of non-strategic nuclear weapons, which are not constrained by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Bottom line, the United States is facing an unprecedented nuclear threat from two major powers and will need to ensure its nuclear posture can evolve to ensure strong nuclear deterrence.⁵⁷

Overall, the suicidal instinct of Putin is very apparent. And knowing this, it would have been fool-hardy for the West to join Putin in his suicidal madness. That would have amounted to explosion of nuclear Armageddon. According to Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at RAND Corporation: “Neither Russia nor NATO wants to go to war with the other”⁵⁸ Russia is most probably willing to risk war with NATO given its already evident suicidal bent in raising the nuclear threat because it probably believe it can win a war with NATO with its nuclear weaponry or conventional forces or both. However, this might not be the case with the West/NATO for variety of reasons.

First, the West is more sober-minded and rational in its approach to the war in Ukraine. The West is not willing to risk a war (either conventional or nuclear or both) with Russia on behalf of Ukraine albeit unpalatable this might have sounded to the hearing in some quarters. The West has hitherto stayed strongly behind Ukraine but when the push came to a shove, the West conveniently (or wisely) restrained itself from provoking the Russians to a military confrontation and nuclear fight. Russia has also been very careful not to provoke the eastern-most countries bordering it that are members of NATO because it has probably seen the resolve of NATO to defend these countries under any circumstance.

The second reason might not be unconnected with the state of strategic military readiness of the West (NATO) which has apparently been on the wane since the end of the Cold War after the Soviet Union crumbled and collapsed. The West has spent more resources on economic development than on military expenditures. All the evidences are there for all to see. Therefore, to confront the Russians that have been spending huge sums of money on its military re-armament in the last two decades in its current state would amount to courting suicide. The Russians know that the West is not willing to risk war with it under any pretext more especially from the standpoint of the NATO’s current military strength. 

The third reason is that the US, the main backbone of NATO, is not only currently war-wearied having been engaged in war of attrition in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and having been engaged in war of words with many other countries such as North Korea, Iran, etc. There is general domestic apathy towards the US going for another “long” war anywhere on the globe. US has shifted its strategic gaze and concern to the South East Asia where it has been involved in war of words with China over Taiwan, South China Sea, Belt and Road Initiative and many other strategic issues. The ongoing Great Power competition with China is perhaps more intense than with Russia – meaning that Western Europe (through NATO) should fend for itself, a policy shift that underwrite America’s attitude towards Western Europe under former President Donald Trump. Americans would be aghast to hear that their President has decided to pick up the gauntlet with the Russians in a war over Ukraine just after coming back home from frustrating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Definitely the domestic political atmosphere in the US is not favourably disposed to a war with a superpower for any reason at all. Biden Administration is already entering its mid-term. Mid-term elections are already looming. To start a war with Russia over Ukraine would not fetch it any political capital gain at all. So Biden is wise enough to avoid provocation and confrontation with Russia over Ukraine and in defense of NATO, at least for now.

The above, however, did not preclude the West from engaging in both economic and psychological warfare with the Russians. The West has imposed comprehensive and severe sanctions against Russia. It has called out Russia to the international court of public opinion where it has docked Russia for moral trial. Russia is already being accused of war crimes. Biden has called Putin a “war criminal”. Even though the West may not be able to drag Russia to the International Criminal Court for trial, the moral outrage is enough to put Russia to shame in the comity of nations. The Russians, without doubt, have felt the pinch from all corners, and perhaps if they had known in advance the severity of these economic warfare and moral opprobrium, it may have re-thought the war with Ukraine and restrain itself from invading Ukraine. But as well known, morality has very little to do with geostrategic interests.

In another report also published by RAND Corporation dated January 2022, titled U. S. Strategic Competition with Russia: A RAND Research Primer and authored by Stephanie Pezard, the US strategic competition with Russia was highlighted. The competition which predates the Russian invasion of Ukraine is now, however, accentuated by the invasion including the nuclear threat against the US and its NATO allies.

There are nine major findings which framed this competition.

1. The U.S.-Russia strategic competition will likely be long-lasting.
2. States “in between” Russia and member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are at the center of this competition.
3. Conventional war between the United States and Russia is unlikely (but the United States should nonetheless prepare for it).
4. Russian hostile actions below the threshold of war are expected to continue.
5. Russia’s achievements in this competition are limited so far.
6. The United States has the lead but could diminish its advantage by implementing the wrong policies.
7. Engagement remains possible—and desirable—with Russia.
8. The United States can help its allies and partners address gray zone threats.
9. These same allies and partners play key roles in helping the United States prevail.⁵⁹

Several studies gauged the expected duration of the competition between the United States and Russia. Is this competition more like a sprint, in which victory can be quickly achieved, or is it more like a marathon? The research clearly points toward the latter. Neither side appears particularly keen on working toward a new détente. As Samuel Charap, Jeremy Shapiro, and Alyssa Demus put it in 2018, “Overall, both sides distrust each other fundamentally, view each other as attempting to interfere in each other’s domestic politics, and think the other is inherently aggressive and expansionary.” Russia is likely to remain a U.S. rival until at least 2030 because of its desire to change the U.S.-dominated international order, its insistence on maintaining influence over its neighborhood, and its military buildup.⁶⁰

This mistrust appears particularly strong on the Russian side, with research showing that “many Russian policymakers appear to believe that the prospects for a stable, long-term accommodation with NATO are limited.” The mistrust predates the tensions borne out of the Ukraine crisis; it is rooted in a perception of the current U.S.-led international order as denying Russia the place it deserves while threatening Russian interests. In 2017, a team led by Bryan Frederick stated that “Russian elites appear to have increasingly concluded that the United States and NATO represent long-term political and potentially military threats to the current regime in Moscow.” The longstanding U.S. commitment to democracy and liberal values is perceived by Russia as, at best, a threat to regional stability and, at worst, an existential threat to the Russian regime; this represents another point of irreconcilability between the two countries. Given the right circumstances, Russia might undertake expeditionary interventions similar to the one in Syria, although its threshold for engaging in such interventions will be high.⁶¹

On the U.S. side, concerns likely will grow as Russia pursues a military buildup that will provide the capabilities to threaten the interests of the United States and its allies. Initiated in 2008, Russia’s military reform effort has borne fruit, and its capability for high-intensity conventional warfare continues to grow. The economic, demographic, and societal factors that support Russia’s military buildup appear relatively stable in the medium term, and this trend should produce an “incremental modernization of Russia’s military,” creating a potential security challenge for the United States.⁶²

This military modernization is likely to have different effects in different military areas:

Russian C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] and long-range strike is likely to improve, posing a greater threat to fixed U.S. and allied positions. Air defense and [electronic warfare] are likely to continue to experience gradual improvement in the coming years. While Russia is unlikely in the near term to significantly improve the quality of its indirect fires or adopt next-generation ground vehicles, among other things, its existing capabilities will continue to pose a threat.⁶³

Moreover, Russian security policy goals, which have remained relatively consistent throughout Russia’s (and, arguably, the Soviet Union’s) history, are not expected to change in the near future.⁶⁴

Competition between the United States and Russia will likely be the new normal in the near future, and this view appears to be shared by several U.S. European allies. As summarized by Michael J. Mazarr and his colleagues in 2018, “the emerging era of competition is likely to be a long-term, persistent struggle for advantage, something to be managed rather than won.”⁶⁵

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a renewed assessment of efforts by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to deter Russia from taking military action on NATO’s eastern flank has become particularly salient. In the coming weeks, NATO leadership will meet to discuss what longer term force posture adjustments are required to create such a deterrent.⁶⁶

Contemporary academic research on conventional deterrence highlights clear gaps in the deterrence capacity of the United States and NATO, despite their concerted efforts to strengthen conventional military capability since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. For example, studies indicate that the rotational military forces established by the United States’ Operation Atlantic Resolve and NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence, still lack the requisite conventional capability to prevent a Russian fait accompli in the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. However, these studies lack a well-defined formula for what constitutes adequate capability and say little about what adjustments the United States and NATO must make to strengthen NATO’s deterrence posture in the Baltics and Poland.⁶⁷

To help clarify capability requirements in the region, we reviewed conventional deterrence theories and models from the Cold War. Though long-standing, this research provides a clearer picture of the ideal defensive force posture and adequate force ratios needed to improve deterrence, compared to recent policy analyses. Focusing on land-based operations, we then applied these correlations of forces models to analyze the current balance of conventional ground forces in the Baltics. Through comparing the relative combat power of NATO’s forces in the Baltics with Russia’s forces in its Western Military District and Kaliningrad oblast, we confirmed that the NATO capability gaps identified in previous studies remain large. We also found that potential NATO high readiness reinforcements would be incapable of closing the gaps for at least a month in a crisis scenario. These capability shortcomings clearly hinder the United States’ and NATO’s ongoing efforts to conventionally deter Russian aggression in the Baltics or to decisively respond in a crisis.⁶⁸

Accounting for U.S. military budget limitations, force structure constraints, and competing global requirements, the Department of Defense (DOD) could make several policy adjustments to strengthen U.S. capabilities and rapidly reinforce security in the Baltics. Specifically, the U.S. military could increase U.S. armored forces in Central Europe, enhance the operational readiness of U.S. ground forces, and support upgrades to NATO mobility systems and infrastructure in Central and Eastern Europe. These modest recommendations, outlined in this paper, represent feasible options to strengthen NATO’s deterrence against an increasingly aggressive Russia. The ongoing invasion of Ukraine and attempts to coerce NATO members into making concessions underscore the compelling and urgent need to address critical U.S. and NATO capability deficits.⁶⁹

In light of Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine, the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Transatlantic Security Initiative convened a task force of Atlantic Council experts focused on strengthening US and NATO force posture. This Scowcroft Center Issue Brief outlines the strategic context that NATO now faces, key principles for strengthening NATO’s deterrence posture, and a menu of recommended posture enhancements for the Alliance.⁷⁰

• We are now in a new era of sustained confrontation with Russia. It is not a broad-based competition for influence across numerous domains (e.g. economic), as is the case with China; rather, it is a dynamic confrontation throughout the transatlantic theater, most heatedly along NATO’s eastern flank from the Arctic in the north to the Black and Mediterranean Seas in the south. Russia wishes to push its influence or direct control of territory as far west, north, and south as possible, especially in the former Soviet states.
• Russia has now demonstrated both the intent and capability to mass forces to underwrite a sustained coercive-diplomacy campaign and invade the sovereign territory of another nation. Moreover, now that Russian forces have undertaken operations in Ukraine, Putin may decide to further threaten the territory and freedom of action of additional non-NATO members, such as Georgia, Moldova, and Finland—as well as NATO members themselves. Russia today has a preponderance of conventional combat forces in Eastern Europe.
• No matter what happens next regarding Russian military operations in Ukraine and Belarus, the security environment in Europe and adjoining regions has been structurally changed for the worse for the short to medium term. Thus, NATO’s approach of deterrence by punishment—conducted by rapid reinforcement to its frontline allies—can no longer be NATO’s sole model for deterrence. Deterrence by denial must now gain greater weight in NATO’s strategic concept.
• Based on Russian actions, the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act—and its restrictions on NATO’s eastern posture — is no longer relevant. We are in new, dangerous territory—a period of sustained tensions, military moves and countermoves, and major intermittent military crises in the Euro-Atlantic area that will ebb and flow for at least the remainder of the 2020s, if not longer.
• In this environment, military tensions will likely be exacerbated by increased, aggressive Russian unconventional activities in the homelands of NATO and European Union (EU) members. We should expect Russia, feeling the impact of coordinated Western sanctions and other diplomatic measures, will ramp up the level and intensity of cyberattacks, election meddling, online disinformation, covert activities, and support for extremists in homelands across the democratic world. On top of a local conventional-combat power imbalance between Russia and allied forces in Eastern Europe, and increasingly aggressive sub-threshold operations, the Alliance also faces a highly dynamic strategic-forces balance. Russia has undertaken a long-term, sustained nuclear-modernization program that has produced several new types of offensive nuclear weapons. These novel systems present new threats to NATO, its outmoded conceptual approach to nuclear deterrence, and its aging nuclear force inventories.
• In turn, the Alliance will need to assure its nuclear deterrent capabilities. Modernized and adapted NATO nuclear capabilities must be prioritized in order for the Alliance to effectively deter numerically superior Russian forces from attacking NATO’s eastern-flank members, from Norway in the north through Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Turkey in the south. While this conclusion may run counter to the Biden administration’s initial proposition to reduce US reliance on nuclear weapons in its national security strategy, it would represent a clear-eyed reappraisal of the new security environment. That Biden administration commitment was made well before the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. If President Biden were to wisely decide to reassess this policy position, he would likely gain bipartisan and Alliance-wide backing.
• Though deterrence of Russia will take on greater weight in US defense planning, the threat posed by China will still demand significant resources. Thus, though the United States must play a leading role in shaping and contributing to an adapted NATO defense posture, the US capacity to contribute will be constrained by Indo-Pacific requirements necessitating increased contributions in Europe from European allies and Canada.⁷¹

In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and since the outbreak of hostilities, the United States and NATO allies have undertaken numerous steps to bolster allied force posture in Eastern Europe, enhancing deterrence against more robust Russian aggression and demonstrating the Alliance’s ability to defend its eastern flank. Importantly, deployments have come from a diverse group of European and North American allies, and the activation of the NATO Response Force (NRF) will spur additional contributions. All told, the United States will have activated an additional fourteen thousand troops for deployment in Europe, along with twenty-eight fighters, four B-52 bombers, six tanker aircraft, and four warships. This brings total US personnel in Europe to nearly one hundred thousand.⁷²

European allies have made important contributions as well, with Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom all reinforcing their NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battle-groups in the Baltic states, France deploying forces to Romania as part of NATO’s activation of elements of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), and allies such as Denmark, the Netherlands, and Spain sending additional aircraft to NATO’s air policing missions. With the activation of the NRF, it is likely we will see more troop commitments from European allies, as the majority of NRF forces are sourced from Europe. While the NRF is meant to be a temporary deployment, many of the European deployments, both those under way and those announced for the near future, lay the groundwork for a permanently larger NATO presence along its eastern flank, and should be built upon.⁷³

It is interesting to note the dynamics of the war. If Russia thought that it could roll or walk over Ukraine without a fight or little resistance on the part of the Ukrainians, then it has grossly miscalculated. Despite its conventional superiority and sophistication of its habiliments of war, the Ukrainians have heroically held on against the Russian onslaught. Russian push had been stalled by conspiracy of many factors. In short, Russia has not been able to capture and subdue Ukraine after a month has passed – a time enough to expect Russia to have completely overwhelmed the Ukrainians with the superior firepower.

According to Frederick Kagan, writing for the Institute for the Study of War, “The initial Russian campaign to invade and conquer Ukraine is culminating without achieving its objectives—it is being defeated, in other words. The war is settling into a stalemate condition in much of the theater. But the war isn’t over and isn’t likely to end soon. Nor is the outcome of the war yet clear. The Russians might still win; the Ukrainians might win; the war might expand to involve other countries; or it might turn into a larger scale version of the stalemate in Ukraine’s east that had persisted from 2014 to the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. The failure of Russia’s initial military campaign nevertheless marks an important inflection that has implications for the development and execution of Western military, economic, and political strategies. The West must continue supplying Ukraine with the weapons it needs to fight, but it must now also expand its aid dramatically to help keep Ukraine alive as a country even in conditions of stalemate.”⁷⁴

Our assessment that the Russian campaign has culminated and that conditions of stalemate are emerging rests on our assessments, laid out carefully in many fully documented reports published on our website (not just maps) and increasingly validated by reports from various Western intelligence communities, that the Russians do not have the capability to bring a lot of fresh effective combat power to the fight in a short period of time. The kinds of mobilizations the Russians are engaging in will generate renewed fighting power in months at the earliest. Unless something remarkable happens to break the stalemate now settling in, the stalemate is likely to last for months.⁷⁵ The Russians are showing many limitations in their ability to mass air, artillery, missile, and rocket fires and effects, including suffering from obvious and severe logistical and production problems that they are unlikely to be able to fix rapidly. It is very difficult, in addition, to achieve such decisive effects by fires as to offset the weakness of the Russian mechanized forces against an opponent as determined as the Ukrainians.⁷⁶

According to Scowcroft Center’s Forward Defense of the Atlantic Council, “Russia has abandoned its goals of rapid victory, now focusing on a protracted war of attrition in order to achieve an acceptable peace settlement that gives Kremlin a “win”. We continue to see the brutal, indiscriminate attacks on residential areas and the utter destruction of whole city blocks that Russia used both in Grozny, Chechnya and Aleppo, Syria.”⁷⁷

Russian progress has slowed across all areas of operations, and the Kremlin has increasingly focused on siege tactics and indiscriminate destruction of major Ukrainian cities. Huge Russian losses in both personnel and equipment, continued resupply and logistics woes—coupled with a dug-in and determined Ukrainian resistance— lead us to believe that a major Russian breakthrough is highly unlikely. Russia has set its sights on forming a land bridge from Crimea to the Donbas, seeing control of the city of Mariupol as key to realizing this goal. Russia continues to threaten Odesa with the prospect of an amphibious operation, though it would be strategically unwise for Russia to begin another major offensive while its forces are halted around Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Mariupol. Russia has increased its threats against expanded US and NATO intervention in the war, both via rhetoric and actions designed to signal willingness and ability to strike western targets. We expect Russian air and missile attacks will continue at roughly the same rate as the last two weeks, and indiscriminate artillery, rocket, and mortar attacks will continue to devastate major Ukrainian cities.⁷⁸

Russian offensive momentum has stalled in each area of operations. In the north, Russian forces made incremental progress towards the capital, but the risk of Kyiv falling and/or President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being deposed or forced to depart the capital have declined dramatically. In the east, Russian forces have made minor progress in the consolidation and control of the entire Donbas region, and that now appears to be one of Russia’s primary strategic goals in the campaign. In the south, where Russia was initially most effective, the Kremlin’s advance has stalled, making no westward progress from Crimea towards Odesa. The eastward thrust from Crimea to the Donbas is similarly stalled as Russia attempts to subjugate (or annihilate) Mariupol.⁷⁹

A major reason for Russia’s slowing progress is its horrific loss rates. Surprisingly, on March 21, the pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper briefly posted plausible yet unconfirmed Russian troop loss rates, saying 9,861 troops had died in the war and 16,153 had been injured. The report was quickly taken down and the paper claimed it had been hacked. Considering Russia deployed around 200,000 troops to the region, these numbers indicate that Russian fatalities are approaching 4.5 percent of the force, with more than 8 percent suffering injuries. This totals an astounding 12.5 percent casualty rate, which is likely disproportionately borne by combat troops, as opposed to support troops behind the front lines. This loss rate is likely a major factor in the slowing Russian advance, as Moscow is running out of fresh troops to throw into the fight and create offensive momentum.⁸⁰

As Russian hopes for a complete victory over Ukraine have evaporated, Russia appears to have revised its objectives to force Ukraine into accepting disadvantageous peace terms. The Grozny/Aleppo tactics of razing major cities, Russia’s complete control of the northern Black Sea, and the greatly reduced ability to airlift supplies into a combat zone are strangling the Ukrainian economy, further raising the specter of a devastating famine later this spring and summer. Despite military setbacks, Russia still holds large tracts of Ukrainian territory and can continue to impose heavy costs on the Ukrainian people via brutal attacks on civilian areas of cities. Russia will likely attempt to leverage the pressure generated by these factors to force Ukraine into concessions in peace negotiations. Additionally, Russia has ramped up its threats against expanded intervention in the conflict, signaling that it will potentially target future weapons deliveries to Ukraine.⁸¹

Statement of the Problem

Framing a statement of problem for the Russian invasion of Ukraine is rather a difficult or complicated task as analysts have different views.

However, it is the personal view of this author that at the core of the problem lays the Russian aggression that serves as the major driver of the invasion. The Russian aggression is not the trigger but the driver. The Russian rejection of the Ukrainian sovereign and independent identity as a nation-state is the trigger. Russia rejected Ukrainian free-will both in its foreign and defense policies to decide to join an external organization of its choice – in this case NATO. Ukrainian expression of interest to join NATO has not even been approved and accepted by the NATO authorities before Russia kicked against it because it perceived it to be an existential threat to its national security interests.

At the periphery of the core problem or superjacent to it is the aggregate sum of the hubristic elements and chutzpah of the Russian leader, President Vladimir Putin, who has acted as the in-person driving the whole enterprise of overt aggression against Ukraine. Putin’s hubris and/or chutzpah occupy part of the commanding height of the strategic stack of reasons for the invasion. Putin has made invasion or willingness to invade other neighbouring countries whether friendly or hostile his major preoccupation in the foreign and defense policies that he had crafted for the Russian State since he became the Russian leader in 2012 as President. Chechnya (1994), Chechnya (1999-2009), Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014), and now Ukraine again (2022) have been victims of his “hybrid” aggression and iron-fisted foreign policy. Envious eyes have also been cast on countries such as Poland, Moldova, etc. Putin’s foreign policy has made Belarus an abject satellite state.

Yet there is danger in the above framing of the problem. With the above, it is easy to miss or overlook the preponderant coalition of domestic forces goading, aiding and abetting the Russian movement towards Ukraine. Why singling out Putin for his critical role, the domestic coalition of the hawkish elements within the Russian Establishment that serves as the political base for Putin cannot be ignored at all as attested to by the sanctions targeted against certain members of the Government by the Western powers. It is even possible that Putin is not the chief driver but a mere spokesman for this aggressive enterprise to invade and humble Ukraine. In short, it is imperative to look closely at the hawkish faction within the Russian ruling elite (the Nomenklatura) as the forces behind driving the entire enterprise to whip Ukraine into line and drive it into its orbit or sphere of influence.

In this hawkish faction can be found the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, the top-echelon command of the intelligence and security community, members of the business class, especially the so-called oligarchs, foreign policy establishment and their affiliated strategic think-tanks and academies of social sciences and sciences.

In further framing the problem, one should include a value-added hypothetical proposition: This is Putin doing what he is doing. This is not Putin doing what he is doing. This situation of the gray zone of this hypothetical binary opposite will help us to unravel and understand the rather dynamic but complex situation in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Russians did not call its invasion of Ukraine a “war” but “military operations”. But it is a large-scale military operation (LSMO or large-scale conventional operation – LSCO) combining all branches of such military operations: ground attack, air and naval attack including other paramilitary bodies. The so-called Russian “operations” were not below the threshold of war like civil interdiction but what turned out to be full-scale armed conflict between two sovereign states with implications that are widely dispersed over space and time and over the full spectrum of geopolitical domain.

The adjectival terminologies deployed here convey definitional problems. Indeed, the problem is whether the Russian invasion is acting out the “Gerasimov Doctrine” that has gained wide audience since January 2013 when it was first articulated or not. The main thrust of the doctrine is hybrid warfare which combines the use of conventional weapons (kinetic weapons) with non-military or non-kinetic methods such as disinformation and cyber attacks. There is probably no debate about this because from all facts examined for this writing, there are no evidences to show that the Russians have adopted and deployed the Gerasimov Doctrine at all even though General Valery Gerasimov is still the Chief of General Staff directing the current Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the invasion in 2014. It is not known that the Russian Military is ever structured and organized around Gerasimov Doctrine. The Gerasimov Doctrine arguably remains the theoretical views of General Valery Gerasimov without empirical anchorage at the battlespace.^{82, 83, 84, 85}

The Russian invasion has followed more or less the conventional patterns of invasion which essentially consist of massing up men and materials (habiliments of war) to overwhelm the enemy in a purely kinetic firefight. Of course, there is no doubt that non-kinetic methods of warfare were also included in the framework of Russian invasion of Ukraine. The elements of these non-kinetic methods can be isolated for further analysis. But the Gerasimov Doctrinal principles can hardly be seen anywhere even though some analysts and media reporters have made reference to it.

Could the Gerasimov Doctrine have produced better result in the prosecution of the war by Russia than what has been observed as the sloppy performance of the Russian military in the first month of the war? This question is rather difficult to answer because first of all, it is an apriori question, and second, there is no empirical case study to fall back upon for comparison. Gerasimov Doctrine has not been articulated as at the time the Chechnya War and Georgian War took place. Gerasimov Doctrine came into the media and policy space in 2013. Even when the first invasion of Ukraine took place in 2014, Gerasimov Doctrine was still in its embryonic stage of debate without applicability in the battlespace.

Mason Clark is the Russia Team Lead and Research Analyst on the Russia and Ukraine portfolio at the Institute for the Study of War. He says the Russian conception of hybrid war is much more expansive. It covers the entire “competition space,” including subversive, economic, information, and diplomatic means, as well as the use of military forces extending above the upper threshold of the “gray zone” concept that more accurately captures the Chinese approach to war.⁸⁶

The Russians define hybrid war precisely and coherently as a type of war, rather than a set of means to conduct state policy. The U.S discussion of hybrid war overly focuses on the means short of conventional forces and conflict that the Russians have most famously used. The Russian soldiers without insignia (“little green men”) who helped seize Crimea in 2014, and the proxies Russia uses in eastern Ukraine, are most often the focus of Western assessments about how to respond to Russian hybrid war.⁸⁷

The Kremlin considers conflicts including Belarus, Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and Venezuela to be hybrid wars. The Russian Armed Forces openly discuss several ongoing conflicts as hybrid wars. The Kremlin is actively refining and utilizing its theory of hybrid war in Europe and around the world. It uses a blend of means and instruments, including conventional military forces. Russian Air Force aircraft in Syria constitute its most important means of influencing that conflict, although it has also deployed Russian Army Military Police and Special Forces (SPETSNAZ) troops as well. Russian hybrid war efforts in Belarus include sending three battalion tactical groups from Russian Airborne Forces divisions to exercise there, along with Tu-160 nuclear-capable bombers. Russia’s engagement in Libya, by contrast, has been primarily through its private military companies (PMCs), which are also operating in Syria. The Kremlin adjusts the kinds of forces it commits to hybrid conflicts according to its assessment of the conflict’s requirements. The Kremlin does not shy away from sending and using units from its conventional military forces just because it has defined the war as hybrid.⁸⁸

Russia sees hybrid wars as the main line of future military development, rather than a temporary phenomenon. The Russian military maintains theoretical space for the idea of a traditional conventional war and does not assert that all conflicts are now inherently hybrid. It instead argues that conventional war is a legacy type of conflict that is increasingly unlikely in the 21st century due to technological changes and strategic power balances. The Kremlin further asserts that Russia should shape its military and national security tools to optimize for hybrid wars not only because they are increasingly common, but also because they are now more practical and effective than traditional conventional warfare. The Russian military is therefore adapting to improve its capabilities to conduct hybrid wars. The Russian military is not attempting to hide its intent to conduct offensive hybrid wars. Russian military theorists write extensively and openly on general strategies and doctrine for offensive hybrid wars, and additionally discuss the development of individual hybrid means. The Kremlin’s ongoing adaptations include efforts to:

• Centralize all potential Russian decision-making bodies — civilian, military, media, and economic — to coordinate whole-of-government efforts.
• Adapt traditional military theories and doctrine to enable the Russian military to conduct hybrid wars as a core mission.
• Conduct society-wide information campaigns to improve “patriotic consciousness,” which the Kremlin assesses is essential in hybrid war.
• Increase the adaptability and strength of Russian information campaigns to successfully conduct hybrid wars over many years.
• Improve the conventional expeditionary capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces to enhance their capability to deploy abroad in support of hybrid wars.
• Improve the Kremlin’s capability to employ PMCs and other supposedly deniable proxy forces.
• Subordinate kinetic operations to information operations — which the Kremlin assesses is the ongoing foundational change in the character of war — in planning processes and execution.⁸⁹

But Eugene Rumer says that “Rather than a driver of Russian foreign policy, the Gerasimov doctrine is an effort to develop an operational concept for Russia’s confrontation with the West in support of the actual doctrine that has guided Russian policy for over two decades: the Primakov doctrine.⁹⁰ Named after former foreign and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, the Primakov doctrine posits that a unipolar world dominated by the United States is unacceptable to Russia and offers the following principles for Russian foreign policy:

• Russia should strive toward a multipolar world managed by a concert of major powers that can counterbalance U.S. unilateral power.
• Russia should insist on its primacy in the post-Soviet space and lead integration in that region.
• Russia should oppose NATO expansion.

The record of the past two decades reveals several key themes about the role of hard power in Russia’s foreign and military policy:

• Military power is the necessary enabler of hybrid warfare. Hybrid tools can be an instrument of risk management when hard power is too risky, costly, or impractical, but military power is always in the background.    
• Nuclear weapons are the foundation of the country’s national security and the ultimate guarantee of its strategic independence. But they are not an instrument for risky endeavors—they ensure that other powers do not engage in such endeavors against Russia.          
• The implementation of the Primakov doctrine has been anything but reckless. Russian uses of hybrid warfare and military power—against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine since 2014, as well as in Syria since 2015—have been calibrated to avoid undue risks.
• Yet the intervention in Syria has also highlighted the limits of Russian hard power and hybrid warfare. Russian hard power is insufficient to impose the Kremlin’s preferred version of peace on Syria, and Moscow lacks the vast economic and military resources to become a hegemon in the Middle East.⁹¹

The key question for the Kremlin is whether to push for greater capabilities and take additional risks in pursuit of a more ambitious set of global aspirations, or to continue to follow the Primakov doctrine and the careful practice of calculating the risks and benefits of a given course. New generations of Russian leaders—less mindful of the Soviet experience of overextension than the current generation of leaders—may be more influenced by the successes of Crimea and Syria, more inclined to take risks, and more ambitious in their vision for Russia. How they address these ambitions and exercise Russian hard power will have major consequences for the future of Russia, Eurasia, and the world.⁹²

There has been no spectacular military performance on the part of Russian troops. Yes, there has been massive destruction wrecked by the Russian military but no strategic or tactical maneuvering of outstanding nature or character. Rather what has been spectacular about the war was the amount of resistance of the Ukrainians which has stalled the movement of the Russians to a considerable extent.

Capt. Ann Marie Dailey is an engineer officer in the US Army who had served as a senior advisor on Russia strategy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, US Department of Defense. Dailey says that it’s no longer a secret that the Russian military is experiencing logistical difficulties in Ukraine—from the now-infamous stalled convoy outside Kyiv to reports of Russian soldiers looting grocery stores for food. Experts have debated whether the problem is due to corruption, poor planning, or both.⁹³

While Moscow’s military planners shoulder at least some of the blame, their senior political leadership may have forced utterly unrealistic goals upon them. The original Russian plan was apparently to capture key political, military, and transportation nodes in about three days. This was based on flawed assumptions about Ukraine’s will to fight and its military’s capabilities.⁹⁴ 

Whatever the root of Russia’s logistical difficulties, approaching the problem from the perspective of a junior US Army officer tells me one thing: By obscuring the true purpose of its military mobilization from its troops on the ground, Russia’s leadership made those difficulties exponentially worse. This is especially true for the Russian forces advancing south into Ukraine from Belarus.⁹⁵ 

It’s too early to definitively conclude whether incompetence and poor planning are ultimately responsible for Russia’s military troubles. As former Marine officer-turned-journalist Ryan Baker pointed out recently in the Washington Post, any military would struggle with an operation of this size. There may still be time for Russia to turn things around: Its switch to siege tactics may inflict enough terror on Ukrainians to force a negotiated end to the conflict on Moscow’s terms. But it will continue running headlong into hurdles at the operational level if it cannot translate the Kremlin’s intent into a key task and purpose for the troops on the ground.⁹⁶ 

Another problem thrown up for critical interrogation is how to quantify, qualify and understand China’s response to the growing crisis in Ukraine. China is a superpower currently engaged with the US in a battle for supremacy or global dominance especially within the context of South East Asia region. From all indications, China does not want any form of confrontation with the West, at least for now, because it does not desire to face the possibility of any crippling sanction from the West. The United States and Western Europe (not Russia) have the largest overseas investment by China. Russia is not unaware of this fact. Even though China harbours the same types of hegemonic ambition in South East Asia especially over Taiwan and South China Sea, it has been very careful not to incur the wrath of the United States. Even though China has a sort of ideological affinity with Russia, it has refused to exercise its veto power at the Security Council of the United Nations against the swath of sanctions against Russia. It merely abstained from voting which can be interpreted to mean that it is actually fully in support of the Western Alliance-orchestrated sanctions against Russia. China’s languages of protests against the West have been very tepid or timid and the United States, EU and NATO have been careful not to call out the Chinese or take them to the cleaners.

China is not unaware of the strategic implications of its own ambivalence towards the two parties in Ukraine. But when this ambivalence is situated within the framework or context of its strategic economic interests with the West in contrast with the need to posture and grandstand the West, then the wisdom to refrain from confrontation with the West can best be understood from the standpoint of its strategic economic relations and interests with the West. What this standpoint means, however, is that Russia is not worth dying for any conceivable reason no matter how ideologically close they might be seen to be with each other. It is not worth picking quarrel unnecessarily with the West over Russia and its ill-advised adventure in Ukraine. It is a delicate balancing act for which a wrong move on the chessboard of the global politics and battle for supremacy may spell disaster in its strategic implications.

President Biden has said that the last thing on the mind of the United States was a ground battle and nuclear war with Russia. This is a statement of realpolitik. It is not a question of thinking that the United States can win either of the two types of war: ground war or nuclear war. It is a question of avoiding them because of the high-scale mutual destruction that will ensue from such a conflict between two superpowers – which no sane leader in the West want to think about because it belongs to the realm of unthinkable.

Nobody in the West, not even among those whom one may regard as warmongers think that Ukraine is worth dying for by going into ground battle and/or nuclear war with Russia for any reason. There must be a clear goal for going into such a war with Russia and no such goal is currently conceivable under the present circumstances no matter how provocative the invasion of Ukraine by Russia may have been felt in many quarters. United States and NATO’s security and economic interests must come under direct threat by Russia before US and NATO can ever consider going into war (ground battle and/or nuclear war) with Russia. No such Russian threat can be said to currently exist – and if such threat exists at all, all means and avenues must have been seen to have been exhausted to resolve it.

This is because either ground battle or nuclear war with Russia is not a tea or wedding party. A ground battle between NATO and Russia will lead straight to nuclear war: either tactical or full-scale nuclear war. This still belongs to the realm of unthinkable. Of course, in global ranking of military strength and/or firepower, the US is numero uno – with about 800 mostly secret military bases around the world while Russia has less than a handful. With over a million-man army (compared with Russia’s less than a million) the United States is truly a global military behemoth that no other reasonable superpower would want to take head-on. Yet, the fear still exist that even with the United States dwarfing Russia militarily, if the push comes to a shove, it would be a bloody fight that humanity would have ever experienced.

Apart from the United States, it is Great Britain and France that also have nuclear weapon arsenal that can also strike at the heart of Russia. But it is almost inconceivable that London and Paris would come under nuclear attack from Russia while the United States looks on. Neither would New York, Washington and Los Angeles come under attack from Russia while London and Paris look on. When the United States came under attack from Al Qae’da on September 11, 2001, Great Britain and France did not hesitate to join the United States in the global war on terror that led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Thus in the putative nuclear war with Russia, Washington, London and Paris would throw everything at Russia with the consequence of the whole world becoming engulfed in a nuclear holocaust.

The threat from any of the parties must be perceptibly seen to be at the highest level – an imminent attack on the corporate or corporeal existence of the State and the people. An imminent attack leaves only one or two options: first strike option or wait to be attacked. It is either – or situation: a Catch-22 situation or a Crossroad. The time frame for decision making in this scenario is usually very limited because time becomes a luxury item that cannot be afforded. Within ten minutes or less, a President must decide or respond to strike first or be attacked. No President wants to wait to be attacked before responding thus narrowing down the options available usually to first strike judgment call.

Of course, by this time the defense alert system is at the highest level, flashing red, literally speaking. All the exclusive military protocols for first strike or defense must have been activated throughout the chain of command, from the President to the captains of the nuclear submarines, to the nuclear-carrying jet bombers’ pilots, and to the commanders of the land-based missile silos. In short, the Nuclear Triad is activated, ready and waiting to lunch its individual Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. It is still an unthinkable scenario. But once the ICMB is aloft, then every man for himself, God for us all! In the hand of the President lies an enormous responsibility of the highest order – with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance by a mere thread. He has to wrestle with his conscience; he has to wrestle with forces (coterie of advisers) around him; and he has to weigh the implications and gravity of the decision he is about to take. Even for those who do not believe in praying, one would be forced to hold its breadth, hoping that the Rubicon would not be crossed; that the red button would not be pressed or pushed.

No matter the verbal provocations from Moscow, no matter the mess in Ukraine, Washington, London and Paris are probably cool-headed enough to realize that nuclear war with Russia would only be a grisly affair that every sane mind should stay away from because it is like deliberately opening the gate to hell for humanity.

To reach the threshold of nuclear attack against one another, communications between the superpowers must have completely broken down. All hotline Red phone calls and negotiation must have been snapped or cut off. All avenues at peaceful resolution of the growing crisis by the United Nations must have been closed. This is still largely inconceivable and unthinkable.

Gone were the days (before the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact) when the speculation was rife that indeed Warsaw Pact military machine could overran the entire Western Europe within 72 hours in a ground battle, a prospect of crushing defeat for Western Alliance that could push NATO to launch tactical or full-scale nuclear strike against Soviet Union, etc. Today such scenario no longer exists as the strategic military equation has fundamentally changed. Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact have disappeared forever while NATO is still intact. Russia that inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal is today constrained by many factors (even though it has upgraded its nuclear arsenal) such that it cannot brazenly launch nuclear war against NATO and/or the US without unquantifiable repercussions. It would be suicide leading to the destruction of the Russian Federation as it is known today.

And in the above scenario, aerial combat and naval warfare and their various elements of firepower are not included.

But in a nuclear exchange between Russia and US/NATO it is most unlikely that North Korea and China would enter the fray in behalf and in defense of Russia. In fact, China will quickly jump in to settle the rift between the gladiators in order to safeguard its own global interests – because there is no way a nuclear war between the US/NATO and Russia would take place without impacting on China’s global interests (mostly economic interests). North Korea and China, of course, have their fundamental differences with the United States, but they will not jump into the bandwagon of nuclear war against the United States in defense of Russia. North Korea and China have their deep-seated differences with Russia mostly on ideological ground which is as fundamental as tangible strategic interests. This has already been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt during this current war with Ukraine in their lukewarm support for Russia.

So when Russian supporters posit that both North Korea and China would “automatically” join Russia to wrestle global dominant power from the United States and its allies, one can laugh at such naivety.

Summary

The death toll on both sides of the conflict continues to mount each passing day. Eight Russian Generals and 34 Colonels have been killed by the Ukrainian troops. But thousands of Ukrainians soldiers and civilians have also been killed, with millions displaced from their homes and forced into exile as refugees. Russian military continue to bombard Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol, Kharkiv and even Kyiv, accompanied by massive destruction of properties and city infrastructures. However, the Ukrainians refused to surrender, and are fighting on stubbornly led by President Zelensky who refused to leave Ukraine to go into exile to fight from there. It has been a heroic stand on the part of Ukrainians, something that has not been witnessed for a long time.

The Greek coalition forces led by Agamemnon, Achilles and Odysseus were not able to conquer Troy until ten years later. The Trojans refused to surrender, fought on doggedly led by Hector, the son of King Priamos – until Hector was killed in a one-to-one combat by Achilles who in turn was killed by Paris. The heavily fortified city of Troy only fell when it was breached by a “Greek Gift” after which the city was sacked and burnt down by Greek elite troops. It was a Pyrrhic victory for the Greeks. In this war, it was not the Greeks that were the heroes but the Trojans! 

Was there anything the Western Alliance could have done to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine? Did the Western Alliance try enough to prevent the war in Ukraine? These are rather difficult questions to answer at this point in time. There are those who believe that the West did not try enough but made Ukraine a sacrificial lamb to serve their selfish interests. On the other hand, there are those who argue that there was practically nothing that could have been done by the West to prevent the war from breaking out essentially because Russia has made up its mind right from the very beginning to attack Ukraine in order to pass on a message to the West never to mess around its core national security interests as impacted by the Ukrainian decision to join NATO. Russia also went ahead to invade Ukraine having calculated that it has found a strong alibi to invade Ukraine: Ukraine intention to join NATO which Russia considered a mortal threat to its sovereign existence coupled with the refusal or failure of US/NATO to give consideration to Russia’s national security concerns; and its unwillingness to grant Russia any security guarantee or concession.

But that is probably no fault of the Western Alliance. Russia has gradually isolated itself over the years from the mainstream European affairs by being intransigent about its security concerns. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent states, one after the other, voluntarily joined either NATO or European Union (Western Alliance in general) because these states felt more secured under the umbrella of Western Alliance and could not obtain any security guarantee from Russia that is still bemoaning the fate that befell former Soviet Union whereby Russia lost its hegemonic ability an bipolar power to the West and thus in global affairs. The world virtually became unipolar dominated by the United States for three decades to the chagrin of Russia.

Russia also invaded Ukraine as it did in 2014 after calculating, perhaps correctly, that Western Alliance is currently weakened by its internal contradictions and could hardly find the united front to oppose Russia in view of its superpower status. While the Western Alliance has been able to inflict severe punishment on Russia through economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, it is hardly in position to confront Russia militarily without the risk of escalation into continental conflict and in view of Russian threat to unleash a nuclear war on the West if it dared to invade Russia in a ground battle in behalf of Ukraine. Surprisingly, Germany now revealed itself as the “Achilles heel” of NATO even when Bundeswehr had earlier been rated as one of the most advanced military in the world. So the West is forced to watch helplessly as Russia invaded Ukraine and started bombarding it to surrender. Backdoor military assistance to Ukraine can only prolong the resistance of Ukraine but hardly sufficient for Ukraine to defeat Russia. Russia will eventually pummel Ukraine to surrender with catastrophic implications for the geopolitical balance of power in Europe. Russia has decided to apply brute force where peaceful negotiation has failed to secure any of its security interests. Ukraine is the fall guy!

Unfortunately, Russia has itself surrounded by coterie of avowed enemies (original NATO members and the breakaway newly independent states from the former Soviet Union), gradually encircled by US/ATO through its military Forward Force Posture towards the western boundaries of Russia – with the exception of few countries such as Finland and Sweden that are now even reviewing their well-known neutrality in the simmering rivalry between Western Alliance and Russia. Belarus, though an acknowledge satellite of Russia, is a buffer zone that can easily be walked over quickly by the West if it comes to a ground battle between Russia and NATO.

But what has become apparent in the current situation is that the previous assessment of comparative military strength between NATO and Russia may not have been correct but misleading all along. What has rather become obvious is that a lot of propaganda has been built or input into these assessments to give a false sense of security on either side of the divide. In reality, as events are already showing in the Ukrainian war, things are quite different.

One of the surprising features of the war in Ukraine is the transformation of the Ukrainian President, Volodymr Zelensky, from the often derided comedian that he was said to be to become a war leader, leading his country and people in a stubborn fight and resistance to the Russian aggression. Zelensky only confirmed the old adage that a man’s true character only comes out in time of crisis or emergency.

Zelensky is without doubt a child of circumstances, indeed of a democratic beauty. When he was being elected few years back, he never thought and nobody thought that he would be facing the behemoth of Russian military machine. Zelensky has now become lionized in defense of his homeland and his people under the threat of annihilation by Russia. He now occupies a space in global community larger than his traducer who tragically condemned himself to being demonized as a result of his ill-conceived war against Ukraine.

Zelensky has been prevailed upon by many quarters, especially from the West, that he should go into exile and fight from there. But he refused, explaining that he would rather stay with his people and die with them if need be in defense of his homeland. Nothing equals such a heroic stance and stand – unlike what many would do even in the West.

What the Russian invasion has not succeeded in doing or achieving is to shake the foundation of the political life of Ukrainian people, i.e. the democratic institutions. Ukrainian people stand solidly behind their Government led by Zelensky, facing all the odds even when they have been made to suffer extensive collateral damages in terms of destructions of their properties and displacement from their homes. The sacrifices have been much for Ukraine and the accompanying pains for Ukrainian leadership seeing the country being leveled to the ground by the Russian military. But the Government remains intact. The democratic pillars of the Ukrainian State are still standing and bearing the burden of the Russian invasion. The world stands with Ukraine at this momentous period, going through a trial hitherto unexpected. Mercenaries have flooded to Ukraine to help stand against the Russian war machine – even though the damages to the Ukrainian life and physical infrastructures have been enormous.

The Russians have to stand against the global tidal wave of moral opprobrium and condemnation.

In summary, few things have become certain and which can be asserted without fear of contradiction in the course of this epochal Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The first is that Russian forces have gotten stuck in the hitherto unknown rough terrain of Ukraine and may have to settle in for a long duration of campaign of attrition (guerrilla warfare by the Ukrainian forces). Even if Russia finally wins this war, it would be at a huge cost to the Russian forces. But Ukrainian forces are most unlikely to surrender especially given the support they are now enjoying from the US and NATO. They will have to fight to finish with the Russian forces even with heavy price to pay in terms of loss of lives, dislocation of more millions of people, destruction of infrastructures, etc.

The second is that the geostrategic map of Europe has been redrawn in favour of EU/NATO and against the strategic or national security interests of Russia for many years to come. The geopolitical landscape has been disrupted and changed against the visible interests of Russia. The invasion has united NATO firmly in the resolve to further contain Russia in its wing-flapping expansionist quest for a larger sphere of influence in Europe.

The third is that the military strategic architecture is also been redesigned against Russia. Germany, for instance, after many decades of pacificism and/or Ostpolitik, had resolved to spend 2 per cent of its GDP to upgrade its Bundeswehr (rearmament and modernization with special focus on acquisition of high-tech weaponry including tactical nuclear weapons). The issuance of nuclear threat by Russia has also changed the tone of debate in Washington about the expected change in the nature and character of its Nuclear Force.

In our view, the Nuclear Triad with particular reference to the much-debated Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program of record will most probably be adopted to replace the aging Minuteman III ICBMs. In our view, the Minuteman III will most likely be scrapped in favour of the GBSD program of record. The air and sea wings of the Nuclear Triad will receive further boost in the decades to come with the completion of B-21 Raider strategic bomber to complement and finally replace the B-2 Spirit and the retrofitted B-52 Stratofortress long-range bombers, and the Columbia-class submarines (to finally replace and phase out the Ohio-class submarines) with their individual appurtenant reconfiguration in their warheads and delivery systems.

The British and French nuclear forces will equally receive re-appraisal with a view to refocus their deterrent posture (or even first-strike capabilities)

These efforts will be recalibrated within a nuclear arms reduction treaty negotiation rounds that will include all the nuclear powers with particular reference to Russia and China not excluding the new nuclear upstarts such as North Korea, Pakistan, India and Iran. In addition, the new efforts in the US to redefine its nuclear deterrent posture will necessarily have to take into account the modernization process that is unfolding both in Russia and China not excluding North Korea, Pakistan, India and Iran.

Finally is the sum of all fears: regime change in Moscow that will inevitably cause further disruption to the above outlined strategic scenario especially nuclear force posture by the superpowers. Vladimir Putin has rail-road himself unto the path of self-destruction from which it will be extremely difficult to retreat from or survive the cumulative impact of the forces he had unleashed with the ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine. The US and NATO leaders have been very careful in their public utterances in avoiding the subject-matter. Even when President Joe Biden let his tongue slip inadvertently about regime change, the statement was quickly walked back and retracted.

Later President Biden said he is standing by his statement that Putin should be removed from power, explaining that he was expressing his personal view and not a change in U.S. policy. “The last thing I want to do is engage in a land war or a nuclear war with Russia,” he said.⁹⁷ But several articles in the mainstream and social media have cropped up in discussing what post-Putin era would look like for Russia and the world, assured that Putin has shot himself in the face and would very soon be wheeled out of the Kremlin.

One can therefore see, objectively speaking without any form of prejudices, the end of the road for Putin. It is just a question of time before he will be kicked out of the Kremlin by the overwhelming forces that he had unwittingly unleashed against himself. This end-of-the-road may take months or few more years to reach. However, one thing is absolutely certain: dictators don’t last forever!

This article is more or less an introduction to a more comprehensive study that we are preparing to carry out on the Ukraine crisis. This is an exploratory article to capture some aspects of the crisis.