Although Russia’s military performance in the Ukraine War has been underwhelming, that doesn’t mean we can write off the Russians quite yet. This conflict, and what could follow, should still be a top concern for the West.
Russia still has some gas in the tank. They haven’t fully mobilized yet and could still leverage allies like China should they need to, so if Western support in Ukraine waivers…the Russians could see significant gains. If Russia wins in Ukraine and reaches NATO borders, nuclear threats could come into play and that’s a spooky scenario. On top of all that, Russia’s decline means it doesn’t have anything to lose, so leadership may take extreme actions to cement themselves in the global sphere.
This means that the war in Ukraine should be a top priority for the West, as holding off the Russians in Ukraine is the best chance that NATO countries must avoid more catastrophic outcomes.
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Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from the mid Tukey Tukey Valley in Mount Aspiring National Park in New Zealand. We’re pulling an entry from the Patreon page today, specifically if the Russian military is doing so creepily and it really is. Why do I still worry about what happens after the Ukraine war? Won’t they spend themselves in Ukraine and then Poland?
Romania and the rest of NATO will be fine.
Let me give you three reasons. Number one, miss worrying over. And just because the, Russians have not performed to what they would consider snuff and have definitely proven themselves to not be the second most powerful, military in the world. They’re not done. We have yet to have a general mobilization.
We have yet to see the Russians move up to a full war economy. And we have yet to seek outside countries like, say, the Chinese really put their thumb on the scale. I mean, yes, yes, yes, the Russians are going through barrels much faster. They can then they can replace them probably, 20 to 1 and the same with tanks.
And the Chinese are stepping in with replacements, especially with drones. But the Chinese have resisted any sort of meaningful sanctions on themselves in order to collaborate with Western countries. So there’s still a lot of things that could be put into the Russian column for force that, as of yet have not. So we unfortunately may well still be in the, the opening act of this conflict, especially if we see a withdrawal of any major countries support for Ukraine moving forward.
I mean, the Ukrainians have absolutely punch above their weight. They’re actually doing far better than anyone had any reason to expect. But they’re still the underdog by every measure, and they need a lot of outside help to stay in the game. So that’s one. Number two, it’s going to sound trite, but nukes, if we get to a position where one, two, three, four years from now, the Russians do prevail and they roll up to the NATO border.
Putin and his team are going to have absolutely no reason to expect that they can take on Poland to Romania in a conventional fight, if they’re backed up by the Germans, the French, the Brits, and especially the Americans. But there still that ace in the hole nuclear weapons. So the scenario that Western capitals are stressing about is that the Russians do prevail in Ukraine.
They roll up to the border of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, and they basically bring in the French, British, German and Italian leaders on a conference call. Just say, just FYI, we’ve already targeted your capitals. The missiles will launch at noon tomorrow. We’re going to hit you with at least a couple dozen missiles each. So that missile defense really can’t play a major role or you could withdraw any support for Poland, Romania whatsoever and start a visible evacuation of all your forces in the area. And now I’m going to leave the conference call open and leave you guys to discuss. It’s really a scenario we don’t want to face. And then there’s the third issue that’s much more visceral. Russia’s dying demographically. This is their last century for sure.
And the question is whether they die fast or die slow. But make no mistake, the people at the top realize that death is now inevitable. The Russian ethnicity itself is fading away, and when a country feels it has nothing to lose at all. They’re going to be willing to do things that other countries normally wouldn’t, because they will live to fight another day.
So think back to all the brilliant Russian engineers who existed during the Soviet period, who pioneered things like computer science and space travel, nukes, chemical biological weapons, all of that can potentially come into play, based on the time frame of Russia breaking. So this war, unfortunately, absolutely needs to be fought.
And there are still many, many paths that it can follow, not a lot of which are overly positive. But what I can tell you is that every day that the Ukrainians manage to hold the line is a day that we don’t have to worry about those other scenarios, because a Russia that can’t conquer Ukraine is one that becomes strategically unmoored and is vulnerable at a thousand points.
The bad stuff happens if the Russians do succeed in gobbling up all of that territory and can press directly on the Western alliance. And that ultimately is what the Western countries are fighting for. Ukraine’s motivations are a lot simpler.
