JED BABBIN: ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT…PUTIN ON THE MARCH
http://www.epictimes.com/londoncenter/2015/02/on-the-russian-front/
“The Duffel Blog,” the best source for military satire these days, headlined a story on Groundhog Day reporting that Punxatawney Phil had seen his shadow and thus predicted ten more years of war.
In Easter Europe, the Middle East and in too many other places, that prediction is going to come true thanks to people such as Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Spring will soon come to Europe. In anticipation of it the “little green men” – Russian troops disguised as insurgents – have renewed Vladimir Putin’s campaign to conquer the rest of Ukraine.
Putin’s so-called “hybrid war” is not a new strategy or even a new tactic. As Sun Tzu wrote about 2300 years ago, deception is always a part of war and disguising troops as civilians, rebels or otherwise is as old as warfare. Whether it’s Russian troops whose insignia have been torn from their uniforms or terrorists wearing civilian clothes, aggressors’ intentions are the same.
There’s also nothing new in the desperate attempt by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande to make some sort of long-term cease fire agreement with Putin. Their latest plan is to create some sort of demilitarized zone in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian and Russian forces. But, predictably, there will be no cease-fire or – if there is one – it will only serve to separate the forces long enough for the little green men to carry Putin’s war of conquest further.
The two reasons that Merkel and Hollande will fail are so obvious that even President Obama should be able to see them. First and foremost is that despite Ukrainian pleas for help, Obama won’t send them the military equipment that could help blunt the Russian advances. Kiev has been asking for anti-tank missiles with which it could make the Russians pay a huge price for their thrusts into Ukrainian territory, and neither the NATO nations nor America is going to provide them. Obama is content to play with economic sanctions against Putin and his cronies, which have had no effect on Russian military moves.
The second reason results from the first. Putin knows that neither Obama nor NATO has the stomach for a real war over Ukraine. For once, Obama is right. We have no vital national security interest in Ukraine that would justify US forces involvement in a counter-invasion to stop the Russians.
A recent Wall Street Journal article reported an interview with Army Lt. Gen. Frederick Hodges, commander of US Army forces in Europe. In it, Hodges is quoted as saying, “I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years – not that they’re going to start a war in five or six years, but I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and that they will be in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody in the next five or six years.”
Hodges is also quoted as saying that what Putin has done in Ukraine is a manifestation of a strategic view of the world. No kidding. Our problem is that there is no strategic view here or in NATO. Obama’s new national security strategy, announced last week, could only be labeled a strategy by people who don’t know the meaning of the word.
Putin’s intent can be discerned by his statements, his actions and by one fact not often reported. In a 2005 speech Putin, “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” Putin has sought to topple governments of former Soviet states, including Georgia, by cyberwar. At one point a few years ago, his generals threatened Poland with nuclear attack.
The news should report often that Putin has a portrait of Peter the Great hanging prominently in his office. Seventeenth Century Czar Peter is credited for modernizing Russia and for conquests that expanded it. It’s not hard to deduce that Putin wants to Russian dominance over the former Soviet Union’s satellite states including some – such as Hungary, Poland and Estonia – that are NATO members.
Headline reports say openly that the EU fears open war with Russia. In The Guardian newspaper one article said, “In Brussels and other European capitals, the fear of Vladimir Putin is becoming palpable. The mood has changed in a matter of weeks from one of handwringing impotence over Ukraine to one of foreboding.”
The sense of impotence, at least, is correct. NATO, by decades of leaving its defenses to us, lacks the resources to defend itself if we choose not to defend it. In recognition of this weakness, European ministers delayed the imposition of more economic sanctions against Putin and his oligarchs to give more time for the Merkel-Hollande peace initiative.
Fear, like terror, is a tool. If your adversary feels weak, as Europe and NATO obviously do, your options are limitless. Putin’s are nearly so.
The only constraint on Putin today is the falling price of oil. Russia’s economy is weak, but as long as NATO remains in fear of it, as long as Obama refuses to send Ukraine the weapons it needs to defend itself, and as long as Putin is unconstrained by Russian opposition to his rule, he will remain unconstrained.
We should not go to war over Ukraine. But we can, and should, be sending the Ukrainians all of the tools they need to defend themselves. Putin doesn’t need to conquer nations openly. By subversion and the attacks of his “little green men” he can conquer quietly and slowly for as long as he likes.
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