Russia and China |
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5 October 2024 Alexander Gabuev's October 3, 2024, article in Carnegie Politika, "How Serious a Threat Is Russia's New Nuclear Doctrine?" is an eye-opening description of the geopolitical corner Vladimir Putin has backed ... or been backed ... into as the Ukraine War continues. Russia's nuclear deterrent has failed to protect Russian war from NATO nations' support of Ukraine, despite early and recent sabre rattling. The new policy has not yet been formally published, but Putin made public comments at the meeting of the UN Security Council on September 25, which sounded like he was lowering the threshold for use of his nuclear weapons. This is the gist of the comments as Gabuev reports: ... The first proposal is that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but "with the participation or support" of a nuclear one, should be considered a joint attack. The second defines the conditions for the possible use of nuclear weapons: Moscow will be prepared to use them "upon receipt of reliable information of a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing of the state border," including strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, and hypersonic aircraft. Finally, nuclear weapons may be used in response to an attack on Russia and Belarus using conventional weapons if that attack poses a "critical threat to sovereignty." .... The support the US and other NATO countries are providing to Ukraine has incrementally pushed Putin into an effort to define with more specificity what he thinks crosses that fabled "red line" for him. The recent use in the Crimea of British NATO missiles, which nominally would have been useful for Ukraine only if NATO personnel were involved, is a classic example of how he has been pushed back without any plausible recourse to his nukes or useful time for rattling them. That is the essense of the situation in which "... NATO is successfully deterring Russia, Russia is not so successful at deterring NATO." It should occur to us that Putin is bringing this up to weaponize the Trump campaign with scary ideas intended to weaken the resolve of some voters who might otherwise easily vote for the successful policy of Biden and Harris. When the policy is formal we can assume Russia will retaliate by doubling down on its sabotage and targeted assassinations in NATO countries. Russia & China
7 Sept 2024 With the very recent Ukrainian expedition into, the capture of, and occupation of Russian territory in the region of Kursk, which was the site of the famous WWII Battle of Kursk, the single largest battle in the history of warfare, Russia and Putin particularly have been humbled and embarrassed, and the oligarchs seem to be fed up. "Putin warlords and oligarchs threaten coup."s Please check this video out first. Diane Francis is a Canadian journalist, one with considerable experience in recent Russian history, especially its war on Ukraine. She has filtered out of the daily chaos an opinion worthy of consideration. Perhaps the key point is that what happens or fails to happen is fundamentally something that must begin in Russia. The players are the Russian oligarchs, the Russian Army generals, the Ministry of Defence, the Minister of Defence, Andrei Belousov, the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, President Xi Jinping of China, President Modi of India, and of course President Vladimir Putin. Putin could resign, be resigned, be ousted with prejudice, be assassinated, or he could strike first and kill off enough of his detractors to bring the others to heel. I do not know anyone who knows for sure what the Russian intelligence agencies will do. They are the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, FSB RF, the Foreign Intelligence Service, (FIS RF, but romanized to:) SVR RF, and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, GRU. Remember that Putin grew up in and probably not completely out of the KGB when it was reorganized as the new agencies. If I were Putin I would have a hard core group komanda tyulenei to assassinate Russian political enemies ready at all times. The prospect of sudden assassination has a way of moderating rebelliousness. However, a Russian assassination group might be ineffective against a large group of peers from the among all of the above mentioned. Some might die, but the rest would prevail. If a coup takes more than a day or two, leaders like Xi and Modi and Biden and Harris might have a chance of directing the play. I am not sure our military is or ever has been ready for the possible impending situation. Russia is huge and very much unlike anything in the west save Depression Era-Prohibition Era criminal empires. All of the foregoing obscures the fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine seems now to be predicated on the strategy of "a seized territory stalemate" which favors Russia — occupying ~20% of Ukraine — and the stalemate supplemented by various and frequent military terror events. Ukraine's capture of a chunk of Russia is impressive and super-embarrassing to Putin and those committed to the war. If nothing else it will have or already has peeled away some from the war party. The point then is how Time affects Ukraine's daring. Can it hold? If it holds, how long will the embarrassed and astounded Russians remain loyal and forgiving to Putin. Diane Francis thinks they are a good and necessary way down the road to coup d'etat already. I think the US political calendar and prospects do not now favor Putin's position. I am confident, however, that the US is no better prepared for a demise of the regime in Russia than it was in 1991, when western capitalistic adventurers hoped that introducing a consumer economy into Russia would automatically convert it to a responsible western nation, the which could be quietly exploited for decades, perhaps centuries. And, of course, one of Russia's options post coup would be to get nastier. Russia & China
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