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Russian President Vladimir Putin in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Sept. 16.
Photo:
Sergei Bobylev/Associated Press
Vladimir Putin
has gotten himself into an increasingly ridiculous situation, holding a gun to his own head and saying, “Meet my demands or the idiot gets it.”
The mystery of the week is who blew up the undersea sections of the two Russia-controlled Nord Stream pipelines. Despite other theories you’re hearing, Russia is the probable culprit, not some Ukraine-friendly power seeking to forestall Germany rushing back to kiss and make up with Russian energy.
Remember 2014: Mr. Putin sacrificed a passing Malaysian airliner to influence the West when a Ukrainian offensive threatened his hold on occupied territory. The purpose would be the same today, to convince Ukraine’s allies (and perhaps Mr. Putin’s Gazprom cronies, who see their wealth dissolving) that no off-ramp is possible except by acceding to Mr. Putin’s demand for eastern Ukraine even as his troops prove inconveniently incapable of holding it.
Mr. Putin has no solution for himself except such a deus ex machina supplied by the West—let’s understand this.
His position is impossible. Discussion now of whether the West should adopt regime change as an aim seems a mite superfluous given the mess he has created for himself even if it takes months or a year or two to play out. Presumably he’s considering whether detonating a nuclear weapon might make the West pressure Ukraine to call off its offensives. The likelier effect would be to hasten the retreat of his own troops before a fallout cloud landed on them. Nor can he broach negotiations, his other escape route, without also signaling to his troops to give up the fight. By now, they would be following in the footsteps of such independent allies of Mr. Putin as Chechen warlord
Ramzan Kadyrov
and mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, both of whom have become noticeably less keen on risking their best-trained loyalists in Ukraine.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve fielded a few reader emails echoing the least-choice verbiage of
Bob Dole,
demanding that I stop supporting the “Democrat” war in Ukraine. The partisan appeal of such reasoning is understandable when the stakes seem to be rising threateningly. The war in this case, though, was definitely chosen not by the U.S. but by Mr. Putin, after attempts by the Trump and Biden administrations to deter him from a catastrophic blunder.
The U.S. is accused of pouring money into a corrupt government. Ukraine has had corruption problems but so have we, and much of the money is actually going to Alabama and Arkansas, where Javelins and Himars are made, and to Tennessee and Missouri, U.S. centers of ammunition production.
Ukraine is doing the fighting; the U.S. is getting the jobs. The Russian army is being cut down to size. Moscow’s leadership class is being set straight on NATO’s unwillingness to be cowed. You can never be sure, of course, how events will play out. If your fear is nuclear war, and many rational emailers say it is, know the same fears have guided the Biden administration and fellow NATO governments in their cautiously escalating support for Ukraine. In the smartphone age, they are likely communicating personalized warnings to the lowest echelons of the Russian hierarchy. No foreign armies are bearing down on Moscow. If their troops leave Ukraine, the sun will still shine on Russia the next morning. Götterdämmerung can’t have much appeal for Mr. Putin’s compatriots or even Mr. Putin, who has daughters and grandchildren.
A different set of emailers fret that the MAGA elements of today’s Republican Party lack enthusiasm for arming and supporting Ukraine. Yes—and don’t be surprised if
Joe Biden
considers growing dissent in Congress handy leverage when the unhappy moment comes to press Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky
to cut a deal he won’t want to cut.
Finally, a dreary thought: Has the U.S. approach been suboptimal? What if Washington had inserted U.S. troops during the buildup phase, before Mr. Putin became irreversibly invested? What if U.S. troops were now deployed in the rear areas of Ukraine, forcing Mr. Putin to recalculate any decision to use tactical nukes if his position in eastern Ukraine disintegrates before he can muster enough semi-functional draftees to fill the holes?
On the other hand, caution has its upside. Mr. Putin and his colleagues have had many months to get used to the idea of defeat. Mr. Putin knows he might order a nuclear attack and get only a knife in his back. As ordinary Russians and Westerners can see even on Russian TV news, the action in Moscow is turning from how to win in Ukraine to who will bear the blame for Mr. Putin’s failed bet.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the October 8, 2022, print edition.
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