If the Russo-Ukrainian War really is existential for Russia — and Russia is now faced with NATO's Sweden-Finland-joining machinations — is it time for Russia to mobilize for full-scale war?

© 2022 Peter Free

 

19 May 2022

 

 

Answer

 

In an arguably competent Russian strategist's shoes — maybe.

 

Does President Putin's characteristic caution — and his obviously mistaken belief in the strategic rationality of his Western adversaries — look arguably more likely to be working Russia into a potentially weakened corner in the Russo-Ukrainian War?

 

 

Enter our hypothetical Russian strategist (again)

 

Some weeks ago, I wrote about Russia's possibly underestimating approach to dealing with the overwhelming swell of American propaganda and weapons delivery.

 

The longer this Western onslaught goes on, the more unstable and unpredictable the overall strategic situation becomes. This unpredictability does not work to Russia's (or China's) advantage.

 

Part of this uncertainty problem lies in the West's continued underestimation of Russia's commitment to protecting itself from American-led encirclement. Putin's current go-slow (special military operation) approach in Ukraine feeds a serious-mistake-inviting Western perception.

 

Russian hesitance to fully commit fuels the United States' (apparently ineradicable) neocon irrationality by inviting those pantywaist American warmongers to think that the US and NATO are:

 

 

winning the hybrid anti-Russia war

 

that Russia is too cowardly to obliterate the West, if necessary, in order to protect itself

 

both of those misperceptions leading to

 

the likely result that the West will inadvertently push so hard as to begin World War 3.

 

 

Key points

 

If Ukraine is truly an existential matter, why has Russia  (the strategist asks) confined itself to 'dicking' around in the Donbass:

 

 

while making virtually no determined and effective effort to prevent Western armaments and billions and billions of dollars from flowing into Ukraine and heading directly or vicariously to the various war fronts

 

while simultaneously not interdicting Puppet Zelensky and Crew from making their mouthy and money-sucking perambulations anywhere and everywhere

 

while tolerating the United States and NATO's constant replenishment of Ukraine's physical stalling power — including training Ukrainian military troops in NATO countries

 

while ignoring the United States' continuing hyper-escalation of the war on all possible 'hybrid' fronts

 

and

 

while also tacitly reducing Russia's warning to Finland from the former — "do not join NATO" — to the current — "when you join NATO, do not let NATO put offensive weapons in your country, or bad things will happen".

 

 

A premise — about effective strategic communication

 

One cannot claim existentiality on the one hand, and then act in debatably quarter-assed ways that implicitly deny the claim — the strategist posits in intentionally attention-getting fashion.

 

We all know — he or she continues — that American leadership is murderous, greedy, does not listen to anyone and is (consistently, thoroughly and always) profoundly stupid.

 

Ergo, communication with American leadership (our hypothetical strategist maintains) must be done in ways that even these historically vicious neocon rockheads understand:

 

 

We Russians will make you die, if you keep this up.

 

 

The strategist, therefore, advises his commander in chief to accept the fact that forcing the United States to recognize its deep unwillingness to fight a real war with a real peer — in Europe — is the best way to avoid an even larger (and accidentally triggered) World War 3 disaster.

 

Doing this, arguably means going whole hog in western Ukraine. Which, from the Russian perspective, is — unlike the Donbass — populated by not-Russians and not sibling kin to Russians. So metaphorically speaking, who cares if 'We Russians' cast their Nazi-controlled asses unto the Gates of Hell?

 

Additionally, a Full War Strategy requires simultaneously mashing neutrality-treaty-violating Finland, as well as taking a chunk out of arrogant Sweden's north-of-Finland border.

 

In short, our imaginary strategist tells the Commander in Chief (to borrow American terminology), Russia must now prove to the West that it is deadly serious.

 

 

Regarding Ukraine

 

It does no good (he or she says) to defeat Ukraine in the east, but to leave also nearby western Ukraine filled with Nazis and billions and billions of dollars in American and NATO weapons that the United States will use to continue the existential threat to Russia's existence — which Russia originally intervened to reduce.

 

Either NATO is too close, or it is not.

 

 

Make up your mind, Vlad — the strategist thinks to herself, but without saying this out loud.

 

 

Furthermore (continues the hypothetical strategist) — since Russia appears to be the only nation that cares about trying to preserve not-Nazi Ukrainian lives, it would doing itself and Ukrainians a favor by rapidly dismembering America's addicted efforts to prolonging this death-inflicting conflict.

 

 

Regarding Finland

 

Neutrality-treaty-violating Finland has asked to join NATO.

 

Invade it now, the strategist prescribes — if Turkey's president Erdogan shows any signs at all (in private to Putin) of not being serious about opposing Finland's entry to the Alliance.

 

It is preferable to begin this invasion before Finland is formally approved for NATO membership.

 

The not-yet-a-member NATO legal conundrum will give the United States and the rest of NATO a face-saving excuse not to intervene to protect the thoroughly (completely and utterly) self-destructively stupid Finns from being squashed.

 

The entire world knows that — the strategist continues — if Finland and Sweden enter NATO, the US will move Russia-aimed weapons onto their grounds and the governments of both those brown-nose nations will not raise even a squeak in protest.

 

Act now, rather than confront a NATO that later officially includes Finland.

 

 

Regarding Sweden

 

Similar logic applies to Sweden, maintains the strategist.

 

Lopping off the part of Sweden that borders Russia north of Finland would deliver the incontrovertible message that Russia is serious about the existential nature of its self-defense. Neutrals don't get to turncoat their colors.

 

Corralling the upstart Finns and better-than-thou Swedes would deliver an associated message to the rest of Europe — and rabid Poland especially — that threatening the Russian Federation by letting the United States populate their countries with weapons aimed at Russia is a really-really bad idea.

 

Effective message-delivery, our hypothesized strategist would tell Putin, is what Great Powers and Great Leaders do.

 

 

The moral? — Existentiality is either real, or it is not

 

In sum, the strategist concludes, if President Putin wants to be like Catherine and Peter the Great, he will have to take Genuine Leadership's risks and start acting like them:

 

 

Problem-escalating over-caution does not characterize the Greats.

 

 

And that is conclusively so, according to our hypothetical (and aggressive) strategist's interpretation of the pertinent historical record.