Between the time I write this and the time you read it, the picture on the ground in Ukraine might have changed and not for the better.
Satellite surveillance shows a Russian column of troops and tanks and missiles, reportedly stretching out forty miles long, on the road to Kyiv.
So despite catastrophically crippling sanctions against Russia’s economy… and despite sweeping closures of air space to Russian aircraft… and despite unprecedented unity among European Union and NATO nations which is counterproductive to Vladimir Putin’s goals… and despite censures of Putin’s war even from friends like the leaders of Hungary and Turkey… and despite Ukraine’s allies pouring weapons and aid into the outnumbered but unflinching nation… and despite logistical logjams for Russian forces which their leaders apparently didn’t anticipate… and despite victories in the streets by outgunned Ukrainians resisting the invasion… despite all that, Russia’s belligerent leader, with one of the world’s largest armies and largest arsenals at his disposal, still has the upper hand.
Not that Goliath always beats David, and we Americans have a painful past to prove it. The war in Vietnam. The occupation of Iraq. And for the U.S. and Russia, Afghanistan. From World War II to the first Gulf War, sometimes might wins and sometimes right wins, but other factors also can come into play, first among them the stamina and single-mindedness of any movement of resistance, whether nihilistic or noble.
Ukraine’s is noble.
It is led by none less than its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Unlike Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein (or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi) as pursuers were closing in, Zelensky didn’t crawl into a hole when Russian troops crossed into his country.
Unlike Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani when the Taliban poured into Kabul, Zelensky didn’t take the first offer to escape from Ukraine. To the contrary, his response to an American overture to get him out was, “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
He has become the foremost face of Ukraine’s resistance. From news accounts around the globe, he has inspired not just world citizens but world leaders with his courage, and his dedicated, even death-defying defense of his democracy.
Of course that might only make him an even more pivotal personal target for Vladimir Putin. We cannot ignore the fact that that long column of Russian forces is creeping closer to the capital. Like other Russian units whose advance has been slowed by Ukraine’s resistance, they might get bogged down but they probably can’t be stopped.
Nor, perhaps, can Vladimir Putin. That’s troubling enough from what we can see on the ground but even worse, already he has raised the stakes to the nuclear level, reminding us menacingly from Moscow last Thursday that Russia “remains one of the most powerful nuclear states,” and then, on the pretext of “aggressive statements” by NATO leaders, announcing that he was putting his military forces, including nuclear, on “special combat readiness.”
It might be bluster and bluff, meant only to scare us… but it might not be. Putin has shown in the past that he will scorch the earth to have his way. What’s more, there are those in the intelligence community who think he might be serious. The former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said Sunday on CNN, “I think personally he’s unhinged.” (As an ironic side note, this coincides with revelations just out about a book by Donald Trump’s attorney general William Barr, and Barr’s description of the president after the election he lost: “He stopped listening to his advisers, became manic and unreasonable, and was off the rails.” Birds of a feather?)
So we have to keep two things in mind, both of them chilling. First, that while there are checks and balances— not foolproof, but effectual— that would keep even a madman in the White House from impulsively pressing the nuclear button, in Russia, for all we know, a madman, pushed to the wall, might have no constraints. And second, that the principle of deterrence long called MAD— Mutual Assured Destruction— only works if a leader isn’t unhinged enough to ignore it.
Assuming some rational reasoning in the Kremlin, we should not expect a nuclear escalation. But we cannot dismiss it.
And Putin is pushed to the wall. As the civilian death toll climbs, the International Criminal Court in The Hague has announced a likely investigation into Russian war crimes. Shell and BP, crucial to Russia’s energy economy, are withdrawing their investments. Switzerland, famously neutral in geopolitics, is freezing Russian assets it controls. Sweden, officially neutral throughout the Cold War, is sending missiles to be used by Ukraine against Russia.
And not a month after Putin and China’s Xi proclaimed their friendship that “has no limits” at the Beijing Olympics, even China’s ambassador to the United Nations has declared, “The Cold War has long ended. The Cold War mentality based on confrontation must end.” I can only assume that if he doesn’t want the world laughing in his face, he’s pointing at Putin.
On top of all that, global social media is painting the picture of an underdog unjustly attacked and heroically fighting back. Ukrainians with cell phones, transmitting images of residential missile strikes, civilians cowering in tunnels, and volunteers ready to face the Russians with rifles, have been hailed by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds (quoted in Bloomberg Opinion) as “An Army of Davids.”
Ukraine has not rolled over. But U.S. intelligence says, the worst is yet to come.
Maybe, maybe, with all the costly and injurious obstacles to what Vladimir Putin might have seen as easy path, he now is thinking that he miscalculated, that he seriously miscalculated the reaction from the world and the resistance from Ukraine. Maybe, maybe, he will see some way to save face as the lesser of two evils.
Right now though, that’s wishful thinking. The mightier military doesn’t always win… but sometimes it does.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies and politics at home and international crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Again, you capture the conflict. Relentless.
Just attended the annual Camden Conference this weekend... check out Sergei Medvedev’s comments... the full videos of the speaker roster reshould b posted within two weeks.