Posted on February 13, 2024 by Yves Smith
Ukraine now resembles a patient with a terminal disease who is staring to exhibit multi-organ failure. His longevity is still uncertain but is measured in months, not years. It’s not obvious which system will go first and whether that one by itself will be fatal or will kick off the terminal cascade. But the odds of pulling out of the current trajectory are poor.
We’d like to step back and consider what Russia’s choices might be as Ukraine starts coming unglued.1 Many commentators are focusing on the question of territorial acquisition because it seems to be hard to get out of the habit of thinking that way. Recall that the object of war, per Clausewitz:
War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.
Russia may have a fundamental problem. It has arguably been Putin’s top objective, certainly with respect to the US and Europe, to come up with a new security architecture. That was the theme of his much-hated speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007: No one is safe until all of us are safe.
Russia is very far along with one of its key aims, demilitarizing Ukraine, by virtue of not only depleting weapons stocks across the West and producing armaments at a rate the West cannot match, but sadly also by killing or maiming many of Ukraine’s service-age men, and now even women. Ukraine is considering and likely to pass what amounts to a mass mobilization bill. The US is now also committed to arming Israel; it’s not clear, given rising criticism across Europe of Israel’s genocide, if and when its allies will cut back on weapons supplies given their supposed disapproval. While it was noteworthy that the hyper aggressive German defense minister, Annelina Baerbock, whose country is defending Israel at the ICJ, criticized Israel’s conduct in unvarnished terms. But the tweet below points out, Germany has not yet cut back on weapons supplies:
https://twitter.com/krustelkram/status/1757112321049035163?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1757112321049035163%7Ctwgr%5E3c140b493f0b4f5d804199d12fb2645c8f138346%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F02%2Fukraine-collapse-starting-what-happens-next.html
The US and key European leaders are whipping up a “Russia will soon be in Paris” frenzy across the continent. And the problem Russia has is that, as the US has admitted, the war in Ukraine is a proxy war, with the US and NATO as the protagonists.
Even though Russia will soon be able to compel Ukraine to fulfill its will, it can’t do that to NATO, its ultimate opponent. So what is Russia’s next best outcome?
Our colleague Aurelian posited that Europe would eventually retreat into what he called “epic sulking” over its loss in Ukraine. But the level of “We need to rearm” hysteria means that will be some time in coming. Fortunately for Russia, the economic cost of Europe divorcing itself from cheap Russian energy and its accelerating de-industrialization will limit how much Europe can do to live up to its fist-shaking. The US inability to reverse its long-standing, poor procurement practices (overpriced fussy weapons that not only are comparatively few in number but also don’t perform all that well in combat conditions) also means it seeming vanishingly unlikely to catch up with Russia as an arms designer and maker.
And in fact, when the US and Europe have finally internalized that they can’t outdo Russia’s war machine, and its overmatch in most important weapons categories along with its nukes amount to a formidable deterrent, they may indeed settle down to licking their wounds. But absent regime changes all across Europe, which is not impossible given the number of elections this year and voter unhappiness about their own strained budgets and officials prioritizing warmongering over domestic welfare, Europe will want to engage in as much threat display as possible and stoke hostility towards Russia among its citizens.
The fact that Russia is conducting what it has conceived of as a special military operation, as opposed to a full bore conventional war, where it would have flattened administrative buildings in Kiev and taking out the Internet and cell phone service long ago, is now leaving Russia with choices that a normal successful combatant in conflict would not face. Normally if you prevail, you occupy the enemy’s territory, kill or enslave its men, and take the womenfolk. The modern variants are manage the occupied territory badly and turn it into a near failed state (Iraq) or rebuild and turn it into a vassal (Germany and Japan).
By contrast, as we’ve intimated and Black Mountain Analysis has described, it is conceivable that the Ukraine military could break terminally not all that far from where the line of contact is now, which contrary to most historical wars, is well away from the government/administrative center. It’s suited Russia wonderfully well to have Ukraine keep feeding weapons and men into contested spots on the line of contact. It’s not far from Russia, facilitating resupply and even troop rotation. By contrast, Ukraine has had to schlepp all those wonderwaffen across the country. And Russia is also able to destroy anything that might resemble a military training center, further impeding Ukraine replenishing its now enormous losses.
For those who have been following the conflict, the fact that Ukraine forces are starting to fail is no surprise. Ukraine is on its fourth army, throwing barely trained troops, now including women, against Russia soldiers, with a predictably short life expectancy.
As many commentators have pointed out, General Zaluzhny’s replacement, Oleksandr Syrsky, is in synch with Zelensky’s destructive inclination to try to hold ground at all costs. Syrsky is the “Butcher of Bakhmut” for feeding more men into the Russian meat-grinder in accordance with Zelensky’s wishes and apparently his own predisposition. Note that “Zaluzhny was liked by his men” seem overdone in light of the horrific death count; he’s rumored to have given preferential treatment to the Neo-Nazi contingents which seems a more likely explanation for his supposed popularity.2
Zelensky deems it necessary, as he once did with Bakhmut, to hold what he can of the southern Donetsk city of Adiivka, despite the fact that the Russias have created a cauldron which they could finish encircling pretty readily. With the US funding package still in play, Zelensky can’t afford a serious loss.
Keep in mind that continued US support is absolutely essential to the survival of the present regime. It isn’t just a matter of needing the monies for the government budget, meaning to keep Ukraine from having to “print” on such a scale as to kick its current high inflation into hyperinflation. Remember that Ukraine has been running a massive propaganda campaign intended both to maintain support from the coalition partners on which it depends but also for its population. Positive Western press in turn has likely helped keep morale in Ukraine at a higher level than it would otherwise be by validating domestic war happy talk and persuading at least some Ukrainian that the bad news they are hearing is unrepresentative, that things are not as terrible as they might appear. Zelensky will no longer be able to keep up the pretense that Ukraine has any hope of prevailing, and not even much of surviving as state, with only 50 billion euros meant as budget support, and then spread over four years.
Nevertheless, Syrsky is willing to feed the remaining Ukraine reserves into the Adiivka killing field.
The Ukraine leadership has also been moving towards the politically-radioactive move of a general mobilization, even though it will probably get a kinder, gentler label. Not that killing more Ukrainians in the interest of personal survival is a good idea, but if you’ve ruled out negotiation and surrender, it become obligatory.
But given legislative timing, the earliest that measure could become law is April. And even on a cannon-fodder accelerated timetable, the earliest new forces might get to the front is late April, more likely May. That seems way too late to do any good, even if they were well enough trained so as not to die quickly. But even if battered Ukraine military can somehow soldier on, the economic and societal costs look untenable:
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