By Gilbert Doctorow, Website, 11/13/24

Ever since the outcome of the presidential election was clear on 6 November; all attention of American political analysts has been directed to whom Donald Trump will choose to fill the key positions in his administration on the understanding that such individuals equate with policy. Today, when names have been put to most of the slots which the Russians would call ‘power ministries’ in any government, the Kremlin has made public its conclusions about the individuals named and about the policies they expect Trump 2.0 to implement in general and towards themselves in particular.

In the past I would never have suggested that I divine what Vladimir Putin, or more broadly what ‘the Kremlin’ thinks on any given subject. But since that is precisely the phrasing that is used by my host on ‘Judging Freedom,’ I have stopped arguing and regularly use the most authoritative political talk show in Russia, ‘The Great Game,’ hosted principally by the hereditary Kremlin insider Vycheslav Nikonov, with guest panelists from the leading universities and think tanks, to represent what Vladimir Putin and his closest confidantes are thinking.

And so, as the Brits love to say, let’s get cracking.

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The single most important observation by ‘the Kremlin’ is that all of the key nominees, namely Mike Waltz for National Security Advisor, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense; John Ratcliffe at the CIA, and (presumably) Marco Rubio as Secretary of State are soft on Russia and hard on China. This all supports the notion that Donald Trump genuinely wants to end the Ukraine war as soon as possible so that he can focus U.S: foreign policy on this other greater concern, and in this connection he is likely to respond positively to Russia’s terms for peace, including their claims to the Donbas and Novaya Rossiya oblasts that they have annexed and their demand that Ukraine be a neutral state without any prospects of joining Nato, without having foreign troops and installations on their territory.

Under the same logic, the Kremlin assumes that the USA under Trump however pro-Israeli it may be, will press Israel to de-escalate its campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza, and to conclude cease-fires as soon as possible. Moreover, the Kremlin does not expect the enmity towards Iran among several of those named in the Trump team to translate into hostilities of any kind. Indeed, given his pleasure in doing the unexpected, as was the case in his dealings with the North Korean leader, Trump is seen as possibly opening a dialogue with Teheran now and reducing tensions there.

Otherwise Nikonov and his panelists reported with some amusement on the likely changes at the Pentagon both before the confirmation in the Senate of Hegseth and after. They mentioned specifically the firing of the generals and others responsible for the debacle of America’s exit from Afghanistan and the purge of generals who in one way or another owed their promotions to the ideological agenda of the Democrats favoring gender equality, nontraditional sexual orientation and the like over merit. In this regard, they noted that the head of the Air Force Brown, present head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will be flung out early in the new administration.

The panelists on The Great Game do their homework: they read both major US and UK mainstream press such as The Washington Post and The Economist as well as the leading American professional journals such as Foreign Affairs. Accordingly they quoted today from the latest article by Harvard professor Stephen Walt clearly conceding that Ukraine has lost the war and should sue for peace now; accepting Russian terms, while there is still something of their country left to save.

The Kremlin is taking great comfort in the latest professional commentary in the USA to the effect that it must reconcile itself to being just a major superpower among others that has no ‘exceptional’ status. All-in-all that comes to what Vladimir Putin has been saying at least since 2013, when he spoke of growing trust with Barack Obama after their deal on destruction of Syrian chemical weapons but still upbraided Obama for his retaining the unacceptable characterization of his country that had been given by Madeleine Albright as standing taller than others and seeing farther.

Russian television reporting on the war remains upbeat, very confident that it is going well in part thanks to the Zelensky’s grievous strategic mistake in committing so much of his best trained reserves to the hopeless invasion of Russia’s Kursk region where they are now being pulverized.

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Despite the waves of news coming out of the Middle East each day, there are many developments of great importance that are under-reported. One of those in the past 24 hours was the missile and drone attack on the U.S; aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and its squadron in the Red Sea by the Houthis of Yemen. The Houthis were the first to announce that their mission was successful. The Pentagon spokesman in Washington confirmed to assembled journalists that an attack took place but said that no military personnel were injured and that the drones were all destroyed. This spokesman did not say anything about the ship-busting Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missiles that were allegedly used by the Houthis as part of the attack, and so perhaps there was some serious damage to the ships.

So far, so good. We may assume that the missiles were provided to the Houthis by Iran. But who gave them the precise coordinates of the ships, likely obtained from satellites overhead, shall we say by Russian satellites. This is similar to the question of the Russian role in countering the Israeli attack on Iran a week ago. For the moment the Pentagon seems to avoid speaking of the Russian activities in the Middle East even as it overventilates describing the way the Russians have integrated 10,000 North Korean infantry into their 50,000 man force that is about to crush or drive from Kursk what remains of the Ukrainian invasion force.

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Finally, I direct attention to the confused use of political nomenclature used by the American media, both mainstream and alternative media, as they put labels on each and every nominee by Trump for his incoming administration. Most commonly we hear that candidate X or Y is a ‘Neocon’ when what is really meant is that they just take aggressive stands on international issues. After all, behind the true Neocons like Victoria Nuland and her husband Robert Kagan there is an entire ideology, not merely the will to subdue one or another potential geopolitical competitor of the United States. That ideology is founded on the belief that they see the direction history is taking and want to accelerate that trend by staging coups d’etat or orange revolutions here and there, for example.

In this sense, I maintain that the America First promoters whom Trump is nominating are not Neocons, whereas those whom he has specifically rejected like Bolton are.

I also call attention to the US media confusion over Trump’s position against globalism. Globalism is also a whole ideology based on the premise that in our age the business of running the world can be left to transational corporations and other supranational organizations. Such views are essentially a denial of national sovereignty, just as the free movement of people across borders to seek employment where they will is a denial of sovereignty.

And so, in the end, there is indeed a closeness between the conservative; shall we say ‘retro’ political thinking of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. But it is not in what Trump’s enemies are suggesting, namely that he admires strongmen rulers, authoritarians and dictators and wishes to be one himself. No, what they have in common is the pride of place they both give to national sovereignty. And; to give credit where it is due, this all goes back to 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia, and the then belief that the nation state is the best defender of the freedoms of their citizens.

By Anatol Lieven, The Nation, 10/29/24

Whoever wins the US election, the start of a new administration should be an opportunity for a serious reevaluation of US policy toward the war in Ukraine. For it is abundantly clear that the present course is unsustainable, and if persisted in, is likely to lead sooner or later either to Ukrainian collapse or to direct NATO involvement in war with Russia. This is indeed now tacitly admitted by some US commentators like Robert Kagan, though he has not been willing to tell Americans that they must go to war in order to prevent Ukrainian defeat or a compromise peace.

The news from the Ukrainian front line is grim. Ukrainian forces are heavily outnumbered and outmatched in artillery and ammunition. There are growing signs of exhaustion, demoralization, desertion, and evasion of service by both the elites and ordinary people. Russian success is grounded in the fact that Russia simply has far greater resources than Ukraine in terms of both industry and manpower. It has been able to recruit hundreds of thousands of new troops by paying them very high wages, up to six times the average salaries in the regions from which they are drawn.

Ukrainians and Western hawks claim that more Western weapons will make a critical difference; and indeed, if some of these had been provided in 2022, when the Russian armed forces were outnumbered and in serious disarray, they might have led to much greater Ukrainian success. Now however, so great is the Russian advantage that Western supplies can make little difference.

Western industry cannot produce anything like the number of artillery shells Ukraine needs; the USA cannot provide sufficient air defense systems to Israel and Ukraine and keep enough for a possible war with China. And above all, NATO cannot manufacture more soldiers for Ukraine. The German government has already declared that it is freezing military aid, and will cut aid to Ukraine by almost half next year, and by more than 90 percent by 2027.

Faced with this reality, Western advocates of unconditional support for complete Ukrainian victory are becoming increasingly desperate. Earlier this year, we were told by the likes of retired Gen. Ben Hodges that the (genuine) success of Ukrainian missiles and drones in driving the Russian Black Sea Fleet from its bases in Crimea meant that these could also drive the Russian army from Crimea and somehow regain it for Ukraine (after he told us in June 2023 that Ukraine could “free Crimea by the end of summer”). Then, we were told that the (genuine but very limited) Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region of Russia marked a turning point in the war. Now, we are being told that allowing Ukraine to fire missiles guided by US satellites into Russia will allow Ukraine to transform the war.

It is true that the Ukrainian forces, with tremendous grit, are forcing the Russians to advance very slowly, and are inflicting heavy casualties. Together with the war weariness of much of the Russian population, and Russian economic problems, this could allow Ukraine to reach a peace settlement that would limit Russian territorial gains, and, while excluding NATO membership, allow Ukraine to seek membership of the European Union at some point in the future. This would be very painful for Ukrainians, but it would still be a great triumph in historical terms, and vastly better than what they are likely to get if the war continues. Headlines like “Ukraine must turn the tide before it can negotiate” are, however, meaningless, if by this is meant not just conducting a dogged fighting retreat but also driving the Russians back.

Tragically, the Ukrainian government and Western establishments have so often condemned the very idea of a compromise peace and insisted on complete Ukrainian victory that it is now very difficult for them to change course. They have also by now uttered so often the argument that if Putin is allowed to keep southeastern Ukraine he will go on to attack NATO that they may even have come to believe this nonsense themselves.

A more cogent argument, advanced for example by Ivan Krastev in the Financial Times, is that with the Russian army advancing, Putin has no incentive to seek peace at present; and that his offer of a ceasefire in return for Ukrainian withdrawal from the cities of Zaporizhia and Kherson (claimed but not occupied by Russia) is completely unacceptable.

This is true as far as it goes, but the counterargument is that we cannot discover which Russian conditions are absolute, and which negotiable, until we enter into negotiations with Russia; and starting negotiations does not mean accepting initial Russian terms. Members of the Russian establishment have suggested to me the possibility that in return for a treaty of neutrality excluding NATO membership, Russia would give up further territorial ambitions.

Let us make this suggestion in private and see what Moscow’s response is. Even better, empower neutral powers like India and Brazil to make such proposals for peace to the Russians. Given the effort that the Russian government has put into wooing these states and the “global majority,” it would be very difficult for it to spurn a peace initiative from them.

Western support to Ukraine should continue during negotiations so that the Ukrainian forces can continue to fall back slowly and inflict heavy casualties, thereby encouraging the Russians to accept a compromise. We must not, however, delude ourselves either that our support will last indefinitely, or that it can possibly help Ukraine to regain territory that it has lost. We therefore have no honest and viable alternative to also putting pressure on the Ukrainian government to accept a compromise peace.

If the next US administration fails to adopt this course, then there is a serious risk that, like First World War armies after years of trench warfare, the Ukrainian army will eventually collapse. Washington will find itself faced with a choice between accepting severe Ukrainian defeat or intervening directly and risking—or even ensuring—nuclear war with Russia. We must hope that the leaders of the next administration will have the intellectual clarity and the moral courage to recognize this, and act accordingly.

YouTube link here.

By Kit Klarenberg, Website, 10/29/24

On July 29th, Pentagon-funded “think tank” RAND Corporation published a landmark appraisal of the state of the Pentagon’s 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS), and current US military readiness, produced by a Congress-created Commission of “non-governmental experts in national security.” Its findings are stark, an unrelentingly bleak analysis of every aspect of the Empire’s bloated, decaying global war machine. In brief, the US is “not prepared” in any meaningful way for serious “competition” with its major adversaries – and vulnerable or even significantly outmatched in every sphere of warfare.

The 2022 NDS was released in October that year, with much fanfare. Its contents bombastically proclaimed to offer a bold, comprehensive roadmap for how the US national security state, and all its divisions, would evolve and adapt to “dramatic changes in geopolitics, technology, economics, and our environment.” Promising to safeguard Washington’s hegemony for “decades to come,” the Strategy’s introduction loftily declared that the Pentagon was obligated to the US military and public alike:

“To provide a clear picture of the challenges we expect to face in the crucial years ahead – and we owe them a clear and rigorous strategy for advancing our defense and security goals…From helping to protect the American people, to promoting global security,to seizing new strategic opportunities, and to realizing and defending our democratic values.”

Fast forward to today, and the RAND Commission’s appraisal of the NDS couldn’t be more scathing. The Pentagon’s comprehension of the economic, military, and political threats to “US interests” posed by China and Russia, and the pair’s emergent, world-defining partnership – to the extent they were even acknowledged at all – is found to be hazardously defective, if not non-existent. And the NDS’ proposals for overcoming these issues, and maintaining the Empire’s worldwide dominance, are judged to be at best woefully inadequate, at worst outright delusional.

‘Multiple Adversaries’

The NDS did get one thing right – China and Russia represent major threats to the Empire, and actively “seek to undermine US influence” worldwide. Beijing particularly was branded a “pacing challenge” economically and militarily, given the extraordinary speed and scale of its scientific and technological innovation and growth. However, the NDS assumed Washington maintained major ‘edges’ over its rival, and widening those gaps further was promptly and readily achievable. To say the least, the RAND report begs to differ:

“We believe the magnitude of the threats the US faces is understated and significantly worse…In many ways, China is outpacing the US…in defense production and growth in force size and, increasingly, in force capability and is almost certain to continue to do so…[Beijing] has largely negated the US military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment. Without significant change by the US, the balance of power will continue to shift in China’s favor.”

This dire situation is greatly magnified by China’s “no limits” partnership with Russia, signed in February 2022, and explicitly “aimed at challenging US leadership internationally.” The pair’s burgeoning alliance with the Global South, specifically Iran and North Korea, exacerbates things yet further. Alliance and collaboration between these countries means they are all growing “bolder”, in turn undercutting Washington’s “force planning and force structure…designed to deter aggression by others, when the US is involved in conflict elsewhere.”

This ever-germinating union of disaffected states – stultifyingly dubbed “An Axis of Growing Malign Partnerships” by RAND – means “efforts to isolate and coerce these states through international means – such as sanctions, embargoes, and censure – will be far more difficult.” Even more gravely, it “increases the likelihood that a conflict with one would expand to multiple fronts, causing simultaneous demands on US and allied resources”:

“At minimum, the US should assume that if it enters a direct conflict involving Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea, that country will benefit from economic and military aid from the others…This new alignment of nations opposed to US interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multi-theater or global war…As US adversaries are cooperating more closely together than before, the US and its allies must be prepared to confront an axis of multiple adversaries.”

Partnership between Beijing and Moscow has only deepened since February 2022. In the words of Stockholm’s Institute for Security and Development Policy, “the world order has become much more unfavorable and hostile in the Russian and Chinese conceptions, and has warranted closer ties and unwavering mutual support.” Their alliance’s revolutionary geopolitical ramifications were abundantly clear when the NDS was published that same year. Yet, that document made zero reference to the “no limits” relationship whatsoever.

The obvious prospect that the US waging war against one of the pair would inevitably mean war with the other – a threat now all the deadlier due to their alliance expanding – was similarly unconsidered. The Empire is extremely fortunate no such conflict has come to pass in the two years since the NDS was published. As the Commission report spells out in forensic detail, Washington would be almost completely defenceless in such a scenario, and likely defeated nigh on instantly.

Multiple passages slam the US military’s lack of “readiness” for a major conflict. Recent “crises”, including the Zionist entity’s genocide in Gaza, “have led to unplanned force deployments to Europe and the Middle East, creating high demand for ‘stressed’ force elements with multiple requirements across theaters, such as air defense and aerial refueling.” In tandem, “constant demand for presence operations, exercises, and security cooperation activities has exacerbated readiness challenges, especially when paired with the training requirements to prepare for great power competition and conflict.” Meanwhile:

“The US Navy is also suffering from readiness issues stemming from its high operational tempo, aging ships, shipyard backlogs, and crew fatigue. Continued mishaps at sea and in military aviation pose risks to troop safety and are symptomatic of a decline in readiness, reflecting both a lack of experience and the increased complexity of the future warfighting mission. The steady demands of campaigning on a smaller military force – and an even smaller number of responsive, modernized, and combat-credible forces – has stressed force readiness.”

‘Affordable Cost’

It’s not just being spread too thinly on the Grand Chessboard that means the Empire’s military machine “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” Munitions, or lack thereof, are a fatal susceptibility. “Extraordinary” levels of “consumption and demand” for US weapons “by allies and partners in Europe,” combined with the Zionist entity’s rapacious appetite for heavy bombs, have left Washington’s stockpiles “already inadequate for a high-end conflict.”

Renewing those stockpiles, let alone equipping the Empire for future war, won’t be easy. The RAND Commission found Washington’s “defense industrial base” is completely “unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs” of the US, let alone its allies. “A protracted conflict, especially in multiple theaters, would require much greater capacity to produce, maintain, and replenish weapons and munitions” than is currently in place, the report observes. Rebuilding that capacity “requires greater urgency and resources,” and “should remain a top priority” for the Pentagon.

For decades, the US military “employed cutting-edge technology to its decisive advantage for decades.” This “assumption of uncontested technological superiority” on the Empire’s part meant Washington had “the luxury to build exquisite capabilities, with long acquisition cycles and little tolerance for failure or risk.” Those days are long over though, with China and Russia “incorporating technology at accelerating speed,” and “even relatively unsophisticated actors” such as Yemen’s Ansarallah “able to obtain and use modern technology (e.g. drones) to strategic effect.”

The Empire already isn’t keeping up, and in any future war, will need “to continue to develop, adopt, and iterate new technologies at greater speed and scale and at an affordable cost,” while simultaneously replenishing “existing munitions” for a “protracted” period, “to keep pace with warfighter needs.” Current Pentagon research and development and procurement systems were judged by the Commission to be wholly inadequate for the task. And America’s “defense industrial base” is today crumbling, riddled with a myriad of deleterious issues:

“These shortcomings include the deteriorating condition of defense depots, contract maintenance performance issues, and underproduction of spare parts, among many others. The result is a US military that is minimally operationally ready today but is unlikely to be ready for tomorrow….[The US] is unable to produce the weapons, munitions, and other equipment and software needed to prepare for and engage in great power conflict. Consolidation and underinvestment have led to too few companies, gaps in the workforce, insufficient production infrastructure, and fragile supply chains.”

To address these problems, the Commission calls for enormous amounts of money to be spent on “the capacity to build” munitions domestically, “the recapitalization of armories,” and “advanced manufacturing and further stockpiling of munitions.” In other words, to reindustrialise the US after years of outsourcing, offshoring and neglect. No timeframe is provided, although it would likely take decades. Meanwhile, the Pentagon simultaneously “needs to work with other countries to expand production capacity for munitions,” while ensuring “it can buy all munitions at sufficient scale to deliver the desired operational effects.”

Of course, the Empire already wastes exorbitant sums on keeping its existing outgunned, outnumbered, outproduced military machine, which wouldn’t survive first contact with an actual war, operational. Doing so requires printing astonishing volumes of dollars, in turn producing such high inflation that arms suppliers are now rejecting Pentagon contracts and tearing up existing deals, as they have become “money-losers”. Washington’s response? The US defense budget now allocates over $1 billion annually in yet more freshly-printed money, to compensate them for inflation-related losses.

We have entered a strange, late-stage Empire era, comparable to the Soviet Union’s Glasnost, in which elements of the US imperial braintrust can see with blinding clarity Washington’s entire hegemonic global project is stumbling rapidly and irreversibly towards extinction, and announce so publicly – but their insight does not translate into evasive governmental action at home. The RAND Commission report elicited no mainstream coverage or comment whatsoever, proof positive there isn’t a concomitant effort to manufacture consent for its radical, far-reaching prescriptions.

Were the Commission’s recommendations remotely plausible, a multipronged PR campaign would’ve immediately ensued to convince Americans of the righteousness of the Empire’s mission, and the necessity of investing in US “defense” to the tune of trillions. The media’s silence on the report’s damning findings definitionally reflects an omertà among the US political class. They well-know American reindustrialisation can’t happen. So, the fatal “disconnect” between Pentagon operational and industrial planning identified by RAND will endure, and with it ever-intensifying US military impotence. We’re spectating the Empire’s final acts in real-time.

By Andrew Korybko, Substack, 11/9/24

Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either preempting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.

The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.

To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.

At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.

Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.

Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behavior thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.

In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favor it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.

To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.

NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.

The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.

One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did. Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.  

Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.

Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of demilitarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.

Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Color Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.

The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.

Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.

As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.

The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.

The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.

As such, there are really only three options left for Russia: 1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible; 2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or 3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.

It’s unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signaled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.