The West must now consider the possibility of a Russian political collapse
By: Stephen Collinson (CNN)
Where's the VE Day celebrations? Why aren't the Bidenistas dancing in the streets? Why are the big brassed generals crapping their pants? Why has Ukraine suddenly disappeared from the discussion?
If this ain't winning then there needs to be some explainin'.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The world just got a hint of a tantalizing but possibly even more dangerous future without Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Western stakes in the Ukraine war rose significantly as a result.
A mutinous weekend that saw mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin flagrantly mock the Kremlin before aborting his march on Moscow evoked Russia’s blood-soaked history of revolutions and coups. Meanwhile, efforts by the White House and its foreign allies to find out exactly what was happening underlined the volatile nature of a war that could rewrite the map of Europe and modern history. Ultimately, a civil war that seemed about to burst out was averted – at least for now.
The Kremlin strongman seemed to blink at a military confrontation with Prigozhin’s Wagner Group fighters – in an act that might preserve his grip on power. But Prigozhin’s defiance – and the retreat by Putin, who accused him of treason but then agreed to a deal to let him apparently escape to exile in Belarus hours later – punched the deepest holes in the Russian president’s authority in a generation in power. There’s now no doubt that the war Putin unleashed to wipe Ukraine off the map poses an existential threat to his political survival. The rest of the world must now deal with the implications.
“This is not a 24-hour blip. It’s like Prigozhin is the person who looked behind the screen at the Wizard of Oz and saw the great and terrible Oz was just this little frightened man,” former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Putin has been diminished for all time by this affair.”
Schisms in Moscow and between the government and Prigozhin’s Wagner Group – the only Russian fighting force that has enjoyed much recent battlefield success – might also now conjure an opening for Ukraine, which wants breakthroughs against Moscow’s already demoralized and poorly led troops in its new counteroffensive. This would be good news for the West, which has bankrolled and armed the country’s fight for its life. And there’s no doubt that NATO leaders would love to see Putin gone since there’s no sign he will end the war by pulling his troops out of Ukraine.
For a time, it appeared that a teetering autocrat, Russia’s military and rival militia chiefs might end up in a civil war for control of a nation with a vast nuclear arsenal. Such instability and internal strife in Russia would send geopolitical shockwaves across the globe.
The West truly doesn’t have a side in the internal strife that erupted this weekend. This was a showdown between Prigozhin – whose men are accused of brutal human rights abuses in Ukraine, Syria and Africa – and Putin, who has revived World War II-style horror in Europe, who flouted international law by invading a sovereign neighbor and who faces an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes. Prigozhin also has been no friend to the US – he has admitted to interfering in American elections and pledged to do so again.
Statements by Western leaders that this was an internal Russian matter reflected a desire to deny Putin a pretext to renew his claims that he’s a victim of a Western plot to overthrow him and suppress Russia’s dignity as a major power and to trim its geopolitical sphere of influence. CNN’s Kevin Liptak reported that in telephone conversations with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany, Biden stressed the need to keep the temperature low and to allow whatever was happening in Russia to play out in keeping with his mantra to prevent “World War III.”
And while it’s possible a crack in the Putin regime could presage an eventual collapse that might remove one of Washington’s major foreign policy challenges – a new Cold War-style standoff with Russia – no one in Washington is betting on it.
“I don’t think we want a country that spans 11 time zones and includes republics in the Russian Federation of many different ethnic and sectarian groupings to come apart at the seams,” retired Gen. David Petraeus said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“Is this the beginning of the end of Putin? We don’t know. Whoever follows him, if that is the case, will he be even more dictatorial, which is what we feared might be the case if Prigozhin may have been successful? Could there actually be a pragmatic leader who steps in and realizes what a catastrophic error this whole Ukraine endeavor has been and realize that they need to somehow get a more rational approach to Europe and to the West?” asked Petraeus, a former CIA director.
“Many, many unknowns.”
A wounded Putin could be an even more dangerous Putin
It has long been clear that Ukrainian success in this war could pose a serious political threat to Putin’s rule. But it’s one thing to posit this in theory. After this weekend, this new reality will require the West to once again examine its balancing act to save Ukraine.
It’s possible that the Russian leader’s humiliation could cause him to demand an even more vicious push in a war that has already callously targeted Ukrainian civilians. If political strife in Russia further damages its troops’ morale and leads to battlefield losses, Putin’s position could become even more difficult. This will fuel fears that the Russian leader could threaten a catastrophic escalation of the war after months of nuclear saber rattling.
And if the weekend was a preview of a possible collapse of the Putin regime, if the war keeps going from terrible to worse for Russia, the West could have another headache.
The European Union’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Monday that it was “not a good thing” when a nuclear power like Russia faces political instability, saying the nuclear threat was “something that has to be taken into account.” The US has said that there has so far been no change in Moscow’s nuclear posture.
After months of heavy losses on the battlefield and economic pain at home caused by Western sanctions, it was noticeable that the most potent resistance to Putin came not from a democratic movement that he spent years crushing. It was from a force even more right-wing and brutal than him – Prigozhin. And another extreme and bloodthirsty war lord, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, offered on Saturday to help suppress the Wagner rebellion on Putin’s behalf, which is one reason why there were fears of a bloodbath on the streets of Moscow.
Behind-the-scenes machinations of Moscow’s politics – a bear pit populated by thuggish militia chiefs, intelligence chieftains and oligarchs – are impossible to predict. But the weekend’s wild twists highlight the possibility that whoever leads Russia after Putin may be even more ruthless and hard for the West to deal with as its longtime nemesis. One of Prigozhin’s pet projects, for instance, was the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm used by Russia to send a torrent of misinformation across social media in an effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
“We’re all maybe excited to see that Putin’s hold on power is shakier and the state is more fragile than we thought, but we should also think as much about what would happen next,” said Robert English, an expert in Russia and eastern Europe who directs the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California.
“It probably will be somebody like a Prigozhin or another sort of military leader who pretends for power, not a liberal like an Alexei Navalny or these other liberal critics of Putin, but a populist from the right who appeals to the same anti-elite, anti-corrupt instincts but has brutal dictatorial tendencies of their own,” English said.
Washington wonders whether the turmoil is over
The assumption in Washington is that the hastily announced truce brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, which led to Prigozhin halting his advance on Moscow, is far from the end of the story. “It’s too soon to tell exactly where this is going to go,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “I suspect that this is a moving picture.”
At the same time, there is a sense that Putin – whose rule has long relied on his ability to keep various factions below him placated – has seen his credibility as a leader seriously wounded.
Blinken said that the fact that a strong figure inside Russia had questioned Putin’s authority directly was “something very, very powerful.” He added: “It adds cracks, where those go, when they get there, too soon to say, but it clearly raises new questions that Putin has to deal with.”
The possibility that a weakened Putin could seek more extreme ways to turn around a war that is threatening his hold on power is likely to preoccupy the US and its allies. Biden has been adamant about the need to avoid the conflict spilling over into a direct Russia-NATO conflict. But the fact that the war is now causing deep splits inside Russia in a way that could affect the integrity of its operations may be an argument for quickly escalating western help to Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that as Russia’s assault continues, it was “even more important” for the West to support Ukraine to allow it to retake more land and to strengthen its negotiating hand.
Putin’s apparent vulnerability is likely to embolden those who argue that Biden has been too timid, despite reviving the Western alliance to help Ukraine defend itself in the most sweeping transatlantic mobilization since the end of the Cold War and sending billions of dollars and advanced weapons. Critics complain that the West has given Ukraine enough to survive but not to expel Russian troops from all of its territory and even Crimea, which Putin illegally annexed in 2014.
Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd, a former CIA officer and Texas congressman, said Sunday that statements from the US and its allies that they were monitoring events in Russia sent a weak message to Putin. “There’s another word for that. That’s wringing your hands and doing nothing,” Hurd said. After intelligence reports suggesting potential action by Prigozhin, “we should have been planning with our allies, we should have been planning with the Ukrainians on how to take advantage of this opportunity,” Hurd said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
Hurd – one of the handful of candidates to anchor his campaign to directly attacking the GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump – has only recently jumped into the presidential race. But his comments reflect the reality that while Biden’s premier responsibility is the foreign policy implications of the war in Ukraine, he must begin to consider the conflict’s implications for his political prospects.
Any worsening of already dire US relations with Moscow – or incidents that bring US and Russian forces into conflict – are likely to play into the hands of Republicans, especially Trump, who is warning that Biden’s support for Ukraine could cause World War III.
Trump’s claims that he could end the conflict in 24 hours are fatuous, and any solution he does propose is likely to benefit Putin, whom he has long admired. But while the war in Ukraine already dominates Biden’s legacy, a Russian collapse that leads to global chaos is unlikely to help him politically as an election year approaches.
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Ukraine is the war everyone wanted to fight but no one wants to win. The United States and NATO getting what it wants has created another crisis. And obviously there wasn't any military and diplomatic planning, once again.
Biden has adamantly told the world that Putin cannot remain in power. And Biden didn't plan for this? Biden is a quagmire President that turns winning into losing.
The Bidenistas claimed this is what they wanted. So, why aren't they dancing in the streets?
Because it is hard to dance when they are waiting for potential nuclear strikes.
Putin has promised repeatedly that if the US interfered directly with Ukraine he would respond. It isn't even a secret anymore that US forces are operating freely within Ukraine training troops, gathering logistics, and assisting in planning.
Russia isn't going to win; and Putin can't afford to lose. That leaves only the amount of time it takes for Putin to decide to use the first chemical/biological/nuclear weapons in Ukraine to try and end the conflict. Putin has to do something to prove he is still in power not just in Russia; but a force on the world stage as well.
I have asked several times what Ukraine provides to the US that we can't ourselves- and received no response. We are stuck now backing the faux John Wayne in tailored khakis until the bitter (possibly total) end.
Brandon has no plan on how to end the war; and no clue who will fill the coming power vacuum in Russia.
Someone needs to explain what winning means if possible collapse of Putin's government causes panic. What, exactly, is winning supposed to look like?
Russia has captured and holds territory that can be used as bargaining chips. Biden is avoiding negotiations because Russia holds bargaining chips. So, Biden needs to push for removal of Putin because Putin has the advantage, at the moment. And Biden has not planned for the removal of Putin?
It's not just a vacuum in Russia. Ukraine defeating Russia means Russia loses the Black Sea. That completely upsets Russia's nuclear deterrence posture. The Black Sea becoming a NATO lake is a real threat to Russia.
Russia losing the Black Sea means Turkey becomes the regional power controlling the Black Sea. Turkey won't want Ukraine in NATO because that would be a challenge to Turkey's control over the Black Sea and regional power. Ukraine defeating Russia could be the start of a war with Turkey.
Biden has been trying to score political points; Biden hasn't been planning anything. Biden only does what the generals tell him to do. But we don't know what the military agenda has been, other than pumping public money into the hands of private contractors.
We all know Biden doesn't know what is going on from hour to hour let alone an endgame for a proxi-war. We know they used this as a distraction from the train wreck that is the Biden Administration. I imagine they are scrambling to find something to distract from that.
Do either you and Nerm or are you both bashing for the sake of bashing?
Then prove me wrong.
Seems clear that Biden assumed Ukraine would shift attention away from Afghanistan. Naturally the gung ho brass hats saw this as an opportunity to regain credibility, too. And it worked.
Now the Ukraine distraction has become another crisis that threatens to make Biden and the military look incompetent, again. The political rhetoric coming true may cause the house of cards to collapse and now everyone's panicked. There are too many questions without answers.
How does Russia pay reparations after Biden wrecked the Russian economy? Who fills the vacuum when Russia implodes? How does Biden avoid Russia becoming another Iran or North Korea? Why wouldn't the collapse of Russia result in a scramble for nuclear weapons to defend against the United States? How will Biden avoid the US economy being sucked into the vacuum created by the implosion of Russia?
Biden needs to explain what winning is supposed to look like. Victory parades will pass pretty quickly and someone will have to clean up the mess.
You made the claim, it is up to you to back it up.
Anyone can make a claim and then, when challenged, cravenly demand that they be proved wrong.
I could claim, for example, that Trump is mentally disturbed. If so, I bear the burden of proof to back up my claim. I cannot just demand others prove me wrong and think that makes me right until proven wrong.
Basic logic.
You know there will never be any kind of coherent answer to those questions.
He can't do it. This is a zero balance accomplishment administration. Remember this is a bumbling idiot who see the retreat from Afghanistan as a win.
Sounds like basic logic to me.
No, JRIC can't do it.
Sorry, but I have no faith in your judgment on this.
Something sorely lacking from the Democrats and the left.
EXACTLY what I was thinking as I wrote post 1.2.8!
Sounds like Will Hurd is out of the loop as are most shoulda-woulda-coulda folks.
When in denial just keep the status quo- because it is working just so damn well./S
Who's in denial, and just what is the status quo? Folding?
Will Hurd is a brass hat insider who made a career from the Russian bogeyman. The bigger concern is whether or not Biden's response sends a weak message to NATO. Why does Europe need NATO or the United States?
Keep in mind that Russia has been the 'deep state' excuse to meddle in European affairs. The US influence in Europe could collapse alongside a Russian collapse.
Will Hurd was all of 22-23 when he joined the CIA in 2000, he left it in 2009 at the age of 31 with an expertise in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan where he was stationed due to a fluency in Urdu.
As to "The US influence in Europe could collapse alongside a Russian collapse." Sorry to be rude, but wtf do you care?
The US government should be planning for this and how to use it to our advantage.
I'm sure they are and have been.
Putin’s propaganda machine had been able to keep Russians misinformed wrt the disaster he wrought — there was wide spread support for the Special Military Operation. Prigozhin laid bare Putin’s lies. The WSJ reported that there was little rallying for Putin — a pretty good indication that the Russian population is now aware of reality. The fact that Putin did pretty much nothing as Prigozhin marched on Moscow is a good indication that his military is spent. Putin’s stupidity of casting himself as a new Peter the Great has failed the oligarchs, probably the most fatal of his errors. If Russia does not move towards democracy, it seems likely that its next dictator will not repeat Putin’s error.
Putin's SMO must fail. Biden was the one who told people Putin would attack blunting Putin's initial propaganda. Biden was the one who pulled the Europeans together to resist this attack. If we want peace, then we can’t permit a nuclear power to attack and assimilate a non-nuclear power. Otherwise, we send the message that nuclear weapons are the only guaranty of maintaining your sovereignty. The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be the patriots fighting for democracy & self determination that the insurrectionist morons and their enablers here pretend to be. Is that why so many Republicans don't want to help the Ukrainians? Republicans had no problem spending orders of magnitude more treasure on the two useless long term wars we exited.
Wasn't toppling Putin what everyone wanted? Biden told the world that Putin cannot remain in power. Beating a dead horse won't address what happens after Putin.
Notice that Ukraine isn't even part of the discussion. The war in Ukraine has never been about Ukraine.
So, where is Biden now? Biden warned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine for six months before it happened. Biden could see the invasion coming and either could not or would not do anything to prevent it.
Biden wanted Putin to be weakened but couldn't see that coming. And Biden is even less prepared to do anything now than before the invasion. If Biden getting what he wanted is a crisis then what, exactly, is winning supposed to look like?
Yes, Putin is bad news. What most people want is for Russia to be free of dictators like Putin and start operating more like a responsible nation.
I suspect most people realize that Putin's replacement could be worse. We also have seen Russia (the former USSR specifically) make good moves with good leaders (e.g. Gorbachev.).
Let's hope the determining forces of Russia make good moves.
Isn't that something Russians must decide? Attempting to dictate to the Russian people what type of government Russia should have would be height of hypocrisy.
Ukraine was a power center in the USSR that challenged Russia. Don't fearmonger about the Soviets while ignoring Ukraine's Soviet history.
A more honest hope would be that Russia becomes more like western Europe. Maybe Russia can take over the burden of supporting NATO.
Yeah, Nerm, did you not read this from my post?:
Russia invaded Ukraine. Did you not notice that?
My hope was entirely honest.
Many didn't believe that Russia was actually going to move on Ukraine. Biden would have had to launch a pre-emptive attack to prevent it. That would have been monumentally stupid. What should he have done other than thwart Putin's propaganda and arm Ukraine?
The west is getting to fight a proxy war that massively weakened both Putin & Russia; losing no blood and very little treasure. Russia used to be considered the 2nd most powerful military in the world, now they're the 2nd most powerful military in Ukraine. Nobody saw that coming. This war has always been a crisis created by Putin. Mill bloggers in Russia have been apoplectic for months about the stupidity of Putin & his military leaders. Winning is the free world standing behind Ukraine with its wealth helping them push the Russians out. Biden is insuring that Ukraine has the means to accomplish that, in spite of the conservatives supporting Russia both in our gov't and the media.
Nerm has absolutely no clue what he is talking about.