This week, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) got stronger. NATO has a strict policy, every member must agree for the alliance to accept new members \u2013 every, single one of the thirty members. It\u2019s difficult to imagine that any thirty nations could all agree on any single issue. But here we are, Finland was already accepted, and this week, Turkey dropped their opposition to Sweden joining ($20 Billion worth of F-16\u2019s from the US to Turkey didn\u2019t hurt).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was studying world strategies in the 1970\u2019s, one of the ideas was to \u201ccontain\u201d Communism. The United States had a series of Treaty Organizations; NATO, CENTO, SEATO, stretching around the world and surrounded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People\u2019s Republic of China. The idea was to create a physical barrier to further Communist expansion. (Containment was the justification for the Vietnam War, \u201c\u2026better to fight Communism in Southeast Asia than in the fields of Iowa\u201d. We misjudged what the Vietnam War was all about. Now Communist Vietnam stands as a bulwark against Communist China \u2013 go figure).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When the Soviet Union collapsed, the \u201cmission\u201d of NATO seemed in jeopardy.\u00a0\u00a0There was no reason to protect against Communism, when Communism itself demonstrably failed.\u00a0\u00a0Many talked about abandoning NATO, including some of the core countries of the European Union.\u00a0\u00a0Others thought we should ask the newly \u201cdemocratic\u201d Russia to join in, as a way to support the reformed Yeltsin government there.\u00a0\u00a0And, when President Trump talked about disbanding NATO, he wasn\u2019t really crazy, he was just really late.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because Russia didn\u2019t remain a democracy. The rise of Vladimir Putin created a whole new kind of Russian autocracy, one based on a criminal oligarchy. It wasn\u2019t about the good of the Russian people, it was about the profits of the oligarchs surrounding their former KGB operative turned President. And as Putin solidified his leadership, he began to look beyond Russia\u2019s borders, lusting to re-form the USSR. Putin reasserted Russian military dominance in the south: Azerbaijan and Georgia. Then he looked at the Baltic States, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia; and the major nations to Russia\u2019s west, Belarus and Ukraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The other states of Eastern Europe, all formerly in the \u201cSoviet Bloc\u201d, were already in NATO. When the Baltic states looked for protection, NATO agreed. And that put NATO directly in the path of Putin\u2019s plan for Russian expansion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin and his minions intervened in elections and made sure that the leadership of Belarus and Ukraine remained sympathetic to Russian hegemony.\u00a0\u00a0And while Lukashenko in Belarus maintains control and close ties with Putin, the Ukrainian\u2019s \u201cRevolution of Dignity\u201d in 2014 removed the Russian backed President Yanukovych, replacing him with more democratic leaders.\u00a0\u00a0In response, Putin sent troops into the Eastern Ukrainian provinces of the Donbas and the southern province of Crimea, where Russia maintains its major warm-water naval base at Sevastopol.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin\u2019s incursion into Ukraine raised the alarm in the rest of Europe. The US responded with economic sanctions against Russia, but the oligarchs remained firm in their commitment to Putin. And with President Trump\u2019s actions, the perception was that NATO was weaker. The Eastern European members were looking in fear to their East. But without assured United States\u2019 support, those members were left \u201cin the wind\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n America remains embroiled in internal political conflict since 2016. The \u201cpandemic\u201d election of 2020, the Insurrection of January 6, 2021, and the ugly withdrawal from Afghanistan all gave the perception that the United States was so self-involved, it couldn\u2019t (or wouldn\u2019t) react to a Russian move on Ukraine. In fact, Putin thought that a major crisis might further fracture NATO, with the US stepping away from its responsibilities. That was his first mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin\u2019s second mistake was in misjudging the determination of the Ukrainian people. He thought that a \u201clightning strike\u201d of Russian troops on the capital, Kyiv, and against President Zelenskyy, would quickly topple the government. Putin could then replace Zelenskyy with someone more sympathetic to Russia, perhaps even Yanukovych again. But the \u201clightning\u201d fizzled, strung out in a seventeen mile traffic jam north of the capital. And Zelenskyy proved to be an inspirational leader, able to maintain Ukrainian unity against Russian pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin\u2019s third mistake was in depending on his own armed forces. In a government where profit to the oligarchs is the most important factor, a well-supplied and trained military just isn\u2019t that crucial to the cause. While Russian tanks had a feared reputation based on World War II, the reality is that the commanders couldn\u2019t even communicate without cell service, allowing Ukrainian forces to zero-in and kill the leaders of the Russian attack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And finally, Putin failed to recognize that his actions gave NATO a \u201creason to be\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0NATO existed to offset the Soviet Union, now it was clear that Russia was still an expansionist danger.\u00a0\u00a0Not only did NATO, led by the Biden Administration, unite in support of\u00a0\u00a0Ukraine; but two \u201cneutral\u201d nations, Sweden and Finland, determined to join the alliance.\u00a0\u00a0They not only have extensive borders with Russia, but have strong military forces themselves to add to NATO\u2019s strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putin\u2019s four major mistakes have left him weakened, so much so, that some of his oligarch allies are \u201ctesting\u201d his control. He involved Russia in the biggest land war in Europe since World War II in Ukraine; one that Russia seems ill-equipped to win. And Putin has done something that didn\u2019t seem possible just a few years ago: uniting NATO nations together, and making the alliance even stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is nothing more dangerous than a cornered Putin.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s under threat, from Ukraine, and from NATO.\u00a0\u00a0And he\u2019s vulnerable within.\u00a0\u00a0We saw the Wagner Group, a private army under control of a Putin ally, threaten to march on Moscow itself.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps the greatest proof of Putin\u2019s weakness is that his \u201cally\u201d,\u00a0Yevgeny Prigozhin, wasn\u2019t executed for treason.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, Putin had a \u201cmeeting\u201d with him, after the Wagner troops turned around and went back to their bases.\u00a0\u00a0That doesn\u2019t look like strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Putin still commands the Russian Strategic Forces; nuclear weapons in missiles, bombers and submarines.\u00a0\u00a0And he still controls the Russian \u201cspecial services\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Just last week a twenty-eight year old bank Vice-President \u201cfell to her death\u201d from a sixth floor apartment balcony (Daily Mail<\/a>) in classic Russian secret police style.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Putin may be weakened, but he\u2019s not finished.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s even more reason to continue to strengthen and grow NATO.\u00a0\u00a0Ukraine has not been invited to membership, yet.\u00a0\u00a0But once the current conflict is over, don\u2019t be surprised to see it as the next \u201cnewest\u201d member, blocking one more area of Russian expansion.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s the only thing to do, whether Putin remains in power, or one of his \u201cbuddies\u2019 finally pitches him out (the Kremlin window?).\u00a0\u00a0Because Russia is likely to remain a \u201crogue\u201d nation for a long while.\u00a0\u00a0And NATO is the “balanced” response to Russian expansion.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nRussian Democracy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Russian Hegemony<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Putin\u2019s Mistakes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
NATO<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Ukraine Crisis<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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