zenpundit.com

Dr. Nexon on Russian moves in Central Asia.

Ralph Peters has written a remarkably restrained ( for Peters) overview-analysis of Russian Prime Minister/strongman Vladimir Putin:

Why Putin should scare us

Putin has a quality found in elite intelligence personnel: the ability to discard all preconceptions when scrutinizing a target. And when he decides to strike, he doesn’t look back. This is not good news for his opponents, foreign or domestic.

Among the many reasons we misjudge Putin is our insistence on seeing him as “like us.” He’s not. His stage-management of the Georgia invasion was a perfect example: Western intelligence agencies had been monitoring Russian activities in the Caucasus for years and fully expected a confrontation. Even so, our analysts assumed that Russia wouldn’t act during this summer’s Olympics, traditionally an interval of peace.

Putin had been conditioned to read the strategic cards differently: The world’s attention would be focused on the Games, and key world leaders would be in Beijing, far from their crisis-management staffs. Europe’s bureaucrats and senior NATO officials would be on their August vacations. The circumstances were ideal.

It has also become a truism that Putin’s foolish for relying on oil, gas and mineral revenue while failing to diversify his economy. But Russia’s strongman knows what he’s doing: He prefers a wealthy government to a wealthy society. Putin can control a handful of oligarchs whose fortunes flow from a narrow range of sources (once Russia’s richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky sits in prison for crossing the Kremlin), but a diversified economy would decentralize power.

Dr. Barnett, himself, like Peters, a former Cold War-era Sovietologist, critiqued Peters article:

Peters on Putin: nationalist and pragmatic, mystical and cold, and plays by own rules

I tend to underappreciate Peters’ gushy over-estimation of Putin’s “brilliance” (he just acts boldly in ways that excite this former intell officer), and note his lack of any mention regarding the economic price Moscow has so far paid over Georgia (mil analysts tend to downplay financial repercussions in general).

It’s just the conclusion that I find clearly overwrought: Putin is possibly problem #1 for the next prez.

In sum, a very traditional analysis of a guy who exploits tradition nicely at home but also indicates he “gets” the current world fairly accurately and takes advantage only where we let him through our choices. No clear analysis of how our strategic interests are actually harmed, but no matter. A quick comparison (favorable) to Osama, but at least he skipped the usual Hitler one. No sense of Russia’s poor long-term economic trajectory.

I think Tom largely pegged it. Peters overshot on “mysticism” and “brilliance” but did a pretty good analysis, minus the blindness toward economic factors that represent the long-term definers of strategic, though not tactical, options for Russia.  The chances of Putin being even culturally influenced by traditional Orthodoxy are approximately zero, though Putin the shrewd politician probably appreciates the the mystical and romantically sentimental streak in Russia’s national psyche where affronts to Mother Russia are concerned. Putin’s nationalistic gestures are keyed to the Russian equivalent of Nixon’s “Silent Majority”. Putin is always “going to the people” with his foreign policy or domestic law and order crackdowns.

One departure for me from Peters and from Tom ( at least in the sense that he did not mention it) is that I do not see Putin as consumed by anger or temper in his moves against Saakashvili, though Putin may very well have a temper. Instead, I see a ruthless calculator who decided, some time ago, that Saakashvili was too intransigent and too egomaniacal to ever cut any kind of a deal with Russia, in open or secret. More or less the way the United States viewed Saddam Hussein, that the man had to go once and for all – not that Saakashvili is morally akin to Saddam in any way, just intolerable from Moscow’s perspective. 

Putin is driven to “win”, IMHO, because racking up those kinds of wins teaches good geopolitical lessons. That said, Putin did not know when to quit while he was ahead. After making the point by humiliating Georgia and Saakashvili militarily and the EU and the Bush administration diplomatically, Putin only gained great hostlility for Russia by dragging out troop withdrawal and by using belligerent rhetoric. A prompt departure would have retained the sense of awe and confidence that Russia’s military campaign had projected. So much for infallible “brilliance”.

Putin puts his pants on like the rest of us and makes mistakes. The difference between him and other statesmen is that Putin more often than not is thinking strategically when he makes a move.

One of the longer pieces that Tom has blogged in some time and it’s really good to see him go en fuego on such an important topic. Dr. Barnett puts the costs of playing the Russo-Georgian War ( and/or demonizing China. Some out there would like to do both!) in an unthinkingly “feel good” way as throwing away most of our gains from winning the Cold War. The Russians, meanwhile, demonstrate that there is no monopoly on strategically shortsighted hotheadedness by having bellicose generals issue aggressive bluster that alienates all of Russia’s neighbors and makes our job of rounding up diplomatic support in Europe about ten times easier. That was a complete gift ( and also an example on how events can start to spin dangerously out of control).

The Core comes with competing rule sets

…The same would be true for a Russia that militarily subdued the Baltics or Ukraine. When you re-introduce war into situations where the Core has collectively said to itself, “We think we’ve got this one in hand for the long haul,” then you’d shift defense thinking inside the Core away from its post-9-11 tendency to focus on the Gap and once again have it start giving preeminence to defending against such possibilities inside the Core. This, to me, is how you destroy globalization. Depending on how we play Russia in the weeks and months ahead, we can certainly put much of Europe and the U.S. on that pathway.

I see that as a stupid strategic choice that throws away decades of effort and sacrifice to get our international liberal trade order (just the West til about 1980 and called the global economy and globalization since) to where it is today, with just a mere one billion truly offline and the Gap eminently shrinkable–albeit with plenty of social tumult and violence to accompany that process (but not too much to handle for a Core whose attention isn’t diverted back to senseless intra-Core conflicts). I thought along these lines for a long time before PNM was published. My first major effort at the Center for Naval Analyses in 1991 saw me advocate radically ramping up navy-to-navy cooperation with the Russians. So I’ve been making this argument for 17 years and am not (surprise!) eager to trash the situation over Georgia’s miscalculations. If we put immature democracies (who start wars more than any other type of state historically) in that driver’s seat, we’re screwed.

Despite his muscular prose, Tom is actually understating the costs of a crashed globalization and defense budgets ramped up as far as the eye can see. I can’t put a dollar figure on it but the working denomination here is “trillions”.  We should really stop a moment and think about that and start calculating three or four steps down the road rather than tacking our moves to the needs of the MSM news cycle.

Galrahn at Information Dissemination, aside from some very kind words for me, which I appreciate,  dives into Tom’s post and adds his own excellent analysis:

Russia – Georgia Analysis We Can Support

….Russia and the US are not equals, but can be in their approach to the gap. I would also include other major powers in this equation. I love that piece by Tom, because in a great many words, he is essentially invoking our Yin Yang theory for strategically approaching our national interests.When any major power exercises power in the gap, it ultimately represents an opposing (competitive) and, at the same time, complementary (completing) application of power towards the ends of shrinking the gap. Tom found the Yin Yang.

In this case, Georgia, which has a relationship with the United States is being consumed by Russia, and ultimately will be regardless of what the United States does. This represents a loss of influence for the United States and Europe, a gain of influence for the Russians. BUT this also represents a long term complimentary action to the strategic goals of everyone in the core. Why? Because successful military intervention by a core nation into the gap shrinks the gap.Apply the same theory to Iraq. The US military intervention there represented a loss of influence by Russia and Europe, and a gain of influence by the United States. The result is an action that is complimentary to the strategic goals of other core nations (think China and energy here), and the effects of this intervention are broad. Consider what we see in the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait and we have movement towards more shrinking of the gap. There is no reason to believe that Russian intervention in Georgia couldn’t have a similar effect on regional nations, including Ukraine

The new states of the “near abroad” like Georgia are vulnerable to Russian meddling not because they are militarily weak but because their populations are disunited and their governments operate with dubious legitimacy, excess opacity and a systemic mafiya corruption that saps their national vitality. To stand strong, they need to clean up their acts in their own best interests so the help we extend can be effectively used.

Entitled Let’s Not Rush into Cold War II:

…In the earnest desire to help a beleaguered ally and perhaps longing for the good old days of Reagan Doctrine moral clarity, conservatives may be losing sight of something important – namely America’s strategic interests. Moreover, their silence in regard to grave failures by our national security establishment in this crisis is bewildering. The results of the Russo-Georgian war are a debacle. Either our State Department, CIA, and the Pentagon failed to accurately assess a likely Russian reaction to an attempt by Georgia to retake South Ossetia by force – an act that provided Moscow with a pretext to attack Georgia – or the war caught us completely by surprise. The former possibility is worrisome; the latter is inexcusable.

President Bush should be commended for his very firm but restrained moves to try and end this crisis and in the process salvage Georgia’s sovereignty and Mikheil Saakhashvili’s position as president of Georgia, both of which were close to being lost, mainly through Saakashvili’s own incompetence. Unfortunately, the president does not have much leverage to work with, having been maneuvered into a dispute with Russia at a time and place of Putin’s choosing rather than ours – a game where Putin and Medvedev hold all the good cards and can deal from the bottom of the deck.

Amusingly, some of the commenters there seem to believe that I am a) a liberal and b) a Russian shill and c) fit to be a member of The New York Times editorial board, perhaps the unkindest cut of all. 🙂

Sorry boys, if the Georgians had bloodied the Russian invaders, I’d have stood up and cheered with everybody else. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and that reality needs to be accepted on it’s own terms without pretending the Russian military is now ten feet tall. Giving limited aid to Georgia here is fine but the urge to rush in American troops to fight Russia for Saakasvili, as some would like to do, while the Europeans and Georgians sit and watch is simply asinine.

UPDATE:

Similar views from William Lind and Thomas Barnett. See also Spengler.

UPDATE II:

Much thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking to my PM post – Nice! ( Hat tip to blogfriend Purpleslog in the comments)

Perusing the latest news on the Russo-Georgian War via the always excellent SWJ Blog, I fear some of my analysis from the other day will come to pass, simply because the only restraint on Putin’s disposition to use force against Georgia thus far is Putin’s self-restraint. Of which I’m not seeing much.  If something constructive in terms of statesmanship is to be done to end the crisis, we ought to move toward doing it while the Georgian Army is still intact.

 Western bluster is not going to help Saakashvili as much as would quietly putting the squeeze on the far-flung economic interests of the siloviki clique in Putin’s inner circle, or of the Russian state itself. That would be a practical and proportionately useful response to signal displeasure with Moscow’s actions. Far moreso than invoking comparisons with Hitler or Saddam Hussein or other rhetorical nonsense by folks who know better.  But doing that would require that the Europeans – the nations that wanted the BTC pipeline, after all – rapidly act as a diplomatic united front with Washington and accept some risk of retaliation – say, a 100 % increase of gas prices by Gazprom.

Kudos to President Sarkozy ‘s efforts but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

Adam Elkus suggested that we may be seeing an example of military theorist Frank Hoffman’s hybrid war in action. Possibly. Or we may see a combined arms version of an EBO attack by Moscow against the Georgian state. The critical variable will be if the Russians try for an occupation of Georgia proper, which will likely result in an open-source insurgency, or if they are engaged in what used to be called a “punitive expedition” and intend a prompt departure while they are still ahead.

Addendum:

In addition to linking to me ( gracias!) Galrahn is chasing down some very interesting rumors regarding Israelis and also of threatened executions of POWs. 

Addendum II.

Discussion at Small Wars Council rises to the occasion.

Addendum III.

Registan has a series of informative posts and lively commenters (some anti-Barnett mania as well). Dr. Dan Nexon has a good post up at Duck of Minerva with a priceless quote:

“We don’t look very good,” said a former Pentagon official long involved in Georgia. “We’ve been working on [Georgia] for four years and we’ve failed. Everyone’s guilty. But Putin is playing his cards brilliantly. He knows exactly what he’s doing and the consequences are all negative.”

That kind of truth telling is good. The fact is that if you look at Georgia and the U.S. backed Ethiopian intervention, there seems to be a systemic failure to anticipate and plan a response for the likely eventualities when carrying out proxy operations. It’s almost as if there’s a rule somewhere forbidding the raising of “What if ”  questions during the interagency process.