Unfortunately i think this is true. As much as we all like to say that Russia should have gone all the way in 2014 i think the material basis just wasn’t there yet. Russia has come a very long way since 2014, economically but also militarily, and this should be acknowledged. Arguably they were not even fully ready in 2022, but they literally could not wait any longer, even a few more weeks might have been too late and the Donbass could have been overrun by Nazis and there would have been large scale massacres and an exodus of millions of civilians fleeing to Russia. Russia waited until the very last possible moment. They had to sort out their military issues on the fly, and it’s actually quite impressive what they managed to achieve while fighting all of NATO in a proxy war.
I really don’t think that the potential massacre tipped the scales here. Realpolitik requires that you let people die if the consequences of intervening threaten national security.
From what I read, Russian intelligence could no longer assure that the activities of NATO were not preparations of nuclear kill chain capabilities. This, I believe, is far more likely to be the cause of the SMO launching when it did and the genocide of ethnic Russians was the legal and moral pretext that aligned with Russia’s national security profile.
Different people can have different reasons for doing things, and often there is not a single reason. For some in the Russian government what you say was probably the main reason, for others it may have only been one of multiple reasons. Either way, that is the most important reason for me to support this operation. And it is the reason which in my opinion best explains the timing. If it was only about NATO activities then the timing doesn’t necessarily make sense. Why not earlier or later?
It’s also not just a matter of not letting people die, it’s about the severe political consequences of doing so and the impact that such a massive political and refugee crisis would have on Russia and Russian society. Something like that has the potential to topple a government and bring real hardliners to power instead.
As i said, this is just my opinion. I don’t think we can know for sure until someone deep inside the Russian government writes their memoirs and tells us.
I agree with your main points. I just don’t think saving lives at the expense of national security makes sense. I think national security was the main driver and saving lives was part of the process and part of the calculations.
As for the timing, I think the timing was very interesting from an intelligence perspective. The US was warning about an imminent attack and Ukraine was saying there was no intelligence to support it and then Russia invaded the next day. To me, that says the Russians were testing the West’s intelligence capabilities and launched when they thought they had the element of surprise. I think they were correct and the ensuing first day of battle gave the Russians good intelligence on what was and wasn’t known by the West. It is very useful to know what your opponents know (and what they don’t know), so I think timing was partially urgency and partially opportunity.
Exactly. Russia had only bad choices. They tried to navigate them as best they could. With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to see that the west was playing them all along with the Minsk agreements and such but even if they’d had known that making the move was incredibly dangerous and the more time spent preparing the better.
Russia’s hand was quite literally forced. Either stand up now at the last moment or be trod on for the next decade or more. Either way NATO would have won and that’s what people saying Putin made this worse don’t understand: the chessboard was already fixed. What Russia has pulled off instead we must be aware of is nothing short of a humiliation of NATO and the west so dire that they’ve nearly escalated to all out war against Russia and only Russian nukes prevent that. They have without intending to given hope to the global south, to anti-imperialist forces, to everyone who resists US/EU/NATO hegemony and that is worth more than a few more racist, reactionary Euro-nazi-lover nations officially joining NATO instead of maintaining a tactical neutrality.
Unfortunately i think this is true. As much as we all like to say that Russia should have gone all the way in 2014 i think the material basis just wasn’t there yet. Russia has come a very long way since 2014, economically but also militarily, and this should be acknowledged. Arguably they were not even fully ready in 2022, but they literally could not wait any longer, even a few more weeks might have been too late and the Donbass could have been overrun by Nazis and there would have been large scale massacres and an exodus of millions of civilians fleeing to Russia. Russia waited until the very last possible moment. They had to sort out their military issues on the fly, and it’s actually quite impressive what they managed to achieve while fighting all of NATO in a proxy war.
I really don’t think that the potential massacre tipped the scales here. Realpolitik requires that you let people die if the consequences of intervening threaten national security.
From what I read, Russian intelligence could no longer assure that the activities of NATO were not preparations of nuclear kill chain capabilities. This, I believe, is far more likely to be the cause of the SMO launching when it did and the genocide of ethnic Russians was the legal and moral pretext that aligned with Russia’s national security profile.
Different people can have different reasons for doing things, and often there is not a single reason. For some in the Russian government what you say was probably the main reason, for others it may have only been one of multiple reasons. Either way, that is the most important reason for me to support this operation. And it is the reason which in my opinion best explains the timing. If it was only about NATO activities then the timing doesn’t necessarily make sense. Why not earlier or later?
It’s also not just a matter of not letting people die, it’s about the severe political consequences of doing so and the impact that such a massive political and refugee crisis would have on Russia and Russian society. Something like that has the potential to topple a government and bring real hardliners to power instead.
As i said, this is just my opinion. I don’t think we can know for sure until someone deep inside the Russian government writes their memoirs and tells us.
I agree with your main points. I just don’t think saving lives at the expense of national security makes sense. I think national security was the main driver and saving lives was part of the process and part of the calculations.
As for the timing, I think the timing was very interesting from an intelligence perspective. The US was warning about an imminent attack and Ukraine was saying there was no intelligence to support it and then Russia invaded the next day. To me, that says the Russians were testing the West’s intelligence capabilities and launched when they thought they had the element of surprise. I think they were correct and the ensuing first day of battle gave the Russians good intelligence on what was and wasn’t known by the West. It is very useful to know what your opponents know (and what they don’t know), so I think timing was partially urgency and partially opportunity.
Exactly. Russia had only bad choices. They tried to navigate them as best they could. With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to see that the west was playing them all along with the Minsk agreements and such but even if they’d had known that making the move was incredibly dangerous and the more time spent preparing the better.
Russia’s hand was quite literally forced. Either stand up now at the last moment or be trod on for the next decade or more. Either way NATO would have won and that’s what people saying Putin made this worse don’t understand: the chessboard was already fixed. What Russia has pulled off instead we must be aware of is nothing short of a humiliation of NATO and the west so dire that they’ve nearly escalated to all out war against Russia and only Russian nukes prevent that. They have without intending to given hope to the global south, to anti-imperialist forces, to everyone who resists US/EU/NATO hegemony and that is worth more than a few more racist, reactionary Euro-nazi-lover nations officially joining NATO instead of maintaining a tactical neutrality.
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