Would Any Other Russian Leader Really Be Better Than Putin?

By Jim Geraghty

Monday, July 10, 2023

 

Gary Kasparov, the chess master and chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative and a co-founder of the Russia Action Committee, offers a scathing op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, declaring, “Ukrainians Die as America Dawdles.”

 

The Biden administration may well contend the fact that some Americans think they’re sending too much aid to Ukraine too quickly, and that some other some Americans think they’re sending too little aid to Ukraine too slowly, means that President Biden must have reached some Goldilocks-style happy medium.

 

But it’s more likely that the erratic decision-making and sluggish, start-and-stop process of sending arms has instead generated the worst of both worlds – the U.S. is running low on some key weapons systems, particularly long-range missiles, while Ukraine is always forced to improvise and make due with fewer weapons than they need.

 

According to estimates by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, at the “surge” or prioritized production rate, it will take two and a half years to restock the U.S. supplies of High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) mobile-artillery system and vehicles, four years to restock at least one category of 155 millimeter shells, five and a half years to restock the Javelin anti-tank-missile stockpile, and six and a half years to restock the Stinger air-defense-missile stockpile.

 

Meanwhile, Ukraine always seems to have just enough weapons and ammunition to stand its ground, but never enough to turn the tide. Kasparov is 100 percent correct that Biden’s “we will stand with Ukraine as long as it takes” is empty blather without some specifics behind the happy talk, detailing what it means to “stand with Ukraine.” 

 

But Kasparov also makes some assertions that many Americans will doubt.

 

Mr. Putin is terrified of escalation. Yet it’s the U.S. and NATO that act as if the collapse of his illegitimate regime—or what’s left of Russia itself—would somehow be worse than a nuclear arsenal in the hands of a KGB thug waging genocidal war in Europe. Anyone else would be better.

 

I will readily concede that “better than Vladimir Putin” is a really, really low bar to clear. But are we absolutely certain that any Russian leader would be an improvement upon Putin? Just how different would the policies and decisions be under a Putin loyalist like secretary of the security council Nikolai Patrushev, security service chief Alexander Bortnikov foreign intelligence head Sergei Naryshkin? There are far-right nationalists who argue the Russian effort in Ukraine hasn’t been brutal or aggressive enough. A couple of years ago, Radio Free Europe noted that the crackpot, bellicose, and often offensive statements of Russian firebrand politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky were now much more mainstream in Russian culture.  Yevgeniy Prigozhin seems like every bit a brute and a maniac as Putin.

 

In light of all this, aren’t the odds high that Putin’s successor will be roughly as much of a problem as he is? This isn’t an argument for the U.S. taking actions to keep Putin in place, just a wary clear-eyed perspective that the devil you don’t know may well be even more dangerous than the devil you do know. Sure, we would love to see “regime change” or wholesale changes in the way Russia is governed, to see the rise of a less antagonistic, less reckless, less abusive regime in Moscow. But that doesn’t mean our elected leaders have to run around proclaiming that we want to see changes at the top of Russia’s government. There’s a reason that when Biden ad-libbed, “for God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” that his staff rushed to insist Biden didn’t mean what he just said.

 

Second, while I recently wrote that based upon the past thirty years, we probably – emphasis on probably — don’t have to worry about Russian nuclear weapons getting stolen or sold… that assumes a unified Russian state and military controlling those weapons. The collapse of Putin’s regime would introduce a whole lot of variables into that equation.

 

NBC News reported, “an unofficial American peace delegation met in April with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in New York to discuss potential terms for a ceasefire in Ukraine.” As Noah Rothman observed, this action makes a hash of Biden’s previous promises that “we are not going to engage in any negotiation” and “there’s nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” As with many other issues, Biden makes a lot of grandiose and bold promises that he forgets about or ignores the moment they become inconvenient. When it comes to Biden’s decision-making on Ukraine aid, Kasparov has a lot of fair complaints. But to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the president you have, not the president you might want.