From Russia with Good and Bad News

By Mark Antonio Wright

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

 

First, the bad news.

 

Vladimir Putin is clearly escalating this war in hope of rescuing victory (or at least a favorable settlement) from the jaws of defeat. Too much Russian blood and treasure has been wasted for the Kremlin to limp away with its credibility intact. The Russians are going to throw hard punches in the next weeks and months. If the war remains merely a conventional conflict, it’s improbable that the Russian army will regain the initiative. A growing and confident Ukrainian army, armed and supplied by the West, should be able to defeat any renewed Russian offensives.

 

But, unless the Russian army collapses outright — and remember: Hope is not a plan — simply defeating Russian offensives this fall and winter won’t be the end of Ukraine’s problems or the West’s. As has been widely noted, the Kremlin has two weapons that it can deploy far from the mud and trenches of eastern and southern Ukraine: gas and the atom.

 

To parry the nuclear saber rattling, Jerry Hendrix proposes that NATO preemptively declare that allied nations will respond in force to any Russian attempt to “escalate to deescalate” the conflict:

 

The West should respond together in a clear NATO declaration: Any introduction of nuclear weapons, or for that matter any weapons of mass destruction, on the European plain will result in a full response from the alliance. NATO aircraft will not just establish a no-fly zone, but rather instantly come to the aid of Ukrainian forces and go on the offensive against Russia. NATO ships will quickly move to sink any Russian ships in Ukrainian ports or operating in the Black or Baltic Seas. Likewise, it will blockade any ships in Russian ports. Meanwhile, NATO troops, who have been quietly pre-positioned in the east over the past seven months, will enter Ukraine. Lastly, key Russian military positions — including command-and-control nodes, fuel dumps, and ammunition depots that sit on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border — will be eliminated.

 

Such a policy would, of course, have the benefit of putting forward the strongest possible deterrent wrench into Putin’s calculations — a redux of the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine of the Cold War — but such a grave decision should not be undertaken without the consent of Congress. Unfortunately for us all, I’m doubtful that congressional leaders will move on this or any such proposal.

 

Which leads us to contemplate how the West will respond after the use of nuclear weapons on the European continent.

 

In his 60 Minutes interview, President Biden said the following when asked by Scott Pelley how the United States would respond should the Russians turn to nuclear weapons: “You think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be? Of course, I’m not going to tell you. It’ll be consequential. They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been. And depending on the extent of what they do, [it] will determine what response would occur.”

 

“If I knew” . . . “depending on the extent” . . . “consequential.” If you can explain to me what that means and, more importantly, what that means to the Kremlin, please do.

 

As for an analysis of the coming European energy crisis caused by the Kremlin’s moves to cut its remaining energy exports to the West, look for Andrew Stuttaford’s forthcoming essay in next week’s issue of National Review magazine. It’s slated to be the cover story.

 

Now, the (relatively) good news.

 

Protesters have taken to the streets in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, and other cities in defiance of Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization, which will include a call-up of as many as 300,000 men.

 

Of course, Putin’s security-state goons are responding with force. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but it appears that many hundreds have been arrested.

 

And flights departing Russia quickly sold out.

 

The New York Times reports that “tickets to visa-free destinations such as Istanbul; Dubai; Yerevan, Armenia; and Almaty, Kazakhstan, were either sold out for the next several days or their prices had skyrocketed.”

 

Why is this good news? Because the best — though still decidedly unlikely — way out of this war is for Putin’s regime to be brought down and replaced by the Russian people themselves. These protests are but a mere ember, delicate if still pregnant with the possibility for change. Putin’s regime of course will do all it can to snuff out the scattered embers before they can grow into a conflagration.

 

Of course, a palace coup d’état, in which Putin is replaced by another possibly-more-hard-line faction in the Kremlin — is the depressingly most-likely scenario. My friend and National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger likes to say that democrats in Russia are “the bravest people on earth.”

 

They’re brave, because they put themselves in danger without much prospect of success.

 

We in the West should not be so naïve as to think that we will have or can have much influence on the toppling of Putin’s government, should that come. But moral support matters, and there may come a time when offering overt support — perhaps with a publicly made offer of a cease-fire in Ukraine and the lifting of sanctions should a new government come to power — to a new provisional government may be warranted.

 

As the editors of National Review wrote in an editorial on February 28 soon after Putin’s renewed invasion:

 

The ultimate solution to our Vladimir Putin problem is a Russian one.

 

There are early and tentative signs that Putin’s aggression could be the spark that destabilizes his hold on power.

 

Russian democrats must take courage. Their task looks insurmountable. But Russians deserve the chance to live as a free people, and whether it takes weeks, months, or years, the United States should stand for a free Ukraine — and a free Russia.