Why escalate with Russia?

Letters from O'Brien #69

Dear Mr Smith,

The recent hypersonic weapons employment by Russia, and the talks of nuclear deployment to Ukraine by the west have made Ukraine - once again - ‘the current thing’. I have been paying attention to few key details around this whole ordeal, thus I am writing to you today and would like to address what I think the actual geopolitical play is.

I’m hearing people say that recent escalations are solely to stuff up peace negations between Trump and Putin, and is probably the main line of reasoning, although I have my doubts…

And as always with these letters, the situation is very fluid, things move quickly, and there’s every likelihood that dramatic shifts may have occurred by the time this letter gets to you. Nevertheless, there may be something of value beyond the immediate, if I may have just a little of your time.

ESCALATION

Four key events have occurred recently. The first was the approval of strikes into Russia from Ukraine using US built ATACMS missiles, and British built Storm Shadows. These had been employed within the country for some time, but the approval to strike into Russia is altogether another level of escalation. Russia noted that the ATACMS missiles require US satellites to operate, and presumably require US crews to set up and operate the systems themselves. This would have required top level authorisation from Washington, subsequently, this recent attack is technically a direct strike by the US against sovereign Russian territory. Starmer also gave direct approval for the Storm Shadow employment to begin.

The second key event was Russia’s initial response. Russia announced that it would change its nuclear doctrine from a defensive posture - Mutually Assured Destruction - to a more offensive one. Justified employment of Russian nuclear weapons will now include targets that are part of organised ‘blocs’ of nations attacking Russia, and supposedly targets in Ukraine that seek to strike into Russian territory.

The third was the Russian deployment of an experimental intermediate range hypersonic weapon against a factory in Ukraine. Again, Russia notified the US beforehand, and this was clearly a political/geostrategic move.

The fourth was a further western response, the possibility of somehow arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons in the near future. This is highly unlikely, but I will discuss why I think they are doing all of this in such a manner.

THE INITIAL TACTICAL CLAIM

The recent Ukrainian missile attacks could not have been a military strike with the hope of really doing anything significant. These missiles - aimed at targets long distances away - had to fly through the most saturated region of air defence in the world. They were picked up, shot down, and whatever did hit their targets supposedly caused zero casualties and minor damage. No military strategist in their right mind would launch such an attack and expect some sort of tactical outcome. This was - in my view - purely political.

The first and most obvious thing to consider is the Trump administration coming to power in January next year. This is what everyone is highlighting for obvious reasons. The rhetoric from the campaign has been that the war with Ukraine will end before Trump is even in office. It is inferred that the peace deal will require Russia and Ukraine to sacrifice whatever territory is currently under adversarial control, and that Ukraine will be barred from entering NATO for over a decade. Most importantly, it will almost certainly result in regime change in Ukraine.

Now two key plays appear to have happened since then. The first was the so-called Kursk offensive not too long ago. The Ukrainians pulled troops from the contested eastern regions and sent them - under air support - over the lesser-defended norther border into Russian territory. From there, they captured territory extending into Kursk. This move was championed by the media as a genius military strategy, but realistically it has no military value. This is evidenced by the fact that Russia has refused to relocate troops from the trenches of the ‘eastern front’. It does however have a geostrategic benefit; Russia will not agree to a peace deal if it loses random cut-outs of territory to Ukraine. Russia since then has stated that they will not negotiate if the Kursk bridgehead remains under Ukrainian control.

The second key play was evidently this recent missile strikes. With supposedly zero casualties, what really mattered was the act itself. It necessarily required both US/UK approval, and a willingness to strike further into Russian territory on sovereign ground. Just like the Kursk offensive, the only real benefit I can perceive coming from such a move is the avoidance of a peace conference.

UKRAINES DISADVANTAGE

Now before I get into why I believe Washington and Moscow are both playing this game, I want to also highlight the dynamic I see at work in regard to the whole ‘peace talks’ process, and why the framing is wrong…

In Washington, there is this consistent bipartisan belief that - like it or not - Russia is exhausted from the two yearlong regional war, and insomuch as a peace deal is concerned, Putin will quickly jump on it to end the fighting. I do not believe this, nor do I think the evidence suggests this is true. In fact, I believe that the deliberate picking and choosing of evidence has led to a ridiculous western doctrine which is driving this geostrategic play in Ukraine…

The belief seems to be (held by both the left and right by the way) that if a peace deal is not struck next year, that eventually Russia will lose the war. They believe this will happen through both a continued war of attrition in Ukraine, and an economic war against Russian energy sector and imports. These will supposedly lead to the collapse of Russia, and possibly regime change. I don’t think either of these things are true. The fundamental axiom of this worldview is the belief that Ukraine has the advantage in a war of attrition, and thus a peace deal would be a mercy-act for Russia.

In actuality, I believe this western play is naive and false; I believe a peace deal will end the suffering, but will ultimately benefit Ukraine more than it does Russia, since Ukraine will likely retain the territory it currently holds. If a peace deal is not struck, Russia will win the war one way or another. Why do I think that? There are a few reasons.

Firstly, despite combined efforts by western militaries to bolster Ukraine’s military capabilities, and despite Ukraine’s constant attempts to maximise its manpower, they have been outdone by the Russian military in terms of pure longevity (when it comes to attrition). As of late, Russia appears to be heading for operational victory in Donetsk, despite mobilisation of 40,000 Ukrainian troops to contest the region. Russia still holds Crimea, and it is an abstraction to even imagine a push strong enough to regain such territory. Luhansk is in open rebellion and Russian control in the region is strong.

Secondly, these combined western efforts highlight inherent flaws in manufacturing, and in military strategy. The infamous shell shortages for artillery highlighted that combined western efforts were not sufficient to consistently supply crews with enough ammunition to operate. Supply lines for air defence components are strained, as are even rudimentary parts like rifle ammunition. In one recent example, manufacturers were unable to produce new Javelin missile guidance systems - because they forgot how to make them - and had to bring in retired engineers from the 1980s to re-teach everyone. The shell issue is particularly telling, if one remembers the story; western military personnel were sent to Ukraine to analyse their use of artillery. They were shocked to learn that the Ukrainians - like the Russians - were burning through thousands of shells a day in creeping barrages, like it was World War 1. Ukrainian artillery crews were then taught the ‘proper way’ of using artillery, which was essentially to use the American tactic; short fire missions on pinpoint coordinates, followed by reports from a forward observer, and then repeated missions if necessary. These tactics are ‘superior’ to the rolling barrage method, but in a war of attrition that has devolved into trench battles, I’m going to assume that they did not suffice. Because almost immediately after being taught these tactics, the Ukrainians went back to their tried and tested method of continual nonstop barrages.

And despite all of this, Russia’s military is now larger than it was in 2022, it has better gear now, its manufacturing processes - just like in World War 2 - have ramped up tremendously, and the Russian government has not enacted a state of war, thus the military is not even fully mobilised. The western doctrine of sending ‘game changing’ wonder weapons like Javelins, F-16s, HIMARs and so forth exemplifies the caricatured nature of this war to westerners; it is all about keywords and hype. Yet on the ground the most essential weapons are not glamorous and do not ‘sell’ anything in the west. They are artillery shells, land mines, drones, and consumer electronics like iPads.

Lastly, I believe that Zelensky is artificially held up by Washington, and this is impacting any peace negotiations. I believe that if Washington cuts funding to the country, there will be regime change, or at the very least a power struggle will break out in Kiev. Tactical signals point towards operational defeat for Ukraine. Ukrainian territory is being eroded. A peace deal would put this on hold. Yet despite all this, Zelensky’s regime continues to push the war on, which leads me to draw the conclusion that the Ukrainian regime is continuing to fight this war for reasons other than tactical victory. The Zelensky government has made the amateur political mistake of over-committing to a specific ideological sphere; the Ukrainian regime is explicitly interlinked with the Biden-Harris regime, and with ‘current-thing’ leftism. All of Ukrainians messaging for over two years has been heavily tilted towards the Biden-DNC crowd, and openly hostile to conservatives. Compare this to the more intelligent bipartisan playbook a country like Israel uses. What Ukraine has done is gone all-in on a losing horse, alienated those who could provide the escape route, and most importantly has over-extended its hand in a conflict it could never win. The Ukrainian leadership would be aware that their regime is doomed one way or another, and extending the war may prolong the inevitable.

GEOSTRATEGIC PLAY

Looking beyond the Ukraine war, the United States has consistently held a posture of animosity towards Russia with the goal of permanently weakening the region. During the early Soviet era this was justified. By the 1970s and onwards it was increasingly ridiculous. The Soviets would react primarily to American weapons developments, such as anti-ballistic missile systems and other defensive or offensive systems which necessarily threatened the dynamic of mutually assured destruction. This was the case specifically in the early 1960s and during the Reagan era.

In the early post-USSR era, America became ‘closer’ with Russia. Throughout the 1990s, Russia was in economic disarray, and beyond its nuclear arsenal, it didn’t pose a hegemonic threat to the US. Even during the early 2000s, there was still a level of positivity in the west surrounding Putin. I think this was all because Russia at that point was necessarily weak. The moment this dynamic changed, the old Cold War dialectic stepped back up again. This was entirely the fault of US politicians refusing to normalise ties with Russia. This dynamic obviously continues today.

While the Ukraine War has often been posited as a battle for the control of the Ukrainian region itself, in truth it seems that the goal from the beginning has been to either economically destroy Russia, or force regime change.

The recent escalation from the west appears to have served two purposes. The first - and most obvious - is that it necessarily prolongs any peace talks from taking place. As noted earlier, this is not advantageous to Ukraine, but it does serve US interests. The second (which ties into the first in a way) is that these strikes - while being purely escalatory rather than militarily strategic - send a message to the Russian people. Despite having the military advantage on the ground, the Russian populace have been consistently bombarded with anti-Russian messaging for years. These recent strikes indicate to the Russian people that the enemy are supposedly able to strike their homes.

The goal here would be to destabilise trust in Putin’s government. Note how the messaging changed from explicitly anti-Russian propaganda early in the conflict, to a more nuanced anti-regime message aimed at the Russian people. In my view, the western play is to signal to the Russian people that Putin has made a dire mistake, and that their own homeland is now under direct threat. This is also partly what I think the Kursk offensive took place.

Since Russia’s hypersonic missile response, we are hearing more rhetoric in the west about the ‘necessity’ to escalate with China and North Korea. This is a telling admission, since whenever North Korea is bought up as part of a threat, it is usually geopolitical rhetoric. This move, too, seems to be a bid to signal to Russia that the west is ready to take on Russian allies to secure victory ‘in Ukraine’. Again, it is rhetoric, and whether the US can handle such a fight or not (they can’t) is meaningless, so long as it sends a particular message to Moscow. Again, North Korea is the key mention here, since both the US and China use Korea as a pawn in their rhetoric, despite essentially being an isolationist Stalinist state.

The Russian response communicates proportionate strength, to signal back to the Russian people that the government can still escalate. The indirect threatening of Poland seems to align with this train of thought. Poland has historically been a troublesome region for both east and west, in a similar manner to Ukraine. Russia’s recent suggestion that it may start striking Poland is likely a countersignal to the initial threats against the Russian people by missile systems placed in Ukraine.

Now on a side note, I believe that what the Russians (or rather the Russian leadership) fear more than nuclear escalation is defeat or inward weakness. That’s why these strikes are such effective propaganda. The western media doesn’t seem to understand this; Putin threatening to nuke Poland is scary, but at the same time it communicates a level of resolve which likely bolsters faith from the Russian people. However, if the dynamic is that Putin could lose Russia to Ukraine, then perhaps the people may feel compelled to change governments, ‘give back’ territory in Ukraine, and retain a sense of sovereignty rather than be at (what would be presented as) the losing end of a forever war. In other words, Russia must necessarily escalate. If the US employs a new weapon, or a new defence that alters the game, Russia must respond in kind. That seems to be the game.

Now there is one final thing to consider in this context. Yes, it is true that any potential peace talks negotiated by Trump will be affected by the Kursk incident, the missile strikes, and the rhetorical escalation. However, I am also not convinced that Trump will end the war. Chance are he will, and I hope he does, but we must remember that it was Trump’s foreign policy towards Ukraine which indirectly led to the conflict escalating, it was Trump who opened up the possibility of missiles being deployed to Ukraine, thus fracturing any trust between Russia and the west on this topic, as well as opening up increased arms sales to the country. This led to major escalations in their civil war, and this directly resulted in Russia’s military intervention.

RIGGED FROM THE BEGINNING

All of this leads me to the conclusion - which I have held for a while - that this is rather an ‘unnatural’ conflict which seems to only lead to anti-western outcomes.

From the start of the conflict, I have been torn over the reality of the situation. On the one hand, Russia’s moves are evidently the result of provocation, whilst on the other, the Ukrainian people have been played as a pawn. In the grand scheme of things, it makes no strategic sense; the largest movers in the world are China, India, and increasingly the middle eastern nations. Russia should be a natural ally of the west. Since the 1990s, Russia’s pleas to join in and normalise relations with the rest of Europe and the US have obviously been rejected. Just as with the breakup of Yugoslavia, foreign intervention and manipulation have helped foment an atmosphere of instability and perpetual hostility.

I think the framing of Russia and the US as the two predominant superpowers is necessarily false. I see Russia as a western nation. Russia’s alignment with China, India, and so on is somewhat unnatural. Their natural alignment would be with Europe and America. Russia is also unique from the others in that it isn’t trying to alter global geopolitics. China is. India is. The US is. This has probably come from a fundamental misunderstanding of Soviet politics and the changes that have occurred.

During the early Soviet era, US opposition to the eastern bloc was justified. The Soviet ideology was built on global revolution, and the Soviets did directly destabilise nations to adopt communism. Also, Russia was more ‘naturally’ aligned with the eastern nations during this time because of this ideological disposition. The Russians fundamentally could not align themselves with America since their entire empire was built on this concept of anti-western critique.

Since then, everything has obviously changed. China’s subliminal rejection of Bolshevik-inspired Maoism occurred during the Deng era, and now we have Xi Jinping openly calling communist revolution ‘a mistake’. Putin’s indifference towards socialism has led him to desire a more traditional nation. Thus, the fundamental principles under this eastern alliance appear to economic co-dependency and strategic necessity. Their cultures are very different, their ambitions are different, and their values are different.

This is all to say, the US obsession with a Russian confrontation is, I believe, anti-western. It serves no grand purpose to benefit either side, nor does it address emerging global threats. It is clearly the by-product of motivated interest groups, and this is exemplified by the core factor of division; that Russia is anti-liberal. This is code for Russia being against a foreign experiment (Karl Poppers Open Society model) which has been pulled over the eyes of the western sphere. Since these ideas are not American, nor European, but rather ideas planted to destroy the populations of these countries, I see this point of disagreement between Russia and the west not as a fundamental point of contention, but as a dialectical point of criticism which serves to unify Russia and the west in the long run.

On a more esoteric note, it is worth considering that for the past century or two, there has been a strange, consistent obsession by those in power to spiritually and ritually humiliate the Russian people. I think this goes beyond the Cold War and geopolitics. There is a strange ethnic hatred against Russian people in recent history, and this is arguably stronger than the hatred for the Anglos or Germans. I think of Dostoevsky’s belief that the final Christian awakening will start in Russia. Consider how Eastern Europe represents the last standing remnant of the old Christian order from before the Protestant reformation. Think about who benefited from (and who didn’t) the old united, Christian Europe under the Orthodox-Catholic alliance. The old Catholic and Orthodox orders in Europe made many enemies, and whilst modern westerners pay no mind to centuries-old alliances and happenings, I believe other groups have not forgiven what occurred during those times, and those unvoiced rivalries continue to this day.

But anyways, I pin a lot of these ‘modern day Cold War’ shortcomings on US foreign and domestic policy. Why are we nearly at war with Russia? Because the state department wants to isolate Russia. Why? Well, that’s the orders we get from Paul Wolfowitz, or whoever. Why is there a new geopolitical contest over South America? Because the US never addressed key issues in the region (which were abundantly obvious), leading to instability, and now we can’t access natural resources there because China is offering a better deal, so we must strain our economy and fight them… apparently. Why are we reverting to 1970s-style perpetual middle eastern warfare? Because Israeli lobbyists say so and being our greatest ally (mind you, they have assisted the US in… zero conflicts, ever) there is an obligation, and people like the evangelical Mike Johnson will happily go along with this. This ends in Americas bankruptcy, yet no one says a word.

CONCLUSION

In summary, although not the deepest or most explorative letter, I wanted to highlight the dynamic I believe is at play. The US wants regime change in Russia arguably more than it desires victory in Ukraine. Talks of global escalations with China, North Korea, and Syria all point in the same direction. The US approved strikes into Russia, the Kursk offensive, and the talks of nuclear deployment to Ukraine all serve to strike fear into the citizens of Russia and waver their support for Putin, in a bid to see regime change. This comes down to the citizens perception of power dynamics; ‘crazy Putin’ threatening global nuclear war is necessarily a more comforting figure than a strong Putin who stands his ground with all the might Russia has at its disposal.

Anyway, I wanted to bring this back to a core issue; Russia should naturally be a western ally. Enmity with Russia is disadvantageous to the west as we have China and India clearly on one side, and the west on the other.

In the middle of this polarity-shift are countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia, who both appease China/India and have obvious political sway over America (and thus by proxy, Europe). Israel is positioning itself to be the ‘centre of the new world’, positioned between Asia, Europe, and Africa. They are both part of Belt and Road, and Europe’s competition to B&R (the name escapes me). They will be able to mediate trade between Africa (Nigeria may be the ‘next China’ for cheap manufacturing), they will control shipping lanes, they will be friends with everyone. The thing is, this should be America; there is no reason why the US could not mediate a level of global peace and sit in an advantageous position between east and west. Yet here we are, the US is the one country where statesmen are literally not allowed to negotiate (or in some cases even talk) to those in China, Syria, Iran, and so on. Everyone else is. So why not Washington? This in itself is one of the biggest reasons why this ‘new Cold War’ is even happening, and if it’s not addressed, it will just keep on going, to the disadvantage of all of us in the west.

Sincerely Yours

O’Brien