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Is Putin in Peril?

Oct 6, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be living in a parallel universe. By claiming sovereignty over a huge swath of Ukrainian territory from which Russia’s military is steadily retreating, he has staked his political future on a fantasy.

In this Big Question, we ask Robert D. Kaplan, Dina Khapaeva, Mark Leonard, and Angela Stent whether Putin’s grip on power will slip along with his apparent grip on reality.

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vic lai Oct 18, 2022

Today, a certain military Balance of Power has just been established between warring Russia and Ukraine in Europe, so far as the use of conventional weapons alone in the battlefields there is concerned.
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Ukraine is obviously being assisted by both the European NATO countries and the US, while Russia is being supported by the Asian (SCO) countries led by China, through the indirect channel of Iran.
Iran has been chosen by the East, since this country, like Russia, is also being sanctioned by the West to the moon, and so, the other Asian Countries like China, to avoid the potential sanctions from the US say, is using Iran's midway help to supply the necessary conventional weapons to Russia, with China probably contributing most of the needed military expenses, chips, and weapon-production skills to Iran.
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But West-backed Ukraine should seriously be warned not to further provoke Russia in the ongoing war in Europe, say by her coming possible attacking or even occupying of Crimea, since Putin's Russia will definitely and non-bluffingly reciprocate by actually using her own striking nuclear weapons for the first time since WWII.
If so, the military Balance of Power will immediately tilt toward Russia if the West doesn't choose to retaliate through the use of their own nuclear weapons, otherwise our world's coming steaming summers will all become freezing nuclear winters.
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vic lai Oct 13, 2022

Yes, especially in the recent months since the start of the Ukraine war in February this year.
No, starting from the last few days.
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In the past 8 months, Russia had mostly been fighting a long and arduous city-occupying land war with Nato-backed Ukraine, had faced more and more increasingly advanced NATO weapons and better and better military intelligence supplied to the Ukrainian soldiers in the battlefields, and so had gradually turned from being the offending side to becoming eventually the defending side of the military conflicts there.
This had exactly been what was highly desired by US-cum-Britain.
Even worse for Russia, Putin had recently been seriously considering using even his country's tactical nuclear weapons to try to quickly end the war in Europe, and this was also highly demanded by the Anglo-Saxon countries, since Russia's doing so would mean a sudden and complete isolation of Russia from the rest of the world in all respects, and not even China and India would dare to give her any support in the future.
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But suddenly, in recent days, Putin's Russia has "re-discovered" a much more effective invasion method to much more quickly end the war in Ukraine, by imitating the successful proven war formula used often by the NATO in the past, which is her latest heavy bombing of many strategic cities of Ukraine, thereby paving the potential way for her land troops' subsequent low-casualty sweeping military jobs in those places.
If Russia's heavy aerial bombing can quickly persist for a month or so,
there will not be enough time for NATO to supply enough air-defence weapons to Ukraine.
As a result, most of the civilian and military infrastructure, and communication and transportation facilities in Ukraine will mostly be destroyed, so that Ukraine as a fighting country will quickly be entirely paralyzed, and so Russia could
(i) quickly end the bloody fighting there,
(ii) save lots of further military expenses,
(iii) successfully claim eventual military victory in Ukraine in the near future, and
(iii) avoid using her own deadly nuclear weapons.
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- vic lai Oct 13, 2022
  
  It's said that Russia's latest bombing of Ukraine's major cities is a serious warning given by Russia to the NATO, that Russia will soon be forced to use her nuclear weapons to more quickly end the war there, since the warheads of those Russian aerial-bombing missiles can easily be changed later to tactical nuclear ones.
  But, as I've just argued, Russia really has no need to use her weapons of last resort to more quickly end the latest European War.
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  It's also said that Russia's latest bombing of Ukraine's major cities is the renewed start of a more prolonged and more bloody war in Ukraine in the coming winter months.
  Well, it's just been claimed by a Youtuber that Russia's latest aerial-bombing actually signifies the imminent possibility of a relatively quick end of the large-scale military conflicts there.
  If Russia's true geopolitical aim is to stop Ukraine from joining NATO, then it's already been enough for Russia to have kept aerial-bombing Ukraine's major cities since the very start of the war in February this year, and there's been no need for Putin to send her country's military land troops to enter the eastern territories of Ukraine and fight a long, bloody and costly war there.
  Putin's chosen use of her land troops in eastern Ukraine shows that his main aim this time is to annex the currently occupied 4 regions of Ukraine into her own territories, so as both to protect the pro-Russia Russian-speaking residents there and to occupy the most wealthy and resource-rich eastern areas of Ukraine.
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  Now that Putin has successfully occupied those 4 regions, the main military aim of Putin's current invasion has already been achieved, and so the future main job of Russia's current troops and the coming reserve soldiers, will mostly be defending the harvested fruits of the war, which means Russia will probably avoid further large-scale military conflicts with NATO-backed Ukraine.
  Russia's coming possible frequent bombing of Ukraine's electricity, transportation, communication, fuel and military facilites will soon stop the vital military supplies of all sorts being sent to the Ukrainain soldiers fighting at the front battlelines in Ukraine, so that there'll be no more large-scale military conflicts there in the near future.
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  The above claim also well explains
  (a) Ukraine's recent "defeat" of Russia's land forces near the peripheries of the 4 occupied regions just annexed by Russia,
  (b) the latest change in attitude of Germany towards both China and her continued supply of military weapons to Ukraine,
  (c) the coming possible bilateral talk between Biden and Putin in one of Indonesia's many G20 meetings (fearing being sold by the US, Zelensky therefore sent some of their rightwing extremists to bomb the vital bridge in Crimea, which has probably been planned for a long time by him, in order to stop the coming possible entente between the NATO and Russia), and
  (d) the US's latest peculiar claim that the assassination in Moscow of the daughter of one of Putin's close friends was done by the Ukrainians, not by the Americans.
  ---
  So, perhaps
  (i) Russia's occasional or persistent aerial-booming of Ukraine's major cities and strategic locations, and
  (ii) relatively small-scale but frequent military conflicts and terrorist-attacks near the borders of the 4 annexed regions and in other places near the border,
  will become the new name of the wargame in Ukraine in the foreseeable future.
  ---
  - vic lai Oct 13, 2022
    
    Putin may not go to the 2022 G20 Bali summit in mid November, for fear of being assassinated there.
    But if Putin eventually chooses to go to Indonesia, and to meet finally with Biden, then unfortunate Ukraine's national interests will probably be sold bit by bit by the US to Russia, at of course a very high total price for each transaction.
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    First, the US will find some unrejectable reasons to force Zelensky's Ukraine to indirectly accept the status quo of the latest annexation of the 4 south-east Ukrainian regions by Russia, which should be similar to that of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
    Then, some time later, the US will probably and similarly sell other states of Ukraine, like Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa, one by one to Russia, at mutually-agreed-upon suitable prices, and there will not be much or anything small humble Ukraine can do about those bilateral geopolitical transactions.
    ---
    Ukraine (and China, and the EU countries) beware.
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    - vic lai Oct 14, 2022
      
      While today's US is probably intending to use Ukraine as her main chess to prolong the ongoing war in the European Continent, in order to exhaust Russia's arsenals and soldiers and to further weaken the EU countries, Russia may also counteract in the future by attacking the current chip supply-chains of both Taiwan and South Korea to the US and the rest of the world, say through the help of the heavy buying-out of the suitable people in both Taiwan's TSMC and SK's Samsung.
      The resulting lack of military and other chips in the West can also help paralyse the US's or the NATO's army troops in Ukraine accordingly.
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      So, believe it or not, currently the country which is now posing the greatest threats to Taiwan's all-important TSMC is actually Russia, rather than relatively restrained China.
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      It's also said that, before the US has fully grasped the highest technologies and latest most advanced productive capabilities of Taiwan's chip-producing TSMC, and if China suddenly invades Taiwan and tries to grab TSMC, the US would rather help bomb-annihilate all of TSMC's existing factories and other related productive facilities, so that China would have no chance at all of getting the brightest jewel in Taiwan's manufacturing crown.
      ---
      It's also reported that, the US just said quite clearly that if Putin's Russia uses her nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the US will assassinate Putin in retaliation, through perhaps her possible heavy buying-out of some of Putin's closest aides or army generals.
      This means, in the foreseeable future, to avoid what had actually happend to Hitler in WWII, Putin may no longer trust most or all of the Russian aides or army generals which currently have had close contacts with him.
      ---
      One major problem of Putin being the current strongest leader in Russia is that, like Hitler in Germany during the second world war,
      (i) he came from Russia's KGB and so is by no means a geniune expert in the military affairs, and
      (ii) he may quite often fail to accept and enact the best military advices presented by his relatively humble army-general subordinates,
      (iii) his army-general subordinates daren't argue fiercely with him, or won't ever insist on their own best military ideas, even when they fully know that their all-powerful political leader has actually ended up choosing the wrong fighting strategies or tactics in the Ukrainian warzones.
      The frequent switching by Putin of the leading army director of the Russian troops in the Ukrainian war in the past months, has not been a good sign for the Russian armies at all.
      ---
      - vic lai Oct 14, 2022
        
        Today, only a maniac will actually use nuclear weapons of any kinds against other countries to help attain one's military and other vital aims.
        ---
        But if Russia's conventional weapons keep on depleting quickly by the ongoing Ukrainian war, Putin's Russia may very precariously be forced to use her own nuclear weapons against her enemy troops in the battlefields.
        Another way out for Russia is for her to destroy the world's global chips supply-chains in the immediate or near future, so that the NATO's all-powerful precision-striking missile weapons of all kinds currently supplied to the Ukraine soldiers will no longer work or work as well as before.
        ---
        We can still clearly remember the car-chips' global heavy shortage problem in the past year, during which many car manufacturing and assembling plants in the world has had to stop running or producing due to the simple shortage of car-chips in the global supply-chains.
        ---
        
        vic lai Oct 14, 2022
        
        If, for some reasons, China starts in the near future to invade Taiwan and wipe out Taiwan in general and her TSMC in particular, then it's so much better for Putin's Russia, due to the reason just mentioned upstairs.
        ---
        If not, then North Korea, perhaps Russia's closest ally country and also the only country in the world which has just admitted Russia's legitimate annexation of Ukraine's 4 south-eastern regions, will perhaps find some very good excuses to start striking her own qualified intercontinental missiles at Taiwan's TSMC and perhaps South Korea's Samsung chip-factories as well.
        Such a surprising act by North Korea may even prompt Xi's China to immediately start getting back Taiwan at the same time.
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        If you think the above possibility is highly remote then you should also think about the latest equally surprising country-level terrorist-like bombing of the Nordstream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea.
        ---
        
        vic lai Oct 14, 2022
        
        Putin said lately that he hasn't decided yet whether to participate in the coming G20 meetings in Bali, and even though he goes to Indonesia he may not choose to talk with Biden there.
        Saying so, Biden may be sending a signal to Zelensky's Ukraine that he may not cooperate with Biden which will end up as the US's selling of Ukraine to Russia in the future, even though Putin and Biden later may still negotiate secretly with each other and the negotiations will never be known by Ukraine.
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        Putin's idea may be not to further increase Zelensky's growing doubts about the US's coming possible selling of his country to Russia, so that the extreme terrorist-like rightists in Ukraine, who may no longer be effectively controlled by Zelensky, will not make further, or too many, terrorist-attacks on Russia's own territories in the future.
        But this doesn't mean Putin should quickly stop Russia's current frequent and effective bombing of Ukraine's basic infrastructures of all kinds, because from Russia's point of view, doing so could
        (i) perhaps more quickly end the bloody and costly war in Ukraine,
        (ii) warn other East European countries, like Poland and the three Russia-neighboring small countries near the Baltic sea, not to try to take on Russia in the future, since the NATO led by the US may keep instigating other eastern EU countries to have military conflicts with Russia, in order to
        (a) militarily and economically further weaken Russia in the coming years,
        (b) further weaken the affected EU countries, and enable military NATO to keep overriding economic EU, hopefully leading to the eventual disintegration of the EU once and for all one day in the future (and so there will be no more Euro to seriously challenge the US dollar).
        ---
        
        vic lai Oct 15, 2022
        
        It's rumored that some Russian troops were going to Belarus's city of Brest, which may later charge southward to invade Ukraine's city of Lviv, to cut off the NATO's crucial and persistent supplies of military materials and personnel to Ukraine in the East.
        If this is true and Russia succeeds in doing so, then, together with her latest persistent bombing of many of Ukraine's cities in the coming say 30 to 40 days, Russia will much more easily become the eventual winner of the Ukraine war (unless the NATO organises further new military offensives to help Ukraine to beat Russia).
        ---
        The consecutive day-by-day bombing of Ukraine's cities obviously requires Russia to have both enough money and powerful domestic missile-and-drone-producing manufacturing abilities in the near future.
        If enough domestic manufacturing
        capability is missing in Russia, she can start borrowing heavily from her friendly countries like China to raise enough funds to buy the necessary missiles and drones from the foreign friendly countries.
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        Putin should now seriously consider issuing (much more) new long-term bonds say denominated in either Euro or Yuan in the international financial markets, using her own rich natural resources as the main collaterals, to raise the sorely-needed long-term military funds to help herself eventually win the persistent war in Europe.
        ---
        
        vic lai Oct 15, 2022
        
        Today, Russia is also engaging in barter trades with Iran, by exchanging her own Su-35 aircrafts with Iran's much cheaper Shahed-136 aerial drones, which are now being widely and effectively deployed in Ukraine's major cities.
        But if the war there is expected to persist for quite a long time, I think Russia would eventually have to issue new borrowing instruments in the international financial markets to help fund her expensive war in Europe.
        Once again, Putin may need the further help of his country's talented central bankers.
        ---
        
        vic lai Oct 15, 2022
        
        The relatively laggard performance of Russia's armies in the ongoing Ukraine War may also be explained by Putin's tacit tactic of first sending not the country's best army generals and soldiers to the battlefields in Ukraine, but perhaps those not-entirely-loyal-to-him army officers and troops.
        The possibility that some Russian soldiers may suddenly and unexpectedly turn around and strike at Kremlin instead of at the NATO-backed Ukrainian soldiers can't be precariously ignored by Putin himself.
        ---
        This way, the supreme political position of Putin in his own country will be further consolidated.
        Afterall, what's truly been threatening Putin isn't Ukraine, nor the NATO, nor even the US, but his own people and armies in Russia.
        Ditto for Xi's China.
        ---
        
        vic lai Oct 18, 2022
        
        Today, a certain military Balance of Power has been established between warring Russia and Ukraine in Europe, so far as the use of conventional weapons alone in the battlefields there is concerned.
        ---
        Ukraine is obviously being assisted by both the European NATO countries and the US, while Russia is being supported by the Asian (SCO) countries led by China, through the indirect channel of Iran.
        Iran has been chosen in the East since this country, like Russia, is also being sanctioned by the West to the moon, and so, the other Asian Countries like China, to avoid the potential sanctions from the US say, is using Iran's midway help to supply the necessary conventional weapons to Russia, with China contributing most of the needed military expenses, chips, and weapon-production skills.
        ---
        
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