Quick Wins and Lasting Wins

Putin is looking frail these days. The war in Ukraine is dragging on. The West is ganging up on him, and it's easy to understand that paranoia may have gotten the better of him. However, none of this means that the Russians are losing the war.

Getting rid of Putin isn't going to change anything on the ground. Russia has a strategic interest in eastern Ukraine, and this will remain true no matter who's in charge in Kremlin. Even the unlikely replacement of Putin with a Western puppet won't change this, because the strategic interests of Russia go beyond mere party politics.

The West's obsession with party politics make us blind to the fact that national interests go beyond the petty intrigues that go on in the halls of power. We fail to see that the state apparatus is not the most important part of a nation. The state and the nation is not the same thing. Hence, we cannot conquer a nation by simply taking control of the state apparatus.

It's this failure to understand the subordinate importance of the state that has led the West into its current pattern of quick victories followed by humiliating defeats.

Once a nation's capital is conquered, together with all provincial capitals, the West declares victory, only to discover that the nation is in no way defeated. However, it should be obvious that this would happen. Especially to people living in the US.

Imagine an enemy taking control of Washington D.C. and thereby declaring victory over the entire USA. Such an idea is ridiculous. Nobody in Nebraska will consider themselves conquered just because old Joe has been replaced by Jack. Even if Nebraska's capital, Lincoln, was captured and its governor replaced, most people in Nebraska would keep on doing things their own way. The average Nebraskan would be pretty much unaffected by the change of regime. If the new regime makes a nuisance, people will feel free to take pot shots at the hot shots, and this will continue until the new regime becomes more like the original regime.

This is exactly what's been happening in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. These places were swiftly conquered and then lost. Nothing much was achieved.

The only way to turn a swift victory into a lasting one is if there's an inherent interest in the captured nation to become more like the conquering nation. Japan became Westernized after the second world war because Japanese people have a fascination with the West that dates back 500 years. However, hardly anyone in Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya is interested in becoming Westernized.

As for Russia and Ukraine, a swift victory against Kiev would have made things easier for the Russians. If they had taken it early on, as they tried, they could have negotiated a ceasefire, and gotten the eastern provinces handed to them. However, this failed.

The Russians are going for plan B, which means that they will secure the current front line as best they can, and wait things out until the newly gained territories become de facto Russian.

The Russians failed in their attempt at a quick win. However, they are likely to secure a lasting win, because eastern Ukraine houses a lot of Russians who see the invaders as liberators. If the Russians manage to keep things reasonably peaceful in the occupied territories, they will win because people there want them to win.

Vladimir Putin

By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Link