This is Professor John Mearsheimer in a recent piece with Daniel Davis. Basically, the picture Mearsheimer paints is that Ukraine is collapsing; the end is in sight and is simply being postponed at this point. In a previous piece he said he was struggling to see the military strategic aim of the Kursk incursion. (It occurs to me it may be that Ukraine is trying to get something they can offer to swap back at the negotiations which, according to Mearsheimer, everyone, at least in the US administration, now accepts is only a matter of time). I agree with Mearsheimer. Ukraine is in fact losing. Zelensky is now asking for permission to use US weapons to strike inside Russia. Even that won’t solve the problem. I would guess, that like Kursk one of the drivers for these actions/wishes is simply Ukrainian hypernationalism. As Mearsheimer points out hypernationalism is a potent force:
Nations sometimes go beyond feeling superior to other nations and end up loathing their competitors. I call this hypernationalism: the belief that other nations are not just inferior but dangerous, and must be dealt with harshly or even brutally. In such cases, contempt and hatred of “the other” suffuses the nation and creates powerful incentives to eliminate that threat with violence. [1]
The other driver is the one which Mearsheimer mentions in the piece with Daniel Davis above; this is all a last-ditch effort to drag the US into the war. I also agree with Mearsheimer that it is unlikely the US will allow itself to be dragged into the war, though there is a risk.
I don’t see how anyone who is looking at the bald facts cannot see that Ukraine is doomed to lose, and possibly quite soon. Russia is advancing. The Russian military-industrial complex is untouched. Russia is able to recruit sufficient soldiers from its population base which is three times larger than that of Ukraine. As I note above Russia has the capacity to attack all of Ukraine with cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at will. The only theoretical way that Ukraine could stop this would be to defeat Russia; but here, their partners won’t let them attack Russia so – there is zero chance. (Even if Zelensky was given permission to strike inside Russia it still wouldn’t finish off Russia). The Russian economy did not collapse under the sanctions. Russia is indeed developing ‘new partners’ as Putin promised. Yes; the economic outlook for Russia shows signs of stress, the cost of the war, the lack of access to Western technology and finance will bite. But enough to either cause Russia to collapse or “the oligarchs to turn on Putin”? At the current rate the budget deficit can be covered for several more years from the National Wealth Fund. Can Ukraine continue the war for several more years? There is zero sign of some kind of oligarch revolt.
Now; let’s change channels. These are some recent headlines from Times Radio:
Putin’s desperate retaliation: Poltava strike follows Kursk failure
Putin sparks fury inside Russia as he sends conscripts to Kursk
Kremlin regime ‘shaken’ as Putin ‘couldn’t control’ Kursk narrative
Putin could be ‘escorted mid-flight’ and arrested by ICC if he leaves Russia-friendly airspace
Kremlin splits over Kursk incursion as Putin loses Russian territory
Putin’s warlords and oligarchs threaten coup as Ruble [sic] craters
Ukraine paralyses Russia with Kursk wins, Putin humiliated
Ukraine ‘will cut off Crimea’ after Kursk humiliation
And, so it goes on. The speakers are a mix of retired US and UK military personnel and senior Western journalists. They are all dreaming. If I looked I could find stories about imminent “oligarch revolts” going back two years. Reality does not get in the way for these people who still talk about “adapting” to the changing battlefield as each previous red line is dropped in the face of the Russian advance. (In the first one the speaker, a retired British military figure, explains that most of the casualties in the recent Poltava strike were civilians. I have seen a plausible amount of detail in other Western media which acknowledge that this was a military training facility, including, for example, complaints by a Ukrainian MP that the military allowed this to happen. This appears to be a simple, and futile, attempt at propaganda).
There does at least, possibly, appear to be a theme here. That is that the only hope left is for a coup in Moscow. But, as I say, we have been promised a coup in Moscow for two years and it hasn’t yet materialised. The only force which could lead a successful coup would be the military and security establishments and they might only do so if they felt that Putin was too weak, and in order to provide a stronger response to the West. The belief that a group of pro-Western businessmen are going to take over and end the war on our terms is not an informed one. Lenin did pull Russia out of WWI but the circumstances were different; Russia was not doing well on the battlefield and Lenin had an ideological project he wanted to implement. The ideology of Russia today is nationalism, which is not going to lead to what would be seen as a “surrender”.
I wonder what narrative will be produced when Ukraine loses? I think that the most likely narrative will be something like “those evil civilian killing war criminal Russians must be excluded from all ‘international’ (i.e. Western) institutions” and “we will continue to impose costs on Russia for their violations of ‘international law'”. In other words, a cold war colder than the first. (Though, no doubt, as now, the West will continue to consume Russian energy products even if indirectly). The US and some in Europe have enormous faith in their own liberal ideology and will, I think, simply continue to believe it is only a matter of time until Russia finally comes to its senses and becomes a “liberal democracy”. They believe in their alternative reality so strongly that, like some sect waiting for the arrival of their Messiah, they will just wait. If he is late, they will just reschedule and continue to wait. The US project is at base a religious fundamentalist one.
Notes
1. Mearsheimer, John J.. The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (Henry L. Stimson Lectures) (p. 90). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.