All Biden’s illusions about Putin
The mistakes of the Biden team on Ukraine according to Federico Punzi, director of Atlantico Quotidiano
The Kremlin's reprisal in the economic war with the West arrived – just on the eve of the NATO summit and the European Council – and, as expected, hits the soft underbelly, that is, continental Europe's dependence on Russian gas. The feeling is that we are fighting this economic war with one arm tied, if not both.
Putin's order to Gazprom to get paid for the gas it exports to "hostile countries" (ie those that have adopted sanctions against Moscow) in rubles instead of euros or dollars is a defensive move, but one that reminds us of the limits of effectiveness of the economic sanctions on Russia and their ambivalence. With this decision, in practice, Moscow would oblige European gas buyers to do what the West prevented the Russian central bank from doing: sell foreign currency and buy rubles to support the value of the Russian currency, which in fact rose sharply yesterday. EUR. Thus neutralizing at least in part the end-of-the-world sanction, the freezing of Moscow's foreign reserves, which, as we have seen, is still partial, at the moment can be “thawed” for debt service.
A setback, because it would be the EU countries themselves, by purchasing gas, that would stabilize the ruble and the Russian financial situation, as they already do every day by guaranteeing a regular flow of revenue into the Kremlin's coffers.
The European reaction was a mixture of disbelief and nervousness, as if they did not expect that in war – because such it is, although economic – in addition to striking blows, they can also receive blows. Forcing us to pay for gas in rubles? A violation of contracts, the German vice-chancellor and minister of the economy Robert Habeck comes out candidly, showing that he did not understand on what ground we have decided to respond to the Russian aggression of Ukraine. The West is not exactly a sample of reliability as it seizes foreign reserves and current accounts, including individual ones, on an extra-judicial basis. Just as President Von der Leyen, who dubbed the Russian blockade of Ukrainian wheat exports as "immoral", does not seem aware of the serious economic consequences on millions of people of Western sanctions. Other than contracts and morals, it is called economic warfare. Let's fight it, but without whining.
According to Prime Minister Draghi's economic adviser, Francesco Giavazzi, arguing that the elimination of gas imports from Russia is a hypothesis to be evaluated because "we are going towards the best months of the year, April and May", when we can make up for it with hydroelectric (by the way, very little snow this winter, but Giavazzi was distracted), there is really something to worry about: in which hands are we? Ah, yes, the Bocconi experts …
Giavazzi himself observes that paying for Russian gas in rubles would be "a way to circumvent the sanctions, so I think we will continue to pay in euros". We will see what European countries will respond to Gazprom.
The problem, however, is elsewhere, in Washington. Amidst the stabilizing Russian financial situation, the default does not seem imminent as some were deluding themselves, despite the heavy sanctions – however, we remember, adopted only by the West and Japan; the increase in energy prices and in general for raw materials; deadlock in negotiations; and the crystallization, at best, of the positions of the armies on the battlefields, the war in Ukraine seems destined to go on for a long time, probably more than what the big players themselves (Russia, USA and China) had foreseen.
Financially, the exemptions granted by the United States to American persons who must receive interest, dividends or payments due on debt or equity from Russia should expire on May 25. Moody's has announced that it will default on the ruble payment announced by Moscow on bonds denominated in foreign currencies. We'll see.
The situation on the field is very difficult to interpret. We are immersed in a real fog of war : on the one hand the Russian army would be practically stopped and would have suffered very heavy losses (even 40,000 men including dead, wounded and prisoners according to the Wall Street Journal and 20 percent of the media) , without having achieved any objective to date (neither the “liberation” of the Donbass nor the fall of Kiev), the Ukrainian counter-offensive would be particularly effective in the surroundings of Kiev; on the other hand, the Russian forces would instead be advancing slowly but according to plan, they would be on the verge of conquering Mariupol and closing a pocket to the east.
If Putin seems to have underestimated both the Ukrainian political and military resistance, and the EU and NATO reaction, and instead overestimated the preparation of his army, the White House, despite having been able to anticipate the intentions of the Kremlin in detail, seems it too has overestimated Russian strength and underestimated Ukrainian resilience.
But this opens up perhaps even more problematic scenarios for Washington, on several fronts. We are entering uncharted territory, where any historical analogy risks being misleading.
For this day, historian Niall Ferguson warned of the dangers of a strategy aimed at prolonging the conflict: "Biden is making a colossal mistake if he thinks he can bleed Russia, overthrow Putin and warn China to keep its hands off Taiwan. ”, He wrote in Bloomberg .
The comparison with the past that seems to be the most popular in the White House is that with Afghanistan. In the New York Times last Saturday, David Sanger suggested that the Biden administration "seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire without causing a broader conflict with a nuclear-armed opponent or ruling out potential pathways of defense. -escalation “. From here, Ferguson concludes that Washington intends to continue helping the Ukrainians even if they lose the conventional war, turning Ukraine into an Afghanistan for the Russians. With the aim, leaked by a senior US official, the end of Putin's regime, thus dissuading Beijing from a similar gamble on Taiwan.
A combination of "cynicism and optimism", "the archetype of realpolitik", defines it Ferguson: "Sit back and watch the heroic Ukrainians 'bleed Russia'; think of the conflict as a mere subplot of the Second Cold War, in which China is our real opponent ”. Many observers in the West attribute a high probability to this scenario, he notes. Maybe too much.
“The Biden administration not only thinks it is doing enough to support the Ukrainian war effort, but not enough to push Putin to escalate. He also thinks that he is doing enough to satisfy public opinion, which has mobilized strongly for Ukraine, but not so much as to sacrifice American lives ”. In short, the minimum effort without risking anything.
But Ferguson is much less optimistic, because he considers "gravely wrong" the assumption that the continuation of the war "will necessarily undermine Putin's position and that his humiliation will in turn serve as a deterrent to China." "Betting on a Russian revolution is betting on an extremely rare event – he recalls – even if the war continues to go badly for Putin". If the war goes in his favor, he will still have something to plausibly present to the Russians as a victory and therefore there will be no coup.
As we have seen, the situation on the ground is uncertain. There is no doubt that Blitzkrieg 's attempt – the rapid fall of Kiev and other major cities to provoke regime change and establish a puppet government – has failed, Russian forces have suffered heavy losses and their logistics are in crisis. , but the advance, although limited, continues to the south and east and the Ukrainians do not seem in a position to drive the Russians back over the borders. From the Blitzkrieg we moved on to trench warfare and a long siege of cities.
Despite the Russian difficulties, according to Ferguson, Westerners underestimate how bad it can get for Ukraine in the coming weeks and is skeptical that the current sanctions could force Putin to stop or even bring him down. for gas and oil). Of course it could take months, certainly Putin would not be enough to renounce NATO, Crimea and the Donbass (which he already has), but if he managed to conquer all the coasts on the Black Sea (Odessa) and create territorial continuity with the Donbass, he would have victory in hand. It is not yet clear who the time factor plays for, but he could play for Russia.
Speaking of historical analogies, Ferguson sees it this way:
“The Second Cold War is like a strange mirror image of the first. In the first Cold War, Russia was a senior partner, China a junior partner – now the roles are reversed. In the first Cold War, the first hot war was in Asia (Korea), now it is in Europe (Ukraine). Korea was only the first of many clashes with Soviet proxies: today the crisis in Ukraine will probably be followed by crises in the Middle East (Iran) and the Far East (Taiwan) ”.
But there is a substantial difference, the historian warns. In the first Cold War, the Truman administration was able to lead an international coalition with a UN mandate to defend South Korea; now Ukraine has to be content with arms supplies. And the reason is the fear of nuclear war if US support goes too far.
Ukraine, Ferguson concludes, is not the Afghanistan of the 1980s. The war will not last for years but for weeks. “Allowing Putin to reduce Ukraine to rubble is not smart; it offers him the chance to achieve his goal of making Ukrainian independence impracticable. Like most Russian leaders in history, he will most likely die of natural causes ”. Meanwhile, “China observes all of this with a growing sense of certainty that it is not grappling with the United States of Truman and Kennan. Because that America – which led the opening phase of the first Cold War with such confidence – is itself history ”.
We would like to add that at stake is not only Kiev for the United States, but much more important Berlin and Europe, as we have already explained in Atlantico Quotidiano . The EU and NATO front have been kept compact up to now, by no means to be taken for granted, and obtained a German realignment with respect to the dangerous Merkelian Ostpolitik, which was managing to pay off the interests of Moscow and Berlin, the risk is to endanger these results. Europe's dependence on Russian gas is still intact and many costly steps must be taken before it can be eliminated. Today [Thursday 24 March] Biden arrives in Brussels with a proposal, "joint action", to reduce it. We'll see. But the temptation of many European governments, faced with the worsening and prolongation of the suffering of their economies, pressured by public opinion, will be to seek a way out of the war.
This is why cynically settling for Russian attrition by supplying Ukrainians with stingers and javelins, as if they were the Afghan mujahideen, may not be enough to guarantee US interests and to seize the opportunity for a West's show of strength against the axis of autocracies headed by Beijing.
The Biden administration continues to project uncertainty after the mistakes made in 2021: first the de facto green light for the completion of Nord Stream 2, renouncing sanctions; then, at the beginning of December, faced with the credible threat of invasion put up by Putin in the previous months, the exclusion of a direct US intervention in defense of Ukraine. Two signals interpreted in the Kremlin as green light for its aims. At that moment, it seemed that the Biden team had decided to "sacrifice" Kiev in the framework of a new Yalta, opening direct negotiations with Moscow and NATO partners on security in Eastern Europe, just as Putin was asking for "legally binding guarantees" on the end of the Born in the East expansion.
Then, between January and February, the sudden awakening. But also the third mistake. US intelligence was perfect in predicting that Putin would invade, against the opinion of numerous analysts and observers, but overestimating Russian strength may have led the Biden administration to believe that larger military aid would not make a difference. . Accurate intelligence, sanctions and limited military aid may have seemed sufficient in that first phase. But if the war continues, seeing Ukraine burned to the ground before his eyes becomes humiliating for Washington.
The Biden administration has remained in the limbo that already worried Walter Russell Mead last December: “Biden has to make a clear decision. If he undertakes to help Ukraine integrate with the West, he will have to convince Putin that he is serious ”, deploying“ significant NATO forces in the country ”. Conversely, "if it does not think that Ukraine is worth the risk of a Cold War-style crisis with Russia, it must seek the most dignified retreat that Putin will allow."
The Biden team, on the other hand, remained halfway there. It did not use the instrument of deterrence and still seems to be undergoing Russian deterrence rather than re-establishing that of the US. It has given up on setting clear red lines, for example on the use of chemical weapons or on the Belarusian intervention alongside Moscow, and to establish even partial no-fly zones. He hinted to Putin that he is willing to sacrifice Ukraine, but he was "surprised" by the Russian difficulties and the resistance in Kiev, and now he thinks he can get out of it with minimal effort, hoping for the quagmire. Too little, we fear.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/tutte-le-illusioni-di-biden-su-putin/ on Sat, 26 Mar 2022 06:20:13 +0000.