By dragging Russia into the “swamp” of a bloody guerrilla war, the US has achieved a brilliant tactical victory, but perhaps had made a fatal strategic mistake
In March 1979, the Special Politburo Commission on Afghanistan met for the first time in the Kremlin. This was preceded by an Islamic insurgency in Herat, which led to the first plea from the Afghan leadership for direct Soviet military intervention. The Kremlin was in no hurry to help. “I think that … we should not be drawn into this war right now. … It can harm not only us, but firstly them,” Leonid Brezhnev said. However, in the fall of 1979, the situation has changed dramatically. The Russians were not only ready to send weapons and advisers to Kabul, but also deploy Soviet troops into Afghanistan.
There was an explanation for this. On July 3, 1979, Jimmy Carter signed a secret decree funding anti-government forces in Afghanistan. In a 1998 interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, Zbigniew Brzezinski recalled: “… I explained to him [Carter] that such assistance would entail Soviet military intervention.”
By doing this the US, in a brilliant maneuver, dragged the USSR into a ten-year Afghan war. It took all the strength from the USSR, exhausted it, and ultimately led to its collapse.
Strikingly, history repeated itself again 43 years later. It’s hard to grasp, but the weak and clumsy Biden administration has completely outplayed Putin, who until recently was a brilliant grandmaster of geopolitical games. The White House dragged Russia into the “Ukrainian swamp,” putting it on the brink of self-destruction.
For a long time, Putin has urged the West to distance itself from primordial Russian “spheres of influence.” The republics of the former USSR, and especially Ukraine, according to Kremlin, had to maintain “positive neutrality,” exactly as Finland had done.
Up until now, the status quo persisted. George W. Bush developed quite a partnership with Putin. Obama was too busy with the Middle East and the “peace process” to deal with Russia and its ambitions. Trump generally accepted the demands of the Russian ruler, trying not to provoke him, while also warning him not to move against Ukraine.
The current administration has chosen a completely different path – openly teasing and provoking the bear. Was it a deliberate plan or a spontaneous result of an anti-Russian hysteria? We do not know. But the hints to a possible membership of Ukraine in NATO, the massive shipment of heavy weapons to Kyiv, and promises to stand up for the Ukrainians have led to the most dramatic consequences. The inexperienced Ukrainian leader naïvely believed in American commitments, and Putin was enraged by them. The Russian invasion has become inevitable. Russia entered its own “Afghan bog.”
It is a war that is easy to go into and extremely difficult to get out of. The Kremlin believed that its intervention in Afghanistan would be limited to a few months and to the swift actions of special forces. The reality turned out to be much more ominous. The war in Ukraine is likely to be a much harder test for Russia than the Afghan campaign was for the USSR. The USSR, unlike today’s Russia, was a country with a backward, but still strong and diversified economy. Almost all the necessities were produced in the USSR: from heavy equipment to agricultural products and light industry items. Their quality was far from the quality of Western goods, but somehow provided for the basic needs of the country and its population. Today’s Russia produces absolutely nothing. Soviet-era factories are closed or sold out. In economic terms, this country is a giant “gas station” and a “laundry” for the oligarchs, buying almost everything overseas.
The USSR had strong allies: Eastern European countries, including industrialized ones, such as the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. They supplied the USSR with many necessary goods, from heavy equipment and precision instruments to vehicles, furniture, glass, clothes and shoes. In the USSR itself, the Baltic countries provided a significant contribution to Soviet Gross Domestic Product. Today’s Russia has no allies at all, except for Belarus, which is even poorer than Russia itself. The USSR could count on the political support of Communist parties, influential in some Western countries. Russia has no one to rely on.
The demographics of the USSR and Russia are not comparable. Nearly 300 million people lived in the USSR by 1989, and the population was steadily increasing. Only 140 million live in Russia, and the population is steadily decreasing. The collapse of the USSR led to a massive brain drain. Nowadays, high-quality Russian specialists are more easily found in the US, Canada, Germany, and Israel than in Russia itself. Engineers, scientists, designers and mathematicians who emigrated were replaced by poorly educated people from Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Eventually, the population of the Soviet Union was united by the Communist ideology, however dilapidated it was toward the end. Today’s Russia has no ideology, except for enforced militant nationalism on the one hand, and the cult of profit on the other.
Nationalism is good when things are going well, but when thousands of young men begin to return to the country in coffins, it will be replaced by anger and despair. The Soviet people were poor, but had numerous social benefits, and the desire for profit was not encouraged. Without social benefits, and in a situation when accumulated savings turn into dust because of inflation and financial collapse, latent hatred for the ruling kleptocracy, with their villas, palaces, yachts, and billions will burst out.
Finally, Afghanistan is not Ukraine. It is one thing to fight against an alien people in a distant Asian country, and quite another to fight against your fellow brothers: Slavs, united by historical, cultural, and even family ties in Russia. The more Russia gets bogged down in the bloody quagmire of guerrilla warfare, the more it will slide toward collapse. If the US ever wanted to destroy Russia as a state, they got closer to it more than ever, and this is a brilliant tactical success. “Side” dividends of such a plan are Russia’s rupture of trade relations with Europe and the strong dependence of European countries on American energy sources. This combination is as simple as it is ingenious.
However, this tactical success can also have extremely negative consequences.
First, there is the moral side of the issue. Like a pawn in a chess game, Washington, in fact, has sacrificed a large and friendly European country.
Ukraine turns into Libya: it will be destroyed and torn to pieces, and millions of people will become refugees or die. Such a terrible human tragedy does not pay off any geopolitical goals, and the cynicism with which it was done completely undermines the authority of and trust in America, which is already greatly undermined.
Secondly, such games can have unpredictable consequences. No one could have imagined that the triumph of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan would turn into the rise of Islamic jihad and murderous terror in Western countries, including 9/11. How will Putin behave when he is cornered? Will we face the threat of a full unconventional war? What forces will triumph on the ruins of Ukraine and probably Russia? Won’t this give rise to new leaders, far more dangerous than Putin? Will new Islamic caliphates, like the Islamic State, appear on the territory of weak and disintegrated Russia? We don’t have answers to these questions.
Third, tactical victory relays the seeds of strategic failure. Before World War II, the UK and France pushed Mussolini away, throwing him into the arms of Hitler, the main enemy of the West. Today, the US and Europe are pushing Russia away from them, throwing it into the arms of the powerful China, although they should have acted in exactly the opposite way. It is difficult to imagine a greater stupidity than to strengthen the Chinese totalitarian empire with your own hands.
In ancient times, the Russians used a very curious way of “punishing” a bear in which, they believed, an evil spirit had entered. It was impossible just to kill it, because an evil spirit would break free. Therefore, they dug a bucket of water mixed with vodka into the ground, near a loud mooing cow used as a lure. Having eaten the meat, the thirsty bear drank the alcohol and fell asleep soundly, after which a belt with bells was put on it. The awakened bear could not get rid of the ringing collar, which drove it crazy; after five or six days, completely exhausted, it died.
This trick usually worked, but sometimes a maddened bear burst into the village and tore everything that came its way. When dying, it took to the grave both its killers and their loved ones.
Alexander Maistrovoy is the author of the book Agony of Hercules or a Farewell to Democracy (Notes of a Stranger)
mortimer says
Putin will have to create a new Iron Curtain around Ukraine. Ukrainians have desired political freedom for the last 400 years and will not deviate from that.
Putin’s fantasy shows he has left reality and should be removed from power.
PMK says
Biden outplayed Putin? Is this writer serious?
Exactly how did sacrificing Ukraine’s people and threatening the stability of the NATO alliance constitute a ‘brilliant’ maneuver? This is not a game.
Don McKellar says
It’s a preposterous idea. Putin did it all by himself.
Phil Copson says
“Side” dividends of such a plan are …… the strong dependence of European countries on American energy sources. ”
————————————————————————————————————————-
Er….how can European countries “depend” upon American energy sources when America can’t even supply it’s own needs?
Biden’s team are playing to lose, that’s all.
Don McKellar says
A bizarre take that gives the most incompetent “president” some kind of credit for something he couldn’t dream of being capable of. Putin talked himself into this mess. He’s been a dictator far too long and has lost perspective. Dictators like him lose power and end up in the hands of their populous when they overreach themselves like he has.
But you couldn’t really expect him to just sit there and not act on his big dream of a new Russian empire after seeing how Joe Biden’s controllers completely screwed up Afghanistan. Everything he thought about how worthless Biden is was completely confirmed, and it became clear that if anybody was in charge, it’s Obama and his pals behind the scenes (or right there in plain sight like Rice). And Obama and friends didn’t do ANYTHING when he took Crimea.
No, Biden has never done anything brilliant in his life except play the corruption game.
Kesselman says
It seems incredible that Biden et al. fostering a strategical genius leap—downplaying Smilin’ Jimmie in comparison—of this dimension. It seems more like fools’ hap.
Westman says
Wishful thinking or reality? Will the bear die, take “to the grave both its killers and their loved ones”, or eat Ukraine?
It seems premature to make war outcome predictions during the Fog Of War.
We can predict rising prices of energy and food. We can predict a likely recession. Barring some unknown event, we expect the Senate and House to either be deadlocked or face constant Presidential vetos after the November elections. We can predict the President’s continuing mental and physical health decline while he is also running away from public appearance and the press.
Predicting the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war? I’ll pass and keep periodically checking.
Wellington says
Agree, Westman. Still too many variables out there, though I think one certainty is that this inexcusable invasion of Ukraine by Russia has taken much longer than Putin and his cronies thought it would.
Westman says
Agreed. It’s a disaster for the Ukrainians and the Russians. The Russian citizens must be thinking this is Afghanistan 2.0 without the “butter”.
gravenimage says
Yes–it is still impossible to see how this is going to go.
The one thing that *is* clear is that this has not turned out to be the walk in the park Putin thought.
Wellington says
Agree with several of the commenters above, to wit, nothing Biden and his handlers do is brilliant. It’s just a matter of them once in a very long while stumbling into the truth, rather like a stopped clock being correct twice in a 24-hour period.
Roland says
While it seems that Putin talked himself into the bear trap, perhaps he was under pressure from his fellow KGB types to do something to maintain and grow their power.
We should heed Maistrovoy’s warning of long term consequences. Will Russia become a resource colony of China? Will more vicious people take power? Russia has hypersonic missiles and used chemical warfare.. Will jihadists move into the power vacuum?
gravenimage says
A Bear Trap
By dragging Russia into the “swamp” of a bloody guerrilla war, the US has achieved a brilliant tactical victory, but perhaps had made a fatal strategic mistake
………….
With all respect to Alexander Maistrovoy, Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine is not the West dragging Russia into a bloody guerilla war. Putin just hoped that the Ukrainians would roll over.
gregbeetham says
His premise was that the USA and the EU antagonized Putin into invading Ukraine through the promise of future even closer relationships could have some basis but he didn’t assess the current energy supply situation in USA correctly, although, it would have been correct not so long ago when Trump was in charge.
I doubt his idea that it was the West’s and the Biden camp’s strategy to lure the Bear into a Ukraine trap all along is a correct one, Biden would be hard put to find Ukraine on a map, it looks more like Putin stumbled into a false illusion of pro Russian sentiment in Ukraine than any kind of well laid out plan of the West.
The West has been reacting to things that happen since the WW2, we hardly ever prevent things going pear shaped beforehand and Ukraine is another example of us scrambling to put things into proper perspective after it has spun out of control, and it got out of control because of our own ineptitude.
We do have a slight excuse, the degree of Putin’s psychotic paranoia about NATO was unsuspected it seems, who would have thought with the reasonably cooperative many faceted commercial relationship the West had with Russia that Putin would run off the rails so dramatically.
gravenimage says
Russia has always believed that it has the right to seize its naighbors–especially if they have been under the Russian heel at some point in the past. Putin just feels emboldened enough now.
gregbeetham says
I’m not sure how many Russians think like that or think that invading Ukraine and shelling residential suburbs into a pile of rubble with possibly thousands of casualties is justified in order to shower Ukraine with Russian benevolence.
I still think it is a bit of a mystery why Putin is so paranoid about Ukraine becoming a member of the EU at some point and eventually maybe a member of NATO because it should be obvious that NATO is primarily a defensive organization, in any case Ukraine wasn’t offering any aggression toward Russia so why would Putin think they would in the future? Maybe he thought that the internal repression of the ethnic Russian areas was aggressive toward Russians? But from what I have seen it was the ethnic Russians who were the most aggressive, which eventually reaps its own rewards I guess.
Deano says
Perhaps to help support Putin many of the Mullahs will be happy to purchase some nuclear missiles from Russia in their quest to upend Israel.
Hank says
“…dragged the USSR into a ten-year Afghan war. It took all the strength from the USSR, exhausted it, and ultimately led to its collapse.”
Putin may have triggered a second collapse – of Russia itself. The Russian Parliament should get its act together and come back to Europe as a modern state and respect its neighbors. Bring the Russian Constitution back to a state of check and balances on power to prevent abuses by dictators. Close down organizations and persons of public disinformation. Kick out Putin and his Oligarch buddies and corrupt parliamentarians for destroying the nation and its wealth with this one-man war on Ukraine.
“Nationalism is good when things are going well, but when thousands of young men begin to return to the country in coffins, it will be replaced by anger and despair.”
Putin the “historian” has a lot of explaining to do to Russian mothers. Explain why he thinks its still the cold war, the USSR or 1917 or that he is “Peter the Great”
Ultimately, it is the Russian Parliament at fault for allowing Putin to ridicule and tamper with the Russian Constitution and give him a silly “President for life” term instead of 2 terms. This makes Russia inclined to repeatedly fall into dictatorial tragedy as in the 1930’s. When will they ever learn?
OLD GUY says
The bear trap: Putin see’s himself as the saviour of RUSSIA. He’s just another ruthless dictator who’s only goal is power for himself at the cost of the RUSSIAN PEOPLE. And it will cost the citizens of Russia once again. Mother Russia will shed a lot of tears for his ego.
Michael says
To what extent are US moves called by their arms industry, and gung-ho generals?
Ditto Russia.
The US invasion of Afghanistan was maybe as disastrous as the Soviet invasion, in terms of lives lost and public money wasted, but I assume their arms industry made a fortune unless otherwise informed.
gravenimage says
The moves in Russia are pretty much called by Putin, and no one else.
Charles Ford says
Unintended success always ends in unanticipated consequences.
E T says
Well I know Zelensky is the good guy — Lindsey Graham, Justine Trudeau, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Swalwell, George Soros, George Bush, Pope Francis, Hillary, Adam Kinzinger, the mail in guy and Fox News said so.
gravenimage says
E T, not fond of most of these guys, but having your country invaded unprovoked by a thug and resisting does pretty much make Zelensky the good guy. That could change, of course–but I don’t see that happening. Stopped clocks; etc.