Andrew L. Urban
Imagine the derision if Joe Biden when President had asked Vladimir Putin for his thoughts on America giving Ukraine some deadly Tomahawk missiles with which to defeat Russia – and then told the world about that exchange. That’s what Donald Trump just did. He said, with a smile, that Putin didn’t like the idea. This was like a couple of buddies having a joke. Not funny.
I don’t oppose Trump’s general attitude to try and be friendly to adversaries, it is psychologically and strategically valid. But this was not friendly; it was oafish and immature.
In my view, Trump’s refusing the Tomahawk request from Volodomyr Zelensky was Trump at his most naive and foolish. It was doing to Ukraine at maximum level what Biden had done, limiting the arsenal so Ukraine can’t win the war with US weapons. And boasting about it.
Trump gets an A- for his Gaza deal, (the minus for failing to hinder Hamas from ‘policing’ Gaza) but an F for his Ukraine strategy. What strategy, I hear you say.
Like so many Western leaders (all of them actually) Trump fails to recognise that the Putin playbook doesn’t prompt him to pursue rational negotiations in good faith. That’s a Western concept which Putin has shown to be utterly useless. That’s why Putin can get away with his nuclear sabre rattling.
Three years ago, when I interviewed Russian-born security analyst Rebekah Koffler, author of ‘Putin’s Playbook’, she made a point that is being borne out: “he’s just hoping to deny victory to the West and to NATO. That’s his definition of victory. As long as he can keep this conflict simmering, like a low intensity, traditional kind of war intensity conflict, with some terrorist elements in it, he is golden. He achieved his victory.”
In an interview with Newsweek, Koffler was equally correct: “Make no mistake: Putin will not back down. He is merely shifting strategy,” she warned. “Ukraine’s victories on the battlefield will not result in Putin ending the war but rather a turn away from conventional warfare.
“The only question is, what will he turn to?
“Those who think that Russia has lost the war in Ukraine given Ukraine’s recent military victories need to think again. They don’t understand Putin’s mindset, his high-risk tolerance, and his willingness to fight and create mayhem to win a high stakes battle. The overwhelming advantage Ukraine is now enjoying, fuelled by the US, which has supplied superior training and top-of-the-line military hardware, will result in Russia turning to a new strategy.
“All of which is to say, Putin is not backing down. He is recalibrating. When hounded, Putin’s MO is to fight back to get out of his corner. If you want to win, then you have to fight to the finish in every fight, as if it was the last and decisive battle.” Take note President Trump.
Koffler points to how Russian strategists have long been working on new generation warfare tactics, which include the so-called Strategic Operation to Defeat Critical Infrastructure of the Adversary (SOPKVOP), which prioritises civilian instead of military targets, employs both kinetic and non-kinetic strikes, and can be used both in wartime and in peace time: “The goal is to defeat a population’s will to fight and unbalance a society by degrading facilities that are vital for its functioning.”
That’s the Putin plan. It isn’t working in Ukraine, thanks to the character of Ukrainians … but time will tell.
It is ironic that Trump is such a strong advocate for the ‘peace through strength’ mantra yet succumbs to Putin’s playbook.