political suggestions
Version 1.0/4.4, 2024-08-29
Some ideas for certain aspects of the war which are currently not handled well by NATO (in my opinion).
The only public statements from governments of important NATO countries about the aims of western support for Ukraine are about protecting Ukraine, restoring its territorial integrity. But the real aim must be to get rid of the threat that Russia poses. The core of this threat is not Russia's armament but Russia being a mafia state which does not care about the human rights of its own citizens, not even their lives, and (of course) not about the sovereignty of other countries.
International law prohibits interference in internal affairs but with Russia having attacked several neighbour states in recent history, regularly ignoring the international law of war and threatening military violence against NATO countries on a daily basis, the threshold of self-defense has been reached. Most probably these are just empty threats as military action against NATO would result in an embarrassing defeat within hours and noone in the Russian armed forces should be interested in starting a nuclear war, especially not for a dictator who has ruined the country and was not protected by anyone when PMC Wagner set out to a trip to Moscow...
Being a mafia state alone does not make Russia a threat. The other requirement is a sufficient government budget for sustaining large armed forces. So the only useful approach by the West would be to make the clear statement that the sanctions will not be lifted until human rights are respected in Russia (i.e. free press, free and fair elections, punishment of war criminals).
Most Russians can be assumed to be aware that the destruction of the Russian economy will not stop before the sanctions are lifted. There will not be free and fair elections with Putin in power so everyone there would be aware that in order to save their own economic future their have to get rid of the war criminal in the Kremlin. It must be clear that even winning the war (whatever that could mean) would not save Russia so it would not save Putin either.
All important members of NATO seem to be quite afraid that more effective arming of Ukraine might cause Russia to escalate against Ukraine or even NATO members. This is an important problem as it prevents NATO from providing the necessary means.
Even though the risk seems extremely low (see above) it seems in general to be a good idea to avoid escalation. BUT: Even though military support includes some risk of escalation there is no good reason to assume that restraint in arming Ukraine is any kind of guarantee for avoiding a Russian escalation. The unpleasant truth is that Russian escalation is a political effect, not a military one. The assessment of experts for Russian politics is that Putin will start a war with NATO if that seems to be the only option to keep him in power i.e. save him politically. Even support on a very low level (i.e. Ukraine losing slowly) would not prevent the breakdown of the Russian economy (not in some far future) which will be the end of Putin. A mafia state without money just stops working, existing.
So the best (but unfortunately quite unclear) path would be to move Russia into a position (economically, militarily, and politically i.e. with respect to Russia's allies, mainly China) in which a direct confrontation with NATO offers minimal political benefit. The safest approach seems to be to run Russia into the ground economically so that there is nothing left which Putin could promise to anyone. The longer the personal economic situation is really bad, the worse it gets, and the more Russians are affected by this, the less Russians will follow the the war crimonals in the Kremlin into a suicide mission against NATO.
Formally this means that
the economical and military degradation should be as quick as possible
the speed of the economical and military degradation should increase over time
the increase of the degradation should be so slow (this value may change over time) that it seems impossible for Putin to work as justification for a military escalation (i.e. such an escalation should increase the domestic political pressure on Putin, not reduce it)
It would probably help to announce higher levels of punishment for Russia weeks in advance.
Many Russian bombings (especially away from the front) are war crimes. Russian propaganda TV has publicly admitted that many times (not the assessment as a war crime but the facts which constitute war crimes). It is unbearable that NATO is not doing anything to stop this. From a moral perspective: These actions alone should be enough for NATO to threaten Russia with a direct military confrontation. Of course, that is not going to happen.
Improving Ukraine's military situation in general will not stop these war crime attacks. Unless Russia becomes militarily incapable to successfully execute these attacks. But this would require a huge amount of air defense and/or offensive long range action in Russia against the missiles and drones and would be the solution which requires the biggest armament effort. This is not going to happen in the near future but it should be natural that these war crimes have to stop now.
There is an alternative. Russia will stop these attacks if they cause a lot more (military, economical, and / or political) damage to Russia than they seem to help Russia. There seems to be an easy possibility to achieve this: NATO should make the very public announcement that for every such war crime bombing Ukraine gets
the permission to shoot 1/5/10 (whatever seems painful enough) ATACMS / Stormshadow / Taurus (seems like a great reason to give some to Ukraine) on targets anywhere in Russia
or (maybe later, as an escalation) one long range cruise missile (capable of levelling a whole arms (components) factory anywhere in western Russia)
Putin would have a very hard time trying to rally the Russians around an escalation if NATO made an unambiguous Stop doing this OR ELSE...
statement, Putin decided to do (keep doing) it anyway and all of a sudden very bad things happen in Russia, exactly as announced. It might be quite helpful in general if the Russian population understands that NATO threats are to be taken seriously in contrast to the Russian ones.
Threatening vastly superior opponents used to be risky. Unfortunately the Russian experience is that they can say just anything towards NATO without any punishment. On a daily basis Russian propaganda TV talks about first military action against NATO countries, including nuclear strikes, the use of nuclear doomsday weapons against the United Kingdom, and recently the complete nuclear annihilation of the Polish people.
How is it possible that NATO lets this happen? Is the assessment that these are empty threats reason enough not to do anything about it? Just for the fun of it: Imagine something similar had happened in Reagan's time – there would probably permanently have been a B-52 with nukes in the air 50km off St. Petersburg...
NATO's inaction may even cause additional problems: It seems probable that these permanent, omnipresent threats would make it easier for Putin to escalate against NATO directly with military action (not the kind of action they are talking about, of course). And even if he has not the least interest in doing anything like that – it is at least good propaganda.
But if Putin would get a reaction from NATO which makes it impossible for him to continue ordering / allowing these insane statements in his propaganda media then the Russian people should react much less well to an escalation. And the propaganda effect would be gone. With no more threats from Russia the NATO countries might become more willing (or more quickly willing) to increase the armament of Ukraine.
What could (and actually would) NATO do that would force Russia to seriously change this behaviour?
The suggested solution is to choose a measure which has at least two components. One which on its own seems like a severe escalation to which Russia would feel forced to react (both politically and because of the economic damage). The second component should be something that has a direct effect on the e.g. economical damage caused (not so much on the humiliation part, though) but can be set to small values so that the damage to Russia becomes so small that it does not justify a military escalation (from the Russian perspective).
NATO should make the public announcement that in case of another threat of a military attack on a NATO state the Baltic Sea will be blocked for (e.g.) three days in the first event and after that for one week for all incoming civilian ships heading for Russia. Obviously it would be insane to block full oil tankers with military force so only the empty ones can really be stopped. And for the economic and political results it does not matter whether the incoming or outgoing oil tankers ships are blocked. Nuclear threats would result in a (e.g.) three-week blockade.
So what would happen?
Russia would publicly react with outrage and threaten military force to ensure passage for their civilian ships.
Russia knows that since the Baltic Sea has turned into NATO Lake there is no real threatening NATO there. But Russia would feel forced to keep up the appearance and activate its fleet in Kaliningrad. This would put further strain on the Russian military, increase the cost of the fleet and put an end to the impression of the inhabitants of Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg that the war is far away.
It is impossible for Russia to do anything with its navy against NATO blocking ships on route to St. Petersburg or Kaliningrad because those ships have to travel a huge distance through NATO waters outside the Baltic Sea. And it would not be necessary for NATO to stop all the ships.
Every day of delay in the oil export would result in a severe loss for Russia. The West would suffer from an increase of the market price for crude oil but the damage would be worse for Russia. In addition to the revenue loss Russia has the severe problem that stopping the production of oil wells in the permafrost causes the risk of permanent damage to the well and / or the pipelines resulting in a permanent production reduction.
The Russian population would not be happy with an escalation with NATO for which the only reason is Russia's attitude to threaten insane military action against NATO without repercussions. Especially given that no NATO country has made any threats against Russia. The support would be even less as there would not be a permanent blockade. Why risk war ships shooting at each other if the problem will go away on its own in two days?
It would be up to NATO to set the lead time of this announcement to its own advantage:
Russia can immediately stop threats against NATO on its propaganda media but it cannot immediately use its navy. So if NATO said Beginning tomorrow...
that would either force Russia to stop the threats immediately or put Russia in the situation that it could not react quickly enough.
If NATO said Beginning one month from now...
that would give Russia time to react but also to build up internal political pressure. The Russian people and the Russian army would have weeks to think about whether this is worth it.
NATO has the option to not start a blockade of the Baltic Sea even if that was announced. NATO could do something different which would be painful for Russia. This could be decided in the very short term. NATO might learn a lot about Russia's remaining capability for and difficulties with sending out the Kaliningrad fleet.
Such an action would make the recent joining NATO by Finland and Sweden extremely painful for Russia because this NATO extension has crippled their potential for military aggression in the Baltic Sea. This would put the long term damaging consequences of Putin's stuid war decision in focus, further undermining his image as a capable leader.
Lawyers may get a very strange feeling about this. But Russia is threatening NATO with military action (even if these threats are empty) so this is not about peace time internatinal law. This would be NATO measures below the military threshold in order to prevent a war. And who cares about the complaints of a permanent member of the UN security council which openly commits war crimes and has broken so much international law? A country which outlaws calling the war a war must accept that permanent war threats on its propaganda TV are attributed to the government.