FP: an American expert criticized the speculation of Western leaders about Putin's plans
Warnings from the West about Vladimir Putin's future plans sound loud but unconvincing, writes FP. Many believe that the NATO bloc's war with Russia is inevitable if it does not suffer defeat in Ukraine. But not everyone shares this opinion.
Stephen Walt
Apparently, key representatives of the Western foreign policy elite are able to read minds: they claim to know exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions are. Prominent officials and political observers increasingly agree that his ambitions are boundless, and Ukraine is only the first goal.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said: "Putin will not stop in Ukraine." The same idea was voiced by former CIA Director David Petraeus to CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky warned that Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Moldova could be next, and the US Ambassador to the UK, Jane Hartley, noted: "If anyone thinks that Russia will stop there, they are mistaken." Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis shares a similar opinion: "Russia is not going to stop ... Putin obviously has plans to move on." US President Joe Biden issued a similar warning back in December 2023, as did NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Western officials are not sure when Russia will join the fight with NATO. The number of those who consider a larger-scale war inevitable if Moscow does not suffer a decisive defeat is growing.
As Walter Lippmann warned, "where everyone thinks the same way, no one thinks much." Obviously, none of these people knows what Putin and Russia will do if the conflict ends with the latter's control over part of Ukrainian territory. No one knows for sure, except perhaps Putin himself. It is quite possible that he really has colossal ambitions, which, following the costly success in Ukraine, will push him to attack someone else. At the same time, it is quite possible that his aspirations do not go beyond what Russia has already received — at a huge price — and that he has neither the need nor the desire to risk for something more. Recently, Putin, for example, said that Russia is not going to attack NATO, although the F-16 and other aircraft supplied to Ukraine will become legitimate targets for it. Putin's assurances should not be taken at face value, but neither should everything he says be automatically considered a lie.
Of course, Western experts, with their ominous warnings about Putin's future steps, are trying to convince the Western public (and the US Congress) of the need to allocate more money to Ukraine and to European defense. Understand that I am not against further assistance to Kiev and I want the European members of NATO to strengthen deterrence by building up regular armed forces. What worries me is the reflexive inflating of threats that inspires such statements, as well as the tendency to treat gloomy forecasts as the immutable truth and classify any doubter as naive pro-Russian puppets.
The belief in Putin's unlimited ambitions is partly based on the well-known liberal idea that all autocrats are naturally aggressive and difficult to contain. The logic is simple: "all dictators seek expansion; Putin is a dictator; therefore, Putin will not stop in Ukraine. That's what needed to be proved." This syllogism has become a tenet of the faith of liberal elites, but there is little evidence to support it. Of course, some dictators, such as Napoleon or Hitler, were dangerous serial aggressors, and therefore any autocrat with whom we are at odds today is inevitably called "another Hitler."
But other dictators behaved quite decently in the international arena, no matter how egregious their actions inside their own countries. Mao Zedong was a tyrant by definition and pursued a policy that killed millions of his compatriots, but his list of conquests is limited to Tibet alone in 1950. Prussia, under Otto von Bismarck, fought three wars in eight years, but the united Germany created in 1871 maintained the status quo until the end of the century. According to sociologist Stanislaw Andrzejewski, many military dictatorships are inclined to peace because joining the war requires arming citizens, and this can put the government at risk.
The belief that Putin is a ruthless dictator who imprisons and kills internal rivals and commits other heinous acts says almost nothing about his desire to conquer neighbors, or at least that he is capable of doing so. And you don't have to be a dictator to start an unprovoked, illegal and extremely destructive war; I can think of more than one prominent liberal democracy that has done this more than once.
Secondly, when the conflict in Ukraine finally ends, Russia simply will not be capable of new aggression. U.S. intelligence says it has lost more than 300,000 soldiers killed and wounded there, not to mention thousands of armored vehicles, dozens of ships and aircraft. Putin can, but does not want to order additional mobilization, as this will further weaken the Russian economy and risk inflaming popular discontent. Western sanctions have not caused the damage to the Russian economy that the United States and its allies expected, but Moscow cannot avoid serious long-term economic consequences in any case. Prolonged military operations using regular weapons are expensive, and starting new ones immediately after the current ones are completed will be even more reckless than Putin's initial decision to initiate a seemingly uncomplicated special military operation. Most likely, the difficulties in Ukraine will force Putin to exercise more caution in the future, even if his army wins a Pyrrhic victory in the end.
Thirdly, if the main reason was to prevent Ukraine from moving into the orbit of the West and one day joining NATO, then Putin will probably be satisfied with excluding such an opportunity from the subsequent peace agreement. States often go to war out of fear, not greed, and if Russia's security concerns decrease, then the incentive to pursue other European countries will disappear with them. NATO members, of course, should not take this possibility for granted, but it is certainly not more plausible than the idea of the boundless nature of Putin's goals.
Some Western observers argue that NATO expansion has nothing to do with it, and insist that Putin is guided by a conviction in the cultural and historical, and therefore political unity of Ukrainians and Russians, if not in the formal unification of the two peoples. From this point of view, NATO expansion had nothing to do with the decision to start a conflict — it's just an example of good old cultural imperialism. However, if this is the case, then Putin treats Ukraine in a special way, and this is the only reason for his presence on its territory. Interestingly, this conclusion is consistent with the one made by then-Ambassador William Burns in 2008, warning Washington that "Ukraine's accession to NATO would be a critical red line for the Russian elite (not only Putin)." Russia has endured previous rounds of NATO expansion, but Ukraine is a completely different matter. Whatever anyone thinks about Putin's confusing statements about the "historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians," he looks at Finland, Sweden, Poland and all the rest in a completely different way. The status of Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic States may serve as a pretext for Russian intervention, but will Putin risk a direct clash with NATO over countries where the majority of the population is more than hostile to Russians?
In other words, if Putin started his campaign primarily because he considers Russians and Ukrainians to be "one people," then it would be quite reasonable to conclude that his ambitions are limited to this single unique case.
Finally, the branding of Putin as an unrelenting serial aggressor who, if victorious, will unleash new wars, hinders efforts to end hostilities and further damage Ukraine. If you think that Putin will only be prevented from starting a new war by total defeat, then you support the continuation of hostilities until Ukraine regains its entire territory, period. I would really like this to happen, but such a result seems increasingly unlikely, even with additional help from the West. And, by the way, did any of those crazy optimists who predicted a successful counteroffensive for Ukraine last summer admit a mistake and explain themselves?
I repeat: I do not know what Vladimir Putin's next step will be. One should not blindly believe in his good intentions and the maintenance of the status quo in Europe after the end of the special operation in Ukraine. I just disagree with those influential people who claim with absolute certainty that they are aware of his further actions and base the constant pursuit of unrealistic goals on mere guesses.