Turmoil in Russia!
Is Putin's Grip Weakening?
News of the rebellion of the Wagner mercenary group in Russia and the exile of its leader have led to confident announcements of Vladimir Putin’s weakening grip on power. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the rebellion was “the latest failure” in Putin’s war against Ukraine, and NBC News declared “Putin’s rule is now more uncertain than ever.”
Perhaps so. Wars often act as an accelerant to change, generating political chaos in their wake. The results of chaos, obviously, don’t lend themselves to predictability. Who knew in 1914, when the guns of August sounded, that four years later four empires would have collapsed under the strain of war (the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the German Second Reich).
President Joe Biden was unusually frank in March of 2022 when he declared that Putin “cannot remain in power” due to his decision to invade Ukraine. Be careful what you wish for, Mr. President. Is overthrowing Putin truly a wise goal for global stability?
I honestly don’t know. A weaker, possibly fragmented Russia could increase the chances of nuclear war. A struggle for power within Russia could lead to the emergence of hardline leader who might make the West nostalgic for the relative predictability of Putin.
Most of us have heard the saying: better the devil you know than the one you don’t know. (This isn’t to suggest Putin is diabolical, of course.) In World War I, many of the allies professed to hate the Kaiser; his eventual successor as leader of the German people was Adolf Hitler. Again, wars may unleash elemental and fundamental changes, and change isn’t always for the better.
So, my position on the Russia-Ukraine War remains unchanged. Negotiate a truce. Use diplomacy to put a permanent end to this war. If Putin is truly weakened, this might be the best of times to seek a diplomatic settlement. After all, if Putin is truly worried about his grip on power within Russia, he might be open to ending the war largely on Ukraine’s terms so he can redirect his attention to consolidating his power base.
War has been given plenty of chances. Why not give peace a chance?
Update (6/26): The predictions of Putin’s demise are still coming. Got this from CNN this morning: One key takeaway: Russian President Vladimir Putin looks weak as a result. "It feels like the beginning of the end for him," writes CNN's Nick Paton Walsh.
Putin would look weak if the revolt was continuing. But it already looks to be over. In our fast-twitch and faster-Tweet world, people run at the mouth before they have the run of events. Sadly, I don’t “feel” that Putin is about to go down, nor do I think this would inevitably bring a better world.
Unfortunately, Bill, the likely outcome from this turmoil is a prolonged war and an increase in the possibility of it going nuclear. You can be sure that the neocon cabal of Blinken/Sullivan/Nuland/Austin/Biden have been salivating these past 48 hours. They surely feel that their goal of regime change is now in sight. So, we should expect even more doubling down, massive weapons transfers, etc., along with more carnage, tragically. The game of nuclear chicken will carry on. The proxy war against Russia unleashed by the neocon cabal will likely keep going for the foreseeable future no matter the risk, until the last Ukrainian.
I think the Prigozhin escapade has proved a tidy way for the Kremlin to finally separately him from Wagner. Putin's cool head in the matter brought a swift conclusion to a crisis situation in which the West characteristically got all giddy about the inevitable fall of Putin and Russia. Instead, Prigozhin found zero support and Putin well supported once again. The West will carry on for weeks (months?) with headlines of the inevitable Putin fall just as they have carried on for months about Ukraine winning the war. Both are illusory.