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| A Russian convoy |
The Russia-Ukraine conflict might be at its most perilous moment, and a key word in the puzzle is "de-escalation" -- and how to achieve it without accidentally prodding Vladimir Putin to take more destructive acts than he's already taken. From a report at Axios, under the headline "Biden's dilemma: How to give Putin an off-ramp":
With Ukraine holding Russia off longer than many U.S. officials had expected, President Biden now faces a great unanswered question — how to give Vladimir Putin an off-ramp to avoid even greater calamity.
A cornered, humiliated Putin could unleash untold pain on the world, from cyberattacks to nuclear threats. After enacting brutal sanctions, the White House now must consider how the invasion can end without a new catastrophe.
Nobody knows what Putin would accept.
Many officials fear that we are heading into a very dangerous period — the punishing Western sanctions pushing an autocrat into a corner.
At least one U.S. official has questioned Putin's mental and emotional stability, and that could be a major wild card in the effort to seek peace:
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee, has hinted Putin could be addled.
"This is the most dangerous moment in 60 years," Rubio tweeted Sunday night. Putin, he said, "is facing a humiliating military fiasco & he has triggered extraordinary consequences on #Russia's economy & people that will not be easy to reverse ... And his only options to reset this imbalance are catastrophic ones."
A European diplomat told reporters at a briefing yesterday: "It's like the Sun Tzu thing of giving someone a golden bridge to retreat across. How do you get him to go in a different direction?"
"I think the door to diplomacy remains open," the diplomat continued. "Putin ... doesn't normally back down. But he also controls the information environment in his own country to such an extent that if he does, he can cover his tracks. ... So I think there is room for him to de-escalate — and that's certainly what we're pressing for."
The diplomat pointed to [Sunday's] Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Belarus as the most viable off-ramp in a sea of bad options, noting that negotiations lasted for four hours and appear headed for a second round.
No one seems to know what might be possible with Putin:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said before the talks that he was willing to discuss "neutral status" for Ukraine — one of Putin's three demands.
But the other two — demilitarization and "denazification" of Ukraine, and recognition of Russia's claim to Crimea — suggest Putin will never accept a deal in which Zelensky remains in power.
The bottom line: The West's response to Putin — for so long, uncertain and halting — has moved at astonishing speed and ferocity over the past week. How Putin will respond — and whether de-escalation is even possible — is keeping national-security leaders up at night.
Why hasn't somebody dropped a few bombs, or fired a few Stinger missiles, at that convoy? The satellite images show right where the Russian tanks and vehicles are moving.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of people are asking that question. I've seen a lot of discussion about it online. I'm guessing it's one of those tactics that is easier said than done. But that might not mean it's off the table. As the post states, the diplomatic voices are looking for a way to coax Putin out of the mess he's made without prodding him into taking even more drastic steps than he's already taken.
ReplyDeleteAs for Putin's mental state, al.com has a good interview with Birmingham native Condoleeza Rice about Putin and Ukraine --
ReplyDeleteHeadline: Condoleezza Rice: Putin may have miscalculated in Ukraine, is ‘delusional’
[Former] U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Vladimir Putin has become delusional and erratic in an interview Sunday.
Rice, an Alabama native, said Putin may have underestimated the difficulty of an attack on Ukraine.
“He was always calculating and cold. But this is different. He seems erratic. There is an ever-deepening, delusional rendering of history, it was always a kind of victimology about what had happened to them, but now it goes back to blaming Lenin for the foundation of Kyiv,” Rice said on Fox News Sunday.
https://www.al.com/news/2022/02/condoleezza-rice-putin-miscalculated-in-ukraine-is-delusional.html
I think Biden meant something specific when he said Putin "has no idea what's coming."
ReplyDeleteI wonder what it was?
Good question. I don't know the answer, but it certainly was the No. 1 attention-grabbing line of the SOTU.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that Stingers are anti-aircraft weapons and Javelins are anti-tank weapons. I think Javelins would be most effective against the convoy. I think both are fired from the shoulder, so they aren't all that complicated to use -- just aim from the shoulder and fire.
ReplyDelete