Putin’s endgame

It causes me intense regret to say that Vladimir Putin has entered what appears to be his endgame – the disastrous end of his invasion of Ukraine, the end of his regime (since a major military setback always seems to result in regime change in Russia, the most notable being when the Czars were overthrown by the Bolsheviks after major losses in World War I), and perhaps the end of his personal freedom (and maybe even his life – although that’s perhaps a little too much to hope for now).

How will this happen? A couple weeks ago, I would have said the oligarchs would push him out, but they are – of course – in the end just creations of Putin. They have no base of power on their own. And the people aren’t going to push him out, either. The majority still seem to support him, although they’re still in the initial stages where they’ve heard the thunderclap, but they haven’t felt the rain yet. Or they’re like the guy who jumped off the top of the Sears Tower and called out “So far, so good!” as he passed the 50th floor.

No, I think the military will push him out. Obviously, the invasion of Ukraine has been a disaster, and Putin will seek to blame his generals for that – but I doubt anybody in the military lifts a finger without Putin’s permission, and when he tells them to jump, their only response is, “How high?” The military's biggest concern will be the consequences of Putin's actions, now that he realizes he can’t win a straight-out military victory:

1.      He might try to pursue his Chechnya strategy – i.e. leveling the capital city and deliberately killing thousands of civilians. But that’s not going to work. At a certain point, the Western powers will decide it’s time to call Putin’s nuclear bluff and send in their own planes – including attacking the 20-mile convoy that the Russians very helpfully set up to be bombed into oblivion in an evening’s work. The West won’t stand for a major civilian slaughter in Ukraine, nukes or no nukes.

2.      Speaking of nuclear, Putin is deliberately risking nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia (say that five times fast!), where it’s never a very good strategy to force the staff at gunpoint to keep running the plant safely, when none of the attackers know a thing about nuclear power. You might as well just point the gun at your own head. And remember that the prevailing westerly winds will blow the radioactive cloud from a disaster at either plant right into Russia. Hmm, what’s wrong with this picture?

3.      Perhaps most frightening for the military will be the idea that, once Putin realizes how much trouble he’s in, he’ll resort to using a “tactical” nuclear weapon, calculating that any retaliation by the West will also be “tactical” and won’t take out a big city like Moscow. That’s probably correct, but it would probably take out a big military base, which means lots of soldiers and also their families. Not too appetizing a prospect for the military, no?

It's hard to see how any replacement for Putin won’t be an improvement.

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