Why Putin Has Not Been DeterredExasperated Americans fear Vladimir Putin is deterred neither by sanctions nor by arms sales but follows only his own sense of cost-to-benefit self-interest.
By Victor Davis Hanson
January 26, 2022
Americans want an autonomous Ukraine to survive. They hope the West can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strangulation of both Ukraine and NATO.
Yet Americans do not want their troops to venture across the world to Europe’s backyard to fight nuclear Russia to ensure that Ukraine stays independent.
Most Americans oppose the notion that Russia can simply dictate the future of Ukraine.
Yet Americans also grudgingly accept that Ukraine was often historically part of Russia. During World War II, it was the bloody scene of joint Russian-Ukrainian sacrifices—over 5 million killed—to defeat the Nazi German invasion.
Americans publicly support NATO.
Yet most Americas privately worry that NATO has become diplomatically impotent and a military mirage—a modern League of Nations.
NATO members have a collective GDP seven times larger than Russia’s. Their aggregate population is 1 billion. Yet the majority will not spend enough on defense to deter their weaker enemies.
* * *
Putin knows that the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appear more worried about “white privilege” and climate change than enhancing military readiness to deter enemies such as himself.
Putin sees polls that only 45 percent of Americans have confidence in their new politicized military.
The flight from Afghanistan, Putin further conjectures, has made the United States both less feared by enemies and less trusted by allies.
The prior failed American policy of Russian “reset,” the appeasement of Putin’s aggressions during the Obama years, together with the concocted hoax of “Russian collusion,” have all variously emboldened—and angered—Putin.
* * *
Putin is undermining a sovereign nation, fissuring NATO, and, if successful, might continue the Ukraine slow squeeze model in the Baltic states and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, China smiles, hoping the Ukraine blueprint can be used against Taiwan.
Exasperated Americans fear that Putin is deterred neither by sanctions nor by arms sales but follows only his own sense of cost-to-benefit self-interest.
Source:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/26/why-putin-has-not-been-deterred/
