Response to John J. Mearsheimer's "The Myth that Putin Was Bent on Conquering Ukraine and Creating a Greater Russia"

Wherein I take apart the prevailing views about Russia's goals in Ukraine...

This is a response to John J. Mearsheimer’s Substack post “The Myth that Putin Was Bent on Conquering Ukraine and Creating a Greater Russia” which was partially reproduced at Antiwar.com today.

My response is as follows:

Russia’s small invasion force was not capable of conquering and occupying all of Ukraine; and 2) it would have made no sense to delay a larger offensive, as it would afford Ukraine time to build up its defenses.

Professor Mearsheimer has been claiming that this proves not only that Russia doesn’t want to attack further NATO nations, but that Russia had no desire to “occupy” Ukraine. Many other pro-Russian commentators constantly make the same and related arguments: that Russia will stop at the Dnieper River, that Russia will just take eastern and southern Ukraine, leaving Ukraine a “rump state” around Kiev and western Ukraine, that Russia “can’t” take all of Ukraine, that Russia is afraid of a Ukrainian insurgency in western Ukraine, etc.

The big problem with these analyses is that Russia had two plans.

The first was a plan I suspect was cooked up by Putin and Lavrov, Putin because he was cautious about taking all of Ukraine and Lavrov because, well, he's a diplomat and thinks in diplomacy terms.

That plan was intended to do as Mearsheimer suggests: frighten Ukraine into negotiations and then secure a "minimalist" result: essentially the same thing as Minsk II with the addition that Ukraine would swear not to join NATO.

The problem with that plan, of course, is two-fold:

1) Ukraine and the West would never implement it, just as they never implemented Minsk II. The fact that the US sent Boris Johnson to sabotage it is proof of that.

2) The plan does nothing to address Russia's REAL "security interests" - which happen to be precisely those Aegis Ashore installations in Poland and Romania which, as Ray McGovern has pointed out, Putin spoke about repeatedly.

Presumably under plan one, Putin expected to find some other ways to deal with that issue once Ukraine was (hopefully) removed as a threat. This was a Pollyanna notion, in my view, as was the notion that the West and Ukraine would adhere to any agreement with Russia.

Fortunately for Russia, the Russian General Staff obviously saw the unlikelihood of that plan working and presented "Plan B" to Putin.

That plan as presented to Putin would have said essentially the following:

1) "Plan A" is not going to work for the reasons I outlined above.

2) The real problem is not Ukraine, it's the Aegis systems. The solution, however, IS Ukraine.

3) The problem with the Aegis systems is that they are a threat both in terms of a decapitation strike on Moscow, and also as a spoiler against Russian nuclear retaliation in the event of a decapitation strike or general war between Russia and the West. Putin understands that threat. As Ray McGovern pointed out, Putin has said so repeatedly.

4) The further problem is that Russia would need to use its air defenses to defeat those Aegis missiles in "terminal phase", i.e. as they are coming down. This raises the problem of "leakers", as Russian military expert Andrei Martyanov calls them: missiles that manage to make it through the air defense. The proper solution for that problem is to place your air defenses as close to the threat as possible so they can be intercepted in "boost phase", i.e. as they are going up.

5) The solution is thus to place Russian air defenses in western Ukraine.

6) This requires taking Ukraine off the board permanently. That in turn implies all the objectives enumerated by Putin in his speech announcing the SMO: de-militarization and de-Nazification. Those are pre-conditions for the real objectives of the SMO, not the ultimate objective.

I would also point out that Russia having a small invasion force at the beginning of the operation does not preclude Russia increasing its force during the SMO - which is precisely what it did. Russia is now aiming for a total military force of 2.5 million, including all branches, with 1.5 million of that being combat troops.

I would also point out that people who say Russia would need a million or more troops to "occupy" Ukraine are wrong. Russia can control Ukraine with far fewer troops. It all depends on how Russia goes about it. If you don’t bother to put a soldier on every street corner, like the US did in Germany after WWII and in Iraq in 2003, and merely concentrate defensive forces around critical infrastructure, you can “occupy” with far fewer troops.

Note that unlike US occupations in its wars, there is no language or culture problem. Much of Ukraine speaks Russian; both countries share a culture. This automatically makes "occupation" far easier.

As for the vaunted "insurgency" everyone keeps talking about, Russia has been there, done that from 1947-1956. Ukraine insurgents killed 20,000 Russians; Russia killed 200,000 Ukrainians before the insurgency petered out.

Since then, Russia has fought insurgencies in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. Russia knows how to do it even more effectively now than in 1947.

Also, this is the Internet age, not 1947.

After Russia takes control of Ukraine, the Russian military will be followed by thousands of Russian military police, Rosqvardia, and GRU, SVR and FSB agents, along with ordinary police - many recruited from pro-Russian Ukrainians - and lowly data entry clerks. They will seize the social media servers and comb through them for every anti-Russian statement from anyone with the social influence and economic resources to start an insurgency. Those people will be detained and deported.

Further, this is the drone age, not 1947.

People don't understand that in the age of ubiquitous military weaponized drones with FPV thermal vision cameras, you can no longer conduct a rural insurgency, unless you've spent years - like Hamas and Hezbollah have done - building a tunnel and bunker network in the rural areas. In fact, Hamas has built their network in an urban area. Hezbollah has their network in both rural and urban areas. Both have built their networks over the course of a decade or more. Ukraine do not now have and will not have that capability under Russian control.

And if someone in Ukraine attempts an urban insurgency, they will have to deal with the Chechens and Wagner, both experts in urban conflict.

So the notion that Russia won't occupy western Ukraine because they don't like western Ukrainians or are afraid of western Ukrainians starting an insurgency is bogus.

Also, the notion of Russia giving western Ukraine to Poland is ridiculous. You don’t give up territory to the enemy who will then use it to cause further trouble for you. What is the advantage of allowing NATO to extend ever closer to Russia than it does now?

Finally, since the real issue is Russia's security interests, i.e., those Aegis Ashore installations, this overrides any possible "insurgency" threat. What is more important? The nuclear threat by the West or a handful of disgruntled neo-Nazi football hooligans and their oligarch paymasters?

Over the course of the last two years, as many people have noted, NATO has not reduced its footprint; it has expanded it. Putin himself noted this in a speech in the last couple days, stating he was "naive" about the West's attitude toward Russia. He pointed out that the addition of Finland to NATO resulted in Russia establishing new Military Districts opposite Finland.

I believe Putin was hinting that this is precisely what Russia will do in Ukraine: establish a Military District in western Ukraine opposite Poland and Romania. Russia will also further integrate the Belarus military with the Russian military, as it has been doing over the last two years. The latter effort also ties in with the expansion of Russian Military Districts opposite Finland. It shows a trend in Russian thinking.

What Russia is ultimately doing is building an "Iron Curtain 2.0" from the Black Sea to the Arctic. Russia has been invaded or threatened by the West several times in the last 100-150 years. Russia has evidently decided to put a stop to this recurring history by establishing a military wall on its western borders, so that the West can no longer threaten Russia on the ground without resorting to using nuclear weapons - a threat for which Russia is also preparing with its development of advanced air defense capabilities.

And this is why Russia is building up its military forces to 2.5 million. It needs that many to establish these Military Districts across the wide expanse of its western borders. Those troops are not intended to invade anyone but to insure Russia is never again threatened by the West with a ground invasion.

Professor Mearsheimer gets that part absolutely right. But the idea that Russia is not going to occupy all of Ukraine and alter its status as an independent state is incorrect.

As usual in such matters, we shall see. The part of my article is to consider alternatives to some of the conventional narrative which even pro-Russian commentators appear to be limited to.