2/24/22
There is a myth, in wide circulation throughout the Western world, that Vladimir Putin is a strategic mastermind - a geopolitical genius more astute than Clausewitz, more subtle than Sun Tzu and more audacious than Napoleon. Like most myths, however, this one is more fantasy than fact. Putin is by no conceivable definition of the term a strategic genius; in fact, quite the opposite. Even a cursory survey of his record clearly reveals that the Russian leader is something of a strategic fool. A review of Putin's mishandling of the ongoing Ukraine crisis will be sufficient to illustrate the basic point. To begin with, we need to bear in mind that it was Putin who needlessly transformed a simmering political conflict with Ukraine into a war. That conflict, itself caused by Putin's blundering efforts to compel Ukraine to join his Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), had become frozen in the aftermath of his failed 2014 effort to permanently halt Ukraine's westward drift. But, in a clumsy attempt to force a permanent solution to his "Ukraine problem," in recent months, Putin deployed a massive military force that could neither be maintained in the field indefinitely nor withdrawn without significant internal and external audience costs.
Now that, all too predictably, neither Ukraine nor NATO has acceded to his demands, he has found himself with no choice but to use the massive military force that he originally thought he could wield bloodlessly to bully his way to victory. These are not the fruits of strategic genius. Even a less-than-average strategic genius would not have amassed forces on Ukraine's border without leaving himself what Sun Tzu, an actual master of strategy, called a "golden bridge" - an off-ramp that in this case would allow him to exit the highway to war without incurring substantial internal and external audience costs. And let's be clear: Putin's war with Ukraine will ultimately redound to Russia's great strategic disadvantage. If Russia attempts to occupy the entire country, it will face the task of pacifying a hostile people with a long history of resisting foreign domination. And if Putin does nothing more than attempt to break the Ukrainian state and its military, the staggering civilian casualties and subsequent refugee crisis will leave Russia a pariah state - one subject to sanctions and condemnations the likes of which it has never before experienced. In sum, Vladimir Putin may be many things - a capable tyrant, a sometime naturalist, a middling hockey player, an avid fisherman. But whatever else he is, and the prevailing mythology notwithstanding, one thing is for certain: He's no strategic genius.