I was wrong. Until Putin’s security council meeting
and speech on February 21, I didn’t believe he’d actually pull the trigger and
invade Ukraine. Despite all the military moves since October, the tightening
noose around Ukraine, and all the crazy talk by Russian officials, I thought it
was a demonstrative use of force designed to gain concessions from the US and
demonstrate the weakness of Western resolve.

There are five reasons I didn’t believe what was
happening in front of my eyes. First, Western countries clearly signaled
substantial economic damage in response. While Russia has a $600B reserve,
threats made to exclude Russia from financial markets and prevent technology
exports pose real harm to Russia’s economy and potentially to support for Putin
within Russia. Second, Russia’s demands weren’t practical, attainable — they
were sweeping and would have required the voluntary regression to a Soviet
sphere of influence. Third, Russian military forces aren’t that good. The US
braced them up easily in Syrian skirmishes. They barely fought Ukrainian forces
to a standstill in the “breakaway provinces,” and face the risk of a
substantial insurgency that, despite the barbarity of their tactics, they
aren’t particularly good at fighting. Fourth, there were conceivable and
valuable gains within Putin’s grasp. The unity of Western allies, always
difficult to maintain, could easily have shown them feckless as economic costs
of sanctions began to affect economies. Allies were moving at different speeds,
and Putin could have reaped at least tacit assurances about NATO and EU
admission. And fifth, as AEI’s Critical Threats Project then assessed, the
political and military costs to Russia are unsustainable.

It was the second reason that ought to have triggered realization. Putin wasn’t asking for anything he could conceivably have gotten, so it was either just a pretext for war or he is not making rational calculations about his own and others’ actions. Or both. Putin’s speech didn’t outline war aims, it outlined the complete destruction of Ukraine. As Liz Sly noted, it had “echoes of Syria & ‘Assad or we burn the country.’” When a business leader appealed not to cut links to the global economy, Putin’s answer was, “To be clear, what is happening is a necessary measure. They just gave us no chance to act otherwise. . . . The risks were such that it was unclear how our country would even continue to exist.”

I think Melissa Chan’s criticism best diagnoses my failure: “rational people analyzing things do not take into account enough the possibility that some autocrats are crazy.” Mine was a failure of imagination.

But I also had some important things right: the US
and its allies have held unity and mobilized significant international
condemnation of Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians have admirably proved both
willing and able to defend themselves, Western countries are arming and will
train the Ukrainian military, the German government stopped NordStream 2,
governments and civil society groups are mobilizing to make Russian leaders’
wealth visible, Russian aggression has reinforced the value of NATO membership
and the alliance has moved to better defend its front line states. Launching
successful military operations is not the same as winning a war.

I agree with Germany’s chancellor that the challenge now is to prevent Putin from succeeding. Most immediately, that means the Ukrainian military fighting, which they appear to be very bravely doing. It also means keeping President Zelensky alive. He is a wartime leader of heroic dimensions, and Ukrainians are likely to fight on even should their military be defeated, as long as the president remains. But the Russians are surely attempting to assassinate him, so ferociously personal as Putin’s hatred burns.

The economic sanctions announced by the G7 states are a solid start on a cost-imposing strategy. Britain’s refusal to allow Russian commercial aircraft into its airspace is a creative penalty. Weapons, lines of credit, and volunteer irregular forces will likely follow, hopefully in time to be of use.

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