Some excellent points. I just want to offer a small correction, however. There is no evidence Kissinger said what he is quoted as having stated here although the comment is commonly misattributed to him. It would certainly accord with Kissinger’s realpolitik, yes, but the quote is suspiciously similar to Lord Palmerston’s dictum, declared in the best tradition of “Perfidious Albion”:
“We [in Britain] have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
It’s worth mentioning that Palmerston’s perspective was hardly unique to Britain (or Kissinger’s America) but instead sits within the same foreign policy tradition of “classical realism” (with constructivist aspects) practiced by many other nations before and since.
I simply don't understand the strategic benefit of Russia invading Europe. They have all the resources they need while Europe is effectively broke and has relied on foreign sources (including Russian) for decades. Russia would be far better off invading central or eastern Asia, but why would they, they are the biggest country in the world. The only thing they would welcome form Europe is migration to help alleviate their demographic issues.
Therefore any proposed Russian threat is questionable at best. Russia considers eastern Ukraine historically part of Russia (which to be fair it was), and is justifiably terrified of it jointing NATO, so it can't really be used as a comparison. The Baltic states have only been threatened when they have engaged in NATO footsies. States don't just invade for the fun of it.
There is massive strategic benefit however for European aggression against Russia, as the only way living standards can be maintained is to force others to pay unders on resources.
Hi, I'm afraid I find this view to be quite naive. Until very recently we lived in a time of peace and prosperity, which might make you suppose that's the natural order of things. But a quick look at history shows that's not the case.
Empires and large countries have always attacked small ones to acquire natural resources, prosperous cities (of which the Baltics have plenty), and people. Sometimes the conquerors want to convert people to a religion or a totalitarian political ideology; sometimes they want to expand their country's prestige and earn their spot in the history books. The motives vary but aggressive expansion is almost a constant.
More specifically, Russia has a long history of attacking the Baltic states before NATO. It occupied them by force in 1940 - something that's often forgotten because the West allied with Stalin shortly afterwards to fight an even worse dictator. They fought for and won their independence in 1990, and Russian imperialists like Putin have never fully accepted it.
By contrast, Europe has very little to gain by attacking Russia. The cheapest and best way for Europe to access Russia's resources is to buy them, which is what we did for decades. Unfortunately the idea that profitable trading would dampen Putin's appetite for conquest - Wandel durch Handel - proved to be inaccurate.
I'm not disagreeing with your argument that Empires expand and conquer, but rather that empires attack smaller states in wars of conquest and occupation when there is something to gain. Ukraine actually has resources, and an enormous amount of ethnic Russians (makes occupation easy). So does Central Asia, which Russia could certainly attack but will use soft power instead. The rest of Europe has an enormous population for its size, very little resources left, has a history of constant interstate warfare and a current culture that is virulently anti Russia. Invading and occupying would be beyond foolish. Russia will simply establish buffers and let it burn.
In previous eras religion and ideology may have played a role, but that is simply not the phase of civilisational cycle we are in. We are in the Caesar/Pompey/Crassus phase of personal rule for personal gain, but also the anti-plutocratic, imperial/patriarchal care for national wellbeing (Trump and Putin are exactly this). Wars and invasions will happen, but only for the most base resource reasons or imperial consolidation.
In the far future Russia itself may experience some sort of religious crusading impulse, but for now it's cold imperial calculation.
“The reference, surely deliberate, was to the 1938 Munich Agreement at which Britain and France forced Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Hitler on the hope that he would stop there.”
This is not fully accurate: the British and French had effectively dearmed themselves and were not in a position to put up resistance in 1938. They had a crash rearmament programme in place such that, on paper, by September 1939 they were more powerful than Germany. Notwithstanding the fact there was no broad based support for another continental war barely 20 years after the last one ended.
Don’t read into history only the lessons you want to comment on. It’s more complicated than that.
Fair point. My sense is that Germany was also not fully rearmed in Sept 38 and may not have been able to win an offensive campaign against Czechoslovakia through heavy terrain and fortifications, if it also had to contend with a western front and a naval blockade. Then again, perhaps its forces would have pushed through, in which case it could then have defeated France in maybe 1939. And indeed it would have been a hard sell to the populations of Britain and France. Alternate history is fascinating but ultimately a futile exercise!
I'm not sure about your last paragraph. Russia's tank factories are, I understand, struggling and Russia is already spending a large proportion of its GDP on the military and its defence industry. Many of its current drones are Iranian imports. Young Russians are not so gung-ho with Putin having to pay increasingly large sums to get Russians into the military and to the Ukrainian front line. That said, I agree with your European side of the analysis.
I don't think there is a single serious NATO think tank that believes Russia isn't producing more materiél than it's losing. I do not count the ISW as serious. It's a hack propaganda media site with good interactive maps.
Certainly the factories aren't cranking out tanks as fast as they're being lost, and the same is probably true of manpower. But that's inevitable after three years of high-intensity war, and in both regards Russia's war economy has stepped up significantly from where it was in 2022, whereas Europe's has barely changed. Russia has a long history of winning wars after taking far higher losses than the other side, and unfortunately this one seems to be going in the same direction.
How did you come to the conclusion that Russia "aren't cranking out tanks as fast as they're being lost"?
Russia will give up a position before it will lose men defending the position and still lose the position. That is the point of attrition warfare. The dead can neither attack, nor defend.
When it's time to clear a path to a trench, drones can't do the job. That's what glide bombs are for. And if you want to destroy the trench, glide bombs or TOS, not drones, are also used.
Some excellent points. I just want to offer a small correction, however. There is no evidence Kissinger said what he is quoted as having stated here although the comment is commonly misattributed to him. It would certainly accord with Kissinger’s realpolitik, yes, but the quote is suspiciously similar to Lord Palmerston’s dictum, declared in the best tradition of “Perfidious Albion”:
“We [in Britain] have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
It’s worth mentioning that Palmerston’s perspective was hardly unique to Britain (or Kissinger’s America) but instead sits within the same foreign policy tradition of “classical realism” (with constructivist aspects) practiced by many other nations before and since.
I simply don't understand the strategic benefit of Russia invading Europe. They have all the resources they need while Europe is effectively broke and has relied on foreign sources (including Russian) for decades. Russia would be far better off invading central or eastern Asia, but why would they, they are the biggest country in the world. The only thing they would welcome form Europe is migration to help alleviate their demographic issues.
Therefore any proposed Russian threat is questionable at best. Russia considers eastern Ukraine historically part of Russia (which to be fair it was), and is justifiably terrified of it jointing NATO, so it can't really be used as a comparison. The Baltic states have only been threatened when they have engaged in NATO footsies. States don't just invade for the fun of it.
There is massive strategic benefit however for European aggression against Russia, as the only way living standards can be maintained is to force others to pay unders on resources.
Hi, I'm afraid I find this view to be quite naive. Until very recently we lived in a time of peace and prosperity, which might make you suppose that's the natural order of things. But a quick look at history shows that's not the case.
Empires and large countries have always attacked small ones to acquire natural resources, prosperous cities (of which the Baltics have plenty), and people. Sometimes the conquerors want to convert people to a religion or a totalitarian political ideology; sometimes they want to expand their country's prestige and earn their spot in the history books. The motives vary but aggressive expansion is almost a constant.
More specifically, Russia has a long history of attacking the Baltic states before NATO. It occupied them by force in 1940 - something that's often forgotten because the West allied with Stalin shortly afterwards to fight an even worse dictator. They fought for and won their independence in 1990, and Russian imperialists like Putin have never fully accepted it.
By contrast, Europe has very little to gain by attacking Russia. The cheapest and best way for Europe to access Russia's resources is to buy them, which is what we did for decades. Unfortunately the idea that profitable trading would dampen Putin's appetite for conquest - Wandel durch Handel - proved to be inaccurate.
I'm not disagreeing with your argument that Empires expand and conquer, but rather that empires attack smaller states in wars of conquest and occupation when there is something to gain. Ukraine actually has resources, and an enormous amount of ethnic Russians (makes occupation easy). So does Central Asia, which Russia could certainly attack but will use soft power instead. The rest of Europe has an enormous population for its size, very little resources left, has a history of constant interstate warfare and a current culture that is virulently anti Russia. Invading and occupying would be beyond foolish. Russia will simply establish buffers and let it burn.
In previous eras religion and ideology may have played a role, but that is simply not the phase of civilisational cycle we are in. We are in the Caesar/Pompey/Crassus phase of personal rule for personal gain, but also the anti-plutocratic, imperial/patriarchal care for national wellbeing (Trump and Putin are exactly this). Wars and invasions will happen, but only for the most base resource reasons or imperial consolidation.
In the far future Russia itself may experience some sort of religious crusading impulse, but for now it's cold imperial calculation.
“The reference, surely deliberate, was to the 1938 Munich Agreement at which Britain and France forced Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Hitler on the hope that he would stop there.”
This is not fully accurate: the British and French had effectively dearmed themselves and were not in a position to put up resistance in 1938. They had a crash rearmament programme in place such that, on paper, by September 1939 they were more powerful than Germany. Notwithstanding the fact there was no broad based support for another continental war barely 20 years after the last one ended.
Don’t read into history only the lessons you want to comment on. It’s more complicated than that.
Fair point. My sense is that Germany was also not fully rearmed in Sept 38 and may not have been able to win an offensive campaign against Czechoslovakia through heavy terrain and fortifications, if it also had to contend with a western front and a naval blockade. Then again, perhaps its forces would have pushed through, in which case it could then have defeated France in maybe 1939. And indeed it would have been a hard sell to the populations of Britain and France. Alternate history is fascinating but ultimately a futile exercise!
I'm not sure about your last paragraph. Russia's tank factories are, I understand, struggling and Russia is already spending a large proportion of its GDP on the military and its defence industry. Many of its current drones are Iranian imports. Young Russians are not so gung-ho with Putin having to pay increasingly large sums to get Russians into the military and to the Ukrainian front line. That said, I agree with your European side of the analysis.
I don't think there is a single serious NATO think tank that believes Russia isn't producing more materiél than it's losing. I do not count the ISW as serious. It's a hack propaganda media site with good interactive maps.
Certainly the factories aren't cranking out tanks as fast as they're being lost, and the same is probably true of manpower. But that's inevitable after three years of high-intensity war, and in both regards Russia's war economy has stepped up significantly from where it was in 2022, whereas Europe's has barely changed. Russia has a long history of winning wars after taking far higher losses than the other side, and unfortunately this one seems to be going in the same direction.
How did you come to the conclusion that Russia "aren't cranking out tanks as fast as they're being lost"?
Russia will give up a position before it will lose men defending the position and still lose the position. That is the point of attrition warfare. The dead can neither attack, nor defend.
When it's time to clear a path to a trench, drones can't do the job. That's what glide bombs are for. And if you want to destroy the trench, glide bombs or TOS, not drones, are also used.