Nuking Russia

Vladimir Putin’s mid-dictatorship crisis has erased 20 years of growth and geopolitical statecraft

[Published first on 3/16/22 on my substack, The Halfway Café. If you enjoy liberal takes on contemporary politics and foreign policy, subscribe!]

Vladimir Putin’s fundamental misconception of historical context in his ongoing European invasion is that Ukrainians’ demand for independence and utter disinterest in joining a smaller union with a post-Soviet Russia and Belarus was the final nail in the coffin for the USSR following the failed coup against Gorbachev and the successful secession of the Baltic states. Ukrainians were emphatic they weren’t Russians then, and they’re emphatic they’re not Russians now.

This miscalculation has wrecked Putin’s mid-dictatorship crisis dreams of a new Russian empire, and Putin has spectacularly failed to achieve any of his strategic geopolitical goals. America has deployed thousands of extra troops to Europe and is currently debating sending Ukraine some US drones alongside billions of dollars in aid, NATO is suddenly existentially relevant to European interests after 30 years of declining interest, former Eastern Bloc countries are rounding up as many arms and supplies for Ukraine as possible to be soon replaced by more modern weapons from Western nations, and the European Union is virtually unanimous in its commitment with America to…