Cables From The Diplomatic Frontline: The nonsense of persuading Putin to abandon China in return for a gainful deal on Ukraine.

The grand deal with Putin: when fantasy replaces serious policy

• In exchange for a commitment to keep Ukraine out of NATO and “freeze the current lines of control” (translation: allow Russia to keep its thus far conquered territories the size of the UK) the GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants Putin to abandon the ‘‘military alliance” with China.

• (side note: a candidate running for President is unaware that there is no formal military alliance between Russia and China.)

• Regular readers are well-informed to realize that abandoning Ukraine, and rewarding Russia for its aggression with 17% of Ukrainian territory is a one-way ticket for America to lose all of the credibility and prestige as a superpower.

• And not only - we would officially revert back several centuries: all of the modern, post-WWII institutions that have largely (with few skirmishes and mini-conflicts here and there) kept the world at peace would come undone - we would fully affirm Putin’s bet that one can once again take us back in history to darker ages where might equals right, and lives of millions of innocent civilians would be once again fully at the whim of psychopathic dictators.

• On narrower national security grounds, this would also be a world that is far more unstable and insecure: and one that will in time add more costs and threats to America’s prosperity and security.

• The US would end up paying far more in the future for this catastrophic mistake: more blood and treasure would have to be given up to deal with future fallouts that will result from this new world order.

• But by now, this much is clear to regular cables readers - so we shall not re-litigate the first part of the equation: the unacceptable proposition to grant Putin almost a fifth of a sovereign nation’s territory as a reward for his decision to invade Ukraine.

• But what about the second part of the equation?

• What about the demand side of Ramaswamy’s ‘‘deal’’ - asking Russia to abandon a ‘‘military alliance” with China in return for these concessions?

• Such a proposal is based upon a number of inter-linked and crucially, implausible assumptions.

• Not only would this proposal need to be appealing enough for Russia, but it would also need to overcome a series of tough obstacles - from America’s allies to the issues of enforceability.

• Examining each assumption that underpins the possibility of such a deal will make it clear just how implausible the whole proposal is - it is in effect, nothing but a ‘‘cheap’’ way for political leaders to throw around ‘‘solutions’’ - without carrying the burden of proving the viability of such wild proposals in practice.

• Candidates like Ramaswamy estimate that the incentive to make wild promises of a monumental deals with Russia (which, it certainly would be, if it ever happened - which it won’t) outweighs any major analytical errors associated with this ultimately futile exercise - their base simply does not care (or does not possess an attention span sufficient enough to think carefully about just how wild and analytically deficient these proposals are).

• And to be clear, if it was only the fringe candidates like Ramaswamy spewing this nonsense, we would not bother too much about disproving such grandiose diplomatic proposals.

• But a lot of relatively serious analysts and think tanks are also jumping on this bandwagon - everyone is trying to do a Kissinger 2.0 and split Russia and China.

• Geopolitics is perpetually fluid - especially in the context of a new multipolar global order (currently in early days of emergence) - so nothing can be ruled out in future.

• But the idea that Russia would abandon China in return for a good deal in Ukraine is a straightforward nonsense.

• To see why, we shall now unpack and evaluate all of the wild assumptions baked into this plan:

• Assumption #1: Putin is interested in a genuine end to the war and wants a ceasefire now.

• That Putin would actually agree to a ceasefire and freeze in gains is taken for granted - because, why wouldn’t he?

• Russia has lost more than 150k troops (on the low end of estimates), thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, more than a hundred aircrafts, and several ships and submarines.

• Russian industry and economy at large is facing daunting near-term prospects as well.

• Nearly a million highly-skilled workers - especially, talented programmers, engineers, and other high-tech industry employees have left the country to dodge the draft.

• Although the Russian GDP didn’t contract significantly after the war (hovering around 2% contraction - as opposed to Ukraine, which, suffered a contraction of 29% in 2022 thanks to its industry destroyed, arable land full of artillery shells, and ports blockaded) Russian economy still suffered a significant hit: major foreign corporations have pulled out their assets (and knowhow too).

• More than 1,000 foreign companies withdrew or divested their investments from Russia - “It is the biggest exodus of business in world history.” according to Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the founder of Yale’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute who led the research team behind the list.

• In addition to all of this, every day of this war brings further political risks - war is an uncertain business, and the June coup attempt by Wagner leader Prigozhin was one near-existential crisis for Putin that he surely did not foresee at the outset of the war in Ukraine.

• But with all that said, the empirical evidence contradicts the often-held assumption that Putin wants an urgent way out.

• All available evidence points to Russia not even thinking about genuine negotiations.

• The notion that Putin needs an attractive off-ramp to abandon the war in Ukraine is not borne out by facts on the ground.

• Perhaps this was the case in late 2022 - when Russia lost Kherson and faced embarrassment of a total defensive collapse in Kharkiv, but as of today, this does not seem to be the case.

• The current status quo is not tempting enough for Putin to ‘‘solidify his gains’’.

• Even if hypothetically, Ukraine was to be pressured into a catastrophic defeat and an agreement to reward Russia by granting it annexed lands the size of the UK, (which would essentially confirm the end of US-led global world order) it is not at all clear that this would be enough for Putin within the current context.

• Too many casualties and losses were sustained for Putin to not explore further gains.

• And as of right now, he is smelling blood - he can see that the Western resolve is shaky, and that there is little guarantee of a continuous pipeline of support for it from its Western allies.

• Washington is increasingly tying itself in knots - trying to find creative ways of pushing through a legislation to fund Ukraine well into late 2024.

• The public support is also unfortunately dwindling (it certainly doesn’t help that there is a lack of proper political leadership to guide these sentiments and to stand out to the automatically isolationist fringe media and public personalities).

• Putin always believed that he could outlast the west - and the trends finally moved in the direction that conveniently confirms his prior biases.

• Moreover, there is a good chance that Trump could get re-elected.

• And given that Trump had previously announced his desire to make a deal with Putin, there is a decent chance that the option to ‘‘settle and freeze the gains’’ will still be available in 1.5 years time.

• So why not wait for that eventuality as a plan B, and go all-in for gains as of right now?

• Naturally, this is far from a given, and there is a good chance that further funding will be passed in both the US and the EU.

• Ukraine is also set to get more ATACMS and finally, F-16 fighter jets - covering (at least in part) a major deficiency in air power that weighed on Ukraine throughout this war.

• Indeed, all available indicators point to the fact that Russia is revving up its engines for a lengthier and bigger war.

• Russia is building a major local plant to produce thousands of Iranian drones at an even higher scale.

• It is also willing to share sensitive satellite tech with North Korea - in exchange for a solid pipeline of 152mm artillery shells - which North Korea is already delivering in the range of hundreds of thousands per month.

• Moreover, Russia itself is increasing its defense budget and capacity going well into 2024.

• Russia is revving up its engines to get on proper war-production regime.

• Next year, it will spend ($118bn) or 6% of its GDP on defense, a highest share in decades (freezing healthcare and social spends in the meantime) - and a 3x increase from the expenditure in 2021, and fully 70% more than the figure planned for this year.

• There is also a 30-40 % surge in (the purchasing managers’ index) in military-related industries since January 2023.

• Consequently, the longstanding assumption that Putin wants an out is not necessarily relevant today.

• He is revving up Russia’s war engines - some of it is to signal staying power (and discourage/dissuade the West - emphasizing the futility of backing Ukraine).

• But a lot of it is surely because Russia is indeed interested in maximizing its gains - it is even ready to throw in 40k soldiers for a town as insignificant as Avdiivka.

• Consequently, the first major obstacle is the currently unsubstantiated belief that Putin is desperate for a way out - not so, point the facts.

• Assumption #2: Putin would prefer a freeze in gains to an alliance with China.