This is my fear: Putin is trying to flip the Reagan Strategy on us. For those who’ve forgotten or weren’t born during the 80’s, let me refresh you on President Reagan’s plan for winning…not fighting, winning…the Cold War.
He believed-correctly-that Russia was facing economic ruin with the triple challenges of keeping on to its empire (i.e. Eastern Europe), facing off against the USA in an arm race, and a failed state-run economic model. He decided to give the USSR a big nudge to finishing that breakdown: He ran the arms race up to incredible lengths building a 600 ship navy with a Marine Corps to match. For that matter he even armed an entire class of Coast Guard cutters with anti-ship missiles and torpedoes just to emphasize it. The naval build-up included enough subs that they could shadow nearly every single ballistic sub the Russians put to sea. He financed not-very-clandestine arms supplying operations to satellite states the foremost being Afghanistan where the Russians had a defeat that made Vietnam vets say “sucks to be you”. He rebuilt our nuclear forces with new ICBMs and resurrected a cancelled B-1B bomber. He started the “star wars” anti-ICBM program which he knew the Russians couldn’t possibly match—he never even had to actually build and deploy it, the threat was scary enough.
The result: The fall of the USSR. Yes, there were Russians like Yeltsin and Gorbachev, but they would never have attained any power had the KGB/GRU not seen the writing on the wall.
KGB like Putin. Putin was on the receiving end of the Reagan Strategy. Czar Putin. We may has well call him that he has been president and prime minister and each time whatever post he is in becomes the top post. So yes, he is the Czar of Russia in fact if not name. And yes he is a dictator…Czars aren’t known for democratic feelings…but he is also a fiercely proud Russian. He wants his empire back.
And Reagan showed him how. Putin has been studying the US. He sees a country in a 10 year old recession. A country whose government is no longer stealing from our children but our grandchildren to meet its bills. And oh, most important of all: a country that cannot afford to so much as get new amphibious craft for the Marines.
In fact we are sacrificing our Army and Marine Corps’ basic vehicle needs just to pay for a new fighter that is hideously expensive. In fact, the US has probably spent more on fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last ten years then they spent keeping Eastern Europe under their thumb and in their Afghanistan war over 40 years. (I am sure Putin has a laugh every time he realizes we have been in Afghanistan longer than Russia was and we’re not even trying to keep it!)
The invasion of the Ukraine was a “hat trick” for Putin; he got 3 goals in one game. First, every Czar and Soviet leader since Ivan the Terrible has taken and/or tried to take Crimea so they could have a port that wasn’t frozen 1/3 of the year. (Told you he’s a Czar.) Second it puts Eastern Europe on notice that Russia is back from the dead and wants its empire restored. I took a Russian history course in college once and you should know that Russia has ALWAYS went after Poland and the Baltic states whenever a truly strong leader appeared; Ivan, Catherine, all the “big” Czars did. Finally, and most important he wanted to see what we would do. He predicted the US would do nothing. He was right.
And now? We see bombers at our borders…just like the Cold War. He is updating his nuclear arsenal…just like Reagan did. Rebuilding his navy including better submarines…just like Reagan did. He is restarting the arms race. He is betting America will go bankrupt like Russia did or back down and let him restart the Empire in another 5-10 years. Putin will build and wait like Reagan did in his bid to be the first Russian Czar in 100 years.
JNZ's Milspec Musings 