[Skybird]

I mentioned, randomly, in the past year, that I think we must drop a new iron curtain to the East. I meant by that that we must also massively reinvest into readying our warfighting capabilities again so that we are prepared for everything. We need to do so NO MATTER THE OUTOCME OF THE CURRENT WAR. Even when Russia looses.

Die Welt quotes Martin van Creveld with this piece that further explains why: in summary, it is because Europe has new big troubles in its East, no matter whether the Russians win or loose.

To make this clear: By the reasons of this essay, I in no way wish to say that we should not wish for a Russian defeat, or should allow Russia an easy way out that some left crazies call a "fair peace". The only fair peace there can be, after all the atrocities committed and the brutality and aggression shown by Russia, is a peace that means the Russians are forced out of Ukraine, must leave it alone because they cannot continue, and must pay compensations for the damage they have done. The latter will never happen, of course. What it means is this: Europe must with utmost urgency ready itself for the dangerous chaos that is about to break loose on the territoriy of the current Russian federation that most likely will not survive the coming years or decades in the form it took after the fall of the Sovjet Union.

And this urgent need is not really seen in Europe, I feel. The wasting of time, the setting of wrong priorities, the desire to return to business as usual already has set in again. But we iurgently need to build a fireall against Russia - BEFORE the pressure cooker that Russia now is goes up.

That Russia has bought itself deeply into especially the Germans' and the eU's poltlicla eleites and ciorruoted the very deicison making process at the most profounbd bas elevel alrerady, does not help, of cours. We see today what obstacle to a stronger and faster European reaction namely Germany still poses. And many in Germany still want to leave it to that. Citizens and politicians alike.

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Why we should be afraid of Russia's defeat

For almost a year now, much has been written and said about what could happen if Putin wins his war. If you had printed out all the verbatim reports on this and put them on board the Titanic, the ship would have sunk even without the help of the iceberg - because of overloading. At this point, I would like to turn the question around: What happens if it loses?

Let's first take a look at the winners of such a scenario. If we disregard the small fry, there will essentially be two: the United States and China. The United States, because it will have succeeded in bringing down the country it saw as its only equal competitor throughout the Cold War and, to some extent, after it ended. And they will do so without spending more than 5 percent of their defense budget or leaving the bones of a single American soldier on a battlefield. Viewed in this light, the war could well be seen as a triumph for the United States, and one with few parallels in history.

Next up, China. A year after Putin launched his 'special military operation,' Beijing, though plagued by problems like Corona and sluggish economic growth, has reason to celebrate. While the Chinese barely lift a finger and it costs their country next to nothing, they have almost reached the point where their once powerful neighbor to the northwest has become a 'client state'. Should Russia's weakness lead to its disintegration, China might even make an initially modest but later increasingly vigorous attempt to reclaim some of those vast territories it lost to the tsars in the nineteenth century.

And not by means of a large-scale military campaign, as some have been predicting for years, but by the kind of infiltration that is even under way today. The most trustworthy figures available show that the population of northwestern China is ten times larger than that of northeastern Russia (74,000,000 versus only 7,000,000) and growing. In Moscow, this will bring back memories of the Mongol conquest, which began in 1237 and lasted until 1480.

Now for the losers. After a defeat in Ukraine, the Russian Federation will fall apart, completing a development that began with the end of the Cold War. Russia is not and never has been an ethnically homogeneous country. According to official statistics, the percentage of Russians in Russia (as opposed to the former Soviet Union) peaked in 1979 at 82.6 percent. Since then, it has been declining, falling to an estimated 77.1 percent in 2021. Due to low birth rates, high death rates, declining life expectancy and an aging population, most observers expect this trend to continue until Russians make up only 60 to70 percent of the total population.

The total number of different ethnic groups in Russia is estimated to be well over 100. Some of them, especially the non-Christian ones in the south, have a centuries-long tradition of resentment over their more or less forcible incorporation into a Russian empire and hope to regain their former independence. Defeat in Ukraine, which will almost certainly be followed by the fall of Putin and his regime, could very well trigger a period of chaos similar to that of 1917 to 1921. Where that will end, if at all, no one knows.
As in 1917 to 1921, the chaos could be exacerbated by various neighboring states trying to use the situation to their own advantage. Poland, Romania, and Hungary could use the opportunity to reclaim provinces they lost either to the Soviet Union or to their neighbors between 1919 and 1945. The same goes for Mongolia, Iran, and Turkey, all of which have a large score to settle with Russia.

The result? A large part of the Eurasian continent, stretching from Vladivostok to Warsaw, is going up in flames because everyone is fighting everyone else: in the name of nationalism, in the name of freedom, in the name of religion, or whatever. Regardless of whether Putin and his clique remain in power or are replaced by other actors, Moscow, pushed to the extreme, could resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Not against external enemies, for that was Stalin's reason for developing them in the first place, but within its own country and against part of its own population.


And what about Central and Western Europe? Thanks mainly to the division by two superpowers, each of which had a huge nuclear arsenal and was capable of turning the other into a radioactive desert within hours on command, this part of the world experienced the most stable, peaceful, prosperous and democratic period in its history from 1945 onward. So much so that after the collapse of the USSR, in many ways everything continued as before. The current war in Ukraine threatens to end this happy time by reviving old conflicts. Should the Russians win the current war, the threat to Central and even Western Europe is obvious. Should they lose it, then that threat is almost as obvious.
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We should be worried, yes. We have reason to be. But that should not make us appeasing Russia and allowing it to get away with brutality and bullying. It should instead make us preparing ourselves and readying ourselves for the storm coming. It makes no sense to allow being paralysed by fear of inevitable things or holding false hopes. The only reaction that makes sense is: preparation. More we cannot do anyway. But at least this little is what we should do for sure.


"Hope is no strategy." - Gen. Sharon