More questions than answers
Ukraine and context 5.3.22
If we go back to early February of 2022, we’ll recall US officials proclaiming that Russia would invade Ukraine any day. (For the time being let’s forget that the same claims were made in late winter / spring of 2021.) Russia did invade Ukraine on 2.24.22 and that fact is regularly pointed to support the US position and further claims about the conflict. Aside from the fact that actual US intelligence agencies have a very bad track record of prediction, we’ll assume that this one was both true - an actual intelligence assessment - and correct - a prediction of Russian invasion.
So why weren’t more preperations made by the west? Were I the leader of a nation or international body (e.g. the EU or NATO) presented with intelligence like this which had any degree of probability, I’d want to see a suite of response actions I could pursue. Were that intelligence to come with a high degree of confidence and near term probability, those response actions would be even more important. I would want high level meetings with my counterparts to develop consensus on a united response so that if the intelligence turned out to be correct, we would be well positioned to act.
A suite of response actions would include a range of responses that could be chosen dependent on emerging facts. Every response action would need to include variations to accomodate details (the unknown unknowns) and changes. Every response action would have potential, possible and probably counter-responses from Russia, and each of those counter-responses would initiate another suite of possible response actions. All of this would initiate deep discussion with allies in order to develop adjustments and consensus.
It’s clear that the above was not performed with any seriousness by western leadership. The sanctions regime developed in the press, with contradictory statements and behavior. Bold proclamations followed by quite workarounds. Claims about military aid and then some portions of those claims refuted or walked back. It has been a mess.
The most profound example of this is pipeline gas supplies from Russia. If the west’s plan was to sanction Russia into collapse, doesn’t it logically follow that Russia might respond by cutting off the flow of gas? Given that the invasion was warned about in 2021, why aren’t all the gas storage facilities in Europe full to the brim so that it could withstand termination of gas deliveries? It’s pretty clear that nobody paid to make these decisions predicted that Russia might demand Ruble payment for its gas. Why not? It may not have been a probable Russian counter-response, but it should have made the list as possible. If it made the list, then there should be several designed responses to it.
And in all of the possible scenarios, the responses would be scaled on an escalation ladder. Each one would come with a demand as well as a means for Russia to unwind the response based on its actions. The west didn’t escalate its sanctions and isolation program; it started from the top of the ladder with the freezing of reserves and has moved down the ladder, bumping its head on most of the rungs. One could argue that supplying military equipment and assistance is an escalation, and it is, but again, that form of escalation requires serious analysis of both effectiveness and when to apply it. Moreover, military assistance has been as haphazard as sanctions. Remember when the US said Poland would supply jets, and then Poland said it wouldn’t, but then the US said Poland would, which is when Poland responded that it would deliver the jets to a US base in Germany and the US could do what it wanted with the jets. Why in the world were we privy to this back and forth?
The public is unlikely to fully understand the complete decision making process in a situation like this. It could be argued that the public shouldn’t be privy to or fully understand these types of decision making processes. But from the public’s perspective the final decisions should make some sense. Leaders should be able to explain the decision and the goal to the public. There needs to be an answer for every question, even if the public isn’t privy to the full answer.
So we’re left with two possibilities. Either our leaders are not serious people, as evidenced by the fact that they weren’t prepared for exactly the thing they confidently warned about, or we’re not getting the whole story. I’ve got a theory about the second possibility ….