So Much for Western Expertise on Russia

Comment

George Kennan must be rolling over in his grave in light of the 19 May article in Foreign Policy journal, written by Michael Klimmage, director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington. Here is a classic example of an academic who learned to speak Russian, but does not understand a damn thing about Russia. Klimmage is caught in a Cold War time warp, and insists that Putin is a diehard commie intent on world revolution.

Here are three salient paragraphs from his article that tell you everything you need to know about the delusional thinking of this poor man:

But for Russia, Ukraine is not Syria, and it is not Georgia. Syria was a far-away adventure where Russia’s retreat can be swept under the carpet. Georgia is stuck in a holding pattern, vacillating between Russia and the West, which is no disaster for Moscow—whereas Ukraine is a disaster for Moscow. In Ukraine, Russia’s military is stalled while deaths and casualties mount. Putin has no way out of the war—other than to admit a version of defeat. The Kremlin can try to hide the war’s misery from Russians but only to the extent that it can tell the war’s story. Putin cannot as effectively erase evidence of a faltering economy. Nor can he offer Russians any coherent political promise other than endless Putinism. Slowly and not yet suddenly, Russia is starting to lose the war. . . .

Russia faces two serious military dilemmas. One is its own inability to advance. In some technical sense, momentum is on Russia’s side, as it takes square miles of Ukrainian territory, but this momentum is going nowhere. For months, Russia has tried and failed to take the Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk. Its failure has been accompanied by enormous losses: an estimated 790,000 killed or injured since the beginning of the war (plus 48,000 missing), including more than 100,000 casualties this year alone. By the end of 2025, at this rate, Russia will have over a million casualties, and its strategic situation will not be any better than it was in 2022. Putin has no easy way to alter a trajectory that translates (if unaltered) into stalemate. Mostly war zones, the territories that Russia controls in Ukraine are of no material benefit to Russia.

Russia’s other military dilemma is Ukraine. When Russia failed to deliver a knock-out blow in 2022 and to split Ukraine down the middle, Putin had a choice between a reduced war and a war on civilians across Ukraine. He went with the war against civilians—not to be seen as backtracking and to compel Ukrainians to surrender. This decision also backfired. The brutality of the Russian occupation coupled with countless assaults on civilians and civilian infrastructure convinced most Ukrainians that they had to fight. Ukraine is poorer and smaller than Russia, not ideally suited to a war of attrition, and on the battlefield Ukraine is acting alone. These circumstances matter, of course, though not as much as Ukraine’s morale and its formidable ability to innovate (such as in drone warfare), which among other things is a function of Ukrainians’ morale.

While Klimmage has impeccable credentials — he holds degrees from Oxford and Harvard — he has no grasp of military capabilities and strategy. His entire approach is focused on Putin… just get rid of Putin and all of Russia’s evil deeds will disappear. He repeats the unsubstantiated and false claim that Russia has suffered enormous casualties, yet says nothing about the demonstrable, catastrophic losses of the Ukrainians.

He pushes the lie that Russia is focused primarily on killing and maiming civilians, yet provides not one piece of evidence to substantiate that specious claim. He cites Russia’s “failure” to take Pokrovsk in a timely manner as proof of Russia’s faltering military effort. Klimmage apparently does not know how to read a map. Rather than conduct a frontal assault on Pokrovsk, Russia is focused on operations that minimize risks to its soldiers while enveloping Pokrovsk in a cauldron. Southwest of Pokrovsk, Russian troops have made significant gains in settlements such as Zvirove and Kotlyarivka. Northeast of Pokrovsk, Russia has cut the T-0504 highway, a critical supply route, and its forces are advancing near Vozdvyzhenka and Tarasivka. These advances are part of a broader strategy to encircle Pokrovsk from multiple directions… a fact that escapes Mr. Klimmage.

Vladimir Putin, during a visit to Kursk on Thursday, announced a shift in Russian policy that Mr. Klimmage neither appreciates nor understands… Putin has ordered the Russian General Staff to create a buffer zone in Sumy, which abuts Kursk. A year ago, Putin dismissed that option as unneccessary; but now, in the aftermath of the Kursk invasion by Ukraine last September, he has put taking control of Sumy on the menu.

Klimmage is a symptom of a disease that infects the Washington foreign policy establishment. They are slaves to an official narrative that is totally divorced from the reality on the ground in Ukraine. It is ironic that during this week, when Klimmage’s piece was published, Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO announced that Russia is producing in three months the amount of ammunition that the entire NATO alliance produces in a year, describing this gap as “unacceptable” and “unsustainable.”

Klimmage and the foreign policy establishment are still in the first stage of grief… i.e., denial. Russian operations in May, June and July will dispel any notion that this war is a stalemate or that Russia is losing.

Friday is turning out to be, Roundtable day. I started the day with Nima and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and ended it with Judge Napolitano and Ray McGovern. We covered the waterfront: