Putin Has Passed the Point Of Not Return – The Security and Stability of the World Mean Moving On to the Post-Putin Era.
There is nothing to negotiate with Putin. Russia gambled on force and lost.
The funeral of Edward VII in 1910 preceded the outbreak of the First World War by four years. Could it be that the funeral of his great-granddaughter, Elizabeth II, preceded the outbreak of World War III by only four months? We are not there yet, but this scenario, always highly improbable, is nevertheless becoming possible.
I am a natural optimist and I do not want to be accused of playing the Cassandra. But a new and qualitatively different level of escalation has just been reached by Putin's Russia. Humiliated on the military front, increasingly isolated on the diplomatic front - if not abandoned even by its closest ally, Xi Jinping's China - criticized outright by the previously "neutral" great power, India, Putin has no choice but to do what he knows how to do. He has to do what he knows how to do. He has to make a show of it and accuse his opponents of wanting to treat Russia as they treated the USSR yesterday.
And, above all, Putin is brandishing the nuclear threat more and more openly, even adding, aware of the enormity of his threat, “This is not a bluff.”
These territories in the northeast and south of Ukraine, which Russian troops can no longer hold militarily, Putin intends to “sacralize” them in a way, by parodies of a referendum. The legitimacy of his approach is of little importance. His message is clear. “Once you become Russians, don't try to take it over,” I will defend these sacred territories by all means, including unconventional.
During the Cold War, American nuclear forces in Europe were initially intended to balance the conventional masses of the USSR. Moscow's tanks are “two steps away from the Tour de France bicycle race,” as General de Gaulle famously said in 1947. Today, everything happens as if the Russian unconventional weapons had the mission to balance the conventional superiority of Ukraine, considerably helped, it is true, by its Western allies.
The crisis we are experiencing is beginning to look like the most serious the world has seen since the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. But sixty years ago, the balance of terror had its rules, well known and understood by its main actors. Not only were Kennedy and Khrushchev rational, but they were perfectly aware of the nuclear peril. They belonged to a generation that still had the terrifying images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in its eyes and consciousness.
This is not the case with Putin today. Like a gambler, who wants to make up for the loss of his initial bet by a crazy audacious gamble, he practices a headlong rush that is no longer rational. And, unlike Khrushchev, Putin does not seem to have any moral fiber. Nevertheless, it will be necessary to speak to the current master of the Kremlin, as De Gaulle did, during the Cuban Crisis, to Moscow's representative in Paris: “Well, Mr. Ambassador, we will die together.”
Faced with Putin's blackmail, we have no choice but to be firm, and clear. Nothing would be more vain - as Turkey and Qatar seem to have wanted to do at the UN - than to call for immediate negotiations to ease the tension.
Negotiate what? There is nothing to negotiate with Putin. Russia gambled on force and lost.
The day after Putin announced the partial mobilization of 300,000 troops, there was no room in Moscow and St. Petersburg on planes bound for foreign countries and there were miles of traffic jams on the borders with Georgia. The most urban and educated young Russians do not want to die for Putin's war. They are rushing out of a country that now scares them.
The war in Ukraine is becoming for Russia what the Vietnam War was for the United States in the late 1960s. We are not at the beginning of the 18th century. Putin is not Peter the Great, and Zelensky is not Charles XII of Sweden. Russia does not have twenty years to turn the military situation in its favor as in the Great Northern War.
The world cannot accept living in the shadow of total war, with its exorbitant human, economic, financial, and ethical costs. The world cannot bow to Putin's diktats. His behavior only reinforces all those who cannot resign themselves to seeing Iran become a nuclear power.
At the end of the 1960s, one of France's leading strategic thinkers, General Gallois, had a “brilliant” idea. To ensure world peace, he thought, it was appropriate to give as many countries as possible access to nuclear weapons. A proposal that Raymond Aron had qualified as “an almost perfect model of logical delirium.” A formula whose wisdom can be fully measured today.
Everything is happening as if, feeling increasingly isolated in the world, but also in his own country in the face of virulent criticism from the ultranationalist camp, Putin had no other choice than to escalate without end. But with his blackmail of nuclear weapons, he is simply playing with the survival of the planet, making Russia under his rule not only the “Empire of Evil,” but also the “Empire of Madness.” The nuclear blackmail of the Kremlin's master must be taken seriously and the only conclusion that can be drawn is this:
The security and stability of the world involve the transition to the post-Putin era. He has passed the point of no return (PONR).
Some reading
Back to the Past — The Bank of Japan Intervenes to Defend the Yen. Japan is in the middle of an inextricable vicious circle.
Should the Russians Be Held All Responsible for Putin’s War in Ukraine? An attempt to answer a question on which the opinion of Ukrainians has completely changed over the months of the war.
The Fed Is Choking Real Estate in America and Will Continue “Until the Job Is Done”. This correction is explicitly desired by the Fed to cool down the economic machine.
The Nuclear Weapon Remains the Last Joker of Vladimir Putin Who Is More Weakened Than Ever. To brandish nuclear weapons indiscriminately is a terrible admission of weakness on the part of Putin.
There Is No Alternative — The Omnipotence of the USD King Has Been Confirmed More Than Ever in 2022. The reasons are multiple and have been highlighted with the war in Ukraine.