** 26-Jan-2022 World View: Russia's and China's plans for Ukraine and Taiwan
The discussion in this thread has been whether the US "wants" a war in
Ukraine. The discussion is irrelevant, since it's entirely up to
Putin whether there's a war in Ukraine. There is currently no
foreseeable path that would put American soldiers into Ukraine.
The US has two choices. One choice is to do nothing, which would
result in accusations of appeasement, as in 1939. The other choice is
to try to take steps that would convince Putin not to invade. The
result appears to have been a compromise, where the US sends a few
weapons to Ukraine and threatens sanctions, steps which have symbolic
value but which won't affect Putin's decision. Another possibility is
that the US and Nato will make concessions to Russia in response to
Putin's demands.
Putin continues to pour troops and equipment into western Russia,
Belarus and Crimea, and there are reports of a growing number
infiltrated into the Donbas. According to analysts, the deployments
into Belarus will be completed in mid-February. Ukraine will then be
surrounded on three sides by Russian troops, and many analysts believe
that the commitment will be too deep for Putin to back off.
Let's make an assumption -- that both Putin and Xi have made decisions
to invade Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, this year. This
assumption is far from proven, but it's a real possibility. It's not
likely that Xi and Putin would plan joint military action, but because
of their marriage of convenience, they might plan joint timing.
Neither Putin nor Xi would invade during the Beijing Olympics (Feb
4-20), though Putin might invade during the Paralympics (Mar 4-13).
The ground is currently hard in Ukraine, which is good for tanks, but
it will turn to mud with the Spring rains.
For Putin, a good date would be Feb 23, which is "Defender of the
Fatherland Day," celebrating the founding of the Red Army. Xi could
also launch a Taiwan attack at about the same time, coordinating the
timeline with Putin to present the US with a two-front war.
As I've said before, I think that a possible scenario is that Putin
won't attempt a full-scale invasion, which could go on for years, but
instead would take Biden's suggestion of a "limited incursion." In
2014, Russia invaded and occupied Donbas, and invaded and annexed
Crimea. In 2018, Russia completed a bridge over the Kerch Strait,
controlling access to the Sea of Azov. Today, a "limited incursion"
would be an invasion of the seaports Mariupol and Berdyansk, in order
to create a land bridge from Russia to Crimea.
The question that's still unfolding is the role that Biden's
incompetence and cognitive problems are playing in whatever occurs.
Biden took a series of energy-related decisions that have been
disastrous for the US -- canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, canceling
oil leases, approving Russia's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline -- have given an
enormous amount of power to Putin over Europe. Both Putin and Xi are
carefully analyzing the Afghanistan catastrophe and reaching
conclusions about it.
And then there's the open southern border. Millions of illegal
immigrants from many countries are pouring into the country, aided by
the administration working together with paid migrant smugglers and
sex traffickers. In addition, tons of fentanyl and meth are pouring
into the country via drug smugglers. This is driven by China, which
sees this as an opportunity to get revenge for the 1840s Opium Wars,
and also to infiltrate the country with Chinese military cells.