This popular narrative, which Foreign Affairs was one of the latest to push, is very misleading.
Andrew Korybko
Foreign
Affairs, the official magazine of the powerful Council on Foreign
Relations that’s widely read among Western policy influencers and
policymakers, recently published a piece about “The Limits of Russian Power”.
The subtitle shows that it’s about “Why Putin Isn’t Thriving in Trump’s
Anarchic World”. The narrative agenda is to portray the special operation as the catalyst of Russia’s supposedly irreversible decline by exaggerating its setbacks in Syria, Iran, Armenia-Azerbaijan, and Venezuela to that end.
The aforesaid setbacks, which many in Alt-Media
dishonestly deny to this day, are then contrasted with the geostrategic
status quo ante bellum for dramatic effect in order to maximally
impress this narrative upon the reader. This preconditioning sets up the
climax of fearmongering
that Russia might risk World War III out of desperation to achieve some
sort of victory in Ukraine “by striking Ukraine’s supply routes in
eastern Europe or by attacking the U.S.-owned satellites that provide
targeting information to Kyiv.”
This narrative might be convincing to some since it’s built upon the fact of Russia experiencing some setbacks over the past four years of its special operation, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alluded to in a recent interview,
but their causes are misattributed and the consequence fearmongered
about. They’re not due to the conflict but to the preexisting limits
that had hitherto been underdiscussed such as Russia’s reasonable
unwillingness to risk war with Turkiye, Israel, and the US over third
countries.
Instead of typically cautious Putin
inexplicably risking World War III by authorizing direct kinetic action
against NATO despite already restraining himself after so many
provocations worthy of such a response, however, he’ll likely continue
what Lavrov’s friend Pepe Escobar coined the “snail offensive”.
In parallel, far-reaching reforms might be planned for after the
special operation ends to repair broken feedback loops within the
military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies that perpetuated
“wishful thinking”.
Even though Russia wasn’t ever
going to risk war with Turkiye, Israel, and the US over Syria, Iran, and
Armenia-Azerbaijan and Venezuela respectively, it might have been able
to avert some of these setbacks had members of those institutions
recognized strategic threats before they materialized. Instead, it looks
like the same “wishful thinking” in which Putin cautioned
his CIA analogue against indulging in summer 2022 remained a problem,
thus explaining with cogency why Russia was caught flat-footed each
time.
These systemic challenges to which attention was
drawn during the special operation, which isn’t responsible for them
since they far predate it, are reparable if there’s political will and
proper oversight. Russia could then more effectively and flexibly adapt
to them upon excising “wishful thinking” from the minds of its “deep
state” members. Some future setbacks might also be averted while the
policymaking basis would then be solidly established for sustainably
restoring Russia’s lost influence in those regions.
Continued
“wishful thinking” within Russia’s military, intelligence, and
diplomatic bureaucracies, worsened by its “global media ecosystem’s”
creation of alt-realities (“Potemkinism”)
further tainting their already broken feedback loops, is responsible
for its setbacks, not the special operation. Likewise, the consequence
won’t be Putin attacking NATO out of desperation for some sort of
victory in Ukraine, but him continuing the “snail offensive” and maybe
planning far-reaching reforms after the conflict ends.