The biggest failure in western democracies has been that they haven’t communicated to their public the critical importance of Ukraine, supported by NATO, winning the current conflict and expelling Russia from all Ukrainian territory. Thus the general public have not been prepared for the economic turmoil and the necessary sacrifices to come.
At present their is between a 10% and 20% chance of this conflict escalating to a nuclear exchange between Russia and NATO but in the event that Russia is allowed to retain illegally annexed territory because of a failure of will on the part of the West due to economic pressure or isolationist/pro-Kremlin political forces within western democracies; another conflict within the next 10 years, which would have a 80% chance of nuclear escaltion, is almost inevitable.
Over the last 15 years it has been established, despite wishful thinking, that there is no international treaty, memoranda of understanding, arrangement, or agreement that the current imperialist/nationalist ideological driven Russian regime can be trusted to adher to and unfortunately this goes beyond one individual. Russian exceptionalism perceives itself outside of any international rules and untouchable.
In the event that Russia is allowed to win, Russia will rearm and take another bite out of another neighbour, and sooner or later a NATO country because ‘the organism does what makes the organism successful’. Russia is prepared to endure short term pain in exchange for long term strategic gain. Russia is used to being an international pariah – it doesn’t care, the Russian population is used to poverty due to sanctions – the Russian authorities don’t care; in fact, western actions that create these situations feed into Russian victhimhood and exceptionalism that strengthen the imperailist/nationalist ideology.
NATO does not fear half as much the possibility of nuclear escalation today as it does the very high probability of nuclear exchange, due to Russia’s mistaken belief that NATO will back down if threatened, in the inevitable conflict that will come if NATO fails to win.
Ukraine, supported by NATO, must win. To fail is to create the conditions for a far more dangerous conflict. To this end there are no lengths that the West can recoil from, including economic and social conditions that would normally only be observed in wartime.
The general public in western democracies do not understand this calculus of risk and are completely unprepared for what may come and the failure of government to take the time to explain this can only lead to social unrest when, finally, onerous measures have to be taken.
My belief is that once the public understand what is at stake, that a dangerous confrontation now can only be put off at the expense of a far more dangerous confrontation in a few years time, they will be better prepared to accept what is to come.
theneedleblog 
Russia – “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” (Winston Churchill). I have long been fascinated by Russia, a unique nation and people, a nation that believes, and always has believed, that it doesn’t need to belong. Russia is Russia, and is a power bloc in itself. A brutal society and culture that always manages to bestow upon itself brutal leaders. From Czars through Commissars and back to, in all but name, Czars again, Russia has remained Russia. The same old separate and brutal Russia.
There is however a fly in the ointment for Russia, the nation has a demographic crisis. When the USSR fell apart in 1991 its population was 290 million. Granted the USSR was more than Russia, but Russia had that many people to use as cannon fodder – at least the male adult part. Russia alone currently has a population of 146 million people, and falling. By 2050 demographics suggest the population will fall to 120 million AT BEST – some say the fall will be greater, to 80/90 million. Could it be that Russia is behaving now like a dying beast aware that its days are numbered?
The frightening thing is the dying beast has more nuclear missiles than any other nation on earth. Hitler would have blown up the planet to avoid catastrophic defeat, taking everyone else with him. We know mad Vlad is cold, brutal, and uncaring. Would expected defeat in Ukraine result in a nuclear holocaust?
Curious. Why does my name get the single quotes but no one else’s does?
Great article! …… I could not put it better myself.
The Russian worth listening to, in my opinion, is VLAD VEXLER on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – great insight.
https://www.youtube.com/c/VladVexler
Thanks for the recommendation – I’ll take a look.
Hi, I’m convinced the public are aware but as I’ve already explained.. I’m even more convinced that the public are even more aware that the public, or their opinions are of no interest to the life sucking bureaucrats and cowards at e.u and nato. The more it continues the more demoralising it will get until the voice becomes a whisper, I should know because I’m one of them and I really don’t care for much anymore. NATO and the EU care as much for the public and the opinions as Hitler did for Jewish well-being. I think you’ll find that that’s the general opinion
I think there are very significant sections of society that are not as informed as yourself. Those, perhaps, who have no lived experience of the cold war or pay little or no attention to current events. It is true that the authorities care little about the opinions of the public, except when those opinions turn to social unrest and it impacts on their ability to control society.
It is a very common presumption that the ‘general opinion’ matches our own, or that everybody is as informed as ourselves. You and I may spend our days informing ourselves of such situations while many many more are only dimly aware and are more interested in misbehaving cat compilations on tic toc or soap operas.
If everyone understands in the west, how to explain those pushing an appeasing agenda?
I believe you are correct people do not care but it does not mean that they are I’m informed and quite rightly you say that people are more interested in a cat on tiktok or or watching TV about somebody else’s life on a crappy soap opera because they cannot be bothered to deal with the problems in their own life and the Ukrainian situation is obviously one of them but it does not mean that they are not aware it means that they just don’t give a shit let the government sort it out…. unfortunately people say that that they trust the government that what it means is they cannot be bothered to have a voice and that is how I’m getting. I will not resort to watch in shit on television because it’s easier than coping with things in my own life again like soap operas people are so into soap operas because they would rather watch somebody else’s life than their own. I had this argument with a Russian friend years ago when Putin came into power and I told him what was going to happen here and he’s married to a Ukrainian woman and I do not speak to these people anymore because they were completely ignorant to the fact that this was going to happen and these were very good friends of mine I no longer speak to. Everybody knew stalin was killing his own people but they did nothing about it then and nothing has changed now… the screams at government have turned into whispers and eventually there won’t be a sound.
The public are not as stupid as you think they are, unfortunately the government and the leaders are, so maybe you should be aiming this at them. This was inevitable the minute adolf putin came into power. The public are not stupid the public are just used to their voice being drowned out by the shouts of the gutless bureaucrats who are too busy bragging about the size of the bank accounts to hear the voices of those that matter…. of which a large number just don’t care anymore because the voice of the public has no meaning to these greedy assholes
I’m not suggesting that the public are stupid but that governments haven’t taken the time to explain why winning is so important, leaving many unprepared for possible social and domestic measures normally only seen in wartime.
Ok maybe stupid is too strong but I just say things as I see them.so for the sake of political correctness I will say naive…. because you are suggesting that we do not know why we need to win this war… so now I will again say it how it is, your presuming the public are stupid enough not to realise what is going on because we have not been informed… maybe you could read your own opening paragraph
Hi Jim, You may know why this war needs to be won but are you sure that the public at large do? I don’t get that impression.
This article makes a lot of assumptions about Russia based entirely on western mainstream propaganda about Russias motivations and appears to be something of a castle built on sand.
To make any sense of this war, you have to have followed the several threads of the Ukraine story for about 10 years, otherwise V.Putin just looks to be a madman as portrayed in most articles written over here and consumed readily by people who have not actually watched how Russia and Mr Putin have conducted their business overall.
For Ukraine, “winning” this conflict will be a very similar experience to the U.K. “Winning” world war 2.
We celebrated the glory and our “rightness” whilst having to bring in new people to replace the ones that we’d lost. (At least that’s what we were told). The last 70 years has seen almost total annihilation of the way of life and very people who gave the world the industrial revolution and much of it’s legal systems etc…
Actually ‘Steve’, I’m more informed by Russian sources – milbloggers and state media, not “western mainstream propaganda”. Their opinions and ambitions are not something they try to hide.