Among military experts (at least those who've correctly analyzed the Russo-Ukraine War so far, and are hence the only ones worth listening to) there's a consensus that Russia's mass mobilization will make little difference. As kos, Mark, and others have frequently noted, Russia's main liability in the invasion has been their logistics. They can't supply their existing army with enough food, fuel, ammo,and spare parts to support effective military operations. So what's going to be accomplished by tossing in hundreds of thousands of barely trained conscripts, who will only exacerbate these supply problems? It makes no sense.
The answer came to me over coffee this morning. It's not about winning militarily. Putin knows at this point that the war is lost. The goal now is to survive politically. So how does a dictator survive losing a war? By keeping the war going, and relabeling survival as victory.
There's an example in recent history. In August of 1990, Iraq invaded and occupied its neighbor, Kuwait. In response, the U.S. and several allies sent a massive force to neighboring Saudi Arabia. (My brother-in-law, an army mechanic, was part that force). The following January, after a months-long troop buildup, the allied force launched a counteroffensive which devastated the Iraqi army and expelled them from Kuwait.
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein clung to power, however, because we allowed him to. We could discuss the wisdom and morality of that decision (including our betrayal of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites), but that's not the purpose of this piece. The cogent fact is that, post-defeat, Saddam re-branded his loss as a victory in fighting off the US forces. “We repelled the American crusaders who were trying to conquer our holy motherland!” or some such crap. In truth, we didn't want to occupy Iraq (though President George W. Bush would later demand a do-over), and the Saudis and Kuwaitis didn't want a civil war next door. But it gave Saddam a story to tell.
I think Putin is setting up a similar scenario. The Russian army is getting gradually pushed back to the Russian border, but Ukraine has neither the capacity nor the desire to conquer any territory beyond what they possessed in 2013. Knowing this, Putin can just keep the conflict going at a slow boil for the foreseeable future. This is easy enough to do – just lob the occasional missile or artillery round into a Ukrainian city. Make sure that the artillery is launched from a populated city inside Russian territory (Belgorod, for instance). The Ukrainians will fire back, and Russian media can then scream, “The Ukrainian Nazis are bombing our cities!” If the Ukrainians do seize a small amount of Russian territory along the border as buffer zone, they can scream, “The Nazis are invading!”. What began as a Special Military Operation (TM) thus becomes a fight for national survival.
None of this lays the groundwork for any future victory. That ship has sailed. The point is to keep Putin in power. There will be peace negotiations, but never peace. Not only will the Ukrainian price tag be too high, but peace will not be in Putin's interest. Peace will allow people to notice how much their standard of living has deteriorated since February 24. Russia is now at war with the NATO hordes (and their rabid Ukrainian lackeys) and it will take all our will (and, of course, a strong leader!) to prevent Russia's utter destruction. This conflict won't be resolved in Vladimir Putin's lifetime. Which we pray is mercifully short.
Obviously,this is a big pivot. The war started out as “Mighty Russia, denied the international respect we deserve, will crush our decadent enemies to dust.” Now they must instead sell the story of “Besieged underdog Russia valiantly holding off our powerful, warlike (and gay– don't forget gay!) enemies”. That kind of dramatic plot shift is tough to pull off without looking like a cretin. (“What? Bobby's still alive? Last season was all just a dream?”) Mass mobilization is a big part of that pivot. How do you convince people that the nation's very existence is threatened if you aren't even willing to institute a draft? Mass conscription makes the threat of invasion more credible.
And there must be a sense of shared sacrifice. So men from the imperial capital of Moscow and the former imperial capital of St. Petersburg are being called up, too. True, it's not very many compared to all those rubes from the hinterlands, but it's the thought that counts. And part of the sacrifice will be economic. Putin's government has done a surprisingly good job of propping up the Russian economy, but they may be close to exhausting their resources (foreign currency reserves, etc.). To the extent they’re actually in a position to prevent it, the economic picture may now be allowed to worsen. We should also see a shift in war news, with an increase in reporting on the deaths of Russian cannon fodder soldiers falling valiantly before the approaching NATO-Nazis.
This strategy may also illuminate the recent fake referenda in Russian-occupied territories. Russian media can point to how these regions, which are part of Russia,and peopled with folks who chose to be Russian, are being conquered as we watch. And they're coming for you next! For gay sex!!!
Foreign wars become unpopular as the casualty count climbs (see: Nam, Viet). That's why Russian media have minimized them. But soldiers who die defending their homes are martyrs to be eulogized (see: Ukraine, from the Ukrainian viewpoint). From now on, every Russian soldier who dies will have died on Russian soil, defending Mother Russia. And to the extent Putin can engineer which soldiers die (such as by providing inadequate winter clothing, or launching hopeless offensives) he can rid the nation of dissidents and non-Russian minorities while creating those heroes. So, a bonus!
If my theory is correct, we'll begin seeing it on Russian TV, as the media go from minimizing Russian defeats to placing them front and center, while Putin tries to recreate that old Operation Barbarossa feeling among his people.
It will be purest bullshit, but that's all he's got at this point.
Your thoughts?