It is 2023 and the start of a new year and a new chapter in the war in Ukraine. Alas, the fighting in Bakhmut has taken on even more urgency as nearly the entire weight of the Russian military is thrown against it. But for what purpose exactly?
This question takes on an especially significant role when looked at strategically. Bakhmut is one battle, along (now) one single front in a war whose war aims for Russia still remain truly unknown to all but to President Putin and a few members of his inner circle. It looks like the classical war of imperial conquest, with Putin out to achieve glory along with a triumph reminiscent of ancient Rome. Sadly, it is the Russian and Ukrainian people that are now paying the butcher’s bill for Putin’s warped ambition.
What has not dawned on the Russian people is that their country and its allies (Belarus and increasingly Iran) are being slowly pulled into a whirlpool they can’t escape. The war in Ukraine is escalating, but not along the lines many thought it would. To put it simply, Russia is now becoming increasingly enmeshed in a conflict that has no exit state for them, replicating the same experience that the United States found itself in during its 10-year conflict in Vietnam.
Ironically, the roles of Russia and the United States are reversed from the Vietnam war, with the US now taking the role of the Soviet Union and Russia being the United States. The United States is able to funnel arms, equipment, intel, and support from NATO territory into Ukraine just as the Vietnamese and Soviets did with the Ho Chi Minh trail, across the Chinese border, and via Soviet-flagged ships. Russia is also fighting a capable, determined, and resourceful adversary with combat experience, exactly the same characteristics the Vietnamese (both North and South) exhibited. Russian-occupied territories are rife with partisans and insurgents, giving no rest or respite to the invaders.
Russia has proven unable to interdict the support from NATO, thereby giving Ukraine a rearward position for training and acquiring increasingly heavy and advanced western equipment. Russia, therefore, has to respond with more of its own resources which it was never planning to do. Equipment and personnel are becoming increasingly consumed as the war is progressively becoming more expensive for Russia. The spike in energy prices during the winter that Russia hoped for has thus far fizzled as Europe has had a warmer winter this year and the feared shortage of natural gas did not materialize. Now energy prices such as oil have fallen below the level than when the conflict began.
Russia has staked its strategy on thrusting a myriad of non-ethnic Russians and its enormous pile of Soviet-era equipment into the conflict. Yet for Russia, the bills must also be paid, as even Putin cannot escape the accountant. As the conflict continues, Russia’s war chest will increasingly run dry. Not to mention that the war chest was originally meant to sustain Russia from the West’s sanctions AFTER its quick victory in Ukraine. Now Russia instead will find itself consuming its finances to fund the war, leaving Russia the choice of either ending the war or cannibalizing its economy for a victory that looks increasingly remote.
Just as the American Congress increasingly balked at paying ever higher amounts of blood and treasure in Vietnam, I believe that a similar scenario will play out in Russia. Even the Russians in Moscow and St. Petersburg, who have thus far only heard about the war through the TV, will not be able to escape the marbled jaws of inflation that wracked the nation during the 90’s should Russia continue its war and money become scarce.
Meanwhile, the West can simply keep the flow of supplies into Ukraine going. And while the bill is also high to support Ukraine which will increasingly be debated in the capitals of Europe and North America, the West have the economies to endure the conflict due to the fact that their economies absolutely dwarf that of Russia. And 2023 will become easier as the global energy supply chains settle into their new normal with the exit of Russia from the European energy market, with the Middle East, Africa, and North America seeing the most benefit.
The war in Ukraine will not end tomorrow, nor will it become so protracted that there will be no end. Instead, Russia will fight a war of attrition that this time, Russia will end up losing.
