A former CIA leader imagines Russia, NATO and China in 2023 — and how the war in Ukraine will change them all.

by John McLaughlin

Making predictions just as the Ukraine war delivers a series of huge surprises feels like a fool's errand. But let's try to peer a bit through the fog of war.

What got me thinking about this was the memory of a conversation with military historian Tom Ricks in the mountains of central Sicily a few years ago. We were there with Johns Hopkins University graduate students who were studying the 1943 Allied campaign against Germany. The fighting in Sicily had marked the beginning of the push to remove Adolf Hitler's armies from the Italian peninsula.

Ricks asked me: "Do you think we'll ever see anything like this again?" — meaning big battles between European countries over large swathes of territory. As I recall, we both guessed no. World War II had been so calamitous and unusual that the West — indeed the entire world — had surely moved past all of that.

This is one of the many reasons Russia's invasion of Ukraine is so vividly horrific; the imagery seems borrowed from another time. Charred tanks, soldiers freezing while they wait to attack, civilians taking shelter or sifting through rubble, and the long columns of refugees — it all reminds us of that terrible past. It is also so at odds with modern expectations and standards that many are now remarking that the world will not be the same when this war is over.

Will that be the case? And if so, what will that new world look like — from NATO to Russia to China and points beyond — one year from now?

Let's start with Russia

The most durable changes will involve President Vladimir Putin and Russia itself. A year ago, Russia was the hungry, insecure bully that kept the world on edge with its demands and periodic land grabs. The U.S. and Europe tolerated those aggressions, assuming that even Putin had limits. He had seized Crimea and poisoned opponents, but he wouldn't launch an all-out invasion of a European country. But Russia has now revealed itself as a terrorist state and Putin as a war criminal. One year from now, these facts will stick, assuming that Putin is still in the Kremlin.

Putin's underlings seem not to realize, or care, that they will never again be treated as legitimate by the international community. They do not grasp the exceptional nature of what they are doing — or are afraid to challenge the man giving the orders. The reaction of Soviet émigrés in Los Angeles — suddenly ashamed to be called Russian — and the growing exodus of Russians since the war began are harbingers of change that may reach deeply inside the Russian Federation if Putin remains, the war drags on and real information about the war seeps into the country.

Putin has of course done his best to guard against such penetration, tightening the lid on free expression to Cold War levels. But in today's world, it's harder to keep the truth completely from a literate population spread across 11 time zones, especially as more and more Russian soldiers are killed or wounded for a cause that has been poorly articulated to the Russian people. Truth will come to the families of those soldiers; later it will come via others fortunate enough to return home and tell their stories.

To be sure, it is impossible to know how the Russian people will absorb the reality. Russians were shocked in the 1950s when Nikita Khrushchev revealed the horrors of Joseph Stalin's rule, and when Mikhail Gorbachev shed more light in the 1980s, but as late as 2019, surveys showed 51 percent of the public continued to admire Stalin. But that sentiment was based largely on Stalin's leadership during World War II; Putin's support has rested heavily on Russian nationalism, law and order, and economic strength. The latter may soon be in tatters.

Putin's inescapable dilemma is that Russia cannot "win" this war — even if his forces destroy enough of Ukraine and its people to own new chunks of its territory. He will likely face continuing global condemnation, war crimes charges and — absent a peace deal — a ferocious insurgency as well.

As a former CIA officer, I see all the classic ingredients in place for a Ukrainian insurgency: a willing populace, broad public support outside Ukraine, and — with four NATO countries bordering Ukraine — ample safe haven for insurgents, resupply efforts and training. Some of these assets are already being utilized...

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https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/04/01/tectonic-shifts-how-putins-war-will-change-the-world/

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