Ideology, Alexandr Dugin, and Possible Russian Escalation
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Important relevant update that just came via the New York Times. I don’t have inside sources, just been reading into this for decades.
In Situation Room meetings in recent days, the issue has come up repeatedly, according to three officials. Mr. Putin’s tendency, American intelligence officials have told the White House and Congress, is to double down when he feels trapped by his own overreach. So they have described a series of possible reactions, ranging from indiscriminate shelling of Ukrainian cities to compensate for the early mistakes made by his invading force, to cyberattacks directed at the American financial system, to more nuclear threats and perhaps moves to take the war beyond Ukraine’s borders.
When I raise the point that this likely will not stop at the Ukrainian border I am not repeating a Ukrainian talking point. I am relying on the ideologue behind Putinism, Alexandr Dugin. He is a Russian nationalist and the man behind a lot of the ideology that forms the thinking of Vladimir Putin.
For the record, Ukrainian officials are making the same point to the west as well, for full disclosure. In their case, it's more fundamental. They are at the leading edge of this ideology that sees Ukraine as a problem, and ancient Russian land. Let me translate this: It’s genocide.
This is exactly why Putin refers to Ukraine as a problem.
It will not stop at the border. It has nothing to do with military capacity, of which we can all chuckle. Russians have given very poor maintenance to armor. They have very low morale. The Air-force has been mostly absent.
If we look at this in this light, NATO will have a somewhat easy time with the Russian conventional military. This is based on their present performance and degradation. Let’s just say it’s been underwhelming.
