George Friedman’s take on Russia is somewhat different from Dr. Michta’s:
There is talk of Russia moving into Belarus, launching attacks on Latvia and Lithuania, and preparing a massive operation in and around the Black Sea. Many fear that if the Russia-Ukraine war ends without Russia being forced out of the relatively small territory it now holds, Moscow will surge into other areas to restore the borders of the former Soviet Union.
What is strange, given the Russian military’s performance in Ukraine, is that it still inspires such fear. Nearly four years since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia controls only about a fifth of the country and is bogged down in fighting over a handful of towns and villages along the front line. The fact is that Russia failed in its original mission, which was to occupy all of Ukraine, as shown by its failed attempt to capture Kyiv, far from today’s battlefront.
It is true that Ukraine cannot drive the Russians out of the territory they now hold. But it is also true that Russia in four years has failed to break Ukrainian resistance or gain substantial ground. Its inability to achieve its stated goals raises serious questions about Russian military power. Russia expected to take far more territory and did not imagine the war would still be going on today with so little to show for it. This cannot be the war Moscow planned.
concluding:
The dread of Russia arises from the Cold War, when the U.S. and its allies looked at the Soviet Union as an enormously powerful military. Some argued that the Soviet Union was not particularly capable in conventional warfare, even though, with U.S. aid, it defeated German forces in Russia during World War II. But on the whole, fear of Russian power shaped the political culture in the West. Today’s fears that any concession to Russia would unleash more Russian aggression are a product of that legacy.
But it is essential to recognize how weak and damaged Russia actually is, how strained its military is, and how its economic weakness makes rapid rearmament improbable. A settlement would cost Ukraine some territory and save many lives, but it would not empower Russia to strike out in different directions. To its west, east and south, Russia has suffered massive reversals since the Soviet collapse. Yet some outside Russia cannot come to terms with this new reality, and Moscow’s entire strategy in Ukraine is to pretend it does not need to end a war it cannot win.
Russia’s tragedy is that to convince outsiders of its strength, it must keep pretending it is holding back a force that would change the world. There is no such force. After the war, Russians will have to decide what they will do with the leadership that brought them to this place, not pursue more unwinnable wars. A settlement based on the reality of Russia’s failures is the lowest-cost option. But it requires a clear-eyed understanding in the West of the reality of Russia’s weakness.
That’s closer to my view than Dr. Michta’s but not identical to it. My view is that the main threat that Russia poses to Western Europe or the United States is nuclear which is why it is vital to maintain our own deterrence, contrary to the views of some, and our “nuclear umbrella” should extend to Europe including Ukraine but that Russia’s land and naval forces pose no real risk to us or our primary European allies, e.g. the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. To the extent that Russia threatens Europe it is of the essence that our allies maintain their own land and, in the cases of the United Kingdom and France, their naval forces.
In conclusion I would caution Americans that a Putin in danger of losing a war in Ukraine is not the largest looming risk. The larger risk is that Putin may, in structural terms, be a relative moderate within Russian politics—and that a successor emerging from a failed war and a discredited regime is likely to be more nationalist, less constrained, and more willing to rely on nuclear coercion to assert Russian power.
