What Does It Mean?

I thought you might find this assessment of Russian President Putin’s “ultimatum” by French Sovietologist Françoise Thom interesting. Since a considerable amount of her information is derived from Russian online sources and are a bit, shall we say, jingoistic, I would take it with a grain of salt. Here’s a sample passage:

The Russian blackmail is explicit and is directed at both the Americans and the Europeans. If the West does not accept the Russian ultimatum, they will have to face “a military and technical alternative”, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko: “The Europeans must also think about whether they want to avoid making their continent the scene of a military confrontation. They have a choice. Either they take seriously what is put on the table, or they face a military-technical alternative.” After the publication of the draft treaty, the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against NATO targets (similar to those that Israel inflicted on Iran), was confirmed by former Deputy Minister of Defense Andrei Kartapolov (Duma Defense Committee): “Our partners must understand that the longer they drag out the examination of our proposals and the adoption of real measures to create these guarantees, the greater the likelihood that they will suffer a pre-emptive strike.”

To make things clear Russia fired a “salvo” of Zircon hypersonic missiles on December 24. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, commented on this event: “Well, I hope that the notes [of December 17] will be more convincing”. Editorialist Vladimir Mozhegov added: “What are our arguments? First and foremost, of course, our most reliable allies — the army and the navy. To be more precise, the hypersonic Zircon missile (the “carrier killer”, as it is affectionately called in the West), which makes it absurd for the United States to have a fleet of aircraft carriers. The impact of the Zircon cracks a destroyer like a nut. Several Zircons will inevitably sink an aircraft carrier. The Zircon simply does its job: it methodically shoots huge, clumsy aircraft carriers like a gun at cans.”

Here’s another important snippet:

In a word, Russia is demanding that NATO commit suicide, and that the United States be reduced to the role of a regional power. According to Vzglyad, America is in fact invited “to stand behind its Hercules columns (sic) and to keep quiet on its ‘islands’. And this means that de facto (whatever the answer to these proposals) the ‘American world’ as such for Russia has ceased to exist”. As a result, Russia will have the upper hand in Europe. The countries of Western Europe are already taken for granted, with Moscow counting on the pool of collaborators that it has cultivated for years within the European ruling elites: it has just sent them a strong signal by appointing François Fillon as director of the petrochemical giant Sibur. Deprived of American support, the “Russophobic” countries that crystallize the resistance to Moscow’s hegemony will only have to bow to the inevitable. According to Russtrat, “Of course, Poland and the Baltic countries will be unhappy. But they will probably be the only ones to oppose the American withdrawal from Central and Eastern Europe. After all, the rest of the ‘Young Europeans’ are guided by the position of the ‘core’ of the European Union [Western European countries], and they do not have stable anti-Russian complexes.”

This “core” “does not share the Russophobic and anti-Russian sentiments [of the Central and Eastern European countries], is aware of the inevitable American withdrawal from Central and Eastern Europe, and does not want to interfere. […] It is better for the United States to come to an agreement with Moscow, while offloading the problem of ensuring the security of Central and Eastern Europe onto the ‘core’ of the European Union, France and Germany, which are in favor of the EU’s ‘strategic autonomy’” Ryabkov rightly points out that the Russian initiative has “a powerful potential for the formation of European security.” On December 18, he clarified: “We propose negotiations on a bilateral basis with the United States. If we involve other countries, we will simply drown it all in talk and verbiage. I hope the Americans do not underestimate how much everything has changed, and not for the better.”

My concern in this is along two lines: actual risk and perceived advantage. Russia’s hypersonic missiles render aircraft carriers riskier than they have been perceived heretofore. But they do not make them obsolete. That is where the perceived advantage comes in. Should the Russians incorrectly infer that the Zircon missile renders the aircraft carriers on which our navy heavily depends obsolete they may be moved to make bolder moves than might otherwise be the case.

I think we have entered a period more dangerous than any in the last half century. I would have preferred that we not have placed ourselves in this position by fecklessly expanding NATO into the Russian “near abroad” and that we not aggravate the situation by taking the advice of “Russophobes” too seriously but that is water under the bridge. I think that we need to make some very clear to our European allies: we will not bear the risks alone.