Is Putin Capable of Strategic Thinking?

Paul Craig Roberts

My doubts about Putin’s ability to think strategically go back to 2008. I have always been a defender of Putin in that the aggression is from Washington to Russia, not vice versa, and that Washington, not Putin, is responsible for the conflict in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, I had early doubts about Putin’s strategic vision.  He spoke as if he had vision, but he acted as if he did not. When the American trained Georgian Army crossed over into South Ossetia killing the population and Russian peacekeepers, Putin was at the Beijing Olympics, apparently totally unsuspecting and totally unprepared.  How could Putin not have known that the US, and according to some Israel, were training a Georgian army?  What did Putin think they were going to do with it?

After defeating the American trained army and conquering Georgia, Putin collected up his forces and returned to Russia without, apparently, securing any agreement that Georgia would stay clear of NATO and Western activities against Russia. I wondered about Putin’s failure in strategic thinking, but gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking that Putin chose to demonstrate that he believed in non-interference in countries internal affairs and used the opportunity to demonstrate that he was not interested in reforming the Soviet Empire.

Nevertheless, I continued to wonder how it is possible for Putin and Lavrov on one hand declaring clearly that the West is out to destroy Russia and on the other hand addressing Russia’s acknowledged enemies as “our Western partners.”  

I next noticed that Putin was unaware of the coup Washington was developing in Ukraine or he had no strategic thoughts about it. It had to have been clear to Russian intelligence that for years Washington was pouring billions of dollars–five billion according to Victoria Nuland–into Western-sponsored NGOs, student groups, and bribable politicians in preparation for a coup.  So where was Putin when the coup occurred?  He was at the Sochi Olympics. 

This struck me hard. How could a leader of Russia who made clear statements of Washington’s intentions toward Russia think the Olympic games were more important than an American coup in Ukraine?  But apparently Putin did.

It was Putin’s negligence that caused the ever-widening war in Ukraine. Putin showed his lack of strategic vision when he refused in 2014 the vote of Russian Donbas to be re-incorporated into Russia along with Crimea. This was a disastrous decision sufficient to disqualify any nationalist leader.

And it got worst from there. Putin, preferring a paper, and therefore worthless, agreement with his enemies to putting down a strong deterring foot, came up with the idealistic scheme of the Minsk Agreement. Putin got Donbas and the Ukrainians to agree to the agreement, and France and Germany agreed to be enforcers.  Putin’s Minsk scheme left Russian Donbas in Ukraine but gave Donbas Russians elements of autonomy designed to protect them form persecution and slaughter.

After securing this agreement, which the Chancellor of Germany and President of France later said publicly was used by the West to deceive the innocent Putin, Putin stood aside for eight years while Washington built, trained, and equipped a large, capable Ukrainian Army. 

When Putin and Lavrov’s desperate attempts to secure during December 2021 and February 2022 a mutual defense treaty, only to be brutally cold-shouldered, and the Ukrainian/US invasion of the two break-away Russian Donbas republics was about to begin, Putin, unready as always, intervened with insufficient force. Apparently his central bank director had convinced Putin Russia could not afford a war. Consequently, Putin lacked the means for an effective intervention that has now dragged on for three years. That Russia is still fighting on Russian territory after three years has destroyed the reputation of the Russian military in the West. Even the British are willing to take Russia on.

What Putin needed to do was to knock Ukraine out immediately.  But either from lack of preparedness or absence of  strategic vision, Putin declared a temporary military operation to clear Donbas of Ukrainian forces. It is difficult to imagine a more stupid decision, a decision totally devoid of strategic vision. Putin’s decision gave Washington every opportunity to continually test the waters and to probe whether the next provocation would provoke more than words in response. As none of Putin’s declared red lines meant anything, the provocations continued to the point that Washington and NATO are attacking Russia with long range missiles, and the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs declares that it doesn’t mean that the West is at war with Russia. 

So, Putin’s total inability to think strategically has brought Russia to the point where the Russian government is unable to recognize that missiles sent into Russia by Washington and NATO are acts of war.

And now we have the destruction of Syria, a country for which Russia has fought for 8 years. In Putin’s only proactive move, Putin moved the Russian Air Force into Syria and succeeded in blocking US President Obama’s decision to invade Syria. The Russian Air Force and Syrian army troops defeated the CIA’s jihadist mercenaries Washington sent in to overthrow Assad. 

What struck me about Putin’s intervention was how limited it was. He left Washington in control of Syria’s oil properties. He left Turkey in control of occupied northern Syria. Putin steadfastly prevented Syria from using Russian air defense systems to prevent Israeli and US air attacks on Syria. Why I wondered was Putin such a minimalist in his use of force.

Syria’s destruction, achieved by Russian and Iranian negligence, is a disastrous strategic defeat for Russia and Iran, and a great victory for Israel and Washington. The demise of Syria, to which Putin apparently agreed and about which there is no discussion in the Russian media, has left Hezbollah in Lebanon unsupplied and unable to continue to deter Israeli occupation. With the Syria buffer gone, the road is open for attack on isolated Iran. The Zionist neoconservative agenda of seven countries in five years is now being finalized. 

The success of Washington and Israel is due to the absence of strategic vision in the Kremlin. What explains this absence?

Perhaps John Helmer does. Helmer doesn’t make excuses for Putin. Helmer says that Putin never makes a good decision because Putin is a “balancer.”  He balances every view against the other and never makes an independent decision based on the realistic circumstances.

Perhaps someone will come up with a better explanation. In the meantime we are confronted with the risk that the West views Putin as a man of words but not of action. As I wrote in in a recent column, 2025 will be the year we learn whether Putin will fight or surrender.