Ukraine is Putin’s starting place in destroying NATO and rebuilding Russian empire

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia — It is Vladimir Putin’s vision to regain the greatness of the Russian Empire. He has chosen Ukraine as his starting point, and why not, other than international law and a few pesky treaties? A combination of circumstances has emboldened him to do it now, not later.

Economics favor him now. Russia’s role as an energy exporter has funded the reconstitution of his military. Energy exports are also a lever for economic warfare against those who oppose him.

But all this is fleeting. As the United States is becoming the world’s largest fossil fuel producing nation, despite the current Obama administration’s effort to stifle that development, Putin knows that over time, both advantages will erode.

His buildup of Russian nuclear forces is unprecedented since the Cold War. It favors him now, even though much of it is in violation of treaties to which the West is turning a blind eye, even as the western democracies are allowing their nuclear forces to atrophy. While we cannot any longer conceive of nuclear war, the Russians/Soviets have since 1948 looked at it as the ultimate threat and guarantor of regime survival.

The West’s funding of its conventional military capabilities has given social programs priority over national security. The West is militarily incapable without the United States; no West European nation could wage modern war without the command, control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities and infrastructure provided by the United States.

The current US administration is following Europe’s lead in prioritizing excessive social programs over national security, and letting the capacity and capabilities of the world’s finest military machine wither away.

Politics favor Putin now. Because of the degradation in Western military capabilities, NATO has become a political organization more than a military one.

NATO’s rule for consensus among its 28 member countries before doing anything can be politically crippling. This is up from 16 at the end of the Cold War. Given the responses from NATO capitals to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, it appears he’s already succeeded in breaking at least Germany out of the NATO camp of penalizing Russia. He doesn’t have to defeat NATO militarily; he only has to defeat it politically.

The weak, vacillating, and indecisive world leadership of the United States has enabled this since January 2009. The likelihood of this opportunity continuing into the next president’s administration is extremely low, no matter which party comes into office. Putin’s timing was no accident.

The next steps in executing Putin’s vision will determine if he’s successful in destroying NATO as the principal hindrance to his ambitions. He’s well on his way to doing so.

Just envision this scenario: Russian forces invade Ukraine, and the West increases non-crippling economic sanctions. Russian forces invade Russian-speaking northeastern Estonia, a NATO member state, which invokes Article V of the NATO alliance that an attack on one is an attack on all. One or more NATO states refuse to implement Article V. NATO is destroyed.

Is Putin right about his opportunity?

Floyd D. Kennedy, Jr. is a retired Naval intelligence officer who spent 26 years studying Soviet military doctrine and national security processes. Over 20 years at the Center for Naval Analyses, he advised flag and general officers of four US military services on national security policy.