Charles C. Milliken: The Russian bear
I’ve already opined on the necessity of Ukraine being victorious by evicting Russia from its territory. However, as in all wars, the other side has a say in the outcome. How likely are the Russians to concede defeat, or what price they are willing to pay to avoid that outcome?
Nations, like individuals, have characteristics. For an individual we understand the characteristics are the result of combining nature and nurture. I suggest nations can be understood the same way. The symbol of America, the eagle, is highly individualistic, soaring high above all it surveys, and striking when it must with precision, always being careful to minimize loss. The Russian bear, by contrast, strikes with brute force, willing to take great risks to get what it wants, confident in its ability to sweep aside lesser creatures. America values (usually) the individual life, Russia values the collective — a million lives are, as Stalin once said, a statistic. America’s DNA codes for freedom. Russia’s codes for obedience. America has a Constitution. Russia has a tsar.
So the Ukraine war isn’t just about this country or that alliance — it is a conflict of fundamental character. The recent tactics employed by Russia illustrate the difference. After Russia was thwarted in its expectation of a quick victory, it has settled into a war of attrition. Recent attacks in the east of Ukraine have involved human wave attacks of ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-led conscript soldiers, and the dregs of Russian prisons, being slaughtered by the thousands. This has been the Russian way of war for centuries. Although accurate numbers are hard to come by, Russia lost nearly 2 million soldiers in World War I and a staggering 11 million dead in WWII. America lost nearly 300,000 in WWII, and Germany, which was utterly obliterated, lost 3.5 million.
The battle for Bakhmut has echoes of Stalingrad, where wave after wave of Russians were slaughtered wearing down the German army. Behind the lines soldiers were stationed to kill any Russian in the front who decided to flee the slaughter. The same tactic is currently being employed. The conscript knows he may be killed in the attack, but will certainly be killed if he turns tail or tries to surrender.
The brutal math is precisely this: Russia has four times the population of Ukraine, so if Ukraine cannot maintain a kill ratio of at least four to one, it loses. In addition, if Russian lives matter not to Russia, Ukrainian lives matter less, thus the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and the infrastructure on which they rely for food and shelter. This is designed to sap morale. Toss in a few atrocities, and that is the witch's brew employed by Russian armies in the entirety of the 20th century. The West huffs and puffs about “war crimes,” but Putin knows no war crime trials will ever take place unless Russia is thoroughly defeated and occupied. That will never happen, because the West has no such intention.
In addition to ruthlessness, Russia has always been expansionist, believing that Moscow was the “third Rome” — after the first Rome fell (476 AD), then Constantinople, the Second Rome (1453 AD). In 1472, the niece of the last emperor of Constantinople, Sophia Paleologus, married Ivan III, thus cementing Moscow’s right to inherit imperial glory. Subsequent centuries, under tsars such as Ivan the Terrible (Sophia’s grandson), Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and others saw to it by the dawn of the 20th century Imperial Russia constituted the greatest land mass in world history, with borders from what is now Poland to Alaska (which Putin wants back, by the way), crossing 11 time zones. (The U.S., counting Hawaii, crosses only six.)
For tsar Putin, the path forward is simple. Old Imperial Russia needs to be reassembled, and Russia must assume its rightful place as a major power in the world, if not the major power. Ukraine today, the Baltics tomorrow, more after those — a great historical task, and killing a few million along the way is just a statistic.
Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Charles C. Milliken: The Russian bear
