Putin’s Crawling Behind ‘Red Lines’

The political will and capabilities of the Russian ruler are running out.

The United States likes to open military bases all over the world. This is its style of influencing world politics, where weapons and military presence play an important role. Here, you can't argue with Russian propaganda: the Americans, using their superpower status, successfully impose their conditions on other countries. But it's one thing to scold the hegemon, and quite another to compete with it.

The day before, during a speech in St. Petersburg on Navy Day, Vladimir Putin threatened that if American missiles were deployed in Germany, Russia would also deploy something somewhere.

And this point is worth considering more closely. Where can Russia deploy its medium- and shorter-range missiles? Putin tactfully kept silent about this during his speech. The geopolitical prospects of our country as a whole are no less vague. It is unlikely that anyone will dare to accept a Russian missile system now.

Secretly, Russia can, of course, supply missile launchers to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and anyone else. Even if we send nuclear warheads to North Korea, it will hardly be a loss for us. But if we are talking about the public side of the issue, then it is unlikely that there is a single country that would agree to demonstratively host missile guests from Russia. Perhaps Belarus, but Putin has long perceived it not as a sovereign country, but as a “union state”.

This is probably where the political will and capabilities of the Russian ruler end. A recent illustrative example is precisely on this topic. When Putin came to Vietnam in mid-June, where the talk was supposed to be about deliveries of Russian weapons to the country, Vietnam was cut off from the global Internet. Such a gentle reminder that, in fact, the host country is on the path of rapprochement with the United States.

In fact, this is exactly what can be called a demonstration of real geopolitical capabilities, when you “subtly” force your opponent to your own will. Putin has not shown much success in the path of smart diplomacy. All attempts to use various levers have ended in either defeat, or failure, or a quiet retreat beyond his own red lines. The most striking example is Russia's unsuccessful attempt to blackmail Europe with gas.

So where will Russia be able to deploy its missile systems out of resentment towards the US? If this cannot be said publicly and the deployments will take place secretly, then this is a completely different level. Not a direct and specific fight with the hegemon, but just a petty dirty trick from behind while it is distracted and does not see.

Andrey Okun, Telegram

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