RadixJournal - Richard Spencer - Why Putin Will Escalate
Aired: 2022-09-14
Duration: 09:38


=== Why Ukraine Won't Collapse (09:29) ===

[00:00:00]  You cannot make the argument that Ukraine's a fake country and it's going to collapse like a folding chair in a matter of weeks.
[00:00:10]  So why are we wasting our time with this?
[00:00:13]  Let's start dealing with Russia.
[00:00:17]  Russia's the strong power.
[00:00:19]  Ukraine's weak.
[00:00:20]  We're just going to have to deal with the strong power.
[00:00:22]  Those arguments are fair, I guess.
[00:00:27]  You know, like, theoretically, but I think at this point, I mean, all of these, you know, and I even see this in the United States with these effectively pro-Russian bloggers who are, like, just telling you, like, let me just tell you the truth here.
[00:00:46]  This war is going to last days.
[00:00:49]  Even resisting in any way is just going to cause bloodshed and pain and heartache.
[00:00:55]  Don't do it.
[00:00:57]  You know, Russia's badass.
[00:01:00]  Maybe even the best military, if not the second best.
[00:01:04]  And, you know, all this kind of bluster.
[00:01:06]  And I feel like all of that is just ridiculous at this point.
[00:01:13]  You know, I mean, the Ukraine has obviously been helped tremendously by NATO and the United States.
[00:01:21]  But like, it's also a fighting force that has done the fighting and dying.
[00:01:27]  And so you just can't make these arguments.
[00:01:31]  I mean, particularly now when something like victory is in sight.
[00:01:41]  Now, I ultimately don't think that victory is in sight.
[00:01:47]  I believe that You know, first off, in terms of the South and Crimea, those places, we haven't seen blitzkrieg victories there.
[00:02:00]  How far Ukraine's going to push to the East is an interesting question.
[00:02:06]  I mean, I definitely think, you know, whether you're talking about, like, military endeavors or sports or whatever, it's about piling on and, you know, nothing succeeds like success.
[00:02:18]  You just keep...
[00:02:19]  Once you have momentum, it's time to start pressing, pressing, pressing.
[00:02:24]  So we'll see if they're going to actually go into the Donbass region.
[00:02:29]  I think this is a huge issue.
[00:02:31]  But from the standpoint of Putin, it's reasonable to suggest that at the very beginning, he thought that he could just throw a knockout punch.
[00:02:48]  You know, go in, disrupt the government in Kyiv, put in his own guise.
[00:02:57]  Whether he wanted to just, you know, take over the whole country, I'm not sure.
[00:03:03]  But he certainly wanted to disrupt things tremendously in his favor.
[00:03:09]  And, you know, basically turn Ukraine into Belarus.
[00:03:16]  You know, in Belarus.
[00:03:18]  And Russia are in something approaching a union state.
[00:03:23]  But he can't do that.
[00:03:26]  So that has failed, absolutely failed.
[00:03:29]  And it's been embarrassing.
[00:03:31]  But, you know, you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound.
[00:03:35]  I mean, the notion that he'll now back down and negotiate, I think is just totally...
[00:03:46]  I mean, I think that would just be impossible for him to do, because he would be out of power immediately.
[00:03:54]  I mean, there's no way this would have been viewed as anything other than a humiliation.
[00:04:02]  And so where we are now, I mean, maybe smartly, Putin did describe this as a special military operation and not a war.
[00:04:15]  So he kind of kept his powder dry.
[00:04:19]  He didn't totally mobilize the country.
[00:04:24]  Now, obviously, Russia has suffered tremendous losses.
[00:04:28]  And it's interesting when you look at the man-to-man ratio.
[00:04:33]  So from what I understand, when you're invading a country, you need to have three-to-one resource advantage.
[00:04:44]  To successfully invade.
[00:04:46]  This is just a rule of thumb in the sense that you have the initiative and having the initiative striking first is absolutely an advantage.
[00:04:57]  But of course, the people you're invading can hunker down.
[00:05:01]  They can maintain morale.
[00:05:04]  You're defending your own home.
[00:05:06]  They know the terrain better than you do, etc.
[00:05:10]  So it's a kind of, you need to outnumber them three to one.
[00:05:14]  To successfully invade a country, more or less.
[00:05:19]  And from what I understand, it was actually a one-to-one ratio in terms of Russian soldiers to Ukrainians.
[00:05:30]  And, you know, he's going to need full mobilization of the country going forward.
[00:05:38]  I mean, unless he's going to basically be humiliated.
[00:05:44]  And watch NATO expand.
[00:05:47]  He, I don't know, maybe negotiates an ability to hold on to the Donbass region or something.
[00:05:56]  That just strikes me as humiliating.
[00:05:59]  And he would be out of power almost immediately.
[00:06:04]  And the other thing about it is that kind of like when you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound.
[00:06:09]  I mean, even if he is...
[00:06:14]  Kicked out or even executed or something.
[00:06:18]  The sanction regime isn't going away.
[00:06:22]  And the notion that Europe would just be like, oh, it's okay.
[00:06:27]  We forgive everything.
[00:06:28]  Let's just move on.
[00:06:30]  And we're going to start buying more and more gas from you.
[00:06:34]  I don't think that is in the cards.
[00:06:37]  I don't see that as plausible.
[00:06:41]  This reaction has been so tremendous.
[00:06:44]  You cannot dial that back within a decade or two decades.
[00:06:51]  I mean, it is major.
[00:06:53]  There's an interesting article I just read this morning on kind of a neo-Cold War footing, including China, which is this article in Foreign Affairs and an article in the New York Times on it.
[00:07:02]  But I feel like Putin...
[00:07:08]  Is now forced to engage in full mobilization.
[00:07:12]  And so I think a lot of dangerous things are now very possible when he does that.
[00:07:20]  I just, it is, I mean, I can be proven wrong, but it is hard to imagine him backing down and negotiating a settlement.
[00:07:31]  I just, I cannot see that.
[00:07:35]  And if he did that, he would be out of power immediately.
[00:07:37]  So I think this is, it might take him a little bit of time to kind of get the wheels rolling again, but I see full mobilization and a major counterattack and also, like, the possibility of tactical nuclear weapons is in the air.
[00:08:03]  Because that would be an absolute strategic advantage for him.
[00:08:08]  First off, he has that in his arsenal.
[00:08:12]  Secondly, Ukraine is not a member of NATO.
[00:08:15]  There has been a pro-NATO reaction in Western and Central Europe and Northern Europe.
[00:08:23]  Of course there has been.
[00:08:24]  But there are voices out there.
[00:08:29]  That are basically like, let's fold.
[00:08:32]  Why are we doing this?
[00:08:34]  This is going to be a quagmire.
[00:08:36]  You know, I'm cold and, you know, we're just giving money to Ukraine.
[00:08:40]  You know, you see those voices in the United States, you see those voices in Europe.
[00:08:44]  They are minority voices, but they're there.
[00:08:49]  And they can become really intense.
[00:08:53]  And so I do think that like a massive counter strike is in that that is a strategic advantage that Putin has.
[00:09:04]  So anyway, I mean, I think overall, I think that Ukraine has proven itself.
[00:09:11]  It's had tremendous help, of course, but like nevertheless, it's proven itself.

=== Anniversary Lull and Intense Situation (00:24) ===

[00:09:18]  And but I think.
[00:09:22]  Yeah, I think we might have a little bit of a lull here and a kind of, you know, victory celebration.
[00:09:30]  And once we get into like the year anniversary, I think we might be in a situation where things are much more intense.