Ukraine: From Sitzkrieg to Blitzkrieg, or from Phony War to WW III?

My Orchids: Russian Dancer
 

Ukraine: 

From Sitzkrieg to Blitzkrieg, or from Phony War to WW III?

 

In the Ukraine, history repeats itself. The parallels to the European 1930ies are staggering. Russia plays the old German handbook today. Or Putin plays Hitler. Here it goes, stroke after stroke and side by side:

1.     At the beginning are two historical events. The Treaty of Versailles of 1919 ended up being resented by German public opinion as a Diktat, politicized by Adolf Hitler. The collapse of the Soviet Union finalized in 1991 left many nostalgic about the lost empire, among them Vladimir Putin. Both men determined that their destiny was to correct their national catastrophic events.

2.     Both men grabbed and consolidated absolute power.

3.     Both men strengthened their military and started exerting power on neighboring “previously lost” territories.

4.     After getting the world used to their threatening rhetoric, comes the next phase of an undeclared war: Hitler intervened in the Spanish Civil War, annexed the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the Austrian “Anschluss”. Putin’s biography includes the Chechen war, the war with Georgia in 2008, and the annexation of Crimea in 2015.

5.     Hitler signed a “non-aggression pact” with Stalin, securing his Eastern border. Putin engineered unprecedented friendship with Xi’s China, securing and aligning interests with China’s.

6.     European powers tried to appease Hitler. Noteworthy is the British Prime Minister’s speech in 1938 returning from a meeting in Munich where he was lured by Adolf Hitler. Neville Chamberlain declared that he was bringing back “Peace for our time”. And “go home and get a nice sleep.” These days Western powers, most notably Presidents Biden and Macron multiplied attempts to rein in Vladimir Putin, threatening him with sanctions. Their appeasement efforts didn’t even yield a phony agreement. Putin crossed a line on February 22^nd by ordering Russian troops into dissident Ukrainian provinces.

This side-by-side comparison looks like a copy and paste calendar on the way to World War III. By disclosing and defining the West’s anticipated reaction upon an invasion of Ukraine as being “sanctions”, a western military option was taken off the table. Maybe not explicitly, but Putin just tested the West by moving troops beyond the status quo line into the repurposed Ukraine territories of “Donetsk People’s Republic and “Luhansk People’s Republic”. And he sees no military reaction of the West. Proof that the only consequences will be limited to sanctions. Which will be a little annoying only for those sanctioned, but widely cancelled out through Russian-Chinese friendship and commercial ties.

In geopolitics and military strategies, it is vain to gauge an adversary’s intentions. Instead, all that counts are his possibilities and those should be analyzed. Is an invasion of the rest of Ukraine coming? It is a possibility. Militarily, Ukraine stands alone, as the West has no appetite for war. Putin sees US and European leadership as weak. Worse, how much Kompromat does he have about western leaders? And he is the solution to Europe’s partly self-inflicted energy crisis. China wouldn’t stand in his way and might use the crisis and perceived weaknesses to its own advantage regarding Taiwan. If the annexation of Ukraine is in his plans, as his past actions seem to show, his moment is now: a weak West, Europe with no political will to call to arms and with no military aspirations, a sympathetic China, and an overwhelming combat ready Russian force with air superiority. Not mentioning the nuclear weapon.

Given this unique alignment of the stars in Russia’s favor, an assault on the Ukraine is a real possibility. The Ukraine Government just mobilized reserve units. Signs point towards war.

We’ll then see a classical script unfold. Ironically there seems to emerge another similarity with 1940, the von Schlieffen Plan. The Russian built-up at the border is complemented by another built-up in Belarus where combined exercises included the use of airborne forces. The setup on the ground indicates a possible plan copied from the German von Schlieffen plan, throwing German forces through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, in this case through Belarus.

Having already stressed the importance of viewing possibilities over intentions, let’s allow us to speculate on the intentions by suggesting the following scenario:

We’ll know that day J and hour H have arrived when cyber and physical attacks occur on Ukrainian Command and Control centers. This is the prelude to an imminent ground attack. Ukrainian defense forces will be targeted by intense artillery “preparation”, including the well-known Stalin’s organs. The Belarus exercises showed the presence of airborne forces. The Russian plan would be typical if it used an airborne division to be dropped in the vicinity of a key objective, maybe Kyiv. Ground forces from Belarus would in priority fight their way, less than 100 miles, to that dropping zone to join forces at the throat of Ukrainian decision makers. A very concerning possibility that would within hours put the world facing a “fait accompli”.

Besides Putin another winner is President Xi. Doors are open to deal with Taiwan. History there will repeat itself too.