Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
WSJ, Oct. 7, 2022
“The U.S. is accused of pouring money into a corrupt government. Ukraine has had corruption problems but so have we, and much of the money is actually going to Alabama and Arkansas, where Javelins and Himars are made, and to Tennessee and Missouri, U.S. centers of ammunition production.”
Vladimir Putin has gotten himself into an increasingly ridiculous situation, holding a gun to his own head and saying, “Meet my demands or the idiot gets it.”
The mystery of the week is who blew up the undersea sections of the two Russia-controlled Nord Stream pipelines. Despite other theories you’re hearing, Russia is the probable culprit, not some Ukraine-friendly power seeking to forestall Germany rushing back to kiss and make up with Russian energy.
Remember 2014: Mr. Putin sacrificed a passing Malaysian airliner to influence the West when a Ukrainian offensive threatened his hold on occupied territory. The purpose would be the same today, to convince Ukraine’s allies (and perhaps Mr. Putin’s Gazprom cronies, who see their wealth dissolving) that no off-ramp is possible except by acceding to Mr. Putin’s demand for eastern Ukraine even as his troops prove inconveniently incapable of holding it.
Mr. Putin has no solution for himself except such a deus ex machina supplied by the West—let’s understand this.
His position is impossible. Discussion now of whether the West should adopt regime change as an aim seems a mite superfluous given the mess he has created for himself even if it takes months or a year or two to play out. Presumably he’s considering whether detonating a nuclear weapon might make the West pressure Ukraine to call off its offensives. The likelier effect would be to hasten the retreat of his own troops before a fallout cloud landed on them. Nor can he broach negotiations, his other escape route, without also signaling to his troops to give up the fight. By now, they would be following in the footsteps of such independent allies of Mr. Putin as Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov and mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, both of whom have become noticeably less keen on risking their best-trained loyalists in Ukraine. … Source