Putin the Puppet?

How the Ukraine invasion turns out is anybody's guess, given that the puppet master in all this is a sociopathic megalomaniac whose connection to common sense or reality is unknown. However, there are some things upon which we can probably all agree.

Among those is that, long term, Russia's the sure loser. The West got a cattle prod jolt of a wakeup call from this business, and I expect that all those squishy European leaders who've been pretending they can just keep buying Russian gas and oil without too much worry are going to be under tremendous pressure from their citizens to be better prepared against future aggression. Concurrently, I figure that the Western businesses divesting from Russia won't be so quick to just return to business as usual, that the international community will shun Putin and his domain - if not entirely, enough to be noticeable, and that the financial cost and harm of this debacle will weigh on Russia for a long time. Russia is not China, whose economy is a big enough lure for Big Business to guiltily close an eye to China’s predations. Big Business can afford to continue to shun Russia.

On the battle front, National Review's Jim Geraghty concludes that, even if Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine's government over, a long term occupation is unsustainable, and any attempt at one will bleed Russia dry. Russia will be the ultimate loser in this war, no matter how much damage Ukraine suffers.

Russia is now and will remain a pariah to the West.

This means that Russia's export economy will have to find other buyers. The most obvious customer, one that shares 2500 miles of border with Russia, that has 1.4 billion consumers, and that imports 2/3 of its petroleum, is China.

Russia's GDP is only 10% China's. Coincidentally, Ukraine's GDP is 10% of Russia's.

Russia sought to make Ukraine a client state, a puppet for Putin the puppeteer to string up.

It would be tremendously ironic if Putin finds himself on Xi Jinping's strings at the end of all this, would it not? Those brass balls of his ending up in the pocket of Commie the Pooh after his gross miscalculation in Ukraine would be the ultimate emasculation, but one he may not be able to avoid.

It’s already happening. Less than two weeks in, Russia is turning to a Chinese credit card system to replace Visa and Mastercard, which ceased operations therein. Russia heeded Xi’s request to delay the invasion until after the Winter Olympics ended. China is not only continuing to “conduct normal trade co-operation in the spirit of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit,” per China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin, China is easing existing trade restrictions on Russian exports such as wheat. Chinese companies are preparing to sell to Russian consumers. Russia’s rapid economic collapse will make it ever easier for China to dangle more economic carrots, put Russia in thrall, and make Putin dance as Xi wishes.

Of course, they won’t ever let us see the strings.