HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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February 22, 2022

Should We Have Seen This Coming?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought Europe "to the brink of war," as a Financial Times column by Gideon Rachman declares. 
 
Some think conflict will be confined to eastern Ukraine, Rachman writes; others expect it to redefine security on the whole Continent. At The Washington Post, Robert Kagan envisions Russian troops along hundreds of miles of newly vulnerable NATO borders, notably Poland's. (On Monday, Putin recognized as independent and ordered Russian troops into separatist-held enclaves in Ukraine's east, but Kagan sees him pressing on to gain "full control" of the country.)
 
Another question looms: Should the West have seen all this coming?
 
It's a common—but by no means unanimous—view among global-security analysts that NATO was too triumphalist at the end of the Cold War, rubbing its victory in Russia's face by needlessly expanding eastward. At The New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes that George Kennan, the former US ambassador to Moscow and renowned author of the 1946 "Long Telegram" on Cold War strategy, espoused that view in an exchange with Friedman in 1998—predicting "EXACTLY," in Friedman's words, what's happening today.
 
"I think it is the beginning of a new cold war," Kennan told Friedman, of NATO expansion. "I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. ... Don't people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. ... Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are—but this is just wrong."

Sizing Up the Military Possibilities

If all-out war does arrive, Michael Kofman and Jeffrey Edmonds write for Foreign Affairs, Russia would likely overwhelm Ukraine's defenses. In addition to a big edge in numbers, they observe, "Russia has far more—and far better—artillery, reconnaissance, and logistical capabilities than Ukraine does. The Russian military would have the advantage along every axis of attack."
 
That said, Ukraine's military has improved substantially since Russia's invasion in 2014. At CNN, Matthew Schmidt writes that Ukraine's forces could inflict many casualties on Russian invaders—enough, perhaps, to turn Russian public opinion, already shaky on war according to independent polling, solidly against it.

Eyes on the Donbas

Last week, before Putin's announcement, The Economist wrote that an incursion into the Donbas—the eastern Ukrainian region that's home to the two Russian-backed, separatist-held enclaves Putin recognized as independent and to which he ordered Russian troops—could either spark a wider war or allow Putin to "declare victory and walk away." 
 
A key variable to watch, the magazine wrote, is how far Moscow goes: "(S)eparatist leaders claim sovereignty over swathes of Ukrainian land that they do not control. If Russia were to accept those claims, peace would be unlikely to follow."

A New Way of Responding to 'Hybrid' Warfare

Known as the world leader in "hybrid" or "gray-zone" warfare, in 2014 Moscow accompanied its invasion of Ukraine (by non-uniformed forces) with revisionist claims, accusations of danger to Russian speakers, and a public-messaging effort that clouded discussion. Citing frustrations with the Obama administration's response then, Joshua Yaffa and Adam Entous write for The New Yorker that US President Joe Biden's team has arrived at a new counter-strategy: shouting loudly about purported Russian plans at every step.
 
Not everyone is sold on Washington's claims, they write: "John Sawers, the former head of MI6, argued that such reports were not 'gems from deeply sensitive agent reporting' but the result of passing general assumptions of Russian behavior off as intelligence products."

ISIS Lurks in Lebanon?

At its height, ISIS was active—and perpetrated violence—in Lebanon. At Foreign Policy, Anchal Vohra writes that the with the collapse of that country's economy, it is suspected that ISIS is once again drawing recruits (to travel and fight outside the country) from among poor Lebanese Sunni men, offering promises of salaries. 
 
Citing a "palpable sense of insecurity in the country," Vohra writes that "a combination of poverty and political disaffection might continue to make the prospect of joining extremist groups alluring for many Lebanese who already come from a religiously conservative milieu and, in some cases, already have well-established links to jihadis."