China and Russia Under the Hood: Pointed Analysis
By Tom Rakusan, Contributing Author/ March 31, 2022
Mr. Rakusan recently retired from the Federal Government after 39 years with various elements of the U.S. national security community. Mr. Rakusan’s focus has been on Eastern and Western Europe, the former Soviet states, and across the Middle East. He has served in a multitude of locations in these regions, as well as in Washington, working these issues in the national security community within various national security settings over several Administrations.
Mr. Rakusan has also led several large organizations. In these and other senior national security leadership positions, Mr. Rakusan led innovation and created multi-disciplinary teams to tackle the Nation’s most pressing national security challenges.
Mr. Rakusan is currently employed with a U.S. private equity firm, focusing on investments in companies developing tools needed by the U.S. national security community.
Shifts in World Order
Russia and China want to take over the world order.
China can – it has a tech and manufacturing base and talent – it has an economy.
Russia has none of that. Therefore, Russia cannot take over the world order, but it can sure as hell deny our ongoing control over the order. But, in order to deny us the lead, Russia can only offer violence as a tool because, back to the above, it has no economy. Russian violence is meddling in socio-political affairs of others, meddle in social issues, assassinations, WMD use, harassing neighbors.
China is the long-term economic, tech, military threat; Russia is the immediate and violent threat. Therefore, the focus must be on both – we will always need to manage Russian violence, while managing China’s geopolitical aspirations…take out the neighborhood gang (Russia) so we can focus on the role of organized crime in the entire city (China)…keeping in mind the neighborhood bullies (Russians) will always be “ankle-biting” our efforts.
Why Putin Invaded the Ukraine
Regarding Ukraine – three reasons Putin went in:
The first is historical. The Russian claim to Ukraine is like the Israelis and the global Jewish community having a stake to Jerusalem. Russian Orthodoxy was founded in Kiev, not in the village of Muscovy.
Second. Putin feels, going back to the above arguments, that he must be respected and seen as a superpower. He thinks this because he is not that superpower, and he knows it. So, he must be a thug/bully to appear as a superpower and so that he forces respect.
Invading Ukraine, what Putin was told by FSB General (in charge of the Near Abroad) Sergey Beseda, would be a cake walk in Ukraine, is one way to show superpower status.
And three. Putin does want that buffer zone between Muscovy and NATO, the one Russia/USSR lost in 1989, when Putin was a mere KGB LTC in the East Germany part of that Cold War-era buffer zone.
Putin is increasingly isolated, paranoid, inward looking, xenophobic as all Russian nationalists are…his underlings (the security power elite known as “siloviki”) are now afraid to tell him the truth. So, they told him Ukraine is a cakewalk.
Ukraine Already Lost 30 Years, and Now…
Meanwhile, the West assisted Ukraine, a Ukraine which since 2014 has become increasingly patriotic and Western leaning. Ukraine lost 30 years of its development by being a vassal to Moscow. That ended with the ouster of Yanukovych and the Second Maidan in 2014, followed by the Russian invasion of the Donbas and the annexation of Crimea.
So, today, there is a new Ukraine, one which the Russians do not want to see; we have Putin’s paranoia and a situation where his own people are afraid to tell him the truth. This spells a military disaster. In addition, the Russian military is overrated – it is still an 18th century phenomenon. The result is a stalemate (defeat) in Ukraine. That stalemate is in itself a Ukrainian victory.
Cornered and Unpredictable
What does Putin do now? He has no reverse gear; he cannot back down, his ego and superpower wannabe status won’t allow it. He has no choice but to double down. He did that in Mariupol. He will do it again. But worse yet, this could be a nuclear/bio/chemical attack or another humanitarian disaster? One of both is likely.
Ukraine Is Putin’s Downfall
In the end, Ukraine is increasingly Putin’s demise. Either the oligarchs, the siloviki, or the people will say, “yes Vlad, we are all Russian nationalists. But You, Vlad, are destroying our brand and you are doing things that will sink our Russian nationalism. Thank you, but you are done now. We are taking over the drive toward Russian nationalism.”
A new regime or leadership in “Moscovy” will not be that different. It will still be inward-looking, an outward/inward-violent regime which Russia has had for a thousand years.
Isolating Russia
So, we need to realign world order to isolate Russia into its own territory. Cease all trade; cease all investment; cut them off. This will require a new mindset. This is not an end to globalism, but globalism without Russia.
This needs to be done as Russia will never be a responsible member of the global order. We are already starting to do this. For instance, selling LNG to Europe, the Central Bank sanctions, end of SWIFT, stopping energy imports, as well as Europe deciding that Russia DID use energy for blackmail.
Aligning the Global Supply Chain
We need to realign the supply chain global network to exclude Russia, invest in companies and industries that can be the alternate supplies and in time, become the main suppliers. Russia can never be a trusted global member of the community: it has failed that test hundreds of times over a thousand years. Ukraine in 2022 is just another example.
Bring China Closer
As for China – yes, Russia is Xi’s gas station and a vassal to China. We need to focus on managing China as long as Xi is in charge and then drive China to be integrated into the global community the way we tried to do this pre-Xi.
It has too much of an economy to be ignored; Russia can and must be ignored, unless it refuses to integrate into the world community.
We need to start laying the groundwork NOW. We must have non-China supply chains in place so that we are able to turn the China switch off without any damage to our own way of life.
More, faster, better.