The Wishful Theory of ‘Strategic Russian Defeat’
Advocates of the strategy want to transform Russia the way Germany and Japan were after they lost World War II. But there’s one big hitch.
Not the way to win this war.
Photographer: Hulton Archive/Archive PhotosThroughout the eight months of the Ukraine invasion, Vladimir Putin has stressed that his war is an existential struggle for Russia, a fight for a new world order. Now, important Western policy thinkers appear to be coming to the same conclusion: The narrative is shifting from helping Ukraine win to shaping a postwar global order that would sideline Russia, rendering it unable to cause further trouble.
This shift challenges the conventional wisdom that the war will end with some kind of negotiated compromise — before or after the Putin regime falls. Many in the West — and not just in Central Europe, where the belief that Russia never changes has always been widespread — will argue that Russia needs to be stripped of its oversized international role. And some will say, increasingly openly, that it must be brought to its knees, like Nazi Germany or its ally Japan, before it can be rebuilt and reintegrated into the world.