Why there won't be a war with Russia

I've almost certainly gotten your attention with that subtitle, either because you are an American or a Brit that knows Churchill never actually said that. But you are here, so I want to show you how the Ukraine situation and Russia's response is all about America and not, you know, Ukraine.

There's a lot of hysteria about a possible war with Russia and I can assure you, there is no one more perplexed by that notion than the Russians themselves, because many Russians know what potential military conflict looks like, either because they themselves grew up during the cold war were it really could have turned into mutual nuclear annihilation or they remember the lead up to the Invasion of Crimea and distinctly remember the preparation that went into it.

What we are seeing just now doesn't look like a war, certainly not on Russia's part, you can easily tell when Russia is ramping up for war or conflict because their military spending goes up the military starts hoarding stockpiles of weapons near the area of conflict and starts drafting more Russians into the military as reserves.

None of that has happened, yet America seems to be geared up and ready for war? Why? There's an Economic answer to that but first, lets talk about why Russia doesn't actually want to invade Ukraine or rather why they even chose Ukraine as a punching bag.

The Ukrainian Situation and Putin's Mind-games

Putin has built up this idea that America has pushed Ukraine into NATO, when in fact the truth is much more mundane than that. The west of Ukraine which is where most of the Population lives has had a friendly relationship with NATO and the EU for many, many years. Volodymyr Zelensky ran on a Centrist position that included Joining NATO, Joining the EU, etc. He won the presidency and the subsequent elections which gave his party the ability to start moving towards those goals. Zelensky isn't an American puppet, he's arguably the most Ukrainian President that Ukraine has ever had, He used to be a Comedian and a well known one at that. He's Ukraine's answer to Mr Bean.

Putin is doing what Putin does and framing any kind of Democratic opposition to him both Internationally and internal opposition as being some kind of push from the west to topple him or discredit him. As many Putin Allies know, you really don't need the west to intervene to get opposition to what you stand for. That's kind of the point of a democratic system, just as where you have supporters there are people who are vehemently opposed to what you are doing. No matter how much of a "benevolent" dictator you view yourself to be.

The Ukrainian Situation is not new, at all. I'd argue the Ukrainian situation has been going on since the fall of the Soviet Union and the answer to "Why Ukraine" is reasonably simple, Russia at the moment is running low on resources like ore and other manufacturing resources. Ukraine has a lot of those industries and their resources don't run into the issue of being locked under perma-frost for half the year. Under a Zelensky Government, Russia cannot simply organise a corrupt deal with Ukraine to get those resources on the cheap. Zelensky, unlike the previous presidents of Ukraine is a vocal opponent to Russia and especially Putin.

So Putin wants resources and wants to bully Ukraine into giving those resources to Russia. That's why out of the previous Soviet Blocs, he's picked Ukraine to bully. But Russia still doesn't want war. How? well Russia isn't prepped for war, and due to the lack of resources Russia knows plain and simply that Russia wouldn't be able to sustain a war with Ukraine, either fiscally or materially.

Putin's Plan

Putin's real target, Isn't Ukraine, it never was. Putin wants to test the character of America, Putin shows aggravation almost every time there's a new President in the United States. Purely as a mind game to see what buttons he needs to push with each president to get what he wants.

Putin see's Joe Biden as a feeble president that will happily let Putin run around him in circles. But what Putin isn't accounting for is Biden having an open goal to pull the Rug from under Putin, Not economically, not militaristically but Diplomatically.

Putin's whole game is based on Game Theory, which is the Mathematical model used by Economists, Military leaders and world leaders to figure out the plan of attack or how to get a foreign power to stop doing what they're doing.

Game Theory

So what is the game that Russia is playing, or rather has been playing with America since the 90s. So in this game, America have 2 sets of responses, they have responses that keep the status quo, and ones that aggravate or show aggression.

In Game Theory, if you are met with Aggravation the norm is to go with Status Quo cos it keeps the opposition from using your aggression as an excuse to keep pushing further but if your opposition goes with status quo, you show aggression because they've given you a window to push for more.

Pretty much every American president has met Putin with a Pro-status quo response and paired with Putin's assumptions about Biden being a feeble man with no backbone. Putin is hoping that he can show aggression to Biden and that Biden will just roll over further fuelling the propaganda that the west is weak and that Russia is strong.

The big mistake

Russia is too over confident and has left America with a open goal that will do little damage to themselves and also halt any kind of war and future tensions. By putting on a show of "weak" power, aka lining up soldiers on Ukraines border in a lackluster fashion with none of the economic resources, or material resources to keep a conflict going.

America could, if they were to play the game smartly, could choose to meet Russia's pseudo-status quo, pseudo-aggressive decision with an equally equal-set decision. Arm the Ukrainians and lift all old sanctions against Russia. Which is basically the Game Theory version of despite you being the winner in chess, you flip the table anyway. You remove all further game opportunities and remove all options from Russia.

Conclusion

Russia doesn't want a war, America doesn't want a war and the reason it seems like its ramping up is because the Media is spending more time looking for Alternative news that isn't the COVID-19 pandemic. That's not really a fact, more of an observation. Russia is playing a game, America is also playing the game, the only thing that's changed is that Russia has chosen an unusual 3rd option that America wasn't expecting and has opened a goal that America was never expecting.

Russia wants to see what kind of Leader Biden will be, and to be honest, i don't think its just Putin that want's to see that, I think the rest of the world wants to know the answer to that Question as well cos if his current track record is anything to go by, Putin's assumptions of him being a feeble man, might just be right. Only time will tell.