Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
I think your line of argument opens questions about the long-term consequences for Russia's internal situation. Are sanctions and destabilizing Russia's economy more important than dominating in Ukraine? Is it in the U.S. interest to destablize Russia?
I don't think the US is destabilizing Russia. Putin has to some extent destabilized his own regime by choosing policies that exacerbate the conflict in interests between and among his key constituents. That's his own doing. Why should the US or "the West" refrain from sanctions to protect Putin from the consequences of his own decisions? Putin is not Russia; Russia was there before him and will be there after him. If Putin steps in a pile of merde and destabilizes his own government, so it goes. The US doesn't need to clean his boots.

I think it's safe to conclude that Putin doesn't want to invade the Eastern Ukraine: if he wanted to do it he'd have done it a long time ago. He certainly doesn't want the Ukraine to win the east back. He put his faith in proxies, and the proxies haven't delivered. Now he has to choose between two unwanted outcomes, both of which have negative consequences. That situation is his own doing, and the choice is up to him to make.

Russia is increasingly isolated. If the Ukraine emerges from this with a pro-western government, Putin's only ally on his Western border will be Lukashenko, who is as much liability as asset. In the south the 'Stans are increasingly falling into the Chinese economic orbit. Those events are not about "the West" or China undermining Russia, they are about former Russian satellites asserting their own sovereignty and choosing their own alliances on the basis of their own perceived interests. It's absurd to say that the Baltic States, the Ukraine, or even Belarus "must" stay in the Russian orbit because Russia wants a buffer zone. To make that claim would be to deny that these are sovereign states. If the Kazakhs or Turkmen get better deals on gas and investments from China, why shouldn't they deal with China? If Eastern Europe sees connection to the West as more advantageous to them then connection to Russia, why shouldn't they connect to the West? If Russia wants to retain its influence in these areas, they need to learn how to pursue policies of attraction (not a Russian strong point, I fear) and to make their friendship more desirable than that of their rivals. Of course the Russians can pretend that this erosion of influence is caused by devious machinations of great power rivals. They can even believe their own pretense. That's not going to reverse the erosion.

The US can't "win" in the Ukraine because the US isn't a direct party to the conflict. The Ukraine is fighting for its sovereign right to determine its own alliances and policies. Of course the US would prefer to see the Ukraine win, but it's not the US that's fighting, and framing the conflict as the US vs Russia is not, I think, very helpful.

Whether or not "the World" needs Russia is to me irrelevant. Russia exists, and must be dealt with to some extent.