The Guardian’s Timothy Garton Ash published an article in late May about “how to defeat Vladimir Putin”. The lede claimed that “The Russian dictator’s dreams of greatness threaten Nato and the EU, not just Ukraine. Here are eight ways in which he can be thwarted”. Garton Ash advised that “What democracies in Europe and beyond can do is hone a strategy to defeat his external ambitions.” He then detailed eight policies for them to apply, which will now be briefly critiqued:
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1. Have A Clear Purpose
Garton Ash believes that the West must prevent Putin from “subjugating Ukraine, restoring as much as possible of the Russian empire, destroying the credibility of Nato, undermining the European Union and re-establishing a Russian sphere of influence over eastern Europe.” Putin’s goal has always been to neutralize Ukrainian-emanating threats from NATO in order to then reform the European security architecture after diplomacy failed to achieve this, however, so Garton Ash’s “clear purpose” is irrelevant.
2. Stay The Course With Ukraine
Garton Ash advises that the West continue its existing support for Ukraine even after the conflict ends in order to prevent it from becoming “a depopulated, internally conflicted, dysfunctional state.” The problem with this proposal is that it would entail over half a trillion dollars if the estimated physical reconstruction costs are borne by Ukraine’s patrons and even if more if they continue funding its armed forces and administration. Taxpayers across the West might not agree to foot such a tremendous bill.
3. Increase Economic Pressure On Russia
Apart from “tightening sanctions and supporting Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure”, Garton Ash calls for “cracking down harder on Russia’s shadow fleet.” For as appealing as that might sound to many hawks, there’s little left that the West could sanction, Russia’s further reduced energy production could spike global prices at Western consumers’ expense, and seizing naval-escorted “shadow fleet” vessels risks a hot NATO-Russian war. Western policymakers might thus reject his advice.
4. Deter Another Russian Attack
Garton Ash takes for granted that Putin is plotting to attack the Baltic States and thus argues that he can only be deterred through Europe’s German-led militarization. Former President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev recently warned about the 1941-like threat posed by this trend, however, so Garton Ash’s advice would only further worsen NATO-Russian tensions. It’ll still likely be applied, due in large part to the military-industrial complex’s lobbying, but it’s not helpful at all.
5. Don’t Play Only Defense On The Hybrid Front
This tip cites a recent report from the European Council on Foreign Relations titled “From shield to sword: Europe’s offensive strategy for the hybrid age”. It explicitly calls for “using local proxies, influencers and informal networks—online and offline—to disseminate narratives that undermine hostile regimes.” The authors also advise “asymmetric attacks in the kinetic and cyber spheres”, basically sabotage and hacking. As with the tip above, this one would also further worsen tensions if applied.
6. Speak To All The Russias
This tip builds upon the infowar aspect of the preceding one by proposing more engagement with “business, professional and even bureaucratic elites still in the country; wider Russian society; and the ‘Other Russia’, now living largely outside Russia”. Garton Ash candidly acknowledges that “This will make little difference in the short term”, arguing that “this can bear fruit when the moment of change comes”, though this is nothing but another regime change fantasy that’s unlikely to ever materialize.
7. See Off Our Own Nationalists
Garton Ash launders the lie that European nationalists are Putin’s puppets to implicitly advocate for meddling in the French and German elections in order to respectively thwart Jordan Bardella’s and the AfD’s chances of coming to power there. Not only is this particular advice self-discrediting for the West as a whole, thus confirming what Russia has long claimed about its elites stealing elections, but it also risks backfiring by galvanizing the aforementioned’s bases to give them a lead that’s “too big to rig”.
8. Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There
This oddly worded advice was summarized by Garton Ash as “strategic patience”, which alludes to the second tip about “staying the course” in Ukraine by maintaining financial and military support for it throughout the post-conflict era, with his final supplementary point being that “time will be on our side.” Many arguments have already been made about why that’s not the case, chiefly the likelihood of an EU recession caused in no small part by rising energy costs, so this is the most misguided of all his tips.
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Instead of escalating tensions with Russia like Garton Ash advises throughout his piece, Europe’s interests would best be served by coercing Ukraine into complying with more of Russia’s demands for peace in order for the continent to then reprioritize its own objective interests. Continuing to falsely conflate them with Ukraine’s will only accelerate Europe’s growing irrelevance as the US exploits its misguided priorities to institutionalize the EU’s vassalage as a captive arms, energy, and export market.
