Good Thursday evening. This is Daniel Allott with The Hill's Top Opinions. In several recent wars – Vietnam and Afghanistan, for example – the stronger power lost because it could not win, and the weaker power won simply because it did not lose.
"So shall it be in Ukraine," predicts HERMAN PIRCHNER, JR., "where the same process is playing out rapidly."
Pirchner, president of the American Foreign Policy Council, writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin's war of choice has had catastrophic consequences. In just six months, Russia's standing in the world has plummeted, a moribund NATO has been resuscitated and some 60,000 Russian soldiers have died — more than during Russia's decade-long occupation of Afghanistan.
What's Putin gotten in return? "Only a few more slivers of land in Ukraine — land that the Kremlin may not be able to hold for very long."
Putin has "doubled down on his campaign of aggression," Pirchner writes, but with minimal gains. "Overall…Russia's revamped offensive can be classified as a strategic failure, as more and more Russians die to temporarily hold non-strategic territory."
Now, as the rich flee the country, soldiers refuse to fight and slowly the balance of power inexorably shifts against "the dwindling number of stalwarts who still support [Putin's] war aims to those who want to cut their losses," Putin finds himself on the brink.
Could Putin be removed from power, bringing the war to an end? According to Pirchner, there's one condition that, if met, would make that scenario a reality.
Read Pirchner's op-ed here.
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