Black Swans Archives - Russia Unlocked

How will history view Putin?

Putin is the first Russian ruler during the last 100 years who did not try to modernize the country.

If Putin continues to rule Russia the way he does now, with no friendly or hostile “Black Swans” arriving before he goes, this is what will go down in history:

Under Putin, due to the windfall of historically high oil prices, Russia experienced the wealth and stability unprecedented in more than 1000 years of our history.
Putin stopped the process of Russia shedding our dependencies after the break up of the Soviet Union. He also put an end to the post-WW2 order of European security system by unilaterally taking Crimea from Ukraine.
Putin is the first Russian ruler during the last 100 years who did not try to modernize the country. He views modernity as a factor of instability. As a counterweight, he reinforces the elements of Russian imperial, orthodox political tradition, an assertive military and the economy based on large-scale extraction and export of natural resources. Internationally, he aligns himself with China who he considers as a politically and socially conservative, but economically successful force.
Putin successfully introduced—in Europe, for the first time since the Venetian Republic—a system where the secret police forms the core of the national political system, and secret operatives the backbone of the ruling class.

What would a war between the US and Russia look like today, after the first strike nuclear exchanges?

With the Mutual assured destruction capacity still present on both sides, the likelihood of all-out nuclear strike from either side is rather small. Whatever propaganda on either side is saying, there are hardly any issues between Russia and the US/NATO that can’t be sorted out in a considerably less costly way, through negotiations or conventional proxy conflicts.

But if against odds, Black Swans arrive and the nuclear option comes to the table, we’ll most likely see a carefully scaled conflict. The first shots would be delivering tactical nuclear munitions, in order to measure the public and military response from the other side.

Right now, the most likely area for such an exchange seems to be the Baltic Sea nations and Ukraine. The rationale for that might be Putin testing NATO’s resolve to invoke Article 5 in the face of an imminent threat of nuclear escalation. “Is President Trump willing to sacrifice Pittsburgh for Pärnu?” Most likely, Trump and the Germans would stand down, NATO would collapse, and the prospect of global nuclear war would blow over.

What would a war between NATO and Russia look like after the first nuclear strike?

A war between NATO and Russia.

With the capacity for Mutually Assured Destruction still present on both sides, the likelihood of an all-out nuclear strike from either side is rather small. Whatever propaganda on either side is saying, there are hardly any issues between Russia and the US/NATO that can’t be sorted out in a considerably less costly way, through negotiations or conventional proxy conflicts.

But if, against odds, Black Swans arrive and the nuclear option comes to table, we’ll most likely see a carefully scaled conflict. The first shots would be delivering tactical nuclear munitions, in order to measure public and military response from the other side.

Right now, the most likely area for such an exchange seems to be the Baltic Sea nations and the Ukraine. The rationale for that might be Putin testing NATO’s resolve to invoke Article 5 in the face of the imminent threat of nuclear escalation. “Is President Trump willing to sacrifice Pittsburgh for Pärnu?” Most likely, Trump and the Germans would stand down, NATO would collapse, and the prospect of global nuclear war would blow over.