What's needed to prove Putin the strategist is wrong again
The war in Ukraine has passed the six-month mark. Another package of aid and weapons has been announced by the Biden administration. Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to expand the Russian military by 137,000 troops, a move that no one believes will be politically popular.
We are being told, nay, warned that this will be a long war.
Putin's strategy to take Kyiv in a lightning strike and decapitate the government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy has failed. His strategy to consolidate control in the East of the country has thus far failed. However, he has another strategy that he believes will succeed - the exhaustion of the American and European publics who will not support Ukraine indefinitely nor be willing to pay the price of the war via higher energy costs and general inflation.
A poll released this week by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests that Putin has once again misjudged the situation. The survey of more than 3,000 adults across the country found strong support for continuing to aid Ukraine and pressure Russia for as long as it takes.
Specifically, 80 percent favored increasing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Russia; 76 percent accepting Ukrainian refugees in the United States; 72 percent favored sending additional arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government; and 71 percent supported additional economic assistance to Ukraine.
The council asked specifically if Americans favored continued aid to Ukraine "for as long as it takes," even if it meant that they would have to pay higher prices for food and energy. A clear majority, 58 percent, said yes versus 38 percent who said no.
However, Putin has tried for years to split America from Europe, and thus the opinions of Europeans are just as important. In the first weeks of the war, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman noted that he had been wrong when he wrote that Russia had invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. After traveling through Europe, he came to understand that the prevailing sentiment was that Russia "had invaded Europe."
Still, Europeans - because of their dependence on Russian energy - are paying a far higher economic price as this war drags on, though European governments are using subsidies to try to mitigate some of the impact of natural gas prices that are up to 10 times higher than the previous "normal" price before the war.
The European Council on Foreign Relations did a survey in June similar to the Chicago survey and it found less unanimity. They polled some 8,000 individuals from across Europe and found that Europeans fell into four different camps. The largest - 35 percent - are the "peace camp" that wants the war to end as soon as possible even if it means that Ukraine must surrender territory.
The other three groups are called the "justice camp" (22 percent) that wants to see Russia punished, and two groups - "swing voters" (20 percent) and "the rest" (23 percent) who can be swayed depending on events on the ground and the soundness of the arguments presented by political leaders. Poland, not surprisingly, is the most hawkish. Italy is the most dovish, even more than the Scandinavian countries.
Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times has written that there are three wars going on simultaneously - the physical war on the ground, the economic war and the battle of wills. There are two obvious things that will help shore up support - success on the battlefield and mitigating the worst economic impacts of the war.
This means: keep the military aid flowing and find ways to replace Russian energy and other commodities as soon as possible. That will help ensure that Putin the "strategist" will fail once again.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.