It was never convincing that the coordinated U.S. and European expulsion of Russian diplomats was uniquely a response to a Moscow-inspired ‘chemical weapons attack’ in Salisbury, a small town in the English countryside.
The facts of that case are well known by now. It was an attempted assassination of a single individual, Sergei Skripal, a turned Russian spy, in which his daughter was just a collateral victim. A proper analogy could be found in the assassination in Malaysia of Kim Jong Un’s half-brother in February 2017. For British Prime Minister Theresa May to add that this was a “violation of Britain’s national sovereignty” is somewhat of a rhetorical stretch.
Moscow-ordered attacks such as this one, or the fatal poisoning in Britain of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and the murders of several London-based Russian oligarchs who had fallen out with Russian President Vladimir Putin, are something else. They are individual punishments for opposing Putin, and they serve as warnings to others who could turn against him that they are never out of his reach. The killings of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 and fearless opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in 2015 were simple assassinations of political opponents at home.
Nearly 30 countries joined in the diplomatic move on Russia. These included 18 EU governments supporting the United Kingdom, as well as the United States and Canada. They were joined by a remarkable list of non-Transatlantic, non-EU governments.
Concurrently, Washington is leading NATO negotiations to increase capacity to head off Russian moves against the Alliance’s eastern flank. Ahead of a summit meeting in July, agreement is converging around an American proposal to build up forces and increase readiness to deploy.
NATO has already assembled 4,600 troops on forward deployment in Poland and the Baltic States, directly facing the Russian border. There’s also a NATO spearhead force of 5,000 troops ready to reinforce the forward deployment in a week’s time.
Baltic governments are concerned with possible Russian moves to intervene militarily on their territory or at least to weaken NATO’s resolve to defend them.
The American plan, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, is for NATO to have 30 battalions. That translates to some 30,000 troops, 30 fighter squadrons, and 30 naval ships, ready to deploy within 30 days. This means increased U.S. commitment to the Alliance. This is another issue on which U.S. President Donald Trump has zig-zagged -- America First vs. American commitment. So far, it’s been more engagement than retrenchment.
Moscow is now hesitant, taken by surprise at Western vehemence. They are expelling Western diplomats and closing the St. Petersburg consulate. But the fact remains that one country, Russia, is a pariah, confronted by nearly 30.
The tables are turning on Moscow. Putin for a few years intimidated the West. He took Crimea by force, fomented and fed a separatist war in Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region, and moved decisively into the Syria wars when former U.S. President Barack Obama stood back.
Russia still has Crimea but is stalemated in the Donbas, and economic sanctions imposed for these and other aggressive policies are working. In Syria, the Iranians have military and political influence at least on a par with Moscow.
The result of Putin’s gambles is what strategic theory predicts. An aggressive great power either intimidates smaller powers or provokes a coalition against it. The same is happening in Asia, where China is provoking a coalition of Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. In both cases, however, it is the United States that anchors the smaller country alliances. American leadership in the form of geostrategic guarantees against China and Russia is in the American national interest.
Thus, would-be Putin the Great is humiliated on the international stage, a pariah. His crushing presidential victory a few weeks ago already looks hollow.
Today, if anyone is intimidated it is Putin himself. Testing the Satan-2 missile last week -- supposedly able to strike anywhere in the world and evade all missile defenses -- makes Putin look more like Rocket-boy Kim than a master of the universe.
On a personal level, Putin is fearsome, a judo black belt. But even a black belt knows when to back off. It is when you are overmatched.
Putin is losing the initiative. He’s running out of battles he can wage with impunity. The Western countries, including the Trump administration, are pushing back hard.
All this is encouraging.