2022.04.23 伊恩-布雷默计算普京的战争成本

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By Invitation | Russia and Ukraine
Ian Bremmer counts the cost of the war to Vladimir Putin
The political scientist predicts that an ugly conflict is about to get uglier

Apr 23rd 2022

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The outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine remains in doubt. But there is no question that Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a large-scale invasion is one of the worst strategic decisions any leader of a powerful country has made in decades. There is no plausible outcome in Ukraine that won’t leave Mr Putin and Russia far worse off than before February 24th, when the war began.

Mr Putin has cost his country the lives of thousands of young soldiers, some of them conscripts. He claims that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” but his war has given Ukraine a stronger sense of national identity than it’s ever had before and transformed it into Russia’s bitter enemy. He has shown the world that his army is ineffectual, and that billions of dollars spent on modernising Russia’s military has been wasted. He has given NATO a sense of unity and purpose it hasn’t had in decades and non-members like Finland and Sweden new reasons to join. His actions have driven members including Germany to boost defence spending. Others have dispatched troops close to Russia’s border. Mr Putin has convinced Europe that it must stop buying Russia’s most valuable exports. He has brought sanctions and export controls on his country that will inflict generational damage. For Europe and America he has crossed the Rubicon. Most grievously, he failed to prepare the Russian public for the true human, financial and material costs of his “special military operation.”


Jokes about Russian vaccines and long tables aside, a primary cause of Mr Putin’s miscalculation must surely be his personal isolation. He appears no longer to listen to opposing points of view. How else could he have believed his army could capture Kyiv in two weeks? (The former president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, says Mr Putin bragged as much to him in 2014.) How could Mr Putin have thought that Ukrainians would quickly surrender once the invasion began? In response to Ukraine’s invasion, threats to cut off European energy supplies and other “consequences you have never seen”, Mr Putin appears to have expected the West to do little more than it did when Russia seized Crimea eight years ago. He did not anticipate that America would so quickly render a large portion of his foreign-exchange reserves functionally useless.

By refusing to brook dissent inside Russia, Mr Putin has turned a deaf ear to important warnings and persuaded those around him that their personal security and prosperity depend on loyalty to him and his version of the truth. One small but important example: Mr Putin said during the early days of the conflict that “conscripted soldiers are not and will not be involved in combat operations.” That assertion was quickly proven false. There are three possible explanations for this, and all would damage Russia’s president. The first is that Mr Putin lied to the Russian people about something he should have known that he wouldn’t be able to hide. Second, Russia’s generals lied to him. Third and, frankly, most likely: misinformation has reached every level of Russia’s military, and senior officers are not aware of what’s happening down the chain of command. But whatever the case, all of these explanations undermine Mr Putin’s credibility, both at home and abroad, and compromise the effectiveness of Russia’s armed forces for years to come.


There is no reason to believe that Russia’s failed “phase 1” effort to capture Kyiv will lead to significant improvements in the flow of information up and down the flow of military command. Incentive structures remain too warped. And if Russia’s armed forces aren’t producing accurate information about what’s happening in the field, or about the resources needed to achieve military objectives, and if Mr Putin and his generals continue to hold unrealistic ideas about what is achievable, the next phase of the war—focused on securing Russian control of the Donbas region—won’t proceed much more smoothly than the first phase. Ukraine’s soldiers in that region are battle-tested by eight years of combat. Underestimating the skill and determination of Ukrainians to fight, and the willingness of Western governments to supply them with weapons and training, has already cost Mr Putin dearly.

For the Russian president, the stakes for military failure could hardly be higher. If his appeals to national pride and his pledges to end a (fictional) genocide of ethnic Russians in Donbas fall flat, the Russian president will probably take steps he would surely prefer to avoid. These might include the use of chemical weapons to turn the military tide as Ukrainians cannot defend against them, nor can they return attacks in kind (which will allow Russia to advance). He doesn’t have much more to lose. Russia already faces a transatlantic political and military alliance that has imposed historically harsh sanctions on his country. Western governments continue to support Ukraine, to accuse Russia of war crimes and genocide, and to treat Mr Putin like a pariah. A scorched-earth approach would probably win him a limited military victory. And he knows that almost everything the West could do to him is already in process—short of a ban on Russian energy imports that Mr Putin surely believes is coming soon anyway.

Western hopes that Russia’s generals, its security forces, its oligarchs or its people will soon remove Mr Putin from power are likely to be in vain. Sky-high oil prices will keep the Russian economy afloat for some time, even as the long-term damage to Russia’s economy done by sanctions and export controls will be severe. Given the political climate, it’s impossible to know the true state of Russian public opinion, but there is no evidence that Mr Putin faces any serious domestic challenge. Russia’s people see the images of war their government wants them to see, and they are now being fed a steady diet of Ukrainian atrocities, Western plans to humiliate Russia and the determination of their president and soldiers to defend their motherland.

In short, Mr Putin, Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, and Western leaders should not expect the kind of clean victory that any of them desires. Instead, an ugly war is about to get much uglier.

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Ian Bremmer is the founder and president of Eurasia Group.



应邀参加｜俄罗斯和乌克兰
伊恩-布雷默计算普京的战争成本
这位政治学家预测，一场丑陋的冲突将变得更加丑陋。

2022年4月23日


俄罗斯在乌克兰的战争的结果仍然是个疑问。但毫无疑问的是，弗拉基米尔-普京(Vladimir Putin)发动大规模入侵的决定是几十年来任何强国领导人做出的最糟糕的战略决定之一。在乌克兰，没有任何合理的结果不会让普京先生和俄罗斯比2月24日战争开始前的情况更糟糕。

普京先生让他的国家付出了数千名年轻士兵的生命，其中一些是应征入伍者。他声称俄罗斯人和乌克兰人是 "一个民族"，但他的战争给了乌克兰前所未有的强烈的民族认同感，并将其转化为俄罗斯的劲敌。他向世界表明，他的军队是无效的，用于俄罗斯军队现代化的数十亿美元被浪费了。他给北约带来了几十年来没有过的团结和目标感，也给芬兰和瑞典等非成员国带来了加入的新理由。他的行动促使包括德国在内的成员国增加国防开支。其他国家则在靠近俄罗斯边境的地方派遣了部队。普京先生让欧洲相信，它必须停止购买俄罗斯最宝贵的出口产品。他给自己的国家带来了制裁和出口管制，这将造成一代人的损失。对欧洲和美国来说，他已经越过了卢比肯河。最糟糕的是，他没有让俄罗斯公众对其 "特别军事行动 "的真正人力、财力和物力成本有所准备。


除了关于俄罗斯疫苗和长桌的笑话，普京先生判断失误的一个主要原因肯定是他个人的孤立。他似乎不再听从反对的观点。否则，他怎么会相信他的军队能在两周内占领基辅呢（欧盟委员会前主席何塞-曼努埃尔-巴罗佐说，普京先生在2014年曾向他吹嘘过这一点）。普京先生怎么可能认为，一旦入侵开始，乌克兰人就会迅速投降？针对乌克兰的入侵、切断欧洲能源供应的威胁以及其他 "你们从未见过的后果"，普京先生似乎预计西方会比八年前俄罗斯夺取克里米亚时做得更多。他没有预料到，美国会如此迅速地使他的大部分外汇储备失去作用。

普京先生拒绝接受俄罗斯内部的异议，对重要的警告充耳不闻，并说服他周围的人，他们的个人安全和繁荣取决于对他和他的真理版本的忠诚。一个小而重要的例子。普京先生在冲突初期说，"应征士兵现在和将来都不会参与战斗行动"。这一说法很快被证明是错误的。对此有三种可能的解释，而且都会损害俄罗斯总统的利益。第一，普京先生对俄罗斯人民撒了谎，他应该知道他无法隐瞒的事情。第二，俄罗斯的将军们对他撒了谎。第三，坦率地说，最可能的是：错误的信息已经传到了俄罗斯军队的每一级，高级军官不知道指挥系统下面发生了什么。但无论如何，所有这些解释都破坏了普京先生在国内外的信誉，并损害了俄罗斯武装部队在未来几年的有效性。


没有理由相信，俄罗斯夺取基辅的 "第一阶段 "失败会导致军事指挥层上下信息流的重大改善。激励结构仍然过于扭曲。如果俄罗斯的武装力量不能提供关于战场上发生的事情或实现军事目标所需资源的准确信息，如果普京先生和他的将军们继续对可实现的目标持有不现实的想法，那么战争的下一阶段--重点是确保俄罗斯对顿巴斯地区的控制--不会比第一阶段进展得更顺利。乌克兰在该地区的士兵已经经历了八年的战斗考验。低估乌克兰人的战斗技巧和决心，以及西方政府为他们提供武器和训练的意愿，已经让普京先生付出了沉重的代价。

对俄罗斯总统来说，军事失败的赌注再大不过了。如果他对民族自豪感的呼吁和对结束顿巴斯地区对俄罗斯族人的（虚构的）种族灭绝的承诺落空，俄罗斯总统可能会采取他肯定希望避免的措施。这些措施可能包括使用化学武器来扭转军事态势，因为乌克兰人无法抵御化学武器，也无法以牙还牙（这将使俄罗斯得以前进）。他并没有更多的损失。俄罗斯已经面临着一个跨大西洋的政治和军事联盟，该联盟对他的国家实施了历史性的严厉制裁。西方政府继续支持乌克兰，指责俄罗斯犯有战争罪和种族灭绝罪，并将普京先生视为贱民。焦头烂额的做法可能会为他赢得有限的军事胜利。而且他知道，西方能对他做的一切几乎都已经在进行中了--除了禁止俄罗斯能源进口，普京先生肯定认为这很快就会发生。

西方希望俄罗斯的将军、安全部队、寡头或人民很快将普京先生赶下台，这可能是徒劳的。天价石油将使俄罗斯经济维持一段时间，即使制裁和出口管制对俄罗斯经济造成的长期损害将是严重的。鉴于这种政治气候，我们不可能知道俄罗斯公众舆论的真实状况，但没有证据表明普京先生面临任何严重的国内挑战。俄罗斯人民看到的是他们的政府希望他们看到的战争画面，他们现在被不断灌输乌克兰暴行、西方羞辱俄罗斯的计划以及他们的总统和士兵保卫祖国的决心。

简而言之，普京先生、俄罗斯和乌克兰士兵以及西方领导人都不应该期待他们中任何一个人所期望的那种干净的胜利。相反，一场丑陋的战争将变得更加丑陋。

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Ian Bremmer是欧亚集团的创始人和总裁。