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Russia’s War in Ukraine

Understanding the conflict four years on.

As allied leaders gathered in Ankara, Turkey, in early July, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte declared the dawn of “NATO 3.0,” a rebalanced alliance underwritten by a $80 billion military package for Kyiv. But behind the new architecture sat a familiar assumption, unchanged after four years of war: that enough conventional pressure on the battlefield will eventually force Russian President Vladimir Putin toward a negotiated off-ramp.

This is a mistake—a failure of Western mirror imaging, in that it projects a particular strategic logic onto a leader who is not playing by it. Putin’s war is not governed by rational international relations or conventional military strategy; it is governed by the political theory of autocracy and regime survival.

As allied leaders gathered in Ankara, Turkey, in early July, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte declared the dawn of “NATO 3.0,” a rebalanced alliance underwritten by a $80 billion military package for Kyiv. But behind the new architecture sat a familiar assumption, unchanged after four years of war: that enough conventional pressure on the battlefield will eventually force Russian President Vladimir Putin toward a negotiated off-ramp.

This is a mistake—a failure of Western mirror imaging, in that it projects a particular strategic logic onto a leader who is not playing by it. Putin’s war is not governed by rational international relations or conventional military strategy; it is governed by the political theory of autocracy and regime survival.

Autocrats stay in power only as long as the coalition of elites around them believes they can still deliver what elite loyalty is based on: whether revenue, security, or victory. When that belief breaks, the elites who sustain autocrats move against them. Slobodan Milosevic’s coalition drew that conclusion within 16 months of the Yugoslav leader’s concession to NATO; Leopoldo Galtieri’s junta drew it within three days of Argentina’s Falklands surrender; and Omar al-Bashir’s own security........

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