Projective identification

There are things that we rather not realize about ourselves that we tend to imagine are the qualities of others. When it comes to the Russo-Ukrainian war such delusional projections are abundant.

Evaluation time

When I look at the Russo-Ukrainian war I believe the central question is: How did we lose so fast? How come we realized that defeat was immanent already a year ago, that is, only one and a half year into the war? How could a NATO trained army of more than half a million soldiers with soviet style air defence get beaten up so badly by an invading force? The answer is delusion. This morning I overheard a roundtable discussion about analytical failure in the Russo-Ukrainian war conducted by Kimberly Kagan at CSIS with participation of scholars.

Did we overestimate Russia?

The question they tried to answer is: ‘How come we overestimated the Russians?’ Really: More than two years into the war, this is what they wonder at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and The Institute for the Study of War (ISW)? The answer to my question is right there: We not only underestimated the Russians, we did not have a clue as to what this war was going to be about once we had provoked it, despite warnings from RAND corporation themselves; the RAND report from 2019 about the consequences of the US policy towards Russia in Ukraine, was ignored by decision-makers in Washington, probably because it was useless in promoting State Departments engagement in Ukraine. Note from the CSIS video in the link above, should you choose to watch it to the end: At no point in the round table discussion, do any of the participants deploy relevant analytical concepts; they do not talk about the subject matter. Let us get to it, then.

Analytical failure

1. We failed to see through our own propaganda and came to believe in it as gospel hence never came to act on an analysis of what happened as the war came and went along, but got stuck in repeating our own misconceptions.

2. We did not recognize the opponent as an equal entity, thus never got to understand what the enemy was all about, neither militarily, nor politically, hence could not reach an outcome favorable to us, given the circumstances.

3. We did not investigate into hence we were never clear about our own objectives and therefore we got lured into simply feeding the plutocracy in Kyiv with money in exchange for Ukrainian men losing lives and limps without end in sight.

Add 1) We are so good at propaganda in the West; we talk about the Russian propaganda a lot; they are good, no doubt, but places like ISW and CSIS splurge propaganda around in a manner, so that no one can make room for proper discourse before it is too late. We are too good at propaganda, I will say, hence suck at it, since we do not have an understanding of the world outside of the reach of our propaganda hence we are totally absorbed by it, blind to our own bias. In fact, in this war, we became junkies of propaganda. All the strategic actions taken by the government in Kyiv and whoever controls them, are taken for the sake of supporting a narrative that could bring in more aid from us; all of these actions having as consequence the loss of many soldiers who could have been better spend defending the interest of the Ukrainian people. Our propaganda twisted our perception and we got caught in our own trap: We started out by assessing that the Russians would take Kiev in 4 days, then believed that the Russians aimed at occupying Ukraine, then we imagined that the Russian withdrawal from their original positions was evidence of our own strategic superiority and these miscalculations made the Ukrainians fall into a war of attrition against a much stronger enemy. And once we were bugged down in attrition, we were doomed.

Bugged down

Once bugged down, having wasted the chance for a negotiated settlement, we started believing that the war in Ukraine was about territory and not a war of attrition hence, for instance, that Bakhmut should be held at all cost (while the Russians mobilized for war and completed the Surovikin line 2022-2023). Then there was the story of the great Ukrainian summer offensive in 2023, and when that failed and collapse was visibly immanent, we shifted focus to Israel and then cheered along for the Kursk incursion in august 2024, although it was clearly a chimera designed without aim and measure, displacing valuable forces in an inconsequential swamp solely for the momentary relief by, yes, you guessed it: Propaganda. This war is known as a propaganda war, not because of the quality or quantity of propaganda, but due to one party making all their strategic choices with the aim of feeding a narrative that would bring them cash. And weapons, yes. But note this stratagem: the story of the brave Ukrainians fighting the evil Russians does make the Servants of the People, the members of the ruling party in Kyiv, obscenely rich in comparison with their compatriots on the battlefield, many of them, dead.

Add 2) Never underestimate your opponent, an old saying goes. Well. Let’s keep that saying sacred in the future. There is a reason for it. As the scholars at the round table at CSIS bear witness to we loathe the Russians. One may remember Ursula von der Leyen, the chief EU commissary lecturing us about the danger of selling washing machines to Russia, due to their craving for microchips without which they could not manufacture advanced military equipment. We believed. NATO weapons have been rendered inferior to the Russian equivalent in nearly all areas. The Russian artillery has reigned supreme. Here sheer quantity has been decisive. The Russian tanks may have been the laughing stock, but they do start in the morning, they are light-weighted in muddy terrain, easily fixed and supplied, especially when compared to the technological wonders like Abrams and Challenger. They are excellent at training missions, but do they win battles far away from home? Missile technology and rocket science is the middle name of many Russian engineers. And soon they got the drone weapon integrated into their portfolio. When it comes to air power, AK-52s, Su and MIG has proven on top of the game; Ukraine dreamt of F-16 (demands 4 times longer runway to start than MIG-29 and is vulnerable to scrap), but were unable to deploy them, due to Russian superiority in air defence systems S-300 et al.; when Moscow displayed the upgraded MIG 31s nicknamed F-16 Killers in june, and began talking about deploying their Su 57 5th-generation fighters, it was all over with the dreaming.

Realities on the ground

Now reality has prevailed: Russia took some old bombs from their cold war stockpiles, gave them wings and GPS, and turned them into the dreaded FAB glide bombs that followed by their well-trained and often-rotated freshly rested stormtroopers thus effectively ending all hopes of Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) resisting onslaught; Kyiv and NATO has no way of deploying long range satellite guided missiles in this theatre without risking a direct confrontation between NATO and Moscow. Let’s just say, that we do not have the stomach for that: While we have lectured each other on how clumsily the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (AFR) are portrayed in the western media, Moscow has slowly but surely gathered an combined forces entity that is working meticulously towards its goal of annihilating the enemy. To complete the picture, I should mention the global superiority that Russia possesses in the development and deployment of electronic warfare, that has contributed to the downing of many drones and guided munitions in this war making up for the Russian disadvantage in precision artillery such as HIMARS et al. Yesterday we may have seen the first deployment of the ODAB-9000 ‘father of all bombs’ over Kharkiv, sucking up 4 highrises in one blow, indicating that Tu-95 bombers are being used over Ukraine, indicating that Kyiv’s air defence is by now to be rendered almost gone.

The political dimension

Politically, we never understood that the Russian objective is demilitarization hence capitulation. Moscows political aim is to have NATO stay out of Ukraine: Moscow grabs oblast after oblast securing itself against NATO, not for some sudden imperial ambition. That is pure propaganda and has no merit in the geopolitical analysis. In the West, we missed to take into account the basic dynamic of the security dilemma and thus believed the fallacy, that since we believe that we are the good guys, Moscow does not have anything to fear from us, so as NATO got closer, we ignored their concerns. Now we have difficulties grabling with Moscows demands and keep reiterating that Kyiv shall be in NATO, when the conflict will come to an end: Moscow has no incentive in cease fire or talks before Kyiv has capitulated; this may end in a frossen conflict, but note that NATO has no answer to the challenge posed by AFR in Ukraine.

Add 3) What was it that we wanted out of this conflict? - But, listen, some scholars may object, it was Russia who wanted this conflict! Perhaps. It is not easy to see from the historical accounts of diplomacy concerning The Ukraine Question. Since The Maidan incidence the Russians has gradually lost faith in the political order of Ukraine and surely lost trust in us. We usually say that ‘Kremlin cannot be trusted’, yet many governments do. Later this months there will be a BRICS meeting in Kazan where some of the most prominent leaders from a variety of countries will participate. In Kazan discussions about corporation between nations will take place not in opposition to, but outside the reach of NATO. One of the trademarks of the association named BRICS, is that to enter one must not have sanctions imposed on anyone.

Trapped in delusion

We got into the trap of demonizing someone who is actually well trusted by most and hence we got isolated, since the credibility deficit that we tried to project onto our enemy, has now become our own curse. How shall we end this conflict, when Moscow does not trust neither Washington, Bruxelles or Kyiv? Who shall participate in the dialogue for a settlement? What about the rest of the world who believe us to be delusional, hypocritical and warmongering? - How shall we rely on them to help out with the mess we gotten ourselves in? Many Ukrainian men are dying; more than a thousand casualties every day. With no end in sight. The government in Kyiv is constantly looking for the next fix; when can we skim the cream of the coming package from the West? - How can we make sure that it will come? These are the questions posed by the ruling elites in Kyiv. In the West we wonder: What are we fighting for? The aim may have been to weaken Russia; well the opposite was the result. Congress in USA seems to be caught by the addiction as well. If it wasn’t the source of it, in the first place. Like the fentanyl junkies in the streets of Baltimore, we are short sighted and ignorant that there is no way out. Marc Rutte just took over as general secretary of NATO on Tuesday, October 1st, but seems focused on staying the course retaining all the talking points from his predecessor.

In conclusion

We are like a disturbed individual constantly projecting our own faults onto our rival: they are the aggressor, we are the victim (fair enough, Russia did invade but why did they feel threatened by us?), they are militarily weak and the laughing stock (although we are losing badly), they are going to expand all over the world and we should all be afraid of and stop ‘these aggressors’ (while we could not leave Ukraine and Georgia alone), they are not to be trusted and thus we cannot talk to them (but more governments trust them than trust us).

What now?

Can Trump do anything? He says that he will end the Russo-Ukrainian war in a day, but how he intends to try to do that, remains illusive: ‘You will see,’ his supporters ensures me, but I want to know how USA is going to pressurize either Moscow into negotiations or Kyiv into surrender. These days it seems like State Department wishes to escalate the conflict, trying to force Russia into making concessions, by allowing NATO to fire US long range missiles into Russia, but Pentagon opposes their craving. Moscow has many options for retaliation, should it come to that. Perhaps Moscow could even attempt to strike our satellites with missiles, claiming that they are a weapon used to attack them. For now, it seems that the Pentagon keeps the lit on Pandoras box. So despite our illusions, there may be someone thinking clearly here, on the edge of our game. I hope that despite the continuous delusional thinking of the so called think tanks, that sanity will prevail.