On August 25, the CIA Director landed in Moscow aboard a massive U.S. military C-17 transport aircraft. He stayed for eight hours before leaving. Most mainstream U.S. media interpreted the visit that the CIA had obtained intelligence suggesting that Putin was preparing to launch a medium- to large-scale provocation against the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and the CIA chief wanted to preamp it.

The most likely scenario would begin with a false-flag operation: Russian forces posing as the military, aircraft, drones, or missiles of one of these countries and attacking Russian territory. Putin would then address the nation, declaring that the motherland had come under an outrageous NATO attack, calling on the Russian people to defend their country, ordering full-scale wartime mobilization, and then launching attacks against these countries.

Putin’s Calculation

If NATO retaliates by striking Russian territory, it would rally Russians around the flag. Putin would then have the justification he needs to institute full wartime mobilization and mass conscription without encountering opposition from the elite classes of major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In Putin’s eyes, after four years of brutal war, both the Russian and Ukrainian armies have accumulated extensive combat experience, developed formidable fighting capabilities, and mastered the new era of drone warfare, making them the two most battle-hardened armies in Europe.

By contrast, the populations of other European countries, including Germany and Poland, have spent 70 years living in comfort and relying entirely on American protection. Their military traditions have been largely broken. If they were suddenly plunged into a large-scale, high-intensity war with Russia—once their stocks of sophisticated long-range munitions were rapidly depleted and they had to fight at close quarters while suffering heavy casualties—whether their forces would hold together or simply fall apart is genuinely an open question.

Of the Russian and Ukrainian armies, Russia’s is stronger and relies essentially on Russia’s own resources. Ukraine, by contrast, has been able to keep fighting only because of massive financial and military assistance from NATO countries.

Now consider this simple logic problem:

1. You and John are fighting to the death, and neither side can defeat the other.

2. John survives because Peter keeps giving him ammos. Stop the aid and John immediately surrenders.

3. You believe you could defeat Peter relatively easily.

What would you do?

The obvious conclusion is that you threaten to attack Peter and force him to stop supplying ammo to John.

Putin is not crazy. Anyone faced with the same calculation would arrive at the same conclusion.

The Baltic states would be chosen because they are small and militarily weak.

The CIA Director’s Calculation

His surprise visit may have been intended to tell the Russians three things:

1. We already know what you are planning. You can no longer fabricate a NATO attack on Russia. If you continue preparing for an attack, we will expose your plans publicly.

2. The Baltic states will be prepared. You will not achieve an easy victory.

3. If you attack, the United States will act decisively to defend NATO.

Effect

The CIA Director’s visit will most likely have little effect.

First, after the Bolsheviks—and then Putin, who is even more vile, ruthless and perverse than the Bolsheviks—poisoned Russia down to its roots, the Russian people have degenerated from the Russia of Tolstoy, in which an aristocratic elite presided over poor, ignorant but fundamentally decent peasants, into a race of beasts completely incompatible with modern society. (My apologies to the beasts for insulting them.) These beasts no longer need an excuse to invade and slaughter another people, or even their own compatriots.

Second, as discussed above, attacking NATO in order to force it to abandon its support for Ukraine may be Putin’s only option for avoiding catastrophic defeat and his own physical destruction. If he does not use it, he has no chance of winning. If he does, he may not necessarily lose. Therefore, he will not abandon this option.

Third, in several previous articles I have discussed in depth the mentality of dictators driven by extreme psychological fear, most comprehensively in an article I wrote before the outbreak of the Ukraine war, History Has Placed Putin on the Same Road Once Taken by Hitler. In Putin’s eyes, he must maintain the image of a strongman, and the only way to maintain that image is through relentless militarism.
If the CIA Director can simply fly into Moscow and frighten him into backing down, what is left of his strongman image? In this jungle of beasts, once his strongman image collapses, the price will not merely be losing office. It will be his physical elimination.

Fourth, before Comrade Vladimir Trump came to power, whether the United States would intervene militarily was a decisive factor in determining how such a war might develop. But now, the United States has nearly exhausted its stocks of precision-guided munitions and air-defense missiles in Iran, where there was no need for it to intervene in the first place, and has transferred the last U.S. aircraft carrier in Asia to the Iranian theater.

U.S. national debt has surpassed $40 trillion. The reliability of U.S. government debt is increasingly being questioned around the world, forcing the United States to pay ever-higher interest rates on long-term debt because otherwise nobody wants to buy it. Interest payments on the national debt are approaching the point of overwhelming the federal budget.

Taking advantage of America’s predicament, China has become increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

Against this background, America’s willingness, ability, and likelihood of entering a large-scale direct war with Russia in Europe are all low.

(I recently heard that Comrade Vladimir Trump’s approval rating among Republicans is far higher than those of some of the greatest presidents in American history. My jaw hit the floor. It seems the gap between Trump supporters and Russia’s beasts really isn’t that large after all.)

Therefore, even if the CIA Director threatened that the United States would enter the war, whether Putin would actually be frightened by that threat is far from certain.

Fifth, there is a major question as to whether Putin’s subordinates—who have spent years deceiving him and falsely reporting battlefield successes—would even convey the CIA Director’s message to Putin accurately.

How Putin Might Attack

It is unlikely that Putin would begin immediately with a ground invasion. He would more likely start with drone and missile strikes. Then, if NATO failed to respond decisively, he could gradually increase the scale and intensity of the attacks.

How NATO would Respond

How NATO responds would severely test the alliance’s wisdom.

If NATO retaliates decisively by striking Russian territory, it plays directly into Putin’s hands, giving him the justification he needs for full wartime mobilization and further escalation.

But if NATO fails to respond, that also plays directly into Putin’s hands. He can gradually broaden and intensify his attacks on NATO, eventually forcing the alliance to choose between ending its support for Ukraine and going to war with Russia. Either choice would be disastrous.

The best response would be for NATO to remain on the defensive outside Ukraine—shooting down Russian drones and missiles and repelling any Russian ground incursions—while going on the offensive in Ukraine by dramatically increasing both the quantity and quality of military assistance to Ukrainian forces.

If Putin’s attacks on NATO became sufficiently intense, NATO could directly deploy combat aircraft, and potentially even ground forces, to fight in Ukraine.

At that point, the question in the Ukraine war would no longer be whether Russian advances could be stopped. It would become a question of how long Ukraine would need to recover all of its occupied territory. Once Ukraine had recovered all of its lost territory, Putin’s incentive to provoke NATO would disappear.

At the same time, by refraining from attacking Russian territory even after coming under direct Russian attack, NATO would demonstrate extraordinary restraint and deny Putin sufficient justification for escalating the conflict further.

If Putin nevertheless chose to escalate unilaterally into full-scale war, his Chinese and Indian allies would not accept it.