Putin is betting on the West’s self immolation – and he may be right

While Europe dithers, Russia’s spring campaign could yet transform the dynamics in Ukraine

When it comes to the Ukraine war, two heresies demand to be said. The first is that Putin may yet prevail in smashing the liberal order. The second is that he may have actually triumphed in this already. Of course, we in the West are not ready to admit such sacrilege. The reality which we inhabit is honourably black and white. Moved by the grit of the Ukrainians, we assume a just victory must surely be around the corner.

But the fact is that Ukraine is not on course for outright victory. Quite the contrary, as it stands it cannot eliminate Russian forces and, in fact, is increasingly on the back foot. Zelensky’s reconquest of the country is faltering. With the West dithering on supplying tanks, he does not have sufficient weapons to launch a preemptive strike before Putin escalates in spring.

For all the weakness of Putin’s military, we are heading for, at best, a catastrophic stalemate, and at worst, a decisive Russian breakthrough. Although Ukraine has the numbers and resolve to uphold its sovereignty, its Russian counterparts have superior stockpiles of weapons and ammunition. Moreover, the Kremlin is reportedly set to mobilise half a million new conscripts as it seeks to escalate the war from drones and artillery to planes and tanks – a massive shift.

This makes the West’s current strategy increasingly untenable. Until now, it has lent Ukraine just enough help to drag out the war in an effort to grind down the Russian military, while stopping short of the kind of intervention that might decisively shift the outcome. But as Russia changes the conflict’s dynamics, Ukraine, deprived of the necessary capabilities, could quickly go from having the upper hand to a cataclysmic rout. Nor does the West’s bid to isolate and annihilate the Russian economy appear to have entirely worked: Russia has a record trade surplus as it exports natural gas at higher prices. Its financial system remains intact and its manufacturing sector is weathering sanctions.

Put simply, this has the ingredients of a perma-war. Logistically, it could go on for years. Psychologically, both sides are determined. The Ukrainians are fighting for their sovereignty and freedom. Russia, meanwhile, views its Ukrainian cousins as fallen fornicators, sucked into the West’s “empire of lies”. Russia’s chattering classes call for their extermination with a mixture of revulsion and paternalistic guilt.

Still, the West is not mentally prepared for anything other than a Ukraine victory. We don’t want to contemplate the unsettling fact, for example, that even if the final outcome of the war is murky, the myth of American hegemony will be shattered. With a perma-war in the former Soviet Union, perhaps spreading next to the Balkans, the world fragments into warring spheres of influence. With Russia committed long-term to its medieval rebirth through total mobilisation, a new era of civilisation states – not just in Russia, but also China, India and perhaps even Shia Iran – could be upon us. Not to mention the threat of a Third World War. And with a mercurial conflict on its borders, Europe would be on a permanent conflict footing.

Or perhaps things are even more grave than that and Putin has already secured his nefarious place in history. He may have ensured that Russia will never be part of the liberal order. The potential for Russia to become Europe and America’s ultimate nemesis is all there in Dostoevsky, of course – a Russian soul brooding that Reason has never had the power to define good and evil and that Western civilisation is essentially dead. As Ivan tells his mother in The Brothers Karamazov: “I want to travel to Europe... I know well enough I shall be going to a graveyard.”

But after the Cold War, there was renewed optimism that Russia might trade such dark romanticism for stability and wealth. Such hope has been dashed by Putin, who has tipped his country into a philosophical abyss which it may never pull itself out of.

And he may yet have permanently shaped the West’s trajectory. His declaration of war has brought a world economy built on cheap energy and just-in-time supply chains to the brink of disintegration. Free trade, with its alleged semi-mystical powers to spread liberal values and peace, has been exposed as a false god. Nowhere are the ramifications felt more keenly than in Germany, which has adopted this benign mercantilist vision of the world most eagerly among Western nations. Right now, the country is in a state of remarkable transformation. Far from supporting Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his reluctance to poke the Russian bear over Leopard 2s, the Berlin commentariat ask: “Does anyone understand him?”, declaring their leader “lost” and his strategy a “disaster”. Yet elsewhere, one of the world’s most famous living intellectuals and champion of European integration, Jürgen Habermas, was recently pilloried when he expressed surprise at the “volte-face” of his countrymen and criticised the “increasingly shrill moral indictments of German restraint”.

If Westerners understand viscerally what has happened – that the old liberal order is hanging by a thread and another template, rooted more in strategic resilience, military prowess and staunch commitment to Western values, must take its place – the question remains about whether we are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to truly achieve this.

Such a pivot will cost money at a time when the West is haemorrhaging cash for its health services. And yet the British are loath to even countenance trimming other parts of the welfare state. Meanwhile, the French will not contemplate a world with a retirement age beyond 62. Nor are we willing to ramp up our energy self-sufficiency with nuclear or fracking – perhaps because, with net-zero policies, we are increasingly devoted not to making sacrifices for Western civilisation, but sacrificing Western civilisation for a more primitive greater good.

Here we see a disturbing difference between the West and its enemy. Russia, despite its economic and demographic decay, views itself as belonging to a culture yet to fulfil its destiny. The West is increasingly resigned to its own decline and weary of its own values – not least freedom. This is why Russia’s ability to upend the world should not be taken for granted; and why, as it stands, the West is far from defeating Putin and all he stands for.

For all the weakness of Russia’s military, we are heading for, at best, a catastrophic stalemate