The collapse of Ukraine would open a real global crisis

The analysis, in the geopolitical and strictly military fields, both at a strategic and tactical level, to be a useful tool must necessarily be free from emotional, ideological and moral conditioning. The aim is not to make predictions but to understand reality. Functionally, from an operational, political, economic or military point of view, it must serve as a tool to determine the most appropriate lines of conduct, also in function of the identification of the possible actions of the other actors in play, friends or enemies.

In the event of war events, in the geopolitical field, in addition to requiring a coordinated approach aseptic, one cannot ignore the military aspect of the balance of power, that is, the defensive and offensive capabilities of the protagonists on the chessboard. Furthermore, one must keep in mind that the truly vital geopolitical interests of the same are independent of the transformations of the political positions held by the institutional interpreters of the moment, re-emerging in history as inescapable fixed constants¹. In the more strictly military, strategic or tactical field, however, one cannot ignore the submission of one's actions to the laws and general principles of the art of war. Every evasion, in this sense, leads to disasters of a scale directly proportional to the gravity of the errors.².

These may seem like obvious concepts but the scale of the news events, linked to the various current crisis areas, has led to a mass vulgarization of comments due to the proliferation of "experts" and "analysts", often lacking, in addition to the right approach, also the basic technical tools.

The attack on August 6 conducted by Ukrainian forces on Russian territory, greeted with enthusiasm by many Western analysts, is a clear example of this. This offensive, ignoring several principles of the art of war, has removed from the maneuver useful and quality forces, vital as strategic reserve to be used where most necessary, with a view to defending their territory in conditions of inferiority. They have been exposed to enormous wear and tear, in terms of men, equipment and logistical resources, due to their offensive orientation on open and excessively deep terrain, in the absence of significant tactical footholds and paying objectives.

Indeed the disastrous mistake of the Kiev army, which was militarily easily predictable, is much more profound, as it changes the geostrategic framework, leading to a remodulation of Moscow's final objectives, opening a crisis with serious and uncertain implications, not only for Ukraine but on a global level.

The invasion of Russian territory by enemy troops, with the clear technological, material and training support of Western powers, has given substance to what has always been the Russian syndrome of encirclement and the danger of being attacked by the West. A danger that, politically, in the last twenty years, has been denounced by Russia as coming mainly from a Ukraine aligned with NATO. The Ukrainian offensive, which was supposed to at least achieve the result of bringing the counterweight of possession of enemy territories to the negotiating table, has, on the contrary, definitively ruined any possibility of reaching an agreement through diplomatic channels. It matters little whether this is due to the fact that Russia feels so wronged that it has to take revenge or that it now senses the approach of an irreversible victory on the field. The diplomatic result does not change and can lead to various consequences with possible geopolitical implications of a global nature. Carrying the conflict forward to its extreme consequences will predictably lead Russia to necessarily have to, also in order to politically justify the sacrifices it has endured, redefine the objectives to be achieved, above all its vision of end state.

A frank analysis, free from exaggerations on what can be politically hoped for, what final objectives can be indicated as most probable by Russia? As a corollary, what possible actions, from a strategic point of view, could be implemented to achieve them?

There are, rationally, at least three types of more plausible possibilities:

• to stop hostilities upon the achievement of the complete acquisition of Donbass, an objective indicated at the beginning of the conflict;

• the creation of a buffer zone to secure the Russian borders and simultaneously strangle Ukraine, preventing it from having any access to the sea, acquiring, in addition to Donbass, the entire Odessa region, including what was the “historical” Bessarabia;

• The total takeover of Ukraine.

The first seems highly unlikely because the end of hostilities, even with the achievement of the desired territorial acquisitions, would be followed, sooner or later, by a foreseeable entry of Ukraine, or what would remain of it, into the Atlantic Alliance. This would entail an exposure of the Russian borders, which in light of the recent offensive attack on the territory of Kursk, would be, militarily but also politically, even more unacceptable than it was before.

The second possibility, instead, with the creation of a security zone, protecting the borders, and with the inhibition of the sea to Ukraine, would make the latter's entry into NATO highly weakened. Furthermore, economically, it would force Kiev to have to submit its own maritime commercial lines under the aegis of Moscow, which would ensure total control, exchangeable with the route of gas to the rest of Europe. The acquisition of the entire district of Odessa would also entail the possibility of reaching Transnistria, canceling the current solution of territorial continuity, making it possible for it to enter the Russian Federation. Finally, the acquisition of Bessarabia, in addition to increasing control over the Black Sea and the mouth of the Danube, would lead to exercising a non-negligible psychological and military weight also on Romania. Without forgetting, lastly, that Odessa, a Russian-speaking city, also has a historical symbolic meaning that is not secondary for Russia.

The third possibility is the suppression of Ukraine as an independent state, leading it, with a new form of government, into the Russian Federation. To accelerate this solution, a direct intervention by Belarus in the conflict is to be considered highly probable, which, thanks also to a passage of Russian troops from the north, would quickly bring the lines of attack directly to Kiev. What makes this possibility very probable is that, for Putin, this would mean the achievement of a historic result, which would cancel out most of the disastrous results resulting from the dissolution of the USSR and which could also be followed, it is not to be excluded, by a subsequent official entry of Belarus into the Federation.

All the proposed solutions, in any case, would imply for Russia a humiliation of the West and the acquisition of authority and leadership in the world arena, in particular with respect to non-aligned countries, placing itself as a leader, on a par with China, in the proposed model of multipolarity. Results too tempting for Russia not to be pursued.

What are the West's response options?

Further military aid to Kiev now seems to be late, in light of the growing, if not yet accelerated, Russian pressure.

At this point, if a game theory of conflict were to be developed, for each of the possible Russian actions, the West would have only one truly hindering possibility: thedirect intervention in the conflict.

Despite the unlikelihood of such a solution, there is, however, always the great risk of the possibility of a trigger casus belli that more than one actor, regional or otherwise, could be interested in creating.