“The Chess Pieces are Moving: Russia, Putin, the Wagner Group, Ukraine, China, Xi, and Blinken” with Stephen Bryen
Two months ago I wrote “the war in Ukraine drags on at a terrible cost for all involved with no seeming end in sight. Ukraine is on the ropes and running out of manpower with its most of its elite forces destroyed. Missiles for its air defenses are depleted. Both sides are dragooning teenagers and old men for their armies. Russia’s military command is in disarray.”
Since then, the situation’s grown worse - for both sides.
So I’ve asked my frequent guest Stephen Bryen back for another conversation for his take on what’s likely to happen next. Stephen is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute, and has over 50 years’ experience in the arms trade and national security including several stints in the Pentagon.
As usual, there’s a lot packed into our brief conversation, ranging from Zelensky’s and Putin’s future, and the Wagner Group uprising, to China’s involvement and Xi’s designs on Taiwan. And of course Tony Blinken’s recent humiliation at the hands of the Chinese.
Just a few of the highlights:
Who’s Winning?
Who do we trust to understand what's going on? You can look in vain for something definitive, but it seems like everything coming out is from either the Russian or the Ukrainian disinformation machine.
“About the best you can do is to look at the junk pile after the battles and see whose junk pile bigger. It's mostly a Ukrainian junk pile at this point. They've lost a huge amount of armor in both tanks and infantry and armored fighting vehicles, and mine clearing equipment. They've really taken a battering in this offensive trying to break through, but they have not broken through in any meaningful way so far.”
“No tanks on either side have active protection systems. Part of the thing that has emerged in this war is that even the most modern tanks, like the Leopards are getting chewed up either by these overhead stuff or artillery or by mines that are sewn, aerial dropped mines that they run into and blow up.”
The Wagner Group
“Yevgeny Prigozhin, who runs the Wagner Group, is an excellent propagandist. He ran a huge social media network and internet operation, plus broadcasting in Russia. All that's been closed down in the last few days.”
“The Wagner Group gets most of its revenue from extreme corruption. He lauders money for the Central African Republic in gold and diamonds. He's also made billions of dollars provisioning the Russian Army. And it makes him the richest oligarch in Russia.”
The CIA’s Involvement
“The CIA has been trying everything they can do. They've been trying to blow up things in Russia. They've been assassinating people in Russia. It's not just the Ukrainians doing that. Let's face it, this is a combined operation of the West against Russia. And the Russians have been taking a lot of hits, but not enough to destabilize it.”
Does the US have a Strategy?
“There's no strategic planning that's driving national security decisions in the US government today, at least that's how it looks to me. Because if there was strategic planning, we would understand how to defend Europe and we're not doing it. If there was strategic planning, we would be able to defend Taiwan in some meaningful way, and we're not doing that either. We're just placating the Chinese and hoping they'll go away. It’s not going to work. So at the strategic level, there's a real problem, a big one, a very big problem.”
Have the Weapons Sent to Ukraine Worked?
“At the operational level, we've learning lessons from this war that are really negative.
The long range weapons, the modern tanks, better communications, coordination - all the things that we're supposed to be doing today on the modern battlefield - have all failed so far.
“So that should almost demand a rethink about how we go about warfare and how we're going to defend our interests. And it hasn't, at least I haven't seen it yet. And that's a real tragedy. People are running around saying, "We're winning." That doesn't help, because we're not. And rather than trying to figure out what the problems are, look, if you can't use your armor force to penetrate the other guy's side, you got a problem.”
A NATO “Security Guarantee”
“If you give a country a security guarantee, there has to be something to trigger it, right? And if there's no requirement for a vote once it's triggered, you're at war. So it could get you into a war without the NATO members agreeing to do it. It's a very dangerous provision, if that's the case.”
China and Taiwan
“Communism in China dying. I think the regime’s in trouble. I think Xi's in trouble, a lot of trouble. His economy is collapsing, its state guided system is failing. Their banking system is in crisis.”
“China cannot afford a protracted conflict … if they got into a conflict, and if it lasts more than two days or three days, they're toast, because the US and the Europeans will impose huge sanctions on China. And the Chinese economy will totally collapse. They would mean revolution at home.”
There are many many more trenchant observations from Stephen Bryen in this episode. Listen in and enjoy learning, as I do, from a wise man.