by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
In just the last few hours, there’s been a shift in the current crisis surrounding the war. A lot depends on how rational Putin is. If he’s rational, then he sues for peace at the negotiating table tomorrow European time. If he’s not, then he takes things to the next level and begins to burn Ukraine to the ground to the point that WMD of some sort are used.
Logically, this is over. Logically, the Russians realize what a dumb idea this entire endeavor has been and they return to status quo ante borders. That is definitely what should happen.
But will it?
The next few hours will be telling. A lot will depend on how badly the Russians want to be prove a point before tomorrow’s negotiations on the Belarusian border.
Just from what I can tell from Twitter, we’re in a very unstable crisis in Europe at the moment. And a lot depends on what’s going on in the mind of Putin. He really has all of our fates in his hands at the moment. If he backs down then all eyes turn to the domestic Russian reaction.
If he doesn’t back down, then we have a real problem on our hands. Because then, logically, Putin decides to go full Gotterdammerung on us and burns Ukraine to the ground like he did Chechnya. He could use WMD in various forms on Ukrainian cities and THAT would prompt five to seven million Ukrainians to leave the country.
Europe is already pretty much full of refugees at the moment, so all those people would likely be forced to head to North America. Such a huge influx of people into the politics of the USA and Canada might have some pretty astonishing and unexpected consequences.
Many of these Ukrainians would be highly trained and highly educated and for the purposes of starting a new life in North America might take jobs that citizens otherwise would not take. There is a least a small possibility that if this happened to a huge scale that some — but not all — of the macro trends that lead to MAGA might be abated to some extent.
But that is very speculative.
I will suggest that the next day or so will be crucial to this crisis. It all depends on what the Russians — and specifically Putin — do. No matter what, though, I fear Russia itself is primed to be extremely, extremely unstable. The jig is up for Putin one way or another.
It’s just a matter of time now.
