Photo: “Direct line with Vladimir Putin” by the President of Russia under CC BY 4.0.

How to Exploit Myopic Western Cost Cutting

Divisions and cheeseparing in the Western alliance are playing into the Kremlin’s hands. Walter Clemens imagines its celebrations.

By Walter Clemens

December 20, 2024

To: Most Esteemed Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

From: Sergey Alexandrovich Karaganov, Chair, Council for Foreign and Defense Policy

Re: Winning

Our campaign to weaken the West is succeeding thanks to the myopia of most Western governments and their publics. They ignore the “mutual aid” doctrine of our zoologist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, who observed in the 19^th century how herds of fallow deer stayed together to avoid being swept away when fording Siberian rivers.

Instead, most Westerners follow the parasitic logic of collective action, as expounded by the American academic Mancur Olson in 1965.

The logic starts with every man for himself and states that each junior or middle-ranking member of a group should contribute as little as possible to the collective interest because the strongest member will provide the lion’s share of resources. The total assets will not be optimal but will be sufficient, group members hope, for their needs.

The larger the group, the easier it is to pretend solidarity while getting an almost free ride. Since NATO now numbers 32 nations and the European Union 27, it grows easier for each member except the US to pretend it contributes its fair share.

Parasitism has long been the rule for most Europeans, but it becomes riskier for them as we Russians prepare to expand beyond Ukraine. Accordingly, the nations closest to the motherland are raising their defense budgets to 3% of GDP while most others barely spend 2%. Poland, seeing our rise, now spends more than 4%.

Several NATO members had promised to send advanced weapons to Ukraine but had second thoughts when they realized what decades of cost-saving have done to their own inventories.

The Americans are spending 6 or 7% of GDP on defense when you include veterans’ care, interest in war debt, outer space, R&D for nuclear weapons, and spying — especially by machines.

Aid to Ukraine adds little to these outlays but will probably be reduced in 2025 — a trend we in Russia should encourage. If we play our cards right, Trump may pull out of NATO as he withdrew from other multilateral accords, including the nuclear deal with our friends in Tehran.

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His unilateralism and the slogan “America First” appeals to many voters, and US defense planners are more concerned with Asia than Europe.

The Europeans praise togetherness but continue to pursue what they see as their own national interests. We had some success in loosening the ties of the “United” Kingdom during the Scottish exit referendum in 2014 and the Catalonia independence vote in 2017, both encouraged by our operatives.

Each European car maker tries to protect its own country’s automobile industry, even if, for some, this means collaborating with China. Trump’s threats to raise US tariffs will further add to Europe’s economic chaos.

European unity is still a phantom. Since the 1950s, economic but not political ties have strengthened. The EU still permits a dissident such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to rake in huge subsidies while defying the majority on key issues. And he continues to flatter us while benefiting from NATO’s Article 5.

“Security” will be there for every NATO member so long as Uncle Sam pays most of the bills. If Poland does its part but Hungary or Slovakia does not, their parasitism goes unpunished.

Lenin posed the question Chto delat — What is to be done?” For Russia, now, the answer is “More of the same.” Even if our weapons and troops are losing their edge, we can continue to overwhelm Ukrainians with brute force. We can divide and conquer the West by frightening some leaders and the public with nuclear and Orezhnik missile blackmail, plus sabotage and diverse, active measures.

Other Westerners we can cajole with smiles and material rewards. Everything we do should set the stage for Donald Trump’s return to the White House. If he reduces US economic and military assistance to Ukraine, this will encourage other Europeans to back off and Ukrainians to stand down and give up.

We should finally get a deal in which Ukraine must cede at least one-fifth of its territory to Russia and guarantee it will never join NATO. The deal must also unburden us from any compensation to Ukraine and any obligations before the International Criminal Court. You may also judge it wise to replace our diminished stocks of weaponry so that our nation is ready for the next chapter, however, you choose to write it.

Fraternal Greetings

Sergey

Walter Clemens is an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and Professor Emeritus at the Department of Political Science, Boston University. He wrote Blood Debts: What Putin and Xi Owe Their Victims (2023).

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.