Bonne analyse :
https://warontherocks.com/2022/01/putins-wager-in-russias-standoff-with-the-west/
Quelques extraits qui me paraissent pertinents (c'est moi qui souligne) :
Prediction is always a fraught business, but it seems plausible that Russian forces would seize Ukraine’s eastern regions, as well as the southern port city of Odessa, and encircle Kyiv.
The Russian goal would be regime change, perhaps via constitutional reform, and a settlement that would secure Russian influence over Ukraine.
This crisis is not about NATO or Ukraine, but about NATO
and Ukraine.
Russia wants Washington to agree to a revised European order in which Russia has a veto over security arrangements and in decisions over security outcomes. By closing NATO’s open door, and halting defense cooperation with non-members, Washington would be acknowledging that Moscow’s security considerations supersede the right of its neighbors to choose their strategic orientation, and that security in Europe must be negotiated with Moscow.
A dramatic expansion of the war is now the most probable outcome. In the spring the Russian leadership issued red lines, but if they really were interested in deterring an expansion of U.S. defense cooperation then such a demand would have been made at the
June presidential summit, and they would have given the effort a bit longer than a few months to produce results.
Although the crisis has structural roots in the post-Cold War settlement, the proximate cause of this standoff is a series of political turns in 2020 and early 2021. After initially being open to dialogue, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration took a
hard turn away from pursuing compromises with Moscow. [...]
Moscow is thus faced with a choice between accepting that Ukraine is slipping away, or escalation.
Russia’s elite may believe that they are in a good position to conduct a military operation and weather the storm of Western economic punishment. Having stabilized the Russian economy, established a war chest of reserves (
over $620 billion), and tightened the screws on its opposition, the regime is more confident economically and politically. Moscow has greater leverage over Europe due to
surging gas prices and energy supply shortages. Putin might also judge that the Biden administration is reticent about enacting the most severe financial sanctions in its arsenal because these would cause ripples in the global financial system, a rise in U.S. gasoline prices, not to mention the impact on energy prices in Europe.
If Putin backs down with nothing, the domestic and international perception will be that he was either bluffing or, even worse, was successfully deterred. Putin will end up with the worst of both worlds, seen as simultaneously aggressive and resistible.
