The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Russia Is Failing Not Failed || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Although Russia's military performance in the Ukraine War has been underwhelming, that doesn't mean we can write off the Russians quite yet. This conflict, and what could follow, should still be a top concern for the West.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/russia-is-failing-not-failed

Everybody, Peter Zion here coming to you from the Matuky Tuki Valley in Mount Aspiring National Park in New Zealand. We're pulling an entry from the Patreon page today, specifically, if the Russian military is doing so crappily, and it really is, why do I still worry about what happens after the Ukraine war? Won't they spend themselves in Ukraine and then Poland, Romania, and the rest of NATO will be fine? Let me give you three reasons. reasons. Number one, this warying over. And just because the Russians have not performed to what they would consider snuff and have definitely proven themselves to not be the second most powerful military in the world. They're not done. We have yet to have a general mobilization. We have yet to see the Russians move up to a full war economy. And we have yet to see outside countries like

say the Chinese really put their thumb on the scale. I mean, yes, yes, yes. The Russians are going through barrels much faster than they can replace them, probably 20 to 1. And it's same with tanks. And the Chinese are stepping in with replacements, especially with drones. But the Chinese have resisted any sort of meaningful sanctions on themselves in order to collaborate with Western countries.

So there's still a lot of things that could be put into the Russian column for force that as of yet have not. So we, unfortunately, may well still be in the opening act of this conflict, especially if we see a withdrawal of any major country's support for Ukraine moving forward. I mean, the Ukrainians have absolutely punched above their weight. They're absolutely doing far better than anyone had any reason to expect. But they're still the underdog by every measure, and they need a lot of outside help to stay in the game.

So that's one. number two it's going to sound trite but nukes if we get to a position where one two three four years from now the Russians do prevail and they roll up to the NATO border

Putin and his team are going to have absolutely no reason to expect that they can take on Poland or Romania at a conventional fight if they're backed up by the Germans the French the Brits and especially the Americans but there's still that

ace in the whole nuclear weapons. So the scenario the Western capitals are stressing about is that the Russians do prevail in Ukraine. They roll up to the border of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. And they basically bring in the French, British, German, and Italian leaders on a conference call. Just say, just FYI, we've already targeted your capitals. The missiles will launch at noon tomorrow. We're going to hit you with at least a couple dozen missiles each so that missile defense really can't play a major role.

Or you could withdraw any support for Poland and Romania whatsoever and start a visible evacuation of all your forces in the air today. And now I want to leave the conference call open. and leave you guys to discuss. It's really a scenario we don't want to face. And then there's the third issue that's much more visceral. Russia's dying demographically. This is their last century, for sure.

And the question is whether they die fast or die slow. But make no mistake, the people at the top realize that death is now inevitable. The Russian ethnicity itself is fading away. And when a country feels it has nothing to lose at all, they are going to be willing to do things that other countries normally wouldn't because they will live to fight another day. So think back to all the brilliant Russian engineers

who existed during the Soviet period who pioneered things like computer science and space travel, nukes, chemical, biological weapons. All of that can potentially come into play based on the time frame of Russia-Brusia. breaking. So this war unfortunately absolutely needs to be fought. And there are still many, many paths that it can follow, not a lot of which are overly positive. But what I can tell you is that every day that the Ukrainians manage to hold the line is a day that we don't have to worry

about those other scenarios. Because a Russia that can't conquer Ukraine is one that becomes strategically unmoored and is vulnerable at a thousand points. The bad stuff happens if the Russians do succeed in gobbling up all of that territory and compress directly on the Western alliance. And that ultimately is what the Western countries are fighting for. Ukraine's motivations are a lot simpler.