Peace In Our Time

Or not

Energy dependence has consequences

“From my experience I understood that the positions are poles apart,” Viktor Orbán said after meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week. “Very many steps are needed to be done to become closer to the end of the war. However, we have made the most important step — we have established contact.” Orbán called the meeting “special because it is being held at the time of war, when Europe badly needs peace. Peace is what Europe needs most of all.” Orbán will work to that end as long as he can: “ We see the struggle for peace as the main task for the next six months of our European Council presidency.” In Putin’s opinion, “time favors Russian forces over Ukraine,” Orbán explained. However, “Orban said that Putin did not tell him Russian losses but estimated Ukrainian losses at 40,000-50,000 per month,” the Kyiv Post noted. “Putin's inflated numbers contrast sharply with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's February statement of 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and US reports of 70,000 dead and 120,000 wounded — in 2023.”

Putin has a theory of victory. During that six-month window in which his best friend in Europe remains the nominal political head of the EU, Putin hopes that Donald Trump will also be sworn in as president of the United States, whereupon Ukraine’s primary military backers will cut off Kyiv unless they give up territory in exchange for a temporary peace. All military strategies must serve policy, but this is a political strategy aimed at winning a war that Russia cannot win with its military. Furthermore, Russians remain under the impression that the world will promptly return to Russia with investment capital and technology — that is, sanctions will suddenly go away — returning Russia to prosperity just after a ceasefire is in place. Exaggerating Ukrainian casualties in hopes of dispiriting the west, Putin used Orbán’s visit to project an image of strength. Such image cannot last more than six months. This is all bluffing, because the macroeconomics of battle admit no lies, and the politics will not work out the way Putin appears to hope. Six months from now, Russia will be in serious trouble no matter who the American president is. Putin is not serious about peace. He is only serious about forestalling defeat.