My Situation Report To The President On Crimea

Mr President, as your trusted advisor, I have the following comments to make on the situation in Crimea...

Wargaming: Do it!
One of the things I've learned in countless wargame scenarios is that you need to integrate a broad and a narrow view of any situation.

Another thing: people -- through their desires, their laws, etc -- are not determiners of all that goes into a situation. This is something soldiers know: there is terrain, weather, position, capabilities. It's not all ideals and politics: there are concrete issues as well.

A third thing: talk is cheap.... Or should I say, words are cheap. Running numerous wargames on situations -- where you must make and resolve decisions and actions -- gives a sense of all the different events that can happen and how they entwine. I'm talking about tabletop wargames here -- where people discuss and resolve the situation themselves (as opposed to videogames). Playing and replaying realistic-but-fictional scenarios from many different perspectives shows you the dynamics at play, and just how wild they can be. You don't just learn: you practice. When people learn only from books, at most they can take one or two steps into the hypothetical... A linear medium leads to linear thinking. But when you game things out you can, with a fair sense of accuracy, explore vast contexts and many sides of situations. History seems to be predestined. It is not. Things could have shift drastically, and so in the future they can as well.

Sevastopol: The Key To The Crimea Situation
In the Ukraine, this entire situation hinges on Sevastopol and is influenced by the Middle East.

Sevastopol is Russia's only access point to the Mediterranean Sea. The fact that it is (or was) Ukrainian, and that it is so important to Russia must be appreciated. If the Russians are forced out of Sevastapol -- which is a possibility if a Ukrainian Crimea moves into the Western sphere -- the only way Russia can get to the Mediterrean is either 1.) via St Petersburg through the Arctic Ocean then the Atlantic; or 2.) via Vladivostok, which is on the other side of the planet. So they will consider Sevastopol a critical naval asset.

I'm not condoning Putin's actions: I'm trying to get you to consider your opponent's thinking.

Let me put this in perspective. Imagine that the entire east coast of the United States were bordered by another country - let's call it Atlantis. Imagine that the great naval port at Norfolk, Virginia doesn't exist -- instead, there is a port leased from Atlantis, with a lease termination date of 2042 (that's when the Russian naval lease is to expire for Sevastopol). Without this port, the US cannot get into the Atlantic, except by sailing from the west coast, through the Panama Canal or around Cape Horn. Now imagine that Atlantis seems to be shifting, politically, toward the Russians, threatening, basically, to seal the US away from its easy access to the Atlantic. THAT would give you a sense of the Russian position, vis-a-vis Sevastopol. If this were a business deal, losing Sevastopol would be called a dealbreaker. To close them off from it it is basically akin to cornering an animal. Cornering an animal is never a good idea.

For the Russians, to lose Sevastopol would constitute a major loss of influence in the middle east, and possibly to shift the situation in places like Syria intolerably, from the Russian perspective. So, from their view, they might look at the Ukrainian political situation as a defacto military expansion of the West, considerably restricting them from the Middle East.

A New Kind Of "War"
Here's another thing: the Russians don't want to fight the Ukrainians. Many of the "secret" forces sent in to occupy Ukraine were sent in with little to no ammunition. They were basically the military equivalent of sit-in protestors. Putin doessn't want war. He's not that crazy. He knows judo, and this operation has been carried out like a judo takedown: he isn't punching or slicing Ukraine: he's putting it into a hold from which Ukraine and the West cannot escape.

I'm not endorsing their actions -- but, militarily, it was a brillaint operation. You need to understand and respect your opponent. The fight on this day has gone to the Russians.

So I ask you to bear this in mind when thinking about whether the Russians will, say, invade Estonia or whatever. Is there anything equal to Sevastopol there? I doubt it. I think Sevastopol is his prize and he'd likely be satisfied with that alone.

Our next move then is very simple. It's economic, of course, but it's also military. Militarily it lies in mirroring Putin's actions: deploying troops along those areas of concern using this "judo" doctrine of war. Putin won't invade. He'd be crazy to.

This kind of "fighting" has been done before. During the Renaissance in Italy -- the age of the City States at the time of Machieavelli -- mercenary units -- friends during the "off season" -- "fought" each other in such a way at the behest of their clients. The "battles" involved lots of jockeying for position, pushing and shoving, trapping the opponent, then one side giving up before any real bloodshed could happen.

Of course, the risk in an age of modern weapons is that shooting may begin and the whole thing spiral out of control... so I acknowledge the dangers here. But I don't think anybody wants to fight.

So be firm and play this new game, and I think you'll see Putin leave it at that.

Unless he's crazy.

So watch him closely. And wait.