#Unherd rym series

The Russian army has seen action in a series of small wars since Putin came to power, demonstrating operational and tactical competence. The Red Army was the strongest land army in the world from the mid-Thirties to the late-Eighties, and by the early 2000s, Putin had revived the Russian army following a brief period of disinvestment and neglect. This idea was inconsistent with any clear-eyed evaluation of the facts. Even more importantly, Western leaders were gravely mistaken in their idea that Russia was a second-rate power that could be simply crushed with the economic weapon.

They appeared more worried by the WestвЂ™s weaponisation of the dollar system than by Russian aggression against Ukraine. Non-Western powers - China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa -В simply refused to play along with the West. These hopes and expectations were based on wishful thinking. Great hope was placed on the idea that these sanctions would inflict such catastrophic pain on Russia as to undermine the Putin regime. Russia, with a GDP smaller than South Korea, was treated not as a great power adversary but as a rogue stake akin to Iran - a nuisance that could be rather effortlessly strangled through the unrestrained use of Western sanctions. The West unleashed the economic weapon with considerable fanfare. In this competition in pain-tolerance, it is not immediate whether the West or Russia has the upper hand. The centrepiece of RussiaвЂ™s effort to inflict pain on the West is the commodities weapon. The centrepiece of the WestвЂ™s effort to inflict pain on Russia is what the historian Nicholas Mulder has called вЂњ the economic weaponвЂќ, which has been deployed at unprecedented scale. Put simply, the West and Russia are playing a violent version of the schoolyard game Mercy. This is, as Thomas Schelling wrote, вЂњa conscious process of dirty bargainingвЂќ, whereby each side tries to inflict pain and suffering on the other side until one or both yield. Whatever the origins of the Ukraine war, the West and Russia are now engaged in a broader confrontation that is not confined to the military struggle: the war has become a competition in pain-tolerance.

Unherd rym