Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee this week and arguing that the House must pass the $61 billion Ukraine aid package as a dire emergency, Celeste A. Wallander, the Pentagon's top policy official for Ukraine and Russia, said, "Putin is not going to stop at Ukraine."
It is a line that has been repeated thousands of times by every Neocon in the Biden administration (and the GOP) with the hope that repeating a catchy phrase will somehow ultimately stick.
The problem is that the claim is a big lie and intended to keep America's Military Industrial Complex well-oiled and involved in forever wars - nothing more. There is zero evidence that Putin will expand his attacks beyond Ukraine. Zero. Nada. Zip.
A geography primer: Russia, the world's largest country spanning nine time zones, occupies 11% of Earth's land mass. It is 66% larger in size than America and 70% larger than China.
The idea that Russia would clamor for even more land by invading its neighbors is nonsense. To colonize new territory long-term, Russia would need people to move to these countries and establish Russian culture there (language, food, and the arts). Historically, the colonial powers did this. Generations of the French made West Africa their home like generations of the British did across India, Pakistan, and countries of Southeast Asia.
Russia has one of the lowest populations among the world's big countries, with only 143 million people occupying its vast regions, compared to China's 1.4 billion people or the United States' 341 million residents. Russia's population density is only about 22 people per sq mile, compared to America's 96 and China's 393. Why would a population that already dwarfs its large size want to spread out to foreign countries?
Russia's neighbors. Russia shares its borders with 14 countries, more than any nation in the world:
- North Korea
- China
- Mongolia
- Kazakhstan
- Azerbaijan
- Georgia
- Ukraine
- Belarus
- Latvia
- Poland
- Lithuania
- Estonia
- Finland
- Norway
Russia enjoys excellent relationships with China, Belarus, and North Korea, so it is unlikely to invade them.
Ukraine. Even before the West began sending military supplies, logistical support, and lethal weapons to Ukraine, Russia, after initially advancing to the outskirts of Kyiv in Feb/March 2022, hastily retreated when Ukraine mounted a vigorous defense. Two years after the war, Russia has struggled to advance past Ukraine's east to Kharkiv or south to Odessa, occupying only about 20% of Ukraine after sacrificing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars.
How could Russia reasonably occupy all of Ukraine, including the 80% of Ukraine's large land mass that Russia doesn't yet control? Does the Biden administration really believe that Russia would colonize Ukraine and run it from Kyiv?
NATO countries. Before Finland was admitted to NATO, Russia shared land borders with Norway (a NATO founding member in 1949), Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Poland joined NATO in 1999 when Putin was Boris Yeltsin's Prime Minister. Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania joined in March 2004, when Putin was president. Putin has never attacked any of these countries during all these years in power. Why would Russia attack them now? Given Article 5 protections that specify that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all 31 NATO members, how would Russia fare against the might of the United States and the rest of the NATO powers?
Other neighbors. If the NATO countries are not at imminent risk from a Russian invasion, what does the statement "Putin is not going to stop at Ukraine" mean? Since invasions can only happen over land (we doubt if the Biden administration is suggesting that Russia would attack non-contiguous countries by air or sea), the only countries that Moscow could plausibly invade after we follow the process of elimination above would be Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, and Georgia.
Kazakhstan and Russia enjoy excellent relations and are both founding members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (a NATO look alike). Why would Russia attack its security partner, Kazakhstan?
According to the Azerbaijan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Azerbaijan and Russia have strategic partnership relations, and political cooperation between the two countries has significantly increased over recent years.
Mongolia, a landlocked country sandwiched between two great powers, Russia and China, enjoys comprehensive strategic partnerships with both nations. Russia would never invade Mongolia.
It then all comes down to the country of Georgia, with which Putin has fought relentlessly over the years and enjoys only a tenuous working relationship. So the Beltway's Military Industrial Complex is fighting so hard to send aid to Ukraine so that the West can next save Georgia from Russia? Is this what this aggressive Ukraine aid campaign is all about?
We find it unconscionable and irresponsible that not a single media outlet has challenged the Neocons using our line of analysis.
We repeat: Russia is too drained out, too small of an economic power, and too damaged to invade another country and run it like an administrative state. Russia waged a war against Ukraine to fight America's constant interference in Kyiv, going back to the Maidan revolution of 2014. Since 2008, Russia has insisted that Ukraine, with a Russian legacy dating to the mid-1600s and a founding constitution that celebrated its neutrality, cannot permit or situate NATO weapons right on the Russian border. Such presence of NATO forces would constitute an existential threat to the world's largest nuclear power.
Putin has never said privately, to the press, or at international summits that he wants to invade any of his 13 other neighbors. Because it just does not make sense - just as the Biden administration's repeated false claims that Putin is not going to stop at Ukraine.
