Putin weakened?

[ex-khobar Andy]

Conventional wisdom is that the events of the last few days left Putin badly shaken and, for the first time in decades, the future of the world's largest country is in some doubt. As always, time will tell but I am not convinced.

The story board goes like this. Putin's incredibly savage mercenary leader Prigozhin decides to turn on him and to march on Moscow: "I'm pissed!" He gets halfway and then Putin's buddy Lukashenko brokers a peace deal: in order to avoid further bloodshed and the unseemly and inevitable TV pictures of Russians killing Russians, Putin will forgive Prigozhin and allow him to live out his days peacefully in Minsk.

Smiles all around and Prigozhin gets into his SUV and drives off into the sunset.

The West celebrate - maybe in relief that the monster Putin was not replaced by the Godzilla Prigozhin - but see this as a weakening of Putin who now has to face his own mortality.

Putin has demonstrated his long arms before. Every time Prigozhin takes the dog for a walk or heads to his local KFC to meet and reminisce with his war buddies, he will have to look over his shoulder. Or a Gorey-esque corner of some building will drop onto his head. And Putin will publicly mourn his old buddy who sadly lost it mentally and went astray. And we all know, and Putin knows that we know, and we know that Putin knows that we know - the truth.

I give him two years.

[BoSoxGal]

I give him two years.

Putin or Prigozhin?

[Sue U]

The West celebrate - maybe in relief that the monster Putin was not replaced by the Godzilla Prigozhin - but see this as a weakening of Putin who now has to face his own mortality.

From what I've read, I highly doubt Prigozhin had any political ambitions of his own, but was furious that the Defense Ministry had been undercutting and shortchanging him -- particularly in the wake of the battle for Bakhmut -- and an apparent Russian missile attack on his own camp was the last straw. He wanted Putin to sack the officials responsible, particularly Defense Minister Shoigu. One thing I have not seen in the news reporting is what will become of the Wagner forces with Prigozhin "exiled" to Belarus; I had seen estimates ranging between 25,000 and 50,000 Wagner troops (some substantial portion of whom are convicts released to be cannon fodder). I don't think Russia can afford to let those forces walk away from the war in Ukraine, but who will command them now?

My guess is Shoigu will be effectively sidelined if not replaced in the coming weeks; Putin can't let it look like he just gave in to Prigozhin. But I don't think this incident has had any significant effect on Putin's lock on power in the Kremlin. Although perhaps has has learned a lesson about being a dictator: Don't let anyone else have an army.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Shorely not, Big RR. Is the former mercenary not to er . . . tragically self-stumble out of a window on the 18th floor while thoughtlessly leaning out to photograph pigeons?

[Big RR]

I think you're confusing Sue and me again, Meade; but it does show you are becoming more open to blending gender identities.

[MajGenl.Meade]

No, sorry - not Sue. Don't you use the obviously spurious secret identity "ex-khobar Andy" just to avoid recrimination?

[Sue U]

What's in a name? et cetera ...

[liberty]

I understand the mercenaries have the option to enlist in the Russian army or go into exile with their leader. If you were one of them would you willingly enlist in the Russian army? The Russian Army doesn't care about their own troops how do you think they would treat rebellious ex-mercenaries?

[MajGenl.Meade]

They'll all go into exile in Belarus. Then (oddly) against the strict wishes of the Presidents of Belarus and Russia, they will invade Ukraine from the north

[Sue U]

Whenever I see the title of this thread, I think Prigozhin just had a "Putin weekend."

[Burning Petard]

I was driving around in my car this afternoon and listened to the talking head at NPR discuss this with some one who was introduced as an expert on this sort of stuff. He made lots of comparisons with various attempted military take-overs in South America, Africa, the Middle-East. He used the phrase 'political power' many times. I this this is a serious error that can be reduced with a little re-framing.

I think this error comes from the general assumption of the universal truth of Carl von Clausewitz "War is the continuation of policy with other means "

In this case I think the model for understanding is not war or policy at all: it is understood better as just business, and in particular, professional sport.

On the one hand we have the Wagner group. It is a mercenary military organization. NOT a state, nation, political party, revolutionary cabal. Their goal is not changing policy or attaining more political power. They (like most human organizations) first want to survive. Like most businesses, they want to improve their bottom line. Putin is their main client. Like the franchise player on a professional sport team, they saw a chance to renegotiate their contract and threatened to stop playing.. With a new and more favorable deal, they went back to work as usual.

It has been a long interlude in human history since we had governments relying of mercenaries rather than their own standing armies. (Remember the Hessians in what many call the American Revolution which event is the primary point of the current American holiday extended weekend) Really good mercenary groups had a tendency to simply remove a government which balked at complying with its end of the contract. Machiavelli's 'the Prince' was written in a time when such was the normal way of settling differences between city-states. Today one of those Italian states still holds on to that tradition with it own 'Swiss Guards'.

{Yes I know 3,000 years of human history summarized this briefly, is susceptible to rhetorical destruction by refutation in detail]

snailgate.