Wagner: A Prong of the Trifurcate Russian Strategic Failure (Part I)
Historian Al-Dhahabi said of the 102 AH (721 AD) Al ‘Aqr battle: “In it happened the Al ‘Aqr battle, a location near Karbala’ in Iraq between Yazid bin Al-Malhab and Musima bin Abdul Malik, in which Yazid was killed, and his army defeated. Al Malhab [tribe] lost, and Muslima won over them. He killed and committed atrocities against them, with only a few surviving. It was said: The Umayyads sacrificed religion on the day of Karbala’, and on the day of Al- ‘Aqr, they sacrificed generosity.”
Russia sacrificed the prestige and status of the Russian Army and its historical record of triumphs when it could not defeat the Ukrainian Army over a year into the war. The Wagner mercenary group tainted Russian President Putin’s authority and showed his weakness by revolting against him and the official Russian state apparatus, including the Ministry of Defence. Wagner commander Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin and his forces marched to Moscow unopposed. They would have almost reached Moscow if it were not for the intervention of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to negotiate a reconciliation between Putin and his chef, Prigozhin. This baffling incident stupefied Russia’s adversaries even more than its allies. It distracted the Russian Army from fighting Wagner because of the magnitude of what Prigozhin had done. It is inconceivable that a chef and restaurant owner could attack the president’s office and attempt to seize power and authority.
Dissecting the situation in Russia now uncovers a complex multi-layered quantic geostrategic condition. To test and prove this reality we apply the following basic law of political stability:
S= ySb+ PiPjANr
Solving this equation shows the following value:
S=0.7<1
This value of S shows political turmoil in Russia, a disturbance in security, and the absence of geostrategic stability in the coming years. (See The Material Laws of Politics for more information)
In 2016, we have accurately and correctly predicted the possibility of a military coup in Russia (refer to “The Essence of the International Order,” page 216) based on this law that confirms the existence of a quantum geopolitical situation in Russia, characterized by political turmoil in the future, extending to the Eurasian geopolitical sphere, including Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Central Europe.
To interpret and explain the quantum situation in Russia, we must examine a deep quantum political analysis.
Firstly, in the context of movement of history:
Wagner participated in planning the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016, where Russian, American, Emirati, and Saudi interests converged to contain the policies of the Justice and Development Party government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Middle East and the Caucasus. General Joseph Votel, then-commander of the United States Central Command, aligned with Abu Dhabi to support the coup attempt in Turkey to mitigate the risks posed by Erdoğan’s government support for Islamic groups in Syria, providing funds and weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria), and turning a blind eye to thousands of fighters crossing Turkey to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). At that time, Turkey became a safe haven for Islamists from all over the world, providing them with ample space for their activities and operations. The United States and its allies were at the peak of their air campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, with General Joseph Votel leading this campaign, supported by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and others.
Meanwhile, Russia was angered by Turkey’s downing of a Russian Su-24 aircraft in November 2015 on the Turkish-Syrian border, which infuriated Russian President Vladimir Putin, leading to the imposition of sanctions on Turkey and threats of retaliation. Wagner participated in planning the military coup in Turkey in July 2016 through its financial activities in the UAE due to conflicting interests and projects among these countries regarding Turkey’s geopolitical ambitions to rally support for Islamist groups and push them to seize power in the region. This stance has been reversed since 2020.
However, Erdogan’s apology to Russia in June 2016 for the downing of the Russian Su-24 aircraft and Putin’s immediate reconciliation with Turkey – without any strategic justification – changed the dynamics of geopolitical relations. Turkey’s allies in NATO refrained from commenting on the military rebellion and coup attempt in July 2016, while Russia sided with Erdogan’s government in thwarting the coup attempt. This incident represents a quantum geopolitical situation that defies classical political analysis.
The comparison of the Wagner coup attempt in July 2016 in Turkey with other military and political coups in Russia is an invalid and flawed comparison, given the different motives that drive such events in the two countries. In Turkey, the military has engaged in coup attempts since 1908, during the last era of the Ottoman Empire and up until 2016, primarily driven by internal factors and domestic purposes.
However, in Russia, the underlying motivations for rebellions and military, political, and popular coups since 1600 and during the reign of the Romanov dynasty have been the failures in military campaigns and wars fought by Russian armies in their neighboring Asian and European regions. The historical military record of Russia is rich with examples that illustrate these facts, which are widely known among political historians.
The failures and successes of Russian military campaigns have had significant repercussions domestically, leading to either dissent, uprisings, or consolidation of the ruling power in the hands of its leaders. For instance, the statement by Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin (1906-1911) – “It is the historical right of Russia to be strong,” – has been a driving force behind Russia’s imperial wars since the reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725), the establishment of the Russian Empire, and its declaration in 1721, extending to President Vladimir Putin’s wars in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine (2014-).
The defeat of Russia in the war against Japan in 1905 led to significant social upheavals internally starting in 1906, mainly driven by the peasants.
Similarly, the failure of Russia’s military campaign in World War I against Germany and the Ottoman Empire ignited the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing civil war in 1917, which brought down the Russian monarchy and resulted in the bloodshed of millions of Russians between the Bolsheviks and the Whites. The Russian army’s inability to reach Constantinople and control the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, as agreed upon in the Sykes-Picot-Sazonov Agreement, which granted Armenia, Constantinople, Anatolia, Baku, and parts of Iraq and Syria to the Russian Empire, led to frustration within Russia. This frustration, coupled with the death of over two million Russian soldiers by 1917, triggered the Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin returned to Russia from Germany, leading the revolution and the war against the Tsar. In his speech on Saturday, June 24, 2023, following the Prigozhin revolt and defection against Putin, President Vladimir Putin likened this situation to the civil war fought by Vladimir Lenin during World War I against the Russian army, which was then battling on various fronts. Putin described this as a betrayal and a stab in the back of the Russian people, although he avoided explicitly mentioning Lenin by name.
It is peculiar that President Putin repeats his statement about the most significant geopolitical event of the 20th century being the collapse of the Soviet Union, established by Lenin, and then proceeds to compare Prigozhin’s actions and “betrayal” to Lenin’s actions during World War I!!!
The failure of the Soviet army to achieve a clear victory in the war against Finland in 1939 nearly led to a military revolt against Soviet leader Stalin had it not been for the events and horrors of World War II and the invasion of the German army into Soviet territories.
Similarly, the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany and its global influence solidified the foundations of power and strengthened Stalin’s rule. The success of the Soviet military campaign in Hungary in 1956 led to the thwarting of Imre Nagy’s attempt to challenge the authority of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. On the other hand, the unsuccessful attempt to build a permanent nuclear missile base in Cuba in 1962 triggered a political crisis within the command of the Soviet Communist Party, culminating in Leonid Brezhnev’s coup against Khrushchev in 1964.
The success of Soviet military campaigns, like the one in Czechoslovakia in 1968 thwarting the Prague Spring, bolstered the power of the triumvirate (Brezhnev-Podgorny-Kosygin). Additionally, the victory at the beginning of the mission in Afghanistan in 1979 and the successful military campaign in Poland in 1982 further consolidated the power of General Yaruzelski in Warsaw, supporting the old communist guard in Moscow.
However, the failure of the Red Army in Afghanistan and its subsequent withdrawal in 1988 under Mikhael Gorbachev became one of the main reasons behind the coup on August 19, 1990, led by Gennady Yanayev and others against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. This paved the way for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its removal from the global geopolitical arena.
Furthermore, President Boris Yeltsin’s hesitancy to suppress Chechnya’s bid for independence since 1992, led by General Dudayev, among other reasons, resulted in Duma Chairman Ruslan Hasbulatov’s decision to depose Yeltsin and appoint General Alexander Rutskoi as the new leader of the country, leading to the Russian army’s intervention to suppress the rebellion and the shelling of the Duma in 1993.
Yeltsin’s power was solidified after the successful Russian army campaign in the First Chechen War in 1996. However, his rule faced challenges and weakened throughout Russia after the security situation in Chechnya deteriorated from 1999 onwards.
President Vladimir Putin’s grip on power was only truly and definitively established after stabilizing the situation in Chechnya, suppressing the rebels, and the success of his military campaign, culminating in the killing of Aslan Maskhadov, the third Chechen President, in 2005, and the assassination of the Chechen Islamic leader Shamil Basayev in 2006. After these events, Putin’s rule and authority in Russia were strengthened, and he gained respect and obedience from various political forces, oligarchs, and other power centers. Chechnya was again under the command of Kadyrov, with all political stakeholders and right-wing and left-wing parties letting him take the reigns of power, monopolizing control, and establishing a power structure in which he had absolute authority to isolate, overthrow, allow, and forbid. With the consolidation of substantial wealth for the Russian state, filling financial deficits, and accumulating monetary reserves due to the rising global prices of oil and gas since 2007, Putin’s administration focused on building the might of the Russian army and a determination to establish a multipolar world.
Secondly, the facts:
The strategic formulation in the war between Russia and Ukraine is based on the rise of Russia to the position of the global pole in a multipolar international order in the event of its victory in this war with its domination over the Eurasian geopolitical space, or the emergence of the Ukrainian giant that turns into a major European regional power leading and dominating the Eastern European Union within a decade, after which Ukraine would assume the position of the dominant pole over all of Europe a decade later. The condition for this to happen is that Ukraine has to build a nuclear power, a robust economic foundation, and a modern industrial and technological infrastructure in the event of its victory in the war that it is raging on its soil today. Russia will then retreat to become a weak, medium-sized regional state with little influence over its proximity, preoccupied for many decades to come with rebuilding its prestige and traditional military power, reforming its army, and restoring its economy.
President Putin has to make one of two decisions, for Russia and for himself:
Either he takes his military strategy to its extreme – something he is compelled to do if he wishes to restore consideration to the Russian Army and the presidency of the state after the Wagner rebellion and Prigozhin’s disrespect for the position of the presidency and the status of the Russian army. However, it has been proven that Russian conventional weapons are unable to resolve the war in Ukraine and that they are one to two generations behind even the weakest Western armaments that NATO provides to Ukraine to fight the Russians that do not have the capability to reach Russian territory. Therefore, it is inevitable for President Putin to resort to nuclear weapons to break the will of Ukrainian fighters and to bring them to a truce and negotiations. Putin will then draw the wrath of NATO, China, India, and others who, so far, have remained silent and did not denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian lands in 2022. This will motivate a nuclear response by NATO in Crimea, flooding the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and imposing a blockade on Russia in this region. NATO cannot remain inactive in the face Russia’s use of nuclear weapons. It will have a commensurate response so that this would not constitute a precedent for China to invade Taiwan in the coming years or for North Korea in its conflict with South Korea and Japan.
If Putin goes on with his failing strategy in the operations in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, he will anger Russian nationalists in the Russian Army, in the political, social, and economic elite. This will validate this elite’s propaganda that accuses Putin and the leadership of the Russian Army of weakness, shattering Russia’s pride and its history, disregarding the bloodshed and the souls of Russian soldiers and youth, draining the economy, and causing hardships to people because of the length of the war.
Putin is between a rock and a hard place: provoking NATO by using nuclear weapons in the coming year to appease Russian nationalists or provoking these nationalists by keeping his current weak military strategy without using nuclear weapons and appeasing NATO. The latter is necessarily associated with preparations for a rebellion and an upcoming military and political coup against Putin.
The previous military rebellion led by Wagner as a private paramilitary organization without collusion with Moscow’s political elite failed. However, the next coup will be led by public structures, including the Russian Army and Russian nationalist generals from the Ministry of Defense supported by a Moscow political, economic, and intellectual elite.
