Putin is headed for quagmire number three and bankruptcy number two

The 130,000 troops Putin has poised to attack Ukraine is the same number Bush used to attack Iraq in 2003.

How’d that work out for us?

We were such a big, strong country with such a powerful high-tech military – remember the “electronic battlefield? – we were just going to roll right over Iraq’s army and wrap the whole thing up in a few months. Kinda like Putin’s plans for Ukraine, huh?

In case you haven’t noticed, nearly 20 years later we still have some troops in Iraq, but essentially, we were driven out of that country by a foot soldier insurgency that used IED’s, AK-47’s and RPG’s to do it.  All of our speedy jet aircraft and our smart bombs and our satellite surveillance and our superior communications capability – in short, all of our everything – couldn’t stop Iraq’s various tribal insurgencies from nibbling at us until they finally caused enough casualties that we packed up nearly all of our troops and went home with our tail between our legs.

There were only 25 million people in Iraq, the thinking went, and their army was weak, so we didn’t need the kind of half-million-strong army we used to run Saddam out of Kuwait. We quickly enjoyed the big success of “taking” Baghdad and bringing down his statue.  Remember that?  What a victory, huh?  Then we walled in the Green Zone and a couple of major base camps on the skirts of the city and elsewhere around the country and basically cut ourselves off from the populace, because the populace didn’t want us there and was killing us to send that message.

What do you think is going to happen if Putin attacks Ukraine, a country of 44 million?  Experts are saying he can quickly “take” the capital Kyiv. You think the Russians will be greeted as “liberators” and “heroes” the way Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Feith and the rest of the Bush saber-rattling war hawks assured us that we would be greeted?  I mean, all we were doing was invading their country and taking just two weeks to kill about 9,000 of their soldiers and 3,500 of their civilians. No big deal, right?  They needed to be invaded because of all their WMD or whatever the reason-of-the-day was, plus we had to get rid of that nasty Saddam Hussein and install our own guy in there.

You think Putin might be thinking along the same lines?  I can bring them to heel with the big, strong army I’ve got on their border, I can beat them into submission and occupy a country of 44 million with…wait a minute…130,000 soldiers?

Remember this one, “the war will pay for itself?”  How’d that work out for us, huh?  How far deep in the red did we end up, anyway?  Was it $3 trillion, $4 trillion, $5 trillion, $7 trillion?  Who knows? 

Putin should remember that a trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking about some real Rubles, huh?

That’s why Putin should pick up the phone and call Bush or Cheney.  Maybe they could give him a hint or two about what’s in his future.  On second thought, all he has to do is consult a few retired generals who served in Afghanistan.  Back in 1979, old Brezhnev, Gromyko, and KGB chief Andropov were probably thinking the way Putin is:  What are we dealing with here anyway?  A relatively defenseless country of 13 million with a weak, ineffective army, no airpower to speak of…we can throw 15,000 crack Soviet troops, tanks, helicopters and other military hardware in there and take over the country and install a puppet president and government and we’ll be set. 

Riiiiiight.  Six months later, Soviet troops were being shot down in broad daylight on the streets of Kabul, and a few months after that, they called off patrolling the capital.  By 1985, Soviet losses were so high they increased their military presence above 100,000 again.  They used a strategy of “holding” the cities and launching raids against insurgents in the countryside.  More than a half million Soviet soldiers would go on to serve in Afghanistan, and more than 15,000 of them were killed.      

I’ll bet you can guess what the Afghan insurgency used to defeat the great big Soviet military.  That’s right:  AK-47’s, RPG’s, IED’s – low tech stuff that could be carried on foot by regular Afghan resistance fighters.  That’s what went up against Russian tanks and artillery and helicopters and fighter jets.  And then ten years after they rolled triumphantly into Afghanistan, Soviet tanks and trucks – what was left of them, anyway – rolled out of the country in defeat.  That happened in 1989.

So let’s take stock:  They invaded an impoverished third world country that had about 100 miles of paved roads and no real industry to speak of and they got their ass kicked.  And now they want to use about the same number of troops to do the same thing to a first-world country of 44 million…  

Hmmmm.  Let’s see if we can remember what that cost them the first time around.  Oh, I’ve got it!  The Soviet Union collapsed! The Berlin wall came down in November, 1989, less than a year after the Soviets lost Afghanistan!  A year later, all of the so-called “constituent states” of the Soviet Union held their first free elections.  In six of the former Soviet republics, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union lost the election.  By 1991, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia and Moldova declared independence, asserted control over their own governments and economies and stopped paying taxes to the Soviet government.  In September of that year, the Baltic states were admitted to the United Nations as independent countries. 

On December 1, a popular referendum in Ukraine was held and 91 percent of voters approved a resolution of independence and voted to formally secede from the Soviet Union. On December 8, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met secretly and signed the Belavezha Accords, formally dissolving the Soviet Union and forming the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.  On December 12, the Supreme Soviet ratified the Belavezha Accords.  On December 18, the Upper Chamber of the Supreme Soviet approved the creation of the CIS.  On the night of December 25, Gorbachev appeared on television, the Soviet flag was lowered, the Soviet anthem was played for the last time, and the Russian tri-color flag was raised in its place.

That didn’t take long, did it?  Something dear old Vlad might consider as he contemplates sending his tanks and his troops across the border of a country that very, very much doesn’t want them there…just like Brezhnev did in Afghanistan and Bush did in Iraq. 

What’s that old chestnut?  Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it?  Hey, Vlad, I’ve got an idea:  pick up a Russian translation of “State of Denial:  Bush at War Part III” by Bob Woodward.  I’m sure his book has a lesson or two for you, and I’ll just bet you will find the word quagmire used more than once.