Putin’s Russia will continue to be a threat after the Ukraine war if we let it: It is a truism that all wars must endand the Russian campaign against Ukraine is no exception. Below a personalist diet Led by Vladimir Putin for nearly a quarter of a century, Russia is particularly difficult to assess or predict because it is no ordinary state, and certainly not in a positive sense.

Currently, Putin, physically small, has a giant international footprint. Likewise, Russia is the remnant of a failed superpower with a energy-based economy which, in nominal terms, is only equivalent in size to Italy, yet wields outsized international influence.

Predictions about the consequences of the conflict, whether Russia will decline or pose an unforeseen threat to NATO, leave a lot of guesswork in the field of driving forces and domestic politics. Predictions about the consequences of the conflict, whether Russia would decline or pose unforeseen threats to NATO, are not only inherently uncertain, but depend to a large extent on the current situation, the driving forces of policy Russian interior and how the conflict will end and how this end is perceived.

In Putin’s Russia, domestic factors are extremely closely linked to foreign policy decisions. This overwhelming domestic influence and the outsized external threat posed by Moscow defy normal measures of power. This should not mean that we ignore the reality that even if we use purchasing power parity (PPP) for GDP, the Russian economy is still only a small fraction of that of the United States or China and much lower than that of India.

Nevertheless, Russia, which can barely be considered a great power, continues to power of the project and threaten neighbors well above its punching weight.

What explains Putin’s disruptive power?

The answer includes the largest nuclear arsenal in the world; Moscow repeats nuclear threats and the Kremlin is ruthless desire to project powerparticularly in the former Soviet space. This reinforces a neglected geopolitical rule: the ability to project power and threaten neighbors as well as international stability are not strictly correlated to economic weight or commercial competitiveness.

Putin’s unlimited global ambitions for power; the absence of significant national restrictions on its power, Western recklessnesswishful thinking in responding to Russian aggression and Ukraine fatigue among Western states all contribute to the persistence of threats. Furthermore, Russia’s “disruptive assets” could foreshadow potential Russian threats to NATO following a potentially irresponsible settlement of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Yet fundamental flaws eventually have an impact, especially if opponents respond intelligently. Putin, unable or unwilling to resolve Russia’s fundamental economic and political problems, viewed international adventures as a means of diversion and conversion of external “successes” into domestic popularity and political legitimacy.

Ironically, he trapped himself.

Considering what I would call “a 30-year rule” according to which, by 1975, defeated and devastated fascist Italy, Nazi Germany (the Federal Republic) and militarist Japan became thriving democracies, thriving economies and extremely competitive international traders, Russia, the world’s largest territorial state, blessed with unprecedented natural resources and a well-educated population, is actually an embarrassing laggard. This is just one example of the failure of the Russian Federation under the Putin regime.

Under Putin, Russia squandered historic opportunities to transform itself into a modern and prosperous state, the state sacrificed lives and treasures in a disastrous war in Ukraine and became increasingly dependent on China and rogue states like Iran and North Koreawith the risk that in the future it will become a vassal of Beijing.

In addition, the Kremlin’s threats have NATO reinvigorated and led two key neutral states, Sweden and Finland, to become members of the Alliance. Putin’s Russia is indeed a failed state where he has mortgaged the future of his country for his own maintenance of power.

Yet the fundamental weakness of a nuclear state with a large military is paradoxically provocative. Putin’s massive domestic failures make Russia a permanent threat, great power or not. External diversion is essential to maintaining power.

Any form of settlement in Ukraine that would allow Putin to retain the territory he illegally conquered, especially combined with a ban on Ukraine joining NATO, would embolden him and legitimize his warmongering as a successful policy .

This fact cannot be emphasized enough.

In order for Russia to cease to pose a threat to NATO in the future, the ideal end of the war would be the implementation of the strategy describe According to former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “Russia should ultimately fail and be seen to fail.”

In reality, this noble goal may currently be unattainable. NATO and Ukraine are not powerless, however.

Despite very difficult obstacles, Ukraine prevented significant loss of territory over the past year and has taken some areas in the Kursk Region of Russia. President Zelensky claims to have a victory planbut the reality is that Kyiv forces remain under pressure.

The United States and NATO, although generally generous and with a power capacity far greater than that of Russia, have often been too shy and too slow by providing Ukraine with essential aid. The West could do more, our nuclear deterrence remains credible and the Putin regime is controllable and, ultimately, vulnerable. Personalist regimes, in Putin’s case, more mafia-like than Machiavellian, are transitory.

Putinism is unlikely to survive long after his departure.

Nonetheless, for the sake of current peace, Ukraine and the West may have to agree to some territorial concessions, but for NATO to manage a future Russian threat, it must ensure that Russia is perceived as having generally lost in its aggression in Ukraine.

But how?

A peace deal that made Ukraine’s territorial concessions conditional on Ukraine’s membership in NATO would draw a bright red line that would guarantee the sovereignty and security of more than eighty percent of Ukraine, would contain Russia and position the Alliance well to await the eventual collapse of Putinism under its toxic weight.

The article was reprinted by The National Interst with permission of the author. You can find the original here.