A chilling, yet plausible scenario: What if Putin wins?

The job of military scenario planner has never been harder. Just this month Donald Trump has kidnapped Venezuela’s despot, threatened armed action against Colombia, Cuba, Iran and Mexico, started a stand-off with NATO allies over Greenland and finally got his hands on a Nobel peace medal (without winning it). Who could have foreseen all that?

To an alarming degree, war and peace now depend on the whims of a handful of vain old men. Vladimir Putin is determined to add square miles to Russia, no matter how many Russians die or are impoverished in the process. Whether or not China invades Taiwan hinges on Xi Jinping, who craves a chapter in the history books and a chance to honour his late father, who was once the official in charge of reclaiming the island. Mr Trump is the least predictable of all, wielding American firepower willy-nilly to give short-lasting dopamine shots to his own ego.

Yet it is precisely when scenario planning is hard that it matters most. Carlo Masala of the University of the Bundeswehr offers a blistering example. In a short book, recently translated from German, he draws on two years of data, research and chats with officials and military planners to offer a scenario for a Russian victory in Ukraine. Many in the West are weary of the war there. Some are tempted by the idea that giving Mr Putin what he wants might bring peace. Mr Masala lays out where such wishful thinking might lead.

In his imagining, America forces Ukraine into a grim ceasefire, with Russia occupying a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. Mr Putin declares victory. Populists in Europe, including a future French president, chide liberal “warmongers” for backing Ukraine so lavishly, thereby needlessly prolonging the fighting and draining national coffers in Europe. America sharply reduces the number of troops it has stationed in Europe and redeploys them to Asia.

Unexpectedly, Mr Putin resigns and installs a young technocrat as his successor. The new president talks of a thaw in relations with the West. However, Mr Putin does not quite disappear from the scene. He still serves as head of a mysterious body called the New Russia Foundation.

In the occupied parts of Ukraine, the “new” Russia behaves much like the old one. Hordes of Russian settlers are bused in. Ukrainians who refuse to bow to Moscow are sent to re-education camps. More than a million refugees flee. Pro-Ukrainian guerrillas regularly attack police stations, prompting hideous retaliation by the occupiers against civilians. In the parts of Ukraine that remain free, trouble brews. Trainloads of young, well-educated Ukrainians emigrate. The economy flounders. Politics turns dirtier. President Volodymyr Zelensky calls an election and loses.

Russia rearms. At a secret council that includes a close aide of the “retired” Mr Putin, plans are hatched to undermine NATO without actually sparking a confrontation that Russia could lose. Any attack would have to be a surprise, giving NATO no time to prepare, Mr Putin’s aide suggests. At the same time, NATO leaders would need to be convinced that Russia’s aims were limited, thus reducing their incentive to respond forcefully. If, contrary to expectations, NATO responded forcefully, Russian forces would swiftly retreat. If not, they could hang onto their gains.

In Mr Masala’s scenario, the Kremlin starts by creating some distractions far away. Russian mercenaries in Mali round up villagers at gunpoint and put them on boats to Europe. Terrified that another refugee crisis will boost the far right, European leaders send naval ships to the Mediterranean, weakening NATO’s Baltic defences. China obligingly grabs a disputed reef in the South China Sea, and with it the full attention of America’s military chiefs.

Then Russia strikes. Two brigades of masked soldiers seize the small Estonian city of Narva. They quickly overwhelm Estonian border guards and meet little resistance from the townspeople, who are mostly Russian-speakers and have for years been fed a torrent of pro-Kremlin disinformation. This is a direct attack on NATO soil, and ought to trigger Article 5, the guarantee that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all.

But there are obstacles. Russian troops disguised as tourists have seized a sparsely populated Estonian island, making it harder for NATO to reinforce its small garrison on the Estonian mainland by sea. America’s president has to decide whether to muster overwhelming force to repel the invaders in Narva, thus in his mind risking “world war three”, or let Russia continue to occupy NATO territory, thus making a mockery of Article 5.

In contacts with the White House, Russian emissaries vastly exaggerate the degree to which Russian-speakers were ill-treated in Estonia, and darkly hint that the Kremlin would use nuclear weapons if NATO attacks its troops in Narva—which is a bluff. America’s president swallows both stories. He refuses to risk a big war over a small Estonian city. Kremlin insiders quietly celebrate their accurate assessment of the West’s political weakness.

Flush with cheap victory, the regime announces another patriotic bombshell. Russia will merge with Belarus by 2030, under one president. No prizes for guessing who that might be. European leaders, with some populist-right exceptions, are horrified to discover that the old security architecture protecting them from Russia has collapsed. Xi Jinping is delighted at the demonstration that America will not stand by its allies. The global sheriff has retired. Less law-abiding types are now free to carve up the world.

It is an engrossing and chilling tale. But one risk of writing a book of dire warnings is that, by the time it is published, people may already be expecting worse. If Mr Trump follows through on his recent threats to seize Danish territory, NATO would be sabotaged from within, sparing Mr Putin the bother.

Nonetheless, Mr Masala’s scenario illuminates why Europe needs to take its own defence more seriously. Russia is still a long way from winning on the battlefield, despite devoting half its budget to the war. Alliances such as NATO may yet survive. If the West chooses to let its enemies win, history will not judge its leaders kindly. ■