I am calling upon my over 25 years of either being in the military and as a Federal Employee who worked closely with the U.S. Air Force. My active military service was entirely with the U.S. Army. When I first saw Russia invading Ukraine, I, like so many others, Putin included, felt this would be a short war with an ultimate Russian victory. It seems we underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people. It would also seem the Putin either has no sense of history or is ignorant of it. In 1940, the Soviet Union tried to invade Finland as it felt that country should naturally fall under Soviet control. They were wrong! In what is called “The Winter War,” the Finnish people initially defeated the Russian army which no one had expected. Finland only had what we today call a National Guard, no regular army troops. But as with Ukraine, the Soviet Union entirely underestimated the resolve of the Finns. Later, however, Russia did take over Finland.

I still think it unlikely that Ukraine will ultimately enjoy victory. The Russian army and its resources are just too vast. But one thing I have found surprising is the lack of command and control of the Russian forces. Command and control simply means how an army tactically attacks an enemy, First of all, Russia very poorly set up its logistics. That means how supplies are brought from its rear areas to its forward areas. This is an extremely important part of command and control. But it also shows how Russia has not allowed the ideas of modern warfare to exist within its military. That is, when I was in the military during the Soviet era, we knew that the Russian military was what is called “stove piped,” or that its military is ruled entirely from the very top straight down to its most elemental parts, the foot soldier. Soviet leadership did not allow for much in the way of command decision at the battalion level which in the American army is highly prized. This explains the sort of helter-skelter operation of the Russian military in Ukraine, the air forces do not talk to the army and the infantry does not talk to the artillery, etc.

This leads us to the situation presently in Ukraine. The city of Lviv has just endured its first attack by Russian missiles. Lviv is extremely close to the Polish border which we have all become acquainted with through news reports. But this also brings back the idea of command and control. Will the top Russian militarists know to stop at the Polish border lacking other information? Or will it simply continue onward until told to stop? Or is Putin already scheming to attack Poland and tell his people it was NATO’s aggression that forced his hand? No one knows the mind of Putin which is a scary thought. But our military, since the Korean Conflict, has made it a priority to “war game” with the idea of having a nearly fully formulated idea of how to proceed in the event of any military engagement. Although I have no first-hand knowledge of this, I suspect that NATO has been doing this as well.

That said, we are left with three basic possibilities of the Russian aggression. First, Russia defeats Ukraine and ceases its attacks. Second, Russia either invades Poland, which it dearly desires, or it invades the Baltic Countries, and a conventional war is started. The third, and scariest, is that Russia uses battlefield nuclear arms to succeed. That of course can easily lead to a nuclear war, something no one, including Russia wants. But this is where the sanity of Putin comes into play. Make no doubt about it, Putin’s office which is called a “Presidency,” is a convenient cover for the dictatorship he has evolved. Putin has for a long time acted unilaterally and has never had a fear of cutting off the heads, figuratively, of anyone who opposes him.

It is my belief that Putin is using Ukraine as a testing ground for what he truly wants, a return to the Soviet iron curtain countries of pre-1990. That would include Hungary, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and other countries. Our best hope is that he realizes that his military is hardly prepared to take on such a heady task and will stop with Ukraine. But if he does engage NATO, I have every confidence that NATO will reign supreme in the end and that Putin will be arrested and brought to task, with his sycophants, to answer for the war crimes he has committed. But once again, the face of the world will greatly change.