Ukraine Isn’t an Invasion. It’s a Mob Enforcement Action.

Russia’s lumbering, clumsy, murderous military might seem like it’s failing to do its job, but it’s actually doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Let’s say you’re a shitfaced dickhead who has made a life out of killing people who oppose you, installing loyal followers, and stealing money from the country you supposedly love (in case it wasn’t clear, I’m referring to His Majesty Putin here). This is not the kind of person who runs a professional army. You might run a squad of goons, and some of those goons might be very skilled (i.e.: spetsnaz). You might perfect the art of making things go boom from far away. You might force hapless country boys to join something you call an army, hand them guns, and get them to shoot in a vaguely consistent direction.

What would such a ragtag group of nimwits be good at? They’d be good at victimizing the defenseless.

In that sense, they more resemble the foot soldiers of a mafia boss than they do a professional military. A professional military has rules and principles. The same thing that allows them to be militarily effective is the same thing that means you can’t just send them in to kill whomever you ask. For that, you need brute thugs, and that’s what Putin has.

The decision to send in the Kadyrovtsy was all the confirmation you need. The Kadyrovtsy are a group of people whose chief attribute is right there in the name: loyalty. They were not designed to enforce a law or operate by any principle. They want to show up and enforce loyalty. They are merely violent. Stupidity is part of the job requirement. Smart people ask questions.

Admittedly, this risks sounding a bit like the technocratic fawning people sometimes do over US military procedure. They worship it, and in the process, they wind up sanitizing the fact that the outcome of all the sterile jargon (“operational effectiveness,” “command and control,” etc.) is this: people get killed, oftentimes by having their bodies shattered into multiple pieces by high explosives. I’m a fan of neither well regulated militaries nor undisciplined death squads (violence and force are, by definition, destructive), but I can spot the difference, even if the line gets blurred (like when military contractors drop laser-guided munitions on women and children while ostensibly pursuing terrorists).

Putin‘s army is on the wrong side of the line, which makes it wholly adequate to the task it’s really been set upon. Its function is to pummel and punish and annihilate those who won’t play along. That’s the real mission in Ukraine. Granted, Putin thought the Ukrainians would welcome the Russians with open arms (the US thought much the same about Iraq — we will be welcomed as liberators!!!), but even if they didn’t, it never mattered. This was always a hostage taking.

“Come out with your hands up or we’ll blow the entire building!”

“But there are hundreds of people in here.”

The Russian leadership doesn’t care. Punishing the innocent is part of the plan. If you don’t yield in time, we blow up your grandma and your kids and your cousins. By threatening all you hold dear, we get you to do what we want.

That’s all the Russian military is designed to do. Incompetence is by design. Competence might lead to a specific objective, but it would reduce the indiscriminate suffering.

Putin wants you to suffer. He wants you to be compliant.

And in that regard, he has the perfect group of people for the job.