https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/25/opinions/putin-army-without-a-cause-opinion-column-galant/index.html
Opinion by Richard Galant, CNN
When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February, many questioned the commitment of his troops to the cause. How strongly would they fight a neighboring nation with longstanding ties and a shared history?
Seven months later, Russia’s failure to overthrow Ukraine’s government, along with the army’s growing death toll and its recent forced retreat in the northeast, has only heightened that question.
Motivated soldiers are “willing to endure effort and real sacrifice for a national cause which they understand and in which they thoroughly believe,” according to James A. Ulio, the adjutant-general who built the US Army from a sparse 200,000 troops to a victorious fighting force of 8 million during World War II.
One of Ulio’s bosses, Gen. George C. Marshall once said, “The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul, are everything … It is morale that wins the victory.”
Increasingly Putin is seen as failing to inspire his troops – and his nation – to commit to his cause.
On Wednesday, Putin ordered a partial mobilization and renewed the threat of using nuclear weapons against rival forces. “The cornered Putin is dragging a significant portion of Russians behind him,” wrote Andrew Kolesnikov. “He has de facto declared war on the domestic front – not only on the opposition and civil society, but on the male population of Russia.”
“Why is Putin taking the risk? Because he himself has encouraged the lack of public attention to the war for several months. Mobilization is fraught with serious discontent in society. That is precisely why he decided to make a partial mobilization, rather than a full one. In the long run, he laid a mine under his regime; in the short run, he will face sabotage.”
There’s a “crisis inside the military,” Anne Applebaum wrote in the Atlantic. “The Russian army faces not just a logistical emergency or some tactical problems but also a collapse in morale. That’s why Putin needs more soldiers, and that’s why, as in Stalin’s time, the Russian state has now defined ‘voluntary surrender’ as a crime: Under a law approved by the Russian Parliament … you can be sent to prison for up to 10 years. If you desert your guard post in Donetsk or Kherson (or change into civilian clothes and run away, as some Russian soldiers have done in the past few weeks)…”
“Support for Putin is eroding – abroad, at home, and in the army. Everything else he says and does right now is nothing more than an attempt to halt that decline,” observed Applebaum.
The Russian leader’s nuclear threats can’t “be taken lightly from a state which has turned toward fascism and holds just over half of the world’s nuclear weapons,” James Nixey commented.
“Yet an increasing majority of western and now non-western powers are realizing that nuclear blackmail cannot be surrendered to, and that the consequences of Russia winning the war would have long-lasting debilitating effects on European and global security. Many world leaders may wish to make concessions over the heads of Ukraine’s leaders. But it is politically awkward to do so when aggressor and victim are so clearly distinguishable from each other. And when Russia is on the run.”
Group Work: Yu Yan Tan, Maia Goldberg and Aaman Shah
The overarching claim of the article is that Putin is losing influence within Russia, and destroying his reputation within the global community. This op-ed article was written by founding editor and managing editor of CNN Opinion, Richard Galant. The article describes the state of Russia’s military, and how the entire male Russian population is at risk of going to war to fight a battle that they might not support and brings in the impact of Putin’s decision to do so on his reputation and power in Russia. The article also mentions the danger of Russia to the world and the awkward situation that it places many countries in. He uses ethos by not only giving his own opinion – despite it being an op-ed piece – but also bringing in the comments of reputed military personnel (such as Adjutant-general Ulio and General Marshall), demonstrating how his view is not only of his own but one that is shared with people who are knowledgeable. He also uses logos and pathos by sharing the severity of being in the Russian Army, such as stating how it was illegal to voluntarily surrender, which encourages the reader to think that it is not a reasonable work environment, and therefore they should be disapproving of Putin’s actions and the Russian military. Galant frames the Russian military as a lost cause, by using Applebaum’s (writer for the Atlantic) statements that “Support for Putin is eroding – abroad, at home, and in the army. Everything else he says and does right now is nothing more than an attempt to halt that decline,” implying that Putin is on a doomed path and that the war would end badly for him. By using the devil term ‘nothing’, Galant is implying that Putin is becoming desperate, which paints him in a negative light and encourages the reader to dislike Putin.
