The more I think about this situation, the more I wonder whether we are miscalculating so much of this by not throughly understanding Putin's agenda and goals.
It became apparent very early on that Putin can't win the war, not in a straight decisive victory as he envisaged.
But he also can not lose the war. Both from a point of his own survival but also because he doesn't need to win it.
Like an abusive partner he can just take the strategy of 'if I can't have you, no one else can either'. He doesn't really care if he lays waste to Ukraine. Ukraine is neutralised by being devastated. So many of those fleeing will never return and thats just it. All Putin had to do was be prepared to committee cultural vandalism and displace ethnic and political opposition. Ukraine's economy is fucked for the next twenty years or more already. It hampers the West who buy huge amounts of grain. And this benefits Russia because it is a competitor in the area.
In terms of power, Western power has been strongest in soft power - money and media if you will. Globalisation is this. Yet this is the very thing that Putin sees as a threat. He has increasingly over the last few years tries to separate from Europe. He wants a splintering of the world into a more cold war era with little interaction.
Investment in Russia by the West is something he doesn't like. If we disinvest we also lose soft power in Russia. Contrast this with China who are doing the exact opposite in order to gain more soft power. (and we are completely fucking blind to it).
Our sanctions might hurt hard, but they also allow Putin to fracture from the thing he dislikes most - western influence. It, will in time, give opportunities to outside the west precisely because of its economic resources which we cannot sanction. Pakistan's agreement highlights that very early on.
It also forces the oligarchs to effectively 'pick a side'. They can no longer be globalists. They can either be Russian or not Russian. And the exit of Western investment does offer a vaccum of opportunity to be filling in the long term, if they can take an early hit.
Trump initially looked like someone Putin felt he could work with because he also drove this idea of America First which Biden has largely followed. There has been a stepping back from soft power at the same time as the weakness of Western military power has shown up.
I think the West really has lost sight of its strength in soft power in this sense. We are seeing an end to globalisation. The world has got smaller with travel being more possible but covid probably highlighted a lot of this weakness too. Long supply chains are perhaps less desirable as we see the inherent weakness in them and how they are perhaps a security concern. We've seen a huge rise of nationalism in the last 10 years globally and this desire to protect cultures from Americanisation.
Indeed one of the things that Putin sees as a weakness is this idea of the Anglosphere and how this damages French or German (or whatever culture). Brexit hasn't exactly helped that idea either
The Tory Party deciding to dismantle the BBC is also a complete bloody own goal too. It has been a massive source of soft power. One that commercialism weakens in terms of the state.
I also look forwards to what the impact of climate change will be. Greater food insecurity and energy insecurity for Europe in particular is a massive problem. As are migration issues. This compounds those long term issues. They aren't quite as critical for the USA in the same ways.
Russian will unite more around Putin in the long term I think. He just has to push through any initial shock. If he manages that, he consolidates his own position domestically.
Putin gets what he ultimately wants no matter what. Even if Ukrainians keep Ukraine now.
And I am not convinced that sanctions and disinvesting do anything more but accelerate a process that works for him long term. The problem for the West is doing nothing isn't an option in the eyes of their population because of shared national psyche and identity connected to WWII.