Founded in 1255 by Teutonic Knights, Konigsburg, was erected to commemorate the defeat of the last remaining pagan Prussian tribe, the Samians, in what is known as the First Prussian Uprising.1 In 1701 Fredrick I was coronated King of Prussia in Konigsburg, making him the first king in the Hohenzollern line. Immanuel Kant was born and worked there, publishing Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch in 1795. After WW1, the Allies separated East Prussia from Germany with the Polish Corridor and the Free State of Danzig. In 1939 it was witness to the start of WW2, when Britain and France, having fed Czechoslovakia to Germany, fulfilled their treaty obligation to Poland and declared war on a still hungry Germany.2
After WW2, the Soviets took over the bombed ruins renaming it Kaliningrad and pushing out most of the Germans for Soviet migrants.3 Now Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave that is offering itself once again as the springboard to world war.
More background here.
Yesterday a friend asked me why the market doesn’t care about the news in Lithuania. At first I assumed that it was a misunderstanding, or that it wasn’t material. But this is escalation, possibly radical escalation.
Russian anger at Lithuania puts spotlight back on US troops in NATO battlegroup near Suwalki Gap
Lithuanian officials have downplayed concerns about an imminent Russian attack over the ban, saying Russian forces already have their hands full fighting in Ukraine.
“We are not particularly worried about Russian threats,” Laurynas Kasciunas, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s national security and defense committee, said as quoted by The New York Times. “The Kremlin has very few options for how to retaliate.”
Kasciunas added that an attack is “highly unlikely because Lithuania is a member of NATO. If this were not the case, they probably would consider it.”
Clearly this is a principal-agent problem, I thought. After all, NATO is central to US strategy but it isn’t a blank check. In fact, a Congressional authorization is required before the President can commit US military forces pursuant to NATO Article 5.
But rather than scold the Lithuanians the US State Department gave them an atta boy
Clearly, some folks think the west should seek further conflict with Russia.
So after Russia promises “serious consequences” for Lithuanians over the sanctions/blockade.
What does Lithuania do? Expand the blockade to vehicles.
There is so much conflicting propaganda about Russia and Ukraine it’s hard to know when to care about the news. But I think you should care about this. The West or at least the elements in the West that seek further conflict with Putin/Russia have baited a trap. This is a clear effort to escalate the conflict.
If Russia thinks it is playing a strong hand, if they are actually making progress in Ukraine and sanctions aren’t decapitating the economy, then they will respond gingerly. A confident Russia knocking out the power in Vilnius for a day or two seems like a best case scenario.
But…a weak Russia, a Russia closer to western intelligence’s portrayals, could get weird. There is a lot written about the old Soviet doctrine of ‘escalate to de-escalate’
Quite simply, if things are not going well on the battlefield, use one or more tactical nuclear weapons to halt the action and push back your opponent by taking advantage of his fear of escalation into general nuclear war. It is even possible that if—with the tightening stranglehold of sanctions and the non-appearance of a Chinese bail-out—Russia becomes so economically prostrate as to invite comparison to the revolutionary consequences of its collapse in the First World War, it might in desperation play a nuclear card such as escalate to de-escalate. Because escalation tends to lead to further escalation, escalate to de-escalate is a gambler’s policy analogous to slapping a hysteric to calm him down. Shrouded in ambiguity, its actual existence is debated, but one can transcend academic arguments and battles of citations to see why from the Russian point of view it is a likely imperative.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/a-tragedy-of-errors/
So worst case is the Russians use a tactical nuke--which seems bad.
There’s a full host of intermediate outcomes and I don’t think many of them are good for risk.
Oversold markets rally, but American willingness to back up, whatever the objective merits may be, an EU/Lithuanian provocation of Russia to try and pull NATO into the war ain’t good for assets.
https://www.medievalists.net/2020/01/the-prussian-uprisings-a-story-of-knights-pagans-traitors-and-miracles/
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2019/09/03/diplomatic-countdown-to-war/
https://prussianhistory.com/a-short-history-of-konigsberg/