Stoic Strategy: Making Crimea an Island
“Some things are up to us, and some are not.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion I’ve been following the campaign around Crimea closely these past few weeks, and something about the shape of it has stuck with me — not the politics of it, which I’ll leave to people better qualified than a Stoicism newsletter, but the strategy. For a long time, the instinct — mine included — was to imagine this kind of war ending the way wars end in movies: one decisive battle, a line on a map that moves all at once, a single dramatic turn. That’s not what’s happening. What’s happening, by most independent accounts, is slower and less cinematic than that. Ukraine appears to have shifted its approach around Crimea from scattered strikes to something more sustained and methodical — degrading fuel depots, air defense, bridges, and rail lines, and increasingly, ships. Reporting from the Crimea Platform and United24 put the numbers in the range of ninety to over a hundred Russian vessels struck in single-week windows in early-to-mid July, Kerch Strait ferry capacity down as much as 75%, and passage through the Don-Azov Canal temporarily suspended. Officials in the Ukrainian defense establishment reportedly describe the goal plainly: make Crimea an island. Not take it back in an afternoon. Isolate it, patiently, until what’s left is unsustainable. ...