by
Austin BayJuly 8, 2025
Popular history credits Russian Czar Nicholas I with describing 19th-century Ottoman Turkey as "The Sick Man of Europe."
British envoy Sir George Hamilton's full quote lacks the headline's memorable pop: "We have a sick man on our hands, a man gravely ill ..." The czar added that it would be dreadful if sick man Turkey slipped away "before the necessary arrangements are made."
In 2025, hard facts say Russia is The Sick Man of Eurasia -- ripe for exploitation by actors making calculating arrangements.
President Donald Trump should tag Vladimir Putin with the Eurasian Sick Man handle, and hope the quip drills his KGB skull like a Massive Ordnance Penetrator. Get a look at reality, you police state fool.
I don't pretend to read Trump's mind, but his Ukraine-Russia negotiation tactics and stated goals tell me his brain says he thinks they are both losing -- in more classic historical terms, they are states approaching ruin by battle.
Brave Ukraine fights amid its own hideous ruin, waging creative but still exhausting attrition warfare.
Russia? Let's begin with its strategic political defeat in Europe. Finland and Sweden are now members of NATO. Unlike Germany, the erstwhile neutrals are very well-armed and well-trained members of NATO.
Trump's march on NATO headquarters has produced an alliance-wide commitment to spend 5% of GDP on defense. For Moscow, that's a major political and economic defeat -- on its western front.
NATO is also preparing for Russia's military operational defeat -- a convincing conventional force to deter Russian adventurism.
Poland is well on its way to fielding the most powerful ground armed forces in European NATO -- heavy mobile divisions of tanks and infantry strengthened with a Ukraine War-informed mix of drones, air-defense weapons, recon assets and long-range rocket and tube artillery. And Poland is committed to defending the vulnerable Baltic states.
At the operational level of war, Russia continues to wage city-busting missile attacks on Ukraine, a missile and drone echo of the Nazi's London Blitz that failed to cow Britain. Ukrainian sea drones have driven Russia's Black Sea fleet into fortified ports. Ukrainian drones have struck targets in Siberia and northern Russia, destroying precious Russian strategic bombers.
At the tactical level of war, Russia has suffered over a million casualties.
Ruin by battle -- yes.
Russia's economy? It's capable of pumping oil and growing grain, but delivery inside Russia is an issue.
In June, StrategyPage.com reported, "Since 2022 Russian railroads have increasingly had to deal with shortages and sabotage. The shortages start with the fact that many of the 740,000 railway staff in 2022 soon left to join the military ..."
Using retired workers failed to meet wartime demands. By late 2024, Russia had to take 100,000 freight cars out of service due to lack of maintenance and spare parts.
More: "Railroads are particularly sensitive because Russia has a poorly developed highway system plus few east-west rivers and canals, so its economy mostly depends on 85,000 kilometers of railroad tracks and thousands of rail cars moved by thousands of electric and diesel engines ..." Poor maintenance, lack of spare parts and Ukrainian sabotage of bridges, trestles and switches is throttling Russia rail transport.
Does this mean Russia will lose to Ukraine? No -- but it means it could lose Siberia.
Former Vice President Dan Quayle and Thomas J. Duesterberg make that case in a July 7 Wall Street Journal op-ed. Kudos. I made the same case in a March 15, 2022, column and in my book "Cocktails From Hell" (Bombardier Books, 2018).
Key points in that essay: "The Russians are loath to admit it, but for the first time in centuries, China possesses a more powerful military.
"Communist China 2022 is bitten by the same savage imperialist bug as Putin. Beijing intends to restore the Chinese empire. And Beijing covets Siberia.
"According to Beijing's propagandists, Siberia belongs to China. The current border (approximately 2,740 miles) is an artifact of the 1860 Convention of Peking. The Second Opium War had weakened China. Czarist Russia was expanding. In 1917, the Bolsheviks acknowledged that czarist treaties forced on China were coercive and predatory. Russia, however, has never returned any Siberian territory."
Quayle and Duesterberg state the "imperialist bug" irony thusly: "Territorial disputes between the two autocratic powers are likely to become one of the biggest threats to global stability as Mr. Xi in effect adopts the Putin doctrine."
That gives Trump leverage. Trump needs to tell Putin, "Hey, Sick Man, China is making arrangements. You want Russia to keep Siberia? Russia will need America's support. So Vlad, stop your insane Ukraine war right now. Or go down in history as the Russian leader who lost Siberia."