Putin is Living in a 19th Century Fantasy World

I recently read a a book entitled the "Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin," which tracks over 800 years of Russian history with focus on how the Kremlin has played a role in the unfolding drama.  One take away from the book - although this is not its objective - is that Russia has too often been ruled by nutcases and megalomaniacs and that long term it is always the Russian people who have suffered as a consequence.  Fast forward to today, and Vladimir Putin fits the stereotype of the Russian ruler untethered from objective reality as defined by the rest of the world.  And when it comes to state control of the press and repression, Putin makes the regime of the incompetent Tsar Nicholas II look both enlightened and benevolent.  A column in the Washington Post looks at Putin's 19th century fantasy world.  Here are excerpts:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the fore an important debate about what kind of world we live in. Many critics charge that the Obama administration has been blind to its harsh realities because it believes, as the Wall Street Journal opined, in “a fantasy world of international rules.” John McCain declared that “this is the most naive president in history.” The Post’s editorial board worried that President Obama misunderstands “the nature of the century we’re living in.” 

Almost all of these critics have ridiculed Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that changing borders by force, as Russia did, is 19th-century behavior in the 21st century. Well, here are the facts.


Before 1950, wars between nations resulted in border changes (annexations) about 80 percent of the time. After 1950, that number dropped to 27 percent. In fact, since 1946, there have been only 12 examples of major changes in borders using force — and all of them before 1976. So Putin’s behavior, in fact, does belong to the 19th century.

The transformation of international relations goes well beyond border changes.  . . . . “after a 600-year stretch in which Western European countries started two new wars a year, they have not started one since 1945. Nor have the 40 or so richest nations anywhere in the world engaged each other in armed conflict.” Colonial wars, a routine feature of international life for thousands of years, are extinct. Wars between countries — not just major powers, not just in Europe — have also dropped dramatically, by more than 50 percent over the past three decades.

[T]he most astonishing, remarkable reality about the world is how much things have changed, especially since 1945. It is ironic that the Wall Street Journal does not recognize this new world because it was created in substantial part through capitalism and free trade.

The best way to deal with Russia’s aggression in Crimea is not to present it as routine and national interest-based foreign policy that will be countered by Washington in a contest between two great powers. It is to point out, as Obama did eloquently this week in Brussels, that Russia is grossly endangering a global order that has benefited the entire world. 

Compare what the Obama administration has managed to organize in the wake of this latest Russian aggression to the Bush administration’s response to Putin’s actions in Georgia in 2008. That was a blatant invasion. Moscow sent in tanks and heavy artillery; hundreds were killed, nearly 200,000 displaced. Yet the response was essentially nothing. This time, it has been much more serious. Some of this difference is in the nature of the stakes, but it might also have to do with the fact that the Obama administration has taken pains to present Russia’s actions in a broader context and get other countries to see them as such.

You can see a similar pattern with Iran. The Bush administration largely pressured that country bilaterally. The Obama administration was able to get much more effective pressure because it presented Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to global norms. . .

There is an evolving international order with new global norms making war and conquest increasingly rare. We should strengthen, not ridicule, it. Yes, some places stand in opposition to this trend — North Korea, Syria, Russia. The people running these countries believe that they are charting a path to greatness and glory. But they are the ones living in a fantasy world.

The author is correct.  Look at the disasters of the Bush/Cheney regime: billions wasted, thousands of lives thrown away and nothing to show for it.  It makes sense to try a different approach after Bush/Cheney's bankrupting wars and squandering of American lives.  It's past time to reject the same old cries and whining of the neocons who helped give us the Bush/Cheney disasters.