As noted in numerous posts, I find nothing to like in Vladimir Putin, a former KGB thug who wants to restore the Soviet Union empire - despite the fact that former vassal areas have no desire to return to Soviet satellite status. One can only hope that in the long term Russia's move into the Crimea will be regarded as one of the blunders of history. Better yet, one can hope that the mindset and yearning for a better life that led to the overthrow of the Russian puppet government in Ukraine will take form in Russia itself and lead to Putin's eventual overthrow. A column in the Washington Post looks at why Putin may have made a disastrous long term mistake even if appearances are otherwise at the moment. Here are excerpts:
Napoleon is said to have cautioned during an 1805 battle: “When the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” The citation is also sometimes rendered as “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Whatever the precise wording, the admonition is a useful starting point for thinking about the Ukraine situation.
Vladimir Putin has made a mistake invading Crimea, escalating a crisis for Russia that has been brewing for many months. It might have been beneficial if President Obama could have dissuaded him from this error. But Putin’s move into Crimea appeared to spring from a deeper misjudgment about the reversibility of the process that led to the breakup of Soviet Union in 1991. The further Russia wades into this revanchist strategy, the worse its troubles will become.
The Russian leader’s nostalgia for the past was on display at the Sochi Olympics. As David Remnick wrote last week in the New Yorker, Putin regards the fall of the Soviet Union as a “tragic error,” and the Olympics celebrated his vision that a strong Russia is back. That attitude led Putin to what Secretary of State John Kerry described on Sunday as a “brazen act of aggression” and a “violation of international obligations.”
His mistake in Sevastopol may lead to others elsewhere, though hopefully Putin will avoid reckless actions. But the more Putin seeks to assert Russia’s strength, he will actually underline its weakness.
Perhaps inevitably, given Washington’s political monomania, the big subject over the weekend wasn’t Putin’s criminal attack on Crimea but whether Obama had encouraged it by being insufficiently muscular. There are many valid criticisms to be made of Obama’s foreign policy, especially in Syria, but the notion that Putin’s attack is somehow the United States’ fault is perverse.
What Putin misunderstands most is that the center of gravity for the former Soviet Union has shifted west. Former Soviet satellites such as Poland and the Czech Republic are prosperous members of the E.U. The nations that made up what was once Yugoslavia have survived their bloody breakup, and most have emerged as strong democracies. Ukraine was set to join this movement toward the European Union last November when Yanukovych suddenly suspended trade and financial talks with the E.U. and accepted what amounted to a $15 billion bribe from Putin to stay in Russia’s camp.
The opportunity for Putin is almost precisely opposite his atavistic vision of restoration. It is only by moving west, toward Europe, that Russia itself can reverse its demographic and political trap. Year by year, the Russian political system becomes more of a corrupt Oriental despotism — with Moscow closer to Almaty than Berlin. The alternative is for Ukraine to pull Russia with it toward the West.
Russians will eventually say, ‘Our future will be safest, our control over the Far East territories most assured . . . if there is a kind of Atlantic community that stretches from Lisbon to Vladivostok.’ ”
Putin’s Russia may well make more mistakes: We may see a cascading chain of error that brings Russian troops deeper into Ukraine and sets the stage for civil war. Those are the kind of miscalculations that lead to catastrophic consequences, . . . .
I hope the author is correct. The sooner Putin falls from power, the better off the world will be and the better off the average Russian will be. Russia's people have lived under despots for far too long.
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