Vladamir Putin's Imperial Adventure

Vladimir Putin is, in my view, a megalomaniac.  He also thinks of himself as the new tsar of Russian in all but formal name with all the delusions of grandeur that fantasy engenders - he's in his own mind perhaps Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Alexander I all rolled into one.  Given his short stature, he also seems to suffer from a Napoleon complex. And while he has routinely utilized agendas and excuses modeled on Adolph Hitler's tactics, in the final analysis, he still is pushing for international goals akin to what he sees as his imperial predecessors.  As a piece in the New York Times explains, this includes Putin's adventure into Syria.  While Putin remembers the goals and fleeting success of Russia's imperial past, he seems to have forgotten some of the disasters of the past, including Russia's Afghanistan debacle and wars that could have been avoided.  Here are column highlights:

IN June 1772, Russian forces bombarded, stormed and captured Beirut, a fortress on the coast of Ottoman Syria. The Russians were backing their ally, a ruthless Arab despot. When they returned the next year, they occupied Beirut for almost six months. Then as now, they found Syrian politics a boiling cauldron of factional-ethnic strife, which they tried to simplify with cannonades and gunpowder.

Today, President Vladimir V. Putin has many motives in Syria, but we should keep in mind Russia’s vision of its traditional mission in the Middle East, and how it informs the Kremlin’s thinking. And not just the Kremlin: Russia’s Orthodox Church spokesman said that Mr. Putin’s intervention was part of “the special role our country has always played in the Middle East.”

Russia’s ties to the region are rooted in its self-assigned role as the defender of Orthodox Christianity, which it claimed to inherit from the Byzantine Caesars after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 — hence “czars.” The czars presented Moscow not just as a Third Rome, but also as a New Jerusalem, and protector of Christians in the Balkans and the Arab world, which, including the Holy Places of Jerusalem, were ruled by the Ottomans after 1517.

They left in 1774, when Russia dropped its Syrian allies in return for Ottoman concessions over Ukraine and Crimea. Yet a Russian Mediterranean base was now a strategic aim: Catherine and her partner Prince Potemkin annexed Crimea, where they founded a Black Sea fleet, then tried to negotiate a base on Minorca.

Catherine’s successors saw themselves as crusaders, with Russia destined to rule Constantinople and Jerusalem.

[D]uring World War I Russian forces occupied northern Persia and invaded Ottoman Iraq, nearly taking Baghdad. In 1916, Nicholas II’s foreign minister, Sergei Sazonov, negotiated the Sykes-Picot-Sazonov Treaty, which promised Russia Istanbul, sections of Turkey and Kurdistan, and a share of Jerusalem — a Near Eastern empire foiled by the Bolshevik Revolution.

Until the recent intervention, the closest Russia came to fighting was the Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition from 1967 to 1970, during which Soviet pilots dueled with Israelis. When Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, expelled the Russians, they cultivated a trio of dictators, Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez al-Assad in Syria. All three, running merciless, dynastic-Mafia regimes behind the facade of socialistic parties, central planning and Stalinesque cults of personality, took quickly to their new benefactors . . .

After the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian influence collapsed and Moscow came to bitterly resent the Western interventions that destroyed Mr. Hussein and Colonel Qaddafi. American retreat from the region grants Mr. Putin, who sees himself in an unbroken tradition of Russian personal leadership and imperial-national power from the czars to today, the opportunity to diminish American prestige and project Russia as indispensable world arbiter. The rescue of Mr. Assad’s son Bashir while fighting the opposition and Islamic State dovetails with Russia’s struggle against Chechen jihadis who flock to the black caliphal banners — and success will bring leverage in Iran and Turkey, where Russia once had muscle.

That said, Mr. Putin may end up channeling Catherine and trade Syrian influence to end Western sanctions and secure annexed Crimea — for this military showmanship concerns Mr. Putin’s political survival. In some ways, his defense of Syria’s autocrat is a defense of his own authority against rebellion. 

The power formula in Russia is this: autocracy in the Kremlin in return for security and prosperity at home, glory abroad — and for now at least, there’s glamour in the excitement of this Oriental adventure, a televised “Beau Geste” with Sukhoi bombers.

When Alexander II launched exotic Asian wars, one of his ministers, Count Valuev, wrote, “there’s something erotic about all things on distant frontiers.” Moscow lacks the resources to replace America and will find in Syria a quagmire, but Russians feel that a great imperial Russia has always been a player in the Middle East — and boldness counts for much in this wild world.

Putin is very dangerous, but his latest venture has strong historical precedents.  One needs to understand history and Russia's long inferiority complex versus the west and the longing for real or imagined past glories.   Sadly, the Russian people continue to be betrayed by their failed leaders - something that has plagued Russia for centuries.  

Putin Launches New Cold War

Seeking to do something to distract average Russians from the growing isolation that he has created for their nation, Vladimir Putin has announced a ban against US and EU imports of foods stuffs and meats.  While the pundits debate who will suffer more economic harm from Putin's game of tit for tat, common sense suggests that Russia will ultimately be the bigger loser.  Reportedly, Putin is also prepared to introduce measures in the aviation, shipbuilding and automobile sectors which might kill France's sale of ships to Russia and force wealthy oligarchs to have to drive Russian made cars rather than the high end Rolls Royces and Mercedes that are their preference.  A piece in The Guardian looks at Putin's escalation of a new cold war to satiate his enormous ego and delusions that he is Russia's new Tsar.  Putin might do well to remember that Nicholas II's views of Russian power and his own rightness did not translate into reality and ended disastrously.  Here are excerpts:

Russians will no longer be able to buy fruit, vegetables, meat, fish or dairy products from the EU and the US, as the full scope of Moscow's food import ban became apparent on Thursday.

President Vladimir Putin told officials on Wednesday to come up with a list of western agricultural products and raw materials to be banned, in reaction to western sanctions over Russia's policies in Ukraine.

Russia's prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said the ban was effective immediately and would last for a year. It covers most foodstuffs from the US, the 28 EU countries, Canada, Australia and Norway.

The key question is whether the import ban would hurt European producers more than Russian consumers. The Kremlin's English-language channel, Russia Today, said the food ban could spark a "crisis in Europe" and would cost billions of pounds in lost revenues.  There was less musing on the cost to ordinary Russians, who have become used to readily available imported foods.

"I am sure that our market will be filled with fresh quality Russian products, which anyway many Russians prefer to the imported ones," said Medvedev.

The agriculture minister, Nikolai Fyodorov, said more Brazilian meat and New Zealand cheese would be imported to offset the newly prohibited items. He also said Moscow was in talks with Belarus and Kazakhstan to prevent the banned western foodstuffs being exported to Russia from the two countries.

Medvedev said Russia was prepared to introduce further measures in aviation, shipbuilding and automobile sectors, but said it would do so carefully. Moscow has already floated the idea of banning European airlines from flying over Russian airspace, which could add several hours to some flights between Europe and Asia.

Financial markets were quick to react to Putin's tit-for-tat move. Moscow's main two share indices extended Wednesday's sharp declines, with retail and banking shares among the biggest fallers. The RTS index lost 1.9%, and the rouble-denominated Micex fell 1.5%. European indices were also weaker.

Russia is carrying out military exercises near the border with Ukraine this week, and there are fears that the option of a ground invasion is still on the table. Nato said earlier this week that Moscow had amassed around 20,000 troops near the border and could be planning an invasion under the guise of a humanitarian intervention.

By isolating Russia Putin seems to be demonstrating the mindset that prevailed at times in Russia prior to Peter the Great when isolation only served to marginalize Russia and make it more backwards compared to Western Europe.  But then again, Putin seems to see himself as the new Ivan the Terrible.  Historically, Russia has flourished the most when it has been most open to the West as under Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Alexander I, and even Nicholas II under whose reign Russia reached a pinnacle in the arts and was rapidly industrializing.   Putin reportedly likes to read about Russian history but he seems to be ignoring periods that might teach him that he is on a course backwards in time, but not in a positive way.

Putin's Dearms of Empire; Russia Is Ousted From Group of 8

Some have said that I exaggerate Vladimir Putin's megalomania when I compare him to Adolph Hitler.  Yet, Putin's excuse for annexing Crimea relied on a concept of protecting ethnic Russians much as Hitler used the argument of protecting ethnic Germans as he annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia.  And let's not for get that Putin is also making claims of the uniqueness and special character of Russia and Russian civilization to play on the centuries old Russian inferiority complex relative to the west and western Europe in particular.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at Putin's delusions of grandeur that ought to be frightening to students of history.  Here are excerpts:

After the Russian anschluss in Crimea last week, people around the world are asking themselves uneasily: How far will Moscow go? What does Russian President Vladimir Putin really want? The answer can be found in the words of his supporters.

Consider this widely shared Facebook post by a Moscow yuppie named Artem Nekrasov: “If Putin manages to annex Crimea and the southeast of Ukraine peacefully I personally forgive him everything: wild corruption, the lawlessness of officials, lack of any prospects in the economy, disorder in education and journalism and even the common stupefaction of the people....” The post is popular because, as polls show, it reflects the common mood in Russia. Putin’s approval rating is 75 percent since he announced the annexation of Crimea.

A Moscow television channel interviewed old Soviet veterans at the Nahimov naval academy occupied by the Russian army in Sevastopol, Crimea. Like Putin, they longed for the old days. “Because of the disintegration of the USSR we lost Odessa [on the Black Sea] and a part of the Baltic,” one said. “But our current commander-in-chief [Putin, of course] is a gatherer of Soviet lands. We place our hopes in him!”

As journalist and political scientist Alexander Morozov writes in his widely-read essay “Conservative Revolution: Making Sense of Crimea,” Putin’s logic is no longer tied to those rational considerations of cooperation and economic interdependence on which the West puts so much faith. His is now a “revolutionary” mindset in which he and his followers are ready to sacrifice Western capital, risk having their assets frozen, and rely on “political myth”—a focus on heroism, sacrifice and martyrdom—to generate public support. There is no rational response to this. Those infected by the myth cannot imagine any other possibility for the future but success: “Crimea is ours!”

Russians appear to be possessed by their desire to pull together all the lands held by the Russian Empire a hundred years ago. Even to the most simple-minded of Putin’s supporters, this has come to seem a spiritual mission, though few could explain it convincingly before an audience. Popular Russian media suggest two ways to conceive of this cause, one based on “Spiritual Ties” among Russians, the other as resistance to the “Venal Perverted West.” Constant propaganda impresses on the minds of average Russians that they are exceptional because of where they were born and the language they speak, but apart from that does little to elucidate the riddle of this exceptionalism. Instead they fall back on the “Mysterious Russian Soul,” which means “something perfect that nobody can explain,” and those who would dare to try intepreting it are playing the game of the “Venal Perverted West.”

But such primitive and fanciful ideas are just the skin on top of hot milk. An ideologue named Sergey Kurginyan has tried to articulate a much more extensive and coherent vision of Russian superiority to justify what he calls “USSR 2.0.”

“The only possible form in which our country can exist is as an empire that is a union of equal peoples,” writes Kurginyan. The Russian people should form the state at the center, “a nucleus around which other peoples are gathered.” In his opinion Russia cannot be a part of  Europe, because Russia is Europe, too, but a different alternative Europe descended from the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, while modern Western Europe comes from the Western Roman Empire.

If we ask ourselves at the end of the day, “What does Putin want?” the simplest answer would be “to keep 75 per cent of the Russian people behind him.” And the only way to do that is to foster and preserve the myth of the Russians’ innate superiority. Military adventures work. So do hypnotic diatribes on television. Put the two together and we are where we are today.

There is much more that to the article that should be read, but the bottom line is that Putin is playing on a Russian mindset that has persisted for over a thousand years - that Russia is special and that it has a holy mission.  In some ways, the myth is similar to the myth of American exceptionalism so popular with the far right in America.  Both are a dangerous and toxic form of chauvinism that can have disastrous consequences.

Meanwhile, as the New York Times reports, Russia has been ousted from the Group of 8:

The United States and its closest allies on Monday cast Russia out of the Group of 8 industrialized democracies, their most exclusive club, to punish President Vladimir V. Putin for his lightning annexation of Crimea, while threatening tougher sanctions if he escalates aggression against Ukraine.

President Obama and the leaders of Canada, Japan and Europe’s four strongest economies gathered for the first time since the Ukraine crisis erupted last month, using a closed two-hour meeting on the sidelines of a summit meeting about nuclear security to project a united front against Moscow.

But they stopped short, at least for now, of imposing sanctions against what a senior Obama administration official called vital sectors of the Russian economy: energy, banking and finance, engineering and the arms industry. Only further aggression by Mr. Putin — like rolling his forces into the Ukrainian mainland — would prompt that much-harsher punishment, the countries indicated in their joint statement, called the Hague Declaration.

 The take away from all of this?  With Putin, the West is not dealing with a rational individual under a western definition of the term.  The man is dangerous and will continue to use Hitler like demagoguery to play on long standing insecurities and mindset that predominate in Russia.