For Putin it is about much more than Ukraine

August 1968

The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
-- W.H. Auden

W.H. Auden composed August 1968 immediately on hearing of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.  Fearing the eventual spread of subversion brought on by education throughout its empire, the Kremlin was desperate to exterminate Czech ideas about independence and free thought.  Decades later, the Kremlin and its dictatorial boss are consumed by the same fears and so also employ acts of desperation.

There is so much to be said about Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine; it cannot all be said in this one posting.  Questions are asked which can be best answered with the benefit of knowing background and context.  For that reason this essay covers the historical issues that are at the root of the conflict.

Why does Putin want to invade, subjugate and control Ukraine?  What does this mean for the United States, Europe, NATO and democracies world-wide?  Why is this happening, and why now? Why does the enormous and well-equipped Russian army seem to be struggling against the much smaller Ukrainian defense?

Why do we in the West and especially here in the United States find these questions so hard to answer, except by saying that we have no idea of what Putin really wants or how far he is prepared to go in this conquest? What should the U.S., Europe and NATO be doing to help Ukraine?

Writing for The Washington Post about a month prior to the invasion, Michael McFaul, America’s ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, described how Putin once explained to then-Vice President Biden that Russians do not think in the same way as Americans.  For Putin, subduing Ukraine is about much more than just Ukraine.  These are McFaul’s words:

“In the United States, the dominant analytic framework for explaining international relations today is realism. This theory assumes that all countries are the same: unitary actors seeking to maximize their power or security through rational calculations in an anarchic world.”

But, McFaul says, Russia is in fact different.  “Putin does not think like us.  He has his own analytic framework, his own ideas and his own ideology – only some of which comport with Western rational realism.”  Ambassador McFaul continues:

“. . .Putin believes that the West unfairly dictated the terms of peace at the Cold War’s end. In Putin’s view, the West imposed liberal restructuring inside Russia, compelled Moscow to sign lopsided arms control treaties, expanded NATO with no regard for Russia’s interests, and — the greatest sin of all — divided the Slavic peoples of the Soviet Union into separate countries and then “systematically and consistently pushed Ukraine to curtail and limit economic cooperation with Russia.” (Actually, it was the leaders of the three Slavic Soviet republics who signed the agreement dissolving the U.S.S.R. in December 1991, not leaders from Washington, London, or Brussels.) Now that Russia is powerful again, Putin is prepared to risk a lot to revise this so-called American imperial order, especially in Europe. He sees this mission as his sacred destiny.”

I struggle to understand how Putin could show enough commitment to something greater than himself to earn the phrase “his sacred destiny.”  But I embrace McFaul’s insight when he adds (emphasis is mine):

“Preventing Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO is therefore only one dimension of Putin’s revisionist agenda. Even if Biden and his NATO allies wanted to offer that concession, Putin won’t be satiated. He will press on to undo the liberal international order for as long as he remains in power. Normalizing annexation, denying sovereignty to neighbors, undermining liberal ideas and democratic societies, and dissolving NATO are future goals.”

Ambassador McFaul observes that Putin feels threatened not only by America’s support for democratic institutions world-wide, but also by the attraction that those institutions hold for populations at large.  He continues by saying (emphasis is his):

“. . .Putin believes that U.S. support for democracy abroad threatens his autocratic rule. During Putin’s reign, most crises in relations with the United States have been triggered not by NATO expansion, but by democratic mobilizations — Putin calls them “color revolutions” — within countries, be it Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, the Arab Spring in 2011, Russia in 2011 and Ukraine in 2014.

“. . .there is no deal to be had between the United States and Russia as long as Putin is in power. U.S. leaders cannot command other societies to stop wanting democracy. Putin will always fear mass protests and feel threatened by democracies, especially successful ones on his border with a shared history and culture such as Ukraine.”

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine late last month shows that he felt the timing to be good.  Europe had tied itself to Russia for fossil fuel energy supplies and so would be unwilling to jeopardize that relationship by supporting Ukrainian resistance to the invasion.  Former U.S. President Trump’s denigrations of NATO had left that alliance leaderless and dispirited.  Ukrainian defenses were poor and could not withstand a quick assault by the Russian army.  Perhaps he had even convinced himself with his own propaganda that the Ukrainian population would welcome an invasion. 

(I find that last point unlikely, but it is a theory that has been offered by some observers.  A variation on that theme was discussed by U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft, who served in that position during both the Obama and Trump administrations, in an interview with the New Republic’s editor Michael Tomasky.  Maybe I am too cynical.)

Putin was wrong on all those theories.

Europe is not ready to roll over for Russia.  Germany – probably the nation with the most exposure to Russian energy exports – has had a dramatic change of attitude.

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, was candid about the future of German – Russian relations.  Soon after Putin ordered Russia’s army to invade Ukraine, she appeared in a televised interview and was asked about the recent meetings of Chancellor Olaf Scholz with Putin, and of herself meeting with her Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. 

“We were lied to stone-cold,” Baerbock said.  “The chancellor was lied to, I was lied to by the Russian foreign minister, the entire international community was lied to.”

NATO has found itself with disciplined, consistent and pragmatic leadership thanks to U.S. President Joe Biden and his Administration.  Congress is doing its part by developing and passing legislation to provide massive amounts of aid to Ukraine and to the nations that are accepting Ukrainian refugees.  Trump’s disrespect for NATO and his apparent subservience to Putin is in NATO’s rear-view mirror.

As for Putin’s pre-invasion diatribes – distractions, all of it.  Biden recognized that fact as it was happening – remember that he was Putin’s audience as Ambassador McFaul was watching and listening – and he, I think, shared that with European and NATO leaders.  Biden and his Administration publicly revealed Putin’s falsehoods in the weeks leading up to the invasion.

Domestically, too, Putin needs distractions. 

He has been in charge of Russia for over two decades and has little to show for it except a large and well-equipped military.  Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy’s; the average Russian is far less prosperous than the average Italian.  Putin’s national economic leadership can only be called abysmal.

Putin’s distractions about Ukraine are warped misstatements of history.  (National Geographic politely calls it “tangled history”.)

Released from Russian domination by the end of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians have had three decades’ worth of independence to develop a national identity.  The events of 2014 that have so disturbed Putin show that Ukrainians prefer a government of liberal democracy.

The Ukrainian capacity for resistance has flummoxed Putin and the Russian army.  Ukrainians now have feelings of national community – to use Ambassador Tefft’s preferred phrase – as well as historical reasons to maintain that community.  Putin does not seem able to appreciate this.

The revolution that ended the Russian Empire was followed by a brutal civil war.  Ukrainian kulaks – peasants who were wealthy enough to own good farmland – were a big part of the losing side.  I once knew a fellow who was a descendant of kulaki farmers, and I asked what he wanted to do with his life.  His response was immediate.  “Go kill Russians,” he said.  Why?  “Because I am kulaki,” he replied.

A decade after the civil war, Soviet leader Stalin and the Kremlin government continued to be dissatisfied with the degree of capitulation shown by the Ukrainian population at large.  Their method of choice to produce full compliance with the Soviet formula was an engineered famine – crops and food were forcibly taken from Ukraine.  Millions perished; some portions of eastern Ukraine were depopulated, providing room for Russian settlers transported in by the Kremlin.

With the Russian invasion, Putin has trampled on the treaty made among Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the U.S. that guaranteed Ukraine’s independence in exchange for it giving up all the nuclear weapons it inherited with the demise of the U.S.S.R.

This is not the stuff of history that creates feelings of Ukrainian good will towards Russian domination.

Most of the rest of the world -- liberal democracies in particular -- will look at the lies and betrayals and arrive at this:  International trust in Putin and his government is a thing of the past.

Putin is not a stupid person; he knows these things.  He might not have appreciated the degree to which Ukrainians are attached to their own national identity.  But he wanted to distract the world.

I think the distractions have been revealed for the lies that they are.  Putin might feel a “sacred destiny” for himself, but there is no honor in pursuing a destiny that hurts the innocent and would destroy a nation’s sovereignty.  Ukraine and its people will suffer for one man’s view of his destiny; unfortunately, that cannot be stopped by anyone except Putin himself, and that seems unlikely.  At this point, Putin seems committed to prosecuting a war against Ukraine that targets and terrorizes the non-combatant population.

Putin (and Russia) will be hurt by Western sanctions and absence of trust.  Without money, the Russian military eventually grinds to a halt.  Without trust – and why would Putin be trusted now? – Russia will be severely limited in its international commerce.

Rapidly replacing fossil fuels with non-fossil alternatives will enable Europe and others to be free of Russian coercion and inflated pricing.  Oil, for example, is priced in U.S. Dollars, but its price is determined by the forces of global supply and demand.  Using electric vehicles instead of those with internal combustion engines will defeat the malevolence of petro-states such as Russia that act to create oil price-induced inflation. We have a second chance now to learn what we should have learned from the politically-caused oil supply disruptions of the 1970s.

Vladimir Putin might not think about these things the way that Westerners do.  But Ambassador McFaul makes the sensible point that not all Russians think in the same way as Putin.  Let’s remember that as we oppose Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

For thirty years those in the world who prefer government of democracy to that of autocracy have been comfortable enough to assume that democracy and free markets had become self-fulfilling.  That period has come to an end -- there are others in the world who think differently from us.  Vladimir Putin is the Ogre.  Such creatures are dangerous, but not invincible.

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