OP-ED APRIL 14, 2014
AMERICAN INTEREST
SUMMARY
Western explanations for Putin’s behavior in the Ukraine too often have a self-justifying ring to them. If the West is dealing with an unexpected deviation from the norm, this means that the previous policy toward Russia was essentially correct.
There are all sorts of reasons to be stunned and perplexed today. Stunned by the reintroduction of the fears and phobias of the 20th century into 21st-century international affairs. And perplexed by the explanations offered for Putin’s actions in Ukraine by the world’s best and brightest.
1. HOW DOES THE WEST READ PUTIN?
Here’s one explanation that has prompted many nods of approval: Putin isn’t quite in his right mind. As Madeleine Albright has said, “I think that either he does not have the facts, or he is being fed propaganda… It doesn’t make any sense… Putin is, in many ways, I think, delusional about this.”
SENIOR ASSOCIATE
RUSSIAN DOMESTIC POLITICS AND POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS PROGRAM
MOSCOW CENTER
And Brent Scowcroft: “He’s a person full of venom, because he thought that [the Soviet Union’s] collapse was taken advantage of by the West, or especially the U.S. to take advantage of Russia… now we’re strong again; you can’t push us around anymore…”
My question is this: If Putin is “delusional” or he “is living in another world” as Chancellor Merkel has suggested, or if Putin is “full of venom” because he sees that the United States is strong, why did these observers not notice these things until now? Why has Putin chosen this moment and not an earlier one to blow up the world order? And if he is really all that “delusional,” the Western measures to constrain him are hardly sufficient.
I suspect that all the explanations aiming at provoking doubt as to Putin’s rationality and inadequacy have their origins in something other than dispassionate analysis. If Putin just suddenly lost his mind, this lets the political and expert community off the hook for failing to alert us to what was coming. If the West is dealing with an unexpected deviation from the norm, this means that the previous policy toward Russia was essentially correct. The theory of Putin’s “insanity” or “irrationality” would save so many analytical reputations.
Other explanations fit the traditional “realism” mantra. Here is a line from Kissinger: “Ukraine can never be just a foreign country” (meaning it can never be just a foreign country for Russia, of course). That means you can forget about the fiction of Ukrainian sovereignty. Just let Russia do what it wants, and don’t start quarrels with it. From this point of view, Ukraine is not a state in the classical sense of the term.
There are a couple more arguments from the Realist playbook that I predict will become quite popular in the current debates on Russia, because they will spare everyone the headache of having to comprehend the new reality. (The irony is that these arguments will end up replicating Kremlin patterns of thought, but I digress…) What are these explanations? First, that Russia is merely reviving its traditional great power politics; it has always sought external conflicts to enhance its might. Indeed, this does seem to present a convincing explanation of Putin’s macho bullying. Nevertheless I have a couple of questions: If Realists do understand the nature of Russia’s “great-power” politics, why did they fail to predict its revival? Or did I miss these predictions? Realists, until recently, tended to support the U.S. “reset” policy, which has been instrumental in allowing Putin to expand his ambitions. Why is it that even the shrewdest of Realists has insisted that the United States and Putin’s Russia have “shared interests”? Why did they contribute to the creation of an impression that Russia could be persuaded “to advance U.S. goals”?
Here is another version of the Realist’s song, from Anne-Marie Slaughter, who is very upset by the widespread declarations of the “end of the post-Cold war era,” which she interprets as the return of the Cold War. (But if this were true, then Russia would have to be returning to its Soviet-era format…) En route to her critique, Anne-Marie Slaughter repeats the Kremlin’s main argument that we are all sinners; who is the West to judge? She writes, “The United States would do well to tone down its sanctimony. Putin’s annexation of Crimea violated international law. But so did the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the NATO intervention to protect Kosovo, even if the latter was, to many, including me, a legitimate violation.” But if we were to pursue this argument to its logical conclusion, then we would have to agree that all the rules and treaties should be thrown into the dustbin.
There are a couple of other “truths” that could only raise questions as to why some representatives of the Western and Russian elites have so much in common. Slaughter concludes, as do many Russian officials, that Ukraine and the rest of the new independent states “will flourish over the long term only if they have strong relationships with both Russia and the EU.” This is a version of the Finlandization scenario. But then why aren’t the states that are now drifting between Russia and Europe already flourishing? And what should we do with the countries that do not “flourish” in this way? Convene a new Yalta conference and sign a new “areas of interests” pact?
Here are some more variations of the Kremlin’s song:
The Kremlin is reacting to the chaos in Ukraine, as well as to the strengthening of Ukrainian nationalists and the threat of Ukraine’s joining NATO. It is also responding to Kiev’s attempt to sign the Association Agreement with the EU and the desires of the Russian-speaking population to return to Russia; Moscow has to react to the humiliation Moscow suffered at the hands of the West and the United States.
These explanations all but mirror the Kremlin’s rhetoric. They are efforts by the Putin Apologists’ Club to lay the groundwork for a new “transactional consensus” with Putin’s Russia. The justification for this scenario is that the West can’t afford to put the boots on the ground and risk military intervention for Crimea, or even to save Ukraine. That means it has to make peace with Putin; it has too many commercial interests at stake.
What we are witnessing is the composition of a new mythology. Those who only recently argued that Russia has lost all imperial ambitions, who counseled that Putin should be persuaded to cooperate in achieving Western strategic interests, who engaged Russia in the “reset” and “Partnership for Modernization,” today are on the podium again.
You can easily tell who the new mythologists are by the political language they employ. If you hear that Ukraine is a “failed state,” that Russians can be consolidated only by means of great power politics, that Russia has a historical right to interfere in the affairs of its neighbors, that Ukraine therefore must be sacrificed, then you know whom you are dealing with.
The most vocal members of the Apologists’ Club are still German politicians and experts. Ralf Neukirch in Spiegel Online presents a shocking picture of the German political debate on Russia: Essentially, it’s dominated by a desperate search for excuses for the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine. Just look what Germany’s two former Chancellors have said. “I find it entirely understandable,” says Helmut Schmidt of Putin’s move. Gerhardt Schröder admitted that he himself (like Putin!) hadn’t always respected international law.
What is more sad, alarming, and shameful: 200 German intellectuals signed a letter addressed to Vladimir Putin expressing “their understanding of the Russian reaction to the Ukrainian developments” and wishing him “strength, resilience, and luck.” The letter can only give further ammunition to the critics of the West who argue that the liberals democracies have forgotten their principles.
The question naturally arises: What are the motivations behind the German desire “to understand” Putin: commercial interests; the old German guilt for the invasion of the Soviet Union; the idealization of Russia, which is identified with the Kremlin’s rules; anti-Americanism; fear of destabilizing Russia; the old memory of the German-Russian pre-war tandem? Perhaps, as one German diplomat explained, Germans still follow Otto von Bismarck’s axiom that they must have a special relationship with Russia. It’s a deft 19th-century dodge to avoid 21st-century responsibilities.
German journalist Christian Neef admits, “The view Germans have of Russia is skewed by romanticism and historical baggage. Without taking a sober look at Moscow, we will never find an adequate strategy of dealing with Putin’s conservative, anti-Western approach to power.” Bernd Ulrich in Die Zeit, acknowledging that “Putin is successfully driving a wedge into Germany,” says that the Ukrainian story and Russia’s role has forced German society to start a discussion on the most sensitive issues related to the German political mentality: “Putin has got us talking to each other again. Hopefully.”
How lonely must German President Joachim Gauck feel as he watches his country’s Ostpolitik unfold. He once gave a speech saying that “politicians always have to take responsibility for their actions. But they also have to live with the consequences of their omissions. He who fails to act bears responsibility, too…. The consequences of inaction can be just as serious, if not worse, than the consequences of taking action.” When he said this, he must have had German politicians in mind, too. ...
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