Mad Genius?
Day three of the invasion of Ukraine and perception has shifted. Putin is no longer a strategic mastermind; he is now a crazed despot. Genius or madman, there is apparently no option between the two. But of course, there is. Military and political brilliance is vanishingly rare, if it exists at all and is not merely luck in disguise. And genuinely insane people can barely function. Putin’s actions may be contradictory or confusing or lack coherence, but does that really make him different from the rest of us? He is simply a man presented with a situation to which he must react. Like all of us he probably vacillates in his own mind between courses of action, at times he will feel he has clarity and act resolutely, at others his thinking will be clouded and he may struggle to keep perspective. None of this is odd; all that is unusual is the position that he holds.
So, what is the position he found himself in? He is the authoritarian ruler of a pseudo-democracy. Some of the countries bordering his which have close cultural ties have recently struggled to suppress popular protest, which can sometimes topple the government. The protests tend to aspire to some version of western democracy and social freedoms, and the governments the install reflect this. It is not particularly relevant whether the west really lives up to these ideals, or whether the protestors really understand what they are. Neither does it matter if the new government lives up to these ideals. The point is that this a model of government that has no real place for someone like Putin, and it is contagious as it spreads from polity to polity, emboldening with its successes.
Putin cannot reinvent himself as a leader to fit the new dispensation. His only option for survival is to counter the trend, but that doesn’t mean that there is a possibility of success. Analysis tends to make the implicit assumption that any outcome is possible if you choose the right path but this isn’t necessarily so. Putin may have been in a position from which there is no route to survival. Time will tell, though even then historians will posit alternative decisions that could have been made. Inevitability isn’t good for discussion because, well because there’s nothing to discuss. Similarly analysis of the response of western governments is predicated on the idea that there was something they could have done to stop Putin, and they just failed to find it. Again, inevitability is ignored.
Whatever its faults may be, one of the advantages of a functioning democracy is that it provides a mechanism for leaders to make a relatively dignified exit. The decision is taken out of their hands, usually well before they become too comfortable. As it is part of the system, they are also to some extent psychologically prepared for the eventuality. On the other hand, tyrants find it hard to let go, whether due to fear of corruption or criminality being exposed and punished, or delusions that only they can solve the problems of the nation, or simply vanity. Whatever the reason, recognizing the game is up and walking away doesn’t seem to be an option. The longer they last the more any vestige of ideology or purpose is stripped away and only personal power remains. To be ruled by Putin is freedom and anything else is oppression.
Even Putin’s spurious argument that Ukraine is not in fact a sovereign nation but actually a constituent part of Russia does him no favours in this respect. It only emphasizes the rejection of Putin. If we remove the elements of independence, sovereignty and territory and recast Ukraine as a turbulent province then the recurring rejection of Putin-friendly rulers is more clearly a rebellion against Putin’s regime and a desire for alternative form of government in Russia itself. This is exactly the outcome that Putin really fears, not his purported anxiety about military attack from NATO.
The question of how much NATO has stoked and exacerbated that concern by its behaviour in the thirty years since the demise of the Warsaw Pact recurs. There is a chicken and egg aspect to the debate. What came first — provocative acceptance of former Warsaw Pact countries into the alliance, or Russian intimidation that encouraged neighbouring countries to seek allies? How do such dichotomies emerge? Perhaps the two sides of the coin are created simultaneously with no cause and effect. Of course, it is the nature of sticking points in general that they are open to eternal dispute back and fore. This is essentially a Darwinian effect. Other points which are clarified and concluded drop from our attention, while these more intractable issues are well-adapted to continual debate. In any case, the expansions of NATO may be an irritation to Putin, but it is only a symptom of the restless political mood in these countries rather than the problem itself.
