Putin’s baby

What’s he up to?

Vladimir Putin has never made bones of his mission to rebuild the Soviet Union.  Early in his Kremlin career, when Western leaders were still bewitched by his soulful eyes, he proclaimed the Soviet breakup to be one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.  His foreign policies – the brutal suppression of the Chechnyan rebellion, the imposition of a customs union on Belarus and Kazakhstan, the manipulation of energy policy in Belarus and Ukraine, the protests of proposed U. S. missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, the invasions of Georgia and Ukraine – all make sense only when viewed as steps toward a new USSR.  We’re back in a Cold War, and Putin has the advantage.

Doubtless, the Republicans will accuse Barack Obama of “losing” Ukraine, but he had few options.  The West has been losing the ex-Soviet satellites since 1986 at least, when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik came within a hair of eliminating nuclear weapons.  (They probably would have done it had Reagan not insisted on his “Star Wars” plan to develop an anti-missile system in space.)  They retired the intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe – the American Cruises and Pershings, and the Soviet SS-20s.  That reduced the probability of a catastrophic war but raised the one of a conventional war, since a belligerent no longer must worry about whether an incursion could lead to a nuclear skirmish.  In this light, NATO’s refusal to promptly accept Georgia and Ukraine as members may have contributed to Putin’s decision to invade the latter.

Exit NATO

In the Wall Street Journal, a University of Chicago professor argues that the West is overreacting to the Crimean annexation; Russia just wants protection from NATO.  This does not explain why Putin is bludgeoning some of the small ex-satellites into his ever-strengthening customs union.  Of course, he won’t object to buffers against NATO, but his primary purpose evidently is to revive Russia as a superpower.  In that sense, the West’s unkindest cut was to demote the G-8 back to the G-7.  But this is unlikely to do anything other than reinforce Putin’s resolve to get his own back.

What can the West do now?  Not much.  Western trade pacts with the former Soviet satellites may delay their entry into the new Eurasian Union (for “Eurasian,” read “Soviet”), but we’ve seen the consequences of that policy for Ukraine.  Over the long run, the US must decide whether China truly has replaced Russia as the most likely aggressor.

NATO may remain weak if stagnant Western economies can’t afford it.  Putin may succeed, since only this can retain the support of the silovikii (“strongmen”) -- the domineering military and KGB-rooted bureaucrats who seek to restore Russia to its pre-Gorby greatness.  Putin knows what happened to Nikita Khrushchev when he lost the military’s support in 1964, due to his comeuppance in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

At least the Cold War gave us a few good jokes.  In one, retold by historian Martin Walker, Brezhnev is “proudly showing his mother and daughters around his luxurious dachas, his hunting lodge at Zavidovo, his vast garage.  ‘It’s wonderful, Leonid,’” his mother mutters.  “‘But what happens if the Communists come back to power?’”  Come to think of it, maybe that’s not so funny.  –Leon Taylor tayloralmaty@gmail.com

References

Steven Erlanger.  Russian aggression puts NATO in spotlight.  New York Times.  March 18, 2014.

Martin Walker.  The Cold War: A history.  Henry Holt and Company.  1995.