Many Ukrainians fear not just a long war, but a potentially ‘endless’ war. As the Russian historian Sergei Medvedev has observed, Russia finally found its ultimate national idea after a search lasting three decades – since the collapse of the USSR – and that idea is war.
For today’s Russian authorities, war is a tool for preserving the cohesion of society and ensuring the legitimacy of their rule even if this requires increased repression. However, although the Putin regime is brittle like most personal autocracies that lack reliable mechanisms for succession, the country appears far from a situation comparable to 1917 when war weakened Tsar Nicolas II’s grip on power and made revolution unstoppable. On the surface, Russia appears both equipped and motivated to continue the war for several years if necessary. . . .
While Vladimir Putin controls the levers of power, it is difficult to see a recalibration of Moscow’s strategic goals in Ukraine. He has committed Russia to expanding its territorial gains in Donbas, ‘demilitarizing’ Ukraine, changing the country’s leadership (denazification) and forcing it to accept neutrality. The goal is the full abolition of Ukrainian sovereignty.
Ukraine is not Finland in 1939. On the contrary, it is viewed by wide sections of Russian society as an inalienable part of the country’s identity as a European power and, therefore, as synonymous with Russia. For the Russian elites as well as the public, settling for less than Ukraine’s surrender would not amount to victory and could call into question the huge price paid by the country in terms of human and economic losses and the damage to its reputation.
I share this outlook. It is difficult to imagine any peace amounting to more than a cease fire as long as Putin is in power. He has committed everything – his personal power and prestige, and the resources and even the identity of Russia – to conquering Ukraine. All we can do is surrender to this evil or help Ukraine fight.
4 comments:
I'm wondering why so many analysts and pundits and journalists assume Russia will be easier for the U.S. to deal with when Putin is gone rather than the other way around? I would think that after all these years of Putin being in power the entire foreign policy apparatus in Russia would be populated with people who think like he does and are at least as anti-U.S. as he is, or even worse. Why wouldn't the person who takes over be harder and more belligerent towards the U.S.? I mean hatred for the U.S. runs pretty high in Russia, and it's not like our foreign policy is friendly towards Russia, so why would we think things would get better?
The thing to remember about Russia is that it's less a government, and more a mafia. If Putin dies, there's not going to be a smooth transition of power - there's going to be a mad scramble to fill a power vacuum, carried out by ruthless men who have little to no loyalty to each other, and who will only fall in line once it's clear someone too powerful to beat has taken the throne.
Even beyond that, though, there's the matter of Russia's odd "honor" culture. Despite anti-Western sentiment, a lot of Russians secretly feel the war has been a huge and very costly mistake, and would rather see it end sooner rather than later, to avoid further costs. But they can't speak out about it while Putin is alive - whether because they're loyal to him and feel compelled to support him to the last, or whether they're critical of him but fear to cross him.
But once Putin dies, the entire cultural landscape will change. Once he dies, the taboo against criticizing him collapses. And if he dies without having won the war, he'll be perceived as a shameful failure, and people will rush to distance themselves from him and his choices. Even many of his most loyal followers will change theirs tunes, to avoid being tarnished by his poisoned legacy.
And in the scramble for power that follows, the factions and figures who do the best job of convincing the public (and more importantly, the elite oligarchs) that they're different from Putin and won't make the same costly mistakes he did, are the ones who will come out on top.
What struck me first in the 1980's when I visited Moscow was that everything I thought I knew about Russians was wrong. They admired America and wanted to befriend me, wanted my shoes and jeans, wanted freedom and access to better quality goods instead of standing in line for hours for a bag of oranges. I was invited to dinner with a young black marketeer and his mother, had a real Russian dinner, drank home made hunters vodka, and the mother gave me chocolate to take home to give to my mother.
The media only reported what Russia wanted us to hear. It was obvious to an outsider with freedom to interact (my sister worked at the US Embassy and I avoided the supervised tours given to foreigners) that their system was in reality failing.
That's my understanding of the early and mid 90s too. My brother visited several times and married a Russian girl. I don't think it is that way today, but my info is second or third hand. My brother was last there sometime in the nineties -- don't remember exactly when.
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