Vladimir Putin may be a lot of things but one thing that is entirely true is that he is reacting just as some pretty smart diplomats predicted more than 20 years ago.
To set the table for this piece, it’s important to remember a few things about Russia:
First, it is a fiercely proud nation. It’s standing among nations, particularly the West, is vitally important to the Russian character. This attitude has been prevalent since the days of the tsars. It is good to remember that as ham-fisted as Russia’s actions at home and abroad can be, it is still the country which has given is incredible cultural contributions, from Tolstoy to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff to Kandinsky and Nijinsky. The list is endless. Yet, it has been—arguably—relatively isolated for centuries.
Second, Russia has been invaded by the West twice in modern times—once by Napoleon and once by Hitler—with absolutely catastrophic consequences for the Russian people, not to mention the invaders.
Third, the soil of central and eastern Europe have absorbed more blood from war than any other part of that continent. Shifting borders from the 16th century onward, among European tribes, nations, and religions have been a regular occurrence in the part of the world.
George Kennan, once described as the smartest modern diplomat we’ve ever had, and the main architect of the 40-year Soviet containment policy during the Truman administration, knew something about Russia.
Kennan knew that every Russian leader understood that Russia’s “neurotic” view of the West was also fed by a series of autocrats who needed conflict as a justification for their rule, the most important of whom was Josef Stalin. As it relates to the present invasion of Ukraine, Kennan’s policy of containment, which was official policy of the Western nations from the 1950’s to the final collapse of the USSR in the 1990’s seems to have been manifestly successful.
In 1997 Kennan, at the age of 93, published and opinion piece in the New York Times advocating for not admitting or extending an invitation to former Soviet clients to join NATO. NATO members were keen to bring the Baltic states, Poland and Romania as well as others into the alliance.
NATO had even floated the possibility of Russia itself joining NATO (which went nowhere fast!). Kennan pointed out that here was a newly minted “democratic” Russia, emerging from 70 years of totalitarianism, unsure of itself, it total disarray economically and militarily, its gutted army having just backed out of Afghanistan, its fleet devastated and tied up in port. And now comes NATO, Russia’s archenemy since the end of the WWII, offering membership to countries no longer in its orbit, sharing a border with Mother Russia. The former satellites, themselves afraid of being overrun by the Russian bear once again, quickly jumped on the NATO bus.
In the midst of all this change, along comes Putin, an ex-KGB spook, who saw the dissolution the Soviet empire as an absolute catastrophe and who, thanks for Boris Yeltsin, found himself holding the keys to the Russian kingdom, Over the last 20 years has snuffed out the light of liberty in exchange for the reestablishment of the kind of absolute order he can personally control. And he sees NATO on his front doorstep; and worse, the possibility of a Ukraine NATO member just a few hundred miles from Moscow. Finally, Putin now has his pretext for reacquiring the former client—now members of NATO— states. NATO, he tells his people, is bent on destroying Mother Russia.
Will he move further west? Hard to tell. What is certain, though, is that Putin has taken a huge bite of the apple with Ukraine. Whether he can swallow it is yet to be decided. The same fears now are the same fears of yesteryear among Russia and her leaders. Once again, Putin, ever fearful of western encroachment and more importantly fearing a threat to his rule, has thrown down the gauntlet.
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