Putin does not think like us. He has his own analytic framework, his own ideas and his own ideology — only some of which comport with Western rational realism.
McFaul highlights three things that drive Putin’s thinking:
- He believes the West imposed an “unfair” peace on Russia (the USSR at the time) at the end of the Cold War. This particularly includes separating other Slavs from Russia hegemony.
- Putin sees the United States’ promotion of democracy worldwide as a threat to his autocratic rule.
- Putin thinks (or at least says) that all Russians think about the world the way he does.
On the first point (this is me talking, mostly):
Putin follows a long line of Russian leaders going back before Peter the Great who want the West to respect Russia and treat it as an equal on the world stage. The reality is that the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight and its inability to maintain the Communist economic fantasy. But it is also true that the West gave it a nudge, and certainly cheered when the Berlin Wall fell. But, as McFaul points out, “it was the leaders of the three Slavic Soviet republics who signed the agreement dissolving the U.S.S.R. in December 1991, not leaders from Washington, London, or Brussels.” But Putin, as a master of manipulation himself, sees manipulation everywhere.
This is particularly true in Ukraine. The “Green Revolution” in Kiev that toppled Putin’s Ukrainian ally was driven by internal pressure, the people wanting democracy. (Putin blamed US officials generally for the Ukrainian uprising, but not Clinton, who had left office the year before. H/t to Mark Lippman.)
In late 2011, there were demonstrations against Putin’s re-election to president. Putin blamed Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time. He was completely convinced she was behind it, and that was one major reason he backed Trump, in order to weaken her as president. (He expected Hillary to win, and saw Trump’s win as an unexpected opportunity.)
On point two (US democracy as a threat), here’s McFaul:
On this contentious issue, there is no deal to be had between the United States and Russia as long as Putin is in power. U.S. leaders cannot command other societies to stop wanting democracy. Putin will always fear mass protests and feel threatened by democracies, especially successful ones on his border with a shared history and culture such as Ukraine.
Well, actually, Trump did go a long way toward no longer promoting democracy. But with Biden in command and with the support of our allies, we are now back to the situation Putin is most uncomfortable with: a (mostly) functioning democracy that sets the example Putin doesn’t want people to see. On this point, expect Putin to keep interfering in our efforts to repair our politics.
On the third point (how Russians other than Putin think). Let me first quote a couple of other points McFaul makes:
In the United States, the dominant analytic framework for explaining international relations today is realism. This theory assumes that all countries are the same: unitary actors seeking to maximize their power or security through rational calculations in an anarchic world. The only thing that matters in the world is power — both the power of individual countries and the balance of power among them.
This, I suggest, is something along the lines of Henry Kissinger’s Realpolitik, if perhaps less cynical. McFaul says Putin sees it differently:
Putin does not view countries as unitary actors; he looks within countries to distinguish between dictatorships and democracies.
McFaul used this point to explain Putin’s concern over our democracy promotions, but it goes further:
All Russians do not think alike, and their ideas and values about domestic and foreign policy have changed over time. Western analysts who treat “Russia” as a unitary actor or who equate Putinism with all Russians are making a mistake. Even today it would be wrong to assume all Russians support war with Ukraine to preempt some fictitious, future threat of NATO expansion.
In fact, McFaul says, “most Russians expressed positive attitudes toward the Ukrainian people” and do not want unification. That is to say, the ancient “Kievan Rus’” doesn’t appeal to most Russians the way it appeals to Putin.
McFaul ends by urging that “over the long run, we also should remember that not all Russians think like Putin — and that Putin will not rule Russia forever.” That’s fine in the long run, but right now Putin does rule Russia, and he is inching his army ever closer to a hot war over Ukraine.
The Biden administration is trying many things to keep that from happening, a lot of which we can’t know about because making them public would destroy their effectiveness. In general, what Biden is trying to do is make the price for taking Ukraine too high to be worth it. Part of that price is or ought to be Russian distaste for war over Ukraine, a price which could be paid by Putin personally. This is where McFaul’s third point comes in (though he doesn’t say so). Putin hates demonstrations (point 2) and puts them down harshly. But he also knows how demonstrations can get beyond his ability to control them.
Which brings me back to McFaul’s point 1: Putin thinks the West humiliated the Soviet Union when it fell. That means that the way to deescalate the Ukraine crisis is to do so in a way that doesn't make it obvious that Putin is backing down. In diplomacy, you want to leave your opponent a way to save face as he does what you want him to do.
The best solution, to my mind, is one where everyone sits on the border and growls at each other until their throats get sore, and then quietly slip away.