This is personal
Those of us old enough to recall the collapse of the Soviet Union recall it as a time of triumph. It began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was human drama writ large to the tune of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” with freiheit (freedom) replacing freude (joy). The slow, majestic implosion continued until the whole corrupt Soviet system fully collapsed in 1991.
But to Vladimir Putin, 1991 was a time of anguish and disgrace. It was to Putin what 1918 was to Hitler, when Germany’s “November criminals” capitulated with the allies and were defeated in World War I.
Like Hitler, Putin sees the world in nationalistic and racial terms. Like Hitler, Putin finds in vengeance a casus belli. But unlike Hitler, Putin has something to restore. Hitler wanted to take vengeance on his enemies and transform Germany into a superpower. Putin wants to take vengeance on his enemies and resurrect the Soviet Union to its former glory. In short, Putin wants to make Russia “great” again.
The worst kind of wars are the kind led by psychopaths for whom the war is deeply personal. It usually signals a protracted conflict because normal motivations are absent. The nationalism-afflicted warrior is seldom moved by loss of men and materiel. Thus, the victory-at-any cost mentality becomes a weapon in itself.
Even so, it was easier to stage a convincing Soviet government with those old, potato-faced apparatchiks of the politburo. The young, sleek, Armani-attired oligarchs Putin has to deal with these days are a little too obviously in it for the money. No matter how hard he tries to make it otherwise, Putin can never legitimately lay claim to the old Soviet-era pretence of pure nationalism. There is a certain unmistakable component of cynicism in his nationalism, an eerie resemblance to the American mafia of the 1920s.
Nevertheless, Putin believes restoring Russia to something resembling the old Soviet Union will burnish his reputation in the minds of millions, and provide glory for his bottomless narcissism. And where Putin cannot inspire admiration he will settle for fear.
It is the kind of politics he’s always practised, and this latest politics by other means is instituted to achieve the goals he’s already warned us about. Unlike Hitler, Putin has no “Mein Kampf.” But he does have his actions of the past, his ruthlessness, his murders, his lies, his greedy corruption, to warn us all of what he’s really about and what he really intends to do.
I believe it is Putin’s intention to take back Ukraine, the Baltic states and much of Eastern Europe, just as he has taken back Georgia and annexed Crimea. I think he’s not going to stop until he does so — or dies. Naturally, he is blinded by narcissism. But it’s ever thus for narcissists.
Waiting for Putin to admit defeat is going to be just as futile as waiting for Donald Trump to concede the 2020 election. It’s probably never going to happen. Never look for normal motives in either man. They are both corrupt and unreachable, and very much corrupt and unreachable in similar ways. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.