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March 28th, 2024

Insight

Putting Putin In His Place

Paul Johnson

By Paul Johnson

Published Sept. 22, 2014

Putting Putin In His Place
Things have gone badly for the West recently. Not since the end of the Cold War has it appeared so fragile or Russia so confident. This is shown most strikingly in the contrasting characters of the leaders.

Barack Obama was elected President primarily because he is an eloquent, persuasive campaigner. To many voters he seemed to represent a much wanted change. He has turned out to be an indecisive President, who inspires neither respect in his allies nor fear in his enemies.

In contrast, Vladimir Putin is the most formidable Russian potentate since Joseph Stalin. He has a clear program—to rebuild the Soviet empire—and is totally ruthless in pursuing it. Trained in the KGB, Putin is an expert liar, forger and bully, whose instincts are a brilliant mix of the brazen and the deceptive. He makes Obama seem like a child.

Putin also has the enthusiastic support of a powerful segment of Russian opinion, including vociferous members of the old Soviet hierarchy—the military, bureaucrats and intelligentsia—and the more rabid leaders of the Orthodox church, not to mention the dispossessed rulers of the former Soviet colonies. He can therefore pose as a populist and act like a tyrant.

But Putin is also vulnerable. His besetting weakness is vanity, exhibited in publicity shots in which he vaunts his bare torso and muscular physique (exactly like Benito Mussolini) or in which he's shown walking through the Kremlin's gilded state rooms, being bowed through the doors by guards dressed in ceremonial Napoleon-era uniforms.

Putin's power depends largely on continuing success. So far the weakness of the West has given it to him. But, as a reminder of Putin's possible fate, we should remember what happened to Nikita Khrushchev half a century ago. This crude and vigorous man, like Putin, played on America's weakness. Encouraged by the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Khrushchev tried to deploy Soviet rockets in Cuba and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war, until he was forced into a humiliating withdrawal.

In due course Khrushchev's politburo colleagues ganged up on him and dismissed him for "adventurism." He ended up on a park bench in a Moscow suburb, buttonholing strangers and boasting of his former greatness.

Could Putin go the same way? "Adventurism" perfectly describes his policy in Ukraine. He delights in high-risk moves and bellicose public postures. But he would recoil from any serious possibility of war with the West, which would be bound to be nuclear.

One should remember Talleyrand's wise axiom: "Russia is never as strong as it looks. Russia is never as weak as it looks." There may be a noisy nationalist wing to which Putin turns for encouragement and support—and we should never underestimate its grass-roots following—but there's also a large and growing Russian middle class that's doing fairly well in the post-Cold War climate and wants to hang on to its prosperity and prospects. The West can appeal to this class over the heads of Putin and his nationalists.

But to do this successfully will require a reinvigorated NATO. The EU is, to use poker terminology, a busted flush. The euro zone is in permanent recession. Even Germany is doing badly. Its leader, Angela Merkel, is too burdened with Teutonic war guilt to take a strong, independent stance. France's amorous and idiotic president, François Hollande, is destroying his own Socialist base in his futile efforts to restart the recessive French economy. Italy, a gruesome model of misgovernment, now has a smaller per capita GNP than it had 15 years ago. The bureaucracy in Brussels—whose tipsy president-elect, Jean-Claude Juncker, is a typical product—exerts a tighter grip than ever. Consequently, there is no prospect of the EU's coming together as a whole to exploit Putin's weakness.


A RESURRECTION OF RESOLVE

NATO is a different matter. A revival is a distinct possibility, especially if Boris Johnson takes over Britain's leadership from David Cameron. His voice could help return NATO to its sense of mission. Parts of Europe, such as Poland and the Baltic states, that were long occupied by the Soviet Union and know exactly what it's like to live under Russia's thumb are beginning to exert their influence and make their voices heard.

But without U.S. leadership NATO can't work effectively. As long as a comatose President lingers on in Washington, Putin's adventurism will continue. It will require a resurrection of American resolve to send Putin where he belongs—to the oblivion of a park bench.

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Eminent British historian and author Paul Johnson's latest book is "American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant".

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