> there's been a tendency for Western liberals to concentrate on Putin, oppose him, and therefore idealize his opponents
Seems to depend on whether someone believes Russia's security interests have some level of legitimacy. If the war is unfounded then it is an act of madness and the motivation is probably attributable to a single charismatic individual (and Putin must be that person). The view is part of the "Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine!" narrative.
If Russian has legitimate security interests in the region then it doesn't matter so much who the president is and Putin's role in events is important but it is likely others would have made the same choice.
>Putin with his actions has brought a nasty war to the doorstep of the western world
Putin's point of view is that US brought a violent and dangerous regime to the doorstep of the Russian world. Sounds like this isn't a starting point for a discussion.
>Putins actions are believed to go against every principle on which this stability is based
Putin's point of view is that Russia has no seat at the table that decides what are the global governance principles and what is the Western consensus. Further Western actions in Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Kosovo have been interpreted by Putin as harmful to stability and peace of the Russian world. Bottom line both West and Russia have different narratives of the past 10-20 years. The problem of the West is that it doesn't admit the validity of alternative narratives (i.e. unipolar world) while Russians understand both their own narrative and the Western narrative. Further, Russians are more effective than Westerners at winning the hearts and minds of those who don't belong to the "golden billion". I agree with you that ultimately this is a war of perceptions. I think it is one that the West is losing because the contradictions of its narrative are surfacing very quickly.
“Anti-Western sentiment, though by no means universal, has been inflamed by Putin and has taken a firm hold in the hearts and minds of many Russian citizens – including, depending on the particular topic in question, among young people.
“This is not going to change after Putin’s departure, in part because Russian society also suffers from a post-imperial syndrome characterized by a state of deep resentment towards the West, which to Russian eyes neither allows the country to remain a superpower nor has provided it with a decent place within the international system.”
This might give some context to why many Russians seem to support this war. It seems more persuasive than the idea that they have all just been gulled by propaganda.
My point is that the war in Ukraine showed that West has little understanding of Russia's point of view, what price Putin is willing to pay, what he perceives as a gain.
This may be what the West is fighting for, in a cynical fashion. And it’s not exactly wrong: “the West” is a lot of people and some have motivations that are less than noble. But an alternative argument is that the West is fighting for liberal democracy as an alternative to authoritarian governance (or “democracy in name only” authoritarianism.)
It's become fashionable recently to claim that liberal democracy is on the ropes, and to argue that the future will be full of effective authoritarian governments (despite over a century of such governments being out-competed by modern democracies.) The Ukraine war is a hell of a showcase for the weakness of that strategy. At the end of the day, the real lesson the world should take from this war is that democracy (and particularly liberal democracy) simply works better than authoritarian systems: not because it’s perfect, but because it gives societies a way to course-correct and recover from corruption and stupid mistakes. During peaceful times it's really easy to forget this and get frustrated by democracy: there’s a lot of appeal to the idea of handing governance over to an effective strongman. But even if you somehow luck into a brilliant strongman, dictators eventually age and make mistakes. When that inevitably happens your government won't have the structures necessary to correct them. The performance of the Russian military in Ukraine is an extreme example that shows how naturally self-limiting this strategy can be.
> "westerners think in such-and-such way, they'll never understand our situation" -- is exactly the mind trap that Putin and the secessionists in eastern Ukraine would love to have everyone fall in.
Well, the future aside, I'm talking about it post-factum. So yes, so far the ineffectiveness of the west plays hand in hand with Putin.
I do not understand why people downvote you if they are sincere to the truth. You points are correct and what West doesn't realise is that Putin is at war with West civilisation. He acts like it's a war and he thinks in terms of war. People do not realise, because it seems crazy to create war when there is no need for it, but this is exactly why they loose, because Putin uses it for his advantage. I just hope people would wake up and understand how serious threat is.
It can be tempting to cast irrational actors as coldly logical, but if one does so one should be careful to infer actually logical motives.
Attacking Kyiv doesn't really make a difference to whether the West can access Ukraine's natural resources. Even attacking infrastructure, whole far more logical, would really only have a temporary impact. Insofar as the west actually needs those resources, then it will deploy its own immense infrastructure to get at them.
So, Putin's actions are only logical if he is also successfully attacking power structures of the west, to convince them that it is better to buy from Russia than deploy the capability to get at those resources. We could argue whether such attacks are happening but they don't appear to be working.
The conflict between Russia and the West is that once upon a time they represented competing similar power spheres of influence with the most important singular difference being which country would sit at the top and all other ideological differences being secondary.
Their ecomic and military power collapsed but their ambitions did not. In a more rational world they would do what other former great powers do and talk shit but actually align their actual behavior with their factual strength because it doesn't pay to pick fights you can't win. Because their leadership has a unrealistic idea of their actual power they are locked in an immoral and unwinnable struggle to subjugate peoples and lands over which they have no moral or legal rights because that is what Moscow does they subjugate people that ethnically aren't Russian enough loot their treasure and use them as cannon fodder to murder other people they would like to subjugate.
Making this a response to liberalism is just complete nonsense. It's a last power grab by an immoral and acquisitive power who sees theirs draining away.
I find the rationale for Russia's aggression fuzzy at best, but I think to view this as a Russia versus NATO or Russia versus Ukraine is, perhaps, less helpful than it first appears.
In short, I suspect this may be Putin's way of applying pressure to Russian elites. The actions proceeding from him appear desperate (i.e. the brazen assassination attempt of Nalvany) and suggest that Putin feels much less secure than his strongman portrayal suggests.
This war achieves something Putin lacks hegemony over, restricting the lifestyles and wealth of Russia's nomadic elite (and especially their assets). Elite members of Russian society will almost surely be targets of Western sanctions. This may secure Putin and his cronies and ensure a desirable transition of power by kneecapping potential contenders of the Russian throne (for lack of a better word). No doubt western sanctions will be leaky and allow some elites through relatively unscathed, but it may restrict their latitude of choice sufficiently.
I think this is Putin versus the elites. Elites who may be feeling comfortable usurping Putin and installing someone pliant to their interests. Putin may be simply reminding them of what he is capable of.
I suspect Ukraine was selected due to the presence of a large minority of citizens neutral or proponents of Russian rule. Other former Soviet states seem much more reluctant to be Russian subjects. I think Russia is simply conquering territory of peoples who will not oppose its rule.
Perhaps Putin is insane, or delusional, but evaluating public actions without knowing what went on behind closed doors feels too rash.
> The revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine of 2004-5 fed Putin’s “dark paranoia” that the Kremlin was threatened by a western plot to topple his regime. The Kremlin has subsequently revelled in escalating conflicts with the western powers as a marker of Russia’s newly regained stature on the world stage.
The US has spent a generation pushing first the Soviets, then Russia, back into a very tightly confined sphere of influence. There is no obvious limit to the amount of harm the US has been wishing on Russian interests.
It is a remarkably cycloptic perspective call such fears 'paranoid' or to paint Russia as some sort of aggressor. Russia isn't the one with military bases set up in North America. Russia isn't cutting people off from the global trade network or invading every other country in Western Asia. They are a relatively neutral country on the world stage in terms of aggressive foreign posture, even accounting for this article.
One interpretation is that this is a proxy war against the West by Russia (because its president was not “chosen” by Putin and he hates democracy/the “West” as an ideal).
> "the world Mr Putin desires would be far more decadent, self-serving and amoral than the one that exists today."
That's true but that's just a pretty basic observation, the thing that the article seems to want to say most of all is that the rest of the world outside of a relatively small minority portion in the 'West' is either supportive of Russia or ambivalent and I don't see the support for that thesis.
See the part that starts with:
"In Mr Putin’s world, where might makes right, today’s lack of support is proof of Western decline."
Haven't you read Russian propaganda? The west (which is the devil, basically) is waging war against Russia. The west is the reason Russia is a shithole rural petro-state. Also, the west is trying to turn Russian men into gays. After this incident, the west will ramp up the 'war' by not sending troops or firing anything in Russia's general direction even HARDER. But will still try to turn Russians gay and make fun of Putin, because in the limited universe of the Russian propagandist, 'the west' is the end-all enemy of Russian greatness.
Did I mention that the west is to blame for Ukraine getting invaded by the Russians? In the spirit of "Look What You Made Me Do", Russia was basically forced to bomb hospitals and schools. It will all be Biden's fault when Russia becomes a larger North Korea.
Did I also mention Russia has 0 agency? Everything it does is driven by the west.
I think these are good points but the main shortcoming of all the theories about Russia is that we still treat (or want to) Russia as a rational actor.
I remember just before the war I would bid everything that Russia would in no way start the war. It just didn't make any rational sense. Who in sound mind would think to do it knowing that all the West [might/would] unite against you.
However rationality is being lost in personal agendas and Mafioso thinking of some sorts.
Now we see that after any Russian loss, be it a warship or loss of territory Russia responds with some pity attack against civilians. For example wasting expensive missiles to blow out a few floors of some high rise residential building. It is just hard to understand by rational western thinking.
However growing up in post-soviet country this kind of thinking is prominent amongst post-soviet mafias and similar sorts of groups - "if I can't have it nobody will". It is some kind of childish, failure to launch thing. "If I lost football match I will destroy the ball and that will show everybody". People grow out of it, thugs become thugs exactly for this reason - failure to grow up, lack of empathy because of family problems and etc.
Moreover you can see this in all the Russian army from the very top to the very bottom. What self respecting army would terrorize civilians after any push back. "We are retreating but we will put grenades under every pillow in every house in this village. That will show them". If this kind of thinking is prominent among all the population, all the army and etc. it starts to make more sense.
A simple "If we can't profit out of it we will blow it up and then you will know" starts to make sense.
Then you have "we can frame this on USA/Ukraine" because everybody knows "it is not in our interest".
Then you have Putin's interest - pipeline can become very profitable thing for the oligarch who gets rid of Putin and makes peace with the West. So it becomes a personal danger to Putin.
So it really could be Russia being Russia and Russian elite trying to "stay relevant" by their own (what west would call) crazy thinking.
Russia invaded neighboring sovereign nation with the goal of annexing the territory. Dichotomy is simple: If you want to live in a world where this is okay, you can support Russia.
See how you have to twist every fact in order to preserve your worldview?
First of all, who started it is not irrelevant; it's the entire reason for this war. Only Russia wants this war, and the only reason it's still going on is because Putin doesn't want to lose face. Because admitting he failed, would be admitting weakness and would weaken his position, which is something a strongman like him can't afford. But he could end the war any time he wants to.
Secondly, the entire west is quite explicitly not at war with Russia. The entire west is explicitly staying out of the war in order to prevent a war with Russia, because they don't want to escalate the war. Putin is only painting it as a war with the west to the Russian people in order to justify his own failure. If the west had entered the war, Zelensky would have his no-fly zone and a lot more. Once NATO enters the war, there won't be much left of the Russian military positions in Ukraine, and Putin knows this very well. But he needs this lie in order to not look weak to his own people.
The fact you believe Putin's propaganda suggests you listen too much to Russian state media.
Exactly. Russia's modus operandi for dealing with the West is asymmetric warfare designed to interrupt, hamstring and confuse, without ever crossing the line into conventional warfare - which Russia cannot finance or win. This would fit neatly into that category, not that I have any idea of who is responsible. The point is that if there is an attacker, the motives are far from inscrutable.
The argument russia uses is "strategic buffer". However, the west was not putin's enemy before putin started invading countries.
The answer in my opinion is that like the US Russia's leader's are too old. When you're older 20-30 years is like a few years passing by. To putin it was not so long ago when NATO agreed not to expand eastward but also when Russia agreed to Ukraine's independence in exchange for them giving up nukes.
After Iraq and Afghanistan, Putin knew that it was the right time to start invading, because the one critical weakness of America is it's dependence of the will of the people to start and continue to fight a war. America is still weary of "boots on ground". That's why he didn't envision so much western support for Ukraine because he would assume the west would not risk a possible escalation to war, but the west is able to go all the way up to the red line and all but cross it.
Russian leaders and Putin in particular believe that the only way to be great, given their vast territory and relatively small population and the only way to have the home land of western Russia prosper is by having strategic advantage over others. Primarily, this means dominating its neighbors but also interfering in random countries (much like the US) as well.
I believe until Hillary Clinton screwed up the relationship with Putin as Obama's secretary of state he was open to the idea of being freinds with the west, so long as they let him be a good old dictator and do whatever he wants.
Hillary (and by proxy Obama) made the mistake of trying to force human rights, democracy, gay rights,etc... which meant being critical of Russia, meanwhile pushing THAAD to eastern NATO countries in a time of peace.
What was the expectation? For putin to go down like Gadaffi? To have a russian arab spring and Putin quietly retire to his Yacht? Come on!
The west could not tolerate Putin nor could it stop interfering with Russias internal matters including the whole Chechnya thing which even to regular Russians that made them upset against the west.
So in my opinion, Putin had two choices, accept western influence and eventually allow for a democratic Russia with liberal western ideals and cede power and influence over the oligarchs (who also don't want democracy or western liberalism) and militarily, imagine being a nuclear power and your neighbors have ICBM interceptors which meant neutering your nuclear capability (imagine russia having those in mexico and canada) which is obviously an act of agression he would have to tolerate. The second option would be to resist.
I can't support Putin's invasions of course but the west cornered a bear and everyone acts shocked when the bear starts mawling everyone near it.
It is pure western dishonest propaganda to say Putin like Hitler just wants more territory and will invade all of europe if no one stops him. Even if he controlled all of eastern Europe western expansion means nuclear war. At best he will invade all eastern europe countries that are not nato members with the exception of Poland,Finland and sweden.
Do you know why he interfered in the 2016 elections so much? Because freaking Hillary Clinton who already pissed him off with arrogant western expansion/interference and disrespect was about to become president, so he recruits a rich new york asshole that's been in bed with the Russian mob since the early 90s and you know the rest of the story.
The one single act of this century that will reshape the power dynamics of world super powers (and possibly a lot more than that) is the democratic party's insistence on nominating Hillary Clinton who emodies a special brand neo-liberal "manifest destiny" . Bernie would tell putin to go f himself but would not put THAAD in eastern europe or demand democracy in russia knowing full well that means deposing and agitating the current dictator of Russia.
Pride and arrogance comes before downfall.
Edit: to those who are downvoting me, I just ran into this: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/24/vladim... It explains Putin's thinking behind Ukraine's invasion. I am not justifying his invasions but pointing out the role of the west in knowingly being hostile and provoking Putin. It is this same neocolonial "manifest destiny" thinking that is resulting in so much hostility with China.
Seems to depend on whether someone believes Russia's security interests have some level of legitimacy. If the war is unfounded then it is an act of madness and the motivation is probably attributable to a single charismatic individual (and Putin must be that person). The view is part of the "Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine!" narrative.
If Russian has legitimate security interests in the region then it doesn't matter so much who the president is and Putin's role in events is important but it is likely others would have made the same choice.
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