Many are naturally perplexed at the events in Ukraine over the past few days. What motivates Vladimir Putin to invade Russia’s neighbor, Ukraine, and what motivates some mis-guided Americans to support these murderous actions?
At the risk of over-simplifying and for the purposes of this discussion only, let’s divide humanity into two opposing camps, those who believe in the possibility of a better world and those who don’t. Let’s call them what they are, optimists and pessimists.
For the pessimists, every instance of bad behavior is further evidence that the world will never change. Better, they say, to sneer at optimism and to characterize positive initiatives as silly and childish. For the pessimists of the world, the ends justify the means. Might makes Right. They see scout troops singing a song of unity around a campfire, and they ridicule them and call them naïve.
Adolph Hitler was a pessimist. So is Vladimir Putin. So is any would be dictator who believes his or her own press clippings and thinks they have all the answers and that they are, for all practical purposes, infallible. A person of this type, might, for instance, refuse to admit that he lost an election.
For the purposes of this discussion, the pessimists are not few. They are many, and their generally sunny disposition and jocular demeanor tends to disguise them. They tend to attract a following, a bunch of like-minded individuals who are looking for a hero to worship.
Prior to this invasion, Putin enjoyed very high approval rating in Russia, much higher than an American president could expect. On National Public Radio (NPR), This American Life, yesterday, Sunday February 27, a reporter, Charles Maynes interviewed a Russian woman who loves and defends him. The Russians despise Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, because, at the time, the economy was bad and there were shortages and hardships. The economy is better now, because of oil revenues and having very little to do with Putin himself. The average Russian enjoys an improved lifestyle, and they give Putin the credit without good reasons.
Proposed: Let’s shun the politics that are driven by a personality cult.
You often use the term “mis-guided,” and that makes sense because people and other social animals are natural followers–hierarchy is normal and dominant individuals provide guidance.
“Hitler did some good things for the German people,” is an awful statement that I have heard over the decades from a few Americans. Those things did not mitigate turning Germans into mass murderers.
Your admittedly over-simplistic pessimist-optimist dichotomy is, well, mis-guided. Dictators have grand visions for their glorious empires, and they attract enough support to lead their people toward promised victories. Putin has a plan to restore the Russian Empire–optimist–but he also is pessimistically afraid that expanded NATO could be an existential threat.
Refusing to admit an election loss is different than mass murder. Trump admitted defeat on December 23, 2021. His policies unleashed the best economy in decades.
The Russian economy is now in ruins and the war grinds on. Russia can win a strategic nuclear war if they strike first. Too many Western leaders say that a nuclear war is unwinnable. “Win” means one side receives little or no nuclear attack while the other side’s ability to strike is eliminated. Putin knows this.
Yesterday, the Ready Campaign, a US government program meant to prepare Americans for emergencies, advises Americans to maintain six feet of social distancing and to wear face masks when sheltering indoors to avoid nuclear fallout. Today the President, Vice President and Congress will again gather in one place while our policy is that only the President can authorize the use of nuclear weapons.
Shun the continued retreat from objective reality.
Here is a 31-minute video that explains Putin’s motives:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE
Richard: Thanks for the very informative video link that does explain and illustrate Russia’s historic and economic and strategic justifications for these recent militaristic incursions.
The video explains the rationales. It does not excuse the loss of life and the devastating destruction.
Putin is the aggressor. Now the NATO powers have a gift from him, an excuse, if you will, to chase him back across the existing border.
Mr. Putin should have been more actively engaged in economic and geographic negotiations than economic and geographic onslaught!
Putin and his followers are destroyers. Good people are makers.
Putin and his followers have more nuclear weapons than we have. Their policy is to escalate first and then use de-escalation as a bargaining tool and only then they will actively engage. At a community meeting in San Antonio with Air Force Lieutenant General Roberson in 2015, I asked about strategic missile defense (It does little against a massive pre-emptive strike, and it is still true.) and he added that Russia’s policy is to nuke first and negotiate later.
Putin said that sanctions and sending weapons to Ukraine are acts of war. His destroyers will cut off the supplies. When he said that the “special operation” was going along on schedule, he may be right, step by step, no turning back. For him the War is against the West.
The West is the by far the highest-value target for Russia-China and Jihadis.
“An optimist says that we are in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist agrees.” (from a joke book)
Richard: You paraphrased General Roberson as follows: “Russia’s policy is to nuke first and negotiate later.”
I do not wish to be seen as defending Vladimir Putin in any way, but when and where has he dropped nuclear bombs as a negotiation strategy. I am perfectly willing to accept that his invasion is a negotiation strategy, a barbaric and ill-conceived one though.
An optimist might not have to go all the way to Candide’s Pangloss. An optimist might just say, “Nobody is exploding nuclear firecrackers on the heads of their neighbors, so that much is at least good.”
Do you think raising the spectre of nuclear war is absolutely necessary in the current situation? Do you not see that going right to the Doomsday scenario might have some negative consequences?
And get a better joke book!