National Security is important. It’s particularly important these days especially in untangling from the war in Ukraine. Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and their subsequently larger invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sent a clear message to the world. And that message? Vladimir Putin was intent on reassembling the former Soviet Union. A former KGB thug, Putin recalls vividly his pride in the formerly great USSR, which evaporated before his eyes when it dissolved in 1991. He adopted a messianic mission to return the USSR to its former glory.
That’s a bit of an oxymoron given how the US military buildup under President Ronald Reagan sealed Moscow’s fate as a less than great power. Russia was confronted with a simple truth. It could not keep up with America’s military and financial capacity. Moreover, its Warsaw Pact of captive East European countries crumbled as the allure of freedom relentlessly mounted and worked against a tyrannical USSR. Putin watched it all eviscerate. He was then a rising KGB thug with no place to go.
Enter his life mission to repair and rebuilt Russia into a great power again.
Putin’s rise to glory was fueled by his passion to “Make Russia Great Again.” It should surprise no one that reassembling its former empire would require naked aggression by Russia. But his first step was to eliminate his opposition.
In 2001 when Putin became President the first time, he moved quickly to eliminate key opponents. That’s what thugs do. In short order Alexander Litvinenko, a former spy and critic, died in 2006 after consuming tea laced with polonium-210. Later that year Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter on Russian crimes in Chechnya, was assassinated in an elevator. Three years later Sergei Magnitsky died in prison having been jailed for uncovering government corruption. In 2015, Boris Nemtsov’s advocacy for democracy and human rights earned him a fatal bullet. And in 2020 Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader was poisoned with nerve agent. He recovered only to die a slow death in prison four years later.
So, does this sound like a man that would be a trustworthy partner in anything except blatant crime and thuggery? Dealing with Putin is like kissing a snake on the mouth and not expecting to be bitten. His response to political opposition is to exterminate it. Is it any surprise that he retained that same sentiment for other nations he was intent to lasso back into the Russian corral?
In 2008, he dispatched his forces to invade Georgia—no, not the one that is home to the Atlanta Braves—but rather a country that broke away from the former Soviet Union. When the West did virtually nothing to protest that aggression, he invaded Crimea in 2014. Again, the West, led by a feckless Barack Obama, did nothing. Not a single thing. So, when the United States unceremoniously abandoned Afghanistan, Putin took note. He assumed that more aggression in Ukraine was a safe bet. President Joe Biden’s suggestion that “a small incursion” by Russia in Ukraine might be acceptable was all the signal the former KGB colonel needed. It was off to the races. However, here Putin made a major miscalculation. Ukraine would fight. To the death. And when Biden offered Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy a plane to evacuate himself from his just-invaded country, the patriot made it clear that he needed not a plane but arms.
Since then, the US and NATO have supported Ukraine, but the US has grown war weary and wants the killing to end. Most sane people would agree. But there’s a caution here. President Donald Trump has sent his team to negotiate an end to the conflict. They’re there now trying to find a way forward. They have a tough mission. Why? Because Russia always approaches negotiations with the view “What is mine is mine and what is yours in negotiable.”
Russians are slow to concede anything. They are traditionally long-suffering and will wait out an opponent, even if that comes with much pain. They are experiencing increasing pain in the war with an obstinate US- and NATO-supported Ukraine. In the 80s they did not relent until Reagan spent them into capitulation even as their East European subjects decided that they had been oppressed long enough. Is the stage set for negotiation? No. Russia feels it has the advantage dealing with Americans all too eager for a peace agreement.
In that regard, the Russians persist in getting their opponents to negotiate among themselves to find a deal that Russia would be willing to accept but unwilling to actually assist in shaping. It’s a classic Russian tactic. They’re eager to let their adversaries orchestrate their own capitulation.
The President’s negotiators should beware of their own eagerness to make an agreement that leads them down the road to acquiescence.
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