POLITIKA

Sources of Russian behavior

Russian President Vladimir Putin has always followed a clear formula for escalation: bear increasing pressure for a while, but eventually crack. Such a record suggests that his decision not to react strongly to the Ukrainian invasion of Russia's Kursk region should not be taken as evidence that his "red lines" are mere bluffs.

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Putin, Photo: REUTERS
Putin, Photo: REUTERS
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

This is not strictly a review of Sergei Radchenko's recent book, “Running the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Attempt to Gain Global Power”. Rather, it is an invitation to find in the book a new perspective on the sources of Russian foreign policy, along the lines of American diplomat George F. Kennan's famous 1947 assessment of “the sources of Soviet behavior.” Focusing on the logic driving the foreign policy decisions of Soviet leaders, Radchenko seeks to shed light on Russian President Vladimir Putin's often bloody quest to restore Russia's status as a great power on par with the United States.

From Joseph Stalin to Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leaders shared Putin's desire for "great power" prestige. Leonid Brezhnev, who succeeded Nikita Khrushchev in 1964, envisioned a world governed jointly by the Soviet Union and the US, who respected each other as "equals."

But while the United States accepted an equal relationship on paper, Radchenko explains, the Soviets felt "forced into the humiliating position of delinquents, currently being taught by someone who (the truth) is also not beyond the reach of criticism."

Putin had similar experiences. For about a quarter of a century since he came to power, he has sought equality with the West, led by the US. There were periods, for example, when he accepted NATO and even aspired to Russian membership. But Putin has always believed that Russia's size and historic role in global affairs deserve special treatment: Russia is not just another country, and the West should act accordingly. This meant careful weighing of how their decisions might affect Russian interests and risk perception.

The West thought otherwise. When NATO admitted three former Soviet republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in 2004, Putin began to view the Alliance as an existential threat. But the prospect of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO pushed Putin over the edge: it was a key motivation for Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia.

This reaction might seem exaggerated, but it is quintessentially Russian. As Radchenko claims, Putin - like all Soviet leaders - has the same fear as Rodion Raskolnikov, a character in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's classic work, "Crime and Punishment": he who does not respond forcefully to life's humiliations is a "trembling creature", without rights or interests that anyone would protect. Accepting neglect from other powers, let alone hostility, is simply not an option.

Putin was clear about this from the start. When he assumed the presidency in 2000, he was already warning the West that if he pushed Russia away, “we will be forced to find allies and strengthen our forces. What else can we do?”

That's how Russia annexed Crimea, when the US openly supported Ukraine's Maidan Revolution in 2014, which led to the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. A casual statement by US President Barack Obama, in which he dismissed Russia as a "regional power", only strengthened Putin's determination to strengthen Russia's global status. In 2022, he proved how serious he was by launching an all-out invasion of Ukraine. If the West does not recognize what belongs to Russia, Putin defends its interests by force. What else could he do?

So when the Russian president says that war between NATO and Russia would become inevitable if the United States and the United Kingdom allow Ukraine to fire Western long-range missiles at Russia—as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has requested—he should not be dismissed lightly.

While Putin has not openly threatened to use nuclear weapons—saying only that the changed nature of the conflict would require a concrete response, and therefore Russia's nuclear doctrine will now have a lower threshold for action—others in his circle have invoked the threat even more directly.

Of course, such an answer is not guaranteed. As the "Washington Post" noted in a headline recently, "Ukraine keeps crossing Russian red lines." Putin keeps blinking." But this kind of thinking can prove dangerous. After all, the Kremlin has always followed a clear formula for escalation: it endures increasing pressure for a while, but eventually it snaps, much like a rubber band.

So Putin's decision not to react strongly to the Ukrainian invasion of Russia's Kursk region doesn't mean he's going to swallow anything. At a certain point, he will decide—with little regard for the consequences—that he has no choice but to prove that he is not a "trembling creature." Missile strikes deep inside Russian territory could bring it to that point.

Western observers seem to be largely convinced that Russia would not actually use nuclear weapons, because there is no "win" in a nuclear war. But that pesky Dostoevsky logic suggests that, for Putin, exposing Russia to nuclear retaliation may be the price of standing up to those who want to subdue it. Russians writhing in pain from burns and radiation poisoning can at least be proud that they didn't back down. The Europeans, also burned and poisoned, can console themselves with the thought that they did not blink.

The West's willingness to dismiss Putin's threats as mere noise is not only contrary to historical tradition, but also to its own warnings that Putin intends to attack NATO countries. For example, US President Joe Biden warned in August that Russia would not stop at Ukraine. However, even here, the West fundamentally misunderstands Putin: he would prefer to avoid a direct confrontation with NATO. The risk is that he will decide that the West forced him to do so.

In 1997, Kenan warned that NATO expansion "could predictably fuel" Russia's "nationalist, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies" because it gave Russians the impression that their prestige - "always uppermost in the Russian mind" - and security interests "threatened."

But conflicts need not end in disaster, as Khrushchev demonstrated during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Gorbachev with his perestroika policy in response to Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. The challenge for the West is to ensure that the tragic conflict unfolding in Ukraine does not become apocalyptic.

(Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024.)

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