I sometimes listen to podcasts about the secrets behind the most famous magic tricks (three-match game, mentalism, levitation), and after reading the recent news from Russia, I saw an analogy with how Russian propaganda has achieved the seemingly impossible. Defying common sense, the Kremlin continues to stubbornly maintain that its attack on Ukraine was an act of self-defense.
Most magic tricks combine two strategies: one to produce the desired effect, and the other to distract the audience from what is really happening. Russia is doing the same with recent statements apparently designed to raise regional tensions over Ukraine. First, the Russian government approved a list of 47 foreign countries and territories (including Montenegro) whose allegedly neoliberal attitudes threaten people with "traditional Russian spiritual and moral values." Those on this list are now officially designated as "enemy states." Any semblance of support for a "multipolar" world has disappeared. If you do not share Russian values, you are the enemy.
Among those who apparently share Russia's values are North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran. The common element of these regimes is that they consider the European Enlightenment the ultimate evil. The conflict thus rises to a metaphysical-religious level, and whenever religion directly enters politics, the threat of deadly violence is never far away. Underneath all talk of a new multipolar world lies an eschatological vision of a total war to the point of extermination between two opposites.
Therefore, shortly after publishing his "enemies list," Putin announced a new nuclear doctrine that expands "the category of states and military alliances against which nuclear deterrence is implemented." In a stark warning to the West, he announced that he would consider any attack on Russia by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear state a "joint attack." In addition, the Kremlin reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack on Belarus, which is part of its "Federal State." In other words, any case where the enemy "creates a critical threat to our sovereignty" is potential casus belli for nuclear conflict.
Such statements cannot help but make us nostalgic for the good old days of the Cold War when both sides wisely avoided direct nuclear threats and announced that they would use nuclear weapons only in response to a nuclear attack by the other side. Under the terms of "mutually assured destruction," no one dared to raise the possibility of a nuclear first strike. But now, Russia is not only asserting its right to strike first, but also expanding the conditions for justifying it.
Of course, an actual Russian first strike remains unlikely. But in military matters, words are never just words. It is too easy for one side to fall into the trap of its own rhetoric. After thousands of pagers exploded in Lebanon, Iran's delegate to the United Nations said Israel had once again "crossed a red line." But at a time when "red lines" are regularly crossed, such statements can only make the situation more dangerous. After all, there must be real red lines somewhere, but they may not be well understood, implying that we won't know where they lie until they are crossed.
The obvious answer to Putin is that he is the one who crossed the red line with nuclear threats. Like those commentators who see the current war between Russia and Ukraine as a proxy war between Russia and NATO, he would have us believe that Russia was attacked first. Could this be true? Israel would say that it is only acting in self-defense in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, but much depends on how one defines "self" here. If I take territory that is not mine and then claim it as mine (like the West Bank or parts of Ukraine), and if the people living there resist, am I acting in self-defense when I destroy them?
This brings us back to the magical strategies of Russian state propaganda. By accusing his opponents of what he is already doing, Putin wants to divert attention from the fact that he stole the country and claimed it as his own. If you accept that Crimea, Donbas and any other area with "traditional Russian" values (perhaps the Baltic countries or Moldova?) are under threat, or that the Ukrainian nation is some fictional modern construct, then you have fallen for Putin's trick.
Understanding Putin's skill at deception is important in the short term, as his combination of propaganda strategies has made rational peace negotiations virtually impossible. When the terms of the negotiations are falsified from the start, what progress can be made? Reflecting on the constant calls for peace in Ukraine, Luka Lisjak Gabrielcic of the Central European University is right when he warns that "peace is too precious to be left to peacemakers."
Add Putin's third strategy of deception – presenting a brutal war of conquest as a defense of spiritual values – and his skill seems almost insurmountable. All our hope now rests in that "done."
(Copyright Project Syndicate, 2024)
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