When Russian soldiers used an ancient form of warfare to put Ukrainian military bases under siege the weekend of March 1, 2014, I learned that Russian President Vladimir Putin is crafting his pages in world history textbooks. I hope that he does not intend to print those pages with ink made from soldier and civilian blood.
Mr. Putin has made it too easy to compare him to Adolf Hitler. Like Adolf Hitler, Mr. Putin hosted an Olympic Games. Like Adolf Hitler, he has touted the super-man mystique. Unlike Hitler, Mr. Putin advertises himself as the high testosterone alpha-male. Like Hitler, Mr. Putin has targeted a population –homosexuals- and this target is mimicked around the world in places like Uganda and Nigeria. And, as was the case of 1930s prejudice against Jews, there are jealous zealots in the United States who seek permission to hate fellow citizens. The recent effort in the Arizona legislature reminds us that some Americans are still nostalgic for Jim Crow era license to be cruel. It is the kind of cruelty that preceded Stalin’s and Hitler’s purges.
Like Nikita Kruschev, Mr. Putin wants to play an old-fashioned game of brinksmanship. Last week, a Russian intelligence ship anchored in Cuba’s waters. Historians will pick up this tidbit that was omitted from US evening news. It was kind of Mr. Putin to gift us the point of comparing his invasion of the Crimea to the Cuban Missile Crises of the Kennedy administration. In future history conferences or on future C-SPAN book talks, there will certainly be one entitled, “Mr. Putin’s Crimea KKK: Vladimir’s Nostalgia for Kruschev, Kennedy and the KGB.”
So, what is the worst thing that can happen? In nineteenth century thinking, to follow Secretary of State Kerry’s language in his March 2, 2014 interview on NBC News, Mr. Putin has likely calculated that Ukrainians do not have the Clausewitzian will to fight the Soviet Union and he may be banking that memories of Stalin should pacify the region into tolerating this new Russian military presence. He acted within hours of the US announcement that we will reduce our army by almost 20%, as if that is ever an accurate measure of the American will to fight. Mr. Putin has also likely calculated two allies to open an international war on a second front: Syria and Israel. According to a November 23, 2013 headline on www.voiceofrussia.com, “Israel’s [Foreign Minister] Lieberman ‘would be very happy to have an alliance with Russia.’” Should Israel extend a protectorate over Syria? Such an idea produced by the nineteenth century’s students would be an extreme extension from PM Netanyahu’s March 4 address to AIPAC in which he highlighted Israel’s kindnesses toward Syrian refugees. But these are mere absurdities that should not be considered unless one is wearing a tin-foil hat.
Mr. Putin has miscalculated history. If he thinks that he needs Ukraine as a buffer state in the old WARSAW Pact fashion, he is not acknowledging that military technology has rendered the buffer state obsolete. Post-Cold War globalization makes them unprofitable. He has miscalculated a change in the formula for creating the national and global will to fight him. The will to fight is incubated by the people, not by the State. The global national memory has been reformulated by the USSR diaspora. The same Soviet history that compels Mr. Putin to be greater than Gorbachev also compels former Soviet citizens and Soviet proxy war survivors to contain Stalin-esque purges and deprivations. A diaspora-full of public memory of the Soviet Union will implode Mr. Putin’s historical aspirations.
Mr. Kerry is right. Mr. Putin’s invasion of the Crimea is “a nineteenth century behavior” that plays upon protecting “out little Slavic brothers.” We do not use racism anymore, Mr. Putin, to pursue foreign policy. If you want to assure a military base in the Crimea, rent it. The Ukrainian national budget could use the income. Furthermore, Russian citizens and the world’s historians will not ponder the BBC News and New York Times reports that Chancellor Merkel comments about Mr. Putin as overlooked signs of Mr. Putin’s early onset-dementia. Memories of the Soviet Union and the KGB are perhaps Mr. Putin’s greatest liability.
In this Lenten season, perhaps Mr. Putin will consider an Orthodox penance for attempting to initiate a Hitler-type annexation: he might remove the remaining landmines from Afghan farm fields. That penance might elevate Mr. Putin to sainthood.
[An abridged version of the editorial was published in the Middletown Journal-News (Ohio) on March 19, 2014.]
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