Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 6 – Vladimir Putin’s
childish and thoughtless actions recall the last years of Imperial Russia with
the worsening situation at home opening the way to a new 1905 revolution and
the worsening situation abroad opening the way to a new 1914, according to
former MGIMO professor Andrey Zubov.
In an interview on Espresso TV
yesterday, Zubov argues that Putin by his failure to exercise a minimum of good
sense has driven Russia to the edge of a situation like that which produced the
failed revolution of 1905 and which led to the disastrous beginning of World
War I (szona.org/professor-zubov-situatsiya-napominaet-1905-god-eto-put-v-propast/).
“The present situation recalls 1914”
because like his tsarist predecessor, Putin is acting on the basis of revenge
rather than geopolitical calculation, an approach that opens the way to
uncontrolled escalation. “Revenge is not a spiritual or Christian or even a
political thing.” It is the response of a child to the experience of adversity,
the foreign policy specialist says.
At the same time, Zubov continues, the
situation recalls 1905, with living standards falling after a long rise and
with “whole groups of the working population in the first instance the
long-haul truckers” and the St. Petersburg dockworkers beginning to protest in
ways that the Kremlin does not seem to have any answer for except repression.
And just as at the end of Romanov
times, these two trends are feeding off each other and making each other worse,
with the regime trying to engage in “a good little war” to win back popular
support and the population increasingly impoverished and angry because of the
regime’s failure to get a victory.
The current
escalation of the conflict with Turkey is “very bad for the ruling group in
Moscow,” the former MGIMO professor says. Russia has no allies and is now “isolated
from the entire world.” If things proceed as they are now going, there will be
a war of some kind “and even a small war is a catastrophe for Russia.”
“Putin is trying to support Asad in
order to retain influence in the Middle East, but Asad is a political corpse.
In Syria, he has not future; in principle, he does not have a future anywhere.
Therefore, this is an absolute political mistake,” and it is leading Russia
into “a dead end” from which it will be increasingly difficult to escape.
It is far from clear what Putin’s
calculations are. “Even in Ukraine, the prospects of his policy looked more
realistic than in Syria. In Ukraine, it was possible to hope for a
revolutionizing of the south and east,” although that didn’t happen, “but in
Syria there are not even any such chances.”
“The Sunni majority to which the
Kurds also belong fiercely hate the Asad regime, and anyone who supports Asad
will be their enemy, including Putin.” Whether the Kremlin leader understands
that or not is far from clear, and the kind of language he and his supporters
are using suggest that he is acting from emotion rather than calculation.
“This is not geopolitical behavior;
this is irrational and comparable with the actions of the 19th and
first half of the 20th centuries when leaders did not reflect about
the real consequences of their psycho-emotional processes,” Zubov says. But
even most of them acted with more careful calculation than has Putin.
Stalin and Hitler may have acted out
of anger, but they always combined with with “an almost mathematical accounting”
of forces. Today, “there is none of that.” Instead, Russia like some other
post-Soviet states is being run by “a dilettante” who is acting out of motives
like personal revenge rather than geopolitical calculation.
According to Zubov, “anyone from the
street could do what Putin is doing. Power, especially the absolute power which
Putin has, turns the head of he who has it, and as the old saying puts it,
corrupts absolutely.” But Putin could
still get out of this situation if he would stop and reflect, Zubov suggests.
Indeed, Syria and ISIS could give
him a chance. The entire world is now focusing on Islamist terrorism and “Putin
really should become a member of this coalition,” something he could do by
giving up his lone ranger approach. If he were to do so, he could use his gains
to “resolve the Ukrainian problem at the same time.”
“Unfortunately,” Zubov continues, “the
Kremlin has turned out to be incapable of this.” Instead, it relies on “two
types of arms – boldness and lies, and with their help and with the help of
real weapons, it is trying to resolve all world problems. But this is a dead
end. Even the Ribbentrops and the Molotovs were more skilled diplomats.”
Putin’s foreign minister, Sergey
Lavrov, whom Zubov has known since their time as students, “has completely lost
his capacity to act as a good diplomat.” Instead, he and Vitaly Churkin at the UN
are forced to lies. “A diplomat never lies!” Zubov says. He may not tell all
the truth, he may hide things, “but to lie when everyone knows you are lying is
not diplomacy.”
Lavrov should have resigned when the
issue of the annexation of Crimea was being discussed because he certainly
would have recognized that “this is not in the interests of Russia.” But he
didn’t, and so he has been forced to continue to lie, the former MGIMO
professor continues.
Even Soviet foreign minister Andrey
Gromyko “did not permit himself to act” as Lavrov now is. Yes, he was “’Mr. No,’
… but he was a tough negotiator, not a banal liar.” Unfortunately, Russian
diplomacy now is “a lie.” And what may be even worse, the propensity to lie has
now spread to the Russian military.
Russian commanders are now saying
things that everyone knows are not true. Zubov recalls that his father, a
Soviet admiral, “always said that if a military man lies, he isn’t a military
man and should have his shoulder boards ripped off. The honor of the uniform
requires him to speak the truth or be silent, but not to lie.”
That Russian generals lie shows that
“they already are not generals.”
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