Paul
Goble
Staunton, February 2 – There are two
possibilities in Russia today: either Vladimir Putin is in control of events or
he is their prisoner, trapped between war and revolution. As bad as the first would
be, the way the world has gone to war in the past suggests the second may be
even worse. Tragically, that is the situation Putin has put himself in now, Yevgeny
Ikhlov says.
As history shows, the Moscow
commentator says, “wars do not always begin with carefully prepared strikes.”
They often happen because leaders have acted in ways that reduce their room for
maneuver and leave them with no obvious or at least acceptable option but to go
to war (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=56B042CD05A46).
That is exactly
where the German general staff in the run up to 1914; and it is exactly the
same one Putin is in now, “irreversibly sliding toward war because [the Kremlin
leader] has consistently blocked all possibilities” for changing course that do
not appear to him to be a worse option for himself.
Putin’s first move toward a
situation in which he would be confronted with a choice between war and
revolution in fact occurred when he made war on the oligarchs and the
bureaucracy and promoted “paternalistic” ideas about his rule which allowing “unprecedented
growth of social stratification,” Ikhlov says.
“The gap between the social divide,
the expropriation of independent business by the Putin ‘oprichniki,’ the
elimination of competitive politics on the one side and Bonapartist (in the
spirit of Napoleon III, of course) and of demagogically constructed Putinism
inevitably had to become the start of a major social-political split,” he
continues.
This split was very much in evidence
in the demonstrations of December 2011, demonstrations that made a war in
Ukraine an attractive option. But that war had the effect of prompting the West
to declare “a second Cold War,” something that began small but has expanded
over time.
When the Donbas descended into
chaos, Putin chose “crypto-intervention.” That and the shooting down of the
Malaysian jetliner made everything worse, the Moscow commentator says, and the
Second Cold War was unleashed in earnest.
The collapse of oil prices and sanctions forced Putin to play on
xenophobia.
But it also put in him a position
where the only way he could get out of one war “was through another, the air
blitzkrieg in Syria,” Ikhlov says. But
the logic of that attack which involved Russia in a conflict without any “rational
goals” led to confrontation with Turkey.
And that too has followed its own “unfolding logic.”
Putin can’t retreat in Syria without
having his entire foreign policy called into question, something that could
destroy his regime at home. If he could make domestic reforms, that might save
him. “But when reforms replace foreign policy adventurism and then there
follows collapse and defeat, it is difficult to imagine a better detonator for
a revolution.”
The Kremlin leader could compensate
for a retreat in Syria by an escalation on the Ukrainian front – scrapping Minsk
2, recognizing the DNR and LNR, and “openly introducing forces there, as was
done in Georgia in 2008. But that would have real and dangerous consequences,
Ikhlov says.
“It would convert Russia into “an
outcast” and lead to “the appearance in Ukraine of American soldiers sent their
by the next president of the US. And it
is far from certain that such a foreign policy sharpening would prevent the
growth of dissatisfaction within the country” because none of its domestic ills
are being addressed.
What will Putin do in this
situation? He has “never decided to shift finally to the model of a besieged fortress,”
as some of his advisors want “because it would involve not only the purge of a ‘fifth’
and ‘sixth’ ‘column’ but also the nationalization of the oligarchy, a forced
credit amnesty and other left of center measures.”
According to Ikhlov, “Putin will not
decide on show purges of the ruling nomenklatura because he knows the lessons
of history and above all that it is difficult to keep such anti-elite terror in
bounds.” But that is only one of Putin’s dilemmas for which there is no obvious
or at least acceptable answer.
For example, “Putin cannot rein in
Kadyrov” first and foremost because “this would be a moral victory of the
liberal opposition, the most consistent opponents of his regime.” And he dare
not do so lest Kadyrov in the event show himself unwilling to follow orders to
leave and use his own resources to fight for himself.
“The logic of the slide toward war
is overwhelming” for Putin, Ikhlov says.
Anything he would do at home to cover retreats abroad would put his
regime at risk. “And so, only war
remains,” not perhaps in Ukraine where “even a conventional one would be too
much” as “the fate of Milosevic” shows.
Putin would like to keep things
bubbling right “at the edge of war,” but Ikhlov suggests that he does not have the
ability to control events that well. Instead, the commentator suggests, “Putin
has created a situation in which in principle he cannot win.” Therefore he will seek a war elsewhere and at
present that means Turkey.
“In the best case, “this will be
limited to military hysteria. In the worst,” to the use of Russian forces. But
that will give Turkey the possibility of appealing to NATO under Article 5 and
also to close the straits. Thus, Putin will discover that “Russia will be able
to fight with Turkey only with nuclear weapons.”
Any threat of that will bring the UN
Security Council into play, Ikhlov says; and Putin will stand finally between
war and revolution. The Kremlin leader already “understands perfectly how he
has run away from revolution in Crimea and the Donbas and from the Donbas to
Syria and that he will be able to avoid a new protest upsurge only with a
Turkish war.”
It wasn’t what he planned; but it is
the only way, Ikhlov says, that the Kremlin leader believes he can save himself
– and that is his most important task.
No comments:
Post a Comment