Embarrassment, Vanity, and Viciousness
Embarrassment, Vanity, and Viciousness
Vladimir Putin leads Russia down the road to failure, stupidity, and hubris
What I see on the faces and hear in the voices of so many of the people around me is sheer disbelief about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a brutal war in Europe: Aren’t we supposed to be past this? Didn’t history move on? The Wall came down, the Cold War ended, and democratic liberalism was the wave of the future, which wouldn’t be so kind to strongmen like Vladimir Putin….
I don’t know if it’s a boomer thing, a modern thing, an elite thing or some other thing, but in my lifetime, in this country, among many of my generational peers, there has been a sense that people had learned particular lessons and were evolving past extremes of pettiness and barbarism, certainly in the corners of the globe deemed more enlightened….
Knowledge is no antidote to the most destructive human qualities. It’s no vaccine. To wit: vaccines. As my Times colleague Bret Stephens recently noted about conspiracy-minded Americans of the current moment: “Here we are with a vaccine that can save you from dying or going to the hospital with Covid, and tens of millions of people refuse to help themselves by taking it. Which goes to prove that no pandemic is deadlier than stupidity.”
Over the past 50 years or so, we here in the West have fallen prey to a mindset that holds that leaders of countries are rational actors who take reasonable actions for logical reasons. Unfortunately, Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine demonstrates just how wrong that belief is. Not only is Vladimir Putin decidedly NOT a rational actor, but there’s also no rational explanation for his authorizing an invasion of a sovereign nation that poses no threat to Russia.
Pundits and reporters tend to think of Putin as a smarter-than-thou genius who plays five-dimensional chess while the rest of the West struggles with a conventional one-dimensional chessboard. Anyone who seen his speeches this weeks understands that Putin is nothing but a common, garden-variety war criminal.
During humankind’s sojourn on this rock, we’ve seen that history is more often than not made by stupidity, brutishness, and lack of calculation. It’s difficult to know what Putin’s thought process is or what he’s hoping to accomplish, but any victory will almost certainly prove to be Pyrrhic in nature.
Yes, his army and air force may pound Ukraine into submission in the short term, but the longer term will not be Russia’s friend. International sanctions will further hobble its already enfeebled economy. Many of their oil and natural gas customers will go elsewhere. The value of the ruble will crash, and Russia’s ability to trade currency internationally will be constricted, if not shut off altogether. It’s likely that his military will prevail through sheer superiority of numbers. Still, it will come at a cost to the Russian economy (and its people) that could be disastrous.
I suspect that Vladimir Putin may be the only person in Russia convinced a war in Ukraine will be a decisive victory for Mother Russia and his desire to re-unite the USSR. Even if his military succeeds in conquering Ukraine, it’s unlikely that the Ukrainian people will submit quietly. There will almost certainly be a substantial resistance that will slowly bleed the Red Army. Perhaps it will take a parade of flag-draped coffins heading back to Russia (as happened with Afghanistan) to ignite the fury of the Russian people, many of whom can’t understand why they’re at war with Ukraine.
Putin hates that Ukraine is an independent country that increasingly prefers to align itself with the West. He believes that the historical ties between Ukraine and Russia mean Ukraine must be part of a Greater Russia. There are indeed large numbers of Russians in Ukraine and vice-versa. Many Russians in Ukraine are strongly pro-Ukraine, primarily because it’s a free country and a functional democracy, something Putin despises.
Despite Putin’s weeks of propaganda, Ukraine has not requested to join NATO, and even if it had, conditions in the country mean it’s a long way from being accepted into the alliance. Nor has NATO discussed inviting Ukraine to apply for membership. Instead, it’s a non-issue invented by the Russian President to justify taking action to ensure NATO is not on Russia’s doorstep.
I was struck by a passage in Madeleine Albright’s excellent guest essay…about Putin and her first impressions when, as the U.S. secretary of state, she met him in 2000. In the notes that she wrote down of their encounter, she remarked not only that he was “small and pale” but also that he was “embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness.”
He has stewed in that embarrassment ever since. He has grown more intent and less inhibited. And now the small and pale man has struck. He announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine today. He ordered and commenced a sweeping invasion by land, air and sea. By late this morning there were already reports of dozens of Ukrainian casualties, and there were explosions not just near the Russian border but also in cities all across the country, whose citizens find themselves at the mercy of Putin’s megalomania.
Embarrassment, vanity, viciousness: History never moves on or gets past these forces, which drove invasions and conquests in centuries past and will drive invasions and conquests in years to come. There should be no great shock about Russia’s audacious attack on Ukraine — only profound sadness and painstaking thought about what to do and what’s to come.
War is never the product of careful, rational consideration. No leader who ponders a situation with due caution would choose war over other means of engagement. No, war is often the product of ego, vanity, insecurity, and a “mine is bigger than yours” complex.
After Vladimir Putin’s speech about the need to “de-Nazify” the Ukrainian government, it’s impossible to know what he’s compensating for. What is certain is that Putin is hardly a rational actor whose decision-making is sound and reasonable. Not when he’s leading Russia down a path that will almost certainly lead to an already weak economy becoming even more enfeebled.
(Consider this: How many of you reading this have anything marked “Made in Russia” in your house?)
Is Putin calculating that he can outlast the united front of NATO and Western countries? Does he think the alliance will eventually break down as countries chase their interests? How much of reality does his bubble allow him access to? And is his decision-making based on fact or fantasy?
Embarrassment, vanity, and viciousness; it’s possible that these qualities are what’s motivating Vladimir Putin. If that’s the case, stupidity, hubris, and overconfidence can’t be far behind.
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