Perhaps a Little Perspective is in Order

While most sane individuals from the Americas or Europe will decry the imperialistic invasion of Ukraine by Russia’s Putin, perhaps a bit of historical perspective is in order.  By no means is this an attempt to justify Putin’s war crimes nor give him shelter for his desire to prohibit a free nation to choose its own destiny.  History tells us that we should proceed with caution.  This will, however, be an attempt to calm down the warmongers among us that advocate a more aggressive response from the US.

Biden                       Putin                       Zelenskyy

In the realm of international relations, there is an idea that most nations will consider any nearby encroachment by an adversary to be a hostile act that may warrant a preemptive act.  In October of 1962, when Russia moved missiles into communist Cuba, the US brought us to the brink of WWIII before Russia backed down and removed their missiles and IL Bombers.  That’s what most Americans remember.  Perhaps forgotten in the retelling is that Russia also felt threatened because we had already placed our intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in Turkey and Italy.  For some perspective, the northern coast of Turkey is about 1,000 miles from Moscow.

Most would agree that Ukraine should have the ability to join the EU or NATO if they choose, but we also must see this from Russia’s point of view as the encroachment of an adversary.  If you believe in democracy and in a free nation’s right to choose their own destiny, the fears of a kleptocracy are hard to fathom.  Russia is today a capitalist nation with socialist needs being run by a dictator and a group of oligarchs (capitalists) who seek status and personal gain at the expense of the governed.  Most democracies see this as an abomination, but it is currently the Russian way of life.

If we jump into our DeLorean and set the dial for 1823, we will find our own President James Monroe espousing a policy whereby he held that any interference in the political affairs of any of the Americas (New World), by any nation of the Old World, would be considered a hostile act against the US.  This so-called Monroe Doctrine was US policy for most of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  We would reciprocate and stay out of the affairs of Europe.  This policy would be reinterpreted and revised as necessary to suit our needs at the moment.

Now we return to the present in our Tesla Model Y luxury EV and we find that Russia has decided that Ukraine was headed to become a pro-western democracy, a member of the EU, and quite possibly destined to join NATO.  Was this potential “threat” of a pro-western democracy on its borders justification to invade that country?  Certainly not from our perspective, but Putin has declared it to be a threat to Russian security.  Would Putin have invaded Ukraine to reunite the former USSR as previously set as a goal by him, quite probably?  Had Trump been successful in destroying NATO, perhaps this invasion would have been avoided and Putin would have had an easier time just installing a new puppet government.  In any case, we are beyond that now.

Russia invaded, has committed war crimes by targeting civilians, and Putin’s people are suffering.  His propaganda machine will keep the Russians calm for now, but that may end when the coffins start returning from the front.  You can declare victory for a while but the body count will dictate domestic sentiment.  What can the local populace do to topple Putin’s ambitions, probably not much as he is well protected?  He needs to protect his oligarchs however because if they suffer too much, he may run out of food tasters.

So Now You Know

For those of you who supported Donald Trump and cheered his bromance with Vladimir Putin, perhaps now you can see the attraction.  Putin was first elected to office in 2000 and has been the de facto president since then.  To skirt the pesky limitations of their constitution, Dmitry Medvedev was allowed to take the title in name only for the required 4 years in 2008, while Putin still controlled things.  Putin again took office in 2012 and has been in office ever since.  While the Russian constitution restricts presidents to two terms, it was amended in 2020 to allow an exemption for Putin and “other living presidents.”  Trump would love such a deal and must be envious.

Anyone who challenges Putin and wants to legitimately run for that office faces a few problems.  Ivan Rybkin tried, and he mysteriously “disappeared” from the face of the earth in 2004.  

Alexander Litvinenko also challenged Putin and was forced to flee Russia and go to the UK.  In November of 2006, he fell ill, was hospitalized, and died 3 weeks later.  He had been poisoned with polonium-210, a favorite of the FSB.  [note, Putin was the director of the FSB in 1998]

Alexei Navalny also tried to challenge Putin.  On 20 August 2020, he too was poisoned, this time with a Novichok nerve agent.  He was hospitalized in serious condition, was flown to Berlin for treatment, and survived.  He flew back to Moscow and was jailed.  Trump would love to be Putin and have such control, but he wouldn’t understand the jailing of Navalny on charges of fraud related to money diverted from a charity, in this case, the Anti-Corruption Foundation.  As Trump knows, diverting money from a charity is just business as usual.

Yes, wannabe authoritarians admire those who have achieved that title.  Trump loves Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un.  Even as Trump sits on the sidelines in his lair at Mar-a-Lago, he continues his admiration for Putin.  Where did this come from?  

Putin wanted Ukraine.  He installed a puppet government in the form of Viktor Yanukovych who served as president from 2010 to 2014.  Back in 2004, Paul Manafort was hired to overhaul Yanukovych’s image.  Manafort specialized in such image modification.  He had done so for Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Angolan guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi, and Zairian strongman Mobutu Sese Seko.  Yanukovych’s main rival was Viktor Yushchenko so, one month before the election, he was poisoned and nearly died.  Yanukovych, who trailed in the polls by double digits somehow won by three points.  The election was declared a fraud and a new election was held which, even with Manafort’s help, Yanukovych lost.  But, even with a loss to his credit, Manafort kept his Russian/Ukrainian consulting jobs for another decade.  

In 2010, Yanukovych got his second chance with Manafort’s help.  This time he pledged to abandon any bid for a NATO alliance and improve relations with Russia.  This made Putin happy.  Yanukovych won and became another corrupt Putin autocrat.  Who else would Trump hire but Manafort to help him with his presidential bid?  

Today, Ukraine has been invaded by a nuclear superpower.  Putin is fulfilling his personal dream of getting the band back together, in this case, the old USSR.  He controls the media inside Russia and has threatened to jail anyone who reports anything outside his own narrative.  He tells his people that he is merely trying to demilitarize Ukraine by using his military to invade a country that posed no threat.  That’s logic that no sane person could understand.  How do you use a military invasion to demilitarize an area?

A case could be made that Donald Trump is responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  If Trump had been re-elected, Putin would have had an ally in the US, any hint of a Ukraine-NATO consideration would have been off the table, and Putin could have just chipped away at Ukraine and made another run at installing a new puppet government there.  He would have had no resistance from Trump who has been aligned with Putin ever since Paul Manafort worked as matchmaker.  But as we all know, Trump lost the election.  He was so bad at his day job that liberals, independents, and even some Republicans voted against him.  Putin lost his leverage over NATO and was forced to conduct an all-out invasion.

So, for those of you who supported or still support Donald Trump and his bid for an authoritarian overthrow of our democracy, look no further than Vladimir Putin for a glimpse of what that future could be.  No more elections, a press controlled by the state, and a country run explicitly to benefit a single individual.  The president and a few fat-cats would get fatter but, for the rest of us, to quote Seinfeld’s character the Soup Nazi, “no soup for you.”