What does Putin want?
Rostislav Ishchenko
Source: http://actualcomment.ru/chego-khochet-putin.html
Translated from the Russian by Denis, Gideon, and Robin
It’s gratifying that “patriots” did not instantly blame Putin
for the failure to achieve a full-scale rout of Ukrainian troops in
Donbass in January and February, or for Moscow’s consultations with
Merkel and Hollande.
Even so, they are still impatient for a victory. The most radical are
convinced that Putin will “surrender Novorossiya” just the same. And
the moderates are afraid that he will as soon as the next truce is
signed (if that happens) out of the need to regroup and replenish
Novorossiya’s army (which actually could have been done without
disengagement from military operations), to come to terms with the new
circumstances on the international front, and to get ready for new
diplomatic battles.
In fact, despite all the attention that political and/or military
dilettantes (the Talleyrands and the Bonapartes of the Internet) are
paying to the situation in Donbass and the Ukraine in general, it is
only one point on a global front: the outcome of the war is being
decided not at the Donetsk airport or in the hills outside Debaltsevo,
but at offices on Staraya Square1 and Smolenskaya Square,2 at offices in Paris, Brussels and Berlin. Because military action is only one of the many components of the political quarrel.
It is the harshest and the final component, which carries great risk,
but the matter doesn’t start with war and it doesn’t end with war. War
is only an intermediate step signifying the impossibility of compromise.
Its purpose is to create new conditions whereby compromise is possible
or to show that there is no longer any need for it, with the
disappearance of one side of the conflict. When it is time for
compromise, when the fighting is over and the troops go back to their
barracks and the generals begin writing their memoirs and preparing for
the next war, that is when the real outcome of the confrontation is
determined by politicians and diplomats at the negotiating table.
Political decisions are not often understood by the general
population or the military. For example, during the Austro-Prussian war
of 1866, Prussian chancellor Otto Von Bismarck (later chancellor of the
German Empire) disregarded the persistent requests of King Wilhelm I
(the future German Emperor) and the demands of the Prussian generals to
take Vienna, and he was absolutely correct to do so. In that way he
accelerated peace on Prussia’s terms and also ensured that
Austro-Hungary forever (well, until its dismemberment in 1918) became a
junior partner for Prussia and later the German Empire.
To understand how, when and on what conditions military activity can
end, we need to know what the politicians want and how they see the
conditions of the postwar compromise. Then it will become clear why
military action turned into a low-intensity civil war with occasional
truces, not only in the Ukraine but also in Syria.
Obviously, the views of Kiev politicians are of no interest to us
because they don’t decide anything. The fact that outsiders govern the
Ukraine is no longer concealed. It doesn’t matter whether the cabinet
ministers are Estonian or Georgian; they are Americans just the same. It
would also be a big mistake to take an interest in how the leaders of
the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic
(LNR) see the future. The republics exist only with Russian support, and
as long as Russia supports them, Russia’s interests have to be
protected, even from independent decisions and initiatives. There is too
much at stake to allow [Alexander] Zakharchenko or [Igor] Plotnitzky,
or anyone else for that matter, to make independent decisions.
Nor are we interested in the European Union’s position. Much depended
on the EU until the summer of last year, when the war could have been
prevented or stopped at the outset. A tough, principled antiwar stance
by the EU was needed. It could have blocked U.S. initiatives to start
the war and would have turned the EU into a significant independent
geopolitical player. The EU passed on that opportunity and instead
behaved like a faithful vassal of the United States.
As a result, Europe stands on the brink of frightful internal
upheaval. In the coming years, it has every chance of suffering the same
fate as the Ukraine, only with a great roar, great bloodshed and less
chance that in the near future things will settle down – in other words,
that someone will show up and put things in order.
In fact, today the EU can choose whether to remain a tool of the
United States or to move closer to Russia. Depending on its choice,
Europe can get off with a slight scare, such as a breakup of parts of
its periphery and possible fragmentation of some countries, or it could
collapse completely. Judging by the European elites’ reluctance to break
openly with the United States, collapse is almost inevitable.
What should interest us is the opinions of the two main players that
determine the configuration of the geopolitical front and in fact are
fighting for victory in the new generation of war – the network-centric
Third World War. These players are the United States and Russia.
The U.S. position is clear and transparent. In the second half of the
1990s, Washington missed its only opportunity to reform the Cold War
economy without any obstacles and thereby avoid the looming crisis in a
system whose development is limited by the finite nature of planet Earth
and its resources, including human ones, which conflicts with the need
to endlessly print dollars.
After that, the United States could prolong the death throes of the
system only by plundering the rest of the world. At first, it went after
Third World countries. Then it went for potential competitors. Then for
allies and even close friends. Such plundering could continue only as
long as the United States remained the world’s undisputed hegemon.
Thus when Russia asserted its right to make independent political
decisions – decisions of not global but regional import – , a clash with
the United States became inevitable. This clash cannot end in a
compromise peace.
For the United States, a compromise with Russia would mean a
voluntary renunciation of its hegemony, leading to a quick, systemic
catastrophe – not only a political and economic crisis but also a
paralysis of state institutions and the inability of the government to
function. In other words, its inevitable disintegration.
But if the United States wins, then it is Russia that will experience
systemic catastrophe. After a certain type of “rebellion,” Russia’s
ruling classes would be punished with asset liquidation and confiscation
as well as imprisonment. The state would be fragmented, substantial
territories would be annexed, and the country’s military might would be
destroyed.
So the war will last until one side wins. Any interim agreement
should be viewed only as a temporary truce – a needed respite to
regroup, to mobilize new resources and to find (i.e., to poach)
additional allies.
To complete the picture of the situation, we only need Russia’s
position. It is essential to understand what the Russian leadership
wants to achieve, particularly the president, Vladimir Putin. We are
talking about the key role that Putin plays in the organization of the
Russian power structure. This system is not authoritarian, as many
assert, but rather authoritative – meaning it is based not on
legislative consolidation of autocracy but on the authority of the
person who created the system and, as the head of it, makes it work
effectively.
During Putin’s 15 years in power, despite the difficult internal and
external situation, he has tried to maximize the role of the government,
the legislative assembly, and even the local authorities. These are
entirely logical steps that should have given the system completeness,
stability, and continuity. Because no politician can rule forever,
political continuity, regardless of who comes to power, is the key to a
stable system.
Unfortunately, fully autonomous control, namely the ability to
function without the president’s oversight, hasn’t been achieved. Putin
remains the key component of the system because the people put their
trust in him personally. They have far less trust in the system, as
represented by public authorities and individual agencies.
Thus Putin’s opinions and political plans become the decisive factor
in areas such as Russia’s foreign policy. If the phrase “without Putin,
there is no Russia” is an exaggeration, then the phrase “what Putin
wants, Russia also wants” reflects the situation quite accurately in my
opinion.
First, let’s note that the man who for 15 years has carefully guided
Russia to its revival has done so in conditions of U.S. hegemony in
world politics along with significant opportunities for Washington to
influence Russia’s internal politics. He had to understand the nature of
the fight and his opponent. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lasted so long.
The level of confrontation that Russia allowed itself to get into
with the United States grew very slowly and up to a certain point went
unnoticed. For example, Russia did not react at all to the first attempt
at a color revolution in the Ukraine in 2000-2002 (the Gongadze case,3 the Cassette Scandal,4 and the Ukraine without Kuchma protest5).
Russia took an opposing position but did not actively intervene in
the coups that took place from November 2003 to January 2004 in Georgia
and from November 2004 to January 2005 in the Ukraine. In 2008, in
Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia used its troops against Georgia, a U.S.
ally. In 2012, in Syria, the Russian fleet demonstrated its readiness to
confront the United States and its NATO allies.
In 2013, Russia began taking economic measures against [Victor]
Yanukovych’s regime, which contributed to his realization of the
harmfulness of signing an association agreement [with the EU].
Moscow could not have saved the Ukraine from the coup because of the
baseness, cowardice, and stupidity of the Ukraine’s leaders – not only
Yanukovych but all of them without exception. After the armed coup in
Kiev in February 2014, Russia entered into open confrontation with
Washington. Before that, the conflicts were interspersed with improved
relations, but at the beginning of 2014 relations between Russia and the
United States deteriorated swiftly and almost immediately reached the
point where war would have been declared automatically in the prenuclear
era.
Thus at any given time Putin engaged in precisely the level of
confrontation with the United States that Russia could handle. If Russia
isn’t limiting the level of confrontation now, it means Putin believes
that, in the war of sanctions, the war of nerves, the information war,
the civil war in the Ukraine, and the economic war, Russia can win.

This is the first important conclusion about what Putin wants and
what he expects. He expects to win. And considering that he takes a
meticulous approach and strives to anticipate any surprises, you can be
sure that when the decision was made not to back down under pressure
from the United States, but to respond, the Russian leadership had a
double, if not a triple, guarantee of victory.
I would like to point out that the decision to enter into a conflict
with Washington was not made in 2014, nor was it made in 2013. The war
of August 8, 2008, was a challenge that the United States could not
leave unpunished. After that, every further stage of the confrontation
only raised the stakes. From 2008 to 2010, the United States’ capability
– not just military or economic but its overall capability – has
declined, whereas Russia’s has improved significantly. So the main
objective was to raise the stakes slowly rather than in explosive
fashion. In other words, an open confrontation in which all pretences
are dropped and everyone understands that a war is going on had to be
delayed as long as possible. But it would have been even better to avoid
it altogether.
With every passing year, the United States became weaker while Russia
became stronger. This process was natural and impossible to arrest, and
we could have projected with a high degree of certainty that by 2020 to
2025, without any confrontation, the period of U.S. hegemony would have
ended, and the United States would then be best advised to think about
not how to rule the world, but how to stave off its own precipitous
internal decline.
Thus Putin’s second desire is clear: to keep the peace or the
appearance of peace as long as possible. Peace is advantageous for
Russia because in conditions of peace, without enormous expense, it
obtains the same political result but in a much better geopolitical
situation. That is why Russia continually extends the olive branch. Just
as the Kiev junta will collapse in conditions of peace in Donbass, in
conditions of world peace, the military-industrial complex and the
global financial system created by the United States are doomed to
self-destruct. In this way, Russia’s actions are aptly described by Sun
Tzu’s maxim “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

It is clear that Washington is not run by idiots, no matter what is
said on Russian talk shows or written on blogs. The United States
understands precisely the situation it is in. Moreover, they also
understand that Russia has no plans to destroy them and is really
prepared to cooperate as an equal. Even so, because of the political and
socioeconomic situation in the United States, such cooperation is not
acceptable to them. An economic collapse and a social explosion are
likely to occur before Washington (even with the support of Moscow and
Beijing) has time to introduce the necessary reforms, especially when we
consider that the EU will have to undergo reform at the same time.
Moreover, the political elite who have emerged in the United States in
the past 25 years have become accustomed to their status as the owners
of the world. They sincerely don’t understand how anyone can challenge
them.

For the ruling elite in the United States (not so much the business
class but the government bureaucracy), to go from being a country that
decides of the fate of inferior peoples to one that negotiates with them
on an equal footing is intolerable. It is probably tantamount to
offering Gladstone or Disraeli the post of prime minister of the Zulu
Kingdom under Cetshwayo kaMpande. And so, unlike Russia, which needs
peace to develop, the United States regards war as vital.

In principle, any war is a struggle for resources. Typically, the
winner is the one that has more resources and can ultimately mobilize
more troops and build more tanks, ships, and planes. Even so, sometimes
those who are strategically disadvantaged can turn the situation around
with a tactical victory on the battlefield. Examples include the wars of
Alexander the Great and Frederick the Great, as well as Hitler’s
campaign of 1939-1940.

Nuclear powers cannot confront each other directly. Therefore, their
resource base is of paramount importance. That is exactly why Russia and
the United States have been in a desperate competition for allies over
the past year. Russia has won this competition. The United States can
count only the EU, Canada, Australia, and Japan as allies (and not
always unconditionally so), but Russia has managed to mobilize support
from the BRICS, to gain a firm foothold in Latin America, and to begin
displacing the United States in Asia and North Africa.

Of course, it’s not patently obvious, but if we consider the results
of votes at the UN, assuming that a lack of official support for the
United States means dissent and thus support for Russia, it turns out
that the countries aligned with Russia together control about 60% of the
world’s GDP, have more than two-thirds of its population, and cover
more than three-quarters of its surface. Thus Russia has been able to
mobilize more resources.

In this regard, the United States had two tactical options. The first
seemed to have great potential and was employed by it from the early
days of the Ukrainian crisis.

It was an attempt to force Russia to choose between a bad situation
and an even worse one. Russia would be compelled to accept a Nazi state
on its borders and therefore a dramatic loss of international authority
and of the trust and support of its allies, and after a short time would
become vulnerable to internal and external pro-U.S. forces, with no
chance of survival. Or else it could send its army into the Ukraine,
sweep out the junta before it got organized, and restore the legitimate
government of Yanukovych. That, however, would have brought an
accusation of aggression against an independent state and of suppression
of the people’s revolution. Such a situation would have resulted in a
high degree of disapproval on the part of Ukrainians and the need to
constantly expend significant military, political, economic, and
diplomatic resources to maintain a puppet regime in Kiev, because no
other government would have been possible under such conditions.
Russia avoided that dilemma. There was no direct invasion. It is
Donbass that is fighting Kiev. It is the Americans who have to devote
scarce resources to the doomed puppet regime in Kiev, while Russia can
remain on the sidelines making peace proposals.
So now the United States is employing the second option. It’s as old
as the hills. That which cannot be held, and will be taken by the enemy,
must be damaged as much as possible so that the enemy’s victory is more
costly than defeat, as all its resources are used to reconstruct the
destroyed territory. The United States has therefore ceased to assist
the Ukraine with anything more than political rhetoric while encouraging
Kiev to spread civil war throughout the country.

The Ukrainian land must burn, not only in Donetsk and Lugansk but
also in Kiev and Lvov. The task is simple: to destroy the social
infrastructure as much as possible and to leave the population at the
very edge of survival. Then the population of the Ukraine will consist
of millions of starving, desperate and heavily armed people who will
kill one another for food. The only way to stop this bloodbath would be
massive international military intervention in the Ukraine (the militia
on its own will not be sufficient) and massive injections of funds to
feed the population and to reconstruct the economy until the Ukraine can
begin to feed itself.
It is clear that all these costs would fall on Russia. Putin
correctly believes that not only the budget, but also public resources
in general, including the military, would in this case be overstretched
and possibly insufficient. Therefore, the objective is not to allow the
Ukraine to explode before the militia can bring the situation under
control. It is crucial to minimize casualties and destruction and to
salvage as much of the economy as possible and the infrastructure of the
large cities so that the population somehow survives and then the
Ukrainians themselves will take care of the Nazi thugs.

At this point an ally appears for Putin in the form of the EU.
Because the United States always tried to use European resources in its
struggle with Russia, the EU, which was already weakened, reaches the
point of exhaustion and has to deal with its own long-festering problems.
If Europe now has on its eastern border a completely destroyed
Ukraine, from which millions of armed people will flee not only to
Russia but also to the EU, taking with them delightful pastimes such as
drug trafficking, gunrunning, and terrorism, the EU will not survive.
The people’s republics of Novorossiya will serve as a buffer for Russia,
however.

Europe cannot confront the United States, but it is deathly afraid of
a destroyed Ukraine. Therefore, for the first time in the conflict,
Hollande and Merkel are not just trying to sabotage the U.S. demands (by
imposing sanctions but not going too far), but they are also
undertaking limited independent action with the aim of achieving a
compromise – maybe not peace but at least a truce in the Ukraine.
If the Ukraine catches fire, it will burn quickly, and if the EU has
become an unreliable partner that is ready if not to move into Russia’s
camp then at least to take a neutral position, Washington, faithful to
its strategy, would be obliged to set fire to Europe.
It is clear that a series of civil and interstate wars on a continent
packed with all sorts of weapons, where more than half a billion people
live, is far worse than a civil war in the Ukraine. The Atlantic
separates the United States from Europe. Even Britain could hope to sit
it out across the Channel. But Russia and the EU share a very long
[sic] border.
It is not at all in Russia’s interests to have a conflagration
stretching from the Atlantic to the Carpathian Mountains when the
territory from the Carpathians to the Dnieper is still smoldering.
Therefore, Putin’s other objective is, to the extent possible, to
prevent the most negative effects of a conflagration in the Ukraine and a
conflagration in Europe. Because it is impossible to completely prevent
such an outcome (if the United States wants to ignite the fire, it
will), it is necessary to be able to extinguish it quickly to save what
is most valuable.
Thus, to protect Russia’s legitimate interests, Putin considers peace
to be of vital importance, because it is peace that will make it
possible to achieve this goal with maximum effect at minimum cost. But
because peace is no longer possible, and the truces are becoming more
theoretical and fragile, Putin needs the war to end as quickly as
possible.
But I do want to stress that if a compromise could have been reached a
year ago on the most favorable terms for the West (Russia would have
still obtained its goals, but later – a minor concession), it is no
longer possible, and the conditions are progressively worsening.
Ostensibly, the situation remains the same; peace on almost any
conditions is still beneficial for Russia. Only one thing has changed,
but it is of the utmost importance: public opinion. Russian society
longs for victory and retribution. As I pointed out above, Russian power
is authoritative, rather than authoritarian; therefore, public opinion
matters in Russia, in contrast to the “traditional democracies.”

Putin can maintain his role as the linchpin of the system only as
long as he has the support of the majority of the population. If he
loses this support, because no figures of his stature have emerged from
Russia’s political elite, the system will lose its stability. But power
can maintain its authority only as long as it successfully embodies the
wishes of the masses. Thus the defeat of Nazism in the Ukraine, even if
it is diplomatic, must be clear and indisputable – only under such
conditions is a Russian compromise possible.
Thus, regardless of Putin’s wishes and Russia’s interests, given the
overall balance of power, as well as the protagonists’ priorities and
capabilities, a war that should have ended last year within the borders
of the Ukraine will almost certainly spill over into Europe. One can
only guess who will be more effective – the Americans with their gas can
or the Russians with their fire extinguisher? But one thing is
absolutely clear: the peace initiatives of the Russian leaders will be
limited not by their wishes but their actual capabilities. It is futile
to fight either the wishes of the people or the course of history; but
when they coincide, the only thing a wise politician can do is to
understand the wishes of the people and the direction of the historical
process and try to support it at all costs.
The circumstances described above make it extremely unlikely that the
proponents of an independent state of Novorossiya will see their wishes
fulfilled. Given the scale of the coming conflagration, determining the
fate of the Ukraine as a whole is not excessively complicated but, at
the same time, it will not come cheap.
It is only logical that the Russian people should ask: if Russians,
whom we rescued from the Nazis, live in Novorossiya, why do they have to
live in a separate state? If they want to live in a separate state, why
should Russia rebuild their cities and factories? To these questions
there is only one reasonable answer: Novorossiya should become part of
Russia (especially since it has enough fighters, although the governing
class is problematic). Well, if part of the Ukraine can join Russia, why
not all of it? Especially as in all likelihood by the time this
question is on the agenda, the European Union will no longer be an
alternative to the Eurasian Union [for the Ukraine].
Consequently, the decision to rejoin Russia will
be made by a united federated Ukraine and not by some entity without a
clear status. I think that it is premature to redraw the
political map. Most likely the conflict in the Ukraine will be concluded
by the end of the year. But if the United States manages to extend the
conflict to the EU (and it will try), the final resolution of
territorial issues will take at least a couple of years and maybe more.
In any situation we benefit from peace. In
conditions of peace, as Russia’s resource base grows, as new allies
(former partners of the United States) go over to its side, and as
Washington becomes progressively marginalized, territorial restructuring will become far simpler and temporarily less significant, especially for those being restructured.

Notes: