There are at least two reasons for Putin to think of similarly bold and courageous actions today. One is strategic and lasting: glory for himself and his Russia, the two now entangled in his mind. The other motive is tactical: he is working on a lifelong presidency – a term of six years in 2024, at 72 and perhaps another in 2030 – in a country where the economy and income have stagnated for more than a decade and the still furious The Covid-19 pandemic left deep scars. In addition, the arrest of Democratic leader Alexei Navalny has sparked protests in more than 100 Russian cities for the first time since the anti-Putin protests in the winter of 2011-12.
The same factors – deep convictions and perceptions, gloomy economic prospects and the need for the survival of his regime – overlapped in 2012 and 2013. In the most fatal choice of his political life, Putin used the “return” of Crimea to replace economic progress. and revenue growth as the cornerstone of its popularity, and hence the legitimacy of its regime. It was a daring and brilliant political maneuver. Lev Gudkov, the director of Russia’s only independent ballot box, Levada Center, called Putin’s new claim to legitimacy ‘patriotic mobilization’. Another leading Russian political sociologist, Igor Klyamkin, described this choice as ‘militarized patriotism in peacetime’.
And it worked. Putin’s monthly approval rating catapulted from an average of 65 percent in 2012 and 2013 to 81 percent from 2014 to 2018. Russian experts call it the “Crimean Consensus” – an “emotional upswing” that leads to the “consent of the Russians to bear conditions in exchange for imperial greatness. ”
We tend to repeat what worked. Political scientists call it ‘road dependence’. If he now finds himself in a tighter bond, politically and economically, than eroding in 2012-13 and with the ‘Crimean consensus’, Putin may be able to reach for what he has done very well in the past: short victories.
Virtually unknown when he was appointed prime minister in August 1999, Putin’s approval in the first months of 2000 shot up to about 80 percent after he started a second war in Russia in Chechnya. Its highest rating ever – 88 percent in September 2008 – follows a five-day war against Georgia. (At the time, he was technical prime minister, after installing Dmitry Medvedev as a placeholder president, but everyone knew who the shots were.) “The public interpretation was: ‘This is the beginning of World War III and we are winning,'” the chief of Levada, Alexei Levinson, said. “It does not matter what exactly we have overcome. The most important thing is that we showed THEM! ”
Should Putin want to start another short, victorious war, there is no shortage of potential targets. At least five neighboring countries are obvious. Three of them – Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – are the sites of ‘frozen conflicts’ that can be easily thawed by Russian troops or their proxies in those countries or at their borders. Another, Belarus, is half a formal ‘Union State’ with Russia. The fifth, Kazakhstan, has more ethnic Russians – 3.5 million – than any post-Soviet state other than Ukraine, with the most comfortable habit in the six northern provinces bordering Russia. Once the Taliban take over Afghanistan and begin to expand into the Central Asian states, an Anschluss can be portrayed as the ‘defense’ of Kazakhstan’s ethnic Russians.
But these five potential wars would not quite match Putin’s ambition for ‘big ideas’ or his self-imposed mission to recover and retaliate.
These criteria will be met by a rapid and victorious attack on the eastern flank of NATO, the member states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Could there be a more satisfying code for Putin’s desire to restore the glory of the past, a more repentant retaliation for the fall of the beloved Soviet motherland, than an achievement that even the mighty Soviet Union could not achieve? A victory over the alliance that embodies the democratic West’s solidarity and its will to defend itself? A good dice that NATO will uncover as a paper tiger?
All the main perceptions of the public that formed the ‘Crimean consensus’ – the clear definition of victory, the assistance to oppressed and abused ethnic Russian compatriots, the defense of the motherland and the place of the target countries in the national consciousness – would organically merges. , almost effortlessly.
Although Putin boasted that he would come to Riga and Tallinn in two days, an imperial Reconquista is unlikely. No tanks need to roll to Riga or Tallinn. Instead, Russia could undertake a rigorous, ‘hybrid’ Crimean-style operation, led by mostly special forces and elite paratroopers withdrawn from Russia’s Western Military District: three special forces regiments and the air attack division. which is currently deployed near the Estonian and Latvian borders. The most likely targets of a cross-border attack are Idu-Viru province in Estonia, which is 74 percent ethnic, and the largest city, Narva (83 percent), and Latgale region in Latvia (36 percent Russian) and the city of Daugavpils (48 percent)). After one or both of them were ‘reunited’ with the motherland, its restoration would mean a war with Russia.
Gen. John Nicholson, former commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, estimated that it would take about 90 days to mobilize and build a conventional force in the Baltic countries that surpassed the Russians. By contrast, it took only three weeks from the invasion of Crimea to the ‘referendum’ and ‘acceptance’ of Crimea into the Russian Federation – Putin’s euphemisms for annexation.
Both Brussels and Moscow know that the Baltic countries are indefensible in the short term. Russia enjoys “absolute supremacy” in offensive equipment – tanks, fighter jets and rocket artillery – the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service concluded in a recent report. In the aftermath of the Crimean operation, NATO sent three ‘battle groups’ of the battalion to the Baltic countries to embody Article 5 of the NATO Charter: an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all. They are called ‘the improved forward presence’, and are a three-part thread.
However, a wire cord is only effective insofar as the tripper believes that touching it could cause an explosion, and there are good reasons to suspect that the wire cord appears to Putin loose from the powder keg. The French president publicly called NATO brain dead and questioned America’s ability to ‘activate solidarity’ under Article 5 ‘if something happens at our borders’. A few months later, a report by the Munich Security Conference entitled ‘Westlessness? ‘And regrets the loss of’ a general understanding of what it means to be part of the West ‘. For the first time in NATO’s 71 years, the newspaper has expanded the prospect of dissolution of the alliance. Asked if their country “from our NATO ally” would come to the rescue if Russia “got into a serious military conflict with it”, the majority in half of the countries surveyed said no, including France, Spain , Germany and Italy. In the last three, the “nrs” led by more than a 2-to-1 margin.
Of course, Putin’s image of the West may be incomplete and inadequate. In the long run and on really important issues, democracies are informed by public opinion, which can change foreign policy, quickly and radically. But Putin’s perception is unlikely to change. Acknowledged by the steady stream of data skewed to please the boss, the memories of past victories, after 21 years at the top, probably caused an unwavering belief in his genius and unchanging happiness – and became a testament to the ultimate moral infallibility of his choices.
And then there is Putin’s greatest built-in advantage over democracies: above all, they want peace. He needs a victory.
Great ideas beckon, solemn dreams enchant, there awaits a place in history. And more than at any time since he was in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin may be looking for a triumph.