By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
Russia and the Russian people have a bully stereotype in the eyes of much of the world. This perception was projected into the word long before Crimea. It is rooted and fixed most securely in the Soviet Union and the brutal authoritarian state model of that era. The hope was that Russia would change into a strong democratic power. That hope is no longer just over the horizon or the foreseeable future as Europe and Russia battle it out over Ukraine.
To the outside world, the Bear is a hard master and the state is more important than the individual. The rule of men substitute the rule of law. Authority rests with the one most willing to intimidate the others and prove his strength. For most non-Russians, their need to be tough too easily slips into being too provocative. Everyone around you is taken as a brawler, a thief or a murder. Survival depends on the position of oneself as well as their predatory attitude and demeanor. But with Russia, there is the added step of being clever and running a networks of traded favors. But what can you do with a state that no longer cares what the outside world thinks of it.
The humiliation of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union was not anticipated to become a rally point because in the beginning it was more of a celebration than a heartache. It was only slowly over time that the West and the Russian Federation could not work out their differences as planned. The West felt the Russians as stubborn losers and the Russians felt the West as pushy bankers and businessmen.
The biggest mistake on the part for the Western world was underestimating the Russian situation. The economic condition and the faith in liberal institutionism was wholly misplaced. This faulty belief in economics giving life to a wellspring of democracy in Russia wholly discounted the long hardened cultural and political realities that would shatter it to pieces. Even before the fallout from the Global Recession, Russian outrage and sentiment against foreigners was totally ignored and their actions in Chechnya or Georgia; and swept under the rug and forgotten by the West
Democracy in Russia was not brought on by a revolution of hopes and dreams that was hard fought but by the collapse of a totalitarian socialist empire. This empire remerges in geopolitical form at present with Ukraine and Russia’s “near abroad” movements on former satellite republics. But the new face is patently ethnic nationalist and not ideologically communist.
With the Russia-Ukraine standoff, will Putin utilize the offensive military force building up along Ukraine’s borders? Maybe. Putin is waiting for at least four things: 1) the ousting of the “extremists” in Kiev (which may or may not come in the elections); 2) the degradation of stability or brutality against ethnic Russians in the East; 3) a Western military overstep; 4) a better offer from the West; at least to bide his time with a softer and stealthier approach.
So Putin is not willing to negotiate unless he gets back a large portion or share of Ukraine and the restoration of normal relations with the international community. The position of the UN and NATO is that Russia is an aggressive power that is stealing the territory of a sovereign power. But the UN resolution is unbinding and the NATO reaction has been too slow and cautious. In addition to sanctions,, these have not yet detoured Putin’s and therefore Russia’s moves which are much larger than Ukraine. Putin seeks to restore Russia to the “great power” status that its was before. Period. And he and his rubber stamp United Russia Party will use every opportunity to do so.
Comments are closed.