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Commentary: Putin's Quest for the Russian Near Abroad

By Dr. Terry Simmons
Contributor, In Homeland Security

When President Barack Obama engaged Vladimir Putin in his first administration with diplomatic accommodation in public diplomacy initially and in the second administration with the “reset button,” Russian-American relations seemed headed for a new rapprochement. Putin, though ostensibly desirous of economic integration with the world economy by being accepted into the western “clubs,’ felt that he was never able to win the respect he sought for the resurgent Russian Federation.Putin Near Abroad

Putin has amplified the position that America and the West are in a concerted campaign to re-contain rising Russia and that the Bush-Clinton promises to not allow EU-NATO expansion and encroachment to Russia’s borders were, and continue to be, a deception to keep Russia from returning to super power status or great power status.

Russian-American relations devolved to a down cycle that has culminated in a new period so hostile that it has been cast as Cold War II. A succession of aggressive revanchist political-military maneuvers by Putin serves to validate that conclusion.

Chronology of Events:

  1. Putin comes to the aid of Russian-speaking citizens of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to liberate them from Georgian oppression in 2008. Georgia is ineffective in resisting superior cyber and armored attacks by the Russian military. The United States blusters and threatens but essentially acquiesces in Putin’s victories. The former Georgian enclaves gain independence from Georgia subsequently.
  2. In 2013, Putin reasserts Russian international diplomacy prowess by resisting Obama’s declared intentions to attack the Russian client state of Syria with a tomahawk missile attack against al Assad in Damascus in retaliation for the WMD sarin gas artillery attack against Syrian civilians that brutally killed more than 1,300 Syrian civilians, a clear violation of international law. Russian SVR (Ministry of the Interior) forces assist in an agreement to halt the American attacks by assisting in disarmament of said weapons of mass destruction from Syria. Russia thereby returns to prominence from obscurity in international diplomacy. There is talk that Russia is back and Putin is Man of the Year.
  3. Russia rearms by means of a river of Russian oil and natural gas revenue to Cold War levels and reaches parity with American and NATO nuclear forces by 2014. A return to Cold War levels of strategic and tactical readiness alarms the United States and the West as Russian military patrols again scramble alarmed Allied forces worldwide.
  4. Putin makes repeated aggressive declarations that Russia is back and intends to re-establish its former Soviet-era Near Abroad. Putin annexes the strategically important Black Sea Crimea.
  5. Putin sponsors covert and overt subversion, both political and military, against the Euromaidan post-coup eastern Ukrainian state and is pursuing de facto annexation of western Ukraine as well.
  6. After halting unsuccessful measures by the Ukrainian government under President Porochenko to stop the Russian advance, Putin has countered and accelerated Russian intervention, threatening the rest of the country in 2015.

Takeaways:

  • Putin has openly warned that American-led NATO intervention strategies against him will be potentially met with Russian nuclear reprisals. This stern warning has negated, to some extent, American and EU sanctions political damage against Russia. Though the sanctions are hurting the Russian economy at present, particularly in the energy and financial instruments sectors, NATO has not engaged Russia military outside bolstering existing allied force postures.
  • Despite grumbling at home and the increasing possibilities of kinetic engagement with the West, Putin persists in his aggressive rhetoric and on the military front on the ground. He has rallied his military and political siloviki government to continue to resist the United States in its efforts to persuade him to cease and desist what America views as his dangerous adventurism.
  • Putin has inspired the Russian people who have been through relative depravation before. He is fulfilling the strongman image of determined resistance to the strangulation tactics of the West. He has restored Russian pride as he begins his revanchist dream to put Russia back on the map as a formidable superpower worthy of world respect.
  • Putin appears to be entering a psychologically potent and transformative persona period of the Russian Renaissance Man and is therefore, in danger of a historically dangerous self-fulfilling prophesy, reminiscent perhaps of Napoleon. Miscalculation is the ever-present danger. Proximity of powerful strategic kinetic forces is the immediate possibility.

As usual, in the historically cyclical Russian-American political history syndrome, cooler heads must prevail to avoid catastrophe at worst and severe dislocation of positive international relations at least.

Click here for a list of Dr. Terry Simmons’ books.

Note: The opinions and comments stated in the preceding article, and views expressed by any contributor to In Homeland Security, do not represent the views of American Military University, American Public University System, its management or employees.

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