Miscalculation

The world watches in shock as megalomania grips the Russian president

Vladimir Putin (reluctantly on my part, anyway), is again the subject of this column—the  second time in a few weeks. This time because he apparently believes his own hype. That’s a rookie mistake for someone so steeped in geopolitics and international espionage.

Sure, sometimes Hollywood stars believe their own hype. We’ve always just attributed it to the kind of narcissism it takes for most people to become Hollywood stars, but we lose sight of the fact that politicians have narcissistic tendencies too. After all, the old adage that “politics is show biz for ugly people” is a cliche for a reason.

Still, you have to wonder how Russia’s president, an intelligence officer in a former life, for goodness sake, could have so totally misread the situation. He figured the time to move on Ukraine was nigh, since the West seemed fractured, with NATO in particular in decline after the Former Guy and his acolytes denounced the alliance at every turn.

Putin neglected the ancient Arab adage that Leon Uris, in his masterwork, The Haj, brought to light: “It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world. And all of us against the infidel.”

Nothing unites arguing factions like a common enemy. Dad and Uncle Jack may not like each other, but they’ll close ranks very quickly if Aunt Emma starts talking smack about Grandpa. I thought this fact of life was known to all—including Aunt Emma—but it shows how wrong you can be.

Add to that his apparent belief that the Ukrainian population was longing for Russia to save them from the “Nazi” government under which they were laboring. He went on and on in a five-thousand word essay last summer about the historical linkage between the Russians and the Ukrainians, and the “Fascist” regime he despised, but it was all in his head: there was no Fascist government to “de-Nazifi,” especially considering the president of Ukraine, the former comedian and television actor turned Churchillian hero of the first order, Volodymyr Zelensky, is of Jewish descent. No Nazi he, who like most all Ukrainians, lost family in the Holocaust.

But that’s the story Putin was telling himself and his countrymen. He controls TV and the major online news platforms in Russia. In the last week, he did what despots can be counted on to do when challenged, and made a law that throws media dissenters into prison for fifteen years for questioning or countering the story as he tells it. Like someone else we know, he calls the facts, “fake news.” The new law has effectively silenced opposition outlets, and his government has shuttered Facebook and most of Twitter at this writing.

So having miscalculated the West’s actual unity, the will of Ukrainians, who will now hate Russia for generations to come, and thus the impossibility of occupying a country the size of Texas with forty-million really angry, armed people who would rather die than submit, Putin rolled the tanks anyway. And, oh, by the way, the tanks are unreliable and maintenance nightmares.

We’ve all been surprised that the Russians are using United States’ off the shelf, commercial GPS technology instead of military grade devices that feature much more precise targeting, and are trying to fix their machines of war with third-party (again, mostly US-originated) spare parts.

So the question has to be, is he crazy like a fox, or just plain crazy (see Aunt Emma). There is talk that as the pandemic raced through Russia and the world, Putin became more and more isolated—that thirty foot table is quite a sight—and his aides became sycophantic, afraid to challenge the great man who is prone to poisoning those who disagree. (In fairness, he also has them shot.)

Here at home, I’m finding it fascinating to watch the Former Guy’s acolytes in the Republican Party tie themselves in knots as they reverse course on Putin and Ukraine. It’s laughable to hear Tom Cotton (R-Insurrection) who fairly glowed when praising Putin and denigrating Ukraine over the last five years. Same with Ted Cruz (R-Cancun) who delighted in upbraiding Democrats and the media for being too hard on Putin and his bromance with the Former Guy. Suddenly, they’ve wrenched the steering wheel and made a U-turn.  I hope they don’t get whiplash. Watching these people jump to the front of the parade as though they were leading lights of free speech and democracy all along, while delightful entertainment, is also stomach-turning.

Lest you think they’ve really and truly come around to a logic-based sensibility about Ukraine, here’s a reality check—they’re blaming Biden for Putin’s war!

©2022 Jon Sinton