So Putin Came and Went at the UN

So Putin came and went at the UN General Assembly yesterday.  The drama dissipated as fast as a summer shower.  Despite the buildup, it was a non-event.

He emphasized his support for the UN.  Perhaps not a novel idea, but his entire audience would agree with it.

His underlying point though was that the principles of non-interference need to be respected by all nations.  Again, not novel, but less than convincing since he has unilaterally invaded or interfered in the affairs of a number of countries, including Georgia Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine, while threatening to do the same to others.

He proposed a new initiative on climate change, but there are already frameworks in place now for years. 

The problem with agreeing with Putin is that you have to accept his premises and methods, which are not grounded in reality.

He accused the US (unnamed) of exporting democratic revolutions and supporting color revolutions that had killed and harmed thousands.  He breathed indignation when he asked, “Do you realize what you have done?”  But the Arab Spring was not US interference or a color revolution.  It was a lone fruit vendor in Tunisia who one day gave up in despair at the oppression and petty bureaucracy in his country that prevented him from making a living and set himself on fire in protest that then spread across the Arab World.  The Syrian conflict was not US interference or a color revolution, it was Assad’s police force that arrested, tortured and killed some teenagers who had sprayed anti-regime graffiti on a wall.  And, by the way, the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union was not a color revolution.  It was people demanding a share in determining their own futures.  The people of all the countries where revolutions have occurred, including Ukraine, have risen up because the authoritarian regimes left their people with no means to voice their needs nor provide for their futures.  No wonder Putin is worried.

Most worrisome is Putin’s apparent belief that everything happens because of conspiracies.  Putin believes that all the revolutions colored and otherwise are because of manipulation by various powers.  The people it seems have no ideas of their own and, if they did, they have no right to demand to be heard.  Unthinkable.

And, finally, Putin’s one-step plan to back Assad to solve the Syrian crisis is no better than the plans of others.  The West and Arab states allowed a policy and power vacuum to develop in Syria, into which Putin has stepped.  But his proposal to simply back Assad has less scope in addressing the real issues than do the plans of the West and Arab states.  It merely preserves Assad’s power that, without Russian backing, would crumble of its own cruelty.

Putin's UN Speech: Tail Wagging the Dog

#Putin UN speech feels like tail wagging the dog.  Shouldn't Assad's future depend on Russia rather than Russia's future depend on Assad?

How to Plan a Pyrrhic Victory; Putin Does Strategy

As evidence mounts of the scope of Putin’s activities, a plausible strategic plan seems to emerge from his actions.  The plan, such as it is, falls short though.  It is in essence a strategy from which Pyrrhic victories are made.

The plausible strategy has all of the following--and possibly other elements as more becomes known--in order to recapture Russia’s importance in global affairs while reasserting its own sphere of influence, Putin is,

• Reestablishing Russian hegemony over neighboring states through conquest, including Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine but also Armenia and Belarus (through a new military base that Belarus didn’t ask for), and ultimately, the Baltics, as well as other East European states;
• Control of neighboring states promises extended control over nearby strategic spheres, including the Black Sea with improved access to the Mediterranean and the Baltics with improved access to the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic;
• Destabilizing Russia’s near abroad, including through support for rightist and leftist extremist parties across Europe, but also through support for other potential disruptors, such as North Korea (or Berlusconi);
• Unbalancing the US through feints in the Middle East, most notably in Iran and Syria; these feints may involve igniting additional conflict, especially between Iran and Saudi Arabia, possibly over control of Iraq, which would push oil and gas prices up;
• Conflict in the Middle East (or elsewhere in the Muslim world) would have the additional benefit of producing a quagmire for the US and Europe that would tie up attention and resources (much as the Syrian refugee crisis is doing) and erode the West’s international standing.  These actions would hopefully drive a wedge between the US and Europe or the US and Saudi Arabia, as well as the US and Iran just as they initiate a rapprochement.

These geopolitical measures elevate the importance of the military and intelligence arms of the Russian government and help reinforce domestic measures to control dissent and social conflict.

Possibly other actions will become apparent that fit this scenario, such as a campaign of murder of opponents in Russia and in foreign capitals.

As a strategy it is doomed to fail because the risks and the costs for Russia are so high that an unanticipated turn will collapse the enterprise, while Russia’s key weakness is not addressed—the very reason Russia finds itself in such a depleted state—its crumpling economy.  Putin has no economic plan other than raising oil prices.

As with monarchs of other empires that imagined their resources were unlimited, Putin is burning through Russia’s wealth.

Russia has insufficient resources to succeed without access to the global economy for markets, finance and technology.

Russian today is characterized by massive erosion of economic power, as evidenced by falling consumption and investment, budget cuts, new unaffordable expenses such as supporting Crimea and eastern Ukraine and military adventure in Syria, capital flight and increased poverty.

Because of the weak economic foundation for elevating Russian influence, Putin’s strategy will fail just as the aborted Eurasian Union strategy failed to halt Russia’s decline.

Possibly Putin has realized the economic problem and is trying to change the international system to give Russia room to launch internal reforms.  This might weaken perceived enemies before risking systemic domestic reforms.

But this entails an extraordinary leap in faith in Putin’s foresight that is not apparent in his approach.  A new international order would require not just destroying the existing order but building a coalition around new, shared principles to manage conflict and preserve peace, which Putin has failed to demonstrate, and, as others have noted, he has no philosophical foundation other than preserving Russia’s importance.

UN agencies kicked out of separatist held eastern Ukraine....but why?

What is not reported is why the UN agencies were told to leave.

U.N. Agencies Told to Leave East Ukraine

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/world/europe/un-agencies-told-to-leave-east-ukraine.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&_r=0


The timing is odd because the agencies have been told to leave just as hostilities have quieted down, so there would seem to be no security issue.

It is possible as some have reported that it is because the separatists distrust the UN agencies, which they believe spy for the West.  But this seems an inadequate explanation taking account of the huge need for humanitarian assistance.

Possibly, the separatists are more worried about credible, independent witnesses to what they expect to be increased suffering as winter approaches.  According to recent polls in separatist-held areas, the separatists have become increasingly unpopular.  As fall elections approach, they may have calculated that they can still manipulate the elections enough to show strong support if they can limit information about discontent and conduct the elections on their own terms instead of according to the terms of the Minsk agreement.  The less bad news the better.

Don V. Vladimirovich Putin Quixote

Putin’s rule in Russia is defined by three delusions, or conceits, that only Don V. Vladimirovich Putin Quixote could believe.

First, that only a handful of people matter.  A leader no matter how inept or cruel is  entitled to lead and the people should obey.  His favorites, Yanukovich, Gaddafi, Mubarak, Assad and Berlusconi (with whom he recently vacationed in Crimea), were men of iron who were unfairly dethroned.  The people erred.

Second, that the world is run by security services.  The color revolutions were CIA conspiracies, as was the Arab Spring.  The people would never have thought up self-expression on their own and, like the hundreds of thousands of Russians who turned out in 2012 to protest election fraud by Putin’s United Russia Party, the people were certainly not entitled to act on their own.  Accordingly, Putin himself relies on his security services to maintain his legitimate authority against the illegitimate aspirations of the Russian people.

Third, that larger states through spheres of influence rule over lesser states, and that this is immutable.  Therefore, though independent, sovereign nations, such as Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltic nations and eastern Europe, should serve the interests of greater Russia, their natural imperial overlord.  Failure to submit is punishable by Russian subversion and invasion.

Deluded by these conceits, Putin has set out to right the wrongs of a world and visit justice upon non-believers in order to restore Russia’s sphere of influence and preeminence as a global power.   Once renewed through valorous deeds, Russia will be transformed into the Soviet Union or imperial Russia or Novorussiya.

Like Don Quixote, Putin tilts repeatedly at windmills lost in his own grand illusion that he must destroy the wicked.  He humbled the unworthy knights of Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine, and he threatens to humble Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and Slovenia.  Knocked out of Ukraine, Putin now tilts at Syria.  There are windmills at every turn. 

With each tilt at a windmill, the humbled oligarchics--Sanchos to Putin’s Don Quixote--tremble at his rush to folly.  They remain loyal on the promise of protecting their riches.  Meanwhile, Putin’s aging nag, Rocinante, the Russian military, struggles to carry its knight forward, though a shadow of the strong and steady steed Putin imagines.

Like Don Quixote of old, Putin gives up Russia’s worldly comforts in the name of Dulcinea, his goddess of authority and power.  In so doing, our deluded, czar-errant is transformed into a thief that preys upon the increasingly confused and oppressed Russian people.  Putin’s poor Sanchos realize it is better to live a quieter life than as servants to Putin’s grand illusion.  Eventually, an old friend—an oligarchic, a general, or a member of the opposition--disguised as the Knight of the White Moon, vanquishes our sad czar and he passes from our story consumed by his own fevered grandiose dreams.  And the kingdom that never was dies with him.

CitiesandThronesandPowers: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy - Putin in Syria

I had mentioned twice now in "the Big Muddy" and "The Tide Turns Against Russia" about the risk that Putin runs from Russian soldiers returning from fighting in Ukraine.  They know and will tell others that Putin is lying about there being no Russian soldiers fighting and dying in Ukraine.  This is a growing risk to Putin's political survival because the presence of Russian soldiers and their deaths in Ukraine are deeply unpopular among Russians.  An article by Catherine Fitzpatrick illustrates how that awareness is growing and affecting civil society.



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/16/finding-putin-s-dead-soldiers-in-ukraine.html



CitiesandThronesandPowers: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy - Putin in Syria: It’s tempting to think Putin has a strategy in Syria.   But he doesn’t. Having decided to step down in Ukraine (for the moment) and a ...

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy - Putin in Syria

It’s tempting to think Putin has a strategy in Syria.  But he doesn’t.

Having decided to step down in Ukraine (for the moment) and a fitful cessation of hostiles taking hold, Putin knows he needs a new distraction for the Russian people, and not the least for his military, which is running on nerves at this point but doesn’t have a plan.  The last thing Putin wants is a void that will give the Russian people a chance to reflect on what the last year has done to them or that will be filled by others, such as decommissioned troops.  The game is next year’s parliamentary elections when Putin’s United Russia party, which does not enjoy the protection of Putin’s cult of personality, will almost certainly face a deeply disenchanted electorate.  An eroding United Russia base will spell trouble for Putin in 2018.

Supporting Assad fits Putin’s narrative of defending Russian interests against Western aggression, but still has the kind of ambiguity that Putin likes where just possibly he is doing something in the spirit of international cooperation but you just don’t know.  However, ratcheting up support for Assad just now serves no strategic purpose.  Putin needs economic relief.  As the temperature goes down in Ukraine, raising the temperature in Syria doesn’t move Putin’s chess pieces forward.  Backing a regime that is unlikely to ever recover lost territory or legitimacy is pointless and costly. 

If the purpose is to court Iran, the timing is odd, since Iran doesn't need a new irritant with the West at the moment it is seeking to improve economic relations and move forward a nuclear proliferation deal—Putin needs take heed from Iran that improving economic relations will take something more than belligerence. 

Unless, of course, Putin’s purpose is to court the Iranian intelligence and military services as a counter-weight to the West-leaning Iranian moderates, which would make things really interesting.

It would be quintessential Putin, to lend support to the Iranian nuclear deal while courting the Iranian conservatives in order to keep his tactical options open.  In this scenario, refugees in Europe are just the icing on the cake.

With no strategy in mind, Putin is keeping his pawns busy while waiting for the opportunity to advance his knights and bishops.  Like the old Pete Seeger song from the 1960s, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, “…the big fool just says to push on."