This One Is For The Russia Conspiracy Buffs

Not that I am saying that the following is so, but, if #Putin believes, as widely reported, that the West, led by the US, wants to destroy Russia or reduce it to an impoverished state selling primary resources to the advanced Western economies, what is Putin prepared to do to save #Russia?

We already know that he will go to great lengths.  He has plunged Russia into an economic and international relations crisis by seizing Crimea, invading eastern Ukraine, threatening other countries, and launching his own military campaign in Syria, because he believes Russia is under threat from the West.  He is prepared to act aggressively, if not rashly, to stave off what he believes is a threat to Russia’s existence.  We also know he will strike out in unexpected ways, using force, threats, lies, deception and subterfuge to force outcomes on his own terms.  Certainly, he has shown he is prepared to take risks beyond the West’s expectations.

Is the Western threat real?  Putin feels entitled to think so.  The expansion of NATO, the two Iraq wars, the US-led UN intervention in the Balkans, and Western support for “democratic” revolutions in Libra, Egypt, Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere, suggest a pattern of engagement directed at something.  Not incidentally, that something undermines Russian clients and expands Western military power into what Russia considers its strategic space. 

Certainly containing Russia seems to be a part of a US strategy.  A recent article in The New Yorker, “How the Bushes Misunderstood Cheney”, discusses how Vice President Cheney “tilted away from Mikhail Gorbachev and toward Boris Yeltsin because he believed that Yeltsin would push harder for the dissolution of the Soviet Union.”  The New Yorker reports that the Neoconservatives, who still prowl the corridors of Washington licking their wounds, had been asked by Cheney to prepare a study (led by Paul Wolfowitz) “…calling for the maintenance of a one-superpower world in the post-Soviet era as the core principle of US foreign policy.”

So if Putin believes that Russia’s existence is at stake, what else is he capable of?  His seemingly reckless and impulsive actions and apparent indifference to the harm these have done to Russia, suggest he is capable of more, substantial surprises.

Would recent seemingly unrelated news reports amount to a plausible guess? Let’s see…

One example of such news reports is that Russia is on a “voracious” gold buying spree.  It bought 31 tons of gold in August and 34 tons in September and in October, up from 36.8 tons bought in the entire second quarter of 2015.  Buying gold may make sense as a confidence building measure to support the ruble and to diversify Russia’s reserves away from dependence on the US dollar and the Euro.   But why buy gold now?  Putin has said that the worst of the economic crisis is behind Russia, so what is his concern?  Is the explanation that hoarding gold also makes sense if Putin plans more provocations?  Does he believe that buffering the ruble with gold will insulate Russia from the consequences of those provocations?  What does Putin have in mind?

Another example, on November 12 news services aired a story about plans for a new Russian torpedo equipped with a tactical nuclear warhead that is capable of taking out coastal infrastructure or population centers.  Since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict it has been reported that members of Putin’s coterie favor the use of tactical nuclear arms to, for instance, take out a small European city (think, Kyiv or Lviv, or Warsaw) to convince the West that Russia was too dangerous to mess with.  The experience of Chernobyl is supposed to have convinced them that the damage to Russia from a limited nuclear event could be contained.  The “leak” of the nuclear torpedo story gives currency to the risk of a tactical nuclear event if Russia feels threatened.

Or, for example, on October 25, The New York Times and other news services reported that Russian submarines were “aggressively” prowling near the Atlantic underwater cables that carry most of the world’s Internet communications.  Damage to these cables would bring down not only vital global communications but also the Western economies, which are dependent on the flow of information.

Is this just saber rattling, or does Putin plan new provocations?  Does he believe that husbanding gold can insulate the ruble from the financial system consequences of another provocation?  Does Putin believe that a strike--even a substantial one-- on the West’s economic infrastructure is feasible because, if limited, it would not result in a fatal Western response?  Putin certainly has a taste for brinksmanship, and the tepid Western response to his provocations so far has only increased his distain for his opponents.  Does he believe that by delivering blows that incapacitate the West’s ability to respond he can save Russia—perhaps by delivering the blow through proxies that he can disavow, such as jihadists armed with dirty bombs using Russian-supplied materials.  If he believes Russia’s existence is at stake, how far is he prepared to go?

Just saying.