Facing Down Erasure
Like everyone else, I feel the need to write about the war in Ukraine. Many people think that Putin is behaving irrationally. This is true and not true at the same time.
TLDR: Putin's invasion of Ukraine was always nuts considering its effects on Russia's present and future welfare, even if he "won." But Putin's messed-up emotional needs are satisfied even if the invasion fails and Russia collapses, because he'll still get to dominate, terrorize, murder, and oppress lots of people.
However, all is not doom and gloom because Ukraine refuses to be helpless, Putin’s interests are not aligned with Russia’s, and we've got a tyrant to mock! There is a sprinkling of humour throughout, and the mood lightens starting with the section "The Zelensky Factor."
Putin Doesn't Value Russia's Welfare
From a perspective that prioritizes the current and long-term material welfare of the Russian people, Putin's actions make no sense, even when allowing for him lacking certain information like the actual capabilities and equipment of the armed forces. If there are diplomatic options that can achieve roughly the same goals, starting an unprovoked war of aggression on a neighbouring country is a waste of resources and unnecessarily risks much damage to Russia's people and international reputation. (The role of racism in how people respond to this conflict is deplorable but only intensifies my point here.)
The welfare of the people has to be a major concern for the leadership of any well-run state, regardless of its political structure, if only because the people are the critical resource needed to supply the elite's luxuries and further the elite's ambitions. The consensus is that Russia has already lost more from the war and its consequences than it can gain from Ukraine, making the question "how much damage Putin will do to his own people as well as Ukraine before he admits it or gets removed?" His best possible result is a Pyrrhic victory.
Our usual Western perspective cannot explain why Putin started this war, continues it, or escalates it.
Pretend for a moment that the fait accompli was in fact accompli, and that a Ukrainian puppet regime was installed to provide a veiled Putin takeover without the expense of a Russian military occupation. How does that create more long-term benefits than risks for Russia, compared to getting along with its neighbours? Europe, NATO, etc. would still recognize that they could be next and start reacting to that.
What Does Putin Get From This?
From another frame of mind, Putin's actions make far too much sense. Samuel Ramani calls it "legacy or identity construction." In plain English, Putin's goal is to rebuild some kind of Greater Russia in his image while his subjects praise their Glorious Leader for doing it. I’d been thinking similar thoughts for a few days, but didn’t have an Oxford doctoral thesis to back it up.
In plainer English, I think it's even uglier and self-centered than that. The rest of this post is my opinions. Maybe my suspicions are not true of Putin in the past, but I believe they are true of Putin in the present. I am no expert on that region, war, or diplomacy, but I've been trying to read facts and analysis of current and relevant past events published by smart people who do know about it, I am interested in history, and I know a thing or two about how abuse operates. Putin has been showing us who he is, and we had better believe it. Otherwise Maya Angelou will be very disappointed in us.
It’s About Putin’s Emotions
This war, and the conquests Putin desires to follow it, are about Putin's emotions and toxically masculine self-image. He wants to be among the biggest, baddest Russian rulers, to be honoured long into the future for Making Russia Great Again. The money and land and glory are valuable and pleasing, but they are just a veil of classic Great Man bullshit covering an evil man's need to control and destroy. To force as many peoples and places as he can to be afraid of him, to be what he tells them to be, to think what he tells them to think. I would call it "Putin's vision of Russia," except that such language would legitimize it. It should be called "Putin's nightmare for Russia and everyone else in reach."
Putin is a bully, an abuser, and a war criminal who would rather set off World War 3 than accept that others can have their own identities, goals, and ways of life. Despite the risk of suffering and death, very ordinary people are humiliating Putin with their defiance while the whole world watches. Their valiant efforts are being documented in exquisite detail by legions of reporters, historians, and subject matter experts. Future generations will study Putin's hubris and humiliation this spring until the internet's electrons lose their patterning and all the books rot.
Why is Ukraine the target? Ukraine is not only close by to Russia, but close: the people and history of Ukraine have been intertwined with those of modern Russia for over a millennium, and Putin's words and actions over the years indicate that he is incapable of letting Ukraine go. It is deeply meaningful for him to reintegrate Ukraine back into Russia by whatever means necessary, and he will emit many very bad justifications for it, some of which he may truly believe.
I can think of one reason that functions on both the practical and emotional levels, directly serving the desire to dominate. Plenty of the war reporting has mentioned that many Ukrainians communicate with family in Russia and vice versa. That's an ideal channel for sharing what life is like in the other country and debunking propaganda. Yes, I have heard that the most brainwashed Russians don't believe what they hear from their own close relatives. Isn't that also a sign that the administration sees a risk of truth spreading and has taken steps to mitigate it?
But why would such a connection require conquering Ukraine instead of befriending it? Simple.
So long as Ukraine exists, every citizen of Russia -- and its former Soviet and Imperial possessions -- has proof that Putin's way is not the only way.
This is what Putin truly can't stand. Ukraine choosing to take on some "decadent" Western traits is just a surface issue. The real issue is that Ukraine is not an extension of Putin or Russia and will never submit to Russian dictatorship again, and everyone -- including Putin's other victims -- can tell.
Abusers depend on their victims staying helpless instead of realizing that life free of abuse is achievable. Abusers depend on those witnessing the abuse, like us, to keep quiet and let it happen. Finally, abusers can't afford to let one of several victims get away: it gives the other ones ideas. Therefore, Putin must punish Ukraine for defying him -- and remember, any form of independent existence is defiance -- or his whole dominance structure could begin to collapse. Putin began terrorizing and destroying Ukraine for this reason years ago.
Ukraine knows it is facing down erasure. That's why they're laughing in its face and spitting in its eye.
The Zelensky Factor
Putin probably thought that nobody would care if he simply took Ukraine, or that they would be cowed by his show of manly force. Only Ukraine didn't play the loyal battered wife who pretended that she clumsily fell down the stairs. Instead Ukraine stood dead center in the living room window, called the police, shouted to the neighbours, and livestreamed the assault on social media. The message? "This is what Putin does, this is why we will fight, and we will stop him with your help!" Ukraine’s whole PR effort has been brutally honest, deeply moving, and masterfully coordinated and calculated. It oozes media experience.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s name is going to echo for centuries. In a grim war of defense where a superior power is brutalizing its people, Ukraine can boast impressive military results and morale through the roof, while the Russian military is continually revealed as incompetent, corrupt, vicious, impotent, and laughable.
Zelensky has leveraged his expertise as an entertainer to flip the narrative and reality upside down, and make the world fall in love with Ukraine instead of promptly feeding it to Putin’s genocidal maw.
This war isn’t just news. It’s juicy, prime-time drama with compelling heroes and villains, epic scale and intimate moments...and Zelensky and his staff are making that happen LIVE. They’re telling the world a story about the best and worst of humanity, the nations we call home, the ideals we believe in, the people we love, and what is worth fighting for — whether that fight uses anti-tank weapons or a train ticket to exile so your kids will grow up. If it doesn't move you, you might be missing your soul.
The bar for all entertainers turned politician is now located in the stratosphere. If Russia’s invasion collapses anytime soon it will reach Low Earth Orbit.
Putin's Possible Goals
Zelensky may yet win this war by using sheer drama as a force multiplier for Ukraine. But if that supreme feat of storytelling is not enough, what emotional goals might Putin achieve by the invasion?
One: Gaining power and control over others -- achieving domination -- is the goal that Putin finds worth any amount of other people's suffering. It's even worth a little of his own, because it is an addiction as well as a goal. In Putin’s ideal world, the West will be too damn scared of nuclear war and/or World War 3 to stop Russia from terrorizing the globe and gaining dominance through more conventional means. Those are valid concerns, but Russia is so totally using them to manipulate Western leadership.
Two: Should Putin manage to conquer and hold Ukraine's territory in any form over any span of time, he will amuse himself by torturing its people until that fails to soothe and entertain him. Eventually they will all die/submit, and/or the urge will shift to the next most irritating or readily abused group showing too much individuality. Rinse and repeat until Putin is removed from power. He's gotta have his dominance and sadism fix.
Three: Even if the punishment of defiant Ukrainians (and Russian dissenters) cannot be completed due to unfavourable circumstances such as mud and MANPADs, Putin will still inflict what punishment he can. Notice how as the Russian army's failure becomes clearer and drags on, the use of terror tactics to break Ukrainian morale and kill off its civilians increases, even though the world is watching...or perhaps because the world is watching. (See also goal one. Soft-hearted Westerners are easy to manipulate with hostages.) Do you think that any Russian combatants who make it home and tell the truth will get a warm welcome from their government?
Four: Even if Putin is not conscious of it, his fallback goal could be Russia’s isolation from the West, even at the price of Russia's collapse. That might be more emotionally satisfying to Putin than making peace through concessions to Ukraine and therefore the West. Economic collapse and isolation could be used as a pretext to ramp up his authoritarianism, and Putin likes keeping his people obedient and brainwashed. The poverty and hunger involved may also be more of a feature than a bug from his viewpoint. The poor and hungry are easier to render obedient...until they turn into Ukrainians.
Just as with Trump, the cruelty is the point.
What's Next?
I don’t know and neither does anybody else. One sheaf of possibilities that I’m not equipped to explore would be other nations making their own moves on a weakened Russia. Instead, let’s consider how unlikely it is that the entire Russian power structure is truly and equally devoted to the exact same worldview as Putin. Some of his rivals for power may be ruled by other lusts. Some might make decisions based on enlightened self-interest, or have some shreds of compassion.
Ambition is all very well, but is reassembling an empire worthwhile if you will be locked inside that empire without most of your accustomed luxuries and entertainments? Isn't it going to get boring in there? Everyone is eager to have some fun after two years of COVID. Is post-collapse Russia going to be any fun, even for the obscenely rich?
History teaches us that when you reduce the populace to desperation, they eventually rebel. Maybe some of the more sensible Russian elite would rather not need to flee from the next Russian Revolution, or are not that into the oppression and suffering of the common people. A rich refugee is still a refugee, as previous generations of the Russian elite have been forced to learn.
The last thing to emerge from Pandora's box of troubles was hope. Maybe there could be a Russian leader whose vision of a strong Russia doesn't rely on oppression, violence, conquest, and atrocity. Maybe a strong Russia could instead be built on the health, happiness, and prosperity of ordinary Russians, who have so often been fed like firewood to the glory of the state. Maybe ordinary Russians would prefer that, if they were permitted a free and informed choice.
