The day after Vladimir Putin seized control of Crimea, Russian media were saturated with a toxic brew of nationalistic pride and imperial hubris. The daily Komsomolskaya Pravda claimed Putin had won “one of the finest victories in Russian history” and now stood on the threshold of becoming “Leader of the World, ending American hegemony.”
Interestingly, the belief that Putin had won a major victory at minimum cost also found echoes in the Western media. A BBC analyst in London claimed that “nothing could stop Putin.” In Paris, Le Monde grudgingly admired Putin’s “strength.”
Reality, however, may be more nuanced. Putin appears strong because President Obama, accidentally cast as leader of the Western democracies, is weak.
It is no secret that Putin hopes to revive the Soviet Empire wherever possible. He is acting within a tradition established since the 18th century when Russia emerged as a power with a pathological fear of encirclement. That fear has always made Russia aggressive.
Throughout the 19th century, Russia used “the protection of Christian minorities” as an excuse for invading its neighbors, annexing vast chunks of territory (including the Crimea). After the Bolshevik Revolution, defending “socialism” played the same role.
Since the disintegration of the Soviet Empire in 1991, the excuse has been protecting Russia’s “kith and kin” in neighboring countries. Sometimes, these are genuine communities shaped over a century or so; in others, artificial creations used to pressure weaker neighbors.
Under Putin, Moscow has been distributing large numbers of Russian passports (some suggest millions) in neighboring countries, notably Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Kazakhstan (and in Moldova, which lacks a border with Russia).
The first test of the “kith and kin” excuse came in 2000 when Putin forced Tajikistan to host 15,000 Russian troops stationed in six bases. Then, in 2008, Putin ordered an invasion of Georgia and annexed the autonomous republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Today, Russia has some 40,000 troops stationed in the two enclaves. Now Ukraine is the third nation to fall victim to Putin’s “kith and kin” claim.
Where direct invasion is not possible, as is the case in Latvia (a NATO member), Putin pursues a policy known during the Cold War as “Finlandization”: The targeted nation retains nominal independence, but can’t do anything Moscow sees as inimical. Thus Finland was a free country with a capitalist economy but unable to join NATO or the European Union.
Putin is especially keen to Finlandize Ukraine and Belarus in hopes that one day they’ll join Russia in creating a Slavic federation under Moscow’s leadership.
Convinced that Obama is weak, Putin is creating a network of “proximity pressure” against defiant neighbors. This includes a military buildup in western Russia and the stationing of 9K720 Iskander mobile ballistic missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave to exert pressure on Poland and Latvia.
There is also economic proximity pressure. In Latvia, Russia is simply buying as much of the nation’s banks and industries as possible while increasing the size of the ethnic Russian community, already around 40 percent of the population.
But what if Putin is biting off more than he can chew?
As Monday’s falloff on the Moscow stock exchange and sharp drop in the value of the ruble indicate, Putin may not be in such a strong position after all.
With its economy dependent on gas and oil exports, Russia is eminently vulnerable to economic pressure. Gas exports to the European Union alone account for 25 percent of Putin’s budget revenues.
Meanwhile, distrust of Russian institutions also means that more than 30 percent of savings are funneled into Western banks. The notorious oligarchs who finance Putin’s political machine could lose big if the uncrowned tsar gets too big for his boots.
Putin’s military resources are also overstretched. Right now over 100,000 Russian troops are pinned down in the Northern Caucasus, where, unnoticed by the outside world, a low-intensity (but no less deadly) war continues in five autonomous republics.
Putin may look strong when facing the weak. But he is no more than a tin-pot despot increasingly contested in his own land. It is not enough to call for “restraint,” as Secretary of State John Kerry does. The message to Putin must be: Aggression and annexation cannot stand.