Crimea: Putin vs. Reality

[BeyondGeography]

...As Putin sat slouched in his chair at his press conference, shifting between clever one-liners and contradictory constructions, he seemed to be struggling to reconcile tactics and ideology. On the one hand, he has been an extremely good tactician, far more nimble and ruthless than almost anyone with whom he deals. He carried off his plan in Crimea with panache. He broke all the rules in an act of violence that should have opened a space for the true world, the world he wants, the glorious Russian gathering of Russian lands and peoples.

Yet dramatic action did not summon the envisioned new reality to life. Ukraine did not reveal itself to be a Russian land unhappily and temporarily ruled by a few fascists whose coup could be undone. It looks instead like a place where the revolutionary mood has been consolidated by a foreign invasion. As the chief rabbi of Ukraine put it a few days ago: “There were many differences of opinion throughout the revolution, but today all that is gone.” He continued: “We’re faced by an outside threat called Russia. It’s brought everyone together.”

...The unmarked uniforms of the Russian special forces in Crimea tell this story all by themselves. Theirs was supposed to be the rapid gesture that changed the world. But with each day that passes those ski masks and unmarked uniforms look instead like symbols of shame, hesitation, lack of responsibility—indeed denial of reality. In the Crimean sunshine black ops begin to look a little gray. It must have been enjoyable for Putin to run an operation in which his troops could pretend to be from nowhere. But it was oddly childish of him to deny, in his press conference, what everyone knew: that the troops were Russians. It was as though he wanted the tactical play to last as long as possible, to dream just a bit longer. Ukrainian sailors in Crimea answered him quite sharply, in brisk Russian sentences much better formulated than Putin’s own.

The costs of what Russia has done are very real, for Europe, for Ukraine, and for Russia itself. Russian propaganda has elegantly provided a rationale for Russian tactics and articulately defined a Russian dream for Ukraine. But in the end propaganda is all that unites the tactics and the dream, and that unity turns out to be wishful. There is no actual policy, no strategy, just a talented and tortured tyrant oscillating between mental worlds that are connected only by a tissue of lies. Putin faces a choice: use far more violence, in the hope that another surge will finally make the dream come true, or seek an exit in which he can claim some victory—which would be wise but deflating. He appears to feel the weight of this choice.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/07/crimea-putin-vs-reality/

[bemildred]

1. I don't entirely share his framing, but still very well done. nt