JUST HOW DANGEROUS IS PUTIN'S ARROGANCE?

 

            …This Anti-Putin logo is what is coming from some Russians in Moscow

 

Some observers think Putin may be losing it

 

You can see Putin’s personal isolation as he was sitting at the end of long tables in the Kremlin.  He was yards away from his visitors and advisors.  He was alone and aloof even as he was  issuing threats of nuclear war against the West.  Putin has continued this isolation over the past two years due to his fear of the coronavirus.  He was seldom seen, either in the Kremlin or at his various palatial estates.

The inescapable question, as the world watches Putin defy international law to hammer Ukraine, is whether he is rational or is he just acting as a rational actor…?  Is he serving what he sees as his real Russian national interest, or is he just a distraught dictator that is driven by his obsessive desire to force Ukraine into his neo-imperial dream?

 Public discussion about Putin’s rationality has grown tremendously over the recent days.  Even the Republican Senator, Marco Rubio, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted about Putin that “something is off”.  And Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.), the committee’s chairman, also tweeted that Putin was being “increasingly isolated”.

Based on Putin’s record and discussions with U.S. officials, his mental attitude appears to be more of a fixation on Ukraine than his having a broader instability. This isn’t necessarily comforting, given Putin’s extraordinary willingness to take chances where Ukraine is involved.

U.S. officials believe that Ukraine for years has been Putin’s most sensitive issue.  One where his normal political calculus doesn’t seem to apply.  CIA Director William Burns warned at a business event this past December: “I would never underestimate President Putin’s risk appetite on Ukraine.”   The Director said that Putin broods about Ukraine, and he rages about its tilt toward the West, and he schemes to bring it back under Russian domination.  This also the view of many U.S. officials.

Putin’s fixation on Ukraine has been complicated by the reversals Russia faced in these first week of the war.  U.S. officials believe that when Putin faces such stress, he draws inward, toward a tight circle of his hard-line advisers.  He also tends to lash out at his critics and he raises the stakes in an effort to intimidate his adversaries.

“Rationality” is the X-factor in military confrontations, especially those that potentially involve nuclear weapons.  A leader’s seeming irrationality might be his most compelling bargaining chip. Just think of it as a game of “chicken”:  When one driver turns the steering wheel at the coming vehicle, the other driver will surely swerve to avoid a crash.

Putin’s war hasn’t initially gone well.  He misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainians, and Europe and the United States.  His vast army might well succeed by flattening the Ukrainian cities and claiming “victory,” but in the process, he will create a festering wound in Russia.  He is creating what might be a generation of his enemies.

Rather than make concessions that might allow a face-saving settlement, Putin has instead lashed out. Facing obstacles during the first week of a limited conventional war, he has decided that he had to threatened a larger nuclear war.  He announced that he was putting Russian nuclear forces on “special combat readiness” because of “aggressive comments” in the West.  Threatening a nuclear war is beyond the pale.

There’s a worrying mismatch of threats here. President Biden has studiously tried to avoid a direct military confrontation, saying in the hours after Russia’s invasion that “our forces … will not be engaged in the conflict with Russia in Ukraine.” But at the same time, the United States and its allies have gone to war economically, imposing crippling sanctions that could, over time, destroy the foundations of Russia’s modern economy.

How does Putin see this confrontation? Judging from his writings and speeches, Putin might believe he launched a limited military war to enforce a Russian “red line” that he has expressed publicly for a dozen years. Rather than acceding, the West has responded with total economic war. Putin’s countermove has been to jump domains, invoking the nuclear threat.

Putin’s behavior follows the script of Thomas Schelling in his classic 1960 study of brinkmanship, “The Strategy of Conflict.”  Reckless behavior could be a useful bargaining tactic, Schelling argued. “A careless or even self-destructive attitude toward injury — 'I’ll cut a vein in my arm if you don’t let me …’ — can be a genuine strategic advantage; so can a cultivated inability to hear or comprehend, or a reputation for frequent lapses of self-control.”

The Biden administration initially tried to shrug off Putin’s attempt to play the nuclear card. Asked if Americans should be worried about Putin’s threat, Biden responded simply, “no.”  The Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the administration saw “no reason to change our own alert levels.”  Against Putin’s irrational threat, she countered with the rational response: “Everybody knows that that is not a war that can be won.” Putin’s response was to reiterate his nuclear alert.

As we think about ladders of escalation, America is near the top of its chosen domain of economic war.  Putin has brought that devastation on himself; he has doomed his presidency, irrevocably. 

But in the weeks and months ahead, America and its allies will need to allow Russia an exit ramp to escape this folly.  Either that, or we will face an ever-rising danger from Putin.

Copyright G. Ater 2022