The world seems to have been thrown back to the 1940s in the comments and analyzes of international experts. The terrible way of waging war evokes memories of the Second World War. And from the post-war period, thinking in spheres of influence of the West and the Soviet bloc is back again.
The British weekly The Economist, advocate of the blessings of the free market and globalization, has drastically abandoned the notion that capitalism would also abandon Russia as a peaceful country with financial gain as its supreme goal. This week’s cover reads:The Stalinization of Russia†
President Putin has not only instigated the worst ‘aggression in Europe since 1939’, but has become ‘a 21st-century Stalin at home in Russia, who seizes on lies, violence and paranoia like never before’. State TV is re-Stalinizing Russia with the propaganda of ‘denazification of Ukraine’.
Free yourself
But Putin pales in comparison to Stalin, says The Economist fixed: the Russian army in Ukraine has none of the heroism of the Soviet soldiers, the economy is badly hit by the sanctions, businessmen leave the country. NATO is wise by not directly getting involved in the fight, but the magazine hopes and expects that the Russians themselves will free themselves from Putin. “Think of what Russia can become once liberated from its 21st-century Stalin.”
This idea that Russia will eventually simply participate in a world economy dominated by Western capitalist values is an illusion, argues the American political scientist. John Mearsheimer for years and now also on the site of The Economist† The West tells itself that the pursuit of spheres of influence has disappeared with the end of the Soviet Union. And relentlessly expanded NATO itself with countries from the former Warsaw Pact. In doing so, the West has endlessly defied Russia and ultimately drove Putin to invade Ukraine, is his contention.
His view should not be controversial, writes Mearsheimer: American advisers have been warning since the late 1990s that Moscow is being cornered and that this is dangerous. That was brushed aside on the grounds that NATO was no longer a threat to Russia. But Moscow sees it that way. The West urgently needs to take Russia’s concerns and annoyances seriously and negotiate, he says, to avoid escalation and disaster like nuclear war.
For centuries autocratic
Stephen Kotkinan American historian working on a major biography of Stalin, disagrees with Mearsheimer, he says in an interview with David Remnick on the site of The New Yorker† The idea that Russia would behave differently if NATO had not expanded eastwards is flawed, he argues. Russia has been like this for centuries: “An autocratic leader, oppression, militarism and suspicion of foreigners and the West.” On the contrary, he believes that NATO can now better cope with Moscow: ‘Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not members of NATO?’
Putin’s regime is not the same as that of Stalin or the Tsar, Kotkin believes, the outside world has changed enormously. Yet we see ‘this pattern that they cannot escape’. A despot makes all the decisions all by himself and ends up in an isolated world, then comes the shock that his representation (“Ukraine is not a country at all”) does not correspond to reality, such as the resistance of the Ukrainians now.
Is there a chance of a palace coup, Remnick asks. That’s what Western intelligence services are aiming for, Kotkin replies, but researchers like him hear a lot of talk without sources. Access to the circle around Putin is very limited, we can only guess at the situation in the Kremlin. Putin may well be more firmly in the saddle than many hope. Some Kremlin researchers suspect he’s gone mad, but Kotkin thinks he’s purposely giving the impression “to scare us.”
UN victim
If Putin remains in power in Moscow, there is a threat of a new Cold War between the West and Russia, with economic contacts kept to a minimum. The United Nations was founded after the Second World War, among other things, to maintain a dialogue despite the hostile power blocs. But now the UN could become a victim of the Ukraine war, writes Richard Gowanresearcher of the International Crisis Group, in Foreign Affairs† Because Russia has a veto in the Security Council, that wing is paralyzed now that Moscow itself is the violator of all agreements.
The General Assembly condemned the invasion, but to little effect. Anyone thinking of a mediating role for the UN in this conflict will not find any pointers in this article. Gowan examines what can still be saved in the humanitarian tasks of the UN itself.