The 4 Main Lessons That Vladimir Putin Teaches Us (Despite Himself) After 7 Months of War in Ukraine.
In the end, Putin will perish for having despised the West, but also and especially his people.
I would not go so far as to say that we should be grateful to Vladimir Putin, but he is unwillingly offering us, Westerners, a certain number of lessons whose significance we must measure. I will leave aside the self-satisfaction that we, as tired democrats, may feel in the face of the strategic difficulties of the Russian sovereign, and move on to subjects that itch more.
1. The importance of having a real-world view.
It is nevertheless astonishing to note that after seven months of the war, Putin has given new vigor to opponents he intended to crush and whose will to resist and capacity to respond he has completely underestimated.
Whether it is the Ukrainian forces, the Biden administration, the European Union (including Germany …), or NATO, Putin has locked himself into a narrative of decadence and softness that does not correspond in any way to the forces at play or to the permanence of values and principles in the West that are incompatible with his imperialist aspirations.
Moral: let us not renounce these values and principles, for they make us strong.
2. The pretense of identity-based nationalism.
We have seen Vladimir Putin honoring the God of the Orthodox, holding a candle, celebrating Peter the Great, and praising the Motherland. We have seen him influencing, with the help of briefcases filled with money, certain Western intellectuals, politicians, and journalists who love the nation, tradition, and historical loyalty.
The truth, in addition to the active corruption that had to be mobilized for that, was revealed during a conflict where Chechen militias were mobilized and where all that Russia counts of Asian immigrants (Uzbeks, Kirghiz ...) are now mobilized, suffering from this double blackmail of being deprived in case of refusal of any access to the Russian nationality, but also by their countries of origin of withdrawal of their nationality if they had to serve under the Russian flag.
Identity is beautiful when it is a question of choosing the cannon fodder...
3. The strategic interest of democratic transparency.
We agree, you and I, democracies are sick. They suffer from a thousand ills which certainly condemn them in the medium term. But authoritarian regimes, when they stop closing in on their tyrannical shell, offer to the eyes of democracies the face of weakness and mediocrity.
Any democracy, however fragile, is stronger than these complacent dictatorships.
Why is this so? Because since the ancient empires, we know that there has been no authoritarian regime without corruption. Corruption is precisely what erodes the social pact, what weakens all immune defenses, what eats away at all the principles of cohesion and responsibility, of justice and freedom. When adversity and a fortiori war are present, these are the principles that prevail and give only hope of victory.
Democracy is never perfect, and rules of transparency are sometimes accused of weakening it - but the truth is that they are the key to the strength of democratic regimes and if used properly, to their resilience.
4. The usefulness of a reserve army.
Putin mobilizes “partially 300,000 men,” he says. He is mobilizing in a disorderly and arbitrary manner, exempting the well-born. This after having deliberately, in his sole interest, dissolved in Russia the spirit of defense and demobilized the political or associative commitments, reducing each citizen to the state of passive spectator of his activities.
Despite the facts of resistance, the mass is led to the slaughterhouse because it is disinformed and cut off from any civic reality.
This should enlighten us on the need for us, in the West, to keep alive the indissoluble link between citizenship and defense, and to make our democratic opinions into peoples capable of standing up, possibly with arms in hand, in the face of increasingly acute threats and crises. This is a key to the dignity and strength of democracies. There is no Republic without fighters of the Republic. No republican dignity without the strength to defend it.
In the end, Putin will perish for having despised the West, but also and especially his people.
Some reading
India Is Beginning to Lose Patience and Is Urging Vladimir Putin to End the War in Ukraine. The worst thing for New Delhi would be a Russia so weakened and isolated that it would become subservient to China, India’s rival.
Two Years After Trump’s Threats, Silicon Valley Tries to Drive China’s TikTok Out of America. Worried about the success of TikTok, Meta leads an anti-TikTok campaign full of bad faith and hypocrisy.
The Energy Deadlock in Europe. The problem goes far beyond the war in Ukraine, and Europeans will pay for more than two decades of mistakes by their leaders.
In the Face of Putin’s Nuclear Threat, the United States Refuses to Escalate. Washington warns of the catastrophic consequences of such an act on the part of Russia but remains vague about its potential response.