RURAL RUMINATIONS
DANGEROUS PUTIN WORLD
May 5 , 2022
By Haviland Smith
After over 90 years on this planet, I have one overwhelming question: What the hell kind of world are we living in, anyway?
What brought this question to the forefront was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During a lifetime focused on Russia, starting with undergraduate and graduate studies and ending with a career working the Soviet target for the CIA, the world has never been so inclined to tolerate an ongoing, unprecedented Russian invasion, one which could plunge so many of us into terminal conflict.
During the Cold War, this country made it through some pretty tough times with Russia. The Berlin airlift, the Cuban missile crisis and the 1960 shoot-down of the American U2 spy plane remain perfect examples of events which easily could have provoked disastrous military consequences. Yet, under the most dangerous situations imaginable, we managed to survive without such wars.
The Ukraine situation is comparable, but it is potentially far more dangerous. We are now firmly in a nuclear world and see on both sides tactical and strategic nuclear weapons that did not exist during the Cold War.
The biggest change comes from the instability of the current Russian leader and his virtual total control over his country. It certainly looks as if he can try just about anything he chooses to in his war with Ukraine. Having a nuclear armed adversary whose leadership is arrogant, isolated and ill-informed is an extraordinarily dangerous situation for Russia’s Ukrainian battlefield adversary and its international supporters.
To make things worse, Putin is perfectly willing to openly threaten not only Ukraine, but any country that gives Ukraine military support. He has said he is prepared to use chemical and nuclear weapons. Does he realize that any Russian use of such weapons virtually guarantees that they will be used against Russia?
We have been told by a hostile nuclear power that we are in their sights if we continue our Ukrainian support. Yet, there is absolutely no question from our perspective that this support is morally correct, warranted, appropriate and necessary for any country concerned with the long-term viability of democracy, particularly when the alternative is autocracy.
Is Putin the world’s craftiest manipulator or is he crazy? Unbalanced? Mentally ill? Is he sufficiently motivated to take on not only the US but all of NATO as well? Making decisions on how to cope with threats like that is absolutely the most difficult part of foreign policy. Anyone who trusts anything Putin says is certifiable because a bad decision could mean the end of your country or even of world civilization as we know it.
Given that level of concern, how is it possible that so many countries, including some of the world’s largest, have refused to condemn the invasion? What could possibly motivate India, Indonesia, China, the UAE, Hungary, Belarus, Brazil, Pakistan, Serbia, Turkey, Venezuela and all the “stans” (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) to sit so dangerously on the fence?
In a worst-case scenario, they will suffer right along with the US, NATO and others who condemn the conflict and support Putin’s enemies.
Russia’s primary source of income at this moment lies in the sale of petroleum products, mostly to Europe. Many of the European countries are to one extent or another dependent on those Russian products, particularly natural gas, for their energy needs. They have made, or are in the process of making, difficult policy changes that will ultimately cut back or even eliminate their use of Russian petroleum products. Once implemented, the effect on Russia’s income and economy will be very serious and harmful, particularly to their military adventures.
In retrospect, the Cold War was a benign period when compared to Russian attitudes today. The only real differences are the stability, believability and predictability of Russian leadership and the extraordinarily high level of damage that today’s weapons could bring to the world.
Haviland Smith is a long-retired CIA Cold War Station Chief who focused on the Soviet Union and served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and the United States.