Putin’s playbook
I wouldn’t want to impugn Russian President Putin’s originality, but his playbook does seem borrowed from Slobodan Milosevic. Ukraine is not really a country. Nor was Bosnia to Milosevic. The threat to Russian-speakers in Ukraine (and Georgia and Moldova) requires that they be protected. So too the Serbs in Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia. Russia did not start what is happening in Ukraine–it was the West that chased President Yanukovich from Kiev. So, too, for Milosevic it was Croatian President Tudjman who precipitated things in Zagreb, Bosnian President Izetbegovic in Bosnia and of course rioting Albanians in Kosovo: “no one should dare to beat you again!”
There is of course some degree of truth–I won’t go into how much–in each of these allegations. In revolutionary situations, there are bound to be bad moments, bad actors, bad provocations. The playbook requires that you overreact: mobilize paramilitaries, occupy territory, saturate the airwaves with justification and crush any hint of violent response on the part of a far weaker enemy. This is Machiavelli, suggesting ways to seize control of territory as quickly and inexpensively as possible and ensuring by whatever means you can get away with that it remains yours.
There is one play missing, so far: ethnic cleansing. So far as I am aware, the Russians are not, yet, expelling Tatars or Ukrainian speakers from Crimea. For the moment they are reported to be taking the soft power approach, trying to convince the Tatars to support them and arresting relatively few Ukrainian speakers and oppositionists, even as they box in or take over Ukrainian military installations. But that may change. With what I anticipate will be an overwhelming victory of the independence referendum in Crimea Sunday, Moscow may see the development of some real resistance to its plan to absorb Crimea into Russia as well as clashes in other parts of Ukraine between Russian and Ukrainian speakers. If it doesn’t happen spontaneously, Moscow can of course make it happen.
That’s when I would expect the next play. It is still early in the Ukraine saga. Things can get much worse and likely will. Crimea is more philo-Russian than other provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine. It already had autonomy and governed itself in many ways. It is not a great leap to independence, or to returning to the Russia from which it originated. The contestants will be more evenly matched in other provinces, requiring removal at least some of those who won’t cooperate.
Russian troops are said today to be massing and exercising near Ukraine’s eastern border. Success in Crimea could well embolden Putin further, tempting him to take a few more provinces piecemeal. If he does, his need to expel Ukrainian speakers and others who oppose Moscow’s rule will be greater than in Ukraine. We are far from the worst that can happen.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
9 thoughts on “Putin’s playbook”
Comments are closed.
RSS - Posts
the Russians want Crimea to Russia,and Ukraine as a federal model just like you created in Bosnia,western Ukraine will be the federation and eastern Ukraine will be the RS.
Told you ,took a play out of Americas play book .Crimia has just been kosoved and the rest of ukraine is about to be turned into bosnia.we’ll played mr.putin
I see Russia pushing on with this. Call me old fashioned with a maritime bias, but their goal is to acquire full control of the Black Sea ports in Crimea.
The ICJ is currently hearing Croatia’s and Serbia’s suits against each other, each accusing each other of genocide. (The oral arguments are available here: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&k=73&case=118&code=cry&p3=2. The parallels with Kosovo, where there were ethnic differences to exploit, are even worse, not that Putin would need to be prompted from abroad here, not with his hero Stalin’s example still not all that distant.
The only thing that helps at this point is to remember how Milosevic and many, if not enough, of his helpers ended up. Unfortunately, Putin is a much harder man than Milosevic was.
There is some similarity between Putin and Milošević, but merely on a tactical level. Something else is more important about Putin. His key advantage over his Western counterparts is that he, unlike them, thinks in solely geopolitical terms. On the other hand, a major disadvantage to his ability to project power abroad is in Russia’s economic and foreign policy overdependence on energy exports, negative demographic trends and inherent disposition to suddenly plunge into chaos as a result of internal social and political complexities that are difficult to handle successfully in the longer term.
Thinking geopolitically may not be a good idea when Russia’s economy is so dependent on sales to the assumed enemy. Selling to China will require constructing pipelines and probably accepting a lower price. The Chinese demanded volume discounts the Russians weren’t willing to offer in the past, and will undoubtedly push for further concessions, as the buyer of last resort.
When Putin took office, an oil price of $37 a barrel was all it required to balance the country’s books. Today, Russia needs $100-a-barrel oil to do this – buying off pensioners can get to be expensive.
Like Milosevic, Putin may be attempting to deal with the tensions arising from a worsening economy by distracting the public with nationalistic bombast that can get out of hand. The ploy didn’t turn out so well last time. Isvestiya talks bravely about the hurt Russia can cause Europe if it comes to sanctions, but Russia gets about 15% of its income from Europe, while Europe gets about 1% of its. For the US, the number is a rounding error.
It’s so very sad to see how “western” analysts are capable of making an analogy between Putin and Milosevic or Bosnia and Ukraine, while at the same time pretending to be completely blind over the analogies of Kosovo and Crimea, Serbia and Ukraine, as well as Kosovo and South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
mr.serwer is being quoted as the USA should pressure Greece in regards to fyrom ascension to NATO .i would really appreciate him to post something on his blog so we can discuss it
http://www.echedoros-a.gr/2014/03/daniel-serwer-nato.html
The analogy between Kosovo and Crimea is very weak. Kosovo had been constitutive part of the state which collapsed – Socialist Yugoslavia. Crimea was just a part of Ukraine and nothing more i.e constituent part of collapsed Soviet Union.
NATO intervened in Kosovo only after mass killings of Albanians from Serbia, which is absolutely not the case with Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea while Kosovo is not in union with any state nor is attempting to do so.
So why having an analogy where analogy is missing??
What Russia did is 100% violation of international law. Just read UNGA resolution 2625.