Politics

Photo by Wikimedia

In Moscow, on May 9th, the world can expect to see tanks, massive troop formations marching in tight goose step, huge artillery pieces, and of course, the crème de la crème of Russian weapons: nuclear-armed ICBM’s rolling menacingly through Red Square. Russian fighter jets will complete the portrait by screaming through the skies above the Kremlin.

It’s supposed to be a garish show of hard power, and proof of Russia’s resurgence as a potent global player, as well as a measure of the Kremlin’s obsessive relationship with history, and particularly the history of the Second World War.

This year, however, there’s a distinct sense that this ostentatious display of firepower is less a celebration, than a symptom of the virulent nationalism that’s taken hold in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, as his military undertakes a brutal war of aggression in Ukraine, bringing the world right up to the brink of war.

It’s Victory Day, Russia’s annual celebration of the Soviet Union’s costly triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945. Germany’s brutal invasion of Russia was repelled, in a savage war that extinguished some 27 million Russian lives, a staggering almost incomprehensible loss of life.

This May 9th has emerged as a critical juncture for the world, and a window into Putin’s intentions, and mindset, after his own ruinous invasion. The contents of his speech will be a key barometer for measuring how big this war is likely to grow in both size and scope.

The botched invasion launched into Ukraine could end prematurely, with some kind of empty declaration of victory, or it could continue to expand, becoming a global conflagration between Russia and NATO. In either case, we can expect Putin to provide signals in his speech, during a national holiday that has emerged as the Kremlin’s most important showcase of its revisionist politics, and its expansionary nationalism.

For all the lofty symbolism, there are going to be serious practical consequences to Putin’s words, and the world will be watching closely, parsing his speech for deeper meaning, searching for clues to his state of mind, and his health. It’s a rare way to take the temperature of the regime, to take the measure of Putin himself. Is there weakness, or more aggression?

It is a moment rife with historic significance, and civilizational peril.

Will the world descend into the pitch black darkness of world war three, or will Vladimir Putin claim a hollow early victory in Ukraine? He can be expected to tell us, as he defends the life of his autocratic regime, following his disastrous invasion. It’s a moment that is pregnant with meaning, and fear.

A cornered rat

Vladimir Putin is a politically wounded apex predator, bleeding profusely and increasingly dangerous to the world. He’s like the cornered rat he famously described in his memoirs, attacking and chasing him as a child in a St. Petersburg tenement, vicious and with nothing to lose.

His lightning campaign to swallow Ukraine has proven to be a debacle, beset by logistical and military failures, and undermined by Russia’s overly optimistic view of its own capabilities, and the Kremlin’s underestimation of Ukraine’s capacity for political and military resistance.

Despite setbacks, the aging leader appears to remain firmly in control of Russia, with aggressive domestic propaganda that has glossed over Russian failures, instead promoting a rosier narrative more favorable to the Kremlin. Yet Putin can only conceal tens of thousands of dead Russian soldiers and sunken Russian flagships for so long.

The conflict is entering a crucial determinative period, as it swings between being a long and painful quagmire, or a bloody Russian defeat. Of course, there is a third option, that Putin doubles down, and recommits.

Ultimately, to continue the war, much less win it, Putin may be obliged to expand it, with a wider draft of Russian men, and a public war footing. This won’t be easy. In Russia, it’s still illegal to call the war anything other than a “special military operation,” a benign euphemism, as opposed to the grisly truth.

After Russia’s humiliating withdrawal from Kyiv, and their reorientation toward the Donbas region, into a large Russian-speaking area in Ukraine’s industrial east, the conflict is still smoldering, and Russia’s making slow gains.

At the same time, the West is providing invaluable intelligence, weapons, and war materiél to the besieged Ukrainian government, all of which is having an outsized impact on the battlefield, and threatening to unleash a larger war.

Intelligence war

Increasingly, the war feels like it may spiral into a direct military confrontation between the United States and Russia, rather than the proxy warfare we’re currently seeing.

It’s a perilous path.

Two startling recent pieces of news seemed to capture this trajectory, and they both relate to American intelligence agencies, the old KGB man’s bitterest enemies.

First, was astonishing news that American intelligence agencies contributed information that lead directly to the deaths of numerous Russian generals, in a leak of classified operations that reportedly enraged President Joe Biden. Second, was a report that America gave Ukraine the targeting intelligence that enabled the sinking of the Moskva, the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship guided missile cruiser, with several Neptune anti-ship missiles, in what was a profound embarrassment for the Russians.

These two revelations show America being far more directly involved in Russia’s very worst battlefield setbacks in Ukraine, namely the assassination of scores of its highest ranking military officers, and the sinking of its state-of-the-art flagship in the Black Sea. Vladimir Putin will be the first to comprehend the implications of such intelligence assistance, and the ways it could shape the battlefield.

The American government has taken the gloves off, and publicly, whether the Biden administration intended it to be or not. It presents a stark reality for Putin, almost a fait accompli, but not quite.

Indeed, it lends the appearance of the United States being intimately involved in the business of killing Russians, and its highest ranking general officers, no less.

It’s striking, and remarkably dangerous, for an administration that says it wants to prevent a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia. Still, it leaves the ball in Putin’s court, so to speak. Will he escalate, or deescalate? There’s plenty of room for miscalculation, as two nuclear superpowers circle one another, with blood in the water.

War stories

Ultimately, waging war is about writing a dominant narrative, just like in everything else human beings and nations undertake. That’s why this upcoming speech is so important: Vladimir Putin is presenting his narrative, the one meant for public consumption in Russia.

If he presents Russia as essentially winning its war in Ukraine, it can be assumed that Putin’s probably not eager to widen the conflict, that he feels like his best bet is a swift “honorable” conclusion, a deescalation.

If Putin presents Russia as struggling, however, it means he is mobilizing the Russian public for a larger protracted war, and one that might be waged against more than just Ukrainians inside of Ukraine, an escalation.

It’s a critical distinction.

Of course, Putin’s speech will be primarily designed to do one thing: extend the life of his regime, which just launched a nightmarish war of choice, and stumbled badly out the gate. That is to say, the speech will surely be filled with lies, helpful propaganda, and historical connivance to convince Russians that Putin is acting in their best interests, as he turns Ukraine into a fratricidal slaughterhouse for Ukrainians and Russians, supposed Slavic brothers.

Vladimir Putin has plenty of material he could present to the Russian people as evidence that their real enemies are in the decadent West (newly unified by his invasion). Sunken flagships, dead Russian generals, and even the war itself, which Putin blames on NATO’s expansion, rather than his own aggression.

Even if he’s risking an unsurvivable third world war, perhaps Putin feels a more direct confrontation with the United States would serve his interests; in authoritarian nations, the leader’s interest and the people’s interest are indivisible, even if they are utterly contradictory. This is the central dilemma of autocracy.

Let’s hope Putin feels that the best way toward his regime’s survival is in the shrinking of this war, rather than in its expansion. As Russia celebrates 27 million dead Soviet citizens in the Second World War, let’s hope the Russian people remember the primary lesson of that war: war is hell.

Tragically, it’s abundantly clear Vladimir Putin never quite grasped this.

On May 9th, we’ll begin to get a sense of how much further Putin’s willing to take this war, and how much more we have to lose. Like the cornered rat he encountered as a child, Vladimir Putin shouldn’t be underestimated.

Dictators pose the worst threat right before they’re powerless, with nothing left to lose but their lives. That’s the central dilemma of confronting Putin.

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