Is there a way to stop Putin’s madness?

 

First, we need to determine what his intentions and objectives are. These can be determined to the extent of his declared demands and statements, so-called known factors. He may have other undeclared intentions. These are the unknowns, but prudence would suggest that we have to make some educated guesses.

We may build our guesses on his declared concern of insecurity in the face of Ukraine’s intention to join NATO, which became evident after the Ukrainian people replaced the Russian puppet regime with a real Ukrainian administration in 2014. The fact, which has already been known and repeatedly declared on this occasion, is that NATO is not for annihilating Russia, but for defending against any attempt by Russia to annihilate Europe. Being a savvy and experienced politician, he knows this fact very well.

This reasoning leads us to infer that his real or main objective is to revenge for the eventual dissolution of Warsaw Pact after Russia’s agreement to the Reunification of Germany in the Final Settlement signed in 1990 in Moscow, while NATO remained and even enlarged. This objective would carry with it the assumption that he implies the revocation/reversing of all disarmament and peace building arrangements Russia signed since 1990, like Budapest Memorandum of 1994 recognizing the independence of Ukraine in exchange of her desisting its nuclear weapons, 1997 Cooperation and Security Agreement Between NATO And Russia, or CFE Final Act of 1999, etc. Simply put, in Putin's mind Russia has to enlarge and get stronger to counterbalance an “aggressive” NATO, if NATO were to be permitted to survive and even to get stronger.

At this point it may be useful to recall the history of czarist and its successor Soviet Russia. Their history is full of expansionist wars with their neighbors. Especially, the numerous wars of czars with the Baltic lands and the Ottomans. This explains Putin's invasion of Crimea in 2014 and his current advances on the Black Sea coast considered the sensitive underbelly as well as the jewel of Russia. In our advanced times he is clearly considering expanding towards the north as it is getting more and more accessible due to the climate change. His planting the Russian flag at the bottom of the North Pole some years ago must be likened to a dog marking his territory. This is another consideration we need to keep in mind while trying to contain Russia this time around. If the West is to avoid the constant intimidations by Russia, it has to change the way it responds to her intimidations. The West avoids escalation in the face of a Russian aggression for concern of loss of lives and treasures, a civilized approach. But, Russia, not being sensitive to losing lives and treasures, takes advantage of this Western civility and agrees to a settlement in which she gets at least part of what it wanted in the first place. This may be the reason for Russia to start out with a higher bidding in her moves. 

In other words, his action is not motivated by a real threat but by a willful intention to undo what the Russian State has already agreed to in many international commitments (some on his watch) for international peace. Hence, the invasion of Ukraine is an excuse or the beginning of an international chaos. If this inference is correct, then it may be that Putin is on a non-negotiable course. Therefore, he has to be stopped before he upsets the world peace further and causes more human suffering. Can this be done and if so how? The urgent measures that come to mind in the order of importance are:

1.     The discussion of the situation with China with utmost urgency. Cooperation with China is the guarantee of success of any measure the West would take in resolving the Ukraine crisis. This crisis may be a good opportunity to establish good relations with the roaring dragon. The West is wrong to see a flourishing China as an adversary or threat instead of a peaceful competitor. The US must avoid unnecessary disasters as she did, for example in Iraq, by misreading other countries’ mentalities and cultures. We need to stop gaging other peoples against our own standards. Some needs and aspirations common to humanity may be met through different manners.

2.     The West must secure the participation of as many countries as possible from among the one hundred forty UN members who condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and most importantly of China in an ultimatum to be given to Putin.

3.     The ultimatum may comprise at the least: The withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, including from Crimea, within a given time period; The withholding of all foreign assets of Russia is for rebuilding the material destructions she caused and for compensation of victims or their survivors; The complete embargo on Russia (financial, trade, economic) is to continue until a peace treaty is ratified by a Russian public referendum (not by Duma); The immediate start of negotiations for a peace treaty for which Russian delegation will include three members elected directly by the people; The peace Treaty to include a denunciation of any and all territorial claims by the Russian people; The peace treaty expectedly to include a provision that any future Russian aggression or any threat thereof (military, financial, trade, economic, cyber, and/or misinformation) will trigger actions to be taken jointly by the majority of the signatories of the ultimatum as they deem appropriate.

The West must take seriously the lessons of history presented by the Russian state’s policy in international affairs and consider stopping utopic efforts of bringing it to the community of the modern world. The last such effort, after the 1990 collapse of the Soviet Union, has in fact gave birth to the current expansionist move by Putin. He clearly and repeatedly made his displeasure known about the replacement of Moscow oriented regime in Ukraine with one western oriented, and NATO’s enlargement policies. His invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his 16^th-17^th century style machinations in Donbass area had already provided sufficient reason for the West to take actions to stop him on his tracks. NATO must have, at that time, immediately accepted Ukraine into its fold by suspending all formalities for admission to membership.

Since now Putin took the initiative of confrontation and the West wants to avoid a calamitous world war, the West has to start thinking of blocking where he would go next. Moldova is clearly in his horizon. It may be a wise move to take that nondescript country under NATO umbrella without any ado, any delay. In fact, unlike the case of Ukraine, there may be a fast and easy way of providing that umbrella by coxing Moldova (and of course Romania) to declare federation with Romania who is already a NATO member. With a provision that Moldova can opt out of the federation any time in the future and Moldova’s ethnicity and language being the same as Romania’s (about 75%), such federation may be feasible. However, this fait accompli must materialize before Russian troops reach there first. The same blocking maneuver may be considered also for Kosovo federating with Albania (co-ethnicity and language over 92%), in consideration of the fact that Putin may go so far as deputizing Serbia, Russia’s historical representative in the Balkans.

Russia not only must withdraw totally from Ukraine, must also be deprived of all the bridgeheads she established in history in her "near abroad" for any future intervention pretext, like Kaliningrad, Transnistria, Crimea, Georgia, Armenia, and more recently Syria, if we were to avoid her future aggressions and to maintain a world peace.

Hundred and fifty years ago Europe was more cognizant of Russia’s expansionist spirit, thus was more determined to subvert it: 1856 Crimean War to stop Russia taking away the peninsula from the Ottomans, and the European intervention to replace the 1878 San Stefano Treaty with that of 1878 Berlin Treaty that saved the “Europe’s sick man”, Ottoman Empire, die in Russian hands. Today’s worldwide protests against the ongoing tragedy in Ukraine offers a golden opportunity to put a decisive end to the centuries old expansionist desires of Russian leaders by getting both the 21^st century Russian people (instead of the government) and the world community to support such drastic actions as suggested above.

What is the alternative? The West’s complete capitulation to Putin’s objective of bringing Ukraine back to Russian sphere, or returning to status quo ante by a negotiated agreement hence mutual concessions. It should not be hard to expect that Putin’s concession would be to withdraw against a West concession of recognizing his annexation of Crimea and the two Donbass Oblasts and Ukraine’s denunciation of membership in any European organization. Such agreement translates, of course, into a victory for Putin, because he had set out to achieve this end anyway by aiming higher. As to the West, it will go back to its usual policy of peace and “soft diplomacy” using the attraction of freedoms to win the minds of the Russian people. Whereas Russian state’s expansionist policy will survive Putin as it did many times since Ivan I aspired to be the successor to the Byzantine Empire after the latter’s fall to the Ottomans. In other words, a status quo ante today will engender tomorrow's fall of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan back into the Russian sphere, and ultimately the addition of Syria and the Arctic to it.

March 4, 2022