There are at least two reasons why Putin is thinking of similar big and bold actions today. One is strategic and enduring: glory for him and his Russia, the two now intertwined in his mind. The other reason is tactical: he is working toward a lifelong presidency – a six-year term in 2024, aged 72, and perhaps another in 2030 – in a country where the economy and income have stagnated for more than a decade and The Covid-19 pandemic left deep scars. Furthermore, the arrest of pro-democracy leader Alexei Navalny has sparked waves of protests in more than 100 Russian cities for the first time since the anti-Putin demonstrations in the winter of 2011-12.
The same factors – deeply held beliefs and perceptions, bleak economic prospects and the demands of his regime’s survival – overlapped in 2012 and 2013. In the most fateful choice of his political life, Putin used Crimea’s “return” to replace progress economic growth and income as the cornerstone of its popularity and, therefore, of the legitimacy of its regime. It was a bold and brilliant political maneuver. Lev Gudkov, director of Russia’s only independent research firm, Levada Center, called Putin’s new claim to legitimacy “patriotic mobilization.” Another leading Russian political sociologist, Igor Klyamkin, labeled this choice “militarized patriotism in times of peace”.
And it worked. Putin’s monthly approval rating fell from an average of 65 percent in 2012 and 2013 to 81 percent from 2014 to 2018. Russian experts called it a “Crimean consensus” – an “emotional surge” that resulted in “Russians’ consent to endure hardship in exchange for imperial greatness. ”
We tend to repeat what worked. Political scientists call this “dependence on the path”. Now finding himself in what could be a tighter dilemma, politically and economically, than in 2012-13 and with the “Crimean consensus” eroding, Putin can achieve what he has done very well for him in the past: short and victorious wars .
Practically unknown when he was appointed prime minister in August 1999, Putin’s approval soared to about 80% in the early months of 2000, after he launched what became Russia’s second war in Chechnya. Its highest rating ever – 88 percent in September 2008 – was after a five-day war against Georgia. (At the time, he was technically Prime Minister, having installed Dmitri Medvedev as a replacement president, but everyone knew who was giving the cards.) “The public interpretation was: This is the beginning of the Third World War and we are winning, ”Commented Levada director Alexei Levinson. “It doesn’t matter exactly what we have achieved. The most important thing is that we show them! ”
If Putin wants to launch another short and successful war, there will be no shortage of potential targets. At least five neighboring countries are obvious candidates. Three of them – Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – are sites of “frozen conflicts” that can be easily thawed by Russian troops or their representatives within those countries or on their borders. Another, Belarus, is half of a formal “State of Union” with Russia. The fifth, Kazakhstan, has more ethnic Russians – 3.5 million – than any post-Soviet state except Ukraine, with a more convenient life in the six northern provinces bordering Russia. Once the Taliban take control of Afghanistan and begin to expand into Central Asian states, an Anschluss can be portrayed as the “defense” of ethnic Kazakhstan Russians.
But these five potential wars would not exactly correspond to Putin’s ambition for “big ideas” or his self-imposed mission to restore and avenge.
These criteria would be met by a quick and successful nudge on NATO’s eastern flank, the member states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Could there be a more satisfying coda for Putin’s desire to regain past glory, a more dignified retribution for the fall of the beloved Soviet homeland than a feat that even the mighty Soviet Union could not accomplish? A victory over the alliance that embodies the solidarity of the democratic West and its willingness to defend itself? A definitive release of data that would expose NATO like a paper tiger?
All the main public perceptions that shaped the “Crimean consensus” – the simple and lean definition of victory, aid to oppressed and abused ethnic Russian compatriots, the defense of the motherland and the place of the target countries in the national conscience – would come together organically, almost effortlessly.
Although Putin has boasted of reaching Riga and Tallinn in two days, an imperial Reconquest is unlikely. No tanks would need to enter Riga or Tallinn. Instead, Russia could conduct a Crimean-style “hybrid” operation, mainly by special operations forces and elite paratroopers from the Western Military District of Russia: three special forces regiments and the air assault division currently deployed nearby the borders of Estonia and Latvia. The most likely targets for a cross-border attack include Idu-Viru County, Estonia, 74% ethnic Russian, and its largest city, Narva (83%), and Latgale region, Latvia (36% Russian) and the city of Daugavpils (48%) After one or both were “reunited” with the motherland, recovering them would mean a war with Russia.
General John Nicholson, a former commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, estimated that it would take NATO approximately 90 days to mobilize and form a conventional Baltic force that surpasses the Russians. In contrast, it took only three weeks from the Crimean invasion to the “referendum” and “acceptance” of Crimea in the Russian Federation – Putin’s euphemisms for annexation.
Both Brussels and Moscow know that the Baltic is indefensible in the short term. Russia enjoys “absolute supremacy” in offensive equipment – tanks, fighter jets and artillery rockets – Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service concluded in a recent report. Following the operation in Crimea, NATO sent three battalion-size “battle groups” to the Baltic to incorporate Article 5 of the NATO Charter: an attack on a member of the alliance is an attack on all. Known as “Enhanced Forward Presence”, they are barbed wire.
However, a wire is effective only insofar as the crew member believes that touching it would cause an explosion, and there are good reasons to suspect that, for Putin, the wire appears disconnected from the powder keg. The French president publicly called NATO brain dead and doubted the United States’ ability to “activate solidarity” under Article 5 “if something happens on our borders”. A few months later, a report from the high-level Munich Security Conference was entitled “Westlessness?” And he began to regret the loss of “a common understanding of what it means to be part of the West”. For the first time in NATO’s 71 years, the newspaper addressed the prospect of dissolving the alliance. When asked whether their country should come to the aid of “our NATO ally” if Russia “got into serious military conflict” with it, the majorities in half of the countries surveyed said no, including France, Spain, Germany and Italy. In the last three, the “no” led by more than a 2 to 1 margin.
Of course, Putin’s image of the West may well be incomplete and impermanent. In the long run and on truly important issues, democracies are informed by public opinion, which can change foreign policy, often quickly and radically. But Putin’s perception is unlikely to change. Validated by the steady stream of distorted data to please the boss, after 21 years at the top, the memories of past victories likely spawned an unshakable belief in his genius and unchanging luck – and became proof of his ultimate moral integrity choices.
And there is Putin’s greatest built-in advantage over democracies: above all, they want peace. He needs victory.
Great ideas beckon, solemn dreams enchant, a place in history awaits you. And more than at any time since being in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin may be looking for a triumph.