Pat Buchanan Asks: Is Putin the Irrational One?

Townhall ^ | 03/18/2014 | Pat Buchanan

[SeekAndFind]

Vladimir Putin seems to have lost touch with reality, Angela Merkel reportedly told Barack Obama after speaking with the Russian president. He is "in another world."

"I agree with what Angela Merkel said ... that he is in another world," said Madeleine Albright, "It doesn't make any sense."

John Kerry made his contribution to the bonkers theory by implying that Putin was channeling Napoleon: "You don't just, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext."

Now that Putin has taken Crimea without firing a shot, and 95 percent of a Crimean electorate voted Sunday to reunite with Russia, do his decisions still appear irrational?

Was it not predictable that Russia, a great power that had just seen its neighbor yanked out of Russia's orbit by a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev, would move to protect a strategic position on the Black Sea she has held for two centuries?

Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Putin is out to recreate the czarist empire. Others say Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union and Soviet Empire.

But why would Russia, today being bled in secessionist wars by Muslim terrorists in the North Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, want to invade and reannex giant Kazakhstan, or any other Muslim republic of the old USSR, which would ensure jihadist intervention and endless war?

If we Americans want out of Afghanistan, why would Putin want to go back into Uzbekistan? Why would he want to annex Western Ukraine where hatred of Russia dates back to the forced famine of the Stalin era?

To invade and occupy all of Ukraine would mean endless costs in blood and money for Moscow, the enmity of Europe, and the hostility of the United States. For what end would Russia, its population shrinking by half a million every year, want to put Russian soldiers back in Warsaw?

But if Putin is not a Russian imperialist out to re-establish Russian rule over non-Russian peoples, who and what is he?

In the estimation of this writer, Vladimir Putin is a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne ethnonationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his legitimate concern.

Consider the world Putin saw, from his vantage point, when he took power after the Boris Yeltsin decade.

He saw a Mother Russia that had been looted by oligarchs abetted by Western crony capitalists, including Americans. He saw millions of ethnic Russians left behind, stranded, from the Baltic states to Kazakhstan.

He saw a United States that had deceived Russia with its pledge not to move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army would move out, and then exploited Russia's withdrawal to bring NATO onto her front porch.

Had the neocons gotten their way, not only the Warsaw Pact nations of Central and Eastern Europe, but five of 15 republics of the USSR, including Ukraine and Georgia, would have been brought into a NATO alliance created to contain and, if need be, fight Russia.

What benefits have we derived from having Estonia and Latvia as NATO allies that justify losing Russia as the friend and partner Ronald Reagan had made by the end of the Cold War?

We lost Russia, but got Rumania as an ally? Who is irrational here?

Cannot we Americans, who, with our Monroe Doctrine, declared the entire Western Hemisphere off limits to the European empires -- "Stay on your side of the Atlantic!" -- understand how a Russian nationalist like Putin might react to U.S. F-16s and ABMs in the eastern Baltic?

In 1999, we bombed Serbia for 78 days, ignoring the protests of a Russia that had gone to war for Serbia in 1914. We exploited a Security Council resolution authorizing us to go to the aid of endangered Libyans in Benghazi to launch a war and bring down the Libyan regime.

We have given military aid to Syrian rebels and called for the ouster of a Syrian regime that has been Russia's ally for decades.

At the end of the Cold War, writes ex-ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock, 80 percent of Russia's people had a favorable opinion of the USA. A decade later, 80 percent of Russians were anti-American.

That was before Putin, whose approval is now at 72 percent because he is perceived as having stood up to the Americans and answered our Kiev coup with his Crimean counter coup.

America and Russia are on a collision course today over a matter -- whose flag will fly over what parts of Ukraine -- no Cold War president, from Truman to Reagan, would have considered any of our business.

If the people of Eastern Ukraine wish to formalize their historic, cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, and the people of Western Ukraine wish to sever all ties to Moscow and join the European Union, why not settle this politically, diplomatically and democratically, at a ballot box?

[pgkdan]

I completely agree with Pat on this one. Here's the real money quote:

He saw a Mother Russia that had been looted by oligarchs abetted by Western crony capitalists, including Americans. He saw millions of ethnic Russians left behind, stranded, from the Baltic states to Kazakhstan. He saw a United States that had deceived Russia with its pledge not to move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army would move out, and then exploited Russia's withdrawal to bring NATO onto her front porch.

[dfwgator]

Some parallels there with Germany and The Versailles Treaty, and we all know what that inevitably led to.

[4rcane]

“US is a force for good and protector of freedom in the world,” but Obama is not that. Putin is not an evil man. Russia today is more capitalistic than America

[sharkhawk]

Putin is a nationalist who is doing what he could to protect Russia, against the hypocritical Europeans/Americans.

Be very afraid of Russian nationalism, especially if you're Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish or any type of Slav. Pat wrote an article a while back saying that the Germans had to invade Poland, because the Poles had attacked a radio station. I used to like him, but he is way too much of isolationist for me.

[dragnet2]

God forbid we ever mind our own business. Just look what playing world cop has got us.

Broke, beat, untrusted, with the national treasure looted after 40+ years of disastrous foreign policies, leaving us with government who now even spies on it’s on people...

[TexasFreeper2009]

*bump* !

I agree 100% Putin is the only one in the world who is making sense.

[caveat emptor]

Hopefully Putin's invasion of Crimea will be a wake-up call to a somnolent West. Here's an excerpt from an article in today's National Post:

The recent Strategic Outlook by the CDA Institute made three specific recommendations in this regard [Canada beefing up defence] — Canadian participation in a continental ballistic missile defence shield; creation of a maritime NORAD, integrating Canada’s navy and coast guard with that of the U.S.; and, a sufficient number of ships to patrol Canada’s three coastlines.

David Bercuson, director at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, talks about the “Finlandization” of Europe — the concept that smaller countries try not to challenge larger neighbours in foreign policy, while attempting to maintain national sovereignty. “We’re back to Finlandization, on a smaller scale. There’s no undoing it, even if the Russians pull out of Crimea,” he said. [a dated comment. Crimea's part of Russia now]

The prospect is already causing a radical re-think of policy in countries like Sweden, which is flirting with the idea of NATO membership, after nearly 200 years of “splendid isolation.” Jan Bjorklund, Sweden’s deputy prime minister, floated the idea, warning Russia could seize Gotland, a Swedish island province in the Baltic Sea, if it chose to attack Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The only concept Mr. Putin does appear to understand is Cold War orthodoxy, the balance of power.

On its own, Canada is as impotent as Finland. But in a re-energized, re-financed NATO, the united military potential dwarfs that of the Russians.

“Canada has to frame its defence policy in this reality,” said Dr. Bercuson.

Obviously a pipe-dream as long as Obama is in office, but the clock is counting down.

[Count of Monte Fisto]

The US is a force of good and protector of freedom in the world

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or just insane.

[afsnco]

I’m with you, except for the Obama Administration’s love for abortion and homosexuality, and threatening nations with withdrawal of foreign aid unless they enslave their religious convictions to that aid. Wait...

[Revolting cat!]

What happened to the End of History? Has it ended?

[Forward the Light Brigade]

I agree with Pat on this. Russia is just playing the old game of power politics—a game we in the US have forgotten. Look to what the French do—they too are masters of the old game. They will say all sorts of things and still sell an aircraft carrier to Putin’s Russia. In truth—Cremea should never have been given to Ukraine in the first place. Putin understands all the sanctions, Red Lines, UN pronouncements in the world do not trump T-90s and boots on the ground—This has been the rules of history since they were written by Sargon I so long ago in Mesopotamia (By the way Sargon I and his dynasty brought 150 years of peace to the Middle East—not an east feat then or now).

[Bizhvywt]

“The US is a force of good and protector of freedom in the world.”

Obama is not that.

[ravenwolf]

The US is a force of good and protector of freedom in the world, used to be called that by rational people, now has become nothing but a traditional saying

Like a sky with no blue or a well without water.

[Pelham]

“Pat wrote an article a while back saying that the Germans had to invade Poland, because the Poles had attacked a radio station”

Do you have a link to that article?

[sharkhawk]

Did Hitler Want War?

Okay he doesn't blame it because of a radio station, but says Poland had started the war.

[sharkhawk]

Pat Buchanan Defends Hitler's Invasion of Poland

Here's the Free Republic thread at the time. I have no use for Pat Buchannan.

[x]

There are people who are clearly rational and people who are clearly irrational.

Then there are the risk-takers, the gamblers, the ones who push the envelope.

If they succeed -- if their gambles pay off -- then they're considered not only rational, but brilliant.

If they fail they're regarded as crazy and dangerous.

I'd put Putin in that category.

You could see that behavior a century ago -- countries essentially playing chicken with each other and expecting the other side to get out of the way.

It's not good for the world, but if the other fellow chickens out, the reward for you can be great.

Merkel is someone who stays within the established limits and doesn't risk or gamble -- all the better for her, for her country, and for the world -- so it's not surprising that she sees Putin as irrational or out of touch with reality.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk