In an op-ed in the New York Times Eileen O’Connor warns that our political leaders don’t understand Russia very well:
In 1996, when I was the Moscow bureau chief for CNN, a battle was underway between a faction of corrupt oligarchs and cronies of President Boris Yeltsin’s bodyguard, who was demanding more money from them for political “protection†and threatening to upend planned elections.
I asked Anatoly Chubais, who was then the deputy prime minister, the question that seemed at the heart of the fight: What is more important to Russians, power or money?
He replied, “If you have to ask, you don’t understand Russia.†The answer was power.
and here’s the meat of the piece:
The only people who can truly sway Mr. Putin are ideologues who share his views, the so-called siloviki. The word literally means people with force — the power that comes from being in the security forces or military. These insiders have been with Mr. Putin since his days in the K.G.B. or in the St. Petersburg municipal government, and they see themselves as protectors of Russia’s power and prestige. They have kept their money mostly inside Russia and out of reach of sanctions. And like Mr. Putin, they see the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, and believe this fight is for Russia’s “sovereignty and the future of our children.â€
To influence them, the West must prioritize the things that they believe give Russia its superpower status: its oil and its military.
I would quibble with her a bit on that last claim. I think that oil and military power make Russia a regional power; nuclear weapons make it a superpower. But I get what she means.
She concludes:
In an interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Fridman, the London-based oligarch who has since been put under British sanctions, said that if the European Union thought he could tell Mr. Putin “to stop the war and it will work, then I’m afraid were all in big trouble,†because that means Western leaders “understand nothing about how Russia works.â€
You will note echoes of what I’ve been saying around here in Ms. O’Connor’s op-ed. There are Americans who cannot be persuaded that Russia’s political leaders are not exactly like ours. They’re wrong.
The economic sanctions that have been put in place are as likely to bring the global financial system to its knees as they are to move Putin to end the war in Ukraine. With as porous as they are, they could actually end the reign of the dollar before they end the war in Ukraine. I don’t have the hard numbers in hand but with the increase in the price of oil and Russia’s largest trading partner by far, China, not participating, their effect on Russia could be negligible. Right now much is being made of the effect of the sanctions on Russia’s airline industry—they can’t get parts with which to maintain their aircraft. However, since sanctions haven’t been imposed on China or India or any of the other countries that aren’t going along with the sanctions, any or all of them could act as middlemen which will undoubtedly happen with the passage of time.
“they see the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century”
Putin explains, because it stranded half the Russian people in foreign, hostile countries. He wants the people back in Russia, but he doesn’t want the former countries and their own, non-Russian populations back.
He is a nationalist. Almost no western leader is a nationalist. They are cosmopolitans and compradors.
Putin is not a dictator like Stalin, and has nowhere near Stalin’s power. He is the leader of the majority party in the Duma. He is an authoritarian in the ancient Russian tradition, but he must also satisfy the other leaders in his faction. And that includes the Russian security apparatus.
The fact that Chubais (a comprador and Atlanticist) lasted so long is amazing, and it indicates that Putin’s faction does not have complete control of Russia, and must negotiate with the other parties.
Dmitry Medvedev used to thought of as another Atlanticist in the Yeltsin-Gorbachev mold, but he seems to be moving in the nationalist direction. The fact that he has held and holds senior positions (President, Prime Minister, etc.) in the Russian government also shows that Putin’s control is not absolute.
Putin clearly has more control over Russia than does Biden over America. Biden is clearly a puppet.
I am no student of Russia as you are. But I think you would have to be a pretty dim bulb to not understand that this was a strategic, and perhaps to a small degree emotional, initiative.
Before he even invaded the Administration was touting sanctions. “Like nothing he has seen,” said Uncle Joe. I thought to myself, “economics over a once in 30 years opportunity?” And they don’t give a damn about their citizenry, so that’s not persuasive.
This makes the whole notion of sanctions silly and off target. The goal is not deterrence, its diminishment. And there is really only one way to diminish: bring down the world price of oil, one of his primary assets. The Administration is too beholden to internal politics to do that. Once again we see the costs of wrongheadedness.
I suspect the number of people who think sanctions will end the war is small. What it will do is exact a big price. If the Eu commits to buying oil and gas elsewhere production will increase here and elsewhere. However, Russia wont stop producing. China and India use the fact the US and elsewhere are pumping more to get better prices out of Russia. If we are lucky it drives prices down more for Russia than in the US but it is kind of fungible. We need to find that price point where it pays to frack in the US and hurts Russia a bit.
Russia can be hit even more elsewhere. They rely on the rest of the world of the world for a lot of their tech. Will China be able to supply it all and would they be willing to do so at risk of trade? Maybe. What I think is that a lot of Russian people will be affected. Will they hold the same vision of wanting one big Russia again and reforming the USSR? Maybe, but at the cost of giving up so much? After having had a taste of the better life?
Putin’s popularity is AFAICT is not based so much on some mystical vision of Russia as the fact that the country was an economic basked case when he took over and it markedly improved. Now it has been stagnant for a while, a lot of the real impetus for this war I think, and if the Russian economy seriously regresses how long can he remain popular?
Steve
What if the Chinese authorities think the risk is very low? That seems to be the case. Consider one example. We get nearly all of our yttrium from China. It’s used in chip production. The other countries from which we import it can’t make up the difference, at least not in the near term. We used to produce it (we were the world’s largest producer) but we gave it up for regulatory and environmental reasons. We could start again but it would be a real political football. BTW this is the sort of strategic vulnerability I have been writing about. Depending on China for a strategic necessity is just plain stupid.
I don’t think that Putin is trying to reform the USSR. I think he’s trying to reform the Russian Empire. Maybe that’s nitpicking but I think it’s an important difference. I think he’s trying to re-unite Russians and, maybe, East Slavs. I don’t think he cares about ethnic Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Finns, etc.
I think the phrase I’ve heard for siloviki is “hard men,” which might be an Irish phrasing. I’ve never thought that sanctions on the oligarchs would force Putin out of office. There are just a lot of things that the West should have been doing which it now has motivation to do, such as spend more on collective defense, reduce risk exposure for dependency on Russian energy. Those two examples are in tension, a hard reduction in energy imports will make it more economically difficult to spend more on security. It’s more important to start the steps to do both than do them immediately.
Russia’s GDP is projected to shrink by 15% this year. It was previously projected to grow 3%, so that’s an 18 point swing. The same revised projection has the EU’s economy growing this year, despite going into recession (two quarters of negative growth at some point). These seem like pretty serious sanctions, which will probably limit the extent of the invasion. I am still skeptical that the war is resolved by a negotiated settlement. The hard men might joint together to put Putin to pasture because he is no longer useful, and that would be a good thing, but I don’t think it’s likely either.
“Depending on China for a strategic necessity is just plain stupid.”
Amen. And I suppose it depends on the meaning of strategic necessity, but its probably stupid for any item. Perhaps only if its produced by Canada.
“I suspect the number of people who think sanctions will end the war is small.”
Those people residing predominantly in the Administration. Up until yesterday it was their dominant theme. Never underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck it up.