Preface
While it may appear to us as bizarre, the actions of Vladimir Putin are perfectly understandable when you consider Russia’s geopolitical ambitions and history. That Russia may have tried to influence our election should not be a big surprise. They have always done so, at least since the Russians have viewed the United States as a potential enemy and/or ally. Russian interference in U.S. domestic and international politics goes back to the American Civil War. A Russian fleet came to the U.S. and Tsarist Russia lent its support to the Union war effort as a show of force against France and Great Britain. ALL STATES TRY TO INFLUENCE U.S. POLITICS FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT AND WE DO THE SAME.
However, the current Russia panic of the political left is absurd and shows that their political philosophy is lacking a basic knowledge of U.S. history or that the more intelligent among them are attempting to rile up the American populace into a needless frenzy. The Democrats are 27 years too late for the Cold War. Every week, there seems to be a story about a Russian spy ship off our coast or Russian aircraft testing in our air space. This was a much more common occurrence during the Cold War and those encounters had, on occasion, deadly outcomes for the military participants on both sides. In reality, there is really no need to panic over current Russian actions.
Part 1-A Geopolitical Primer
For starters, the only geopolitical theory that has historical based evidence is political realism. What is political realism? It is a philosophy that states are the central actors in international politics rather than individuals or international organizations, Caveat 1-the latter serves some purpose, but is largely impotent short of world power agreement. That the international political system is anarchic, as there is no supranational authority that can enforce rules over the states, Caveat 2-WITHOUT the compliance of the states. That the actors in the international political system are rational, as their actions maximize their own self-interest, and Caveat 3-Irrational actors are usually short lived if they threaten the world balance. That all states desire power so that they can ensure their own self-preservation.
Just war theory and Democratic peace theory are geopolitical positions that are not evident in history. Political realism believes that all states act in their own rational self-interest. It is also true that we, as the general populace of the United States, may view another state's act as irrational, but it may be rational to that nation. Putin’s Russia is acting in accordance to its rational self-interest. There are answers to its actions in history that predate the current regime.
Part 2-What does Russia want? In a nutshell, the Russians want security. In order to achieve security, the Russians want to gain political and economic hegemony over their immediate neighbors and over as much of the Slavic world as they can achieve. These Russian needs predate the Putin regime and the Soviet government and have their antecedents in the Tsarist period. Russia has been attacked many times from the west, east and south and these events have been disastrous to the Russian people. That is in their national psyche.
Part 3-The Russian Point of View
When the Cold War ended, the U.S. and Western Europe ran rough shod over the former Soviet Union by expanding NATO. I am not saying that expanding NATO was a bad idea; I am merely trying to allow you to peer into the Russian mindset. When we expanded NATO into the former Warsaw Pact nations, like Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Hungary, and Bulgaria, we took from Russia their buffer states. Poland and Russia fought a bitter war with each other in the 1919-1920 period. Hungary, as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was often an enemy and they allied with Nazi Germany in World War II. Both Romania and Bulgaria sided with the Germans, with the Romanians making up a fairly sizeable contingent of the German led force that invaded in 1941.
NATO did not stop there; they allowed the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into NATO. These countries had been part of the Russian Empire, as well as the Soviet Union for a long time. Many invasions of Russia, from the Teutonic Knights to Sweden, had their starting points in the Baltic States. On the other hand, these nations joined NATO to get out from under the Russian yoke, no matter who was in power in Moscow.
The U.S. also interfered in the former Yugoslavia, taking advantage of temporary Russian weakness. The Russians view themselves as the Protector of the Slavic Peoples, a viewpoint that goes back to the 15th Century. With the breakup of the Serbian dominated Yugoslavia, at the hands of NATO, the Russians viewed that as a major slap in the face. We made those relations worse by allowing Croatia and Slovenia (2 former Yugoslavian states) into NATO.
Furthermore, we have intervened, at even the lowest levels, in Chechnya (particularly under the Obama Administration), which is a recognized part of Russia. Russia sees the Ukraine as being in its sphere of influence and there are historical ties that date to the Middle Ages, with the foundation of the first Russian state: Kievan Rus. The Obama Administration ignored these Russian sensibilities and shoved it in their face, while at the same time taking little effective action to aid the Ukraine. What is missed in most American news stories on the issues of the former USSR is that a large number of ethnic Russians live in many of the Non-Russian former Soviet states. In the Ukraine, there is a huge ethnic Russian population in the Crimea and the Donbas (Eastern Ukraine).
I am not a Russian apologist. I would have expanded NATO, but I am a critic of much of U.S. foreign policy toward Russia. I am less than impressed with the credentials of the Obama holdovers at State, nor am I seeing a consistent and realistic sustainable policy in the Trump Administration. I believe the latter is caused by the shameless political actions of the Democrats. This little exercise was to give people a view from how the Russian side thinks. This is a very basic essay and, if anyone is interested, I can go into further detail on specific topics covered in this article.
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