Putin's Challenge to NATO and to the Global Enterprise.

• Author: Mcnamara, Thomas E.
• Position: Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Atlantic Treaty Organization

American Diplomacy

May 1, 2022

www.americandiplomacy.org

Title: Putin's Challenge to NATO and to the Global Enterprise

Author: Thomas E. McNamara

Text:

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most powerful and destructive example in generations of a nation-state attempting to recreate its lost imperial history. This is not a defense of empire. It is Russia's rejection of nationhood as a legitimate basis for sovereign existence in the world order. That this is being done by a major power with a long history of imperial ambition, expansion, and domination makes it a serious global issue. Putin's actions are his rejection of the 20th century decline and extinction of empires and a challenge to the international order founded on and by nation-states.

Putin's Real Problems

Vladimir Putin is living in the past. He has many vital problems that he is not handling well: the out-of-control pandemic; the burning tundra and taiga; the melting Arctic; the kleptocracy dragging down the economy; the domestic oppression alienating yet another generation; the growing unrest in his hinterlands; the sharply declining population; the uncertain future of fossil fuels; and the undependable Chinese relationship.

Despite these real problems, Putin is focused on muscling Belarus into submission and conquering Ukraine, as if dominating them were truly vital to the Russian Federation. He is a traditional Russian imperialist. The world has changed; Putin has not. He has a KGB mentality and a grudge to settle. While Russia's political, economic, and social decline steepens, its military grows, thanks to increased funding. Those same priority distortions hollowed out the Soviet empire and contributed to its downfall.

The USSR lost the Cold War because of third-rate technology, over militarization, a weak economic-social base, unreliable satellites that were never allies or partners, and foreign policies that repelled others. In a separate process only partly related to the Cold War, the USSR collapsed from domestic failures due to accumulated internal contradictions of governance, ideology, economics, ethnicity, and empire. The similarities with Putin's regime cannot be ignored. Yet, Putin blames the West for the fall of the USSR, calling it the "greatest catastrophe of the 20th century." Putin is on the same imperialist course as the Tsars and Soviets.

NATO's Real Problems

The West, however, must deal with Putin as he is. He has legitimate complaints about short-sighted...