Russia or the centuries-long paranoia

Kharkiv devastated by the Russian war machine

On the way back from a visit to Japan, my wife fell asleep only minutes after we crossed the coastline of the main landmass of Asia. Well, she’d taken a pill to help her cope with the stress of the flight. 

She woke seven hours later. To her astonishment, the window showed her a featureless landscape of rock and earth and snow indistinguishable from what she’d seen before drifting off to sleep. Seven hours earlier.

Many Russians are proud of the sheer vastness of their country, the biggest on earth. Its size does, however, lead to problems. Second only to China, Russia has the longest borders to defend of any country in the world. Down the ages, it has again and again fought wars protecting those borders. 

You may be surprised to know that they fought the invading Swedes, defeating King Charles XII in 1709 at the Battle of Poltava, ironically enough, in Ukraine.

Battle of Poltava, between Russians and Swedes, 1709
painted by Denis Martens the Younger in 1726

More famously, they fought the French in 1812, leading to Napoleon¡s terrible retreat from Moscow.

The Russians defeated the German army, at huge cost, at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1941-1942, the turning point of World War 2 in Europe.

Russia fought many more wars, including in the Far East, most famously against the Japanese in the early years of the twentieth century (they lost). 

That’s the kind of experience that can leave a country paranoid. Russia is one of the most paranoid countries on earth. But though the paranoia may be justified, it’s a lousy basis for decisions in foreign policy.

One way to relieve pressure on borders is to ensure that it’s lined with buffer states between your country and a potential enemy. That means neutral nations that offer an obstacle to an aggressor intent on attacking you.

Russia, whether under the Emperors – the Tsars – or the Communists or in its post-Communist phase, has always sought such buffers. Remember the satellite states around the Soviet Union? Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland? They formed a cushion between the Soviets and the perceived enemy, the Western Powers in NATO. 

The satellites, though, weren’t truly neutral powers. They were run by puppet governments without popular support (in none of them were the former leaders re-elected once voters could express their views freely). So instead of offering a true buffer, what they really became was an extension of Soviet territory, requiring armed force to keep them subservient and protect them, in turn, from invasion. The military burden had increased rather than lightening. In the attempt to make it easier to defend long and distant borders, Russia ended up with more borders to defend, still further from its heartland, enclosing more people to keep in line.

That seems to be an irresistible compulsion. You see, you can’t trust a truly neutral country. Why, they might someday decide that they want to join NATO themselves. And where would that leave Russia? With the threat of having another NATO member on its border, instead of a neat buffer between itself and that unfriendly alliance.

So Russia invades Ukraine to prevent that happening. And history repeats itself. If it’s ultimately successful, and there’s still hope it won’t be, Russia will find itself in the same situation as the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia, having to clamp down on a restive population, and with new borders to defend still further from home.

What’s worse, if it’s true that the key concern for Russia was to avoid having another NATO power on its border, then if it does ultimately annex Ukraine, all it will achieve is to avoid having a neighbour that might at some remote date become a NATO member, at the cost of having four neighbours – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania – that already are.

Meanwhile, although Putin has warned Sweden and Finland off from joining NATO themselves, there is a sense in both nations that they should join now, to make sure they don’t suffer the same fate as Ukraine.

You see what I mean? Paranoia leads to a decision that avoids one perceived perceived evil and leads to several far greater ones. 

Of course, fear of NATO may not be Putin’s main concern. It certainly isn’t his only concern. He’s taken to proclaiming repeatedly that Ukraine and Russia are one nation. That’s another longstanding Russian obsession: to be the champion of the Slavic peoples. A champion whether they want one or not – ask the Poles, the Slovaks or the Czechs how happy they were to live under Russian ‘protection’. 

Indeed, the only Slav country that perhaps welcomed Russian backing, was Serbia, never actually occupied by Russia. And only while it was being run by Slobodan Milošević, a man who plunged the former Yugoslavia into a terrible and bloody series of wars. He died in prison during his trial for war crimes. 

Milošević, left, died in prison accused of war crimes
Putin, so far, has only committed them

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian people above all others, but also the Russian people involved in a war they didn’t choose, are the victims of these age-old paranoid obsessions and their associated readiness for violence.

Sarajevo during the war provoked by Milošević
Struck by the similarity to Kharkiv in Putin’s war?

Now it’s true that the West hasn’t handled its relations with Russia at all well. Suggesting that Ukraine and Georgia might join NATO was bound to anger Russia. But the suggestion never became reality. And Russia invaded Georgia first and Ukraine now anyway. Clearly, there was no actual fear of NATO to justify his action. Instead, Russia seems to have been driven by its age-old paranoia to a new outburst of brutal, unprovoked aggression. A war crime, followed by a till worse one, as Putin, like Milošević, targets civilians.

Let’s be clear. Putin alone is responsible for the decisions that he, now holding autocratic power in Russia, took entirely on his own authority. Whatever the errors of the West, the war and the crimes to which it has led, are his to answer for.

He’s behaving like Milošević in ex-Yugoslavia. Invading his neighbours who chose not to welcome his hegemony. He’s doing it in response to the same ancient need to defend the land of his people, however badly this way of doing it has worked out in the past, and however high the price he’s forcing others to pay for it.

I hardly dare hope for it, but it would strike me as entirely appropriate if he were to share Milošević’s fate.