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The Pathology of Putin’s War on Ukraine – and how it might end
1. Excuse this lengthy Just a Thought (or two). It is triggered less by the developments of the war in Ukraine as such and actually more by thoughts about the role of the individual in history and psychopathology. It takes sides, the side of civil society, not of governments and countries per se. By doing so I elaborate a line of thought I know many (including a few friends) will disagree with. But this is truly my way of seeing things.
2. Geo-political Context – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marks a decisive change of direction in global politics. It marks the end of the post-WW2 settlement of relative geopolitical stability between ‘East’ and ‘West’ – as opposed to the North-South divide (far more important to humanity) which pales into insignificance – a good example is the almost total irrelevance of BRICS. There is for sure a competition between two ‘systems’ of governance, but not between the old-style twentieth century capitalism vs. communism (although the anachronistic use of these terms remains) but between ‘Western’ systems (includes South Korea and Japan for example) that have built the foundations of strong civil societies (under various guises of ‘democracy’) and ‘Eastern’ systems that have quashed their civil societies (under various guises of authoritarianism, from totalitarian ruling secular or religious cliques such as in China and Iran, to out-and-out mafia states as in the case of contemporary Russia.) The operative concept is ‘civil society’ which embraces all that is not state government, but in many cases civil functions (social services especially) overlap with government. Indeed, the recent concept of the ‘fractal’ state sees a repetitive pattern of civil and political constructs (agencies and procedures, public-private-NGO-partnerships, blended finance, etc., akin to the role of medieval guilds without their monopoly status) as post-modern reality. So, recap, the way societies are organised (governance) divides broadly between those with active and empowered civil societies, and those in which governments actively suppress civil societies.
3. ‘Men make history, but not under circumstances of their own choosing’, famously wrote Karl Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. ‘Men’ (which obviously includes women (think Elizabeth 1st of England, Catherine the Great of Russia, Margaret Thatcher of the UK, Golda Mier of Israel, Indira Gandhi of India, etc… who knows, Kamala Harris of the USA?) has to include Putin. But what are the circumstances ‘not of his making’? They could be those he claims to be geopolitical encroachments upon his view of the trajectory of Russia itself, the threat of NATO against a Russian re-conquest of East Europe for example, or maybe the growing dependence of a declining Russian economy upon China at a time when China is quietly reminding Russia that it still occupies territory that China claims as its own, such as Vladivostok in Eastern Russia ceded under the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, and forced upon the Qing dynasty, which China will, sooner or later, reclaim. In this regard, the irony which Putin must be fully aware of, is that one of Russia’s major exports, arms, will have a tough future after having been shown to be pretty hopeless compared with Western arms. India may take note, because playing the non-aligned card by buying Russian arms (China’s role is to arm Pakistan) now looks like a high price to pay. By the same token, China has the problem of untried and tested arms. The last real battle China faced, other than small skirmishes across the border with India, was its invasion of Russia-backed battle-hardened Vietnam in 1979 when, despite vast superiority in numbers, China got a bloody nose. Vietnam had just overthrown the murderous Cambodian regime of China-backed Pol Pot, something that on paper at least in its anti-Vietnam rhetoric the USA opposed. This befuddled mix of alliances was indeed, circumstances beyond the choosing of all of these players. But there is a much more compelling interpretation of Putin’s dilemma, namely that he has personal circumstances beyond his control. He suffers the symptoms of being a controlling, dominant psychopath.
4. Role of the Psychopath in History – Disclaimer: over recent years I have come to know a sociopath (as a friend, although the friendship is inevitably highly unstable) and as a result have been educating myself on the distinctions between a sociopath and a psychopath. One estimate is that sociopaths may be 4% of the population and psychopaths maybe 0.1%. What they share in common is an inability (not a choice) to feel empathy, although they can both fake it, but sociopaths do not normally derive pleasure in cruelty, whereas psychopaths do. Both tend to think short-term without clear perspectives on the longer-term consequences of their actions, and for this reason, especially psychopaths, have no feelings of fear because the consequences are not part of their calculus. But they do react with alarm when those consequences come back to bite them, which, when they do, they will frequently then blame upon others. Everything (everything) revolves around self (links with narcissism are obvious but whereas a psychopath is always a narcissist the reverse does not follow. This may not apply to sociopaths.) In a sense lack of the emotion of fear (a natural protective asset of people with normal conditioning) leaves a hollow void which needs to be filled with self-convincing confidence. More importantly from my perspective is that a sociopath is most likely developed through early life experiences (opinions seem to differ on this) whereas a psychopath is somehow neurologically pre-determined. There are a series of extremely instructive YouTube videos on all of this and much more. I have many unanswered Qs, for example, if cruelty is part of a culture, as it was among rulers in many mediaeval cultures, does that produce psychopaths? Or is it that psychopaths are more adaptable to those circumstances and just happen to come out on top? Sadam Hussein comes to mind in recent times. But Putin has one other leg-up the ladder of cold cunning: KGB training. Psychopaths make excellent plotters and clear-headed killers, as many of his critics and opponents in Russia (and in exile) have learned. Without much doubt, Putin has all the characteristics of a psychopath.
5. If Putin is genuinely a psychopath, which seems to be highly likely, he is naturally calm and cool (outwardly – faking it is a trait of psychopaths) and very calculating, genuinely fearless (in the worse possible sense) and hence his threat of nuclear Armageddon if things get even worse for him. But the threat is almost certainly fake. It is based upon (1) his acute assessment of the genuine fears of his opponents, (2) his understanding that it would be self-defeating and end his aspirations for himself as the head of a recreated Russian Empire, (3) his awareness that even if his generals and oligarchs bowed to his self-destruction of Russia (very risky for Putin), China would not. Without China, Putin is totally lost. Without Russia, China would suffer.
6. A psychopath can be so self-confident that they overlook their own vulnerabilities – hence my comparison above with Saddam Hussein. Putin it seems had planned a further invasion of Ukraine from the Kurst region, but had left it completely unprepared and vulnerable to a Ukrainian pre-emptive strike, obviously aided by US-UK intelligence. Once Ukraine invaded many commentators thought this would force Putin to remove part of his army from the Donbas to confront the Ukrainian forces now inside Russia. I never thought Putin would do this for the following reason: his meat-grinder tactics in the Donbas promised a slow but highly likely victory in the region from sheer weight of numbers, and above all else he needs a victory of sorts to keep himself and those around him going. Reminiscent of Hitler’s final days in Berlin, Putin has been moving second-rate and uncoordinated troops to the Kurst region (including bringing some back from Africa) almost certainly in the belief that anything he does will succeed. If it takes time, he controls the Russian media and the repressive instruments of the state to contain the propaganda fallout. The fact that he disappears (into his bunker?) for periods of time when the bad news arrives seems to confirm a psychopathological need to construct a strong glass window between himself and the outside reality. He is simply incapable of absorbing and understanding his own weaknesses. He has none. Others may have weaknesses in carrying out his orders, but he alone has none. All he has to do is to surround himself by those who most willingly carry out his commands and tell him what he wants to hear. Exactly the description of Hitler’s descent into infuriated mental decline by 1945.
7. So how does it end? (1) not by nuclear war. (2) If Putin succeeds in securing the Donbas and holds onto the Crimea, then he can use back channels to make it known that by Ukraine conceding these, he would cease the war. No need to withdraw any troops because they already occupy those territories. I’m sure he could call upon Elon Musk, possibly Profs Jeffrey Sacks and John Mearsheimer, to echo his sentiments. (3) Unless Ukraine suffers a severe defeat, which currently looks most unlikely, the least Ukraine can offer is to maintain an ongoing war against Russian occupation of their lands; a war they could sustain for many years; a war Putin would have a problem with because against his alternative to bombing Ukraine ‘back to the stone age’ (as Sec of State Dean Rusk once threatened Vietnam, for which many years later he apologised) Ukraine can use long range missiles to attack deep inside Russia. Such a mutually destructive tic-for-tac could go on for a long time. Russia would be sacrificing its economy for the Donbas and the Crimea, which would become non-sustainable, while Ukraine has less to lose because it starts with less, and could be sustained by NATO countries, and the US depending upon who wins the 2024 Presidential race to the White House. This would push Russia further into supplication to China, and China’s resources are also limited. They might even ask for Vladivostok back. (4) A Russian offer to negotiate on terms other than a Russian withdrawal is therefore unlikely to be accepted by Ukraine, as long as Ukrainian resolve holds up, and Ukrainian allies do not stab it in the back. Some will, but for the most part the rest of Europe rightly seems Ukraine as their own line of defence. (5) This leaves the other option: the demise of Putin. There are several ways in which this could happen. A coup against him. Assasination. Defenestration. Exile. Killed by a Ukrainian strike (less likely but possible). I see no likely alternatives besides these. The real pity is that even with him gone, civil society in Russia seems to remain mute. Maybe, just maybe, the defeat of Putin could serve Russia well.