Conspirator-In-Chief
Daniel Korski 12:03pm
So it’s all America's fault, heh, Mr Putin? The Russian-Georgian War as a “wag-the-dog” kind of operation aimed at making John McCain the next US president. Sure. And what about that Third Tower, Mr. Prime Minister?
Mr Putin's unhinged, Oliver Stone-like conspiracy reminds me of Nikita Khrushchev’s refusal to believe, when he visiting the U.S at the height of the Cold War, that the cars in a car park outside a Detroit factory belonged to the workers. Who owned them then, the Premier was asked? "The CIA have their ways", he retorted knowingly.
Unlike his predecessor’s, Mr. Putin’s statement is not private. Given in an interview with CNN, it is intended for both foreign and domestic consumption. Blaming the U.S for what was clearly premeditated Russian aggression triggered by Georgia military adventurism is smart. But it does tell us something about the Russian leader’s mindset.
First, while most Americans have lost all faith in the U.S government, let alone the intelligence-military system – following failures of intelligence before 9/11 and of military strategy in Iraq – the Russian leadership still believes in the G-Man. It is hard to shake 70-odd years of belief in the state, however venal that state is.
Second, the Russian leader genuinely seems to believe that the U.S and Britain function like Russia. That is, when the media run a story it is because somebody powerful wanted the story run. When someone makes a statement, it is because somebody powerful made them. When a court delivers a verdict, it is because somebody powerful told them to. Denying this only makes you naïve, a subject of false consciousness, or a foil for your handlers and superiors.
Since Mr. Putin is so sure that the U.S military-intelligence complex runs pretty much everything for the partisan benefit of the Republican Party it seems fitting, in trying to understand his thinking, to consult the CIA’s own resources.
In Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior, Jerrold M. Post, a psychoanalyst and director of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior at the CIA, talks about what makes a "pathological political leader". He puts forward a number of key traits, including splitting off "the bad and evil" to a group outside the self by projection; externalization of blame and responsibility onto others; oversimplification of the issues for increased persuasiveness and demagoguery; reductionist, absolutist thinking, such as "it's all because of such and such... "; a profound lack of empathy; and an aggrandizement of the self, all leading to a polarized reality for the leader.
Sound familiar?
No doubt Vladimir Putin has a formidable psychic arsenal that allows him to mentally outgun most world leaders. His psychological stamina is hitched to a cold, rational geopolitical strategy. Russia does not want any competition in its neighborhood, neither for control of resources, security arrangements nor ideology. As U.S. diplomat George Kennan wrote in 1944, the "jealous eye of the Kremlin can distinguish, in the end, only vassals and enemies; and the neighbors of Russia, if they do not wish to be one, must reconcile themselves to being the other."
But we now know that with Mr. Putin’s steeliness, with his rational furtherance of Russian interests comes an unhinged, make-belief mentality that sees him living in a bygone era of CIA machinations, and untrammeled U.S power. His underling, Dmitrij Medvedev, says Russia is not afraid of a new Cold War. In many ways, Mr. Putin’s already living in one - of his own imagination.
Previous
David C
August 29th, 2008 1:12pm Report this commentDo you think Putin believes what he says?
It is a cynical statement from a cynical man: a piece of unsubtle misdirection straight out of an akademy playbook. He is in part, talking for the benefit of a large minority in the West (and conspiracy theorists everywhere) who will believe all the ills of the World hail from the US, but mostly its purpose is to be outrageous.
While everybody runs around wondering why Putin said what he did, he is firming up Russia's position, diplomatically and militarily.
Yaffle
August 29th, 2008 2:25pm Report this commentDavid C,
I think Putin's remarks will play well in his own country too - look at the comments on the Times article. It seems to be part of the Russian national character to believe the rest of the world, and the Amerikantsy in particular, are out to get them. That way, every move is "defensive".
seb
August 29th, 2008 4:38pm Report this commentWhat possible reason could Putin have for caring what the rest of the world thinks of him? Everything he does is aimed at pleasing the crowds back home. Still, the fact that he feels his image is important, if only at home, implies that he realises that he's not invulnerable. The real mystery is the apparent indifference of the Russian government to the squalor of Russian life, the terrible wages, the Third World infrastructure, the life expectancy and health statistics. Do Russians really think that fighting off Georgia, in a Goliath Kills David role reversal, compensates for this?
Ronnie
August 29th, 2008 5:02pm Report this commentFor god's sake! What do you expect him to say?
Since the NATO conference in Bucharest earlier this year, where the Russians were made to look like outsiders with no cards to play, they have been looking at how to upset the cosy and expansive NATO club. Well, this is it.
Russia got back on the board and Georgia and Ukraine were shown that NATO membership is not as assured as they once believed.
Russia will carry on like this and hope to upset te NATO alliance by forcing it and its members to consider decisions on which they will not be united.
David Lindsay
August 29th, 2008 5:20pm Report this commentWhat, all those CIA operatives and American military advisers in Georgia were just admiring the view, were they? And Saakasvilli's neocon links are just a coincidence, are they?
The term that you are looking for is not "conspiracy", but "foreign policy". And yes, America has one. Sometimes even tied into her electoral politics. Who knew?
seb
August 29th, 2008 6:54pm Report this commentThese neo-con bogeymen - if we got rid of them, say, in a series of war crimes trials, would the world find itself all safe and sound and tucked up in bed once more? People like David Lindsay refer to them as though we should all know who the neo-cons are. Can he do us a favour by naming a few? I can name a lot of the bad guys who were in Hitler's cabinet until the end of April, 1945. The neo-cons, though, are they hidden out of sight, lurking perhaps in Dick Cheney's garden shed? We deserve to know.
Max Kaye
August 29th, 2008 8:13pm Report this commentPutin is clever. Our leaders are not.
Watching him toy with our politicians is like watching a fox in a chicken coop: fascinating.
And to cap it all, he could if push literally came to shove, he could beat them all to a pulp with his martial arts skills. (Oh Lord, PLEASE let him loose on that wimp Miliband!)
Robert J. Lavin, US Regular Army (ret)
August 29th, 2008 8:38pm Report this commentPutin thinks with very sound logic, and this makes almost everything he does entirely predictable. Knowing this, it's impossible NOT to believe that certain American and British elements are orchestrating this whole charade. Putin's sole over-riding mission is to ensure the future security and viability of his nation. He's got an ever burgeoning military alliance breathing down his neck, a demoralized and very rapidly declining native population, a rising China salivating over his nation's enormous natural resources, and now a bunch of US missiles in Poland aimed at Moscow. He sees a West always supportive of "self-determination", but only if those people want to go the direction the West wants them to go. What do we expect Putin to do? He enjoys 84% approval ratings among the Russian people, and unanimous votes in both houses of a multi-party parliament. Who else can make such claims? Obviously, Russians are finally beginning to feel proud of themselves again.
We, on the other hand, still "think" as if the Soviet Union was still alive and well, completely discounting all the very major changes that have taken place in that country over the past two decades. Our grandfathers, being far bigger and far wiser than we, would have retired "NATO" with honors when its mission was completed in the early 1990s, and forged a completely new alliance around a US-UK-Russia core of mutually respectful equals - an alliance tailored for the Real World of the 21st century that would have made the solution of so many great pressing problems far easier. Instead all we get is a stupid re-building of the last century's asinine "Cold" War, just so our kids could fight it all over again in this century. Brilliant.
Fergus Pickering
August 30th, 2008 12:03am Report this commentPutin is a secret policeman, is he not? Cut your throat in the church, don't you know? I don't think intelligence comes into it.
Tom Barnes
August 30th, 2008 8:12pm Report this comment"Sound Familiar?"
Yes. I thought you were were talking about the clunking iron fist of Gordon Brown.
Back to top