How the west created Putin

 As I write this, a horrific war of aggression is being conducted by the Russian armed forces against the country of Ukraine.  Russia is a much larger country with a much larger army and much more military equipment. Despite some aid from western countries (mainly the US), Ukraine has lost considerable territory in the south and in the Donbas. International and Ukrainian officials are documenting multiple war crimes including targeting of civilian infrastructure, murder of civilians, rape and illegal rendition of residents to Russia.

Although there is widespread condemnation from many countries, there are also many who criticize the west (again mainly the US) for the conflict.  From what I've seen, these criticisms take two main  positions:

• The countries adjacent to Russia should remain "neutral" and provide a "security buffer" so that Russia won't feel threatened by NATO and so that Russia can have a "sphere of influence".  This is the position of "political realists".
  
• The US is using the Ukraine to conduct a "proxy war" to extend its hegemony and create a unipolar world.   

The former is more philosophy than analysis.  It argues that all great powers dominate the countries around this (and therefore we should anticipate Russia will as well).  This might be true but it's hardly a justification.  It essentially argues that since the US commits crimes of aggression, Russia can also.  So, I discard this argument as fundamentally immoral.

The latter is ridiculous.  While the argument can be made that the war has become a proxy war to a limited extent and certainly it would be western policy to have Ukraine aligned with the EU rather than Russia, the notion that the US wanted Russia to invade Ukraine makes no sense.  Consider:

• Immediately prior the the invasion, Biden publicly announced it was about to happen.  Why would he do that if the US wanted a war?
• The vast majority of military analysts expected Ukraine to collapse in under a week
• The US failed to provide Ukraine with heavy weapons, aircraft or navy assets needed to successfully sustain a war with Russia in the years between 2014 and 2022.  Even after the invasion, military aid in the first three months is insufficient to stop the forward advance, let alone allow Ukraine to strike back.
• The sanctions being imposed are hurting the west as well as Russia and are causing Biden political problems at home.  There will almost certainly be a recession which will hurt the Democrats in the midterms.

Neither of these claims make any sense, yet I still fault the west for this war and the other things that Putin has done.  The reason is that the west in general, and the US in particular, are responsible for the rise of Putin.  This is no small problem because Putin is a textbook fascist dictator.

Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the great giveaway of state assets had already begun.  Senior government officials had been allowed to transfer government assets to themselves and their families.   Things only went downhill when the west showed up to help.  The New York Stock Exchange sent lawyers and academics.  Then Harvard sent its best and brightest who promptly tried to profit from the situation. Of course, it wasn't long before the IMF showed up.  Naturally, everyone had the same cure: capitalism as soon as possible.  With the Russian state officials and other insiders eager to cash in on state assets, nobody was looking out for the interests of ordinary Russians.  

The effects of the "structural adjustments" and uncontrolled privatizations were predictable.  Corruption reigned supreme.  The value of the ruble plummeted and inflation spiraled out of control.  Ordinary people were wiped out as their savings and pensions were almost worthless.  Organized crime arose and suddenly there were execution style killings on the streets of Moscow.  This type of societal chaos is the perfect breeding ground for the rise of an authoritarian leader.  Then came the 1996 Russian election.  Worried that his friend Yeltsin might lose to socialists, Bill Clinton shamelessly meddled in the election.

Less than four years later, Yeltsin resigned and passed the presidency along to a former KGB operative who he knew would ensure that Yeltsin and his buddies would never be held accountable for their corruption. Vladimir Putin took over at a time when oil prices started to skyrocket. Although the Russian economy had been hollowed out by the economic reforms, the petro-rubles provided plenty of room for Putin to get credit for bringing prosperity and stability to Russia.  And anytime he felt his popularity slipping, he just picked another fight with one of his neighbors.

Since then, the west has been complicit in Russian corruption and criminality.  Over the past two decades, hundreds of billions of dollars have been laundered into western banks, real estate, stocks and other assets.  Oligarchs have bought their way into western institutions, charities and political scenes.  Donald Trump is alleged to have benefited from Russian organized crime buying his properties.  Russian oil money has undermined the integrity of many, many western institutions.  The result has been a tendency to look the other way when it comes to Kremlin war crimes and human rights abuses.  

Between the initial 90s rush to convert Russia to capitalism and the apathy to his crimes in the intervening years, the west aided and abetted the creation of a monster.  Now we, as 21st century Dr Frankensteins, look upon our progeny with horror and contemplate how to deal with it.

I Don't Know

 It feels like my existence consists of balancing alone on a narrow ridge.  On one side of me is a valley populated by people who uncritically accept mainstream views and conventional wisdom.  Even to ask certain questions is enough to get you branded as a conspiracy theorist.  On the opposite side are the actual conspiracy theorists who claim to be skeptical but are actually much more open to believing narratives that are wildly implausible than those are are simple and logical.  Pharmaceutical companies aren't just big heartless corporations, they (along with the WHO, Bill Gates and the "global elite) are part of a global conspiracy to depopulate the planet.  I don't want to join either camp.  It's tempting to join the mainstream camp and just push aside all of the nagging doubts.  And I know from past experience, the conspiracy camp can be intoxicating and addictive; believing that you're on the cusp of discovering the truth behind some great secret.  I don't dare fall asleep for fear I will fall to one side or the other and not be able to get back to where I am.

The ridge is obviously a metaphor but the divide is very real.  I know people in both camps.  I think both have something to contribute.  However, the two sides have stopped talking to each other and now just lob mortars over the ridge.  The mainstream camp people think they can just marginalize and ignore the conspiracy side.  For their part, the conspiracy people think that they have a monopoly on hidden truths and eventually everyone else will join them. I see both sides and I get frustrated with both.

They have more in common than they think.  They both seem to have a need to know.  For the mainstream camp, this means accepting what they are told by authority figures and not asking too many questions.  They're begging to be lied to and used.  For the conspiracy camp, it means rejecting anything "mainstream" and listening to various narratives without real regard for source or logic.  They are also begging to be lied to and used, but by different people.

The problem is that governments do lie to us - a lot.  And we don't always find out until much later and in some cases probably never. Science does get things wrong - a lot.  What's accepted today is overturned tomorrow, usually without any public reckoning of the harm done or even what went wrong.

For me, the answer to the impasse lies in three little words - "I don't know".

Was the JFK assassination the result of a larger plot?  I don't know.  Why did the twin towers collapse on 9/11? I don't know.  Was COVID made in a lab?  I don't know.  Is there some conspiracy amongst billionaires to de-populate the planet?  I don't know.

Those three words aren't much of a conversation starter but at least they don't end it.  People with mainstream views could be more open to skepticism and be more flexible in their view of the world.  The old left-right paradigm of politics is collapsing and in its place is emerging a divide between people who want incremental change and those who are looking for radical solutions.  For their part, people who distrust everything and want a revolution should be careful what they wish for.  However bad you might think things are, they can get worse.  

I have one last comment to make on the divide.  The resulting distrust and polarization is making progress difficult and paralyzing governments across the industrialized west.  If we think of who stands to benefit from that polarization, we could come up with a list.  Authoritarian regimes (principally China and Russia), the billionaire class, organized crime. Is that a conspiracy theory?  Yes.  Does it have any truth?

I don't know.