Putin’s purpose is to destroy Europe.
Not the place, the cities or the people. The institutions. The Idea of Europe. Putin is seen as an opportunist, a cynic. But he is a true believer. He believes in the order of the 19th century, which itself had its face to the middle ages. He believes in the voice of the blood. He believes that people and nations are healthy when organized in hierarchies under strong rulers.
He believes that supranational institutions, laws based on abstractions and not the imperatives of concrete societies, are hypocritical abominations.
The west views Putin’s moves against Ukraine as a way of distracting Russians from economic issues. One commentator on my earlier post told me his policies would come to the same bad end as the soviet invasion of Afghanistan (so it would be foolish to do anything). But his purpose was not one of distraction so much as one of definition: defining what Russia was, what it stood for, and what it stood against. His purpose was to pour acid on the rivets that hold the suspension bridge of Europe aloft.
Some see him as dangerous, but ultimately doomed. He is a tactician, but a sentimentalist, soft in the head. They smile at the drop in oil price, and see hopeful signs that Russians are getting fed up. They council humoring within bounds. They council “realism” that “Russia will never put up with a westernized Ukraine”.
Perhaps. But I fear that his motive is not just sentiment, but principle; that he will not stop until Hobbes and not Locke is ascendant in Europe. I fear that when enough Russians start listening to the voice of the blood, they will rather acquiesce to spilling blood than make common cause with any who would take to the streets for economic reasons. I don’t see how Russians will find a way beyond Putin without a true cataclysm (or his early demise). And Putin will keep on working until he can treat with the nations of Europe individually. If he can deal with Germany, rather than Europe, he will find light at the end of the economic tunnel.
I also fear he is winning. What matter if Ukrainians hate him? They at least will not put their trust in Europe. In Poland also, the nationalists are ascendant. They also hate Putin, but so much for the German-Polish rapprochement. Their victory is his. In many other places, nationalist sentiment is bubbling up.
European leaders must articulate a vision of Europe that Europeans identify with. It must go beyond economic security. Europe must stand for principles that its citizens are prepared to defend, to feel dishonored if they are violated. And then it must defend them.
Otherwise, as Quine was wont to opine: no entity without identity. Whatever happens to Putin, Europe will in the end be what Putin regards it to be: a mere aggregate, an island of sand, struggling on downstream, soon to be swept away by the river of history.