Could Putin Have Been Avoided?

The fate that victors reserve for the vanquished after wars often foreshadows the course of history. The way the United States treated post-Soviet Russia is no exception.

After the greatest conflict of the 20th century, with its 50 million dead, including 500,000 Americans, the victors of World War II — and the United States in particular — elected to finance the reconstruction of the defeated countries responsible for the hostilities.

England and France aside, it was in fact Germany and Italy that benefited the most from the Marshall Plan, a vast program put in place by the Truman administration to rebuild a Europe where relations would, from then on, be defined by cooperation.

Not long after came the Cold War with the U.S. and its Western European allies on one side and the Soviet Union on the other. The U.S., again, came out on top, except that the fate reserved for the Soviet losers of this latent conflict was not the same as for the defeated Axis powers.

For starters, during the period of perestroika begun in 1986 by Mikhail Gorbachev in the later years of the Soviet Union, and what happened after the fall of the Iron Curtain, which was marked by privation under the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian leadership asked only one thing of America: Help us. The American response to this request, from one presidency to the next, starting with that of President George H.W. Bush, was to turn a deaf ear.

The economy that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union left Russia in tatters. From 1990 to 1998, the country suffered a major depression. The economy even contracted by 14.5% in 1992 and 12.6% in 1994. At the same time, rampant inflation hit the pocketbooks of the Russian people with annual rates reaching up to 84%, and never less than 15%. The federation even defaulted on its debts in 1998.

What followed was poverty and widespread criminality, with thousands of organized gangs destabilizing life in the urban centers of the country. This human misery was accompanied by a deep sense of national humiliation.

It is in this context that the phenomenon of Vladimir Putin emerged at the turn of the century. He would return dignity, pride and grandeur to Russia — usher in a kind of “Make Russia Great Again.”

Would Putin’s proposition have found such resonance if the Russians had not endured so much defeat at the hands of the West, and the Americans in particular?

What To Do Now?

Now that “the damage is done,” what must the West do?

The response seems to be, from the American point of view, to pressure Russia. Short of sending troops to confront the Russian army directly, increasing economic and financial sanctions against the regime will force Putin to back down, or even lead to a popular uprising against him. If that fails, a more direct option would be to “eliminate” him, a wish explicitly expressed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham earlier in the month.

From a Western standpoint, these solutions are attractive. Removing a dictator would put a stop to atrocities and injustices, both in Ukraine and in Russia. In Graham’s words, the Russians should find within their ranks a Brutus ready to bring an end to Caesar’s reign.

But it must be remembered that Russia is not a liberal democracy. In a country a priori driven by nationalist fervor, it is not said that the misery imposed on Russia could not, in fact, serve as a call to rally around a dictator who largely controls the flow of information and who might use those sanctions to feed popular grievances against the West.

Furthermore, the overthrow of tyrannical governments, often supported by the U.S., has rarely brought about peace and harmony. Libya, liberated from Moammar Gadhafi a decade ago, is a prime example. The country has been mired in a bloody civil war ever since.

The history of Russia itself should serve as a serious warning on the matter. The last time a popular rebellion conquered a dictatorial regime was a century ago. After 300 years of the reign of czars and the Romanov family, the tyrant Nicholas II found himself removed from the throne. This led us to Vladimir Lenin, and then to Joseph Stalin.

Shakespeare also invites reflection. His play “Julius Caesar” ends not with the death of the statesman, but with what his death provokes: a civil war.

In short, there is, at the moment, no simple solution to the conflict in Ukraine. Even more reason to lament not aiding Russia when it was economically on its knees.