Awakening is bitter. No one could imagine such a new war of this kind in Europe. In his new book “What a Century,” Krone editor Kurt Seinitz shows snippets of how Putin rocked the world with his contempt.
By breaking a taboo, the Russian leader shook the world to its foundations and overthrew the entire European peace order. This order was founded as a lesson from and a response to the two devastating European civil wars of the 20th century, the First and Second World Wars. One could no longer imagine such a new war in Europe. No one expected such nefarious and cruelty in the Kremlin. The Europeans were spoiled by peace. Wars have only happened in computer games for a generation.
The Lost Peace Dividend
Awakening is bitter. With the peace order, the peace dividend that had prospered Europe for decades was also lost. We are witnessing the greatest destruction of wealth since World War II. Who would have thought that food security would be an issue in Europe again?
Putin’s breaking of a taboo will have such drastic consequences in the coming decades that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has almost officially introduced the word “turning point” in politics for all areas of public life. The German government felt compelled to take a sharp political and military turn after Berlin had long believed in the tradition of German idealism that Russian politics would be brought into line with European standards. Even after Putin had already deployed 100,000 troops for “maneuvers” on the Ukrainian border, Scholz and other European leaders traveled to Moscow to placate the Kremlin boss.
Afterwards, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said soberly: “The entire international community has been lied to in the cold.”
Why is Russia behaving the way it is?
This raises the question of lying and deceit as a means of Russian politics. Traditionally, among the Russian political elite, lying is not a moral issue, but a weapon for achieving goals and the oldest trick of warfare. Anyone who believes lies shows himself to be naive and thus a weakling. Attila, king of the Huns, and the Mongols had already waged war in Europe with deceitful maneuvers. Any politician dealing with the Russian leadership must take this legacy into account.
The question is age old: why does Russia behave the way it is? Why has it remained the embodiment of bondage and (spiritual) isolation since early history shook off the ‘Mongol yoke’? Why does all power always end in the absolute omnipotence of one person?
Putin is not a strategist, but a gambler
When the KGB clone Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin, he immediately put Russia back into the clutches of this Soviet state security agency. However, former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov contradicts the claim that Putin is a KGB master strategist. Kasparov, who knows what strategy is: “Putin is not a chess player, but a card player, a gambler.”
Political scientist Claudia Major: “For Putin, a poorly running war is still better than a bad peace, a dormant war that Europe is getting used to, better than a compromise solution that the Russian public could question.” Heavy against Russia the leaden weight of the reactionary Orthodox Church. Since the final split between the two churches in 1054, it has been marked by distrust of ideas from the West. The DNA of the Byzantine Empire lives on in it with all its characteristics.
According to political scientist Jörg Himmelreich, this split shaped not only the political system of the tsarist empire, but also that of the Soviet Union, and with Putin’s rule, it has become even more firmly rooted in Russian state thinking than ever: the autocratic regime of Putin and his revived Russian expansionism.”
Throne and altar once again form an inseparable unity in Putin’s Russia. For years, Patriarch Kirill has portrayed Russia as a bulwark against Western “godless civilization.”
Holy Mother Russia vs the rest of the world
In the history of Russia, impulses of modernization have only come to Russia by decree from above and from the world of ideas in the West – intermittently – before the empire subsequently fell back into the traditional stagnation: from a Tsar Peter I, who cut the beards of the Russians and forced her into western clothing; by the German princess Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst, who brought a touch of enlightenment as Tsarina Catherine II, or by Lenin’s Marxism. The Reich has never experienced liberalism, except in the beginning under the – failed – “westerner” Mikhail Gorbachev (keyword “glasnost”). Today it’s that time again: Holy Mother Russia against the rest of the world – in the vote in the UN General Assembly 5 to 141.
The Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin makes the most appropriate attempt to explain the Russian enigma under the present circumstances. His conclusion: Traditionally, Russia has had the problem of claiming to be a great power without being able to live up to it – with a few exceptions. The ambitions exceed the possibilities. With 144 million inhabitants, Russia is only three and a half times the size of Austria with nine million inhabitants.
Stephen Kotkin sees the fundamental problem throughout history as that Russia, as the power of the Orthodox East, always believed it had a mission to fulfill: “It constantly fights for these claims, but could not fulfill them because the West always the more powerful The concentration of power in one person and the actions of the autocrats at the bottom have historically hindered the independent development of state structures, according to Kotkin.Putin resorted to old Russian patterns.
Russia has bad experience with invaders
The Russian sense of security is shaped by three invasion experiences from the West (including that of the Mongols) and the long borders that are difficult to control. The defensive battle fueled a victim myth that is offset by an aggressive stance. Each supposed new threat on the horizon thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
