#296: Putin’s Mistakes

Did Vladimir Putin Just Make a Mistake? It Wouldn’t Be His Only One.

We’ve had a week of trepidation. Trump was about to meet Putin. We know that Putin would try to have Trump throw Zelenskyy and Ukraine under the bus. Then there was the follow-up meeting on Monday, and surely Putin’s instructions towards Trump would have succeeded by then. Trump would have then thrown Zelenskyy and Ukraine completely out of the window.

Not quite. We’ve seen how Trump did extend diplomatic niceties to Putin, some beyond maybe comfort, but in the spirit of diplomacy. Trump thought by flattering Putin, by playing into Putin’s narcissistic desire for being seen as great and smart and powerful, he could get Putin to stop the war, have a ceasefire, do some reasonable deal, and rejoin the civilized world.

That certainly was Trump’s plan. That’s been Trump’s plan for a while. It’s become clear that that was the play. That may still be the play. But Trump’s plan has failed because of stupidity. Not because of Trump’s stupidity, because of Putin’s stupidity.

There’s a mistake that too many are making: to assume that Putin is smart. Putin is not smart. Not completely. Putin may be clever. Putin may have some smart moves, but he has some real, almost tragic character flaws.

Putin’s First Flaw: Thinking He’s Smart

The first flaw of Putin is that he thinks he’s smart. Now, I don’t believe I’m stupid. I believe I’m smart in some areas. I know enough that I’m also stupid in some areas. I always second-guess myself, maybe more than I should. And imposter syndrome is something I can relate to.

It means that you don’t always feel that you deserve to be where you are because you secretly suspect that people will find out that you’re not as smart as they thought you were. But this second-guessing is part of maybe being really smart. I’m not trying to humble brag here, but I’m saying if you are smart, you need to realize that you’re also stupid.

Don’t assume that because you think you can do things in some area means that you can do them in the other too. There is no such thing as universal genius anymore, if there ever has been. The world is complicated. You need specialists. You need to know what you don’t know. I mean, this is the oldest lesson you could say in philosophy: “I know that I know nothing”—that old motto, a belief of Socrates. You have a version of that in Hamlet: “Know thyself.” So these two are related.

And not only should you know what you don’t know, but you should approach the world in a way of someone who doesn’t know. If you looked through my TV and movie recommendations, you’d see that I’m a big Doctor Who fan. Why do I like Doctor Who? Because the Doctor also represents a character that although he knows he’s not stupid, he also knows how to put himself into a position of willful stupidity, playing the idiot.

Because an idiot is someone that sees the world from his own perspective only and who somehow recuses himself from the world, who focuses on the “I,” on the “idios,” on the self. An idiot is an idiot because they can’t see the grander picture. But by realizing that you’re an idiot, you’re opening up yourself to the possibility that you could be wrong. You’re opening up yourself to the possibility that other people can be right, too.

Putin’s Rise and Mistakes

So, what does this mean with regards to Putin? And I must preface this that I, of course, do not know Putin. I can only judge him like we can judge anybody else by their actions. What has Putin done?

He inherited a country that just went through the first phase of a major transformation towards democracy. Gorbachev ended the horrifying experiment with communism or socialism—same thing. Communism is the vision; socialism is the day-to-day reality in the theory, and I grew up with the theory, so please listen.

He ended that. Yeltsin was the president only of Russia, but in the interplay between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the Soviet Union was ended and Russia emerged again as a country on its own. Russia then was in an alliance with former Soviet republics called the Commonwealth of Independent States. And that’s when Putin came in.

We all know how Yeltsin was in many ways an embarrassment. We all know that the Yeltsin years were characterized by both promise and failure. Yeah, the failure existed because the Soviet Union had completely mismanaged itself. The failure of the Yeltsin years was not because of capitalism and democracy but because of the socialist system before.

So Putin comes in and slowly but steadily creates a movement back towards authoritarianism. He finagled a war against Chechnya. A lot about that is still unknown. Chechnya was part of the Russian Federation. It was an ASSR, an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. It was not one of those bigger republics like Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and so on.

So, Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia—all this region, these were autonomous parts within Russia. Chechnya wanted to be independent, and so did some of the other republics, largely Muslim, not necessarily fundamentalist. Russia went against that, and I think some of the accusations against Chechnya have been proven to be wrong and instead finagled by Russia, by Putin.

This was a move to solidify the people’s opinion behind him, saying, “I am the one creating security for you.” The reason that Putin supported the West post-9/11 was because it played into his own narrative that he is against terror. But in Putin’s mind, terror also meant his justification to suppress independence movements, and he used that to his advantage.

The Russian mob apparently ceased operations under Putin or was severely pushed back, and that’s because Putin assumed the position of the biggest gangster in that state. There’s an excellent podcast or videos by Konstantin Samoilov, Inside Russia, who explains that. Listen to Konstantin. He knows what he’s talking about.

The Ideological Vacuum

Russia became a state with a strict autocratic structure again but without a grand unifying vision. The Soviet Union had a dazzling utopian vision, a vision that overplayed the horrifying totalitarian reality. Putin couldn’t quite resume that vision because he knew people didn’t like the Soviet Union. He had to prepare them to like it again.

So the mythology that Putin followed was nationalism. He had his youth movement, even Nashi—”ours,” our young people. He played this idea of Russian identity, and Russia even probably already under Yeltsin resumed using the double eagle in its coat of arms, which is the signal that Russia is the third Rome.

First Rome: Rome proper. Second Rome: still Rome but run through Constantinople, the so-called Byzantine Empire, which still was the Roman Empire. And after the fall of Constantinople, Orthodox bishops fled to Kiev, actually. And so you could say that actually Ukraine is the third Rome, and eventually to Moscow. So Moscow sees itself as the third Rome. Don’t mock the idea. It’s real to the ideology.

And this nationalistic vision combined with the imperial vision was starting to bloom under Putin. By doing that, Putin undermined the democratic and capitalist renewal of Russia. He again promoted a narrative that the president knows best, even though the president is no longer the president. So he could only serve two terms. He put in Medvedev as his interim, got re-elected, and then put himself back as president.

Fake Elections and the Absence of Opposition

Elections don’t matter in Russia. The way Putin cheated at the elections is to ban all moderate opposition so that only the crazies remain as eligible parties, so that every reasonable person will vote for United Russia. So there were elections in which you had the choice between Putin or Medvedev, Zyuganov from the Communists, and Zhirinovsky from the right-wing extremists. Between the three of them—well, there was the Yabloko or the Apple party, the small opposition party—but between those parties, Putin would have been the rational choice. That’s how you fake elections.

You fake elections by manipulating the choice that people have so that you don’t even have to worry too much about doing stuff at ballot boxes. That’s how it’s done. So Putin did it: eliminate the reasonable opposition early or make them seem crazy.

What happens to a country if you don’t have an opposition party anymore? Or if the opposition doesn’t do their job? It stagnates. Bad ideas proliferate unchallenged. Good ideas, if they come from the other side, aren’t listened to. And so it goes.

Now that works for a few years. Sometimes the opposition is just exhausted. So we had partially eight years of Obama because the Republicans didn’t know what to do with themselves. They were completely crushed and had to reinvent themselves. That’s why you had the Tea Party movement take over the Republican Party, and the Tea Party movement was then crushed by Trump. And now you have Trump in the Republican Party, and I don’t know whether the Democrats know what to do with themselves right now.

Either way, you need an opposition. You need a sane opposition. You need a functioning opposition for the sake of the country. Even the ruling party needs a functioning opposition because you need someone to play off against. You need someone to correct your worst impulses, and you need someone to steal ideas from.

The Consequences of Isolation

By narrowing the political landscape, Putin made a grave mistake that eventually prepared everything that we have right now. He put himself into a position in which the word “no” is hardly ever spoken to him, probably out of fear of reprisal. He is a person, it seems—again, I don’t know him, but that’s how he acts—that is utterly convinced of the course he has laid. And there is no one visible to tell him no. Not even his wife.

One of the fascinating things with Trump that emerged recently is that we saw that Melania Trump, originally Melania Knauss from Slovenia, has spoken up and she has used the issue of stolen children as an excellent and depressing issue to put forward regarding the bombing of civilians. So Melania plays her role as opposition towards Trump.

We also know that Trump has both Steve Witkoff, who has been played by Putin recently, but also other voices that aren’t necessarily that much in Putin’s camp. So I suspect Trump is also a person that doesn’t really like to be second-guessed that much, but he tolerates it to a certain point because he knows he needs to hear from people. What he does then is another decision.

But back to Putin: when Putin now created this atmosphere that no one can second-guess him, that already was the end of Russia. Everything that followed is just a logical path of decay.

Why Monarchies Fail

This is why monarchies don’t last. This is why the transition between rulers in monarchies are always so traumatic. If you think Biden was a catastrophe, Google Andropov and Chernenko. Luckily, after those came Gorbachev.

But the strength that people see in monarchies when the king or ruler or whatever is strong and smart and whatever is counteracted by this ruler becoming more sclerotic, more set in their ways, more unwilling to listen. That happens always, almost. Democracies can reinvent themselves. Monarchies can’t really. And the transition is traumatic.

Look at the history of the Roman Empire. And then look how long emperors ruled. There are few ones that ruled for a while. Then look at what emperors died of—who they died of, rather. Praetorian Guard, for instance. Translate that to Russian, you come to something sounding like “siloviki.”

Democracies, through opposition, through elections, through a certain form of renewal for new people once in a while, are much stronger than monarchies. Even though it doesn’t always seem like it, we confuse pretend strength and strongman attitudes with the constant renewal machine of democracies. The strength lies not in the ruler. It lies in the system. It lies in separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism even—all of these elements that prevent what happened in Russia from occurring.

Let’s hope so. But the chance for democracies to outlast dictatorships or monarchies is much higher. By rejecting democracy, Putin has built a reinforcement engine for his worst ideas.

The Resource Trap

One of those ideas that’s the biggest mistake that Putin made is a continuation of Soviet thinking, specifically of materialism. Socialist and communist countries always fall into this trap of believing that natural resources are their biggest gift. And if you only have natural resources, you can grow to become a big empire.

What natural resources were there in Spain and Portugal? The United Kingdom later, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium—all of these created huge empires. France had actually more resources. Germany too. And the French Empire was sizable, the German Empire as well, but both were outclassed by the British Empire because resources don’t matter as much as ideas.

Trade matters. Exchange of trade and ideas. Building infrastructure that enables people and a certain level of ingenuity that can eventually be monetized in corporations. That’s what builds empires.

Why did Spain fall? Because of mercantilism. Because you don’t just hoard your money; you use it. We could say the British Empire is gone. Well, is it? I was born in East Germany. I now live in the United States, and I speak English, probably with some German accent—not as bad as it could be. What is that testament to?

Is the Roman Empire dead? If you analyze all the words spoken in this video, you would probably find a sizable number of them with linguistic roots in Latin and Greek, the languages of the Roman Empire. And we are speaking about something called the third Rome. Ideas outlast material.

Putin focusing on natural resources is part of the problem. Everybody having grown up in the Soviet system knows these maps of the entire world where the only thing important in them was: where are the resources, where are the railways? This is how Putin still thinks: railways, resources. Yeah, you could say he has resources in Siberia, but the ones in Ukraine are just much closer. So, this is partially about theft.

The Brain Drain

Where are the Russian ideas? Sergey Brin, one of the inventors of Google, lives in the US. Many people who were Russian inventors—the inventor of Telegram doesn’t live there anymore. You can’t survive in this Russian climate right now if you have an idea that deviates from the norm. And Russia has not managed to build a culture honoring ideas because for that you have to have freedom of speech, freedom of thinking, and freedom of criticizing the government most harshly.

The economy of Russia is built on oil and gas, on resources that are still relevant, but that are resources of the past. Don’t underestimate how important they still are, but they’re not the future.

Shortly before Ukraine was attacked in the big invasion, there were talks between the EU and Ukraine on how to create solar energy and other renewables in Ukraine on Ukrainian fields. The European Union and the United States also pushed renewables and away from oil and gas. Guess who felt his business model was threatened? Yeah.

So, it’s this thinking in old technology and the entire business model based on that that contributed to this model. The other mistake: not to build up the country to a standard that is more uniform than is the case in Russia right now.

Economic Disparities

There are parts of the US that look horrible. There are parts of the US that are very poor. But apparently our poorest state, Mississippi, still has a GDP that’s higher than some European countries. I believe the UK or something like that is a comparator.

Americans are incorrigible consumers. They can’t stop buying stuff. Americans also want to make something of themselves, and they’re given the opportunity to, within reason. There’s inequality, there’s injustice everywhere. Let’s just compare.

Americans can also participate in politics. They can speak their mind. It’s also the case in Europe—a little bit different in some regions, but in principle, yes. You have societies in Europe and the United States in which it does not matter that much where you live in the country. You still have a chance to succeed, and you have a chance to move, and you have the chance to build something of yourself.

In Russia, there are whole areas where development is going backwards. There are high living standards in Moscow, St. Petersburg, probably some other cities, but it’s not uniform across the country. The Russian economy cannot sustain itself through the ingenuity of its people, and that is another big mistake.

Putin’s Fatal Miscalculation

So whatever Putin fought to achieve, he didn’t have the economy for it. He didn’t have the government system for it, but he still thought he was smarter than the West. And that here is the key mistake that overlays all: the belief or a set of beliefs combined—that Putin is himself smarter than all Western leaders because he can outlast them because they always change due to elections.

An underestimation of the complexity of the Western system, specifically how when you look at US policy, no matter who is president, foreign policy tends to follow the same patterns. Now, Trump is as much a disruptor as he can be. Not that much, turns out. There is no deep state. There’s such a thing as—there’s a reason that things are the way they are.

Trump is disrupting the system. I’m not going to deny that. But the system is reasserting itself more and more in many areas because there’s a reason for things being the way they are. And where it won’t reassert itself? Well, okay. Maybe some change was necessary.

But that Boris Johnson was the one who stood by Ukraine initially most steadfast—that was the biggest loss for Putin. And Putin had worked hard on Brexit. And yes, there’s a connection between Russian propaganda and Brexit. I’m sorry to say it like that.

And even Brexit Britain hasn’t lost its mind. I think Brexit was wrong. I’ve written long and frequently about that—what an idiocy I think Brexit was. However, Brexit did not take the United Kingdom out of the NATO alliance. Didn’t take it out of the special relationship with the US. Didn’t take it completely out of the European sphere.

The Brits still know where they’re located and who their friends are, no matter what nationalist lunacy led to Brexit. So to say it like that. Oh well, if you want to defend Brexit, go ahead. There are comments.

The China Factor

So this underestimation of the collective West also pertains to China. Before the war, Russia had an economy of the size comparatively to Italy. Now that’s a simplification probably, but I’m not the economist, but that’s what you frequently read.

Yes, China as an autocracy is interested in not having Russia fall too hard because that would disprove their own government’s model. China produces for the West. It produces for paying customers. The Russian customer can’t pay that much.

China is in a crisis now because the Chinese game is up to a certain degree. It may come back, but it can only function if it opens up to the West because that’s where the customers are. And even Brazil, India, and South Africa are part of the extended West because they’re all part of this integrated economic system.

Yes, we have some tariff stuff going on right now under Trump, but don’t overplay this. You want to make stuff. You want to sell stuff, and you’re going to sell it to the biggest markets that there are, which are North America and Europe. Don’t underestimate either that every new player like Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, India will orient themselves also to the same market and then conform with those markets.

So, China supports Russia to a point, but it will not completely go rogue. That’s why China is doing this weird game where in one way they’re supporting Russia but kind of sub rosa, kind of underhandedly, but they’re also trying very hard to win back the graces of the US there.

Okay, well, this is not about China.

Putin’s Strategic Failures

So Putin underestimated the West. Putin may well be a good tactician—means short-term thinking—but he’s a bad strategist. What has he done?

His desire to see Ukraine as an independent nation eliminated has ruined his economy. Has driven hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of eager, entrepreneurially thinking, intelligent young people out of the country. It has killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its young people, depopulated the country even more.

And he’s still not stopping. His ego is preventing him from stopping.

The Paradox: Russia Can Only Win If Ukraine Wins

There’s only one path for Russian victory. And that’s Ukrainian victory. Let me repeat that. The only way that Russia wins is if Ukraine wins. Why am I saying something that sounds lunatic?

All of the Russian-occupied territories are suffering. I don’t know what happened in the areas that were formerly the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk or Crimea. I suspect things aren’t looking too well if Donetsk doesn’t even have water anymore.

He probably depopulated them by sending Ukrainians against Ukrainians, occupied Ukrainians against their brethren. We know that wherever Russian armies expanded, they probably destroyed a lot, especially areas near the front line now. So, he’s inheriting rubble.

If he gets to keep those territories, he’ll have to rebuild them. He will have to give them priority treatment over other Russian areas that are suffering from the war. How well is that going to come across? Putin will have to pay for this, or his successor, for decades if not centuries.

It’s easier to just give it all back to Ukraine, pay some reparations, and be done with it because the wound that he has struck in Ukraine will fester if he keeps those territories.

I’ve watched an interesting video some time ago where someone says—a Ukrainian says—the benefit of NATO membership of Ukraine for Russia is that Russia would be safe from Ukrainian revenge. Let that sink in.

Conclusion

In any case, this is already long. Let me recapitulate. Putin has made a series of mistakes. The biggest one: underestimating the West, underestimating how all Western countries are still together, underestimating Donald Trump, overestimating how much he could play Trump.

Yes, Trump wants peace. Yes, Trump has been willing to prostrate himself in front of Putin in the pursuit of peace. It may still happen, but it probably won’t in a way that Putin wants.

He has ruined his country. He’s ruined his country’s reputation all for ego and all because he thinks he’s so smart. That’s what gets you. That’s called hubris and nothing else.

Okay, thanks for listening to this maybe sometimes a little bit rambly approach. I hope it made sense.

Ceterum censeo Ucrainam esse defendam. Слава Україні!

[This was originally posted to YouTube as a video. This post is a slightly abbreviated transcript, preserving the oral style of the video.]