So, Vladimir Putin has now openly revealed his true autocratic mental state of mind and confirmed his personality type as megalomaniac of the highest order! In that respect he now stands in history alongside other notorious authoritarian megalomaniacs such as Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un and others with the same neurological disorder. All of whom have openly displayed extreme hatred towards their neighbours and anyone within their own territory who dares to hold thoughts, ideas and opinions that differ in any way from their own.
All states that have had, or have leaders with this psychological profile manifest exactly this same set of extremist credentials more often than not concurrent with ambitions of building an autocratic empire, both within and externally to their own territory.
Putin’s often spouted regret at the breakup of the old Soviet empire is well documented and is a strong indicator of his ultimate ambitions in tandem with his deep hatred of the Western World and its openly democratic values. This has now been confirmed by his recent forthright military threats to the wider world whereby any of those he accuses of attempting to support sovereign countries that he feels are, as he sees it, in his exclusive sphere of influence and his alone are in for a bloody nose if they attempt to side with such nation states and the majority of citizens therein.
The question is, how do you deal with a monster and bully like Putin? He obviously has at his disposal a degree of military credibility that is more than capable of inflicting harm on others that he considers to be a foe. A full-on defensive military response from his opponents is unlikely to curtail the ambitions of this type of aggressor as by their very nature megalomaniacs only ever instinctively react with a counter display of hard-nosed violence and not well reasoned intellect. The ultimate result of which would be a catastrophe for both sides of any major conflict as well as economic disaster for the entire world resulting in the potential mass suffering of billions of human beings. Diplomacy is preferable, but in the case of maniacal driven minds like Putin’s this will only ever encourage them to instinctively scheme and lie whilst continuing to edge ever more forward towards their ultimate goal.
So, what is the majority free world left with. In a word, containment. Containment can take various forms such as working with partners to instigate graduated diplomatic disengagement from areas identified as being disposable, targeted trade restrictions in areas that mostly affect the aggressor more, closing doors to strategic institutions and bodies that have enjoyed a more relaxed exchange in recent times and other such restrictions and disengagement.
We then have to ask, are the opposing sides now in a new Cold War situation? The answer is a resounding yes, but not exactly on the same lines as the previous 20th century one! Despite Putin’s deliberately offensive display of military hardware, typical tyrannical breast beating from someone who has already lost the argument, it is very unlikely that the biggest threat will come from that direction. Volleys of nukes being exchanged are extremely unlikely and further border incursions, although possible, would only serve to intrench and polarise the situation even more. To a large extent, old fashioned James Bond style operations are also mostly a thing of the past so are not all that practical or as effective as they once were. However, what would hurt western and other advanced nations more in this 21st century cold war is cyberspace armageddon and this is something that Putin and his cronies are only too well aware of. With so much reliance now on telecommunications interconnectivity for just about every aspect of daily life any sustained large scale disruption of Internet connected services would prove disastrous to the world economy and could potentially be just as damaging as conventional physical warfare. It is in this area that the western powers are going to have to fight their biggest battles.
However, in the longer term, providing cyberspace does not fall apart, the western powers and their supporters are more than capable of gaining further traction in securing greater economic and social isolation of Russia if Putin insists on continuing his current policy of unilateral land grabbing and directly interference in the internal affairs of independent sovereign countries. Europe’s over reliance on Russian energy will diminish as new sources come on stream and start to deliver alternative supplies during which time Russia’s income from oil in particular will likely continue to be suppressed the combined effect of which will be to seriously damage Russia’s export income. By that time Russia will have lost one of its most valued customers – maybe for all time if future scientific advances make Russian resources irrelevant. American reliance on Russian near-Earth maned space vehicles will cease in the very near future when commercial space launch systems such as the currently successful robotic and soon to be tested maned vehicles become fully developed. Also, NASA’s new Orion project for deep-space manned exploration has already had a successful test launch and is currently undergoing advanced programme development. It’s also very likely that Cuba, Russia’s only real ally in the Americas will, in the not too distant future, be coaxed back into the western world. This list of unwanted Russian goods and services will become greater in number and diversity as Putin’s Russia is shunned into deeper and deeper into isolation.
Putin’s Russia is already suffering from the limited sanctions imposed so far to the degree that his cage has obviously been rattled and the Russian population at large is already feeling a far more negative effect to their daily life than his militaristic propaganda machine will ever admit to. The result of which is that at some point Russian society could easily implode for the second time just as the old Soviet empire did on December 26th 1991 when the then Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union finally acknowledged the independence of the Soviet Republics and in turn created the much smaller CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) some of which delayed formally ratifying the new treaty whilst others have never done so to this day.
In plain terms, the longer Putin is in power and he continues on the brutal and dishonest path he has chosen then the more the people of Russia will suffer as a result. Simples!