One has to give it to the KGB thug: he understands how the West works.
It’s not for nothing that The Art of War by the Chinese strategist Sun Tsu (6th century BC) is required reading at the KGB/FSB academy.
“If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles,” taught Sun Tsu, and obviously Putin has learned that lesson well.
The colonel knows himself very well indeed, but then of course there isn’t that much to know. With KGB genes coursing through his blood (“There’s no such thing as ex-KGB,” boasted the colonel once, “This is for life.”) he’s single-mindedly dedicated to promoting the cause of his sponsoring organisation.
That cause is so simple that it can be summed up in a single word: power. The power to shove their own people’s faces in the dirt and stamp on them to keep them there. The power to bully anyone at home or abroad who’s too weak to resist. The power to suck every ounce of wealth out of Russia and use it for personal enrichment.
This quest for power is the overriding strategy. Everything else is tactics, the means to an end.
That’s why the colonel sees the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the worst geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century” – and he’s particularly nostalgic for the Stalin period. Stalin is the colonel’s role model, the ideal that can never be fully reached but towards which one has to strive.
Hence he has let it be known that he wouldn’t be averse to Volgograd regaining its historical name Stalingrad – only if the people vote for it, of course. Putin wouldn’t dream of bypassing the democratic process.
It has to be said that the city’s historical claim to bearing Stalin’s name isn’t indisputable. After all, it was called Stalingrad for only 36 years, from 1925 to 1961. For the previous 372 years it had been named Tsaritsyn, but who’s counting?
The colonel knows himself perfectly, and he realises that reviving Stalin’s sterling contribution to Holy Russia would strengthen his own claim to royal descent. If Dave can be heir to Blair, why can’t Putin be heir to Stalin?
So first Russian schoolbooks have been rewritten to portray Stalin as merely an effective, if occasionally harsh, manager. Then a million-strong city on the Volga will again be named after Stalin. Then the statues and portraits will come back – one step at a time.
It’s not all about symbolism either. Stalin was the greatest empire builder Russia has ever known, and Putin’s KGB heart still bleeds at the sight of the empire created by his idol falling apart. What rankles most is the fickle jewel in Stalin’s crown, the Ukraine.
Those bloody Ukies always get ideas above their station. So they had to go and declare independence when Russia was in turmoil, busily trying and failing to reconcile Stalin’s cherished heritage with the dire need for Western dollars.
Not only that, but those upstarts actually pretend not to realise that this is all a game. The Soviet Union didn’t really collapse, it has merely been put on hold, just like Russia’s membership in the G8.
It was understood all along that, when the time came, Russia would reclaim what’s hers. Well, as far as Putin is concerned, the time is now. Granted, one has to proceed with caution, not to trigger a violent reaction from Enemy Number 1. The West.
Here comes the second part of Sun Tsu’s lesson: know thy enemy. Col. Putin does, which is to say he knows what he needs to know.
The essence of Western civilisation doesn’t fall into that category. All Putin is really interested in is a simple binary problem. The West is prepared to stop Russia’s expansion in its tracks – yes or no?
If yes, stop and bide your time. If no, proceed with caution to the next step. It’s like computer programming, only simpler.
The West has already given the good colonel every encouraging sign that the answer is no. Putin flagrantly annexed a chunk of Ukrainian territory, and the West just shrugged its collective shoulders.
Nothing but derisory sanctions were imposed, and the Crimea has gradually disappeared from all subsequent negotiations. These focused on the colonel’s obvious desire to swallow up the rest of the Ukraine.
When it became clear that Putin wasn’t prepared to drive thousands of tanks into Kiev just yet, the West heaved a sigh of relief. The EU in particular was relieved. There’s no need to risk losing Putin’s gas – the colonel seems to be happy with the fait accompli of Crimea alone.
Oh yes, he is fomenting sedition in the Ukraine’s eastern provinces, arming the so-called separatists to the teeth and threatening an Armageddon if the Ukrainian army gets too bolshie. And yes, some of those ‘separatists’ have never set foot on Ukrainian soil before, coming as they do from places like Moscow and Chechnya.
But hey, for as long as they pretend to be Ukrainians, we’ll pretend to believe them. No need to upset the apple cart.
The Ukraine has predictably proved too taxing for the West’s minuscule attention span defined by news bytes. The new version of “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing” could only keep our interest for so long. As long as Putin’s tanks stay on his side of the border, there’s better news to follow, like Kate’s billowing skirt.
With his predator’s instinct, honed at the KGB academy and unencumbered by any excessive intellect or moral sense, Putin knew this would be the case. He also sensed that Kate’s billowing skirt wouldn’t provide a sufficient distraction should his tanks indeed roll. Something more spectacular was needed (no disrespect to the Duchess’s shapely behind).
Abu Dua’s assault is just what Sun Tsu ordered. The West is holding its breath, hoping that the whole Middle East won’t go up in smoke, and the Ukraine is now on Page 48, if in the papers at all.
So Putin’s tanks have rolled, though not yet in their thousands and not yet all the way to Kiev. Just three T-72s and a few personnel carriers, just 17 miles into the Ukraine, just for Putin to poke his toe in the water.
When Abu Dua overruns Baghdad and, ideally, bombs Israel, then the time may be ripe for some serious business. Meanwhile, Putin is happy with yet another proof that the West is impotent and craven.