Russian President Vladimir Putin is behaving like a mafia boss. In invading, occupying and finally annexing Crimea, he pointed Russia’s guns at Ukraine and said: Your territorial sovereignty or your life. So far, extortion has worked — and Putin knows it.
Indeed, in his speech announcing the annexation of Crimea, Putin spoke his mind: His regime fears no punishment and will do whatever it pleases. Crimea is just the first step toward realizing his dream of revived Russian greatness.
His address in the Kremlin was a tissue of lies and manipulation, though a subtle analysis would be a waste of time. The simple fact is that the president of one of the world’s most powerful countries has embarked on a path of confrontation with the entire international community. His speech smacked of the fevered, paranoid world of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Demons, conjuring as it did a delusional alternative universe — a place that does not exist and has never existed.
What does Kosovo, where the Albanians suffered persecution and ethnic cleansing, have in common with the situation in Crimea, whose people have never been oppressed by Ukrainians?
What is the point in displaying open contempt for Ukraine’s government, parliament and people?
Why label Ukrainian authorities “fascist and anti-Semitic?”
Crimean Tatars pay no heed to the fairy tales about fascists ruling Ukraine; they can still remember the brutal and murderous mass deportations of their parents and grandparents, ordered by former Soviet leader Josef Stalin and carried out by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, better known by its Russian acronym NKVD.
In Putin’s mind, the whole world has discriminated against Russia for the past three centuries. Russia’s bloody despots — Catherine II, Nicholas I and Stalin — apparently never discriminated against anyone.
Putin also warns that “you and we — the Russians and the Ukrainians — could lose Crimea completely.” Yet he fails to specify who — perhaps Poles and Lithuanians again — are setting their sights on Sevastopol.
Russia could not, according to Putin, leave the people of Crimea “alone in their predicament.” These words prompt a sad smile; former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev used precisely the same phrase in August 1968 to justify the Red Army’s intervention in Czechoslovakia to help beleaguered communist hardliners there crush the Prague Spring reform movement.
“We want Ukraine to be a strong, sovereign and independent country,” Putin said.
Stalin said the same thing about Poland in 1945. Brave Russian democrats who have not yet been silenced have already remarked on the similarity between Putin’s appeal to ethnic solidarity in annexing Crimea and Adolf Hitler’s stance during the Anschluss and the Sudeten crisis in 1938.
This is the real end of history — the history of dreams about a world governed by democratic values and the market economy. Unless the democratic world understands that now is not the time for faith in diplomatic compromise, and that it must respond strongly enough to stop Putin’s imperial designs, events could follow a logic that is too dreadful to contemplate. It takes force to stop a thug, not sharp words or cosmetic sanctions.
I commend and take pride in Poland’s prudent and determined policy and the attitude of its public, which do us great credit. However, we must recognize that the best quarter-century in the past 400 years of Polish history is about to end before our very eyes. A time of tectonic shifts has begun. We must appreciate what we have managed to achieve — and learn to protect it.
Mafia bosses often meet an unhappy fate, and I do not think that Putin will fare much better in the end. Unfortunately, many people are likely to be hurt in the meantime, not least those who now support him.
Adam Michnik was one of the leaders of Solidarity and is the founding editor of Gazeta Wyborcza.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) were born under the sign of Gemini. Geminis are known for their intelligence, creativity, adaptability and flexibility. It is unlikely, then, that the trade conflict between the US and China would escalate into a catastrophic collision. It is more probable that both sides would seek a way to de-escalate, paving the way for a Trump-Xi summit that allows the global economy some breathing room. Practically speaking, China and the US have vulnerabilities, and a prolonged trade war would be damaging for both. In the US, the electoral system means that public opinion
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
RSS