Putin's gambit

By Deauwand Myers

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, rejecting the international community's offer of helping him flee Ukraine at the onset of the Russian invasion.

Democracies don't have a very good track record of dealing with dictatorships. Democratic governments install and/or support dictatorships; a brief history of the Middle East and Central and South America illustrates this point. Even during the rise of Adolf Hitler, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt praised the way Hitler was running Germany's government, before it became clear he was a thug and mass murderer.

As China, Russia and North Korea increase their nuclear arsenals, and Ukraine is being overrun by Russia's immoral and illegal assault, the international community has to ask the fundamental question I have asked before about North Korea: what do we do with nations who are bad actors and commit illegal acts?

Unlike North Korea, which has starved its citizens for generations due to its pro-military policy and the crippling world sanctions therein, Russians are used to a much higher standard of living. Biting sanctions against Russia will not just have negative effects on wealthy oligarchs, but average citizens.

As with most dictators, President Putin is afraid of his own citizens, and if sanctions bite hard enough for a wide enough swath of Russians, he may eventually relent and find some off-ramp for this uncalled-for and unnecessary bloodshed.

Even more so, Russian television and the propaganda it spews only works for some people. The family and friends of all the dead and wounded Russian soldiers coming back from the frontlines cannot be explained away by state television.

What frightens me, and should frighten the rest of us, is what exactly does President Putin think the international community would do? Just sit around? Further, what is his next move? Putin's cornered and knows it; such a man is dangerous. Russians seem to have underestimated Ukrainians' resolve to protect their homeland, and the fight they are putting up against Russia is nothing to sneeze at.

But again, what does Putin think? The Ukrainians are never going to exist peacefully under a Russian flag. He is going to have his military fight urban, guerilla warfare, something any military expert will tell you is the most difficult and dangerous kind of military engagement. Does Russia try to stay in Ukraine indefinitely, occupying it? The sanctions are already biting, and the last and biggest sanction is denying Russia's energy sector access to world markets, something that would make already high crude go even higher, but such a move would easily plunge Russia into a very deep, very painful recession.

Nonetheless, short of having a hot war with a nuclear-armed Russia, the West has few other options besides biting sanctions. This could happen to Taiwan, and the question is, what would the U.S. and other countries do about it if such a move transpired? Would we come to the military aid of Taiwan like Japan's leaders said they would? Scenarios in war game simulations with America and allies on one side and China on the other have not turned out so well. America lost the simulation every time.

The argument President Putin uses about this war of choice he is waging is specious and outlandishly anti-Semitic. According to him and Russian state TV, the Ukrainian government is full of neo-Nazis. Ridiculous, considering that Ukraine's courageous president is himself of Jewish heritage.

In truth, President Putin and his inner circle want to rebuild as much of the old USSR as they can. In fact, Putin has gone as far as to say that the fall of the Soviet Union was the worst event of the 20th century, if you can believe it. This is the same century in which two world wars took place, one of which killed tens of millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians alike, more than any other country and the systemic extermination of 6 million Jews. But in Putin's mind, all that horror doesn't compare to the fall of the USSR.

On its face, this assertion which Putin makes is patently absurd, but he certainly has not taken the statement back, and attacking a sovereign country is an expensive, messy and bloody business, so he must still hold this belief as valid. We are where we are.

President Biden never had any love for Putin, even when he was vice president under President Obama, and the swiftness by which Biden garnered international support on such strong sanctions signals some good news when it comes to how the West and all advanced democracies deal with dictators, if heaven forbid another maniacal authoritarian decides to illegally invade another sovereign country. Sanctions and international isolation are key tools in that diplomacy kit.

Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside of Seoul.