{"id":76217,"date":"2022-02-23T00:09:11","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T04:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=76217"},"modified":"2022-02-23T23:53:22","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T03:53:22","slug":"instead-of-paving-russias-path-to-greatness-invading-ukraine-would-ensure-vladimir-putins-infamy-by-leaving-his-country-diplomatically-isolated-economically-crippled-and-strategi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=76217","title":{"rendered":"Instead of paving Russia\u2019s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Vladimir Putin\u2019s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled, and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance."},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy Madeleine Albright<\/strong><\/p>\n

In early 2000, I became the first senior US official to meet with Vladimir Putin in his new capacity as acting President of Russia. We in the Clinton administration did not know much about him at the time \u2013 just that he had started his career in the K.G.B. <\/p>\n

I hoped the meeting would help me take the measure of the man and assess what his sudden elevation might mean for US-Russia relations, which had deteriorated amid the war in Chechnya. Sitting across a small table from him in the Kremlin, I was immediately struck by the contrast between Putin and his bombastic predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.<\/p>\n

Whereas Yeltsin had cajoled, blustered, and flattered, Putin spoke unemotionally and without notes about his determination to resurrect Russia\u2019s economy and quash Chechen rebels. Flying home, I recorded my impressions. <\/p>\n

\u201cPutin is small and pale,\u201d I wrote, adding: \u201cSo cold as to be almost reptilian.\u201d He claimed to understand why the Berlin Wall had to fall but had not expected the whole Soviet Union to collapse. \u201cPutin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I have been reminded in recent months of that nearly three-hour session with Putin as he has massed troops on the border with neighbouring Ukraine. After calling Ukrainian statehood a fiction in a bizarre televised address, he issued a decree recognising the independence of two separatist-held regions in Ukraine and sending troops there.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s revisionist and absurd assertion that Ukraine was \u201centirely created by Russia\u201d and effectively robbed from the Russian empire is fully in keeping with his warped worldview. Most disturbing to me: It was his attempt to establish the pretext for a full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n

Should he do so, it will be a historic error.<\/p>\n

In the 20-odd years since we met, Putin has charted his course by ditching democratic development for Stalin\u2019s playbook. He has collected political and economic power for himself \u2013 co-opting or crushing potential competition \u2013 while pushing to re-establish a sphere of Russian dominance through parts of the former Soviet Union. Like other authoritarians, he equates his own wellbeing with that of the nation and opposition with treason. He is sure that Americans mirror both his cynicism and his lust for power and that in a world where everyone lies, he is under no obligation to tell the truth. Because he believes that the US dominates its own region by force, he thinks Russia has the same right.<\/p>\n

Putin has for years sought to burnish his country\u2019s international reputation, expand Russia\u2019s military and economic might, weaken North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and divide Europe (while driving a wedge between it and the US). Ukraine features in all of that.<\/p>\n

Instead of paving Russia\u2019s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Putin\u2019s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled, and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s already set that in motion by announcing on Monday his decision to recognise the two separatist enclaves in Ukraine and send in Russian troops as \u201cpeacemakers\u201d. Now he has demanded that it recognise Russia\u2019s claim to Crimea and relinquish its advanced weapons.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s actions have triggered massive sanctions, with more to come if he launches a full-scale assault and attempts to seize the entire country. These would devastate not just his country\u2019s economy but also his tight circle of corrupt cronies \u2013 who in turn could challenge his leadership. What is sure to be a bloody and catastrophic war will drain Russian resources and cost Russian lives \u2013 while creating an urgent incentive for Europe to slash its dangerous reliance on Russian energy (that has already begun with Germany\u2019s move to halt certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline).<\/p>\n

Such an act of aggression would almost certainly drive NATO to significantly reinforce its eastern flank and to consider permanently stationing forces in the Baltic States, Poland, and Romania. (President Biden said on Tuesday [22] he was moving more troops to the Baltics.) And it would generate fierce Ukrainian armed resistance, with strong support from the West. A bipartisan effort is already underway to craft a legislative response that would include intensifying lethal aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

It would be far from a repeat of Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea in 2014; it would be a scenario reminiscent of the Soviet Union\u2019s ill-fated occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Biden and other Western leaders have made this much clear in round after round of furious diplomacy. But even if the West is somehow able to deter Putin from all-out war \u2013 which is far from assured right now \u2013 it\u2019s important to remember that his competition of choice is not chess, as some assume, but rather judo. We can expect him to persist in looking for a chance to increase his leverage and strike in the future. It will be up to the US and its friends to deny him that opportunity by sustaining forceful diplomatic pushback and increasing economic and military support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Although Putin will, in my experience, never admit to making a mistake, he has shown that he can be both patient and pragmatic. He also is surely conscious that the current confrontation has left him even more dependent on China; he knows that Russia cannot prosper without some ties to the West. \u201cSure, I like Chinese food. It\u2019s fun to use chopsticks,\u201d he told me in our first meeting. \u201cBut this is just trivial stuff. It\u2019s not our mentality, which is European. Russia has to be firmly part of the West.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin must know that a second Cold War would not necessarily go well for Russia \u2013 even with its nuclear weapons. Strong US allies can be found on nearly every continent. Putin\u2019s friends, meanwhile, include the likes of Bashar al-Assad, Alexander Lukashenko, and Kim Jong-un.<\/p>\n

If Putin feels backed into a corner, he has only himself to blame. As Biden has noted, the US has no desire to destabilise or deprive Russia of its legitimate aspirations. That\u2019s why the administration and its allies have offered to engage in talks with Moscow on an open-ended range of security issues. But America must insist that Russia act in accordance with international standards applicable to all nations.<\/p>\n

Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, like to claim that we now live in a multipolar world. While that is self-evident, it does not mean that the major powers have a right to chop the globe into spheres of influence as colonial empires did centuries ago.<\/p>\n

Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbours happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Putin. That is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy. It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all.<\/p>\n


\nCourtesy:The New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Madeleine Albright In early 2000, I became the first senior US official to meet with Vladimir Putin in his new capacity as acting President of Russia. We in the Clinton administration did not know much about him at the time \u2013 just that he had started his career in the K.G.B. I hoped the …<\/p>\n

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