Czar Vladimir the Terrible- What Makes Putin Tick?
There is confusion about why Vladimir Putin is so aggressively interfering in the US election process, and what is really behind the massive influx of Russian money into US investments and coffers of US political figures and "Conservative" Trump associated organizations. Is this about one candidate or Party that is preferred by Putin? What is his goal?
US Intelligence Agencies have a myopic view, that Putin's motives are simply to sow division and internal conflict here, pinning down the United States and disrupting our political system, while advancing the Russians Geopolitical interests within their own self-defined strategic sphere. There is also the view that Putin is pragmatically maneuvering to have economic sanctions ended by engineering a friendly or manipulable American Presidency that will accommodate him and his business partners in the Russian Oligarchy. These conclusions are only partially valid. Why?
Because Russia and its leaders do not think like we do. They don't operate in terms of election cycles, business cycles, government systems or regimes. Russian strategic thinkers operate on the basis of Millennia. America's history really is little more than 400 years old, if you take it back to Jamestown or the Massachusetts Bay Colony. But Russian history begins in the year 988 AD, the year of the "Christianization of Kiev Rus" with the Baptism of Vladimir the Great, this after the 100 year long campaign of evangelization begun by Patriarch Photius in the aftermath of the siege of Constantinople.
What has characterized Russian History since, up until the mid Twentieth Century is one brutal invasion of Russia after another, and the resulting Nationalistic/Religious/cultural reaction to those invasions over many Centuries, as reflected in their own brutalization and suppression of those Imperial subjects within their own "Motherland".
The first, and maybe most defining was the Mongol Invasion of Kiev Rus during the reign of Genghis Khan, which produced an extreme reaction and took the form of a new nationalism and religious fervor, along with the belief that Russian soil was sanctified by the blood of the people and their suffering. The mystical attachment of Russians to their soil, "Holy Mother Russia" became a centerpiece of Russian culture.
This, and the growing power of the Eastern Church, led to the creation and ascendancy of Russia's first Czar Ivan Grozny. (Ivan the Terrible) Ivan brought to Russia a new Doctrine, generated by a unique prophecy coming from the Russian Orthodox Church that Russia was destined to become "The Third and Final Rome" following the collapse of the Roman Empire, and later, the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople. The belief was propagated that at some future point, the outside world would perish in a rain of fire, and that Russia would emerge as the Capitol of a new, world wide Roman Empire, with the Holy City Moscow as the new center of Christianity. Hence, the title "Czar" (Russian term for Caesar) for its leader who had virtually limitless power and religious devotion.
Then there was the Swedish invasion of Russia in 1707 by Charles XII during the reign of Peter the Great, who attacked the Northern alliance of Russia, Poland and Denmark. (Peter, in the interest of making Russia a great power had previously traveled throughout Western Europe undertaking his "Great Embassy", in disguise with his delegations. He was 6'8" tall with red hair and was recognized by all) Peter appropriated shipbuilding techniques and scientific discoveries to build Russian military and economic strength. Upon his return to Russia, he suppressed the "Boyars" (aristocracy of Russia) internally to modernize his country and build his Imperial System. His paranoia, like that of Ivan led to one purge after another.
There was of course Napoleon's invasion during the reign of Alexander I, defeated by the Czars decision to burn his own Capitol Moscow to the ground, driving Napoleon's Army out of their Winter Quarters into the unforgiving Russian Winter. This was a most notable other example of the Russians fierce willingness to defend with their suffering and blood the sacred soul of Holy Mother Russia, and their quasi religious devotion to their Czar.
And finally in the aftermath of the tragic World War I and its disastrous Peace Treaty, there was Hitler's invasion during WWII during the reign of Stalin, in which he rallied the Russian people to the defense of "Mother Russia" on radio, not the Soviet State or Communist Party. This was termed "The Great Patriotic War" by Russia's leaders.
What emerges from all of this, is a continuity of Russian policy and culture, which transcends whatever form of government or leadership they have had, whether it be by an Imperial Czar, a Communist dictatorship and its bureaucracy, or a Presidential system with a Parliament or Duma. Remember that Stalin was educated and trained in a Georgian Monastery with the goal of becoming an Orthodox Priest, before he became political. Putin is a religious Russian Orthodox practicing Christian, notwithstanding his history as a KGB henchman.
In attempting to understand Putin's motives and revanchism toward the West, it is critical to understand that Russian Nationalism re-erupted in force in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet System, resulting from what they saw as a foreign economic invasion and systemic looting and occupation by Western governments. The US puppet Boris Yeltsin and his crime family allowed foreign Corporate interests to pick apart the carcass of the collapsed Soviet economy, triggering shortages, hardship and demographic collapse. The program was known as "Shock Therapy" or the "Sachs Plan", named after Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs. It was that period which provoked Russia's Nationalist upsurge and swept Putin into power.
All of these events have produced a culture which is on one hand, scientifically very advanced, with an educated intelligentsia in all fields, including the Arts. But, on the other hand, tends to be xenophobic, paranoid, intolerant and often violent toward other ethnic and religious groups within what they consider their sphere, and with an intense nationalism born of centuries of suffering, both at the hands of their foreign invaders, and their own leaders. (Hence their long and brutal history of subjugating or attempting to wipe out independent national or religious/ethnic identities, cultures and languages in favor of "Russification")
Russian policy has been the same for centuries, to protect the Motherland by subjugating the Nations on its western borders to create a "buffer zone" against future invasion, while achieving political accommodations with its eastern neighbors to protect their flank. Also they overbuild their military power at the expense of their own living standard as a club to deploy against both internal and external perceived threats. They install and prop up "strongmen" puppet governments to suppress opposition to Russian Imperial policy. They conduct foreign diplomacy as "Maskirovka" (deception and lies) to safeguard Russian interest, and they conduct aggressive espionage to the extent possible.
Finally, Russia insulates its own Oligarchical Class from accountability, due to their historic policy of using the top down control of culture to suppress the Russian people's ability or willingness to govern themselves. And foremost, axiomatically, Russia's Spiritual leadership prepares Russia to survive the coming Apocalypse that will leave the non-believers of the West in ruin, and Moscow as the "Third and Final Rome", the most powerful Imperial force ruling over the Eurasian landmass.
Russian leadership and institutions are controlled by these cultural imperatives, even if they are not conscious of it, and always have been. (with rare exceptions under the progressive influences of the pro-American Catherine the Great, and Czar Alexander II) This is why Putin does what he does. Vladimir Putin is Russia's Czar, and he is out to "Make Russia Great Again". And, they have their man in Washington.
This is what our government and intelligence agencies don't adequately grasp. They think it's about control of energy supplies, expanding Putin's wealth, or some other immediate political/economic goal, and as a result they miscalculate in all too many circumstances, as they are now in failing to understand why the repeated Russian interventions on behalf of Donald Trump.
