A year ago, the "Euromaidan" protests in Ukraine against the pro-Russian Yanukovich government culminated in a mass shooting in the centre of Kiev, followed by the flight of Yanukovich himself. Since then, Ukraine has been the centre of a 21st-century power-play between the West and Russia.
While some people thought that such games of power, for control of "spheres of influence" were relegated to the European history books, the reality is that, in some ways, the ideological battles that dominated the twentieth century were themselves a historical aberration.
The twentieth century was unique in finding new methods to create mass human suffering, but it was also unique in finding "isms" to use as justification. The First World War was not, despite the use of modern warfare, any different from the pan-European wars of succession that occurred during the 18th century, in terms of the basic human causes. Like most wars, the First World War was sparked by nationalism (Serbian nationalism, in that case) but quickly spiralled out of control to include all other major European "players". The Balkans was the source of the conflict, but the Balkans had been the source of various European conflicts for nearly half a century prior to the First World War. Some people forget that.
"Right, where were we?"
The crisis in Ukraine has been a proxy war for the last eight months. The historical region of Ukraine has been a bone of some contention for at least the last two hundred and fifty years, ever since the Russians conquered the Crimea, creating the region now famously known as "Novorossiya".
The collapse of the Eastern Bloc saw the ideological battles that had dominated Europe (and the world) for most of the twentieth century come to a close. In that sense, with these aberrant ideological conflicts over, the "historical clock" was wound back to 1913, and old historical grievances were "re-discovered". Across the former Soviet Union and former Communist Eastern Europe, ethnic and nationalistic causes that had been on ice for the best part of a century, began to rapidly heat up - in some cases almost instantly. This explains why the wars in former Yugoslavia should perhaps be better seen almost as continuations of the First and Second Balkan Wars that immediately preceded the First World War: once Communism collapsed it was almost a case of: "right, where were we?"...
We could therefore re-phrase Francis Fukuyama's famous quote about the end of the Cold War being not so much the "end of history", but the "resumption of history".
This explains why the territory of modern-day independent Ukraine, itself a creation of the internal politics of the Soviet Union, found itself in an awkward geopolitical position. In effect it is - like Belgium, but much bigger - a country with two linguistic halves, and likewise with people looking in different directions. This was Communism trying to put history to one side for the sake of centralising authority - a very deliberate policy of divide and rule. This was carried out all across the various "republics" of the Soviet Union, including, for example, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (which explains the inter-ethnic conflict that occurred there some years ago).
In Ukraine, these issues were put on the back-burner during the nineties government of Kuchma, and it was only when the pro-West, "pro-democracy" opposition became more vocal that the problems with Moscow started, ten years ago.
Putin's playground
That is the context. Ukraine is a power-play, and it is clear that Vladimir Putin doesn't want to "let go" of Ukraine. For the past year, people have been trying to fathom the psychology of Putin, and what he is hoping to achieve. Does he want to occupy Ukraine? Does he want to divide Ukraine? Does he want to create a geographical "Greater Russia"?
By now, it seems evident that he does not want to invade every neighbouring country that has a (small) Russian-speaking population. Comparisons with Hitler are unhelpful, crude and very wide of the mark. Vladimir Putin's mind is made of different stuff - he is much more the calculating opportunist, with Ukraine conveniently serving as his "playground". In essence, he does whatever he thinks he can reasonably get away with. And because he has (rightly) calculated that no-one in the West will seriously want to stand up to him militarily, this is why he sends troops and hardware into Eastern Ukraine.
This was evident back when there was the war with Georgia in 2008. No-one in the West wanted to intervene militarily. It was the diplomatic intervention of France's Sarkozy that helped bring the conflict to a close, and prevent the possibility that Russia would drive its tanks all the way to Georgia's Presidential Palace in Tblisi.
The efforts of Merkel and Hollande in "Minsk II" are noble, but pitiful by comparison. By now, Putin knows that no-one will stop his actions in Ukraine. While the sanctions are hurting Russia, Putin is able to turn this domestically into a "blame the West" action; thus, whatever the West does, Putin wins.
With Ukraine, Putin is really the "puppet-master", able to dictate events. His hope, we assume, is that by dragging out the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, it destablises and destroys the popularity of the Poroshenko government, until he is removed from power, one way or another. Who replaces him is up to debate, but as long as the war continues, and the "Donbass" remains out of Kiev's control, Putin has a mill-stone to hang around the Kiev government's neck, preventing it from ever being truly independent.
"Mr Freeze"?
The result of the Georgia war was a "frozen conflict" in the two break-away regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These are now effectively Russian satellites, and since then the then Georgian President, Saakashvili, has gone and been replaced by one who happens to be more amenable to Moscow. Georgia no longer seriously talks about joining NATO or the EU - and even if they did, no-one in the West would ever take up the proposition.
Putin created the "Eurasian Union" to rival the EU. Indeed, it was this institution that Yanukovich had originally agreed to join in late 2013, that was one of the reasons for the protests in the first place. This Russia-centred economic association is another of Putin's power-plays. Initially with just two other members - Belarus and Kazakhstan - it now also includes Armenia, and is likely to include Kyrgyzstan in the near future.
The latter two are both economically reliant on Russia as much of their population are migrant workers in Russia, but also have ethnic problems of their own (Kyrgyzstan's mentioned earlier). Armenia has been locked in a "frozen conflict" with its neighbour Azerbaijan over Armenia's occupation of Karabakh for more than twenty years.
Obviously, this issue pre-dates Putin's rise to power, but the situation in Georgia does not, with the 2008 war seen as a "resolution", and effectively a method of keeping Georgia under Moscow's thumb. With the two "occupied territories", no-one in the West will touch Georgia's status with a barge-pole.
Ukraine now resembles the situation in Georgia, except that Ukraine is a far bigger country, and is part of Europe. With Russia's annexation of Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine locked in warfare over the status of the "Donbass", Ukraine's economy is in free-fall. Ukraine is literally paying the price for going against the Kremlin. As mentioned earlier, having the mill-stone of the Donbass War around Ukraine's neck is Putin's way of keeping the country from escaping Russia's orbit.
Having plucked Ukraine's prize fruit, Crimea, from under their noses, Putin is now clamping a ball and chain around Ukraine's feet, in the form of an unresolved conflict in the "Donbass".
Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Monday, June 30, 2014
The nature of power: from Feudalism to 21st century Capitalism
The word "feudalism" evokes images of slavery: medieval serfdom, peasants bound to serve a class of landed gentry. By definition, feudalism was a form of slavery. In the modern world, "feudalism" is considered as dead as the age of knights that is associated with it. But perceptions can be misleading.
Feudalism was mainly concerned with two things: property, and freedom of movement. As land was considered property, so were the people who tilled the land of the person who owned the land. These "serfs", or slaves in other words, were bound to the landowner, and any attempts by serfs to flee their fate could be punishable by death.
The first part of the world that began to change this system was Europe, with the growth of the professional merchant class, skilled professions that allowed individuals freedom of property, movement and so on. The Republic Of Venice was an early medieval example of this. Gradually, more and more European states moved in this direction: the last major European power to formally abolish serfdom was the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century; over in North America around the same time, the southern states of the USA fought for secession from the USA in order to continue their own form of serfdom on African slaves and their descendants. They lost.
A land of milk and honey?
Karl Marx famously wrote about the path of feudalism to Capitalism, in the end equating the "satanic mills" to a form of "industrialised serfdom".
Industrialisation brought a transformation of society to those it affected. The serfdom of the land was transformed into the subservience to the factory. Proponents of Capitalism would argue that this was an inevitable stage of the process of mankind's advancement, and unless people wish to live in tree-houses and tilling the fields in an agrarian commune, this logic is hard to refute.
In a more basic way, feudalism was about power, who controlled what, and how. And this is where the argument for feudalism's death becomes more complicated.
In the 21st century, in 2014, who holds power, and how? In a great many cases, the way that nation-states are ran is really not so very different from five hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago, or more. Certainly, technology has changed life in many ways beyond recognition, but human nature is unchanged, and the nature of power is fundamentally unchanged also. This is a point that Jonathon Swift explained very well in the last part of his famous novel, "Gulliver's Travels", all the way back in the early 18th century. The TV series "Game Of Thrones" is famous across the world, but one of the main reasons is that human nature and the use of power is represented by the characters in a very accessible way for the viewer. In other words, medieval politics and power are fundamentally no different from the modern-day.
A handful of examples can easily express the point.
The UK is held up as an exemplar for the rest of the world to follow. As the mother of modern democracy (apologies, Greece...), the rule of law, and a sensible balance of power, an education system that is the envy of the world, and so on. And yet, this "exemplar" is one of the most feudalistic modern states in the developed world.
While the UK has no "serfs", its "citizens" are still legally subjects to the crown. The UK has no constitution. The British crown is one of the biggest landowners in the world. While the British royal family may well seem harmless enough, one half of the electoral system (The House Of Lords) still consists of individuals who are either from centuries-old landed gentry (i.e. landowners), or are there by the favour of a bygone government. The House Of Lords has few contemporaries in the developed world as a temple for feudal values. The British establishment also propagates itself through the UK's education system, which is one of the best methods in the developed world for maintaining the untouchable position of Britain's peculiarly-modern form of feudalism. This system has done wonders for preserving the elite, while the lot of the average Briton has suffered, especially since the financial crisis. Needless to say, like any feudalistic institutions, this system isn't even very efficient; it is simply is very good at doing the best for those in positions of power.
Aside from the UK, many of the most developed countries in Europe are still monarchies: in Scandinavia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway; the Low Countries are all monarchies; as is Spain. Yes, they are "constitutional monarchies", but while the power they wield is only theoretical, it tells us more about the psychology of the people themselves: they like having a monarch. The interesting question is "why?", and this tells us that while many people in the modern world are far more educated (and the world they live in technologically-advanced) they still want to believe in fairy tales.
Modern-day feudalism?
Crossing the pond, many political commentators like comparing the modern-day USA to the Roman Empire of the past. The "Land Of The Free". Few objective economists would argue that the USA is the most unequal nation-state in the developed world, and that is a result of the way it is managed. While health care is considered a human right in the rest of the developed world, in the USA it is considered something you can only have if you can afford it. While Obama's controversial health care reform has claimed to have helped (a little), any objective observer would look at the private health care system as a grossly-inefficient and amoral answer to the world superpower's health problems.
But the American model of running the country was never meant to be "fair": it was meant to be "laissez-faire". Ayn Rand was the most famous proponent of modern-day neoliberalism, which idolised the gains of the rich as a way to motivate the poor. The rich in the USA, in the last thirty years have reached a level of wealth so far from that of the average person that they may as well be considered aristocracy in their own right. No-one in the know seriously doubts that the elite of America are the ones who decide how the game of power is played every four years for the White House. The Koch brothers, who funded the "Tea Party", are simply the newest (and most polarising) set of characters on the scene.
While the USA rid itself of legal slavery, it advocated an economic model that created a new riddle: a slave may be fed and housed, but has no freedom; a freed slave has freedom, but no house nor food to eat. Since the the USA became an imperial power at the turn of the 20th century, it has been exporting this riddle across the world, spreading its own "riddle of freedom".
The USA's "riddle of freedom" was taken in by the UK under the tutelage of Margeret Thatcher, which is these days known as the "Anglo-Saxon Model" by some, and has been implemented ruthlessly by the Conservative government since 2010 under the excuse that "there is no alternative"(!). Since 1979, the UK has been ran like a multinational company, if symbolically headed by a feudalistic establishment: the asset-stripping mentality has turned the UK into a vulture market even for foreign governments.
Since 2008, in the Euro-zone, it's "Club Med" that are being treated to a similar kind of treatment. As Germany holds the purse-strings, it has the right to dictate the economic affairs of Southern Europe. It has already toppled governments in Greece and Italy to do so. While in the latter case, the sitting premier (Silvio Berlusconi) was hardly going to be missed by most Italians, it is hard to deny that the European Union itself is an unaccountable bureaucratic behemoth (not unlike empires of old) that seems to grow with ambition year-on-year. The EU's ambition has been laid bare with its efforts to bring Ukraine into the fold.
At the end of the Cold War, the "Anglo-Saxon Model" was exported to Russia and the former Communist bloc.
Some commentators have described Putin's Russia as a "modern feudal state", or worse. But in reality it was always likely that once the Soviet Union was gone, Russians would revert back to their old way of thinking. Modern Russia and the battle for who controlled the Kremlin in the 1990s became another version of the "Game Of Thrones" seen on TV. Putin was simply in the right place at the right time, and was the most effective player of that oldest of games: power. "Capitalism" in Russia simply became a battle for who controlled the most property, and who controlled the most had the most leverage (or so he hoped). The Kremlin is run as the supreme "court" that it has been for centuries, ruling the largest realm in the globe. Technology is just a detail; all freedom is relative.
A number of other post-Soviet states are also ran as "modern feudal states" in the same manner, with ruling families or oligarchies; come to think of it, almost all the the Middle East is run in such a manner. Given the blessing of oil, and what does an emir need to keep power over his modern-day feudal state than sprinkling a little of his wealth around? Give enough of the population enough money to afford an "iPad" or an off-road vehicle for the desert, and what would any person care about "democracy"? China is living proof of that logic, and both it and Russia are the two biggest countries in the world, by population and area respectively. The USA's dominance looks transient compared to the many centuries that these two states have thrived.
The third world (e.g. most of Africa) is hopelessly corrupt, inefficient and sunk deep in poverty. Investment by aid charities will not change that. Some say you get the government you deserve. But you cannot change human nature, and for all the technological advances made since the time of "real" feudalism, some people still want to live in a "real" feudal society (with "wifi", of course!). The establishment of a trans-national "caliphate" in the heart of the Middle East by the Islamic extremists of ISIS (regardless of how long it lasts) is a very definitive endorsement of that view. Feudalism and power struggles will be around in one form or another as long as people have a feudal mentality.
And that doesn't look like it will disappear very soon.
Feudalism was mainly concerned with two things: property, and freedom of movement. As land was considered property, so were the people who tilled the land of the person who owned the land. These "serfs", or slaves in other words, were bound to the landowner, and any attempts by serfs to flee their fate could be punishable by death.
The first part of the world that began to change this system was Europe, with the growth of the professional merchant class, skilled professions that allowed individuals freedom of property, movement and so on. The Republic Of Venice was an early medieval example of this. Gradually, more and more European states moved in this direction: the last major European power to formally abolish serfdom was the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century; over in North America around the same time, the southern states of the USA fought for secession from the USA in order to continue their own form of serfdom on African slaves and their descendants. They lost.
A land of milk and honey?
Karl Marx famously wrote about the path of feudalism to Capitalism, in the end equating the "satanic mills" to a form of "industrialised serfdom".
Industrialisation brought a transformation of society to those it affected. The serfdom of the land was transformed into the subservience to the factory. Proponents of Capitalism would argue that this was an inevitable stage of the process of mankind's advancement, and unless people wish to live in tree-houses and tilling the fields in an agrarian commune, this logic is hard to refute.
In a more basic way, feudalism was about power, who controlled what, and how. And this is where the argument for feudalism's death becomes more complicated.
In the 21st century, in 2014, who holds power, and how? In a great many cases, the way that nation-states are ran is really not so very different from five hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago, or more. Certainly, technology has changed life in many ways beyond recognition, but human nature is unchanged, and the nature of power is fundamentally unchanged also. This is a point that Jonathon Swift explained very well in the last part of his famous novel, "Gulliver's Travels", all the way back in the early 18th century. The TV series "Game Of Thrones" is famous across the world, but one of the main reasons is that human nature and the use of power is represented by the characters in a very accessible way for the viewer. In other words, medieval politics and power are fundamentally no different from the modern-day.
A handful of examples can easily express the point.
The UK is held up as an exemplar for the rest of the world to follow. As the mother of modern democracy (apologies, Greece...), the rule of law, and a sensible balance of power, an education system that is the envy of the world, and so on. And yet, this "exemplar" is one of the most feudalistic modern states in the developed world.
While the UK has no "serfs", its "citizens" are still legally subjects to the crown. The UK has no constitution. The British crown is one of the biggest landowners in the world. While the British royal family may well seem harmless enough, one half of the electoral system (The House Of Lords) still consists of individuals who are either from centuries-old landed gentry (i.e. landowners), or are there by the favour of a bygone government. The House Of Lords has few contemporaries in the developed world as a temple for feudal values. The British establishment also propagates itself through the UK's education system, which is one of the best methods in the developed world for maintaining the untouchable position of Britain's peculiarly-modern form of feudalism. This system has done wonders for preserving the elite, while the lot of the average Briton has suffered, especially since the financial crisis. Needless to say, like any feudalistic institutions, this system isn't even very efficient; it is simply is very good at doing the best for those in positions of power.
Aside from the UK, many of the most developed countries in Europe are still monarchies: in Scandinavia, Sweden, Denmark and Norway; the Low Countries are all monarchies; as is Spain. Yes, they are "constitutional monarchies", but while the power they wield is only theoretical, it tells us more about the psychology of the people themselves: they like having a monarch. The interesting question is "why?", and this tells us that while many people in the modern world are far more educated (and the world they live in technologically-advanced) they still want to believe in fairy tales.
Modern-day feudalism?
Crossing the pond, many political commentators like comparing the modern-day USA to the Roman Empire of the past. The "Land Of The Free". Few objective economists would argue that the USA is the most unequal nation-state in the developed world, and that is a result of the way it is managed. While health care is considered a human right in the rest of the developed world, in the USA it is considered something you can only have if you can afford it. While Obama's controversial health care reform has claimed to have helped (a little), any objective observer would look at the private health care system as a grossly-inefficient and amoral answer to the world superpower's health problems.
But the American model of running the country was never meant to be "fair": it was meant to be "laissez-faire". Ayn Rand was the most famous proponent of modern-day neoliberalism, which idolised the gains of the rich as a way to motivate the poor. The rich in the USA, in the last thirty years have reached a level of wealth so far from that of the average person that they may as well be considered aristocracy in their own right. No-one in the know seriously doubts that the elite of America are the ones who decide how the game of power is played every four years for the White House. The Koch brothers, who funded the "Tea Party", are simply the newest (and most polarising) set of characters on the scene.
While the USA rid itself of legal slavery, it advocated an economic model that created a new riddle: a slave may be fed and housed, but has no freedom; a freed slave has freedom, but no house nor food to eat. Since the the USA became an imperial power at the turn of the 20th century, it has been exporting this riddle across the world, spreading its own "riddle of freedom".
The USA's "riddle of freedom" was taken in by the UK under the tutelage of Margeret Thatcher, which is these days known as the "Anglo-Saxon Model" by some, and has been implemented ruthlessly by the Conservative government since 2010 under the excuse that "there is no alternative"(!). Since 1979, the UK has been ran like a multinational company, if symbolically headed by a feudalistic establishment: the asset-stripping mentality has turned the UK into a vulture market even for foreign governments.
Since 2008, in the Euro-zone, it's "Club Med" that are being treated to a similar kind of treatment. As Germany holds the purse-strings, it has the right to dictate the economic affairs of Southern Europe. It has already toppled governments in Greece and Italy to do so. While in the latter case, the sitting premier (Silvio Berlusconi) was hardly going to be missed by most Italians, it is hard to deny that the European Union itself is an unaccountable bureaucratic behemoth (not unlike empires of old) that seems to grow with ambition year-on-year. The EU's ambition has been laid bare with its efforts to bring Ukraine into the fold.
At the end of the Cold War, the "Anglo-Saxon Model" was exported to Russia and the former Communist bloc.
Some commentators have described Putin's Russia as a "modern feudal state", or worse. But in reality it was always likely that once the Soviet Union was gone, Russians would revert back to their old way of thinking. Modern Russia and the battle for who controlled the Kremlin in the 1990s became another version of the "Game Of Thrones" seen on TV. Putin was simply in the right place at the right time, and was the most effective player of that oldest of games: power. "Capitalism" in Russia simply became a battle for who controlled the most property, and who controlled the most had the most leverage (or so he hoped). The Kremlin is run as the supreme "court" that it has been for centuries, ruling the largest realm in the globe. Technology is just a detail; all freedom is relative.
A number of other post-Soviet states are also ran as "modern feudal states" in the same manner, with ruling families or oligarchies; come to think of it, almost all the the Middle East is run in such a manner. Given the blessing of oil, and what does an emir need to keep power over his modern-day feudal state than sprinkling a little of his wealth around? Give enough of the population enough money to afford an "iPad" or an off-road vehicle for the desert, and what would any person care about "democracy"? China is living proof of that logic, and both it and Russia are the two biggest countries in the world, by population and area respectively. The USA's dominance looks transient compared to the many centuries that these two states have thrived.
The third world (e.g. most of Africa) is hopelessly corrupt, inefficient and sunk deep in poverty. Investment by aid charities will not change that. Some say you get the government you deserve. But you cannot change human nature, and for all the technological advances made since the time of "real" feudalism, some people still want to live in a "real" feudal society (with "wifi", of course!). The establishment of a trans-national "caliphate" in the heart of the Middle East by the Islamic extremists of ISIS (regardless of how long it lasts) is a very definitive endorsement of that view. Feudalism and power struggles will be around in one form or another as long as people have a feudal mentality.
And that doesn't look like it will disappear very soon.
Monday, April 28, 2014
The Ukraine Crisis: Russian Reasons; Ukraine as the "new Bosnia"?
The "Ukraine Crisis" gradually escalates day by day. Like a time-clock, there is the daily drip-drip of new events that make the spiral of escalation slowly swirl down ever deeper. The capture and parading of OSCE monitors by the separatist "government" of Donetsk over the weekend, followed by the shooting, only today, of Kharkov's mayor, adds more tension and psychological game-play to the power-play that is Ukraine.
The separatist East of Ukraine is becoming more and more a lawless territory, where "law" is instantaneously prosecuted at whim. The deaths of ethnic Ukrainians in the Donetsk "oblast", as well as the rule of the land by "men in black", make the place appear as a legal black hole, effectively out of legal reach of the Kiev government, and only listening to the words of the Kremlin.
The Kiev government has its forces in the region, but they are hamstrung by the wish to avoid civilian casualties in any military action. As I've said before, they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
Exactly how the Kremlin would want it.
If you stand still, you're dead
Again and again we get back to the motivations that have spurred Putin into this course of action. First of all, there is the historical perspective: the view that over the twenty years since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has been betrayed by the initial good-will it gave to the West, feeling encircled. Seen in this light, Putin's "aggression" has been compared to Hitler, and obtaining Crimea his own "Sudetenland".
But this is a false narrative, as convenient as it may be. The truth is more subtle: Putin is a consummate "chess player" at geopolitics, and (like another contemporary authoritarian, Turkey's Erdogan) is a ruthless opportunist. The outside world is naturally keen to see Putin's actions in Ukraine as based solely on irridentism and "revanchism". While this is partly true, the reasons for this are purely opportunistic.
It is more effective to see Putin's actions as a response to the internal political changes that have happened within Russia in the last five years. The financial crisis was the impetus for the liberal opposition to begin to get seriously organised, resulting in the anti-government protests at the end of 2011. But the problem with the liberal opposition (in some ways like the secular opposition in Turkey) is that it is too centred on the big cities, and failed to represent the views of the masses in the hinterland.
Although it is a simplification to say that Putin's popularity comes from "real" Russians, it is true that in some ways the real "opposition" is cultural and nationalistic, not Western-leaning liberals. Putin's "revanchism" appeals more to the instincts of rising numbers of the far-right, as well as to the innate conservatism and historical sympathies of everyday Russians. His actions in Crimea and Ukraine speak more of Putin's view of how Russians feel about Russia's prestige, less than his own.
It is his image with his supporters and the far right that Putin is really paying attention to when he thinks about how to react to the West's courting of Kiev.
Seen this way, his "aggression" in Crimea and Ukraine is a way of restoring popularity at home and mollifying the baneful influence of the nationalist far right. The Ottoman Empire lasted as an imperial force for five hundred years, but the height of its power was when it was expanding, reaching its zenith under Suleiman the Great in the 16th century. After he died, the body politic stagnated, and there were no more gains, only losses of territory, leading to the empire's slow death.
In the same way, Putin views the power of Russia. Putin sees Russian assertiveness in the "near abroad" as a strategy to maintain power. Seeing Russia as an intrinsically unstable state (given the geography, amongst other factors), the only way to prevent its collapse is if the government keeps moving forwards; the war with Chechnya was an example of the start of reversing the near-terminal decline of the nineties. The war in Georgia in 2008 was a way to cement the prestige of the Putin regime. Now that the financial crisis has led to another shaking of the Kremlin's power-base, the events in Ukraine are an opportunity to continue this process.
By standing still in the nineties, the Russian body politic came close to death; Putin has now demonstrated that he has definitively learnt those lessons.
The "new Bosnia"?
Russia has said that it has no wish to dismember Ukraine. Technically, they may be telling the truth, but the reality is that what Putin may ultimately be looking for is a kind of "Dayton Accord" for Ukraine.
Present-day Bosnia is ruled as a highly autonomous nation-state. While it has a functioning central government, the vast majority of its everyday affairs have been passed on to the two autonomous governments; that of the "Respublika Srpska", and the Bosnian-Croat alliance. This arrangement came about only after several years of brutal civil war. Since the "Dayton Accord", the Bosnian Serbs (who make up nearly half the population) have ruled their own mini-statelet; being part of Bosnia, but there being little doubt on the ground that their allegiance lies more towards Belgrade than Sarajevo.
Putin's ultimate aim, if not for a full annexation of "New Russia" (the historical name for the South and East of present-day Ukraine), will be along these lines, but preferably minus all the horrible bloodshed. The "referendums" in those areas in a couple of weeks are simply in place to rubber-stamp this process, to present a fait accompli to Kiev and the West on the ground. Once these "referendums" are done with, the onus then lies on Kiev to accept "the will of the people" and a constitution that meets the wishes of Moscow.
It has been clear so far that there is little that the Kremlin is not capable of; they simply make liberal use of what the Americans would have called "plausible deniability". Invasion would be too crude an instrument for a Kremlin so full of former KGB agents; much more satisfying to use cloak-and-dagger tactics. Any illegal acts in the east of Ukraine are pinned on "fascists" trying to provoke civil war; the Kremlin then dismisses any link to violent acts by the separatists, saying that they are the actions of Ukrainian nationals, and thus the Kremlin has no control over them. Thus it pins the blame back on to the weakness of Kiev.
So far, this strategy has worked brilliantly.
How long will it take for the West to realise that they have "lost" Ukraine, and to make a deal with Putin?
The separatist East of Ukraine is becoming more and more a lawless territory, where "law" is instantaneously prosecuted at whim. The deaths of ethnic Ukrainians in the Donetsk "oblast", as well as the rule of the land by "men in black", make the place appear as a legal black hole, effectively out of legal reach of the Kiev government, and only listening to the words of the Kremlin.
The Kiev government has its forces in the region, but they are hamstrung by the wish to avoid civilian casualties in any military action. As I've said before, they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
Exactly how the Kremlin would want it.
If you stand still, you're dead
Again and again we get back to the motivations that have spurred Putin into this course of action. First of all, there is the historical perspective: the view that over the twenty years since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has been betrayed by the initial good-will it gave to the West, feeling encircled. Seen in this light, Putin's "aggression" has been compared to Hitler, and obtaining Crimea his own "Sudetenland".
But this is a false narrative, as convenient as it may be. The truth is more subtle: Putin is a consummate "chess player" at geopolitics, and (like another contemporary authoritarian, Turkey's Erdogan) is a ruthless opportunist. The outside world is naturally keen to see Putin's actions in Ukraine as based solely on irridentism and "revanchism". While this is partly true, the reasons for this are purely opportunistic.
It is more effective to see Putin's actions as a response to the internal political changes that have happened within Russia in the last five years. The financial crisis was the impetus for the liberal opposition to begin to get seriously organised, resulting in the anti-government protests at the end of 2011. But the problem with the liberal opposition (in some ways like the secular opposition in Turkey) is that it is too centred on the big cities, and failed to represent the views of the masses in the hinterland.
Although it is a simplification to say that Putin's popularity comes from "real" Russians, it is true that in some ways the real "opposition" is cultural and nationalistic, not Western-leaning liberals. Putin's "revanchism" appeals more to the instincts of rising numbers of the far-right, as well as to the innate conservatism and historical sympathies of everyday Russians. His actions in Crimea and Ukraine speak more of Putin's view of how Russians feel about Russia's prestige, less than his own.
It is his image with his supporters and the far right that Putin is really paying attention to when he thinks about how to react to the West's courting of Kiev.
Seen this way, his "aggression" in Crimea and Ukraine is a way of restoring popularity at home and mollifying the baneful influence of the nationalist far right. The Ottoman Empire lasted as an imperial force for five hundred years, but the height of its power was when it was expanding, reaching its zenith under Suleiman the Great in the 16th century. After he died, the body politic stagnated, and there were no more gains, only losses of territory, leading to the empire's slow death.
In the same way, Putin views the power of Russia. Putin sees Russian assertiveness in the "near abroad" as a strategy to maintain power. Seeing Russia as an intrinsically unstable state (given the geography, amongst other factors), the only way to prevent its collapse is if the government keeps moving forwards; the war with Chechnya was an example of the start of reversing the near-terminal decline of the nineties. The war in Georgia in 2008 was a way to cement the prestige of the Putin regime. Now that the financial crisis has led to another shaking of the Kremlin's power-base, the events in Ukraine are an opportunity to continue this process.
By standing still in the nineties, the Russian body politic came close to death; Putin has now demonstrated that he has definitively learnt those lessons.
The "new Bosnia"?
Russia has said that it has no wish to dismember Ukraine. Technically, they may be telling the truth, but the reality is that what Putin may ultimately be looking for is a kind of "Dayton Accord" for Ukraine.
Present-day Bosnia is ruled as a highly autonomous nation-state. While it has a functioning central government, the vast majority of its everyday affairs have been passed on to the two autonomous governments; that of the "Respublika Srpska", and the Bosnian-Croat alliance. This arrangement came about only after several years of brutal civil war. Since the "Dayton Accord", the Bosnian Serbs (who make up nearly half the population) have ruled their own mini-statelet; being part of Bosnia, but there being little doubt on the ground that their allegiance lies more towards Belgrade than Sarajevo.
Putin's ultimate aim, if not for a full annexation of "New Russia" (the historical name for the South and East of present-day Ukraine), will be along these lines, but preferably minus all the horrible bloodshed. The "referendums" in those areas in a couple of weeks are simply in place to rubber-stamp this process, to present a fait accompli to Kiev and the West on the ground. Once these "referendums" are done with, the onus then lies on Kiev to accept "the will of the people" and a constitution that meets the wishes of Moscow.
It has been clear so far that there is little that the Kremlin is not capable of; they simply make liberal use of what the Americans would have called "plausible deniability". Invasion would be too crude an instrument for a Kremlin so full of former KGB agents; much more satisfying to use cloak-and-dagger tactics. Any illegal acts in the east of Ukraine are pinned on "fascists" trying to provoke civil war; the Kremlin then dismisses any link to violent acts by the separatists, saying that they are the actions of Ukrainian nationals, and thus the Kremlin has no control over them. Thus it pins the blame back on to the weakness of Kiev.
So far, this strategy has worked brilliantly.
How long will it take for the West to realise that they have "lost" Ukraine, and to make a deal with Putin?
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Putin, Erdogan, and the new authoritarianism of the 21st century
I wrote last year about some of the differences between the cultures and politics of the East and West. As I said back then:
"Easterners may well therefore look at the current economic and ideological malaise in the West as being a direct result of their "freedom". What a Westerner considers freedom, an Easterner could instead call "weakness", or "moral degradation". The USA is currently struggling economically; the UK is moribund; the Eurozone has become a German economic protectorate. So while the East is prospering because it has found a formula that marries Eastern authoritarianism with Western elements of Capitalism, the West is failing (and getting comparatively poorer) because of weaknesses in the structure of its ideology."
The current "Ukraine Crisis" looks like a test case of these two ideologies and perspectives. It is the countries of the East and the developing world that look at what Vladimir Putin is doing with implicit approval, or at best, transparent indifference.
This attitude even extends into Europe. The rise of nationalism in Europe in recent years is married with an attitude of hostility to an out-of-touch bureaucracy in Brussels. Nigel Farage in the recent European debates in the UK was able to clearly articulate the view of many Britons who are tired of EU expansion for the sake of it, sabre-rattling in affairs that are far from our shore (as the Ukraine Crisis has shown), and European intransigence of the self-determination of various movements across the continent. And that's before even getting on to the effect European migration has had on the European economy. In many ways, the EU is ruled more like the bygone Austria-Hungary than any contemporary organisation or pseudo nation-state.
Managing democracy
Both Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan have shown themselves to be masters of "managed democracy".
I wrote last year about how these two contemporary authoritarian leaders compare to some of Europe's earlier faces. Both leaders came to power on a wave of popular support after an economic crisis: in Russia, it was after the 1998 default led to an economic breakdown, and Putin's rise to power the following year; in Turkey, it was after an inflationary crisis destroyed the reputation of the established secular parties that led to Islamist AKP coming to power in 2002.
Since those two leaders have come to power, they have held a firm grasp of the art of politics. In recent years, with the "Gezi Park" protests that started in Turkey last summer, and anti-Putin protests of late 2011, both Putin's and Erdogan's hold of the popular will has looked far shakier than ten years ago. But what has to be remembered is that, in both cases, Putin and Erdogan presided over an almost unprecedented economic expansion in their countries, that lasted until the financial crisis. It was this surge in living standards that explained their popularity. While the liberals of Turkey and Russia decried the creeping authoritarianism that was apparent from the first few years, the people who lived outside of these circles felt either untouched by it, or never cared. Not for the first time, people in the East were more than willing to sacrifice personal freedoms for the sake of economic gains. In the West the attitude is that both personal freedom and economic freedom go together to create socio-economic progress; in the East, the opposite view prevails.
With Russia's "United Russia" party, and Turkey's AKP, these two authoritarian leaders were able to create a "managed democracy" that applied Western PR techniques (such as accusing the opposition of going against progress and wanting to "turn the clock back") as well as gathering as broad a coalition of support as possible.
When the financial crisis started to bite, that's when the strategy for both Putin and Erdogan began to be refined.
"One Of Us"
The financial crisis didn't initially have a huge effect on either of Putin's or Erdogan's support, perhaps due to the amount of good-will that had been stored up by the unprecedented growth in both their countries. Their support base was able to cut them considerable slack.
In Russia, things only seriously started to turn against the "big tent" approach for Putin when he announced his candidacy for the presidential elections of 2012. When that happened, and the financial crisis finally started to seriously eat into Russia long "oil boom", Putin faced his first serious signs of dissent in December 2011. This made him re-make "United Russia" into a party of low populism, using the renaissance of the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, and appealing to the innate distrust and hostility towards the values of the West.
In this way, the members of "Pussy Riot" were almost a gift sent from God, validating all the Kremlin's propaganda about Russia's liberal opposition being a group exclusive to the swanky parts of Moscow, with values alien to most Russians, and never venturing into "real Russia" over the Volga or the Urals. Putin's thousands of miles of travel across Russia are as much a way to give the impression of standing up for "real" Russia, instead of the perceived narrow perspective of the Moscow or St Petersburg liberals.
And again, with the onset of the Ukraine Crisis, this is another almost God-sent opportunity for Putin to decry as another Western plot to demasculate Russia's influence, allowing him to ride of a wave of popular nationalism. For Putin, ruling Russia is about him, or who else? Only Vladimir Putin is truly "one of us", he wants Russians from Vologda to Vladivostok to think. Russia may be corrupt and inefficient, but could anyone else do things better?
In Turkey, Erdogan's popularity began to wane gradually after the financial crisis. The ineffectiveness of the secular opposition perhaps allowed Erdogan to think he was almost untouchable; there is little to suggest otherwise. His government passed progressively more authoritarian laws, neutering the historic power of the military so that it was full of AKP yes-men, as well as the judiciary, and making journalism a career where it was dangerous to criticise the Prime Minister too openly. As a result of this, Turkey had the highest number of journalists in jail in any developed country. Journalists didn't get killed, like in Russia; they were simply thrown in prison instead.
This all came to a head with the dispute over "Gezi Park" in May 2013. Like Putin, Erdogan, after initially being unsure about how to act, followed the same strategy as Putin, calling his opponents Western puppets. In a more incendiary manner than Putin, however, the result of the "Gezi Park" protests has been a radical polarisation of society between secularists and AKP-minded Islamists. While the opposition in Russia has been quite effectively marginalised by its own flawed strategy, the Turkish opposition has shown itself to be more ingenuous. This has resulted in a harsher, more polarising strategy from Erdogan. His rhetoric, like that of Putin, comes from low populism (with a whiff of Islamic values). The AKP is popular in the working-class suburbs of the major cities and the regions of Turkey, especially in the East. A similar point could be made about Putin's "United Russia". The corruption scandal that emerged in Turkey in December last year was seen by his supporters as another example of a Western conspiracy.
So far, Erdogan's "divide and rule" strategy has worked well, following from successful recent local elections. The talk of Turkey's role in Syria has led some in the opposition to fear that, like Putin, Erdogan may also want to flex his muscles...
The new role model?
Nationalism and authoritarianism has always been an ideology based on the root of populism. The rise of nationalism in Europe is seen as a rejection of the "metropolitan liberalism" of the ruling establishment, be that in Westminster, Brussels, or Paris. The politics of UKIP, for example, are clearly populist, as well as seeming economically libertarian. They are Britain's newest "working class party", as unlikely as it may seem. The same can be said of the FN in France, or many of the other nationalist parties in the European parliament. After creating a "liberal consensus" across Europe, the EU establishment has itself created the conditions for authoritarian nationalism to thrive; this form of populism is seen by many as the only effective way to oppose the status quo.
Putin and Erdogan have shown themselves to be "role models" for nationalist parties in Europe. Dismissing the "establishment" in Europe or Westminster as out-of-touch with the concerns of everyday people, nationalists across Europe look at the actions of Putin and (to a lesser extent) Erdogan with envy. "Intellectualism" and "bleeding heart liberalism" is increasingly scoffed at across Europe. It's no wonder that the likes of Nigel Farage have a sneaking admiration for Vladimir Putin's gall in Ukraine: he is showing them how authoritarianism is done.
"Easterners may well therefore look at the current economic and ideological malaise in the West as being a direct result of their "freedom". What a Westerner considers freedom, an Easterner could instead call "weakness", or "moral degradation". The USA is currently struggling economically; the UK is moribund; the Eurozone has become a German economic protectorate. So while the East is prospering because it has found a formula that marries Eastern authoritarianism with Western elements of Capitalism, the West is failing (and getting comparatively poorer) because of weaknesses in the structure of its ideology."
The current "Ukraine Crisis" looks like a test case of these two ideologies and perspectives. It is the countries of the East and the developing world that look at what Vladimir Putin is doing with implicit approval, or at best, transparent indifference.
This attitude even extends into Europe. The rise of nationalism in Europe in recent years is married with an attitude of hostility to an out-of-touch bureaucracy in Brussels. Nigel Farage in the recent European debates in the UK was able to clearly articulate the view of many Britons who are tired of EU expansion for the sake of it, sabre-rattling in affairs that are far from our shore (as the Ukraine Crisis has shown), and European intransigence of the self-determination of various movements across the continent. And that's before even getting on to the effect European migration has had on the European economy. In many ways, the EU is ruled more like the bygone Austria-Hungary than any contemporary organisation or pseudo nation-state.
Managing democracy
Both Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan have shown themselves to be masters of "managed democracy".
I wrote last year about how these two contemporary authoritarian leaders compare to some of Europe's earlier faces. Both leaders came to power on a wave of popular support after an economic crisis: in Russia, it was after the 1998 default led to an economic breakdown, and Putin's rise to power the following year; in Turkey, it was after an inflationary crisis destroyed the reputation of the established secular parties that led to Islamist AKP coming to power in 2002.
Since those two leaders have come to power, they have held a firm grasp of the art of politics. In recent years, with the "Gezi Park" protests that started in Turkey last summer, and anti-Putin protests of late 2011, both Putin's and Erdogan's hold of the popular will has looked far shakier than ten years ago. But what has to be remembered is that, in both cases, Putin and Erdogan presided over an almost unprecedented economic expansion in their countries, that lasted until the financial crisis. It was this surge in living standards that explained their popularity. While the liberals of Turkey and Russia decried the creeping authoritarianism that was apparent from the first few years, the people who lived outside of these circles felt either untouched by it, or never cared. Not for the first time, people in the East were more than willing to sacrifice personal freedoms for the sake of economic gains. In the West the attitude is that both personal freedom and economic freedom go together to create socio-economic progress; in the East, the opposite view prevails.
With Russia's "United Russia" party, and Turkey's AKP, these two authoritarian leaders were able to create a "managed democracy" that applied Western PR techniques (such as accusing the opposition of going against progress and wanting to "turn the clock back") as well as gathering as broad a coalition of support as possible.
When the financial crisis started to bite, that's when the strategy for both Putin and Erdogan began to be refined.
"One Of Us"
The financial crisis didn't initially have a huge effect on either of Putin's or Erdogan's support, perhaps due to the amount of good-will that had been stored up by the unprecedented growth in both their countries. Their support base was able to cut them considerable slack.
In Russia, things only seriously started to turn against the "big tent" approach for Putin when he announced his candidacy for the presidential elections of 2012. When that happened, and the financial crisis finally started to seriously eat into Russia long "oil boom", Putin faced his first serious signs of dissent in December 2011. This made him re-make "United Russia" into a party of low populism, using the renaissance of the power of the Russian Orthodox Church, and appealing to the innate distrust and hostility towards the values of the West.
In this way, the members of "Pussy Riot" were almost a gift sent from God, validating all the Kremlin's propaganda about Russia's liberal opposition being a group exclusive to the swanky parts of Moscow, with values alien to most Russians, and never venturing into "real Russia" over the Volga or the Urals. Putin's thousands of miles of travel across Russia are as much a way to give the impression of standing up for "real" Russia, instead of the perceived narrow perspective of the Moscow or St Petersburg liberals.
And again, with the onset of the Ukraine Crisis, this is another almost God-sent opportunity for Putin to decry as another Western plot to demasculate Russia's influence, allowing him to ride of a wave of popular nationalism. For Putin, ruling Russia is about him, or who else? Only Vladimir Putin is truly "one of us", he wants Russians from Vologda to Vladivostok to think. Russia may be corrupt and inefficient, but could anyone else do things better?
In Turkey, Erdogan's popularity began to wane gradually after the financial crisis. The ineffectiveness of the secular opposition perhaps allowed Erdogan to think he was almost untouchable; there is little to suggest otherwise. His government passed progressively more authoritarian laws, neutering the historic power of the military so that it was full of AKP yes-men, as well as the judiciary, and making journalism a career where it was dangerous to criticise the Prime Minister too openly. As a result of this, Turkey had the highest number of journalists in jail in any developed country. Journalists didn't get killed, like in Russia; they were simply thrown in prison instead.
This all came to a head with the dispute over "Gezi Park" in May 2013. Like Putin, Erdogan, after initially being unsure about how to act, followed the same strategy as Putin, calling his opponents Western puppets. In a more incendiary manner than Putin, however, the result of the "Gezi Park" protests has been a radical polarisation of society between secularists and AKP-minded Islamists. While the opposition in Russia has been quite effectively marginalised by its own flawed strategy, the Turkish opposition has shown itself to be more ingenuous. This has resulted in a harsher, more polarising strategy from Erdogan. His rhetoric, like that of Putin, comes from low populism (with a whiff of Islamic values). The AKP is popular in the working-class suburbs of the major cities and the regions of Turkey, especially in the East. A similar point could be made about Putin's "United Russia". The corruption scandal that emerged in Turkey in December last year was seen by his supporters as another example of a Western conspiracy.
So far, Erdogan's "divide and rule" strategy has worked well, following from successful recent local elections. The talk of Turkey's role in Syria has led some in the opposition to fear that, like Putin, Erdogan may also want to flex his muscles...
The new role model?
Nationalism and authoritarianism has always been an ideology based on the root of populism. The rise of nationalism in Europe is seen as a rejection of the "metropolitan liberalism" of the ruling establishment, be that in Westminster, Brussels, or Paris. The politics of UKIP, for example, are clearly populist, as well as seeming economically libertarian. They are Britain's newest "working class party", as unlikely as it may seem. The same can be said of the FN in France, or many of the other nationalist parties in the European parliament. After creating a "liberal consensus" across Europe, the EU establishment has itself created the conditions for authoritarian nationalism to thrive; this form of populism is seen by many as the only effective way to oppose the status quo.
Putin and Erdogan have shown themselves to be "role models" for nationalist parties in Europe. Dismissing the "establishment" in Europe or Westminster as out-of-touch with the concerns of everyday people, nationalists across Europe look at the actions of Putin and (to a lesser extent) Erdogan with envy. "Intellectualism" and "bleeding heart liberalism" is increasingly scoffed at across Europe. It's no wonder that the likes of Nigel Farage have a sneaking admiration for Vladimir Putin's gall in Ukraine: he is showing them how authoritarianism is done.
Monday, April 14, 2014
The Ukraine Crisis: The Crimean Strategy in The "Donetsk People's Republic"
Vladimir Putin is enjoying himself.
I talked back in late February about the "Russian Gambit" in Ukraine. Today, that "gambit" looks to be nearly fulfilled on the ground. After taking the "low-hanging fruit" of Crimea a month ago, and allowing a few weeks to pass, now the next "act" of this piece of political theatre is afoot.
Last weekend, pro-Russian forces (who clearly look like Russian special forces without insignia) took over strategic buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk in the east of Ukraine, close to the Russian border. Those two provinces then declared their "independence" in local parliaments filled with pro-Russian figures. On Friday, an ultimatum set by the Kiev government came and went without action to repel the "rebel" forces from their positions. On Saturday and Sunday, more "pro-Russian forces" took control of strategic buildings and police stations in a network of towns across the region, effectively making the region beyond Kiev's control. With the local police either siding with the "protesters" or just going home, this region of South-eastern Ukraine is de facto no longer controlled by Kiev.
Yesterday saw the first casualties so far of the crisis on Ukraine's "mainland", when Ukrainian special forces attempted to retake Slavyansk; after a firefight that caused one fatality and a number of casualties on both sides, the Ukrainian forces withdrew.
It's Crimea all over again, the nightmare scenario for the interim government in Kiev.
The Crimea Strategy
Perhaps years in the future, historians will look back on how Putin handled the "Ukraine Crisis", and say that he effectively created a template for how to annex a country from the inside out, without using a conventional army to invade.
The "strategy" runs as follows:
1) Secretly infiltrate special forces as civilians.
2) Foment unrest and a crisis of legitimacy in the country's government.
3) Special forces, dressed in anonymous-looking fatigues, take control of a strategic building or two, such as the local parliament.
4) An "emergency session" of the said parliament is convened, filled with supportive "politicians".
5) The "politicians" vote for a referendum on the status of the said area from the offending government.
6) Cue crowds of supporters who swarm outside the parliament.
7) Man barricades and take weapons if necessary to defend against possible counter-attack by offending government.
8) Carry out a propaganda war against those supporting the offending government against the "human rights" of the supporters.
9) Territory becomes part of nation (or client state) with minimum of fuss.
The "Crimea Strategy", if you disregard the moral question, represents a brilliant piece of tactics and political theatre. For the poor government on the receiving end, in this case, the interim government of Ukraine, there is little they can do. If they do nothing, Russia wins. If they fight back, Russia wins.
This is what Putin doubtlessly calculated back in late February, when his ally, former president, Yanukovich. fled Kiev. It's worth remembering that back on that weekend when Yanukovich first fled Kiev for the eastern heartland of his support, the "Donbass" region that has now unilaterally declared its "independence", briefly (for a few hours) considered the same thing back in late February. From what it's possible to gather, after talking to Putin, Yanukovich changed his mind at that time.
A war of opportunism
Perhaps Putin thought it was the wrong time, and wanted to get as much political mileage out of the chaos? He wanted to choose when to strike, rather than have it forced upon him. Taking Crimea was pure opportunism; dividing Ukraine in two and taking the choice parts (the industrial heartlands, plus whatever can be easily "got" - as far west as Odessa?) looks like a more carefully-planned event, made necessary by the reality on the ground.
Since the annexation of Crimea, a propaganda war has been raging by Russia on Ukraine and her western allies. In the immediate aftermath of the referendum and annexation of Crimea a month ago, there were similar (doubtlessly orchestrated) calls for "referendums" in the eastern regions of Ukraine. These passed, to replaced by a number of plots to undermine the Kiev government by undercover (Russian) agents; these were discovered and foiled, but included seizing control of the parliament in Kiev and other, similarly ambitious plans. In the days just before the seizing of the buildings in Lugansk and Donetsk just over a week ago, another plot in Lugansk was also foiled; the seizures in Lugansk and Donetsk may well have been simply accelerated by this.
Now the "Crimea Strategy" is in full swing in the "Donbass". The apparent "lull" in the three weeks between the Crimean referendum and the first military occupations in Donetsk and Lugansk now looks more like the necessary "interval" between acts in Putin's power-play. The speed that undercover Russian forces have taken over so many strategic buildings in towns and cities across the south-east of Ukraine (an area considerably larger than Crimea, with a much bigger population), indicates that they would have needed time to properly "recon" the area, using willing locals to help them, while the political moves helped to mask the real military strategy. The thousands of Russian troops across the border look more like stage props; their effect more psychological, and a useful distraction from the real plan.
In other words, the timing of this second part of the "power-play" is unlikely to have been a coincidence.
What's next?
Some have suggested that Putin's ambitions may even extend as far as annexing Finland. While this looks wide of the mark, the main reason that advocates of this idea give is that, like Sweden, Finland is not a part of NATO, and was part of Russia up to the First World War (Lenin arrived in St Petersburg on an internal train from Helsinki). As Putin is getting a great deal of kudos from the average Russian for turning back the clock on twenty years of Russian "retreat", there is little incentive for him to stop just yet.
Something indicates that stirring up the idea of "recovering" Finland may be just causing mischief, but as said as the start, Putin is enjoying himself. Sergei Lavrov also seems to be a master in the art of diplomatic double-speak and semantics. Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine, Lavrov has said; similarly, it regards the borders of Ukraine to be sacrosanct. Well, this all depends on your definition of an "invasion", and Russia's opinion of the borders of Ukraine are meaningless if it encourages Ukrainians in the east to redraw them for themselves, like in the "Donbass".
More intriguingly, there is the matter of Moldova and Transnistria, a strip of land populated by ethnic Russians that makes up most of the border between Ukraine to the east and Moldova proper to the west. This is a self-declared independent state that hosts a number of Russian "peacekeepers", making it effectively a Russian military protectorate, albeit separated from Russia by the wide expanse of Ukraine. Transnistria's "president" has asked for the region to be joined with Russia. So far, Russia's response has not been publicly forthcoming.
The motivations for having this strip of land as a de facto part of Russia are more strategic than anything else, as well as a strong stamp of Russia's influence on the region. Moldova recently started talks with the EU, just like Ukraine has; the stumbling block is Transnistria, whose economy is dependent on smuggling. The Kremlin therefore has good reason to enjoy raising merry hell in Moldova. The question is: how to bridge the gap between the Russo-phile "Donbass", and the hundreds of kilometres of the rest of (mostly ambivalent) southern Ukraine, that divide it from Transnistria?
Might that call for another use of the "Crimea Strategy" further along the Black Sea coast; in Odessa, for example? This city has a long Russian history, and has quite a high number of ethnic Russians, compared the the regions between it and the South-east of Ukraine.
One last point: Kaliningrad. This Russian Baltic enclave, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, may now be getting more of Putin's attention because of NATO's moves to increase its military presence in the area. In Putin's psychology, NATO's actions may be considered a provocation on the military viability of this Russian territory. Might this also backfire badly for NATO in the future?
I talked back in late February about the "Russian Gambit" in Ukraine. Today, that "gambit" looks to be nearly fulfilled on the ground. After taking the "low-hanging fruit" of Crimea a month ago, and allowing a few weeks to pass, now the next "act" of this piece of political theatre is afoot.
Last weekend, pro-Russian forces (who clearly look like Russian special forces without insignia) took over strategic buildings in Donetsk and Lugansk in the east of Ukraine, close to the Russian border. Those two provinces then declared their "independence" in local parliaments filled with pro-Russian figures. On Friday, an ultimatum set by the Kiev government came and went without action to repel the "rebel" forces from their positions. On Saturday and Sunday, more "pro-Russian forces" took control of strategic buildings and police stations in a network of towns across the region, effectively making the region beyond Kiev's control. With the local police either siding with the "protesters" or just going home, this region of South-eastern Ukraine is de facto no longer controlled by Kiev.
Yesterday saw the first casualties so far of the crisis on Ukraine's "mainland", when Ukrainian special forces attempted to retake Slavyansk; after a firefight that caused one fatality and a number of casualties on both sides, the Ukrainian forces withdrew.
It's Crimea all over again, the nightmare scenario for the interim government in Kiev.
The Crimea Strategy
Perhaps years in the future, historians will look back on how Putin handled the "Ukraine Crisis", and say that he effectively created a template for how to annex a country from the inside out, without using a conventional army to invade.
The "strategy" runs as follows:
1) Secretly infiltrate special forces as civilians.
2) Foment unrest and a crisis of legitimacy in the country's government.
3) Special forces, dressed in anonymous-looking fatigues, take control of a strategic building or two, such as the local parliament.
4) An "emergency session" of the said parliament is convened, filled with supportive "politicians".
5) The "politicians" vote for a referendum on the status of the said area from the offending government.
6) Cue crowds of supporters who swarm outside the parliament.
7) Man barricades and take weapons if necessary to defend against possible counter-attack by offending government.
8) Carry out a propaganda war against those supporting the offending government against the "human rights" of the supporters.
9) Territory becomes part of nation (or client state) with minimum of fuss.
The "Crimea Strategy", if you disregard the moral question, represents a brilliant piece of tactics and political theatre. For the poor government on the receiving end, in this case, the interim government of Ukraine, there is little they can do. If they do nothing, Russia wins. If they fight back, Russia wins.
This is what Putin doubtlessly calculated back in late February, when his ally, former president, Yanukovich. fled Kiev. It's worth remembering that back on that weekend when Yanukovich first fled Kiev for the eastern heartland of his support, the "Donbass" region that has now unilaterally declared its "independence", briefly (for a few hours) considered the same thing back in late February. From what it's possible to gather, after talking to Putin, Yanukovich changed his mind at that time.
A war of opportunism
Perhaps Putin thought it was the wrong time, and wanted to get as much political mileage out of the chaos? He wanted to choose when to strike, rather than have it forced upon him. Taking Crimea was pure opportunism; dividing Ukraine in two and taking the choice parts (the industrial heartlands, plus whatever can be easily "got" - as far west as Odessa?) looks like a more carefully-planned event, made necessary by the reality on the ground.
Since the annexation of Crimea, a propaganda war has been raging by Russia on Ukraine and her western allies. In the immediate aftermath of the referendum and annexation of Crimea a month ago, there were similar (doubtlessly orchestrated) calls for "referendums" in the eastern regions of Ukraine. These passed, to replaced by a number of plots to undermine the Kiev government by undercover (Russian) agents; these were discovered and foiled, but included seizing control of the parliament in Kiev and other, similarly ambitious plans. In the days just before the seizing of the buildings in Lugansk and Donetsk just over a week ago, another plot in Lugansk was also foiled; the seizures in Lugansk and Donetsk may well have been simply accelerated by this.
Now the "Crimea Strategy" is in full swing in the "Donbass". The apparent "lull" in the three weeks between the Crimean referendum and the first military occupations in Donetsk and Lugansk now looks more like the necessary "interval" between acts in Putin's power-play. The speed that undercover Russian forces have taken over so many strategic buildings in towns and cities across the south-east of Ukraine (an area considerably larger than Crimea, with a much bigger population), indicates that they would have needed time to properly "recon" the area, using willing locals to help them, while the political moves helped to mask the real military strategy. The thousands of Russian troops across the border look more like stage props; their effect more psychological, and a useful distraction from the real plan.
In other words, the timing of this second part of the "power-play" is unlikely to have been a coincidence.
What's next?
Some have suggested that Putin's ambitions may even extend as far as annexing Finland. While this looks wide of the mark, the main reason that advocates of this idea give is that, like Sweden, Finland is not a part of NATO, and was part of Russia up to the First World War (Lenin arrived in St Petersburg on an internal train from Helsinki). As Putin is getting a great deal of kudos from the average Russian for turning back the clock on twenty years of Russian "retreat", there is little incentive for him to stop just yet.
Something indicates that stirring up the idea of "recovering" Finland may be just causing mischief, but as said as the start, Putin is enjoying himself. Sergei Lavrov also seems to be a master in the art of diplomatic double-speak and semantics. Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine, Lavrov has said; similarly, it regards the borders of Ukraine to be sacrosanct. Well, this all depends on your definition of an "invasion", and Russia's opinion of the borders of Ukraine are meaningless if it encourages Ukrainians in the east to redraw them for themselves, like in the "Donbass".
More intriguingly, there is the matter of Moldova and Transnistria, a strip of land populated by ethnic Russians that makes up most of the border between Ukraine to the east and Moldova proper to the west. This is a self-declared independent state that hosts a number of Russian "peacekeepers", making it effectively a Russian military protectorate, albeit separated from Russia by the wide expanse of Ukraine. Transnistria's "president" has asked for the region to be joined with Russia. So far, Russia's response has not been publicly forthcoming.
The motivations for having this strip of land as a de facto part of Russia are more strategic than anything else, as well as a strong stamp of Russia's influence on the region. Moldova recently started talks with the EU, just like Ukraine has; the stumbling block is Transnistria, whose economy is dependent on smuggling. The Kremlin therefore has good reason to enjoy raising merry hell in Moldova. The question is: how to bridge the gap between the Russo-phile "Donbass", and the hundreds of kilometres of the rest of (mostly ambivalent) southern Ukraine, that divide it from Transnistria?
Might that call for another use of the "Crimea Strategy" further along the Black Sea coast; in Odessa, for example? This city has a long Russian history, and has quite a high number of ethnic Russians, compared the the regions between it and the South-east of Ukraine.
One last point: Kaliningrad. This Russian Baltic enclave, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, may now be getting more of Putin's attention because of NATO's moves to increase its military presence in the area. In Putin's psychology, NATO's actions may be considered a provocation on the military viability of this Russian territory. Might this also backfire badly for NATO in the future?
Monday, March 24, 2014
Putin's psychology: is he really the "new Hitler"?
Following Putin's annexation of Crimea and the Russian-inspired unrest in Ukraine following the February "revolution", there has been lots of talk of Putin as the "new Hitler". For this reason, it's worthwhile to look at that comparison in more detail, to see how much it stands up to scrutiny.
The "new Hitler" theory
To give this theory a better standing, it also makes sense to compare Nineties Russia with Weimar Germany. To a large extent, this historical comparison rings true.
The effect of the Cold War on Russia/the Soviet Union was politically, socially and economically similar to what the Great War had on Imperial Germany.
After the Great War, Imperial Germany was constitutionally ripped apart (by losing its imperial status and converted to a republic), with some of its territories hacked off to create (or re-create) other nation-states. In the decade following the Great War, Weimar Germany went through two economic collapses, both stemming from Western influences; one immediately following the empire's destruction (about repayment of war compensation), and another following the Great Depression, around ten years later.
After the Cold War, the Soviet Union began to collapse in on itself, in a similar manner to what happened to Imperial Germany, its constituent former "SSRs" broke away into independent nation-states, leaving Russia proper as a republic. At the mercy of the triumphant Western powers, Russia went through economic "shock therapy", resulting in massive inflation and a destruction of living standards. For the rest of the nineties (like Weimar Germany in the 1920s), Russia was ruled by a weak government, resulting in rampant corruption and the selling-off of assets to various new "oligarchs". The Russian default of 1998 created another economic meltdown, socially comparable to what Germany experienced after 1929. As the social and economic conditions in Germany were ripe for someone like Hitler to seize power, the same could be said for Russia in 1999. All it needed was the right man.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Adolf Hitler as young men were both products of their respective governments.
Hitler was a man happy to fight for his native Austria in the Great War, and thus was emotionally bound to his government and what it stood for; he was devastated by its dismemberment, searching for a new purpose, an explanation, and someone to blame. To the first point, his answer was to restore the "Reich" that had just been wiped out by the Western allies; to the last point, his answer was the Jews.
Putin was a Soviet careerist, making good on his dreams as a youngster to work for the KGB; when the Berlin Wall came down, he was working in East Germany. Similarly, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin was searching for a new role, eventually getting Yeltsin's attention and nomination as Prime Minister in 1999, as Russia was still fighting its way through the effects of the default of the previous year.
According to this angle on Putin, advocates of this theory argue that Putin now represents the biggest threat to Europe and Western stability since Hitler, because he wishes to restore Russia to greatness, in effect turning the clock back twenty five years, and the de facto restoration of the Soviet Union.
But there are other very important factors to consider, that make this above theory too simplistic, and largely erroneous.
The Stalin template
I've written before about how Stalin came to power, and the lengths he was prepared to take to keep hold of it. Stalin lives long in Soviet mythology, more because of what advances he achieved in the economy and living standards while he was in power.
Putin no doubt knows all about how Stalin came to power, and ruled the Soviet Union for thirty years until his death. Hitler's motivation to power was to gain revenge on his perceived enemies and to dominate Europe. Stalin's motivation was much more simplistic: the amoral pursuit of power. Stalin couldn't really be said to have an "agenda" beyond his own advancement and preservation; and at this, he was ruthlessly successful and cunning to achieve it. Similarly, while Hitler used the Nazis to dominate Europe military as a geo-political goal, Stalin's domination of Eastern Europe was almost accidental. Stalin was simply in the right place at the right time to advance his interests in Europe in the best way he saw fit. In this way, Stalin could be called a ruthless opportunist, not a megalomaniac like Hitler.
Looking at things in this perspective, Putin's psychology and motivation is more comparable with Stalin than Hitler. While both Hitler and Putin's young careers and outlook came from their governments, both Stalin and Putin's childhoods were similar in more ways.
Hitler was a introverted and socially-awkward youth and young man. Stalin was a brat as a child, getting into fights, hanging out with kids some years older than him, and not taking school seriously; Putin, born and raised in Soviet Leningrad (St Petersburg), was the same. With Stalin, it was discovering Communism as a teenager that straightened him out to an extent and gave him a purpose; with Putin, it was the KGB.
Putin's psychology is therefore bound with the paranoia of the mind of a former spy-master, as well as the cunning of a ruthless opportunist.
It is clear that Stalin is much closer to the template that Putin follows; Stalin, after all, ruled the largest country in the world for half of his lifetime like a "mafia Don", made it second only to the USA, a nuclear power and entered the space race; the fact that he also killed tens of millions of his own people (many more than Hitler) in order to do it, was only a detail to Stalin.
Putin's rise to power, and the manner of holding on to it, follows the same pattern as Stalin. Like Stalin, Putin is in reality an unconvincing speaker; he has used the "cult of personality" like Stalin in order to create a "Putin myth". This serves both to boost his image, but also to boost the image of Russia in Russians themselves; in the same way that "Stalin was the Soviet Union", "Putin is Russia". If Putin is seen as strong, then so, by extension is Russia.
Putin has used ruthless (if modern) methods to achieve and hold power internally; while Stalin killed millions to achieve it, Putin uses modern, legal (but no less politically ruthless) methods. After gaining the financial support of the oligarchs to become Prime Minister and President, he quickly destroyed the power of those same oligarchs who dared to think of themselves as his superior; similarly, the media was brought into line using ruthless methods; newspapers and TV stations being discredited, closed down; people who persisted in displeasing the Kremlin (after stubbornly not getting the message) had a habit of dying in mysterious circumstances or being fatally mugged. And so on.
A clash of civilisations
Like Stalin, Putin's approach to foreign affairs is guided by self-interest and opportunism. Putin's reaction towards the Ukraine Crisis is exactly that: a reaction. There is little indication that there has ever been a long-term plan to restore the "glory of Russia" like some modern-day Hitler, wanting to dominate Europe. Putin simply sees world and Russian affairs through the idea of "spheres of influence"; Stalin thought in a similar way. Stalin occupied Eastern Europe because the opportunity presented itself; Putin has done the same thing with Crimea.
Putin is reacting towards the Kiev government in the way he is because he feels politically threatened by its existence, and the precedent it sets. Stalin got the Soviet Union involved in the Spanish Civil War for similar reasons: he feared the spread of Fascism throughout Europe, and the threat it potentially posed to his position; Putin's support for Yanukovich and the rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine is framed through his own self-interest. His motivations are far from benign, of course; like Stalin, he has already declared that he is perfectly willing to do whatever is necessary in Ukraine. If, after non-military options have been exhausted, that means invading, so be it. Putin has no moral qualms about his actions; the main thing that guides his actions are their beneficial convenience. War is inconvenient, until it becomes the only method to achieve an aim.
Western fears of him pushing his tanks as far west as Moldova, and fears of aggression in the Baltic States, may be over-stretched in the latter, but not in the former. For Putin, it is simply a matter of what is the most convenient geo-political arrangement for his interests in Europe.
No doubt, Putin would smile at the thought of being compared to Stalin; this is precisely what he would like people to think. For older Russians, Stalin represents stability and strength; his amoral ruthlessness is a side-issue. This issue about how Russians view their government puts it at the direct opposite to a Westerner. A Westerner fears a strong government, because of the West's culture of liberal individualism; a Russian fears a weak government, because of a Russian's desire to feel protected. This fundamental difference in perspective is what marks the emergence of a "clash of civilisations" between an Eastern and Western mentality and world-view.
This also explains why Putin continues to champion "conservative" values against Western immorality, and why his opportune nationalism is him pushing at an open door.
In the same way, Erdogan in Turkey is championing traditional Islamic values. Both Putin and Erdogan are natural authoritarians who have played a very cunning same over the last ten years to preserve and extend their power.
They follow a number of other authoritarian European figures in the last hundred years, and are simply the modern version of an old style of politics.
The "new Hitler" theory
To give this theory a better standing, it also makes sense to compare Nineties Russia with Weimar Germany. To a large extent, this historical comparison rings true.
The effect of the Cold War on Russia/the Soviet Union was politically, socially and economically similar to what the Great War had on Imperial Germany.
After the Great War, Imperial Germany was constitutionally ripped apart (by losing its imperial status and converted to a republic), with some of its territories hacked off to create (or re-create) other nation-states. In the decade following the Great War, Weimar Germany went through two economic collapses, both stemming from Western influences; one immediately following the empire's destruction (about repayment of war compensation), and another following the Great Depression, around ten years later.
After the Cold War, the Soviet Union began to collapse in on itself, in a similar manner to what happened to Imperial Germany, its constituent former "SSRs" broke away into independent nation-states, leaving Russia proper as a republic. At the mercy of the triumphant Western powers, Russia went through economic "shock therapy", resulting in massive inflation and a destruction of living standards. For the rest of the nineties (like Weimar Germany in the 1920s), Russia was ruled by a weak government, resulting in rampant corruption and the selling-off of assets to various new "oligarchs". The Russian default of 1998 created another economic meltdown, socially comparable to what Germany experienced after 1929. As the social and economic conditions in Germany were ripe for someone like Hitler to seize power, the same could be said for Russia in 1999. All it needed was the right man.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Adolf Hitler as young men were both products of their respective governments.
Hitler was a man happy to fight for his native Austria in the Great War, and thus was emotionally bound to his government and what it stood for; he was devastated by its dismemberment, searching for a new purpose, an explanation, and someone to blame. To the first point, his answer was to restore the "Reich" that had just been wiped out by the Western allies; to the last point, his answer was the Jews.
Putin was a Soviet careerist, making good on his dreams as a youngster to work for the KGB; when the Berlin Wall came down, he was working in East Germany. Similarly, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin was searching for a new role, eventually getting Yeltsin's attention and nomination as Prime Minister in 1999, as Russia was still fighting its way through the effects of the default of the previous year.
According to this angle on Putin, advocates of this theory argue that Putin now represents the biggest threat to Europe and Western stability since Hitler, because he wishes to restore Russia to greatness, in effect turning the clock back twenty five years, and the de facto restoration of the Soviet Union.
But there are other very important factors to consider, that make this above theory too simplistic, and largely erroneous.
The Stalin template
I've written before about how Stalin came to power, and the lengths he was prepared to take to keep hold of it. Stalin lives long in Soviet mythology, more because of what advances he achieved in the economy and living standards while he was in power.
Putin no doubt knows all about how Stalin came to power, and ruled the Soviet Union for thirty years until his death. Hitler's motivation to power was to gain revenge on his perceived enemies and to dominate Europe. Stalin's motivation was much more simplistic: the amoral pursuit of power. Stalin couldn't really be said to have an "agenda" beyond his own advancement and preservation; and at this, he was ruthlessly successful and cunning to achieve it. Similarly, while Hitler used the Nazis to dominate Europe military as a geo-political goal, Stalin's domination of Eastern Europe was almost accidental. Stalin was simply in the right place at the right time to advance his interests in Europe in the best way he saw fit. In this way, Stalin could be called a ruthless opportunist, not a megalomaniac like Hitler.
Looking at things in this perspective, Putin's psychology and motivation is more comparable with Stalin than Hitler. While both Hitler and Putin's young careers and outlook came from their governments, both Stalin and Putin's childhoods were similar in more ways.
Hitler was a introverted and socially-awkward youth and young man. Stalin was a brat as a child, getting into fights, hanging out with kids some years older than him, and not taking school seriously; Putin, born and raised in Soviet Leningrad (St Petersburg), was the same. With Stalin, it was discovering Communism as a teenager that straightened him out to an extent and gave him a purpose; with Putin, it was the KGB.
Putin's psychology is therefore bound with the paranoia of the mind of a former spy-master, as well as the cunning of a ruthless opportunist.
It is clear that Stalin is much closer to the template that Putin follows; Stalin, after all, ruled the largest country in the world for half of his lifetime like a "mafia Don", made it second only to the USA, a nuclear power and entered the space race; the fact that he also killed tens of millions of his own people (many more than Hitler) in order to do it, was only a detail to Stalin.
Putin's rise to power, and the manner of holding on to it, follows the same pattern as Stalin. Like Stalin, Putin is in reality an unconvincing speaker; he has used the "cult of personality" like Stalin in order to create a "Putin myth". This serves both to boost his image, but also to boost the image of Russia in Russians themselves; in the same way that "Stalin was the Soviet Union", "Putin is Russia". If Putin is seen as strong, then so, by extension is Russia.
Putin has used ruthless (if modern) methods to achieve and hold power internally; while Stalin killed millions to achieve it, Putin uses modern, legal (but no less politically ruthless) methods. After gaining the financial support of the oligarchs to become Prime Minister and President, he quickly destroyed the power of those same oligarchs who dared to think of themselves as his superior; similarly, the media was brought into line using ruthless methods; newspapers and TV stations being discredited, closed down; people who persisted in displeasing the Kremlin (after stubbornly not getting the message) had a habit of dying in mysterious circumstances or being fatally mugged. And so on.
A clash of civilisations
Like Stalin, Putin's approach to foreign affairs is guided by self-interest and opportunism. Putin's reaction towards the Ukraine Crisis is exactly that: a reaction. There is little indication that there has ever been a long-term plan to restore the "glory of Russia" like some modern-day Hitler, wanting to dominate Europe. Putin simply sees world and Russian affairs through the idea of "spheres of influence"; Stalin thought in a similar way. Stalin occupied Eastern Europe because the opportunity presented itself; Putin has done the same thing with Crimea.
Putin is reacting towards the Kiev government in the way he is because he feels politically threatened by its existence, and the precedent it sets. Stalin got the Soviet Union involved in the Spanish Civil War for similar reasons: he feared the spread of Fascism throughout Europe, and the threat it potentially posed to his position; Putin's support for Yanukovich and the rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine is framed through his own self-interest. His motivations are far from benign, of course; like Stalin, he has already declared that he is perfectly willing to do whatever is necessary in Ukraine. If, after non-military options have been exhausted, that means invading, so be it. Putin has no moral qualms about his actions; the main thing that guides his actions are their beneficial convenience. War is inconvenient, until it becomes the only method to achieve an aim.
Western fears of him pushing his tanks as far west as Moldova, and fears of aggression in the Baltic States, may be over-stretched in the latter, but not in the former. For Putin, it is simply a matter of what is the most convenient geo-political arrangement for his interests in Europe.
No doubt, Putin would smile at the thought of being compared to Stalin; this is precisely what he would like people to think. For older Russians, Stalin represents stability and strength; his amoral ruthlessness is a side-issue. This issue about how Russians view their government puts it at the direct opposite to a Westerner. A Westerner fears a strong government, because of the West's culture of liberal individualism; a Russian fears a weak government, because of a Russian's desire to feel protected. This fundamental difference in perspective is what marks the emergence of a "clash of civilisations" between an Eastern and Western mentality and world-view.
This also explains why Putin continues to champion "conservative" values against Western immorality, and why his opportune nationalism is him pushing at an open door.
In the same way, Erdogan in Turkey is championing traditional Islamic values. Both Putin and Erdogan are natural authoritarians who have played a very cunning same over the last ten years to preserve and extend their power.
They follow a number of other authoritarian European figures in the last hundred years, and are simply the modern version of an old style of politics.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
From Hitler and Mussolini to Putin and Erdogan: A short history of authoritarianism in modern Europe
Authoritarianism as an ideology has existed since time immemorial. In the twentieth century, the term became synonymous with Fascism amongst the left-wing, and with Communism amongst the right-wing. It has become the stick to beat your enemies on the other side of the political spectrum with.
The end of the Second World War was assumed as many to be the end of authoritarian government in Europe. After the tragedies brought upon Europe by Fascism, no-one thought it would ever happen again. The modern EU, and its precursor, the EEC, are attempts to stamp out its ideology; though the irony is that, by now, some in Europe (especially on the political right) see the modern EU as little more than an authoritarian super-state. Many people in Southern Europe see the EU's bureaucracy as ran from Brussels, but financed from Berlin. Whatever your point of view, authoritarianism never truly dies; it simply learns to adapt to the new rules, and morphs accordingly.
The ideology is simply about the concentration of power in the hands of the state, and an erosion of freedom, accountability, inclusion and democratic principles: in other words, tyranny.
Authoritarianism in Europe can be simply explained through the (male) personalities that have helped to define it.
After the First World War, Europe was economically weak. The European nation-states were broadly (if imperfectly) democratic, but wracked by political weakness after the legacy of the war. For many states, all it needed was a strongman with a vision, and a bit of good fortune and timing, and the house of cards could come collapsing down.
Mussolini
With the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, this was Europe's bogeyman at the time. All major countries were affected by civil and political strife because of this. Benito Mussolini in Italy was the first person in a major European country to strike a blow for authoritarianism, with his "Fascist" party.
Mussolini's "March on Rome" in 1922 was basically a coup d'etat against the elected government. At the same time traditionalist yet revolutionary, Mussolini's party appealed across class divides. As he was a charismatic speaker with a hypnotic personality (Hugo Chavez being a contemporary, if ideologically-opposed, comparison), he held on to power through force of will.
It is often forgotten now that Mussolini's early years in power involved coalitions of Fascists with other parties. His path to an authoritarian police state was a gradual one over several years.
He changed electoral law to raise the threshold for other parties to enter parliament, and increasing use of propaganda was used to discredit parties opposed to Mussolini's "reforms". After excluding more and more parties from parliament, by 1926, Italy was a one-party state; a strong personality cult around Mussolini was created, as well as youth organisations to add to the militant (violent) wing of the party, to intimidate any remaining opponents. Before long, anyone in state employment (such as teachers) had to adhere to "Fascist" principles, while the media became tightly controlled so that they were obliged to follow the government line. Although there was technically a "free press", in reality, all media outlets needed licences issued by the government, though this fact was not widely known to the public.
Under Mussolini, the Italian economy became an amalgam of socialist and capitalist ideas; on the the one hand providing subsidies and agricultural projects for farmers, while on the other destroying union power and encouraging "prestige projects", that gained Italy international economic credibility, as well as a fortune for those capitalists with links to the government.
For more about the "economics of Fascism", see here.
Hitler
While Mussolini was the yardstick for any aspiring authoritarians in Europe to follow, there were people like Hitler in Germany who wanted to take things even further. While Mussolini was learning the the ropes of government, in 1923, Hitler and his "Nazi" Party attempted a coup in Munich in 1923. This landed Hitler in a short term in prison, and while Germany's "Weimar" government was able to find a way through the same crisis years that had brought Mussolini to power in Italy, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, the mainstream parties of Germany suffered from a lack of credibility and vision.
By now Hitler had made the "Nazi" Party one of the biggest parties in the country, with its own militia, the SA. The SA had an ugly reputation, mostly for beating up Communists and Socialists. 1932 was the pivotal year, when the economic crisis and mass unemployment sent many voters to either the Nazis or the Communists. Political violence increased. President Hindenburg met with the then-Chancellor (equivalent to Prime Minister), von Papen, who represented the main moderate rightist party, after election in the autumn. Neither Von Papen nor Hindenburg liked Hitler, or took him too seriously, but at the same time took the rise of the Nazis as a worrying threat to Germany's stability. As the Nazis were the largest party, von Papen suggested offering the Chancellorship to Hitler, with von Papen as the vice; effectively there to keep Hitler under control, but allow Hitler to take the blame for any blunders, or so he thought.
But Hitler was no political novice, and was able to turn the tables on von Papen very quickly. The Reichstag fire in February 1933, shortly after Hitler assumed office, was used for Hitler to gain emergency powers. Von Papen was quickly sidelined, and for the next eighteen months, Hitler set about "Nazifying" the rest of Germany. Under the cloud of crisis, attacks on Jews increased, concentration camps for political opponents (and some Jews) were established, while the general air of menace increased. The Gestapo (secret police) were established, which massively increased the surveillance of the population. There was a move towards "co-ordination" encouraged by the Nazi government, which led to massive self-censorship, and encouraged a willingness to fall in behind the revolutionary air of Nazi Germany.
While all this was happening, however, the increasing role of the SA, and its leader, Ernst Rohm, was a source of political infighting amongst the Nazi hierarchy. Rohm wanted the SA to replace the regular German army, who were loyal to President Hindenburg. By the late spring of 1934, the political infighting and casual violence of the SA was of such concern to von Papen and Hindenburg, that Hindenburg was seriously considering a coup d'etat to have Hitler replaced. By now, Hitler was equally paranoid about Rohm and the SA's power, and in the "The Night Of Long Knives" later on that summer, had Rohm, other SA leaders and any perceived allies in the Nazi party, killed.
Hitler then spun this as a successful counter-attack against a Rohm-led coup d'etat, which earned the respect and gratitude of Hindenburg. Soon after, Hindenburg died, and Hitler abolished the title of "President", and made himself "Leader" as well as Chancellor of Germany. From this point on, there was no looking back.
Franco
Apart from Mussolini and Hitler, the most successful authoritarian leader in Europe was Franco in Spain. In simple longevity and endurance, Francoist Spain (whose Fascist ideology was called Falangism) long outlived Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Franco borrowed heavily from Mussolini and Hitler, but was much more like Mussolini in that his ambitions were mainly internal rather than external. Franco wanted a strong state; he was less interested in recapturing the colonies of the former Spanish Empire, as it was a practical impossibility.
In this sense, Franco's longevity could be down to learning from the "overstretch" that brought about Hitler's fall, and similarly, Mussolini's disastrous alliance with the Nazis. He emphasized Spain's Catholic heritage, as well as the Capitalist (and staunchly anti-Communist) side of Fascism, in its own Falangist style. Franco's emphasis on neutrality during the Second World War, and the fact that he was staunchly anti-Communist when the Cold War began, meant that Franco was left to his own devices, or seen as a friend of Capitalism to America and the West. This is what allowed Fascism to endure in Spain until Franco's death in 1975.
Putin
Authoritarianism in Russia is nothing new; in fact, Russia has hardly known any different. In that sense, comparing authoritarianism in Russia to that in Europe is a little unfair. That being said, I said earlier that authoritarianism is best seen through its leading personalities, as most authoritarian regimes need a strong leader in order keep them in power. In Vladimir Putin, postmodern Europe has its best exemplar of how to create and maintain an authoritarian state.
As a KGB man in the Soviet Union, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin initially retreated into anonymity. The Russian state in the 1990s resembled many of the qualities of "Weimar" Germany: a weak central state, an economy out of control, with a military of uncertain political loyalty. In another sense, though, it was worse. Corruption exploded, with the rise of the "oligarchs", who took advantage of the state's weakness by making newly privatised industries their own private fiefdoms. Putin entered into President Yeltsin's cabinet in 1997, where he quickly rose, becoming Prime Minister in 1999. By this time Yeltsin was seen as a political liability and incapable of effective (or even sober) leadership, leaving Putin ideally placed in the forthcoming presidential elections when Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999.
Putin saw his role as recapturing the functions of the Russian state that had been allowed to fall away during Yeltsin's tenure; that even included actual territory, such as Chechnya, which had been effectively independent since 1991. Putin saw that Chechnya was brought back into the fold by whatever means necessary, in a brutal war that lasted through the winter of 1999-2000.
Under Putin, the oligarchs were brought under control of the state. Those that didn't abide by Putin's rules were either forced into line, imprisoned, or forced into exile. At the same time, other oligarchs that were Putin allies came into prominence to challenge the "old" oligarchs.
While the economy improved significantly under Putin's watch, the media came under unprecedented attack from the state. Some critical journalists were killed, while others were imprisoned. Meanwhile, the media in general was regulated tightly by the state. Opposition media outlets were allowed, but the impression seemed to be that they served a purely cosmetic function - even providing the government a useful scapegoat when necessary. It hardly needs to be mentioned that the legal system in Russia is tipped heavily in favour of the status quo.
The same can be said of opposition parties. Putin's party, "United Russia" have an overwhelming majority of seats in the parliament, with the opposing parties giving a fig-leaf of democracy. Election procedures are widely seen to be rigged. Meanwhile, like in previous authoritarian (Fascist) states, there is a widespread youth wing to Putin's party called "Our Russia"; these zealous teenagers have been known to vandalise and intimidate other "enemies of the state", while the police turn a blind eye. The same can be said of any hooligans who attack democracy campaigners, or social liberals.
The constitution has also been amended to suit Putin's wishes. The constitution allowed for only two consecutive presidential terms, so before he stepped down to swap places with Dmitri Medvedev, his Prime Minister, he boosted the powers of the PM at the expense of the President. Then, during his term as PM, the law was changed to increase Presidential terms from four to six years. As agreed with Medvedev, they swapped places once more in 2012, so that now Putin may potentially run for another two consecutive terms, but now for twelve years rather than eight. So Putin can be president until 2024.
Erdogan
I wrote last week about Erdogan's role in the Gezi Park protests, and when looking at his behaviour over the twelve years of his premiership, his behaviour more fits that of an authoritarian than a democrat. I compared him before to Britain's demagogue-like former-PM, Margaret Thatcher, but although she did largely reshape Britain in her own image, it was because of her economic ideas, and she did not tinker massively with the inner workings of the state, such as the judiciary, the military, media regulation and so on. Erdogan has, and that's what makes him less of a democrat and more of an autocrat. Yes, he has been working within the confines of a democratic system, he has also been reshaping that system to fit to his own wishes. Circumstances simply force him to player a longer and more cunning game. Mussolini did the same thing before; so did Hitler; so has Putin.
What makes Erdogan seem out-of-place compared to those above is the fact he is Muslim. But Franco was passionately Catholic, and used his faith too to explain much of what he did to Spain. Erdogan uses his faith to explain the need to make social reforms so that they, so he implies, more closely reflect the ideas of the devout majority. But this is not democracy; it is ochlocracy - rule of the mob, where a demagogue most feels at home. Authoritarianism uses the same techniques to stay in power; it is called "divide and rule".
While Erdogan says he is happy to abide by the democratic will, he has already moulded the political system to his benefit. The electoral system was altered to raise the threshold for parties to enter parliament, limiting number of parties in parliament.. He has also intimidated the media so that they dare not criticise him or face prison (Turkey has the highest numbers of journalists in prison in the world at the moment). Meanwhile, the judiciary have already been filled with Erdogan place-men, and the military, once a strong force in the background of Turkish politics, has been emptied of Erdogan critics so that it no longer can disrupt the political process (or replace any politician that oversteps the boundaries). He has hugely expanded the number of Islamic schools, using education as a tool being another common method of "spreading the word". Education (as a form of indoctrination) is one of the most valuable weapons in the authoritarian armoury.
Peaceful protest, like in Gezi Park is met by overwhelmingly disproportionate police force. Using the language of authoritarianism, peaceful protesters are seen as equivalent to terrorists, thus justifying brutal police behaviour. Like in Russia, now that Erdogan has the support of half of the population, the "other fifty per-cent" (the mostly secular, Western-minded opposition), are seen as a useful scapegoat for all Turkey's problems. They are the "roadblocks to reform".
Foreign conspirators are blamed for unrest; another common authoritarian (and fascist) scapegoat, blaming the Western media for spreading "disinformation" (i.e. the truth). For ten years Erdogan has courted Western attention, and has seen Turkey's economy grow massively as a result. Now that Turkey has grown self-sufficient, and paid off its debt to the IMF, Erdogan no longer needs to worry about Western opinion: they have served their purpose. Erdogan's careful nurturing of the Middle East and the Gulf States (as well as Russia and the Far East) in tandem with the West, has meant he can now safely ignore the West's haranguing and focus on the East, using the West and "Western immorality" instead as a useful scapegoat for any internal dissent. This follows the same path that his contemporary Putin followed (in initially flattering the West in his first few years in power, before using them as a scapegoat when Putin no longer needed Western investment). Previous authoritarian (Fascist) dictators made this approach typical.
Like Putin, Erdogan wants to become President, once he has altered the constitution to give him greater powers. The Gezi Park protests, now that the media, judiciary and military are under Erdogan's thumb, may be seen as a vehicle to advance his cause; an opportunity for him to destroy the secular half of the country through provocation, stoke up fears of violence from his opponents, then use the "emergency" to make a further, irreversible power-grab.
This is a standard method of gaining power by authoritarians; engineer a crisis, and seize the opportunity.
Authoritarianism never dies; it simply learns to adapt to the rules of the game.
Read here for more about Erdogan and his ministers' Orwellian use of language to achieve their aims.
The end of the Second World War was assumed as many to be the end of authoritarian government in Europe. After the tragedies brought upon Europe by Fascism, no-one thought it would ever happen again. The modern EU, and its precursor, the EEC, are attempts to stamp out its ideology; though the irony is that, by now, some in Europe (especially on the political right) see the modern EU as little more than an authoritarian super-state. Many people in Southern Europe see the EU's bureaucracy as ran from Brussels, but financed from Berlin. Whatever your point of view, authoritarianism never truly dies; it simply learns to adapt to the new rules, and morphs accordingly.
The ideology is simply about the concentration of power in the hands of the state, and an erosion of freedom, accountability, inclusion and democratic principles: in other words, tyranny.
Authoritarianism in Europe can be simply explained through the (male) personalities that have helped to define it.
After the First World War, Europe was economically weak. The European nation-states were broadly (if imperfectly) democratic, but wracked by political weakness after the legacy of the war. For many states, all it needed was a strongman with a vision, and a bit of good fortune and timing, and the house of cards could come collapsing down.
Mussolini
With the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, this was Europe's bogeyman at the time. All major countries were affected by civil and political strife because of this. Benito Mussolini in Italy was the first person in a major European country to strike a blow for authoritarianism, with his "Fascist" party.
Mussolini's "March on Rome" in 1922 was basically a coup d'etat against the elected government. At the same time traditionalist yet revolutionary, Mussolini's party appealed across class divides. As he was a charismatic speaker with a hypnotic personality (Hugo Chavez being a contemporary, if ideologically-opposed, comparison), he held on to power through force of will.
It is often forgotten now that Mussolini's early years in power involved coalitions of Fascists with other parties. His path to an authoritarian police state was a gradual one over several years.
He changed electoral law to raise the threshold for other parties to enter parliament, and increasing use of propaganda was used to discredit parties opposed to Mussolini's "reforms". After excluding more and more parties from parliament, by 1926, Italy was a one-party state; a strong personality cult around Mussolini was created, as well as youth organisations to add to the militant (violent) wing of the party, to intimidate any remaining opponents. Before long, anyone in state employment (such as teachers) had to adhere to "Fascist" principles, while the media became tightly controlled so that they were obliged to follow the government line. Although there was technically a "free press", in reality, all media outlets needed licences issued by the government, though this fact was not widely known to the public.
Under Mussolini, the Italian economy became an amalgam of socialist and capitalist ideas; on the the one hand providing subsidies and agricultural projects for farmers, while on the other destroying union power and encouraging "prestige projects", that gained Italy international economic credibility, as well as a fortune for those capitalists with links to the government.
For more about the "economics of Fascism", see here.
Hitler
While Mussolini was the yardstick for any aspiring authoritarians in Europe to follow, there were people like Hitler in Germany who wanted to take things even further. While Mussolini was learning the the ropes of government, in 1923, Hitler and his "Nazi" Party attempted a coup in Munich in 1923. This landed Hitler in a short term in prison, and while Germany's "Weimar" government was able to find a way through the same crisis years that had brought Mussolini to power in Italy, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, the mainstream parties of Germany suffered from a lack of credibility and vision.
By now Hitler had made the "Nazi" Party one of the biggest parties in the country, with its own militia, the SA. The SA had an ugly reputation, mostly for beating up Communists and Socialists. 1932 was the pivotal year, when the economic crisis and mass unemployment sent many voters to either the Nazis or the Communists. Political violence increased. President Hindenburg met with the then-Chancellor (equivalent to Prime Minister), von Papen, who represented the main moderate rightist party, after election in the autumn. Neither Von Papen nor Hindenburg liked Hitler, or took him too seriously, but at the same time took the rise of the Nazis as a worrying threat to Germany's stability. As the Nazis were the largest party, von Papen suggested offering the Chancellorship to Hitler, with von Papen as the vice; effectively there to keep Hitler under control, but allow Hitler to take the blame for any blunders, or so he thought.
But Hitler was no political novice, and was able to turn the tables on von Papen very quickly. The Reichstag fire in February 1933, shortly after Hitler assumed office, was used for Hitler to gain emergency powers. Von Papen was quickly sidelined, and for the next eighteen months, Hitler set about "Nazifying" the rest of Germany. Under the cloud of crisis, attacks on Jews increased, concentration camps for political opponents (and some Jews) were established, while the general air of menace increased. The Gestapo (secret police) were established, which massively increased the surveillance of the population. There was a move towards "co-ordination" encouraged by the Nazi government, which led to massive self-censorship, and encouraged a willingness to fall in behind the revolutionary air of Nazi Germany.
While all this was happening, however, the increasing role of the SA, and its leader, Ernst Rohm, was a source of political infighting amongst the Nazi hierarchy. Rohm wanted the SA to replace the regular German army, who were loyal to President Hindenburg. By the late spring of 1934, the political infighting and casual violence of the SA was of such concern to von Papen and Hindenburg, that Hindenburg was seriously considering a coup d'etat to have Hitler replaced. By now, Hitler was equally paranoid about Rohm and the SA's power, and in the "The Night Of Long Knives" later on that summer, had Rohm, other SA leaders and any perceived allies in the Nazi party, killed.
Hitler then spun this as a successful counter-attack against a Rohm-led coup d'etat, which earned the respect and gratitude of Hindenburg. Soon after, Hindenburg died, and Hitler abolished the title of "President", and made himself "Leader" as well as Chancellor of Germany. From this point on, there was no looking back.
Franco
Apart from Mussolini and Hitler, the most successful authoritarian leader in Europe was Franco in Spain. In simple longevity and endurance, Francoist Spain (whose Fascist ideology was called Falangism) long outlived Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Franco borrowed heavily from Mussolini and Hitler, but was much more like Mussolini in that his ambitions were mainly internal rather than external. Franco wanted a strong state; he was less interested in recapturing the colonies of the former Spanish Empire, as it was a practical impossibility.
In this sense, Franco's longevity could be down to learning from the "overstretch" that brought about Hitler's fall, and similarly, Mussolini's disastrous alliance with the Nazis. He emphasized Spain's Catholic heritage, as well as the Capitalist (and staunchly anti-Communist) side of Fascism, in its own Falangist style. Franco's emphasis on neutrality during the Second World War, and the fact that he was staunchly anti-Communist when the Cold War began, meant that Franco was left to his own devices, or seen as a friend of Capitalism to America and the West. This is what allowed Fascism to endure in Spain until Franco's death in 1975.
Putin
Authoritarianism in Russia is nothing new; in fact, Russia has hardly known any different. In that sense, comparing authoritarianism in Russia to that in Europe is a little unfair. That being said, I said earlier that authoritarianism is best seen through its leading personalities, as most authoritarian regimes need a strong leader in order keep them in power. In Vladimir Putin, postmodern Europe has its best exemplar of how to create and maintain an authoritarian state.
As a KGB man in the Soviet Union, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin initially retreated into anonymity. The Russian state in the 1990s resembled many of the qualities of "Weimar" Germany: a weak central state, an economy out of control, with a military of uncertain political loyalty. In another sense, though, it was worse. Corruption exploded, with the rise of the "oligarchs", who took advantage of the state's weakness by making newly privatised industries their own private fiefdoms. Putin entered into President Yeltsin's cabinet in 1997, where he quickly rose, becoming Prime Minister in 1999. By this time Yeltsin was seen as a political liability and incapable of effective (or even sober) leadership, leaving Putin ideally placed in the forthcoming presidential elections when Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999.
Putin saw his role as recapturing the functions of the Russian state that had been allowed to fall away during Yeltsin's tenure; that even included actual territory, such as Chechnya, which had been effectively independent since 1991. Putin saw that Chechnya was brought back into the fold by whatever means necessary, in a brutal war that lasted through the winter of 1999-2000.
Under Putin, the oligarchs were brought under control of the state. Those that didn't abide by Putin's rules were either forced into line, imprisoned, or forced into exile. At the same time, other oligarchs that were Putin allies came into prominence to challenge the "old" oligarchs.
While the economy improved significantly under Putin's watch, the media came under unprecedented attack from the state. Some critical journalists were killed, while others were imprisoned. Meanwhile, the media in general was regulated tightly by the state. Opposition media outlets were allowed, but the impression seemed to be that they served a purely cosmetic function - even providing the government a useful scapegoat when necessary. It hardly needs to be mentioned that the legal system in Russia is tipped heavily in favour of the status quo.
The same can be said of opposition parties. Putin's party, "United Russia" have an overwhelming majority of seats in the parliament, with the opposing parties giving a fig-leaf of democracy. Election procedures are widely seen to be rigged. Meanwhile, like in previous authoritarian (Fascist) states, there is a widespread youth wing to Putin's party called "Our Russia"; these zealous teenagers have been known to vandalise and intimidate other "enemies of the state", while the police turn a blind eye. The same can be said of any hooligans who attack democracy campaigners, or social liberals.
The constitution has also been amended to suit Putin's wishes. The constitution allowed for only two consecutive presidential terms, so before he stepped down to swap places with Dmitri Medvedev, his Prime Minister, he boosted the powers of the PM at the expense of the President. Then, during his term as PM, the law was changed to increase Presidential terms from four to six years. As agreed with Medvedev, they swapped places once more in 2012, so that now Putin may potentially run for another two consecutive terms, but now for twelve years rather than eight. So Putin can be president until 2024.
Erdogan
I wrote last week about Erdogan's role in the Gezi Park protests, and when looking at his behaviour over the twelve years of his premiership, his behaviour more fits that of an authoritarian than a democrat. I compared him before to Britain's demagogue-like former-PM, Margaret Thatcher, but although she did largely reshape Britain in her own image, it was because of her economic ideas, and she did not tinker massively with the inner workings of the state, such as the judiciary, the military, media regulation and so on. Erdogan has, and that's what makes him less of a democrat and more of an autocrat. Yes, he has been working within the confines of a democratic system, he has also been reshaping that system to fit to his own wishes. Circumstances simply force him to player a longer and more cunning game. Mussolini did the same thing before; so did Hitler; so has Putin.
What makes Erdogan seem out-of-place compared to those above is the fact he is Muslim. But Franco was passionately Catholic, and used his faith too to explain much of what he did to Spain. Erdogan uses his faith to explain the need to make social reforms so that they, so he implies, more closely reflect the ideas of the devout majority. But this is not democracy; it is ochlocracy - rule of the mob, where a demagogue most feels at home. Authoritarianism uses the same techniques to stay in power; it is called "divide and rule".
While Erdogan says he is happy to abide by the democratic will, he has already moulded the political system to his benefit. The electoral system was altered to raise the threshold for parties to enter parliament, limiting number of parties in parliament.. He has also intimidated the media so that they dare not criticise him or face prison (Turkey has the highest numbers of journalists in prison in the world at the moment). Meanwhile, the judiciary have already been filled with Erdogan place-men, and the military, once a strong force in the background of Turkish politics, has been emptied of Erdogan critics so that it no longer can disrupt the political process (or replace any politician that oversteps the boundaries). He has hugely expanded the number of Islamic schools, using education as a tool being another common method of "spreading the word". Education (as a form of indoctrination) is one of the most valuable weapons in the authoritarian armoury.
Peaceful protest, like in Gezi Park is met by overwhelmingly disproportionate police force. Using the language of authoritarianism, peaceful protesters are seen as equivalent to terrorists, thus justifying brutal police behaviour. Like in Russia, now that Erdogan has the support of half of the population, the "other fifty per-cent" (the mostly secular, Western-minded opposition), are seen as a useful scapegoat for all Turkey's problems. They are the "roadblocks to reform".
Foreign conspirators are blamed for unrest; another common authoritarian (and fascist) scapegoat, blaming the Western media for spreading "disinformation" (i.e. the truth). For ten years Erdogan has courted Western attention, and has seen Turkey's economy grow massively as a result. Now that Turkey has grown self-sufficient, and paid off its debt to the IMF, Erdogan no longer needs to worry about Western opinion: they have served their purpose. Erdogan's careful nurturing of the Middle East and the Gulf States (as well as Russia and the Far East) in tandem with the West, has meant he can now safely ignore the West's haranguing and focus on the East, using the West and "Western immorality" instead as a useful scapegoat for any internal dissent. This follows the same path that his contemporary Putin followed (in initially flattering the West in his first few years in power, before using them as a scapegoat when Putin no longer needed Western investment). Previous authoritarian (Fascist) dictators made this approach typical.
Like Putin, Erdogan wants to become President, once he has altered the constitution to give him greater powers. The Gezi Park protests, now that the media, judiciary and military are under Erdogan's thumb, may be seen as a vehicle to advance his cause; an opportunity for him to destroy the secular half of the country through provocation, stoke up fears of violence from his opponents, then use the "emergency" to make a further, irreversible power-grab.
This is a standard method of gaining power by authoritarians; engineer a crisis, and seize the opportunity.
Authoritarianism never dies; it simply learns to adapt to the rules of the game.
Read here for more about Erdogan and his ministers' Orwellian use of language to achieve their aims.
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