By Rich Lowry
Friday, December 10, 2021
No CPAC invitation will be in the offing anytime
soon, but Vladimir Putin has picked up admirers on the populist right here and
abroad that he doesn’t deserve.
With Putin threatening to invade Ukraine, the
Russian dictator will again become a top-of-mind concern.
In recent years, there’s been a reversal in which
Democrats who were consistently soft on Russia from the Cold War to Hillary
Clinton’s attempted reset have become, at least rhetorically, much
tougher-minded about Moscow, whereas elements of the American Right that once
were the fiercest Cold Warriors have warmed up to Russia as Putin has grounded
his autocracy in religion and social conservatism.
The sources of Putin’s appeal to populists, from Pat
Buchanan to Tucker Carlson, are manifold. They admire his strength and audacity
in advancing Russia’s interests. They think he has the right enemies, namely
the same establishment that also scorned Donald Trump. They see in him a
bracing reassertion of national sovereignty. They envy his pushback against
fashionable progressive causes and his alliance with the Russian church to form
a bulwark in favor of traditional values and Western civilization.
The problem is that all of this is abstracted from the
reality of Putin’s rule, which makes him one of the world’s most cynical and
dangerous men and a hideously unworthy steward of the Russian people’s interests.
It’s possible for a political leader to be a robust
nationalist and social conservative without jailing the political
opposition, assassinating critics, invading and dismembering neighboring
countries, enriching a kleptocracy, and installing a de facto dictator for
life.
Putin’s nationalism trespasses against a pillar of true
nationalism, which is that the nation belongs to the people, who deserve to
govern themselves and not see the national wealth plundered by a ruling elite.
While Putin sheathes himself in the symbols and rhetoric
of the Orthodox Church, there is nothing genuinely Christian about his rule. The alliance
with Putin’s state has been corrupting
for the Orthodox Church, though the arrangement is inarguably
traditionalist from the point of view of Russia’s long-running, deeply
ingrained experience with authoritarianism.
Indeed, if at any time in the past 500 years a
knowledgeable observer were told that a self-interested autocrat with
absolutely no respect for individual rights or the rule of law was ruling
Russia, he or she would have replied, “Why, yes, course.” This has never really
been the case in America, even before the Revolution.
So, Putin can’t teach us anything useful about how to
honor America’s national tradition. Likewise, just because Putin is
pursuing his self-interest in Ukraine, it doesn’t mean we
can’t pursue ours.
Putin has an interest in projecting strength; enhancing
his geopolitical position at Ukraine’s expense; and destabilizing Ukraine as
much as possible, for fear of the emergence of a prosperous, self-governing
state on his border that might give the Russian people their own nettlesome
ideas.
America, too, has an interest in projecting strength, but
also an interest in avoiding the re-emergence of a Europe in which the fate of
countries is decided by naked military aggression.
The United States obviously shouldn’t get into a shooting
war over Ukraine, and it might be that Putin, much more willing to court risk
over the matter, ultimately works his will with Ukraine. It’d be another
instance of his punching above his weight. Yet Putin has managed to create a
simulacrum of a great power while presiding over a second-rate country with
a stagnant economy and enormous weaknesses in its governing
model.
His grand strategic play is apparently to make an autocratic
alliance with President Xi Jinping of China, a move that — given the power disparity in China’s favor — might not
work out for Russia in the long term. Regardless, making himself the junior
partner of a Chinese potentate intent on restoring China’s greatness and
becoming the preeminent power in the world is a funny way to defend Western
civilization.
Definitely withhold that CPAC invitation.
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