Putin Hypocritical About Exceptionalism

The rationale that Russian president-turned-de-facto-dictator Vladimir Putin has given for his forcible taking of Crimea is that he is there to protect Russians living there.  Then he got his parliament to pass a law authorizing him to invade any other country containing Russians as he sees fit...all under the excuse of "protecting Russians".  H-m-m, last year I was walking down Hollywood Beach in south Florida one evening and encountered no less than three Russians.  I wonder if they're safe...better let ol' Putie know...

In spite of my cynical view of Putin's even more cynical and aggressive policy toward his neighbors (he invaded and took over territory from Georgia in 2008), Russia's situation is rather unique.  I don't recall another situation in which a multi-national empire just spontaneously disintegrated into its constituent provinces (or in the Soviet Union's case, "republics")...leaving the dominating ethnic population group unexpectedly scattered throughout each new country.  But in truth, this is the situation we're looking at with Russia today.  The boundary between Ukraine and Russia wasn't always the same, either: Crimea had traditionally been a part of Russia proper until a different dictator, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1954 assigned it to Ukraine, which then was then just a cog within the Soviet system. This historically Russian identification also goes for that eastern and southern Ukrainian territory overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Russians.  But in other former republics of the U.S.S.R., such as Estonia, there is a sizable Russian minority that moved there back in the Soviet years, never imagining that they'd find themselves belonging to their adopted land as citizens of a nation apart from Russia.  

That having been said, this doesn't justify a hostile, military-backed attitude from Moscow toward these much smaller and weaker countries ringing Russia.  Just because Putin can dredge up "protecting Russians" as a reason for his aggression, in the end it is just an excuse...much in the same way that Hitler used the excuse of "protecting Germans" for his invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938-39. I myself have no problem with an orderly, peaceful political process that culminates in Crimea seceding and then joining back up with Russia...or even those formerly Russian lands in southern and eastern Ukraine voting go back to Russian rule.  A few years ago, the nation of Czechoslovakia peacefully broke up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia when the latter clearly expressed its desire for independence.  Why can't this be the model for the former Soviet republics as they try to come to grips with the demographic fallout from the 1991 breakup?
 
From my perspective anyway, I would think that Putin should want sizable Russian minorities in neighboring countries in order to politically influence those respective governments into a more Russia-friendly orientation. By taking away from them those parts of their lands that have majority Russians living on them, Putin would essentially be turning the remainder of those countries into more solidly anti-Russian regimes, more likely to orient themselves toward the West not only economically, but also militarily.  Seeing it this way, Putin's recent actions seem foolhardy.

But it appears that Vladimir Putin has recognized the strong Russian nationalist fervor among segments of its population and is more focused now on solidifying his political hold on his own country than he is on getting along with the rest of the world...especially with his own neighbors. Maybe this will work for him: if it does, expect more of the same during the next few years.

A few months ago, President Obama considered using force in the crisis in Syria because the ruling regime there was accused of using chemical weapons against its own people.  Russia under Putin intervened diplomatically and helped to negotiate a Syrian surrender of its stockpile...and the use of American force didn't happen.  During this period, Putin wrote a New York Times letter to the editor decrying the concept of "American Exceptionalism".  Now he is employing his own "Russian Exceptionalism"...but this isn't his only hypocrisy.  He invaded neighboring Georgia in 2008 on the pretext of protecting minority nationalities (not Russian) within that sovereign nation, but has waged a brutal, savage war against nearby Chechnya in his own country, suppressing the ethnically-different population there that wanted to become independent.  In other words, Vladimir Putin is really good at reciting high and holy principles...but only as long as they expediently serve his own purposes...