In the standoff he has engaged with the West around Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is true to himself. His style, putting a Kalashnikov on the negotiating table before sitting down, hasn’t changed. It is with 100,000 men massed on the Ukrainian border that American and European officials are supposed to discuss.
Its color palette is also ever-expanding. With brute force, the Russian president combines less expensive levers but which can increase the power of nuisance in an interconnected world. Cyberattacks, like the one Ukraine has just suffered. Digital disinformation, which polluted until the American presidential election of 2016. Energy networks, which condition the production systems of major countries such as Germany or Italy. Support for nationalist political forces all over Europe, including France. Sending mercenaries (to Africa) capable of destabilizing allegiances.
To this palette, we must add two points on which certain misconceptions circulate. The economic weight of Moscow (its GDP is the equivalent of that of Spain) could lead to the same error as Obama, when he described Russia as regional power
. The second misconception is that the territorial immensity of Russian space (eleven time zones) would render a feeling of threat illegitimate. However, the simultaneous confrontation with China in Central Asia, Turkey in the Black Sea and the Caucasus, NATO on the borders of Europe, leads the Russians to also measure the fragility that the very extent of their territories can constitute.
Populism and authoritarianism
Since 2007, Vladimir Putin has undertaken to regain the power lost with the collapse of the USSR. Georgia (2008), Crimea and Donbass (2014), Syria (2015), Libya (2016), Central African Republic (2018), Mali and Burkina today. The theaters vary, the means deployed too, but the line is clear.
Above all, since the intervention in Syria, Putin feels that he can dictate the international agenda. The American withdrawal, and the weakening of its democratic model, opened a space for it. The practice of influence is in the Russian DNA
, explains Frédéric Chatillon*. Biden wanted to make the duel with China the dominant and structuring factor of the international scene? Putin remembers to his good memory.
Biden wants to form a League of Democracies? He is probably too fragile at home to be credible. After 9/11, neoconservatives in Washington claimed to be exporting democracy. In return, it is rather the authoritarian model that has insinuated itself, to the heart of the Capitol. Populism and autocracy are really two sides of the same coin. Just like Putin’s stiffening domestically and internationally.
The polarization of American society has become a threat to national security
, warns Fiona Hill, a great connoisseur of Russia, in a recent article by Foreign Affairs. Today’s Hybrid War is also a cultural and political war. Faced with threats of war in Ukraine, Western unity and diplomatic firmness are essential. But if we let slip the idea that the nationalist authoritarian model is more efficient than our own democratic model, dividing us will be child’s play. On the eve of a presidential election, flirting with Putin serves only one national interest, that of Russia.
*Frederic Charillon, Influence Wars
, Odile Jacob
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