The events that have been taking place in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had never before occurred in the same cumulative fashion in the continent’s history. First, led by the United States of America, member states of NATO and the European Union jointly defeated the artificial creation of the Leninist cum Stalinist imperial monster that kept the world under the threat of nuclear annihilation for the sake of a morbid ideology laden with apocalyptic horrors of ruthless political incompetence, utter economic misery, financial ruins as well as frightened illegitimacy. Yet, amid the ubiquitous jubilations across the globe, no one really paid attention to the fundamental fact that the disappearance of the Soviet Union has not solved any of the existing contradictions between the legitimate governmental systems of the Free World and the emerging new-old illegitimate tyranny of the Russian Federation. The insoluble essence of these contradictions have had its roots in the very nature of the Russian culture imbued with the thoroughly phony Christianity of the Russian Orthodox Church and the lethal mixture of the fatally flawed superiority of barbaric tyranny, which have been perpetuated for centuries by the ruthlessly maintained political illiteracy of the masses.
Second, the decade-long reign of the irredeemably incompetent dipsomaniac Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin had been marked by bloody political chaos, monstrous economic corruption, financial collapse, and international irrelevance. Forced to resign on December 9, 1999, he left for his unremarkable successor Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin a state on the brink of ubiquitous domestic as well as foreign decline.
Third, the creation of the amateurish incompetence of the 20th century Soviet Union cum Russia that has given the delusional appearance of greatness to both have left an irreparably deep political as well as economic abyss that has poisoned the mentality of their inhabitants with the delusional uncertainty of a better world. Having been ill-prepared for any meaningful change in their lives, they voted in the March 26, 2000, presidential election to embrace an insignificant former KGB goon as the unlikely liberator of their incurable misery. The thus elected Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin inherited a woefully indoctrinated population in incompetence and corruption who could transform itself to no discipline of freedom. Moreover, historically lacking a centering force in politics, Putin has enjoyed a limitless scope to shape the already dying Russia to his own extremist image. Finally, his May 7, 2000, inaugural speech that promised a “new century” full of democracy, Westernization and economic prosperity was quickly annulled by his infamous February 10, 2007, Munich speech, in which he called for the overthrow of the democratic order led by the United States of America. Since then, the President for Life Putin has become a traditional Russian tyrant whose ubiquitous connivance as well as unambiguous hypocrisy has led to aggressive revanchism disguised as Pan Slavism, which in turn have led to the annexation of sovereign territories in Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine.
Definitely, the enormous onus of leading a practically defunct Russia to a productive reconstruction has been too much for President Putin. Claiming to be guided by Napoleon Bonaparte as his historical role model, he has no real future conception for Russia and the rest of the world. What is constant in his paltry worldview is his violent fluctuation between the present isolationist reality and the old fallacious glory of the wicked Russian tyranny. This inward looking or myopically illiberal conservatism also explains his mental imbalance that is the key to President Putin’s propensity for political imperilment.
Because of this irreconcilable antinomy between the West and Russia, the latter again has taken militarily upon the status quo without any intention of ever making any agreements for a lasting peace. Adding insult to injury, President Putin’s Kremlin has been plotting continuously to destroy globally every state deemed hostile to its heinous expansionist designs. Yet, what has made President Putin’s global mentality even more dangerous is his uncanny ability for self-destruction. Indeed, like the fictional monster Frankenstein, the Russian president has driven himself into an evil vacuum that renders the dream of lasting peace an assured impossibility. For all these reasons, President Putin’s domestic as well as foreign policies will remain both absurd and catastrophic for Russia as well as the rest of the world. Clearly, President Putin is not the victim of internal or external circumstances. More correctly, he is an incompetent bungler who lives in constant mental imbalance between his self envisioned alternative reality and his twisted conception of history.
The present diplomatic efforts for a rapid ceasefire and eventual peace treaty between the Russian Federation and Ukraine rest on erroneous political and legal foundations. Politically, the former believes that by winning militarily it could accomplish all its objectives, including the absolute eradication of the sovereign state of Ukraine. The latter is ferociously determined to remain a sovereign state. It also decisively rejects a false and precarious ceasefire. Legally, all of Russia’s previous agreements with Ukraine have proved to be of no permanent worth. Accordingly, this dreadful war can only be stopped by the military, political, economic and financial defeat of the Russian Federation. Anything less would only result in endlessly lawless aggressions by a historically disgruntled and constitutionally inhumane political formation with abnormal cultural characteristics.
Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi is the Vice President of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute.