The Roots of Putin's Paranoia

Over the last few years, we've heard a lot about anti-democracy movements all around the world, with growing concern about the rise of fascism. But more recent history can obscure the fact that, at the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st, protests erupted against dictatorships in what became known as the Colour Revolutions and the Arab Spring. Some of the countries that were affected include:

1989 Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution

2000 Yugoslavia's Bulldozer Revolution

2003 Georgia's Rose Revolution

2004 Ukaine's Orange Revolution

2009 Iran's Green Movement

2009 Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution

2010 Kyrgyzstan's Melon Revolution

2011 Russia's Snow Revolution

2011 Egypt's Lotus Revolution

2011 Yemeni Revolution

2011 Syria

2011 Libya

While many of these movements didn't end well, they almost always began when people rose up against a corrupt authoritarian regime, usually provoked by an event like a stolen election or a new unpopular policy. Notice that the list includes the so-called "Snow Revolution" in Russia. Here is how Al Jazeera reported what was happening at the beginning of the protests.

To be clear, all of those pro-democracy movements scarred the shit out of Vladimir Putin. His response was to blame the U.S. Writing specifically about the 2011 protests in Russia, Michael McFaul said this:

Even before the parliamentary vote, Putin began to develop the argument about American manipulation of Russia’s internal politics. “We know that representatives of some countries meet with those whom they pay money — so-called grants — and give them instructions and guidance for the ‘work’ they need to do to influence the election campaign in our country,” he said in November 2011. This was false, but American interference seemed very obvious to him: “They try to shake us up so that we don’t forget who is boss on our planet.” The popular demonstrations a month later appeared to confirm his suspicions. 

In 2013, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff (equivalent to our Joint Chiefs of Staff), published an article in the Military-Industrial Courier stating that, "the Arab Spring...had shown that 'nonmilitary means' had overtaken the 'force of weapons in their effectiveness.' Deception and disinformation, not tanks and planes, were the new tools of power. And they would be used not in formally declared conflicts but within a vast gray between peace and war." It became known as the Gerasimov Doctrine. But as Mark Galeotti explained, it wasn't so much a "doctrine" as a justification.

Gerasimov was actually talking about how the Kremlin understands what happened in the “Arab Spring” uprisings, the “color revolutions” against pro-Moscow regimes in Russia’s neighborhood, and in due course Ukraine’s “Maidan” revolt. The Russians honestly — however wrongly — believe that these were not genuine protests against brutal and corrupt governments, but regime changes orchestrated in Washington, or rather, Langley.

Then, in 2014, Putin gave a bizarre speech in which he suggested that the West was attempting to declaw the Russian bear.

Sometimes I think, maybe it would be better for our bear to sit quiet, rather than chasing around the forest after piglets. To sit eating berries and honey instead. Maybe they will leave it in peace. They will not. Because they will always try to put him on a chain, and as soon as they succeed in doing so they tear out his fangs and his claws...

Once they've taken out his claws and his fangs, then the bear is no longer necessary. He'll become a stuffed animal. The issue is not Crimea, the issue is that we are protecting our sovereignty and our right to exist.

So after annexing Crimea, Putin publicly stated that Ukraine wasn't the issue. Instead, it was about protecting Russia's sovereignty against attacks from the West. This statement from Max Fisher in response to that speech caught my eye.

This idea is popular among Russians; since the fall of Soviet Union, and especially the economic catastrophes of the 1990s, there has been a sense of lost greatness and lost pride in Russia. Putin is telling Russians that they are still a great world power, and blaming any feelings of national shortcoming not on failures of Russian leadership but on Western aggressors whose very existence just further proves that Russia is an equal and competitor.

That reminded me that in 2017, Jay Bookman wrote that Trump "understood when no else did that loyalty to that ideology was an inch deep among the GOP base, and that the true unifying force was resentment." It seems that (surprise, surprise) Putin and Trump were playing from the same page. Putin's speech was the equivalent of "Make Russia Great Again."

It is also interesting to note that many of the colour revolutions began with claims of voter fraud following an election. To the extent that Gerasimov proposed using the kind of nonmilitary means Putin envisions being used against Russia, this summary from Molly McKew is instructive.

The U.S. electoral system is the heart of the world’s most powerful democracy, and now—thanks to Russian actions—we’re locked in a national argument over its legitimacy. We’re at war with ourselves, and the enemy never fired a physical shot.

She wrote that about Russia's attempt to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. But it takes on even greater meaning when it comes to Trump's Big Lie and the January 6 insurrection. In a way, they were trying to mimic the origins of the colour revolutions.

By pointing all of this out, I'm not suggesting that Putin is some kind of genius. Rather, the picture this paints is of someone who is obviously paranoid about losing power, which is an indication of weakness, not strength. In addition, there is a remarkable symmetry between the tactics Putin has employed and those exhibited by the former guy. Perhaps that's some kind of cosmic coincidence. But I doubt it.