LONDON — It was not a surprise that President Vladimir
Putin of Russia came out in strong support of FIFA against the “blatant
attempt” of the United States “to extend its jurisdiction to other states.”
Institutionalized corruption is Putin’s thing. The governing body of world
soccer has become a near-perfect illustration of how such a system works,
almost as good as the once-pliant Ukraine of Putin’s ousted puppet, former
President Viktor Yanukovych.
American power is Putin’s obsession. He professes to
see its long arm everywhere, subverting Russia and countries of its former
empire. So the Justice Department’s move against FIFA fit every Russian
geostrategic theory. (In addition, of course, Putin is worried about the 2018
World Cup in Russia, as he should be. To say the event will carry echoes of the
Berlin Olympics of 1936 would be an exaggeration, but not a wild one.)
It is not a surprise that various Russian generals and
officials have been blustering about nukes, even threatening to wipe out poor
little Denmark’s navy; nor that they have made clear that they will defend the
annexation of Crimea (where the extension of Russian jurisdiction was on the
“blatant” side) with every weapon in their arsenal. Force is the language Putin
understands better than any other. He knows how uncomfortable much of Europe
has become with this lexicon.
There are in fact no more surprises. Putin has turned
on the West, seeing opposition to it as the glue of his regime, rather than
integration with it as the path to Russian progress. He has opted for his
life’s work: buying people, compromising them, threatening them.
Perhaps it was the street protests in Moscow of late
2011. Perhaps it was a perception of Western perfidy in Libya earlier that
year. Perhaps it was some inkling about a moment of American weakness. Perhaps
it really was the ouster through a popular uprising of the grossly corrupt
Yanukovych in Ukraine. Perhaps it was simply his inner K.G.B. officer rising to
the surface, a yearning for the empire lost. In the end the reasons are
secondary to the reality, which is that Putin has opted to ignite Russian
nationalism by cultivating the myth of Western encirclement of the largest
nation on earth by far. The G-7 will convene in a few days without him. Of
course it will. The Russian president is no longer interested in the rules of
that club. Controlled antagonism to it suits him better.
Some 15 months have gone by since the annexation of
Crimea. A few things have become clear. On the whole, they are troubling. The
first is how muted, really, the American reaction has been to Moscow’s seizure
of a chunk of Ukrainian territory and Russia’s stirring-up of a little war in
eastern Ukraine with its more than 6,000 dead. The United States is not even a
party to the Minsk accords, the deeply flawed agreement to unwind the conflict
that looks more like a means to freeze it in place.
Yes, there have been expressions of outrage from
Washington. Yes, Secretary of State John Kerry was in Sochi last month for
talks with Putin. But the bottom line is that Russian aggression has been met
by a degree of American absence unthinkable even a decade ago. Follow-up talks
to Minsk tend to find a Ukrainian official in a room with a Russian and two
representatives of the breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine. One against three is
not a credible formula for progress.
In America’s place has stood Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s Germany. She speaks to Putin regularly. She has been frank in her
condemnation of his actions. Without Germany, the sanctions in place against
Russia would not have been effectively coordinated. But a fundamental problem
remains. Postwar Germany is in essence a pacifist power. Mention of force is
near anathema to the vast majority of the German people. Arming Ukraine to
level the playing field (and so bolster the chances of diplomacy) is of course
rejected by Merkel; it should not have been. Force is precisely what Putin has
used to secure what he wanted: a truncated and dysfunctional Ukraine diverted
from its Westernizing ambitions. This has been Moscow’s core victory and the
core failure of Berlin and Washington.
The battle for Ukraine is going to be long. There are
no quick fixes at this point. The shows of NATO resolve and presence in the
Baltic, where three NATO states feel vulnerable with cause, have been
important; they should be reinforced. The bolstering and reform of NATO to face
Putin’s new threats is critical. There can be no relaxation of sanctions
against Russia until Ukraine controls its borders once again. Through parties
of the left and right — Syriza in Greece, the National Front in France — Putin
is probing to weaken the European Union and the West where he can. Wobbling
is not the answer.
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