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We have a fair number of Russians and Russophiles in here, so I thought I’d ask for opinions about Alexei Navalny.
He’s the subject of a documentary (one that could win an Oscar next month: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_(film)) which I watched recently, and I followed it up with a video mentioned near the end of the doc that his team made about Putin’s lucrative circle of corruption. As a skeptic, I know not to believe everything I see, hear, and read, but I was wondering if there is a deeper counter-argument to Navalny’s narrative and positions than, “He’s a tool of western governments/the CIA to besmirch Putin and Russia.”
In the documentary about Navalny (on HBOMax), he’s depicted as a jovial but committed critic of Putin, and one who has so annoyed the Russian leader, that Putin won’t even deign to mention Navalny’s name on TV, but refers to him only in the form of “that person.” Navalny is questioned briefly about his past appearances with questionable nationalist/racist political movements and he’s unapologetic, explaining that he’s trying to build a coalition that can challenge the establishment and can’t afford the luxury of turning anyone away (which is similar to how some supporters of Trump’s 2016 campaign explained his flirtations with Alex Jones and some less savory radio personalities). I don’t put much stock in official Russian accusations that its enemies are racists or Nazis, anyway, as I see those as arguments made in bad faith with the sole intention of eroding opposition enthusiasm and not as issues that Putin’s racially diverse and sensitive supporters actually care about. Its arguments-as-soldiers on top of pot-calling-kettle.
The documentary then depicts the aftermath of Navalny’s poisoning with a nerve agent, which hits him while in-flight across Russia, the fatal consequences of which are only averted by an emergency landing and, after some political jostling, his eventual release from a Russian hospital to seek care in Europe. While in recovery, Navalny teams up with a Bulgarian hacker to reveal the identities of the assassins, and they even trick one into discussing the details of the plot over the phone. It’s a bombshell scene, if it can be believed. (The filmmakers contend that the scientist who was tricked by Navalny’s impersonation of a post-mission auditor disappeared shortly after their conversation was made public.)
When Navalny returns to Russia, he is detained at the airport, and has been in prison ever since. But a couple of days after his arrest, his team drops a two-hour YouTube video titled “Putin's palace. The story of the world's biggest bribe” (https://youtube.com/watch?v=T_tFSWZXKN0&authuser=2), which details the formation of Putin's network of graft and embezzlement and how it has poured billions in state funds into the construction of a lavish secluded palace, in addition to providing jobs and housing for Putin’s mistresses and their families. Again, maybe it’s all false, but it’s densely reported and has a sheen of credibility.
So am I a fool falling for wholly concocted neoliberal propaganda besmirching the world’s only remaining champion of traditional values? What’s the direct counterargument to Navalny’s claims about Putin’s corruption or attempt to assassinate a pesky political opponent? I’m certain that Navalny is flawed, as are we all, and I am loath to trust any politician. But I like Navalny – he comes off as a “happy warrior” with a worthy cause – and he seems honest. Without resorting to ad hominem non sequiturs, tell me why I shouldn’t take him seriously? Even if he is a Nazi, is he wrong about Putin?
Putin and his cronies are grossly corrupt but can still be in favor of traditional values. It's not mutually exclusive. There's no such thing as a perfect, flawless leader. Lee Kwan Yew cratered his country's fertility for instance, even while he did economic development very well.
By and large, Putin did a good job in mitigating and correcting the horrendous, catastrophic damage inflicted by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. If you look at Russia's industrial output in the 1990s, you'd assume they'd suffered a small-scale nuclear exchange. Yeltsin made Jan 6th look like a tempest in a teacup, directly shelling the Russian equivalent of the White House with tanks and killing 147 people! He's like the inversion of the leftist nightmare version of Trump who directly cratered the country's economy, reduced the standard of living by half, launched a military coup and won extremely dodgy 'elections' with US assistance. How could we possibly delegitimize liberal democracy in Russia any more than we already have?
I'm not really a Russophile so much as a 'not-my-problem' foreign policy proponent. We should not interfere in matters that don't affect us. Benign neglect. Supporting a cartoonishly villainous leader in Yeltsin was a bad decision. It has not won us friends in Russia, the one country that can destroy the West in an afternoon. We should not have a policy on Ukraine or the Caucasus or whether Russia is a democracy or not. Not our problem. If Russia invades Ukraine it doesn't affect us in any way. The only valuable things there are farmland (which we have plenty of), gas pipelines to Russia and Soviet-era industry. If they take Ukraine or Georgia, so what? NATO supposedly has large and strong militaries and nuclear weapons, we can defend ourselves just fine regardless of whether Russia gets the T-80 production line in Ukraine back or not. If they drive south into the Middle East, then we should fight since the oil is important and we can't risk a monopoly. But they're very unlikely to do that.
We should not interfere in the internal problems of other countries, especially powerful or important ones. Russia is very powerful and important, picking fights over trivialities like LGBT, democracy, corruption or Ukraine is unwise. We've spent around $100 billion on aid to Ukraine, massively raised prices via the energy boycott and made Russia angry with us over the conflict. They can cause all kinds of problems. More military power is tied down in Europe as opposed to where it's needed in Asia. Reserves of munitions are depleted and we have wedded Russia and China together against us. Our policy choice has been a disaster.
Our interference in other countries caused the problem. Putin wanted to be our friend, he cooperated in the early stages of the war on terror. It was only that we kept messing with him (NATO expansion aspiring towards including Georgia and Ukraine, bombing Libya and voiding Russian gas contracts there, trying to overthrow his ally in Syria). Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. If Russian resources sustain China for a long war or open up a second front in Europe, we have only ourselves to blame. It's ridiculous and infantile to base our policy on the fundamental belief of 'we can invade countries for made-up reasons but nobody else can'. The West may be somewhat stronger than Russia or China but they can still inflict costs on us. We should leave them alone unless they pose a serious threat to our interests.
This comment read very much like something a committed offensive realist would write until you got to this point. All states allegedly are by their nature ruthless actors that will stop and nothing to advocate their own interests, but you, America, you have been a naughty boy and must get on your knees and welcome the whip to atone for your sins.
This is a masochistic perversion of offensive realism.
Yes, but interests are based on one's analysis of threat. If the Russians think 'oh the West hate us and if they beat China we're fucked' then they'll join up with China. They certainly do now and have joined up. Whereas, if the Russians thought that we weren't interested in undermining them they'd be more cautious about supporting China. Maybe they'd just try to play both sides off against eachother for their own profit.
I maintain we have a genuine, significant-issue conflict with China about control of the world economy, about dominance of Asia and so on. We should focus on the significant issues first, prioritizing the central front over these small peripheral issues. Back in 1935, the British and French were allies with Mussolini under the Stresa Front, where he guaranteed Austria against Germany. But then Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and the British and French imposed sanctions on Italy in response. Naturally Italy joined up with Germany and enabled the Anschluss. For the sake of Ethiopia, the British and French threw away a well-placed ally and made WW2 into a serious proposition as opposed to a 'home-by-Christmas' conflict. This was an idiotic decision and we should not replicate it.
I'd prefer 'reaping what one sows'. We (the West) have blown up Libya, Iraq, made a good effort at blowing up Syria. Amongst other things, we've gotten engaged well into Eastern Europe where the risks outweigh the gains. At no point has anyone put serious thought into the consequences of our actions, how the other major powers are responding. When we blew up Iraq, we also torpedoed any hope of North Korea refraining from nuclearization. They, quite reasonably, did not want to be next on the chopping block! Decisionmakers just ignored Burns in 2008 when he said that moving to bring Ukraine into NATO would make anyone remotely near the Kremlin very angry and threatened. Then they act surprised when Russia throws a tantrum and starts interfering with our operations! We cannot ignore the consequences of our actions forever.
Furthermore, what I'm saying is not in conflict with offensive realism. Offensive realism has a central tenet in that state actions are based upon the fear of other states, amongst other things. Perceptions are vital. It is a complex idea that can be interpreted in many ways dependent upon context - furthermore its founder Mearsheimer and I am in agreement on this issue. The benefit of integrating Ukraine into NATO or the Western bloc is not worth the cost of having Russia as a locked-in enemy. We should not flanderize offensive realism as 'attack and advance anywhere', just as even an offensive minded commander would balk at frontal attacks across rivers into well-fortified enemy lines.
See Mearsheimer's quotes:
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