It’s Not NATO Putin Fears, It’s Western-Style Nationalism

[Kamaji]

It’s Not NATO Putin Fears, It’s Western-Style Nationalism

What Ukraine (and indeed NATO) embodies above all, and therefore intolerably so to Putin, is a steadfast commitment to its own national identity as a free people.

By Clare M. Lopez
March 17, 2022

Observers seeing a brutal, thuggish war criminal trying to crush the will of a neighboring people to live independent and free of domination are at least partly right. Vladimir Putin is indeed a throwback to Russian rulers past, whose identity was tied up with glorification of conquest, empire, and a twisted spiritual quest inspired by Russian Orthodox Christianity. But it’s more than that today: for Putin and those of his inner circle who keep him in power, the prospect that the people of Ukraine (whose very name connotes “borderlands” or “outskirts” . . . of the Russian Empire) would choose not only to break away from Mother Russia, but to edge ever closer to the West, is unthinkable and intolerable. It’s not about any imagined military threat from NATO (although that’s the misunderstood excuse): It’s about the very real fear that Ukraine is breaking free of its Russian roots to build the democratic structures of a Westward-looking nation state.

As seen by Putin, today’s West is not the assertive, muscular, and confident West of the Cold War years, but a feeble, immoral, and declining shadow of its previous self. The West of today has lost its moral compass, its anchor to the history of its culture and civilization, and even its will to exist or defend its own Christian identity. And that is not just a matter for scorn, but an invitation to aggression, justified in Putin’s mind by the “rightness” of the imagined Russian ideal of which he sees himself the champion.

As described by the Reverend Giles Fraser, Ukraine is the cradle of Russian identity. Kievan Rus and the 988 A.D. conversion of Vladimir of Rus to Christianity form the foundational mythology in which Putin was steeped from childhood (his mother was a Christian, who baptized him). That worldview infuses Putin’s sense of a spiritual mission to “rebuild Christendom” and combines with the ruthless savagery of his Tsarist forebears, overlaid with a thoroughly 20th-century formation as a KGB officer. It is all of this muddled together that drives his savagely self-righteous assault on Ukraine. In that assault, Russia and Putin are taking the Eurasian continent backwards hundreds of years to an era when emperors and their armies rampaged across the land, seizing, crushing, and conquering whom they would.

What Ukraine (and indeed NATO) embodies above all, and therefore intolerably so to Putin, is a steadfast commitment to its own national identity as a free people, its right to shape its own “heroes, traditions and institutions,” as Fiamma Nirenstein writes at the Jewish News Syndicate. The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia, are today riding a train to embattled Kyiv, to stand by the side of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They likewise are demonstrating that same resolve to defend the traditional ideals of nationalism, the innate human right to fight for the freedom of their identity and people—not the twisted “nationalism” of Europe’s Nazi-fascist past, but the essential principles upon which America and Europe itself were founded. As Fiamma Nirenstein rightly declares, “the nation-state is not only necessary; it’s the historical bearer of freedom.”

*  *  *

Source:  https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/17/its-not-nato-putin-fears-its-western-style-nationalism/

[DefiantMassRINO]

Putin fears losing it all in a full head-to-head confrontation.  His preference is to pick at the carcas of Europe in small bites.  His strategy is to increase his influence and leverage over Western spheres of influence to inflict a death by a thousand cuts.

His impatience with Ukraine has potential to be Putin's antagonist fatal flaw.  He would have much more leverage over European NATO Members after the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Why is Putin so impatient?  What is the imaginary clock or calendar in his head that is driving him to be imprudent and impatient?  Time is Putin's and Xi's best ally.  With time, Western institutions decline and weaken further.  With time, Europe becomes dependent upon Russian natural gas.  With time and patience, Putin's influence and power over Europe would have increased without the invasion of Ukraine.

Vlad, what's that imaginary clock that's ticking in your head?  Why have you turned an ally, time (with patience), into an adversary (with impatience)?

[Kamaji]

Putin fears losing it all in a full head-to-head confrontation.  His preference is to pick at the carcas of Europe in small bites.  His strategy is to increase his influence and leverage over Western spheres of influence to inflict a death by a thousand cuts.

His impatience with Ukraine has potential to be Putin's antagonist fatal flaw.  He would have much more leverage over European NATO Members after the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Why is Putin so impatient?  What is the imaginary clock or calendar in his head that is driving him to be imprudent and impatient?  Time is Putin's and Xi's best ally.  With time, Western institutions decline and weaken further.  With time, Europe becomes dependent upon Russian natural gas.  With time and patience, Putin's influence and power over Europe would have increased without the invasion of Ukraine.

Vlad, what's that imaginary clock that's ticking in your head?  Why have you turned an ally, time (with patience), into an adversary (with impatience)?

Very true.

I fully expected that, after the recognition of the two eastern provinces as separate countries, that Russia would have accepted an "invitation" to come in and act as a peacekeeper - perhaps after some false flag operations by the Russian LGMs to create the appearance of havoc - and then slowly consolidate his foothold in Eastern Ukraine, ultimately leading to the seizure of a land bridge to Crimea.

[Fishrrman]

Rino wonders:
"Vlad, what's that imaginary clock that's ticking in your head?  Why have you turned an ally, time (with patience), into an adversary (with impatience)?"

Could be
... cancer
... some other life-threatening illness
... advancing age
... or perhaps plain ol' megalomania.

[libertybele]

It’s Not NATO Putin Fears, It’s Western-Style Nationalism

What Ukraine (and indeed NATO) embodies above all, and therefore intolerably so to Putin, is a steadfast commitment to its own national identity as a free people.

By Clare M. Lopez
March 17, 2022

Observers seeing a brutal, thuggish war criminal trying to crush the will of a neighboring people to live independent and free of domination are at least partly right. Vladimir Putin is indeed a throwback to Russian rulers past, whose identity was tied up with glorification of conquest, empire, and a twisted spiritual quest inspired by Russian Orthodox Christianity. But it’s more than that today: for Putin and those of his inner circle who keep him in power, the prospect that the people of Ukraine (whose very name connotes “borderlands” or “outskirts” . . . of the Russian Empire) would choose not only to break away from Mother Russia, but to edge ever closer to the West, is unthinkable and intolerable. It’s not about any imagined military threat from NATO (although that’s the misunderstood excuse): It’s about the very real fear that Ukraine is breaking free of its Russian roots to build the democratic structures of a Westward-looking nation state.

As seen by Putin, today’s West is not the assertive, muscular, and confident West of the Cold War years, but a feeble, immoral, and declining shadow of its previous self. The West of today has lost its moral compass, its anchor to the history of its culture and civilization, and even its will to exist or defend its own Christian identity. And that is not just a matter for scorn, but an invitation to aggression, justified in Putin’s mind by the “rightness” of the imagined Russian ideal of which he sees himself the champion.

As described by the Reverend Giles Fraser, Ukraine is the cradle of Russian identity. Kievan Rus and the 988 A.D. conversion of Vladimir of Rus to Christianity form the foundational mythology in which Putin was steeped from childhood (his mother was a Christian, who baptized him). That worldview infuses Putin’s sense of a spiritual mission to “rebuild Christendom” and combines with the ruthless savagery of his Tsarist forebears, overlaid with a thoroughly 20th-century formation as a KGB officer. It is all of this muddled together that drives his savagely self-righteous assault on Ukraine. In that assault, Russia and Putin are taking the Eurasian continent backwards hundreds of years to an era when emperors and their armies rampaged across the land, seizing, crushing, and conquering whom they would.

What Ukraine (and indeed NATO) embodies above all, and therefore intolerably so to Putin, is a steadfast commitment to its own national identity as a free people, its right to shape its own “heroes, traditions and institutions,” as Fiamma Nirenstein writes at the Jewish News Syndicate. The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia, are today riding a train to embattled Kyiv, to stand by the side of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They likewise are demonstrating that same resolve to defend the traditional ideals of nationalism, the innate human right to fight for the freedom of their identity and people—not the twisted “nationalism” of Europe’s Nazi-fascist past, but the essential principles upon which America and Europe itself were founded. As Fiamma Nirenstein rightly declares, “the nation-state is not only necessary; it’s the historical bearer of freedom.”

*  *  *

Source:  https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/17/its-not-nato-putin-fears-its-western-style-nationalism/

He fears the 'Great Reset' that the West is implementing. Ukraine/NATO is a part of his resistance. 

[Right_in_Virginia]

What Ukraine (and indeed NATO) embodies above all, and therefore intolerably so to Putin, is a steadfast commitment to its own national identity as a free people.

Doesn't the EU punch a massive hole in this thesis --- the organization Ukraine rushed to join two weeks ago?

[Right_in_Virginia]

His impatience with Ukraine has potential to be Putin's antagonist fatal flaw.

Why is Putin so impatient?

I'm not sure "impatience" is correct. What's happening today is a continution of the war that began in 2014.  This chapter was to begin in 2017 ... and would have, if not for 2016. 

With Obiden back in the WH --- the time is right.