What is conspiracy theory? Did Putin, who started the Russia-Ukraine War, fall into the US trap?
Conspiracy theory: Did Putin fall into the US trap in Ukraine?
Perhaps the most asked question regarding the current Ukraine crisis is; The question is whether Putin fell into the trap of the West (especially the USA) in Ukraine. Although it may seem like a conspiracy theory, many developments in the political and military field are full of signs that Putin may have fallen into a trap in Ukraine. In this article, we will analyze the proposition “Putin has fallen into the trap of the West in Ukraine” according to the available data.
According to many political scientists both in Turkey and around the world, Putin is the person who can best use the Russian state mind in terms of strategy. In many circles, Putin describes himself as a "master chess player" when it comes to strategy.
Putin consciously worked in the KGB, received good training, and witnessed the fall of the iron curtain during the cold war period as a state official. Considering the Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Syria and Karabakh moves under his rule for 22 years, we can easily say that he has sufficient knowledge and experience in producing and executing strategies both in terms of infrastructure and in practice.
So what is Russia's geostrategy? Putin clearly expressed Russia's strategy and target and said that they wanted to have the sovereignty of the former Russian Empire. This geostrategy is defined by the famous Russian strategist Alexander Dugin as "Eurasian Geopolitics". According to Dugin, Russia naturally has the potential to become a global power due to its geography. Russia has mobilized this potential since the 1000s in the historical process and has assumed the role of a global actor in both the tsarist, USSR and RF periods.
Dugin explains the ways to make this geostrategy sustainable with the theory of vertical and horizontal axes. The vertical axis is the Kaliningrad-Crimea, that is, the Baltic Sea, Black Sea line. The horizontal axis is the southern line starting from the Caucasus and extending to Kyrgyzstan. According to Dugin, as long as Russia can control the horizontal and vertical axes, it will continue to play the role of a global actor. As a matter of fact, in every period of Russia's history, it has not been a spectator to the developments in its horizontal and vertical axes and has been interventionist. The way to protect the Russian mainland is to control the Baltic countries, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova on the vertical axis, and Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on the horizontal axis.
The control of the Baltic countries, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria through the Warsaw pact during the USSR period, the war with Finland, the constant threat over the Turkish Straits, the intervention in Afghanistan and the presence of forces in Syria during the RF period were the "additional elements of the geostrategy". They are proactive movements in terms of being "protected with a circle".
We briefly defined the Russian imperial geostrategy within the concept of Eurasian geopolitics. We assume that Putin, as someone who knows the Russian state mind, acts in accordance with this strategy. Well, who wouldn't benefit from Russia having such power and controlling the Eurasian mainland? The classic answer would be the West, namely the USA and NATO. However, let's also consider that after the collapse of the USSR, Russia lost its feature of being a global threat to the USA.
There may be some who say that Putin's Russia is recovering and taking steps towards becoming a global actor again, but the current parameters (economic, military, legal, human development) do not quite confirm this claim. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia has become a country that can be defined within the parameters of the capitalist system. It would be a very assertive statement to say that it can compete in the same lane with France, England, Germany or the USA, which have 200-300 years of capitalist experience.
Let's go back to our conspiracy theory again. So what kind of Russia does the West, and especially the USA, want? What would you say to a Russia that is friendly with the Western alliance and sided with the United States? As of today, while the Russian army is fighting in Ukraine and the entire Western alliance is imposing sanctions on Russia one after another, it seems surreal to say this, doesn't it? We are developing our conspiracy theory by saying why not.
It didn't take long for the Russian people to adopt the Western-style lifestyle that they were curious about after the collapse of the USSR. In a short time, McDonald's opened in the country. Shopping malls and famous brands began to appear. Thousands of Russian young people went to the West to study, marriage sites are full of Russian women who want to marry Westerners, Russians have started to spend their holidays in Turkey.
However, despite this change in the Russian people, the Russian state apparatus never adopted this change. For Putin, who took over the administration after Yeltsin, the current situation was almost humiliation of the Russian people. There were many obstacles in front of him. He used force in Chechnya and Ossetia, turned the situation in his favour, and lectured pro-Western Pashinyan in Armenia. With the rise in oil prices, he recovered the economy relatively, controlled the media and suppressed the opposition.
He strengthened his political power. While doing all this, he did not hesitate to cooperate with the rich, called the mafia-like oligarch, who is rich in natural resources.
If we consider the interventions in Chechnya and Ossetia as an internal problem, Putin's new Russia made its first global political debut by sending troops to Syria. For many Russians, a dream come true, Russia descended into the Mediterranean via Syria. It was not enough, Russia also showed a military presence in Libya. Putin's popularity was rising. Photographs of Putin appeared on social media, and Putin was described as the "new tsar". The pride of the Russian people, whose pride was hurt after the collapse of the USSR, was flattered. All heads of state came to Putin, Putin kept them waiting, and held long-distance talks at long tables. The dignity of the former USSR was restored.
The USA, on the other hand, intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq after being shot at home in the early 2000s, but things did not go as he had hoped. As a result, they left both countries hastily. In Europe, the supporter of the USA in every platform, the EU project was hit by the economic crisis and Brexit, and even the existence of the EU was questioned.
Macron said in 2019 that NATO, the Western defense alliance, was brain dead. Turkey, the West's invariable ally in the southeast, began to get closer to Russia under Erdogan, and began to limit its relations with the Western world. There was a disintegration in the Western alliance. In other words, while the star of Putin's Russia was shining, signs of disintegration began to be seen in the political, economic and military cooperation of the Western world.
But for the US, the real problem was in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. After Obama's second term, the issue of China began to come to the fore in US foreign policy. In fact, since the beginning of the 2000s, academic circles had determined and discussed that the strategic balance of power in the world was shifting towards China. However, these discussions were overshadowed by issues such as the September 11 attacks, the Iraq and Afghanistan operations, the mortgage crisis, and global terrorism.
In 2015, the US documented the rise of China and its impact on US security strategies. China began to take more place in the US foreign policy. China's increasing military presence in the South China Sea made the US's allies in the region such as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan open to possible nuclear and conventional interventions or threats by China. The U.S. revised its national security strategy and began to perceive China as the "main threat".
Of course, this threat was supported by China's increasingly huge production power and economy. With each passing year, China began to increase its defense spending. US strategy against China; It has given China the priority of threat in its foreign policy by basing it on the military power it will have in the region, the credibility of the dollar in international markets and its staying as the mainstay of the international financial system, technological leadership and China's lack of freedom, transparency and rule of law.
With Trump's coming to power, there has been a change in the US policy towards China. In the National Security and Strategy Document released in December 2017, the “Chinese threat” was clearly and emphatically featured. Measures to be taken against China were included in the document. China now inherited the "new great threat" from Russia and international terrorism. Measures such as the implementation of an economic embargo, raising customs tariffs in the iron and steel industry, and bringing back the American-origin production that shifted to China began to be implemented during the Trump era.
Currently, the military advantage of the USA over China is clear, there is no possibility of military conflict between the USA and China in the short term. However, it is a fact that China has taken giant strides in the defense industry.
US President Joe Biden was born in 1942. He is a lawyer. When he was elected to the Senate in 1972 at the age of 30, he took his place among the youngest senators in US history. Biden, who was elected to the Senate six times, served as vice president of Obama, who won the presidential election, from 2008 to 2012. As a politician, Biden lived through the events that shook the international political system such as the Vietnam War, the Cold War period, the disintegration of the USSR, the Yugoslavian intervention, the Iraq War, the 9/11 process, and the Afghanistan operation. We're talking about a 50-year-old politician. The purpose of giving this information is to remind those who describe Putin as a great chess master and strategist, and to remind that Biden's political talent is not inferior to Putin's. The USA could not put forward a comprehensive and integrated strategy against China due to the disorganization of the Western world during the Obama and Trump eras. Continuity is essential in US foreign policy. It would be naive to think that when Biden takes over the Presidency, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will ignore his warnings and thoughts on China.
On 22.02.2022, Putin made a statement on the local governments in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where there are separatist movements against Ukraine.
He declared that he recognized the independence of the soldiers, and 2 days later, the Russian army began a military intervention on the territory of Ukraine. The world was shocked, but of course, these developments did not happen in two days. The process that started with Russia's intervention in Crimea in 2014, the election of pro-Western Zelensky instead of pro-Russian Yanukovych, the escalation of tensions in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Ukraine's persistent desire to become a NATO and EU member, followed by the Russian army's decision to become a member of NATO and the EU months ago. With the strategic build-up and military exercises on the Ukrainian border, it developed until a hot conflict environment between Russia and Ukraine.
In the last stages of the crisis, the attitude of Western politicians was very remarkable. With their rhetoric, especially Biden, Boris Johnson, Macron and Scholz, they almost gave the green light to Putin's military operation in Ukraine. They said, "come, come," in common terms. Finally it was expected. With the intervention of Russia, all Western countries began to burden Putin unilaterally, the EU and NATO countries were consolidated, economic sanctions against Russia began to come one after another under the leadership of the USA. Even more interesting was that the defense resistance of Ukraine was increasing day by day. As of today, the operation has reached its 10th day, but the Russian army does not have a significant advantage. It was in this environment that "Putin fell into the trap of the West in Ukraine?" question began to be asked.
Now we're putting the big picture before us and we're back to our conspiracy theory. We said that the USA could not put forward a comprehensive and integrated strategy against China. We put the US policy on China in the center. It is obvious that a Russia with Putin will not support the US policies towards China. It is not possible for the USA to deal with China without winning Russia. A restructured Russia without Putin, integrated into the Western system, would be an invaluable ally for the US in its China policy.
The Russian-Ukrainian war pushed the EU and NATO countries to side with the United States and to question their security strategies again. Finland seeks NATO membership. The operation of the Russian army in Ukraine is uncertain and corrosive, and the Ukrainians are determined to resist under the leadership of their new hero, Zelensky. It seems that; Russia will not be able to get out of Ukraine easily. Even if it does, "failure" will be written in its name. In the beginning, the Russian people gave Putin approval for the operation, public opinion polls were in this direction, but it is said that this support is starting to decrease with each passing day. The more the sanctions hurt the Russian people, the more dissatisfaction will grow.
There is a tradition of coups in Russia, but these are always silent coups. I remember that in the USSR period, after Brezhnev, we often received news of the sudden death of the Politburo General Secretaries and their members. We know that Gorbachev was interned in Sochi. We all saw Yeltsin's resistance on the tank.
The question is; Are the bells ringing for Putin? In fact, Putin made a similar appeal to the Ukrainian Army for Zelensky. Will Putin live the end he wants for Zelenski himself? Now, let's read the following statements again and question how the Westerners personalize Russia's Ukraine operation in Putin's person through perception management, and whether the real target is Putin: The Western alliance will not cause him any problems, while the United States will remain neutral and even cooperate in the global leadership struggle with the "main threat" China. Does he want a Russia without Putin?
NATO Secretary General Stoltenbergh: This war is Putin's war.
US President Biden: Putin will pay for it
US Secretary of State Blinken: The cost will increase for Putin.
French President Macron: Putin chose the war decision alone and deliberately.
UK PM Johnson: Putin is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
