Putin Pouts

Truth be known I once rather admired Vladimir Putin, as George W. Bush rather admired him. I cannot say as Bush can that I looked into his eyes and “was able to get a sense of his soul.” But his nation has suffered so long through a century when the Western world had achieved so much. True, the Russian despots put the Western world through dreadful travail, but in terms of wealth and happiness we did okay. The 20th century has for the West been the best by far, at least in material terms. Meanwhile the Russian despots were for their countrymen veritable jailers and they cost them dearly. Russia at the end of the Cold War was an emerging nation.

Yet in Putin here was a man who might bring the Russians into the modern world. In fact, when he came to the presidency Russia was doing just that, arriving in the modern world with freedom, a semblance of the rule of law, and a rich countryside on which the liberated Russians could apply their variegated talents. It looked to me like Putin might be just the man to lead the gifted Russian people to success in the world community. Besides he was in the prime of middle age and with regularity retired to the gym at the end of a busy day. Just as George W. did, and, for that matter, me. How could I not have admiration for a man who challenged the vicissitudes of aging?

Alas Putin has turned out to be, as Holman H. Jenkins, Jr. said in the Wall Street Journal last week, a “gambler” whose gambits in the Middle East now testify to “the unhealthiness of his domestic political situation.” In his reckless roll of the dice he has cost 224 Russian lives returning home from a holiday in Egypt. Now he has cost the lives of two of his airmen, and lost a fighter plane and a helicopter on a rescue mission. What has he got to show for his recklessness? His economy is, as I predicted a year or so ago, in the tank. It has mainly been based on the price of oil. Most vigorous economies such as Korea and the Czech Republic rely on manufacturing for at least 20 percent of their economic growth. In Putin’s Russia the figure was 15 percent in 2014, possibly lower. According to the International Monetary Fund, if you left out oil and gas Russia’s non-oil revenues were descending to an 11 percent deficit of GDP. Yet Putin continued his military buildup.

The buildup was premised on $100-a-barrel oil. That price has now been halved. Recently Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov reported, “For the first half of the year, Russia’s arms industries only fulfilled 38 percent of their contracts.” Such is the state of the Russian economy that its military spending, which ranked the third-highest in the world last year, now ranks seventh or eighth. And the economic picture is worsening. Military shipments are missing their targets and their quality is dubious.

Yet Putin’s commitments in Crimea and the Middle East have actually grown. He is even shaking his fist at Turkey and NATO. He is regularly pictured with the same dour expression on his face as when he was photographed shirtless seated on that horse. At least sitting there shirtless on that horse he was facing in the same direction as the horse. Considering how things have been going for him in the Middle East, he might have been seated gazing out across the horse’s rump. In his trademark pose he has raised a perpetual pout to the level of fierce defiance. Yet whom is he defying? Our president? The guy who is famous for changing American strategy, at least for now, and leading from behind?

President Putin is engaged in propping up Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. He is also promising to bring down ISIS. France, after suffering a cruel ISIS attack at home, is trying to summon the Western powers and Russia against ISIS. Russia has its own bloody history with homegrown Islamists. Now would be a good time to disengage from Assad and join the French in finishing off ISIS and bringing stability to the Middle East. Putin could defy our President to his heart’s content and join the rest of the civilized world by leading from the middle. He would not have to miss a night at the gym.