What Putin Fears

There is an excellent article in Jan/Feb 2018 The Atlantic by Julia Ioffe titled, "What Putin Really Wants."  But as I read further into this article, I concluded that it was primarily about Putin's deep-seated fears of 1) a coming Russian collapse which, of course, would take him down, or 2) a U.S. sponsored regime change which would depose him.  One of the reasons he hacked into the U.S. elections was to try to defeat Clinton who he thought would try to depose him.

The following are quotations from the Atlantic article:

"But most Russians don't recognize the Russia portrayed in this [American]story:  powerful, organized, and led by an omniscient, omnipotent leader who is able to both formulate and execute a complex and highly detailed plot."

"A businessman who is high up in Putin's United Russia party said, "everything in Russia works poorly. . . . Rosneft --- the state-owned oil giant---doesn't work well.  Our health-care system doesn't work well.  Our education system doesn't work well. . . . "

And it [hacking of America] is classically Putin, and classically Russian:  using daring aggression to mask weakness, to avenge deep resentments, and, at all costs, to survive."

Putin believes:  "Under the guise of promoting democracy and human rights, Washington had returned to its Cold War---era policy of deposing and installing foreign leaders.  Even the open use of military force was now fair game."

"You toppled the most successful government in North Africa [Libya]. . . . In the end, we got a ruined government. a brutally murdered American ambassador, chaos, and Islamic radicals."

"Putin had always been suspicious of democracy promotion, but two moments convinced him that America was coming for him under its guise."  The two recent historical incidents were Libya and the Ukraine.  In 2013, the pro-Russian Ukrainian president was overthrown and a pro-Western government installed.  "To Putin, it was clear what had happened:  American had toppled his closest ally, in a country he regarded as an extension of Russia itself."

"Putin loathes revolutions. . . . Putin governs with the twin collapses of 1917 and 1991 at the forefront of his mind.  He fears for himself when another collapse comes. . . . He is constantly trying to avoid it."  The weak economy and widespread corruption is leading to an imminent collapse, it is widely believed.

"Meanwhile, the already sluggish Russian economy has lost cheap Western financing, following the imposition of American and European sanctions.  Putin's response to those sanctions---banning food imports from the United States and the EU---made food prices climb by double-digit percentages.  The economy sank into a recession."

"Ironically, Putin has laid the groundwork for exactly the kind of chaotic collapse that he has spent his political life trying to avoid, the kind of collapse that gave rise to his reign."