The Cornered Beast's Anxious Struggle—An Analysis of the Russia-Ukraine War
To understand the character of the Russian nation, one must first understand Russia's geography. Although Russia is the largest country in the world by land area, three-quarters of its territory is unfit for human habitation; most of Russia is a bitter cold land. Across the vast expanse of Siberia, the average population density is under one person per square kilometer. This region is among the hardest on earth to develop; its sparse population makes logistics extremely costly, and commercial development has been fatally hampered.
The cold climate has had a profound influence on the Russian people. Vodka is a national label of Russia, perhaps because alcohol drives away the cold. The protagonists in Russian novels are often in a perpetual state of drunkenness. Alcoholism is entirely normal for Russians; in Russian winters, drunks freezing to death on the streets are a common sight.
Counterfeit alcohol is rampant in Russia, so Russian funeral homes often see the scene of an entire family dying together from drinking fake liquor. Russia once banned alcohol, but such a deeply rooted folk custom is hard to eradicate; the moment control loosens, drinking Russians revert to their old ways.
Alcohol has altered the Russian national gene. We know that drunks are mostly impulsive and aggressive, and Russians' impulsive aggressiveness is world-famous. We often call Russians a "fighting nation," and this is no empty phrase. Since ancient times Russians have been accustomed to raiding in all directions, which is how Russia became the largest country on earth. Large swaths of Chinese territory were also seized by Russia—Vladivostok (Haishenwai) was once Chinese territory, governed by the Jilin General under the Qing Dynasty, and Outer Mongolia was also split from China under Russian coercion. A century ago, Russia's playbook for dismembering China and seizing Chinese territory is identical to today's Russia dismembering Ukraine and seizing Ukrainian territory. This is a habitual way of thinking formed in the Russian people; historians generally attribute it to the nomadic peoples of the cold lands coveting the living resources of the agricultural peoples on the plains.
Merchants from Fuxin in Liaoning, Xinji and Daying of Zaoqiang in Hebei, and Haining in Zhejiang know the Russian character deeply, because these places produce fur. Russians consume more than half of all furs produced, and many Chinese fur merchants do business year-round in Moscow's Chinese market. Russians are not as diligent and frugal as the Chinese; most are relatively lazy and do not save. They spend all their money as soon as they have it, because Russia's economy is stagnant, inflation is severe, and the ruble depreciates fast, so saving is a losing proposition. A bad economy, combined with Russians' heavy drinking, makes Russia's public security poor; Chinese-market merchants are often robbed by Russian thugs, and the Russian police basically turn a blind eye. Reporting a robbery in Russia is useless, and Chinese merchants mostly take the loss as the price of buying safety and do not press the matter.
Economic depression has produced many social problems in Russia. The birth rate falls year by year; working-age people emigrate abroad seeking opportunity, so Russia's population shrinks faster and faster. In 2021, economic factors and the pandemic drove Russia's population decline to a record high.
Russia also ranks among the world's highest in the incidence of mental disorders. As early as 2004, Russian experts conducted a five-year survey showing that, afflicted by life troubles and social pressure, Russians' psychological state had markedly deteriorated: about 3.8 million Russians had severe psychological problems (roughly 2.6% of the population), another 14 million needed psychological treatment of varying degrees, and the number of Russians disabled by mental illness had risen by about 50%. Because so many people have alcohol dependence, the proportion of Russians suffering from depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, and other common mental illnesses is high.
Putin once tried every means to raise Russia's birth rate, but his package of pro-natalist policies only slowed the decline for a few years, after which the birth rate resumed its fast downward track. Russia is not an immigrant country, and its stagnant economy has made it unattractive to overseas migrants, so the country's shrinking population gives its leadership a major headache.
Russian leaders are mostly strong-willed. Setting aside the distant past, modern-era figures—Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Yeltsin, and Putin—are all of this temperament. This has habituated Russia to dealing with other countries in a high-handed manner, so it often lands itself in diplomatic trouble, greatly weakening its international cooperation and economic development. Among major world powers, Russia's economic decline is the most striking. Along with decline comes social instability: in recent years Russia has been rife with corruption, people's livelihoods have withered, and public security has worsened.
This declining empire is like an anxious, cornered beast, lunging left and right in modern times, hoping to find a breakthrough to improve people's lives and social stability. But things have not gone its way: domestic contradictions must be externalized into international ones, and international contradictions in turn sharpen domestic ones. On the surface the Russia-Ukraine war was caused by NATO's steady pressure; in reality Russia's biggest problem is self-inflicted trouble from its own economic depression.
The Russian people have an innate disadvantage in developing an economy. Their geography makes commerce hard to develop; light industry requires dense labor, which is also a hardship for Russia. Moreover Russia lies in the cold zone, and its people are not as industrious as the Chinese. Most Russians are relatively lazy, muddling along; when they cannot get by, they drink or loot.
When Russia seized Haishenwai (Vladivostok) from China and split off Outer Mongolia, it also claimed that China threatened Russia. In reality, neither the Qing government nor the Nationalist government could even look after themselves at the time and could hardly threaten Russia. The root cause was still Russia's own resource and population strain destabilizing its internal affairs; Russia needed to launch wars of aggression to relieve its domestic contradictions.
Today's Russia has inherited Russia's historical genes. Russians are not only warlike but skilled at fighting and highly skilled at disguise. Putin has this time brilliantly displayed the Russian talent for disguise: most of the world never expected that, after pressing forward step by step and achieving his political aims, he would still launch a war. Putin had previously vowed that Russia did not aim to invade Ukraine and only required Ukraine to meet his conditions. But the moment Ukraine agreed to negotiate, Putin launched the war—something even many of his own aides did not expect.
This may relate in part to Putin's personal character. He comes from the KGB and has long been accustomed to the maxim that in war, deception is no fault. Promises from someone with a spy background are not very reliable, and such people do not easily trust others. Looking back now, we see that Putin has both distrusted and courted China and India. Attending the Winter Olympics, he reached a series of agreements with China as a fallback after war broke out. Yet he also courted India, selling it high-end weapons, driving the two large powers with territorial disputes into tension and confrontation so as to contain China; thus toward China he simultaneously wants cooperation and distrust.
If we examine Putin's upbringing and the pressures he faces from a psychiatric and psychological standpoint, we have reason to suspect he is tormented by anxiety and fear. Putin once sought legislative protection for himself out of fear that domestic instability would endanger him and his family—this reflects his inner anxiety. More internal material on Putin's mental health may emerge later; future psychiatrists will make more accurate judgments on the basis of it. After World War II, people also found that Hitler, who started the war, had a mental illness (bipolar disorder or schizophrenia) and long took stimulants and antipsychotic drugs. Churchill, forced into the war, was a famous depressive; Mussolini also had bipolar tendencies. So it would not be surprising if Putin also had poor mental health.
The Russia-Ukraine war is a good opportunity for Putin to shift domestic political pressure, but it carries great risk. If the war can begin and end as a blitzkrieg and Ukraine is willing to yield, Putin stands to gain a great deal. But if it turns into a long war of attrition, Russia will be gravely weakened. War is perilous: fighting is never only at the front; more importantly, the rear must supply men and money. International blockade and sanctions against Russia, combined with prolonged Ukrainian guerrilla and street fighting, will plunge a Russia already depressed and hard-hit by the pandemic into even deeper hardship. If domestic forces opposing Putin rise up in the meantime, Putin will be in big trouble.
Russia has the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal, but Putin probably cannot easily use it. Even if he holds the nuclear button, those below him carrying out a nuclear-strike order will surely weigh whether they want to perish with Putin along with the whole world. Late in Trump's term, the U.S. military was already considering not letting a capricious Trump start a war at will. Russia's ruling class is not monolithic; internal voices opposing Putin's war are not few. Putin has been weak in anti-corruption and pandemic control; economic depression and inflation have already made Russians suffer. If the war drags Russia into an even deeper quagmire, ordinary Russians will feel the pain index rise in earnest. The domestic pressure Putin faces is far greater than the international pressure, and what he can do is limited.
So whether this war gamble is a blessing or a curse for Russia is unclear for now. Ukraine and NATO are not fools; they may prefer to drag the war into a protracted conflict that inflicts enormous economic attrition on Russia. Ukraine is unlikely in the short term to accept Putin's dictate imposed at the gates; perhaps this war will leave Russia with nothing, instead deepening its depression and the people's hardship.
Is it necessary for other countries to follow Putin into this muddy water? Putin of course wants more helpers, but I believe other countries' support for Russia is limited; they will not sacrifice their own economic interests and alienate the whole world for Russia. Action and reaction are equal: while Putin is suspicious of other countries, they in turn will keep their distance from Putin. Putin's political wisdom is limited.
China will certainly not wade in. Historically we have suffered huge losses at Russia's hands too many times—we suffered greatly over Haishenwai and Outer Mongolia, and again during the Sino-Soviet split in the mid-20th century. Most of our current leadership personally lived through these events and will not forget them so quickly. Besides, the Indians are eyeing China's South Tibet with the very weapons the Russians sold them. Would Putin willingly give up that support for India in order to prove the purity of his friendship with China?
War has no winners. Those who die in war are all innocent; war only deepens hatred and cannot make hatred disappear through submission. I hope the parties concerned recognize the danger of war. Today's world is already on the brink of a third world war, with nuclear war about to ignite. Manufacturing such a crisis is irresponsible to all humanity; doing something that harms others without benefiting oneself is irrational.
Russia's problems stem both from long-term international blockade and from the Russian nation itself. In the final analysis, the root cause of war lies in unbalanced global development. Throughout human history, wars have broken out after every great plague, because plagues aggravate uneven social development. In an age of globalization, world leaders may need to seriously consider balanced development. If countries continue to act in isolation and remain numb to the suffering of backward regions and the poor, ultimately no one may escape the turmoil. When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact; once war is lit, it is not easy to put out.
Peace is hard-won; these are not empty words.