The purpose here is not to paint Vladimir Putin as a saint. He is not. But some seem content to describe him as the devil incarnate, and that is equally wrong. He is an unabashed, enthusiastic, authoritarian nationalist with a Christian bent. For those who consider him an enemy, Sun Tzu offers wisdom worth heeding: if you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
The ignorance in America and Europe about the real Putin is staggering. The media serves up a cartoon villain, updated for each news cycle. Hitler, they call him. Show me the Mein Kampf. Show me the concentration camps for Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals. They do not exist, because that is not who he is.
Kleptocrat in league with oligarchs, they say. The actual facts are more nuanced. Shortly after taking power in 2000, Putin gathered the eighteen most powerful businessmen in Russia and put them on notice: the looting was over. Mikhail Khodorkovsky went to prison. Boris Berezovsky fled to London. Vladimir Gusinsky lost his media empire. The message was clear: show loyalty to the Kremlin or face an uncertain future. Most chose loyalty. The ones who didn’t paid the price.
This is not the behavior of a kleptocrat. This is the behavior of a man consolidating state power against those who had been looting it.
Putin is an Orthodox Christian. Consider what he has said about moral values. Without the moral values rooted in Christianity and other world religions, he argues, people will inevitably lose their human dignity. Russia thinks it right and natural to defend and preserve these values. He signed legislation making religious education mandatory in schools. He banned homosexual propaganda. He criminalized insulting religious sensibilities.
These are not communist policies. Stalin persecuted Christians. Putin builds cathedrals and invites patriarchs to bless his initiatives. His beliefs about moral decay in the West reflect Billy Graham more than Joseph Stalin. In his 2014 State of the Nation address, he said that many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. Policies are being pursued, he said, that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan.
One may argue whether he is a good Christian. That is not the point. He has professed his belief publicly and taken political actions consistent with those beliefs. That matters.
Take him at face value. He is a committed Russia First political leader. He has put the West on notice that he will no longer allow Russia to be bullied or blackmailed by NATO expansion and the arming of nations on his border. This sounds like a Russian version of the Monroe Doctrine. How would the American public react if Russia or China armed Mexico with nuclear weapons or advanced air defense systems? The question answers itself.
Sun Tzu was right. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. The West has convinced itself that Putin is a madman, a Hitler, a Stalin, a kleptocrat, a puppet master. He is none of those things. He is a Russian nationalist with authoritarian instincts and Christian convictions, determined to restore his country’s position in the world and defend its interests against what he sees as Western encroachment.
Understanding that does not mean agreeing with it. It means knowing your enemy. And knowing your enemy is the first requirement of not losing.
