Putin's Calculation for War Is Sincere

One false motive frequently attributed to Putin in the media is that the crisis over Ukraine is a diversionary conflict. In this formulation, Putin is losing popularity with the Russian electorate, whose per capita income wealth has stagnated and is now less than China's, and this has generated discontent, and so Putin needs to gamble on a war to achieve his political resurrection. It is thought that countries that go to war will generate a rally-around the flag effect, in which people will support the leader as a symbol of the nation, generating popularity. This is a flawed theory that is commonly repeated in the media and does not apply to Russia for a number of reasons.

First, because war is so risky, even when leaders exaggerate the likelihood of victory, diversionary war must promise a huge payoff in popularity for a very desperate leader. Popularity increases for the U.S. president resulting from conflictual foreign policy are typically 4 to 5 percent, whereas Margaret Thatcher's victory in the Falklands War generated a 6 percent favorable increase in the polls. Putin is not in sufficient electoral peril, as commonly depicted in the West, to risk a war to generate a paltry increase in popularity. Putin is more divisive than unpopular, with strong support in a substantial Russian minority, which is nevertheless decisive in Russia’s system of hybrid proportional representation and party lists. His illiberal tactics of disqualifying, jailing and assassinating his opponents, and rigging elections, solidifies his minority hold on the state of Russia. Second, an important consideration is what happens if the leader falls from power due to unpopularity versus losing a war. Putin's seemingly strong support in the intelligence services and military assures him the ability to counterbalance the oligarchs who would be in a position to fund alternate political players. This apparatus is strong enough that it may be inheritable if Putin can cultivate a successor, which means he may be able to avoid jail, even if there is a strong liberal electoral shift in Russia within a generation. A military defeat, however, would disrupt the legitimacy of one of the pillars of Putin's support, and defeated leaders in illiberal democracies may lose power, lose their accumulated wealth, and suffer jail time. Third, the rally-around the flag effect of war is short-lived, typically lasting a few months, assuming war is not a quagmire and has never produced a decisive electoral shift that counterbalances more salient issues like employment and inflation.

The biggest flaw with diversionary theories of war is that it assumes that leaders pursue popular goals solely for their electoral benefit and not for their intrinsic value. However, in the most cited diversionary example, the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Las Malvinas/Falklands, the prevailing evidence today is that Argentinian General Leopoldo Galtieri authorized the invasion, not to cement his faltering regime, but because he and most Argentines actually believed that the islands legitimately belonged to Argentina. The timing of the invasion was not related to the economy but rather was a policy concession by Galtieri to the Argentine Navy’s invasion plan in exchange for support for his military junta. It is a common misperception that when foreign leaders submit to pressure, they are rational, but when they resist, it is assumed they are behaving irrationally in response to some opaque domestic dynamic. 

Putin has support among nationalist Russians because he is pursuing nationalist goals. Putin could more easily avoid the cost and consequences of foreign adventures, such as Syria and elsewhere, and remain in power with less risk, but he does not. In the absence of defensible frontiers, the Russian sense of security is in the form of territorial depth. Russia faces all the issues of a non-assimilating multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, including secessionism and associated terrorism, and may one day face irredentism.

Putin is pessimistic on Russian security, with stagnant economic growth outside of the energy economy, its displacement as a power by the rapid rise of China, with which it shares an uncomfortable frontier, and an absolute decline in its population due to emigration and a low birth rate. Many in Russia fear that a rise of liberalism in Russia will weaken the state and cause a return to the corruption and instability of the 1990s and lead to the disintegration of Russia as its incorporated minorities agitate for independence. Russians remember their defeat and resistance by the Chechens between 1994 and 2009. Russia could face a breakup far less cleanly than did the Soviet Union. Russia is only eighty percent Russian, with six other ethnic groups constituting more than a million people, and therefore potential sources of agitation for independence. Putin is therefore trying to shore up Russian power during this period of decline.

Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University (Montreal), former army engineer officer, and has written extensively on Pakistan, where he conducted field research for over ten years.