Russian President Vladimir Putin has numerous times now expressed Moscow’s readiness to engage in peace talks without ceasefire. So have other Russian officials. But there is no evidence that Moscow has pursued a back channel to begin talks, and it is highly unlikely that it has done or will do so.
Although in foreign diplomacy any public expression of willingness to talk is taken less seriously by others than is private communication of the same, the existence of the former and absence of the latter do not indicate that the public expressions of unwillingness to talk on Russia’s part are empty propaganda or misdirection. In reality, Moscow is ready for talks, but awaits from the West — Washington and or Brussels — a private or precise public request to begin talks.
There are at least two reasons for this. First, Moscow considers the war to be of the West’s making; one that the US and NATO forced on Russia by virtue of: NATO expansion (1997-present), the Maidan putsch (20 February 2014), the Maidan regime’s terrorist campaign against anti-Maidan protestors in Odessa and elsewhere, the Maidan regime’s ’anti-terrorist operation’ against Donbas’ (April 2014), the failure of Moscow’s ‘partners’ (the West and Maidan Kiev) to carry out the Minsk agreements (2015-present), and the NATOization of Ukraine and its military and intelligence services (2014-present). Therefore, the onus and blame for the war lies on the West and Ukraine. One needs only to read the 2008 memorandum sent to Washington by the then US ambassador to Moscow and today’s CIA Director William Burns, warning that NATO membership for Ukraine was a red line not just for Putin but for the entire Russian elite and would force Moscow to start a war it did not want (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html).
Burns could have included among Russia’s anti-NATO elements not just Putin and the elite but the overwhelming majority of the Russian people, whose historically traditional strategic culture’s security vigilance norm orients Russians to be suspicious of Western interference and on guard against Western military encroachment and invasion and, given the history of Russo-Western relations, understandably so [Gordon M. Hahn, Russia’s Western Dilemma: Security Vigilance and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland Books, 2021)]. As Putin noted in his Tucker Carlson interview, the West’s responsibility for the war requires that the West ‘correct its mistake’ and seek peace over NATO expansion and global hegemony. To this, must be added the other aspect of Russia’s “Western dilemma”— Russia’s historical attraction to that very same West that has repeatedly undermined its security. This desire be part of the West has made Western transgressions against Russia all the more perturbing and complicated the other factor requiring Western recognition of its mistakes—honor.
Andrei Tsygankov calls honor or sense of honor—a felt need to preserve one’s dignity and follow through on one’s declared commitments to a relevant social community. Although Tsygankov has underscored the often overlooked importance of honour in international relations, he ascribes a particularly strong sense of honor for Russia in the conduct of its foreign affairs. He cites Donald Kagan: “As a student of conflict acknowledges, pursuing and satisfying honor may be more difficult than than achieving material gains, and ‘the reader may be surprised by how small a role…considerations of practical utility and material gain, and even ambition for power itself, play in bringing on wars, and how often some aspect of honor is decisive.” Specifically, “(t)he world’s institutional arrangements, as well as alliances and power conquests, need to be understood in terms of their members’ social commitments.” Under Tsygankov’s constructivist approach, honor seemingly stands above a slew of attitudes, ideas, norms, and values shaping states’ perceptions of their national and security interests and comes in two forms: inner and outer honor. Inner honor relates to assessments relating to notions of ‘integrity,’ veracity,’ and ‘character’ of one’s obligations to a moral community of which one is a part. “Over time, through service to the community, inner honor also gains qualities of pride and dignity.” Outer honor is tied to assessment by others, defining one’s ‘reputation’ or good name’ and “underlies great power competition and imperial rivalry.” “If one’s reputation is besmirched, the pursuit of outer honor may lead its aspirants to competitive and even mutually destructive behaviour.” “In sum, honor requires trueness to one’s word when given on one’s honor; readiness to defend one’s home, and the right of oneself and one’s group, and to avenge violations [Andrei P. Tsygankov, Russia and the West from Alexander I to Putin: Honor in in International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 13-14]. What could be more insulting of national dignity, so destructive of Russia’s reputation, or more provocative of Moscow’s actions and felt need to demonstrate to its people the ability to avenge violations of its security committed by Russia’s main historical threat than the West’s three decades of ignoring, rejecting, and even denigrating Russia’s vital national security interest in the preservation of Ukraine as a more or less neutral buffer between its own territory and world history’s potentially most powerful military bloc—NATO?
Thus, in order to preserve its sense of honor Russia required conducting its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine and demands that the West recognise Russia’s national security interests as perceived by Russians and cease NATO’s eastward expansion to Ukraine, first of all, and elsewhere along Russia’s borders. Russia’s war in Ukraine is an exercise in not just security protection but honor preservation, both defined by Russian perceptions of its history of relations with the West as one of repeated acts of subversive influence, political interference, military-political intervention, and military invasion. Final preservation of Russian honor requires the appearance of victory before its people (inner honor) and acknowledgement by the West and even the world of Washington’s responsibility if not NATO’s full defeat in the Russo-NATO conflict over NATO membership in Ukraine (outer honor). These, in turn, require that the West come hat-in-hand and head bowed to the Kremlin, if you will, in repentance for its ambition and arrogance vis-a-vis Russia, and this requires Washington and Brussels requesting peace talks as Russia’s threat to what remains of Ukrainian territory mounts in the present ‘summer’ offensive.
Russia requires restoration of its honor against the humiliation of NATO expansion, Maidan, NATOization of Ukrane. But the West also requires submission to its power — itself now an item of honor. The end of NATO’s march east and Western hegemony are points of economic and political interest, power anbition, and honor. Thus, both sides continue to escalate the crisis. It is worth repeating Tsygankov’s summary point noted above: we may all become quite impressed by “how small a role…considerations of practical utility and material gain, and even ambition for power itself, play in bringing on wars, and how often some aspect of honor is decisive. In the making of the more full-scale, direct NATO-Russia Ukrainian War seemingly to come, honor may indeed prove to be a decisive as Russian security-protection and Western power expansion.
A third reason is that, contrary to Western politicians’ and propagandists’ claims, Russia is winning the war and is likely to be doing so ever more decisively throughout this year. As the front and likely the Ukrainian army and perhaps state collapse over the next year or so, the West will have little choice: either request peace talks and accept a neutral, rump Ukraine or join the war full-scale with NATO troops. In the latter event, the West will exchange security for preservation of its honor. Russia will have done the same but unwittingly and unwillingly. The security dilemma will become the end of security for all.
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NEW BOOK
EUROPE BOOKS, 2022
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RECENT BOOKS
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021
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MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.