Commentary: The Russians are coming!

Why does Russia exact fear in our cumulative thinking? Why are Russians always the bad guys? Think about how Russia is portrayed in the media and the impact that has on our cumulative psyche. Much of that is a function of how Russia is portrayed in history, film and our daily news. Vladimir realizes this fear and plays upon it. His conventional forces have proven to be rather inept but his portrayal of a madman with nukes has paralyzed the world with fear and inaction.

Reflection time: in the early 1990s, the USSR dissolved, and we all had hope that Russia would join NATO and all would be good with the world. It started out that way with Boris Yeltsin but then things changed with the emergence of Vladimir Putin. George W. Bush tried to befriend Vladimir but it didn’t take.

In the Russian mindset, you are either strong or you are not. To the West, Russia is always the bad guy or the dubious actor that is at odds with our principles and normalcy. Even in the movie “Highlander”, the most feared of the immortals was the Kurgan – portrayed as a fierce Russian warrior who played the fearsome antagonist throughout the movie. The Kurgan’s Russian ancestry was an easy sell in the movie because the evil Russian villain was already a part of our collective awareness. If the Kurgan was French, Belgian, British or Italian – it is doubtful that his character would resonate the same.

Let’s step back through the last 100 years of Russian infamy. Remember the Ukrainian Holodomor of 1932 – the Stalin-led forced famine when Russians removed all the wheat from Ukraine resulting in the starvation of an estimated 8 million Ukrainians. That was followed up in the Second World War with the 1940 Katyn Forrest massacre. The Russians murdered 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia. The Russians celebrated victory over Hitler by raping the vanquished women and marching off millions of German soldiers to captivity – few returned. They also subjugated the countries of Eastern Europe to 45 years of servitude and sealed them off from the rest of the world. Over the next forty years, the USSR brutally squashed the Eastern European countries that expressed a desire for freedom. Recall the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the 1968 “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia. They also shot down commercial jetliners, provided haven for Red Brigade terrorists, terrorized the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis, started wars in Central America and Africa, invaded Afghanistan and outlawed free thinking and free press in all its spheres of influence. All of these actions shape Russia as the bad guy and permanently stamp Russia into our latitude of rejection and fear. After a lifetime of hearing about this ‘Evil Empire’ we accept it. Fear is a byproduct of this bad guy persona.

Lately in the news, when Vladimir Putin is blamed for poisoning Russians, killing local journalists and allowing Syrian President Assad to gas his population – we hardly take notice anymore – because that is expected of Russia. They are the Kurgan. I challenge you to find one movie that paints Russia in a friendly light. Subsequently, if there is a Boogie Man that keeps the United States up at nights, it’s Russia and its leadership. No other country’s leader acts with naked aggression while wielding the threat of nuclear holocaust and no other country is currently feared like Putin’s Russia.

While it is true the United States deploys more forces abroad than any other nation, most of the world does not expect to be thrust into servitude if we land upon their shores. We may travel over and conquer but we always depart after we’ve depleted our treasury rebuilding that which we destroyed while there. We are not conquerors that plant the flag. The Russians are the antithesis of the U.S. though. Once they’ve spent blood and treasure, they reap the benefits as the conquering victor. And from one perspective there is something to be said for that – but modernity comes with expectations. That is why we are all appalled with the Ukrainian invasion.

Russians as a people are harder than the West and distinctly less refined. I harken back to an interaction I had in the Balkans with a Russian soldier. While sitting in the back seat of a car with a Russian Special Ops soldier (Spetsnaz), I was taken aback by his ill-tempered disposition. His forearms were stone and his demeanor fierce. He evoked fear. He was all that I thought a Russian should be. So, as I sat next to him my fingers held tight the pistol in my coat. That was a function of fear – overflowing from all that encompassed my cognitive map of Russians. Fast forward to present day. In 2022 we cannot even process the horrors we see on TV as Russian forces terrorize a neighboring country of similar culture and history. The Russians are attacking with vehement aggression with no regard to civilian life. Perhaps they are acting out human instincts without the polishing of modern day civility and expectation. After all, in the words of General William Sherman, “War is cruelty and there is no refining it.”

Humans have always been a bit fearful of the black flag – meaning being fearful of those that are unbalanced in accordance with cultural norms and manners. Think Blackbeard the pirate and the menacing ruse he perpetrated during the heady days of piracy in America. Blackbeard won many engagements by notoriety alone. His fearsome reputation motivated many to surrender without a fight. He once terrorized the City of Charleston into surrendering a medicine chest under fear of bombardment. Fear is a strong emotion. Today Vladimir Putin plays this card better than all others. He simply publicizes that his nuclear forces have gone to DEFCON 1 and the U.S. and NATO stand down.

Russia in its name alone wields uncanny powers of persuasion as we see played out before us on TV now. The West has refined warfare to smart weaponry and expects the same of others – although these are means that are not prevalent in everyone’s arsenal. Smart weapons were initially showcased by General Norman Schwarzkopf in 1991. The Russians don’t seem to have many of these weapons yet. Subsequently, they must resort to indiscriminate bombing to destroy the target and all its surroundings.

In the words of Bodhi played by Patrick Swayze from the 1991 movie “Point Break”, “Fear causes hesitation and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.”  The West fears Vladimir and those fears are coming to us in vivid color as we watch Ukraine burn.