Paul deLespinasse: Will Vladimir Putin make Russia great again?

The countries that I studied the most during my career were the United States and the Soviet Union, which broke up in 1991 into 15 separate countries including Russia and Ukraine. Although I only spent two months in the Soviet Union, as it was nearing its end, I retain a great interest in Russia and sympathy for its long-suffering people.

It bothers me when good-hearted people at my church call for prayers for the people of Ukraine, but express no concern about the people of Russia. Although Russian cities are not being bombed, many Russians have been persuaded or dragooned into joining the military forces and are suffering huge casualties in Russia's outrageous "special military operation" against Ukraine.

Many other young Russians have disrupted their personal lives by fleeing to other countries to avoid being forced into military slavery and sent to Ukraine. The Russian economy is suffering from the trade embargoes inflicted (quite properly) by the United States and its NATO allies, and what hurts the economy inevitably hurts the people who live there.

I devoutly wish Vladimir Putin would put a quick end to this ridiculous war and cultivate his own garden rather than trying to enlarge it by force. But apparently, he has bigger fish to fry.

Early in his presidency, Putin complained that the breakup of the Soviet Union was a "major geopolitical catastrophe," which it no doubt was. But he should remember the lesson from the famous Humpty Dumpty story where, after his "great fall," it turned out that "all the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again."

As Thomas I. Cook, chair of the Johns Hopkins University political science department when I was studying there, put it, there is no such thing as an egg unscrambler.

But it is looking more and more as if Putin is trying to "MAKE RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN."

If he could put that slogan on a hat, what color should it be? The Communists ruled the Soviet Union under the red flag, but Putin does not want to bring the Communists back. Anyway, that color has already been used on another famous hat.

The Ukrainians obviously do not share Putin's enthusiasm for making Russia great again, and I doubt whether most people living in the other countries that were once part of the Soviet Union would feel much differently. Several of these countries have joined NATO or expressed interest in doing so.

There is no need to make Russia great "again." Russia has had a great culture for centuries: writers, musicians, scientists. Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Mendeelev and Sakharov come to mind. Like all countries, Russia has much to be ashamed of, but also much to be proud of.

Centuries ago several of today's European countries were striving to take over additional territory. They have now backed off from military expansion and are concentrating on governing their inhabitants well rather than enlarging themselves.

Would that Russia would soon develop a similar change of heart, stop trying to take control over nearby countries, and become a peaceful and prosperous part of a peaceful and prosperous Europe.

By invading Ukraine, though, Russia may be giving ideas to the leaders of a nearby country that is vastly bigger, vastly richer, and quite possibly hungry for grabbing additional real estate on which it could settle its huge population. Vast parts of the Siberian parts of eastern Russia are thinly populated and close to China, which shares a long border with Russia.

It would be ironic if Putin's attempt to make Russia great again were to lead to loss of a great deal of Russian territory. And in clamping down on Russians who oppose the Ukraine war, Moscow may be creating conditions such that Siberian residents might regard living in China — no paragon when it comes to civil liberties — as an improvement over being governed from Moscow.

— Paul F. deLespinasse is professor emeritus of political science and computer science at Adrian College. He can be reached at pdeles@proaxis.com.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Paul deLespinasse: Will Vladimir Putin make Russia great again?