In light of the wreckage that the world has now become, does Putin deserve to be viewed through a milder, gentler lens? Are his transgressions unforgivable?
As US President Donald J. Trump marks his first year in office by expanding his wish list from making Canada the 51st State of America to seizing and renaming the Panama Canal, and now taking Greenland by any means, if he cannot get the Nobel Peace Prize, spare a thought for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The world has been unfair to him.
In one year, Trump has indulged in some of his tastiest treats from the world’s biggest candy stores, the most gratifying of which must be capturing Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. President Trump even briefly announced himself as “acting president” after seizing control of the country, which has the world's largest oil deposits.
In 365 days…
Trump’s first year in office must be making Putin wonder what he has done to be classified among the world’s most despised, with descriptions of him ranging from a tyrant and outlaw to a potential war criminal.
In light of the wreckage that the world has now become, does Putin deserve to be viewed through a milder, gentler lens? Are his transgressions unforgivable?
Putin’s sins
When the Russian President annexed Crimea 12 years ago, the world was outraged. The United Nations declared the annexation illegal, and the US and Europe imposed limited sanctions on Russia. But Putin had only just started with Ukraine.
He consolidated his grip on Crimea, arguing that the resort, which hosts Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, is strategically important to Russia and that its loss would weaken Russia’s naval position. And in case the world had forgotten, he reminded us that Crimea was a part of Russia until 1954, when it was transferred to Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union.
Cost of war
In Russia, Putin framed the annexation as a response to the historical injustice by the US and Western Europe to emasculate, weaken and encircle Russia. Putin defied Western economic sanctions, and eight years after annexing Crimea, he made an even more audacious move by launching an all-out war on Ukraine.
In the last four years of the war, the estimated total casualty figures have ranged from 980,000 to 1.4 million, with civilian deaths as high as over 14,000, minus the wounded and millions more displaced. The Russia-Ukraine war is the bloodiest in Europe since World War II. Yet, there’s no end in sight, mainly because Putin insists that he won’t stop except Ukraine gives up territory currently occupied by Russian forces, a concession that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is unwilling to make.
Greenland by all means?
Putin’s demands, as unreasonable and unjustified as they may be, have paled into insignificance since the scandalous demand by President Trump that the US must have Greenland, by any means possible.
If Trump believes that he can grab Greenland and plant the US flag in Nuuk, whether the people like it or not, because he was denied the Nobel Peace Prize as he told the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a text message, why is Russia, which has an even more substantial stake in Ukraine, being condemned, ostracised and punished, while Trump gets ego massage?
Putin has argued that the war with Ukraine is a matter of Russia’s survival, insisting that after the former Soviet Union broke up into 15 states, there was an agreement between President Mikhail Gorbachev and the West in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastward. That agreement has been widely cited in credible diplomatic circles.
NATO has denied the existence of such an agreement, but has barely hidden its subversive encouragement in bringing three countries under the former Soviet Union into its fold, virtually encircling Russia. For Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is his last stand, his push, after Crimea, for Russia’s modern-day Danzig (the crucial trigger for World War II).
Leprosy for ringworm
Yet, Putin’s excuses have not impressed a world that has treated Trump’s leprosy as ringworm. The US president has threatened Cuba, lashed out at the Mexican president, called Europe’s leaders wimps, and, after capturing a sitting president and his wife, described himself as the “acting president” of that country.
NATO can’t tell him that he cannot have Greenland. Instead, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, they steered him away from his delusional request by promising him a bigger piece of real estate in the larger Arctic, something like a pie in the moon, where he can build the next Trump Tower!
Apology for Putin
Perhaps, it’s not only Putin that the world owes an apology. Compared to Trump’s claim over Greenland despite the rejection of the citizens and the exasperation of Denmark, China’s frosty relationship with Taiwan is like a love story. Taiwan was a part of China until after the civil war in 1949, when the Communists won control of mainland China and Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic in Beijing, forcing the Nationalist government to retreat to Taiwan.
In the Trump world, Xi Jinping would be justified in moving from the rhetoric of one-China to complete military occupation of Taipei, as Kim Jong Un would be welcome to roll out the tanks to occupy Seoul. In a way, a homegrown variety of this insanity in Africa would be for Morocco to seize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), or for Nigeria to insist on taking the Bakassi Peninsula from Cameroon by force, rather than submitting to adjudication.
Return to Hobbes
It’s convenient to argue, from the realist point of view, that any country that can, will do as it pleases – after all, the strong never failed to have the weak for lunch.
That was the Hobbesian state until two world wars, several other man-made tragedies, and a recent pandemic, which we are yet to recover fully from, taught the world that cooperation, collaboration, and multilateralism were the best way to go. As one of Europe’s most syndicated journalists, Jonathan Power, once wrote, “The 21st century thus far is the least violent and safest century of all – despite the wars in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, etc.”
If the price for world peace is to award President Trump a Nobel Peace Prize for ending eight wars, a delusion he firmly believes, then we should indulge his fantasy by granting this fervent wish. But since it would be grossly unfair to exclude Putin, or to ignore Xi, Kim or even Benjamin Netanyahu from such a list, it would not be a bad idea to propose to the Norwegian Nobel Committee a once-in-a-lifetime, first and last Nobel Peace Prize Quintet 2026, for all five.
Then, at least, we can be sure that the remaining three years of the Trump presidency will be bereft of tantrums, insults, and relentless threats to weaponise tariffs. Thank you for paying attention to this matter!