The Russian Federation Is Not A Historical Fact

As part of the justification for going to war with Ukraine, Putin has denied that Ukraine was ever a real state, that the country was an integral part of Russia’s own history, culture, and spiritual space. This claim is then associated with a desire to protect – to protect the good Russian citizens living inside Ukraine at the mercy of a non-Russian Nazi state.

I want to make the exact same argument about Russia now. Since Putin argues that Ukraine and Russia share heritage, then he must concede that the heritage comes from Kievan Rus roots. The Kievan Rus are essentially the same people as their better known Viking counterparts. The Rus people originated in Scandinavia (likely modern Sweden or Norway) and conquered swathes of territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

When Putin claimed that Ukraine has always belonged to Russia, I instead make the claim that many parts of Russia don’t historically belong to Russia at all. Consider, in line with our previous claim, that the Swedish Empire owned the shores of much of the Baltic – including lands currently occupied by the Russian Federation today (see a picture of the Swedish Empire’s historical boundaries).

Consider that Putin claims Nazis – therefore fascists control Ukraine. Since there’s no evidence that the alleged Nazis of Ukraine have been waging any genocide or denigrating the rights of Jews, we can just call them alleged fascists instead. Fascism implies a central command structure over the economy with the principal goal of achieving economic self sufficiency and sustaining military expansionism.

Figure 1: The Swedish Empire’s Historical Extent

Under fascist direction, the state mobilizes its citizens people for war and supports them logistically to that end in the belief that war will rejuvenate the nation. Fascist states are one-party, and run by a single strong leader. While all this description doesn’t quite align to Ukraine’s economic and political model since they ousted the Russian-supported political regime imposed on it in 2014, it does fit quite well with Russia’s. Russia has a one-party state run by a near dictator that assassinates any opposition quite liberally. ‘Fortress Russia’ economic concepts revolve around self sufficiency, and the state happily employs the military to expand into neighboring territories such as Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014 and now), Moldova (1990), and Chechnya (1990’s). The military adventurism is also attached to rejuvenation in the hopes that rejuvenation is tied to imperialism and reforging the USSR.

So there we have it. The Russian federation is run by fascists who have oppressed their Scandinavian subjects for far too long. It is the duty of every citizen to remove the fascists from power and seek liberalization, and it is the duty of Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland, and Sweden to undertake a special military operation to free Russia from Putin and his fascists.

We could easily apply Putin’s flawed argument to other nations and nationalities including but not at all limited to Poland, Turkey (through the Ottoman Empire – don’t forget they also owned Crimea), China, Lithuania, Germany, Japan, and Mongolia. States are inherently social constructs created by those with power in the present, and cultural practices are porous shift – there is no ‘foreverness’ or absolutes to race or nationality beyond what some choose to impose upon it. To pretend anything otherwise is a foolish historical fallacy.

But what of the argument – most notably made by UChicago’s Mearsheimer – that expanding NATO caused Russia to strike out.[1]

I respond with a question: why can’t Russia join NATO? NATO is a defensive alliance. The reason Russia can’t join NATO and NATO is a threat to Russia is because Russia happily attacks its neighbors. In one sense, that is reasonable historically. The Mongols almost annihilated Russia during the Middle Ages, Charles XII invaded deep into Russia and Ukraine in the 18th century, Napoleon killed hundreds of thousands and burned Moscow, the Germans took vast swathes of land in WWI and WWII, and Poland did pretty well originally in its invasion during the early stages of the Russian civil war. When Russia is faced with hostile western powers, it is reasonable that it be so aggressive and offensively minded. Problematically, that is not the situation it was faced with today. Neither Ukraine, nor Poland, nor France, Germany, etc. have any interest or desire to invade Russia. The greatest reason, in my opinion, is that it’s not how money and glory are won today for the people that live therein. No longer do heads of state make a name for themselves by conquest (a la Julius Caesar), no longer does owning land and the resources on it directly translate to economic value for most. In Russia’s commodity-oriented economy, it still does, just like in the feudal era. The oligarchs are really a modern recasting of medieval European barons and dukes. And unlike the Soviet Union which had a reason to fear for its survival beyond its recent terrible experiences of the early 20th century (WWI, Civil Wars, WWII) due to its dedication to the protecting and promulgating the ideology of Marxism/Leninism/Stalinism, modern Russia is not really defending or promulgating anything.

If Russia had successfully and thoughtfully democratized after the fall of the USSR, it would never have been in this pickle. Instead, it would have joined NATO for fear of the new great autocratic power that also has a penchant for commodities, China. As a democratic nation, Russia would have been a powerful ally against China’s rise, and it would have provided the ideal corridor for defense and invasion should it come to war – especially considering that the centroid of population and economic activity is in Russia’s west.

Mearsheimer’s argument rests upon the idea that states have spheres of influence if they are militarily powerful. Trespassing on the sphere of influence causes conflict. But that doesn’t mean states necessarily should, and that states desiring to forge their own paths shouldn’t be allowed to. Of course we get into the debate of who should get to choose a state or nation’s path, but I for one truly believe that well educated, critically thinking peoples, through democracy or republics, should have more of a right to determine their destiny than a few corrupt elites with vested interests.

[1] John Mearsheimer, Why the West is Principally Responsible for the Ukrainian Crisis, The Economist, March 11, 2022, https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/03/11/john-mearsheimer-on-why-the-west-is-principally-responsible-for-the-ukrainian-crisis