What struck me, reading some of the stories about events in Ukraine, was the Russian names in the comments sections. Putin and his flunkies have been blaming America, NATO, or the West in general for this and that, and naturally insist that the Ukrainian revolution was a Western plot. Because really, why else would thousands of people rise up against their country's corrupt and repressive leader who took them into economic stagnation and reversed course on a highly-anticipated trade deal?
The alarming thing is that the Russians commenting on English-language internet media sites are repeating the same accusations. I would assume that, if you have access to such websites, you'd be able to get more balanced and complete information about international issues, so that you might be less inclined to believe that there were CIA agents riling up the crowds, or posing as Ukrainian snipers and firing upon protestors, or whatever the conspiracy theory is. Optimistically those Russian names are working for Putin's government, and the rest of the country knows better.
The worst part about that conspiracy theory is how insulting it is. Here in the West there's been some finger-pointing and gnashing teeth about how the events in Ukraine caught everyone off-guard, and how tepid and unprofessional the Obama Administration's response has been to them. If that administration was orchestrating those events, surely Obama would have a plan ready to execute, and would have already resolved the crisis? The conclusion is that Russia thinks that the Untied States is conniving enough to start a revolution but too incompetent to follow through on it. Which is probably more probable than the previous scenario, but there is such a thing as tact, Russia.
On the other hand, there is some truth to Putin's accusations.
As I think I've said before, we live in a world without a great ideological debate, or rather a debate between ideologies. There is a club of democratic countries arguing for government for and by the people, we'll call them the West. And then there are the other countries, which alternately try to keep their citizens from hearing about this democracy nonsense, or distract their citizens with shiny trinkets, or attempt to negotiate with democratic principles and argue why their country should benefit from the modern world economy but still keep its one-party system, repressive religious laws, and so forth.
Putin's Russia certainly isn't democratic, nor can it try to hide democracy from its citizens. I've encountered a few statements criticizing the West for expecting everyone to follow its development path, but not any sort of comprehensive theory of Slavic exceptionalism to explain why democracy is incompatible with Russia. So the best the country can do is use a high GDP fueled by natural resources to make up for the lack of Russian democracy, much like how Saudi Arabia has to throw cash as its citizens whenever something like the Arab Spring happens. Though recent events suggest that invading a neighbor may be a good way of distracting people.
I've read that Putin is more a cynic than a believer in anything, someone who sees hypocrisy and self-interest behind all of democracy's claims of enlightenment. At any rate, he can't offer much in place of liberal government beyond economic development and aggressive nationalism. And that means he'll always have a problem with the West, because it can provide citizens with a high GDP, nationalism, and a more representative government.
Whenever a leader's time in office ends and he's prevented from running again due to term limits, Putin is threatened. Whenever a journalist's investigation puts a politician in prison instead of vice versa, Putin is threatened. Whenever citizens vote out an unpopular leader, whenever an executive's power is checked by another branch of the government, whenever a leader is subject to intense media criticism, the Russian people might notice and wonder "why can't we have that here?"
This isn't the Cold War, Putin can't appeal to the inexorable course of history, or insist that his repressive measures are necessary steps on the road to a proletariat paradise. He doesn't have a counter-argument for democracy, and thus we, the West, threaten his position simply by existing.
So he's right, the West is behind the revolution in Ukraine. But we didn't need to send spies or anything, all we had to do was prove that there was an alternative to corrupt autocracy, and that was enough to mobilize people.
On the other hand, accusations that foreign agents are attempting to stir up some sort of fascist revolt... well, those are a good justification for clamping down on non-governmental agencies and keeping as tight a grip on the national media as possible. So we can expect Putin's people to continue insisting that the West is playing an active role in undermining him, rather than undermining him as a side-effect of our day-to-day functions.
It makes me wonder what me might accomplish if we were actively undermining him as much as he says we are...
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