Yesterday was Victory Day in Russia, one of the most important celebrations in that country’s calendar. It marked the official end of the Second World War for the Soviet Union, the day the Nazi serpent was finally crushed under the iron boot of the gallant Red Army and the articles of surrender were signed in the enemy’s own capital of Berlin. The date was commemorated throughout all 16 Soviet republics and was marked by a parade through Red Square and the wearing of medals and uniforms by veterans of that historic conflict. It will be no different today in Moscow and other cities throughout Russia; the Great Patriotic War remains seared into the national psyche of the Russian people in a way that other holidays cannot match.

Although the Russian’s look and act European, they are not: they are distinctly Russian. Judging their actions and intentions through a Western European or North American lens is a dangerous game of self-delusion. Some analysts say that Russian leaders play chess while American leaders play poker, but that is a weak analogy at best. Better to say that the Russian and Western leaders have very different worldviews and risk matrices and that they look at similar events in very different lights. This has led to the consistent underestimation of possible consequences in recent conflicts with Russia including Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2015. Western leaders continuously mis-assess the probabilities of Russian actions because they have looked at them with a Western mindset.

The Second World War offers a window into the Russian mind that is valuable for our understanding. The Soviet Union might be history, but the national struggle for survival against the Nazi invaders continues to be a key unifying theme of Russian identity. The knowledge drawn from this analysis lead to meaningful insights useful for shaping policy:

1. The difference in world views is real

Victor Day itself provides a clear distinction between the Russian view and the Western view of the world. The Commonwealth nations celebrate the 7th of May as Victory in Europe, when acting Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz signed the first instrument of unconditional surrender in Reims. The Russian observer at Reims did not have the necessary authority to sign in the name of his government, so at the insistence of the Soviets, a second ceremony was held in just conquered Berlin. This second surrender became effective at midnight on the 8^th of May, but because of the time difference between Berlin and Moscow, it was the 9^th of May in Russia when peace took effect. Hence the three different dates used to celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany.

More interesting than the reasons for the different dates of the same celebration is what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia kept its original Victory Day of 9 May, along with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, all the Central Asian Republics, and most of the former Yugoslav Republics. On the other hand, as soon as they were independent the Baltic States changed the date of their celebration to the 8^th of May, to align with the Western “Victory in Europe Day”. So did Poland in 2014. All four of those countries chose to emphasize the Allied contribution to the defeat of fascism rather than the Soviet “liberation history,” which almost ignores the existence of other fronts or combatants.

This may seem like a minor point of politicking with national holidays, but it reveals how fundamental the perception of difference is between the two camps: if I’m in one, I must celebrate the 9^th, if I’m in the other, I must celebrate the 8^th. I would not be surprised if Ukraine changes their Victory Day celebration to the 8^th of May in the near future.

While VE Day in the West is usually celebrated in conjunction with our allies in the war effort, and where it is common to see British, American, French, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand flags proudly displayed, the Victory Day parade is all about the Red Army. Foreign military units in attendance are those of the former Soviet republics, not the Western allies. For the Russians, the lesson is clear:  we stand alone. We can’t depend on allies, and not much more on satellites.

2. Russians don’t study realpolitik, they practice it

“Realpolitik” is a German word first used in the 19^th Century by Ludwig von Rochau, a writer and politician in the Prussian city of Frankfurt. He was a revolutionary in the uprisings of 1848 and fled into a 10-year exile in France after the failure of these. While in exile, he wrote his seminal works, reflecting on the failure of the “springtime of the people” in the face of the police and military forces of the authoritarian regimes they were trying to replace. This led him to question his own idealism.  His concept has, in modern times, often been mistaken for “practical politics” or “realistic politics”, as opposed to a more ideologically- or idealistically-driven program. However, what he actually meant was much closer to a Machiavelli than to pragmatism. In his 1853 book “Practical Politics: Application of its Principles to the Situation of the German States”, he wrote:

“The study of the forces that shape, maintain and alter the state is the basis of all political insight and leads to an understanding that the law of power (emphasis mine) governs the world of states just as the law of gravity governs the physical world.”[1]

Realpolitik is the politics of power and how power shapes the internal and external conditions of states. It is “pragmatic” only to the extent that considerations of power usually are: the strong take what they can and the weak suffer what they must. “Democracy” or “liberalism” or even “freedom” would be viewed as ideological concepts, and realpolitik would only heed them to the extent that their promoters had the power necessary to impose them on their own citizens or those of other states.

The Russians have no need to study von Rochau. Unlike many Western societies, where words like “democracy”, “liberty” or “civil rights” carry great political weight in and of themselves, the Russians understand that power is the only coin of the realm. Their attitude towards the Nazis and the shifting balance of power in Europe between 1936 and 1941 is a perfect example of this. While Germany was still rearming, Stalin offered to ally with France and Britain on numerous occasions, most importantly during the Sudeten Crisis of 1938. The Soviets were prepared to guarantee the territorial integrity of the Czechs and back it up with force if the West would do the same. Chamberlain feared that the Russians were bluffing; Czech President Benés feared that they were not; the offer was ignored and the British dragged the French into the humiliation of the Munich betrayal.

The Soviets did not offer their guarantee because of their love of the Czechoslovak Republic; nor because they wanted to extend their power into Central Europe (that might have come later). It was a pure calculation of the balance of power in 1938, which still leaned against Germany. Stalin was perfectly willing to make deals with his ideological enemies – the Western capitalists and Czechoslovak democrats – in order to check the power of Germany before it became a national security threat. A pure power calculation: when it became clear that the balance of power was shifting in Germany’s favor and that the Western leaders were spineless, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the inevitable result. The West hypocritically condemned the agreement as a moral outrage, turning a blind eye to Munich and their own rebuff of Soviet advances; but Stalin was as concerned with morality as a bear menaced by a pack of wolves might be.

The lesson of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: the Russians understand and respect power and will accommodate it. And when they have it, they will exercise it. That doesn’t mean the Russians don’t respect ideology. An old KGB hand like Vladimir Putin, and those of his inner circle, know from firsthand experience how powerful a motivator ideology, or religion, can be. But these remain articles of “soft power”; it carries weight and can be a powerful ally, but it will not provide you with additional battalions….and God is on the side of the bigger battalions.

3. Russians “know” the West is intent on their destruction

It is impossible for most Europeans and many Americans to fathom the depth of Russian fear of the West and how important a motivator it is. The United States has never been invaded since independence; and the last successful invasion of Great Britain was almost 1,000 years ago. Germany – despite losing two world wars – has more often been “invading” than “invaded”; only France among the Great Powers has some understanding of Russian anxieties, but those have mostly been absorbed into the subconscious ever since Germany was hogtied into the European Union. Westerners, when they think about it at all, tend to dismiss the fear as paranoia by “those crazy Russians.”

But the crazy Russians have a very good reason for their distrust. Russia was born out the Grand Duchy of Muskovy, a kingdom subject to the Tartar Khanate from Central Asia. After centuries of subjugation, the Muscovites threw off their yokes and began seeking security from invasion. Unfortunately for them, their nation is in the middle of a vast region that has no natural frontiers between the Arctic Ocean and the Black Sea, between the Urals and the Carpathian Mountains. The solution has always been obvious to every Russian leader from Ivan the Great[2] to Vladimir Putin: conquer and hold as much territory as possible between your heartland and your frontier as you possibly can. “Strategic depth” was bred into every Russian’s DNA from the time that Chagatai Khan brought the Mongols hordes sweeping out of Asia.

The imperative to gain strategic depth is all that has saved Russia on numerous occasions. The superior technology and organization of their Western enemies has led the Russians losing battles but winning wars. They have always been able to count on greater numbers, the tenacity of the Russian peasant-soldier and a vast hinterland into which they could retreat and regroup. Because out of the West, the invasions always came: the Teutonic Knights, the Lithuanians, the Poles, the Swedes, the Austrians, the French, the British, the Germans. Who hasn’t invaded Russia at one time or another? The last two times the Germans came, the Russians needed all the strategic depth they could get, and it was barely enough.

That the destruction of Russia has always been a Western goal is self-evident to them. They point – justifiably – at the enslavement treaty of Brest-Litovsk, imposed on a supine Soviet Union in March 1918 by Imperial Germany[3]. It would have torn the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine from Russia, turning them into European German satellites. But the borders of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk look, to a modern Russian, an awful lot like what Russia’s borders are today. Coincidence? With the Baltic States in NATO and the European Union, and Ukraine on the verge of joining both? Hmmmm. The quest for strategic depth: since 1991, Russia has lost over 1,000 kilometers of strategic depth, paid for by the blood to 20 million Soviet casualties in the Great Patriotic War.

The lessons the Russians have drawn from Brest-Litovsk and the 600 years since Muscovy began its rise are simple: the only good neighbor is a satellite and 1,000 miles is too short a distance by half to begin feeling comfortable at home. Why? Because the West will always come.

4. Russians “know” the European Union as an existential threat

Another incomprehensible paradox to Westerners, when the European Union is so self-evidently peaceful, harmonious and dedicated to the promotion of democracy and respect for international norms. The Russians can barely hear that and keep a straight face. To them, the European Union looks a lot like the capitalist version of the “Crusade against Bolshevism” that Hitler and Goebbels used with considerable success to draw recruits into the Waffen SS.

European leaders may profess their good intentions until they are blue in the face, but the Russians know better:

• Europe was not so peaceful when it bombed Yugoslavia, an off-again-on-again Russia ally, and partitioned the country – twice;

• Europe was not so peaceful when it went from “no fly zone” to “regime change” overnight in Libya;
• Europe looks less peaceful when is supports (what Russians consider to be) covert agencies and violent “pro-democracy” protests that lead to the overthrow of the legitimate government of Ukraine;

• Europe sounds less peaceful when it talks about the creation of a European Army whose purpose no one can define and whose necessity within the context of the NATO alliance no one is able to explain. Russian suspicions are only heightened to learn that much of the push for an EU Army is coming out of Berlin and is being supported by a small but symbolic increase in the size of the Bundeswehr.

The Russians learned not to trust perceptions of weakness or declarations of peaceful purpose. The Weimar Republic had peaceful intentions right up until it was replaced by the Nazis in 1932. At that time, Germany had no tanks, no airplanes, no navy and a pitiful defense force of 100,000 men. Within a decade, Germany had conquered all of Europe from the Atlantic to the Dnepr, from Norway to North Africa.

The Putin government has demonstrated this capability fully. When he first assumed power in 1999 from Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin inherited a thoroughly decrepit and demoralized military, incapable of mounting the simplest operation. The Russian Army had been thrashed in the First Chechen War, alcoholism was rampant and the limited funds meant for training and equipment were being embezzled by corrupt officials. Putin made reform of the Russian military a top priority and within a decade had successfully instituted a series of reforms and modernizations that had brought the military back to a level of operational efficiency that permitted them to win the Second Chechen War, to defeat the Georgians, to occupy Crimea and to send a rapid deployment force to Syria and there conduct over 200 days of intensive air operations.

A clear lesson learned from bitter experience: today’s weakling could be tomorrow’s juggernaut. Only your own strength can be counted upon and must be maintained, regardless of the apparent debility or fine speech of your potential opponents.

The lessons of the Great Patriotic War remain deeply imprinted in the Russian psyche, as deeply as the “Munich Betrayal” plays on the Western mind. The Russian General Staff continues to use the Second World War as the basis for their military studies and political leaders continue to use it as a reference to judge their realpolitik. Perception remains important: whether you agree or disagree with them, Russian perceptions of the European Union and United States matter. Understanding how these lessons are assimilated by our Russian counterparts and shape their perceptions will aid Western leaders in improving their policy decisions and their estimation of probable responses in the future.

Notes and References

[1] Ludwig von Rochau, “Grundsätze der Realpolitik angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustände Deutschlands,” 185

[2] Ivan III “the Great” ruled Muscovy from 1462 to 1505 and officially repudiated the subjugation of the Grand Duchy to the Golden Horde (Tartars). He also assumed the title of Tsar for the first time. Not be be confused with his grandson, Ivan IV “the Terrible”.

[3] The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was annulled immediately after the capitulation of Imperial Germany on 11 November 1918, having lasted only 18 months.