10 | MARCH 10 • 2022 

opinion

If Putin Loses, History Wins
T

he conventional 
wisdom is that 
Vladimir Putin’s naked 
aggression toward Ukraine 
is taking us back to more 
primitive times. Indeed, for 
most of human 
history, it was 
raw power 
that ruled. If a 
tyrant wanted 
something, he 
just took it.
The 
establishment 
of international norms and 
institutions in the wake of 
World War II was an attempt 
to regulate and minimize 
this gratuitous application 
of power. It didn’t always 
work, of course, but at least 
there was a sense that the 
world was headed in a more 
civilized direction.
Now we come to a critical 
juncture: If Putin prevails 
in his brutal land grab of 
Ukraine, it clearly will set 
us back. But if he doesn’t, 
the outcome may well be 
a reaffirmation of civilized 
norms.
Here’s the encouraging 
news: The reaction to Putin’s 
aggression has been so severe 
and brutal he may, in fact, not 
prevail.
First, in terms of the 
military campaign, Putin 
has already been humbled 
by the ferocious response of 
the Ukrainian people and its 
army. If Putin assumed he 
would march into Ukraine 
and depose its rulers within 
days, he’s been hijacked by 
reality. However this invasion 
ends, he’s already lost some of 
his winning mystique.

Second, his global isolation 
is stunning. We’re not 
hearing about intense debates 
and disagreements among 
Western powers on how to 
respond to Putin’s aggression. 
The Russian strongman may 
have assumed he could easily 
withstand any sanctions, as he 
has in the past. The problem 
is that he’s never seen 
sanctions like these.
As the New York Times 
reported about repercussions 
in Russia, “The ruble cratered, 
the stock market froze, and 
the public rushed to withdraw 
cash on Monday as Western 
sanctions kicked in and 
Russia awoke to uncertainty 
and fear over the rapidly 
spreading repercussions of 
President Vladimir V
. Putin’s 
invasion of Ukraine.”
These unprecedented 
sanctions, which represent a 
kind of financial war against 
Russia, have given Putin a 
taste of his own medicine: 
You like aggression, we’ll give 
you aggression, only ours will 
be through banks, not tanks.
He’s been so enraged by 
this financial aggression 
that he declared that he was 
putting his nuclear forces into 
“special combat readiness”— 
a heightened alert status that 
harked back to some of the 
most dangerous moments of 
the Cold War.
There’s another reason 
why this war has not gone 
swimmingly for Putin: He 
underestimated the extent 
of domestic opposition. His 
people have not bought the 
propaganda that Ukraine 
is a violent regime that has 
aggressed Russia and needs 

to be “de-Nazified.” No one 
but his closest cronies believe 
that, as he told Israeli Prime 
Minister Naftali Bennett, he 
had “no choice” but to invade.
His old-school, KGB-era 
propaganda tactics are no 
match for the liberating 
universe of social media. As 
internal opposition grows, 
Putin will have no choice but 
to smother it with brute force, 
which will further alienate 
him from a public that never 
wanted this war against their 
Ukrainian cousins.
If Ukraine continues to 
resist and Putin calculates 
that a decisive victory is no 
longer realistic, we should 
watch for any effort by Putin 
to create an impression of 
“victory.” He knows he can’t 
afford to lose face.
His problem is that even 
if he “conquers” Kyiv and 
deposes Zelensky, he’ll be 
too hated and isolated to 
reap the fruits of that battle. 
Ukrainians will be sufficiently 
enraged to make any Russian 
presence in Ukraine living 
hell for years.
My hunch is that if the 
financial pain inflicted on 
Russia keeps increasing, Putin 
will use the “negotiations” in 
Belarus as a way to retreat 
while saving face. That 
retreat, however, will be hard 
to camouflage.
It will signify not just a 
defeat for tyrants everywhere, 
but a victory for history. 

David Suissa is editor-in-chief and 

publisher of Tribe Media Corp, and 

the Jewish Journal. He can be 

reached at davids@jewishjournal.

com. This article was first published 

by the Jewish Journal.

David Suissa
Jewish 
Journal

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