Thoughts About the Vladimir Putin Interview
Like any world leader, Putin has his faults, but understanding his line of thinking is important for an appropriate response.
I watched Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin and it took some time for me to digest everything.
I understand why Carlson did the interview. Given that the bulk of the information we hear about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia comes from either Volodymyr Zelensky or U.S. officials who support more funding for Ukraine, it's hard to figure out what actually motivated Putin beyond talking points from Zelensky or U.S. officials.
My reaction to the interview is that it did provide some insight into what motivates Putin as a leader. It was no secret that he is nationalistic, but now we know that he has a strong interest in the history of Russia and Ukraine — though I would say it's to a fault. He took nearly half an hour to go into this history, even as Carlson questioned him about why Putin would wait until 2022 to take action against Ukraine, rather than do it when Putin first became Russia’s leader.
Putin never really answered that question, though he kind of hinted at it later in the interview, when Putin brought up the so-called Maidan Revolution in 2014 and the removal of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukoych (what Putin described as a coup) and the expansion of NATO. His remarks didn’t paint him as another Adolf Hitler — Konstantin Kosin, a Russian-British comic, says that’s a faulty comparison.
Simply casting Putin as another Hitler is misleading overly simplistic. As Kisin points out, Putin doesn’t espouse a fervent vision like Hitler advanced.
One of the problems with U.S. foreign policy is that almost everything is viewed through the prism of World War II, in which every foreign leader who engages in behavior that ranges from questionable to abhorrent must be assumed to be the next Hitler.
With that said, Putin didn't help his case when he brought up the start of World War II in comparison to how the conflict between Ukraine and Russia started. Hitler’s imperialistic drive and the vision he espoused meant it's more probable than not that he would have invaded Poland, regardless of how Poland responded to Hitler’s demands. Putin’s remarks may have done more to fuel support for claims that he has imperialistic motives that go beyond Ukraine.
As for his arguments about NATO, I did get the sense that he really wanted Russia to become part of it. Putin was correct to point to countries in the Middle East who are not in good terms with the United States and that these same countries have issues with Russia (case in point, the former Soviet Union and its conflict with Afghanistan). Whether or not one thinks Putin's idea for addressing that are worth pursuing is another question, but it's worth asking how things in the Middle East might have gone differently if the United States and Russia had worked together to address it.
Then there was Carlson's questioning about Russia detaining Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Putin described Gerschkovich's actions as "espionage," which I would imagine raise a lot of eyebrows. And I would suspect that whatever Gerschkovich may have obtained doesn't paint Russia in a positive light.
However, what happens when a journalist obtains information that doesn't paint the United States in a flattering way? Answer: It's often deemed by U.S. officials as a "threat to national security." Furthermore, one only needs to look at the case of Julian Assange and ask what happens when U.S. officials (among others) believe somebody has committed “espionage” by obtaining information that doesn’t paint a positive picture.
And while Putin has gone to great lengths to suppress dissent, to include the jailing of multiple people who have criticized him or the Russian government, the United States has done plenty to suppress dissent as well. The censorship industrial complex may not involve jailing journalists, but it's done more than enough to prevent people who are raising questions from being part of the conversation. If this keeps up, who is to say that it won't lead to people being arrested for questioning U.S. officials’ orthodoxy?
In summary, Putin raised some valid points in his interview and I did get better insight into what might drive his thinking. However, he was just as flawed as any other world leader, in that his reasoning didn’t always hold up under further scrutiny, and he seemed uncomfortable doing the interview, perhaps because he's not used to how an American journalist like Carlson would conduct one. And I remain unconvinced that the actions he's taken are the appropriate response and will persuade others to reconsider their position.
But that's the thing: It's possible for somebody to raise a valid concern and still take an inappropriate response. The key is to distinguish a person's belief and thinking from the responses taken. More importantly, in order to understand an appropriate response to a particular world leader's actions, you have to understand what might drive their thinking.
Failure to do that is more often than not going to result in the wrong response to that world leader. One only needs to look at what's happening in Ukraine to know that, regardless of what one thinks about Putin, that endless funding for Ukraine hasn't resulted in the result that U.S. leaders thought they would get. If anything, it may have only strengthened Putin’s resolve and made things worse.
(Updated 2/11/24 at 11:25 a.m. Central to add a link about the 2014 Maidan Revolution.