Putin the Pragmatist

Judo competitors probe for weaknesses to exploit, detecting imbalances to manipulate into defeat. A combination of knowledge and experience inculcates with a lexicon of available moves, counters, progressions, and submissions that are known to work when properly applied. The devoted student can build a successful career while innovating nothing, merely applying teachings more thoroughly than others who will fail to apply precise techniques or recognize exploitable openings and apply necessary defenses.

Putin was trained in Judo and the KGB system of control by force and intimidation, watching the Soviet Union collapse as its centralized planning couldn't sustain a system that depended on extracting wealth from occupied countries to subsidize much poorer Russia, which was unable to overcome the flaws and Soviet trauma of its native population to develop an economy that did more than sell off its natural resources.

There is a substantial school of thought which holds that the Kremlin will never act to control Russia's rampant alcoholism because it would prefer that its subjects remain in a state of inebriation.
[Russian Vodka Prices Set to Increase by 30% in July]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his government to rein in rising vodka prices, as he battles to preserve his popularity amid a worsening economic crisis.
[Putin Orders Government to Keep Vodka Cheap as Russian Inflation Soars]

Putin carefully watched the public management of opinion, which under the Soviet system required citizens to repeat obvious lies while living in fear of neighbors reporting any overheard unsanctioned ideas. Perestroika led to glastnost, Russian for suicide by honesty and self-undoing, by granting public permission to speak openly about history, culture, politics, and the methods of government operation. As the Soviet Union was based on force and propaganda, open discussion about its foundation could only lead to its dissolution, too diseased to reform and economically sustained only by the illegal occupation of its non-Russian members.

Soulless bulk architecture crammed people into villages of tiny apartments. Russians sought refuge in vodka to forget their situation. Bread lines were long, with meat, fruit, and vegetables rare and expensive. The glorious system left people in miserable poverty and obedient to official state opinions, fearful of aggressive imprisonment for those accused of dissent.

Food in Soviet Russia was very hard to come by. One did not go to a supermarket like here and find walls filled with milk, meat, vegetables, candy, and all kinds of wonderful and tasty things. There were massive shortages of almost everything. Just about the only thing that was consistently in stock was bread. I remember a particularly rough year, 1986, where we ate nothing but bread and water for 5 months. Meat was extremely rare, we were lucky to have meat once or maybe twice a month. When it was available, it was usually very low grade sausage (the sort of stuff that would lead to massive lawsuits and meat packing plants being closed here in America, but to us it was delicious) that was 2.2 rubles per kilo. The good sausage, when it was available was 4.7 rubles per kilo and we could rarely afford it. Chicken was the next most common meat, which we had about once or twice a year and cost about 7 rubles for a small whole chicken. I never had beef until I moved to America, it was too expensive.
[In Soviet Russia]

Putin's positions in the KGB, FSB, and politics privileged him with a terrific view of Russia's actual structure and reasons for the strategies others had used. Yeltsin appointed him Putin Prime Minister and resigned shortly thereafter, making Putin President.

Soviet ideology was little more than centralized control. It mastered propaganda primarily used for public consumption. Putin correctly saw communism as bankrupt and did not want to continue its form, recognizing that leaving it behind created an opportunity for new politics.

He measured his options, but could not find a desirable path or end goal. The economy had oil, metals, and minerals, but the previously occupied nations had regained their independence and no longer could Russia confiscate their wealth.

As president, Putin consolidated power and acquired shares of national resources to make himself wealthy. He reckoned that Russia could not be reformed and was too steeped in corruption to develop into a normal country, but he could skillfully use a full playbook of proven techniques for personal gain by expertly playing the system, a scheme Karen Dawisha called kleptocratic authoritarianism.

By some estimates Putin accumulated over $70 billion, and those loyal to him also gained wealth by controlling natural resources acquired far below market prices.

For an appealing public image, Putin invented a tough-guy character utilizing staged actions shots, often shirtless and in nature, to provide a fantasy to distract citizens from essential problems that keep the nation impoverished and disorganized. Much like Kim Jong Il's golfing records and official fables about his deeds, Putin's adventures are similarly legendary.

He played to the legends of backwards and broken people, appealing to a supposed Slavic brotherhood (justifying invasion of Slavic countries), the glory of the Motherland, and the need to restore Russia to a greatness it only attained in the official mythology of the Russian Empire.

But Russians are just a small minority in a large land of Taters. The Viking Oleg formed a Slavic state by conquering Kiev in 882, spanning most of Belarus and Ukraine, until being conquered by Mongols (Tatars) in 1223. The Tatars conquered the Bulgars and destroyed the major cities of Kievan Rus and ruled over feuding cities, extracting tribute from them while ruling cities such as Moscow until 1480. The Tatars were most closely identified with Western Russia, which was called the Golden Horde.

Moscow Isn't Slavic

Moscow rose to replace Kiev as the center of Russia, with a population overrun by Mongolians and remnants of Finnish tribes, with Slavs mostly remaining in the original Slavic lands and not migrating to Moscow. Under Ivan the Terrible, this huge territory became a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, expanding into Siberia where it annexed a large Muslim population as well as Muslim lands in the south as it expanded its empire to the east. Though the Western border was part Caucasoid, it was increasingly Mongoloid to the east and distinguished itself as Eurasian for its mix of features in a population of Turks, Mongols, Finns, and Slavs.

From the Middle Ages until the 20th century, Russia was called Tartary or Tartaria. The Taters are known for being semi-nomadic and able to endure great hardship, unbothered by the poor living conditions, hunger, cold, or brutality they regularly encounter and consider normal. This was their standard of customary civilization and they were the backbone of 20th and 21st century Russia, able to sustain with little complaint when conditions turned bad and happily enduring if told their suffering had a greater purpose and others who lived better were their enemies and would be harmed in revenge.

Russian Propaganda

Russia uses a careful and repetitive strategy to destabilize and occupy neighboring countries. Previously when it occupied countries, it sent in millions of Russians and applied a Russification policy to crush the native population, replace its culture with Russian culture, and ban the country's language. When those nations regained independence, Russia foments discontent by piping in fictional stories of Russian oppression so Russians who choose not to return to Russia can become angry at the people in whose nation they live. Russia funds uprisings in an effort to create situations where it claims the need to intervene and protect the people it placed there when it forcefully occupied those nations. From there, it will annex territory as part of a long-term plan of expansion.

Russia has the best researched propaganda and uses it with the most focused implementation of any nation. Russia's propaganda does not even try to promote their causes with praise and justification, but has found it better to confuse all conversation using a Huxlean barrage of nonsensical babble that cripples rational discussion so that any critique of Russia is lost among the noise. With analysis of their actions prevented, it faces little scrutiny. The army of propaganda soldiers are able to quickly overtake a discussion of Russia with insane theories and premises, posting new ones faster than old ones can be refuted.

This too can be seen as a means of survival for Mongolian descendants on a giant, harsh stretch of land where nothing is easy, civilization is barren, and great suffering is to be expected and imposed.

Restoring Russia's historic name to Tarteria and studying its history makes it actions understandable, as well as clarifying what to expect of its future.