So much at stake over conflict

LEST we forget, the Ukraine crisis had impacted us in a devastating way. On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down somewhere in Eastern Ukraine.

The commercial airliner was brought down by what was later established to be a Russia-made Buk missile. Subsequent investigations pointed to the fact it was fired by Russian-backed separationists in that part of Ukraine.

A total of 283 passengers, including 80 children and 15 crew members were on board the ill-fated flight. MH17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, following a pre-planned commercial flight path that has been taken by many other airlines heading East.

The Dutch-led investigation team concluded in May 2018 that Russia was responsible for downing MH17.

The 2014 incident apparently was a preamble to a more sinister motive by the Russian leadership.

Since Feb 2014, the Russian army had taken a belligerent approach, annexing Crimea and the Donbas enclave, internationally recognised as part of sovereign Ukraine.

Supporting Ukraine separationist groups was not enough. The invasion of Ukraine started on Feb 24.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin announced it was a “special operation”, an euphemism for a full-scale war. He claimed the invasion was necessary “to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide for the last eight years.”

He also claimed that separationist leaders had requested military help to fend off Ukrainian “aggression”.

For a country of 43 million souls, more than 8.3 million or 17.3% are ethnic Russians, Ukraine is home to more Russians outside the Russian federation. Understandably the tension is high when Russia is being seen as exerting its dominance in the region.

But why the full-scale invasion of Ukraine now? Putin is not under any pressure to be challenged as president. He does not need any diversion to conceal his weaknesses or short-comings.

He has no damaging issue that can threaten his position at least for now. He is in total control of his 144-million population.

Perhaps Russia is not the super-power that it used to be but militarily it is still a force to be reckoned with.

Putin is no Bill Clinton in 1998. Clinton needed a diversion after his salacious affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

He bombed Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan for some dubious reasons. Coincidently a month before the scandal broke out, Hollywood came out with the movie Wag the Dog, a political satire that quickly became a parody for Clinton’s White House.

The movie directed by Barry Levinson and starring two of the most respected stars at the time, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro was timely and relevant.

Reality meets fiction or vice versa, the film became iconic for it is now part of the political lexicon – concocting a national security crisis to distract the populace from a more sinister scandal close at home.

“Wag the Dog” has become more than an idiom, it has taken a life of its own in the American political construct.

There were many times when questionable intelligence became an excuse to go to war, from Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. What you need is a brilliant PR man (in this case Conrad Brean, played with maniacal exactitude by De Niro) and a creative Hollywood producer (Stanley Motss, Hoffman at his menacing best), and voters can easily be duped. Fabricate a war in Albania to distract American people from a Presidential sex scandal, and he wins the election.

It is wag the dog seasons in many democracies of the world. Gullibility of the general public is bliss for politicians and their operatives.

But Putin doesn’t need to wag the dog, as the idiom goes. And why would he risks so much for so little gain as the current conflict entails?

Could it be that Ukraine is leaning more towards the West much to his chagrin? Was the election of personalities like Viktor Yushchenko over Russia-backed Viktor Yanukovych earlier on a wake-up call for Russia? Or had the intention of subsequent leaders of Ukraine to be part of European Union (EU) and a member of Nato irked Putin more than anything else?

The fogs of war are in the horizon. The humanitarian crisis is mounting. The threat of nuclear war should not be discounted. This is going to be a protracted war if the West and Nato are watching from the sidelines. If they “joined the fray” a third World War is imminent. For now Nato is taking the former stand. The unveiling of tough economic and financial sanctions by the West and Japan against Russia will hurt Putin and his people.

For Putin it is more about pride and bruised ego to prove he is still in charge of a once powerful and sprawling empire. He can’t afford to have his influence slip further among the former Soviet republics.

Now it is his turn to wag the dog.

Johan Jaaffar is a journalist, editor and for some years chairman of a media company, and is passionate about all things literature and the arts. And a diehard rugby fan.

The views expressed here are entirely his own.