Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 82

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
perceived as a deliberate and calculated
power grab meant to humiliate and embarrass
the former superpower. These
three countries had a powerful and
enduring historical identification with
the “motherland.” The Russian people,
along with Russia’s defense apparatus,
could not understand why NATO,
whose sole purpose of existence was
to defend the West against the Soviet
Union, was now even allowed to exist.
The newly perceived psychological and
cognitive assault and humiliation by an
unchecked unilateral institution was a
watershed moment for the directionless
post-Soviet state.
Persevering Kremlin ideologists
and significant factions of former Soviet
people soon sensed an embarrassing
loss of control and autonomy with the
intentional development of in-groups
and out-groups (Crosston 2008, 33).
This exacerbated humiliation dynamic
decreased the strength and self-esteem
of the collective Russian identity. With
the rest of the international community
watching, the humiliator stripped away
an entrenched set of prized self-perceptions
that were highly valued by a specific
people and their leaders in their
new infantile state (Saurette 2006, 507).
Putin perceived the West, particularly
US attitudes and intentions, as omnipotent
and consciously flagrant. “[A]fter
the end of the Cold War, a single center
of domination emerged in the world,
and those who found themselves at the
top of the pyramid tempted to think
they were strong and exceptional, they
knew better” (Crosston 2008, 102).
After taking the reins as Russian
President in 2000, Putin set a new
course for Russia, one in which he was
determined not to repeat the rigidness
or shortcomings of the former Soviet
Union or the perceived degrading, incompetent,
and impotent strategies of
Yeltsin and Gorbachev. Putin invoked
a new political model to counteract the
sustained humiliation instigated by the
West. His formulated system incorporated
unique combinations of loose
ideology, firm conservative values, and
a rigid political dynamic embedded in
paternalism. All of these elements were
used to firmly reestablish specific degrees
of consciousnesses and internal
assumptions that were deemed suppressed
not only by Russian society,
but also by Putin himself. His triggered
counter-humiliation efforts aimed at
regaining international respect amid
the perceived loss of both image and
identity. Putin declared, “Russia is a
country with a history that spans more
than a thousand years and particularly
always use the privilege to carry out an
independent foreign policy, we are not
going to change this tradition ...” (Daniels
2007, 8).
While serving as either President
or Prime Minister over the last two
decades, Putin has exploited and operationalized
a perceived campaign of
humiliation against the Russian people
and their diaspora. Instead of attempting
to re-engineer a distinctive Russian
identity into a particular set of Western
culture and norms, Putin embraced and
weaponized past humiliations through
a variety of propaganda vehicles used
to exacerbate and intensify differentiation
and emotions, thus expanding the
social comparison. This enabled him
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