IS PUTIN SANE?

The 2 things your post, unfortunately, proves:

1) There is no end, to your redundancy-- as bad as a child, wanting an adult to do something, "again," and "again."

2) You are a hopeless case.


At top, was your reply to mine, which ended:

So let's see, whose speaking truly, here, by looking at ALL OF YOUR POSTS, IN THIS THREAD:

Are you proud of that body of work?
Can you tell us anything, you've added to this thread?

Clearly, that's not your intent.
You only want to jangle your accusatory keys, in my face.
I would tell you to grow up but, by this point, it is also clear that you won't.


It's only a shame that forum rules would not allow a thread, asking if a particular poster, here, is in full possession of his senses or-- had he ever reached mental maturity, to begin with?

 

I take your point, that some legally sane people, do even dumber things. But the point is, why is his behavior so unusual for him? This question, of course, presumes that you agree that he is acting in an atypical manner. In regard to that, it seems that those around him, in the Kremlin, also perceive some change.

While my thread uses the title of its linked article, I said (I think in the OP), that "sane," was probably not be the best word. There are, however, many possibilities: from Putin's living in a deluded state-- as are so many Qanon followers-- to his suffering from post- Covid brain fog, or to this merely being an early stage of his Alzheimer's/senility, which we are now all forced to endure.

That was, I would say, my hope: that we could brainstorm a list, & then debate the relative merits, of the possibilities; perhaps even develop a consensus ranking, of those possibilities.

 

What's up Strawman .. building going well ?!

 

This is from an interview, linked in another post, with Russia & Putin expert, Fiona Hill, which seems appropriate:

[SNIP]

There’s lots of danger ahead, she warned. Putin is increasingly operating emotionally and likely to use all the weapons at his disposal, including nuclear ones. It’s important not to have any illusions — but equally important not to lose hope.
“Every time you think, ’No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Well, yes, he would,” Hill said. “And he wants us to know that, of course. It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared…. We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.”

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Maura Reynolds: You’ve been a Putin watcher for a long time, and you’ve written one of the best biographies of Putin. When you’ve been watching him over the past week, what have you been seeing that other people might be missing?

Fiona Hill: Putin is usually more cynical and calculated than he came across in his most recent speeches. There’s evident visceral emotion in things that he said in the past few weeks justifying the war in Ukraine. The pretext is completely flimsy and almost nonsensical for anybody who’s not in the echo chamber or the bubble of propaganda in Russia itself. I mean, demanding to the Ukrainian military that they essentially overthrow their own government or lay down their arms and surrender because they are being commanded by a bunch of drug-addled Nazi fascists? There’s just no sense to that. It beggars the imagination.

 

Could this be driving him crazy:

 

None of it matters. He has the power start a war and he uses it. Everything else is meaningless details. I might have said more except for your Qanon nonsense. That turned me off completely.

 

Responsible in what way?

 

I don't think Covid is the cause for comrade Pootin's madness. He's an aging dictator who wants to make a point in history because he doesn't feel appreciated yet.

Pootin wants to be mentioned as the ultimate fighter against capitalism and western decadence in future history textbooks. Regardless of whether he wins or loses.

 

You are clearly right, about Putin's desire for his memorializing, as I have heard, also, in the analysis of our former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. As to what has pushed him to be so reckless, at this specific time, is the question. Of course it could be merely the recognition of the approaching end of his life's thread; a kind of an end-life crisis.

There could, also, be contributing factors, as have been mentioned in this thread-- for example, becoming somewhat detached from reality, due to his isolation, & the small circle, composing his echo- chamber; the early stages of senility/Alzheimer symptoms, including a lessening of inhibitions, caution, and fear; even possibly "brain fog," after a previous Covid-19 infection-- though, in the big picture, these are nothing more than ideas for speculation.

However, I'll note, your last statement would suggest someone not playing with a full deck. I'm afraid you might be right, but I hope that we are both wrong, that it does not matter to Putin, even if he loses.

 

No. Nobody who orders military attacks on civilian populations in a premeditated way is sane.

 

I think Putin is sane. He is also a psychopath however.

 

Psychopaths have a mental disease. I don't consider those that do to be sane.

 

I get the point you are making but do they fall into the clinical definition of "insanity". Also, do you believe a psychopath can also be rational?

 

Rational? In certain respects, yes. But in my book one doesn't have to be a raving, delusional, lunatic to be considered insane. I don't know how else to think about someone who wakes up, has breakfast, and then orders innocent men, women, and children to be bombed. Someone who refuses to allow those people to go to safety and instead targets them. Little kids getting blown up. I can't grasp how a human being can do that to other human beings without bringing insanity in to the equation.

 

.

I appreciate your feeling, but you are basing it on a sense of "decency." I think @Hey Now is right, in saying that a person's despicable moral compass, or utter lack of human compassion, does not make the person, "insane." It makes them antisocial, sociopathic, or psychopathic. These individuals are not "well." They are psychologically deficient, or defective, but not out of their minds. In fact, I heard the startling statistic, that 7% of the U.S. population is estimated to be either socio- or psychopathic.

By this, BTW, I am not supporting Hey Now's conclusion. Putin may have always had this potential for disregard of human life, within him. But something brought it out in the light, in a much bigger way, just recently. The question of this thread, is why now? There are many possibilities, including that of a sane Putin merely realizing, perhaps reminded by this Covid scare, that his time is running short, and he's got some catching up, to do, if he's going to achieve his long term goals. Up to this point, I have not believed it to be so easily explained, but I acknowledge that it could be that simple.

 

On 6/12/20, Ukraine joined NATO's enhanced opportunity partner interoperability program. Putin couldn't let Ukraine join NATO for obvious reasons so I take this to be a preemptive strike.

 

Sanity=the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner; sound mental health.

Can he appear normal and rational in certain circumstances? Yes. Does he also act abnormally, irrationally? Yes. Is he of sound mental health? No.

We're all welcome to decide for ourselves.

 

Well that would make this all seem more logical & rational; hence, you are now, yourself, presenting the argument for sanity.

I have always felt that it was more than just the NATO issue, but also that Putin fears from his own population: and having them see their Ukranian brothers achieve the kind of success which eluded Russia, after the fall of the USSR, in the form of a Western style, free & open democracy, Putin viewed as an equal, if not greater, and nearer, threat.

So, I don't think his moving against Ukraine, on principle, was the least bit insane. It is just the manner in which he has gone about it, and continues to persist, when it is so difficult to see this as ultimately advantageous for anyone, including for Putin. The "sane" thing to have done, when we ruined Putin's plans for a murky beginning to the conflict, would seem to have been to change course. Putin just appears to have run out of all patience.

This seeming discounting of all adverse consequences, seems to point to, at least, a degree of delusional thinking, on Putin's part. But even that wouldn't, necessarily, make him certifiably insane. I had said, early on in the thread, that the word, "insane" was probably not the best term to use, however, it was the one chosen, in the headline of my linked article.

 

All of us, of course, are prone to acting irrationally, at times. It is only the scale of Putin's acts, which sets them apart, puts them in the category of "delusions of grandeur." What I had mostly wished to consider, in this thread, was if Putin's capacity for rational thought had become COMPROMISED; like I said, "insanity," is not really the important threshold, though your post shows that this, also, is an interesting thing, about which to opine: where is the line between sanity & insanity?

My original feeling had been that Putin's mental state was one created by his isolation, during the pandemic, and from living in bubble of a relatively few voices, who were all of the ilk, according to our former Russian Ambassador, Michael McFaul, whose thought was paranoid, rooted in Cold War mentality, and disconnected from real life, living in a falsely manufactured delusion. In the exalted center of this echo chamber, I was thinking that Putin's sense of reality had become distorted; would that make him insane?-- good question. One analogy that I'd used-- which at least one person here did not appreciate (that I know of)-- was of a person who'd spent so much time with the online Qanon Community, that they'd come to have their own perspectives, warped by it.

Since starting the thread, I have picked up other, potential, contributing factors, from posters, from the outside world, and from my own contemplation. These include possibilities like the early signs of Alzheimer's, and even brain fog, as the after- effect of a Covid infection. There is a new thread which adds some weight to my original thought, but modifies it from being Putin's own ideas, with which he's become intoxicated, to it being those of a political pholosopher- Guru, Aleksandr Durgin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin

[snip]

Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin (Russian: Александр Гельевич Дугин; born 7 January 1962) is a Russian philosopher, professor, political analyst and strategist. He was the main organizer of the National Bolshevik Party, National Bolshevik Front, and the Eurasia Party. He also served as an advisor to the State Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov[5] and a leading member of the ruling United Russia party, Sergey Naryshkin.[6] Dugin is the author of more than 30 books, among them Foundations of Geopolitics (1997) and The Fourth Political Theory (2009). Dugin is a relativist who claims that concepts of liberalism, freedom and democracy are alien to Russian culture, and that the exact sciences of chemistry and physics are demonic Western influences. He believes that Russia is culturally closer to Asia than to Europe, and espouses an ultranationalist, neo-fascist ideology based on his idea of Neo-Eurasianism. He has called for the creation of an illiberal totalitarian Eurasian empire stretching from Dublin to Vladivostok, with the annexation of Ukraine and Finland to support his idea of a Russian truth.

[end SNIP]


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism#Neo-Eurasianism

[Snip]

Political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov defines Dugin's version of Neo-Eurasianism as "a form of a fascist ideology centred on the idea of revolutionising the Russian society and building a totalitarian, Russia-dominated Eurasian Empire that would challenge and eventually defeat its eternal adversary represented by the United States and its Atlanticist allies, thus bringing about a new ‘golden age’ of global political and cultural illiberalism".[6]

Gumilev's contribution to neo-Eurasianism lies in the conclusions he reaches from applying his theory of ethnogenesis, namely that the Mongol occupation of 1240–1480 AD (known as the "Mongol yoke") had shielded the emergent Russian ethnos from the aggressive neighbor to the West,[who?] allowing it to gain time to achieve maturity. The idea of Eurasianism contrasts with Konstantin Leontyev's Byzantism, which is similar in its rejection of the West, but identifies with the Byzantine Empire rather than with Central Asian tribal culture.[citation needed]


Eurasian world for the Eurasianist political movement

The ideology of the movement was partially incorporated into a new movement of the same name after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, influenced the political theorist Aleksandr Dugin to publish in 1997 a magnum opus by the name of Foundations of Geopolitics. He later founded the Eurasia Party on the Russian political scene.

[end Snip]


Here is the OP, under Global Affairs, and a post of mine in the thread, that more concisely gives one a picture of Dugin's influence.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/putins-rasputin.597708/

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/putins-rasputin.597708/#post-1073305716

One last SNIP, on Dugin's political philosophy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory

The Fourth Political Theory (Russian: Четвертая политическая теория, Chetvertaya Politicheskaya Teoriya) is a book by the Russian political analyst and strategist Aleksandr Dugin, published in 2009. In the book, Dugin states that he is laying the foundations for an entirely new political ideology, the fourth political theory, which integrates and supersedes liberal democracy, Marxism, and fascism.[1] In this theory, the main subject of politics is not individualism, class struggle, or nation, but rather Dasein (existence itself).[2]

The book has been cited as an inspiration for Russian policy in events such as the war in Donbas,[3] and for the contemporary European far-right in general

 

Comrade Pootin indeed doesn't look very healthy. Perhaps doctors told him that his life is nearly over.

In my opinion, Putin will fight this war until his very last breath. He'll never give up. He's today's Adolph Hitler. Either Ukraine gives up, or Putin will continue to fight to the point of total annihilation of all life in Ukraine. This includes the deployment of nuclear weapons.

 

A nuke is their only strength they are flaunting. I have heard for years that Russia is a formidable enemy. I am guessing they are holding something in reserve because they are not looking very strong and getting their butts whooped when some of the "expert" were predicting they would reach their objective very quickly (what ever their undefined objective is here)

 

Russkie military strength is a myth spread by Kremlin trolls on social media.

Pootin does have a large army, many men to sacrifice for his senseless wars. But Russian soldiers are inexperienced, young, and poorly trained. It's like the Red Army in WW2. If one fighter is killed, there are 10 others taking his place.

Putin suffocates his opponents with his raw human material. And he'll probably do the same with Ukraine as Stalin did to the German Wehrmacht in WW2. Of course, in this war, Putin is Hitler, not Zelenskiyy.

 

That would certify him, IMO, as insane.