ZOMG THIS is Peak New York Times:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the writings of conventional international relations experts to be not very helpful in understanding what this whole crisis is about. But I’ve found the writing of experts in social psychology to be enormously helpful.

His singular achievement has been to help Russians to recover from a psychic trauma — the aftermath of the Soviet Union — and to give them a collective identity so they can feel that they matter, that their life has dignity.

uhm

Maybe we should see this invasion as a rabid form of identity politics.

Or maybe we should see it as what it is - a poorly-executed "greatest hits" geopolitical move like the invasion of Syria in 2015, invasion of Donbass in 2014, like the invasion of Georgia in 2008, the invasion of Chechnya in 96, the invasion of Chechnya in 94, the invasion of Afghanistan in 79 or the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 68 or 48.

The geopolitical rationalists, from Friedman to Kaplan to Zeihan, will happily point out that Russia has relied on "barrier states" to prevent invasion since the Mongols or before. There are no natural barriers against the invasion of Russia. I mean the Caucasus were first dominated by the Parthians, whose battle strategy was "we will outrun you and leave you in the middle of our land where there are no resources then shoot at you as you retreat." If you feel threatened by Paris, you're gonna want a friendly bit of turf between you and Paris. that shit goes back to the Golden Horde or before.

The Soviet Union was a messed-up tyranny, but as Gulnaz Sharafutdinova writes in her book “The Red Mirror,” Soviet history and rhetoric gave Russians a sense that they were “living in a country that was in many ways unique and superior to the rest of the world.”

Ahh, there it is. Lolbrooks read a book.

What explains Putin's enduring popularity in Russia? In The Red Mirror, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova uses social identity theory to explain Putin's leadership.

But since this is the New York Times, we get David Brooks' impressions of a scholarly book, rather than an interview with the author.

The end of the Soviet Union could have been seen as a liberation, a chance to build a new and greater Russia. But Putin chose to see it as a catastrophic loss, one creating a feeling of helplessness and a shattered identity. Who are we now? Do we matter anymore?

I mean... the life expectancy of the average Russian plummeted twenty five years. It was an uhm easy choice.

Like identity politicians everywhere, Putin turned this identity crisis into a humiliation story. He covered over any incipient feelings of shame and inferiority by declaring: We are the innocent victims. They — America, the Westerners, the cool kids at Davos — did this to us.

Dude we plundered their space program and sold it off at Sotheby's to cover their debts. Those feelings weren't "incipient" they were intentional. The cruelty WAS the point.

The billion ruble question is: How does a guy who has spent his life battling against feelings of shame and humiliation react as large parts of the world rightly shame and humiliate him?

facepalm

Hey David - if he cared he wouldn't have done it. Did you... read that book you claim to have read? Here, lemme quote David Brooks at you:

More and more, Putin portrayed himself as not just a national leader but a civilizational leader, leading the forces of traditional morality against the moral depravity of the West.