Putin wants to protect Russian interests in the west-centric global order

Crescent International

Image Source - Pixbay Free Content

Tucker Carlson’s interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin captured headlines and attention worldwide including in the Muslim world.

Since the hype and excitement around it has settled down somewhat, it is now possible to analyze the interview in a more sober manner.

It should also be kept in mind that although there are interesting things Putin said during his two-hour long interview, what he did not say is just as important.

Many pundits, politicians, and policy-makers in Russia and some even abroad, expected Putin to outline in more specific terms, what Russia offers as an alternative to the decaying west-centric global order.

Those harbouring such expectations were quite disappointed.

As the world order is currently transforming into multipolarity, proponents of the latter want to see a systematized and institutionalized alternative which can sustain multipolarity in a methodical fashion.

While Putin’s inability to articulate a multipolar system is a minus for his sympathizers, for the Muslim world this is positive news.

To comprehend this properly, Putin’s narrative in the lengthy interview needs to be clearly understood.

In overall terms, Putin’s interview focused on one central message and had one audience in mind.

The key message was that Russia is open to renegotiate the west-centric global order, provided its strategic interests are accommodated on its own terms.

The on its own terms is the key aspect here.

The biggest hint of this was Putin’s deliberate historical claim to Ukraine.

The initial portion of the interview was only for domestic consumption.

Putin knows that the western audience and its elites will not understand or be able to relate in any form to his historicity framed outlook on the conflict in Ukraine.

This element sent a clear message that Moscow will not give in and will not approach the Ukraine conflict through the western narrative and framework.

The west will have to learn to approach the conflict in Ukraine through the Russian perspective.

This leads us to the second important aspect from Carlson’s interview with Putin.

The primary audience Putin was aiming to address in his interview was Donald Trump and his inner Republican Party circle.

It seems Trump and his clique understood this message and reciprocated almost immediately.

A couple of days after the interview, Trump declared during a speech in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that he told the Europeans that if they did not contribute financially to NATO, the US would not back them if Russia attacked.

Now let us look at the most substantive part of Putin’s words through an Islamic paradigm and at a much deeper level stepping outside of the secular dogmas.

“As for religion in general. You know, it’s not about external manifestations, it’s not about going to church every day or banging your head on the floor. It is in the heart. And our culture is so human-oriented. Dostoevsky, who is very well known in the West as the genius of Russian culture, Russian literature, spoke a lot about this, about the Russian soul.”

While Putin directly linked religion and contemporary Russian statehood, he merely borrowed a simplistic west European secular-liberal misunderstanding of religion and sprinkled it with some Russian nationalism and traditionalism.

While this might appear as a minor point, it shows that Russia does not have the capacity to formulate a concrete political philosophy without borrowing the west-centric philosophical framework.

Even when it comes to what Putin claims is such an important dimension of Russia today: religion.

It should also be noted that Putin’s attempt to analyze and present Russia through its literary giants is simply a narrative peddling approach.

In most cultures, literary works are produced by outliers of society who want to remake the bad reality they live in and want to construct an ideal via their writings.

While Russia of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy does have some relevance to the Russian society, this take is more a fantasy/vision of these intellectual and literary giants than Russia’s reality.

Nothing highlighted Russia’s inability to put forward a concrete alternative than the following statement of Putin.

“… The tools that the US uses don’t work. Well, one has to think about what to do. If this realization comes to the ruling elites, then yes, then the first person of the state will act in anticipation of what the voters and the people who make decisions at various levels expect from this person. Then maybe something will change.”

This aspect is a positive development for emerging Muslim poles of power in the new multipolar global order.

It provides time and socio-political space for Islamic movements and the wider Muslim world to formulate and implement their own regional paradigm outside of the Russian, Chinese or west-centric patronage.