Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957) was Adolf Hitler’s personal photographer for an astounding 24 years; he got the job in 1921 when the Nazis were just getting started. He was more than just another low-level functionary, however. He was a dedicated Nazi, a close confidant of Hitler, and a crook, arrested after World War II for having actively plundered the art collections of Jewish families. He spent several years in prison for this.
However, it wasn’t just ideology that kept him in Hitler’s fold. Hoffmann was a willing accomplice in building an image for Hitler; this required close working with the dictator, as Adolf was extremely image conscious. In 1933 Hoffmann published The Hitler Nobody Knows (1933), a book of photographs intended to show what a wonderful guy the Führer really was.
Somehow this history popped into my head while reading about Tucker Carlson’s trip to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin. Carlson did everything to ingratiate himself with Putin, allowing the Russian President to give interminable (and false) history lectures (a habit he shares with one Adolf Hitler) and allowing him to control the interview completely. He did not challenge any of Putin’s lies, which included blaming Poland for the outbreak of World War II. To be fair, some interviewers were very successful with the nonconfrontational approach. Larry King of CNN comes to mind. But even Larry might have slipped in an obvious question, such as why all of Putin’s opponents wind up dead. Putin himself later poked fun at Carlson’s interviewing technique.
But there is a more important question here than what Carlson was up to. We know what he was up to. As he was already disgraced, he had nothing to lose by going to Moscow. Far more interesting is to consider what Putin was up to with the interview, and to figure that out, we have to look at what his strategy is. And to figure out what his strategy is, we have to decide what his goals really are. Still with me?
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If all that sounds complicated, it’s because it is. Putin did not rise to power by being open, honest, or transparent, nor would we expect that from a former officer of the Soviet KGB secret police. However, there’s more to it than that. Military and police officers in Russia are well acquainted with a concept known as maskirovka.
Maskirovka is not easy to define. My trusty Soviet-era Russian language dictionary translates it with words such as mask, disguise, and camouflage; but none of those words by itself quite capture it. Combining the three above words is a bit better. In Soviet military science, it “encompasse[d] a diverse spectrum of stratagems employed to warp the enemy’s view of Soviet positions, designs and missions, and to alter the perceptions of their own side and their clients as well.” Whatever Putin says, and whatever he does, must take this into account. The most important aspect of what he says is not what he says to us, but rather what he says at home. He has presented himself as both a Russian nationalist and as revitalizing the achievements and power of the old Soviet Union; interestingly enough, those are not the same thing. Like any nationalist leader he has made it unpatriotic to oppose him, but he continues to hold on to the pretense of democracy and elections. All this suggests he operates partially by keeping all his adversaries guessing about everything that he is doing or intending to do.
He certainly did so with Ukraine, as up to the very end he managed to convince many “experts” (myself included) that he was not really going to pull the trigger. Here, he partly fooled himself, as he expected Ukraine to collapse immediately and the government to flee, Afghanistan-style; we know that his own intel was very bad, and that in this case, he also underestimated Western resolve. What is more interesting is that Putin has doubled down what he is doing and has not shown creativity or flexibility in escaping from the crisis.
So why not? Why has he doubled down? If he wants to recreate the Soviet Union, it makes sense to annex all the old imperial borderlands. This would explain why he invests so much in disorienting his Western opponents. He does this by stimulating polarization and chaos in the USA (not that he needs much help) and also by threatening Western Europe with nuclear war, hoping to undermine NATO. But in Europe, this is a reckless strategy. NATO has gotten stronger in Europe than it was before. Then again, we know that Putin is remarkably reckless for a Russian leader. (This is no urban myth; his secret police supervisors saw it as the one glaring flaw in his career.)
But borderlands absorption can be achieved over time by a number of ways. Infiltration, such as was done by Crimea, or supporting fellow extreme nationalists, like the current president of Hungary, is one way. So why an invasion? The political situation in Ukraine was going against him, which his propagandists have cleverly misstated as somehow an anti-Russian coup. But why an invasion now? Apparently he did not take seriously Western promises to help Ukraine. But why take the risky and visible step of an outright invasion?
Putin is often compared to his hero Stalin, but this is historically inaccurate. Stalin was cautious. Stalin only invaded one of his neighbors (Finland) when there was absolutely no way that foreign powers could or would help, and after the war he made a deal that allowed Finland to exist as a Westernized but neutral power. What Putin could gain by a quick invasion and overthrow of Ukraine’s government was to enhance his own credentials as a Russian/Soviet nationalist – which suggests that he is highly paranoid; something which is also shown by his serial assassinations of his adversaries.
The big question is, of course, whether Putin has bigger things than Ukraine on his mind. Here is where maskirovka comes back into play, because he constantly keeps everybody guessing. Not everybody has doubts about this. Our president certainly fears for the future of NATO. This is the main reason why we are supporting Ukraine. But you don’t have to take Joe Biden’s word for it. Finland, after almost EIGHTY YEARS of neutrality, opted to join NATO, and let’s face it; the Finns know more about Russia than just about anybody on the planet. Sweden, after more than TWO HUNDRED YEARS of neutrality, opted to join NATO. Their behavior and actions, given what these countries know about Russia and Putin, should tell us all that we need to know.
And that is where Tucker Carlson comes back in. Putin needs a variety of outlets to continue to disorganize and divide to foreign responses to his aggression. And just like Heinrich Hoffmann played along to help Hitler look better to the world, Tucker went to Moscow to conduct his fake interview. Some people continue to believe Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin. But based on how the United States, Britain and other Western allies faced down two great dictatorships in modern history, I am optimistic that we can handle a third one.
Hubert P. van Tuyll
Augusta University (Emeritus)
Hubert P. van Tuyll is a retired professor of military history at Augusta University. Reach him a hvantuyl@augusta.edu.
