“While Europe erased borders and enshrined the free movement of people, capital and ideas, Putin made a fetish of defending a Russian national sovereignty that no-one in fact had ever attempted to destroy. As the world moved away from empires and abandoned colonies, Putin built his power on an imperial vision of a Russia that had comprehensively collapsed in 1991. And like great dictators of the previous century, he cultivated the obedience of the masses, fed them fantasies of militarism and heroic death, created a cult of the leader that conflated him with the state itself, banished any means for his own power to be challenged legitimately and sought to rule forever.
There is nothing new about dictators. They exist today, and history shows that many who are close to absolute authority are not all bad (for example King Abdullah of Jordan, Mustafa Ataturk, first president of modern Turkey, Simon Bolivar, President of Peru and Catherine the Great of Russia). But many have been. It seems likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin – the primary subject of this blog - suffers from a personality disorder which is cause for considerable alarm. It is a disorder he shares with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-Il – extreme paranoia.
There are parallels with Stalin, though his acts were much harsher given he had no restraints at all. The 1936 – 38 purges saw old Bolsheviks and middle-ranking communist party members accused of conspiring against him and the state. He purged the Soviet army of most of its generals in the 1930s, fearing they were plotting against him, almost costing him the Second World War. In his old age he eschewed all medical advice, relying on a veterinarian and other bizarre self-administered medical treatments. There were also indicators of sadistic and anti-social behaviours.
If hypothesis of this blog – that Putin suffers from a personality disorder – is true, analysts should include a psychological assessment of Putin as they estimate and attempt to forecast Russia’s international manoeuvres. Furthermore, as a dictator he has none of the checks and balances a leader normally has to moderate his views.
When I served in the British Embassy in Moscow, we lived in Kutuzovsky Prospect. Every day we saw members of the Politburo speeding down the centre of the highway in their impressive black Zil cars, curtains drawn and with many outriders. But there was one car that drove at precisely the speed limit and had its curtains drawn back so we could see the occupant inside - the imposing figure of Mikhael Suslov, the chief ideologue of the Communist Party and Chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)’s international department. Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Party, and effectively the leader, was not a dictator; people like Suslov, as well as Andrei Gromyko (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Dmitriy Ustinov (Minister of Defence) and Yury Andropov (Chairman of the KGB), exercised considerable influence on Soviet policy. None was a friend of the West, but we knew we could apply basic analytical techniques to judge their decision-making because they were ‘rational actors’ in the way that Putin is not.
Academic, journalistic and government experts use classic geopolitical analysis techniques to forecast what Russia will do next. Will Russia, for example, use a nuclear weapon on Western targets in the next 5 years? Seen through the lens of a rational actor, there is no long-term advantage to deploying a nuclear device. However, Putin, as a result of his potential personality disorder, is unlikely to be a rational actor, and is certainly not someone who shares Western values and beliefs about how the world should work. How, then, can analysts overcome this problem of forecasting the actions of such a person? Psychologists can contribute significantly to the analytical process.
There is little in Putin’s first 40 years living in the Soviet Union which would have predicted his rise to power, in any system, let alone a political system free of communism. He was an average pupil and had an average career in the KGB. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin joined the mayor’s office in Saint Petersburg (previously Leningrad) and by dint of hard work rose in the bureaucracy. Ironically, an oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, close to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, recommended Putin as someone who was a ‘safe pair of hands’ to become Head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 1996, someone who would not threaten Yeltsin’s position. By 1999 Putin was appointed as Russian Prime Minister, and then acting President following Yeltsin’s resignation, swiftly followed by election for his first term as President (proper). Once President in 2000, he started the process of eliminating threats and gathering around him people he could trust. He also gradually took over the principal levers of press control.
Putin was appalled by the collapse of the Soviet Union. His admiration of powerful Tsars such as Peter the Great is well known. His interpretation of Russian history gives us an important insight into his mindset. For example, he told an audience of Russia IT professionals and scientists in June 2022 that Peter the Great was a role model. He explained that "you might think [Peter the Great] was fighting with Sweden, seizing their lands", referring to the Northern Wars which Peter launched at the turn of the 18th Century as he forged a new Russian Empire, "but he seized nothing; he reclaimed it!", arguing that Slavs had lived in the area for centuries. He concluded that speech by saying "it seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen”. Putin’s interpretation of history, much distorted from the Western view, is likely influenced by the fact that for the first 40 years of his life, Russia held power or significant influence over much of Eastern and Central Europe (through the Warsaw Pact). Putin makes no secret of the fact that his intention is to regain some or most of that territory. Ukraine and Russia have a shared history. But Putin goes further. In his article in July 2021 he wrote. “Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. It is what I have said on numerous occasions and what I firmly believe.” Putin has accrued almost total power in Russia (the manipulation of the press and imprisonment and/or assassination of political opponents e.g. Alexander Litvinenko, Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov).
Psychologists have identified indicators of a significant paranoid personality disorder (PPD). Many commentators have spoken of paranoia being part of the Russian psyche. Putin takes his paranoia to a dangerous level. In correspondence with this author, Dr Robert Hogan described Putin’s paranoid tendencies as follows:
“He is smart, ambitious, competitive, and capable of great personal charm. Paranoids avoid the limelight and keep their own council. They take ideas very seriously because the core of paranoia is a complex and comprehensive delusional system that is impossible to challenge with data or logic. The delusional system makes sense of the world and is used to detect emerging threats and unsuspected enemies, with the paranoid occupying a starring role in the system. He or she is the chosen one who can save his/her people.Paranoids attract followers through vision (“make Russia great again”). They respect others who are strong. When paranoids are frustrated, they plot revenge (“don’t get angry, get even”). They want to win. They are very insightful about other people and tend to be surrounded by a small number of long term ‘trusted’ advisors. Finally, paranoids can only be controlled by the threat of superior force.”
The evidence against Putin is substantial: the assassination and imprisonment of political opponents, his demonisation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian leadership as being Nazis, his refusal to trust any but those close to him (it is telling how few knew of his plans to invade Ukraine), the revenge he deploys on those who cross him, such as the sabotage on the plane which was carrying former Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, his respect for Chinese President Xi Jinping - one of the very few leaders he admires, his interpretation of Russian history which positions the country at the centre of east European politics. Analysis, even by professional psychologists, of Putin remotely can be fallible. However, from what we can observe about Putin, it is a realistic possibility that he has a paranoid personality disorder. This hypothesis should be borne in mind when forecasting how he might behave, and frame assessments about Putin’s decision-making across the board.
Putin has recently lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons. Some may see this as sabre rattling. It can also be interpreted as preparing the people of Russia for a nuclear exchange, initiated by Russia. Putin may be powerful, but he knows he must reassure the Russian people. His country has suffered significant change of governments through revolution, most recently in 1990 and Prigozhin attempted an insurrection in 2023. Putin may not want to use nuclear weapons; he will look for a peaceful solution, but he also knows it is a realistic possibility that he may initiate a nuclear exchange. He must carry his people with him.
We cannot forecast what he will do with certainty, but having established Putin’s nuclear option is a realistic possibility, European governments, not just Ukrainians, should be taking appropriate action. Governments in Scandinavia have issued their populations with pamphlets about what to do if war breaks out. Putin will be observing events in Washington closely. Ironically, Putin’s paranoia hands President-elect Donald Trump his best negotiating advantage. Trump is now all powerful – he has control of both houses in Congress, the Supreme Court and effectively the whole of the US Executive. And what do paranoids admire most – powerful people. It follows that Trump is in a strong position to negotiate a deal that is good for Ukraine, the US and the world - not one to suit his personal agenda.
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