Interesting read. No mention of the alleged horse incident.

We live in an age of bad gender punditry, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has contributed to the confusion. Speaking to German media between the Group of Seven and NATO summits late last month, he offered the following wisdom: “If Putin was a woman, which he obviously isn’t, but if he were, I really don’t think he would have embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence in the way that he has. If you want a perfect example of toxic masculinity, it’s what he is doing in Ukraine.”

One hopes this was the reflexive and insincere pandering of a career politician, because if Mr. Johnson and his G-7 colleagues actually believe this nonsense, the West is in even greater trouble than it appears.



Vladimir Putin isn’t trying to be more like Rambo. Among other heroes of Russian history, he is trying to imitate Catherine the Great. The most successful of a line of 18th-century rulers, mostly female, who expanded the empire of Peter the Great and made Russia the greatest land power in Europe, Catherine conquered the Crimea and western Ukraine. She won naval battles in the Black Sea and ruthlessly suppressed rebellions at home. Having installed a former lover as king of Poland, she gleefully took the lion’s share of that unhappy country while partitioning it three times.

Americans hoping to get beyond stereotypes to grasp Mr. Putin’s worldview should spend some time on the couch binge-watching “Ekaterina: The Rise of Catherine the Great.” This lushly produced costume drama, made with funding from the Russian Ministry of Information and presented in Russian with English subtitles on Amazon Prime, lets viewers see Russia the way Mr. Putin wants Russians to see it. It provides more insight into Putinist thinking than all the bloviations of the G-7 leaders.



In the series, Catherine overthrows her feckless husband, Peter III, and secures power by ordering the murder of a young ex-emperor and sanctioning Peter’s murder at the hand of her lover. When Peter, a slavish admirer and imitator of Prussian King Frederick the Great, came to power, he recalled Russian troops then occupying Berlin and conceded huge territories to Frederick in hope of building an alliance of values with Russia’s former foe. Like the liberals of the Yeltsin era, he sought to provide Russia with a modern Western-style constitution and generally to make Russia a European country. The hero who helps Catherine seize the throne—an officer from the Russian occupation force in Germany disgusted with Peter’s abject weakness in the face of Western arrogance—could remind Russian viewers of ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin returning to the chaos of post-Soviet Russia from his German posting. In subsequent seasons, Catherine goes on to crush domestic opposition and defeat Russia’s eternal enemies to the west and south.

All the key beliefs of Putinism, represented as eternal truths about Russia and its place in the world, are on display in a series that is as entertaining as it is educational. All other countries hate and seek to ruin Russia. Talk of “values” in international relations is a cynical con by which the hostile West seeks to confuse and disarm Russia.

Russia is also threatened from within. Greedy officials, populist discontent and pretenders to power would pull Russia to bits if left to themselves. Foreign enemies are eager to join forces with domestic ones, constantly probing to weaken Russia. Corruption is chronic; no government can ever root it out. But some corrupt officials are loyal to Russia; others are paid agents of foreign powers.

Only a strong ruler, exempted from the restraints of conventional morality and armed with a powerful internal security apparatus that is free to use harsh measures can keep Russia safe. The burden of absolute power and the necessity of making hard and often soul-killingly ugly decisions isolate the ruler. But to bear this burden and make those ugly choices is the highest form of sacrificial idealism. The people give themselves to the ruler; the ruler gives up hope of private happiness for the people.

It doesn’t always work out well. Catherine’s armies faced many setbacks owing to endemic corruption, poor leadership and, often, the technological superiority of her enemies’ weapons. There was never enough money in the treasury. But successful rulers do not give up when the going gets tough. They, and the Russian people with them, dig in for a long, ugly war.

This is the picture Mr. Putin wants the Russian people to have of their current situation, and to a significant degree it is likely how he sees himself.

To your couches, Americans! Those who do not understand their enemies must brace for defeat. As long as G-7 leaders allow cheap gender stereotypes to fog their brains, Vladimir Putin can still hope to grind out a victory in Ukraine.

LINK: https://www.wsj.com/articles/i..._opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s

Well, perhaps, but then Catherine was German and introduced western enlightenment ideas into Russia.

More like Peter the Great

https://www.reuters.com/world/...an-lands-2022-06-09/

Was Peter the Great female? I think you skimmed the article. The original thesis had to do with the suggestion that if Putin were female there would be a kindler gentler approach. The author rebutted that were Putin a female he would behave more like the ruthless and bizarre Catherine the Great.