I asked Carlo if he would consider writing another guest post on Ukraine, and he graciously agreed.
Lucky again!
War in Ukraine: Get Real
by Carlo GrazianiPreview
In typical potted-history examples drawn from great-power conflict that are used for realist case histories, these issues always seem very clear-cut. Interest is about territorial acquisition, or access to resources, or to convenient littoral real estate; national security is about territorial defense, or alliances, or integrity of national boundaries.
But what happens when the powers in question violently disagree on what constitutes their own interests and those of their rivals? What if their controlling historical narratives are so incompatible as to preclude a common calculation of rational interest in the cold, realist mode?
(break here so we can put the full post under the fold)
The Full Post
Recently, I was trying to boil down the problem with the realist outlook on international relations when I was suddenly reminded of a joke from the mid-2000s:
Why do Prius drivers have higher accident rates than other drivers?
Because it’s hard to drive while patting yourself on the back.
That actually captures a great deal of how realism is failing as an analytic framework as applied to the war in Ukraine. Its most prominent practitioners are busy congratulating themselves on their prescience while scolding their critics for mushy thinking, while their intellectual blinders prevent them from noticing that their policies are crashing into unpredicted realities at staccato cadences.
Since the onset of the Russian onslaught against Ukraine, there has been a noticeable patter from the self-validating back-patting of the realist school of international relations, which has not been slow to set up its customary contrast between, on the one hand “formal”, “process-based”, “hard-headed” calculation of invariant national interest, and on the other, “moralizing”, “emotional”, “irrational”, “impulsive” action leading to inevitable national self-harm.
John Mearsheimer never went away, of course, and lately has been articulating oddball theories stating that Russia and the US ought to really be natural allies against China, as a background lament in support of his thesis that NATO expansion caused the war in Ukraine. Tanner Greer, writing in the Opinion pages of the New York Times under the headline “Realism Must Guide Our Reaction to Russia’s Invasion” (paywalled) delivers himself of chin-strokers such as “Americans should be particularly sensitive to the dangers of moral fervor and intuitive judgment overwhelming the slower, more bureaucratic processes behind most foreign policy”; decidedly odd historical analogies such as one between Western sanctions on Russia and…some kind of unspecified pressure on Hitler that apparently drove him to launch Operation Barbarossa so as to “…forestall decline”; and builds to a peroration in which he…no, I can’t. Read it yourselves:
This is not a simple problem. Our desire to punish Mr. Putin for the evil he has unleashed in Ukraine must be carefully balanced against the lives that will be lost the longer this war lasts, the real risks of military escalation, the long-term security needs of Europe and the second-order effects a new iron curtain might have on other parts of American foreign policy—such as U.S. security commitments in East Asia and the health of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. To meet this challenge, we must keep our policy firmly rooted in the “logic of consequence.” Americans living generations from now will be grateful that in this moment of crisis, our policy was guided by careful calculation instead of emotional reaction.
Got all that? In that one paragraph we go from a perfunctory acknowledgment of “lives that will be lost” to the core of realist concerns, not least among which is the the dollar’s status as a reserve currency—which, incidentally, if you should catch some sideband noise from shouty financial market pundits, as I happen to occasionally for reasons not worth belaboring, is a hot topic among people who believe that Chinese open and transparent institutions of governance ideally position the Renmimbi to displace the US dollar as the global reserve currency because inflation, or irresponsible Federal Reserve policy, or some other crisis du jour. And he fondly anticipates the gratitude of future American generations for this wise counsel.
I should break off from this intemperate screed, because I don’t actually think that the realist program as a whole is worthless. Of course there is a place for calculation of rational self-interest in international relations. And there are some academic realists who have been capable of articulating more nuanced discussions of the Ukraine crisis. Emma Ashford is one example—she gave a good interview on the Ezra Klein show recently.
Also, with that kind of lead-off, I may be giving the impression that my problem with realists is their smug and patronizing tendency to view any dissent from their outlook as being somehow overwrought and irrational. That is annoying, but for the most part ignorable (although Mearsheimer is a such a flagrant case of academic backpfeifengesicht that I personally know a few people who have met him whose fists he has caused to itch).
Realism is a framework in which nation-state actors act efficiently on the basis of rational choices to further their strategic interests and protect their national security. It is a structural theory, which makes it amenable to analysis and policy choice for defusing conflict. There’s an unacknowledged problem here, though, that realists always glide right past without slowing down. The realist program buries an unexamined assumption in plain view, right in its definition: how do we know what strategic interests or national security considerations are? How can we be sure that different nation state actors will define them in the same way, or that they will define them consistently for themselves and for their rivals?
In typical potted-history examples drawn from great-power conflict that are used for realist case histories, these issues always seem very clear-cut. Interest is about territorial acquisition, or access to resources, or to convenient littoral real estate; national security is about territorial defense, or alliances, or integrity of national boundaries. The picture always seems to be something out of Metternich’s Concert of Europe, or very like. All the powers basically agree on what their values are, and on priorities: they just disagree a bit on which rivers should constitute national boundaries.
But what happens when the powers in question violently disagree on what constitutes their own interests and those of their rivals? What if their controlling historical narratives are so incompatible as to preclude a common calculation of rational interest in the cold, realist mode? This is, after all, the situation as it exists in the Ukrainian conflict. The Putinist narrative conflates a Romantic and quasi-Messianic view of Russian exceptionalism colored by overtones of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and racial intolerance and a sense of Russian imperial destiny with deep grievance born of coerced post-Cold-War Russian retrenchment in the face of dominant Western economic power. The Western narrative, on the other hand, is embedded in a reality where such a mentality does not even register on any part of the broadest spectrum of mentally healthy views of how the world works. I’m sorry? In 2022, we’re in an international security dialog with a character who thinks he’s the second coming of Peter the Great?
The point is not that “true strategic interests” don’t exist, or that nations that ignore them don’t eventually come a cropper. The point is that the entire reason for being of the realist framework as a structuralist program is that it simplifies the analysis for defusing conflict. But if the entire analysis is based on grotesquely incorrect premises, shouldn’t we at least re-examine the implications of the framework for policy?
Here we come to the real problem with the realist approach to the Ukraine war. You hear a great deal about what a bad idea it is to “poke” or “trap” a bear—in implicit contradistinction to what a great idea it is to make some kind of a deal with the bear. But the realists who make the bear-poking-or-trapping analogy are usually careful not to be specific about the deal that they propose to make. And there are very good reasons for that caution. That deal does not exist.
In Ukraine the deal does not exist, because nobody has the right to concede to Putin the territorial gains that his 19th-century mentality has prepared him to feel entitled to, but which the entire Ukrainian nation, with a unanimity that cannot be gainsaid in academic colloquia, has risen up to deny him. Even were some great-power deal made behind the back of this heroic resistance—I do not believe for a moment that this is possible—the resulting Russian occupation of Ukraine would, I believe, receive a rougher handling than was meted out to the Wehrmacht by Yugoslavian partisans in World War II. And those guys could have taught the Afghan resistance a thing or two.
Outside Ukraine, in the West, and in the US in particular, we have been actually dealing with Putin and Putinism as a direct adversary for over a decade. We have been slow to understand the challenge, and to rise to it. But re-read the Mueller Report now. Understand the challenges that Putin has been issuing to our democracy, and the admittedly brilliant low-cost investments that he’s made in people like Trump, or Manafort. Vladimir Putin, and the Idea that he represents, came very close to ringing down the curtain on American democracy with the January 6 shitshow. That was his investment working its way nearly to the core. Trump can only get partial credit for that. Trump doesn’t really have the cognition to understand what he did—in the larger picture, he’s a glove puppet with Putin’s hand up his ass. Why would we make a deal with the Bear that allows Putin to regroup, and invest in another Trump, or perhaps in a newer, shinier, later-model Tucker Carlson, now that too many people can see the puppet strings stretching up from the current, somewhat soiled one?
I have no idea what the likes of Mearsheimer were doing, or thinking, on January 6, but they clearly were not doing intellectual due-diligence, or taking the trouble of marking their beliefs to market. If they had been doing so, they would have behaved in a much more chastened manner when the Ukraine war began. It seems completely clear to me, in any event, that realist counsel in this war is to be totally disregarded now. There can be no compromise with Putinism. Vladimir Putin started this fight. Whatever it takes—weapons and intelligence aid to Ukraine, sanctions piled upon sanctions for Russia, containment or rollback for international Putinism—we, in the West, had better finish it. The correct framing is not coming to an understanding with Putin over Ukraine: It is coming to an understanding with Russia over ending Putinism. Even another Cold War would be worth gaining that end.
Thank you, Carlo, for the terrific posts!
.
Baud
I think they miss the caviar.
WV Blondie
Brilliant! In complete keeping with what you and Adam have contributed over the past few weeks.
The question is, how do we get the American public to get the same level of understanding?
Old Man Shadow
Of course, the bear in this case was Ukraine, Europe, the United States, and our allies.
The world dodged a huge bullet because of Joe Biden’s election.
schrodingers_cat
Who is Mearsheimer? YouTube keeps suggesting his videos to me. I have marked his videos as spam.
Mike in NC
“Putin’s Fatal Mistake” nicely sums up the situation.
Medicine Man
@Carlo: The whole thing is worth reading just for the last two sentences. Thank you Carlo.
A few questions:
Ishiyama
Do you like Kipling? I don’t know, I’ve never kippled:
“Make ye no truce with Adam-zad — the Bear that walks like a Man!
Lums Better Half
Chamberlain is currently lionized for making a deal over the heads of the sovereign Czechoslovak nation. Just sayin’.
Roger Moore
I think a lot of what they were doing was ignoring it as domestic politics rather than international. It constantly astonishes me how many people are willing to completely ignore that Putin has been using infiltration of Western political systems as part of his foreign policy. I want to think that it’s just them failing to consider the possibilities, but when someone is quite that blind it raises a lot of questions.
Barney
Even being a Realist, it seems to me Greer has put some things on the wrong side of the balance:
I’d say that the long-term security needs of Europe and the second-order effects a new iron curtain might have on other parts of American foreign policy are on the same side as the desire to punish Putin – if you say “let Putin get a demilitarized Ukraine, with Crimea and eastern regions (and the connecting coast?) under his control, for the sake of stopping the fighting and destruction now”, then you’re also putting the security of Europe at risk, and the influence of the USA, because it’s clear Russia can get what it wants from war.
Roger Moore
@Lums Better Half:
In what universe is Chamberlain lionized for Munich? I’ve heard people say that he’s been unfairly derided for being fooled by Hitler, but I don’t recall anyone going beyond saying he was actually stalling for time rather than genuinely fooled.
Another Scott
Thanks for this. Very well argued.
I do wonder, though, how we get from here to defeating Putinism. I think that I heard that Biden is going to announce more sanctions in his meetings in Europe on Thursday. I have no doubt that sanctions are biting, and Europe is fortunate in a way that spring is here (with a drop in the need for Gazprom gas for heating), but even a weakened military can be dangerous for longer than we would like. It may be a very long process.
Here’s hoping that the true believers around VVP have a stronger sense of self-preservation than a Russia Uber Alles mindset that demands that they burn it all down. It would be nice, but we can’t count on it…
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
craigie
A shorter version of this essay might be, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
Except that we often do, of course. But in this case, we are in a zero-sum game. Putin gets what he wants, or he goes away.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
I think you have put your finger on a critical point. There is an enormous mental and emotional inertia in America and Europe (and maybe far broader) to view internal politics as internal. Even if you knew it was true, it’s hard to view our politics in terms of ‘Russia owns the president.’ The wide instinct in every country is to downplay how much power Russia could have over internal politics.
Sam
I am not sure why people think the Western response has been weak. We are practically co-belligerents. There are two exceptions to the blank check: 1) no direct engagement by nato militaries and 2) only a partial embargo on the Russian economy.
on 1), I’d say there is no public appetite for sending us troops into combat in Ukraine against Russian troops and thereby risking nuclear war. I for one agree with this caution. Use of nuclear weapons is quite possible in that scenario.
on 2), well, that is for the Europeans to decide, and they have decided. Right now they are critically dependent on Russian energy. So their publics have decided to unwind this dependence at a speed consonant with keeping the heat on.
My point is that in democracies the publics have the deciding vote, and in general don’t like war or high levels of sacrifice unless it is thrust on them.
As for the rest, well, the Ukrainians will get it. It may take some time but they will get it. They may lose militarily, but it won’t be because they didn’t get enough weapons or support.
Just the US has sent 20 million rounds of ammo (100 rounds for each Russian soldier in Ukraine) and thousands of Javelins. Sweden (!!!) has sent or will send 10,000 antitank weapons. That is 5 antitank rounds for every Russian tank in Ukraine, just from Sweden. The ratios will be the same for anti-aircraft weapons.
bbleh
I guess in the spirit of “get real,” I don’t really care much about the analytical methodology or the conceptual framework or the laundry-lists of purported national interests per se, or what have you, but rather what’s the deal (the actual deal, not some Hogwarts no-fly spell or something similarly ridiculous) that’s going to be acceptable to both parties that avoids the genuinely horrifying list of possibilities that seems currently to be in prospect, including stalemate (anybody remember what a lovely picnic WWI trench-warfare was?), war of attrition (that ends in something other than stalemate), Russian use of tactical nukes (in Ukraine, to the considerable detriment of the people thereof), or the NATO-Russia free-for-all that all too many people seem to be itching for (and would be fought first in Ukraine, to the considerable detriment etc).
Anybody drafted a term sheet yet? (I tried one several posts back but I am a mere lurker.) Anybody serious actually talking about that, or are we still in the posturing stage?
japa21
I think G&T put it very succinctly the other day. There is no world in which Putin (and Putinism) and Ukraine can both exist. One dies or the other.
VOR
As a Prius driver, I can guess at why they might have higher accident rates. Other drivers react to a Prius, often in an unsafe manner.
I generally set my cruise control at a fixed speed when driving long distances. I stay in the slow lane unless I need to pass a slower driver. Over and over, I see drivers who I pass suddenly speed up in an attempt to get back in front of my Prius. Often they exhibit unsafe behavior in passing and lane changing. I do not see similar behavior when driving a different car, just the Prius.
Emma from Miami
Bravo!!!
I am so tired of the so-called realists, exactly because of the reasons you put forward. There is no common ground to be found when dealing with a madman.
gene108
Did you forget the sarcasm tag with the part I highlighted?
I’ve never heard anyone say the Chinese government is open or transparent.
Lums Better Half
@Roger Moore: In the universe where someone attempts to negatively compare selling out Ukraine to Munich. The discussion inevitably arrives at the idea that well, akshually, Munich was mandatory, if not a stroke of genius.
UncleEbeneezer
Thanks for the great post. Nothing original to add but just wanted to let everyone know that there is a very good episode of Hillary’s podcast on this topic featuring Anne Applebaum and Former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. The latter is especially interesting and largely accords with this post. He even pointed out that Vlad has considered himself another Catherine or Peter The Great for some time. Very good listen.
Link
bbleh
@VOR: Don’t you see? You made them do it! It was self-defense!
Faithful Lurker
The heads of the EU are meeting this week in Brussels as well as the heads of NATO. There was/is some question whether Boris Johnson will be invited to the EU meeting. His tie to the Russians is becoming clearer all the time. Some observers think that much of the rest of Europe finds him unreliable. Has anyone heard anything about that?
I have to go make dinner and will be back later to see if there is an answer.
Gin & Tonic
@Barney: “Let Putin get?” Carlo has it right, Ukraine will never agree. And if somehow it “loses” militarily and a Russia-aligned government takes over, the resistance/insurgency will be like nothing the world has seen.
Zelensky has very astutely said any deal to end the war will have to be approved by the Ukrainian people – this is the nut of the difference between Ukraine and Russia, and why Ukraine cannot and will not surrender.
japa21
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes Putin sees himself as almost a reincarnation of one or the other. I always felt Biden should say to him “I knew Catherine the Great and you are no Catherine the Great!”
japa21
@Gin & Tonic: And Putin will never agree to anything less than the total annihilation of Ukraine.
Carlo Graziani
@Medicine Man:
I appreciate the kind words.
I have a feeling that we have passed a point of no return. When the Germans are seriously taking action to turn off their energy dependence on Russia, with all the very serious economic dislocation that this entails, after more than a decade of shrugging off warnings, that seems to me a sign of a profound shift in attitude towards the risk presented by Russia, and Putin.
As to your other question: there is no reason grounded in professional preparation that anyone should pay attention to what I write. I’m not a historian, or a political scientist, or a diplomat, or a policymaker, or a military officer, or a spy. History and politics is a passion that has led me to wide reading and a lot of reflection, and to many conversations with other people who are also passionate about those subjects. That’s all.
Sam
This war became existential – Putinism or Ukraine – before it started. The Ukrainians (and the Poles and the Balts) understood that all along. I am sure the US realized it after the pre-war diplomacy. They aren’t framing it that way, for fairly obvious reasons. It is also why there is no settlement, only victory and defeat.
Ksmiami
@Another Scott: I think we should enable Ukraine to start drone blasts of every long range artillery unit in Belorussian areas. Then we offer Siberia to China if they back off Russian support… oh and make it known that there is no future for Russia with Putin in power.
MomSense
I said on Adam’s last post that I have a feeling of dread. I think Putin is going to use biological, chemical and/or nuclear weapons or sabotage a nuclear facility. He’s not winning and he won’t entertain losing. I think that’s where we are headed and I don’t think it matters much what we do.
debbie
@Barney:
Why should Putin get anything? He’s violated every norm imaginable. Why would he get anything for his unlawful, immoral, and inhuman actions?
Baud
@Carlo Graziani:
Pshaw. You’re on Balloon Juice. Of course people should pay attention to you.
Carlo Graziani
@Another Scott:
Yes, there’s, no way to predict how long. I certainly don’t believe Putinism has the staying power of Soviet Communism, but on the other hand expecting it to be over in a few weeks or months could be very optimistic. The internal processes in Russia that could bring Putin down are too opaque to us. But the long game is the only game, in my view.
Ksmiami
@Gin & Tonic: So on my mom’s side, many of the men fought with Tito in Dalmatia… Tito basically had a philosophy that there was no point in leaving any German soldiers alive since they would just kill Slavs if they could.
Ksmiami
@debbie: he gets scaffolding or a bullet- there’s really no other way
WaterGirl
@bbleh:
If by that you mean an explanation of military or Ukraine war-related terms, yes, we have done that. You can find it as the first item listed under WAR IN UKRAINE, which is in the blue category bar up top. Or in the mobile menu on mobile.
If that’s not what you meant, please say more and maybe I or someone else can answer what you are actually asking!
edit: Ah, you mean term sheet as in “terms that both parties can agree to for an end to the war”. There is nothing that both President Zelenskyy and Putin could agree too.
Ksmiami
@MomSense: nah we need to intercept that shit
Chacal Charles Calthrop
“their smug and patronizing tendency to view any dissent from their outlook as being somehow overwrought and irrational…”
in other words, in addition to being actually wrong, the Realists are mansplaining. But mansplaining happens because people don’t want to give up the emotional comfort of being the expert, knowing how things should be, feeling in control. That’s so much the appeal here, faced with ongoing devastation vs. nuclear war as our options.
Anyhow, thank you for a great post.
@UncleEbeneezer: thanks! I’m going to try listening to that
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: I think he means terms of Russian surrender… like at the end of WW2
WaterGirl
@VOR: I think I must be missing something here. It feels like your comment is in response to something but I can’t quite figure out what it is.
Spanky
@Baud:
Carlo the Jackal.
Ksmiami
@gene108: lol Chinese accounting practices are like hieroglyphics before Rosetta
Carlo Graziani
@bbleh:
I guess I would say that only Zelenskyy, and the Ukrainians, have the right to propose such a deal. They are doing all the fighting and all the dying. So in the Ukrainian war, what they say goes.
In the larger war, we will still have a Putinism problem, though. It won’t go away if we ignore it.
bbleh
@WaterGirl: @Ksmiami: sorry, I meant a summary of the key points — the “skeleton” if you will — of an agreement. Often in complex negotiations, rather than exchanging drafts of fully-fledged documents, with all their boilerplate and formal wording, parties will exchange what amount to lists of bullet-points describing, at least roughly, the key points of agreement. You get this, I get that, you pay this, I pay that, etc. Once that’s agreed, then the detailed drafting (and arguing over details) can get started.
WaterGirl
@Emma from Miami:
Tire rims and anthrax.
Gin & Tonic
@Ksmiami: There was a taste of this a couple of days ago – an aide to the occupation government of Kherson was shot dead, in the middle of the street, in daylight, with what looked like at least 20 bullets through the windshield of his car. That’s not a killing, that’s a message.
Carlo Graziani
@gene108: I believe in the power of deadpan.
debbie
@MomSense:
I saw a tweet earlier about a white phosphorus bomb being dropped on a Kyiv suburb. I doubt I’ll be able to find it again, but I‘ll try.
bbleh
@Carlo Graziani: certainly Ukraine would have to agree to it, but putting together such a draft (!) is sometimes the useful function of a third party, who (ostensibly) has little or no interest in the conflict, can talk with both sides, can explore points of potential give and take, and ultimately is completely disposable without loss of face by anyone.
As to Putinism, yes indeed, and it ain’t limited to Putin! But that won’t be solved by an agreement between a couple of parties. I’m more interested in what will stop all the, y’know, killing and destruction and misery and potential escalation to catastrophe and all the other horrors of the present war.
Ksmiami
@Gin & Tonic: even Rt now, it feels like the Russian army will be encircled and destroyed and on this im not sure if most of Putin’s inner circle can abide that save that war criminal responsible for Grozny
gene108
I think the last sentence applies to the entire Republican Party. Whether any of them realize it or not, they are trying to do to American democracy what Putin did to Russia’s; turn the U.S. into a country with one party rule. Republican actions on voting laws, redistricting, etc. act out what Putin believes about democracy, which is that democracy has failed and needs to be carefully controlled so anti-social elements do not gain power.
I think American conservatives intersection with Putin’s Russia really needs a closer look, from the NRA accepting millions in Russian money, to Franklin Graham, and wherever else Putin’s worked his way into American politics.
Unless there’s a reckoning for conservatives getting in bed with Putin, Putinism will never go away. It will just be co-opted by some other country.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie:
Ksmiami
@bbleh: like contract terms or loan terms- for me it’s Putin et Al are sent to The Hague or killed by their own people. There’s no future for Russia without Putin deposed.
topclimber
If compromise with Putin is what the Ukrainians are willing to do, then we should embrace it.
Let’s say they give him a barely face-saving deal: annexation of Crimea, a peacekeeping force of Chinese and Turks in the eastern oblasts pending a legitimate referendum on where folks there want to belong and a neutral Ukraine. Hold out for Ukraine to join the EU or at least begin the process.
The optimist in me says Putin won’t survive long with such meager war accomplishments. It will be the first war he did not clearly win, though not for lack of brutality. As democracy and substantially less corrupt governance continues to flourish on his borders and the Russian economy remains battered by sanctions, his long term prospects look bleak.
The realist in me says compromise now does not forego a not so-longish game of taking him down. It might even accelerate it.
WaterGirl
@Carlo Graziani:
Spy or not :-) we are lucky to have you here!
Chief Oshkosh
@Carlo Graziani:
Of course that’s what you would say, if you were a spy…
Busted!
Gin & Tonic
Zelensky:
Gin & Tonic
@topclimber: That “deal” is a non-starter.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Also this:
Carlo Graziani
@Chief Oshkosh: Doh!
Poe Larity
Once more, like 9/11, our Pivot to Asia is derailed by a madman from a failed state
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-american-pivot-to-asia/
This is good news for McCain and President Xi.
Wolvesvalley
Carlo,
Your clear, eloquent, powerful writing speaks for itself. It is its own evidence of qualification to speak on these subjects. Thank you for helping us understand the issues.
gene108
@MomSense:
Chemical weapons were used in the Syrian Civil War by the Syrian government, ISIS, and maybe the Russians on behalf of the Syrian government.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Sure, give the
bullyblackmailer what they are asking for, and they will surely go away and never bother you again.That’s the way it’s worked since the beginning of time. //
UncleEbeneezer
@japa21: Not sure Biden would want to be THAT old!
The other thing very interesting about the interview is that both were involved in Statesmanship during previous invasions of Crimea and mass protests for Democracy in Ukraine. So it gives some real insider perspectives. Especially given Purim’s public declarations of how threatened he was/is by Hillary, in particular.
bbleh
@Gin & Tonic: I would agree; I think Ukraine would see it as giving Putin most or all of what he started a couple of wars to try to get.
Per previous comments, I DO think that Crimea and the “land bridge” are obvious potential “bargaining chips,” but I can’t see Ukraine being willing to cede formal control over any of them, referendum or no. But there might be some acceptable middle-ground somewhere …
Fair Economist
@Carlo Graziani: This is my thought on why all this yammering about imaginary off ramps is pointless. Both morally and practically, it’s the Ukrainians who get to offer deals. It doesn’t matter what we might want to offer unless we backstab them, and that won’t happen.
S. Cerevisiae
Excellent analysis Carlo, thank you.
the bastards are using phosphorus now. Fucking war crimes right in the open.
bbleh
@Chief Oshkosh: @Carlo Graziani: The dry cleaner is taking a holiday. Repeat. The dry cleaner is taking a holiday.
WaterGirl
@debbie: We need some new words because none of them seems strong enough for the awfulness.
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Wikipedia.
debbie
@bbleh:
Give him anything, even a tiny, tiny crumb, and he’ll start this all over again—probably more brutally, too.
ian
@Lums Better Half:
Are either of these things common? If so, could you provide some names/examples of peopling doing so?
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Exactly.
MomSense
@debbie:
I just saw some clips from Russian TV where the panel is discussing NATO threats and saying that Europe will get a nuclear war, that they should expect it. They said that Lithuania and Poland are acting too brazenly, etc. I feel sick after watching it.
Fair Economist
I just saw on Twitter that the Russians are still demanding Ukraine cap it’s troops at 50,000. So clearly they aren’t currently negotiating seriously. I suspect right now they are holding back how bad things are we going from Putin, and we probably won’t see Russia start acknowledging reality again until their forces in Ukraine are wiped out. Much like Stalin during Barbarossa, where he thought he was doing fine and ordered his army to attack until the Germans had basically destroyed his entire front line and the truth couldn’t be hidden from him.
O. Felix Culpa
Wow. Ukrainian Welcome Wagon: https://twitter.com/AlexandruC4/status/1506761204462669834
h/t Cheryl Rofer
VOR
@WaterGirl: Carlo began his post with a joke:
I was responding to that. I agree it is not the main point of the post.
WaterGirl
@MomSense:. Exactly the reaction that statement is intended to engender. In a way, the nuclear threat is Putin’s only move since his army is pathetic.
bbleh
@debbie: well, again, it would have to be something with which Ukraine would agree, both in process and in substance. But “Russia gets nothing” (or Putin gets sent to the Hague or whatever) is not something Russia would agree to, hence no agreement, hence … stalemate? war of attrition? nukes? Nato v Russia? Are those better?
Another Scott
@Faithful Lurker: Warning Politico (from yesterday):
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
Reports that Anonymous has hacked the Central Bank of Russia.
WaterGirl
@VOR: Of course! I must have seen that 10 times and I was putting the post together, and it still fell right out of my head! Duh.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: That would be a terrible shame.
topclimber
@Gin & Tonic: Well, with you of course.
Let’s take it one at a time:
Are you saying Ukrainians are willing to die to reclaim Crimea and its 10 percent population share there? Maybe they might use it as a bargaining chip since Putin or not, I doubt Russia is giving it up.
artem1s
well put. The Trump Puppet extends well beyond the meatspace that TFG occupies. There are many many players who for some reason or another did not or could not move against Trump when it was clearly in their best interest to do so. The GOP is another example where the disparate entities in the institution cannot agree any longer what really constitutes a threat to or a victory for their party and/or the country. Yet the FYNYT continues to publish idiot think pieces trying to explain their behavior thru a rational lens.
debbie
@MomSense:
I know. This must be how my grandparents felt, listening to reports about 1930s Germany. Like a dawning horror.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: I figured out that he was an academic and a crank. You Tube is always promoting the worst RWNJs.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: They bullshit all the time. Best not to watch it. Which is not to say I don’t share your dread.
ETA: I agree with Carlo about Putin and TFG and the Mueller report (which everyone ignored, and kept talking about how Mueller didn’t do anything, when he did). I agree that WW III started at least as early as when Putin put TFG in office as POTUS.
Fair Economist
@bbleh: The normal outcome of this kind of all out interstate war is complete defeat for one side. See WW1, WW 2, Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian, Russo-Japanese, US Civil, etc. With somebody as nasty as Putin facing a grim internal situation with any reasonable negotiated settlement, I expect that will be the endgame here.
Sebastian
I cannot emphasize enough how much I love this picture.
I cannot believe this website is free. Look at the amazing food for brain and soul, and Adam hasn’t even posted yet!
I don’t need Disney+ when I have this.
Spanky
@Gin & Tonic: Well, there goes my 401k. I should have thought twice about converting to rubles. “You’ll make a killing!” they said.
Chief Oshkosh
@gene108: I’ve always wondered about that July 4th visit to Moscow…did ANYONE ever really grill those jackasses about that?
Kelly
According to the former President of Estonia that’s “westsplaining”
https://twitter.com/IlvesToomas/status/1506692164616699910
Gvg
It seems to me the reason Russia is losing is corruption and what I would call a kind of decadence. They aren’t making things, themselves and everything is a lie. Everyone lies to their bosses because not lying gets you killed, or unemployed or imprisoned. They used to say it was like that in the Soviet days, but now it seems worse. In a way we have enabled it by selling them parts they used to have to make themselves and giving their bosses a way to hide their theft. If they don’t solve that, they will be weak forever.
They problem we have with them is their delusion that conquest will make them more powerful and safer. They problem for them is expanding your borders always results in more borders and more enemies. They problem for us is, we don’t want to be conquered. With nukes involved putting off the fight is always better, but ultimately we need to propagandize them into wisdom, by as many ways as we can think of. Seriously, we cannot ignore how foolish their delusions are.
yeah, boy do we have some doozies of our own ignorant factions. Can’t help it if it seems hypocritical to point out their faults right now.
Frankensteinbeck
Deleted.
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: Russia needs to be reduced to an 18th century feudal non nuclear state and then reorganized for their crimes against the world
Gin & Tonic
@O. Felix Culpa: They are singing the Ukrainian national anthem.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I don’t see how this ends well for Putin. He has written his own death sentence. It is a matter of when not if.
Ksmiami
@Fair Economist: exactly- there’s no room for Putin as a leader. If there wasn’t a risk of nuclear war, Russia would already be in pieces
Kelly
Yes and with regards to climate change I’ve also been thinking of my grandparents watching the Dust Bowl carry their farm away.
Gin & Tonic
@topclimber: Not with me, with Ukrainians. At this point the only thing that’s negotiable is the amount of reparations.
japa21
Last night there was a minor discussion revolving around war crimes and the temptation to commit them against the Russians. I am loudly saying that I am totally opposed to such activities (the crimes not the discussion). However, if I were a Ukrainian, living in Ukraine, and particularly a soldier, I would be seriously tempted to say the hell what the world thinks, my inner demon is coming out if the opportunity presents itself. Perhaps one of the most impressive things so far has been the control the Ukrainians have shown. The inner turmoil when they have a captured Russian soldier, specially an officer, must be tremendous. With each new atrocity, I would imagine it gets harder to keep under control. And although I would not encourage it, I would turn a blind eye to it.
japa21
@Gin & Tonic: Some comments indicate that was shot in 2017. Crimea maybe?
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Who’s going to kill him? And then what?
Ksmiami
@MomSense: welp we will destroy every single Russian sub first and then hopefully destroy much of Putin’s arsenal- hmm I think my strategy of downing tequila before running toward the air raid sirens is probably the go to….
Kalakal
Aside from the observation that Greer is obviously paid by the platitude that sentence alone destroys his vacuous stringing together of phrases.
According to this logic Putin was acting perfectly rationally in invading Ukraine, because based on the consequences of
his previous invasions, and his subversions of their internal politics , Western reaction would have been to adopt a ‘realist’ response, consisting of going tsk, tsk, expressing deep concern, and lying back and thinking of the reserve currency status.
Ukranes heroic resistance has thrown a wrench into the gearboxes of both Putin and the ‘realists’
Their ‘rational’ actions and ‘logic’ applied to a reality that no longer exists
debbie
@O. Felix Culpa:
They’re lucky they didn’t get mowed down.
topclimber
@Gin & Tonic: I will wait to hear Zelenskyy say that.
bbleh
@Fair Economist: Well, while I would agree that Putin would be unlikely to survive a full defeat and withdrawal, it’s not clear to me that he could not survive a negotiated settlement where Russia could claim some kind of partial “win” that would pass the red-face test at home. And conversely, it’s not clear to me that he could survive the kind of immensely costly protracted war and occupation that a “complete defeat” of Ukraine would require. I think there are material incentives for him — personally — to find something short of defeat and withdrawal or grinding Ukraine to dust. Whether they’re enough, and whether a formula can be found, I think can be determined only by trying.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
He’s running out of options. If he isn’t removed soon, he’ll escalate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that’s what I think of, too. Let’s leave aside dreams of palace coups and stick to rumors he’s sick. What happens when he dies or, if it’s something like Parkinsons, incapacitated? Who’s next?
Raven
My former tenant stopped by, his dad died monday and he was drunk as a skunk. He had a guy with him who I’ve never seen before and he was also hammered. I was expressing my sympathy for his loss when his friend said “I’m going to preach a little bit”, and started screaming about how the US had promised to defend Ukraine when the de-nuked and Biden is a fucking coward and scumbag. I was taken aback and made a weak comment about nuclear destruction and the dude kept yelling. My former tenant got between us and they left in short order. I don’t know what the fuck to think except I’m glad I’ve been sober for 30 years and that, while I have guns, I have them well away from any ammo.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: I know. :)
They’re incredibly brave.
Chief Oshkosh
@bbleh:
The long sighs of violins of autumn wound my heart with a monotonous languor.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
Not to mention the parties that didn’t want any serious investigation of Russian interference because they were complicit. And the media empires that were set up to support those parties that would minimize and ignore the evidence so their audience didn’t have to think about it.
Fair Economist
@zhena gogolia: One man cannot rule a country alone. He needs supporters and the “mandate of heaven”. If his mystique fades enough, people may just stop obeying him. There are also many who could potentially overthrow him. A typical junior officer coup might well work, his staff could poison or assassinate him (he supposedly has 1,000 new servitors; how well could THEY have been vetted), etc.
bbleh
@Raven: Huh, funny, my Bro-in-Law had a similar experience just a few days ago. Some beers and suddenly the crazies just start going … well, crazy. Yelling and screaming, saying completely outlandish things, stolen election TFG is a god Biden is senile yada yada, and just going on and on. And his reaction was the same as yours, except it was somebody else’s house so he left.
I’m kinda wondering if the crazies are starting to see the house of cards collapsing and they’re decompensating.
bbleh
@Chief Oshkosh: Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.
JoyceH
@S. Cerevisiae:
What’s weird is that, like bombing civilian population centers, this is so counter-productive! Is there ANYONE left in Ukraine who would say, “Why don’t we just become a Russian client state? It probably won’t be so bad.”?
Carlo Graziani
@MomSense:
I agree with Zhena. It is a sickening show, but it is a show. The logic of nuclear warfare hasn’t really changed since the 20th century. The decision to use a nuclear weapon brings with it the immediate and very real risk of suicide. That’s what kept the world in being during the balance of terror, through serious, terrifying crises, under management by leaders who were not all terribly competent or stable, on both sides.
The Russians have red lines. So do we. Those red lines are communicated extremely clearly — not through clownish TV shows, but through professional diplomatic and military channels by people whose job it is to know what the risks really mean. No single individual can do anything batshit insane, on either side, whatever the pressures.
Gin & Tonic
@topclimber: Mykhailo Podolayak is Zelensky’s right-hand man and chief negotiator. “Negotiation status. The statements of the Russian side are only their requesting positions. All statements are intended, inter alia, to provoke tension in the media. Our positions are unchanged. Ceasefire, withdrawal of troops & strong security guarantees with concrete formulas.”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
Beluga ain’t all that. Just sayin’.
Raven
@bbleh: I don’t know what the deal was with this dude. I’ve never seen him and it just accelerated quickly. I think the tenant was just stopping by to let me know about his had and I think this clown was just drinking with him. I’m sure apologies will follow.
Bill Arnold
Did you see this piece by Robert Farley, where he mocks the “international relations school of Realism, one of the oldest bodies of theory in the contemporary study of international politics”?
Russia-Ukraine War of 2022: Who’s Responsible? (Robert Farley, 2020/03/20)
Another unstated set of problems is, running with that formulation, that said utility functions running in the minds of Realist Leaders are not fully observable, as you say well in the OP, and also not static things and can be manipulated[1] and can be adjusted/manipulated (by others), and their inputs are noisy and can also be systemically noisy, and/or manipulated.
Which is to say, Realist Leaders rarely act fully rationally, and sometimes effectively act irrationally.
[1] Plus there is always “hormones” a sexist slur used by both misogynists and misandrists. (E.g. Putin well-known for his male-supremacy attitudes.) Shorthand for systemic gender-based biases.
[2] Also, Cheryl Rofer’s extraordinary, long Adventures in Masculinity thread:
Another Scott
@Fair Economist: ICYMI, Kamil Galeev has an interesting long thread along these lines.
[…]
Well worth a click.
Cheers,
Scott.
bbleh
@Gin & Tonic: … strong security guarantees with concrete formulas.
And therein lies a world of possibilities.
Fair Economist
@bbleh: Yes on a negotiated settlement that looks win-ish for him. But I also made the point that is unlikely. By the time he’s willing to deal, his offensive army will be largely destroyed. The disgusting atrocities he has inflicted on the Ukrainians will make it very unlikely they will accept such a deal when they can just take at least status quo ante plus the separatist Donbass. And that’s not even vaguely a win for him.
cain
@VOR:
Huh.. I see a behavior when I pass they start speeding up. That’s why when I pass, I pass at 10 miles an hour faster than they are going to stop it.
I guess it’s some kind iof thing where they can’t get passed by a Prius.
TonyG
@schrodingers_cat: Marking his nonsense as spam was a wise choice.
karen marie
@WV Blondie: We are “the American public.” Your friends, neighbors and relatives are “the American public.” Talk to them.
Sebastian
I cannot emphasize enough how much I love this picture.
I cannot believe this website is free. Look at the amazing food for brain and soul, and Adam hasn’t even posted yet!
I don’t need Disney+ when I have this.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I don’t know, you are the Russia expert. I am a cat on the internet.
WaterGirl
@Sebastian: Credit for the photo goes to commenter wmd.
When I put the post together I knew his name but I couldn’t remember his nym.
I was saving the photo for just the right post, and I thought it was a perfect match for this one.
debbie
@Bill Arnold:
That’s all history really is: An endless locker room sword fight. ??♀️??♀️
Sebastian
@Ksmiami:
Pozdrav, zemljo!
Sebastian
@WaterGirl:
I have no words for how much I love it. I want to find a hi-res version of it.
Lyrebird
@Carlo Graziani: You might find it interesting that there is plenty of evidence that the notions that individuals act based on rational self-interest is exaggerated. Dale Miller found that people who have taken microeconomics at university have this view and the behavior more than those who haven’t (1999). Here’s a more recent follow-up where others replicated some of his work.
Many thanks for contributing your post!
Omnes Omnibus
The big issue that I have with foreign policy realists (and my first international politics text book was by Hans Morganthau), is not the analysis that stems from national interest. That makes complete sense to me. It is the crabbed and narrow view of national interest to which so many Realists subscribe. But then if you broaden that definition to include neighbors with stable economies and democratic governments and other things like that, you end up with liberal interventionists. And, holy shit, that’s where I generally tend to find myself.
Carlo Graziani
@Fair Economist:
I think this is probably close to the mark. I doubt very much that it is easy to give Putin accurate information about the war right now, because in order to accept and make sense of it he would have to take apart and reassemble too much of his weltanschaaung, and he just doesn’t have that kind of intellectual honesty. So like other men of power whose plans turn to shit, he’s very likely blaming the people who implemented his brilliant design so badly, and they, in turn have learned to tell him what he wants to hear.
Which can’t last. If this is what’s going on, there’s a crisis of government coming. Irresistible pressure to do something practical to change direction is running up against an immovable object of Putin’s world view. I think the immovable object could to be dynamited out of the way, by the military, so they can save what’s left of their field army before it completely falls apart.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: So amazingly brave to stand there and to sing when the guns are being not just waved around, but guns are shooting bullets.
I also had the thought that if those Russian soldiers had been American cops that they would have panicked and shot everyone in the crowd.
TonyG
@topclimber: I’m no scholar, “realist” or otherwise, but I imagine that the minimal prerequisite for Ukraine to agree to any “compromise” would be the removal all of all Russian forces from their land, air and seas. Then the first topic to be discussed would be the amount of reparations to be paid by the invading enemy.
Frankensteinbeck
@bbleh:
I don’t see why not. It’s embarrassing, sure. It’s less embarrassing than the current situation. It raises the possibility he can reduce the sanctions. It makes the Russian people sad face, but reduces the pressure on them to remove him. It’s not like his propaganda system can’t spin it somehow, but they don’t need to. Most importantly, it removes the pressure the people around him are feeling to remove him, as they watch him blow up their own livelihoods. Only Putin’s pride stands in the way of him pulling out of Ukraine and dropping the whole invasion idea.
Roger Moore
@bbleh:
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
divF
@bbleh: “Mr. Dalliard, we’ve been activated!”
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No one. Deliberately. There is no succession, both as a self-defense against a coup and because he’s a narcissist shit whose only care about a world after he dies is that he be remembered in glory.
Kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus:
What’s good for General Motors is good for America
It’s surely just a bizarre coincidence that national interest as described by Realists dovetails so well with the interests of Realists
WaterGirl
@topclimber: Right now President Zelenskyy has to go through the motions of negotiations, even in the face of the non-serious offers from Russia.
But President Zelenskyy has already said that whatever is negotiated will have to be approved by the people of Ukraine. I imagine there was never any doubt, but even if there was a shred of doubt before, there surely isn’t now. Putin is a monster and he must be stopped, and there is no amount of appeasement that would keep Putin from wanting more.
Ksmiami
@Sebastian: Dobro dan… family still in Zagreb and Hvar… the rest moved to California
bbleh
@Fair Economist: Well, I’m not sure about the “entirely destroyed” bit. Certainly the initial attack failed, and because they planned for success they’re stuck at present, and certainly many aspects of their military seem to have been revealed as rotten to greater or lesser degrees, but were they to go on a genuine national war footing — draft, commercial production converted to military, etc, and leaving aside the question of whether Putin himself could survive that — I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have an awful lot more to destroy things with.
I still think a possible solution might lie in ambiguity as to status. Eg, some parts of the Donbas as having some sort of “self-governing autonomy” while still being part of Ukraine, a la Scotland in the UK, or Crimea being “leased” to Russia long-term, a la Hong Kong. That is, disputed areas being not exactly “yours” or “ours” but some clever admixture, with lots of flowery words about joint development and mutual interest and so on.
topclimber
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t think this necessarily contradicts what I said.
Would Ukraine veto Russian withdrawal from heartland Ukraine except for Crimea? I doubt it.
Does Russian withdrawal forestall an option to have peacekeepers in the East? No.
Strong security guarantees–hell yes. It can be done outside NATO. So neutrality is an option.
Are the Russians still pushing unrealistic demands? Of course, but the possibility of even greater military disaster and the growing bite of sanctions might make them change their tune. In any case, negotiations continue.
There is always the chance that Putin takes a bullet or the Russian Army is completely routed before negotiations become a realistic alternative to more Ukrainians dying. Whatever it takes.
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: and that is why Russia must be utterly defeated and diminished. And then a Marshall plan implemented to fundamentally alter the direction of that country for the future.
Fake Irishman
@Carlo Graziani:
this. The old cliche is “Rattling a saber makes noise; drawing it does not.”
remember on the second day of the war when Putin “ordered” his nuclear forces to high alert? Then the US Department of Defense issued a statement that the Russians hadn’t changed their posture. Then Biden kept the US at DEFCON 4 (slightly elevated nuclear readiness) instead of moving to DEFCON 3 (a much higher state of readiness)? It was a way of calming folks down and Deescalating the situation while also telling the Russians they were full of shit in a very public and humiliating way and also continuing to ramp up lethal aid to UKraine.
Roger Moore
@bbleh:
I don’t think you can ignore the question of whether Putin could survive that; it’s a central question as long as Putin is the one calling the shots. More importantly, complete mobilization of the national economy isn’t something that happens overnight. It would take at least a year or two, which means it would be too late to rescue the current situation. Not to mention that full-scale Russian economic mobilization would presumably trigger substantial economic mobilization in the West, and our economies are much, much bigger.
WaterGirl
@Sebastian:
The file I have is 1080 x 670.
Another Scott
@Sebastian: Made me look…
99% of the versions I’ve been able to find seem to be cropped from an image like this one (573×474 pixels). I haven’t been able to find the original of this one. Maybe Gin & Tonic can easily translate it.
It looks kinda like a screen grab from a movie to me. I don’t know if that will help you in your searching.
HTH a little!
Cheers,
Scott.
Fair Economist
@Carlo Graziani: That would be logical, but historically regime collapse comes *after* complete and humiliating battlefield defeat (Russo-Japanese, Falklands, Franco-Prussian, WW1). I won’t completely rule out an earlier coup, but I’d bet om the usual pattern of waiting until the Emperor is humiliatingly exposed with no clothes.
prostratedragon
Not necessarily good news, from WaPo:
An Illustration of why such calls could be important, which one hopes remains comedy: Phone call to Dimitri
wmd
@WaterGirl: Actually I stole it from a college friend of Ukrainian ethnicity.
It’s an excellent meme and I knew the jackals would love it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Fair Economist:
Personally, I think the best way to destroy the ring of ultra-loyalists you use to ensure your power is to start arresting them for doing exactly what you told them to do. Putin’s ‘shoot the messenger’ policy is going to be his worst enemy.
topclimber
@TonyG: Yes, Russia leaves heartland Ukraine–everything but the Crimea. Perhaps I did not make that explicit.
War reparations come later. They are the price for removing Western sanctions. Maybe free oil for 20 years.
@WaterGirl: Putin may want to try another invasion, but what Putin gets is another thing. He can’t even build new tanks.
MomSense
Read the psychological assessments of Putin. We keep trying to create a rational culture for him that just doesn’t exist. His view of himself, his country, history is all delusional. He’s a malignant narcissist.
Carlo Graziani
@VOR: The Prius joke was really funnier in 2005 or so, and I only brought it up because it made a good introduction. I actually think Prius drivers are fine citizens of the highways.
Gin & Tonic
Too many people in this thread and elsewhere on the Internet view this as Putin’s war, or a Putin problem. It is Russia’s war. Russia is attempting to erase Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is not driving a tank, he is not dropping phosphorus bombs on Irpin, he did not bomb the Mariupol theater, ordinary Russians did that. By every account the war has very broad popular support. We can debate the reasons for that, but this is Russia’s war on Ukraine, not Vladimir Putin’s war. And regardless of its eventual outcome, this will make normal Russian-Ukrainian relations impossible for generations to come.
WaterGirl
@Carlo Graziani: Thanks again for doing this, Carlo!
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott: The saying is an old Cossack aphorism, roughly “He is not strong, who can carry rocks, but who keeps faith in his heart.” It’s a rhyme in Ukrainian.
sdhays
@topclimber: My position is the same as I think most people here – the Ukrainians get to set whatever terms they’re willing to accept.
But in the interests of having an inkling about what they might be willing to accept, if you haven’t read this thread by Kamil Galeev, I really recommend it:
There’s a lot more, but basically, Ukrainians have gotten a very detailed view of their fate under Russian control. At this point, after all the blood and destruction, it would be difficult for Ukrainians to accept sacrificing some of their own to a fate under Russian control.
Just something to keep in mind.
Ksmiami
@Gin & Tonic: oh I think Russia should no longer exist after this- it’s basically a thugocracy or w oil and nukes.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: Excellent. Thanks very much.
Cheers,
Scott.
TonyG
@Roger Moore: I’m pretty sure that that was sarcasm!
zhena gogolia
@Ksmiami: What the fuck do you mean by Russia should no longer exist?
Christ, I have to stay away from this place.
lashonharangue
@Carlo Graziani:
Thanks Carlo for doing this. I have no professional qualifications either. However, I fear this focus on Putin as an evil man misses that many of the Russian elites (and a good chunk of the Russian public) believe what he believes. Namely, that Russia must be a great power; and being a great power requires having a majority Slavic population, an autocratic government, and maintaining a sphere of influence. It’s a traditional Russian imperial view of the world. If this is true, removing him will not be enough. No clue how we “encourage” them to get beyond this.
topclimber
@sdhays: I agree with your first sentence, wholeheartedly.
In the scenario I thought might work, the idea of a referendum in the Eastern oblasts is quite disingenuous. Between what the separatists and Russians have done there, no way do people vote to join anyone but Ukraine. It is a ploy to let Putin leave there without looking like quite the loser he is. Odds are he is gone before any referendum is held–say 3 to 5 years from now.
Carlo Graziani
@Fair Economist:
Well, that is one model. There is another one, though. It’s the “normal Russian constitutional leadership succession” model. Which is basically a conspiracy-based putsch, occasionally facilitated by the military, especially at times of political stress.
A third, useful model, is “Organized Crime Cartel”. The sociology of power-worship and bully fandom only really sustains loyalty while the chief bully’s winning streak seems unbreakable. But when weaknesses start to show, that’s when informers start talking to the Feds…
JAFD
@Roger Moore:
A quick movement of the enemy would jeopardize six gunboats.
Carlo Graziani
@zhena gogolia: I hope you stay.
Timill
In the current circumstances, Saint Helena plus Maria Vladimirovna start to look like a viable option…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Maria_Vladimirovna_of_Russia
James E Powell
@Chief Oshkosh:
John has a long mustache.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Oldest instance I found of that pic (article at link):
https://web.archive.org/web/20180216104320/http://ukrreal.info/ua/suspilstvo/151981-ikh-vvazhali-mayzhe-bezsmertnimi-pravda-i-mifi-pro-kozakiv-kharakternikiv
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@bbleh: No y?
zhena gogolia
@Carlo Graziani: Thanks. I enjoy your essays. The threads are too much for me.
ETA: I wake up in despair every night as it is.
Kalakal
@zhena gogolia: I hope you don’t leave
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Roger Moore: W? Y?
Jay
@ian:
like most things, it’s complex.
France and Britain “gave” Hitler part of Czechoslovakia in “appeasement”, Poland and Hungary also grabbed chunks, Slovakia left and Hitler grabbed what remained.
France and Britain weren’t ready for war and were buying for time, much like the “Phoney War” after Hitler invaded Poland.
For Britain and the Commonwealth, it sort of worked.
For France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Poland, not so much, as Czech arms seriously beefed up the German Military years earlier than their own Industry could.
Much of what is punditized about Munich is based in altHistory and seizing on one or two aspects of the consequences as they played out.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, it like we really psychologists to talk Putin down from the ledge. The dumbest thing, is this all about a country failed at trying to joining The West.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck: Yes, that’s a classic problem. A related example is that the Nationalist Chinese kept replacing generals because they were afraid of betrayal- and lost critical battles because the replacements betrayed them.
Jay
@zhena gogolia:
I think he meant “Russia as it is”, should no longer exist.
Jay
@sdhays:
almost none of the “original” “separatist” Commanders and many of their Lieutenants are in the DPR or LPR. They are either dead, ( FSB or Rival Gangs probably), or in exile in Russia.
Medicine Man
@Carlo Graziani: Thank you for the reply, on both counts. Your opinions are very well thought out, so I appreciate you sharing them.
Lyrebird
@Ksmiami: Remember that general request from Adam to dial stuff way back? Sure seems like that applies here.
I could understand some people in Iraq or in Central America hating what our country has done, for generations. I am not saying those are (edit- extra word) the same as the war on Ukraine, just that Russia is a big complicated country. Saying it needs to be stopped is one thing, destroyed is another. ETA: So far, the Ukrainians are sacrificing enormously to try to make Russia GTFO, yes. Maybe someone can re-post the link of Pres. Z’s address to the Russian people.
@zhena gogolia: Sending respect to you, whatever you find best to do.
wmd
I think whenever there is armed conflict it is worth reading Mark Twain’s War Prayer .
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: I completely agree w/ your criticism of Mearsheimer, though I think his type of utterly cynical realism is depressingly influential in the halls of power in DC. Of course, national leaders do not always act to maximize national interest (plenty of politicians in both authoritarian & democratic regimes act to maximize their petty parochial interests, of which Trump is merely the most transparent example), & others also miscalculate national interest. As you say, nations also disagree on what is in the others’ self-interest. Humans are humans, after all.
OTOH, I am more worried about the kind of policymakers who cynically act to pursue national interest while dressing their policies w/ a veneer of liberal values, or the kind that cannot conceive that when their nation acts in self-interest could possibly be in violation of liberal values. Lots of people working in the Trump Administration fall into the former, while I think the neocons & “liberal” interventionists (who have been converging w/ each other for the past few years) fall into the latter. The GWB Administration had some of both. Certainly the Iraq misadventure was born of an exceptionalism, Messianic sense of imperial destiny. One hopes that the twin debacles of Afghanistan & Iraq will discourage the US from imperial overreach for a while, but how long was it between the Vietnam disaster & Reagan invading tiny Granada? A decade? & for how long had DC, London, Paris & Brussels cajoled the world into implementing the neoliberal Washington Consensus, to the world’s (& their own) detriment. At least Mearsheimer is quite transparent about his beliefs.
My intent here is not whataboutism, but admonition against the inevitable corrosive effects of a Cold War, of which we had seen plenty the last time. & even the most justified moral crusades end up justifying horrific actions (fire bombing of German & Japanese cities in WW II, unrestricted submarine warfare against Japanese shipping)
It is long established by many international relations theorists that responsible policymakers should practice strategic empathy (not to be confused w/ sympathy) when dealing w/ others, particularly rivals & perceived enemies, to manage great power relations. Of course, by the time Hitler marched into the Rhineland & forced Anschluss w/ Austria, & Putin had occupied Donbass & Crimea, strategic empathy were no longer operative. When it was operative was in the 90s & early 00s (remember, Putin flirted w/ the idea of Russia joining NATO & integrating w/ the EU when he 1st came to power), & the US & EU dropped ball back then. I agree w/ you assessment of Putinism & the need to confront it head on, but I fear the seductively soothing moral clarify of a new Cold War will bury the lessons of how US/European actions contributed to rise of Putin in the 1st place, the most important of which was not NATO expansion into Eastern Europe in 2004, but the economic shock therapy of the 90s that led to collapse in economic, political & social order, the rise of oligarchy which western governments (see London) & kleptocrats (see BP & Shell) were happily complicit in. NATO intervention into Kosovo also marked a turning point in Russian view of the West (a turning point for China, too.) A cold war like confrontation will lead to flattened analysis of the other sided to essentialism – that a Putin-like figure will always emerge from Russia, that Russia is bound to be aggressively expansionist, no matter what the US or NATO did.
Another danger is that there are a lot of cynical realists & “liberal” interventionists in DC who are keen to expand a cold war w/ Russia to a cold war w/ Russia & China (& Xi’s rhetorically pro-Russian neutrality is not helping, either), some quite explicit that the objective is maintaining the US’ global hegemony, others couch it in terms of preserving the “‘US led’ liberal international order” which structurally favors the developed West. When waged against a much more formidable opponent in China, such a cold war will unleash reactionary forces in the US & Europe to leverage the conflict to prevent & reverse progress on every other front, undermining democracy & liberalism & social justice, not to mention keeping the MIC fat on defense spending, all in the name of defending democracy & liberalism. Just like the last Cold War.
Finally, I agree w/ left wing critique that an overwhelming focus on defeating Putin as the solution to the US’ & Europe’s ills misses the causes for the symptoms. Right wing reactionary forces are on the rise across the world, including in western democracies, due to the economic inequality caused by decades of neoliberal dogma. Putin has exploited these deep fissures in western polities, but he did not create them, & Putin’s fall would not make them disappear. There are still plenty of kleptocratic money to fund the kind of ventures that Putin had pioneered. Poland is now lauded as a frontline state against Putinism, but Poland itself has been sliding toward illiberalism over the past decade plus. The contradictions w/ the liberalism enshrined in the EU had been coming to a head before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine papered over the differences (for now). In a cold war w/ Russia, I can only imagine the religio-nationalists in Poland will be further empowered.
The correct answer is of course fight both, & the US & Western Europe managed to do so in the 50s & 60s (though their actions in the Global South were cynical & imperial). I am not sanguine that these polities can manage it now.
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: in its current menacing form, the country poses an existential risk to the world. It’s government needs to be reordered; its civil society completely reorganized much like Japan and Germany in 1945-1950. And it’s nuclear and military capabilities severely reduced. Then we can talk about economic redevelopment
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: I have found Kamil Galeev’s threads insightful, but his prescriptions here is repugnant. There is nothing to be gained from anyone directly intervening Russian internal politics. What did western intervention on the White side of the Russian Civil War gain, other than abiding suspicion of Western powers? Best to wait for the confrontation between the “high nobility” & the lower “counter-elites” settle, then negotiate w/ the winner, or at least wait until the “counter-elites” are on the cusp of success.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the “counter-elites” newly elevated to “high nobility” will be any better than the previous regime, but anyone so elevated w/ the aid foreign forces will be vulnerable to the charge of being illegitimate stooges of foreign powers, & their elevation becomes a national humiliation. I don’t think Americans really appreciate how powerful, dark & corrosive the politics of national humiliation can be, & most Western Europeans may have forgotten. France humiliated by foreign powers post-Revolution led to elevation of Napoleon. Humiliation at Napoleon’s hands awakened nationalism across Europe & accelerated momentum toward German & Italian unifications. Humiliation at Versailles produced conditions for the rise of Communists & Nazi’s in the Weimar Republic, w/ Nazis ultimately winning out. The humiliations suffered by late Qing Empire & the warlordism of the early Republican era China led to the fascist Nationalist regime of Chiang Kai-Shek, whose weakness in turn paved way for the Communist revolution, & made space for Mao’s mad utopianism. James Palmer shrewdly noted in a tweet a couple of weeks ago that the CCP regime is intimately familiar w/ the politics of national humiliation, & does not plan to be party to imposing such humiliation on Russia, because there will be inevitable blow back
Dmbeaster
Mearsheimer is something of a nut. His idea of “realism” is actually not that. He has severe prejudices about what he thinks is “real,” and denigrates other perfectly logical realistic attitudes as they contradict his prejudices. They are therefore not realistic. It is bad philosophy using warped definitions.
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: the current form of Russian government and military/police civil society is a menace to the world and must be defeated and redesigned akin to postwar Germany and Japan- this includes an anti propaganda campaign and better economic systems etc. I’d even argue that Russia should lose its seat on the UN Security Council until it gets straightened out.
Dmbeaster
@Kalakal:
“It’s surely just a bizarre coincidence that national interest as described by Realists dovetails so well with the interests of Realists..”
Exactly. It’s a tautology with these people.
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: Why are you so defensive of this hideous regime that’s threatening the well being of millions? I get that many Russians are not at fault but at the end of the day, they support their government through tacit acceptance- Many Germans weren’t enthralled with Hitler but in the end it didn’t matter- they were tarnished with their nationalistic fervor and crimes against humanity all the same.
Ksmiami
@Dmbeaster: he’s an old “sphere of influence” a-hole whose ideas should have been bookended after Vietnam.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: no, you just need to pie people that spout nonsense. :-)
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: Good points.
On the other hand, not supporting a better side in smart ways can lead to tragedies as well. E.g. (as I understand it), the US not supporting Ho’s desire to be free of the French.
I have no great insight here. Russia is an important country and lots of people and factions have interests in her future path and will be fighting for them. We shouldn’t assume that we can guide an outcome, but we should make it clear that we can help make things better.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: Your sentiments are laudable, but looking at history I have no confidence nation-state actors are capable of acting in an enlightened/moral manner, as opposed to taking advantage of others to maximize self-interest at every opportunity. Even if state actors refrain, private capital will circle like vultures.
Outside actors rarely have the ability to determine which one is the “better” side in a domestic conflict, & even rarer to disassociate such assessment from their own interests. Are the anti-Assad jihadists & Islamists better than the Assad regime? Which one is better, the Shah or the Mullahs? How about the Muslim Brotherhood versus the military junta in Egypt? How about the CCP versus the KMT in late 40s China
BTW, the US didn’t have to support Ho against the French, the US just did not have to support the French.
Ha
@Another Scott:
You know what? I was reading all these comments about needing to remake Russia and nodding along until I read your last line and remembered what YY_sima wrote about national humiliation. And, I realized that we have no clue, none whatsoever on how to remake Russia AND no right to remake Russia in our image. If anyone tries, especially the US, we’ll get worse than 9-11 in return.
Ksmiami
@Ha: No one is saying we should remake Russia in our image, but the RU government and business sectors need a severe course correction and a reset in terms of anti-corruption and being a less paranoid and better neighbor.
Tehanu
@Carlo Graziani:
Carlo: it’s not just the clarity with which you write, it’s the morality. Your posts are terrific.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian:
There’s a lot here that I want to discuss! I kind of wish we could do it around a beer, instead of in walls of text, though.
Let me just say that I regard “Putinism” as serious an issue as it currently is, as a temporary, “tactical” problem, because ultimately Russia’s political relevance is due to historical circumstances that have endowed it with a nuclear arsenal, mineral wealth, and ambition beyond the scope of its objective power. I am very angry at what Putin attempted to do to our institutions, and that gives some color to my rhetoric, but I don’t really believe that he is a world-historic figure who needs detain our understanding of where the world is really going.
You may know how I feel about how the West has been culturally and politically sleepwalking for the past 30 years. I would like to see a reawakening of the sense of importance of liberty (in a less corrupted sense than the term is used in American political discourse) and a concomitant de-emphasis of capitalism as a value, but I am alert to the danger of messianism, another part of the American political heritage. I’m hoping for the advent of maturity. It could happen. We have grown-ups in charge now. But, there are no guarantees.
As I said, I actually think Putinism is a transient problem. The US-China relationship is the longer-term issue that I would like help thinking about. There I have been struck in the past by the fact that there seem to exist deep stabilizing back-channels that prevent terrible things from happening even when official sources issue very nearly hostile statements. It’s almost as if the official hostility is useful, but an actual hostility is recognized to be self-defeating. Which, given the mutually interdependent wealth and commerce makes a good deal of sense.
Ah, launching into wall-of-text mode. I need to go to bed. There’d be more I’d like to chat about, though.
J R in WV
@bbleh:
What is the frequency, Kenneth?
What’s the frequency!?
[ Meanwhile the pummeling continues! ]
Barney
@debbie: It’s the Realist approach – they ignore morality, and think in terms of gains and losses. This was, for instance, the thinking behind the French surrender in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, or in 1940. The latter was, of course, disastrous, because they were dealing with a genocidal psychopath, and Realists ought to take that into account.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Might be a dead thread, I would love to shoot the sh*t w/ you (& many Jackals here) over beer/wine/scotch/cognac/baijiu! :-)
It would indeed be nice if your views are dominant in the halls of power, but I do not believe it is. Even people who sincerely believe so become absorbed into the “Blob” as they spend more time in DC & climb higher in policymaking or policy development circles. Once in positions of power, the imperative to preserve the US hegemony (to retain all the benefits & policy flexibility hegemony brings, which every member of the US polity has taken for granted for decades) for its own sake becomes overwhelming.
There had been many discrete channels of communication between China & the US, but they have virtually collapsed in the last few years, due to a multitude of factors: drastically reduced tolerance by the CCP regime for anything even marginally out of step w/ the official line, Chinese scholars & retired officials increasingly reticent to engage w/ Western media or their Track 2 counterparts for fear of having their words quoted out of context & invite censure from both the regime & the ultra-nationalists online, the pandemic preventing face to face engagements, the Trump Administration successfully shifting the Overton Window wrt China such that policymakers & think tankers are branding any voice that advocates nuance & something more complex than great power competition is branded “CCP apologist/useful idiot” (also applies in China), the bipartisan consensus (especially in Congress) that has coalesced around confrontation & competition (which operationally often is just confrontation in less confrontation language). Even the economic ties & technological collaboration that used to serve as ballast to the relationship have become yet additional fronts in the great power competition. It is clear that both Xi & Biden wants to put guardrails around the great power competition & form a bottom to the deteriorating relationship, but as the two countries respond to emerging crises & to each other, they remain trapped in the downward spiral, probably because neither has the domestic political space to make accommodations or concessions that the other seek. Xi has more room to do so, in theory, but since China believes the US under Trump instigated the downward spiral & continued under Biden, it will not take the 1st step. The two sides cannot even manage the most basic steps in de-escalation, such as reopening closed consulates.
I used to be an optimist like you when Obama was elected to 2 terms, but Trump’s surprise victory, & the small margin of Biden’s election & the extremely tenuous of D’s hold on Congress (after such obvious disasters of Trump years), have made me pessimistic.
Another Scott
@Ha: I understand and agree that we – outsiders, even people of good will – cannot know how to “remake” another country. We have enough trouble trying to move forward here. I’m not advocating that.
Post-Putin Russia will be different. It will be weaker economically, politically, and militarily. Putin has done an immense amount of damage that will take a lot of time and money to recover from. Outsiders can sit back and do nothing, making the hurt and danger last longer, or they can help (via direct aid, changing policies, etc.) even when doing less than trying to impose their will.
Analogies are always imperfect, but consider something like the Marshall plan vs something like the decades long embargo of Cuba. There are always options and levels of actions. I hope that smart people are thinking about these things.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: We have seen this movie before, post-collapse of fUSSR. If anything, I expect countries to act even more selfishly now to take further advantage of the vulnerable position of a post-Putin Russia, no matter the flowery rhetoric that will inevitably be employed.
I think GHWB & his team was keenly aware of the need to avoid humiliating 1st USSR then Russia following the fall of the Iron Curtain. However, the unipolar moment got into the heads of policymakers in DC during the Clinton & GWB Administrations, culminating in destructive imperial overreach after 9/11.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes GHWB’s team had some people who were trying to be careful and be sensible. Given the political and economic collapse of the USSR, and the need to get the economy working again quickly, a lot of less-than-ideal things happened. The country not falling into a national civil war was an important good result.
W’s people took advantage of a horrible attack to try to impose their views on the country and much of the world. Similarly, right-wingers everywhere tried to take advantage of the collapse of the housing bubble and the Great Recession to blame The Other for their predictable failures of their economic policies. And to increase their own political power. We’re still seeing the effects today.
These things go in cycles if we don’t learn from history.
I also think that we have to be careful not to minimize agency in other countries. The US is something like 4.5% of the world population and a decreasing fraction of the world economy. We can’t (and shouldn’t) run the world by ourselves.
Cheers,
Scott.