This is basically an open thread on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
I’ve been to Ukraine, met a clutch of its early 2000s political and student leaders, a couple of writers, sat at a board table in Crimea and eye-balled the deputy governor as he refused to answer my question about mistreatment of the returning Tatars (Stalin expelled them en masse and the returning few post-1989 suffer terrible discrimination). So many of us are just nauseous this morning, worried for people we know and horrified by what it means for Ukraine and all of Europe (and Taiwan, and and and). All I will say is you’re lucky if you don’t live in a country whose ruling party has been bought and paid for by dirty Russian money. And we’re all lucky now, who aren’t sitting on a blocked road, fleeing, or clutching our children in a metro station underground, or wondering what good a rifle is against a motorway full of tanks.
{ 120 comments }
Dr. Hilarius 02.24.22 at 9:34 am
Thank you for this. The invasion is gut wrenching but reading apologists for the invasion is even worse. Self described leftists defending gangster oligarchs. Republicans cheering on Putin.
I have a friend who is an ethnic Chechen living in Grozny. She has survived two wars of Russian aggression, losing everything, now living in a lawless society run by Putin’s puppet. She is praying for Ukraine.
Matt 02.24.22 at 9:45 am
My wife is Russian (we met when I was living there, just at the time when Putin came to power…) and, talking with her friends still in Russia in the last few weeks, many (maybe most) of them were certain that there would be no war – that it was all just western propaganda. If the US is anything to learn from, now many of them will search for, and find, a reason why the war is of course a good idea and required, and they supported it all along. If it goes wrong, well, they never will have supported it. The self is a funny thing in these ways.
Chris Bertram 02.24.22 at 10:33 am
It is a horrible, horrible day. Remember that Putin basically has the same politics as Farage, Le Pen, Orban, Trump, Modi, Erdogan etc. The same nationalist, “anti-woke”, anti-“gender ideology” authoritarian anti-liberalism. Hence the deep connections among those forces. Really sick of people describing great-power atrocities as expressions of their “legitimate” security interests, and so on. We’ve also had twenty years of doctrines of pre-emptive self-defence to justify aggression. Well all aggression represents itself as self-defence. Always has.
James 02.24.22 at 10:43 am
Despite all our horror, it seems the most like outcome will be a rapid take over of Ukraine and installation of a puppet regime. Sanctions, and then what else can be done? Germany and Europe may solidify their security arrangements a bit, Russia will tilt further into China’s orbit. But over time outrage will dampen, attention will drift elsewhere, and capitalists and opportunistic politicians will find openings to work with Russia and the new Ukraine again.
TM 02.24.22 at 12:45 pm
The constellation is horribly reminiscent of the annexation of the Sudentenland and later occupation of Chekoslovakia by Nazi Germany. A great power in decline, ruled by a revanchist right wing autocrat, militarily threatens a neighboring country that only recently became independent after centuries of being part of a now obsolete empire, stokes ethnic tensions to create a pretext for invasion, then annexes part of it, only to later invade and occupy the whole country, and then other countries.
Deeply depressing is the support of a leftist faction for a right wing revanchist autocrat committing an imperialist aggression. E. g.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/02/you-do-not-under-any-circumstances-gotta-hand-it-to-maga-fascists
TM 02.24.22 at 12:51 pm
This point bears repeating:
Something that isn’t getting enough attention in this country at the moment is that launching an invasion on the basis of obviously spurious claims of preventative self-defense undermines one’s status when another country does the same thing a few years later.
The most fundamental rule of contemporary international law is that aggressive war isn’t permitted under any circumstances. It’s still rather stunning how completely this fact was ignored two decades ago, when the Bush administration was unleashing a fire hose-like torrent of lies every day about Weapons of Mass Destruction ™.
Of course all of this merely underlines how utterly indefensible Putin’s attack on a neighboring country really is, although to be fair fans of authoritarian violence from Palm Beach to Rio will at least be consistent in having supported both invasions.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/02/here-we-go-3
Thomas P 02.24.22 at 1:32 pm
James, Russia may win a conventional war, but there is likely to be a long guerilla war too, with supplies being covertly shipped in from the West. Ukraine will be even more devastated, but so will Russian economy.
Chris,” Well all aggression represents itself as self-defence.”
Either that, or as a crusade to liberate a poor oppressed people, or usually both. The more arguments you invent, the more people will find at least one of them credible.
Imagine a situation where USA fell apart into individual states the same way the Soviet Union did. How many grievances between states and wishes to rebuild the empire would pop up during the following decades? There are instances where a country has split peacefully like Sweden/Norway or Czechoslovakia, but those are more the exception than the rule.
reason 02.24.22 at 3:19 pm
Thomas P – I don’t for a minute imaging the US would split up into individual states, but I fear that it MUST split up at some stage. The status quo is not sustainable.
MisterMr 02.24.22 at 3:20 pm
An interesting analysis of Putin’s speech by Branko Milanovic:
https://glineq.blogspot.com/2022/02/putins-century-of-betrayal-speech.html
if the analysis is correct it’s 100% revanchism.
Jonathan 02.24.22 at 3:56 pm
Would be good to hear D-squared views on the feasibility of some proposed financial sanctions and their likely impact, e.g. over calls to exclude Russian banks from SWIFT
Orange Watch 02.24.22 at 4:17 pm
Made the mistake of going to Naked Capitalism this morning. The neo-tankie “anti-imperialist” leftist cheerleading for this – to say nothing of how glibly they pivot back and forth between damning the US for its imperialist crimes and praising Russia for explicitly using them as precedent – is sickening. Given that as recently as yesterday they were confidently declaring Russia would not invade (and as the invasion started, that they were simply “swiftly moving to reinforce breakaway republic positions” but not invade “Ukraine itself”), the swift shift to confidence that Russia will merely destroy Ukraine heavy weaponry with airstrikes, to confidence now that they’ll use ground troops to do so but not occupy – and with each move of the goalpost, extreme satisfaction is expressed with the necessity to go that far but no farther – it appears Matt@2’s prediction of domestic Russian reactions is a good one for Putin’s fans abroad as well.
Orange Watch 02.24.22 at 4:21 pm
reason@8:
I know it’s been discussed here before, but I’d say west-of-Rockies/east-of-Rockies splitting seems like an almost inevitable split as climate conditions become more extreme. The differences in conceptions of e.g. public land and water usage are dramatic but little discussed in national politics.
RobinM 02.24.22 at 6:20 pm
No doubt about it, when brutality and carnage are occurring, to say it’s regrettable is painfully, woefully inadequate.
But that said, it’s also regrettable that the critics of the US-led responses to the unfolding Ukraine crisis, more largely critics of US post-Cold War foreign policy, are lumped together as supporters of Putin, oligarchs, anti-wokeness, Trumpists, etc., etc. There’s an awful lot of blame to be spread around for the terrible things now happening in Ukraine, and it doesn’t all belong on Putin’s doorstep.
I’d recommend one take a non-censorious look at, for one, Stephen Walt’s most recent remarks in Foreign Policy, accessible at https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/23/united-states-europe-war-russia-ukraine-sleepwalking/
Given its place of publication, I expect another interesting reflection on some of the deeper background to our present international crisi—it’s an international lawyer’s views on how the world’s great powers tend to look to territorial integrity or self-determination as it suits their own designs—will excite an even quicker negative reaction, but I’ll reference it here anyway: https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/24/the-territorial-integrity-of-states-vs-the-self-determination-of-peoples/
In short, moral condemnation is all well and good. But there’s also, surely, an obligation, a moral obligation, to try to understand the causes of international events since they are so often bloody and incur the slaughter of the innocents. To call for better understanding is not to take a side, except perhaps the side of humanity facing a precarious future.
Kevin 02.24.22 at 6:23 pm
This has helped me understand the situation.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/map-explainer-ukraine/
eg 02.24.22 at 7:05 pm
I’m still trying to make sense of this action by Russia — it seems to me to be profoundly stupid. So, are Putin and his advisors/sycophants stupid, or are there aspects of this in “cost vs benefits” terms that I am failing to take into consideration?
KT2 02.24.22 at 8:24 pm
Putin is basically mad. And lack of of free press and free elections nailed the coffins.
Babushka’s incite disobedience and civil war the best we can hope for in the short term. Hope is not useful.
Medium to long term I’m too fearful to contemplate.
Read by Tolstoy “‘’Resurrection’’ is the politically incendiary story the Russian regime tried to bury”
…
“For readers looking to understand what it was in his thinking that inspired the likes of Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King to fight against racial oppression and take up the mantle of universal brotherhood, Resurrection is the go-to treatise.
“Tolstoy succeeded in writing a story with great transformational potential by not shying away from the deeply personal.”
“The Novel by Tolstoy You Never Heard Of.
https://baos.pub/the-novel-by-tolstoy-you-never-heard-of-119eb6471be
Tolstoy -“Resurrection”
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1938/1938-h/1938-h.htm
Or buy on market.
And looking forward to JQ’s economic consequences of Putin. Not.
banned commenter 02.24.22 at 8:27 pm
Huh, I’m exactly one of those who thought that would be no war – that it was all just western propaganda. Then I thought recognizing and defending the republics would be the end of it. Now it looks like it’s much more.
But why are you talking about “…search for, and find, a reason”? The reasons are obvious and plenty. The fact that I didn’t think it would happen doesn’t mean I’m now frantically searching for justifications. It just means that I didn’t think it would happen…
Stephen 02.24.22 at 8:39 pm
CB@3: “It is a horrible, horrible day.” Well, here I absolutely agree with you, though possibly not for the same reasons.
I am inevitably reminded of the eloquent words of the very talented anti-Fascist poet Auden, after he fled to the US when an anti-Fascist war in Europe seemed inevitable: |”September 1st, 1939″
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade
In our case, I fear, more than a decade. EU soft power, yes?
But for recompense, see his “August 1968”:
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach:
The Ogre cannot master Speech.
About a subjugated plain,
Among the desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
I do hope I don’t have to explain that date to CT readers, but you never know.
Anders Widebrant 02.24.22 at 8:46 pm
I think part of what made this news so shocking was that many of the initial pictures of Ukrainians sheltering and evacuating looked like they could have been taken in any European country. Which is obviously not fair to other countries suffering from war, but I suppose partial empathy is better than even-handed apathy.
Matt 02.24.22 at 9:01 pm
So, are Putin and his advisors/sycophants stupid, or are there aspects of this in “cost vs benefits” terms that I am failing to take into consideration?
At least since the “color revolutions” (especially the “Orange revolution” in Ukraine in 2004) Putin and his group have been obsessed with preventing anything like that from happening in Russia. (The “Arab Spring”, and especially the end of Gaddafi, scared them, too.) This is connected with attempts to undermine and discredit democracy in the US, the UK, France, etc. too. Actions into former Soviet states should be understood at least partly in this light – they can’t be allowed to become successful democracies, because then people in Russia might want that, too, and that would be personally threatening to Putin and his group.
Said just like that it’s a bit too reductive. If you listen to thing Putin has said over the years – including his accounts of how he felt when he was a young KGB agent in Berlin when the wall came down, for example – it’s pretty clear that he believes the “historical” stories he tells, at least for some value of “believe”, and “believes” that “the west” wants to dominate and humiliate Russia. But it’s important, in understanding Russian actions in Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, etc., to see them as being anti-democratic at their core, because the people in power in Russia really, really don’t want that to happen to them.
MisterMr 02.24.22 at 10:19 pm
So, are Putin and his advisors/sycophants stupid, or are there aspects of this in “cost vs benefits” terms that I am failing to take into consideration?
It’s just good old ultranationalism.
It sounds stupid for people whio are not nationalist Russians, but from the point of view of nationalist Russians makes perfect sense.
Which is the reason nationalism is one of the worst things ever.
J-D 02.24.22 at 11:07 pm
It’s important to stress that even if the West really is trying to dominate and humiliate Russia, that still doesn’t justify all the deaths of Ukrainians and of Russians for which Vladimir Putin is now responsible. If somebody were trying to dominate and humiliate me, it would not justify me in sending hundreds or thousands of other people to their deaths.
J-D 02.24.22 at 11:08 pm
People are being killed! What more important reasons could there possibly be for thinking this horrible?
Alan White 02.25.22 at 12:45 am
After Putin controls Ukraine–which, unless there is a Vietnam scenario that plays out eventually, seems inevitable–will he just then claim that the USSR once again exists, and abandon Russian identification? I know that Russians generally long for the nostalgia of the USSR (though why I can’t imagine except for idealizing the past, which certainly many in the US are subject to), and maybe Putin wants to be remembered as Stalin II.
LFC 02.25.22 at 3:21 am
I’ve already spent an absurd amount of time in recent days commenting on another blog about all this, so I’ll be relatively brief here.
The invasion is obviously totally indefensible, and maybe everything in both Russia and in the region at large would have played out exactly as it has irrespective of what the West and NATO decided to do in the late 1990s. I have no particular expertise in the region (and I have not been there apart from a short visit to the USSR in the early 70s as part of a school-related summer trip).
All that said, I think that the events of recent years and months should be, among other things, an invitation or an impetus for historians, political scientists, and anyone else who might be interested to look again at some of the decisions that were made by “the West” in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War’s end and the USSR’s dissolution. (I’m not usually a fan of Thomas Friedman, but his recent column in the NYT, quoting his 1998 conversation with Kennan, is worth a read.)
The end of the Cold War was an opportunity to come up with a new “security architecture” for Europe or, if that was too ambitious, to come up with new arrangements that might have included a reconsideration of so-called spheres of influence, a phrase that usually carries a negative valence though not all such spheres have always been oppressive. Instead of doing that, the West, whether through organizational inertia or for some other combination of reasons, decided to continue with an alliance, namely NATO, whose main reason for being (in terms of the reason it was founded) expired when the Cold War ended and the USSR disintegrated.
I would not be surprised if, when the history of the last several decades is written from a vantage point in the future, this decision to continue NATO (and expand it) is judged to be a serious mistake.
Seekonk 02.25.22 at 3:39 am
Americans won the Cold War, and then employed ‘shock therapy’ to re-make Russia in our image.
Putin is a Christian, capitalist, white nationalist, authoritarian homophobe. What’s not to like by American standards? He’s a Cheney-like master bureaucrat from the security sector, riding herd over a bunch of greedy Trump-type oligarchs. He could have been born in the USA.
If Americans don’t like what we see from Russia, and we shouldn’t, we should remember that we are looking in the mirror.
James 02.25.22 at 5:10 am
Thomas P – these predictions of a guerilla war seem like wishful thinking. The terrain of Ukraine doesn’t offer many places to hide, and Putin’s record of dealing with insurgencies in Chechnya and Syria is to brutally attack the civilian population. Also, I find it a bit disturbing to sit here in peace and comfort whilst expecting that some other people somewhere will choose to take up a life of fear and hardship and pain.
Scott P. 02.25.22 at 6:04 am
After Putin controls Ukraine–which, unless there is a Vietnam scenario that plays out eventually, seems inevitable–will he just then claim that the USSR once again exists, and abandon Russian identification?
Unlikely, since Russia would still have a ways to go to reestablish the Tsarist borders.
MisterMr 02.25.22 at 6:53 am
@Alan White
Apparently not. From Milanovic blog that I linked above:
The Soviet Union, as created in 1922, involved the formation of ethnically-based republics and granted to each republic the right of self-determination, up to, and including, the right to secession. Putin says: “Leninist, substantially confederal, state structure and the slogan about each nation’s right to self-determination up and including secession were built in the foundation of the Soviet state: at first, in 1922 they were included in the Declaration on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Social Republics, and then after Lenin’s death in 1924, in the USSR Constitution.”
This was the land-mine, as Putin will later claim, that was installed in the very act of the USSR creation and that will later explode, destroying the union, and thus directly leading to the problems faced today. Why, Putin asks, “was it necessary to satisfy the endlessly increasing nationalist ambitions of different parts of the former [Russian] empire? Why giving them newly-formed, often arbitrarily created, huge administrative units –union republics—that often had nothing to do with them [titulary nations]? To repeat, giving them the territories together with the populations of the historic Russia.”
Even if Putin does not use the term, it was clearly a move that can be explained only by the anti-Russian sentiment of the Bolsheviks: a betrayal.
Suzanne 02.25.22 at 7:08 am
@13:
From the Walt article:
” Whatever your views on NATO enlargement might be, there is overwhelming evidence that Russian leaders were alarmed by it from the start and expressed their concerns repeatedly. Moscow grew increasingly opposed as its power recovered and as NATO crept ever eastward. ”
A fair point, but what Putin is doing now in response to the West’s obduracy is not only wrong and murderous but seemingly self-destructive.
Of course, the benefits of NATO membership might seem less obvious to Ukraine after this, if it survives as a nation, given that reassurances of the we’ve-got-your-back type and promises of Crushing Sanctions matter little when your cities are being bombed.
lurker 02.25.22 at 9:27 am
‘Sanctions, and then what else can be done?’ (James, 4)
Europe must take in refugees, lots and lots of refugees. The puppet regime will be modelled on Kadyrov in Chechnya and Assad in Syria (some of Kadyrov’s troops have already been sighted). Those who know, will know.
lurker 02.25.22 at 9:38 am
‘Imagine a situation where USA fell apart into individual states the same way the Soviet Union did.’ (Thomas P, 7)
It was Russia, led by Yeltsin, the man who made Putin his successor, who killed the Soviet Union. Only Russia was strong enough to do that. Stalin, who was many things but not a fool, guessed as much: he wrote that Russian nationalism was the most dangerous nationalism. Smaller nations could be accomodated or repressed, Russia was too big. Same in Yugoslavia, where it was the Serbian nationalists who destroyed the union by trying to turn it into Greater Serbia.
Who would be the union-breaking majority nation in the case of the US? White Republicans?
Suzanne 02.25.22 at 9:54 am
@25:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0225-friedman-putin-ukraine-20220224-nncv2rbj6rcjlnkqdvxgyqfhtq-story.html
“We need to look at both of these logs. Most Americans paid scant attention to the expansion of NATO in the late 1990s and early 2000s to countries in Eastern and Central Europe like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all of which had been part of the former Soviet Union or its sphere of influence. It was no mystery why these nations would want to be part of an alliance that obligated the U.S. to come to their defense in the event of an attack by Russia, the rump successor to the Soviet Union.
The mystery was why the U.S. — which throughout the Cold War dreamed that Russia might one day have a democratic revolution and a leader who, however haltingly, would try to make Russia into a democracy and join the West — would choose to quickly push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak.”
Considering the source:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/feb/24/long-live-estonia-america-must-ensure-defense-of-o/
American diplomat George Kennan opined, “the jealous and intolerant eye of the Kremlin can distinguish, in the end, only vassals and enemies, and the neighbors of Russia if they do not wish to be one, must reconcile themselves to being the other.”
TM 02.25.22 at 10:49 am
Sizanne: “Of course, the benefits of NATO membership might seem less obvious to Ukraine after this”
I think rather the opposite. I also think that Finland will very likely now seek NATO membership. It seems that public opinion is firmly in favor.
Alan White: “will he just then claim that the USSR once again exists, and abandon Russian identification”
His reference is clearly the Russian Empire, not the Soviet Union. That includes Finland and Poland as well as the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus, just as a reminder. In a sense, this is still unfinished business from WWI (when Ukraine briefly became independent), the disintegration of the old empires. Revanchist nationalists unable to let bygones be bygones. Terrifying what damage they can do.
novakant 02.25.22 at 1:06 pm
This is good:
https://prospect.org/world/worse-than-a-crime-its-a-blunder-russia-ukraine-lieven-interview/
LFC 02.25.22 at 1:10 pm
Suzanne @30
If Ukraine somehow survives as a state able to direct its own foreign policy, then it might still want NATO membership, because Article 5 effectively requires members to come to the support of a member that’s been attacked, not with “reassurances” but with force. (That’s why soldiers from NATO countries were in Afghanistan: Article 5 was invoked after 9/11.)
novakant 02.25.22 at 1:14 pm
And this type of grand-standing is about as helpful, as the score-settling on the left:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-urged-to-expel-russian-citizens-194140502.html
TM 02.25.22 at 1:29 pm
The Swiss government made a confusing statement yesterday, saying that it will take measures to prevent Switzerland from being used to circumvent EU and US sanctions but doesn’t want to publicly commit to sanctions against Russia. In particular, the government has refused to freeze the bank accounts of Russians subject to sanctions.
The Left and now also the center Right have criticized the government and demand they take a firm position against Russian aggression. Switzerland is still a key financial hub for Russian interests and commodity trade, E. g. the Nord Stream consortium is headquartered in Zug.
Several right wing members of Parliament have openly supported Putin and the invasion. Finance minister Ueli Maurer yesterday found time to point out Putin’s strategic acumen and praised foreign minister Lawrow. Roger Köppel, a member of Parliament and editor of the Weltwoche weekly, dedicated the last edition of his magazine to pro-Putin propaganda. They all belong to the SVP party, the Swiss pendant of the GOP, and Weltwoche is a propaganda outlet owned by right wing billionaires.
“Vor diesem Hintergrund lässt es uns fassungslos zurück, dass der Bundesrat heute Nachmittag entschieden hat, sich den EU-Sanktionen gegen das Putin-Regime nicht vollumfänglich anzuschliessen. Als wichtigster Rohstoffhandelsplatz und bedeutende Finanzdrehscheibe für russische Konzerne und Oligarchen, darf die Schweiz nicht abseitsstehen. Wenn Wladimir Putin und die russische Elite unser Land weiterhin zur Umgehung von Sanktionen benutzen können, rückt Frieden noch weiter in die Ferne.
Das können wir nicht geschehen lassen. Wir appellieren daher an Sie, den Bundesrat: Tragen Sie die Sanktionen ausnahmslos mit und übernehmen Sie in diesen entscheidenden Stunden Verantwortung für den Frieden in Europa.”
https://sanktionen-jetzt.ch/
Trader Joe 02.25.22 at 4:18 pm
@38 On Switzerland
I’ve been closely watching the Swiss on this topic and frankly their stance, as it sits, is a fairly gaping hole in the sanctions net particularly because (as you note) Russia and its Oligarchs already extensively employ the Swiss banking system (quite a few were caught out in London following 2014).
For the right price there are plenty of countries that will happily facilitate a certain amount of laundering. The challenge is finding a banking system where large amounts can be moved without raising an eyebrow – Switzerland would certainly qualify and seem like at best they are a leaky dam and at worse really just a sieve.
LFC 02.25.22 at 6:22 pm
Suzanne:
As you likely know, George Kennan lived a long life and wrote a lot in different historical contexts, and like everyone was not wholly consistent (plus also had views on some matters that were not at all admirable). But he did oppose NATO expansion in the 1990s. Of course, he could have been wrong in that opinion. I just happen to think that on that particular point he was right.
Suzanne 02.25.22 at 7:36 pm
@36
Yes, I know (and probably should have mentioned that, so thank you for bringing it up). Afghanistan was a small powerless country with no nukes, and China and Russia were just fine with NATO moving in and getting stuck for twenty years. Invoking Article 5 wasn’t going to risk starting WWIII.
@34
Expanding NATO again? Awesome idea, I do not think. Putin has given NATO reason to live and unified it in a way it hasn’t been for a long time. I hope that will be enough for a while.
Raven Onthill 02.25.22 at 9:19 pm
It may be that it is no longer possible to be a small neutral nation; one must join up with one or another bloc. Hence Finland and Sweden, considering joining NATO.
Putin is apparently running into unexpectedly effective resistance. Unfortunately, he has huge resources available to pursue his vendetta. I fear what he will do if he realizes he is losing.
Dan Davies on SWIFT:
Tm 02.25.22 at 9:24 pm
Suzanne: What if it is the choice of the people of Finland and indeed Ukraine to join NATO just as it was the choice of the people of Poland, Chechia, Lithuania and so on? It seems you are rather glossing over this detail. Russia has now proven that it does indeed pose a threat to these countries. How should they be protected?
Tm 02.25.22 at 9:41 pm
I should add that there are strong arguments for the view that NATO expansion was ill advised. I’m just pointing out that there are also strong arguments in favor of NATO membership at least from the point of view of the East European countries.
Hell, while I’m writing this, people are dying in a war of aggression.
lurker 02.25.22 at 10:03 pm
@Suzanne, 41
Sweden is supposed to have some kind of guarantees from the US. Dating from the 60’s, in exchange for giving up their nuclear weapons program. Finland has nothing. How long would it take for a first world country with nuclear plants to make some nukes? And would that be better than NATO expansion?
AnthonyB 02.26.22 at 12:14 am
There are simple household-economic reasons for idealizing the USSR and, for that matter, the DDR. DDR also gets the win for successfully promulgating atheism, always a measure of progress; people in the former USSR have backslid in this respect.
Fake Dave 02.26.22 at 12:14 am
Remember that Ukraine gave up their nukes in the 90s as part of a deal with Russia and NATO that was supposed to safeguard their neutrality. It didn’t help. If I were the Swedes, or really anyone else in Europe that didn’t think they needed a military deterrent anymore, I’d be seriously reconsidering my assumptions.
Donald 02.26.22 at 5:44 am
“ e. If somebody were trying to dominate and humiliate me, it would not justify me in sending hundreds or thousands of other people to their deaths.”
That says it. I think there was some validity to Putin’s complaints but you don’t get to kill people because you think you are threatened. Well, the US does this all the time for even dumber reasons, but everyone thinks their own murdering is special and justified.
There needs to be a movement— a serious one— to hold all high ranking war criminals accountable. In practice this isn’t going to happen anytime soon with the powerful ones and it shouldn’t be an excuse to launch a war ( though lord knows it might be hijacked that way) but we could at least start with the idea that countries do not in reality police their own war criminals or not the high ranking ones. The ICC claims no jurisdiction, I gather, over countries with functioning judicial systems. This is farcical. Western democracies are not going to put their own leaders on trial for war crimes, any more than a dictatorship would.
Establish a court and hold trials even if the verdicts can’t be enforced. And it has to be seen as fair—a court that is willing to go after China, Russia, and the US or it means nothing. The justice imposed would be symbolic but I doubt any country would enjoy the bad publicity.
Yes this is kooky. But I don’t think I am the only one who gets tired of the hypocritical bull crap on this subject from multiple sides. Waiting for the usual political processes to do anything is a waste of time. Start a global movement to hold the murderers accountable. All of them.
nastywoman 02.26.22 at 8:00 am
….so a insane Right Wing ‘Genius Neo Nazi’ and Capitalistic Thug and besty friend of ‘Trump’
(the worlds new word for: ‘Utmost Racist Science Denying Stupid’) ….invades another country by telling US that the reason for the invasion was to ‘De…Nazify’ the country from the Nato AND a Jewish Comedian President the people had elected because they were sick of serious politics…..
and
THEN….
American voters… with supposedly a majority of 62 percent believe that if Trump would have been President Putin never would have been invaded…
and
THEN…
I have to read on the Internet something about ‘the Nato’ who does useless sanctions and my old friend Glenn notices that his Right Wing Science Denying President and thug supports the invasion and then posts that Biden is at his lowest approval EVER ….
BUT
that a HUUUGE majority of Americqns really doesn’t like ‘them Russians’ anymore…
and sitting at the PC of a Paris Hotel I’m wondering…
What do they want me to do… as a Native American Warrior?
If I have ‘the Parisien breakfast’ for 7.50 at La Coupole in a few minutes and there will be this Cute Russian Couple on the Next Table…
should I take their… their… scalp… Suzanne
OR
should I throw my Croissants on some Nato Germans who have given up their Gas Pipeline if they sit nearby…
Susi?
Bolsonaro voters
38 percent
” Chris Bertra, says it all whqt connect these people
Tm 02.26.22 at 9:20 am
China seems to be moving away from Putin. They stressed territorial integrity and did not vote against condemning Russia in the Security Council.
Tm 02.26.22 at 3:13 pm
Two articles from Inside Paradeplatz, which critically covers the Swiss financial hub, on Russian interests in Switzerland:
https://insideparadeplatz.ch/2022/02/24/80-der-russen-rohstoffe-ueber-schweiz-die-schaut-weg/
https://insideparadeplatz.ch/2022/02/25/gazprombank-schweiz-vor-dem-ende/
„Ein Insider sagt, Wladimir Putin, Sergei Lawrow und weitere oberste Chargen Russlands hätten Konten bei der Gazprombank Schweiz; ebenso Putins Ex-Frau Ludmila. Es gehe um Konten mit Vermögen in zwei- bis dreistelliger Millionenhöhe – pro Konto und Politically Exposed Person“
They rely a lot on unnamed sources so take this with due caution. 80% of Russian commodities trade goes through Switzerland.
Here’s a typical Putin article in Weltwoche, claiming that the invasion was somehow caused by US intelligence predicting it. It’s the Swiss pendant of Tucker Carlson. Weltwoche is Fox News in the format of a weekly magazine and it’s publisher, Roger Köppel, is a member of parliament from the same party SVP that both the finance and economy ministers belong to – whose responsibility now includes enforcing the sanctions.
https://weltwoche.ch/daily/warum-putin-im-donbass-einmarschieren-musste-nur-nicht-so-wie-sich-das-der-westen-gewuenscht-hatte/
Barry 02.26.22 at 5:21 pm
RobinM: ” There’s an awful lot of blame” to be spread around for the terrible things now happening in Ukraine, and it doesn’t all belong on Putin’s doorstep.”
Well, it also falls on those who support Putin, within and outside of Russia.
If Putin had wanted to play nice(r), he could be in charge of a far better Russia, with massive Western investment and trade. And over a few decades, such a Russia would probably have far better relationships with the countries of Eastern Europe.
Fake Dave 02.26.22 at 5:59 pm
The omnipresent comparisons to Iraq and Afghanistan are also embarrassingly wrong and essentially amount to whataboutism. We need to be underlining the differences much more forcefully. Yes they were immoral/illegal wars of choice, but they were also coalition wars with limited objectives and at least a fig leaf of multilateralism and attempts to comply with international norms. The Vietnam comparisons were never quite right for the same reason. Compare them all to what Russia is doing in Syria if you must (though that’s arguably still worse because Assad is a level of evil beyond the likes of Karzai or Maliki), but unilaterally invading a neighbor with the goal of annexing territory is a different beast entirely. Apparently, Putin’s nostalgia for 19th Century Russia includes a fetish for the way they waged war as what they’re doing now feels more like a bizarre throwback to the Age of Empires than the continuation of contemporary globalizing trends. “The West’s” insistence in thinking that kind of thing just doesn’t happen anymore (and the willingness of many commentators to take Putin’s pretexts at face value) helps explain why so many people refused to see any of this coming.
Edward Gregson 02.26.22 at 7:02 pm
@47
They gave them up as part of a deal, but I don’t think they ever really had the option of keeping them. The nukes were Russia’s; Ukraine didn’t have the codes, and would have had to try to hack them into something they could launch. And if they had succeeded, the weapons would have required expensive maintenance that Ukraine probably would have had a hard time providing. And Russia wouldn’t have been tolerant of a nuclear Ukraine, and would have had a detailed inventory of how many nukes there were and where they all were.
Orange Watch 02.26.22 at 7:25 pm
Donald@48:
Yes. Even if it’s functionally symbolic, we do need an international court willing to go after Western liberal democracies for their excesses. International law is a bad, grim joke when it’s just a codification of guidelines for how victor’s justice will be carried out by its authors upon other nations. In the absence of enforceable verdicts, having an independent – and to the degree it’s possible, impartial – body investigate, document, and promulgate the offenses of nations and their leaders that currently aren’t held accountable is a positive good in and of itself. I’m not sure how to go about creating one with sufficient diplomatic authority, independence, and resources to actually function, but any multilateralist who does not openly spout realpolitik as first principle should support something like this if they’re even remotely sincere about what they claim to embrace.
Suzanne 02.26.22 at 8:13 pm
@43:
TM,
It’s quite understandable why such countries would want to join NATO. But dangling NATO membership in front of Ukraine and Georgia in particular- which we did, although of course those countries were eager to join — was really poking the bear. Russia has its own insecurities for well-known historical and current reasons (not that those are any kind of excuse whatever for what Putin has just done). Obviously there are ways to draw small countries into the Western orbit without actual NATO membership. I’m sure that the US is already providing covert support to the Ukrainian war effort that the Russians can ignore without any loss of face.
@45:
Fair point. I have no easy answers. If there’s one thing we know, it’s that the possession of a hefty pile of nukes is apparently the best safeguard any country can have, better than any superpower promises. Not saying that’s a good thing.
Orange Watch 02.26.22 at 10:07 pm
Fake Dave@53:
The biggest problem with anyone not seeing this coming is that doing so requires ignoring how Russia conducted itself in Georgia in the late aughts, and taking Russian pretexts seriously really requires active ignoring of how that went. The annexation of Crimea by itself should have been enough, especially since it was followed by predictable-and-predicted ethno-nationalism and oppression of the Tatar minority. But the internationally-shrugged-at de facto annexation (and ethnic cleansing) of Georgian “breakaway” republics is such a direct parallel that acceptibg Putin’s motives are the ostensible non-imperialist ones he cites is truly difficult to understand.
All of which is to say that the most relevant parallels to the invasion of Ukraine is, depressingly enough, the invasion of Georgia, and probably after that the invasion of Chechnya.
Donald 02.26.22 at 10:31 pm
To Fake Dave—
I fully embrace whataboutism — another term for it is pointing out blatant murderous hypocrisy.
But one doesn’t have to go back to Iraq to find the US up to its neck in war crimes— we have been supporting the Saudi war in Yemen since 2015. A recent UNDP report estimated the death toll at 377,000, the majority being children dead from famine.
There is a different sort of whataboutism but it works like this— when someone points to a massive crime committed by some country, apologists immediately leap in to explain why in this case it really isn’t so bad, because “ what about” these mitigating factors X, Y, and Z? Yeah, fine. So the West can invade Iraq or support wars that cause hundreds of thousands of deaths but at least we have good intentions. Repeat as necessary. Putin apologists do the same thing.
Jon Schwarz is thinking more or less the same thing as me, but with a bit more detail.
https://theintercept.com/2022/02/26/ukraine-war-russia-foreign-policy-norms/
Seekonk 02.26.22 at 10:37 pm
The world needs universal non-violent dispute resolution by mandatory arbitration.
RobinM 02.27.22 at 1:39 am
My point, Barry @ 52, as I recall was to object to lumping together critics of US foreign policy with supporters of Putin/Russia.
As far as I can tell, your suggestion that if only Putin/Russia had “played nice(r)” Russia would now be doing a whole lot better economically and would be enjoying better relations with its neighbours ignores much of actual post-Cold War history.
Fake Dave’s evaluation of recent history, @ 53, is just fake. “Our” wars are good wars; “their” wars are bad wars. Your vague assertions in support of such a case are merely that, vague, evidence-free assertions. That sort of prejudiced perspective is much more to be condemned than “whataboutism” (whatever that really means). I’m sure the millions of dead in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention those slaughtered elsewhere by his chosen force for goodwould be happy to learn they’s died in a good cause.
kris 02.27.22 at 3:54 am
@53 I am no fan of Putin and think that his invasion of Ukraine is a disaster, including eventually for him and Russia. I also think people who initiate wars are criminals and should be in jail, rather than respectable society, but unfortunately this is not the world we live in.
However, it is reasoning of the sort you employ that makes most non-western people cynical about the moral grandstanding being practiced lately. I guess if you define limited war as carpetbombing countries, destroying their societies arming the worst kind of fundamentalist groups, followed by an occupation-then I guess Iraq and Afghanistan were limited engagements. Also, the less said about fig leaves the better. Iraq was bombed and invaded under false pretenses.
I am also pretty sure that if Mexico or Canada decided to demonstrate their independence and opposition to the US, the way Ukraine has done, there would have been a pretty brutal response, except it would have been dressed up as a necessary action to preserve “freedom and democracy “.
J-D 02.27.22 at 10:32 am
And ice cream with sprinkles!
J-D 02.27.22 at 10:36 am
If the US responded brutally to a Mexican or Canadian demonstration of independence and opposition, it would be an atrocity, but it’s not clear how that would be relevant to the present discussion even if it was something that had actually just happened, and it’s even less clear how it’s relevant given that it isn’t something that has actually just happened.
nastywoman 02.27.22 at 2:47 pm
…and why do the utmost fans of Putin like to start their posts on the Internet with:
I am no fan of Putin?
Don’t they know that by writing: I am no fan of Putin (or ‘trump’) the world recognises who they (YOU) are?
Orange Watch 02.27.22 at 4:54 pm
Seekonk@59:
I know this is mostly a snarky comment, but to a very real degree this is already the role of international organisations such as UNO – and if you note that UNO and other international law organs which are ostensibly neutral end up consistently favoring their founders and the status quo… you’ve just observed the role that mandatory binding arbitration plays in more than a few civil societies – certainly the role it plays in the US. Arbitration infrastructure can be and is compromised just as surely as any other organization; the degree to which the US has weaponized its Federal Arbitration Act for corporations to use against both employees and consumers – and in effect create an explicit two-tiered civil court system – is depressingly relevant to the subject of international law and conflict resolution…
Jim Harrison 02.27.22 at 5:27 pm
Folks who are more interested in lambasting America’s part aggressions than Russia’s current ones need to be reminded of one important fact. The Ukrainians didn’t invade Iraq.
Abby 02.27.22 at 6:39 pm
@56
When in 2008 NATO did not extend a MAP agreement to Ukraine with a timetable for NATO membership but promised “eventual” membership, it wasn’t just poking the Russian bear but also planting a time bomb on Ukraine. From a realist perspective, NATO announced that Ukraine was not presently a vital NATO interest to be protected by Article V but would eventually become one. Whatever the merits and problems with NATO’s eastward expansion, this was the worst possible signal to send to an aggressive Russia: “Act soon or lose all chance.” The Guardian called the move “incoherent and contradictory”. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/02/ukraine-georgia . None of this is meant to excuse Putin’s aggression.
Donald 02.27.22 at 7:05 pm
Beinart’s piece here seems to me to be a good summary of the moral issues.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/26/russia-lies-america-half-truths
Suzanne 02.27.22 at 7:54 pm
@57: I suspect the Western reaction to the annexation of Crimea was relatively muted because NATO had made a play for Sevastopol and there was no way Putin (or any other Russian leader) was going to allow that.
“If somebody were trying to dominate and humiliate me, it would not justify me in sending hundreds or thousands of other people to their deaths.”
Just signing on to this.
Thomas P 02.27.22 at 8:39 pm
@53 There are always differences between wars, but that doesn’t make one war of aggression better than another. Was it more legal for USA to send in CIA to encourage Kurds to break free from Iraq than for Russia to send in people to encourage Crimea and Eastern Ukraine to break free? Is it really better to destroy a country than to annex it? If it is so wrong to annex territory, why does USA support Israeli annexation projects?
You brought up what Russia is doing in Syria, but isn’t the US attempt to blow up the Tabqa dam in 2017 a war crime at least as bad. Only a bunker buster failing to detonate saved the dam and thousands of civilians. (It took five years for USA to admit they did it, but it recently became public).
Al Jazeera collected a bunch of revealing tweets about double standards and outright racism, how no one expected blonde blue eyed people to become targets in a war.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/27/western-media-coverage-ukraine-russia-invasion-criticism
Sebastian H 02.27.22 at 8:55 pm
“ I am also pretty sure that if Mexico or Canada decided to demonstrate their independence and opposition to the US, the way Ukraine has done”
This needs some serious unpacking. Neither Mexico nor Canada are US vassals, both countries go against US wishes all the time
So 1) what do you think Ukraine did?
2) what makes you think that Mexico and Canada couldnt?
reason 02.27.22 at 9:10 pm
Kris,
while your middle paragraph is reasonable whataboutism (i.e. not quite on topic), the last paragraph is just insane. Canada and Mexico show their independence from the US the way the Ukraine has done all the time.
J-D 02.27.22 at 11:25 pm
Ukraine sought membership of a military alliance which is (implicitly but obviously) aligned against Russia. Has there been any instance of Canada or Mexico seeking membership of a military alliance aligned against the US?
banned commenter 02.27.22 at 11:49 pm
The list of demands sent by the RF to the US in December:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/russia-demands-nato-return-to-1997-in-security-treaty-proposals-1.1697377
It was rejected. The RF is dealing with Ukraine now, but when that is done, one major item will still remain: “the North Atlantic Treaty Organization withdraw its forces to positions they occupied in 1997”.
And that just might be the next crisis. Another ultimatum, and if the forces in question (missile installations in Romania and Poland, bases in Kosovo, etc.) are not removed, they might be attacked. If so, what’s happening now is a minor crisis.
RobinM 02.27.22 at 11:56 pm
I didn’t read Kris’s last paragraph as insane. I read it as an appeal for people to try to apply consistent international standards no matter the perpetrator. (That, incidentally, seems to me to be the position of the British Stop the War Coalition, though managed Labour seems to disagree on that.)
It seems to me the problem—or should I say a problem—with that is that we are all as individuals subject to whatever political messages are being broadcast locally. I very much doubt whether the arch decisionmakers are engaging in the kind of discussions going on here, though I also imagine these decison makers are concerned with what their subjects think and say and seek to influence all that. So what we end up with is a bunch of people like us imagining that our out of the way, often contentious debates are at all consequential in the great scheme of things.
For some reason, perhaps apparent only to me, Adam Przeworski’s recent paper, “Models of authoritarian regimes: a critique,” seems relevant to all this.
Seekonk 02.28.22 at 1:06 am
I believe that the primary dynamic in Ukraine is that after three decades with Uncle Sam as the world’s sheriff, Russia (with China’s support) wants a multi-polar security arrangement.
kris 02.28.22 at 1:10 am
@72,
My comment was specifically a response to 53, and wasn’t meant to represent a view on the conflict itself, however, have Mexico or Canada ever allowed or asked to be part of a Chinese or Russian led military alliance that is hostile to the US? I think the Monroe doctrine is still a cornerstone of American policy towards its neighborhood. My point is that the Russians have an equivalent approach to their neighbors with a little more historical reason (Ukraine is a key route to threaten Russian soil), and Ukrainian actions in the recent years have been perceived to be openly threatening their security, with lots of cheering and carrot dangling from the sidelines by the US and NATO. I refer you to this talk by John Mearsheimer from 6 years ago who predicted this outcome:
https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4
[NB #67 explains this more concisely and better than I could]
I don’t state this by way of justification, rather as a explanation for the Russian actions.
It’s nice to have a narrative of good and evil, with Putin bad and the West good (as always, even when they bombed the daylights out of poor non-European countries). But essentially Ukraine has been a convenient pawn in a game just like Afghanistan was during the Cold War. When the dust settles, just like elsewhere one is likely to see an armed insurgency in Ukraine, that will destroy them.
@63, I hope this explains my hypothetical a bit better.
Kris 02.28.22 at 3:34 am
For some further reading, there is this article in Tablet:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ukraines-deadly-gamble
Furthermore, some commentators have picked up on the tinge of racism that underlies how European countries have reacted to the invasion of Ukraine, as opposed to other places in the world:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1497974245737050120
Donald 02.28.22 at 3:38 am
Jim Harrison—
Not that it is relevant, but Ukraine did participate in the Iraq War. You brought it up.
https://www.army.mil/article/15056/ukrainians_complete_mission_in_iraq
And anyway, it isn’t just Iraq. We gave the green light to the Saudis to bomb Yemen in 2015 and we support their blockade which is the main factor behind the famine.
It is also typical that people jump on a dubious analogy ( the Mexico-Canada one) rather than deal with the actual horrific war we have supported under three Presidents. But if you want analogies the US actually has invaded a few countries in Latin America, supported death squads, etc, all on the grounds that they posed a security threat to us.
I am out of here.
Richard Harris 02.28.22 at 3:50 am
“ I am also pretty sure that if Mexico or Canada decided to demonstrate their independence and opposition to the US, the way Ukraine has done”
2) what makes you think that Mexico and Canada couldn’t?”
If I remember right, Cuba weren’t allowed to link up with a military block that the USA did not approve of. The world at that time was apparently close to war, a war that the USA risked causing. It seems to me the Mexico or Canada point you refer to has already happened. If Mexico or Canada, in breach of the Monroe doctrine, which is not the state policy of either country, started to discuss a military alliance with China, I truly doubt the White House would conclude that that was their business and nothing to do with the US of A.
Timothy Scriven 02.28.22 at 5:33 am
“Canada and Mexico show their independence from the US the way the Ukraine has done all the time.”
No fan of the invasion or Putin, but it’s got to be said:
Canada and Mexico don’t regularly consider joining an alliance designed explicitly to control the United States- which is the equivalent of what the Ukraine has done.
If, during the cold war, either Canada and Mexico had looked like they were going to join the Warsaw pact, the US would have absolutely tried to overthrow their government.
Russia’s behavior is about as aggressive as the US’s would be in the equivalent situation, which is not to justify it, on the contrary, but to condemn it, because the US is extremely aggressive.
Tm 02.28.22 at 1:51 pm
Re the Whatabout crowd
Americans (and anti-Americans) often have the tendency to think that everything revolves around the US. Folks, this isn’t about America. This is about Ukraine, a sovereign country and full member of the United Nations, whose very existence is threatened by an imperialist aggression. Ukraine never threatened or attacked anybody. Armchair anti-imperialists are almost suggesting that Ukrainians should suffer for America‘s sins.
Ukrainians have the right to make their own political choices. Perhaps the worst moral failure of the Jacobin crowd has been their parroting Putin’s propaganda that Ukraine is a puppet of the „West“ and the Maidan mass protests were „staged“ by the CIA, a deeply insulting and actually racist charge that Ukrainians somehow can’t think for themselves and tens of thousands participating in mass protests at significant personal risk needed the CIA to motivate them.
Seriously, what kind of anti-Imperialist argues that big powers have a right to dominate their weaker neighbors?
The comparison with Canada and Mexico offered above is nonsensical. These countries are not satellites of the US, nor are NATO members like France, Germany, Hungary or Turkey. For better or worse, they make their own political choices. Canada, France, Germany and others have opposed the Iraq war; during Vietnam, Canada even offered asylum to American war deserters.
Ukraine never posed any kind of threat to Russia. Justifying or playing down Putin’s unprovoked aggression to make a point against US imperialism is moral bankruptcy.
Tm 02.28.22 at 2:58 pm
The Swiss government has just announced full participation in EU sanctions against Russia. A majority of the population is in favor according to polls and a petition in favor of strong sanctions has garnered >140000 signatures within days.
As a coda to my last comment, I’d like to ask everybody here whether Ukrainian security interests count at all? Because this is what some of you keep glossing over: that Ukraine has been objectively and factually threatened by Russia long before the current invasion. Ukraine and other countries weren’t seeking NATO membership just out of spite but because they had legitimate reasons to seek protection from Russian aggression. And Putin is proving them right.
To put it bluntly, what has been argued here is that Nazi Germany was justified to invade Czechoslovakia and Poland since these countries were allied with France and Britain.
afeman 02.28.22 at 3:52 pm
Has there been any instance of Canada or Mexico seeking membership of a military alliance aligned against the US?
No, but we need no counterfactual in the case of Nicaragua, where the accusation of getting aid was a sufficient causus belli.
reason 02.28.22 at 4:05 pm
A. NATO is not explicitly aligned against Russia – it is a mutual defence pact between neighbours.
B. The USA doesn’t just snatch parts of the territory of Mexico or Canada these days without even asking.
craig fritch 02.28.22 at 5:37 pm
Could it be that “savey genius” Putin has over reached, and that financial sanctions will be his Waterloo?
Orange Watch 02.28.22 at 7:22 pm
Tm@81/82:
These two comments straddle both reasonable and unreasonable territory. The utterly reasonable point is that Ukraine is being ignored as a “little nation” who doesn’t get to have a say in its own destiny – only the opinion of Great Powers counts. Likewise the absurdity of the Mexico-Canada comparison – the triggering point that started the war was Yanukovich being deposed. To put that in stark perspective – Russia was in effect not just demanding veto power over Ukraine’s foreign and military policy, but over its internal governance as well. To sharpen the absurdity of this comparison even further, Russia maintained military bases in Ukraine until they annexed the territory where they lay. Russia has been placing the sorts of restrictions on Ukrainian sovereignty that we on the left e.g. decry as at best poison pills or at worse sovereignty in name only when Israel talks about the limits of what they’d accept in a two-state solution. It’s also pretty damning (and a bit hypocritical) to ignore how non-Russian ethnic populations have been treated in the territories Russia has annexed since the fall of the Soviet Union – this is not absolutely not just about Russian security interests.
Less reasonable is your claim that pointing out American liberal hypocrisy in this instance is acting like everything is about the US. If anything, it’s trying to broaden a conversation that neoliberals almost never willingly entertain: whether nations are permitted to engage in military interventionism. Having liberals once again remember that ordinary people suffer when bombs start falling seems like the only possible time they might realize it’s been bad when they’ve tacitly or explicitly supported the continuous and ongoing string of “reasonable” military abrogations of foreign security interests and self-determination. It’s not so much that this is a myopic declaration that it’s always and only about the US (and allied, primarily European nations) so much as an observation that a large portion of multilateralists insist it’s never about the US (and allied, primarily European nations). And since this comment is now bordering on reopening the fruitless discussion of weaponized selective recognition of agency à la Murc’s Law, I’ll stop there.
Orange Watch 02.28.22 at 7:38 pm
To clarify my last point: it’s only unreasonable to consistently bring up the US (and suchlike) in discussions of foreign relations and interventionism if the US is not consistently involved in the subject at hand as an active participant – which it generally is, which in and of itself is a large part of the point.
Note this observation about selective recognition of relevance and agency also applies in the opposite direction to the neo-tankies posing as anti-imperialists who try to dismiss any and all recognition of interventionism by Russia and China as russo/sinophobia and/or an attempt by the MIC to return to a Cold War profiteering stance.
GMBM 02.28.22 at 10:15 pm
Tn–
It seems to me you’re confusing “justification” with simple understanding of a state’s motives. The mistake that Chamberlain made at Munich was not that the peace accord he reached “justified” the aggression of the Third Reich; it was that he misunderstood the motives of the Third Reich. He didn’t understand that Hitler was not a rational actor.
Today, in Ukraine, understanding that Russia will not accept western influence in the space that, per Mearsheimer, it views as an essential strategic buffer, is not the same as morally justifying their aggression. Morality just has nothing to do with it.
The truly scary prospect is that Western leaders believe the propaganda that they are feeding the masses — that Putin is not a rational actor. In a nuclear-armed world, contra 1936, we have to assume he is rational as long as we possibly can.
nastywoman 02.28.22 at 11:25 pm
@
‘Re the Whatabout Crowd’
So even the War Criminals Invasion hasn’t changed you guys?
And as TM mentioned:
This is NOT about ‘America’
(and not even about ‘Nato’)
This is about (Eastern) Europeans who overwhelmingly have chosen (a peaceful) Europe –
and a Brutal EX-KGB Agent who wants to stop them.
John Quiggin 03.01.22 at 12:00 am
The view that the strength of reaction to the invasion reflects implicit racism is undermined by the fact that there was no such reaction to Putin’s previous aggressions against Ukraine, Georgia etc.
This really is a clearer breach of the post-1945 prohibition on wars of international conquest than anything seen before.
J-D 03.01.22 at 12:02 am
A string of US Presidents have been responsible for a series of inexcusable unjustifiable atrocities, atrocities which should be condemned and which have indeed been condemned; but this in no way extenuates or mitigates the inexcusable unjustifiable atrocity for which Vladimir Putin is currently responsible and which should also be condemned. I don’t have to think, and shouldn’t be taken as meaning, that his decision is the only wicked one ever or the most wicked one ever when I say that it was wicked.
AnthonyB 03.01.22 at 3:42 am
A document offering Mexico an alliance against the U.S. once caused quite a ruckus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
J-D 03.01.22 at 3:50 am
This is why I wrote (explicitly) in an earlier comment that the alignment is implicit but obvious.
J-D 03.01.22 at 4:26 am
It’s possible that NATO expansion was a foolish choice. It’s possible that the world would be better off now if the choice had been made three decades ago to avoid NATO expansion; we can never know for sure. We can never know for sure, but it’s possible that the world would be better off now if NATO had been disbanded three decades ago. But if you want to make this kind of point, and given that people* are invoking NATO expansion to justify, or at least to extenuate, an inexcusable atrocity, it’s important to repeat that, no matter how unwise a choice NATO expansion may have been, it does not in any way justify or even extenuate the choice Vladimir Putin has made to send hundreds or thousands of people to their deaths.
*Even if you are not one of the people doing this, you should still be aware that other people are doing so.
MisterMr 03.01.22 at 7:15 am
@GMBM
The problem is not if Putin is rational or not; it is what Putin wants.
Does he want a safety belt around Russia? Or does he want a greater Russia the size of the czarist empire?
All renditions of his discourses I have read make it clear that he wants the new czarist empire, and he wants it on the basis of dubious ethnicist claims.
It is similar to how Mussolini justified his actions by saying that he was defending italians, playing on the self image of italians as historical victims that was common during italian unification, as italians believed they were getting out from centuries of humiliating foreign rule.
Was Mussolini rational? Yes but he was also a total asshole.
Same is with Putin: yesterday it was Crimea, today is the rest of Ukraine, tomorrow it will be Lituania or Poland.
As it happens I’m quite skeptikal of nationalisms and I tend to think that Ukrainian and Russians, ha ha they only pretend to be different but they are the same, but this doesn’t change the fact that Putin is weaponizing his own ethnicist belief into a plan of conquering most eastern Europe on explicit revanchism of Russians vs. the others; the security belt around Russia is just a sideshow.
Furthermore, even if we accept the security belt logic, wouldn’t e.g. the EU want a security belt against Russia too? If one thinks in these terms there will be a few big powers and a lot of peoples living in security belts.
nastywoman 03.01.22 at 8:06 am
@
‘The view that the strength of reaction to the invasion reflects implicit racism is undermined by the fact that there was no such reaction to Putin’s previous aggressions against Ukraine, Georgia etc’.
The same goes for all the efforts of ‘the Whatabout Crowd’ to distract and divert from the EX-KGB’s Agents War.
And all the fans of Putin who finally have outed themselves by insisting they are not fans of Putin.
TM 03.01.22 at 8:29 am
@89: I don’t see your point. Hitler’s actions were internally quite rational, at least until 1941.
@OrangeWatch: Thanks for a constructive discussion. Regarding the problem of hypocrisy, see my comment at 6. Most of us around here denounced the Iraq war. What I reject is the Whataboutism that some commenters are engaging in.
nastywoman 03.01.22 at 8:34 am
and as the EX-KGB Agent and War Criminal constantly mentions some ‘De-Nazification’ of the Ukraine as his Alibi for committing his war crime – how could some of my fellow Americans ever believe such complete insane Propaganda that a people who want to join Europe and elect a Jewish Comedian in order to do so – are ‘Nazis’?
How?
nastywoman 03.01.22 at 8:40 am
‘How’
as there are are ‘Neo-Nazis’ in the US and Germany too – and in the US they even allowed to dominate HUUUGE parts of the Internet with their ‘Free Speech’ – BUT nobody would come up with the idea that the US -(or Germany) currently need the Invasion of Russian troops in order to get ‘De-Nazified’?
Or?
Not?!
reason 03.01.22 at 9:03 am
J-D @93
The NATO is only anti-Russian because the Russians choose to make it so. NATO was set up as a counterforce to the Warsaw Pact. When the Warsaw Pact and then the Soviet Union ceased to exist, it’s nature changed, but it’s purpose has only been renewed by Russian actions.
lurker 03.01.22 at 10:37 am
‘we have to assume he is rational as long as we possibly can’ GMBM, 89
Unfortunately Putin seems like an actor dangerously mistaken about many things. He does not seem to have anticipated serious resistance from Ukraine, or sanctions this heavy.
And he keeps resorting to violence when other means are available. If you don’t want Ukraine in the NATO prior to 2014, you have several European NATO countries you can get to veto it, plus you should be able to influence Ukrainian politics quite a lot, with your money, their energy-dependence and so on. If your friend the president gets overthrown, the next president will face the same situation: the US do not care about Ukraine and the EU do not want it. Only Russia cares, in its weird, twisted way. After 2014, there’s an ongoing conflict you can keep simmering as long as you want, so again, no NATO. I can understand the paranoia, in a Russian and a KGB guy at that, but why always pick the stupidly violent option?
The most optimistic scenario I can now believe in is that Putin smashes Ukraine up and annexes most of it, killing countless Ukrainians who oppose or could oppose him, and driving millions to exile, followed by a new Cold War with heightened risks of nuclear war. Only military intervention can stop him, and that will mean nuclear war, at which point the worst things Putin can do to Ukraine would be preferable, even for Ukrainians.
Etv13 03.01.22 at 11:21 am
In all the years I have been reading Crooked Timber, I have never been less in sympathy with the overall tenor of a comment thread here than I am now. NATO, and the U.S.’s behavior in Iraq or Vietnam or Latin America are utterly beside the point. Russia has invaded a neighboring country. Hundreds of people have died, and it’s very likely that hundreds of thousands of people will die. There is absolutely no justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and attempts to distract from or justify Russia’s misconduct while Ukraine is fighting for its existence are reprehensible.
GMBM 03.01.22 at 11:45 am
@J-D
Yes, I agree that it is a moral atrocity, to start a war of choice. Putin, like GWB before him, in a perfect world would be held accountable for his immoral destruction of life. Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s incumbent upon everyone who comments on the events that are unfolding to bring moral judgment into the discussion. In fact doing so runs two things together, in what can be unhelpful and even dangerous ways. If someone is committing a moral atrocity, our instincts and intuitions suggest that we should do whatever we can to stop it. But in this case, clearly we should not.
@MisterMr
I don’t know (of course) whether Putin wants a new Tsardom or a security belt. It seems that from the west’s point of view, we can understand either as, “Putin wants strategic security, i.e. a buffer between Russia and the great powers of Europe.”
As far as conquering eastern Europe, well I just don’t see Russia embarking on such a project, whatever Putin’s flights of rhetoric. If he invaded Poland, war b/w NATO and Russia would begin, and either it would remain conventional, and he would lose; or it would escalate to a nuclear exchange, and he would lose, along with everyone else.
Orange Watch 03.01.22 at 6:53 pm
nastywoman@96:
This kind of mind reading really isn’t helpful. And I’m saying that as someone who’s really quite exasperated with putatively-leftist Putin fans taking his “security” and “Western aggression” talk as unimpeachably sincere while pretending his czarist “blood and soil” rhetoric is flowery language or straight-up does not exist. There is a distinction to be made between those saying “yes, and” about Putin’s imperialism, and those saying “no, but”.
John Quiggin 03.01.22 at 7:36 pm
The whataboutist position has had a pretty fair hearing so far, but that’s enough. Anything more on those lines will be deleted.
Jim Harrison 03.01.22 at 9:45 pm
Russia could utterly neutralize NATO by becoming a decent, responsible country. Ten years of that treartment, and NATO would become about as threatening as a sewing circle.
Colin Danby 03.02.22 at 1:32 am
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/2/23/22945781/russia-ukraine-putin-speech-transcript-february-22
https://news.yahoo.com/russian-state-news-accidentally-publishes-181749627.html
The question of motivation is a good one, but it seems to me we have quite a bit of evidence now that the current Russian gov’t denies Ukrainian sovereignty and considers it rightfully part of Russia. Maybe I am simple minded, but you have the actions, and you have the declared aims that match them.
Seekonk 03.02.22 at 5:12 am
World governance is a sordid affair. One can view the Ukraine situation as a dispute within organized crime.
The world is run by 200 crime families (nation states). The three most powerful are USA, China, and Russia.
Ukraine** is getting trampled in a turf war set off when Russia pushed back because it believes that the USA is using NATO to undermine Russia’s security.
Given the suffering, hardship, and death that is and will be inflicted on the countless innocents who are not made members of these crime families, the crime bosses should do the right thing: de-escalate and reach a settlement in the framework of the Monroe Doctrine and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
(** recall that attempts have been made to rationalize the dubious dealings of Trump, Manafort, and the Bidens in Ukraine by pointing out that corruption is rampant there.)
Dr. Hilarius 03.02.22 at 6:08 pm
I have held off from commenting because most points of view are already represented here at CT. But comments about Russian motivations seem to neglect that fact that the Russian Federation isn’t taking action. The Russian Republic isn’t making decisions. The Russian people are not making any choices. Putin is the only actor with agency here.
Jim Harrison 03.02.22 at 6:27 pm
It’s kinda nuts to talk about what Putin intends as if there were a definitive answer to the question but we just don’t know what it is. Cervantes wrote someplace that not even God knows what you mean. In a real sense Putin probably doesn’t know what he means either. Something analogous to quantum indeterminacy obtains when it comes to human motives, and that’s especially true for a dictator. In fact a lot of what it means to have arbitrary power is that your options are open in choosing ends as well as means. Putin doesn’t have to know what he wants because nobody is in a position to enforce consistency on him. We have always been at war with Eastasia, etc.
nastywoman 03.02.22 at 10:08 pm
@
‘The world is run by 200 crime families (nation states). The three most powerful are USA, China, and Russia’.
Such a Simple Worldview no Crooked Timber would enjoy – and so we just can’t
view the Ukraine situation as a dispute within organized crime.
As a Seekonk wrote himself:
‘Given the suffering, hardship, and death that is and will be inflicted on the countless innocents’ –
who choose a ‘Europe’ who is run by such a lot of enjoyful and GREAT people –
(compared to a Sick Capitalistic and Right Wing War Criminal Authoritarian like Putin)
Ukraine** is NOT getting trampled by some ‘turf war’ as we all know –
Right? –
that it is just PutinPropaganda that Russia pushed back because it believes that the USA is using NATO to undermine Russia’s security.
Like the lie about some De-Nazification.
Right?
(Wingy-Winky)
And Seekonk can you tell me why so many of my fellow Americans believe in such obvious Propaganda of a Sick and Crazy Authoritarian Capitalistic War Criminal like Putin?
(and ‘Trump’ and any other one of these…? these…who Chris Bertram named?)
And about ‘that corruption is rampant there’ – that has a lot to do with the choice of so many Ukrainians for a far less corrupt life in one of the GREAT European Democracies.
And I’m NOT talking about Sweden or any other Skandinavian Countries…
nastywoman 03.03.22 at 10:51 am
AND this from our ‘sister’ Sofia Ventura:
‘Il Presidente ucraino Volodymyr Zelensky, parlando alla sessione straordinaria del Parlamento europeo del primo marzo, ha affermato che gli ucraini combatteranno per il loro paese, combatteranno per la libertà. Ha parlato di libertà, non di pace. Eppure, è ovvio che gli ucraini aspirino a una situazione di pace. Ma aggrediti da una potenza militare, e autoritaria, quale è la Russia, l’orizzonte che si delinea davanti ai loro occhi è quello della sottomissione a quella potenza e inevitabilmente rivolgono il loro sguardo alla libertà che possono perdere e che quindi devono difendere’.
stephen 03.03.22 at 5:51 pm
Might be a bit late, but I would advise anyone on CT to have a look at
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/russian-propaganda-anti-imperialist-left-vladimir-putin
from that notorious war-mongering right-wing apologist, George Monbiot
Fake Dave 03.03.22 at 11:30 pm
I wrote a long irate rebuttal to my various interlocutors above, but the server kept eating it and that’s probably a good thing as others have made most of my points better than I did anyway.
Since these comments are still open though, I just want to clarify that I’m a pacifist who had my political awakening at Iraq War protests. I believe the Bush administration did commit war crimes (his dad did too) and if the US were a smaller or weaker country and the Taliban and Saddam hadn’t already been international villains, the neo-cons might well have been prosecuted. They still (eventually) faced massive political consequences, at least. The Teflon presidency got a few more scratches, at least, and their legacy will always be more Nixon than Reagan. That’s something.
Putin is more of an outlaw than they ever were though (if only because he’s had two decades of practice) and it’s not clear if there’s any way, short of a coup, that he’ll face real consequences. To me, that’s the real difference. Sanctions are a start, but he deserves the full Eichman treatment
or at least the same disgraced, pathetic twilight Nixon got. Even a post-mortem rejection like Stalin is too good for him (and Stalin) and as Putin himself has taught us, no fallen tyrant is beyond rehabilitation if there is something to be gained. Far better if he fades away in a dreary exile writing memoirs no one wants to read. If he wants to rule like Napoleon, he can die like him too. Here’s hoping, anyway.
Seekonk 03.04.22 at 3:00 pm
Perhaps Ukraine could become a NATO member and receive its Article 5 collective defense protection, with an agreement that there would be no military installations on its territory.
Seekonk 03.04.22 at 3:36 pm
Perhaps the parties could jointly select a country or panel of countries to arbitrate, or at least mediate, this dispute.
The fifteen-odd countries currently considered to be neutral include Costa Rica, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Mongolia, Mexico, Serbia, Turkmenistan, and the Vatican.
nastywoman 03.04.22 at 11:47 pm
@
‘The fifteen-odd countries currently considered to be neutral include Costa Rica, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Mongolia, Mexico, Serbia, Turkmenistan, and the Vatican’.
but none of the people of these countries aren’t on the side of their Ukrainian friends.
nastywoman 03.05.22 at 12:11 am
and is it okay to say that the world really ‘had it’ with Americans
or anybody else
who (still) believes that this invasion of a peaceful country by a Brutal Murdering War Criminal is some kind of ‘dispute’ between two parties –
with the need for some…
‘arbitrate’?
reason 03.05.22 at 2:27 pm
Seekonk – good idea, but would require a solution to the status of Crimea and Donbas.
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