The news media are devoting virtually all of their bandwidth to the savage Hamas-Israeli sh*t storm in Gaza and especially on the status of the Israeli hostages. After some digging, it is possible to learn that many Islamic militia groups in the region have been attempting to strike at Israel from far outside of the Israeli border. This is being coordinated by Iran.
The thing that I’m learning is that the historical facts aren’t so hard to understand, it’s just a large hairball of intertwined details. The emotional depths, however, are deep and abiding. It long ago morphed into a battle between certain Islamic fundamentalists and the “invaders”. The momentum to begin the State of Israel began well before 1948. The formation and settlement of Israel, Zionism, was a planned movement to first colonize the area of present-day Israel and gradually push out the residing Palestinian Arabs. There are early references to the settlement of European Jews of the First Aliyah between 1881 and 1903 to Ottoman Syria. These people were traditional Jews not necessarily interested in Zionism. It’s important to note that Zionism and Judaism are not equivalent.
According to Wikipedia, the Zionist movement is thought to have originated with Theodor Hertzl in 1897. Even before, there were Jewish villages established in Palestine, ibid. He was an Austro-Hungarian journalist and Jew who promoted immigration to Palestine for the purpose of establishing a homeland. The link gives some good background.
The formal establishment of the Israeli state from the Israeli side is well documented and is left for the reader to access. Palestinians refer to this as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.
It seems well documented that the establishment of the state of Israel was a systematic movement to form a Jewish homeland- Zionism. This process inevitably involved the forced displacement of Palestinian Arabs from what was greater Palestine and into smaller reservations for the displaced- Gaza and the West Bank. The West Bank is being slowly but vigorously absorbed by Israeli settlers.
It will be impossible for the Palestinians to just roll over and forgive and forget. Much has to heal. Gaza has been called an apartheid concentration camp to contain and control the Palestinians and I cannot see why this is an exaggeration. The brutal Israeli reprisal on Hamas and civilian Gazans after the October 7th attack by Hamas will extend the conflict. This is driven by the Netanyahu political movement.
How can I, an American with no interest in any of the Abrahamic religions possibly know about this? Hey man, I’m tryin’. Obviously this thing has to settle down and casualties on both sides stop, just nobody knows how to make it happen. The incessant and violent meddling by Iran is inflammatory and has to be suppressed. Their interest is in sowing chaos is unrelenting and dangerous.
The state of Israel will not shut down for any reason and leave the Levant. They are there for good. To Islamic extremists, this means that all they can do is kill all of the Israelis and share the misery. It’s like two guys standing in gasoline and each threatening to light a match. This will take some realpolitik over decades on both sides to solve. Pure ideology will lead nowhere.
Unwavering American government allegiance to the state of Israel, in public at least, and the influence of AIPAC must be pushed aside to provide effective, balanced and trusted leadership in the region. Many US states have already passed laws banning the criticism of Israel or its businesses. This type of statutory tribalism is not helpful and must stop. Reflexive opposition to the Palestinians leads only to the next 100 year’s war.
Biased US leadership in the Middle East only fuels continuous conflict and strengthens the proxy war of Iran against the US. Our steadfast bias should be for a negotiated peace. There is substantial support for Israel by American Evangelical Protestant Christian nationalists whose religious beliefs require strong support for the state of Israel. It is a part of their Calvinistic dominionism theology and the return of the Messiah. This is the third leg of a serious religious conflict. Israelis understand this interference by the pesky Christian chicken coop across the Atlantic, but they need the eggs.
I do understand that speaking as a non-religious foreigner about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is prone to misinterpretation and loaded with obstacles of history, sociology and religion. The whole topic is drenched in ethnic tropes and half-truths overprinted on reality. The US, UK, Europe and others have not exactly been the best friend of the people of the Middle East. Wariness is warranted. I get that. But we outsiders should try to understand the fundamentals of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as objectively as possible. Choosing a side to support may be required, but at least it should be tempered with objective facts to the extent that it is possible.
Hamas is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, or (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية Ḥarakah al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah) according to Wikipedia. It is a Sunni Islamist military and political movement which took control of Gaza in 2007. Hamas has never recognized the Israel–PLO Letters of Mutual Recognition or the Oslo Accords.
The Hamas Charter of 1988 set forth the beliefs and ideals of the Arab Palestinian organization. Many agree that the document was a bit harsh in places, namely outright calling for the destruction of Israel. The 2017 revision of the Hamas Charter supposedly tones down some of the sharp edges of the 1988 version.
The purpose and goals of Hamas rest firmly on Islam. Palestine and Islam are inseparable. They want it known that to conflict with Palestine is to conflict with Islam. From the 1988 Charter-
Article 3: The basic structure of the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Moslems who have given their allegiance to Allah whom they truly worship, – “I have created the jinn and humans only for the purpose of worshipping” – who know their duty towards themselves, their families and country. In all that, they fear Allah and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors, so that they would rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils. “But we will oppose truth to vanity, and it shall confound the same; and behold, it shall vanish away.” (Prophets – verse 18).
The more recent charter seeks to discern their view of the difference between Zionism and Judaism. It makes a point of stating their tolerance of other religions, as long as Islam reigns supreme. Article 16 of the 2017 Charter states-
Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
On occasion you’ll hear a few interview guests in media say that Gaza is the world’s largest “open-air prison.” Or that Israel is operating an “apartheid” system. Ok, fine. That’s a spiraling haggle I’ll stay away from. But the question remains, how is the world to think about over 2 million Palestinians confined to a small area surrounded by walls, the sea and military coverage? Obviously, Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism or civil unrest, but the Palestinians also have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Holding the conflict in place are the deep roots of incompatible cultures and years of war.
In a way, the Hamas attack on Israel resembles a prison riot. A population of ethnically united people who long ago exhausted their patience with tight confinement and no discernable future have staged yet another uprising. Like the old nuclear war metaphor, the opposing parties are standing in gasoline, each holding a match. Alert as the Israelis are, they missed signs of threat. The staging and execution of the Hamas attack was an actual surprise.
Retired General David Petraeus made some important observations on the situation. Paraphrasing, he said that even though the IDF is assured of retaking Gaza, they will then be faced with the dilemma of what to do next. The collapse of Hamas will only leave a power vacuum. Hamas will have conducted a mass-martyring taking the lives of Hamas fighters and thousands of Gazans. The dead will be strewn about in the crumbling remains of homes and businesses and the shattered economy of Gazan Palestinians.
Petraeus pointed out that the US has made many serious mistakes in that part of the world starting after 9/11. He said it’s time for all of us take lessons from this experience going forward.
Hamas is in a constant state of Jihad and are supported by those sharing the dream of an Islamic caliphate. Israel has built a homeland and has no intention of yielding territory. It doesn’t look like there is a possible win-win situation for peace between the current players. The trick for the world is to prevent a wider conflict from igniting.
The war between Hamas and Israel is in its 4th day. On Saturday, October 7, 2032, Hamas launched a highly organized commando and rocket attack into Israel from Gaza. Many in Israel have called it their 9/11. Accounts vary at present, but about 3000 rockets were launched into Israel in salvos around dawn resulting in the death of many noncombatants in Israel. This triggered Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system knocking down many of the incoming rockets.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is longstanding and packed with history and nuance well beyond my understanding. One question can be asked, however, and that is- did Hamas not know that they will lose and set back any semblance of peace for a very long time? The IDF has the capacity to fight and win a much bigger war than this. In response to the attack by Hamas, much of Gaza will be pummeled to dust and noncombatants will suffer and die. The only question is, what cue will the Israelis need to stop the attack? When you are acting in revenge, how do you know when to stop?
Whatever passes for leadership in Gaza, Hamas I assume, must have known the inevitable outcome of this attack early on. That would make this desperate action a kind of martyrdom. Martyrdom is meant to rally support for a cause. Could part of it be the recent easing of tensions between Israel and some states on the Saudi peninsula? This would not be in Hamas’ interest. Just a guess.
The participation of the Iranians, if any, may be a part of this. Their leadership is rabidly anti-Zionist and very cunning.
In any case, I suppose the thinking was if you are going to martyr, do it big. Global attention would be the goal and they got it.
The news cycle is presently focused on the meeting of Putin with a certain dictator of an impoverished nuclear state. Evidently, they agreed to hold hands against western imperialism and hegemony. That agreement just drips with irony about fighting imperialism. But it’s in the nature of dictators to claim to protect the state against the very thing they bring to their nations.
Having to stoop to sourcing arms and making nice with the waddling leader of the land of missiles and starvation must nauseate Putin in his reflective moments. But for now, he is tarting up the relationship as “statesmanship” with a former client state. Ok, maybe he’ll have to share secret rocket science technology and lessons in orbital mechanics with the tin-pot dictator of Asian Lilliput. Has to be done, I s’pose.
Over time, many of Russia’s institutions have been hollowed out to a husk by corruption and theft. Was this a symptom or a feature of Tsar Putin’s leadership? Maybe that is how you retain power- allow people to pilfer but rack-up debt to the leader.
At minimum, an influx of arms from what’s-his-name can only mean prolonging the Putin-Ukraine war. Putin’s people will do battle with garden tools if he so desires it. Ole Pootie-poot is just followin’ in the footsteps of Uncle Joe.
I received a post card from Ukraine the other day because of a donation I made. It shows an event they are very proud of- the first attack on the Kerch bridge. I’m sure some Ukrainians feel abandoned by NATO’s refusal to let them join, but there is good reason behind NATO’s answer. Russia’s long-standing morbidly paranoid obsession with NATO and the “morally corrupt” West would only be validated by such a move. It would be destabilizing today and would definitely bring us closer to nuclear conflict. To do so today would immediately step NATO into direct conflict with Russia. Ok. Enough from Captain Obvious.
Source: A post card from Ukraine.
After the Russian revolution of 1918, the Bolsheviks tried to capture and Russify the Ukrainian territory. After several attempts in 1918-1922 they relented and Lenin finally consented to give them independence as a state within the Soviet Union. This was not because Lenin was interested in building a Ukrainian state, but rather it was a desperate move to mollify the Ukrainians while allowing the Bolsheviks to keep control over the territory. Lenin did not set out to create Ukraine.
During the early 1930’s, Stalin’s government was busy collectivizing the agricultural lands of the USSR. Collectivizing Ukrainian farmland meant getting peasants, especially those with greater than 8 acres of land (Kulaks) to turn over their land to the collective. This proved to be so messy that eventually Stalin closed off Ukraine and required internal passports. Thus began a 2-year famine leading to mass starvation. Ukrainian crops and animals were systematically removed by the Soviets in what were sometimes called “red trains.” During this time several million Ukrainians were starved to death, executed or imprisoned in a distant labor camp. This period covering 1932 to 1933 is called the Holodomor, or The Great Famine. You can read all about it on the interwebs.
As directed by Putin, Russia is presently attempting to extinguish Ukrainian culture again. The kidnapping of children and shipping them to be raised in Russian homes as well as other forms of Russification in the occupied territories of Ukraine are underway. For the Ukrainians, the Russian invaders are like the Borg from Star Trek in their needy desire to absorb them into their domain- “Resistance is futile.”
It should be remembered that the Ukrainian experience with Russia has been very bad for a long time.
Authoritarianism isn’t just a problem in some eastern European states. Seeds of it are being spread here in the US by a new brand of neoliberal GOP leaders. Many times they have the words “liberty” or “freedom” in the organizations names. This is a disingenuous and underhanded rhetorical maneuver in the same way that countries that use “Democratic” or “People’s Republic” in their names. Using the words “liberty” or “freedom” implies the sacred and wholesome attributes of Patriotism, motherhood and apple pie. Their utopian vision necessarily leads to the demolition of our present liberal democratic society. Neoliberalism is the road to oligarchy.
“Neoliberalism advocates a deregulated, capitalist, globalist market economy, reifies individual greed, and markets a watered-down version of Austrian economics to left-liberals. This ideology manifests as a hybrid between right-and-left liberalism, where the social ideals of left-liberals (particularly, social equality) is attacked via economics and a worldview which views people as only making choices for themselves.”
“Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political philosophy that operates under a representative democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people.”
Obviously, there is overlap between the two definitions above. Both neoliberals and democratic liberals can be unquestionably patriotic. Where they differ is in their respective overall theories of civilization. As a baby boomer, I watched the funeral of JFK, the Viet Nam War, the Chicago riots, the killings at Kent State, the deceitful Nixon years, all of the moon landings, and everything else to the present day. During this time, semiconductors went from discrete devices to integrated circuits and medicine has advanced to applied biochemistry. All of the sciences have taken advantage of improving technology and have advanced at incredible speed and the unit cost of advanced technology continues to drop. Of course there were bad times, but there were a great many good times as well. The overall result was a good standard of living for most people and freedom from most of the dread diseases of the past. Life spans have increased, an explosion of consumer goods & services providing employment and items making our lives more convenient.
According to the Pew Research Center, 44 % of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say that the US is giving too much aid to Ukraine. Not only that, but many Republicans are, if not outright admirers of Putin, view him more favorably than Biden, Harris, or Pelosi according to the Economist–YouGov poll of January, 2022. Liz Cheney refers to these people as the “Putin wing of the GOP.” In particular they admire his opposition to NATO, Western liberalism and LGBTQ+ rights. Is this because these Republicans have made a scholarly study of Putin against the backdrop of history and have concluded that he is worthy of their admiration over and above our democratic principles? Or are they parroting some sense of admiration drifting down from the GOP leadership? Decide for yourself.
Fascist, authoritarian leaders throughout history have always drawn the admiration of some fraction of a population. The 20th century alone had many standout examples and the trend continues to this very day. These leaders have convinced millions of people to ignore their own best interests and civil rights to support a cause that may have sounded exciting at a rally but led only to eventual oppression.
The Deep State
It appears that there really is a deep state in the US. It is the dark web of supporters, fund aggregators, lobbyists and fundraisers for the new ultra-conservative Republican party. These people wish to take us in the direction of more authoritarian and White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP) governance by gradually normalizing it. It’s like boiling the frog. This is not a Hollywood movie: the good guys could easily lose in the end. Once established, authoritarian regimes tend to last a long time, or at least, to the death of the tyrant. But sometimes the death of the tyrant only leads to continuation by another tyrant.
Trump and his ilk are succeeding in the normalization of regressive policy. Government-hating neoliberals and libertarians like Charles Koch and many others have been funding a movement for the demolition of most of the federal government in favor of a capitalist market-driven neoliberal Shangri-La. Remember when libertarian Grover Norquist said “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub?” Libertarians and neoliberals aren’t anarchists, they just want the people with money and property to have the major input. Naturally, there is sympathy for this from many resource-heavy people.
Power has been defined as the ability to allocate resources. US national and global power is currently guided by taxpayer funded government. Both the private and public sectors add up to American hegemony. American business trends to increasing consolidation and is dominated by companies with the largest share of the resources. The natural end-state is monopoly. Business leaders piously repeat their appreciation of competition when, in reality, they are always trying to defeat the competition for market dominance. They will claim that market dominance is the ultimate result of achieving their fiduciary responsibilities- maximizing profit for the stockholders.
Boiling it down, libertarians and neoliberals want to abolish much of the state and federal government and focus on some kind of self-regulating market-based system. US economists always say that the market provides the most efficient use of capital. A market-based America will inevitably lead to a monopolistic corporate-based America. This is a system of economics, not governance. A plutocracy does not benefit the majority of us.
American corporations are not democratic in nature and make no pretense of it. They are autocracies ultimately answerable to the stockholders through a CEO and board of directors. State and federal government holds them answerable for adherence to the laws of the land. If there are a large number of burdensome regulations applying to the conduct of business, it is because sometime in the past, some individual or company has committed a harmful act leading to regulatory control. Regulations often stem from the dark side of past human behavior.
Back to Ukraine
Circling back, how does this talk of American politics relate to Ukraine? The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese threats over Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region represent a period when major autocracies are pushing their boundaries. Russia is only held back because of NATO and other Western countries. China is held back because of its economic dependence on exports to Western nations who, surprisingly, will band together against them if threatened. I’m sure that they have also noticed that an otherwise simple military action of rolling tanks and troops into a “passive” territory like Ukraine can turn sideways rapidly. If anything, Putin has accomplished the opposite of his strategic goal of splitting up the members of NATO. It is critical now that US politics NOT cause us to abandon world affairs which is where Trump was leading us. The reelection of Trump would be an epic disaster for the free world and democracy.
A United States that tolerates the aggression of Russia or China is a country that cedes its global influence to them. Despite having lots of ugly history and a long list of regrettable decisions, the US remains a place that people want to immigrate to. You don’t hear about boatloads of immigrants attempting to get into Russia. If the US leaves a global leadership vacuum, guess who will jump in to take its place? Another liberal democracy? Seems unlikely.
Americans should remember that in the bathwater of US history there is a baby that needs to be cared for and not thoughtlessly discarded.
The history of the present Ukrainian territory is not a happy one. The land has been soaked with Ukrainian blood by Hitler and Stalin. Not being a historian, I’ll defer to my betters for a more cogent account of the timeline of that territory.
I’m completely behind the Ukrainians in their resistance to Putin’s brutal war machine. Putin’s view is that Ukraine has been an administrative district of Russia all along and is now infested with NAZI brutes. That Ukraine fell under the control of NAZIs is absurd on its face, but to a Russian public trapped in a deep information silo, it is apparently plausible.
According to Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhii at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard, from 1918 there were repeated failed attempts by the Bolsheviks to gain control of Ukraine. Lenin relented and concluded that it was necessary to grant Ukraine formal independence by 1922. This was necessary for the Bolsheviks to maintain control over Ukraine. Ukraine was granted autonomy as an independent state within the Soviet Union.
In the recent 2023 meeting in Vilnius, NATO declined to accept Ukraine joining the organization. Russia has long made a show of believing that NATO wants to commit aggression against them. That NATO is a defensive pact somehow never sunk in. Ukraine joining NATO will only be seen by Putin as the latest and largest threat to Russian state security. Given how well the conventional military apparatus has performed in the attack on Ukraine, it isn’t safe to conclude that steady hands are hovering over the nuclear button.
With the violent history of Russia in eastern Europe, why would anyone want to start a war of aggression against Russia there? Let’s say that the West waged war against Russia and won. They are not a nation of people begging for western-style democracy. Russia resents the cultural, military and political dominance of the West, that is, Western hegemony. The collapse of the USSR was a major loss of face for a great many in the Soviet Union, especially for Lieutenant Colonel and later FSB director Vladimir Putin. Putin openly seeks to “Make Russia Great Again,” and like Trump, is surfing on a wave of fear and nationalism.
It seems certain that once Ukraine is in hand, Putin will continue with his murderous land-grab. The Baltic states, Poland, Georgia and a land corridor through Poland to Kaliningrad are all at risk and they know it. It is what was called the “Domino Theory” back in the cold-war days of the Viet Nam war. It was used to justify many military responses by the west to Russian expansionism.
For the West, the challenge is to keep Putin’s Russia contained and yet away from the nuclear precipice. It is a game of who can outlast who.
American apathy with foreign affairs has long been a common affliction. Sadly, the US Republican party is making a virtue out of admiring Putin and the burgeoning autocracy in Hungary. Since World War II, the US and Europe (formerly Western Europe) have had hegemony in the areas of dominant currency, finance, English language, military power projection and general commerce around the world. Today, Russia and China are quite clear that they wish to bring down this historical Western hegemony as soon as they can.
Definition: Hegemony, \hih-JEM-uh-nee\ noun. 1 : preponderant influence or authority over others : domination. 2 : the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group.
Wikipedia.
Definition: Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political philosophy that operates under a representative democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property, universal suffrage, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people. To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either codified or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract.
Under Chinese or Russian hegemony the world order will be very different than that held by the US and Europe. The US and Europe have various versions of liberal democracy and support other nations who do as well. To view the future, just have a look at how these two countries conduct government in their own countries. Care to live under the Chinese Communist Party’s or under Putin’s world order? As an American, the English lingua franca, for better or worse, seems to work fairly well. Imagine Westerners switching to written and spoken Mandarin. At least Russian is based on an alphabet. Am I biased towards alphabetic languages? Definitely.
Some vocabulary from bad old days of the Cold War has come back to haunt us. Russia has announced that it has deployed its RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in Belarus. The 112 ft long, 211 ton missile is said to carry 15 Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs). As new and scary as this sounds, the US first conceived of the MIRV in the early 1960’s and deployed its first MIRV’d ICBM (Minuteman III) in 1970 and the first MIRV’d SLBM (Poseiden Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) in 1971. The USSR followed suit in 1975 and 1978, respectively.
In the early 1960’s it was believed in the US that it was behind the USSR in what was called the “Missile Gap”. It turns out this was incorrect and that, in fact, the US had a large advantage in the number of ICBM strategic delivery vehicles. For a long while we in NATO thought the Soviets were 10 feet tall and that turned out to be an exaggeration. From their performance in conventional battle, they have diminished in stature just a bit. However, their nuclear triad is to be respected.
The initial purpose of the MIRV concept was to compensate for inaccurate delivery. It has evolved to include decoys and multiple target delivery. There is a good deal of non-classified information on MIRV systems on the interwebs.
Putin’s threat of a new MIRV’d missile is just more nuclear bluster to frighten NATO citizens. For the present time his nuclear weapons are more valuable in storage as they have been all along with the Mutual Assured Destruction policy. That said, they have a policy of using nukes if the security of the state itself is under threat. I would guess that Putin sees himself as the state.
I wonder if it has dawned on the Russians that nobody in their right mind would actually make a preemptive attack on Russia or its former Soviet satellites. Who actually wants the place? What benefit is there in trying to subdue 140 million angry Russians and their huge frozen taiga? That’s nuts.
Along with the fact that #45 is running for president again is the sickening prospect of two more years of news coverage of his orange face spewing streams of lies, exaggerations and deflections. Broadcasters and news providers in all media can’t resist the bloviating #45 because he attracts admiring eyeballs and those enchanted by the freakish spectacle of human idiocy at its worst.
As bad as the prospect of #45 returning to the White House is the reality check that a large block of the voting public will vote for him again. After 6 years of shameful behavior and nauseating political drama, it is quite clear that most in the MAGA crowd are not put off by his behavior.
A vote for #45 the isolationist is a vote for instability in Europe. Czar Putin will see to it that recovery of former Soviet states will happen. The US cannot be isolationist as Russia executes its land grab. At this period in history, western isolationism by passive acceptance of Russian expansionism is a one-way ticket to Russian authoritarian hegemony. This is an end state that we in the west should be able to agree on.
The world has learned that Russia’s conventional land forces are not so formidable. This is the unexpected downside of the invasion for Putin. However, Russia has always considered that the use of nuclear weapons is part of a continuum rather that preceded by a firebreak as with the west. The Russian talking heads have been keen to remind us of the power of their nuclear triad. Little mention is made of the US nuclear triad that more than matches it. The presence of nuclear sea launched ballistic missile submarines on both sides alone renders a nuclear conflict as suicide for both sides.
Americans should go to YouTube and find translated video of Russian talking heads spewing the most vile hate speech you can imagine at the Ukrainians and western powers. Polish public television TVP is a good place to start. Many Russian talking heads are speaking in favor of an all out war with the west, including nuclear weapons. Many claim that WWIII has already begun. We have been reduced to non-human beasts deserving of painful death for daring to push back Russian efforts to expand their great empire. Some figures claim that the west is after their oil & gas resources.
The reason I suggest viewing this content is to understand the constant high intensity of their internal propaganda. While there is some open criticism of the military, criticism of Putin himself is religiously avoided. Many say that Putin is surrounded by incompetent people. This is the information environment that the Russian people are subject to on a daily basis. It is difficult to believe that Russian citizens will rise up to overthrow the Putin regime through some kind of a democratic effort. More likely someone around Putin will take over with his blessing.
Russian propaganda is not some side specialty that issues from an office somewhere in Moscow. It is built into the whole governing apparatus and supervised by the GRU. Russia is very effective at not only generating fake news, but also mass confusion about what is happening. A Russian propaganda campaign is actually a layer cake of misdirection through a series of changing stories. People become confused about what is happening and are likely to lose focus.
The Chinese leader Xi Jinping has arrived in Russia to meet with Putin. Ostensibly, this is part of a Chinese effort to lend support to Putin and urge a peaceful settlement with Ukraine. Putin and his propaganda machine have painted themselves into a corner with his dirty little war. Putin either needs to make some decisive victories or find an “honorable” off-ramp to declare victory.
Here is the obligatory quote from the Art of War by Sun Tzu: “When you surround an army, leave an outlet free”. In this case, Putin should be allowed to retreat to save face and lives. The Soviets got bogged down in Afghanistan and eventually left, but only after 10 difficult years. It is hard to imagine Putin backing out after only a year or two in Ukraine. To be fair, Putin has offered to withdraw his troops if certain conditions are met. Zelenski has declined Putin’s offer of what amounts to a sh*t sandwich.
The combination of the Russian military’s well documented and poor performance, Putin’s strategic blunder and subsequent economic hardships brought upon Russia would be difficult, but not impossible, to cover up. And, it contrasts strongly with his caricature as a hyper-masculine tough guy. However, the Russian propaganda machine is talented, well-oiled and enthusiastic.
China is obviously seeking to replace US hegemony with their own hegemony across the world. China has been grooming Africa using economic and infrastructure aid. This provides access to minerals and sites to occupy in a conflict. China is able to plan over the long term and a role as peacemaker in the Putin-Ukraine war can only help the cause of international influence. Contrast that with our (the US) role as international policeman. We’ve left a good deal of devastation around the world since WWII in the name of freedom, but we’ve done much good as well. Unfortunately, bad news seems to have a longer shelf life than good.
For China, part of the calculation in determining Russian military aid is the economic effect of entering into a proxy war against one of its main customers, the US. Supplying arms to Russia will be noticed rapidly on the battlefield. This could have an escalating effect on the level of aid supplied by the NATO states. I suspect that China already sees itself in an existential struggle with the US so maybe the decision to supply military aid will be easier. Military aid could be in the form of munitions, armored vehicles, guns of all sorts or just aid in intelligence gathering.
The shooting wars in Korea and Viet Nam as well as the NATO/USSR Cold War were waged by the US side because of something known as the “Domino Theory“. In short, western nations observed expansionism by the two principle communist states- the USSR and China. This expansionism was in the form of client states adopting communist governance shaped like China or the USSR. Western distrust of the USSR after WWII festered into serious paranoia within the US, giving way to a policy of intervention to prevent the expansion of the communist sphere.
All of this coincided with the development of efficient nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles like land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and long-range bombers- our Nuclear Triad. Both Russia and China have their nuclear triads. It turns out that inventing a nuclear weapon was much more difficult and expensive than reverse engineering them. Also, the abundance of uranium deposits around the world is greater than many considered.
Either China sees Russia as a like-minded strategic partner or it is worried about what it might become if Putin is overthrown. Maybe both.
An interview with the historian Timothy Snyder has appeared in the March 9th, 2023, internet issue of Der Spiegel International. The interview was conducted By Ann-Dorit Boy und Eva-Maria Schnurr. Snyder has very strong Euorpean history credentials with a Ph.D. in History from the University of Oxford. He is presently the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
The interview starts with an important question for Germany-
“As Germans accept the debate on Putin’s terms, they can miss the obvious point: If we care about the comparison, we have to note right away that it is Putin’s Russia that is behaving more like Germany in 1941: Moscow, like Berlin then, claims that a neighboring people and state do not exist; Moscow, like Berlin then, is fighting a war of aggression; Moscow, like Berlin then, is carrying out eugenic, deportation, and mass killing policies. If Russia is behaving as the Germans did in 1941, then the Germans now have a second chance to respond to fascism. Will they take that second chance?“
Snyder makes the point that German reticence to aid Ukraine in the war is what Putin wants.
“In Russia, his [Putin’s] intention is to build a cult of innocence: No matter what we do, it must be justified, because we are always the righteous victim. Of course, this contradicts the actual history of the Second World War, in which Stalin chose to ally with Hitler, and in which Ukrainians actually suffered more than Russians, by any measure. Putin is also seeking to exploit the historical memory of Germans. He wants to trigger the German reflex that Russians must be victims and Germans must be aggressors.“
I will end here because the article needs no explanation from me. It’s worth the read.
Lamentations on Chemistry 