Category Archives: International Relations

SOS. A Letter to the International Community

To friends in democratic states around the world. As you watch America’s clumsy slouch into an authoritarian/fascist state in real time, take heed. Level-headed Americans are astonished at the ease with which one insane populist has misled a venerable political party to mutate and turn against the foundational principles of our republic. The US has struggled to conduct a capitalistic democratic republic for 250 years. There have been many rough spots since our founding, some reprehensible. What is happening today is the decapitation of a powerful liberal democracy. The USA has been a prolonged experiment in mostly democratic governance where, in principle at least, today the leadership is elected fairly by all the people, not just property-owning white men.

The USA will be the only nation choosing fascism during a period of economic growth, abundant oil & gas and relative peace. Other nations in the world are battling but the US has no combat troops deployed to fight.

Lest anyone think that the MAGA movement was built from the urging of Trump alone, be aware that there has been a population of angry and disenfranchised white Americans for a very long time. Trump was just the seed crystal around which a concentrated population of teabaggers and other white Americans has crystallized. They have somehow been left behind on the road to a modern, prosperous future. If there was an actual trickle down of wealth that Ronald Reagan promised in the 1980’s, they were left high and dry.

We are witnessing a gradual overthrow by a party led by a man who is well understood to be a serial liar and a shameless, malignant narcissist who, in desperation for power and vengeance, will stop at nothing to take control of the USA. There is a word for what is happening- Lawfare, “the use of law as a means of accomplishing what might otherwise require the application of traditional military force“. This was popularized by Major General Charles Dunlap, USAF.

Trump’s immediate goal is getting even with his enemies. If that weren’t bad enough, he is firmly supported by loyal one third of the electorate. Many other Republicans cannot bring themselves to vote for a democrat for various reasons. The rabid supporters are known as MAGA- Make America Great Again– Republicans. These people see Trump as the key to America’s glorious future, but too intoxicated with revolutionary fervor to see Trump for what he really is- a grasping neofascist.

The 20^th century was blighted with fascist dictatorships and even fascist organizations within liberal democracies, particularly in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. A partial list can be found here. For some reason, the USSR has been omitted from this list. Today, the latest Russian dictator stands out in his attempt to resurrect the power and reach of the Soviet Union, and he must be stopped.

The origins of conservative and libertarian outrage against American progressivism traces back more than a century, even before the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal in the mid 1930s. By the end of the 1800’s, political machines and business monopolies were firmly rooted in the landscape of America. The rising middle class eventually overcame much of this through politics.

Some put the American Progressive Era as between 1896 and 1917. Before this period the US was beset with urban poverty, child labor, Victorian era patriarchy, long working hours and unsafe working conditions. Note to MAGAs, was this when America was great??

The New Deal was a series of public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, aimed at rescuing the U.S. from the Great Depression.

“Major federal programs and agencies, including the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth, and the elderly. The New Deal included new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and efforts to re-inflate the economy after prices had fallen sharply. New Deal programs included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.” Source: Wikipedia.

The 20th century witnessed the United States grappling with a severe depression starting in 1929 which spread worldwide. Later, the US reluctantly engaged in World War II with other allied powers combating Nazi forces in Europe, Africa, and Japanese imperialism in the Pacific. Upon discovering Hitler’s nuclear ambitions, the US, with vital assistance from British and European scientists, developed nuclear weapons using isolated domestic uranium-235 and the synthetic element plutonium-239. Fortunately, the Allied forces managed to defeat the Nazis in Europe in 1945 before the necessity of releasing a nuclear weapon there. By August 9th of that year, Japan was defeated and the war ended. Sadly, it received two atomic blasts.

The US came away from the World War II period full of itself and bursting with optimism. Technologies that were spawned by the war like radar, jet engines, high performance aircraft, industrial production of every kind and a can-do spirit led to a boom in single family homes, babies, and consumerism. By the late 1940’s, television was well along the way and behind it, computers, and new designs in automobiles. Americans were puffed up and excited about modern life while much of Europe and Japan were still cleaning up after the massive devastation caused by the war. The remoteness of North America and its seemingly inexhaustible natural resources left it almost untouched by the war.

By the Reagan years in the early 1980s, religious conservative and libertarian groups were organizing and linking up to form what would become a powerful political machine. This conservative, evangelical Christian Zionist nationalism group has methodically wound itself up and this very day proposes to make the USA into a theocratic state. They have money and fanatical adherents willing to risk a civil war for their faith. They will support the state of Israel to the extent that it makes way for the second coming of Christ. This is the core of Protestant Evangelical Christian eschatology. Like all religious warriers, they believe they are fulfilling God’s very own plan. I think the 21^st century is going to be difficult.

Many of us think this would be laughable bullshit if it weren’t so serious. To grease the skids of their feared ‘apocalypse’ involving a final battle in Israel, they see Trump as one who could aid the beginning of this nightmare. To their credit, many confess they will have to hold their noses while voting for him. An apocalypse of sorts may happen, but it is more likely to be of the usual unholy variety.

In eastern Europe, once Trump withdraws US assistance to Ukraine, Putin will do the predictable and step up his plans for the take-down of the Baltic states and Poland as well. Putin is already well underway with his hybrid warfare. His meddling in the US elections is one element of hybrid warfare. The goal is to shake the world’s confidence in liberal democracy.

Once his move has begun, NATO will be obligated to come to their defense. It is hard to predict whether or not the threat of NATO’s backing will fend off a Putin invasion if the US backs out or takes a neutral position to Putin. Putin’s military, already greatly weakened, would be even closer to claiming that the state is in danger of collapse. The collapse of the state is Putin’s criterion for the release of nuclear weapons. NATO will respond in kind to a nuclear threat, and it will likely get out of control.

The US and Russia each have a nuclear triad that requires presidential approval for a strike. Even if the command centers of both countries are in ashes, the ballistic missile submarines will still be mission ready. Imagine, if in a conflict, that the US and NATO will have to rely on Trump and his White House staff to be Commander and Chief of US forces. Trump is a man who, as President, has a long history of ignoring the advice of military specialists preferring to ‘winging’ on his own.

What in Trump’s past behavior and utterances makes anyone confident that he is qualified to make decisions in any other matter of warfare? Should he have access to the nuclear launch codes or to top secret plans?

Of course, there will be military general staff and advisors around him as would be the case if Harris is elected. But Trump was notorious for not reading his daily intelligence reports nor much of anything else. He spent a lot of time on Airforce 1 traveling to play golf at his resorts.

Harris has a disciplined and educated mind as well as the native intelligence and organizational savvy to listen to the experts and make decisions with the best and latest information. Being a district attorney and prosecutor, California Attorney General, California Senator and Vice President, she is well versed in the law at many levels and can be relied upon to follow it.

International friends, protect your liberal democracies from those who would degrade them into autocratic states under the guise of law and order. A democratic republic is messy, noisy and will test your patience. This is not a bug; it is a feature. Rejoice in it.

See that pale blue dot as a single pixel? It is a picture taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles from the sun. A band of idiots living there are about to do something very stupid and self-destructive tomorrow, 5 November 2024. Source: Nasa photograph.

Amassing Cannon Fodder is an Old Soviet Tactic

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After reading a biography of the Russian Marshal of the Soviet Union, Georgy Zhukov, it becomes apparent that there are parallels between Soviet tactics in WWII and those used in the Putin-Ukraine conflict. Beyond the deployment of similarly vintaged tanks and weaponry, General Zhukov was notorious for committing his forces to battle with little regard for casualties. Similarly, Putin’s military has been characterized by the use of inadequately trained and equipped conscripts. Additionally, it has been reported that Putin’s forces have positioned troops behind the front lines to prevent or even target any deserting or retreating frontline soldiers. Zhukov’s approach often involved rapidly advancing battalions and armor to the front with minimal planning, depending on the attrition of Nazi forces. This tactic was typically executed under Stalin’s direct orders, though sometimes initiated by Zhukov independently.

The conflict between Putin and Ukraine has evolved into a war of attrition. Initially, Putin thought he could swiftly deploy tanks and troops as he did in southern Ukraine in 2014, seizing territory through sheer intimidation. However, he miscalculated the armaments, determination and tenacity of the Ukrainian forces. Since 2014, tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have received training from Western nations. By February 2022, they were significantly better prepared and less intimidated by Putin’s military. In conventional warfare, the Russian military turned out to be a paper tiger, at least with its conventional non-nuclear forces, that is. The Putin-Ukraine war is still unfolding but Russia will come out of it severely stunted win or lose and possibly with new leadership. Whatever the outcome, the winner will have a great deal of de-mining to do. The conflict continues to unfold, but regardless of the outcome, Russia is likely to emerge greatly weakened, potentially with a change in leadership.

Putin is a smart guy. Certainly he knows the consequences of releasing as much as a single low yield tactical nuclear weapon, even if it’s limited to a demonstration. Pandora’s box would swing wide open and out would slink an ever-expanding series of repeats of above ground nuclear blasts until a city would be hit. Then all out nuclear war could happen in the old eye-for-an-eye fashion. Dark days would follow indeed.

Putin surely realizes the dangerous situation his county is in with mounting military losses, the brain-drain of skilled workers leaving the country and a crumbling oil and minerals-based economy. Yet he wears the neutral expression of the Sphinx in public because he must. He has painted himself and his nation into a corner. He even resorted to making nice with the plump North Korean dictator which must have been a nauseating demotion for him.

A bit of history

The Magna Carta was an agreement signed in England on June 10th, 1215, at Runnymede along the River Thames. This agreement had the unique provision of the enforcement of limitations on the sovereign. Rather than a simple recitation of grievances by the barons, the Magna Carta contained ‘security clause 61’ which provided for the barons the authority to seize the castles and lands of King John and hold them until such time as he held to his responsibilities as agreed upon in the signed document.

The Magna Carta was not just a contract between wealthy barons and King John, rather it was a step change towards political reform that provided for enforcement on the King. From Wikipedia–

“First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift and impartial justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.”

Unfortunately, the distrust between the barons and the Crown, compounded by the annulment from Pope Innocent III, led to its swift failure. Just a few months after the agreement fell apart, the First Baron’s War erupted. However, this was not the final chapter. The document was reissued in successive versions, with the more radical language removed, in 1217, 1225, and finally in 1297, when its remaining elements were incorporated into England’s statute law. It was not unique in its attempt to limit the power of the Crown; similar efforts were seen elsewhere. Over time, the Parliament of England enacted laws that overshadowed the original document, diminishing its significance.

Back to Russia

The point of highlighting the Magna Carta, despite its failure, is that nothing of this type of significance happened in the history of Russia, at least until the Bolshevik Revolution. Perhaps this comparison is too facile, causing real historians to choke on their Starbuck’s latte. But allow me to finish. The Magna Carta was not entirely unique for its era. However, it was notable for including a provision that enforced the good faith by the King. It represented a collective bargaining effort by the 25 barons with King John to alleviate some of the monarchy’s oppression and, in doing so, progress the political atmosphere for a short time with fits and starts. As kings often do, King John protested to the Pope, who then exerted his authority in a manner only a Pope could. The Pope excommunicated the Barons and nullified the agreement, having been persuaded by King John that it undermined the Church’s authority.

Russia seems not to have a tradition of producing successful popular uprisings to the power of the Tsar. of course, the Bolshevik revolution is the shining counterexample. Not in the sense of overthrow so much, but as an enforceable agreement to relieve a measure of oppression by the monarchy at all levels. In contradiction to this sweeping generalization is the case of Tsars Alexander I and II. Alexander I introduced minor social reforms but he was a strict Russian nationalist and Slavophile. Many of the reforms he instituted early in his career were retracted later.

Tsar Alexander II , however, instituted many liberal reforms but is possibly most revered for his Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861. In the US, he is remembered as the Tsar who sold us Alaska. He was a supporter of the Union in the American Civil War and even sent ships to New York Harbor and San Francisco Bay to deter Confederate warships. Eventually he was assassinated in Saint Petersburg on March 13, 1881. The first assassin’s bomb thrown under his armored carriage left him dazed but uninjured. The second assassin’s bomb thrown shortly thereafter delivered the fatal injuries as he stepped out to investigate. The third assassin’s bomb was unused.

Zooming forward to the present, what actions can the Russian populace take regarding Tsar Putin? After centuries of political oppression aided by new thinking, modern technology, and nuclear weapons the current Tsar has built a deep and wide moat around himself and his allies within the Kremlin establishment. Beyond this moat stands a population conditioned to obedience by fear, a legacy of decades of Soviet rule. I believe that national pride will deter them from emulating Western forms of civil society and governance. And why can’t they develop an authentically Russian something-something ‘democracy’, or whatever? Russia has deep foundation of cultural, artistic and scientific achievements to take pride in, despite its history of authoritarian governance. Whatever Russia eventually does, it will be heavily Slavic and Eastern Orthodox.

Russians are just as pleasant and smart as everyone else in the world, obviously. Russian hospitality is first rate as I have personally experienced. They just have the heavy blanket of oppressive leadership over them that continues to drag through the generations. Even if Putin falls out of power, there is a line of replacements cut from the same cloth. Perhaps a leader of a reform movement could rebuild Russia? It could happen but just as likely it could revert into a system that is better at prosecuting a war of aggression and suppression of the population. The replacement of Putin could be good for the world, or it could go sour. The world has to wait it out and see. In the meantime, it is critical to keep Putin out of Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states.

The Putin government is like a toxic gas- it will expand into all of the space available. After the decades-long stand down in tension since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the problem of an aggressive Russia arises again. The West must remain the sturdy counter example to the authoritarian culture of Putin’s Russia. We in the USA, especially, need to do a better job as the shining city on the hill. Lately the shine is wearing off.

Putin: Latter Day Soviet or Just Another Tsar?

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Note: Not residing in Russia, I cannot grasp the full extent of the events and mood unfolding there. All that remains is to perch on a power pole across the polar cap and try to discern fact from fiction.

>>> Let’s ask a very basic question about today’s Russia. Why can’t ~~Russia~~ Putin play nice? <<<

Like most, I have anxiously watched Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The prevailing Russian narrative is trying to say that the sovereign nation known as Ukraine has historically been a part of Russia or some earlier Russian empire, a view promoted by Putin. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin directed the Bolsheviks to seize the territory now recognized as Ukraine. The goal was to claim territory for the Soviet Union, but also territory that was extremely fertile. Stalin ordered that Ukrainian industry and agriculture were to be collectivized. An independent Ukrainian government was briefly established but just as quickly collapsed. After several years of intense Ukrainian resistance and significant suffering, Lenin conceded and established Soviet Ukraine, enabling its incorporation into the Soviet Union as a constituent republic.

In the current action, with the support of an extensive security apparatus, Vladimir Putin has resolved that what is now Ukraine will be assimilated into a growing Russian empire. The process will methodically transform its Ukrainian identity through Russification, transforming it into southwestern Russia. Ukraine is expected to become an agricultural hub and potentially a strategic forward base for further military operations into Poland the Baltic states, and likely Moldova.

Why does Putin desire Ukraine when there is considerable open land to the east and north? Well, it’s the geography. The land beyond to the north and east of Moscow consists of vast stretches of challenging subarctic taiga and arctic permafrost, much of which is now thawing, making it unsuitable for roads, urban development, agriculture, and industry. In contrast, Ukraine boasts rich, productive farmland with significant annual grain exports. Additionally, along its southern coast, including Crimea, Ukraine possesses the only warm water ports available in the region, other than possibly the Neva River to the north which are vital for commerce and the military.

Historically, western European colonization was driven by the prospect of trade opportunity including raw materials, cheap labor as well as power projection. Like all countries, Russia would like room for its prosperity to grow. It is desirable that agricultural and industrial capacity also rise. However, Russia has learned the hard way the value of having a buffer zone between Moscow and Western Europe. The relative ease with which both Napolean and Hitler crossed the Eastern European territory enroute to Moscow, Leningrad and other cities through greater Russia did not go unnoticed by Stalin. By absorbing the Eastern European territories after WWII, Stalin built a picket fence protecting the Soviet state.

**Source**: Population of Russia (infographics) | PAGEO Geopolitical Institute (geopolitika.hu)

As the Nazi’s Operation Barbarossa was failing and Stalin’s Red Army began pushing the Germans into a westward retreat, the Soviets took advantage of the opportunity to install Soviet political structure in captured Nazi territory like the Baltic states, Eastern Europe and the eastern half of Germany. While Stalin did not share Hitler’s enthusiasm for exterminating Jews, he did act to eliminate preexisting local political structures which included substantial Jewish presence. This meant executions and large-scale banishment of politically unreliable people to the Russian gulag system. Poland was hit particularly hard by both Hitler and Stalin because it was directly between Russia and Germany and had a large Jewish population.

The above map shows the population density of Russia. A substantial fraction of Russians live in the southern and western regions of the country. If you assume that people are living there because it is at least somewhat livable, then the map shows the extent of land poorly suited for habitation.

Map of Russia showing areas that are 90 % populated by ethnic Russians.

Russia has a great deal of acreage but the livable turf is much smaller.

Putin views the world partially from the old cold war perspective. It’s Russia against the aggressive, corrupt and immoral west, but without the fever dream of a Soviet-style socialist world. Putin’s state-controlled media endlessly repeats that the west wants what the Russians have and stokes the fires of fear. For the Soviets, “aggressive, corrupt and immoral” included resistance to Soviet influence.

In my many years of trying to be as informed as possible in many areas in a free and open society, not once have I heard anyone suggest “Gosh, I wish the USA could occupy Russia (or the USSR) as an American territory and take all of their stuff.” Imagine the ~~scope of the folly in~~ stupidity of such an attempt. It is mindbogglingly absurd to believe that one could or would want to do such a thing. Russia is for the Russians. Maybe one day they will hit upon a way to craft a free and open society.

The Soviets were ardent promoters of global socialism. Although not overtly socialist, Putin appears more focused on preserving Russian culture and dominance from across a substantial territorial buffer with the West. He asserts his aim to shield Russia from Western cultural influences and what he perceives as a “belligerent” military stance.

The “belligerent military stance” of the West amounts to NATO responding to Soviet adventurism and their habit of hybrid warfare. They would say the same thing from their perspective, but which side was the more authoritarian?

Historically, Russia has endured invasions by King Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon, and later Hitler. The history of the Kievan Rus from 830 to 1241 is jammed with bloody feuds, wars and invasions. From the Principality of Moscow in 1281 to the end of the Tsardom in 1917, and even beyond into the era of the Soviet Union and into Putin’s time, near continuous conflict has plagued the Russian people. Fortunately, Russia’s northern geography and harsh winters have often played to its advantage, compelling invaders into prolonged conflicts and misery with eventual withdrawal. But not always.

Most nations would like to have global hegemony. Putin is fond of saying that Russia has suffered greatly from American and Western hegemony since WWII and hopes to put an end to it. He has reestablished a Soviet-like security state apparatus with strict media control when he assumed power after the 8 years of Yeltsin’s chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He is trying to resume for present day Russia the former Soviet Union’s international status but largely without the manpower and resources of the former adjacent Soviet states.

Source: The Fuller Project. Unexploded cluster bomb in Ukrainian wheatfield.

Like his Soviet predecessors, Putin both envies and worries about overreach of western hegemony and is moving to unseat the West. For that matter, so is China. This is only natural. I believe they resent western influence generally. The English language as the global lingua franca and the US dollar as the standard international currency are seen as an annoying affront to their own cultures, sovereignty and political significance. Again, this is only natural. And so is the temptation to use power projection or coercive propaganda to achieve their own hegemony. Casualties would be considered the West’s fault for being in the way.

Both Russia and China have long been critical of the West for internal propaganda purposes but to be fair there has been some valid criticism as well. In truth, the US has done some bone-headed things that we should not be proud of and that hardly serve to highlight our presumed “special” nature. But in fairness, most all cultures can look back at regrettable conduct in their history. Neither Chairman Mao’s China or Stalin’s USSR have sparkling clean histories either. Often the benefit of hindsight doesn’t come into focus until far down the timeline.

The Soviet Union in the person of Joseph Stalin, had brutalized Ukraine previously in an attempt to halt its independence. The Holodomor, meaning death by starvation, of 1932-33 is estimated by scholars to have killed 3.5 to 5 million people. This period of time is marked by forced collectivization of agriculture and industry in the USSR and Ukraine. Collectivization meant taking control of farmland owned by the peasants (especially the Kulaks), many times banishing them to the gulags never to be seen again. Already by 1931, Moscow had taken 42 % of the Ukrainian grain harvest, forcing some locations even to turn over seed for the following harvest. By early 1932 some districts in Ukraine were already experiencing famine. The governing committees in Ukraine in 1932 believed that the 6 million tons of grain demanded by Moscow was unachievable, yet they ratified the plan anyway.

The current brutal murder and devastation of Ukrainian citizens and their infrastructure and agriculture will take a generation or more to repair even if Russia prevails. Russia has done great damage to the Ukrainian environment in addition to the many casualties. Much of the country is cratered, littered with destroyed vehicles and war debris, denuded of vegetation, and rendered deadly by the landmines.

The great equalizer among the leading nations is Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, by virtue of the threat of the use of nuclear weapons for mutual annihilation. Sometimes just called “the bomb”, it was indeed invented by an international cast of scientists and engineers using American uranium and Plutonium and first used in successive releases by the US on Japan near the end of WWII in the Pacific theater. This will darken a stretch of American history indefinitely. Some continue to argue that the bombing was not necessary because Japan was soon to surrender, but it happened, and nothing can change that. However, to our credit, the US has never used it since and has actively sought with other nations to suppress the proliferation of nuclear weapons and remove the hair triggers for their use. That said, the US remains a no-first-use country but will participate in the principle of Mutual Assured Destruction as needed.

A Nuclear Sidebar

Very soon after the discovery of nuclear fission in December, 1938, in Nazi Germany by German-born chemists Hahn and Strassmann, and Austrian-born physicists Meitner and Frisch, the theoretical potential of using the vast energy output of nuclear fission for a bomb was quickly realized. On May 4, 1939, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, H. Von Halban and L. Kowarski in Paris filed for three patents using a fission chain reaction. Two involved power generation and the third was for an atomic bomb, patent No. 445686. Fission was experimentally discovered in Dec. 1938, theoretically explained in January 1939, and a patent for the atomic bomb was filed on May 4, 1939.

The point of this atomic interlude is to highlight the short time interval between the discovery of nuclear fission, conceiving the idea of the atomic bomb and filing for a patent by scientists. On August 2, 1939, a letter written by Leo Szilard and signed by Albert Einstein was sent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany may be developing an atomic bomb. This led to the Manhattan Project and America’s entry into nuclear weaponry.

During and after the Manhattan Project, Stalin’s spies detected and infiltrated the American bomb project and presumably used important stolen information for their own nuclear program. This was an important shortcut benefitting the Soviets greatly. The first Soviet atomic bomb burst so soon after the war shocked the world.

Humans have a gift for the invention and use of weapons. I’m sure it has always been that way for humans. The inclination for war and conquest is also an ancient instinct. It is hard to see how aggression will ever change. In view of this distressing thought, how are we to proceed?

Looking forward

In the short term we in the west must continue to discourage Putin’s expansionist push. A win for Ukraine will set a precedent that might even unseat Putin. It is up to the many good people in Russia to be rid of him. However, Russian citizens will have to struggle against the vast authoritarian political machine in place just like the Poles, East Germans and the other Soviet states had to do in the late 1980’s. The intimidation and resources of the Putin authoritarian state are a huge obstacle.

My guess is that in general, doing the “right thing” in a culture of normalized authoritarianism, bribery and corruption is more difficult to accomplish than doing the “right thing” in a free and open culture where doing the right thing is occasionally practiced and always admired.

To a westerner like me, Russian withdrawal from Ukraine seems like the optimal solution to Russia’s present economic and military race to the bottom. Even in winning, Russia will inherit a devastated region that will require vast resources and a decade to repair, as well as a population of angry and vengeful citizens looking to kill a Russian or two. Then there are all of the land mines to contend with. There is amputation or death by landmines in the future for many unsuspecting people regardless of who wins.

A cessation of hostilities led by Putin is likely to end his career. Thus far, Putin’s invasion has led to over 500,000 Russian casualties, of which there have been over 80,000 Russian fatalities. In a way, this pales in comparison to Stalin’s murderous handiwork, but the comparison is really more like “terrible versus really, really terrible.”

Whether or not Putin is a reanimated Soviet leader or “just” another Tsar isn’t a question to dwell on. He is a creature of his time who happens to be a former Soviet KGB officer but has rejected Marxist/Leninism and rules by a roughly mafia-style kleptocracy behind closed doors in the Moscow Kremlin. For Russian citizens, the rule of thumb is if you stay out of political business, the government will stay out of your business.

Russian Death-Tanks

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Numerous YouTube videos depict the widespread destruction of Russian tanks in the invasion of Ukraine, giving the impression that these tanks are more lethal to Russian soldiers than their opponents. Despite being equipped with Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA), their ability to withstand artillery, mines, and drone attacks seems minimal. Moreover, when the armor is breached, the cannon gun propellant tends to ignite violently, causing the warheads to explode and instantly killing the crew. Occasionally, the force of ammunition blasts is so strong that it hurls the turret with gun barrel into the air, a stark illustration of the power of such explosions. Consequently, videos frequently capture Russian tank crews abandoning their crippled vehicles and fleeing for safety. Instead of offering protection, tanks have become conspicuous and cumbersome targets, prone to devastating attacks.

One might question the practical value of reactive armor. The landscapes of eastern Ukraine are strewn with thousands of destroyed Russian tanks, their ERA blocks still intact. Perhaps its practical value lies in bolstering the confidence of tank crews to engage in battle, trusting in the ERA’s protective capabilities. However, it is now challenging to believe that ERA instills a sense of safety in tank crew members. The effectiveness of reactive armor seems negated by potent penetrator warhead countermeasures capable of breaching the ERA. The pertinent question remains: does the ERA diminish the impact of an incoming shell sufficiently to be considered effective?

The conflict between Putin and Ukraine will eventually conclude, and the victors will promptly seek to repurpose the battlefields for peacetime activities. However, they must first contend with numerous challenges, including the presence of unexploded ordnance. Thousands of mines may remain hidden, posing a threat for decades unless they are securely disposed of or neutralized.

The landscape of the battle zones is marred by bomb craters, charred vehicles—many with unexploded ammunition—minefields, unexploded ordnance scattered about, live explosive reactive armor on destroyed armored vehicles, and soil polluted with shrapnel and residues from countless detonated artillery shells.

Numerous cities and villages, particularly those near the Russian border, have been completely obliterated by Putin’s military, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian casualties and leaving most without homes. The remnants of homes, businesses, and infrastructure stand as a testament to the survivors. For them, social and economic frameworks are now just distant memories. Civilization has been set back by at least a generation due to Putin’s distorted ambitions for an imperial legacy. The man is not insane or unintelligent; he is quite astute and fully aware of his actions—he is simply a terrible person. Currently, the US is facing its own challenge with a figure of ill repute seeking control of the government, backed by a significant number of misguided followers.

In the conflict in Ukraine, it’s conceivable that one precisely aimed bullet could have altered the course of events, a notion that has been a sad reality in many wars. This was a concern even during Stalin’s time. Since 2000, Putin and his associates have been systematically constructing the framework for an authoritarian state and military power, positioning him at the apex of power. His ambition is to supplant the hegemony of the US and NATO with the hegemony of Russia.

The conflict has been a catastrophic event for the region’s flora and fauna, significantly hindering the biosphere in numerous areas. Ukraine, until recently, was a significant grain producer and exporter, essential for the sustenance of millions. In the early stages of the conflict, Russia targeted and destroyed much of Ukraine’s grain distribution infrastructure, aiming to debilitate the economy and hasten a surrender. The bombings of civilian residences, hospitals, and other infrastructures will tarnish Putin’s reputation, marking him as a tyrant and a fundamentally flawed individual. Additionally, the reported abduction of thousands of Ukrainian children by Russia for forced assimilation and adoption raises serious legal and humanitarian questions. These actions are meticulously recorded for potential future war crimes proceedings and historical record.

A Soviet-Style Trip the Hermit Kingdom.

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Note: Recently I posted an early revision of this essay by accident and had to pull it down. Trembling with embarrassment, I wiped the egg from my face and am now posting the intended version. A thousand pardons.

Imagine the frustration of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, as he discovers the shortcomings of what was presumed to be a premier conventional military force. Decades of corruption and neglect have eroded the military from within. Meanwhile, their nuclear submarines continue to lurk in the depths of the Atlantic, assessing NATO’s day-to-day preparedness and gathering intelligence. Strategic nuclear forces are best used as a deterrent, or so the thinking has been. Coincidentally, their naval procession to Cuba, intended as a demonstration of power, was no doubt monitored by our network of acoustic sensors.

Runup to the invasion

Why did Putin begin his invasion of eastern and southern Ukraine in February 2014? Publicly he claimed to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. At the time, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was facing the Euromaidan uprising beginning in November 2013, over his rejection of closer integration with the EU. This large-scale protest was in response to Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement rather than strengthening ties to Russia.

Putin’s essay

Just prior to the 2022 invasion the Kremlin published an article online by Putin going into great detail on his rationale for a “triune” state consisting of Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine. It was a “come to Jesus” appeal intended to show doubters that a common ethnic brotherhood existed that far exceed the differences between Ukrainians and Russians. He describes the current Ukrainian state as an anti-Russian project also serving the interests of other entities rather than ethnic unity with Russia.

“But the fact is that the situation in Ukraine today is completely different because it involves a forced change of identity. And the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.” -V. Putin, 2022. [Italics mine]

It’s worth noting that in Russian occupied parts of Ukraine, Russification has been underway in order to make Ukrainians forget their culture and to assimilate into Russian culture. Children were kidnapped early in the 2022 invasion and taken to Russia for assimilation.

Referring to the Ukrainian ruling circles, “They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation. The common tragedy of collectivization and famine of the early 1930s was portrayed as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.” V. Putin [Italics mine]

Here Putin combines the Ukrainian famine, the Holodomor of 1932-33, with the wider Soviet famine of 1930-33 as a unifying experience that should in his view bring people together in shared tragedy. Whether or not Stalin had intended to cause a genocide of Ukrainians during the Holodomor is still being debated. However, Ukrainians were forcibly prevented from leaving the territory and their agricultural produce was taken from them. The Soviets even took their seed for the next year’s crop (see: Timothy Snyder, “Bloodlands“, 2016, ISBN-13 : ‎978-0465031474). Whatever the case, the singular focus of Stalin’s first 5-year plan beginning in 1928, was to industrialize the Soviet Union. In Marxist-Leninist political theory, the more prosperous kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Kulaks were either arrested, executed, sent to the gulag, or to labor camps.

Russian military in the 2022 Putin/Ukrainian war

Within the many layers of rank in the Russian military, there is a notable absence. There is no non-commissioned officer (NCO) level like that found in the US military. Yes, they do have NCOs, but they are technical specialists, or enlisted professionals taken from conscripted or contracted soldiers, uninvolved with small unit leadership and training. That is left for the officer corps. The result has been poor and inconsistent training of recruits. Hazing has long been a problem for the new recruits. Many view the Russian system of military leadership structure as inherently weak and a stubborn vestige of the past.

Perhaps fortified by a misjudgment of their military posture, Putin launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, into what has been a sovereign country under the pretense of neutralizing a non-existent threat from supposed Nazi troublemakers as a way to protect Russia. Russian forces quickly began to suffer significant losses in personnel and equipment. Moreover, these defeats have unfolded before an astonished global audience. Fortunately for Putin, his dictatorial foresight had led him to seize control of all media outlets within his borders in the years prior. He watched as his senior military commanders depleted his standing army. Under the pretense of “patriotism,” he drafted civilians and prisoners with the promise of attractive contracts to participate in his ill-conceived “special military operation.” Unfortunately, these soldiers became cannon fodder against the NATO fortified Ukrainian forces. Despite the overall drubbing the Russian military is taking and the half million casualties suffered, they retain the eastern and southern territories annexed prior to the Feb. 2022 invasion.

Putin pays a visit to Kim

Putin’s recent trip to North Korea, reminiscent of Soviet-era diplomacy, and his signing of a mutual assistance agreement with Kim Jong-un, prompted South Korea to reconsider its stance and contemplate supplying arms to Ukraine.South Korea, a manufacturing giant, currently has minimal incentive to engage with Russia as a neutral entity. Russia’s economy, struggling and cash-strapped, requires goods and services. It has been excluded from the international banking system and has seen a decline in amicable trade relations.

Now the word is that DPRK will be sending military engineers to the Putin/Ukraine war. While DPRK’s construction and engineering forces are not referred to as a fighting force, you have to believe that they will fight to defend themselves if they claim to be threatened. What the threshold for “threat” is will eventually be revealed.

Another threat made by Putin is that Russia will send arms to DPRK if the west continues to supply arms to Ukraine. The transfer of technology and materials in aid of the DPRK’s nuclear ICBM ambitions is sure to be the big prize Kim is after. Launching a payload is one thing, but accurate targeting is quite another. I suppose he can use GPS like everyone else does.

We’re hearing that wounded Russian soldiers are being sent back to the front, many with shrapnel from previous combat. I guess they figure that since they are wounded anyway, they might as well get the last bit of mileage left in them. This is certainly no less moral than leaving their dead behind or sending “meat curtains” of poorly trained troops to the front lines. Or, shooting their own soldiers if they retreat from the fighting.

Putin could stop the fighting and carnage in a day if he declared “mission complete” and withdrew his forces from Ukraine and returned claimed territory back to where it was the day of February 24, 2022, invasion. Well, this was the theory of Henry Kissinger. It seems likely, though, that the Ukrainians want back the territory lost in 2014 including Crimea.

Unfortunately for everyone, a withdrawal from Ukraine would be seen in Russia as Putin’s confession of gross incompetence and surely would result in a takeover and death or imprisonment for him.

The Kremlin has used “weaponized migration” elsewhere and is now trafficking immigrants across its western borders through Belorussia, into Finland, the lower Baltic states and Poland in order to overwhelm western border protection and to distract them as he transfers military forces east to the front. At the borders they have been creating a commotion causing western security resources to focus there. This is Russian hybrid warfare and is likely led by Russian intelligence services. Immigrants from various nations like Syria, Iraq and Somalia are given visas in an attempt to make it look like legitimate immigration. One of the goals of these roving throngs of civilians is to travel to western Europe to strain their economies and raise bureaucratic headaches for western governments like Germany. Naturally, saboteurs, spies and terrorists are likely planted in with the immigrants.

Russia has allegedly been jamming or spoofing GPS signals in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region causing interference with commercial air traffic. More Russian hybrid warfare. This affects not only air traffic but ground and sea navigation as well. Commercial air traffic can still fly under inertial navigation or by ground radar between airports and by terminal radar on approach and departure. Terminal radar guides aircraft into the airport instrument landing system (ILS) which is ground based and not affected by GPS. Airlines do monitor their aircraft with the help of GPS, however.

Fighting the last war

There is a saying, attributed to French Prime Minister George Clemenceau, warning generals not to enter conflict by fighting the last war. Putin began with fighting “the last war” with artillery and WWII-era tanks while keeping the Russian population calm with well-crafted fake news continuously delivered to the public. Unexpectedly, he did not seek air superiority starting the first day of the invasion before bringing in ground forces.

The propaganda in Russia today is that they are actually at war with NATO itself with extra blame on the US and UK. Russian war bloggers are even claiming that Ukraine’s drones and missiles can and are being controlled directly by NATO from remote locations. There are many voices on Russian television and in the blogosphere calling for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Putin and Medvedev have also waved this big stick around as well.

In response to Putin’s unwarranted invasion, most of the free world made the decision to withdraw its financial and trade connections, especially with the purchase of oil and gas (O&G). O&G is a huge money maker for Putin’s dictatorship and funds much of Russia’s government. Interestingly, while initially very concerned, the Oligarchs have learned to stop worrying.

Economic effects

An urgent problem presently in the Russian oil industry is the matter of upkeep on imported technology like oil refineries. Russia previously hired foreigners to build and maintain most of its oil refineries and licensed proprietary unit operations. Many of the foreign businesses that supplied these services have left Russia. As the clock tick-tocks along, equipment breaks down or misses scheduled maintenance. Replacement parts have become very difficult to obtain. This has a huge influence on the country’s refinery output in particular and on other industry in general.

Russia’s loss of trading partners is having a deleterious effect. Tax revenues are down into the deficit range across the board and the Russian government is working to introduce new taxes on the people. There is even word that laws are being drafted to increase the range and cost of fines against citizens who fail to put in the required extra effort. According to Forbes, the State Duma is tightening laws relating to labor and business operations are forcing employees to work weekends and holidays, especially if the business is military related.

Nukes behind the curtains

Of course, Putin has his nuclear armaments to fall back on. Much was made previously of the Soviet’s continuum theory of nuclear weapons, whereby they didn’t recognize a firebreak separating conventional and nuclear warfare as the west does. Putin and former president Medvedev both have been rattling their swords, threatening to use their nuclear weapons if the west does not back down in supplying Ukraine with arms. Most think that they threaten to use tactical nukes only. Both sides are quite aware what a nuclear exchange between NATO and Russia would look like. That said, only the first use will be a difficult decision.

Nuclear response in kind by NATO to Russia’s first use in the Russia/Ukraine battle space could possibly be limited to tactical use, but it will have let the nuclear genie out of the bottle nonetheless. Both NATO and Soviet/Russian military institutions have certainly war-gamed a similar scenario to many possible outcomes. People safely distant from the fighting will have to decide the intensity of a nuclear exchange and at what point to release strategic weapons, if needed.

One thing seems clear- a strategic exchange will be WWIII and Russia’s seething hatred of the US will not allow North America to survive untouched by war. Given the geographic and military limitations of Russia and the broad stretches of open ocean around most of the US, shallow trajectory ballistic or cruise missiles launched from Russian submarines are likely to be at play. Maybe an EMP weapon will be used. (Hell, a nuke hidden in a bale of weed could get into the country.) It seems likely that Russian hybrid tactics will first begin to soften the defensive, electric power, transportation and communication structures of the US by interfering with software-controlled everything. Naturally, the fragile stock market will collapse promptly, and unemployment will skyrocket. Toilet paper will vanish as if by magic from the store shelves.

Both NATO and Russia have enough nuclear weapons to go back and bounce the rubble a few times at leisure with their ICBMs and SLBMs. The total warhead count in the world’s nuclear powers is shown below as tallied by the Arms Control Association. The total warhead count for each country includes both tactical and strategic weapons as well as retired warheads. Nuclear weapons have a shelf-life and require some refurbishment over time. For instance, the tritium booster gas in the pit is subject to decay with tritium’s short half-life.

New START data on Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons inventory is shown below. As you can see, Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons inventory is poised to make quite a mess of their target areas from a great distance. On the strategic side (below), nuclear weapons can be delivered to a target across the world via strategic bomber, or a ballistic missile. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Sea Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), and a collection of shorter range arial platforms could be used in combination.

Will Russia be tempted to try using a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, even if NATO is sure to reply? At what point will a tactical exchange between Russia and NATO runaway to a strategic exchange? It seems unlikely given the terrible strategic downside of NATO retaliation. Certainly, if allowed to act unobstructed, Russia could make quite a nuclear mess in Europe and North America. However, NATO commanders will not allow their nuclear arsenal to be destroyed in storage.

The late Gene Sharp was known for his theory of non-violent resistance. Sharp argued that

“political power is not intrinsic to the power-holder,” but flows from outside sources that include perceptions of authority, available human resources; skills and knowledge; material resources; and intangible psychological and ideological factors. These sources all depend upon obedience, which arises for “various and multiple” reasons that include habit, fear of sanctions, perceived moral obligation, psychological identification with the ruler, zones of indifference, and absence of self-confidence among subjects. Obedience is essentially voluntary, and consent can be withdrawn. [Wikipedia]

Dictators do not often yield their power without violence, but now and then one will see the futility of fighting to the death against overwhelming resistance and abdicate after a face-saving attempt to stifle the uprising. This happened in the late 1980’s in eastern Europe leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev in 1991.

Russia will not change its ways until there is a decapitation at the upper few levels of its authoritarian police state. The population has been too passive for too long to expect a popular uprising like the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989. Russian opposition leaders are either poisoned, defenestrated or sent to prison as a security threat. Only a military coup could pull off a major change in leadership, but then you have a military authoritarian state.

**Source**: Wikipedia. The Defenestrations of Prague.

A time-honored way to generate and maintain unity in a nation is to direct blame and struggle towards a foreign power. Both sides in the post-WWII cold war, NATO and the USSR, used this to focus resources and political angst in their respective favor. Putin has managed to revive this “good vs evil” duality not only to secure his power, but also to drive ethnic Russians toward his goal of a Greater Russian Empire.

Why Can’t Vlad Play Nice?

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Here is a truly naïve question: What is wrong with Russia? Why can’t Russian leaders focus on their own damned affairs rather than conquest or their clandestine efforts to destabilize other governments? From the western side of the globe this seems like a fair question. Are their lessons from history so scrambled that they have not learned some basic axioms of humane civilization? What happened to them? Why the perpetual paranoia, brutishness and authoritarianism?

It is important to separate “Kremlin” from “Russian people”. The Kremlin is a Moscow-based institution presided over by Russia’s national leadership. The Russian people are those working citizens distant from the Kremlin. Naturally, the Kremlin purports to represent the interests of the Russian people. Many say that the Kremlin represents an oligarchy inside and outside of the government. Most would say that Russia’s tradition of bribery and graft is rampant and even a built-in feature and not a bug. Whatever the case, it seems clear from the news that Russia’s military/industrial complex is riddled to the core with corruption.

The USSR and later Russia claim that they are threatened by Western adventurism and interference in their sovereign affairs. The lengthy Cold War between NATO and the Kremlin was largely about the spread of Soviet socialism and undesired political alignments between factions. Western countries were busy in the post-WWII years waging proxy battles and clandestine buggery with client states of the USSR and China. For our part, America didn’t do so well. In contrast with the Allied victory in Europe and Japan in WWII, the US had to sign an armistice with North Kores, a peace accord with North Viet Nam with the lightning-fast collapse of South Viet Nam, followed by the clumsy hijinks leading to the Iran-Contra scandal in the 80’s.

Kremlin policy would seem to be that “interfering in Russian Affairs” includes materiel support for emerging democracies around the world. This “interference” is justification for the incessant brinksmanship and covert meddling issuing from the Kremlin.

The US and coalition forces successfully routed the Iraqis in Kuwait in 1990 with the start of what became Gulf War I. After liberating Kuwait, US President George H.W. Bush invaded the Republic of Iraq destroying a good bit of their military but left Saddam Hussein in power. By 2003 George H.W.’s son, President George W. Bush, oversaw a clearly bogus campaign to take down Saddam right after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The smoke and mirrors show put on by the Bush administration conflating al Queda in Afghanistan with imaginary Iraqi weapons of mass destruction led to Saddam being quickly toppled and captured while hidden is a hole in the ground, tried and finally hung by his own people.

What the US-led coalition failed to appreciate was that Saddam held together Iraq by brute force and murder. Coalition forces swooped in and shut down his government without any thought as to the pragmatics of who will run the country the next day. There was the intent of giving birth to democracy with elections, but the power vacuum created by the toppling of Saddam and the dissolution of his government gave opportunity to numerous factions who jumped at it. This was the Iraqi insurgency which lasted until the US withdrawal in 2011.

US interventionism aimed at regime change by force or by covert efforts to remove certain leaders has a spotty record. Chili, Cuba and Nicaragua for example. The point is that US leaders have badly botched many schemes to cultivate governments friendly to US ambitions.

The first thing to remember is that we Americans view Russia through the smudged lens of our own popular culture and history. Over the decades since the end of WWII our self-appraisal of our many merits has swollen and become distended. The MAGA crowd seems to think there was a period of time when America was “Great”. I’d like to know when this happened. I’ve never heard MAGA people cite a particular time when this greatness occurred. Maybe they are thinking of the outcome of WWII and the succeeding few years. Perhaps it was their senior year of high school or during the summer break after third grade. When people?

As I survey American history as an amateur historian I have yet to find a halcyon period in America when peace and calm enveloped the land and all was well. With magnification, history is very granular and every year is a braided stream of tragedies, scoundrels and bad luck with the occasional patches of wonder and joy somewhere for a few. Well, perhaps this is all we can expect. Maybe the world really is a grubby place occupied mostly by people who are often nice, and with more than a few crackpots and psychopaths sprinkled here and there to round out the bell curve.

To be sure, we Americans have done a great deal to advance civilization overall in many ways. This has largely come through the allocation of funds in a resource-rich continent through capitalism, taxes and primed with incentivizing programs from the government after the New Deal. While necessity is the mother of invention, who can actually organize and monetize this necessity by asking for competitive bids on a moon project? A government can. Rather than “trickle-down” economics, this is pumped-down economics, and it works. What do the wealthy do with their tax savings? Trickle it down? Hardly, though some may allocate a bit of trickle-down money in venture capital firms, but that’s risky. Better to invest in solid assets like beachfront property in Florida.

The land that we call Russia, apart from the Siberian reaches of eastern Russia, has been home to many diverse peoples. One Wikipedia reference cites the beginning of Russia in the north with the Eastern Slavs in 862 CE and ruled by Viking conquerors. On this timeline, it is clear that people in the region have been in war, civil conflict or crushing poverty and authoritarianism almost continuously since then. The baseline condition of a great many people of Russia and nearby lands was the grinding poverty of serfdom and were only emancipated in 1861 by Tsar Alexander II. There have been invasions by the Mongols, Ottomans, Swedes, Napolean, Hitler, uprisings and fratricidal infighting for power. It is hard to know what occupants of the Moscow Kremlin are thinking. Russia seems destined to be ruled by an iron fist.

Unlike the English-speaking peoples, Russia never had a Magna Carta in their past outlining agreed upon limits to the power of the monarch. The very notion of wider participation in the conduct of government affairs was unknown. Democratic virtues taken for granted by western states never took hold in Russia. There was initially some hope for democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union by some, but there were no institutional and legal structures in place from which to operate a democratic republic. Worse yet, people were unemployed en masse and became frustrated by the lack of a “freedom dividend” and eventually there was support for a strongman leader. The collapse of the USSR left a power vacuum waiting to be filled. Yeltsin proved to be the wrong guy to inherit the reigns of power from the collapsed Soviet Politburo. He was widely seen as a drunken fool.

Russia had no history of conducting private business within the umbrella of international business law and capitalistic norms. What business law and intellectual property protection there may have been was from the Soviet era. Instead, there was a scramble to acquire the big industrial and financial pieces left over from the old USSR.

I’ve not found anything in the history of Russia that may have been a home-grown template for constructing a workable version of democracy. Russia’s long geographic and cultural isolation from the West doesn’t seem to have helped with the migration of what we might call the norms of democratic society. To be sure, Tsar Peter I (Peter the Great) had spent time in England and learned a great deal about shipbuilding and navigation, eventually leading to the formation of the Russian Baltic Fleet. King William III of England welcomed Peter because of the potential for trade with Russia.

The Soviets were successful in adopting some Western technologies and just enough consumerism to placate their population … partly. Unlike Western Europe, the USA, Canada and even Mexico who continue to be inundated by migrants wanting to get in, the USSR, on the other hand, had to contend with its citizens trying to escape. This is still a problem today in Russia. People vote with their feet.

Back to the initial question. Why can’t Vlad play nice? We can only guess. He is not burdened with a national history of a capitalistic democratic republic or with utopian visions of a liberal democratic society bursting with opportunities for everyone. Vlad is a product of his upbringing as a KGB officer in a closed and isolated security state with a population long accustomed to going along with what the central authoritarian leadership forcibly requires. As a former KGB operative in East Germany, he understands authoritarian rule at the ground level. While bubbling up the chain of command he mastered the complex internal Kremlin politics and managed to get selected by Yeltsin to succeed him. Lucky guy. But when will he decide enough is enough? Today, his poorly conceived plan to expand Russian influence by overtaking Ukraine has backfired, leading to over 500,000 Russian military casualties. Along with the loss of a large fraction of his conventional military armaments like tanks, cannon, radar, air defense systems, aircraft, naval vessels and so on, he has singlehandedly exposed the Russian military for what it is- a paper tiger, but only in conventional arms. He still has a potent nuclear triad to serve as his final stinger.

Shell CEO Tips his Hat to the Biden Administration

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Here is a link to an article reporting on comments made by Wael Sawan, CEO of oil major Shell plc. He stated that Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act “seem to be working in terms of attracting a significant amount of capital in different states, whether it’s a red or blue state,” at a meeting of the centrist Center for Strategic and International Studies.

It wasn’t all sweetness and light. He was critical of the Biden administration for its decision to pause new LNG export permits pending a thorough review of climate impacts. Sawan explained his view-

“I think sometimes the disagreement stems from the fact that it is a fossil fuel, therefore it cannot be clean. There is an almost absolutist perspective on this that some have” in parts of Washington and some European capitals, he said. “While I respect that view, the reality is it is an energy transition. And we need to be able to transition to lower-carbon solutions.”

I have to agree with his comment. Given the colossal size of the global oil & gas (O&G) industry and the extensive reach of our reliance on petroleum fuels and chemical products like plastics, there must be a transition shallow enough to evolve into renewables without crashing the global economy and the political upset that will come from that. The path to renewables has to start sometime, but maybe there should be some negotiation on the LNG export permits, if there already hasn’t been any. Sawan’s comments on this were valuable.

The matter of climate change is pressing and the motivation to change rapidly is irresistible to many. But it took many decades to get into this mess and it looks like it will take some time to ameliorate it. In the meantime, we the public can alter our consumption and driving habits en masse and make real change faster than government policy.

An Eye for an Eye: The Right of Requital

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[Note: I’m about to make a mistake. I am commenting on the Israeli/Hamas conflict on the internets for the whole world to see.]

Basic to the Israel/Hamas conflict is the general matter of who has the right to reoccupy ancestral land. In the Levant, possession of the land has changed hands many, many times over history. Today, Russia is claiming that it has the right to “re-absorb” Ukraine back into what is now the greater Russian empire. The Chinese Communist Party claims that Taiwan belongs to the mainland Chinese. Conflicts over entitlement to territory is a persistent threat to global peace, especially now that nuclear-tipped missiles can cross great distances in a short time or can suddenly pop out from under coastal waters.

The bloody war between Hamas and Israel drags on. I think a few forget that the conflict between Palestinians and Israeli Zionists has been raging for many years. The current war is only the latest outburst and a particularly bloody one at that. The right of requital, or the principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth is the guiding theory there.

Prior to this war I’ll admit that I was somewhat biased toward Israel because, even as a non-theist, I find their culture generally agreeable. But the bombing and mass extermination of civilians in Gaza as well as the embargo on food and medicine getting into Gaza is beyond any justification. Having been a victim does not give anyone the right to victimize other parties. An eye-for-an-eye is a specious argument.

Destroying whole buildings, neighborhoods, cities or territories with weapons where civilians may be present could be an indiscriminate attack. A quote from Indiscriminate Attack in Wikipedia-

“In international humanitarian law and international criminal law, an indiscriminate attack is a military attack that fails to distinguish between legitimate military targets and protected persons. Indiscriminate attacks strike both legitimate military and protected objects alike, thus violating the principle of distinction between combatants and protected civilians. They differ from direct (or deliberate) attacks against protected civilians and encompass cases in which the perpetrators are indifferent as to the nature of the target, cases in which the perpetrators use tactics or weapons that are inherently indiscriminate (e.g., cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines, nuclear weapons), and cases in which the attack is disproportionate, because it is likely to cause excessive protected civilian casualties and damages to protected objects.” Source: Wikipedia.

“Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited both by the Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I (1977) and by customary international humanitarian law. They constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the perpetrators can be prosecuted and held responsible in international and domestic courts.” Source: Wikipedia.

“In 1977, Protocol I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva Conventions, prohibiting the deliberate or indiscriminate attack of civilians and civilian objects in international armed conflicts; the attacking force must take precautions and steps to spare the lives of civilians and civilian objects as possible. Although ratified by 173 countries, the only countries that are currently not signatories to Protocol I are the United States, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Turkey.” Source: Wikipedia.

What about the Geneva Conventions relating to civilians? There have been 4 Geneva Conventions. The Fourth Geneva Convention covers humanitarian protections of protected civilians in a war zone.

Even if a nation is not a signatory or it hasn’t been ratified, from my western point of view the Geneva Conventions seem to outline the shape of decency, kindness and humanity.

Irrespective of the Geneva Conventions as at least an optional guide, neither combatants are concerned with the guidelines. Whether or not the Geneva Conventions could even include organizations like Hamas and others is unclear (to me).

I’ve noticed that social media is filling up with anti-Israel content. I’ve given up trying to understand who the more righteous party in this conflict is. I am unable to support either side. The attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was obviously a savage orgy of murder. Hamas had to have known that this act would provoke a retaliation that would affect Palestinian civilians.

I’ve long admired Israel because it has built a modern thriving civilization from the ground up. But, it has done so on homelands claimed and occupied by others. As an outside observer I’m sad for the Palestinians for their long suffering under Israeli control since 1948. The Israelis have built an apartheid zone and have confined a large number of Palestinians to the tiny Gaza strip and the West Bank. On the other side, however, numerous extremist groups have taken hold and shelter in Palestinian territories with the aim of killing all Israelis and have been doing so intermittently for years. These groups have received support from Iranian leaders and other players making the conflict a proxy war. Iran wishes for nothing less than demolition of the state of Israel and installing a far-reaching Islamic caliphate. They seem prepared for the long game. Just connect the dots.

Now, the US has bombed Yemen to prevent the Houthis from further attacking international shipping. A coalition of forces, principally the UK and US, has been intercepting drones and cruise missiles aimed at Israeli targets and ships intending to transit the Suez Canal. The Houthis, who have been engaged in a lengthy civil war in Yemen, have been building their military bona fides to further their ties with Iran, or so some say. The boldness of Iranian provocation continues to rise. Who knows what will happen after they test their first nuclear weapon?

From within the Hamas frame of reference, perhaps a big provocation followed by a big retaliation might rally Islamic nations against Israel and its sponsors?? As I understand it, what isn’t helping their cause is the bad taste Palestinians left in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon in the past. There is a sense that to accept Palestinian immigration is to accept a population carrying militancy with it.

Israel’s response to the attack was to retaliate with shock and awe in Gaza in an effort to exterminate Hamas once and for all. From within the Israeli frame of reference, there is a certain cold military logic to their strategy in greater Gaza. However, whatever support Israel may have had from the 10/7/23 attack has withered. Israel cannot shake the historical facts of its founding- that it was established by displacing Palestinians from their home territory. Palestinians are still furious about Zionist colonization. Palestinians were simply removed from their homes and driven out. The same thing is happening in slow motion in the West Bank. While the world’s attention was elsewhere, Gaza was cemented into an open-air prison camp far short of liberties that we in the US take for granted.

Unfortunately for Israel, Hamas represents a political belief system strongly coupling homeland with Islam. Extinguishing a belief amounts to long term Wack-A-Mole. Palestinians are in desperate straits and have no place to call their own. In their abysmal location in Gaza, why should they stop the struggle?

Unfortunately for Hamas, the State of Israel in its present location is a long-held dream come true for Zionists. Israelis have nowhere to go even if they did give up the land. Israelis will fight to the death rather than handing over what they believe is their ancestral homeland. Israel is a nuclear state and will likely use their nuclear weapons if state collapse is threatened. Isn’t that what every nuclear state threatens to do?

What we see is a never-ending cycle of retribution. One side is brutalized and eventually strikes back. Many take the view that past Israeli or Palestinian victimhood does not justify continued victimization. The killing of non-combatants is simply unjustifiable and must stop. The Palestinian death toll is over 33,000, most of whom are reportedly women and children. The Islamic world will not soon forget this assault on Gaza and the role of the US.

The role of the US in this conflict is troubling. We’ve always been supporters of Israel. Israel and Turkey are claimed to be the only countries in the Levant resembling a democracy. There is strong political support from Jewish and Christian Zionist communities in the US. The magnitude of this translates into hard support for Israel in terms of funding and weapons. Israel’s soft power is US backing in international matters including military support.

For the US to support the Palestinians would be taken as an affront to the Israelis and would be political suicide for any US administration taking such a position. Israel enjoys considerable support in the US and such a stance would not survive. Obviously.

I am a supporter of the Biden administration and the direction he has taken the country generally. I agree there is a logic to long term support of democracies around the world. However, Biden’s public and unwavering support of Netanyahu’s Israel has been, I believe, a strategic mistake during this conflict. There are indications in the news that there is a quiet effort behind the curtains to convince Netanyahu that the mass killing of Gazans is the wrong choice. Recently Biden and Netanyahu have spoken and signs that the severity on Gazans lightening is apparent.

I’m an American and I agree with and support our democratic values emphasizing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So, to militarily and politically support a nation that is exterminating civilians, democracy or not, is immoral.

US policy toward both the state of Israel and Palestine/Gaza/West Bank must undergo major recalibration to a more balanced approach in the region. The Palestinian demand for the return of their homeland did not suddenly fall from the sky. It has been there from the beginning. The State of Israel is the result of documented actions taken by the United Nations following the expiration of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. US President Harry Truman was the first head of state to formally recognize Israel as the legitimate Jewish state in 1948. Truman did express misgivings, however.

America’s credibility in backing a righteous path has been damaged by our own expeditionary zeal in post WWII. The big skeleton in the American closet is that in our history is full of examples of appropriating territory from the Native Americans and our appalling treatment of them. Plainly, they were here first. Settlers pushed them off their land, encouraged by the government, and confined them in ever diminishing remote spaces. The point is that the US can hardly lecture Israel on the way their state was formed. Israel is a technologically advanced nation with many accomplishments to their credit. But, in the political choices made before and after 1948 leading to nationhood, they have set themselves up for this conflict.

In history there are endless examples of conquest and defeat. Lands are taken by invading armies, people die and the social order tipped over. Over time, conquerors are eventually conquered themselves, people die and yield to new military and political forces. Borders and power shift, people die and settle for a time, but eventually a new order arrives, people die and things shift again. This has been seen in history all over the world and it will continue to happen. The Palestinians have lost their homeland and might just have to live with it as so many others have done in the last 10,000 years. Perhaps one day what is left of the Native Americans population will reclaim North America after some kind of large-scale apocalypse wipes out the colonist population.

It is difficult to see how Israel and the Palestinians can come to some sort of armistice without Israel surrendering some land and the Palestinians committing to less than full repossession of the land.

Taking the cosmic viewpoint, the human inhabitants of Earth are wrecking the biosphere, raising the temperature of the atmosphere, altering the climate, and while all of this is happening, murdering each other over beliefs and notions. Normally I might have said “let ’em go at it”. But we’re all on the same small speck of dust in empty space. There is nowhere else to go.

American Isolationism and the World

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The reverberations of Trump’s South Carolina comments on NATO continue. Being a thuggish racketeer himself, he sees something like freeloading or racketeering in the motives of the NATO states. With his disparaging rants about NATO and proposing that the US stands back while Putin pushes west, he emboldens the Kremlin to maintain their aggression in the hope of the US standing down. There should be no mistaking Putin’s motives- he wants to recover the territory once controlled by the Soviet Union. Some suspect that Belarus will be annexed next.

Isolationism has been a Republican reflex since before the formation of NATO. It seems to be a part of the libertarian worldview of the isolated and rugged individualist. Either they do not care about the global balance of power or are ignorant of it. We are seeing a wave of Russian aggression disguised as self-defense or the defense of “ethnic Russians” living across borders. Hitler used this trick to grease the skids for his takeover of the Sudetenland in neighboring Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was partly justified with the lie that Ukraine is infested with Nazis who are threatening Mother Russia. In 2014 Putin had slyly marched into southern Ukraine annexing the Crimean Oblast. Shielded from critics by his extensive blackout of international media, Putin dispatched troops for the “Special Military Operation”.

On September 30, 2022, Putin gave a speech declaring annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. In an angry, ranting speech Putin said “They don’t want us to be free, they want us to be a colony; they don’t want equal partnership, they want to steal from us,”

In Ukraine, Russia has inadvertently revealed itself to the world as a paper tiger. However, they are still in possession of a large stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons with its own triad of delivery systems. Russia’s policy has always been to use nuclear weapons in the event of the possible downfall of the state. By that they mean the downfall of Putin by outside forces. Russia is not burdened by having a policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons like the West.

So what about Putin’s comment that “They don’t want us to be free …”. This is the autocrat who has shut down all independent news reporting within Russia, disconnected internet access to much of the world, normalized defenestration and has criminalized even the smallest whiff of dissent. Like autocrats often do, he accuses others of what he does himself. His rationale is that harsh measures are necessary to resist outside threats. He also claims that the West wants to steal from Russia. When you are an isolated and naturally secretive country, accusations of thievery are a soft sell. Accusations like this are part of the feedback loop of paranoia, hardening resolve to resist by being more secretive and brutal.

Imagine the ridiculous folly of attempting to invade or colonize Russia or take resources from it for any reason. Really, who the hell wants to be in control of Russia other than some Russian? What would a foreign invader of Russia hope to accomplish by taking control of this giant, multiethnic country? Decades of bickering, insurgency and violence? The taiga? It is a stupid plan, yet Putin frightens the population with visions of American attack and along with its sexual perversion.

Putin’s lessons from history come from Soviet times when the KGB watched for spies behind every tree and surveillance of the citizenry was justified for “state security”, a catchall for close control of its citizens. Escape from the USSR was difficult and getting caught could mean long imprisonment in a gulag.

Putin’s protestations are little more than a trademark display of strongman fulminations meant to justify the slaughter of his own military in Ukraine. I’m surprised he doesn’t do it shirtless on horseback to display his lean and mean musculature.

The Russian people deserve much better than a long history and an extended future of oppression. The region has seen immense suffering over the decades from invasion by Hitler, deadly oppression from Stalin and privation and imprisonment by its own leadership. Today, the strong arm of the Kremlin regime reaches deep into their lives, preventing a popular uprising or just expressions of discontent. What Russia lacks is an army of martyrs willing to die for freedom because that is what it would take. Putin keeps them comfortable enough to stay out of politics.

The Golden Calf Plods Forward

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As expected, New Hampshire Republicans rallied for their Golden Calf yesterday. Naturally, media people are using this to boldly predict the future. I’ve had to abandon NPR because they are serving wall-to-wall election coverage as though nothing else has happened. Despite the years of legal actions against the Orange Jesus, his popularity endures and Republican politicians and candidates continue to rally around him, hoping some of magic rubs off on them.

In interviews, Trumpsters confidently say that things were better during his presidency than under Biden’s despite what the numbers say about the economy at present. Even though inflation has dropped from 9.1 % to 3.2 % over the last year according to the AP, many consumers apparently expect prices to come down as well. Are the Trumpsters really upset about the economy or are they just angry that he lost the 2020 election?

“We don’t care about no stinkin’ 91 felony indictments. Yes, he’s committed fraud and sexual assault. But, but, but he is going to drain the swamp and halt immigration!!”

Reducing prices is not something that business people will do to make life easier for people. What industry will be the first to reduce their prices willingly because it is a “nice idea?” Prices are always set to what the customer is willing to pay. A common nightmare of a business person is that they may have left money at the table during a negotiation or a sale. Businesses charge as much as they can all the time. People who leave money at the table are not the people who rise into the thin air of the C-suite of business.

During the pandemic, supply chain interruptions helped trigger inflation. Businesses ratcheted up their prices to grow or maintain their margins. Many businesses had to raise their prices because their costs had risen, but not evenly across the board. Why waste a good opportunity to raise prices if others are doing it? For essentials, consumers soon adapted to it because they had little choice. Strangely, the economy has shown unexpected vigor during this inflationary period. Some products like pickup trucks and real estate, however, are suffering badly.

Along comes the Federal Reserve to slay the dragon of inflation. They pulled their one big tool out of its sheath for staunching inflation- raising interest rates. And so they did with success. The down-side is that it hurts those seeking a mortgage or other loans due to increased interest rates.

Another effect of the pandemic is the continuing trend of employees working from home. According to one source, the 1Q23 vacancy rate for NYC office space was 22.2 %. Remote work activity has caused businesses to reconsider the size of the office space they are leasing. Many are opting not to automatically renew their leases in favor of leveraging better terms or outright downsizing their space requirements. The new workforce shift has had a negative effect on surrounding businesses who rely on the daily flood of office workers to buy lunch and shop. It also has a big effect on the owners of office buildings who likely had business models and loans relying on higher occupancy rates. The knock-on effect is that the banks who made the commercial loans to the office building owners are beginning to see an increase in loan defaults. Commercial borrowers also face significantly higher interest rates than they started out with. News reports are very pessimistic for a reprieve in the near term.

The term that was coined for this is the urban “doom loop.” Reduced office occupancy leads to reduced tax revenue for municipalities who supply services like transit, police and street maintenance. But I don’t want to spoil it- Google “urban doom loop.”

Back to the Golden Calf.

I would offer that there is a portion of the grand American bell curve that probably shouldn’t be left in charge of a vast international economic and nuclear superpower wielding a military machine the likes of which the world has never seen before. Further, I would offer that just possibly many of the followers of #45 are comfortably squatting on that side of the bell curve.

As I see it, the Golden Calf getting back into office will adversely swerve the fate of Europe, the Balkan and the Baltic states into direct conflict with an expanding Russian Empire. Putin is obviously trying to reestablish and reenergize the reach of the former Soviet Union. He has little care for the lives of Russian soldiers as they fight and die on the battlefield, and even less for those who defy his wishes. They are expendable in the grand scheme of a Great Russian Empire of Tsar Putin.

The State of Ukraine traces back to October of 1917 when the Bolsheviks tried to capture Kyiv and failed. By January of 1918 the Ukranian revolutionary parliament declared the formation of Ukrainian People’s Republic. After much conflict, Ukraine was made part of the USSR.

In the 1930’s there was the Holodomor, or the “Great Ukrainian Famine” of 1932-33 with continued mass killing and exile of Ukrainian Kulaks to the east for the rest of the decade. The collectivization forced on Ukraine was brutal. Many thousands of Ukrainians were exiled to the east and disappeared. As Hitler invaded Poland and continued with Operation Barbarossa to Moscow, his plan to exterminate Jews went with him. The wholesale slaughter of Jews in Poland and Ukraine wasn’t limited to the concentration camps. Villages were captured by the Nazis and Jewish citizens were marched by the many tens of thousands into the woods and executed by a bullet to the head, falling into pits where they would be buried. No age or gender was spared. Hitler gave orders to Himmler to carry out the Final Solution in eastern Europe and Russia and he did with a vengeance.

A large scale international concern is with Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine. Russia has a long history of conflict with Ukraine starting after the Bolshevik Revolution. Putin does not recognize their sovereignty and further claims that there is no Ukraine, only Russia. He seeks to establish the boundaries of the former Soviet Union and Ukraine is the first step. To allow Putin to conquer Ukraine will enable him to go after the Baltic states, the Balkans and Poland along with their manpower and resources to fortify the depleted Russian military-industrial complex.

Trump has a record of stating his disinterest in protecting the European Union and remaining in NATO. American retreat from the EU and NATO would only serve to telegraph to Putin that the US will not interfere with further Russian conquests. A massive Russian dictatorship butted up against western Europe will not lead to an enduring peace. A Russian dictatorship the size of the USSR will be no friend of the western powers.

An America that withdraws from international affairs is an America in steep decline. After all that we have accomplished and learned, under Trump and his ilk we will step down from our international platform and slink away into some imaginary Libertarian Southern Baptist utopia with the inmates running the asylum. No thank you.

The election of Trump has a ghastly downside for western civilization that is largely kept quiet by the popular media. In their desire to portray fairness, they tend to avoid topics like this for fear of the accusation of bias..

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Category Archives: International Relations

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Putin: Latter Day Soviet or Just Another Tsar?

Russian Death-Tanks

A Soviet-Style Trip the Hermit Kingdom.

Why Can’t Vlad Play Nice?

Shell CEO Tips his Hat to the Biden Administration

An Eye for an Eye: The Right of Requital

American Isolationism and the World

The Golden Calf Plods Forward