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Ukraine V

I think it was Charles de Gaulle who said that nations don't have friends, only interests. Or, in the apocryphal comment attributed to FDR, our sons of bitches, as opposed to theirs. Foreign relations have always been thus, and probably always will be, balancing the degree of unsavouriness against interests. The interesting case is the West and China - Russia my be "our dear friend", but Russia is now a major embarrassment to China (which has assumed the senior role in the partnership, and which sees its profitable trading links with the US and Europe being jeopardised). The FT put it very nicely - China is in the nice position of being able to cuddle Putin and twist his arm at the same time. Perhaps the Chinese may bring peace after all and benefit from the kudos and increased stature. This won't please Vlad, but he may not be able to do anything about it.
 
tones said:
I think it was Charles de Gaulle who said that nations don't have friends, only interests.
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De Gaulle was paraphrasing Lord Palmerston (no eternal allies, no perpetual enemies, our interests are eternal and perpetual ), who was speaking at the time of the Crimean war (ha!). Some claim Lord P. nicked it from Machiavelli, but don't seem to have any hard quotes to support the claim.
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tones said:
Sorry, I thought that The Atlantic allowed you one free article. The concluding paragraphs:

Evidently some wonder not whether the counteroffensive can succeed, but whether it should succeed. The fear that Putin will use nuclear weapons to defend Crimea lurks just under the surface—but we have told him that the response to this would have “catastrophic consequences” for Russia; this is why deterrence is so important. The urge to preserve the status quo, and the fear of what could follow Putin, is just as strong. French President Emmanuel Macron has said openly that Russia should be defeated but not “crushed.” Yet even the worst successor imaginable, even the bloodiest general or most rabid propagandist, will immediately be preferable to Putin, because he will be weaker than Putin. He will quickly become the focus of an intense power struggle. He will not have grandiose dreams about his place in history. He will not be obsessed with Potemkin. He will not be responsible for starting this war, and he could have an easier time ending it.

In Western capitals, preoccupation with the consequences of a Russian defeat has meant far too little time spent thinking about the consequences of a Ukrainian victory. After all, the Ukrainians aren’t the only ones hoping that their success can support and sustain a civilizational change. Russia, as it is currently governed, is a source of instability not just in Ukraine but around the world. Russian mercenaries prop up dictatorships in Africa; Russian hackers undermine political debate and elections all across the democratic world. The investments of Russian companies keep dictators in power in Minsk, in Caracas, in Tehran. A Ukrainian victory would immediately inspire people fighting for human rights and the rule of law, wherever they are. In a recent conversation in Washington, a Belarusian activist spoke about his organization’s plans to reactivate the Belarusian opposition movement. For the moment, it is still working in secret, underground. “Everyone is waiting for the counteroffensive,” he said.

And he is right. Ukrainians are waiting for the counteroffensive. Europeans, East and West, are waiting for the counteroffensive. Central Asians are waiting for the counteroffensive. Belarusians, Venezuelans, Iranians, and others around the world whose dictatorships are propped up by the Russians—they are all waiting for the counteroffensive too. This spring, this summer, this autumn, Ukraine gets a chance to alter geopolitics for a generation. And so does the United States.
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My principal misgiving about her analysis is viewing a Ukrainian victory as the lever to taking Russia down a peg globally. She’s really saying too ‘those are our dictators you’re muscling in on’. The cyber stuff is just foreign domestic interference and espionage using updated methods. This was standard repertoire for Soviet Russia, it’s just that we had a lull while the USSR collapsed and Putin hadn’t quite anointed himself as Tsar.

I agree that Russia has to be removed from Ukraine and deterred from doing anything like it again, including to its other neighbours but it may be wishful thinking on my part that that objective can be achieved without more fundamental change within Russia itself. Certainly what’s going on there - the one party state led by a president for life who poisons, shoots and imprisons his political rivals while stifling all public dissent and who allows his mouthpieces to openly use the language of annihilation toward a neighbouring country- is, ahem, cause for pessimism.
 
I’ve been increasingly puzzled over recent weeks by anti-Ukraine comments from some on the furthest fringes of the left on Twitter etc. I don’t get it as to my eyes Putin is clearly a monster; a brutal far-right gangster dictator who murders or imprisons political opposition, journalists etc, and has zero respect for human rights and civil liberties. He implements his racism and homophobia with extraordinary brutality. I understand why the Trump-right like and support this as Putin shares their extremist Christian white supremacist values, plus the amount of Russian money sloshing around in GOP (and UK Tory) circles. The far left support I do not get at all. Some, e.g. Chomsky, who is usually fairly credible, seem to have been consistently wrong on this and appear closer to the Trump/GOP perspective albeit with conflicting “logic”. I don’t get it at all. I found this article on Foreign Policy, which is a site I know nothing about, but I’m curious what others here can shine on this one? It’s clearly a ‘tankie’ thing, but even then it defies logic.
 
Tony L said:
I’ve been increasingly puzzled over recent weeks by anti-Ukraine comments from some on the furthest fringes of the left
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It's clear from the contributions made by the hard left on this thread that they are slow to condemn Putin, slow to praise the valiant resistance of the Ukrainian people and often resort to saying it's ok cos the US/UK did the same in Iraq/Falklands wherever.
 
Tony L said:
I don’t get it as to my eyes Putin is clearly a monster; a brutal far-right gangster dictator who murders or imprisons political opposition, journalists etc, and has zero respect for human rights and civil liberties. He implements his racism and homophobia with extraordinary brutality.
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Clearly he's their son of a bitch.
 
TheDecameron said:
My principal misgiving about her analysis is viewing a Ukrainian victory as the lever to taking Russia down a peg globally. She’s really saying too ‘those are our dictators you’re muscling in on’. The cyber stuff is just foreign domestic interference and espionage using updated methods. This was standard repertoire for Soviet Russia, it’s just that we had a lull while the USSR collapsed and Putin hadn’t quite anointed himself as Tsar.

I agree that Russia has to be removed from Ukraine and deterred from doing anything like it again, including to its other neighbours but it may be wishful thinking on my part that that objective can be achieved without more fundamental change within Russia itself. Certainly what’s going on there - the one party state led by a president for life who poisons, shoots and imprisons his political rivals while stifling all public dissent and who allows his mouthpieces to openly use the language of annihilation toward a neighbouring country- is, ahem, cause for pessimism.
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The worrying thing is that it's difficult to conceive of the sort of fundamental change in Russia that would lead to a more amenable country. Something approaching democracy only existed in the brief period 1905-1917 (when Nicholas II, in the aftermath of the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, was forced to provide a Duma) and in the Yeltsin period following the fall of the Soviet Union. Otherwise, from the time of the Rurikovitches, it has been one long autocracy with a profound sense of its own importance in the world and, at the same time, its difference from and suspicions about, that world. In a way it's very American - just as the US identity is tied up in its perceived exceptionalism, so to is the Russian identity tied up with its Slavic/Orthodox perception of the world, not to mention the perceived threat to this identity from the outside world.

It is into this that Putin (and apparently a large proportion of the Russian population) has bought, and it is constantly reinforced by the tale of the Great Patriotic War and the annual ceremony with the Preobrazhenskys goose-stepping across Red Square. (That's in a few days' time - wonder what note Vlad will strike in his speech regarding the limited police action in that other bit of the country).
 
For what it's worth, I can't think of a single left wing Twitter account I follow that has not condemned Russia's invasion.

Likewise, I can't think of any "hard left" member of this forum who haven't condemned the invasion.

Whenever this issue comes up, it's worth remembering that Blair was cosying up to Putin even when he was bombing the shit out of Chechnya. Corbyn and other figures on the left protested against it. It's a myth that the left is comfortable with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The root of these accusations is that left-wing commentators often introduce broader considerations into the discussion that are unwelcome: that the US is hardly whiter than white when it comes to foreign policy (that's putting it mildly); that Ukraine was regarded (by the EU!) as being one of the most corrupt countries in continental Europe; that Ukraine did have an issue with the far-right (this was reported widely prior to 2020 - does anyone believe that the far-right elements have just evanesced? in the middle of a war?); and so forth.

Most of these considerations are (or ought to be) uncontroversial. These stories were covered widely in mainstream media, including Newsnight, but now merely mentioning them gets you branded a Putin apologist. This is neo-McCarthyism, it's profoundly illiberal and it stinks.

For my part, I also chip in to call out some of the more obvious bullshit on this thread, the most notable being speculation about Putin's health (was it Parkinson's or pancreatic cancer, I forget?). I'm not claiming that he's in the greatest physical and mental shape (he's an old dude, after all), but I see no reputable evidence that he is terminally ill. The abandonment of all critical thinking, and the willingness to accept whatever bullshit is emanating from a highly partisan media disturbs me greatly. Again, it is deeply illiberal.

As for where this is going, my personal view is that it will end when Ukraine have given it their best shot (the much-trailed Spring offensive), and when the US scales back its support. At the end of the day, the US is not fighting for liberal values and Western civilization; it is looking after its own interests. I doubt that those include a protracted and even bloodier war at the edge of Western Europe. I don't know what the final settlement will look like but I doubt that it will involve getting Crimea back (this seems an unrealistic and somewhat extreme position). I hope that it will involve pushing Russia back to the pre-invasion borders, but I don't know if even that is realistic without a massive body count.

But, unlike some people on this thread, I am happy to admit to my own uncertainty.
 
Tony L said:
I’ve been increasingly puzzled over recent weeks by anti-Ukraine comments from some on the furthest fringes of the left on Twitter etc. I don’t get it as to my eyes Putin is clearly a monster; a brutal far-right gangster dictator who murders or imprisons political opposition, journalists etc, and has zero respect for human rights and civil liberties. He implements his racism and homophobia with extraordinary brutality. I understand why the Trump-right like and support this as Putin shares their extremist Christian white supremacist values, plus the amount of Russian money sloshing around in GOP (and UK Tory) circles. The far left support I do not get at all. Some, e.g. Chomsky, who is usually fairly credible, seem to have been consistently wrong on this and appear closer to the Trump/GOP perspective albeit with conflicting “logic”. I don’t get it at all. I found this article on Foreign Policy, which is a site I know nothing about, but I’m curious what others here can shine on this one? It’s clearly a ‘tankie’ thing, but even then it defies logic.
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Nostalgia? A shared sense of victimhood? Anti-West? Anti-capitalism? RT fabois? My enemy's enemy is my friend? It's Russia invading, not America? A pathlogical aversion to the status quo? Naivety? Angry moral absolutism? Much better for Ukraine to surender than have their core beliefs challenged.
 
sideshowbob said:
It was the same over Syria, as Leila Al-Shami very pithily expressed it:

https://libcom.org/article/anti-imperialism-idiots-leila-al-shami

I am a leftist, but nearly all of the left is useless at basic solidarity, because they are still fighting the cold war (even, sadly, much of the supposedly anti-Stalinist left are in the same binary worldview as the old school tankies).
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There are some great quotes in that:

"This ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots is one which equates imperialism with the actions of the US alone."

"This pro-fascist left seems blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners – only white men have the power to make history. "
 
droodzilla said:
The root of these accusations is that left-wing commentators often introduce broader considerations into the discussion that are unwelcome: that the US is hardly whiter than white when it comes to foreign policy (that's putting it mildly); that Ukraine was regarded (by the EU!) as being one of the most corrupt countries in continental Europe; that Ukraine did have an issue with the far-right (this was reported widely prior to 2020 - does anyone believe that the far-right elements have just evanesced? in the middle of a war?); and so forth.
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...not so much unwelcome as irrelevant. They serve no discernible purpose other than to posit that maybe Ukraine somehow deserved it or at least has no right to complain, while the US (uniquely among all other countries which have condemned the invasion) should unequivocally mind its own business and keep to itself.
 
Looks like Russia is starting to realise they need to prepare the populace for a bit of a shock -

"The Moscow Times: Russian state propaganda has been instructed to prepare the population for defeat in Ukraine's counteroffensive. The Kremlin has issued new instructions to propagandists ahead of Ukraine's counterattack. According to the instructions, the state media should not reassure Russians by telling them that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are unprepared, the Meduza news agency quoted its sources in the presidential administration. On the contrary, propagandists are required "not to lower expectations" about the announced counterattack and to emphasize that NATO countries supply Ukraine with weapons and support it in every possible way. According to the sources, the AP expects that this approach will make it easier for the population to accept Russia's possible defeat. If Ukraine recovers any territories, Russians will be told that this happened thanks to the "huge efforts of the West," which it "concentrated on the front." If the counteroffensive is unsuccessful, citizens will be told that "the army skillfully repelled a superior attack," and the price of that victory will increase dramatically, the sources add."
 
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