Tag Archives: Putin

Political Rants

Riding Grievance all the way to armageddon

Biden recently announced another $1.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, this on the heels of Nancy Pelosi’s bizarre-ass junket to the island / breakaway province. This, I think, is called tripling down, based mostly on a calculation common to most U.S. politicians that provoking China is a political winner, regardless of context. That may be true, but only if you’re cravenly pursuing popularity with no thought of human consequence. While that may sound particularly like Donald Trump, it also sounds like pretty much every other modern president.

We live in a time, once again, when criticism of American foreign policy is characterized as either foolishly alarmist or callously dismissive towards the victims of our official adversaries. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called out for not being sufficiently critical of either China or Russia. It’s not enough to say that the leadership of both states is arbitrary and rapacious. You need to cheer on the weapons as they roll off the assembly line and into the waiting hands of our Ukrainian or Taiwanese allies.

The actual grievance narrative

What gets glossed over in this toxic discourse is a fuller understanding of history and motive. What is the power behind Putin? He presents himself as the protector of his people – the strong dude who’s going to rescue them from the ravages imposed by the west. This narrative resonates with many Russians because they lived through a catastrophe in the 1990s – an economic implosion born of the “shock therapy” doctrine pushed by the United States and Europe. Many, many Russians lost their livelihoods, their security, even their lives. They also lost any lingering sense that Russia was a great nation. Into that breach walked Putin.

There’s a similar dynamic with China. Xi Jinping and his cohort seek to present a strong, non compliant nation. While China is far from being a democracy, it’s likely that the Chinese people want to think of their country as consequential. That is probably founded in China’s history over the last 100+ years, which started with decades of humiliation at the hands of Europeans (the British especially), followed by civil war and a long, bitter occupation by imperial Japan. No question but that Xi is a tremendous dick, like Putin, but their grievance narrative is based on something real, unlike that of the Republicans.

Revisionist history 2.0

It’s kind of amazing how little understood this dynamic is. The public radio show On The Media did a story about competing historical narratives regarding Hong Kong and China (thanks to Best of the Left for clipping this). What fascinated me about this was that these narratives, which were presented as mythical, all had varying elements of truth embedded in them. There was this “King of Kowloon” graffiti artist who became notorious for claiming that his family owned the Kowloon Peninsula before the British claimed it. Well, maybe. It was something like a feudal society. Then, of course, there is the tabla rasa myth of British Imperialism – the place was empty when we got here.

But then this NPR reporter talked about how China was rewriting history books again to, in effect, erase British imperialism:

Now they’re claiming that Hong Kong never was a British colony. They’re saying that when the British took over Hong Kong, there were these series of treaties, which the Chinese call unequal treaties. They say they were forced upon them by gunboat diplomacy, by violence, and they never actually agreed to any of these treaties. So sovereignty was never ceded. It’s a crazy argument when you think of all those governors and the British administration of Hong Kong to claim that it was never a colony, but it also shows you the sort of mutability of history.

Is it crazy to say that China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong was taken from them by force? Really? It was a forfeit as a result of one of Britain’s opium wars. What do you call that?

No more gunboats.

We seem to be leaning into our imperial posture. And while it’s natural to empathize with the victims of Russia and China, let’s not forget that there are people directly in the cross-hairs of our policy as well. We need to spare them some concern and intervention as well. We also need to bear in mind that major power conflict in the modern age carries with it an insupportable risk of nuclear war.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The war dog that didn’t bark in the night

I’ve heard a few stories this week about mission creep in the U.S. led response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Frankly, it would surprise me if there wasn’t any. This is something empires do, and the United States has done it multiple times in not at all subtle ways. Libya is probably the most glaring recent example of this. First we’re going to save the people of Benghazi; then, well, we’re going to act as the Libyan rebels’ air force. That’s when you get people back home saying, did we sign up for this?

Well, now we have members of congress going around saying that this is a proxy war against Russia, which speaks to the intention behind the policy. Granted, Seth Moulton was the source, but still – he probably hears a lot from the national security establishment on this. Trouble is, there’s a proxy only on one side – ours. This is not like Syria. Russia has a direct interest in this war, not a supporting role. Given what we’re hearing about intelligence sharing, it’s kind of a miracle that we’re all still here.

Unannounced, unmolested visitors

But intelligence sharing is not the only thing going on behind the scenes. There must be a substantial amount of de-confliction taking place, or even relatively high level conversations. The reason I think this is that Russia has the capability to strike anywhere in Ukraine by air, via either planes or medium range ground-to-ground missiles. And yet, when American dignitaries – congress members, cabinet officials, the first lady – show up in Kviv, there are no Russian strikes. Coincidence? I think not.

This cannot be chalked up to not knowing about the trips. Russia hits these cities at random, at will. But when important people from the U.S. are in town, the missiles stop. This is not a coincidence. It’s evidence of some rudimentary rationality on the part of Russian leadership – they don’t want World War III. Frankly, there are a lot of things they could be doing militarily that they haven’t opted for. That’s not cause for praise, of course – if someone with a gun stabs you to death, it doesn’t mean you should praise them for not shooting you. But in this case, it means that things can, indeed, get a lot worse.

Going over the top

All that said, there remains a better than strong chance that this Ukraine conflict will result in a broader war, and perhaps nuclear escalation. The pieces are all in place to make that happen. It seems clear, based on recent reporting, that the Biden administration has been sharing targeting information with the Ukrainians that has contributed to bringing about the deaths of numerous Russian generals. If it’s being reported, it was certainly known already to the Russian leadership. Now the whole world knows, and they have egg on their face.

In recent days, the Russians have been zeroing in on Ukraine’s supply lines from the West. They hit Odessa as part of this campaign, reportedly. We know there are American and European operatives working in Ukraine. How long before some of these people are hit, captured, killed? If the Ukrainians continue to succeed on the battlefield with our weapons, how long before Russia strikes at the source of these weapons, if only obliquely? It might turn out to be a light tap on the arm, but that might be all that’s needed.

What doesn’t help is American politicians spouting off about turning this into another Afghanistan, as Seth Moulton was kind of saying on Fox the other day. I expect this idiocy from Republicans … but Democrats should know better, somewhat.

Damn the ICBMS – full speed ahead!

I got into a Twitter skirmish with a Congressional candidate a couple of weeks ago over the topic of Ukraine. He is an independent, and he was advocating removing Putin from power. I asked him how he proposed to do this, and after some hedging he said through military action. When I pointed out that this would likely lead to World War III, he basically accused me of not caring about the suffering of Ukrainians, and called me a “coward” because I was not willing risk nuclear war to advance his regime change policy.

The thing that’s truly frightening about this is that other people – progressives, even – seem to think this makes sense. This is the problem with having a massive military that can project power all around the globe at will. We use it too much – like Russia, only worse – and get used to the idea of it being a solution to all problems, when it, in fact, solves none.

If we try to pull an Iraq or a Libya on Russia, it’s game over. That’s the reality, like it or not.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Political Rants

The titanic struggle: A-holes vs. effers

Another week of wall-to-wall reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That characterization of the operation is tantamount to a federal offense now in Russia. Whereas there they use force to make people think a certain way, over here we use the Edward Bernays method. That’s why polling shows a majority of Americans wanting the President to be “tougher” in his approach to the Ukraine crisis.

Majority support for policies that could easily result in total nuclear annihilation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Reporting on the atrocities Russia is committing in Ukraine flows in a constant stream from the corporate media. To be clear, it is 100% something that should be reported on heavily. But this is more than coverage. It is an influence campaign, and it may just get us all killed.

A game of absolutes

One of the sure signs that the networks are propagandizing us is the characterization of this war as part of a broader struggle between freedom and tyranny. Even Chris Hayes went on a tear about his last week, bizarrely extending this metaphor to the Cold War era. This claim doesn’t stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. Did we fight our near-genocidal war in Vietnam for “freedom”? I think not. Read Nick Turse’s Kill Anything That Moves. This is not good vs. evil, for we are not good.

Now, I expect this kind of thing out of the likes of Joe Scarborough, who is constantly laboring at the Reagan myth, desperately trying to keep it alive for another generation. Even on his show you will hear from people counseling caution, like Richard Haas. Those are the exceptions, though. It’s mostly a chorus of voices bearing witness to the suffering of Ukrainians in minute detail, showing frustration out of a lack of action on the part of the administration. The absolutism of good vs. evil is an essential component in their argument.

More like 1914 … or 2003

Frequent MSNBC guest Michael McFaul is back on the network, having suffered no real penalty for his endorsement of a comparison between Putin with Hitler, in which Hitler came out ahead. He was on Twitter telling people to stop talking about World War III, which was odd because he seems so wrapped up in World War II. McFaul is a fan of brinkmanship with respect to Ukraine – he thinks we can get a lot closer to open conflict without risk of nuclear war.

This is what happens when people take their own analogies too seriously. This is not World War II. We have nuclear weapons – thousands of them. We cannot do the kinds of things we did before those weapons existed. It’s simply not an option. There are many reasons why this period is nothing like 1939, but the nuclear question is probably the most salient difference. In all honesty, if you’re going to compare this with a world war, the closer analogy is 1914, when an accidental war prompted Europeans to slaughter each other by the millions for no good reason.

Don’t burn bridges

I’ve said it before. There’s only one way out of this horrendous conflict, and that’s through some kind of negotiated settlement. Cranking up the rhetoric makes this less likely, not more. For the Ukrainians’ sake, it’s better to make the deal now than later when their country is in even more of a shambles and many thousands more have lost their lives.

Ultimately Russia and Ukraine are going to have to reconcile themselves to being neighbors. That’s never going to change – it’s just geography. They need to find a path out of this mess, and we need to do everything in our power to help them get there.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.