Ukraine: Too Much Is Not Enough
The appetite for more resources approaches infinity.
Prominent foreign affairs analyst David Rothkopf argues in his Daily Beast column, “We’ve Done Lots for Ukraine, but Winning Will Take Much More.”
While the Western commitment to send tanks to Ukraine was a welcome breakthrough, it should not be seen as a panacea. At this crucial juncture in the war between Russia and Ukraine, the outcome of the conflict is far from clear and it will take at least two major shifts in U.S. and NATO policies to capitalize on the successes achieved by Kyiv during the past year.
The first change required is to recognize that it is time to move toward an even more aggressive approach toward providing Ukraine with weapons, ammunition, and other vital supplies going forward. Welcome and essential as they have been, every provision of new weapons systems thus far has been a painstaking negotiation. Every step along the way toward providing more aid has been greeted by critics echoing Russian warnings that upgraded assistance to Ukraine could lead to potentially out-of-control escalation by Moscow. But that escalation has not happened. Russia’s capabilities have been proven to be far less than touted by them or by Western analysts before the war. They can’t beat Ukraine. They are not going to undertake a war against NATO that would lead to certain, swift disaster for Putin & Co.
We must acknowledge this fact and confidently shift to a different aid footing. For three decades the U.S. has been guided by the so-called Powell Doctrine that states that if we enter a war we should do so with overwhelming force. Providing ourselves with narrow margins of advantage is seen as dangerous… because it is.
As the war has progressed this past year, we have come to realize that the only true threat to NATO and Europe would be for Russia to be able to defeat Ukraine and to get away with its land grab and atrocities in that country. That is what we must avoid at all costs. And the only way to do that is to provide Ukraine with more rather than “just enough” assistance.
I don’t know who “we” refers to here. While it’s true that the feared escalation—including a possible resort to nuclear weapons and incursions into bordering states who are directly aiding Ukraine—hasn’t happened, that doesn’t mean that there’s no risk of it happening. And, while I think total victory—a return to the 2014 status quo ante and punishing Putin and his inner circle for their war crimes—is rightly our goal, it’s far from clear how committed our most prominent European allies are to that goal.
The recently achieved breakthrough—for which U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin deserves major credit—is welcome but also less than meets the eye. Perhaps 105 Western tanks are now pledged. But the 31 U.S. Abrams tanks pledged are unlikely to make their way to Ukraine until late this year. Others will take months. (As will training Ukrainian tank units.) Further, Ukraine has requested at least three times as many such tanks and experts suggest they will need perhaps 500-1,000 to make a real difference in the battle against a Russian army with inferior but many more such tanks.
Sigh. Germany, France, and the UK barely have 1000 tanks combined.
Now, once again, we are having a discussion about whether to provide Ukraine’s air force with advanced Western fighters. Further delays with these and other needed supplies only play into Russia’s hands.
The late Donald Rumsfeld infamously declared, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” Aside from the diplomatic considerations of giving advanced fighters—which all the NATO allies save the United States have in rather limited supply—to Ukraine, there’s the matter of training, maintaining, supplying, and the like. The US Air Force and Navy take a year or more to train their fighter pilots, who are hand selected from those who have already gone through a rigorous commissioning and selection process. This isn’t like handing the car keys over to a teenager and telling them to be careful.
That is because we have entered the phase of the war in which Russia is playing for a tie—while Ukraine realizes it can only be safe if it plays to win. What that means is that if Russia can hold on to the 20 percent of Ukraine it has already seized and achieve a stalemate on the battlefield, they believe Western resolve to support Ukraine will ultimately fade and the West will push Ukraine into a negotiations that will translate Russian aggression into the permanent, internationally-accepted control of lands they have illegally occupied.
Ukraine on the other hand, realizes that if they wish to reclaim any of those lands, they will need to be able to make the case on the battlefield and at the negotiating table that prolonging the war will only lead to ever greater Russian losses. They need to reclaim land seized by Russia and credibly assert momentum is on their side. And the only way they can do that given the vastly superior size of Russia’s army is with superior weaponry and an absolutely clear commitment from the West that our support will never falter.
Senior U.S. officials have told me that we are nowhere near being able to commence negotiations to end this war because the sides are so far apart. Ukraine, reasonably, wants Russia to exit the country and restore the 2014 borders. Russia wants to keep the gains it has made. That means that the battles being fought during 2023, beginning very likely with a long-expected Russian spring offensive, will be about moving one side or the other off their current intransigent positions as a consequence of gains or losses on the battlefield.
To reduce the threat Russia poses not just to Ukraine but to the West, that means that NATO and other allies of Ukraine must provide the full range of resources necessary for them to reclaim territory in the South and East and send a message to Russia that the longer this war goes on, the weaker their negotiating position will become.
While Rothkofp and I agree on the desired endstate—and that defeating Russia is about more than helping Ukraine—the ask here is incredibly large. As best I can tell, the United States has already committed more than $66 billion in aid to Ukraine. That’s slightly more than Russia’s entire military budget! And that doesn’t count what NATO allies and other partner countries have pitched in.
But, wait, there’s more!
That brings us to the second area in which the Western strategy in support of Ukraine and to reduce the risk posed by a rogue Russia must change. At some point, the current war will come to a halt. It might be a ceasefire. It might be a more comprehensive peace agreement. But given Russia’s history and its serial disregard for past diplomatic arrangements, real lasting stability will require that Ukraine be quickly and successfully rebuilt and integrated into the European and global economy. Ukraine must emerge from this war so much stronger that Russia never dares invade again.
Worryingly, there is no sign that a sufficiently ambitious plan for such a reconstruction effort is in place. Indeed, even providing sufficient financial assistance to keep Ukraine afloat has lagged. Experts and Ukraine’s leaders estimate that rebuilding Ukraine could cost more than $1 trillion. But only a fraction of that has actually been committed.This effort will require greater commitments than the war has to date or is likely to over the course of the year or years ahead. (It is also likely to require significant reparations from Russia which is certain to make Moscow howl.)
One trillion dollars? Even Dr. Evil would understand that’s a big ask. Hell, it’s five times Ukraine’s pre-war GDP.
There is a political component to this as well. Henry Kissinger argued to Davos attendees earlier this month that it was time to recognize that Ukraine should be part of NATO and the EU. This was pretty much a non-starter before the war, not likely to happen despite Russian assertions that they were going to war to stop it from happening. But what Putin did by going to war was to end forever the idea that Ukraine could or should be neutral toward Russia. Putin effectively if unintentionally pushed it into the arms of NATO and the EU whether that is formally acknowledged or not. But given the interests of the countries of the west, it is time to formally acknowledge it. Allowing Putin to dictate limitations on the affiliations Ukraine can or should have by virtue of his use of force would be a further dangerous capitulation.
Providing tanks and the other shipments of advanced weaponry committed to Ukraine in recent weeks is certainly a step forward for Ukraine and for European security. But as we enter the second year of this expanded war, it is time to put behind us old fallacies and excuses to act slowly. It is time to recognize the lessons of the past year and to mobilize to achieve the goal we must share with Ukraine, not because they are valiant and deserve it, but because it is in our core self-interest. We must ensure Russia loses this war and that it is absolutely clear to them that no such aggression can ever again happen along its borders.
NATO declared at its Bucharest Summit way back in April 2008 that, “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” It was, alas, a figleaf for inaction. While the Bush Administration was an enthusiastic champion of initiating Membership Action Programs to put them on the road to joining, key allies, notably Germany and France, saw (rightfully, in my view at the time) that the increased tension with Russia and the fact that both countries would be consumers rather than providers of security, made it unwise to bring them into the fold. It may well be that the two Russian invasions will change that calculation. It may also be that they will see rubbing Russia’s nose in its defeat will ensure future conflict.
Any investment we make now in Ukraine that attrits Russian military capabilities is a win for the U.S. and its European allies.
On the contrary. I think that Russia’s annexations and stated war aims have shown that the only way to prevent future conflict is to bring Ukraine into NATO when the current war is over.
One reason why Russia’s nuclear threats are largely ineffective is that Russia doesn’t appear willing to stop with Ukraine.
And that’s why the US and its European allies are willing to call Russia’s bluff. Better to do it now over Ukraine (and thus prevent Russia from learning the lesson that nuclear blackmail works) than at a later stage over the Baltics or Poland.
You’d think a species with over 5,000 years experience with war, would know by now that wars are massively expensive and destructive.
@drj:
Relatedly, I think that is also the reason that Biden explicitly said that the US would defend Taiwan.
If other powers learn the lesson that nuclear blackmail can be effective in giving cover to forcible annexations then that will only invite more conflict – in addition to further nuclear proliferation.
That’s not a healthy state for the planet.
@Kathy:
But also – until fairly recently* – generally profitable for the victor.
For instance, Spain profited handsomly from the conquest of Mexico and Peru.
* Things only changed (depending on location and specific adversaries) in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Through his maximalist and eliminationist statements, Putin has told all the nations in the EU why they have no other choice but to commit whatever resources it takes to defend Ukraine.
Unless the price of his imperialism becomes unacceptable to the powers that be within Russia itself, no European nation can be secure.
@drj: I wonder if that is true. Did the average subject of the Spanish crown get any profit from those conquests? What was the impact of WW I on the average Tommy, Hansie, or Pierre? Large numbers got killed or maimed for sure, but did they get richer? The economic history of the 1920s doesn’t lead me to the conclusion that Russia, Germany, Britain, or the US were better off. Yes, the wars of the world have produced wealth, but it has all gone to a small segment of the elite.
This is why I don’t believe for a nano-second that we’ll go to war over Taiwan. We’re really great at the rhetoric (“We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.” – JFK Inaugural Address) but notso hotso at the follow-through.
FWIW, I think we should go all in with Ukraine since they’re doing the hard part – getting killed – while we’re sending hardware that was designed for just this kind of fight. Part of being a super power is going all in on protecting the one group of countries that really are our allies and have been for decades.
If the Ukrainians are willing to give the last drop of their blood to their defense, we can send the tanks and the rockets and whatever else they require.
@drj:
They had to be.
Paying the troops was a novel concept in the late stages of the Roman Republic. Prior to that, the legions collected “pay” by looting and pillaging vanquished enemy cities.
@Not the IT Dept.: I agree with you wholeheartedly so don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say. At a far remove the present war reminds me a bit of what I studied about the Spanish Civil War. Great powers have the opportunity to test weapon system effectiveness and a great amount is learned about the strength and depth of an opponent while not shedding blood of their own.
The only way this ends with long-term peace is with Russia’s, and Putin’s, complete and total humiliation.
For example: Ukraine must march on and seize Russian territory at some point, in order to create a DMZ on Russian soil.
Russians must be distracted to the point that they begin to lose territory in other areas because of their focus on Ukraine (a certain island that Japan claims comes to mind).
Until Russia feels significant pain, there cannot be assured peace.
@Slugger:
Indirectly, yes. But even if not, it wasn’t the average subject who could decide to go to war. The ones who could decide definitely got richer – if the war was won.
With WW1 we’re already in a situation in which full-scale war didn’t make any economic sense any more. Even less costly colonial conquests (or simply maintaining these) would soon become unprofitable.
Lots of comments to this one, I’ll try to be brief.
First of all, this is a major industrial state-on-state war that Europe, the US, and Russia were not prepared for.
The problem of supporting Ukraine’s needs is not just a matter of money, although it’s going to take a shit-ton of money that could approach $100 billion a year from the US once everything is added up.
But money isn’t the major problem – because deficits don’t matter, right – the major problem is military-industrial capacity.
You mention the three major countries in Europe having barely 1000 tanks combined. When you look at tank production, it’s even more anemic. Germany currently makes 2-3 Leopard 2 tanks per month, mostly to fill foreign orders and for what few replacements are needed. That is probably not enough to cover attrition, much less replacements from combat losses. They can increase that somewhat, but not much without major investments in increasing production capacity.
I’ve talked frequently here about the problem of sustaining ammunition. Ukraine needs at least 100k 155mm arty shells a month – much more for offensive operations, and the US currently produces ~14k a month and is plussing up production to ~20k/month. There is a plan to build more factories to bring that up to ~90k a month – essentially wartime production levels – but that will take a long time and may need additional appropriations from Congress along with contract guarantees. In the meantime, we’ll continue to raid stockpiles and buy from other countries like Korea, but even that has a time limit.
It’s a similar story with HIMARS – there simply isn’t enough ammo or ammo production to support Ukraine’s needs. If you wonder why we have not heard many stories about HIMARS strikes lately, it’s because there haven’t been many, and the reason is the ammo shortage. Ukraine is keeping supplies for the Spring for its offensives and to counter expected Russian offensives.
This same dynamic is happening across many different types of equipment to include some of the most expensive and complicated like air defense, and aircraft. And this is before even considering all the other logistical requirements.
The fact of the matter is that the US and Europe – especially Europe – does not have the defense production to support this war. The US keeps enough stockpiles for perhaps a month of high-intensity combat and generally assumes that air dominance will allow relatively quick victories. Europe only has enough production for its small forces and export markets.
The point being, Rothkopf’s dream of giving Ukraine whatever it wants has substantial practical limitations and we are at a fork in the road regarding where this war is headed.
On the one hand, if you think that Russia is losing and weak and that come Spring, Ukraine will roll right over them, then the logical conclusion is that Ukraine will win next year, and therefore we can simply keep doing the same and supplying them out of our existing stockpiles.
On the other hand, if you think this war is likely to go on longer, then you needed to start Europe and the US on the road to wartime levels of military production months ago, which is very expensive and takes a lot of time. Is Europe – especially Germany – ready to essentially double its defense budget for Ukraine? Color me skeptical.
One thing that does bother me about Rothkopf’s piece is something you touched on – the “we.” He is one of those Washington “brains” whose entire military and FP experience is in the journalist and think-tank world. He’s one of these inside-the-beltway people for whom it is normal to demand that “we” must do things, but in reality, he’s one of those guys who likes to write checks that other people’s asses will have to cash.
While his aspirational vision for a war in which Ukraine decisively wins and – more importantly, in his view – Russia decisively loses and loses in such a way that nukes are not used and that everything turns out hunky-dory, is somewhat understandable as mere rhetoric to promote more support for Ukraine, it’s not very realistic. And if there is one major consistent flaw in US foreign policy it is this belief that aspirational aims are easy and achievable. People need to be skeptical and have realistic expectations about this war’s course and end state – that is especially true for keyboard warriors like Rothkopf, who have no real stake or skin in the game.
Finally, talk of Ukraine joining NATO “after” the war is both premature and stupid.
– Premature because it assumes facts and circumstances that may not come to pass, and assumes that every other NATO country will be willing to have Ukraine as permanent strategic liability and protectorate.
– Stupid, because this will make the Russians fight harder and make them more willing to escalate to prevent that end. As people who understand Russia and the region have been pointing out for almost three decades now, Russia – like it or not – believes that a Ukraine which is part of a hostile alliance is an existential strategic threat, and the events since the 2008 Bush declaration that Ukraine would definitely join NATO have borne that out.
@Not the IT Dept.: If we are willing to go to war in the Mideast for oil, we will be willing to go to war in the China Sea for sophisticated ICs, which are at least as vital to our economy.
Russia has grown from the Duchy of Muscovy much like the growth of the Roman Empire from the city-state of Rome. It is still popular in Russia to call the country the “Third Rome,” and the concept of Russia as an expansionist colonial empire has been normalized in Russian culture for centuries.
Russia will not cease seeking to dominate and control the surrounding areas in the foreseeable future regardless who is running the country – it’s simply how it does. IOW, Russia is pretty much a perennial threat to all its neighbors. So it makes sense for Russia’s adversaries to degrade its capabilities as much as possible.
New Yorker ran a piece recently on Russian culture, interesting reading:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/rereading-russian-classics-in-the-shadow-of-the-ukraine-war
It’s a stupid article. Overall, the US and Europe have managed this invasion as well as possible. The entire Russian premise of domination is completely alienating to its neighbors, and this alienation is taken as a threat. There’s not much to work with there, just fictions about bio labs and Kiev. (No surprise that the pro-Russian goons in America are basically the same as Putin in how they deal with the world.)
I have to believe that there’s an off-ramp for this war in the next year…let Putin keep the Crimea and Donbas? But it would be insane to believe that the conflict will just end. War is favorable for Putin. Peace might not be so good for his regime.
@MarkedMan:
Yeah, BUT…the ICs can be manufactured anywhere, even (shocking, I know) here. The Taiwanese don’t own the designs. And like I said on another thread, we’re in this situation because high tech bazillionaires were too cheap to pay anything but sweatshop wages – and (let’s face it) we Americans as consumers are too cheap to pay prices that would support a living wage – and those bazillionaires can pony up some back-of-the-sofa-cushions change to pay for any military effort we’re putting into Taiwan.
The thing about fighting for oil in the ME is also that to many unsophisticated Americans a lot of the fighting over there somehow benefits Israel (the one in the Bible, right?) as well as has something to do with teaching those 9/11 guys you don’t mess with ‘Murica! No politician has ever admitted we’re fighting for access to oil, but there would have to be some kind of acknowledgement we’re fighting for little wiry things in our cell phones if we got into Taiwan.
Sorry, hit “Post” too soon. Another problem with ginning up public support for military efforts in Taiwan: for decades now Americans have seen how their jobs were outsourced to offshore locations in SE Asia. Whatever else you can say about the ME, that is not an issue.
I’m really interested to see if American politicians have the brains to make a good argument and the guts to follow through. Personally I doubt it.
@Andy:
Russia also believes that an indendent Ukraine, even if not part of a hostile alliance, is an existential threat. Which means that an unaligned Ukraine is no more than an invitation for another attempt at conquest down the road. Like it or not.
@Slugger:
True, but this is a feature rather than a bug. Privatizing the gains and socializing the costs has been the modus operendo for millennia.
1000 tanks? Wut?
Rothkopf is just teensy, weensy bit over-optimistic here.
There is no way anything approaching that number could be provided and supported until 2024, if at all.
It would need be reactivating (and largely rebuilding?) the US long-term storage stock.
I’ll be surprised if the full Abrams logistic/maintenance requirement for even a company are in place before late summer at best. Though they should be rapidly scaleable after that point.
Europe should be able to supply about 250 Leopards without crippling it’s forces, and they should be able to turn up, and be supported this year.
But: 250 is the strength of a full armoured division complement (though very unlikely to be fielded as such) and should certainly have a considerable impact.
And it should not be forgotten these are in addition to Ukraine’s existing tank fleet, which is probably around 1,000 operational vehicles.
And there is the other armour, IFV’s/APCs etc of around 1000 NATO various types (Bradley, Marder, Spartan, M113 etc) and perhaps as many as 10,000 Ukrainian.
And, above all, artillery.
Or even more important still, perhaps: NATO style networked battle management systems and sensor integration.
Regarding reconstruction costs: $1 trillion is probably in the region. But if Ukraine has secured borders and a trade and investment deal on a membership track with the EU then this should be achievable over a 10 to 15 years.
I would be willing to be that a lot of private investment will be available for agribusiness and food processing, for instance.
This scale of money is something the EU is used to handling. The current 2021-2027 budgetary period has an internal development funding of half a trillion euros.
And a lot of the development fund needed to build up Central and Eastern Europe are less needed now; as in the reconstruction of old industrial areas in Western Europe by the 1990’s, they will start to taper down.
And e.g. transport linkages can share money.
I could easily see Ukraine getting say a quarter trillion in direct EU development aid over a decade. Private investments and loans should cover the rest.
@JohnSF:
Plus the 300-400B or so of Russian assets that are frozen in western banks. That should go to Ukraine.
@drj:
Exactly. “Russia” does not believe Ukraine is an existential threat. Russia knows Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons to Russia and is not a threat to Russia. Russia knows neither Ukraine nor NATO has ever bombed Russia, nor ever would.
Putin, Medvedev, and their ilk simply lie about this because they know some will believe it, so they can hide the real reason Putin wants to destroy and absorb Ukraine: Russia’s leaders are authoritarian, imperialist, corrupt, bloodthirsty fascists who do not believe Ukraine has a right to exist independent of Russia. Putin sees himself as another Ivan the Terrible or Peter I: a murderous, expansionist megalomaniac who thinks he should control Russia’s neighbors. And Putin has made the comparison himself, revealing his true fears.
The threat Putin and Russian leadership are cared of is not Ukrainian alignment with NATO, it’s a functioning Slavic democracy on Russia’s borders and the increasing hostility of Russian youth towards post-Soviet Russian ideology in our increasingly interconnected world. The internet, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and cheap air travel have allowed Russian youth to see that they have been have been lied to, and that life in the West — for all its flaws — is better than the poverty, bitterness, enslavement, and paranoia Putin is offering.
Putin knows that once the Russian people see the Ukrainian people — their kin and Slavic brothers — thriving right next door under a relative amount freedom and democracy, then Russia will be asking “Why can’t we have that?”
Putin isn’t murdering and jailing political opponents because of a NATO threat, isn’t jailing protesters because of a NATO threat, isn’t shutting down independent Russian media because of NATO threat, and isn’t bombing Ukrainians because of NATO threat. It’s because Putin is an evil, warmongering, imperialist, selfish, murderous, greedy, lying, corrupt piece of shit who needs to be ripped out of the world.
Talk to some of 200,000+ brave Russians who’ve fled Putin’s regime in the past year. They know, and they will tell you.
@DK:
I get the sense (from government messaging, propaganda, and even street interviews with passersby) that many Russians can’t conceive of “Russia” as anything other than an empire. An independent Ukraine is the clearest affront to that self-image (even more than an independent Belarus, probably).
Thus, it goes a bit beyond Putin and his cronies simply traying to maintain their own personal power, I suspect.
@DK:
Yeah–it’s not as simple as that. In the 90s Russia got a good dose of capitalism and freedom and ended up with Putin for a reason. I think since Putin ‘returned’ to power Russia has become more tied into this globalized nihilistic right-wing thing of tradition and shirtless men being real men. But in the early 00s Moscow was a hedonistic paradise if you had the $$$$.
At the same time, the whole existential threat thing strikes me as bullshit. There’s a good case that NATO broke some promises made as the Soviet Union fell and the bombing campaign against Serbia in 1998 definitely provoked the Russians, but after two disasters (Iraq, Afghanistan) Putin had nothing to fear from NATO/America in a global chess-match sort of way. Compare the successful campaigns against Serbia in Bosnia and in Kosovo to how Assad in Syria ended up. Assad is still in power and Milosevic went to The Hague. This is where the ‘existential’ threat thing dies. Honestly, I think Putin, like a lot of these people, would rather it be 1999 than 2023 (or 2022). His enemies were not who he said they were. At least before the invasion.
@Modulo Myself:
Well, what I wrote wasn’t “simple.” The mindset of an imperialistic authoritarian murderer is indeed complicated. As are the dynamics of the fears about increasing Westernization of Russia’s rising generations. I didn’t say any of that is “simple.”
But it also doesn’t take rocket science to see that Putin and the Kremlin powers-that-be are terrified of democracy bringing them down, and that Putin does not think think Russians Ukraine has a right to exist. He’s said so himself. The idea that if Ukraine were hostile to NATO, then Putin’s imperialistic fever dreams would evaporate is silly. Aligned with NATO or not aligned with NATO, Putin would still believe that Russia should you control Ukraine.
Rich people are still doing well in Moscow, and everywhere. Even under repressive Islamic regimes, the Sharia law governing poor folk don’t apply to the decadent, hedonistic wealthy.
So what? Poor Russians getting to eat at McDonald’s after the Soviet Union fell does not = freedom and free markets.
Regarding artillery shell availability: Rheinmettall has already said it can up it’s production of 155mm munitions to 500,000 within less than a year.
Nexter in France is also boosting output, with the first expansion facility coming online by mid March, capacity figures not available, but I’d guess they are going for at least 100k.
ZVS in Slovakia has a current capacity of 20k 155mm per year, and is increasing to 100k
CSG in the Czech Republic has current production capacity of 80to 100k, and preparing an expansion to 150k.
So that’s a million shells per year, when you add in the smaller produces in UK, Italy etc.
The big question is, will Germany shell out ( 🙂 ) for the big Rheimettall expansion?
I suspect they will, though probably at the expense of other defence spending.
@Andy:
Germany is already havering on previous assertions of spending increase.
The Free Democrats tend to budget and deficit hawkishness, the Greens and SDP want social spending increase, the business lobby wants taxes kept down, the pacifists hate defence spending anyway.
This is causing utter fury in Paris, as instead of building EU defence infrasructues, as Macron thought they had agree, Germany is buying “some ” F35 more or less “off the shelf” from the US, and Arrow missiles from Israel.
But, other countries are ramping: Poland is going to 4% GDP, the Baltics seem likely to go to 3%. The Scandinavians will be be going to at least 2%, I suspect ending up at 2.5
An noticeable thing about this war: it is creating an increasing coherent north-eastern bloc in Europe: Scandinavia, Baltics, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia who are co-ordinating defence, diplomacy and assistance to Ukraine as a group.
And don’t write them off as “little countries”: their combined GDP is c. $2.9 trillion, compared to Russia c. $1.8 trillion.
@Andy:
Does Russia?
From where I’m standing, long, big wars of conquest look to be impossible against a competent opponent. You either win in a few days, four weeks at most, or you settle in for brutal, bloody, meat grinder stalemate.
I hope India and Pakistan are taking notes.
@drj:
What if I told you Russians who don’t support their government’s warmongering empire bullshit aren’t willing to say so in public street interviews?
@Kathy:
No.
And Russia also cannot successfully occupy 20% of Ukraine long term against a defiant, motivated, angry Ukranian insurgency.
The US, Germany, UK and he rest of NATO may well force Ukraine into a negiotated stalemate. That’s all well and good. But that does not mean Ukraine will really, truly accept it — or that the bloodshed and hostilities, while maybe diminished, will stop any time soon.
What do Ukranians want? It does not matter to Russia, may not ultimately matter to NATO. But…
@Not the IT Dept.:
But arguable you have not fought for access to oil, as such.
Whoever has it will sell it. But probably only on terms that seem best to them; see Saudi Arabia etc over the past 12 months.
And the US does not even need that oil, being an oil exporter itself.
The US interest there are in:
1) The oil revenues: you don’t want that level of wealth pouring into the laps of, say, ISIS/al Qaeda Mk2, or (less likely) the control of Iran as a regional hegemon.
2) The recycling of the oil revenues: it is major economic benefit to the US that oil trade in dollars bolster the trade/reserve status of you currency, and fortify the demand for treasury bonds. Helps keep the cost of deficit finance down.
3) Oil (and gas) supply to third parties, which underpins a large chunk of the global economy. Major purchasers of Saudi oil (which is probably a reasonable proxy for all ME oil) being: China 25%, Japan 15%, S. Korea 13%, India 11%, Europe 10%, Taiwan 4%.
The US doesn’t need the oil directly. But take out all the economies that do, and it’s hello Great Depression!
@JohnSF:
I don’t think Rheinmetall said they could be producing 500k a year in a year’s time, rather they said they could produce 500k a year with enough resources and funding, but didn’t give a timeframe. From the recent story from two days ago, they produced 70k total last year – I’m skeptical they can increase that seven-fold in only a year. The German government would have to provide extraordinary funding and other support to allow capacity to be increased that much, that quickly.
I’m personally very skeptical.
Sure but only a portion of that increased defense spending will go to Ukraine.
@Kathy:
They don’t.
No country except maybe North Korea keeps enough of its economy on war production to meet the needs of a major conflict like this. That’s why major wars are very often ruinous to participants and almost always require some level of national mobilization of various parts of society and the economy in order to sustain them.
Russia does, however, have a larger comparative military-industrial production capacity. But it isn’t near enough for its needs either.
I would argue that Ukraine doesn’t need 100,000 dumb artillery rounds per month. They need 10,000 Excalibur rounds — basically, the entire world supply — per month. Especially the newest versions. The ones that tack on another 20 km of range. The ones that can overfly the target, pull a high-g turn, and hit from behind. The ones that can be turned loose at the end to find and hit tanks. The ones that can do that same thing for train engines and big trucks. Basically, that largely ensure that Russia’s logistics problems get a lot worse, and they don’t get any heavy armor close to the front.
@DK:
Obviously not all Russians, but enough – especially those in positions of power.
@DK:
I think your characterization here is incorrect. This notion that Russian elites are terrified of democracy bringing them down just shows a misunderstanding of Russian elite politics, society, and history. Before this war, Putin the autocrat was immensely popular and the governance by oligarchy was secure. There was no threat from democracy then and there sure isn’t any now. The threat Putin and his allies face is not democracy, but a rebellion from the left or putsch from the right for fucking up what they said would be an easy war.
Secondly, the assertion that the war in Ukraine is all about Putin’s imperialistic fever dreams is also not correct. The fundamentals of Russian strategic thinking transcend Putin and Russians have long been hostile to NATO expansion, especially to Ukraine, which has long been widely considered to be a strategic threat by Russians generally.
And your characterization is belied by the fact that Putin (and Russia) were perfectly fine with Ukraine being non-aligned until it became obvious that Ukraine wouldn’t stay non-aligned and that the US, in particular, wanted Ukraine in NATO and was pushing toward that, which really began in earnest 2008. It’s not a coincidence that Russia invaded Georgia that year, nor is it a coincidence that Russia took and annexed Crimea and promoted rebellion in the east after Maidan. These things were not generally opposed by Russian elites or the Russian population.
Whether or not one agrees with Russia’s strategic rationales, and whether or not its opposition to Ukraine joining a de-facto anti-Russian alliance is justified, it’s a very real thing in Russia and it’s not a Putin fever dream. It’s completely consistent with Russia’s long history and extends far beyond Putin and his circle of elites and is a part of Russian society.
It would certainly be a lot easier if this was a simple case of a dictator reaching too far – take out the dictator and a society’s elite could back down from the overreach. But Putin is not the most radical person in Russia. He could be killed and replaced by people who are much more hardcore. And the fact of the matter is that the bulk of Russian society thinks that Crimea is part of Russia and that a Ukraine that is part of NATO would be an existential threat.
Not even Alex Navalny, the pro-democracy dissent who was targeted for assassination by Putin and is currently a prisoner in Russia, would give up Crimea to Ukraine and has been wishy-washy about Donbas and the east. That’s not an accident – he understands where Russians are on these issues.
The point in all this is that Putin is not an outlier when it comes to Russian views of their own strategic situation.
@Andy:
So, Russia can’t win, but it can’t be decisively defeated. Ukraine can’t lose decisively either, but it can’t win.
At some point one begins to think we take te rationality of H. sapiens mostly on faith.
@Kathy:
Face-saving is a real factor in these things, recall our “peace with honor”.
For those who view anything short of Putin dropping on his knees and begging for mercy as an unacceptable loss….an old Bill Maudlin cartoon
@Andy:
This is highly misleading.
First, Putin (and Russia) were not fine at all with Ukraine being non-aligned with Russia. Russia worked hard to keep Ukraine in its orbit. And not just by making its case fair and square in Ukraine’s political arena, I should add.
Second, Russia’s intervention in 2014 was not triggerd by the possibility of Ukrainian NATO membership (which was DOA in 2008 and completely off the table by 2014), but by closer economic ties to the EU – which posed no military threat whatsoever to Russia.
And no, EU membership is not some sort of precursor to NATO membership.
Please see Putin’s 2021 screed “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” In hindsight, it is obvious that he meant it.
@Andy:
Since Putin and his cronies most definitely are terrified of democracy bringing them down, assertions otherwise are made only by cherry picking from Russian politics, society, and history. The notion Putin is not scared of democratic-style freedoms is belied by him jailing and killing political opponents, banning words, banning independent media, blocking the internet, jailing protesters, and brainwashing Russians with state media. A leader confident in his popularity — secure his society agrees with him — does not do that.
That said, Putin’s pre-war popularity within Russia is not so relevant. It’s not democracy in the past or “now” that Russia’s leaders are threatened by, it’s the potential for democracy in the future — especially as young Russians are increasingly connected to and sympathetic to the West. Of course you’re popular when your people don’t see a viable alternative that looks like them. Putin and his ilk do not want Russians to see a relatively free, Westernized Ukraine because they do not want the Russian people to know that there could be a workable, democratic, Slavic alternative to their failed, bloodthirsty, paranoid authoritarianism.
Blanket statements about Russian opposition to NATO expansion are oversimplistic and based on revisionist history. The real history is that NATO forced Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia and that NATO expansion happened in consultation and cooperation with Russia, so much so that at one point Putin publicly flirted with Russia joining NATO.
And it is certainly not a fact that Putin (and Russia) were fine with Ukraine being non-aligned: they can’t be fine with a non-alignment that never existed. Pre-2013, Ukraine was led by Russian puppets a la Belarus. It was only after Putin lost control of Ukraine that he invaded Crimea and no, that’s not a coincidence. It’s because Putin cannot deal with Russia’s neighbors not being controlled by Russia.
All of that exposes Putin’s pretend fears about Ukraine joining NATO and Ukraine threatening Russia: Putin knows Ukraine has never been eligible for NATO membership. It wasn’t eligible pre-2013 because it was a hopelessly corrupt Russian satellite. And it hasn’t been eligible since because it’s been a hopeless corrupt fledgling democracy actively at war with Russia.
So Putin cannot have escalated his invasion of Ukraine last year because of fears of Ukraine joining NATO. The real reason he did is indeed “consistent with Russia’s long history:” a long history of warmongering imperialism and empire-building stretching back hundreds of years, predates NATO, and would exist now in an even worse form if NATO weren’t around. Ivan the Terrible didn’t try to swallow and/or destroy Russia’s neighbors because of some imagined external threat, Peter I didn’t, and Putin isn’t. Putin is a liar, and he is lying.
That the bulk of Russians believe the Russian government’s lies about NATO being an “exestential threat” is as moot as when pundits point out nearly half of American voters believe the bullshit fearmongering of the Republican Party. Yeah, and? Duh. Of course the Russian government’s lies extend into “Russian society.” Russian society has been programmed, manipulated, and propagandized to believe these lies. Because the Russian powers-that-be know if Russians can be kept paranoid and in fear about made up threats, the Russian people will not recognize the *real* existential threat to Russia: Putin, his oligarchs, his enablers, and his cronies.
It’s the same playbook the extremist right is using in the US. Fear wokeness and asylum-seekers, so you won’t notice that the people actually robbing you of your well-being are radical right extremists telling you to fear wokeness and asylum-seekers. Ron DeSantis and Rupert Murdoch know wokeness is a made-up nothingburger, they’re lying to control and manipulate insecure white people to gain power. And the Russian elite know NATO is not an existential threat; they are lying to control and manipulate the Russian people for their own personal gain. That people have fallen for the bullshit is notable, but it doesn’t make the bullshit real.
Lastly, I don’t know why this “simple” strawman keeps popping up. I dont think I said any of this is “a simple case” or simple in any way.
@drj:
It was rather amazing, and frightening, to Putin let the mask slip and let the real reasons he wants to swallow Ukraine.
Maybe a bit more amazing that even after that people are still falling for his NATO canards.
@drj:
To hear Andy describe it, you would think that the US was pushing the Ukraine into joining NATO. But the Ukraine wanted to join NATO in 2004. This has always been what the war is about. The Ukraine rejected Putin and he (and his toadies around the world) understand rejection only as conspiracy against them. That’s why he has sounded so dumb and crazy the last ten years or so. His brain is running the script of every defeated man out there.
@Modulo Myself:
It’s “Ukraine” not “the Ukraine.” Ukrainians get very bent out of shape over “the Ukraine” because that usage implies, as they see it, that Ukraine is merely a part of Russia.
@dazedandconfused:
Vlad’s face isn’t worth saving.
The “peace with honor” might have been a delaying move. No one wanted to be the first person to preside over America’s first loss in a war.
https://warontherocks.com/2023/01/the-triumphs-and-tribulations-of-peter-the-great-what-putins-view-of-18th-century-warfare-can-tell-us-about-ukraine/
Too much good stuff in this to excerpt, makes Putin’s thinking more understandable.
What is the cash value of eliminating Russia as a global threat? Because that’s what we’re doing. We are choking Russia out. What is the cash value of strengthening NATO, uniting Europe, and severely degrading a dangerous competitor? And perhaps deterring China in the bargain?
66 billion? Absolutely. 660 billion? I don’t know the number. What I do know is that we have destroyed the Russian arms industry, humiliated the Russian military and government, retarded their economic and technological development by years, maybe decades, and strengthened our hand immeasurably. And we have lost exactly zero American lives.
@DK: “Putin knows that once the Russian people see the Ukrainian people — their kin and Slavic brothers — thriving right next door under a relative amount freedom and democracy, then Russia will be asking “Why can’t we have that?””
1,00o times this.
@Kathy: It is if if ends the war.
What no one is addressing is what is next for Ukraine after the war ends, whether next week or next year. The answer is continuing death, though not from war. Fact is, the Ukrainians are literally dying out. Their birth rate in pre-war 2020 was 1.22 births per woman, one of the lowest in the world, much less than the 2.1 needed just to keep the population level. And the rate plummeted afterward. In 2022 it was 1.437 births per woman. There are 36.7 million Ukrainians. Half are more than 41 years old, meaning that the birth rate will never go up by any significant amount, if at all. (So much for a post-war baby boom – sorry, it will not happen.)
Ukraine has no future whether in war or peace. In 2021, a year before this war, Ukraine’s death rate was 16.8 per 1,000 people. Its birth rate per 1,000 people was 9.013. That was a population drop of 286,200 per year before the war began. That level of deaths compared to births results in almost a 15% population decline in just 20 years – but the difference between deaths and births will increase every year because of the aging population, so the drop will actually be much more than 15 percent.
Without question this war must be brought to an end if only for the sake of the people suffering from it now. But not for the sake of Ukraine’s future generations, because Ukraine has basically given up producing them.
These data types are one reason I wrote in 2008 that the United States should disengage from NATO, whose Euro countries’ birth rates are also very low. After all, if they will not have enough children to preserve their countries, why should Americans bear children to defend their countries? (That the US’s birth rate is a mere 1.7 gives greater emphasis to the question.)
Europe is not simply millions of square miles of terrain. Our affiliation with Europe, and the reason our military twice shed so much blood on Europe’s soil, was not simply to defend dirt. It was to defend and preserve a cultural heritage the was the wellspring of human flourishing of the modern era. That the Europeans themselves sometimes seemed hellbent on killing one another in carload lots did not negate the fundamental virtues of the Western heritage of faith and reason.
I think the United States should reassess whether the NATO alliance really is serving American interests. I don’t think it is, and I don’t think it will do better in years to come.
@drj:
and
@DK:
I have a busy work schedule today so don’t have time to go point-by-point. And I think it might be more useful to step back and look at the big picture.
The fundamental question that I think is at the center of this debate is: What factors inform and motivate Russian geostrategic behavior?
The disconnect, in my view (and correct me if I’m wrong) is that you both are focused on Putin and what motivates him. And from my perspective, I think you both – and others – tend to ignore or hand-wave away other factors.
The problem is, you don’t really know Putin’s motivations. The theory that he is “afraid of democracy” or that he invaded Ukraine because, deep in his mind, he doesn’t want his people to see a successful, democratic Ukraine, relies on – at best- questionable assumptions about how Putin and the Russian elite think. And, conveniently, such theories are neither provable nor disprovable because, again, they rely on assessments of what we imagine Putin is thinking.
On one level, it’s fine to speculate and look at the tea leaves to determine Putin’s (or any leader’s) characteristics, priorities, etc. But that can’t replace and is really secondary to more fundamental facts on the ground, facts of history, and geostrategic realities that are bigger factors have a lot of factual evidence that explains Russia’s behavior, Russia’s worldview, Russia’s strategic concerns, and Russia’s role in the world, both as seen from the west and seen through Russian eyes. Guessing about motivations doesn’t.
And this is where things like NATO expansion, Russian interests, Russian history,the history of US-Russian relations and many other factors come into play. Hand-waving those away in favor of moralistic theories of behavior that rely on reading Putin’s mind is, in my view, a mistake.
And there are lots of historical examples of this mistake. Remember that Iraq was a country yearning to be free and would be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East once Saddam was gone. The realities of Iraq as a country and Iraq as a society were ignored in favor of this moralistic theory that Saddam was the bad man at the root of all Iraqi problems.
Then when the insurgency kicked off and Iran supported various militias it was not because of geostrategic calculations, it was because Iran feared that beacon of democracy and worked to stop it. It was the same kind of “fear of democracy” claim that is at the root of most claims about Putin. And while there is some truth to the fact that Iran and many others are hostile to western-style secular democracy, the idea that their motivations begin and end there is simply wrong.
Back to Iraq, one of the major reasons the IC got assessments of Iraqi WMD intentions wrong for so long was because of bad assumptions about Saddam’s motivations and intentions which was the lens that most all other information was filtered through. For example, when Saddam unilaterally destroyed his weapon stockpiles, but secretly in a way that couldn’t be verified as required by the ceasefire, the obviously conclusion by many (including me at the time) was that Saddam intended to keep some weapons. Few could think of an alternative explanation and that bad and ill-informed assumption about Saddam’s inner motivations was one of the major factors that led to our invasion.
It wasn’t until the war was nigh that analysts started questioning that assumption. And after the war, we discovered Saddam did that intentionally. His strategy was to deny inspectors any evidence of WMD to deny any justification for regime change while, at the same time, leaving enough doubt and ambiguity that he might still have some. Why do that? Well, he was worried about Iran and Israel. He feared that they might attack Iraq given its weakness from sanctions, the no-fly/drive zones, etc. and wanted to leave some ambiguity about whether Iraq had WMD as a deterrent. In other words, he was considering the geostrategic realities that he faced and took a calculated risk, assuming that the US would never attack with no hard evidence of WMD. That was obviously a miscalculation on his part.
It’s a similar thing to what people said about Al Qaeda and why they attacked US facilities in the 1990’s and then on 9/11 and after. You probably remember the arguments and explanations that rested on emotion, moralizing, and psychology – they hate us because of our freedoms, they hate democracy and they hate our values. If you suggested that US Middle East policy might be a relevant factor you were quickly denounced as an apologist.
There are lots of other examples.
In my view, the same pattern is repeated with Russia and Putin. Any suggestion that Russian geostrategic interests, or Russia’s view of western and particularly US behavior is a factor in actions they take is dismissed or denounced. It’s as if Russia seemingly has no national interests at all beyond the ones we think they ought to have, and any interests which don’t agree with ours are similarly dismissed as illegitimate or fake. So when Russia acts in ways that are contrary to this chauvinistic view of their interests (or what we think they ought to be), then the conclusion isn’t a reassessment of all the relevant factors, it’s to jump to the conclusion that Putin must be motivated somehow, and then the mind-reading begins.
So to conclude, in my view, the evidence is overwhelming that geostrategic factors are the dominant ones that inform of us Russian behavior and that Putin is not some kind of outlier with delusions of grandeur. This a big reason why realists and those of us who understand Russia well, have been predicting this kind of conflict for a long time – our analysis wasn’t contigent on Putin’s psychology, and the greats, like Kennan, identified this before anyone knew who Putin was.
By contrast, the FP moralists were unable to see this coming until near the end, and then wrongly concluded that the only explanation is found through a pseudo-Freudian analysis of Putin’s supposed motivations and fears.
The reality has proven to be – and will continue to be – much different. If Putin is replaced, there’s a very good chance that the replacement will be even more authoritarian and more committed to the war. The Russian people and elite do not want to give up Crimea and will fight to keep it. Russia has a long history with the Donbas and similarly, the Russian people and elite will want to fight to keep it. Those things, and many others, are fundamental to Russia as a country, not Putin. Russia still believes is it a great power and will act accordingly, with or without Putin. Russia has historical interests that predate Putin and will still exist after he’s gone. These are things that can’t be ignored if one wants to really understand what’s going on with Russia. Brushing these away in favor of a chauvinistic, moralist analytic lens that relies on unfalsifiable “assessments” of the supposed inner motivations of Russian leaders is a mistake and a cognitive fallacy, albeit one that we Americans consistently make.
@Andy:
And neither do you, homie.
You seem to think your conclusions are devoid of assumptions, and that your assertions about “Russians,” the “Russian elite,” “Russian society,” and Russian interests are prima facie true, devoid of any moral stance, and devoid of emotion. None of which is true.
None of us really knows what motivates any person, because none of us are mind readers. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone can predict the future. All of us are making assumptions and our best guesses, based on what we observe, what we believe to be true, filtered through our ethics and ideology. And that includes you. You are not an unbiased observer, no matter how much you may think you are.
You don’t know what all of the Russian society or the so-called Russian elite think. You don’t know what all the Russian people will do in the future. Your assumptions about these things are not inherently and automatically more right than anyone else’s just because you love to pat yourself on the back as the biggest realist in the room, while condescendingly dismissing observations and evidence that don’t fit your preferred narrative as chauvinistic, emotional, and moralistic.
You and people who think like you are not the only ones who have predicted for years that Putin would escalate his wars aimed at the heart of Europe. I’m notorious in my friend group for having warned about this for all of my adult life, with the date-stamped social media posts to prove it. One reason is because I have many friends in the Russian diaspora. Russian interests and the Russian people are more complex and varied than you seem to think.
By contrast, the “Blame NATO” refiexive contrarions — led by folks like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Joe Rogan — insisted last January that Putin would not escalate to attacking Kyiv, wrongly dismissing us who saw it coming as chauvinists. They were so embarrassingly wrong because rather than start with facts and then filtering those through reality-based critical thinking + their ethics/ideololgy, they work backwards from being blindly, refiexively skeptical.
Not all Russian people think the same or agree with you. So in my view it is a mistake to speak of “the Russian people” and “the Russian elite” as if they all they have the same interests. Let alone to definitely declare what they “will do.”
Things like Russian history and NATO expansion do come into play. But you can’t just cherry pick the facts about those to push an oversimplistic, revisionist narrative claiming that NATO expanded with no consultation or diplomacy with Russia in defiance of some shared, unified, consistent, unchanged 30-year consensus among “the Russian people” and “the Russian elite.” That is just not what happened. You cannot hand wave away and ignore that Russia was warmongering and imperialistic long before NATO ever existed.
Similarly, it may serve a preferred narrative to hand-wave away Putin’s known anti-democratic actions to dismiss a rational observation about the implications of those actions as moralistic and psuedo-Freudian, but people do the things they do for a reason. Liars lie for a reason. Killers kill for a reason. Those behaviors say something about a person’s person’s motivations and character, and there’s nothing “ill-informed” about taking a moral stance on those such behaviors. Morals are a good thing. So I completely reject the use of “moralistic” as a pejorative.
I think it is silly to be dispassionate about about Putin killing and jailing political opponents or to not take a moral stance on Putin jailing protesters, blocking the internet, and shutting down independent media.
And I think it is stunningly naive to take at face value the supposed popularity of an autocrat who feels the need to do these things, to think conclusions cannot be drawn about why he is going to such lengths. It is perfectly reasonable to conclude that a government that feels the need to control its people in such way is scared of those people having freedom of thought, freedom of information, and viable democratic alternatives.
Yes, it does beg the question: if Putin is so unanimously popular, if the Russian people are in such agreement with him, if he is not scared that given access to free thought free information and alternatives to his rule they might choose those alternatives, then what are Russian leaders so scared of? Why is protest such a threat to Putin? Why is an open internet such a threat to the Russian elite? Why are they so hellbent on disallowing more free, democratic elections?
Anyone who does not want to talk about the implications of the answers to these questions should not condescend to others about Russian people, Russian interests, and the Russian society. I don’t claim to know how all Russians think, but I know enough Russians to know better than to take at face value Putin’s popularity and or idea that all Russians share the interests of the Russian elite. And based on the Russian government’s actions against their own people, they know too. Putin is a proven and well-known manipulator and liar. I know better than to believe a manipulative liar.
Russia is not Iraq, and Russia is not Iran. This crisis has its own contours, contexts and complexities. Those differences should not be dismissed and hand-waved away.
P.S. Just because the US government was wrong about the Iraq War — which I and many Americans publicly opposed in the run-up and during (without being tossed in jail for protesting) — does not mean that every US government from now until the end of time is always automatically and forever wrong.
Skepticism is useful, but it is not the only thing. Situations should be weighed on their own merits and demerits.
@Donald Sensing:
That phrase is nonsense. The western heritage of reason came at the expense of faith. The two are incompatible. And I’m sorry, but all the slaughter carried out by people of faith and reason absolutely calls their beliefs into question.
@DK:
Never said I was an unbiased observer, nor have I ever claimed to be. Presenting my views and challenging yours is not making a claim that I’m unbiased.
Similarly, I have never claimed my conclusions are devoid of assumptions. Presenting my views and challenging yours is not making a claim that my arguments are devoid of assumptions. And considering that you haven’t made your assumptions any less clear than mine, I could turn around and simply dismiss your points as you have done mine.
And again, similarly, in my arguments about Russians, the Russian Elite, and society, I’m not asserting that my views on these topics are prima facie true.
Sensing a pattern here?
Finally, we get somewhere:
But hey, at least you now admit that it isn’t all about Putin. Progress.
As for the rest, I’m not cherry-picking facts. If the narrative appears overly simplistic to you then that might be because I’m trying to condense a lot into blog comment, and my comments are already often essay-length. I’m sorry I can’t provide you with a list of every piece of evidence for my arguments. But then, you don’t do that either.
As for the “narrative,” it isn’t revisionist considering what I’m saying now is what I and others have said or were saying at the time. And you are putting words in my mouth (again) when you suggest that I’m claiming NATO expanded with no consultation or diplomacy. If you reread the threads here you will find I never said that, so this is yet another claim you’ve made about me with no basis in fact.
Taibbi actually has Russia expertise and experience, the others don’t. Taibbi lived and worked in both the USSR and Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. You may not like him and you may not agree with him but he’s someone who actually knows what he’s talking about.
Well, that’s a much more nuanced take than what you previously wrote:
I generally agree with your more nuanced second take, and not your first unequivocal one with the GWB “beacon of democracy” vibes.
Who said I didn’t want to talk about the implications? Disagreeing with your take is – in fact – talking about the implications! It would be interesting to actually discuss more deeply but frankly, it’s hard to work through the strawmen and constantly having to point out when you put words in my mouth. In other other words, it’s hard to talk about such things if one isn’t going to take my arguments in good faith.
Putin’s popularity has been well-established with reliable polling over a long period of time. I am not taking it at face value. I haven’t seen recent data since the war started, but I would guess it’s probably much diminished.
Secondly, obviously, not ALL Russians share the interests of the Russian elite. Again, something I’ve never said and also why I typically put them in separate categories. But if you want to get nat’s ass about it, the demographic and political breakdowns go much further and there is a lot of open-source information available on that.
Never said they were the same. I didn’t dismiss the differences, I highlighted the similarities.
Again, I never said the US is always wrong. You have this bad habit of putting words in my mouth and it is very annoying.
I would just point out that I do not do that to you, and it would be nice if you would reciprocate.
On that, we are in agreement and that is exactly the reason why I challenge some of the assertions you and others make in these threads. And I welcome challenges in return, as long as they consist of putting words in my mouth.
Anyway, that’s going to be it from me in this thread – feel free to have the last word.
@Andy:
I’m guessing my assumptions are pretty clear to most here. For example, I’ve repeatedly said that Putin is a known liar. So I assume that what he says publicly about Russia’s motivations and interests are not true.
I assume that someone who is nakedly hostile to democratic-style freedoms — demonstrated by him jailing protestors, jailing and killing political oppenents, blocking the internet and free press etc — and is getting worse is very clearly frightened of freedom and democracy and the potential consequences to his power of allowing the Russian people access to more information and alternative options.
So what I actually did was criticize Putin and his enablers, and I pointed out Russia’s bloody and imperialistic warmongering predates Putin by hundreds of years. It would be progress if you would stop cherry-picking, both from my statements and from history, including the history of NATO engagement and dialogue with Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Medvedev, and even Putin himself.
But Putin has been Russia’s dictator now for multiple decades, so yes, the buck does stop at his desk. He’s an autocrat. He has earned our focus.
And yet he spent the months leading up to to last year’s esclatory attack insisting Putin would not act and virulently trashing anyone who said otherwise. He was spectacularly, arrogantly wrong. So color me unimpressed by an appeal to Taibbi’s credentials.
I stand by both statements. I don’t think they contradict each other in any way. Your discomfort with my strong moral posture against Putin’s vile and evil acts is not my problem. Morals are good.
And why do you deserve any more than what you put out?
Polling of Americans in our relatively free society is often unreliable. “Reliable” is not the word to describe polling of an oppressed, repressed, propagandized, paranoid people that have spent years watching the dictator being polled murder political opponents.
You are lacking in self-awareness here, sir. Because I never said it was “all about Putin,” my observations are not just moralistic chauvanism, and I never “dismissed and waved away” other factors.
It would be nice if you would either practice what you preach or just assert your counteropinions without playing the victim, because whining about rhetoricisms that you yourself engage in is very odd.
@Andy: And this is where things like NATO expansion, Russian interests, Russian history,the history of US-Russian relations and many other factors come into play.
You make a number of important points.
This map of the Great European Plain helps explain the long history of Russian views towards the west. Russia has been repeatedly invaded from the West, most recently by the French in the 19th century and twice by the Germans in the 20th century. If Russia holds Ukraine and perhaps Poland, they can bottle up invaders by defending a relatively small front. If they lose Ukraine, then they have a vast, undefendable front. It also explains why Eastern Slavs developed together and somewhat separate from the West.
None of this justifies Putin’s aggression or mitigates its folly.