Grab Bag on Ukraine
Things I wish I had written:
Peter Beinart has an absolutely indispensable article on the generation gap between the old school of foreign policy expertise grounded in pragmatism and the current slate of Biden advisors whose frame of reference is . . . something else.
Why now?
Given the current state of internal division in the country it should probably be no surprise that political partisans have taken the opportunity afforded by the invasion to attack their opponents on the opposite side of the political aisle. Key to this debate is the question as to why Putin has chosen to attack now with Biden in office as compared to Trump. Robert Reich in The Guardian points out that the type of sanctions that would actually inflict pain on Russia (namely oil and gas) would probably also cause a lot of suffering for ordinary consumers in the United States and Europe who are suffering through some of the worst inflation in decades. Maybe the issue isn’t so much who is in office as much as it is that inflation has made the West economically vulnerable and constrained the range of possible sanctions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/24/russia-putin-invasion-ukraine-robert-reich
The hound that chases two rabbits
The attacks on 9/11 were twenty years ago, long enough for many of the people alive today to forget most of the details. Now of course George W. Bush is most famous (or infamous) for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when he was first elected it was widely presumed that his focus would be on domestic affairs since the Big Idea that powered his campaign was “compassionate conservatism”. The universe of course has an unrivaled ability to lay waste to humanity’s expectations and Bush would spend the two terms of his presidency focused on foreign policy to the detriment of his ability to enact domestic reforms.
Now Joe Biden finds himself confronted with a foreign policy disaster that’s been years in the making, one of potentially enormous dimensions.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union Ukraine had the third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons on the planet. It was only persuaded to surrender those weapons by multilateral agreements with the US, UK and Russia that its borders would be respected. It was widely assumed that the United States would play the role of guarantor of those agreements. Is there any chance that the Ukrainians are regretting their decision to surrender their nuclear arms?
After World War II the great powers engaged in warfare by proxy in places like Korea or Afghanistan but refrained from direct conflict with each other. The invasion of Ukraine has brought war back to the European continent and put Russian troops in direct proximity to NATO forces in neighboring countries like Lithuania and Poland. Even worse it is resurrecting a geopolitical world where larger countries can gobble up smaller ones by armed force.
Russia and China are traditional regional rivals but they appear to have agreed to set aside their differences under the philosophy that the enemy of the United States is their friend. A partnership between the two is dire enough but China has also noticed that the precedent established by the invasion of Ukraine may be applicable to Taiwan.
The danger isn’t that the crisis overseas derails Biden’s domestic agenda. The danger is that he gives it short shrift in favor of concentrating on a domestic agenda that is largely dead anyway.
The Trumpian perspective
Getting back to that internal divisions thing:
"I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful."
"They say, 'Trump said Putin's smart.' I mean, he's taking over a country for two dollars' worth of sanctions. I'd say that's pretty smart. He's taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in."
Again, 9/11 may provide a valuable lesson. In the aftermath of the attacks comedian and talk show host Bill Maher got himself into hot water with his “praise” of the hijackers. His quote:
"We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."
Maher was predictably castigated and driven from public life for a short period. But does the criticism really make sense? If the argument is that “praising” the enemy as brave is traitorous then the clear implication is that they are cowards. What happens to the first infantry unit in when the enemy doesn’t cut and run as expected? If Putin isn’t smart then does that mean he’s a moron? Does anybody want to play global chess with him under the assumption that since he’s incompetent any strategy, no matter how questionable, is okay because Putin is so dumb that he will inevitably screw up?
Trump’s political opponents refuse to acknowledge that he may have any capabilities whatsoever but it has always appeared to me that he has an instinctive genius for understanding how celebrity works along with its associated fields of PR and spin. If he had never gotten into real estate he could have made his mark in the world of advertising and branding. Why shouldn’t he recognize that Putin is himself a fellow operator? The worst thing you can do with your enemy is underestimate him.
And if you extend the Trumpian perspective what are the ramifications for Ukraine?
Right now the story of the hour is that the Russians seem to be making less progress than expected, that they are bogging down. A large part of that is an apparent reluctance to inflict large numbers of civilian casualties. But Putin is committed now. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous outcome for Russia than attempting to invade Ukraine and being repelled.
It’s been widely reported that Putin views the West as effete and ineffectual. And maybe he should. He has sent assassins onto English soil time and again to execute political opponents. What was the response of Theresa May’s government to the most recent incursion, the attempted poisoning of Sergei Skripal? Is it perhaps feasible that the lack of any serious response would only send the message that the Russians could get away with anything that they wanted?
Effete and ineffectual—how about permanently distracted and fundamentally unserious? The attention of the world is on Ukraine now. But how about in two weeks? Inevitably the invasion will lose its novelty and will fade from the headlines. Somebody with a knack for PR and spin might understand that. Just like in Syria, where atrocities lost their sting merely through repetition. And just like in Chechnya where the world initially protested but finally stood by and did nothing as city after city was ground down to dust and gore. Aleppo, Grozny, what lesson could you derive from those abattoirs if you were Putin? That you only have to wait long enough, a few weeks perhaps, and then the horror can start.