The problem (as usual) is that history didn't start in 2022 or 2014, either. The entire issue is complex and rooted in issues that we as Americans don't even understand. This is why I continue to believe that we shouldn't play any role whatsoever in the region. Ukraine will always be more important to Russia than to us just like Cuba will always be more important to us than to Russia.
Not our circus, not our monkeys. Stop sending taxpayer money to get blown up in unwinnable conflicts halfway across the world.
German tanks rolling towards Moscow has me a little um.. nervous.
The reason my ancestors fled Europe to the 'New World', have become more clear to me lately. President Zs act is starting to wear a little thin. I have no horse in the race.
'Give Peace a Chance' Some English dude said once or was it a New Yorker?
Alas, the poor Germans. They should never have let the icy tongue of the hyperpresbyterian global capitalist Wilson get to their tender parts. Well, the Russians have been in Paris before, haven't they?
Nah, I'm pretty sure we know the way that German 'change' will turn out. It's in the DNA. Or as one German poster put it, 'Just to be clear, asking as a German, you want the German army rebuilt so it can cross Poland to fight Russia?'
The Democrats long ago deserted the liberals. Shit, even the top Democrat in 2014, President Half-Black Jesus, said Ukraine has not been, is not currently, and will never be in the strategic interest of the United States. He, and they, have totally abandoned their own words.
Lawyers — Trump certainly shouldn’t take foreign policy advice from someone as inept as Barack Obama, as his foreign policy was more successful than Obama’s. In general Democrats have a disastrous record on foreign policy since 1945: China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.
Preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine is very much in the strategic interest of the United States. 1. If “might makes right”, i.e., aggression is rewarded, there will be more aggression worldwide (see: Baltics, Taiwan). 2. If less powerful countries can’t rely on the US for security, their obvious alternative is nuclear weapons.
It appears you're suggesting that Trump continue to flush money in an unwinnable war, which Biden was already doing.
Man, do you really want to be Team America--World Police?? Despite Dick Cheney's best efforts, the neocons lost the last election. Americans do not want this crap.
And who are you responding to with "If 'might makes right,' i.e., aggression is rewarded..." I didn't see a commenter above promote that concept.
When did we win the last war? I think our history with Afghanistan should be teaching us something. Personally, I think we are being taken for a ride. Thanks for all your cash yanks..
Lawyers — Even with Ukraine as undersupplied as it is (was it 10 to 1 in artillery shells?), and even with Russia bringing in “Hessians” (expendable North Koreans), the Russians can do no more than inch forward at an enormous cost in Russian lives (or minorities drafted to do the dying in their place). It’s likely that, right now, the Ukrainian Army is, man for man, woman for woman, the best in the world.
So I think the argument for your hypothesis, that the war is “unwinnable” by the West, is rather weak.
I hope the U.S. is not yet so decadent that, forget about sending troops, it can’t even send munitions.
1. You are the only person in America who thinks this war is winnable without nuclear weapons. Even with nukes, when everyone loses, it's not winnable for anything Ukraine would want left. I'm assuming you're in America; if not, you're still a tiny, tiny minority wherever you are. If you're here, great, you have free speech, and we will all fight for your right to believe little Ukraine can beat Russia. Had the election gone the other way, free speech would have continued to be on the endangered species list.
This is not USSR in Afghanistan or USA in Vietnam, wars won by insurgents. The Russians don't have to worry about civilians and rules of engagement. If it's a weak argument, you as the only person on the other side of the argument should have a much easier time than just saying the Ukrainians are really good, scrappy fighters. (Which is a weak argument.)
2. Not a question of decadence. It's a question of why are we expending vast treasures for Ukraine, where we do not have a strategic interest, vs. in our own nation. It's also a bigger question of whether the US will continue to lead the empire building and defending. It appears the new President does not have that in mind. It appears, however, that the Germans are ready to step up for Forever War!
3. Bully for Ukraine's army. Even Mugsy Bogues could probably hit a shot or two if playing Victor Wembanyana. But we all know (except you, it appears) who wins that game of one-on-one.
4. The US government and military lied their asses off for years about Vietnam. Bush and Cheney and Petraeus lied their asses off for years about Iraq. Bush and Obama and too many generals lied their asses off for years about Afghanistan. Biden and Milley and others lied their asses off for years about Ukraine.
5. The US media failed its obligations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine. At least there were some brave journalists trying to find truth in Vietnam.
6. Forever War doesn't change, only the battlefield does. If you really want more Forever War, funded by the American taxpayers, I take it you're on the RESISTANCE!! team when it comes to the President. Because that guy won the election, free speech survives a while longer. Enjoy it, and thank the guy you hate for making it so.
Might does make right, and aggression is rewarded. We are thriving examples of it, having subverted the UN multiple times to impose our will on various parts of the world and pitch our tents.
If people can't relay on the U.S. not to topple their governments, the obvious alternative is nuclear weapons.
Gadaffi was clearly a fool for giving up on his nuclear program, when we helped topple and kill him anyway. I see few complaining about the terrible example that was set there.
yah this post is the exact madness thinking that got america stuck in yet another vietnam quagmire with no end in sight. No its not the US job to knock off dictators worldwide to maintain peace. sorry to notify you but no nation on earth can run the whole thing. Every empire that tried fell apart.
But that is exactly what the one world order plans. Who is to say that the one org at the pinnacle of the world order will not reward its benefactors with regional empires?
Mark — “subverted the UN multiple times to impose our will” — Um, like when we successfully defended South Korea? A rare example, given that the Evil Empire has had a UN veto since the beginning. Or are you thinking of something else.
No question, we want to encourage dictators to give up WMDs, not punish them if they do. Hilariously, some people insisted it was merely a coincidence, that Gaddafi gave up his WMDs two weeks after we captured Saddam Hussein. “20 years of negotiations,” they insisted.
Similarly it was bad policy to go after Pinochet after he resigned: we want to encourage dictators to resign, not scare them into holding on to the death.
In a world of perfect justice, of course, all dictators would be overthrown and prosecuted. In our world, practical considerations often intervene.
Unless their Russian minorities are stupidly threatened or someone decides to menace Kaliningrad, the Russians don't have much to gain by attacking the Baltics - Putin has no need for resources or lebensraum.
Mind you I have come across people who think he's a villain full of nostalgic determination to recreate the Russian Empire, and it's time for Europe to blow a trillion euros they don't have on American weapons that don't work.
Adrian — Actually, the American anti-tank weapons Trump let the Ukrainians have — after Obama refused — were what broke the back of the Russian blitzkrieg that started the war.
The reason we won the Cold War in the first place was mostly because our military-industrial complex was better than their military-industrial complex, and they knew it. (If we can send rockets 240,000 miles to the Moon, we can send rockets 5,000 miles to Moscow.)
Putin constantly waxes nostalgic for the greatness of the Soviet Union and has already partially succeeded in recreating it. One of the things that makes Ukraine’s survival so astonishing is that it was nearly surrounded, attacked not just from Russia in the east, but Belarus in the north and Crimea in the south.
yeah, whatever, it's well known the russians went in lamentably underprepared, but now it's much more about fpv drones, which are also the main reason the russian advance is taking so long, the days of big arrows are over
afaict putin is mainly interested in making sure ethnic russians don't have to live under banderite rule, i have no doubt you're convinced he's jonesing to occupy the baltics and then attack poland for no reason other than old times' sake but we're gonna have to agree to differ there
Nope. Bush gave the same idiot song and dance about free former Russian states NATI protection. Clinton and Bush 2 did more to undermine peace in the Balkans, the Caucuses, Ukraine and Russia than any other Presidents by a country mile. They were all high on nation building and NATO was the instrument. Nor did either assist Russia in transforming from a control economy to a free market who quickly devolved into an oligarch state in Russia.
Because, all my Liberal #Resistance friends would tell you, if we don't stop Putin in Ukraine, he'll take Poland next, and then, the next thing you know, he'll be in our backyard (actually, California's newly elected junior senator Adam Schiff of Russiagate explicitly during Trump's first impeachment trial.
I agree fully with your sensibility, but there are many serious people with deep military, diplomatic, and intelligence backgrounds who do understand and have spoken out, often via podcasts and writing. And it would have never happened if they'd been in charge.
Instead, the zeitgeist of the times marginalized their views and elevated/empowered the view to break up a "weak Russia" with sanctions and proxy war, for a big payday.
Well. Somebody was wrong. Evidently. You're right the Americans who championed this fiasco didn't understand what the hell they were doing.
I don't think this post meets standards I'd expect from Racket. It leaves too much history out (Donbass 2014 - 2022, Minsk, etc. as others note below), doesn't convey depth or context, and deflects too much to polemicists. Maybe Racket is already spread thin, and this fell through the crack. But it only degrades the brand.
Mearshimer was right. As were many others who warned of this folly. And he's not "hated" by the millions of readers and Youtube viewers who follow and appreciate his work. Maybe a few hundred people "hate" him, and only because he embarrased their schemes with cogent arguments. (I realize that was only a quote, but quoting an idiot isn't flattering, even to the idiot, and certainly not to the writer).
And it's not a matter of taking sides -- I agree with you. Pull the plug. Never should have happened. I could go on . . . but who cares. It's only the comment section and we've all got an opinion with no editor in sight to stop us! hahahaha
Agreed. I would have added ‘and many Americans’ to the sentence below.
“These dynamics accelerated after the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan events of 2013-2014, which Russians still see as a West-backed coup and the beginning of the current war.
The Russians ( and Tucker Carlson) might say their view of Maidan “justifies” everything that has happened since 2014, but that is like saying a schizophrenic’s “view” of things, justifies whatever bad behavior on the subway out of it. I don’t dispute Russia’s “view”, I dispute using that “view” as justification for unacceptable behavior.
The US has destroyed one Middle Eastern country after another through our psychopathic "soft power projection." As we speak, Syrians are being murdered en masse. Are you really going to claim that just because the US isn't performing full scale invasions that the results aren't just as devastating to the local populations, and that a military response to prevent it isn't justified?
The ME Muslims need to cure themselves of their own psychopathic tendencies when it comes to inter-faith ecumenism. They reap what they sow. We should stay the hell out, but support Israel cleaning house, imo.
It’s a splitting hair’s difference, imo, much like there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans, but ultimately both are bought and paid for. Was there a difference between our invasion of Iraq and the CIA-engineered coups in Indonesia or Chile? Sure, but in each instance we wrecked a country, regardless of method.
The Professional Managerial Class isn’t good at war against nations who have enough muscle to push back.
They looked at the economic numbers and thought Russia had no chance, while completely ignoring all the armaments factories that Russia had churning out artillery and munitions in preparation for war.
Turns out that when fighting over territory, having a bunch of firepower was more relevant than a bunch of zeroes and ones on a digital ledger.
The neoliberals and neocons are hand in hand responsible for this war. They want the mineral wealth and oil and gas under the Donbas and Crimea.
They also believe their own propaganda, eg, Russia’s economy is smaller than Portugal’s and similar statements. I never realized the smoke blown in our eyes about Russia until I lived there 5 years. So I think getting a less distorted view of Russia will be difficult here; that’s an opportunity that most will miss.
I lived in Moscow, but I visited St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Kazan, and a few others.
While there is an element of decay in the smaller cities, and villages are kind of depressing, it’s not any worse than rundown areas of the U.K., U.S., France etc.
Moscow, in particular, is a really great place to live because it’s vibrant and alive….and they don’t even need a bunch of feral youth or homeless lunatics accosting people on the metro to achieve it.
Russians are fun people, and they’re not as arrogant as the Germans and northern Europeans can be. They’re less inclined to talk down to an American than northern Europeans or Brits are.
They’re proud Russians love music, art, literature, etc. You see more people reading on the Moscow metro than you ever would see on the NYC subway.
Policing is a big thing. As much as we may shy away from the idea of a heavy police presence being a bad thing, it’s a good thing for public order to have rapid response and deterrence in crowded common spaces. The Moscow metro, for example, has cops at all the big stations, and they’re never far from the smaller stations until you start getting to the end of the lines. The end result is that people tend to behave themselves because they’re never far don’t want a couple of cops waiting for them at the next stop.
Basically, Russia still feels alive when so much of Europe feels lifeless when you travel there.
I commend Matt's attempts here to broaden our necessary knowldge on subjects such as this one reharding this idiotic proxy war but, like crazyman, way too muchhistoryn, nuance, and context is missing. I just hope more of Matt's fan base will ask for more and those who don't should dig much deeper. Having the curiosity and talent stack to do so may make Matt's attempts with his new approach worthwhile.
I think you do a disservice to Matt's audience. If we're here, we have already shown a grasp of the complexities in so many areas that Matt's brings up.
We're intelligent, curious adults who don't eat the dog food served up by politicians or spooks or corporate media.
Matt's not our leader.
He's a very, very talented scribe.
And i mean that in the best possible sense; a real journalist.
IIRCC, Matt has gone over the complex background in other posts, which you are welcome to look up, though it may have been someone else, but I am quite sure it was on SubStack, as that is the source of any wisdom that I have on .
Thanks, I until now have been unfamiliar with him. I have to be careful how many stacks I sign up for, I have more to my life than SubStacks,though I can get lost in them. I don’t waste time with MSM, as I have learned not to trust them .
As usual, indeed. Once WW2 was over, we had to immediately fight our Allies. Once the Wall came down, time for NATO to 'grow', while simultaneously fight Terror, however it was defined at any given moment. And now? Back to fighting a Nation with a redwhiteandblue flag, just like us. Smfh
Reminds me a lot of how some states shut down the war on weed and immediately launched a war on 'human trafficking' -- which in reality meant going undercover into massage parlors and getting handjobs, then arresting the person supposedly being human trafficked and charging them with prostitution.
As Elizabeth Nolan Brown would document over the next 10 years, The “War on Sex Trafficking” focused primarily on Asian women and became nothing more than an excuse for vice cops to rape asian sex workers during year long “under cover stings" at tax payer expense and pull in a fortune in civil asset forfeiture in the bargain.
One of thousands of cases around the country over the past 20 years:
Finally, I find someone else who questions this whole human trafficking thing. We already have strict laws against kidnapping, rape, assault, battery, fraud, and prostitution, which more than covers the situation. What does trafficking add? Probably to just make up a new federal crime that requires an interstate commerce element, like the Mann Act.
They want a fight and we do not. They thought that if they called-out "CHICKEN" that we would do a Marty McFly but we do not need to let that one play-out and lose our children and grandchildren.
SimulationCommander — We broke it, so it’s ours. It’s way too late to say “we shouldn't play any role whatsoever in the region.”
On the breakup of the Soviet Union, both newly independent countries, Ukraine and Russia, inherited nuclear deterrents. Except for some reason we (i.e., the Clinton Administration) decided that “peace-loving, benevolent” Russia should keep its nuclear weapons — while Ukraine should be forced to hand over its weapons, to the aforementioned “peace-loving, benevolent” Russia.
In return for unilateral disarmament, Ukraine was promised by the U.S. and Russia that its borders would be respected. In retrospect, it sounds laughable but, to its credit, Russia actually kept its promise, until Putin seized power and began his quest to reestablish his beloved Soviet Reich.
It wasn't just "some reason". Russia had command/control of those nuclear weapons in Moscow.
In order to be acknowledged as an independent nation by Russia in the first place, they signaled they wouldn't pursue independent nuclear capabilities, and would work things out with Moscow regarding the legacy arsenal. This was part of the Belavezha Accords:
Ukraine knew there was a danger that if they tried to keep their weapons that Russia would attempt to secure them immediately, knowing who they were being kept to potentially use against.
Nuclear weapons are also extremely expensive to manage and maintain, and Kyiv had no history of this. The prospect of being viewed as a rogue state by the rest of the world was another strike against keeping them.
A very complex decision for Ukraine. Some, like Mearsheimer, cautioned them that it was well worth the risk to try keeping them anyway.
Mark — Considering that North Korea and South Africa both not only maintain or maintained nuclear weapons but also developed them, the idea that Ukraine couldn’t afford to merely hold on to them doesn’t make much sense. Once you have enriched uranium, of course, putting it into a bomb is no great feat (see above).
Interesting blind spot: Ukraine didn’t just inherit the weapons, but some of the people who had managed them all along. There were Ukrainians all over the Soviet military. (And major Soviet military research centers in Ukraine.)
Considering that independent Ukraine held on to the weapons for several years, it’s obvious they didn’t fear a Russian invasion over them. The discussions in the Ukrainian government at the time were all about the threat of economic sanctions, in a country impoverished by decades of socialism.
Exactly, history didn't start in 2022 or even 2014. Americans have a hard time with this concept. Everything is new under the sun. Francis Fitzgerald, in her excellent book on the American involvement in Vietnam pointed this out. Myself, I. think a lot of Russians would say that it didn't even start with WWII but with the Crimean War. Unfortunately for us, Zalensky is our monkey, at least for the. time being. Speaking of Vietnam, I have a feeling he may end up like another failed US puppet, which would be a pity since he wouldn't be able to put in an emotional cameo appearance in the movie version (I'm betting on Sean Penn to play Zelensky). I have asked a good number of people, Democrats, for the most part, about whether they want to send the US military to Ukraine and directly engage the military of nuclear-armed Russia. None of them seem to have thought this thing through. The only thing they know is that they don't want THEIR kids going. All they can say is that we have to stand with Ukraine and keep pouring arms and money into the Black Hole of Kiev. They are unable to deal with reality. They appear to be genuinely convinced that Ukraine can win the war. They remind me of children who refuse to accept that Santa isn't real.
That is as fallacious as domino theory. Lines can always be drawn. Ukraine is a far more intimate concern to Russia than Poland is.
Imagine if we let California leave the Union, leaving many within that were aligned with the United States. Not a problem, as relations are friendly. But then, in 25 years, California has a revolution and decides to align wholeheartedly with China and is working on forging a millitary alliance with them. A bunch of former US Citizens in the Sierra Foothills rise up and California tries to put them down. China begins pouring in weapons.
This would be a very intimate matter and, to me, it would be no surprise at all if troops went from Reno to protect them, eventually leading to a full on invasion.
On the other hand, it is a hell of a surprise when we are using our millitary to intervene in Iraq, Libya and Syria - places that mean next to nothing to us directly, unless we have imperial ambitions.
Mark — Your analogy is incomplete. You left out the part where “California” is divided from the rest of the “Union” for centuries after the Union is conquered by, let’s say, “Ming the Merciless”.
As the Union learns absolute despotism, California picks up democratic ideas as part of the more liberal empire of Fredonia; organizes a militia with elected leaders; and fights free of Fredonia. With Fredonia the immediate threat, California allies with the despotic Union; over the years, through treachery, violence, and a corrupt priesthood, it is reduced from an ally to property.
Thus, when the Union is threatened by another invasion, California is ordered to burn all its cities, towns, and crops to hamper the invader; California rebels but is put down with extreme violence.
Speeding through the years, California tries to break away and democratize but is crushed again. To speed up industrialization, the Union sells California’s food for hard currency; millions of Californians starve. Eventually the Union collapses, and California becomes an independent democracy. Thirty years later, the Union, having itself regressed to despotism, invades California.
Who actually has any right to "draw a line", anyway? And if so, where, with what, with whom and why? If the answer is "at one's own border" then you are on a pathway to a logical and legal answer, otherwise this dilemma reminds me of a limerick about a young pansy from Khartoum.
I am tired of all these stupid wars with no clear objective, no end in sight, with a pile of dead bodies, orphaned children, and destroyed cities left behind.
BookWench — This is not one of those cases where American troops were sent on a not-perfectly-thought-out nation-building adventure. Here the nation was happily building itself, until invaded by a dictator who believes, “once Russian property, always Russian property.”
So the objective — national survival — is clear. And under Trump’s auspices, it looks like the end is in sight, though Ukraine may be forced to let the Russian bear keep the leg it’s chewing on.
In sailing ship days, the ocean was a lot more of a barrier than it is today. There are submarines and “trawlers” in that ocean; weapons can cross the ocean in minutes; mouse clicks, in a fraction of a second.
So Ukraine was "happily building itself, until invaded by a dictator. . . "
Sure it was, Taras, except for all those CIA listening posts installed during the US-fomented coup of 2014, all the additional countries on Russia's borders being added to NATO, and the idiotic Biden Admin making noises about admitting Ukraine to NATO.
This is not our fight, and if our "Blob" had stayed out, it would never have happened.
BookWench — Seriously, I would love to believe the CIA had the will — and the ability! — to overthrow Putin’s corrupt puppet President, a traitor who left Ukraine helpless to resist Russia’s invasion of Crimea. Which invasion Pres. Obama, the CIA’s boss, all but greenlighted in that famous hot mike exchange with Putin’s #2 man.
Blaming everything on NATO is warmed-over Soviet propaganda from the 1950s. If Putin was really so concerned about NATO on his border, that he would attack Ukraine merely for thinking about joining on some distant future date, he would right now be demanding that formerly neutral Finland, which is also on his border, resign from NATO, which it just joined together with Sweden.
The CIA told Biden in 2022 that Ukraine wouldn’t last three weeks, which is why he offered Zelensky a plane ride out of the country instead of weapons. But the Ukrainians refused to go down easily and, gradually, Western countries began to send help.
Good thing the Warsaw Pact's "open door" policy didn't apply to Cuba back when I was a little kid and we used to practice for nuclear war by crawling under our desks.
No one is talking about Biden urging Ukraine to joining NATO, eliminating the neutral buffer and crossing Putin's red line.
No one is talking about Putin having offered a cease-fire 2 or 3 times, but Biden refused to let Zelensky negotiate.
No one is talking about how the EU clearly wants the war to continue.
No one is talking about Ukraine Oligarchs' sudden wealth
How much of the $200Billion we gave Zelensky ended up greasing EU leaders' palms? Has anyone tracked Zelensky's personal bank accounts? How many corrupt European and American organizations use Ukraine to launder money,? Who set up illegal biowarfare labs in Ukraine?
Who stands to lose if the war ends? Zelensky could care less about the Russian separatist regions which Putin now controls. The reasons for the war to continue are being hidden from us.
Add to that the (in)famous cable from then Ambassador to Russia (and later CIA Director under Biden) William Graves to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that, "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests."
It is clear that NATO including Ukraine was unacceptable to Russia. Yet the Biden administration kept pushing and (big surprise) war ensued. This was not a surprise. This was not unprovoked. It was a purposeful provocation to cause the war. That's on the Biden administration. I think this war would not have occurred had Trump won [sic! "if"] the 2020 election.
Yes, that's what I stated: Burns sent the cable to Rice when he was Ambassador to Russia and was later CIA director under Biden. That tacit contrast (or contrast to me at least) is what makes the quote that much more resonant.
Namely, years earlier (circa 2008), when working in Russia Burns recognized that Ukraine entry to NATO was intolerable to the Russians and communicated as much to then Secretary of State Rice.
But then, some fourteen years later, Burns is on the team that is explicitly pushing for Ukraine to join NATO and which then screams when Russia invades.
This strikes me as rather profound and completely unmasked hypocrisy.
When Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin, Putin makes reference to Burns (not directly by name) and notes that he (Putin) thought that Burns was a good ambassador.
Apologies for going on about all this but I am flummoxed every time I think about how this whole conflict was essentially scripted from the start. The Biden admin -- Blinken? Obama? Probably not so much Biden himself. -- had to know that Russia would not tolerate Ukraine entry into NATO, as evidenced by the Burns cable to Rice. To boot, in 2014 the Obama administration orchestrated the Maidan coup that installed the government that would play along with the NATO gambit.
Yet when the inevitable happened and Russia responded to the provocation, the script was already set that Russia was the antagonist and not the "OBiden" administration.
...and people planted Ukrainian flags in their lawns, members of Congress waved Ukrainian flags when Zelenskyy addressed Congress, etc., etc., etc.
A brazen con played out in plain sight. Death, destruction and billions of dollars.
Great post, ty for making that connection - funnily enough, I had read that cable (the line "from knuckle-draggers... to Putin's sharpest liberal critics" always stuck with me) but I never made the connection that it was written by CIA Burns.
Also, just for clarity's sake - your original post says that William Graves wrote the cable, not William Burns. Funnily enough again, William Graves was also a prominent American with experience in Russia - he was a general who led American forces in the Siberian expedition in WWI.
This is the problem Matt faces. As an evolving project I'm 100 percent on board.
The question of commentary and interpretation versus the selection and weighting of sources is a question that is not going to be resolved in a comments thread.
Matt and Greg will have their hands full updating and expanding their time-line from years to months to weeks to days. Days actually matter with Ukraine, as with the Cuban missile practice, even hours.
This is a great project and immensely valuable, but by definition must expand and integrate with others - finding integrated platform(s) later for this research should be a mid-term priority.
I hope that Matt and Greg visit https://darwin-online.org.uk/manuscripts.html and similar sites. I'm not at all confident that Substack is the right platform or robust enough for a scalable project of this kind.
This is the sort of project that would be probably better handled by a custom WordPress install, if leveraging a mainstream platform as a foundation. It could be shaped to serve as a document library by using custom post types and fields.
It’s one of those laudable, but impractical aspirations. He’s 100% right in that the access to information is being squeezed off and monetized, but trying to save bits of it here and there in a non-relational form will prove frustrating.
A good idea and a laudable start are the operative words at this point- it's like renting your first apartment - doesn't mean you're not going to own your own house, and one that's pretty nice. Right now, I fully back Matt (and Greg) to make the adjustments. Matt'll need help and he's smart enough to know that.
I feel compelled to add a note as I did not realize I had initially misspelled Burns' last name as Graves (kindly pointed out by zg100 below). Oops! Not sure what I was "channeling" at that moment! :-)
Could it be as simple as just blackmail? Zelenskyy tells the big guy: “We know what you and your degenerate son did here, hell I even did a line or two with him. If we go down you go down”. So Joe and his gang subverted the national interest for their own benefit, what’s that called again?
The Bidens weren't the only ones using Ukraine to launder money. The entire world has used it for a couple of decades now. All the secrets are buried in Ukraine, from all over the world.
You can Google Ukraine Corruption and the number of articles from every source and up until a few years ago Left Wing sources is astonishing. They've long been considered the most corrupt nation in Europe if not the world. You think a propped up Actor/Comedian came in and made some magical difference?
I don’t know if Ukraine is the most corrupt, but I’ll take word for it. My point is that does not mean Biden supplied arms because he was getting blackmailed. That hypothesis has little probative evidence to support it. Much more probative one exist.
I'm not implying that that was the reason for Biden giving weapons. Biden hasn't known what color the sky is in about 8 years. If you believe Biden was running this country for 4 years, I'd like to speak to you about some amazing opportunities I have to sell!!!
My statement is far more global than one person, or even the United States.
One theory is to distract from strife at home in the European countries.
Of course, a war will actually exacerbate this because the 'newcomers' won't be fighting and dying in Ukraine -- they'll be home keeping the native girls warm.
Those things are talked about. And summarily dismissed as 'Russian propaganda'. Its comical in its brazen BS. And, let's not forget, the Bidens been involved over there for some time...but let's not talk about that either.
"No one is talking about Putin having offered a cease-fire 2 or 3 times, but Biden refused to let Zelensky negotiate." You are correct but not as the ceasefire was conditional on the following terms: He said that Russia must be allowed to keep all the land it occupies, and be handed all of the provinces that it claims but does not fully control. He also said that Ukraine must officially end its plans to join NATO.
While that's a ceasefire it ain't one that works for a negotiation for Peace-- I guess If Canada succesfully invaded and occupied the NE US on the grounds that it used to belong to France--that we should agree to a ceasefire ?
And in Dec 2021, his diplomacy offered terms to not start a war with simple agreement to no NATO in Ukraine and no heavy armament of Ukraine. And the world demonized his "demands" despite strongly believing that he could easily overrun Ukraine. So our collective stupidity and lack of "trust" is the thing that lost Ukraine lives and territory, because we're about to do the same damn deal after much loss of both.
You don't have to trust someone in order to do a peace deal - you can keep arming and preparing on your side of the border. If you do a deal that prevents or stops a war and they then attack or attack again, you've lost NOTHING, so the argument "we can't trust" is hollow. If you never find such "trust" the only alternative is fighting to the bitter end even if that means you lose terribly.
People who pay attention are talking about all of this.
Re: "Zelensky could care less about Russian separatist regions which Putin now controls..."
Sure, Crimea may have or have had a slight majority of Russian-leaning people. Luhansk and Donetsk, maybe. But Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, no way. And all of them have strong populations of resistors. Arguments are more convincing and helpful when you take the time to look into things.
Re: Minsk I and II
Russia insisted it was just a "mediator" rather than a direct party in the war, despite the fact that it armed, funded, and commanded the separatist forces in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Ukraine wanted Putin's troops out of its borders before negotiating political autonomy of any separatists. Russia wanted the reverse. A no-brainer deal-breaker.
Minsk II (2015) was signed after Ukraine suffered military defeats at Ilovaisk and Debaltseve, largely due to Russian regular forces intervening in support of separatists. Moscow basically using Minsk II as a tool to freeze the conflict and force Ukraine into giving the separatist regions special status - effectively legalizing Russian influence inside Ukraine.
The majority of Ukrainians didn't want any of this. It was seen as capitulation to Russia. And that's their decision to make.
Minsk also ignored Crimea entirely. Maybe fine for you and, maybe around half of the Russian speakers. But not for most Ukrainians. I'm from Canada. Quebec has wanted to separate for decades, they didn't even sign into Federation here. If France magically trampled into Canada to "liberate Francophones" by annexing it (a hilariously dumb and impossible geographic impossibility but for the sake of argument, grant me the thought experiment for a sec), what should Canada's natural and reasonable response be? Especially if only half of Quebec's people wanted to be extracted by their true motherland? Would indifference be appropriate? Think it through.
Re: No one is talking about Biden urging Ukraine to join NATO, eliminating the neutral buffer and crossing Putin's red line.
Yes they are. This point has been hammered endlessly by Mearsheimer and co since the invasion began. It's a factor in the equation but it never equalled "just and inevitable invasion." Go check out Putin's speech, "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukranians," where he flatly claimed Ukraine has no historical legitimacy as an independent nation, that it was "artificially aimed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks," that he has a right to reclaim Russia's "historical lands." To use one of Mearsheimer's favourite phrases against his own position, the idea that Putin gets a carte blanche to invade because of NATO encroachment is, "not a serious argument."
Russia could stop the war today. And they could have prevented it by not starting it.
Trump, such a strong man helming the golden galleon, the guy who claims he wants peace, could enforce a cease fire immediately and negotiate after. Instead, it's the minerals, the minerals, we need the mineral...we'll give you security assurances later. Ukraine remembers "assurances" (critically, not "guarantees") made in '94 when both the US and Russia pledged to protect them once they surrendered the nukes that would have gone a long way in defending them now.
And I could go on about all of your other points but I'm frankly exhausted trying to do the homework for people who prefer reducing one of the most complicated geopolitical situations of modern times into a black and white hobby horse opinion dumpster.
I mean, how many of you on these threads will keep saying with a straight face that Zelensky is barely better than Putin for having not held elections? I mean, how the hell is he supposed to hold an election with over 8 million displaced? THEIR own constitution bars it anyway. Think it through.
Lastly, please consider more deeply what it means for the supposedly evil liberal democratic order to be overturned. If the coalitions existing since WWII defending against might makes right imperialism lose their meaning, what will the new order look like? I'm not going to give you the answer. But it's not a pretty scene in the world theatre and it may be the fucking final act.
The BLOODTHIRSTY Europeans! They "want the war to continue." Jesus Christ, think this shit through.
Honey, you liberal fundies are not capable of "engaging" with anything that doesn't appear after application of liberal lemon juice to the secret writing of reality.
The war in Ukraine is not taking place in a theoretical space defined by Locke's wispy declarations re: "freedom".
It is happening in the world where he invested in the Atlantic slave trade and defended slavery in a constitution he helped write.
So wank away and select your facts carefully. And make sure that they never come in contact with the actual historical world the rest of us live in.
I thought that Trump came as close to the truth as any American politician when he scolded Zelensky in the Oval Office. He stated that he, Zelensky, had no cards to play. “You’re playing with a bad hand…” If Trump had simply stated that the Americans pushed for a war, and Ukraine was a handy pretext. Now that we, the Americans, no longer want to antagonize Russia, the war will end. And Ukraine, having been duped and used, could probably do with an apology, but an American president in the WH, apologizing for a million plus casualties would go over like a lead balloon.
Trump could probably get away with it, but he buys all of the American lore propaganda. He actually, after lecturing his guest on the need for the killing to stop, bragged about having sent Javelin missiles to Ukraine whereas Obama didn’t send any weapons.
Obama didn't send any "offensive" weapons, according to State Media, as if any defensive weapons exist. Trump was impeached for holding up "Congress's" weapons shipments (abuse of power. Biden bragged about doing the same in a CFR YouTube video to get Shokin fired: ukrainegate.info ) while demanding that Zelensky look into American corruption in Ukraine (election interference ). Trump always wants credit for any good, but interfering with American corruption was an insane move (Krystal Ball calls it "soft corruption. Everybody does it.")
I was paraphrasing Trump. I didn’t follow Obama’s WH activities closely after he gave the bankers the people’s monies, and then distinguished himself by amassing more collateral killings than any president, through his record setting drone strikes.
All excellent points which I also bring up to people that only know the MSM narrative of the war. Putin started an unprovoked war, is pure evil, wants to reconstitute the USSR, wants to take over Europe, has Trump in his pocket - all total nonsense but majority of the people believe it.
All good statements and questions. Seems like most of this is fueled by profiteers. Add to your list: How have US tax dollars greased the palms of people well connected to Biden's administration? Everyone should get a transaction fee right? Very American...
I think the Ukraine war is a civil war between slaves. I think it was hastened by NATO encroachment, our state department, with special handing out sandwiches privilege’s going to Victoria Nuland. I think Chrysta Freeland of Canada is a sister provocateur to the Maiden uprising. I think east Ukraine wants to be Russian. West Ukraine is tainted by über nationalism, delusions of grandeur and unfortunately Azov, snaking its way through the military, national and local governments. The country should be divided. Zelensky’s cries for security because ‘Putin breaks his word’ forgets the first country that broke its word was the US, which promised Gorbachev that it would not advance on step further to the east. This is a good lesson for Zelensky to learn. Everyone in politics breaks their word, and he should have taken a peace deal while he had a chance before Boris Johnson shut that down. Europe can do what it wants. Without our aid. They are all grown up now. Over half a century since WW2. Good luck EU. You’re going to need it.
As a first-generation German-American with close family still living in the Old Country, I’ve watched German self delusion with regret and sad resignation. Germany and the rest of Europe have spent the last 30 years cutting defense spending to childish levels while also outsourcing more of their manufacturing to China and beyond AND dismantling their energy infrastructure. They’ve also abdicated serious investments in almost every area of advanced technology from chips to AI. The traditional German desire to sort and control makes them enthusiasts for regulating speech and any innovation that could conceivably upset their carefully maintained Apple cart but little else. To some degree, it’s a nation built on wishful thinking, that the world will somehow stay even-keeled, that Russia will stay in their box, and grumpy old Uncle Sam will show up with his shotgun if things get dicey. And now that’s all changed with a bang; they are without the will or resources to do anything meaningful. These gross and strategic errors in statecraft mean that Germany is now at the mercy of Russia and the US. Any seat they have at negotiations over Ukraine will be at the children’s table while the grownups settle things in the other room. I’m not happy about this, but Germany’s obsession with national self-loathing and virtue signaling have consequences. And so here we are.
All of the countries who collected themselves into the EU have been resting on their laurels as regional conquerors, colonialists and imperialists for hundreds of years. In spite of Germany’s spanking in WWII, they they had only to jump through a few embarrassing hoops and divest themselves of colonies the other members of the Colonialist Club would soon find burdensome and release as well. They were accepted right back into the club. The Colonialist Club became the NATO Bros and they became so convinced they were invincible they deprioritized their defense to 2% or even less of their GDP. Their shared imperialist ethos was so ingrained, they even memory-holed the “World War” they had just fought against each other, and assumed NATO meant they’d never have think about defending themselves from each other again.
Generations of Europeans have grown up with the notion they’re invincible, even as their governments made policies that made their vulnerabilities open and obvious. Most recently, they allowed their homelands to be infiltrated by men who are still poised to fight for their culture, treasure and land, even the land their virtuous, imperialist benefactors are sitting on. Europeans are no more ready to fight the war-hardened Russians than they are to fight the hungry, ambitious migrants who are destroying them from within. And the only thing their “leaders” have is “Stay the course.”
On the immigration issue, Germany has long wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Even back in the Sixties, I heard discontented rumblings about the Turkish guest workers and how to reconcile their “otherness” with the need for their labor. A booming economy and lingering manpower shortages stemming from the loss of over 5 million soldiers in WWII meant letting in foreign workers but without any intention or plan to fully incorporate them into German society. But at least that influx of migrants happened relatively gradually over decades. The task since the doors were flung open to Syrian-African migrants in 2015 is even tougher because they basically all rushed in at once without any real preparation economically, socially, or emotionally by the German leadership or people. They know how they should feel… open, accepting, welcoming… but that doesn’t jive with how they actually feel as crime rates and social friction increase. The inner conflict leads to guilt and then finger-pointing which enables the AfD and others to gain influence. Buyers’ remorse after buying a too expensive car is one thing, played out on a national level it’s a whole other world of hurt as Germany, France, and Britain are now discovering.
We've been cleaning up after Germany (and France) for over 100 years. Let them make the same, stupid, egotistical mistakes they have been making for over a century. I say fuck 'em. Let them rot.
I’m actually German-Canadian-American! Born in Sudbury, Ontario to German parents who had followed family to Canada. We then returned to Germany before finally moving to US (Pennsylvania then Georgia) after the Berlin Wall was built. All this before I was 6! My head is still spinning!
Huhu, How long is too long for reparations payments? That's what I wonder.
At least 3-4 generations have been born after 1945, perhaps more. I don't think most people know that payments are still being made to families of Holocaust victims by German citizens. Are they tired of this handicap?
The idea of no sunset clause (it's my understanding, and I have to admit I'm going off memory) seems absurd to me.
Bitter resentment is not a good thing to foster in a population. I'm not saying ALL feel this way, but perhaps former East Germans are fed up with inequality, hence the AfD?
Words fail me to describe how utterly impotent the Germans are to affect their will on anything on the global stage (no military and their demographic collapse plus slitting their own economic throats by shuttering the last of their nuke plants )
It was not just delusions and grandeur. The stats show Germany by 1938 had the largest military in terms of equipment and soldiers by far in Europe. By contrast, Russia’s military budget is far exceeded by that of the European nations. Russia does have manpower, however.
Exactly, the USA still spends more than the next 8 nations combined. The British dominated the globe for more than a century with their “Rule of 2” which meant that their navy was always more powerful than the next two empires combined so they could be confident they would prevail should the next two most powerful empires join forces. America has done that on steroids, and it’s drained our treasury, led to luxury wars of choice, and bloat and corruption
And no source of fuel, and no navy to speak of except u-boats. The more strategic thinkers in that country favored blitzkrieg because they already knew they had no sustaining power, so it had to be quick, and it had to access oil. But they had to satisfy the deluded-in-chief or be shot.
Hitler required his officers to switch from pledging allegiance to their country to pledging to him. Once that happened, he could do anything he wanted, although the generals did try unsuccessfully try to assassinate him. So you are right on that.
You are probably right about the lack of fuel, which was Japan’s problem as well. Did not stop them, though.
Trump’s firing of the Generals makes you wonder what the new ones had to pledge, but that is my own speculation.
Absolutely correct, DaveL. They were well trained and had the blitzkrieg working for them, but that was all. As soon as Russia's manufacturing was ramped up, and Stalin threw in millions of bodies, Germany was through. Hitler was also a military idiot.
I don't understand how Germany would "take the lead". That alone is richly comical. Let me quote from that great classic of the Western cultural canon, Shrek: "You and what army?" It's ridiculous. Taxpayers of all these nations are sick of financing a stupid forever war because Putin. Maybe it would be salutary to ship the last remnants of our equipment to "support Ukraine" and then realise we're kinda naked. I think we should all thank God that Putin is relatively sane, measured and very patient. It increasingly feels like some distant uncle is observing the inane antics of children.
Don't be captivtti the Western media sphere. Putin is obviously not a madman. Those kinds of terms are almost invariably unsupportable and used to gin up anger. Putin enjoys wide support in Russia. The war has neither castrated the Russian economy nor brought it its knees geopolitically. If NATO agreed to a permanent neutrality policy for Ukraine the war would end in a week.
It’s true, doesn’t mean he’s Hitler. “Putin is Hitler” just doesn’t work, no matter how many times it’s repeated. (It doesn’t insure him from going off his rocker eventually, though; a lot of old dictators tend to go that way, the more isolated they become).
Well all right. Make him into a little Stalin, as evil as the big o,ne, not shunning away from poisoningg his opponents (as renaissance commanders did in their time), kidnapping Ukrainian children from their families in order to transform them:into good obeying russians. S there is no genocide here, but for people living closse to Riussian, just as frightening. And all of a sudden, the US acts a though Putin aws a benevolent leaderwith whom one can make easy deals and whom one can mak deals and whom one can trust, notwithstanding all the opposing evidence. If the Us is wrong, you are not immediately going to suffer, bur we in Eutrope will. I know by lived experience what it is like to have a soviet army in your country. In Austyria, they could not do anything as they were sharing power with three other occupation armies, biut ask the poles, the Checks and even the Hungarian. They will tell you how a Russian army acts. And ask Ukrainian people who live in Bucha how it is to be reaprd by Russian soldiers. It's just not possible to waive all this away as if it had never happened. So let us remember and not deal out lies about the good peaceful Russians who were attacked by a belligerent Ukraine.
"As a German, I just want to get this straight. The entire Western world wants us to build up a huge army, march through Poland and fight the Russians if necessary. Just writing it down so there are no misunderstandings in future..."
The so called "defenders of democracy" overthrew a legal election in Ukraine. Then they embraced real Nazi's. Now Ukraine does not have an elected head of govt operating as an authoritarian. Ukraine refuses to hold an election. Democracy has nothing to do with this. I was fortunate to have taken Russian History in 77. That Russia would be touchy about a large chunk of a neighboring nation trying to join NATO should surprise no one. Ukraine belonged to Russia for many years. They are ethnic close cousins. The Soviets and the Tzars armies fought and bled hard for Crimea. Its Russian. Period. The truth is as Matt and Walter has been explaining, its at its root it was a deeply corrupt and cynical action by globalists and others as a permanent war to subdue Russia and make huge profits for the Military Industrial Complex. Germany is at 0 and 2 for a victory over the course slavs that the world always underestimates. Do they want to kill Russians like Walt suggested? Personally I lean towards the Russians on this question given the historical context and present realities. Not that I approve of any war. I tend to agree that Putin has made a seriously significant contrast spiritually and psychically that's compelling to those worried about Western Civilization.
Really strange "real Nazis" with a Jewish head of state. I think you are confused by the fact Ukrainian nationalists revere people who after the Holodorm, in which Stalin (who could be portrayed as a Georgian madman who slaughtered millions of Russians as well as Ukrainians, but whom Putin as rehabilitated as a "Russian" hero) murdered millions of Ukrainians by stealing their harvest, briefly embraced the Nazis as liberators.
I agree Crimea is Russian. In fact I would suggest that a reasonable settlement to the current war would involve Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, but only territory that meets four criteria:
(1) it is currently Russian occupied, (2) it was not part of the Ukrainian S.S.R. in 1940, (3) it was majority Russian speaking in 2014, and (4) its inhabitants voted for Yanukovic's Party of the Regions in the last Ukrainian election before the Maidan uprising (and were thus disaffected by the resulting pro-Western tilt).
At the risk of getting crushed by your readers...I must admit that I am becoming increasingly nervous at the possibility that Western Europe may rightly or wrongly believe that a prolonged war of attrition and stalemate may be beneficial to them regardless of the horrible cost to Ukraine and it's people. My idea is not a theory or a hypothesis...I'm not well enough informed for such elevated labels...it's just a nasty little thoughtlet that somehow entered by brain uninvited and unwanted. When I interrogate my subconscious as to where this horrible little idea came from all I can come up with is Stephen Kokin's incredibly well articulated perspective on how costly this war is to Russia and the myriad ways in which it is wreaking havoc on their already tenuous position on the Global stage. Readers...how stupid is my question?
You put into words what has been a vague notion in my head. I keep asking myself, Qui bono? Why would Europeans think a forever war with Russia would get them anywhere? What do they want? Do they think they can weaken Russia, the Russia with all the nukes? And that would be good because they fear Russia is going to invade central Europe? I don’t find that credible but I don’t live there. Do Europeans see Russia as territory it wants? So they figured they’d get big daddy America to pay most of the bill? And what’s in it for us? The whole “protecting” democracy argument is pure BS, now that I’ve read up on NATO expansion and Vicky Nuland.
So now big daddy America is DJT, and he’s blowing up the plan. How do he and his administration see the new world order? I hope, at the risk of sounding like a “Putin lover” it includes some sort of detente with Russia. If England, France and Germany want to go full Islam, and now Ireland too, FFS, and they want to silence speech, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere for allies. Italy, Poland, Hungary…. And build America as the whole North American continent from Greenland to Panama.
All wars are resource wars and this one is no different. Billions of western dollars were “invested” in Ukrainian resource projects during the run up to all of this nonsense thinking friendly administrations would enable extraction- that money won’t just be written off. The usual suspects (financial institutions) are involved of course.
Beat me to it…but any US firm with “Black” in the name is a good place to start. Then look into the agribusiness space…land grab for one of the most fertile and productive areas in the world.
If you go back with that view of the war to 2022 and watch the statements of Biden, it was pretty clear that his plan was simply to bleed Russia the way Reagan bled Iraq and Iran in the 1980’s.
Biden consistently gave Ukraine just enough aid to freeze the Russian advance, but aid would be delayed just in time to prevent an advance with the exception of the one failed Ukrainian counter attack over the Summer of 2023, which we knew would fail.
Biden would often slip up in his arrogance and almost admit this during press briefings when asked if he was failing in Ukraine, but just before the final words would pull back and say “well, anyway…."
Your question is not stupid at all. You might even find a kindred spirit in the form of Marco Rubio who within the last 10 days referred to the war as a proxy war.
I doubt many Europeans believe that "a prolonged war of attrition and stalemate may be beneficial". What I think they might believe is that the war can actually be won outright in another year or two. I too think this is more possible than many people realize. Yes, Ukraine is hurting, but so is Russia, with massive troop losses, and recently the long-range drone attacks gradually destroying their refineries and military infrastructure.
I think, ultimately, the war and the NATO expansion that provoked it are simply a continuation of the Western project to place a pliant regime in Russia so that will allow the West to turn Russia into a resource extraction vassal state.
It’s also important to distinguish Europeans from European leaders, whose intentions may be entirely separate. A lot like what just happened here, and why there’s an effort or at least a desire to overturn our last election. Europe’s leaders have already overturned one election, and seem intent on cutting Hungary out of the herd.
The reality is that as with most wars there were serious mistakes and provocations on both sides. Meersheimer is partly right but leaves out that Putin made the final decision to respond to our provocations. Electing a senile Biden who had a bunch of weaklings around him was another factor leading Putin to think there would be no response to his second invasion.
This brings into focus how out of control our deep state is. Now that USAID is practically dead, its role in funding the 2014 coup in Ukraine is coming out. The previous government was Russia friendly and we installed a Western friendly one with Nuland at State picking many of the cabinet ministers. Hopefully Congress will enact legislation to ensure that Trump's almost total elimination of USAID will be permanent.
Tulsi Gabbard is saying that she is encountering more resistance than even she expected. She needs Trump's full support to downsize the intelligence agencies which have become rogue and unaccountable unconstitional branches of government. I predict Tulsi will win this war.
Michael Schellenberger has a couple of long but excellent videos up here at substack analyzing what is happening at a deeper level and why there is utter panic. Basically the post WWII order with the US as the dominant power is being replaced with nationalist governments who are acting in their own interests. There are millions of leaches in governments, NGO's, and regime media who make a living by supporting this old order and writing in favor of it.
I've been giddy the last 7 weeks with excitement and watching our first chance to cleanse our increasingly corrupt elites and return to Enlightenment values and limited Government. As a scientist, I'm excited to see Makary, RFKJ, and Battacharia because they can clean up science institutions which are mostly now hopelessly politicized and woke. And there is a real chance to end the wars too.
Time is of the essence in rooting out the CIA, before it is able to do what it does best, regime change. Except this time, regime change will be in DC. This one item is really troubling-murder, torture, propaganda doesn’t faze them at all.
Blaming Ukraine for wanting to be closer to the West and thereby causing Russian aggression is like blaming a rape victim for dressing provocatively. There is no excuse. I lived in Russia for five years - they are wonderful people saddled by centuries of horrible government. Sure, in the 90s I wondered why NATO was still around, but Eastern European countries, the people that know Russia best, scrambled to join NATO and FINALLY put an end to the threat from Russia. Americans have the luxury of being a continent away, buffered by Europe. Western Europeans have the luxury of an Eastern European buffer. The Eastern Europeans have nothing between them and Russia, and act appropriately. Even Finland and Sweden, neutral throughout the Cold War, were finally driven to join NATO thanks to the latest Russian behavior. They are under no illusion what could happen if Russia wins in Ukraine. All this is not to say ANY Americans need be in harm's way, but as long as Ukrainians want to fight, I'm fine with giving them the tools to do so. But President Trump is right in that Europe needs to carry its own weight.
Lots of truth there. Probably why my grandparents and many of their relatives left the “old country” (Lithuania, in this case), and moved here, after the Russian Bolshevik revolution. How America is going to “fix” that situation by dribbling armaments into such places seems pretty remote, though. (I also lived in Russia for 5 years.)
Ah yes, the evergreen rape victim analogy. Except in this case, Ukraine didn't just dress provocatively. Zelensky stripped naked, straddled Russia's face, and started grinding. The entire world knew Ukraine NATO membership was a red line, but Ukraine and NATO kept pushing it.
I think “the West” was controlled by a closely tied coterie of globalist psychopaths who tried to strip Russia and Ukraine of any wealth and sovereignty they had after the breakup of the USSR, and were actively conducting regime change operations in both countries whenever serious resistance appeared. Putin was seen in the West as a (by Russian standards) semi-liberal product of the St Petersburg political faction, more liberal and west/facing than the competing Muscovites and therefor acceptable to the West and their controlled oligarchs when Yeltsin had to step down for reasons of health and loss of legitimacy.
Putin surprised them by standing up for Russia and reining in the oligarchs and Western exploiters, for which they hate him with a white hot passion. The rest of the story flows from there. the further corruption of Ukraine until even westerners saw it as the most corrupt nation in Europe. NATO committing to bring in Ukraine and Georgia, to squeeze out Russian access to the Black Sea— leading to Russian military responses in Ossetia and Crimea in 2008 and 2014 after a western coup in Kyiv. Regime change operations in Russia (unsuccessful) and Ukraine (successful, twice—2014 and 2019). NATO arming Ukraine after the 2014 coup, including establishing multiple biowarfare labs in Ukraine, as Nuland admitted to Congress in 2022 and has never been explained. Ukraine increased persecution of Russian speakers in the Donbas, then the West and Ukraine used the Minsk 2 agreement to buy time to further arm Ukraine, as Merkel, Hollande, and Poroshenko all later said. Russian protests continuing to be ignored or dismissed, even as Russia moved troops to the Ukraine border in 2021-22. Finally, a big increase in Ukrainian bombardment of Russian/l-speaking areas in Donbas in mid-February 2022, documented by OSCE observers, and Russia went in.
Throughout these 2 decades, Russian protests and warnings, and after about 2008 constant Western talk of forcing regime change in Russia.
Without getting into the deeper backstory of the USSR being promised in 1990-91 that if it permitted German reunification NATO would not expand eastward, which was violated in 1999 and again in 2004.
Lots more, including the security guarantees that Ukraine got when it surrendered the Soviet nukes on its territory in ca. 1995, and Biden saying a month before the attack that something less than a full invasion would not get a strong response, which strikes me as a gambit to get Putin to attack, but those are the most obvious high points.
We're witnessing the kind of geopolitical realignment that gives birth to the spirit of a century.
With that in mind, it seems clear to me the fools leading Western Europe serve that old, decrepit victor of the 20th century: liberalism. Like fascism and communism, it is totalitarian. That's the end of any ideology. Having failed to secure the world, if it can't have it then no one can.
Hence their obsession with global thermonuclear eschaton.
Russia, China, and now the United States see, through a looking glass darkly, the future coming. Something more imperial, like the 19th century. It will likely be authoritarian but it will not be totalitarian. This is an important, and welcome, distinction.
In the current moment the shooting in Ukraine needs to stop as soon as possible, less the servants of the old order get their death wish fulfilled.
Whatever happens after that will have to take care of itself.
That isn't a totalitarian ethic. It's a striving for balance among infinite complexity. Of rights, abilities, aspirations, etc. And, yeah, it's been pretty victorious over the last century or so in skyrocketing quality of life, on the whole (they don't have Substack in China or Russia).
As it happens, as of September 2024, Russia has announced plans to invest approximately 60 billion roubles over the next five years to enhance its internet censorship system, known as TSPU. And we don't need to elaborate on China, do we?
When it comes to the "thermonuclear eschaton", how is liberalism's so far successful attempt to buffer the bottle of nitroglycerin suicidal? Are you saying Russia's provocative hostile act of invading Ukraine isn't "playing with WW III"? MAD is a nutty lesser of two evils scenario, but includes liberal democratic nations and authoritarian ones.
If you are suggesting that perhaps a uni-polar world in the grip of a single authoritarian rule could avoid our atomic end, sure, I guess. But then what are we saying here? Let's all surrender, let the iron fists stuff us into the Snowpiercer train, because liberalism is actually fascist?
I don't think so. Just giving into an authoritarianism order on account of liberalism's "reign" is a super weird, and maybe even cowardly argument.
It's pretty simple. The quote is just a well-known laconic phrase, a rusty skeleton key into the main tenets of the liberalist ethic - and what beating back authoritarianism, Russia in this case, is all about.
Russia enshrines wha? Near-total censorship, a permanent unitary executive, lethality for political opposition, revanchist imperialism, etc. Flawed and hypocritical as European nations and America are (it's bad), they don't come even close to that level of despotic nightmarishness, in my view.
So fighting for "liberalism" (against Russia) instead of giving into authoritarianism, the "spirit of a century" as you phrased it, seems to be a fun theoretical lark on comment threads to me, but ultimately a doombound mistake.
Where do you live? Gonna assume you don't live under authoritarianism, correct me if that isn't the case. I'm in Canada. When Trump talks about annexing us, he's not trolling, he's not fucking around. He's experimenting with breaking our economy as a first step, as a pretext to move in. So it seems anyway.
We are rich with goodies. Fresh water and minerals and petrol galore.
If Russia gets what it wants, the symbolism isn't some theoretical liberal talking point. It's one of the wicks lit for this new dynamite age you speak of, and it could explode in the face of us all - but especially the smaller, weaker countries. Like, maybe you're American and don't give a shit because you think you'll be fine on the winning side. In which case, and I don't like saying this, you would be my enemy (not just a hate-me-huffing troll in the ether of Substack).
If the US makes a Putin move northward, if the new "take it if you can" global calculus wins out, that means I'll have to give up my sovereignty, like Ukraine (yes, very flawed, very corrupt live every nation) and forced to live in...like, I'll be careful but also express the Goya black period paranoia a little...what is almost surely to become some hybrid form of whatever the apex of "dark enlightenment" aspires to be, on top of the shining bloody obsidian foundations of some techno-feudal-Christian-corporate caliphate.
Like, I get it if you think that sounds like tweak hyperbole. Honestly, I do. But that is what Thiel and Vance and Yarvin and Musk are openly advocating if you listen closely.
Burn down the "deep state" and install a new one devised by the billionaires who bought the election, set FIRE to all checks and balances indiscriminately in the name of nationalist generosity, efficiency, transparency. Fire the non-loyalist JAGs, ignore and hopefully eradicate the judiciary, tank the economy (maybe), get some stagflation going for good measure (it worked in the 30s to kickstart some big bold plans), trigger some emergency power measures when the chaos soup hits simmer, see if the brass will follow you into the fray...
Obviously nobody knows what's going to happen. But, roughly speaking, what do you think we are going to get with all this Putin emulation, this dictator-alignment? If you ask me (I know you didn't) you get some very crass and lethal Americanized agent orange phenotype of Putin.
And I don't know about you but I don't want to live under anything resembling Russia. I like my Substack. I like my infinite glut of media options. I like my country of Canada. It's mine. If we abandon Ukraine (conscription warts and all) we are abandoning the global ideal of borders (different ideas for life) and freedom.
Two significant (HUGE) elisions in this timeline, both easily available in public records. The first is Putin’s confirmed request to Clinton that Russia be admitted into NATO (I believe he also asked this of Obama) so as to secure a security alliance from ‘Vladivostok to Lisbon’. Both times, after mild curiosity by US leaders, we declined. Perhaps most importantly there is no mention of the Istanbul Communique, agreed to by Putin and Zelensky’s negotiators, pending U.S. approval. The terms were highly favorable to Ukraine. See Jeffrey Sachs who advised both sides for the facts of this. The war was effectively over in mid April 2022. You also left out Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 treaties, the latter which was approved by the UN Security Council. These omissions are significant and can cause a lot of damage. Please consider this.
This mess was a mirror image of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Putin playing the role of JFK: No NATO missiles on our border! Obama or Biden or Trump could have stopped this thing before it started with one simple guarantee: No NATO and no missiles in Ukraine!
I see you missed the word "nuclear" in my post. Moreover, (1) there are not American nuclear missiles stationed in all NATO countries, (2) Ukraine was not in NATO when Putin invaded, nor is Ukraine in NATO now, and (3) the US has at times stationed nuclear weapons in non-NATO allied countries.
If NATO being close to Russia means American nuclear missiles close to Russia, Putin, and preventing that was the point of the war, Putin already failed in his objective, since now Finland is in NATO.
In view of (3) the only thing to Russia gains by keeping Ukraine out of NATO is not security against the fantasized American first strike attack, but the ability to attack Ukraine without Article 5 of the NATO treaty applying.
I believe the Cuban Missile Crises was provoked by the presence of US missiles in Turkey, which JFK quietly removed to help resolve the crises. The Russians are nothing if not consistent.
The CIA notched up overthrown govt. number 84.. at the behest of Secretary of State Clinton who spent 5 billion to overthrow the legitimately elected Ukraine government and install her personally picked Ukraine administration which included the Bad mannered stooge Zel.. It took the CIA/ the US military industrial complex 10 years of diligent work harassing Russia along the Ukraine border continuously. Until Putin finally said OK you want War.. You got it.. The US violated the treaty stating we would not among other things allow Ukraine into NATO.. no missiles on the border.. And the CIA/ military industrial complex controlled mainstream media spewed lies to the American people for that entire decade.. as well as the last 3+ years of this completely unnecessary war..
America geopolitically behaves no better than Russia.. or China as an X US Marine it hurts to make that this admission.. but 84 overthrown governments are damning proof it's true...
Perhaps President Trump can Real in the out of control American War Machine with over 700 military bases!!!????
The problem (as usual) is that history didn't start in 2022 or 2014, either. The entire issue is complex and rooted in issues that we as Americans don't even understand. This is why I continue to believe that we shouldn't play any role whatsoever in the region. Ukraine will always be more important to Russia than to us just like Cuba will always be more important to us than to Russia.
Not our circus, not our monkeys. Stop sending taxpayer money to get blown up in unwinnable conflicts halfway across the world.
German tanks rolling towards Moscow has me a little um.. nervous.
The reason my ancestors fled Europe to the 'New World', have become more clear to me lately. President Zs act is starting to wear a little thin. I have no horse in the race.
'Give Peace a Chance' Some English dude said once or was it a New Yorker?
History says, German tanks rolling toward Moscow should make the *Germans* nervous.
They wouldn't make it halfway to Warsaw
All these old tropes based on World War II in the Cold War. It's all gone now. The boomers must go.
There are no tanks, they're not that many Germans, there's no fuel for the tanks unless it comes from Russia. Totally ridiculous.
Boomers built the Internet.
Zoomers play on their phones.
They could all go green, and use EV tanks, couldn't they?
Just kidding!
Germany might also note that the United States has historically taken the side of the Russians when German tanks are rolling towards Moscow.
Alas, the poor Germans. They should never have let the icy tongue of the hyperpresbyterian global capitalist Wilson get to their tender parts. Well, the Russians have been in Paris before, haven't they?
Dave Mustaine sang to my generation (X) that ‘peace sells, but who’s buying?’
“What do you mean I ‘ain't kind?’
I'm just not your kind”
"Whaddaya mean I don't support your system?
I go to court when I have to."
I think we all could learn from listening to 80s and 90s metal.
"Foreclosure of a Dream" by Megadeth is another one foreseeing chickens that would come home to roost in subsequent generations.
Britney Spears also foretold the rise of the New European Reich when she said "Oops I Did It Again."
Dave is all about rolling down the street in tanks….
That was an English dude living in New York at the time.
That was the guy who wrote that song about imagining no money while relocating to lower-tax America.
I think one problem with remilitarizing Germany is that it will change them to some extent, in unknown ways.
Nah, I'm pretty sure we know the way that German 'change' will turn out. It's in the DNA. Or as one German poster put it, 'Just to be clear, asking as a German, you want the German army rebuilt so it can cross Poland to fight Russia?'
Priceless! Too funny...
Not change, revert. Leopards, spots, etc.
Yes and Yes.
Yeah, it didn't exactly end up well the last time German tanks rolled toward Moscow.
Was it over when they bombed Pearl Harbor?
Why is this stance so controversial? Is this not the standard Bush era Democratic stance? Where did all of the liberals go?
Yes, Putin invaded. No, the reasons why aren’t simple. Why is any of it my problem?
The Democrats long ago deserted the liberals. Shit, even the top Democrat in 2014, President Half-Black Jesus, said Ukraine has not been, is not currently, and will never be in the strategic interest of the United States. He, and they, have totally abandoned their own words.
Obama was all over Ukraine, running the 2014 mess, laundering money, etc.
It seems to me, in the west at least, it’s all about the money.
Obama talks 'cover' while operating a meat grinder in the back room.
"Not a smidgen of corruption"
Obama doesn't "operate" anything. He gets his strings pulled and if you don't squint, you might think he actually moves on his own...
Oh, he operates all right, as he has talent. But he's a slaving "market man" to a certain type of rentier class.
That's not an image I want in mind before dessert.
The Dems have become the party of war ... but not warriors.
Lawyers — Trump certainly shouldn’t take foreign policy advice from someone as inept as Barack Obama, as his foreign policy was more successful than Obama’s. In general Democrats have a disastrous record on foreign policy since 1945: China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.
Preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine is very much in the strategic interest of the United States. 1. If “might makes right”, i.e., aggression is rewarded, there will be more aggression worldwide (see: Baltics, Taiwan). 2. If less powerful countries can’t rely on the US for security, their obvious alternative is nuclear weapons.
It appears you're suggesting that Trump continue to flush money in an unwinnable war, which Biden was already doing.
Man, do you really want to be Team America--World Police?? Despite Dick Cheney's best efforts, the neocons lost the last election. Americans do not want this crap.
And who are you responding to with "If 'might makes right,' i.e., aggression is rewarded..." I didn't see a commenter above promote that concept.
When did we win the last war? I think our history with Afghanistan should be teaching us something. Personally, I think we are being taken for a ride. Thanks for all your cash yanks..
Lawyers — Even with Ukraine as undersupplied as it is (was it 10 to 1 in artillery shells?), and even with Russia bringing in “Hessians” (expendable North Koreans), the Russians can do no more than inch forward at an enormous cost in Russian lives (or minorities drafted to do the dying in their place). It’s likely that, right now, the Ukrainian Army is, man for man, woman for woman, the best in the world.
So I think the argument for your hypothesis, that the war is “unwinnable” by the West, is rather weak.
I hope the U.S. is not yet so decadent that, forget about sending troops, it can’t even send munitions.
1. You are the only person in America who thinks this war is winnable without nuclear weapons. Even with nukes, when everyone loses, it's not winnable for anything Ukraine would want left. I'm assuming you're in America; if not, you're still a tiny, tiny minority wherever you are. If you're here, great, you have free speech, and we will all fight for your right to believe little Ukraine can beat Russia. Had the election gone the other way, free speech would have continued to be on the endangered species list.
This is not USSR in Afghanistan or USA in Vietnam, wars won by insurgents. The Russians don't have to worry about civilians and rules of engagement. If it's a weak argument, you as the only person on the other side of the argument should have a much easier time than just saying the Ukrainians are really good, scrappy fighters. (Which is a weak argument.)
2. Not a question of decadence. It's a question of why are we expending vast treasures for Ukraine, where we do not have a strategic interest, vs. in our own nation. It's also a bigger question of whether the US will continue to lead the empire building and defending. It appears the new President does not have that in mind. It appears, however, that the Germans are ready to step up for Forever War!
3. Bully for Ukraine's army. Even Mugsy Bogues could probably hit a shot or two if playing Victor Wembanyana. But we all know (except you, it appears) who wins that game of one-on-one.
4. The US government and military lied their asses off for years about Vietnam. Bush and Cheney and Petraeus lied their asses off for years about Iraq. Bush and Obama and too many generals lied their asses off for years about Afghanistan. Biden and Milley and others lied their asses off for years about Ukraine.
5. The US media failed its obligations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine. At least there were some brave journalists trying to find truth in Vietnam.
6. Forever War doesn't change, only the battlefield does. If you really want more Forever War, funded by the American taxpayers, I take it you're on the RESISTANCE!! team when it comes to the President. Because that guy won the election, free speech survives a while longer. Enjoy it, and thank the guy you hate for making it so.
For how long?
How many dead Ukrainians will it take for you to admit that this war cannot be won by Ukraine?
Are you willing to go fight? Are you willing to send your children to fight?
This is not our war.
Might does make right, and aggression is rewarded. We are thriving examples of it, having subverted the UN multiple times to impose our will on various parts of the world and pitch our tents.
If people can't relay on the U.S. not to topple their governments, the obvious alternative is nuclear weapons.
Gadaffi was clearly a fool for giving up on his nuclear program, when we helped topple and kill him anyway. I see few complaining about the terrible example that was set there.
yah this post is the exact madness thinking that got america stuck in yet another vietnam quagmire with no end in sight. No its not the US job to knock off dictators worldwide to maintain peace. sorry to notify you but no nation on earth can run the whole thing. Every empire that tried fell apart.
But that is exactly what the one world order plans. Who is to say that the one org at the pinnacle of the world order will not reward its benefactors with regional empires?
The Iraq war certainly did extinguish what was left of our moral authority in the world.
Subverting the UN should be a national pastime. "(I)mposing our will on various parts of the world...", not so much.
Mark — “subverted the UN multiple times to impose our will” — Um, like when we successfully defended South Korea? A rare example, given that the Evil Empire has had a UN veto since the beginning. Or are you thinking of something else.
No question, we want to encourage dictators to give up WMDs, not punish them if they do. Hilariously, some people insisted it was merely a coincidence, that Gaddafi gave up his WMDs two weeks after we captured Saddam Hussein. “20 years of negotiations,” they insisted.
Similarly it was bad policy to go after Pinochet after he resigned: we want to encourage dictators to resign, not scare them into holding on to the death.
In a world of perfect justice, of course, all dictators would be overthrown and prosecuted. In our world, practical considerations often intervene.
Unless their Russian minorities are stupidly threatened or someone decides to menace Kaliningrad, the Russians don't have much to gain by attacking the Baltics - Putin has no need for resources or lebensraum.
Mind you I have come across people who think he's a villain full of nostalgic determination to recreate the Russian Empire, and it's time for Europe to blow a trillion euros they don't have on American weapons that don't work.
Adrian — Actually, the American anti-tank weapons Trump let the Ukrainians have — after Obama refused — were what broke the back of the Russian blitzkrieg that started the war.
The reason we won the Cold War in the first place was mostly because our military-industrial complex was better than their military-industrial complex, and they knew it. (If we can send rockets 240,000 miles to the Moon, we can send rockets 5,000 miles to Moscow.)
Putin constantly waxes nostalgic for the greatness of the Soviet Union and has already partially succeeded in recreating it. One of the things that makes Ukraine’s survival so astonishing is that it was nearly surrounded, attacked not just from Russia in the east, but Belarus in the north and Crimea in the south.
yeah, whatever, it's well known the russians went in lamentably underprepared, but now it's much more about fpv drones, which are also the main reason the russian advance is taking so long, the days of big arrows are over
afaict putin is mainly interested in making sure ethnic russians don't have to live under banderite rule, i have no doubt you're convinced he's jonesing to occupy the baltics and then attack poland for no reason other than old times' sake but we're gonna have to agree to differ there
So when Congo invades Gaban, we need to correct it otherwise we'll have nuclear war. Great thinking there genius.
Yes. But it looks like Obama finally gave in to Clinton and Biden on
"Yes. But it looks like Obama finally gave in to Clinton and Biden on..."
What? His hands and knees?
Gee thanks. Got waylaid and didn’t complete my comment. Gave into Clinton on destroying Libya and Biden to meddle in Ukraine.
Nope. Bush gave the same idiot song and dance about free former Russian states NATI protection. Clinton and Bush 2 did more to undermine peace in the Balkans, the Caucuses, Ukraine and Russia than any other Presidents by a country mile. They were all high on nation building and NATO was the instrument. Nor did either assist Russia in transforming from a control economy to a free market who quickly devolved into an oligarch state in Russia.
Because, all my Liberal #Resistance friends would tell you, if we don't stop Putin in Ukraine, he'll take Poland next, and then, the next thing you know, he'll be in our backyard (actually, California's newly elected junior senator Adam Schiff of Russiagate explicitly during Trump's first impeachment trial.
I agree fully with your sensibility, but there are many serious people with deep military, diplomatic, and intelligence backgrounds who do understand and have spoken out, often via podcasts and writing. And it would have never happened if they'd been in charge.
Instead, the zeitgeist of the times marginalized their views and elevated/empowered the view to break up a "weak Russia" with sanctions and proxy war, for a big payday.
Well. Somebody was wrong. Evidently. You're right the Americans who championed this fiasco didn't understand what the hell they were doing.
I don't think this post meets standards I'd expect from Racket. It leaves too much history out (Donbass 2014 - 2022, Minsk, etc. as others note below), doesn't convey depth or context, and deflects too much to polemicists. Maybe Racket is already spread thin, and this fell through the crack. But it only degrades the brand.
Mearshimer was right. As were many others who warned of this folly. And he's not "hated" by the millions of readers and Youtube viewers who follow and appreciate his work. Maybe a few hundred people "hate" him, and only because he embarrased their schemes with cogent arguments. (I realize that was only a quote, but quoting an idiot isn't flattering, even to the idiot, and certainly not to the writer).
And it's not a matter of taking sides -- I agree with you. Pull the plug. Never should have happened. I could go on . . . but who cares. It's only the comment section and we've all got an opinion with no editor in sight to stop us! hahahaha
Agreed. I would have added ‘and many Americans’ to the sentence below.
“These dynamics accelerated after the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Maidan events of 2013-2014, which Russians still see as a West-backed coup and the beginning of the current war.
The Russians ( and Tucker Carlson) might say their view of Maidan “justifies” everything that has happened since 2014, but that is like saying a schizophrenic’s “view” of things, justifies whatever bad behavior on the subway out of it. I don’t dispute Russia’s “view”, I dispute using that “view” as justification for unacceptable behavior.
You need a refresher course on logic and fallacy.
Hop to it.
Alexander Lukashenko loves people who think like you do.
Channeling your Victoria Nuland we are the good guys absurdist narrative again?
Cute.
The US has destroyed one Middle Eastern country after another through our psychopathic "soft power projection." As we speak, Syrians are being murdered en masse. Are you really going to claim that just because the US isn't performing full scale invasions that the results aren't just as devastating to the local populations, and that a military response to prevent it isn't justified?
The ME Muslims need to cure themselves of their own psychopathic tendencies when it comes to inter-faith ecumenism. They reap what they sow. We should stay the hell out, but support Israel cleaning house, imo.
Pls see Tom Highs reply. This is a woeful comment.
I don’t disagree with the condemnation of Maidan et seq. But there’s still a difference between brinkmanship and full-on armed attack.
It’s a splitting hair’s difference, imo, much like there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans, but ultimately both are bought and paid for. Was there a difference between our invasion of Iraq and the CIA-engineered coups in Indonesia or Chile? Sure, but in each instance we wrecked a country, regardless of method.
Two cheeks of the same arse, to quote George Galloway.
The Professional Managerial Class isn’t good at war against nations who have enough muscle to push back.
They looked at the economic numbers and thought Russia had no chance, while completely ignoring all the armaments factories that Russia had churning out artillery and munitions in preparation for war.
Turns out that when fighting over territory, having a bunch of firepower was more relevant than a bunch of zeroes and ones on a digital ledger.
The neoliberals and neocons are hand in hand responsible for this war. They want the mineral wealth and oil and gas under the Donbas and Crimea.
They also believe their own propaganda, eg, Russia’s economy is smaller than Portugal’s and similar statements. I never realized the smoke blown in our eyes about Russia until I lived there 5 years. So I think getting a less distorted view of Russia will be difficult here; that’s an opportunity that most will miss.
I also lived there for a few years and it’s quite telling how different it was from the version western media was selling.
Please do tell. Would be interested to hear even a little about this..
I lived in Moscow, but I visited St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Kazan, and a few others.
While there is an element of decay in the smaller cities, and villages are kind of depressing, it’s not any worse than rundown areas of the U.K., U.S., France etc.
Moscow, in particular, is a really great place to live because it’s vibrant and alive….and they don’t even need a bunch of feral youth or homeless lunatics accosting people on the metro to achieve it.
Russians are fun people, and they’re not as arrogant as the Germans and northern Europeans can be. They’re less inclined to talk down to an American than northern Europeans or Brits are.
They’re proud Russians love music, art, literature, etc. You see more people reading on the Moscow metro than you ever would see on the NYC subway.
Policing is a big thing. As much as we may shy away from the idea of a heavy police presence being a bad thing, it’s a good thing for public order to have rapid response and deterrence in crowded common spaces. The Moscow metro, for example, has cops at all the big stations, and they’re never far from the smaller stations until you start getting to the end of the lines. The end result is that people tend to behave themselves because they’re never far don’t want a couple of cops waiting for them at the next stop.
Basically, Russia still feels alive when so much of Europe feels lifeless when you travel there.
I commend Matt's attempts here to broaden our necessary knowldge on subjects such as this one reharding this idiotic proxy war but, like crazyman, way too muchhistoryn, nuance, and context is missing. I just hope more of Matt's fan base will ask for more and those who don't should dig much deeper. Having the curiosity and talent stack to do so may make Matt's attempts with his new approach worthwhile.
I think you do a disservice to Matt's audience. If we're here, we have already shown a grasp of the complexities in so many areas that Matt's brings up.
We're intelligent, curious adults who don't eat the dog food served up by politicians or spooks or corporate media.
Matt's not our leader.
He's a very, very talented scribe.
And i mean that in the best possible sense; a real journalist.
Yeah. What he said!
IIRCC, Matt has gone over the complex background in other posts, which you are welcome to look up, though it may have been someone else, but I am quite sure it was on SubStack, as that is the source of any wisdom that I have on .
I’ve subscribed to John Mearsheimers Substack from the beginning of this war. His crystal ball predicted correctly.
Thanks, I until now have been unfamiliar with him. I have to be careful how many stacks I sign up for, I have more to my life than SubStacks,though I can get lost in them. I don’t waste time with MSM, as I have learned not to trust them .
Good summary of where many of us are presently...
This article was asking for commenters’ opinions on this question, which may explain its so-called lack of depth. And there’s some good comments here.
"asking for commenters’ opinions on this question, which may explain its so-called lack of depth"
Sounds like commenters opinions=lack of depth. Thanks a lot!
Note that this is a guest post and not Matt.
As usual, indeed. Once WW2 was over, we had to immediately fight our Allies. Once the Wall came down, time for NATO to 'grow', while simultaneously fight Terror, however it was defined at any given moment. And now? Back to fighting a Nation with a redwhiteandblue flag, just like us. Smfh
Reminds me a lot of how some states shut down the war on weed and immediately launched a war on 'human trafficking' -- which in reality meant going undercover into massage parlors and getting handjobs, then arresting the person supposedly being human trafficked and charging them with prostitution.
oh, the things that I might never have known.
Or as Vin Diesel says in XXX, “the things I do for my country“.
You 2 sound like Matt and Walter. LOLOLOL
High praise indeed!
"The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs”
by Elizabeth Nolan Brown
https://reason.com/2015/09/30/the-war-on-sex-trafficking-is/
As Elizabeth Nolan Brown would document over the next 10 years, The “War on Sex Trafficking” focused primarily on Asian women and became nothing more than an excuse for vice cops to rape asian sex workers during year long “under cover stings" at tax payer expense and pull in a fortune in civil asset forfeiture in the bargain.
One of thousands of cases around the country over the past 20 years:
https://theappeal.org/new-evidence-in-the-death-of-a-queens-massage-worker/
True, but every now and then they're after the John, like when they popped Robert Kraft.
Finally, I find someone else who questions this whole human trafficking thing. We already have strict laws against kidnapping, rape, assault, battery, fraud, and prostitution, which more than covers the situation. What does trafficking add? Probably to just make up a new federal crime that requires an interstate commerce element, like the Mann Act.
They settled for hand jobs?
They want a fight and we do not. They thought that if they called-out "CHICKEN" that we would do a Marty McFly but we do not need to let that one play-out and lose our children and grandchildren.
SimulationCommander — We broke it, so it’s ours. It’s way too late to say “we shouldn't play any role whatsoever in the region.”
On the breakup of the Soviet Union, both newly independent countries, Ukraine and Russia, inherited nuclear deterrents. Except for some reason we (i.e., the Clinton Administration) decided that “peace-loving, benevolent” Russia should keep its nuclear weapons — while Ukraine should be forced to hand over its weapons, to the aforementioned “peace-loving, benevolent” Russia.
In return for unilateral disarmament, Ukraine was promised by the U.S. and Russia that its borders would be respected. In retrospect, it sounds laughable but, to its credit, Russia actually kept its promise, until Putin seized power and began his quest to reestablish his beloved Soviet Reich.
It wasn't just "some reason". Russia had command/control of those nuclear weapons in Moscow.
In order to be acknowledged as an independent nation by Russia in the first place, they signaled they wouldn't pursue independent nuclear capabilities, and would work things out with Moscow regarding the legacy arsenal. This was part of the Belavezha Accords:
https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL(1994)054-e
Ukraine knew there was a danger that if they tried to keep their weapons that Russia would attempt to secure them immediately, knowing who they were being kept to potentially use against.
Nuclear weapons are also extremely expensive to manage and maintain, and Kyiv had no history of this. The prospect of being viewed as a rogue state by the rest of the world was another strike against keeping them.
A very complex decision for Ukraine. Some, like Mearsheimer, cautioned them that it was well worth the risk to try keeping them anyway.
Mark — Considering that North Korea and South Africa both not only maintain or maintained nuclear weapons but also developed them, the idea that Ukraine couldn’t afford to merely hold on to them doesn’t make much sense. Once you have enriched uranium, of course, putting it into a bomb is no great feat (see above).
Interesting blind spot: Ukraine didn’t just inherit the weapons, but some of the people who had managed them all along. There were Ukrainians all over the Soviet military. (And major Soviet military research centers in Ukraine.)
Considering that independent Ukraine held on to the weapons for several years, it’s obvious they didn’t fear a Russian invasion over them. The discussions in the Ukrainian government at the time were all about the threat of economic sanctions, in a country impoverished by decades of socialism.
"We broke it, so it’s ours."
Ah, I see the Neocons and the MIC have gotten to you. Thus everything you write is folly.
So Ukraine had full operational control of all the nukes stationed within its borders?
Wasn’t it a naval shipyard of the coast of Crimea that we were ultimately trying to gain control of?
Touché,
Exactly, history didn't start in 2022 or even 2014. Americans have a hard time with this concept. Everything is new under the sun. Francis Fitzgerald, in her excellent book on the American involvement in Vietnam pointed this out. Myself, I. think a lot of Russians would say that it didn't even start with WWII but with the Crimean War. Unfortunately for us, Zalensky is our monkey, at least for the. time being. Speaking of Vietnam, I have a feeling he may end up like another failed US puppet, which would be a pity since he wouldn't be able to put in an emotional cameo appearance in the movie version (I'm betting on Sean Penn to play Zelensky). I have asked a good number of people, Democrats, for the most part, about whether they want to send the US military to Ukraine and directly engage the military of nuclear-armed Russia. None of them seem to have thought this thing through. The only thing they know is that they don't want THEIR kids going. All they can say is that we have to stand with Ukraine and keep pouring arms and money into the Black Hole of Kiev. They are unable to deal with reality. They appear to be genuinely convinced that Ukraine can win the war. They remind me of children who refuse to accept that Santa isn't real.
SimulationCommander — “Ukraine will always be more important to Russia than to us”.
And Poland will always be more important to Russia than to us.
And the Baltic States will always be more important to Russia than to us.
And Finland will always be more important to Russia than to us.
And Moldova will always be more important to Russia than to us.
And Georgia will always be more important to Russia than to us.
And Eastern Europe will always be more important to Russia than to us; etc.
How many countries is Putin to be permitted to invade, according to you? Where do we draw the line, in the middle of the Atlantic?
That is as fallacious as domino theory. Lines can always be drawn. Ukraine is a far more intimate concern to Russia than Poland is.
Imagine if we let California leave the Union, leaving many within that were aligned with the United States. Not a problem, as relations are friendly. But then, in 25 years, California has a revolution and decides to align wholeheartedly with China and is working on forging a millitary alliance with them. A bunch of former US Citizens in the Sierra Foothills rise up and California tries to put them down. China begins pouring in weapons.
This would be a very intimate matter and, to me, it would be no surprise at all if troops went from Reno to protect them, eventually leading to a full on invasion.
On the other hand, it is a hell of a surprise when we are using our millitary to intervene in Iraq, Libya and Syria - places that mean next to nothing to us directly, unless we have imperial ambitions.
Mark — Your analogy is incomplete. You left out the part where “California” is divided from the rest of the “Union” for centuries after the Union is conquered by, let’s say, “Ming the Merciless”.
As the Union learns absolute despotism, California picks up democratic ideas as part of the more liberal empire of Fredonia; organizes a militia with elected leaders; and fights free of Fredonia. With Fredonia the immediate threat, California allies with the despotic Union; over the years, through treachery, violence, and a corrupt priesthood, it is reduced from an ally to property.
Thus, when the Union is threatened by another invasion, California is ordered to burn all its cities, towns, and crops to hamper the invader; California rebels but is put down with extreme violence.
Speeding through the years, California tries to break away and democratize but is crushed again. To speed up industrialization, the Union sells California’s food for hard currency; millions of Californians starve. Eventually the Union collapses, and California becomes an independent democracy. Thirty years later, the Union, having itself regressed to despotism, invades California.
And that’s where we are today.
When do we get to discuss Europe's behavior?
Also do you want to trust anyone who has been involved with geopolitics given the mess they've created over the last 30 years?
They haven't made a single decision that actually served our interests...in fact just the opposite. Change my mind...
"How many countries is Putin to be permitted to invade, according to you? Where do we draw the line, in the middle of the Atlantic?"
Yes.
Where do Europeans draw the line?
Who actually has any right to "draw a line", anyway? And if so, where, with what, with whom and why? If the answer is "at one's own border" then you are on a pathway to a logical and legal answer, otherwise this dilemma reminds me of a limerick about a young pansy from Khartoum.
We have an ocean between us.
Let the Europeans worry about it.
I am tired of all these stupid wars with no clear objective, no end in sight, with a pile of dead bodies, orphaned children, and destroyed cities left behind.
This is not our fight.
BookWench — This is not one of those cases where American troops were sent on a not-perfectly-thought-out nation-building adventure. Here the nation was happily building itself, until invaded by a dictator who believes, “once Russian property, always Russian property.”
So the objective — national survival — is clear. And under Trump’s auspices, it looks like the end is in sight, though Ukraine may be forced to let the Russian bear keep the leg it’s chewing on.
In sailing ship days, the ocean was a lot more of a barrier than it is today. There are submarines and “trawlers” in that ocean; weapons can cross the ocean in minutes; mouse clicks, in a fraction of a second.
So Ukraine was "happily building itself, until invaded by a dictator. . . "
Sure it was, Taras, except for all those CIA listening posts installed during the US-fomented coup of 2014, all the additional countries on Russia's borders being added to NATO, and the idiotic Biden Admin making noises about admitting Ukraine to NATO.
This is not our fight, and if our "Blob" had stayed out, it would never have happened.
BookWench — Seriously, I would love to believe the CIA had the will — and the ability! — to overthrow Putin’s corrupt puppet President, a traitor who left Ukraine helpless to resist Russia’s invasion of Crimea. Which invasion Pres. Obama, the CIA’s boss, all but greenlighted in that famous hot mike exchange with Putin’s #2 man.
Blaming everything on NATO is warmed-over Soviet propaganda from the 1950s. If Putin was really so concerned about NATO on his border, that he would attack Ukraine merely for thinking about joining on some distant future date, he would right now be demanding that formerly neutral Finland, which is also on his border, resign from NATO, which it just joined together with Sweden.
The CIA told Biden in 2022 that Ukraine wouldn’t last three weeks, which is why he offered Zelensky a plane ride out of the country instead of weapons. But the Ukrainians refused to go down easily and, gradually, Western countries began to send help.
Good thing the Warsaw Pact's "open door" policy didn't apply to Cuba back when I was a little kid and we used to practice for nuclear war by crawling under our desks.
Like
No one is talking about the Minsk treaty.
No one is talking about Biden urging Ukraine to joining NATO, eliminating the neutral buffer and crossing Putin's red line.
No one is talking about Putin having offered a cease-fire 2 or 3 times, but Biden refused to let Zelensky negotiate.
No one is talking about how the EU clearly wants the war to continue.
No one is talking about Ukraine Oligarchs' sudden wealth
How much of the $200Billion we gave Zelensky ended up greasing EU leaders' palms? Has anyone tracked Zelensky's personal bank accounts? How many corrupt European and American organizations use Ukraine to launder money,? Who set up illegal biowarfare labs in Ukraine?
Who stands to lose if the war ends? Zelensky could care less about the Russian separatist regions which Putin now controls. The reasons for the war to continue are being hidden from us.
Add to that the (in)famous cable from then Ambassador to Russia (and later CIA Director under Biden) William Graves to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that, "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Burns_(diplomat)#U.S._Foreign_Service
It is clear that NATO including Ukraine was unacceptable to Russia. Yet the Biden administration kept pushing and (big surprise) war ensued. This was not a surprise. This was not unprovoked. It was a purposeful provocation to cause the war. That's on the Biden administration. I think this war would not have occurred had Trump won [sic! "if"] the 2020 election.
Are you talking about Burns? He was Russian ambassador in 2000s, and then became Biden's CIA director much later.
Yes, that's what I stated: Burns sent the cable to Rice when he was Ambassador to Russia and was later CIA director under Biden. That tacit contrast (or contrast to me at least) is what makes the quote that much more resonant.
Namely, years earlier (circa 2008), when working in Russia Burns recognized that Ukraine entry to NATO was intolerable to the Russians and communicated as much to then Secretary of State Rice.
But then, some fourteen years later, Burns is on the team that is explicitly pushing for Ukraine to join NATO and which then screams when Russia invades.
This strikes me as rather profound and completely unmasked hypocrisy.
When Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin, Putin makes reference to Burns (not directly by name) and notes that he (Putin) thought that Burns was a good ambassador.
Apologies for going on about all this but I am flummoxed every time I think about how this whole conflict was essentially scripted from the start. The Biden admin -- Blinken? Obama? Probably not so much Biden himself. -- had to know that Russia would not tolerate Ukraine entry into NATO, as evidenced by the Burns cable to Rice. To boot, in 2014 the Obama administration orchestrated the Maidan coup that installed the government that would play along with the NATO gambit.
Yet when the inevitable happened and Russia responded to the provocation, the script was already set that Russia was the antagonist and not the "OBiden" administration.
...and people planted Ukrainian flags in their lawns, members of Congress waved Ukrainian flags when Zelenskyy addressed Congress, etc., etc., etc.
A brazen con played out in plain sight. Death, destruction and billions of dollars.
Again, apologies for going on on this...
Great post, ty for making that connection - funnily enough, I had read that cable (the line "from knuckle-draggers... to Putin's sharpest liberal critics" always stuck with me) but I never made the connection that it was written by CIA Burns.
Also, just for clarity's sake - your original post says that William Graves wrote the cable, not William Burns. Funnily enough again, William Graves was also a prominent American with experience in Russia - he was a general who led American forces in the Siberian expedition in WWI.
Whoa! Thank you for the correction!
And thank you also for the note about William Graves -- I was not aware of the "Siberian Expedition" at the end of WWI!.
You have explained it very well. Jeffrey Sachs (Prof at Columbia) also has YouTube videos that covers much the same history of the Ukraine-Russia war.
Please continue!
This is the problem Matt faces. As an evolving project I'm 100 percent on board.
The question of commentary and interpretation versus the selection and weighting of sources is a question that is not going to be resolved in a comments thread.
Matt and Greg will have their hands full updating and expanding their time-line from years to months to weeks to days. Days actually matter with Ukraine, as with the Cuban missile practice, even hours.
This is a great project and immensely valuable, but by definition must expand and integrate with others - finding integrated platform(s) later for this research should be a mid-term priority.
I hope that Matt and Greg visit https://darwin-online.org.uk/manuscripts.html and similar sites. I'm not at all confident that Substack is the right platform or robust enough for a scalable project of this kind.
This is the sort of project that would be probably better handled by a custom WordPress install, if leveraging a mainstream platform as a foundation. It could be shaped to serve as a document library by using custom post types and fields.
It’s one of those laudable, but impractical aspirations. He’s 100% right in that the access to information is being squeezed off and monetized, but trying to save bits of it here and there in a non-relational form will prove frustrating.
A good idea and a laudable start are the operative words at this point- it's like renting your first apartment - doesn't mean you're not going to own your own house, and one that's pretty nice. Right now, I fully back Matt (and Greg) to make the adjustments. Matt'll need help and he's smart enough to know that.
I feel compelled to add a note as I did not realize I had initially misspelled Burns' last name as Graves (kindly pointed out by zg100 below). Oops! Not sure what I was "channeling" at that moment! :-)
Could it be as simple as just blackmail? Zelenskyy tells the big guy: “We know what you and your degenerate son did here, hell I even did a line or two with him. If we go down you go down”. So Joe and his gang subverted the national interest for their own benefit, what’s that called again?
Not out of the realm of possibility
Sadly, I believe it's called "business as usual".
The Bidens weren't the only ones using Ukraine to launder money. The entire world has used it for a couple of decades now. All the secrets are buried in Ukraine, from all over the world.
Totally speculative. Other explanations with some evidence behind them are more apparent.
You can Google Ukraine Corruption and the number of articles from every source and up until a few years ago Left Wing sources is astonishing. They've long been considered the most corrupt nation in Europe if not the world. You think a propped up Actor/Comedian came in and made some magical difference?
I don’t know if Ukraine is the most corrupt, but I’ll take word for it. My point is that does not mean Biden supplied arms because he was getting blackmailed. That hypothesis has little probative evidence to support it. Much more probative one exist.
I'm not implying that that was the reason for Biden giving weapons. Biden hasn't known what color the sky is in about 8 years. If you believe Biden was running this country for 4 years, I'd like to speak to you about some amazing opportunities I have to sell!!!
My statement is far more global than one person, or even the United States.
Dear Mr. Ferguson,
I’m not trying to make you angry. Just some friendly comparisons of views and evidence.
Right now, I’m kind of losing the thread of our original minor differences.
I wish Substack would have emojis.
PS: I have no differences with you regarding President Biden.
One theory is to distract from strife at home in the European countries.
Of course, a war will actually exacerbate this because the 'newcomers' won't be fighting and dying in Ukraine -- they'll be home keeping the native girls warm.
Jodie
Those things are talked about. And summarily dismissed as 'Russian propaganda'. Its comical in its brazen BS. And, let's not forget, the Bidens been involved over there for some time...but let's not talk about that either.
"No one is talking about Putin having offered a cease-fire 2 or 3 times, but Biden refused to let Zelensky negotiate." You are correct but not as the ceasefire was conditional on the following terms: He said that Russia must be allowed to keep all the land it occupies, and be handed all of the provinces that it claims but does not fully control. He also said that Ukraine must officially end its plans to join NATO.
While that's a ceasefire it ain't one that works for a negotiation for Peace-- I guess If Canada succesfully invaded and occupied the NE US on the grounds that it used to belong to France--that we should agree to a ceasefire ?
Wouldn't that have been just a negotiation starting point?
Exactly--the main thing Putin was after was not to have NATO in Ukraine.
And in Dec 2021, his diplomacy offered terms to not start a war with simple agreement to no NATO in Ukraine and no heavy armament of Ukraine. And the world demonized his "demands" despite strongly believing that he could easily overrun Ukraine. So our collective stupidity and lack of "trust" is the thing that lost Ukraine lives and territory, because we're about to do the same damn deal after much loss of both.
You don't have to trust someone in order to do a peace deal - you can keep arming and preparing on your side of the border. If you do a deal that prevents or stops a war and they then attack or attack again, you've lost NOTHING, so the argument "we can't trust" is hollow. If you never find such "trust" the only alternative is fighting to the bitter end even if that means you lose terribly.
People who pay attention are talking about all of this.
Re: "Zelensky could care less about Russian separatist regions which Putin now controls..."
Sure, Crimea may have or have had a slight majority of Russian-leaning people. Luhansk and Donetsk, maybe. But Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, no way. And all of them have strong populations of resistors. Arguments are more convincing and helpful when you take the time to look into things.
Re: Minsk I and II
Russia insisted it was just a "mediator" rather than a direct party in the war, despite the fact that it armed, funded, and commanded the separatist forces in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Ukraine wanted Putin's troops out of its borders before negotiating political autonomy of any separatists. Russia wanted the reverse. A no-brainer deal-breaker.
Minsk II (2015) was signed after Ukraine suffered military defeats at Ilovaisk and Debaltseve, largely due to Russian regular forces intervening in support of separatists. Moscow basically using Minsk II as a tool to freeze the conflict and force Ukraine into giving the separatist regions special status - effectively legalizing Russian influence inside Ukraine.
The majority of Ukrainians didn't want any of this. It was seen as capitulation to Russia. And that's their decision to make.
Minsk also ignored Crimea entirely. Maybe fine for you and, maybe around half of the Russian speakers. But not for most Ukrainians. I'm from Canada. Quebec has wanted to separate for decades, they didn't even sign into Federation here. If France magically trampled into Canada to "liberate Francophones" by annexing it (a hilariously dumb and impossible geographic impossibility but for the sake of argument, grant me the thought experiment for a sec), what should Canada's natural and reasonable response be? Especially if only half of Quebec's people wanted to be extracted by their true motherland? Would indifference be appropriate? Think it through.
Re: No one is talking about Biden urging Ukraine to join NATO, eliminating the neutral buffer and crossing Putin's red line.
Yes they are. This point has been hammered endlessly by Mearsheimer and co since the invasion began. It's a factor in the equation but it never equalled "just and inevitable invasion." Go check out Putin's speech, "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukranians," where he flatly claimed Ukraine has no historical legitimacy as an independent nation, that it was "artificially aimed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks," that he has a right to reclaim Russia's "historical lands." To use one of Mearsheimer's favourite phrases against his own position, the idea that Putin gets a carte blanche to invade because of NATO encroachment is, "not a serious argument."
Russia could stop the war today. And they could have prevented it by not starting it.
Trump, such a strong man helming the golden galleon, the guy who claims he wants peace, could enforce a cease fire immediately and negotiate after. Instead, it's the minerals, the minerals, we need the mineral...we'll give you security assurances later. Ukraine remembers "assurances" (critically, not "guarantees") made in '94 when both the US and Russia pledged to protect them once they surrendered the nukes that would have gone a long way in defending them now.
And I could go on about all of your other points but I'm frankly exhausted trying to do the homework for people who prefer reducing one of the most complicated geopolitical situations of modern times into a black and white hobby horse opinion dumpster.
I mean, how many of you on these threads will keep saying with a straight face that Zelensky is barely better than Putin for having not held elections? I mean, how the hell is he supposed to hold an election with over 8 million displaced? THEIR own constitution bars it anyway. Think it through.
Lastly, please consider more deeply what it means for the supposedly evil liberal democratic order to be overturned. If the coalitions existing since WWII defending against might makes right imperialism lose their meaning, what will the new order look like? I'm not going to give you the answer. But it's not a pretty scene in the world theatre and it may be the fucking final act.
The BLOODTHIRSTY Europeans! They "want the war to continue." Jesus Christ, think this shit through.
I hope you take a little X with your Kool-Aid because that's just sugar.
It's interesting how often this "but it's really really complicated" is prelude to the introduction of ideological reduction.
Can you say "black and white hobby horse opinion dumpster"?
My prelude was a bunch of facts. Not just, “it’s complicated.” Why reply and not engage with anything I actually said?
Honey, you liberal fundies are not capable of "engaging" with anything that doesn't appear after application of liberal lemon juice to the secret writing of reality.
The war in Ukraine is not taking place in a theoretical space defined by Locke's wispy declarations re: "freedom".
It is happening in the world where he invested in the Atlantic slave trade and defended slavery in a constitution he helped write.
So wank away and select your facts carefully. And make sure that they never come in contact with the actual historical world the rest of us live in.
Celia Farber brought this to our attention. A VERY interesting take. Certainly worth watching!
https://youtu.be/JcnsgbFxAKY
The UK and Europe on the brink of collapse.
CapitalCosm podcast
Ab-so-lut-ly!!!
I thought that Trump came as close to the truth as any American politician when he scolded Zelensky in the Oval Office. He stated that he, Zelensky, had no cards to play. “You’re playing with a bad hand…” If Trump had simply stated that the Americans pushed for a war, and Ukraine was a handy pretext. Now that we, the Americans, no longer want to antagonize Russia, the war will end. And Ukraine, having been duped and used, could probably do with an apology, but an American president in the WH, apologizing for a million plus casualties would go over like a lead balloon.
Trump could probably get away with it, but he buys all of the American lore propaganda. He actually, after lecturing his guest on the need for the killing to stop, bragged about having sent Javelin missiles to Ukraine whereas Obama didn’t send any weapons.
Obama didn't send any "offensive" weapons, according to State Media, as if any defensive weapons exist. Trump was impeached for holding up "Congress's" weapons shipments (abuse of power. Biden bragged about doing the same in a CFR YouTube video to get Shokin fired: ukrainegate.info ) while demanding that Zelensky look into American corruption in Ukraine (election interference ). Trump always wants credit for any good, but interfering with American corruption was an insane move (Krystal Ball calls it "soft corruption. Everybody does it.")
I was paraphrasing Trump. I didn’t follow Obama’s WH activities closely after he gave the bankers the people’s monies, and then distinguished himself by amassing more collateral killings than any president, through his record setting drone strikes.
All excellent points which I also bring up to people that only know the MSM narrative of the war. Putin started an unprovoked war, is pure evil, wants to reconstitute the USSR, wants to take over Europe, has Trump in his pocket - all total nonsense but majority of the people believe it.
Amen amen amen
All good statements and questions. Seems like most of this is fueled by profiteers. Add to your list: How have US tax dollars greased the palms of people well connected to Biden's administration? Everyone should get a transaction fee right? Very American...
I think the Ukraine war is a civil war between slaves. I think it was hastened by NATO encroachment, our state department, with special handing out sandwiches privilege’s going to Victoria Nuland. I think Chrysta Freeland of Canada is a sister provocateur to the Maiden uprising. I think east Ukraine wants to be Russian. West Ukraine is tainted by über nationalism, delusions of grandeur and unfortunately Azov, snaking its way through the military, national and local governments. The country should be divided. Zelensky’s cries for security because ‘Putin breaks his word’ forgets the first country that broke its word was the US, which promised Gorbachev that it would not advance on step further to the east. This is a good lesson for Zelensky to learn. Everyone in politics breaks their word, and he should have taken a peace deal while he had a chance before Boris Johnson shut that down. Europe can do what it wants. Without our aid. They are all grown up now. Over half a century since WW2. Good luck EU. You’re going to need it.
Exactly.
As a first-generation German-American with close family still living in the Old Country, I’ve watched German self delusion with regret and sad resignation. Germany and the rest of Europe have spent the last 30 years cutting defense spending to childish levels while also outsourcing more of their manufacturing to China and beyond AND dismantling their energy infrastructure. They’ve also abdicated serious investments in almost every area of advanced technology from chips to AI. The traditional German desire to sort and control makes them enthusiasts for regulating speech and any innovation that could conceivably upset their carefully maintained Apple cart but little else. To some degree, it’s a nation built on wishful thinking, that the world will somehow stay even-keeled, that Russia will stay in their box, and grumpy old Uncle Sam will show up with his shotgun if things get dicey. And now that’s all changed with a bang; they are without the will or resources to do anything meaningful. These gross and strategic errors in statecraft mean that Germany is now at the mercy of Russia and the US. Any seat they have at negotiations over Ukraine will be at the children’s table while the grownups settle things in the other room. I’m not happy about this, but Germany’s obsession with national self-loathing and virtue signaling have consequences. And so here we are.
All of the countries who collected themselves into the EU have been resting on their laurels as regional conquerors, colonialists and imperialists for hundreds of years. In spite of Germany’s spanking in WWII, they they had only to jump through a few embarrassing hoops and divest themselves of colonies the other members of the Colonialist Club would soon find burdensome and release as well. They were accepted right back into the club. The Colonialist Club became the NATO Bros and they became so convinced they were invincible they deprioritized their defense to 2% or even less of their GDP. Their shared imperialist ethos was so ingrained, they even memory-holed the “World War” they had just fought against each other, and assumed NATO meant they’d never have think about defending themselves from each other again.
Generations of Europeans have grown up with the notion they’re invincible, even as their governments made policies that made their vulnerabilities open and obvious. Most recently, they allowed their homelands to be infiltrated by men who are still poised to fight for their culture, treasure and land, even the land their virtuous, imperialist benefactors are sitting on. Europeans are no more ready to fight the war-hardened Russians than they are to fight the hungry, ambitious migrants who are destroying them from within. And the only thing their “leaders” have is “Stay the course.”
Yes!!
On the immigration issue, Germany has long wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Even back in the Sixties, I heard discontented rumblings about the Turkish guest workers and how to reconcile their “otherness” with the need for their labor. A booming economy and lingering manpower shortages stemming from the loss of over 5 million soldiers in WWII meant letting in foreign workers but without any intention or plan to fully incorporate them into German society. But at least that influx of migrants happened relatively gradually over decades. The task since the doors were flung open to Syrian-African migrants in 2015 is even tougher because they basically all rushed in at once without any real preparation economically, socially, or emotionally by the German leadership or people. They know how they should feel… open, accepting, welcoming… but that doesn’t jive with how they actually feel as crime rates and social friction increase. The inner conflict leads to guilt and then finger-pointing which enables the AfD and others to gain influence. Buyers’ remorse after buying a too expensive car is one thing, played out on a national level it’s a whole other world of hurt as Germany, France, and Britain are now discovering.
We've been cleaning up after Germany (and France) for over 100 years. Let them make the same, stupid, egotistical mistakes they have been making for over a century. I say fuck 'em. Let them rot.
There is quite a lot of national self-loathing and virtual signaling going around....
German-Canadian here. You’re 100% correct on every point you made. It will be interesting to see how this will end, and if cool heads will prevail.
I’m actually German-Canadian-American! Born in Sudbury, Ontario to German parents who had followed family to Canada. We then returned to Germany before finally moving to US (Pennsylvania then Georgia) after the Berlin Wall was built. All this before I was 6! My head is still spinning!
Huhu, How long is too long for reparations payments? That's what I wonder.
At least 3-4 generations have been born after 1945, perhaps more. I don't think most people know that payments are still being made to families of Holocaust victims by German citizens. Are they tired of this handicap?
The idea of no sunset clause (it's my understanding, and I have to admit I'm going off memory) seems absurd to me.
Bitter resentment is not a good thing to foster in a population. I'm not saying ALL feel this way, but perhaps former East Germans are fed up with inequality, hence the AfD?
But what do I know, I'm just an American.
Words fail me to describe how utterly impotent the Germans are to affect their will on anything on the global stage (no military and their demographic collapse plus slitting their own economic throats by shuttering the last of their nuke plants )
Well, Hitler went a long way on simply delusions of grandeur...
It was not just delusions and grandeur. The stats show Germany by 1938 had the largest military in terms of equipment and soldiers by far in Europe. By contrast, Russia’s military budget is far exceeded by that of the European nations. Russia does have manpower, however.
Exactly, the USA still spends more than the next 8 nations combined. The British dominated the globe for more than a century with their “Rule of 2” which meant that their navy was always more powerful than the next two empires combined so they could be confident they would prevail should the next two most powerful empires join forces. America has done that on steroids, and it’s drained our treasury, led to luxury wars of choice, and bloat and corruption
And no source of fuel, and no navy to speak of except u-boats. The more strategic thinkers in that country favored blitzkrieg because they already knew they had no sustaining power, so it had to be quick, and it had to access oil. But they had to satisfy the deluded-in-chief or be shot.
Hitler required his officers to switch from pledging allegiance to their country to pledging to him. Once that happened, he could do anything he wanted, although the generals did try unsuccessfully try to assassinate him. So you are right on that.
You are probably right about the lack of fuel, which was Japan’s problem as well. Did not stop them, though.
Trump’s firing of the Generals makes you wonder what the new ones had to pledge, but that is my own speculation.
Absolutely correct, DaveL. They were well trained and had the blitzkrieg working for them, but that was all. As soon as Russia's manufacturing was ramped up, and Stalin threw in millions of bodies, Germany was through. Hitler was also a military idiot.
And Meth.
I don't understand how Germany would "take the lead". That alone is richly comical. Let me quote from that great classic of the Western cultural canon, Shrek: "You and what army?" It's ridiculous. Taxpayers of all these nations are sick of financing a stupid forever war because Putin. Maybe it would be salutary to ship the last remnants of our equipment to "support Ukraine" and then realise we're kinda naked. I think we should all thank God that Putin is relatively sane, measured and very patient. It increasingly feels like some distant uncle is observing the inane antics of children.
"Hold on, first we just gotta get some gas from the Russians with our new pipeline......"
So true
You live in a dream world: Putin relatively sane and patient - do you really believe that.
One can still be diabolical and sane.
Don't be captivtti the Western media sphere. Putin is obviously not a madman. Those kinds of terms are almost invariably unsupportable and used to gin up anger. Putin enjoys wide support in Russia. The war has neither castrated the Russian economy nor brought it its knees geopolitically. If NATO agreed to a permanent neutrality policy for Ukraine the war would end in a week.
I think it's very obvious that he is exactly that based on what has transpired in the last decade.
It’s true, doesn’t mean he’s Hitler. “Putin is Hitler” just doesn’t work, no matter how many times it’s repeated. (It doesn’t insure him from going off his rocker eventually, though; a lot of old dictators tend to go that way, the more isolated they become).
Well all right. Make him into a little Stalin, as evil as the big o,ne, not shunning away from poisoningg his opponents (as renaissance commanders did in their time), kidnapping Ukrainian children from their families in order to transform them:into good obeying russians. S there is no genocide here, but for people living closse to Riussian, just as frightening. And all of a sudden, the US acts a though Putin aws a benevolent leaderwith whom one can make easy deals and whom one can mak deals and whom one can trust, notwithstanding all the opposing evidence. If the Us is wrong, you are not immediately going to suffer, bur we in Eutrope will. I know by lived experience what it is like to have a soviet army in your country. In Austyria, they could not do anything as they were sharing power with three other occupation armies, biut ask the poles, the Checks and even the Hungarian. They will tell you how a Russian army acts. And ask Ukrainian people who live in Bucha how it is to be reaprd by Russian soldiers. It's just not possible to waive all this away as if it had never happened. So let us remember and not deal out lies about the good peaceful Russians who were attacked by a belligerent Ukraine.
That's impressive regurgitation of Western narratives.
I believe it.
I also believe that he has had countless journalists murdered, which makes him very scary.
I'm trying to visualize rearming a massive German Army and marching it across Poland into Russia as a good idea
@Alex
There is a dandy meme going around about that...
"As a German, I just want to get this straight. The entire Western world wants us to build up a huge army, march through Poland and fight the Russians if necessary. Just writing it down so there are no misunderstandings in future..."
https://images.app.goo.gl/rRR39yAPLeB6HBDQA
What's the worst that could happen, Alex?
The difference between 1940 and 2025 is demographics.
If Germany was intent on invading Russia, it would be a phallanx of hoverounds rather than tanks.
That and they would need to have the invasion complete before dinner at 3:00 PM so they can be in bed by 5.
https://www.statista.com/topics/6629/demographic-change-in-germany/
When you have a declining population, there isn’t much demand for increased lebensraum.
Another brilliant idea. Draft the Muslim population and arm them heavily. No more knife attacks.
Hahahaha!
Wait till October or November, though...
The so called "defenders of democracy" overthrew a legal election in Ukraine. Then they embraced real Nazi's. Now Ukraine does not have an elected head of govt operating as an authoritarian. Ukraine refuses to hold an election. Democracy has nothing to do with this. I was fortunate to have taken Russian History in 77. That Russia would be touchy about a large chunk of a neighboring nation trying to join NATO should surprise no one. Ukraine belonged to Russia for many years. They are ethnic close cousins. The Soviets and the Tzars armies fought and bled hard for Crimea. Its Russian. Period. The truth is as Matt and Walter has been explaining, its at its root it was a deeply corrupt and cynical action by globalists and others as a permanent war to subdue Russia and make huge profits for the Military Industrial Complex. Germany is at 0 and 2 for a victory over the course slavs that the world always underestimates. Do they want to kill Russians like Walt suggested? Personally I lean towards the Russians on this question given the historical context and present realities. Not that I approve of any war. I tend to agree that Putin has made a seriously significant contrast spiritually and psychically that's compelling to those worried about Western Civilization.
Really strange "real Nazis" with a Jewish head of state. I think you are confused by the fact Ukrainian nationalists revere people who after the Holodorm, in which Stalin (who could be portrayed as a Georgian madman who slaughtered millions of Russians as well as Ukrainians, but whom Putin as rehabilitated as a "Russian" hero) murdered millions of Ukrainians by stealing their harvest, briefly embraced the Nazis as liberators.
I agree Crimea is Russian. In fact I would suggest that a reasonable settlement to the current war would involve Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, but only territory that meets four criteria:
(1) it is currently Russian occupied, (2) it was not part of the Ukrainian S.S.R. in 1940, (3) it was majority Russian speaking in 2014, and (4) its inhabitants voted for Yanukovic's Party of the Regions in the last Ukrainian election before the Maidan uprising (and were thus disaffected by the resulting pro-Western tilt).
Sounds about right: this would be a reasonable split then https://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/wp-content/gallery/ukraine2010/2010-ukraine-second-winners-english.png
It seems these ‘Ukrainian nationalists’ also murdered Poles. Gypsies and Jews. Strange that!
At the risk of getting crushed by your readers...I must admit that I am becoming increasingly nervous at the possibility that Western Europe may rightly or wrongly believe that a prolonged war of attrition and stalemate may be beneficial to them regardless of the horrible cost to Ukraine and it's people. My idea is not a theory or a hypothesis...I'm not well enough informed for such elevated labels...it's just a nasty little thoughtlet that somehow entered by brain uninvited and unwanted. When I interrogate my subconscious as to where this horrible little idea came from all I can come up with is Stephen Kokin's incredibly well articulated perspective on how costly this war is to Russia and the myriad ways in which it is wreaking havoc on their already tenuous position on the Global stage. Readers...how stupid is my question?
It's like the neocons realized the US was out so they ran to Europe for help......
This one is on the neoliberals, but the neocons are marching hand in hand with them.
That’s exactly what it feels like!
You put into words what has been a vague notion in my head. I keep asking myself, Qui bono? Why would Europeans think a forever war with Russia would get them anywhere? What do they want? Do they think they can weaken Russia, the Russia with all the nukes? And that would be good because they fear Russia is going to invade central Europe? I don’t find that credible but I don’t live there. Do Europeans see Russia as territory it wants? So they figured they’d get big daddy America to pay most of the bill? And what’s in it for us? The whole “protecting” democracy argument is pure BS, now that I’ve read up on NATO expansion and Vicky Nuland.
So now big daddy America is DJT, and he’s blowing up the plan. How do he and his administration see the new world order? I hope, at the risk of sounding like a “Putin lover” it includes some sort of detente with Russia. If England, France and Germany want to go full Islam, and now Ireland too, FFS, and they want to silence speech, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere for allies. Italy, Poland, Hungary…. And build America as the whole North American continent from Greenland to Panama.
All wars are resource wars and this one is no different. Billions of western dollars were “invested” in Ukrainian resource projects during the run up to all of this nonsense thinking friendly administrations would enable extraction- that money won’t just be written off. The usual suspects (financial institutions) are involved of course.
Can you name a few? Don't mean to sound like I'm calling you out or anything - just curious and would like to read up!
IMF, World Bank, BlackRock, Vanguard... As was said, the usual suspects.
Beat me to it…but any US firm with “Black” in the name is a good place to start. Then look into the agribusiness space…land grab for one of the most fertile and productive areas in the world.
Agreed. The idea of the EU beating Russia, the biggest nuclear power in the world, is nothing but laughable. All of this madness just benefits China.
I believe that "they" wanted to divvy up Russia between themselves, & take all the natural resources they can.
Not stupid at all:
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-new-reality-in-the-ukraine-war/
If you go back with that view of the war to 2022 and watch the statements of Biden, it was pretty clear that his plan was simply to bleed Russia the way Reagan bled Iraq and Iran in the 1980’s.
Biden consistently gave Ukraine just enough aid to freeze the Russian advance, but aid would be delayed just in time to prevent an advance with the exception of the one failed Ukrainian counter attack over the Summer of 2023, which we knew would fail.
Biden would often slip up in his arrogance and almost admit this during press briefings when asked if he was failing in Ukraine, but just before the final words would pull back and say “well, anyway…."
A great question, in my view
Your question is not stupid at all. You might even find a kindred spirit in the form of Marco Rubio who within the last 10 days referred to the war as a proxy war.
You've got to pay attention to all those nasty little thoughtlets....there is a reason you have them....
I believe Rubio was told by a European leader to let the war go on another year so Russia/Putin can collapse.
I doubt many Europeans believe that "a prolonged war of attrition and stalemate may be beneficial". What I think they might believe is that the war can actually be won outright in another year or two. I too think this is more possible than many people realize. Yes, Ukraine is hurting, but so is Russia, with massive troop losses, and recently the long-range drone attacks gradually destroying their refineries and military infrastructure.
Winning without the US will be harder, of course.
What does outright winning look like? What does Putin do if indeed outright losing is a real possibility?
I think, ultimately, the war and the NATO expansion that provoked it are simply a continuation of the Western project to place a pliant regime in Russia so that will allow the West to turn Russia into a resource extraction vassal state.
Bingo!
Sounds like Hitler's idea. How did that go??
It’s also important to distinguish Europeans from European leaders, whose intentions may be entirely separate. A lot like what just happened here, and why there’s an effort or at least a desire to overturn our last election. Europe’s leaders have already overturned one election, and seem intent on cutting Hungary out of the herd.
Yeahhhh...
Not a snowballs chance in Hell.
The reality is that as with most wars there were serious mistakes and provocations on both sides. Meersheimer is partly right but leaves out that Putin made the final decision to respond to our provocations. Electing a senile Biden who had a bunch of weaklings around him was another factor leading Putin to think there would be no response to his second invasion.
This brings into focus how out of control our deep state is. Now that USAID is practically dead, its role in funding the 2014 coup in Ukraine is coming out. The previous government was Russia friendly and we installed a Western friendly one with Nuland at State picking many of the cabinet ministers. Hopefully Congress will enact legislation to ensure that Trump's almost total elimination of USAID will be permanent.
Tulsi Gabbard is saying that she is encountering more resistance than even she expected. She needs Trump's full support to downsize the intelligence agencies which have become rogue and unaccountable unconstitional branches of government. I predict Tulsi will win this war.
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1889715868801573253
Michael Schellenberger has a couple of long but excellent videos up here at substack analyzing what is happening at a deeper level and why there is utter panic. Basically the post WWII order with the US as the dominant power is being replaced with nationalist governments who are acting in their own interests. There are millions of leaches in governments, NGO's, and regime media who make a living by supporting this old order and writing in favor of it.
I've been giddy the last 7 weeks with excitement and watching our first chance to cleanse our increasingly corrupt elites and return to Enlightenment values and limited Government. As a scientist, I'm excited to see Makary, RFKJ, and Battacharia because they can clean up science institutions which are mostly now hopelessly politicized and woke. And there is a real chance to end the wars too.
Time is of the essence in rooting out the CIA, before it is able to do what it does best, regime change. Except this time, regime change will be in DC. This one item is really troubling-murder, torture, propaganda doesn’t faze them at all.
Other commenters have mentioned NATA expansion as a bright line for Putin and I think that's right too.
Blaming Ukraine for wanting to be closer to the West and thereby causing Russian aggression is like blaming a rape victim for dressing provocatively. There is no excuse. I lived in Russia for five years - they are wonderful people saddled by centuries of horrible government. Sure, in the 90s I wondered why NATO was still around, but Eastern European countries, the people that know Russia best, scrambled to join NATO and FINALLY put an end to the threat from Russia. Americans have the luxury of being a continent away, buffered by Europe. Western Europeans have the luxury of an Eastern European buffer. The Eastern Europeans have nothing between them and Russia, and act appropriately. Even Finland and Sweden, neutral throughout the Cold War, were finally driven to join NATO thanks to the latest Russian behavior. They are under no illusion what could happen if Russia wins in Ukraine. All this is not to say ANY Americans need be in harm's way, but as long as Ukrainians want to fight, I'm fine with giving them the tools to do so. But President Trump is right in that Europe needs to carry its own weight.
Lots of truth there. Probably why my grandparents and many of their relatives left the “old country” (Lithuania, in this case), and moved here, after the Russian Bolshevik revolution. How America is going to “fix” that situation by dribbling armaments into such places seems pretty remote, though. (I also lived in Russia for 5 years.)
Couldn’t agree more.
Ah yes, the evergreen rape victim analogy. Except in this case, Ukraine didn't just dress provocatively. Zelensky stripped naked, straddled Russia's face, and started grinding. The entire world knew Ukraine NATO membership was a red line, but Ukraine and NATO kept pushing it.
I think “the West” was controlled by a closely tied coterie of globalist psychopaths who tried to strip Russia and Ukraine of any wealth and sovereignty they had after the breakup of the USSR, and were actively conducting regime change operations in both countries whenever serious resistance appeared. Putin was seen in the West as a (by Russian standards) semi-liberal product of the St Petersburg political faction, more liberal and west/facing than the competing Muscovites and therefor acceptable to the West and their controlled oligarchs when Yeltsin had to step down for reasons of health and loss of legitimacy.
Putin surprised them by standing up for Russia and reining in the oligarchs and Western exploiters, for which they hate him with a white hot passion. The rest of the story flows from there. the further corruption of Ukraine until even westerners saw it as the most corrupt nation in Europe. NATO committing to bring in Ukraine and Georgia, to squeeze out Russian access to the Black Sea— leading to Russian military responses in Ossetia and Crimea in 2008 and 2014 after a western coup in Kyiv. Regime change operations in Russia (unsuccessful) and Ukraine (successful, twice—2014 and 2019). NATO arming Ukraine after the 2014 coup, including establishing multiple biowarfare labs in Ukraine, as Nuland admitted to Congress in 2022 and has never been explained. Ukraine increased persecution of Russian speakers in the Donbas, then the West and Ukraine used the Minsk 2 agreement to buy time to further arm Ukraine, as Merkel, Hollande, and Poroshenko all later said. Russian protests continuing to be ignored or dismissed, even as Russia moved troops to the Ukraine border in 2021-22. Finally, a big increase in Ukrainian bombardment of Russian/l-speaking areas in Donbas in mid-February 2022, documented by OSCE observers, and Russia went in.
Throughout these 2 decades, Russian protests and warnings, and after about 2008 constant Western talk of forcing regime change in Russia.
Without getting into the deeper backstory of the USSR being promised in 1990-91 that if it permitted German reunification NATO would not expand eastward, which was violated in 1999 and again in 2004.
Lots more, including the security guarantees that Ukraine got when it surrendered the Soviet nukes on its territory in ca. 1995, and Biden saying a month before the attack that something less than a full invasion would not get a strong response, which strikes me as a gambit to get Putin to attack, but those are the most obvious high points.
Great summation!
We're witnessing the kind of geopolitical realignment that gives birth to the spirit of a century.
With that in mind, it seems clear to me the fools leading Western Europe serve that old, decrepit victor of the 20th century: liberalism. Like fascism and communism, it is totalitarian. That's the end of any ideology. Having failed to secure the world, if it can't have it then no one can.
Hence their obsession with global thermonuclear eschaton.
Russia, China, and now the United States see, through a looking glass darkly, the future coming. Something more imperial, like the 19th century. It will likely be authoritarian but it will not be totalitarian. This is an important, and welcome, distinction.
In the current moment the shooting in Ukraine needs to stop as soon as possible, less the servants of the old order get their death wish fulfilled.
Whatever happens after that will have to take care of itself.
"My freedom ends where your begins." John Locke
That isn't a totalitarian ethic. It's a striving for balance among infinite complexity. Of rights, abilities, aspirations, etc. And, yeah, it's been pretty victorious over the last century or so in skyrocketing quality of life, on the whole (they don't have Substack in China or Russia).
As it happens, as of September 2024, Russia has announced plans to invest approximately 60 billion roubles over the next five years to enhance its internet censorship system, known as TSPU. And we don't need to elaborate on China, do we?
When it comes to the "thermonuclear eschaton", how is liberalism's so far successful attempt to buffer the bottle of nitroglycerin suicidal? Are you saying Russia's provocative hostile act of invading Ukraine isn't "playing with WW III"? MAD is a nutty lesser of two evils scenario, but includes liberal democratic nations and authoritarian ones.
If you are suggesting that perhaps a uni-polar world in the grip of a single authoritarian rule could avoid our atomic end, sure, I guess. But then what are we saying here? Let's all surrender, let the iron fists stuff us into the Snowpiercer train, because liberalism is actually fascist?
I don't think so. Just giving into an authoritarianism order on account of liberalism's "reign" is a super weird, and maybe even cowardly argument.
Shut up, stupid.
lol. Sorry, you can go back to reading Bronze Age Pervert or whatever now
Listen, your post is obviously disingenuous.
Feel free to fuck off. No one cares.
Disingenuous?
Shall I fetch you a dictionary?
Just for fun, let’s take your post seriously.
First issue I have is that Locke quote. Seems to me you’re just quoting scripture, so to speak.
What does it even have to do with what I said originally?
It's pretty simple. The quote is just a well-known laconic phrase, a rusty skeleton key into the main tenets of the liberalist ethic - and what beating back authoritarianism, Russia in this case, is all about.
Russia enshrines wha? Near-total censorship, a permanent unitary executive, lethality for political opposition, revanchist imperialism, etc. Flawed and hypocritical as European nations and America are (it's bad), they don't come even close to that level of despotic nightmarishness, in my view.
So fighting for "liberalism" (against Russia) instead of giving into authoritarianism, the "spirit of a century" as you phrased it, seems to be a fun theoretical lark on comment threads to me, but ultimately a doombound mistake.
Where do you live? Gonna assume you don't live under authoritarianism, correct me if that isn't the case. I'm in Canada. When Trump talks about annexing us, he's not trolling, he's not fucking around. He's experimenting with breaking our economy as a first step, as a pretext to move in. So it seems anyway.
We are rich with goodies. Fresh water and minerals and petrol galore.
If Russia gets what it wants, the symbolism isn't some theoretical liberal talking point. It's one of the wicks lit for this new dynamite age you speak of, and it could explode in the face of us all - but especially the smaller, weaker countries. Like, maybe you're American and don't give a shit because you think you'll be fine on the winning side. In which case, and I don't like saying this, you would be my enemy (not just a hate-me-huffing troll in the ether of Substack).
If the US makes a Putin move northward, if the new "take it if you can" global calculus wins out, that means I'll have to give up my sovereignty, like Ukraine (yes, very flawed, very corrupt live every nation) and forced to live in...like, I'll be careful but also express the Goya black period paranoia a little...what is almost surely to become some hybrid form of whatever the apex of "dark enlightenment" aspires to be, on top of the shining bloody obsidian foundations of some techno-feudal-Christian-corporate caliphate.
Like, I get it if you think that sounds like tweak hyperbole. Honestly, I do. But that is what Thiel and Vance and Yarvin and Musk are openly advocating if you listen closely.
Burn down the "deep state" and install a new one devised by the billionaires who bought the election, set FIRE to all checks and balances indiscriminately in the name of nationalist generosity, efficiency, transparency. Fire the non-loyalist JAGs, ignore and hopefully eradicate the judiciary, tank the economy (maybe), get some stagflation going for good measure (it worked in the 30s to kickstart some big bold plans), trigger some emergency power measures when the chaos soup hits simmer, see if the brass will follow you into the fray...
Obviously nobody knows what's going to happen. But, roughly speaking, what do you think we are going to get with all this Putin emulation, this dictator-alignment? If you ask me (I know you didn't) you get some very crass and lethal Americanized agent orange phenotype of Putin.
And I don't know about you but I don't want to live under anything resembling Russia. I like my Substack. I like my infinite glut of media options. I like my country of Canada. It's mine. If we abandon Ukraine (conscription warts and all) we are abandoning the global ideal of borders (different ideas for life) and freedom.
Hence, Locke.
Do you have anything for me besides “Russia bad”?
Because this just illustrates my original point: liberalism is now totalitarian. It can’t suffer any dissent.
Okay. Go ahead, make the case for Russia. For authoritarianism.
Why would I?
Two significant (HUGE) elisions in this timeline, both easily available in public records. The first is Putin’s confirmed request to Clinton that Russia be admitted into NATO (I believe he also asked this of Obama) so as to secure a security alliance from ‘Vladivostok to Lisbon’. Both times, after mild curiosity by US leaders, we declined. Perhaps most importantly there is no mention of the Istanbul Communique, agreed to by Putin and Zelensky’s negotiators, pending U.S. approval. The terms were highly favorable to Ukraine. See Jeffrey Sachs who advised both sides for the facts of this. The war was effectively over in mid April 2022. You also left out Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 treaties, the latter which was approved by the UN Security Council. These omissions are significant and can cause a lot of damage. Please consider this.
This mess was a mirror image of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Putin playing the role of JFK: No NATO missiles on our border! Obama or Biden or Trump could have stopped this thing before it started with one simple guarantee: No NATO and no missiles in Ukraine!
But there were and are no American nuclear missiles in Ukraine, nor any plan to put them there. If there had been, your analogy would be apt.
No missiles in Ukraine? What exactly do you think the desire to add Ukraine to NATO was for? The Christmas card list?
I see you missed the word "nuclear" in my post. Moreover, (1) there are not American nuclear missiles stationed in all NATO countries, (2) Ukraine was not in NATO when Putin invaded, nor is Ukraine in NATO now, and (3) the US has at times stationed nuclear weapons in non-NATO allied countries.
If NATO being close to Russia means American nuclear missiles close to Russia, Putin, and preventing that was the point of the war, Putin already failed in his objective, since now Finland is in NATO.
In view of (3) the only thing to Russia gains by keeping Ukraine out of NATO is not security against the fantasized American first strike attack, but the ability to attack Ukraine without Article 5 of the NATO treaty applying.
Never let reality get in the way of a good talking point
I believe the Cuban Missile Crises was provoked by the presence of US missiles in Turkey, which JFK quietly removed to help resolve the crises. The Russians are nothing if not consistent.
The CIA notched up overthrown govt. number 84.. at the behest of Secretary of State Clinton who spent 5 billion to overthrow the legitimately elected Ukraine government and install her personally picked Ukraine administration which included the Bad mannered stooge Zel.. It took the CIA/ the US military industrial complex 10 years of diligent work harassing Russia along the Ukraine border continuously. Until Putin finally said OK you want War.. You got it.. The US violated the treaty stating we would not among other things allow Ukraine into NATO.. no missiles on the border.. And the CIA/ military industrial complex controlled mainstream media spewed lies to the American people for that entire decade.. as well as the last 3+ years of this completely unnecessary war..
America geopolitically behaves no better than Russia.. or China as an X US Marine it hurts to make that this admission.. but 84 overthrown governments are damning proof it's true...
Perhaps President Trump can Real in the out of control American War Machine with over 700 military bases!!!????