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Putin’s worldview

The New Neo Posted on by

A lot of people figured that Putin’s stated intentions weren’t really his stated intentions, and are belatedly realizing that apparently he meant what he said.

So it might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with what he’s been saying for quite some time. Here’s a very simplified and incomplete summary: Ukraine belongs to Russia, and it doesn’t matter what the Ukrainians might think.

Here’s a transcript of his invasion-announcing speech from February 22. And here are two analyses of his aims and his justification for those aims: this and this. And yes, they’re from Vox, which sometimes does does have good analyses. I happen to agree with the basic analysis in those two essays (although the speculation in them about whether the invasion will occur and what its scope will be is moot).

Both essays, and many people, think what’s described there represent Putin’s sincere beliefs. I agree with that as well. It’s a window into his thinking and a possible help in anticipating his moves and perhaps even preventing a worse result than already seems in the works. But I wouldn’t swear to his complete sincerity about these beliefs, either.

Comments

Putin’s worldview — 122 Comments

  1. I hate Putin. He wants to create The Russian Empire 2 (USSR+Poland+Finland+…). I read a lot of Russian sources. On the basis of imperial ambitions and hatred for the West, there is complete madness in society, really almost fascism

  2. “Essentially the same historical and spiritual space” is a statement of Putin’s dream of a revived Russian empire. And yet, Peter and Catherine created an empire with a Western face, which Vladimir now rejects.

  4. Peter tried to Westernize Russia but it only partly took.

    Not that the West is any great shakes either, these days.

  5. Zara A:

    I can well believe it. His invasion of Ukraine is a threat to all the neighboring independent countries.

  6. Zara A:

    It seems to me that Vlad’s slippers leave bloody tracks, but not of his blood. So I have no interest in wearing or walking in them.

    It has been a very dangerous thing to oppose Vlad, The Restorer of Roosia. Ukraine, Crimea, Georgia, and journalists and dissidents dying from random ingestion of Po-210 tea, or somehow stumbling into nerve agents (Novachok?) in a London park.

    But we must allow and understand Vlad’s motivations and motives (sarc). Because NATO.

  7. Zara A:

    Over the years, I’ve worked with a few Russian scientists. I’d say that two were good colleagues, but one became more than that, and she talked a lot about what Russia was like. Over and over, she would stress that the country’s excellent scientists and engineers formed a very thin veneer. She thought that politics, government, and even the broader society was dominated by a mentality that was irrational and even somewhat primitive. She thought that Americans and western Europeans had no intuitive grasp of what Russia was like. It’s been many years since we’ve talked, and I have no idea what she might think of the Ukraine invasion. I’m sure that she’d be opposed to it, but I can’t guess past that.

    Anyway, I can’t read Russian, and have very little knowledge of the country’s history, so I’m curious about what you might think of my friend’s belief that Americans have no understanding of what it means to be Russian.

    More concretely, do you know whether Putin has successfully suppressed all political opponents? I wonder whether a botched Ukrainian invasion could lead to Putin’s downfall. If there’s a possibility of this, would western propaganda and financial support be of any use? I realize that these questions sound naive, but I haven’t seen anybody ask them, so I thought I’d stick my neck out.

    P.S. If I remember correctly, I think that one of Neo’s commenters is a slavic bibliographer. If so, I’d like to hear his opinion of all this.

    Thanks.

  8. Thanks for that transcript. My view is he wants to be Czar of all the Russias or as much as he can get. Doing it not unlike Czars hundreds of years ago.

  9. Cornflour:

    IIRC, regarding the Slavic bibliographer, Hubert knew some academic specialists in that discipline.

    Hubert may correct my recollection.

  10. At about the time Putin invaded Crimea – 2014 give or take – a few coworkers of my wife came to our house for lunch.
    One of them was Russian.

    I do not recall how the topic arouse, but she stated flat-out that Ukraine was Russian, always was Russian and should always be Russian.
    Nobody contested her comment, but we all were taken aback.

    Would be interesting to hear how many Russians agree with her comment.

    Then again , supposedly about 50% of Russians today believe Stalin was a great leader. If so, what does that say about Russians?

  11. What may be most illuminating is that both articles neo cites that purport to explain Putin’s motivation for invading the Ukraine, utterly ignore his assertion that it is the U.S. led NATO’s encirclement and steady encroachment toward Russia’s borders that motivates his actions. One that takes up the great bulk of his factually reasoned explanation.

    It is beyond dispute that NATO has steadily advanced toward Russia’s borders. However justified new NATO members may feel in joining the NATO alliance, from Russia’s perspective that movement cannot be dismissed as a matter of national security because it opens the real possibility of an indefensible vulnerability to nuclear attack. Only discounted by assuming that the West will never be ruled by despots seeking additional territorial expansion.

    Putin’s claims are easily verified but excused as understandable, as fears of a long gone S.U. projected upon a Russia that has limited its aggression to securing access to its borders through the Crimea and Georgia. In 2020 NATO expressed openness to the Ukraine being brought into NATO, yet that public announcement is dismissed and ignored as not supporting Putin’s national security concerns.

    Instead, the authors of those articles entirely attribute Putin’s actions to his belief that historically, Ukraine has been part of greater Russia for far longer than otherwise. That beliefs may not necessarily form the greater part of someone’s motivation in specific circumstances isn’t given even the briefest of consideration.

    The articles also claims that Ukrainian citizens want to be allied with the West. Which is a bald faced lie. The western half of Ukraine wants to be allied with the West. But the eastern half of the Ukraine wants to be part of Russia, as the video lecture by John Mearsheimer makes absolutely clear.

    Putin bad! Putin baaddd… underlies so much of the arguments made here, proof that feeling based arguments are not always restricted to the left.

    History demonstrates that locked in perceptions are often the factor that precipitates wars. Once again we see it here.

  12. Then again , supposedly about 50% of Russians today believe Stalin was a great leader. If so, what does that say about Russians?

    Of course it could read: supposedly about 50% of Americans today believe that Biden is a great leader. If so, what does that say about Americans?

  13. On this Geoffrey is willful blindness, personified.

    Saying Vlad is good and NATO is bad day after day doesn’t change the current events.

    Focus Geoffrey, NATO didn’t invade Kalinograd, Vlad preemptively invaded Ukraine. Ukraine wasn’t and still isn’t in NATO.

  14. Geoffrey Britain is correct. The winners are the defense industry and the Deep State. F35’s will be going in great numbers to the Baltic Nations on credit as well as training and upgraded bases. Defense budgets will soar.

    There is no way Ukraine can endure, and no way Russia will stop. Lives are being lost for nothing except to profit Lockheed et al.

    An incredible tragedy brought on by clueless idiots like Biden and his advisors.

  15. What Geoffrey Britain said. Also:

    While I care about the Russia/Ukraine situation, I care only because of the Biden Administration’s incompetence. Like many, I worry it could escalate into WW3. I pray for the victims of the war in Ukraine, and they have my sympathy, but we have Biden here, and Trudeau on our doorstep, and an open southern border. Many of my friends and family have lost jobs due to vaccine mandates. Inflation has caused both my grocery bill and my utility bill to skyrocket so much its like I took a demotion in position and commensurate pay at work. Like I said, I’m sympathetic but we have our own issues here.

    I would hope that people see the tremendous narrative shift happening, from “Virus! Virus! Virus!” to “Putin! Putin! Putin!’/’Russia! Russia! Russia!’. It doesn’t take long to see that some simple substitutions in rhetoric have already happened almost seamlessly, the most obvious ones being:

    “Anti-Vaxxer!” or “Science Denier!”——> “Pro-Russia!” or “Putin Fan/Supporter!”

    That alone should give everyone pause, regarding any and all information about the Russia/Ukraine situation. I’m not saying it’s not serious or grave. But then, I never said Covid wasn’t serious or grave, and that didn’t stop people from calling me names for questioning the situation.

  16. Brandon and the Junta forced Vlad to invade the Ukraine. Damn, I didn’t realize Vlad was their puppet.

    Every Ukrainian and Russian (they are the same after all, Vlad said so) who dies in Vlad’s de-Nazification is dead because of Brandon (and NATO).

    One learns amazing things every day!

  18. I do not recall how the topic arouse, but she stated flat-out that Ukraine was Russian, always was Russian and should always be Russian. Nobody contested her comment, but we all were taken aback.

    A commonly stated viewpoint in Anatoly Karlin’s comboxes. Some of them modify it to refer to the eastern Ukraine, maintaining west Ukrainians are degenerate Poles. It’s obnoxiously silly, of course.

    Note, in the world in which we live, fairly similar people live side-by-side separated by historical events into different sovereignties. Australia and New Zealand, Britain and Ireland, the United States and Anglophone Canada, France and Wallonia, Austria and Germany, Flanders and the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, Roumania and Moldova, adjacent Arab states, adjacent Latin American states. Sometimes there is pan-national sentiment, usually not. Sometimes there is a history of disputes generating mutual antagonism (see the British Isles or the Yugoslav states), usually not. It’s in Russia and China where this anomaly generates a constituency for coercive abuse of the population outside the fold.

  19. I am surprised that the Vox article rejects the Russians beginnings in Kyiv. I am not an historian, but read several histories of Ukraine while I lived there. Putin’s monologue seemed to me to contain two truths: that Ukraine is the origin of the Rus and that many Ukrainians consider themselves Russian. That does not mean that Ukraine is not its own country. It is like England deciding to conquer the US because we are one people. The eastern part of Ukraine is more connected to Russia. A friend of ours from the east considered himself Russian and spoke only Russian. This is largely due to Russia’s forcing russification on the Ukrainians. Anyway, Putin’s monologue was just rationalization.

  21. Brandon and the Junta forced Vlad to invade the Ukraine. Damn, I didn’t realize Vlad was their puppet.

    IR theorists of the realist school are fond of scenarios analogous to chess games.

  22. Geoffrey Britain is correct. The winners are the defense industry and the Deep State.

    Thanks, Smedley. What would we do without original thinkers?

  23. Geoffrey Britain and those who agree with him:

    Since 2005 Putin has been saying publicly the same thing about Ukraine and all the rest actually being Russian. That has little to nothing to do with NATO of his dream of re-forming Russia’s empire. There is no reason to think he hasn’t felt way for most of his adult life.

    He has spoken repeatedly for the same amount of time about how the dissolution of the USSR was the greatest or one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. He sees NATO as getting in the way. His anger at NATO is based on their thwarting his ambitions to re-incorporate these “Russian” entities back into the waiting arms of dear Mother Russia.

    I have no idea why you fail to see this.

    If I were a Ukrainian I’d want to join NATO too. Otherwise Ukraine seems like a sitting duck.

    Putin is striking Ukraine now because he’s flush with cash from selling fossil fuels to the West, and he knows Europe and the US are weak and run by weaklings or idiorts or worse.

  24. Do not forget about serfdom until 1861.

    Hereditary subjection was abolished in the Hapsburg dominions in 1848, in Roumania in 1864, in the United States in 1865.

  25. Cornflour:

    It is difficult for me to make predictions about Putin’s fall. He is ready to kill any opponent (Nemtsov) and brutally suppress any revolution. Maybe a palace coup? I do not know

  26. om.
    Motivations? Maybe medications as well.

    Vlad came up through the KGB. Ended up a light colonel. Wonder what his goal was when he left/was retired at LTC level. Might he be feeling he was unjustly refused a promotion?

    KGB are reported to be pretty cagey, especially in terms of manipulating people. I recall Vlad and Bush II in Texas in a public setting. Bush said, ask anything. Vlad said, “except math”. Big laugh. He’s a normal guy like us, same issues…..
    I have no idea what his math scores were, but the point is…his sense of humor scores are likely pretty low.

    But he can certainly fake anything he likes. If he’s telling the truth, it’s because he knows there’s nothing anybody’s going to do about it.

  27. JohnTyler:

    Russians believe that not only Ukraine, but also Kazakhstan, the South Caucasus (I live there now), the Baltic states and many other regions should belong to them. Some especially zealous nationalists consider themselves the heirs of the Byzantine Empire and dream of conquering Istanbul someday.

    I lived in the USSR and I know for sure that in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, no one in the USSR remembered Stalin. Now in Russia there are really a lot of people who love Stalin. How could this happen? Propaganda? Nostalgia? Mysterious Russian soul?

  28. Perspective from the younger set, Tim Pool, as Vlad threatens Sweden and Finland.

    Tim and his guest point out that the Baltic states have been members of NATO for quite some time. Geoffrey, the Baltics are on the actual border of Russia, right now, always have been. Vlad has had those fears of NATO for a long long time it seems. Just had to live with them, poor Vlad.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZXau4VIsA0

  29. Zara A:

    Be well and best wishes in these troubled times of the Russian Bear.

    Gulag Denier syndrome, or Stalin and The Great Patriotic War, or Stalin and the USSR really won WWII? Who can say.

  31. And are you not ashamed that you do not have a leader who can speak like this?

    Russian President Vladimir Putin Delivers His Traditional New Year’s Eve Address
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vTDuLwBcJ8

    Say what you will about ‘Propaganda’… You can know a nation by its propaganda. Have a look at your propaganda today and weep. Which brings us to..

    Another aspect of the present Russia hatred is Shame. Rage at the terrible Shame of having utterly squandered 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. Shame at having fallen so far into depravity and unreality. Shame at knowing in one’s bowels that one’s national founding ideals have become a mockery.

    Finally, the only way Americans can come together at this very late stage of the game is by hating a Foreign Pharmakos more than they hate each other. Democracy FTW.

  32. The last time a dictator rolled on another country, multinational forces arrived led by the US and kicked him all the way back to his palace. I guess this time we at least won’t have any distracting, time-wasting, back-biting arguments about who has weapons of mass destruction.

    Kind of interesting how this process works when a society with a supposedly democratically-elected government is overrun by a dictator whether they like it or not, and the world can’t decide how to react.

  33. Z is a joke in his love for despotism.

    War in Ukraine, Vlad threatening Finland and Sweden, shooting up merchant shipping in the Black Sea and he posts video about b.s. noise level idiocy from the LGBTQxyz as a contributing cause for world events.

    Deflection and distraction are some of Z’s tools.

  34. The Russian attachment to the Ukraine is emotional, not logical. Any actions by the West in that area required more intelligence and diplomacy than were available in the EU and/or the Biden White House. Most of the defense of Europe has fallen to the US and Biden didn’t have the skill to make that work or the nerve to even try. Once the US began evacuating Kiev, there was no question of how to game was going to go.

  36. Z:

    Are you a fool tonight? How many people here do you think voted for Brandon? Do you think? Do you realize that folks here probably loathe Brandon and his junta and toadies in the media? Do you realize that many here may think that Brandon is compromised by your patron Xi and possibly by Vlad as well?

    Check your shoes, you are tracking dog sh*t all around, again.

  37. Another aspect of the present Russia hatred is Shame. Rage at the terrible Shame of having utterly squandered 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. Shame at having fallen so far into depravity and unreality. Shame at knowing in one’s bowels that one’s national founding ideals have become a mockery.

    They haven’t squandered 30 years. Vis a vis the United States, Russia is as affluent as it has ever been. The last 20 years have seen ample improvement on just about any social or economic metric you’d care to name. And Russia has no ‘founding ideals’ any more than any historic nation has them.

  38. When he deals with Western leaders and interviewers he speaks calmly and shows them up for the empty-headed fools they are. I

    “Empty-headed fool” does not describe Boris Johnson or Emmanuel Macron or Mario Draghi.

  40. OK. Boris Johnson is a CLOWN.

    A sex-addicted clown with a propensity to recite Homer… but yet a clown.

    A Cut-rate Alcibiades if you will. Bill Clinton was yours.

    Macron is a weird closet case cipher married to his Mummy (in both senses of the word).

    Draghi is GloboHomo Technocrat Extended Edition. He may be very intelligent… but spent most of his career working for the Devil. As Prime Minister of Italy there have been much worse.. to be fair to him.

  41. Scrolling through comments I see no mention of our energy independence that Trump accomplished. It was thrown away on day one of Biden’s regime as he signed 17 EOs to make us dependent on imported oil. The largest source of oil imports is RUSSIA ! Biden talks of sanctions while we import millions of barrels of Russian oil and fund his aggression,

  42. @Art+Deco:

    I’d be interested to hear your enumeration of the things Boris Johnson stands for. I mean apart from Boris Johnson.

    Try to imagine Johnson saying this and meaning it:

    “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”

  43. A sex-addicted clown with a propensity to recite Homer… but yet a clown.

    He’s a bad husband. There is no indication he’s a male nymphomaniac. That’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

  44. “Saying Vlad is good and NATO is bad day after day doesn’t change the current events.” om

    Intentional strawman argument, purposeful misstatement of my position or a failure in comprehension?

    I have never, not even once, made the assertion that Putin is a good man. In fact, I have repeatedly stated him to be a ruthless, brutal dictator.

    All I have done is stated that his motivation for invading the Crimea, Georgia and now the Ukraine has been primarily motivated by what from the military perspective of Russia are understandable strategic national security considerations. Assertions that several cited experts have made as well.

    I have also repeatedly acknowledged Putin’s territorial ambitions and desire to return Russia to the geopolitical influence of the Soviet Union.

    “Ukraine wasn’t and still isn’t in NATO.”

    That isn’t in dispute. What also isn’t in dispute is the repeatedly stated desire fror factions within NATO that the Ukraine be incorporated into NATO. Evidenced by official NATO announcements and echoed in public statements by the West’s installed Ukrainian President.

  45. I’d be interested to hear your enumeration of the things Boris Johnson stands for.

    A sovereign Britain.

    I’m talking about the USA having wasted 30 years. Don’t be obtuse.

    No clue why you’d find our shame the source of Russian revanchism.

    That aside, the political class in the United States, by and large, hasn’t the conscience to be ashamed of much of anything. The people who are dismayed are largely on the outside looking in, like Heather Mac Donald and Conrad Black. And the problem has little to do with the Cold War, but rather the chronic mismanagement of the nation’s domestic affairs.

  46. All I have done is stated that his motivation for invading the Crimea, Georgia and now the Ukraine has been primarily motivated by what from the military perspective of Russia are understandable strategic national security considerations. Assertions that several cited experts have made as well.

    Yes, but this is a fantasy of yours.

  47. “No clue why you’d find our shame the source of Russian revanchism.”

    Obtuseness is not a useful debating tactic. Unless you’re an octopus and clouds of ink are all you’ve got.

    I said it’s the source of much Russophobia.

    And you understood that perfectly because after having pretended to NOT get it and create the impression for skimming readers that my point was a nonsense… you then proceeded merrily upon your way to lecture me on to why Western Elites are incapable of feeling Shame.

    Hoist by your own petard.

    Nice try.

  48. Geoffrey:

    Should the Baltic nations be forced out of NATO, or the other Eastern European members? That’s not a strawman either.

    After all Vlad may have military reasons to object to what other sovereign nations choose to do. You are familiar with slippery slopes, camel noses and fabric domiciles?

    If a sovereign nation unfortunate enough to be adjacent to Vlad’s Roosia must abide by Vlad’s capers and caprices aren’t they just vasal states to Vlad? Or is this another strawman? Does Vlad get to choose which nations get to be sovereign? Seems to be the case for you.

  50. How about discussing Stupid Idiotic People’s Worldviews?

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3168490/us-reportedly-sought-chinas-help-avoid-ukraine-invasion

    I mean, can you imagine the level of mental retardation and naivety required to try this one on?

    In December, US officials shared intelligence with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Ambassador Qin Gang, who discounted the idea of an invasion, a source says
    ‘Our information indicates that China then relayed that information to Russia, noting that the US was attempting to sow division,’ the source adds

    Oh! The Mean Kids acted in bad faith! Oh! Oh! Oh!

  51. neo,

    Putin has been strongly protesting against NATO’s steady expansion eastward since 1999, as Prof. John Mearsheimer states in the video I linked to today on yesterday’s thread.

    It’s not that I fail to see your points, I’ve even acknowledged them.

    In my considered opinion, I just don’t find them dispositive.

    If the strategic national security considerations for Russia didn’t exist with NATO’s eastward expansion with only the Ukraine remaining before NATO is encamped on Russia’s border within minutes flight of Moscow… I’d agree with you.

    And I too find it difficult to understand why that strategic consideration for Russia is so hard to accept. Apparently it comes down to we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys.

    The eastern half of the Ukraine does not want to be in NATO.

    I agree that Putin’s assessment of the weakness of the Biden administration and his cash rich resources is a factor in his moving now but I’ve concluded that is not the definitive factor for Putin.

    Putin stated that they’ve tried for the last 8 years to come to an accomodation with NATO for the Ukraine to remain a neutral buffer state. Instead, Russia has seen the steady militarization of the Ukraine by the U.S. led West. A recent map of Russia’s attacks upon military instalations in the Ukraine are an eye opening view of just how militarized has the Ukraine become.

    NATO’s announcement in 2021 that the Ukraine was welcomed as an applicant for NATO membership and, in the past month a refusal by NATO and the US to even discuss that concern, I believe led Putin to conclude that talks were entirely futile and that the US and NATO were determined to make the Ukraine a member of NATO. That forced Putin’s hand, since Russia agreeing for NATO to be upon its border was a utter nonstarter for Russia.

    Given the geopolitical conditions, I believe that Putin does prefer the Ukraine as a neutral, demilitarized buffer state, since if he incorporates the Ukraine into the Russian Federation… it would put Poland, a NATO member State… directly on Russia’s border.

    In his more recent thinking, Prof. Mearsheimer thinks that Putin will either gain a formal agreement that the Ukraine stay a neutral buffer state permanently banned from joining NATO or… he will wreck the Ukraine such that it’s incapable of membership. But that, one way or another the Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. And yes, that is an indication of just how ruthlessly brutal Putin is… and how determined Putin is about NATO on his doorstep.

  52. Putin has been strongly protesting against NATO’s steady expansion eastward since 1999, as Prof. John Mearsheimer states in the video I linked to today on yesterday’s thread.

    There is no steady expansion. We’ve been over this before. There were two discrete additions, and most of the productive capacity was in the first of these, which was completed more than 20 years ago, before Putin took office. And what does it matter that he ‘protested’?

  53. If you get information from Pravda, you’ll have at least as equal a chance of getting the truth as you will from any American media source (and likely any Western media source.)

    Between the two, maybe the actual truth of what’s happening in Ukraine can be puzzled out. But otherwise, I put zero stock in American media coverage of this situation. I, for one, have learned from the last 5 years.

  54. Given the geopolitical conditions, I believe that Putin does prefer the Ukraine as a neutral, demilitarized buffer state,

    Well, you’re the mark. Every move he’s made of consequence over a period of 10 years has worked to alienate that buffer state.

  55. “Should the Baltic nations be forced out of NATO, or the other Eastern European members?”

    Uh…yeah, probably. Unless you think it makes a lick of sense for the United States to fight a nuclear war over the territorial integrity of Latvia. Because…you know…that is what we are currently OBLIGATED by treaty to do.

    Go to nuclear war.

    Killing hundreds of millions or billions of people.

    Over Latvia.

    Mike

  56. “Every move he’s made of consequence over a period of 10 years has worked to alienate that buffer state.”

    Almost every move made by the U.S. and Europe over the last 20 years has worked to alienate Russia.

    Mike

  57. “Geoffrey, the Baltics are on the actual border of Russia, right now, always have been.” om

    True but not much of a strategic concern for Russia given their size. Not enough land to house the forces needed to threaten Russia’s national security.

    Look, it doesn’t matter whether they’d ever be used in that manner. From a strategic perspective, all that matters is how useful they’d be, if employed in that manner.

    When you’re charged with the security and potential survival of a country, you take seriously every possibility regardless of how unlikely. For if you don’t, you can find yourself stunned as an enemy end runs around your impregnable Maginot Line of forts and watch as a blitzkrieg tears around through Belgium and effortlessly takes you from the rear. That’s the defensive mindset of every military because failure can and has many times resulted in horrific destruction and unimaginable tragedy.

    Tragedy you’re being depended upon by your countrymen and families to prevent. The Russians are no different than we in that regard.

  58. “There is no steady expansion. We’ve been over this before. There were two discrete additions, and most of the productive capacity was in the first of these, which was completed more than 20 years ago, before Putin took office.”

    We have been over this, in fact just the other day. You’re lying (knowingly telling an untruth) because your response clearly indicated that you’d read the history of NATO expansion eastward I provided which took place on 10 dates NOT two waves.

    You then disingenuously tried to requalify your claim by claiming you meant “production statistics”. Not mentioned at all in your first assertion, which you now ‘correct’ to make it appear that you stated it that way from the first. Nor did you acknowledge your ‘error’.

    Once again:

    “After its formation in 1949 with twelve founding members, NATO grew by including Greece and Turkey in 1952 and West Germany in 1955, and then later Spain in 1982.

    After the Cold War ended, and Germany reunited in 1990, there was a debate in NATO about continued expansion eastward.

    In 1999, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined NATO, amid much debate within the organization and Russian opposition.

    Another expansion came with the accession of seven Central and Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. These nations were first invited to start talks of membership during the 2002 Prague summit, and joined NATO shortly before the 2004 Istanbul summit.

    Albania and Croatia joined on 1 April 2009, prior to the 2009 Strasbourg–Kehl summit.

    The most recent member states to be added to NATO are Montenegro on 5 June 2017 and North Macedonia on 27 March 2020.

    As of 2021, NATO officially recognizes three aspiring members: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine.”

    A difference of opinion is fine. Pretending an assertion was never rebutted with facts is dishonest, plain and simple.

  59. https://www.foxnews.com/media/putin-threats-blood-curdling-douglas-murray

    Murray tells about Putin’s reaction to Covid. This guy has some serious problems.

    We do have to give countries more room to determine how they want to live and not let our activists de jour try to set their policies. I think we can set some limits like criticizing Iran for pushing gays off roofs, but we should not fly gay pride flags or get into the tranny issues.

    I was in Leipzig when the protests started and then later after reunification. I was disgusted at how little understanding the West Germans had for the people of Leipzig who jist wanted to preserve some of their heritage. I remember the bookstores on the main street, which earlier featured Literature in their windows, suddenly being filled with books on taxes. I remember seeing locals in a department store trying to figure out the prices for all the Western goods now filling their shelves. The natives were treated as deplorables. Sure, they wanted a better life, but they wanted to decide what to change and what to keep.

  60. Geoffrey accuses Art Deco of being a liar. Geoffrey, so sensitive to his honor and slanders of his online reputation. Oh well. A tragedy of unmatched severity.

    Geoffrey, should Vlad give up the Kaliningrad metastasis, as it was entirely given by Stalin after WWII? I will guess that Vlad won’t agree to such a change to historical Roosia.

    https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-society/3408416-russian-in-warsaw-declares-intention-to-initiate-kaliningrads-secession-from-russia.html

    And it seems that Bunge is also totally cowed by Vlad’s threats. Another one Vlad’s got by the short hairs. Vlad or his toady in Roosia today threatened Sweden and Finland. You see Bunge Sweden and Finland have been cooperating with NATO and don’t trust Vlad either. Funny that, despots don’t recognize other sovereign nations. You never learned that? Even when it is happening in real time, like, now? You might want to reassess your own abilities.

    “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

  61. @om:

    “Funny that, despots don’t recognize other sovereign nations. You never learned that? ”

    You mean like bombing Serbia?

    The United States de facto does not recognize sovereign nations. It interferes at will — unless the nation in question also has nukes. In which case it has to subvert indirectly — e.g. by stirring up trouble at borders.

    You’re a citizen of a country which threatens other nations with economic sanctions and sponsored NGO subversion for not permitting slaughter of the unborn and the promotion and celebration of Sodomy. Are you not proud?

    I for one well DO know my limitations. But do you even know your (metaphorical) self?

  62. So Z is now the authority on Douglas Murray. Astounding the depth and width of Z’s capacity. Or not.

  63. MBunge:

    When nations have competing interests and goals, they will continually make moves that alienate each other.

  64. MBunge:

    You write:

    . Unless you think it makes a lick of sense for the United States to fight a nuclear war over the territorial integrity of Latvia. Because…you know…that is what we are currently OBLIGATED by treaty to do.

    Go to nuclear war.

    Killing hundreds of millions or billions of people.

    Over Latvia.

    Where is it written that all wars involving NATO forces must be nuclear? Somehow I missed that memo. NATO has been involved in a few military actions and none of them featured nuclear weapons.

    Also, perhaps you’ve heard of the concept of the role of nuclear armaments in deterrence.

  65. For one who claims to know his limitations you certainly have never shown it here.

    Serbia, Bosnia, death squads, ethnic cleansing, civil war, United Nations. Milosovitch. He got bombed. Yep that happened. You proud of aparthied, buddy. You seem so proud of Xi, your master.

    Have you noticed that in America there is a anti-Abortion Pro Life movement that has been gaining strength for 40 plus years? Tell me again about the one-child policy of your vaunted Chinese culture. Have you noticed that there is push back to the LGBTQxyz123 agenda?

    Or you can sing the praises of Xi’s Social Credit system or maybe hint at the forbidden words that you must not say. Don’t be shy Z, after all that has been a problem, your reticence, decorum, tact, and veracity.

  66. “Britain does not have permanent allies. Britain has permanent interests.” Lord Palmerston

    Just dropped in and read the comments. I am not a Putin apologist. He is engaged in protecting Russia as he sees it. He has said over and over for years that Ukraine will not be part of NATO. Just as the United States refused to allow missiles in Cuba. Ukraine is a Russian permanent interest like Mexico is to the United States. That I will concede.

    Why did he feel that he could invade? Because the blundering dithering idiots in the United States poked him to do so since the Clinton days excluding Trump. The United States had Ukraine disregard the 2015 Minsk Accords. The Maiden revolution was engineered by the CIA, State Department with John McCain’s backing to install a West Oriented government that promptly allowed them to start plundering the country ala Biden and Burisma. They took their playbook from the Russia of Yeltsin and transplanted it. As Talleyrand (Napoleon’s and later Bourbon Kings Foreign Minister) said of a diplomatic crisis. “This is worse than an error. This is a blunder.” Putin reacted to what he regarded was a real threat to Russian interests. He did it now because he could. Oil prices are high driven by green ideologues so he had the funds to go to war. He learned how to deal with sanctions. He has no dollar reserves but has gold and the Euro. His debt is less than his reserves. Russia doesn’t really need anything essential from the West…but the west needs his natural gas and his metals. Now Italy and Belgium are rejecting sanctions for luxury goods to Russia. Note the sanctions are not ones that truly bite. They are for show only.

    Austin Bay’s On PointThe Strategic Costs of Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian Corruption (strategypage.com)

    John Kerry: The Ukraine Crisis Could Distract the World From the Climate Crisis While Having Massive Emissions Consequences (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

    The biggest blunder is the undoing of the Nixon diplomatic success of severing Russia and China. Our nitwits drove the two together. Putin announced war the day after the winter Olympics. Coincidence? The day of the invasion Russia and China announced wheat and oil sales worth several billion dollars. On the sanction vote China abstained. This is the long lasting impact of the US Deep State stupidity. Biden was the doddering bobble head when this happened. Note that Putin took Crimea while Obama was president and after he refused to enforce his chemical weapon red line with Syria. He did nothing while Trump was around as oil prices were low. Now he is finishing the job under Biden.

    We’re Surrounded By Ignoramuses – by Mark Wauck (substack.com)

    How the Greens Brought War to Ukraine | The Pipeline (the-pipeline.org)

    How Ukraine Fits Into The Global Jigsaw | ZeroHedge (excellent article read in full. Not stated but implied is that the dollar is in real danger of ceasing to become the world reserve currency. Everything stated about the Euro is true for the US Dollar.)

    The ethnic Russians are in a severe state of demographic collapse. Putin is trying get as many Russians as possible in Russia to maintain the state viability. Russia is a second world economy with huge extractive industries. The current western leaders allowed Putin to build his war chest.
    Michael Shellenberger on Twitter: “People think nothing could have been done to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine, but that’s absurd: if Putin thought the costs of invasion outweighed the benefits, he wouldn’t have done it. He’s a rational actor not a madman. And today it’s clear Putin calculated correctly.” / Twitter

    Here is a good article particularly at the bottom about the state of Ukraine. It is an amalgam of ethnicities with clear geographic demarcations. In the end I believe that Putin wanted to put a severe whooping on the Ukrainians, show what would happen is they allow the US to mislead them about being “critical” to the United States and go back to the eastern side. Time will tell.

    More Sense On Ukraine – by Mark Wauck – Meaning In History (substack.com)

    So the “End of History” is officially in the trash heap. Realpolitik is back in force and we have an inept elite that yammers on about climate change and white fragility. Like the French Ancien and Russian aristocracies they will be exposed and swept away.

    One good note is that the Russians are having a rough time fighting the Ukrainians. It is showing that a relatively first rate army will have a hard time against a moderately well trained motivated opponent. Hopefully China is taking note of this as they did a probing flight against Taiwan.

  67. I Am Spartacus:

    Some of those points are similar to what I wrote in my earlier post today on the subject of Ukraine. But I agree that driving China and Russia back together again is a tremendously dangerous situation.

    I like that title: “We’re Surrounded By Ignoramuses.” Thing is, they’re not just ignoramuses. They are ignoramuses who think they’re geniuses, who are dedicated to promoting the wrong things, and who have a lot of power.

  68. A difference of opinion is fine. Pretending an assertion was never rebutted with facts is dishonest, plain and simple.

    It was never rebutted in your mind because you’re not understanding the significance of the facts you offered. That three countries applied to join NATO does not mean they will be admitted to NATO, much less does it justify invading one of the countries for applying.

    Your complaint about the Yugoslav fragments joining NATO has been answered repeatedly. I can explain something to you. I cannot comprehend it for you.

  69. The biggest blunder is the undoing of the Nixon diplomatic success of severing Russia and China.

    MBITRW, Russia and China had been bickering for a dozen years at the time of Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. The significance of the visit was the restoration of common-and-garden diplomatic relations between the two countries and a reduction in the antagonism incorporated into the public diplomacy of the two states.

    It’s a strange thesis that China and Russia are co-operating because of flailing about by politicians and Foreign Service officers. They’re co-operating because they want to hurt us and hurt others. The problem here is that they hate us more than they fear each other.

  70. I hate Putin. He wants to create The Russian Empire 2 (USSR+Poland+Finland+…). I read a lot of Russian sources. On the basis of imperial ambitions and hatred for the West, there is complete madness in society, really almost fascism

    At this juncture I wouldn’t put it past Putin. If you stop and think about it brass tacks, it’s nutty. For over four decades, Soviet Russia devoted between 12% and 24% of its domestic product to military uses. That’s over and above the expenditure in resources to subjugate Central Asia and Transcaucasia in 1918-22 and to subjugate eastern Europe in 1944-48.

    Vladimir Zhirinovsky has said explicitly he wants the 1985 borders.

  71. Almost every move made by the U.S. and Europe over the last 20 years has worked to alienate Russia.

    I must have missed the part where we seized peripheral pieces of territory from them containing about 5% of their population, set up a bogus insurgency in order to swipe another slice of their territory containing an additional 7% of their population (including one of their principal regional centers), asserted a right to dictate their foreign relations, and fostered political propaganda claiming their government was run by Nazis and that their country isn’t a country and their people not a people.

  72. Nations don’t have friends or enemies. They have interests and threats.

    Threats are not about principles or intentions. Threats are about capabilities.

    There’s little point in arguing about what Putin’s view of the West and NATO should be. Same goes for China. Sure sure, these bloodthirsty dictators should believe as we do in the purity of our motives and the stainlessness of our intentions in expanding NATO and invading small nations far away from our borders, after all we’ve explained it so many times that they’re clearly lying if they say they don’t believe us. I’m no Putin-lover, I’m waving my tiny American flag harder than any of you.

    I say there’s no point because what Putin believes in his heart or doesn’t about the sinister intentions of the West is between him and God. The real issue is what he does. Do you want to have him do something different from what he’s doing?

    Then you have to appeal to his interest, or to his fears. If we can’t do either of those things because we’re so convinced of the purity of our motives and the stainlessness of our intentions, then we’re going to get more of what we’re seeing now. At some point we have to engage with reality that others don’t see the world we do. We should be able to honestly examine reality without being accused of being Russia-loving traitors.

    We’re here in the worst of both worlds where we’ve been talking the talk and everyone knows we won’t walk the walk. It would be more effective diplomacy to either start walking or stop talking. Both choices are going to be hard to square with pure motives and stainless methods.

    I personally would like us go to back to a commercial republic and stop trying to be the Federation from Star Trek. For that I typically get static here. Most of the commenters here oppose do-gooderism at home, I don’t think it’s wrong to apply the principle more broadly.

    We complain about our allies not doing their fair share to defend themselves. They never will as long as we continue to act as we have done. They’ve been doing well out of the system and they have no reason to want to change it–unless they can see that they can’t count on it. There’s a lot we can learn from this situation, and I’m sure we won’t.

    It’s important to remember that while we see ourselves as having swooped in to save the day and then go home, that didn’t actually happen. We stay in these places long after it;s over. The world sees it.

    Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

    She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

  73. I think we’d all benefit, Frederick, if you could decide what point you wanted to make and stated it concisely.

  74. TL DR version. We Americans think we’re good people just trying to help and getting basely slandered for our trouble. Far be it from me to doubt it, only a Putin-lover would.

    People like Putin–who are liars, our halos are plain to see–say that they think that Americans use their money and power to set up a “rules-based international order” that not-so-coincidentally benefits America and its clients while disadvantaging everyone else. And he is acting in accordance with that (I hasten to say) totally wrong belief which he probably doesn’t himself hold, he’s so obviously an evil liar, but he’s telling the world he does.

    But given that he is acting that way, what are we to DO that can induce him to change what HE is doing? Arguing with him and each other about whether our halos are really so lustrous as they obviously are is a waste of time. It’s what got us here and more of it won’t get us away.

    There are people here trying to think through how and indeed whether you can get Putin to stop what he’s doing taking in to account what he’s said and what he’s done–or is it better in the long run to figure out how to live with it because our efforts will only make things worse?

    I think those people should be able to do this without being called traitors.

    If that means we have to throw in ritual denunciations of Putin every paragraph or so I guess we do; the Right is not as different from the Left in this regard as they like to make out.

  75. Cornflour: “P.S. If I remember correctly, I think that one of Neo’s commenters is a slavic bibliographer. If so, I’d like to hear his opinion of all this.”

    That would be me. I majored in Russian language, lit, and history at university, worked as a Soviet affairs analyst at a Cold War establishment in Germany, and later worked as a Slavic bibliographer at a large state university in the Midwest. Haven’t been active in the field in over twenty years, but was once very invested in it.

    Briefly, my opinion. Consider these thoughts “illumination rounds” in the Michael Herr (“Dispatches”–great book) sense. Usual caveats about being overtaken by events apply.

    Russians: I worked with and around Russians from my late teens through my early thirties. Formidably smart and savvy people. Also very tough-minded and capable of appalling callousness and cruelty towards each other and others. Even the privileged ones–I worked with the Leningrad-born granddaughter of Dmitrii Sergeevich Likhachev, literary scholar and historian, GULag veteran, and the “conscience of Russia”–came up through a very tough school, much tougher than any of us can imagine. They’re also extremely and unabashedly patriotic. Even the dissidents were and are Russian patriots. That can be a good thing (see Likhachev). It can also break bad. Which brings me to…

    Putin. Putin is a proud Chekist (member of the secret police) and a Russian nationalist. He deeply resents the breakup and humiliation of the Soviet Union and wants to restore Russia to its former (in his view) greatness. Before the invasion, I regarded him as a nasty piece of work but basically rational and therefore cautious. However, his statements on Ukraine–and Finland, and Sweden–are increasingly unhinged. The world will be a safer place if and when he is put in a box. Preferably figuratively, but it may happen in fact, and at the hands of his own people. Remember what happened to Beria after Stalin’s death.

    On Putin’s intelligence and eloquence: yes, he’s a highly intelligent politician. He speaks well extemporaneously. He loves his country. He holds the western ruling class in well-justified contempt, for which we can salute him. He is also driven by resentment, hatred, and power-lust, which makes him dangerous. By invading Ukraine, he has damaged Russia.

    It appears as of this morning that Putin may have bitten off more than he can chew in Ukraine. Good. Military aid and materiel–anti-tank and -aircraft weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies–are starting to arrive in Ukraine from Estonia, Poland, France, the UK, and other countries. That should have happened on Day One, but it’s happening now.

    The Russian army’s performance has been lackluster. Its conscript soldiers are confused and lack elan. Its logistics are lousy, with videos of Russian armor stalled on Ukrainian highways for lack of fuel. Its high(er)-tech military equipment is proving to be vulnerable to basic weaponry and tactics. (That shouldn’t be a surprise to them or us after our respective experiences in Afghanistan.) This is beginning to look like Finland 1939–a bloody, grinding slog instead of a blitzkrieg.

    Heroes: President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people. There is no substitute for courage. There is no substitute for being willing to fight and die against the odds. There’s a lesson in there for us. Another bright spot: the Europeans are finally stepping up and dealing with the crisis in their own backyard. That’s as it should be. And it looks like France is replacing Germany as the European leader in NATO. Again, good.

    Villains: Putin of course (and his satrapy of Belarus, which is playing the role of East Germany circa 1968), but that’s too easy. The western foreign policy Blob and Twitter warrior brigade has not covered itself in glory. The EU and NATO were slow off the mark. Germany in particular has been an impediment to decisive action (it seems to be coming around now). Bathing your buildings in the Ukrainian colors is nice but meaningless. Sanctions have more bite, but are not decisive. Material support, denial of air space to the enemy, and boots on the ground are what matter.

    Finally, our role in all this. Putin attacked Ukraine because we and the Europeans have been filling his coffers with oil money and because this administration has been broadcasting its weakness, incompetence, and stupidity. That’s blood in the water to predators, and we haven’t seen the last of it. Looking back to the 1990s: I believed at the time that we squandered an opportunity to make Russia an ally, or at least not an adversary, after the Cold War. In that I agree with the late Stephen F. Cohen, an intellectually honest Lefty. I also believe that we failed to foresee and prepare for the dangers of expanding NATO into Russia’s sphere of interest. Whether Russia’s and Putin’s anger on this point is justified or not is irrelevant. The point is that it should have been predictable. Some did predict it: George Kennan, for example. He was ignored in the flush of post-Cold War optimism. I also believe that it was and is extremely ill-advised for us to play stupid spooky games in Ukraine and other states on Russia’s periphery. I hope we stop doing that, but fear that this latest crisis will only embolden the Blob, which will, again predictably, take credit for Ukraine’s bravery and seek to grift off it. I hope Zelenskyy, if he survives, is wise to their game.

    There’s a lot more to say, but I’ll stop here. Hope this is useful.

  78. “The West Could Have Prevented The Russo-Ukrainian War, But Chose Not To”

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/25/the-west-could-have-prevented-the-russo-ukrainian-war-but-chose-not-to/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-west-could-have-prevented-the-russo-ukrainian-war-but-chose-not-to

    Actually, this article shows how the West pushed Putin into invading the Ukraine. That being the only way he could stop the continued militarization of the Ukraine and end the push for NATO to grant the Ukraine NATO membership.

    “As of 2021, NATO officially recognizes three aspiring members: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine.[1]”
    [1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49212.htm

    One might also ask themselves who besides Putin will benefit from huge increases in the price of energy? It would be interesting to see if any of the global elite purchased energy futures in the past 3 months… as the members of the World Economic Forum certainly realize that “you never let a crisis go to waste”.

    Rather than look into it or even read the article, some here will continue the refrain of Putin Bad! Putin baadd… which of course no one here disputes. I and quite a few others simply contend that Putin is not the only bad actor, that the Western leadership beholden to the Global Elite have their own agenda revealed by NATO’s steady and unrelenting push eastward, while refusing to negotiate over Russia’s understandable security concerns.

    Hubert above states, “The world will be a safer place if and when he is put in a box.”

    No, when it comes to security concerns, most Russians agree with Putin so trying to put Russia into a strategic ‘box’ will foment war and very possibly stumbling into a nuclear war.

    Corner a predator and see what you get.

  79. I believed at the time that we squandered an opportunity to make Russia an ally, or at least not an adversary, after the Cold War. In that I agree with the late Stephen F. Cohen, an intellectually honest Lefty. I also believe that we failed to foresee and prepare for the dangers of expanding NATO into Russia’s sphere of interest. Whether Russia’s and Putin’s anger on this point is justified or not is irrelevant. The point is that it should have been predictable.

    You cannot ‘make’ an ally. They’re on board with common projects or they’re not. When you say you want Russia as an ally, the question in response is ‘against whom’?

    What actually is predictable is that countries have competing interests and are sometimes at loggerheads. The question is what means they are willing to make use of to get what they want. You’ve just spent several paragraphs offering a sketch of Putin’s aims. You’re not going to make an ‘ally’ in said circumstances unless you sign on to his projects. We’ve see what some of his are.

  80. Putin is striking Ukraine now because he’s flush with cash from selling fossil fuels to the West, and he knows Europe and the US are weak and run by weaklings or idiots or worse.

    He knows the US regime is corrupt and probably has plenty of evidence. If Biden, or whoever is running him, tried to shut down US oil imports from Russia, we might even see that evidence.

  81. You cannot ‘make’ an ally. They’re on board with common projects or they’re not. When you say you want Russia as an ally, the question in response is ‘against whom’?

    China, of course. They are a bigger threat to Russia than to us. It looks like the Democrats and their insane “Russiagate” have driven the two together,

  82. They are a bigger threat to Russia than to us.

    They’re a threat to everyone. Here’s a thesis: Putin is willing to forego containing China in an effort to get what he wants from the occidental countries. IOW, he fears them less than he hates us.

  84. Conservatives especially the maga faction confuses me regarding putin, at one side they criticises Biden for being weak but at the same time condemn any proposal to send any American troops there to fight putin because foreign matters don’t matter to this faction of conservatives, how the heck can you be tough while taking the option of military involvement completely off the table? Tucker Carlson needs to stop rationalising putin’ invasion, not wanting war doesn’t mean he has to defend putin

  85. Geoffrey Britain:

    I don’t think there’s a single person here who would assert that Putin’s “the only bad actor.” Of course you know that, because you’ve seen tons of criticism of western leaders on this blog. But Putin is by far the baddest bad actor here. By far.

  86. a lot of people are still seeing this as some sort of neocon false flag psy op to get American into a war to enrich themselves… Putin has lost his mind it seems, Biden said they would tolerate a minor inclusion but this is full blown invasion of a significant country, does putin really think he can get away with it?

  87. Dave:

    There is a wing of the right that is against any involvement in foreign matters – and I mean any. They used to be called “isolationists” when I was young. Later I think “paleocons” was sometimes used to describe them. I think of Pat Buchanan as a well-known politician who used to espouse that basic point of view. Tucker Carlson has long been in that camp.

    Trump was interesting because he had some elements of that but only some.

  88. Conservatives especially the maga faction confuses me regarding putin, at one side they criticises Biden for being weak but at the same time condemn any proposal to send any American troops there to fight putin because foreign matters don’t matter to this faction of conservatives, how the heck can you be tough while taking the option of military involvement completely off the table? Tucker Carlson needs to stop rationalising putin’ invasion, not wanting war doesn’t mean he has to defend putin

    I suspect your confusion is derived from a couple of factors. (1) The people offering one perspective and the people offering the other are different people. For the most part, the individuals within each camp are not contradicting their own person, they’re contradicting people with whom they’re ordinarily allied and (2) they’re not critiquing each other much, they’re slamming the people to whom they’re antagonistic generally.

    Another possibility is that some of them do not advocate any military action, but do think that Trump bluffs more capably than Biden, and they’re condemning the cabal running the administration for that. One of them offered to yours truly that Trump’s unpredictability may have forestalled Putin’s plans.

    I’ll second your irritation with the rationalizers and add as well irritation with the bores who insist in every interstate conflict that so and so bungled the diplomacy and that’s why we’re in this mess. Two theses: (1) diplomatic activity is consequential only in regard to the details; and (2) the Foreign Service is hobbled by overstaffing, wheel-spinning, indifferent recruitment and training, and vain bureaucratic schemers scarfing down Ho-Ho’s. Change my mind.

  90. Actually, this article shows how the West pushed Putin into invading the Ukraine.

    It doesn’t. It’s a collection of assertions and irrelevancies.

  92. I think it’s worth considering that if the United States were to invade British Columbia or Baja California and set up a puppet government there, that Vladimir Putin would find that less threatening and more understandable than what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq. But to Americans this would seem utterly evil and crazy.

    There is a very different perspective here which needs to be accounted for in our calculations, whether we agree with it or not.

    Probably the very best outcome is that he indeed has underestimated the power of Ukraine to resist and overestimated the effectiveness of his own military. If so it’s an own goal like what Trudeau may have done in Canada or like our government has done with COVID.

  93. Frederick:

    Putin knows full well that our motives in Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing to do with anything relevant to Russia, except what was at the time a shared desire to combat Islamic terrorism. Russia was initially our ally in the post-9/11 Afghanistan war. His position on the Iraq War was more of a balancing act at the time, for geopolitical and mostly economic reasons and not because he felt it was some sort of aggressive threat to Russia. He understood our positions very well. He was more upset about Syria, because Russia’s been a big Assad supporter.

    Of course he wouldn’t care if we invaded part of Canada, although he’d certainly call us vicious aggressors and the like. He has no interests in Canada. We have interests in Ukraine and in Europe, and in many of the countries on which he has designs. And western Europe certainly has interests in what happens to eastern Europe.

  94. Hubert:

    Your comment seems well-grounded and reasoned. It also is about the best thing I’ve read for a 360 degree view of the different sides without taking sides.

    By all means expand further, should you wish.

    Strikes me that this Ukraine situation has a lot of moving parts and different motivations. The arguments seem to go A, B, C -> conclusion, but there’s not much agreement on what A, B and C are.

  95. Your comment seems well-grounded and reasoned. It also is about the best thing I’ve read for a 360 degree view of the different sides without taking sides.

    Agreed.

  96. “Geoffrey Britain:

    I don’t think there’s a single person here who would assert that Putin’s “the only bad actor.” Of course you know that, because you’ve seen tons of criticism of western leaders on this blog.” neo

    On the issue of Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, several people here have yet to acknowledge any responsibility whatsoever on the West’s part for the situation. Complaints of Biden’s weakness doesn’t equate to his being a bad actor, just an incompetent. So in this specific situation, some here see only Putin as a bad actor.

    As for Putin being the worst by far, if we who hold the view that I have advanced are correct, then Putin acting defensively and yes stopping militarization upon ones border is a proactive, defensive act…

    Especially when years of negotiations have demonstrated simply being strung along, while encroachment with emplacement of offensive weapons systems steadily advances, then enforcing neutrality becomes the only means of arresting that advancement.

    The hypocrisy is stunning, it was OK for us with Cuba but how dare Putin not allow the potential placement of nuclear cruise missiles upon his doorstep mere minutes away from his Capitol and largest city! And the rationale in insisting that ever closer encroachment by a military alliance is benign, boils down to Putin Bad! Putin baadd…

  97. Geoffrey Britain:

    If you want them to agree with you about NATO, you’re not going to get that – at least, not to the degree you want.

    But Biden isn’t just incompetent, he is a bad actor, and so are some of the leaders of Europe. Their energy policies empowered Putin and they had to have known that.

    I think it’s very clear that the invasion of Ukraine is not a defensive act. I’ve spent enough time arguing with you about that and writing about it and I cannot understand why you think what you do, and I do not agree you at all. Putin having qualms about NATO is one thing, but there are many ways to deal with it and invading and trying to take over Ukraine is not the way. Nor is threatening Finland and Sweden. I’m amazed that you consider that a defensive act.

    Tyrants just about always justify what they do as defensive acts. Putin IS bad, so I don’t feature your mocking sarcastic “Putin baadd…” comment.

  98. On the issue of Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, several people here have yet to acknowledge any responsibility whatsoever on the West’s part for the situation.

    We’re not responsible for his discretionary acts. This isn’t that obscure.

    it was OK for us with Cuba but how dare Putin not allow the potential placement of nuclear cruise missiles upon his doorstep mere minutes away from his Capitol and largest city!

    The key term here is ‘potential’. That aside, an ICBM launched from Dublin can reach Moscow in 14 minutes; technology isn’t static.

    As for Cuba, we declined to permit cross-border trade with them, which is our prerogative. The U.S. Government sponsored an uprising in Cuba in April 1961 which lasted for two days and instituted a naval blockade in October 1962 which was in effect for six days. They’ve been left alone since. They were left alone when their Soviet patron disappeared, in spite of their serial efforts to sponsor bloody insurgencies and terror campaigns in Latin America.

  99. Isn’t the entire purpose of NATO to protect Europe from one country in particular?

    The reason that Putin sees NATO expansion as a threat is because it is–to the military expansionism of the dictatorship that was formerly the USSR, and of the current dictator whose stated goal is to reestablish the former glory of that evil empire.

    None of the countries that are seeking NATO membership are looking to protect their western or southern borders.

    If Russia wasn’t what it is, there would be no purpose for NATO. The world is no longer particularly concerned about Germany, or Japan, expanding and invading.

    The idea that Putin is doing what he is doing because he feels threatened by NATO expansion may be true. But NATO expansion isn’t the problem–Putin and Russia is the problem. Conceding that Russia may have a legitimate interest in invading neighboring countries is a foundational mistake.

  100. @boatbuilder:Isn’t the entire purpose of NATO to protect Europe from one country in particular?

    Wish this had been the first comment. Indeed it was and Vladimir Putin heads the country NATO is aimed at. NATO has no other justification than to threaten Russia. I know, I know, we’re saints and angels who have nothing bad in our hearts, but again, it’s capabilities.

    @boatbuilder:The reason that Putin sees NATO expansion as a threat is because it is

    @neo:Putin knows full well that our motives in Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing to do with anything relevant to Russia

    NATO is not intended to conquer and subjugate Russia, and as neo points out our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were undertaken without relevance to Russia. Nonetheless these all represent threats–especially considering that we stayed in Afghanistan for a full twenty years after the initial justification for going in. And we kept bringing countries into NATO whose military potential to contribute to collective security seems rather minimal, if that’s really all that was intended.

    All of us here know why that happened, it’s really because in the West international diplomacy is an end in itself, regardless of whether there’s any real benefit to be got out of it, we expanded NATO because we think Alliances Are Good. In another twenty years we’d probably be offering Russia membership… But again, it’s not about the intention, it’s about the capability.

    I think to Putin the Western world’s priorities seem deeply irrational. He may well be thinking much like you would if a cult moved into your town in large numbers, even a perfectly harmless cult.

    If Canadian terrorists had targeted Russia and Putin had invaded British Columbia I can’t believe we’d be okay with that no matter what kind of guy Putin was. And what if, having broken up the British Columbian terror network he’d proceeded to occupy British Columbia for an additional twenty years? We might be forgiven for thinking there was more than one reason he was there and not going home; even if we trusted him to be on the up-and-up, it would be a threat regardless.

  101. Fredrick:

    If Vlad had wings he would be a screwworm fly. But he doesn’t and he isn’t.

    He’s just an ordinary despot with issues, and nukes, and an army on the road in Ukraine. Sucks to be near enough to him that his issues become personal to you. As Ukraine has found out. Sweden and Finland those aggressive hostile Nazi nations, Vlad has issues with them too. Who else? Time will tell.

    But his actions are perfectly understandable, even reasonable, to him,

  102. Lee Smith has a very comprehensive piece on what led to the current situation. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ukraines-deadly-gamble

    Also a piece from December https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-president-zelenskiy-holding-talks-with-biden-adviser-says-2021-12-09/ which said Biden offered NATO membership for Ukraine.

    This is a total Biden FUBAR.

    We have come all the way from Putin asking to join NATO in 2003 to a war. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

    The Deep State and Lockheed et al have profited immensely from having Russia Russia Russia as an enemy.

    As Lee Smith shows, starting in the Clinton Administration the Democratic establishment has prevented any peace with Russia and deliberately antagonized them in every way possible. Putin wanted Russia to be part of the West. Our Deep State forced them to be an enemy.

    Defund the Swamp.

  103. NATO is not intended to conquer and subjugate Russia, and as neo points out our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were undertaken without relevance to Russia. Nonetheless these all represent threats–especially considering that we stayed in Afghanistan for a full twenty years after the initial justification for going in. And we kept bringing countries into NATO whose military potential to contribute to collective security seems rather minimal, if that’s really all that was intended.

    None of them represent threats. NATO is an impediment to Russia, not a threat. Our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were neither impediments nor threats. The countries brought into NATO since 2004 are located along the Adriatic. They are neither an impediment nor a threat to Russia.

  104. As Lee Smith shows, starting in the Clinton Administration the Democratic establishment has prevented any peace with Russia and deliberately antagonized them in every way possible.

    We’ve never been at war with Russia. We were in a Cold War with Russia which ended 30 years ago. We have conflicts with Russia, which in and of itself is unremarkable. The notion that we ‘deliberately antagonized them in every way possible’ is a nonsense statement.

    While we’re at it, Lee Smith’s article shows nothing of the kind. Cannot you people at least provide links to sources which begin to demonstrate your point?

  105. Dick Ilyes,
    Thanks much for the Lee Smith link.
    Astounding details, which illuminate much (if one chooses to believe them).

  106. Let us look ahead to November. The GOP sweeps both Houses. This triggers a huge reaction from the Swamp. The New York Times claims that a plot has been found where Republicans were going to take over the government.

    The New York Times hires Art Deco as its head of Russia coverage.

    The Secret Service assassinates both Joe and Hunter Biden and blame it on the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who are said to have had Russian support.

    Kamala assumes the Presidency and appoints John Brennan as her spokesman and chief adviser. She is never again seen in public. Hillary Clinton is appointed head of the CIA.

    Claiming that Russia has attacked Poland, President Harris orders NATO to take Moscow. She orders the FBI and Secret Service to arrest Trump to prevent his helping the Russians.

    President Harris extends vaccine mandates to everyone over the age of two with boosters every four months, and blocks Social Security payments and freezes bank accounts of those who refuse. She institutes vaccine and masking mandates for everyone in Russian territory under NATO control. Dr. Fauci retires and she appoints the head of Pfizer to replace him, allowing him to also keep his post as head of Pfizer. Dogs and cats are discovered to be carriers of Covid and a new Pfizer vaccine is mandated for them.

    Nationwide mask mandates are restored. Huge demonstrations break out in New York City, Minneapolis, Seattle, and most other Blue Cities thanking President Harris for saving their lives.

    Pelosi and Schumer claim that the Fourteenth Amendment requires expulsion of all Republicans from the House and Senate. They then appoint their Democrat opponents in the last election to take their places saying that unusual times require unusual actions, Russia must be defeated and Republicans cannot be allowed to block the war effort. All Republicans in the DC area are arrested.

    The National Guard in states with Republican governors is nationalized and ordered to arrest the governors and establish martial law. President Harris claims this is to prevent civil war. Anything less would amount to helping the Russians.

    The Department of Education discovers that 60% of school age children want to change their sex. A huge number of parents object. Since there are far too many oppressed children to place in foster care, President Harris orders that the Depart of Education hire caregivers to move into the homes of such children and their parents forced to live elsewhere. Nothing is off the table when it comes to the children she says repeatedly. People with huge student loan debt earning under $50,000 per year are recruited as caregivers at salaries of $120,000 per year to move into the homes, with loan payments deferred as long as they hold the jobs. Willingness to incur huge debt for worthless degrees is seen as a marker for compassion.

    Children who don’t want to change sex are derided as Breeders who will destroy the planet.

    Fox news is blocked in the name of Net Neutrality. It is discovered that the intelligence agencies were already logging all political commentary of everyone.

    A nationwide strike breaks out and the FBI is given authority to freeze bank accounts of Russia supporters and anti-government persons. A new agency manages a program allowing those who agree to keep working to obtain week to week waivers Those who refuse are required to wear large red stars when in public and starved until they agree to go back to work.

    Although the New York Times and its new chief of Russian Coverage Art Deco assure everyone that the Russians actually want us to win, the situation goes nuclear, with China joining in to finally defeat the Hegemon.

    The future after that is impossible to describe, even as satire.

  107. @Art Deco:None of them represent threats.

    A threat is a capability to do harm. If you want a different word, have at it. They represent the capability to do Russia harm.

    If a man you didn’t know or trust well stood in your front yard with a rifle, or even in the street watching your door while holding it, I can’t believe you wouldn’t think there was absolutely nothing to worry about..

    Thousands of armed men and billions of dollars in advanced weaponry parked in nations that border Russia IS a threat regardless of any intentions you have with them or how shiny and visible your halo. I guess you can argue about definitions of words if you want but the American soldiers and weaponry in nations bordering Russia cannot be defined away with word games about “threats”.

    What you seem to really be saying is that Putin should have no real reason to worry about them because they’d never be used against him except defensively. And if that’s the case I really don’t know what to say to you about it, because you would never accept such an assurance from Putin. I know, I know, US good Putin bad and obviously Putin would be lying because bad people lie, I get it. But if you want Putin to not react in a negative way then you have to deal with how he’s seeing it or nothing good is going to happen. Something has to be presented to offset the threat, and that something must either appeal to Putin’s interest or to his fears. Right now he neither fears us nor wants anything from us more than he wants Ukraine.

    Over time relationships and trust can be built that offset a threat: for example the US would probably not mind a British base in Newfoundland. There isn’t any offset like that built with Russia yet. Until then, American alliances and presences within striking distance of his nation are not something he can be comfortable with, whether or not you play definition games about what a True Scot would agree is a “threat”, or whether he’s even wrong to see it that way.

  108. Dick Illyes discovers the secret habitat of unicorns and thus their accumulated and infinite supply of unicorn jelly beans. Unicorn jelly beans are found to cure cancer, cure ED, cure male pattern baldness, and cure all afflictions of the fairer sex. But unicorn jelly beans cannot cure Vlad Putupon.

    Dick Illeys continues his search and finds the infinite tribe of monkeys who have just finished their second draft of the complete works of Shakespeare. The tribe agrees to work for Dick Illeys on the interweb if paid by the pixel with magic bananas.

    Dick Illyes is last seen wandering off into the jungle muttering “magic bananas, won’t eat jellybeans, magic bananas.”

    Vlad Putupon is seen eating the last unicorn; it tasted like chicken, he said.

  109. A threat is a capability to do harm. If you want a different word, have at it. They represent the capability to do Russia harm.

    The athletic and wiry middle-aged man who lives next door can do me harm. No, his weightlifting is not a threat to us. We’ve never had words in nine years of living side-by-side.

    Thousands of armed men and billions of dollars in advanced weaponry parked in nations that border Russia

    Again, there are 2,500 NATO troops in Latvia and Estonia.

    What you seem to really be saying is that Putin should have no real reason to worry about them because they’d never be used against him except defensively.

    I’m pointing out the obvious. They’re a tripwire force. He’s irritated about them because they are in his way.

    But if you want Putin to not react in a negative way then you have to deal with how he’s seeing it or nothing good is going to happen.

    How he’s seeing it he’s elaborated upon publicly, and how he’s seeing it is familiar if you’ve been reading Anatoly Karlin’s commentariat; his is a common viewpoint among Russian nationalists. Nothing good’s going to happen no matter what the U.S. Government or NATO does. At least nothing good from the perspective of anyone who is not a Russian nationalist of the blockhead / revanchist school.

    Until then, American alliances and presences within striking distance of his nation are not something he can be comfortable with

    Again, you can hit Moscow from Dublin. Have you thought of the implications of this exercise in excuse-mongering on your part? Have you thought of the ‘threats’ ordinary countries put up with routinely without launching cross-border invasions of harmless neighboring states?

  110. Cornflour, Om, Rufus, Geoffrey, Deco, Huxley: thanks for your comments. Had a social commitment yesterday or would have responded sooner. Some more thoughts below. Please excuse imperfections in expression–I hope my general drift is clear.

    On trying to make Russia an ally: I was talking about the 1990s, not today. In my view, we squandered an opportunity during that decade to re-tool or retire NATO and re-negotiate security arrangements in Europe, with a view to shifting the main responsibility away from the U.S. and over to the Europeans, *including* Russia (LBJ Doctrine: better to have your enemies inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in). Might have had to knock a few heads to get it done–some of the kiddies didn’t want to play nice with each other–but we had leverage and credibility then that we don’t have now. Don’t like the word “make”? OK, let’s say “enlist post-Soviet Russia in a common effort to ensure peace and general prosperity in Europe after the horrors of the 20th century”. It might have been possible then. It isn’t now. By the way, the carpetbagging of Russia in the 1990s, with every grifter and second-rate think-tank “expert” heading to Moscow to cash in on the action and feed on the carcass, is a big part of how we got Putin.

    In that connection, an irony. Putin’s aggression and Biden’s incapacity may have finally succeeded in doing what Trump could not: that is, get the Europeans to take primary responsibility for security in their own neighborhood.

    Military situation: MKent posted a cautionary note over on the Germany/Russia/Poland/Ukraine thread, pointing out that Russia went into Ukraine with relatively light units and may be holding its heavy armored divisions–with their long supply trains–in reserve. I’m very much not an expert on the current Russian military (my antediluvian grad school work was on Mikhail Tukhachevsky and the evolution of the Red Army’s “deep battle” doctrine in the 1920s-1930s–not much help here), but the point is that this ain’t over yet. It could get a lot worse for the Ukrainians, the Europeans, and (eventually) us. Yes, us. We do actually have a dog in this fight. See Trotsky: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you”. We learned that lesson in 1941. We may have to learn it again.

    Speculation on Putin’s mental state: perhaps he’s on drugs. It has been known to happen (Cf. Norman Ohler’s “Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich”). Or perhaps he has been driven insane by years of having to listen to the impotent, shrill, self-righteous yapping of GloboHomo and the Twitterati (throwing some red meat out there for Zaphod, who I hope is not in moderation AGAIN). (PS: Yes, I know this is not a laughing matter.)

    My main fear–that is, apart from being sucked into a two-front war in Europe and Asia with our divided country, degraded military, and incompetent and/or malevolent “leadership”–is that Putin’s aggression will help our domestic enemies of freedom in their ongoing effort to discredit and neutralize Trump and the nascent country-class political movement that he got started. In fact, that is already happening. This is where rhetorical skill, impulse control, and a cool head matter. Trump, sadly, lacks those things. Not good for him or for us.

  111. Hubert:

    Thanks again for taking the time to comment. I appreciate hearing from someone with historical expertise and Russian fluency. I have neither. Please keep typing.

  112. By the way, the carpetbagging of Russia in the 1990s, with every grifter and second-rate think-tank “expert” heading to Moscow to cash in on the action and feed on the carcass, is a big part of how we got Putin.

    Hubert:

    Good to hear from you, as always.

    I’m just tagging on to note that Matt Taibbi got his start as a semi-carpetbagger in Russia after the USSR broke up.

    He was a free-lance journalist who went to Moscow and became co-editor of “The eXile,” an English language tabloid for the expatatriate community there. “The eXile” was pretty ripe — defnitely a tabloid in the “Berkeley Barb” vein, but a hoot as well.

    http://exiledonline.com/the-exiled-were-back-and-were-very-pissed-off/
    http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=19219&IBLOCK_ID=35

    Taibbi’s evolution to a curious leftist contrarian journalist with principles has been interesting to watch.

  113. we squandered an opportunity during that decade to re-tool or retire NATO and re-negotiate security arrangements in Europe, with a view to shifting the main responsibility away from the U.S. and over to the Europeans, *including* Russia

    Disagree. Ambitions are your problem, not institutional arrangements.

    By the way, the carpetbagging of Russia in the 1990s, with every grifter and second-rate think-tank “expert” heading to Moscow to cash in on the action and feed on the carcass, is a big part of how we got Putin.
    All but about five post-communist states suffered a severe economic depression during the period running from 1988 to 1995. As far as I am aware, only Russia suffered a ghastly breakdown in public order into criminal violence and only Russia and White Russia among the non-Muslim states emerged out the back end without a competitive political order. Is your thesis that Slovenia and Latvia attracted a better class of think-tank grifter?

  114. It is true that some unscrupulous foreigners took advantage of the chaos—and the CORRUPTION of the early post-Soviet (IOW Yeltsin) years.
    At the same time there were those whose motives were altruistic…though how long they were able to sustain such ideological feelings (or beliefs) is open to question given the sheer problems that had to be faced along with what had to become a severe, frustrating and wearying clash of cultures, mores and goals.

    Mostly, one would be remiss not to mention the insane “fire sale” of vast Soviet enterprises and natural resources that took place under Yeltsin, mostly to his pals, but also to those who were canny and/or unscrupulous enough to “strike while the iron was hot”; some of them corrupt themselves, some of them not (relatively speaking)…but all of them taking advantage of the utterly corrosive state of CORRUPTION that resulted from 70 years of Communist abuse (in all senses of the word).

    (Though having said that, there were undeniable achievements….but at a tremendous cost—the cost of trampling society and individuals, along with other countries.)

    Did I mention CORRUPTION?

    In any event, Putin was most certainly the backlash—a kind of (not exactly, of course) Napoleanesque figure following the utter chaos caused by the USSR’s dissolution (itself a Revolution of a sort).

  115. BTW, Hubert, I neglected to mention how much I appreciate your astute, well-informed and fascinating comments.
    Thanks much.

  116. huxley,

    A very odd coincidence you refer to Taibbi’s work in Russia and provide those eXile links. In the late ’80s I worked for a tech start-up and, with two of my co-workers, anonymously wrote and published a monthly, satirical parody of the company’s own newsletter. It was great fun. I know some folks didn’t get the joke, or appreciate it, but I think quite a few of the employees got a kick out of our work. The company was led by two co-founders. I’m almost certain one was really glad it was going on, despite being a sometimes target of the publication, and the other likely did not enjoy it.

    What’s coincidental is, for some reason I had a dream about that last night. Hadn’t thought about it for years. Decades? Very odd.

    I assume you were a fan of “Spy” magazine?

    Speaking of satirical publications and war in Ukraine, The Ukrainian publisher of the People’s Cube has some interesting opinions on the subject: https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/why-did-ukraine-parliament-outlaw-communism-and-nazism-t16250.html

  117. Neo has been utterly patient about Geoffrey Britain’s importunate binary argument. Since I used to share his affliction (aa former card carrying, indeed platform committee co-chair of the State of Minnesota Libertarian Party during the Cold War, yeah, we rewrote it to parrot GB’s lines of thought), please allow me to explain why Mearshimer’s binary argument is uncompelling.

    Mearshimer’s claim involves twisting certain definitions as well as assuming “facts” far more emergent than in evidence.

    For instance, take for example, the US-missiles in Cuba analogy to Russia-possible Ukraine membership in NATO. Both are threats by a smaller nation to a bigger one. Ergo, isn’t the threat defensive one ? Obviously, yes. Right?

    Wrong. Because it drops factual context and history of the actors themselves. And disengenuoisly ignores these relevant facts, and chest beating about it!

    And here’s where Neo has been classy, while GB remain obstinate: the attempt to claim apple and oranges analogy breaks down into apples versus banana and therefore decidedly NOT comparable at all.

    The US and UK have no trouble with nuclear France. Nor does the US object a nuclear armed Canada. The US tried to arm Canada during the Cold War. (And Canada did debate this possibility.) And yet England has been at war with France, and Canada has to invaded the US and in fact burned the US capital.

    Why the change? Because nations leaders are just like people in your life: the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour— especially recent within living memory behaviour.

    Both Cuba and Russia have continued to be invading or threatening to invade their neighbours.

    By contrast, the single use of Nat to invade non-member border states was against Serbia in the bloody civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s.

    That’s one. By contrast, Russia has invaded neighbour states repeatedly — twice in this century, both under Putin.

    Therefore, which body is a threat to the less powerful states? And which is not? In reality? It’s not Ukraine. Outside or inside of NATO.

    Thus, Mearshimer’s “reasoning” on matters such as this bears conspicuous similarity to those like Noam Chomsky — ie, facts exist to decorate and force reasons and “prove” theories on circumstance (eg, Chomsky’s thesis that the US forced Japan to attack the US at Pearl Harbour. And actual organic facts of history and that Imperial Japan was already a worse actor in the world than Hitler goes completely ignored, ie, a Nazi part member, the German ambassador to China calls out Imperial Japan’s brutality against innocent civilians during the Rape of Nanking!).

    Hence, GBs importuning (hectoring?) to cast Putin’s perceptions as really really legitimate — instead of contrived and paranoid and projected as they are. (Nevertheless, I can see room for a Finlandization-style neutral status solution here — despite hugely impoverishing the Ukrainian People’s future economic prospects.)

    In short, GB refuses to see Putin as the powerful and dangerous leader that he is — who reasonable people resist on moral and legitimate grounds, protecting their interests. Because we fail to accept Putin’s historic needs as a descendant of the Great Khan! Who’s just invading to protect his insecure and vulnerable Inner Asian realm! /sarc off, but sarc DESERVED.

    But my serious point is that if GB insists, I’ll argue a parallel counter-analogy that legitimises Putin because Genghis Khan’s invasions of four civilization was completely legitimate. We simply refuse to concede his very necessary defense of his vulnerable geophysical domain. Both were seriously concerned with their fragile borders and the pressure from distant folks who couldn’t see it this way.

    We are the obstinate one’s who are being stupid and unreasonable. And immoral!

    Well, Khan and Putin can down vodka and take a sauna. And stay home in peace. Or else face off with the rest of the civilised world who mostly disagree. Right?

    PS to Cornflour and Hubert. Regarding the coyboy days of Russia in the 1990s, recall a Lincoln, NE native I dated. Before entering medicine, she graduated in Russian at the University of Kansas. She worked for a US company trying to establish itself in Moscow. They gave up. The environment was too violent and unsafe for American’s to do business.

    In short, Russian was not a high-trust society, and therefore remains a low trust society. Therefore, they cannot manage genuine popular political accountability.
    That’s why cronyism became their path to stability and why Putin rose to the top of the heap.

    What Putin is producing are new national heroes and future martyrs for Ukrainian nationalism. Putin’s heirs will live to regret what he’s doing today.

    Instead, had he bitten off another Crimea-sized chunk of the Far East, he would have succeeded in winning and not the firing up the nationalist zeal into the infernal forging levels that he has. Overreach. Ouch. Or worse.

  118. TJ:

    We disagree at
    times but not in this. Vlad was not forced by NATO or Ukraine to create this crisis in Europe. Good analysis. Geoffrey may reconsider his views or not.

  119. TJ: I visited Moscow on academic business in October 1992. An American friend was getting into the energy business there. He asked if I was interested in getting in on the ground floor. I declined, mostly for personal reasons. No regrets.

    Thanks, Barry. Excellent points re: corruption. A lot of Russia’s agony in the 1990s was self-inflicted. Western tutelage also played a big role, however. My opinion at the time was that we should have resisted the urge to meddle and let Russia manage its transition in its own way and at its own pace. It might have been just as much of a bardak (Russian for “clusterf**k”), but it would have been theirs and might have produced less resentment vis-a-vis the west.

    Deco: “Ambitions are [were?] your [the?] problem, not institutional arrangements.” You seem to be saying that revisionist ambitions were already at work in the 1990s and would have scuttled any attempt at a post-Soviet, post-NATO, pan-European security arrangement involving Russia. Interesting take. Do you think Boris Yeltsin was a revisionist Russian nationalist? Viktor Chernomyrdin? Evgenii Primakov? Anatolii Sobchak? Yegor Gaidar? Dmitrii Medvedev? Other Russian political figures from that decade? Did they evince a desire to invade their neighbors and restore the Russian/Soviet empire? Or did you think at the time that the emergence of Putin, or someone like him, was inevitable? If that’s the case, your crystal ball was a lot clearer than mine.

    “Is your thesis that Slovenia and Latvia attracted a better class of think-tank grifter?” No. I wasn’t presenting a thesis, but if I were, it would be that Slovenia (“the Switzerland of the Balkans”), Latvia, Estonia etc. had stronger grifter-repelling and anti-corruption immune systems than Russia, for cultural and historical reasons. Take Estonia, a country I’ve spent some time in and know something about. Somebody who was in a position to know once shared with me how the Estonian security services kept the crooks and grifters out in the 1990s. Remember that scene in “L.A. Confidential” where Dudley Smith and Bud White “persuade” some out-of-town mobsters that Los Angeles would not be a healthy place to do business? I gather it was something like that. Seems to have worked, but: constant vigilance!

    In any case, I don’t want to appear to know more than I do. I’m not an expert on this stuff anymore. This guy–Andrew Michta–has a legitimate claim to that title and is worth reading:

    https://twitter.com/andrewmichta

    Full disclosure: he was a grad-school classmate back in the 1980s.

    I owe Russia and Russians an enormous debt–cultural, personal, intellectual, you name it. Unlike some of my acquaintances with connections to the former USSR (especially the Baltic states), I take no satisfaction in seeing Russia isolated from Europe and probably humiliated yet again. Quite the opposite. I regard it as a tragedy–a very dangerous tragedy. The fact that it is a largely self-inflicted tragedy just makes it worse.

  121. You seem to be saying that revisionist ambitions were already at work in the 1990s and would have scuttled any attempt at a post-Soviet, post-NATO, pan-European security arrangement involving Russia. Interesting take. Do you think Boris Yeltsin was a revisionist Russian nationalist? Viktor Chernomyrdin? Evgenii Primakov? Anatolii Sobchak? Yegor Gaidar? Dmitrii Medvedev? Other Russian political figures from that decade? Did they evince a desire to invade their neighbors and restore the Russian/Soviet empire? Or did you think at the time that the emergence of Putin, or someone like him, was inevitable? If that’s the case, your crystal ball was a lot clearer than mine.

    No, the current Russian ruler does. I fail to see how his understanding of Russia’s destiny would have been altered by diplomatic wheel-spinning ca. 1995.

  122. @ Rufus > “Speaking of satirical publications and war in Ukraine, The Ukrainian publisher of the People’s Cube has some interesting opinions on the subject:”

    That post, which was deadly serious and not a satire, cleared up a lot of issues for me that I had been wondering about, especially the charge that Zelensky was a Nazi.
    Apparently, that is the authorized Russian view of all of the Ukrainians.

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