Category: Russia and Eastern Europe Page 11 of 17

He should impose sanctions, not because they are a good idea, but because they passed with a veto-proof majority.

That said, sanctions are a terrible idea. I am aware of no case in which they have not done more harm than good, except possibly South Africa.

Further, the US “punishing” another country for electoral meddling is ludicrous. If this is worthy of punishment, the US is due for sanctions 50 times worse, since they are the world’s leading criminal when it comes to messing with other people’s elections.

One of the few things Trump is doing that is a good thing is trying to keep US/Russian relations from getting any worse.

Maybe he’s doing it for the wrong reasons, but it’s still something worth doing.

Regular reminder: Russia is one of two countries with enough nukes to destroy the world.

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Russia as an Enemy of the United States

By Ian Welsh

On December 26, 2017

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I believe that most of the concerns about Russia are overblown. (See this for the argument.) In fact, I put it into the public hysterics category.

But to the extent that Russia is opposed to the US, and it is, I put most of the blame on the US. Russia desperately wanted to be part of the West, and for many years bent over backwards trying to be. (In this case, it is quite similar to secular Turkey, whose aspirations to EU membership were repeatedly crushed, leading to the rise of Erdogan’s Islamism.)

I want to quote an interview with George Kennan in 1998 about NATO expansion, in particular. For those who don’t know, Kennan was the architect of the Cold War containment policy towards the USSR: He was hardly a dove.

”I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ”I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [The NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.”…

…

‘I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

”And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia,” said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was US Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ”It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.” (Emphasis mine.)

Indeed, a lot of people have forgotten that Russia also asked to join NATO (under both Gorbachev and Putin) and was rebuffed. Russia wanted IN the club. In fact, it was pathetic how much they wanted in the club and I thought so at the time. The West, steeped in Russophobia, was never going to let them in, and the Russians wasted somewhere between fifteen and twenty years before they got the message that the West, and the US in particular, was implacably hostile and intended to remain so.

Russia has about half the GDP of California. It is a superpower only in terms of nuclear weapons, though its army, technology, and geographic reach mean that it is still a great power.

It has been pushed into the arms of the Chinese, which from a geopolitical POV is ludicrous: Siberia is the most likely point of conflict between the Chinese and the Russians, driven by the realities of climate change, demographics, and aquifer depletion. Siberia has hardly any population, lots of land, and tons of water, and in twenty to thirty years, the Chinese are going to need that water, and in forty years or so they’re going to need the land.

It would have been easy to spin Russia in and make it the Eastern end of West. Instead, it has been made into a foe, and if the hysterics looking for someone to blame for their own electoral failures have their way, made into an actual enemy. (An enemy with enough nukes to destroy the entire world more than once. Sanity suggests picking better enemies.)

Whether or not the majority of Americans “want” this, emergent American behaviour shows this to be the path the US and the West are on.

Those of us who would prefer the world to survive might wish otherwise, but in-group thinking and the death wish are stronger than sanity or reason.

Putin is a result of shock doctrine, imposed by the West. Russian animosity is largely a result of Western actions that the Russians could not but interpret as hostile (including the color revolutions and the Western-backed Ukrainian coup.)

If, at this point, the Russians are trying to return the interference (and they probably are, just not nearly to the extent or effect the propaganda suggests) that is only what is to be expected, and Americans crying about a little bit of interference look ludicrous, given the US’s record of backing actual coups and constant, regular interference in virtually everyone else’s elections.

If you don’t want enemies, don’t treat them like your enemies. If you do, don’t be surprised when they act like your enemies.

And for God’s sake, Democrats, stop blaming Russia for an electoral failure that was primarily your own damn fault. Look to what you can control–your own behaviour–rather than seeking a scapegoat.

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Was All-Powerful Russia Responsible for Brexit, Trump, and Catalonia?

By Ian Welsh

On November 26, 2017

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Dark Lord Vladimir Putin

I am given to understand that, in addition to causing Trump to win the US election, Russia is responsible for Brexit, and for the Catalonian independence vote.

Russia, with a GDP of less than half that of California, has, in other words, the most effective election tampering program, in the form of internet trolls and fake news, the world has ever known (or at least since back in the 50s, when the CIA was pretty good at this stuff, and willing to overthrow the government of any country that voted the wrong way).

Is this credible?

Or is Russia being used as a scapegoat for election results neo-liberal elites don’t like?

This isn’t to say Russia may not have tried to influence elections. Sure as hell, the US spends a ton of money influencing foreign elections, but is Russia “the reason”?

It seems unlikely to me, and to whatever extent it might be true, it would only be true in the sense that truly close election results have a thousand parents. If it’s close, any number of things made up the margin.

But I think it’s largely bullshit. That it is an attempt to evade responsibility by domestic elites for screwing things up, or in the case of political opponents like Clinton’s Democrats, for running terrible electoral campaigns (or both).

Trump was possible because a lot of people are very unhappy. Brexit was possible because a lot of people are very unhappy. Catalonia was possible because a lot of Catalonians are unhappy with how Spain treats them.

Or, if you wish, two out of three are driven by racism, or regional anger, or…your choice of reason. They were possible because there were already serious problems.

Something like Trump or Brexit or an independence referendum doesn’t happen primarily because of foreign interference, it happens because a lot of people are unhappy with the status quo. In such circumstances, perhaps foreign interference might make the difference, but it wouldn’t do shit unless it was already razor close.

Look home, not abroad, for why people are willing to vote for actions which elites consider unthinkable.

The primary reason for it is always, always, elite mismanagement of some sort or another.

The CIA Lies and So Does Putin

By Ian Welsh

On November 12, 2017

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Vladimir Putin

So, Trump said he believed Putin when Putin said he did not meddle in the US election. He was criticized for it, because the American intelligence community says otherwise. He backed down.

Newsflash: The CIA has the track record of a pathological liar. Putin lies as well.

Maybe the best thing to do is disbelieve both, and make up your own mind based on the evidence (which, by the way, is far weaker than the news articles, which assert but do not prove, would suggest.)

The CIA and the rest of the US intelligence establishment are not due benefit of the doubt.

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Relations with Russia Sour Further

By Ian Welsh

On July 31, 2017

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So, we have an anti-Russia sanctions bill moving through Congress, which will increase sanctions on Russia and include fines on non-American companies who do business with Russia in specific ways. It will remove Trump’s ability to remove sanctions. While Trump could veto it, the two versions (House and Senate) both passed with super-super-majorities (the Senate version is 98-2).

The White House has indicated that Trump will likely pass it, and if he doesn’t, will seek a “harsher” bill.

Meanwhile Russia has expelled 755 diplomats and seized two US diplomatic buildings in Russia, a move which brings American diplomatic numbers in Russia to the exact same number as Russian diplomats in America. This is in retaliation for Obama’s seizure of two buildings and removal of Russia diplomats just before he left office.

Russia had put off retaliation in hopes that Trump would reverse Obama’s action.

One of the few good things one hoped for with respect to the Trump administration was an improvement in US-Russia relations.

But Russia hysteria is in full swing in the US; red-scare reborn, based on accusations that Russia put Trump in the White House. A lot of people believe this, there were certainly plenty of contacts between various Russians and the Trump campaign, and heck, Russia probably did prefer Trump, hoping he’d undo sanctions and be less hostile.

(Meanwhile, the US appears to be working to overthrow the Venezuelan government.)

Proof of significant action by Russia is lacking. It may be that some minor help was given, but I have yet to see any proof that hacking was ordered by the Russian government, only repeatedly asserted by a variety of intelligence agencies, all of whom have a long record of lying when convenient.

If interference did occur, it appears to have amounted to “release of true information that was harmful to Clinton.”

If this is worthy of sanctions, then the rest of the world should lock up America and throw away the key given America’s actions; repeatedly not just interfering in elections, but overthrowing governments–including democratically elected ones.

It is worth remembering, again, that Russia has enough nukes to destroy the world, and so does America. Good relations are in the interest of world survival.

It is perhaps also worth looking, with a cold eye, at whether America or Russia, over the last 20 years or so, has done more harm to other countries and their citizens? If you are honest in the exercise, you might begin to wonder who is the greater threat.

Meanwhile, we also have more sanctions against Iran and North Korea coming down the pipe.

North Korea is, by the way, still at war: The Korean war was never ended with a peace treaty, only with a truce. North Korea is under perhaps the most extensive sanctions in world history, but somehow those sanctions haven’t stopped it from getting nukes, and it’s possible they may even wind up with missiles able to strike the US.

There is a rumor that the current leader of North Korea was left a note by his father, which said, “Don’t give up your nukes. Saddam gave up his program, and that’s when the US went for him.” It has also been noted that Qaddafi gave up his nuclear program, played nice with the West, and as a reward, got sodomized with a knife and killed. (Clinton was very happy about this: “We came, we saw, he died.”)

I don’t know if the rumor is true, but I do know that North Korea would be insane to give up their nukes as anything but part of a comprehensive peace deal which removed sanctions, and maybe not even then. This is simply as a matter of survival. You don’t have to like the North Korean regime (I don’t) to not realize that people aren’t going to cut their own throats for your convenience.

As for Iran sanctions… bah, fill it in yourself. This is vile stupidity, and I hate any form of theocratic government.

I blame Democrats and the media for a ton of this. The hysterics have been never-ending. Better relations with Russia are a good thing under most circumstances. Instead, the US is ratcheting up tensions and giving Russia every reason to see the United States as its enemy. (Lets’ be frank, the US is Russia’s enemy, and, save for a brief period when they were allied against Germany, has never been anything else.)

So, the world gets stupider, more propaganda ridden, and more dangerous. The sanctions won’t “work” (and appear to be about forcing Europeans to buy American oil instead of Russian), not in the sense of making Russia do what the US wants or not do anything they can to undo damage done to their country.

If you don’t want someone to treat you as a threat, perhaps don’t act as a threat. (Insert long essay here about how, actually, the US is far more of a threat to Russia than Russia is to the US.)

This is all pathetic, and everyone involved in it should be ashamed, but is, instead, proud.

Pathetic.

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Election Interference

By Ian Welsh

On February 27, 2017

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So, Obama put sanctions on Russia, ostensibly for interfering in American elections.

The argument has been made that keeping them under these sanctions “disincentivizes” Russia interfering in other countries’ elections.

Okay.

I think this falls to the level of schoolyard ethics.

Russia should stand down when the US stands down. The US has interfered in multiple elections, and recently helped the Maidan overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government in a coup.

As for electronic spying, what is known is this: Americans were tapping the German Chancellor’s phone.

There is nothing that Americans want Russians to stop doing that they themselves do not do, with the possible exception of annexation. (And there’s a strong argument that the US still annexes what it wants, de facto, if not de jure.)

The schoolyard bully telling others, “Only I get to hit people” doesn’t go across really well.

It is simply impossible to take the US seriously on any form of “don’t spy,” “don’t fight,” or “enforce human rights.” Just impossible. Of course Russia will try to get friendly governments elected when the West has it under economic sanctions. Of course Russia will try and get friendly governments in power: Just like America does.

Two wrongs may not make a right, but people who unilaterally disarm and refuse to fight get a lot worse done to them than having their faces shoved in the dirt.

America supported a coup that overthrew a democratically elected government. There is no question about this. Then, when the Russians intervened in the Ukraine, they insisted on punishing the Russians.

Think this through a little.

At most, Russian interference in the US election involved the selective release of real, true, information.

The rest of the world wishes American interference stayed at that level.

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Fools Russians Where Angels Fear to Tread

By Mandos

On February 18, 2017

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD5phTXGN_0

(NB: post by Mandos.)

Recent events suggest that, whatever they may have originally thought, the Trump administration is in the process of being pulled back into the overall historical attractor of US policy regarding Russia. The Russian establishment had made no secret of its preference for Trump and its belief that Trump was a person with which they could deal on a more even footing, a politician in a mold they understood, etc.

I’m not here to argue whether or not Trump (or Flynn) is some kind of Russian plant, an issue that seems to be occupying many others. I gather that conclusive evidence on this matter has yet to be produced and that it so far lies in the realm of (negative) wishful thinking. However, Russian policy-makers are already voicing disappointment that Russia-favorable entities in the Trump administration are increasingly weakened. The US state, particularly its intelligence community, are deeply set up for conflict with Russia, for better or for worse, and it turns out that the White House is only part of a large infrastructure, and any fantasies of an election resulting in a vast purge and house-cleaning were just that: fantasies. The intelligence community still believes to its core in the necessity of containing Russia.

However, one thing that is different now is the position of Western social liberals. Unfortunately, Russia had decided to back in spirit, if not always materially, movements that are identified with various strains of nationalist conservatism that are hostile to the goals and beliefs of social liberals. This is not only in the USA, but especially so in Europe, with the on-going rise of the Le Pens, the Wilders, and other groups in the world. Once upon a time, social liberal groups were principally parochial movements which were relatively indifferent on foreign policy questions regarding Russia, and to a very large extent also overlapped with anti-war movements — and so were once at odds with the intelligence community.

However, the apparent desire of Russia to return to a world of ordinary nation-state politics, and therefore its willing appearance (at minimum) of siding with conservative nationalist movements, have led to many social liberals now viewing Russia as mortal threat to their projects, and therefore, having a plausible motive to try to subvert political movements like that of Trumpism to their aims. In this situation, social liberals (or “identity politics” movements, or whatever you want to call them) will quite rationally stake out a position that the devil you know (American intelligence forces) are better than the devil you don’t (Vladimir Putin). This is not helped by the appearance of things like Russia loosening its laws on domestic violence.

While social liberals have not lately been winning elections on their platforms (most notably, in the USA due to the Electoral College structure), it would be a mistake to assume that these groups have no power whatsoever. In fact, they have broad and deep bases of popular support (merely electorally inefficient), and those bases are being pushed into the arms of forces hostile to Russian interests. The combination of Cold War-style intelligence community conservatism with popular social liberalism is one that is likely to lead to an even more hostile neo-Cold War posture on the part of the Western establishment in the medium-term, unless in the short term Trumpism can generate the political competence required to coerce the establishment in the other direction.

For its part, Russia has been attempting to play, in the “further abroad”, a soft power role given that its other options are not effective. It is attempting to play the part of a rival global hegemon without actually being a hegemon. It does not currently have the cultural or technological reach to do so. While it operates a technologically advanced, developed economy, it is still highly dependent on natural resource development and export. That means that the risks accruing from a strategy of using cultural divisions in the currently hegemonic Western social order are high: should social liberals gain the upper hand due to the inability of nationalist populism to operate the levers of state effectively, they will be confirmed in a resolve for further containment and suppression of a Russia that took sides against them.

The Trump China Showdown Aligns with Reality

By Ian Welsh

On December 12, 2016

Comments

Trump received a phone call from the Taiwanese president. That was a violation of the One China policy, where in order to have diplomatic relations with China, one cannot have formal relations with China.

It is quite clear that Trump did this deliberately, it was not a gaffe, but planned.

China stated this was unacceptable, but was willing to pretend it was a gaffe.

Trump doubled down, accusing China of currency manipulation hurting the US (not true right now, but massive in the past), of not helping enough with North Korea, and of unacceptable behaviour in the South China Sea, where it has been building islands in order to seize control of the sea. He said he sees no reason to abide by One China if the US isn’t getting something in return.

China’s official response is that there will be no negotiations over anything without One China first.

A Chinese tabloid which is party associated said that if the US rescinded One China, China should invade Taiwan and arm American enemies.

And here we are.

Some basics. One power maximum; the potential power, of a modern state, is equal to its industrial power. Many nations may not have as much power as their industry allows, but this is the limiter.

China is now the world’s largest manufacturer. It is the world’s potentially most powerful nation. However, China’s policy has been (quite sensibly) to gain the base first, then arm, for classic guns or butter reasons.

China did manipulate its currency to gain their manufacturing base, but the US and other Western elites were entirely complicit. China offered large profits to individuals and corporations, and they took that money. It’s that simple.

China’s ascension did not just hurt the US, it hurt Japan, who is probably America’s most loyal ally (with the possible exception of the UK or Canada).

The manufacturing jobs performed in China would have been, in an alternate universe, done by the people who elected Trump in the Rust Belt.

Trump and his advisors do not believe that China and the US’s interests are aligned; they see China as the rising power, who is rising at the expense of the US.

This is not insane. In fact, it is accurate. It is possible to imagine a world in which that rise led to shared prosperity, but no one is offering such policies and no one ever has.

Now, I want you to turn your attention to Russia. Yes, Russia.

See, the problem with NATO expansion, the overthrow of the Ukrainian government, the color revolutions, and sanctions against Russia, and all that stuff, is that it was forcing Russia into China’s camp.

Russia does not want to be China’s ally. Russians (at least in the past, not so sure any more) would far rather have allied with Europe and the US, but Europe and the US would simply not allow it. Running on crazed fumes from the Cold War, the US and Europe feared Russia, who is no longer a threat to take first sport, rather than China, who is.

Note that Trump has also expressed great skepticism about NATO. He puts it in money terms: “Why should we pay for Europe’s defense?” But the end is the same, a NATO pointed at Russia doesn’t make sense to Trump or his advisors.

And Trump’s plans for the US involve a change in trade, anyway. People are scared of a trade war, and they should be. Right now, what Trump is saying is at a meta-level which most people are too stupid to get: China is going to have to make a deal which helps American manufacturing, and everything is on the table in order to negotiate that. Everything.

Because Trump owes his election to the Rust Belt. He must deliver for them, in four years, or he will not be re-elected. His people, at least, will understand this. The election was too close. Trump must deliver.

And if China won’t cut a deal? Fine, slap tariffs on them. America is still America; American consumers can still consume, and if it turns into a trade war, manufacturing jobs may well come back to the US.

This is high stakes poker. It could cause a serious war, or it could send the world economy into a serious tailspin.

It is also a realignment moment. The US is pivoting from treating Russia as a big enemy, to treating China as the big threat. This is, whether you like it or not, rational: China is the actual threat to American hegemony.

I assume Trump thinks there is a deal to be made–perhaps he even thinks there is a way to make the deal into a win/win. We will see.

But do not think this is pure insanity, or that it is not well thought out. This is based on a world model in better accord with actual world conditions–more so than the world model under which Obama was operating.

If the status quo continues, the US will be superseded by China. At that point, if China and Russia are allies, options for the US are extremely limited. China is the rising power, Russia is a great power, but won’t a threat at the “super power” level again in the immediate future.

I will remind readers, once again, to stop assuming that Trump and his team are idiots just because they are doing things in new ways. I do not know if this pivot will work, and it could blow up spectacularly, but it is not prima facie stupid.

In fact, politicians who actually put the US’s real interests first would have never allowed China into the WTO, and certainly would have gone out of their way to make sure that China’s ascendence was a win/win, rather than a win/lose OR (if they were ruthless and slightly less smart) they would have done everything they could to prevent it. (I would not have favored that, to be clear).

Certainly, the US should have pivoted East years ago. This is a move which is made much more dangerous and problematic than it could have been by the fact that it wasn’t done when it should have been, enabled by an absolutely deranged policy towards Russia, which schizophrenically treated Russia as if it were both powerless and a huge threat.*

The world is getting a lot more dangerous, fast. But it was going to anyway. This may not be the best China policy possible, but it at least acknowledges reality.

(*I understand the impulse to prevent Russia from turning back into a huge threat, but that could have been managed with far less difficulty and in ways that wouldn’t have estranged Russia.)

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The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Russia and Eastern Europe Page 11 of 17

Trump’s Refusal to Impose Sanctions on Russia

Russia as an Enemy of the United States

Was All-Powerful Russia Responsible for Brexit, Trump, and Catalonia?

The CIA Lies and So Does Putin

Relations with Russia Sour Further

Election Interference

Fools Russians Where Angels Fear to Tread

The Trump China Showdown Aligns with Reality