Ian Welsh

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

Tag: Ukraine War

Three Lessons from the Melian Dialogue Which Apply Today

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On March 14, 2022

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In the Melian dialogue, the Athenians have sent a military force to the city of Melos. The Athenians urge the Melians to submit. If they don’t, the men will be killed, the children and women taken for slaves. The Athenians say, “The strong do as they will, and the weak suffer what they must.”

In other words, “Take the deal, or you’ll get even worse.”

This is, in essence, what Putin said to Ukraine, and Ukraine, like the Melians, refused. It is at the heart of most of US interactions with “enemy” nations since WWII, and especially since the end of the Cold War. Even if they didn’t promise destruction, enemies were told, “Resist, and we’ll destroy your economy with sanctions, and millions will suffer or die.”

There are two corollaries to this, however. The first is pointed out by the Melians:

But do you not recognise another danger? For, once more, since you drive us from the plea of justice and press upon us your doctrine of expediency, we must show you what is for our interest, and, if it be for yours also, may hope to convince you: Will you not be making enemies of all who are now neutrals? When they see how you are treating us they will expect you some day to turn against them; and if so, are you not strengthening the enemies whom you already have, and bringing upon you others who, if they could help, would never dream of being your enemies at all?

This is what the US did to many countries — these countries may not have declared their enmity, but they do not consider the US a friend. They view the US as a threat, and when the day comes that they can get their revenge, they will do so.

It is at the heart of what is happening in Europe: Rearmament. By using his military, Putin has convinced other nations, especially Germany, to rearm.

But there is a third side, mentioned by neither the Melians nor the Athenians.

“If the powerful can do this, if I do not do it, I am not powerful.”

A great deal of why Russia is doing what it is, and why it created all the little semi-states around itself, was in reaction to the US. “If the US can violate international law, create Kosovo, and go to war with other nations who are weaker than it, if we don’t, we admit we are not powerful.”

Powerful nations can violate international law. If Russia does not violate international law in the same ways as the US and its favored vassal states does, then Russia is admitting it is weak.

The massive sanctions response is a test. Is the West still strong enough to largely limit massive violations of international law to itself and its vassals, or is Russia capable of withstanding those sanctions, and therefore one of the strong?

This question has yet to be answered. It will take time. In large part, as I have pointed out repeatedly, it depends on China. Probably Russia isn’t strong enough; but China + Russia are.

And notice the key allies who are sitting this out: Israel, three of the four Gulf states, the Saudis, and to a large extent, Turkey.

“There is no difference to us between Ukraine and Iraq or various other violations of international law. We aren’t your allies because we are your friends.”

Meanwhile, the US is asking China, their declared enemy for the past twelve years or so, to undercut Russia, because the real question isn’t about Russia, it is about China.

“The strong do as they will, and the weak suffer what they must.” Who are the strong in our world?

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What Is Our Plan C if Sanctions and the Guerilla Trap Don’t Take Out Russia?

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On March 11, 2022

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First: To my knowledge, sanctions have never lead to regime change. They didn’t in Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Libya, or anywhere else — not even North Korea and Cuba, which are still under some seriously savage sanctions.

Second: The targeted country’s leadership can still have pretty much whatever they want, it’s the population which suffers.

Third: While, in most ways, Russia is weaker than the USSR, it has a food surplus, while the Soviets always struggled. You can’t starve them out. It also has a fairly decent medical industry and access to Chinese and Indian medicines. Also, if sanctions continue, they will break our IP.

Fourth: The USSR didn’t have the largest industrial nation in the world as its ally (that would be China, not the US).

Fifth: China and Russia are synergistic. What China needs (food (desperately), oil, and minerals), Russia has. What Russia needs (consumer goods, medium to high-ish tech), China has. Plus, for China, having Russia as an ally mitigates the whole “US Navy cutting off supplies at the Straits of Hormuz” situation that every Chinese leader since Deng has stayed up nights worrying about.

Sixth: The logical response for Russia and China is to link their payments systems and to create an alternate monetary system. Because the West has repeatedly stolen billions of dollars from countries foolish enough to keep them on reserve in the West and then get on the West’s bad side, a lot of nations will move over to that system. Honestly, I’d trust China more than I would trust US not to steal my reserves, at this point.

Nobody seems to be thinking this forward. If sanctions don’t take out Russia and force it to collapse and/or have a government we like, what are we going to do next?

And as sanctions have never taken out a government, what’s our plan? Right now, it seems like the only alternative is to have a long guerilla war in Ukraine and bleed Russia dry. This strategy might work, though the human cost will be monstrous. (But then, why would the West care? We’re fighting to the last Ukrainian, after all.)

But if sanctions don’t work, and the guerilla trap doesn’t, what’s our Plan C? It’s particularly important because these sanctions are going to do a lot of damage to ourselves including, very likely, destroying the IP system that makes our rich so rich. (I, personally, look forward to Russia, and later China, breaking our IP system, but I don’t imagine high tech firms and/or Disney are as thrilled.)

Again, what’s our Plan C?

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Three Principles for Ukraine & for Great Power Politics

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On March 4, 2022

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  1. Ukraine is not morally worse than Iraq, Yemen, or many other wars.
  2. Russia is not more evil in its foreign affairs than the US.
  3. Neither fact is whataboutism.

The general cases of these also apply. Most countries that seem good are not good. They are weak, and if they were powerful, they would not continue to act good. (The personal application of that principle will be the subject of another post.)

The point here is that there is NO ethical case for treating the US and Russia differently in terms of sanctions and response. Iraq was just as bad a war crime as Ukraine. So what is happening is not about ethics, it’s about other things. For many Europeans, it’s about fear (that’s another post), but for the US and its allies, this mostly about power: The actual “principle” is “our wars and annexations are good,” and “you can’t do to white, blonde Europeans who we consider part of Western civilization what you do to brown people who aren’t part of Western civilization.”

This is NOT an argument that what Russia has done is not an evil war crime. But countries who are not Western allies, like India, China, and most of the global south, even if they will condemn the actions, do not see this as anything worse than many actions taken by the US and its allies and see no reason to cooperate with sanctions unless those sanctions also benefit them, as they know that this is not about justice, but about power.

Justice applies equally to all. It commands respect. When the ICC declares it is opening a war crimes investigation against Russia, but didn’t against the US, everyone who isn’t a Westerner (and many of us, too) laugh bitterly. Why didn’t the ICC try Cheney and Bush and so on? Because the US threatened to invade if they did. (No, I am not kidding. Look it up.)

Next: Deals made when a nation is weak, do not hold if they are not actually in the country’s self-interest. This is at the heart of the China/US conflict, by the way. The “rules-based” world order was created when China was weak, by the people who put the boots to China for over a century. The Chinese don’t see why they should respect it. They will do so for as long as it is in their interest, and not one second further.

“Don’t keep deals that are bad for you,” is also why Russia is likely to break all Western IP. The only reason why they wouldn’t is that oil and wheat exports are still not subject to sanctions. Do that, and the IP goes. Then China helps Russia reverse engineer and manufacture Western goods, while smiling and denying, since they too hate Western IP. (In WWI, the US broke German patents. The core of the American chemical industry is based on this fact. After the war was over, they did not say, “Okay, we’ll go back to respecting them.”)

I remember the run up to and first period of the Iraq war. Then, as now, pointing out inconvenient truths was regarded as traitorous, and people said, “But Iraq is an evil dictatorship and Saddam, Saddam, Saddam.” Saddamn was an evil dictator, but Iraq was still a war crime (as is Ukraine).

Those same truths, by the way, were acknowledged by almost everyone as true ten years later when it didn’t matter, and many of those people are making the same mistakes now.

This is Great Power politics. The decisions on both sides are not being made for reasons of justice or ethics. That does not mean there isn’t an ethical case, but you can’t say, “We get to have wars, and everyone who isn’t our ally doesn’t.” That’s just the argument of a bully who says, “Only I get to beat people up!” and everyone who is ethical and not ruled by the emotions of the moment knows it.

A world at peace will happen (if it ever does) when powerful nations hold themselves to the same rules they hold the weak to, and not before.

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The China Trap

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On March 2, 2022

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I’d really hate to be China’s leadership right now. This is rock/hard place for them. If they don’t keep Russia alive, they will have no ally when it’s their turn, but the US and Europe are likely to put a ton of pressure on them for sanctions & that will start the cold war earlier than they wanted (for them — it’s already started for Russia).

Obama famously pivoted to China, calling it the biggest threat. Trump slapped on sanctions and used a ban on semiconducters to absolutely savage Huawei, the flagship Chinese tech company, whose phones were rivaling Apple and Samsung, and whose 5G technology was the most advanced and ready-to-deploy in the world.

They put immense pressure on Europe to not use Huawei 5g tech and largely succeeded.

When Biden came in, he removed none of Trumps sanctions.

In effect, the US has been declaring China its enemy for about 12 years now, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, and over the last few years, anti-China sentiment in DC has solidified. As far as I can tell, it is truly bipartisan.

China has known that a cold war with the US was inevitable for a couple of years now, though they suspected it before. They had hoped to keep Europe as a neutral customer, but Europe has bowed down to the US whenever push comes to shove, so China, like Russia, appears to regard Europe as an American satrapy — a subject state who will do what the US says.

The US and Europe will now put immense pressure on China to comply with sanctions on Russia and to not help Russia get around them.

My guess is that China will not, substantially, comply. The calculus is simple: Cold war with the US is coming, and if they let Russia get taken out, they lose a powerful ally and will then be surrounded, rather than having most of their Western flank covered by another Great Power.

Russia has repeatedly told the West to go fuck itself with regards to sanctions. They regarded, even before this war, more sanctions as inevitable. All that the war has done, they believe, is move the sanctions forward. China is likely to have the same calculus: sanctions, tariffs, and so on are never removed, only increased over time.

Both China and Russia have their own SWIFT alternatives. They will hook together and be offered to the rest of the world. As non-US allies have seen, with Venezuela, Iran, and now Russia (among others) that the US will even freeze reserves, they will join the Chinese and Russian systems and settle trade in Yuan. They will move reserves out of the US/European system.

This is, however, a huge hit to both China and the US. The US cannot currently decouple from China — it’s impossible. The US actually needs China more than China needs them. Remember, China is the largest industrial power, not the US.

It’s still a terrible trap, though, and the Chinese will, I think, play to mitigate. The US will not slap the worst sanctions on just yet, but will rush to move production to low-cost US allies.

There is an alternative, of course. China could buckle, agree to join the “rules-based order,” and play by American rules. The issues here are threefold.

First: This means China is not allowed to take control of value chains, which provides much of the real profit. Probably 15 percent or so of the value in a value chain comes just from that. They will have to keep paying US intellectual property fees, which amount to another ten to 15 percent in a lot of industries.

Intellectual property, if it’s not obvious, is on the table. Certainly Russia will stop paying these fees, that’s almost certain.

Second: Playing by Western rules means, the Chinese believe, staying stuck in the middle income trap and not making it to high income. This is one of those places which is a genuine trap: Decoupling will be a huge hit, but staying in the system and playing by the rules set up to favor the US and its allies means being in a system which keeps China from becoming a rich nation.

Third: There is an emotional component. As much as many Europeans, especially eastern Europeans, hate and fear Russia, China has a deep resevoir of hate for Europe, and the US for the “century of humiliation,” for Taiwan (to them a rebellious province which they would have retaken years ago if the West didn’t support it), and of course, a lot of hatred for Japan, the West’s primary Asian ally, for its invasion, occupation, and atrocities before and during WWII.

Emotionally, the Chinese are primed to tell the West to go fuck itself. They didn’t see why they should’ve play by rules made even when they were at their weakest. The “rules-based international order” to them is nothing but a set of rules set up by people who don’t want them to be a great, rich nation again. Rhetoric from the US has solidified this impression, and I think more correctly than not.

So the “cut a deal and compromise” really means “accept the current world order and play by rules that China thinks are unfair to them, and are made without their input.”

My guess is that China will do whatever it takes to keep Russia alive and to stop Western sanctions from achieving their declared aim: To collapse the Russian economy and cause regime change. Viewed pragmatically, I think that is the right call if you are the Chinese leadership, because the other two options (acquiescing to Western rules or letting Russia collapse and facing the West w/o Russia) seem worse.

I would guess, and it is just a guess, that this takes about four to eight years, because the US would be insane to decouple now, and China also wants time to prepare. But emotions are running high and a lot of policies have been made without clearly thinking through their consequences lately, so I while I think it’s odds on, I won’t be surprised if emotions rule instead. The decoupling may happen sooner.

Welcome to the new Cold War. Remember, in this one, the world’s biggest industrial power and most populous nation is on the other side. This isn’t 1950 or even 2000. China is the biggest trade partner of more nations than the US, not the other way around.

And China needs what Russia has: wheat, oil, and mineral resources.

Cold War 2.0 isn’t one in which the West are necessarily the favorites to win.

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Ukraine: The Ethical Dimension & Sanction Decision Making

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On February 28, 2022

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Ok. Deep breath.

Is what is happening in Ukraine worse than what happened in Iraq?

Why was the US not hit with crippling sanctions, like is being done to Russia?

Think this stuff through on your own, and if you get it, your belief that anything happening is being driven by ethical considerations will go away, and you’ll be able to think clearly.

Now, let’s talk sanctions. They’re more severe than initial indications, and Russian reserves have been blocked, as was done to Venezuela and Afghanistan (this, plus sanctions, is what is starving Afghans to death this winter, by the way).

Now, put yourself in Putin’s shoes. Assume the sanctions really are severe enough to collapse Russia and kill millions and, not incidentally, remove you from power at which point you, your family, and everyone close to you, will be killed. (That’s what is most likely if Putin loses power.)

You are a nuclear superpower with a Great Power military. What do you do? Do you just sit there? Or do you try and use that military to force the return of your reserves and some reduction in the worst sanctions?

(I don’t think the sanctions are quite that severe, but I could be wrong; I’m still thinking it through. However, many commenters — and even politicians — are clear that this is what they want: To collapse Russia under sanctions. But Russia is not Venezuela, or Iran, or Afghanistan.)

Put yourself in Putin’s shoes, and remember, he’s been known to raze entire cities.

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Calm and Perspective About Ukraine

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On February 24, 2022

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Obviously, the war in Ukraine is bad. Innocents will suffer, people who needn’t have been will die and be crippled, and hurt.

However, I’m seeing a great deal of hysteria or near-hysteria over this, and it mostly isn’t justified. It is unlikely that more people will die in this situation than died due to Iraq — or Libya. Some years back, the Congo had a war in which six million people died, and most Westerners don’t even know it happened. Right now, people are starving to death in Afghanistan and Yemen, and Yemen is constantly being bombed. Etc.

So, on humanitarian grounds, this is no worse than many other wars, and while we don’t know the final butcher bill (and can’t guess very well yet, as we don’t know exactly what Putin intends to do), it’s unlikely to be as many deaths as in the Congo or as resulted from Iraq (as all ISIS deaths must be counted in the tally, etc.).

What makes Ukraine different, emotionally, to Westerners, is that they are white Europeans.

The next question is geopolitical. Ukraine feels more important because it seems like the end of a particular political order. It is not that Russia is recognizing new states and carving up an old state; Israel took the Golan Heights, and Kosovo was created by NATO military intervention and would not exist without it. For that matter, Russia has run this playbook before, in Ossetia (Georgia) and Crimea.

So this is not NEW. It is not something completely verboten or anything, as many claim.

It feels new because Russia defied the US, the EU, and NATO, invading a European state, and did so in the face of huge sanction threats.

But, in geopolitical terms, all that is happening is that Russia is saying, “We are a ‘Great Power’ and we will take the same rights as the US has taken to invade and annex.”

This is not a greater war crime than Iraq, or Libya, or the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. What it is, is the moment at which the West realizes that the US is no longer the sole “Great Power.”

There is, of course, a small but very real risk here because Russia is a great power, with a real military, and a lot of nuclear weapons. I have seen a fair number of people calling for NATO to intervene militarily, and I don’t think Americans understand what they’re calling for. Since the Civil War, the US hasn’t had a war with an enemy that could hurt them in the continental US. If Russia gets bombed, the continental US will get hit as well. Russia is not Iraq, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Libya. It has a real military and can strike back, even without using nukes.

The rage, the impotent rage and fear, is, I think, because of this. At last, the US has come up against an enemy it can’t just shove around. That hasn’t been the case since the USSR collapsed.

Fortunately, saner heads — including Biden — recognize this, which is why they’re reaching for further sanctions and not intending to bomb, bomb, bomb.

I will point out that I wrote that Russia would go to war if it wasn’t given a guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO. Put aside, “But they should be able to do whatever they want,” and look at the situation pragmatically. Drop the emotions.

What is the end result of not signing a piece of paper saying Ukraine will not join NATO?

Ukraine won’t join NATO. Even after the war (assuming they aren’t occupied), they won’t because Russia has made it clear that if they even gesture in that direction, they’ll be invaded again. So the end result is dead people, recognition of breakaway regions, and Ukraine not joining NATO anyway.

Russia will be sanctioned, but it is ready for that. They have stated that if they are cut off from SWIFT, they will consider that a declaration of war. They don’t intend to be slowly choked out like Venezuela, Iran, and Iraq in the 90s. Nor will China allow them to be choked out, because if Russia’s choked out, China knows they’re next. The consensus in DC that China must be humbled and forced into a subservient position in the “rules-based international order” is absolutely iron-clad and bipartisan.

So, for a few years now, I’ve been writing about the next cold war. This is the start of it. It doesn’t include China yet, but they won’t cooperate with sanctions on Russia, so it may not be long before it does. I also have an entire section called “The Age of War and Revolution,” and a discussion of this is the start of it — along with the “The Twilight of Revolution,” a sub-category. Neoliberalism no longer rules Russia, in large part because of the sanctions. In time, it won’t rule China either, and in some ways it never has (they are neoliberal for export purposes, but not internally, and their internal market is huge).

The foolish “End of History” nonsense is now obviously dead. It was always the most stupid intellectual movement of the past 50 years, and only poltroons ever believed it.

History is back.

But in the meantime, while war is awful and always will be (and for the record I’m happy to see war crimes tribunals for Putin so long as the last five US presidents are also in the dock, and I’d even volunteer as the executioner), this isn’t likely to be as bad a war as many other recent ones. So except for the remote possibility of nuclear war, there’s no need to be more upset than you were about Iraq or the six million dead Congolese.

Take deep breaths and carry on. Nothing that is happening is unexpected in the broad strokes.

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