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.
William Reeves
What is happening in Ukraine is not OK, but neither is the way the West has lied and broken agreements with Russia over the last 30+ years. It is almost laughable that Russia and it forces will be tried for war crimes when Saudi Arabia and USA have not been – black torture sites, sanctions, and Abu Grave [unsure of spelling] . How about the death of so many in Afghanistan and other parts of the world from drones – all there is is Oops we got the wrong people.
someofparts
Well, I think this fits here – topic wise. It is a link to a post by Michael Hudson that I just finished reading. It took some time because reading it upset me so much that I kept having to walk away from my desk and pace the floor until I could calm down enough to keep reading.
The post lays out, in broad strokes, where the great global game we are in the middle of is heading. I have been reading even more constantly than usual since Russia moved into Ukraine and the domestic propaganda onslaught escalated to its current unnerving pitch and scope.
The reading I have done has cleared up any bewilderment I had about the proximate moves that the various players are making in Ukraine. Hudson’s post is a step beyond that. He explains the overarching game that is driving everything else and tells us where it is heading.
At the end of the piece Hudson says in plain terms what Ian carefully suggests in the post above. We are as close as we have ever been in my lifetime to an exchange of nuclear weapons. As everyone knows, if that happens the human race as we know it is over and those who get killed immediately will be the lucky ones.
If Putin and our own criminal overlords are (please dear god) sane enough not to take that final step, the alternative will still be great hardship for those of us unlucky enough to be trapped in the Dollar economy.
So without, as they say, further ado, here it is.
https://michael-hudson.com/2022/02/america-defeats-germany-for-the-third-time-in-a-century/
I want to mention one more point in Hudson’s article that fits right in with Ian’s post about ethics. Hudson notes that, in addition to establishing a global financial system that will be an alternative to Dollar hegemony, the plan is also to establish an alternative to the Hague. The plain reason for that will be to make it possible to put American oligarchs on trial for crimes against the Nuremberg codes.
Synoia
Please add Korea, Vietnam, Venezuela, Chile, Nicaragua , Iran, Libya, Syria, many countries in Africa, Kosovo, Myanmar, and Yemen to the List.
Ché Pasa
There is no moral or ethical justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine any more than there has been for the numerous invasions perpetrated by the USandNato since 2001 and before.
And yet the anti-war community in the USandNato is essentially silent. It’s shameful.
Few seem to recognize that sanctions, such as they are, no matter how they are intended, harm the People, not the elites. Nor are most in the West aware that both Russia and Ukraine among other former units of the Soviet Union are captive to their oligarchs, and the notion that Ukraine represents Democracy and Freedom while Russia represents Autocracy and Repression is absurd. Ridiculous. A fantasy.
Putin’s complaints about neo-Nazi infestations and militarism in the Ukraine are valid, but invasion and conquest (?) won’t end them. Our propagandists and media have entirely erased the Nazis from Ukraine. They may be few in numbers, but they hold significant power, particularly in the Ukrainian security state which they essentially control — on behalf of the anti-Russian oligarchs.
Sanctions are probably not going to collapse the Russian Federation — whether or not Putin holds on to power. As has been pointed out Russia is nearly as self-sufficient as the Soviet Union was despite being beset on all sides by enemies and rivals and being subjected to invasions, immense destruction, famines and wars over and over again.
The wild card is the use of nuclear weapons. I’m hearing both that it’s almost inevitable if it looks like Putin is going down, and that it’s almost impossible no matter what.
Of course those of us who grew up with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over our heads every day are alert to these sorts of things. We pay attention. There was no serious threat that Hillary was going to “start WWIII” with a no-fly zone in Syria, but that was a common narrative. It was obvious then that the Kremlin wasn’t going to play. So no WWIII.
But now? We can’t be so certain. If the USandNato do more than they are doing to “stand with” (the Nazis in) Ukraine, I’d say all bets are off. The button may well be pushed.
Part of the narrative now is that Ukrainians and the Ukrainian refugees are “just like us.” Middle class white people. Blue eyes. Blond hair. Europeans. So we have to support them.
But you know who they are really “just like”?
Russians.
So let’s let this stop before it spirals completely out of control. And (dream) let’s round up all the oligarchs and put them on an isolated island somewhere to fight it out among themselves and leave the rest of us alone.
ptb
IMO, the sanctions are “that severe”. US tributary states are blockaded from RU central bank, ie, dollar-ruble conversions, ie full spectrum economic war. There may be wishful thinking about “exceptions” , but more likely, do full economic attack, get a full economic response. US immune to energy war, but satellite states – trade partners – are not. Expect trade shutdowns with selectively-blockading countries wherever there is a pain point. In particular very real possibility of escalating to full shut-off of gas to EU (which member states never wanted, no choice) after payments come due, unless a Chinese intermediary is found to handle the payment and the Euro/Ruble or Yuan/Ruble conversions. Some like JP or Korea likely confident enough to implement that simple workaround without much fuss. Same for India and Pak and countries on the first-to-starve-in-a-trade-war list.
Washington wants all in on financial side, Russia will call it. If they withstand the next few years, Washington’s economic leverage would then be viewed by the world as unmistakably insufficient to take on China, and US hegemony could then fade away without a fight. Lot at stake here. Big danger is if US believes it can take both Russia and China at the same time.
Mark Pontin
Ian (from last thread): “Iraq was a modern army against an outdated army. Ukraine is outnumbered, but they have modern gear.”
True. Stingers, Javelins, and — interestingly — Turkish Bayraktar TB2 combat drones.
With the fog of war and propaganda from all sides, I’ve resisted playing armchair general. Still, I’ll be interested in the post-war analyses because this, with the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020, may have been another inflection point in military affairs. For instance —
In 1982: the Falklands war showed the vulnerability of big platforms — capital ships like aircraft carriers, battle cruisers — against precision missiles, like Exocets. The UK had to stand them off beyond range, till Thatcher had begged or threatened to get the control codes for those missiles from France’s President Mitterand. (Scuttlebutt has always been that she told Mitterand she had a RN nuclear sub — as she did — with nuclear missiles aimed at Buenos Aires she would order fired if he didn’t give up those codes.)
In 1990-91: during Gulf One, when the US brought in ‘smart ordnance’ by putting computer guidance control systems on almost everything, in line with Andy Marshall’s RMA thesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Marshall_(foreign_policy_strategist)
In 2006: the Israel-Lebanon war, which made clear that missile technology had been truly democratized as Hezbollah, supplied by Iran, effectively ran rings around the IDF and knocked out Merkava tanks.
And in 2020: with the Nagorno-Karabakh war and now in Ukraine, there’s the democratization of drones of all sizes on the battlefield —
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/ukraine-realizes-turkish-mans-idea-to-use-non-military-drones
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/russia-ukraine-war-turkey-drones-effective-deadly
Yes, the Russians were initially using a light hand — no electronic warfare, no initial precision missile flattening of infrastructure near cities. But they’ve seen their tanks prove particularly vulnerable to those drones.
Of course, the endgame remains almost certainly a Russian win on the ground. However, the harder they hit to get there, the more of a propaganda and commercial win also for the “rules-based international order” of the US, as Michael Hudson’s post lays out.
So we can expect these weapons to be continually fed into the Ukraine and the West to fight to the last Ukrainian, if it can.
Lim
This war may just escalate out of control. So far the Russia army have shown much restrain without heavy bombing. As the war drags, there wont be any winners either side. Now the best hope maybe for the French or Germany leader to come out and say they wont endorse NATO membership for Ukraine. If the US or any Western Countries send troops this will mark a major escalation in the war and the results maybe WW3.
The World is waging an economic war against Russia. Now all Russian listed companies are in freefall and on its way to zero. Russia London listed oil companies are trading 10% of their original price. 10% when oil is now at $100.
davidly
The narrative that sanctions are already crippling the regime is either war propaganda, wishful thinking, or both. The amount of money exempt via their largest industry is said by Matt Stoller to be enough to keep the war going. I wouldn’t know. Who would?
Willy
Well, the optics are a bit different. Zelenskyy is a lot more like Al Franken than Saddam Hussein was. Plus it’d be more like Trump having taken strongman power to then invade Canada. Plus I doubt the Ukrainians will be spending most of their subjugation time terrorizing each other, thus appearing more like suffering innocents than crazies in need of a strongman.
Besides those optics, the evil irony of a self-righteous and unrepentant Condoleezza still burns. America’s gone from being “the worlds cop” to plutocracy’s muscle, in plain sight. At least for the sane. Now other nations get to try and rationalize their own particular moral authority to do the same. And Putin gets to continue Russia’s tradition of letting strongmen take the nation on sociopathic joy rides.
China (in its current state) is in a good position to take pragmatic advantage. Maybe they’ll be less the worlds cop, and more the worlds moral authority, such as it is, for now. And progressives get another opportunity to work with yet another teachable moment. Carry on.
Feral Finster
Sanctions are what brought about Pearl Harbor,.
Admittedly, Japan was much less of an autarky than Russia is right now.
Glau
“And yet the anti-war community in the USandNato is essentially silent. It’s shameful.”
The anti-war community in America is paralyzed, much like the commentariat here, by the fact that the US isn’t actually involved in this war. And since ragging on America doesn’t actually address anything going on in Ukraine, they don’t know how to handle a war where America isn’t the obvious bad guy.
They could join the anti-russian side, because opposing a war means opposing the people who start them, but then they’ll disappear into the mainstream foreign policy blob.
They could join the pro-russia side, where the best outcome for everyone is the Ukraine rolling over quickly, but that puts them arm in arm with Putin and Trump, both of whom reflexively despise anti-war folk.
They could try and sit this one out and just analyze it from a 50,000 foot view, where blaming America for it is possible again, but this puts them in the position of saying nothing about the actual war and actual aggression.
The narrative that the anti-war folks use cannot accommodate an imperialist aggressor that isn’t there US.
So people bend over backwards to not blame the guy ordering artillery strikes on civilian housing.
bruce wilder
Sanctions are what brought about Pearl Harbor
I have seen this free-floating narrative meme twittering about for several years now. I wonder who paid for it and why.
Ford
I think the sanctions aren’t too crazy at the present, but it’s a fact that Ukraine cannot win this conflict, so de-escalation should be the primary goal, to minimize the suffering of the people of Ukraine. De-militarization and recognizing Crimea should be on the table for the West in terms of de-escalation.
bruce wilder
Atrios @ Eschaton highlighted some deconstructive observations about sanctions from Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell, academics with some expertise. Here is Drezner writing in WaPo:
Atrios quoted a Henry Farrell tweet (deleted):
These are officials at very high levels of power and responsibility and they are getting carried away by emotion and they do not know the fundamentals of how to do their jobs of running the world. We talk a bit in comments about how to shape a better world, the most moral imperative there is, but we are unpowerful individuals who, at best, can act ethically as individuals. That is something. But, collectively, this is what spits out the mouth of the human volcano.
NATO expansion feeds lunch to the ghouls of Northern Virginia and no one wants Ukraine to be neutral and war breaks out and whocoodenode and let’s destroy the largest country in the world because we can.
different clue
Some time ago Colonel Lang closed out Sic Semper Tyrannis and started up Turcopolier Blog. So at Turcopolier they are following the current Russia-Ukraine events deal pretty closely.
Larry Johnson explains why applying the tough sanctions against Russia may be like hitting a rubber sole with a rubber mallet.
https://turcopolier.com/will-the-economic-sanctions-on-russia-backfire/
On the other hand, the current as-of-right-now situation with the long Russian convoy heading towards Kee-Yehhhvv raises questions about the level of thought and craft-skills being shown just now by the Russian military right there on scene.
https://turcopolier.com/how-russias-vast-military-convoy-was-ambushed-on-the-road-to-kyiv-telegraph/
To rephrase a question I raised a couple of threads ago, what happens if Putin decides he needs to Groznify Kiev and he discovers he just can’t do it? If that rung on the escalatin-ladder is missing, what is the next rung beyond that?
Separately, if a still-coherent RussiaGov establishment decides this has gone too badly to ever go well and decides that Putin needs to retire from office to permit others to work on a way to save face all the way around, why would this mean that Putin should fear himself and his family being killed? Didn’t the Communist Party Central Committee establish the principal of non-lethal retirement for unwanted leaders by non-lethally forcing Kruschev into undisturbed obscure retirement in 1964? Wouldn’t that precedent still stand? Even though the current RussiaGov is not Communist?
different clue
I have just stumbled across an interesting article from some “Ukrainian anti-authoritarian Anarchists” linked to on Ran Prieur’s blog. It is a semi-analytical summing-up of events in Ukraine and its society from the Maidan events onwards till today. Here is the link.
https://crimethinc.com/2022/02/15/war-and-anarchists-anti-authoritarian-perspectives-in-ukraine
Occasional Poster
@Glau What are you talking about? Everyone and their dog is having a meltdown over Ukraine and denouncing Russia in the most hysterical and unhinged manner. Antiwar voices are drowned out and the few that get through are shouted down as Putin bots and traitors.
How much outrage was shown over the hundreds of thousands of dead Yemenis, Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans that were and are being slaughtered by America and its allies?
The selective outrage and empathy over Ukraine, and the lack of political awareness this demonstrates, is absolutely staggering. The media glorifying Ukrainian grandmothers who plan to fight the Russian army with Molotov cocktails and encouraging people to send money and weapons to Ukraine, while at the same time claiming to be concerned about loss of civilian life in this war, is just monstrous. It’s diabolical.
Meanwhile not one MSM or political voice is calling for deescalation and a negotiated ceasefire. And you are complaining that not enough people are calling out Russian aggression. With all due respect what planet are you on?
someofparts
A few thoughts as events unfold …
I’m still cautiously enthusiastic about the idea that Russia/China or alternative power centers that be, hope to replace the Hague with some relatively un-corrupted judicial body that will try American oligarchs, among others, for Nuremberg code violations. IMO it can’t happen too soon, if such a thing is actually possible.
As far as global systems for managing economic activity, I’ve been reminded that China will not step in to directly supplant the Dollar because this opens their economy to currency in/out flows. If they had ever been willing to do this, they could have done it twenty years ago, so – not gonna happen. Right now, that is the global balance of power conundrum that strikes me as the most interesting and consequential. There is a circle to be squared here and I can’t even imagine how that can happen. I’ve always bought into the view that bitcoin is the mother of all ponzi schemes, but it is kind of an odd wild card in all of this. If the path out of the cul-de-sac of Dollar hegemony is some version of digital currency, that would explain why I can’t see it coming because that is way above my conceptual pay grade.
Finally, to share a few trifles, congratulations to anyone here who spared themselves watching the State of the Union address last night. Extra special congratulations to anyone who wisely avoided watching Hillary on Maddow, which was certainly unbearable cringe-worthiness on steroids. And happy Ash Wednesday to all of us.
Ché Pasa
Medea Benjamin did come out with a statement: Russia should withdraw, US should promise no expansion of Nato. End of war. One and done. So the anti-war folks now have spoken in the USofA too. But they aren’t marching in Europe. Oh no.
Me, I say abolish Nato. It shouldn’t exist any more than the Warsaw Pact. But no. Our rulers must have an enemy and must build titanic forces to supposedly defend against it but also no. All it does is further enrich the already obscenely well-off and m eatgrind some of the excess useless eaters.
Piffle.
Nuclear saber rattling continues, getting louder. OK then. If I were Ukrainian, I’d realize there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They’ve already been through a nuclear meltdown — which they and we have all been told “wasn’t that bad.” Ha. They’ve been through so much else as well. As have the Russians. And too many of our dimmest bulbs are unfortunately in positions of power and believe that not only is nuclear war survivable (for them), it is desirable as, shall we say, a cleansing mechanism.
Myself, I don’t think the Kremlin would launch a first strike, but I have no doubt whatever that the crazies at the Pentagon and some of the Euro-capitals — like London — would, and they would do so eagerly, because… why not? They’ve been itching for it for decades. The Russians are uppity, the Ukies are useless… so why not? What is there of value (to them) to lose?
Lex
@differentclue,
Thanks for the absolutely fascinating article. This is the kind of information we all need.
different clue
@Lex,
Thank you for the kind words. Ran Prieur is a much under-known and under-appreciated blog. As he gets older, he gets tired of blogging at his former rate and does less of it. At some point he may just wind down to a cold stop.
He has linked to high-value low-exposure articles before and in the past. For people with the time, his past work might be worth reviewing.
And it goes to show what the Internet can allow people to do. It can allow people to send high-value information or links to high value information to places where other people can see it and find it. If they take it back to analog meatspace, there is the place where it can perhaps be acted from or upon in the analog realworld. But it takes a digital Internet to get these pieces of information into every little corner of interested public view.
different clue
I have just started watching a fascinating Beau of the Fifth Column video, about what is apparently a very recent and very real offer from the UkraineGov to Russian soldiers in Ukraine . . . . defect to Ukraine with your weapons and declare you are seeking asylum, and we will accept you and give you $40,000 for a new start in life. Beau seems to approve of the concept and I think he will spend the video saying why.
Here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C_VUbVOhhM
different clue
@someofparts,
I missed all that Must-See TV because I was at work. So too bad for me.
I wonder how it would look to someone with a head full of LSD. Especially the Hillary-Maddow show.
different clue
Beau of the Fifth Column has a newest video called ” let’s talk about whether Putin has already lost . . . ” Beau’s head seems level, his manner is calm, allowing the listener to think about the words themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXKSM8lpqKM
Veronica
@William Reeve and everyone who thinks NATO”repeatedly lied and broke every promise” to Russia.
Please read anything ever written by John Lewis Gaddis, Mark Riebling, or Anatoly Golitsyn.
Tldr: NATO beat Russia at its own Intel game. NATO found out via defectors that Russia thought NATO would dissolve if the USSR collapsed. At that point, Russian leadership — which is full of the same KGB lifers it has always been full of — thought several long-term objectives would be easily obtainable.
NATO found out and called their bluff. If they had believed the Russian team, they would have followed standard operating procedure and written every verbal promise down — as you would normally do in these situations and as they did for pretty much everything else.
Real question is, what was the Russian team thinking? Gorbachev may have been drunk but his aides weren’t….
Veronica
@Glau
Idk. I think the anti- war/anti-corporate left has been intentionally silenced by FB/Google/et al. While shoals like this remain, there won’t be a movement again until the Internet’s gone for good. Two full generations just don’t know how to function — let alone organize — offline. What’s worse, they don’t even realize just how they’re being manipulated.
different clue
Beau of the Fifth Column has an even more newerest video called . . . ” Let’s talk about Russia shelling a nuclear power plant . . . ” Here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPQo1LMENhQ
Why would I risk boredom bombing this thread with two Beau videos in a row? Because the subject of this video has an ethical dimension worth thinking about.
I can understand why the RussiaGov wants to take over physical control of all the nuke plants in Ukraine. After President Zelensky, a perfectly decent Ukranormal, hinted strongly at wanting Ukraine to have atom bombs, President Putin would have seen/heard a very real and semi-imminent threat there. And the Ukranazis would want to go further. They are the kind of people who would harvest all the radwaste, spent fuel, etc., to make dirty bombs for use on Russian-speaking East Ukrainians and Russia too, if they could get their dirty bombs into Russia. So I can imagine the RussiaGov wanting to pre-empt that from happening and keep it pre-empted from happening.
But to shell the plant? What kind of ethics went into that decision? What was the exact goal and purpose in mind?
different clue
@Veronica,
I had never heard of any NATO promises not to expand eastward. I had heard of Presidents Reagan and Elder Bush personally promising Gorbachev to not expand NATO eastward. But I had never heard of any involvement of the EUro-NATO members in that promise.
I had always taken it for granted that the evil Clinton drove NATO eastward, perhaps partly at the instigation of antiRussianitic racist antiRussianites like Zbigniew Brzhezhinski. But then I read an exchange on that subject between commenters over at Naked Capitalism. A commenter named Vlade, whom I presume to be Czech, wrote that Clinton was not interested in pushing NATO eastward but that the sainted Vaclav Havel his very own self lobbied and persuaded Clinton to push NATO eastward to “protect” East Europeans who were not clear on the difference between Russia as against Communism. If that is true, then the East European new demanders of entry into NATO helped turn NATO from a counter-communist defensive organization into an antiRussianitic racist organization.
If this explanation for Clinton’s apparently perfidious behavior against ReaganBush promises about NATO is correct, it hardens my view that NATO itself has become an antiAmerican conspiracy. And luring Anerica and Russia into a war over Ukraine is part of that EUropean conspiracy against America.
Clinton’s main priority was always selling out America to the Chinese Mercantilist Aggressionaries. I wonder how much of the Clintons’s current fortune of 100 million dollars and counting is a reward from the Free Traderites for selling America’s economy to the Chinese Mercantilist BizGov Industrial Complex.
different clue
I just found this over at NaCap. . . .
. . . . ” Bunny Rabbits and the Big Bad Wolf: Ukraine and Russia through the lens of Western reporting Gilbert Doctorow. Addresses the claims that Russia shelled the outbuilding that caught on fire at a nuclear plant. A contact says the consensus of the best-informed sources is strike on the building was neither Russians or Ukrainians but a Banderite unit. Helpful visual aid from furzy: ”
That report would be worth following up if that is somehow possible. Was the attack on the nuclear plant actually carried out by Banderazis? If so, for what reason and by what logic and for what goal?
The Ukranormal majority is somewhat at the mercy of the Ukranazi minority, because the Ukranazi minority has so much of the armed force and the desire to use it against the Ukranormals.
Russia will leave behind an awful lot of collateral damage in Ukraine. If the Russian forces are not able to physically exterminate in complete individual detail every single Ukranazi person in Ukraine, then people will wonder at leisure what all the collateral damage was even for. Perhaps enough collateral damage will render Ukraine physically NATO-incapable for decades to come, which might provide a secondary answer.
different clue
Here is a little article from NaCap. It is about the power and influence of the Ukranazis over Ukrainian policy and actions, and about the Ukranazis’ apparently stealth-holding President Zelensky as a kind of virtual hostage to their wishes. He may well be afraid of them assassinating him if he does not satisfy them that he is being a de-facto pro-Ukranazi good boy. And the article notes how the American NPR newsy network ( “newzy” is to news as “truthy” is to truth. Maybe newziness will become a word just like truthiness) is spinning the Ukranazis out of visible existence.
One wonders whether Putin would indeed have to destroy the containment dome ( Ukraine) to get to the core ( banderazis and azovazis). If Putin decides he has to destroy the village in order to save it, how will that affect Putin’s and Russia’s reputation and influence with various “non-aligned” small and medium country-govs?
Here is the link.
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/
It seems that Turcopolier Blog ( the former and now rebranded Sic Semper Tyrannis) and Naked Capitalism will be two sites to follow along with this one on the Russia-Ukraine war unfolding.