In the long run, big things shape the little things.
In matters of war and peace, our attention from day to day is on events. A breakthrough by Ukraine forces might cause Russia to change tactics and strategy. But the war exists in the first place because of national interests of Russia, Ukraine, Europe, the West, business, culture, religion, and human nature. The big things.
My blog post of two days ago reflected on how the war in Ukraine might end. Russia had a vital interest, I wrote, which explains their occupation of Crimea and the eastern provinces of Ukraine and the risk they took in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The easy and simple way to explain Russian actions is the "Hitler-model," -- an armed robber out to steal another's land. I think most Americans see it that way. This is 1938 again.
Russians have another view of it. Americans don't need to agree with the view, but they need to understand it. Americans can discount it, saying it is a result of relentless propaganda fed Russians, but that does not make it any less real or politically potent. (Fox News and Trump express a relentless story of Trump's righteous innocence. A huge number of Americans believe it, including one of two political parties. Believers have super-majorities in many states and nearly all rural parts of every state.)
Putin says Russia is under attack. Russians believe that. Putin explains that Ukraine is Russian. The Ukrainian language has the same roots as Russian, and there are lots of people in Ukraine whose first language is Russian, not Ukrainian, especially in the places Russia now occupies. Russians think Ukraine is being seduced by the West. They think it is being corrupted by a secular, commercial, Godless, wicked modernism away from traditional Orthodox Christian virtues -- an argument with salience here in America.
Putin says Ukraine and Russia "are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus’ is our common source and we cannot live without each other."
Russians believe that their country's vital interests are at stake. Russia has oil to sell. Germany and Europe need its oil, and they were doing good business until the USA meddled. Russia needs friendly countries to its northwest -- Belarus and Poland -- so they cannot be held hostage by them in transporting oil. They need Ukraine to be friendly, or better yet, fully Russian, for transportation of Russian oil and wheat across Ukraine or through the Black Sea and to the world. Russia cannot have hostile neighbors to the west.
One way for Americans to think of this is to say "Tough luck, Russia. We win, you lose." That is what Russians perceive from us, which energizes and justifies their sacrifice in this war. Russians think they are the innocent party here, fighting to preserve their country. Are they wrong? They don't think so.
George Friedman's Geopolitical Futures takes the long view of history. He analyzes the behavior of nation states in the manner of a chess game. Countries have national interests which shape their behaviors, even as specific leaders or popular majorities come and go. To better understand the path to peace in Ukraine, read in more detail what Friedman thinks animates Russian actions.
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The quick and easy thought for Americans is to perceive Russia as a failed state, losing population, its people dying young, corrupt, a has-been country. This war in Ukraine is an opportunity to crush Russia, not accommodate it. The sooner it is irrelevant and dissolved, the better for us and the world. It is a good sound bite for a candidate. Sound tough and dismissive. That sound bite is in Russian ears, too, and it stiffens their resolve. The Russian people, language, religion, and culture have been around since the 9th century. They lost some 25 million people preserving that culture in WWII. They have national pride. They have nuclear weapons. It makes sense to know what they want and what they fear.
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7 comments:
I would hate to think the atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine are representative of “traditional Orthodox Christian values,” but taking the long view of history, I’m afraid they probably are. Looking at the behavior of nation states in the manner of a chess game, it’s plain to see that we’re only pawns in their game.
It is dismaying to see how easily entire populations can be swayed into believing complete nonsense. The “Hitler-model” sold his agenda by promoting delusions of being the master race. In the 1940s, we proved what bullshit that was, but many still cling to the notion even here. Russians believe Ukraine attacked them. Nor are we any better. Huge swaths of the U.S. believe the 2020 election was “stolen.” The only thing there is to understand about these people is how dangerous their ignorance makes them.
"An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic." ---Thomas Jefferson
While you may be correct that Russian jingoism is motivating its behavior, I don't think it's necessarily the attitude of the Russian people, who are, I think you will agree, oppressed and intimidated by the regime. Who's to say if given the choice they would vote to join the West, whose influence you point out is not as much in Ukraine as it is in Russia itself and is a real threat to the gangsters that control it?
The modern interconnected World cannot afford this 19th century mindset, and it certainly doesn't justify Putin's criminality, any more than it should tolerate Trump's and his cronies.
Another parallel I'd point out is that Putin uses a nostalgic nativistic rationale for his actions, just like Republicans are here. Be advised.
I never thought I would say this, but Bill Clinton should have been found guilty in the Senate and Al Gore should have taken the reins of the Presidency. Clinton's capitulation to the Reagan agenda and the destruction the the FCC's Fairness Doctrine and the prohibition of media monopolies sowed the dragon seeds of FOX et al. Effectively shutting the citizenry into camps where information slanted only one way would lost it's counterpoint for the MAGA crowed to consider.
The propaganda arm of Russia, effectively feeds the idea that they, Russia, was robbed in the breakup of the USSR. With an argument like historical peoples occupied this land, though true, is irrelevant. If that argument is true then the Chinook Indians own the land that Portland sits on.
And if the GOP wasn't so corrupt Clinton wouldn't have been able blackmail them.
It's why we need honest politicians who don't work for Russia.
And most of the lands West of the Atlantic. In my own State, the Nez Perce have never been allowed to return to their historic homelands in the Walliea Mountains of NE Oregon, just one example if U.S. Government perfidy and dishonesty from near yhe very beginning.
One other point to consider. Before the “Coalition of the Willing” gets too self-righteous over Russia invading Ukraine, we should keep in mind the unfortunate parallels between that and our invasion of Iraq - mainly that neither was justified. The problem is that in our current attempts to maintain the balance of terror, there are no good guys.
One problem is what Russia does to the people in the countries it wants to have influence over. it crushes them under a surveillance tyranny, just like China does in its areas of influence. Watch the movie The Lives of Others if you don’t know what I mean.
There are situations like what the Chinese are doing to Tibet, where we have no practical way to save those people from that fate. But there are currently things we can do in Eastern Europe.
Is power bloc politics the only thing we care about?
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