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Samizdata quote of the day – Putin is not a mystery Putin’s objectives are not an enigma, a mystery, or a riddle. As McKew emphasizes, they have been spelled out again and again in speeches, books, editorial, official documents, journal articles, conferences, interviews, and even in fiction. They have also been written in blood.
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Proposing a peace agreement with a party who views such agreements not as binding commitments, but periods in which to rearm is delusional.
– Claire Berlinsky
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Quite the Trump fan, CB is.
What an exquisitely disdainful slur against everything in America that doesn’t meet her elitist expectations. Gave up somewhere towards the end of Part 3. Ukraine will do marginally less well with her on its side. I feel like I need a shower now.
I’m no fan of Ramaswamy, but I like him a tiny bit better after reading this nasty screed. Now that she’s insulted everyone who might do well to listen more about him, what would be the point of sharing this with them?
Bet she’s fun at parties, though.
Claire has some TDS & BDS but I cannot fault her analysis of Ramaswamy.
Indeed she is.
@bobby b
Unlike Perry, I have never met Claire but have been reading her ever since I came across her magnificent biography of Margaret Thatcher.
She definitely has TDS and BDS, which is off-putting for me, and she does come across as quite elitist.
Nevertheless, she is extremely shrewd and knowledgeable and one should read what she says, even if only to better understand the arguments of someone with whom you will disagree.
In particular, on the subject of Ukraine (where I am, perhaps, not as strong a supporter as Perry) it still seems clear that strategically she is right (right but repulsive, if you will).
This is a war worth blood and treasure because Putin will not stop. Concessions will only encourage him.
Moreover, if you say, with some justification, that he’s Europe’s problem and they should deal with it then I think you are advocating a policy which will encourage the US’s enemies elsewhere and cost her more dearly than the current course.
Biden is a very weak horse, but at the moment many perceive that it’s not just a problem with the commander in chief: rather the US possesses “weakness in depth”. Conceding on Ukraine will be, IMHO, to drown in blood the last counterargument to that assessment and the consequences will be costly.
She’s as allergic to Putin as our gracious host here, but I wonder if her Brexit Derangement Syndrome is born of the notion “Putin wants to weaken EU, Brexit weakens EU, Brexit bad.” Farage’s deeply disappointing de facto fellation of Putin probably plays to this line of thought.
I’d have hoped Boris Johnson’s very creditable performance re. Ukraine in 2022 might have disabused her of the idea Brexit was a pro-Russia thing.
Crimea was given to Ukraine in 1954 – but this transfer was not considered a serious matter as Ukraine was not an independent country at the time and neither was Russia, both were just parts of the Marxist Soviet Union. The transfer was an administrative gesture – not, say, a British government giving Kent to France.
After Ukrainian independence in 1991 Crimea did not seem a big issue – as the government in Kiev was pro Russian and James Baker (the American Secretary of State) had pledged that NATO would not expand eastward, but later a new anti Russian government emerged in Ukraine. In 2014 Mr Putin formally took over the Crimea – but that raised the problem of supplies and access to Crimea, he did build a bridge but that is not sufficient. Taking over Russian areas of eastern Ukraine seemed to be a solution to that problem – making sure there were water supplies and access to Crimea, but the incompetence of Mr Putin and the Russian armed forces, and massive British and American intervention, is leading to the failure of that policy.
The way things look now Russia will lose this war against the Western powers, and, unlike the Crimean War of the 1850s, will lose Crimea as well – Mr Putin can not survive such a defeat, he would be killed for such a failure.
A new Russian government will be very much a junior partner to the People’s Republic of China, in reality Mr Putin already is a junior partner to the PRC, and the Russian people blinded by their desire for revenge against the Western powers who have killed so many Russians, due to the folly of Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, will not even notice they are under the domination of the People’s Republic of China till it is too late.
The power of the PRC will be all the way to Poland and the Baltic – and, ironically enough, China may well end up with an economic and political stranglehold on Ukraine (a long with much else).
If it’s true that Putin fooled the west, yet “Putin’s objectives are not an enigma, a mystery, or a riddle … they have been spelled out again and again in speeches, books, editorial, official documents, journal articles, conferences, interviews, and even in fiction.”
One could be forgiven for wondering what the Western ruling elite has between their ears ?
Have my doubts. Post-War, Ukraine & Turkey (& some extent Poland) may end up in tacit alliance preventing Central Asia, Georgia & Armenia drifting to China’s zone of influence, as well as sticking it to Iran, whose government both Turkey & Ukraine really hate.
Thomas Fairfax – was Mr Johnson really pro British independence? Many people in the pro independence campaign have told me that Mr Johnson wanted us to LOSE, that he was only pretending to support independence (for personal advantage). And his behaviour after the independence vote would seem to confirm that view – for example, his betrayal of British fishermen and his formal promise of no border down the Irish sea, followed by his agreeing to precisely that (a betrayal of Northern Ireland). Still perhaps Mr Johnson did NOT want to betray independence, perhaps he just agrees to things put in front of him, such as HS2 and the Covid lockdowns, because democratic political leaders have little real power in the West – with the real power being in other hands.
As for Mr Farage – one can quote nice things he has said about Mr Putin, but he has also said many nasty things about Mr Putin. Often in the same speeches (going back many years) he will say both nice and nasty things about Mr Putin. It is like the infamous quote from Mr Farage “Brexit has failed” – taken out of context that sounds like admission that he, Mr Farage, was wrong to support independence – but in context it is clear that Mr Farage still supports independence, he just believes that the British government does not, and has sabotaged it.
Clovis Sangrail.
The main enemies of Western populations, such as the American and British peoples, are the Western establishment. With their fanatical desire to destroy what is left of both national independence and individual liberty.
The main external enemy is the People’s Republic of China.
Mr Putin is a criminal and a thug – but he is a side issue.
As for the article – the title of the thing that it is in is “The Cosmopolitan Globalist” – well at least that is an honest tile, and it sums up what American conservatives and libertarians are fighting against – the next stage in that struggle will be the new World Health Organisation treaty which is a classic piece of totalitarian Globalism.
The article claims that Americans have prospered under the emerging world governance – a false claim as, when the fakery is removed from the statistics, real standards of life in the United States are getting worse and worse. A small elite have certainly prospered – but at the expense of everyone else whose lives are now worse than those of their parents or grandparents. The fakery that goes into official statistics, to try and deny what ordinary people know, is extreme.
As for claiming to support “American exceptionalism” and the emerging totalitarian world governance, at the same time, that is a total contradiction.
The “reform” that such things as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, and UNESCO need is not even more power – the “reform” they need is abolition. These bodies, and all other such bodies, should not exist – and the United States should certainly leave them.
Mikhaeil Glorgadze.
Without Russia (to act as a counter weight), Central Asia will come under China.
As for Iran – it already is an “ally” of Russia and China, without Russia it will also be under China (no more using one to balance the other). Russia itself will come under China.
As for the Western establishment – the PRC has nothing but contempt for their “universal values” (Economist magazine) these “universal values” turning out to mean such things as “Trans Rights” for young children.
[Already in such States as Massachusetts it is illegal for Christians, or Muslims or Orthodox Jews, or conservative atheists, to foster or adopt children – soon even the natural born children of Christians, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and conservative atheists, will be taken away from them – as the parents do not “affirm” and “celebrate” various perversions and sexual mutilations that the Western establishment elite support].
There is a new character in Chinese script that means “white leftist” – it is not a complement.
Islam and also the rapidly expanding populations of Africa have a similar hatred and contempt for the degenerate Frankfurt School (Herbert Marcuse and so on) Marxism of the Western elite.
It is not even proper Marxism. And calling it “universal values” is a sick joke.
No, not that simple, not at all. Chinese politics in Central Asia is clumsy as pig fingers. Aliyev will take gifts from Xi in return from an bowl of tea, but Erdogan is who he will actually work with, because Erdogan has eyes across the Caspian.
China not so important, Russia yes. Over next few years, that mistake will be Iran’s ruin, a curved Turkic blade from many directions, united by wish to profit at expense of Iran.
Geography & geopolitik make that harder than you think.
20-30 years from now, Russia be lucky if it even shares border with China.
Micheil Giorgadze – I respectfully disagree with what you say.
The Islamic word for such a tactic is “Hudna”.
I think this is naivety. Contemporary liberalism view Brexit, Trump, and Putin in the same fashion the ayatollahs view the United States…..they are the great Satan’s of their worldview. It’s not a rational view. Having had the sad experience of having to speak to too many people with this ideology they’re absolutely certain that the 2016 US election and UK referendum can only be explained by Russian interference, and they tell me Boris was bankrolled by Russian money. Boris giving weapons to Ukraine counts as much with them as Trump giving them weapons did.
This seems plausible. Boris seemed almost as dumbfounded by the result as many remainers in the immediate aftermath of the referendum.
Yes Martin – I have at least one direct witness who says that Mr Johnson was horrified on being told “we might win this”.
The idea that Mr Farage is the bad guy and Mr Johnson is the good guy is absurd. On the things that matter, control of government spending, opposing “Woke” Marxist “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”, the independence of the United Kingdom (no “deals” with the E.U. that sell us out), it is the other way round. Although the defenders of Mr Johnson say that he did not really want HS2, or the Covid lockdowns or the toxic Covid “vaccines” – it was all forced on the poor-dear-man. I used to give him the benefit of the doubt myself – but it all got too much.
As for Western “liberals” (who are not liberals) they want us enslaved – or just dead. Certainly they hate Mr Putin – but they hate us just as much as they hate Mr Putin, they hate anyone who is not in their club. By the way – Mr Putin used to be in their club, he was on various World Economic Forum bodies and-so-on.
On the topic of Russia, it is demonstrably self-evidently manifestly true that Mr Farage is the bad guy and Mr Johnson is the good guy, and that is the topic at hand.
Whilst BoJo is a man who rarely misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity (hence my surprise at how solid he was re. Ukraine), how was this horror expressed? What was the context? Sounds like, to use the technical term, just so much barrack room bollocks.
Neither can I. No substance to the man. Or, as much as RFK, anyway. Run away, from both. But, thinking of the people whom I’d like to convince of this, I’d never share these articles with them. “If SHE dislikes him, given what else she wrote, he must be great!” would be the common reaction.
(Just as one example: She seems to agree with a commenter that the people who want the US to disengage in Ukraine are the ones who think of the US as the font of all evil. Exactly completely backwards. Those are the people mindlessly spouting “you must love Putin” to anyone who hesitates.)
(And then there’s her nasty slur on Musk, the guy who gives the Right at least one usable platform.)
I have liked and admired many things she’s written. This wasn’t one of them. She shouldn’t write when she’s angry.
If bobby graciously grants me license to correct him again, that should have been:
And then there’s her nasty slurS on Musk
It’ll be revoked at such time as you correct me incorrectly. No danger so far.
No Perry – Mr Farage did not support Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He did, years ago, warn that the Western policy of eastward expansion, in direct violation of assurances given to Russia (admittedly assurances given BEFORE Mr Putin came to power – it could be argued that the coming to power of Mr Putin changed the situation) would lead to disaster – but that is very different thing from supporting the invasion of February 2022 which Mr Farage did-not-do.
As for the “universal values” of Western “liberals” – there should indeed be universal principles, but they are precisely NOT what Western “liberals” stand for. Some of their principles they actually share with Mr Putin – such as election rigging, censorship, the political prosecution of opponents, and (of course) massive financial corruption (whether the bribe taking of such people as Joseph “Joe – the Big Guy” Biden or, far worse, the institutional corruption of the Credit Money system) These things are wrong when Mr Putin does them – and they are still wrong when “Cosmopolitan Globalists” (their own words) do them. “It is O.K. when we do it” is not a moral principle.
As for matters where the Western “liberals” and Mr Putin differ – such as the sexual mutilation of children and efforts to create world “governance” – the “liberal” position is not liberal at all, it is madness.
But, again, how much the Western “liberals” have in common with Mr Putin should not be forgotten – whether it is baby killing (which they both regard as just fine) or the state domination of land use. Mr Putin had no problem with the totalitarian principles of Agenda 21 – Agenda 2030 including state control of land use, he only differed on the point that, in his view, the tyranny should be on a national, not international, basis – that was what got him kicked out of the “club”. Russia under Mr Putin is not a bigger version of Texas (as many conservatives and libertarians wrongly believe – especially in the United States), Mr Putin does NOT oppose tyranny, he wants the tyranny to be on a national, not international, basis – but he still supports tyranny.
Kinda sorta. What he has done is oppose aid to Ukraine to resist that invasion, which is functionally the same thing. He “doesn’t support the invasion” (which it probably true), but he’s ok with Ukraine losing the war due to lack of support from the west (or at least support from the UK, which was materially essential in the early days & whose political support has been disproportionately impactful).
What assurances? Really? I realise the Nigel was often on RT, which I thought unwise back in the day when I held him in higher regard, so perhaps he picked up that oft repeated RT talking point then.
The British position is that we are bound by an agreement (I believe in 1994) to guarantee the borders of Ukraine – including Crimea, President Yeltsin’s government also signed that agreement.
The Russian blunder (partly explained by the chaos Russia was in at the time) was to accept Ukrainian “independence” with their fingers crossed, assuming that the government in Kiev would always be pro Russian – rather than engaging in the hard task of engaging in talks to deal with border matters, including the 1954 giving of Crimea to Ukraine (which was gesture politics – Ukraine was most certainly not an independent country in 1954, no one thought that Crimea would ever really be ruled from Kiev – Ukrainian nationalists, fighting a guerrilla war in 1954, did not even want Crimea at that time).
Indeed Moscow in the 1990s thought that having vast numbers of Russians inside the borders of Ukraine was a good idea – as it would ensure a pro Russian government in Kiev (it has not turned out that way – at least not since 2014). The present situation where even Crimea may fall into anti Russian hands is called being hosted on your own petard – Moscow wanted Crimea to be part of an “independent” Ukraine, independence with their fingers crossed, they did not predict the possibility that Crimea really would fall into anti Russian hands – do not give something away and then assume you still have it. If you give something away – it does not belong to you anymore.
“What assurances” – the assurances of James Baker and others. The idea that Ukraine would be part of NATO would have been called a “paranoid conspiracy theory” back then – unless Russia was also part of NATO.
As for Ukraine. I support an independent Ukraine, Mr Putin does not – Mr Putin wants Ukraine to be under Russian domination. But I doubt the government in Ukraine really wants an independent Ukraine either – we shall have to see after the war, whether they get out of the various international bodies – international “governance” which is growing all the time.
In international relations there are two main “liberal” (which is not really liberal at all) approaches – Federalism and Functionalism.
Federalism is obvious – a formal world government, with an elected assembly and so on.
But Functionalism is insidious – it is a series of international agreements that do not appear to create a formal world government, but create international “governance” – with elected governments still existing in countries such as the United Kingdom, but really acting under the instructions of the international Corporate State.
Mr Putin is brutal and crude – he tries to do with tanks and troops (and he does not even use those tanks and troops very well – he uses them very badly), what the despicable “international community” does with the stroke of a pen.
Thomas makes a few interesting points, but I think that Europe is destroying itself. Both Hungary and Poland have serious issues with Brussels, and I keep reading that rural France would like to break away from EUrope as well. The danger of a Federal World Government is that India or China would dominate, and if they could become allies, then Chindia would democratically rule the world! As an Australian, I don’t think I would like that.
I have had this discussion with actual Ukrainians when I was in Ukraine, when Brexit was still a hot topic as they wanted to know why I supported leaving EU whilst every Ukrainian I met wanted Ukraine to join EU.
The tl;dr distillation of many discussions:
1. UK was a net contributor to EU, Ukraine would be a net recipient.
2. EU is in aggregate more corrupt than UK, EU is less corrupt than Ukraine. Dealing with corruption was THE hot button issue for EVERY Ukrainian I chatted with, bar none (keep in mind I visited Ukraine several times before the 2022 invasion). They saw corruption & Russian influence as not the literally same thing (ie not all corruption was Russian corruption, just as much was entirely home grown) but they were nevertheless wholly fungible issues, meaning dealing with one had the direct beneficial effect of dealing with the other. And so, several people I spoke with took the view that an influx of EU aid tied to mandatory reforms & oversight was an unmitigated good, with the oversight being more important than the actual aid. That is why I understood & agreed that whilst departing EU was a good things for UK, joining EU would be a good thing for Ukraine.
One size does not fit all.
I don’t buy the idea that the expansion of NATO was agressive. They joined a defensive alliance with very good reason given Russia’s history…
Anyway… Putin violated the Minsk accords so fuck him. Russia has to be conclusively beaten and then de-Russified as Germany and Japan were successfully integrated into the rest of humanity post-1945. Alas, I can’t see that because they are a perennial basket-case of brutalist sentimentality and a deranged sense of moral superiority (Mother Russia as The Saviour, The Russkiy Mir, The Third Rome and all that profound wank) always have been, always will be. I mean what have they ever brought to the table apart from interminably miserable novels in which they exalt in their sufferings as a sign of Their Divine Blessing?* Oh, that and Czardom, Communism, Boney M, and centuries of being Eurasia’s chronic pain in the arse** since forever. Well 862AD, anyway.
Personally, I’d like to see Putin staked Wallachian-style in Red Square but whilst poetic I doubt that would help. They’d only consider that martydom for The Rodina and make the fucker a saint.
*I doubt they’d even comprehend what Gen. Patton meant in his famous dictum about dying for one’s country if it were even mentioned at the Frunze Academy. They have always exulted in the number of their own casualties. Still do. It is as essential a part of the Russian Soul as signing off on a purge without a thought and then being in floods of tears watching “Swan Lake” at the Bolshoi.
**So a perineal as well as perennial pain 😉
To these quite sensible points that Perry makes, i would add:
3. Most EU countries enjoy less economic freedom than the UK, but all of them enjoy more economic freedom than the Ukraine (as quantified by the Fraser Institute in the EFW index).
4. Just being accepted into the EU would increase investors’ confidence in Ukraine, with obvious benefits.
A further increase in confidence might be gained by joining the Eurozone, as happened to Italy and later the Baltics; but let’s not look too far ahead.
Indeed, Snorri. All these things are relative. Not hard to see the upside from Ukraine’s perspective.
The people that want to sell off Ukraine to keep Russia happy are of the same sort that sold off Czechoslovakia to keep Nazis happy.
The reality is that there’s far too much in the way of common features here for anyone with sense not to see the same syndrome happening. What’s actually going on in Ukraine right now is the likely equivalent of what would have happened had anyone had the testicular fortitude and foresight to take action on Hitler’s ambitions before he realized the majority of them.
What is ironic as hell, from an outside perspective, is observing how much congruity there is between Hitler’s ambitions for Europe and today’s EU. Britain was absolutely right to get out of that particular anti-democratic shitshow, and while it will take years for that to actually become undeniable, well… Yeah.
Unelected bureaucrats mandating life-destroying government diktat from a capital in Europe? Wasn’t that what everyone objected to, during WWII? Seems odd that they’d rush right into the same thing, after the war.
Europe is too big, too different, and too dislocated to ever become a separate national “thing” the way the US did. They also can’t “volunteer” everyone to join into another “penitentiary of nations” like the Russian/Soviet empire.
So, why are they letting it happen? Stupidity? Apathy? Dunno, but it won’t work, over the long haul. You can already see the signs with the birth rates. Too bad, so sad… Self-inflicted wounds, just like with the way Labour decided to dissolve the people and elect another… T’will not end well.
North America has other issues, ones that likely won’t be decided short of revolution. Sadly. All I can say from where I sit is “Idiots. All of them.”
True, and fortunately a most people in the parts of the world that function understand that.
I submit that there is a fundamental divide between people who understand* that people respond to incentives, and people who don’t.
Only the latter set of people can possibly believe that appeasement can achieve anything.
* at a deep, visceral level: the concept is always at the back of their minds.
Very interesting explanation of Ukraine’s interest in joining the EU.
I recall commentators that said that monetary union prevented the PIGS countries from devaluing their currencies to jump start recovery.
How will this conflict end? If Putin is to be defeated, it can’t be done by the Ukes only. How many Ukrainians (and Russian conscripts) have to be put in the mincer before this is stopped?
Maybe it’s because I’m getting old, but I put a very high value on peace. Putin, for all his evil (and he surely is), most be brought to the negotiating table. His appetite for death is large, he must be enticed, he cannot just be impelled.
As I see it, and please correct me if you see this as wrong, there are two choices for ending this. Either Ukraine is persuaded to sue for peace (and obviously would have to make concessions), or NATO goes all in and sends troops to smash Russia (note, no guarantee that will work).
Sorry, I guess the third choice is to allow the current situation to remain as is, Ukraine withers and diminishes, and Russia wins, and all NATO bluster will have been for nothing.
Enticed? You mean appeased. Are you not familiar with the lead up to World War 2? How did appeasement work out for everyone after the Sudetenland was given to Nazi Germany & the Czechoslovakia thrown under the bus in 1938?
And you think Russia will say “Ok, we’ll just take this territory & will not try again in a few years when the Western world’s attention is focused elsewhere. Honest, bruv, you can trust us.”
How can anyone be so naïve?
Peace this side of Russian military defeat is not an option. NOT. AN. OPTION. Any ‘peace’ before then isn’t peace, it’s a temporary ceasefire.
If the situation remains as it is now, Russia wins how? Pre-war it had an economy about the size of Italy & how do you think things look now? Do you seriously think it can win an economic attrition battle with the NATO (& other) nations pumping military aid into Ukraine?
I am alarmed that both the lady and the Presidential candidate she attacks, think that President Nixon’s policy towards China was a good policy.
On the contrary – Western policy, started by President Nixon and Prime Minister Heath, towards the Communist Party Dictatorship of the People’s Republic of China over the last 50 years has been the biggest foreign policy blunder of our age. People who think that the policy of President Nixon towards China was a good idea, rule themselves out of serious debate on international relations. It has been an utter disaster. President Nixon did not have good ideas, on foreign or domestic policy, and since his time things have got worse and worse (thanks to such things as President Clinton allowing the PRC to join the World Trade Organisation) – witness the decaying industrial cities and towns in the United States.
The present property bubble in China, caused by Credit Money expansion (as property bubbles always are) should not distract us from the fact that the People’s Republic of China is a vastly greater threat than Mr Putin – it is a threat of a whole order of magnitude greater.
Indeed it is his alliance with the People’s Republic of China (his failure to see how the PRC is not a friend to Russia – but is, in fact, a deadly threat to Russia and to the rest of the world) that is the principle reason why it would be best for Mr Putin to leave office. This need not automatically mean his death – at his age, 71, he could become a monk and retire to a monastery. Not what most Ukrainians would want (they would want Mr Putin hanged) – but a reasonable compromise, concerning a man (Mr Putin) who keeps insisting that he is an Orthodox Christian with a deep interest in monastic life.
This probably also sums up perfectly Putin’s view of the West.
Indeed, because much of the intelligentsia in the west is indeed delusional. Frankly I suspect Putin shares my astonishment that Ukraine has been robustly backed by major elements of the west.
I truly believed the west’s elite had decayed past the point of any meaningful resistance to Imperial Russia’s aggression. I am delighted to have been wrong.
When I wrote this at the very start of the 2022 invasion, I was by no means confident Putin would be met by more than words.
Perry – the Western establishment do not care about the independence of Ukraine, or the independence of their own countries, nor do they oppose tyranny-as-such. What they object to about Mr Putin, what caused them to toss him out of their club, is that he wants tyranny on a national basis and they want tyranny on an international basis (Agenda 2030 and all that) – they want to crush the independence of Ukraine and all other countries (including their own). Would I, in the Ukrainian position, accept military help from these powers? Of course I would – but I would not trust the “international community” (Rainbow Flags and all) an inch.
On China the claim is that it was a great help during the Cold War – but that claim is just not true (it was not helpful to the West – it just was not). Mao and the other mass murderers who ruled China (murderers on a scale that makes Mr Putin look like a boy scout – they murdered tens of millions) thought that Nixon, Kissinger and so on were jokes – and they were correct to do so.
That some people still think that “Nixon going to China” was a good idea (rather than the utter disgrace it was) is deeply disturbing.
Peace this side of Russian military defeat is not an option. NOT. AN. OPTION. Any ‘peace’ before then isn’t peace, it’s a temporary ceasefire.
This is the crux of it. How is this going to be achieved, and what will be the butcher’s bill?
The only way that I can see that this can come about is if Putin is deposed via some kind of coup/insurrection. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
There is no way any NATO country will commit its own troops whilst the conflict is contained within its current bounds. Forever sending weapons to Ukraine, while their manpower bleeds away is not sustainable. And if you think Putin cares two hoots about any Russian economic reversal, then you’ll be waiting a long time.
Russia is not driven by fear of NATO strength, it is driven by perceptions of western weakness.
I agree. But that view of weakness persists. What happens next?
Untrue. Manpower is only one element of attrition. The pre-war Russia economy was smaller than that of Italy, it is clearly in much worse shape now. They are already expending equipment & munitions at rates far in excess of their ability to replace. The big producers of 155mm ammunition used by NATO artillery provided to Ukraine (such as the Czechs et. al) have been ramping up production & it is already the case that more 155mm ammunition is being produced on the global market than Russian 152mm. Global stocks of 152mm have largely been bought up by Western nations (UK most notably) & given to Ukraine for their legacy Soviet era artillery. Even China has moved to 155mm (although they still produce 122mm in quantity which Russia also uses, but there isn’t much indication China is willing to send that to Russia for political reasons, not to mention does they really want rubles? 😀 ).
It doesn’t matter what he cares about, it’s the cold hard fact of affording industrial inputs to get military outputs pooped out the other end. Putin can shut down the economy & mobilise every able bodied vatnik from Belgorod to Vladivostok, but if they lack enough vehicles & artillery to support them, they don’t really count for much. Ukraine on the other hand really can mobilise almost everyone. Their war effort is mostly supported by the economies & industrial outputs of NATO & other assorted friendly nations.
There comes a point the big guns have less and less to shove up the breech. Russia is an artillery based army. Perception may motivate Russian action but ultimately certain columns on the spreadsheet start trending to zero regardless of perceptions.
Yeah whatever, not very relevant to the topic we are discussing. As long as they keep shipping weapons to Ukraine, I’ll worry why later.
Indeed. Post-war I fully expect Ukraine to emulate Poland & continue to develop their Soviet era industrial capabilities with ROK help (it is striking how little Rheinmetall features in Polish procurement plans). That way, they are a great deal less dependent on the goodwill of the likes of Joe Biden or Olaf Scholz in the future. But right now, it is good that Zelenskyy smiles & shakes hands with Oval Office Zombie & assorted other vile folk.
There is some talk that President Trump will pick Mr Ramaswamy as his running mate for the election – but it hardly matters if the present system of “mail-in ballots” and computerised election machines remains in place – Clair Berlinsky needs to be asked “how can you say you support democracy in Ukraine, when you support election rigging in the United States?” – the lady would then deny that that the American Presidential election of 2020 was rigged, which would rule her out of discussion of any serious matter (as support for the rigged Presidential election of 2020 reveals someone as a shill for the international Corporate State).
Claiming to support the independence of Ukraine whilst supporting it coming under the rule of the European Union is an obvious contradiction – and saying, as Perry does, that the E.U. is less corrupt than the E.U. and that E.U. would give Ukraine money, is to change the subject – the point supposedly at issue in this war is the independence of Ukraine, if Mr Putin said “I will give Ukraine lots of money if it comes under my rule” that would be utterly irrelevant, either the Ukraine is independent or the Ukraine is not independent.
Poland, a strong enemy of Mr Putin in this war, is sometimes given as an example of how a country can be independent of the “international community” (reject baby killing and so on) and still be in the E.U. – getting lots of money from it, “if Poland can be independent in the E.U. – why not Ukraine?” being the argument. This ignores the fact that Poland is under threat of financial blackmail (as soon as the war with Mr Putin ends the E.U. and the rest of the “international community” will hit Poland financially) – and there is a massive propaganda campaign in Poland, a propaganda campaign pushed by the “international community”, to subvert the independence of Poland in the forthcoming elections (the influence of evil is already very clear among the “educated”). That a person such as Donald Tusk is a puppet of the international corporate state is obvious – his recent claims to support the independence of Poland (on immigration and other matters) are clearly lies.
Whether a country is Guatemala or Poland, Ecuador or the United Kingdom, Ukraine or Colombia – the agenda of the international establishment (their evil agenda) is the same. “Functionalism” (in the sense of the theory in International Relations) wishes for independence to be a charade – with all nations really following the same (evil) policies.
The threat from Mr Putin is crude and obvious – the threat from the international community is subtle and insidious.
Suggest you go back & re-read what I wrote when describing what Ukrainians in Ukraine said to me about the EU. The aid is nice, the strings attached is even more important. If you can’t see why, you’re not looking hard enough 😉
Up to a point Lord Copper. NATO is helping Ukraine for self-interested geopolitical reasons, the democracy & independence stuff is a means to an end (a politically stable Ukraine is vastly more capable of resisting Russian subversion).
Why? Because no one in the West who is not on the Russian payroll (& who also has a functioning brain cell) wants Russia to once again border with Slovakia & Romania with interior supply lines. Ensuring Russia remains a peripheral threat on Europe’s eastern fringe, rather than a threat in Central Europe yet again, is what this is all about. And ensuring Ukraine continues to exist as an anti-Russian nation state, ideally one armed to the teeth, is how to achieve those Western geopolitical goals (with Vlad Putin ensuring the “anti-Russian” bit for generations to come).
In a recent Supreme Court ruling in Ecuador the judges ruled that doctors and nurses had to take part in baby killing, that the babies be killed was not, the court ruled, enough – people who did not want to kill the babies had to be forced to do so, with their own hands.
What Ecuadorian law or clause of the Constitution of Ecuador was this ruling based upon? None – the ruling was based on “international norms” (much like a recent ruling in relation to Northern Ireland). And it is NOT “just” baby killing – it is everything, from tax rates to C02 emissions. And it is not just Ecuador – this is the agenda for all countries, including the Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Independence-in-name-only.
This is what the international community, the international Corporate State, is about.
However. Mr Putin is NOT a real alternative to the evil of the international community – Mr Putin also supports tyranny (most clearly so), he just wants tyranny to be organised on a national, rather than international, basis.
This is the point that so many American conservatives and libertarians fail to grasp – yes Mr Putin is an enemy of the (evil) international community, but that does NOT make him a friend.
The “enemy of my enemy” is NOT my friend – which leads us back to the, absurd, President Nixon and his, demented, crawling to Mao (perhaps the largest scale mass murderer in human history) in the early 1970s.
Even as a child Richard Nixon was devoted to the memory of “Teddy” Roosevelt – he, Richard Nixon, was a Progressive – he had a positive view of government (of the state), this both sides of the political divide often do not understand about Mr Nixon.
Meanwhile, we have our local scandal here:
Our PM’s husband’s firm has conducted business with Russia while she has been a major advocate of supporting Ukraine and decoupling from Russia.
My views:
* This is a minor (micro?) scandal compared to those of the Biden and Clinton crime families.
* It would, of course, have been a major scandal if Kaja Kallas had OPPOSED sanctions on Russia. But she did the opposite. Hypocrisy is not as bad as collusion.
* Nonetheless, it might be good if Kaja is taken down a peg or two, since she seems to be going woke. To a small degree, but you can’t give them an inch!
Paul:
In this context, i have been reading essays by Isaiah Berlin. Very enlightening, and quite enjoyable reading (for those who enjoy this sort of things).
As a consequence, I have changed my mind about fascism and nazism being offshoots of Marxism. They seem to be closer to Fichte than to Marx.
Also, the political philosophy of Maistre is of historical interest, because it is close to Italian conservatism pre-Giorgia-Meloni, AND to the delusional image that American “liberals” have of American conservatism.
What Fichte and Maistre have in common with Marx, Soros, and Schwab, is absolutism and totalitarianism: they believe(d) that no procedural or substantive constraints should be placed on the power of the State.
PS: How this relates to Putin:
In my opinion, Putin is closer to Maistre and Fichte than to Marx, Soros, and Schwab.
But that is no improvement.
Fascism is Henri de Saint-Simon style socialism (i.e. corporatism) + racism + gonzo nationalist mysticism.
Perry – Fascism, and modern Corporate State “public-private partnership” (the sort of vile thing we see in the approval of medical drugs – where vast corporations and foundations turn out to be part funding the very bodies that are supposed to police them, so these bodies are really about preventing up-start competitors NOT “safety”) do indeed have a lot in common with the ideas of Henry de Saint-Simon (whose ideas had influential supporters in Tier when Karl Marx was a boy) – but Fascism need have no connection to racism.
I have had this argument on-line with various people on-line who think that if they can prove we live under a Corporate State they have proved we live under the rule of “Nazis” – they have proved no such thing as Fascism need not have a racial element, whereas the racial element (racialism – racial socialism) is absolutely key to National Socialism.
Contrary to what is often thought, Dr Schwab, Bill Gates and so on would not be happy if someone of the opinions of Adolf Hitler turned up to their private meetings – they would be disgusted (and rightly so).
Someone being a Fascist Corporate State type does not make them a Nazi – but then you know that.
Snorri.
As you know – Mussolini was a very important Marxist who tried to adapt Marxism to changing conditions, but he did read wildly and the influence is, indeed, there. For example, Sorel “Reflections on Violence”.
Hitler and National Socialism – yes you have an important point. Although many Marxists joined the Nazi Party, Hitler himself had never been a Marxist.
And, yes, the similarities between Hitler’s thought and that of Fichte, antisemitism, nationalism and (often glossed over by the establishment who do not wish it to be pointed out) economic collectivism, are striking.
Coincidence? General intellectual atmosphere in the German speaking world in the time of Hitler? Or the influence of the Pan German teachers at the school that a young Adolf Hitler attended?
Some of the teachers were certainly admirers of the philosopher Fichte – specifically his political ideas, so it is not surprising to find these ideas in the pupil (Adolf Hitler)
Also whereas Ludwig Von Mises (a Jewish man) denounced the “War Socialism” of General Ludendorff (see “Nation, State and Economy” by Mises – which shows that the detailed economic planning actually undermined the German war effort), senior private Adolf Hitler greatly admired Ludendorff and knew that Ludendorff (not General Hindenburg) was really in charge.
General Ludendorff was a very well read man, unlike General Douglas Haig who was knowledgeable about horse riding and golf. “Haig: The Educated Soldier” is a myth pushed by academics who wanted to make a name for themselves – even as a young man Haig either had someone else to do his staff college work for him – James Edmunds, had an excuse not to sit an examination, or pulled strings to stay in the army after he failed an examination, such as the basic mathematics examination he sat, or the exam to get into Camberley, or the specific military examination that Haig sat later, Douglas Haig never forgave Plumer for failing him in that exam – or, I suspect, for having much more combat experience. It was certainly not the case that Douglas Haig was bad at exams but good in combat – as other officers had a better combat record. Where Douglas Haig really excelled was in influencing reports, subtly giving himself the credit for things other men had done, and in wire pulling to get promotions.
As anyone who has had anything to do with “Office Politics” knows – there are very real skills, and Douglas Haig worked very hard in developing and using them. He was a hard worker and very skilled in bureaucracy, pretending to despise bureaucracy being part of his skill. We can not all be interested in academic subjects, and we can not all be hero types. Although playing the hero is useful – as Max Hastings points out in his history of 1914, when Haig pulled out his revolver, shook it dramatically, and said “we will sell our lives dearly” the Germans were miles away – and unlike General Smith-Dorrien in 1914, Douglas Haig always had goodly distance between himself and the Germans. He also, perhaps by chance, normally had a good distance between himself and the enemy in other conflicts – tending to move, again perhaps by bad luck, to the part of the battle area where the enemy were not.
But then Smith-Dorien was a very strange man – for example not only being one of the few men to cut his way out of Isandlwana in 1879, but also saving someone else (as the man had called out for help Smith-Dorien could not understand why it was considered odd that he had saved someone else from thousands of Zulu warriors – after all “anyone would have done it”). Much like a future General Plumer helping save a broken infantry square in the Sudan – by personally going into hand-to-hand combat. The vast majority of us can not be quite like men such as Smith-Dorian or Plumer (we have neither the physical or the mental skill set).
General Ludendorff was very learned in philosophy and political thought – the trouble was that the philosophy and political thought he was learned in, was all rather dark. A mixture of Collectivism and mystical-magical doctrines. Although he as always very polite – both in his speech and in his writings.
Adolf Hitler rather mocked the mystical side of things (as Mussolini also did) – although Himmler did not. Himmler was rather keen on dark magic and trying to gain the assistance of rather nasty entities – but it did not work.
It is the nationalist mysticism that strikes me as probably inspired by Fichte. It might have been convergent evolution in the case of Mussolini, but i seem to remember that Fichte was Hitler’s fav philosopher.
The “mysticism” is also what differentiates Maistre & Fichte (and Mussolini & Hitler) from folks like Bentham, Saint-Simon, and Schwab.
–To Paul’s remarks, i’d just like to add that Mussolini actually let into Italy about 50K Jewish refugees — before being deposed and becoming a Hitler puppet.
Yes – Snorri, Mussolini aped Hitler’s anti Jewish laws in the late 1930s but he never really believed in the racial doctrine, neither did Franco.
Salazar (the “Fascist” ruler of Portugal) even denounced the Nazi racial laws in print – as both morally wicked and unscientific nonsense.
The Nazis really are a special case – and Mr Putin calling the government of Ukraine a “neo Nazi regime” is deeply dishonest.
I have covered Mr Hitler and Fichte as best I can – some of Hitler’s teachers were admirers of Fichte, and his own beliefs have many points in common with Fichte – but I can not think of a “killer quote”, as it were, where Hitler says “I am inspired by Fichte” or anything like that.
What inspires Mr Putin? I do not know – as he is just so inconsistent. He is not even like a gangster as gangsters at least often have physical courage.
But then courage is defined differently by different people – Mr Putin has dismissed Russian Generals (or even had them murdered) for retreating – even when they were doing so to save the lives of their men (NOT themselves).
I am reminded of the differences between General Edward Montagu Stuart-Wortley and General Haig.
To Haig, Stuart-Wortley was a coward for much the same reason that Mr Putin regards various Generals as cowards – because Stuart-Wortley objected to sending his men on attacks he believed had no chance of success, both at the Battle of Loos in 1915 and at the Somme in 1916 – indeed at the Somme where he got a direct order to continue the attack Stuart-Wortley sent a platoon of 20 men over-the-top (only 2 of these men survived) as this was the smallest unit he could send and still, technically, be obeying the order. He was sent home in disgrace. Had Stuart-Wortley sent the whole North Midlands Division into battle on July 1st 1916 in continued attacks it would have made no difference to the outcome – it would have just got more men killed, and the British army lost 20 thousand men dead on-that-one-day.
As the North Midlands Division performed so well in 1918 it would have been, perhaps, a shame for them to be wiped out on July 1st 1916 (although they would have died in good company).
Stuart-Wortley had been one of a handful of men to try and rescue General Gordon in Khartoum (alas Gordon was already dead) under the noses of vast numbers of Islamic fighters.
Stuart-Wortley had also been involved in a lot of other combat and had many awards for personal courage – but Haig thought him a coward because some men define courage and cowardice differently.
To some men true courage is sacrificing the lives of others rather than risking your own life – Mr Putin seems to believe this. It is seem as “strength of will” – even if the sacrifice of the men under your command achieves nothing concrete. It is believed that the willingness to sacrifice the men under your command shows both the enemy and your own population your strength-of-will and single mindedness.