Peter Beinart provides a thoughtful analysis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the responses.
In 1943, the Hungarian-born journalist Arthur Koestler wrote: “In this war we are fighting against a total lie in the name of a half-truth.” That’s a good motto for American progressives to adopt in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Saying the US stands with Ukraine because America is committed to democracy and the “rules-based international order” is at best a half-truth. The US helps dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates commit war crimes in Yemen, employs economic sanctions that deny people from Iran to Venezuela to Syria life-saving medicines, rips up international agreements like the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate accords, and threatens the international criminal court if it investigates the US or Israel.
But this hypocrisy wouldn’t have fazed Koestler, because it’s nothing new. In 1943, the alliance that fought Hitler was led by a British prime minister who championed imperialism, an American president who presided over racial apartheid, and Joseph Stalin. Koestler’s point wasn’t that the US or Britain, let alone the USSR, were virtuous in general. It was that they were virtuous relative to Nazi Germany in the specific circumstances of the second world war, and that these sinful governments were the only ones with the geopolitical heft to stop a totalitarian takeover of Europe.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia is neither as powerful nor as genocidal as Hitler’s Germany. But Putin’s claim that historical and cultural affinity gives Russia the right to bludgeon Ukraine into submission is a total lie. It is no less of a lie because the US – by pushing Nato ever-further eastward after 1989 – exploited Russian weakness and compounded Russian humiliation. The Treaty of Versailles was also a victor’s peace. It also strengthened toxic political forces in the defeated nation forced to accept its terms. Hitler’s murderous revanchism, like Putin’s today, was still a crime.
Koestler’s adage is subject to abuse. Hawks might interpret it as suggesting that because the US is a democracy and Russia is a dictatorship, America has the moral high ground in every clash between the two. That’s not true. Democracies can commit aggression and tyrannies can oppose it. When Putin opposed the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, Russia was defending a half-truth against America’s total lie. When his government backed UN resolutions condemning Israeli settlements that the US vetoed, Russia supported human rights and international law while the US defied them. When Joe Biden declares, as he did last Thursday in his remarks on Ukraine, that “America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are,” progressives should hold their applause. Claiming the US possesses an inherent inclination to support liberty implies that the United States can be trusted to act outside of the bounds of international law – a logic that leads to the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay.
The US media has been giving a lot of coverage of this war that describes the Ukrainians as plucky and defiant resistors to the massive invasion forces of Russia. It rightly gives voice to many Ukrainians who are refugees or sheltering in fear or taking up arms. It is, after all, the victims of aggression who need to be heard from and supported.
But one has to note that the people of the countries that the US periodically invades are rarely given the benefit of that kind of coverage. At best they are largely ignored or those who fight against the invaders are labeled by the US government as terrorists and summarily shipped off to CIA-operated black torture sites around the world or to Guantanamo while the media gives the perspective of the aggressor. One is more likely to hear admiring stories about the immense technological capabilities of the US military or of the travails of US soldiers fighting in a strange land than of the suffering inflicted on the local population.
But one has to note that the people of the countries that the US periodically invades are rarely given the benefit of that kind of coverage. At best they are largely ignored or those who fight against the invaders are labeled by the US government as terrorists and summarily shipped off to CIA-operated black torture sites around the world or to Guantanamo while the media gives the perspective of the aggressor.
The US was lobbing (not aimed fire) white phosphorus artillery shells into Mosul, a city with a population of civilians just like Kyiv. And the Russians, not to be outdone, staged their TOS-1 thermobaric MLRS systems in Iraq and Syria, to help the Syrian government put down “rebels” (that were being funded by the CIA) -- if it sounds like Ukraine, that’s because it is. The difference is, the US government’s “response” to Russia’s actions includes laying on the propaganda fast and thick. Mehdi Hasan and others have implied that it may be another example of US racism, but I think it’s just ordinary US stupidity.
it may be another example of US racism, but I think it’s just ordinary US stupidity
It can be both. I think the fact that the plucky schooteacher reserve fighters and the grannies chiding invading soldiers are white Christians carries a lot of weight with many people in the west. Some CBS reporter said on the air that they are “relatively civilized, relatively European” before oopsing that he should be more careful how he says things.
“Vladimir Putin’s Russia is neither as powerful”
Dubious.
1. Hitler ruled over slightly less than 80 million Germans in 1939; Putin rules over more than 140 million Russians.
2. Russia now (ie the area west of the Ural) is larger than Germany in 1939.
3. Putin has nuclear weapons and actually took the first step to activate them.
Do you rely on MAD with someone like Putin?
Do you trust JoeB to deal with someone like Putin?
We haven’t been closer to a nuclear war since at least 30 years. I fear that my prediction will come true -- exactly because Biden is competent enough to stumble into one as he concludes that there is no other option left.
If only someone as incompetent as Trump was in charge, we’d have nothing to worry about, right?
A better historical comparison for Putin would be Napoleon, whose first minor successes let to overambitious failures that caused his downfall. If the oligarchs keep losing money as the ruble continues to tank (USD$1 = RUB90 is the worst ever, down from RUB70 in November), companies like BP divest and leave, and Russian banks are cut off from SWIFT (making international trade impossible), they may decide to get rid of him.
@5
The other pov I read last week is that the oligarchs have no power over Putin. He enabled them to become rich, he can have them killed whenever he wants, wherever in the world they are. They know this. They have to bankroll his schemes when he asks, but they have no control over him, and he won’t give a shit if they start hurting.
The alternative suggested was go for the actual political leaders of Russia: him of course, his inner circle, the Duma. Block them from travelling, and ban them from sending their children to the elite European finishing schools they are used to. That might wake them up a bit.
The linked article is from the Guardian, as notorious a mouthpiece of Western propaganda as CNN, NYTimes, Washington Post, etc.. Did not bother to read it. I can summarize it without reading it, “USA bad, but Putin really, really bad. So long live the West!”
Ravi:
Well then, you don’t know what it says.
You can, but it’s quite incorrect. Because you didn’t read it.
—
Be aware that being proud of your confessed ignorance and then making bad guesses is not exactly impressive.
#3 mnb0
Putin’s Russia is not as powerful as Hitler’s Germany relative to Europe at the time.
In 1943, the Hungarian-born journalist Arthur Koestler wrote: “In this war we are fighting against a total lie in the name of a half-truth.”
Koestler probably recycled in ’43 an insight he gained half a decade earlier in the Spanish Civil War.
HG Wells’s regrets about his “War to End All War” sloganeering in the ‘teens may have also influenced his perspective.
The former-Soviet Americans that are common in my neighborhood tell me that Putin will kill if he feels like it. Oligarchs in Russia only exist because they are allowed.
——
Financial arguments are often made here. The Soviet Union ‘didn’t believe in capitalism’ so it was on its own in terms of big projects that needed money and labor. Russia still knows how to do this. Yes, the debts incurred before eight years ago Russia’s were in need of re-financing, but at the time they were due the nation with the veto power got taken over by many of their DeSantis useful Trump idiots Carlson. Gosh USofA it’s capitalist McConnell oligarchy MJT produced Graham traitors Cruz just as Marx and Engels did predict whod’ve thunk it.
——-
United States as a ‘democracy’ as quoted in that article….mmmmaybe.
Unsurprisingly from you, that makes no sense whatever, whether you meant to say “competent” or “incompetent”. Why would Biden conclude there is no other option left than nuclear war? Let’s go through the possibilities (some are much more probable than others, but for the most part I’m not bothering to give my opinions on that):
1) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine fails, his troops withdraw, at least from most of the country. Biden doesn’t need to do anything except make speeches about the triumph of freedom, democracy, America, free markets, America, democracy, and freedom.
2) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine succeeds, insofar as he’s able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv and get it to agree whatever he wants.
2.1) There is no continuing resistance by Ukranians. Biden only needs to make reassuring noises to the Baltic states, Poland, etc., unless…
2.1.1) Putin follows up by invading a NATO state. This seems to me extremely unlikely, at least in the next few years, but I’ll consider Putin attacking a NATO state in other circumstances at 2.2.1 below.
2.1.2) Putin follows up by invading another non-NATO state (Georgia, Moldova…). This again seems to me extremely unlikely, at least in the next few years, but if it happens, the possible outcomes are much the same as for the current invasion of Ukraine.
2.2) There is continuing resistance by Ukranians. A bit trickier for Biden (and various European governments) who have to decide how much assistance to give the resistance in order to damage Putin, while avoiding 2.2.1 or 2.2.2 below.
2.2.1) Putin attacks one or more NATO states with non-nuclear weapons in order to cut off help to the resistance, or in sheer frustration. This would automatically trigger a Russia-NATO war, and would lead to very difficult choices for Biden and others, such as whether to launch any attacks against Russian territory. But there are in any case three possibilities:
2.2.1.1) NATO gets the upper hand. This is likely, because NATO conventional forces outnumber Russian ones, and are technically more sophisticated in most respects -- and see the poor performance of the Russian invaders of Ukraine so far. The difficulty for Biden would be how far to press the NATO advantage, since doing so too far would be likely to lead Putin to decide he has no option but to go nuclear.
2.2.1.2) No clear advantage to either side. Sooner or later, this would develop into 2.2.1.1, 2.2.1.3, or negotiations.
2.2.1.3) Russia gets the upper hand. This is the only case in which Biden might feel impelled to go nuclear (but would he really be prepared to see the USA devastated in order to prevent Russian conquests in Europe?). In any case, it’s unlikely.
2.2.2) Putin attacks a NATO state, or states, with nuclear weapons -- again, to cut off help to the resistance, or in sheer frustration. Here, Biden’s choices are all either very bad or utterly disastrous, but any US President would be in the same position.