I’ve made my living using words for over 40 years. The words usually come easily to me and I am good at describing things and events. Every once in awhile though, I run out of words, or the only words that come to me are strings of obscenities that would do an old Navy Chief proud to say that many bad words without repetition.
It seems to me that there is no real difference in bombing a train station with families and children in it and sending them to the gas chambers other than the means of delivery of death. There is a special place in hell for Putin alongside Hitler and Stalin.
We must now accept that there is no difference at all between Nazi Germany and Putin's Russia - same tactics, same arrogance, same brutality against perceived enemies..... Putin is the new Stalin, with all the horror that entails. It is now imperative that all sanctions be extended to include anything that will help Russia build or maintain its military forces, and all sanctions will stay in place until Ukraine is restored to its borders as of 1 January 2014, including the complete Donbas and all of Crimea, and maybe even blow that bridge the Russians built between Crimea and Russia across the strait that separates them.
Timothy Snyder said on an MSNBC show that the only way to stop the war in Ukraine was to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield decisively, so there is no doubt about the futility of further conflict. The Russians now cannot win - even if they occupy the whole country, they will never subdue it and they will suffer as the Germans did in WW2 from partisan resistance. Soldiers shot, officers poisoned, equipment sabotaged or destroyed, and now, Russian forces with decaying military equipment that cannot be maintained or rebuilt due to strict sanctions keeping all advanced computer chips out of Putin's hands. (Russia can't make these chips and neither can China.) Putin has to lose all of Ukraine, even what he stole in 2014.....and that will kill him. If Ukraine gets the rights to develop their gas reserves that seem to be a major part of the reason for this invasion, Putin loses his leverage over the EU.....
'In this latest newsletter update, you'll find that Razom finds no time to rest. We have updates on how your continuous donations make a difference for Ukraine and more ways to get involved.'
'As the war continues, so does the physical and emotional toll it takes on Ukrainians near and far.'
'However, the support pouring in from so many pockets of the world, and the strength and resilience of the people of Ukraine, volunteers, organizations on the ground, help us to be relentless in our mission to build a more prosperous Ukraine.
'The time to act - donate, rally, protest, call and write to your representatives, organize, and volunteer - has never been more important. As long as the russian invasion continues, the need to help Ukraine does as well. So we humbly call on your incredible generosity again to help Razom continue to maintain and scale our humanitarian relief efforts.'
'Here's a list of some of the work we've been able to accomplish:
At the same time that a russian missile hit Kramatorsk train station killing over 50 people, Razom and "Dity my vstyhnemo" teams safely evacuated 115 people from Bakhmut, 50 kilometers away from the train station. '
'We worked with Spirit of America to equip our volunteer driver teams in Ukraine with their own helmets, body armor, and IFAKs. They risk their lives daily to deliver aid and carry out evacuations from the most dangerous, war-torn cities of Ukraine, and we are endlessly grateful for their effectiveness and bravery. '
'Thanks to an IT system that a small group of volunteers built from scratch to track our warehouse inventory in Ukraine and match it to needs in battle torn regions in Ukraine, our driver team has distributed over 117 orders of tactical medicine, hospital medicine, civilian drones for safe medical delivery, walkie-talkies, and satellite phones to territorial defense units and hospitals across Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Vinnytsia regions.'
'We have procured and shipped over 115,248 tourniquets alone!'
'Razom and Ukrainian Jersey City are partnering to assist displaced Ukrainians with shelter, healthcare services, and education in the New York and New Jersey area.'
When I first saw the words painted on the tail of that rocket it made me want to vomit, what kind of human can do such a thing? That rocket didn’t just fall out of the sky there was a whole command and control group of people that picked where it was going to land and when, in a war filled with heartbreak, that found a new low of depravity. Someone has to put a bullet into Putin to put a stop to this, once enough of the Russian dead start coming home maybe someone will act. The officer corp at the general staff level know exactly what is going on, you would think that among them a few might have some sense of humanity. The Russians are people just like the rest of us, if they knew what is being done in their name they would be as sickened as we are.
What the Russians have done and continue to do is despicable! I can only hope that Putin will get his comeuppance in the ICC asap! Today, and every day, they are guilty of murder, which is turning onto a genocide of the beautiful Ukrainian people!
OK TC, I realize now,as the atrocities keep coming, that as long as we are sickened by them and as long as we cannot sleep we have not yet grown numb to it all. The worst would be if we get numb. So I apologize for being a wuss. I have a moral duty to keep paying atrention.
You are a man who has delved into war and understands it better than most of us so I am interested in your answer to Fern's question. As this extermination grows more vile and we watch it in real time is there some seldom used rule in NATO that is the red line in the sand? Is there a point at which it becomes immoral NOT to directly intervene?
Words fail. Perhaps now that Congress has finally acted and passed a Lend-Lease measure the administration will do more than implement sanctions on all but the most profitable part of the Russian economy. The Ukrainians have shown an amazing will to fight for their country and their freedom, the very least we can and must do is provide them the tools and the fuel to keep fighting.
So, Now, TC, What do you think the U.S. and NATO should do about Putin and his War against Ukraine? With all President Biden tells us 'we' are doing, some 'others' have wanted us to do what President Zelensky has been begging for. This is my plea... a tiny whisper for many, a speck of a stand-in. I remember our exchanges regarding WHAT IS A NO-FLY ZONE, your March 11th edition..
Bucha, Mariupol...what will be found in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russian troops continue their air and artillery attacks?
I've paid scant to no attention to recent editions of 'thats another fine mess' because it is practically impossible to leave Ukraine. Have I made you a fall guy for my outrage? I am sorry, TC; it is not fair of me.
An excerpt from our exchanges re: WHAT IS A NO-FLY ZONE?
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
Putin has to be stopped. If NATO/USA doesn't end this genocide within the next few days, which won't end with Ukraine, it is on us.
TCinLA
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this Fern. There are no good outcomes.
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
TC, This is a poem ,'amid mounting evidence', that I would like to share with you. With appreciation and respect, Fern
That's a good one. I fully agree. Having a table full of shit sandwiches, that range from solid turds on day old bread to runny stuff on moldy bread and all between, is a helluva choice.
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
It is not frustration knocking against my brain. He should have been stopped long ago. I remember what he's done and we haven't. Then those before him...and the number here without conscience. You feel this as much as anyone., TC 🌿
TCinLA
Yeah, you could consider Putin's time in office from the first Chechen War in 1999 to the Crimea steal in 2014 as his version of Histler 1936-38 with the Rhineland, the Anschluss, the Munich Crisis and the takeover of Czechoslovakia, with nobody paying attention to anything he did till he invades Poland in 1939.
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
TC, Allen checked in. The hope is that Tanya will be well enough to travel to Poland tomorrow. Good night.
The Weakness of the Despot, by David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker (journalist and author) talks with Stephen Kotkin, ‘one of our most profound and prodigious scholars of Russian history. His masterwork is a biography of Joseph Stalin. So far he has published two volumes—“A third volume, the story through the Second World War; Stalin’s death, in 1953; and the totalitarian legacy that shaped the remainder of the Soviet experience.’
This conversation is an outstanding example of getting inside the very old and immensely difficult problem of Russia as it reflects on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
The following are a few excerpts.
Remnick – ‘We’ve been hearing voices both past and present saying that the reason for what has happened is, as George Kennan put it, the strategic blunder of the eastward expansion of NATO. The great-power realist-school historian John Mearsheimer insists that a great deal of the blame for what we’re witnessing must go to the United States. I thought we’d begin with your analysis of that argument.’
Kotkin – ‘I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.’
‘I would even go further. I would say that NATO expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in NATO?’
‘Russia is a remarkable civilization: in the arts, music, literature, dance, film. In every sphere, it’s a profound, remarkable place—a whole civilization, more than just a country. At the same time, Russia feels that it has a “special place” in the world, a special mission. It’s Eastern Orthodox, not Western. And it wants to stand out as a great power. Its problem has always been not this sense of self or identity but the fact that its capabilities have never matched its aspirations. It’s always in a struggle to live up to these aspirations, but it can’t, because the West has always been more powerful.’
'‘The worst part of this dynamic in Russian history is the conflation of the Russian state with a personal ruler. Instead of getting the strong state that they want, to manage the gulf with the West and push and force Russia up to the highest level, they instead get a personalist regime. They get a dictatorship, which usually becomes a despotism. They’ve been in this bind for a while because they cannot relinquish that sense of exceptionalism, that aspiration to be the greatest power, but they cannot match that in reality.’
‘He’s getting what he wants to hear. In any case, he believes that he’s superior and smarter. This is the problem of despotism. It’s why despotism, or even just authoritarianism, is all-powerful and brittle at the same time. Despotism creates the circumstances of its own undermining.’
‘Russia has a lot of weapons that they haven’t used yet, but there are a couple of factors here.'
'First of all, Ukraine is winning this war only on Twitter, not on the battlefield. They’re not winning this war. Russia is advancing very well in the south, which is an extremely valuable place because of the Black Sea littoral and the ports. They are advancing in the east. If the southern and eastern advances meet up, they will encircle and cut off the main forces of the Ukrainian Army. What’s failed so far is the Russian attempt to take Kyiv in a lightning advance. Otherwise, their war is unfolding well. It’s only a couple of weeks in; wars last much longer.’
Remnick – ‘Steve, Sun Tzu, the Chinese theorist of war, wrote that you must always build your opponent a “golden bridge” so that he can find a way to retreat. Can the United States and NATO help build a way for Russia to end this horrific and murderous invasion before it grows even worse?’
Kotkin – ‘You hit the nail on the head. That’s a brilliant quote. We have some options here. One option is he shatters Ukraine: if I can’t have it, nobody can have it, and he does to Ukraine what he did to Grozny or Syria. That would be an unbelievable, tragic outcome. That’s the pathway we’re on now.’
‘Even if the Ukrainians succeed in their insurgency, in their resistance, there will be countless deaths and destruction. We need a way to avoid that kind of outcome. That would mean catalyzing a process to engage Putin in discussion with, say, the President of Finland, whom he respects and knows well, or the Israeli Prime Minister, who has been in contact with him; less probably, with the Chinese leadership, with Xi Jinping. Someone to engage him in some type of process where he doesn’t have maximalist demands and it stalls for time, for things to happen on the ground, that rearrange the picture of what he can do.’
‘It’s not as if we’re not trying. The Finns know Russia better than any country in the world. Israel is another good option, potentially, depending on how skillful Naftali Bennett proves to be. And then China, the long shot, where they’re paying a heavy price and their élites below Xi Jinping understand that. There’s now quite a lot of worry inside the Chinese élites, but Xi Jinping is in charge and has a personal relationship with Putin. Xi has thrown in his lot with Putin. But how long that goes on depends upon whether the Europeans begin to punish the Chinese. The Europeans are their biggest trading partner.’
‘The Chinese are watching this very closely. They’re watching (a) our intelligence penetration, (b) the mistakes of a despotism, and (c) the costs that you have to pay as the U.S. and European private companies cancel Russia up and down. Xi Jinping, who is heading for an unprecedented third term in the fall, needed this like a hole in the head. But now he owns it.’
‘Finally, there’s another card that we’ve been trying to play: the Ukrainian resistance on the ground and our resupply of the Ukrainians in terms of arms and the sanctions. All of that could help change the calculus. Somehow, we have to keep at it with all the tools that we have—pressure but also diplomacy.’
Remnick - 'Finally, you’ve given credit to the Biden Administration for reading out its intelligence about the coming invasion, for sanctions, and for a kind of mature response to what’s happening. What have they gotten wrong?'
Kotkin –‘They’ve done much better than we anticipated based upon what we saw in Afghanistan and the botched run-up on the deal to sell nuclear submarines to the Australians. They’ve learned from their mistakes. That’s the thing about the United States. We have corrective mechanisms. We can learn from our mistakes. We have a political system that punishes mistakes. We have strong institutions. We have a powerful society, a powerful and free media. Administrations that perform badly can learn and get better, which is not the case in Russia or in China. It’s an advantage that we can’t forget.’
‘The problem now is not that the Biden Administration made mistakes; it’s that it’s hard to figure out how to de-escalate, how to get out of the spiral of mutual maximalism. We keep raising the stakes with more and more sanctions and cancellations. There is pressure on our side to “do something” because the Ukrainians are dying every day while we are sitting on the sidelines, militarily, in some ways. (Although, as I said, we’re supplying them with arms, and we’re doing a lot in cyber.) The pressure is on to be maximalist on our side, but, the more you corner them, the more there’s nothing to lose for Putin, the more he can raise the stakes, unfortunately. He has many tools that he hasn’t used that can hurt us. We need a de-escalation from the maximalist spiral, and we need a little bit of luck and good fortune, perhaps in Moscow, perhaps in Helsinki or Jerusalem, perhaps in Beijing, but certainly in Kyiv.’ (New Yorker)
Unfortunately, I could not gift the entire conversation but there is link of it below, in case you have a subscription to The New Yorker.
As gruesome and heart wrenching these videos and photos are, we must not turn away. We must keep our eyes wide open along with our aching hearts and our fierce desire to "do something."
During Vietnam the evening news showed clips of our troops in action, gaunt, battle worn, and surrounded by an aura of desperation. We saw bodies. We saw the wounded being carried to helicopters. We saw smoke and the burning of the jungles and the blowing up of homes of Vietnamese civilians. We saw Dover Air Force base - the hanger with its hundreds of coffins and flags. We saw lists of the dead - our boys and men. The dead were listed in our newspapers and named on TV. We here at home SAW that war and hated it and drew us into revolts and protests back home. (It also caused an unwarranted and mean-spirited attack on our soldiers when they returned from that war as if we were blaming THEM for being drafted and being forced to fight an unwelcome war.)
I am triggered now when I see what is going on in Ukraine by the feelings I had back then when I watched those horrific scenes night after night as a teen. And somehow, even though I want to throw up, throw SOMETHING, do SOMETHING, I am glad that MSM is finally, finally, getting over its squeamishness and beginning to bring that war into our homes and into our psyches with real scenes of the tragedy unfolding. It's going to take an outrage on a global scale to do that SOMETHING - whatever it is - and we have the means and media to involve this globe in that conflict. Maybe then, I hope, our collective horror at this genocide and our understanding of the monster behind it all will allow the SOMETHING to take place.
You know - that quantum theory - lots of butterfly wings SOMETHING?
You are correct. There are no words. President Biden's 9 words continue to ring of the walls of the Polish castle. Russia as the center of world Fascism rings true as well. And the French will begin voting for a president tomorrow. Whatever you may think of Macron, the thought of Marine Le Pen as French president makes Putin dance. That should be enough for the French to go out in their millions and vote against her and any like her. There was an incredible article in today's Sueddeutschezeitung concerning a 91 year old woman who survived WW2, was herself a refugee, how the daily news brings back all the horrors of that time. Caregivers in nursing homes report that the people living there in their 80's plus have gone quiet, the war they experienced as children reawakening all the trauma they experienced then. The 91 year old woman recently found out her father was a pilot, shot down over England, and that he was a supporter of Hitler, along with her grandfather. A terrible shock after barely surviving the war years herself. Today marks the 77th year that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg prison, just a few days before Hitler killed Eva and himself. She mentions that we need another Von Stauffenberg. (He was one of the folks who tried to assassinate Hitler with a bomb but only ended up injuring him. They did manage to kill a couple of generals. But the folks who tried to take Hitler out were executed. That's how Bonhoeffer had ended up arrested and was being held in prison. Nothing begins or ends well when Fascism has taken over.
I understand why the words have run out except for the blasphemies, vulgarities, and profanities (although I think I need to add "obscenities" to my list now although they might be considered in lieu of the vulgarities as being more appropriate, based upon my recent dictionary searches) in your words today. Snyder's quote "Russia has done the deeds and confessed to the intention" gives us a good map of what must be done in response.
I think of being planted firmly on the ground swinging my lasso over head and then bringing shirtless Putin off his horse…just like roping a steer. Except this barbarian will be hog tied and dragged. And when he is about to die, he will see the words written on the granite boulder in front of him. “This is done in memory of the children you ordered to be annihilated.”
No mercy in life, perhaps he will find it in death.
It seems to me that there is no real difference in bombing a train station with families and children in it and sending them to the gas chambers other than the means of delivery of death. There is a special place in hell for Putin alongside Hitler and Stalin.
We must now accept that there is no difference at all between Nazi Germany and Putin's Russia - same tactics, same arrogance, same brutality against perceived enemies..... Putin is the new Stalin, with all the horror that entails. It is now imperative that all sanctions be extended to include anything that will help Russia build or maintain its military forces, and all sanctions will stay in place until Ukraine is restored to its borders as of 1 January 2014, including the complete Donbas and all of Crimea, and maybe even blow that bridge the Russians built between Crimea and Russia across the strait that separates them.
Timothy Snyder said on an MSNBC show that the only way to stop the war in Ukraine was to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield decisively, so there is no doubt about the futility of further conflict. The Russians now cannot win - even if they occupy the whole country, they will never subdue it and they will suffer as the Germans did in WW2 from partisan resistance. Soldiers shot, officers poisoned, equipment sabotaged or destroyed, and now, Russian forces with decaying military equipment that cannot be maintained or rebuilt due to strict sanctions keeping all advanced computer chips out of Putin's hands. (Russia can't make these chips and neither can China.) Putin has to lose all of Ukraine, even what he stole in 2014.....and that will kill him. If Ukraine gets the rights to develop their gas reserves that seem to be a major part of the reason for this invasion, Putin loses his leverage over the EU.....
'In this latest newsletter update, you'll find that Razom finds no time to rest. We have updates on how your continuous donations make a difference for Ukraine and more ways to get involved.'
https://razomforukraine.org/
Dear Razom community,
'As the war continues, so does the physical and emotional toll it takes on Ukrainians near and far.'
'However, the support pouring in from so many pockets of the world, and the strength and resilience of the people of Ukraine, volunteers, organizations on the ground, help us to be relentless in our mission to build a more prosperous Ukraine.
'The time to act - donate, rally, protest, call and write to your representatives, organize, and volunteer - has never been more important. As long as the russian invasion continues, the need to help Ukraine does as well. So we humbly call on your incredible generosity again to help Razom continue to maintain and scale our humanitarian relief efforts.'
'Here's a list of some of the work we've been able to accomplish:
At the same time that a russian missile hit Kramatorsk train station killing over 50 people, Razom and "Dity my vstyhnemo" teams safely evacuated 115 people from Bakhmut, 50 kilometers away from the train station. '
'We worked with Spirit of America to equip our volunteer driver teams in Ukraine with their own helmets, body armor, and IFAKs. They risk their lives daily to deliver aid and carry out evacuations from the most dangerous, war-torn cities of Ukraine, and we are endlessly grateful for their effectiveness and bravery. '
'Thanks to an IT system that a small group of volunteers built from scratch to track our warehouse inventory in Ukraine and match it to needs in battle torn regions in Ukraine, our driver team has distributed over 117 orders of tactical medicine, hospital medicine, civilian drones for safe medical delivery, walkie-talkies, and satellite phones to territorial defense units and hospitals across Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Vinnytsia regions.'
'We have procured and shipped over 115,248 tourniquets alone!'
'Razom and Ukrainian Jersey City are partnering to assist displaced Ukrainians with shelter, healthcare services, and education in the New York and New Jersey area.'
https://razomforukraine.org/
When I first saw the words painted on the tail of that rocket it made me want to vomit, what kind of human can do such a thing? That rocket didn’t just fall out of the sky there was a whole command and control group of people that picked where it was going to land and when, in a war filled with heartbreak, that found a new low of depravity. Someone has to put a bullet into Putin to put a stop to this, once enough of the Russian dead start coming home maybe someone will act. The officer corp at the general staff level know exactly what is going on, you would think that among them a few might have some sense of humanity. The Russians are people just like the rest of us, if they knew what is being done in their name they would be as sickened as we are.
What the Russians have done and continue to do is despicable! I can only hope that Putin will get his comeuppance in the ICC asap! Today, and every day, they are guilty of murder, which is turning onto a genocide of the beautiful Ukrainian people!
OK TC, I realize now,as the atrocities keep coming, that as long as we are sickened by them and as long as we cannot sleep we have not yet grown numb to it all. The worst would be if we get numb. So I apologize for being a wuss. I have a moral duty to keep paying atrention.
You are a man who has delved into war and understands it better than most of us so I am interested in your answer to Fern's question. As this extermination grows more vile and we watch it in real time is there some seldom used rule in NATO that is the red line in the sand? Is there a point at which it becomes immoral NOT to directly intervene?
Words fail. Perhaps now that Congress has finally acted and passed a Lend-Lease measure the administration will do more than implement sanctions on all but the most profitable part of the Russian economy. The Ukrainians have shown an amazing will to fight for their country and their freedom, the very least we can and must do is provide them the tools and the fuel to keep fighting.
So, Now, TC, What do you think the U.S. and NATO should do about Putin and his War against Ukraine? With all President Biden tells us 'we' are doing, some 'others' have wanted us to do what President Zelensky has been begging for. This is my plea... a tiny whisper for many, a speck of a stand-in. I remember our exchanges regarding WHAT IS A NO-FLY ZONE, your March 11th edition..
Bucha, Mariupol...what will be found in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russian troops continue their air and artillery attacks?
I've paid scant to no attention to recent editions of 'thats another fine mess' because it is practically impossible to leave Ukraine. Have I made you a fall guy for my outrage? I am sorry, TC; it is not fair of me.
An excerpt from our exchanges re: WHAT IS A NO-FLY ZONE?
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
Putin has to be stopped. If NATO/USA doesn't end this genocide within the next few days, which won't end with Ukraine, it is on us.
TCinLA
We're going to have to agree to disagree on this Fern. There are no good outcomes.
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
TC, This is a poem ,'amid mounting evidence', that I would like to share with you. With appreciation and respect, Fern
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20601217
TCinLA
That's a good one. I fully agree. Having a table full of shit sandwiches, that range from solid turds on day old bread to runny stuff on moldy bread and all between, is a helluva choice.
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
It is not frustration knocking against my brain. He should have been stopped long ago. I remember what he's done and we haven't. Then those before him...and the number here without conscience. You feel this as much as anyone., TC 🌿
TCinLA
Yeah, you could consider Putin's time in office from the first Chechen War in 1999 to the Crimea steal in 2014 as his version of Histler 1936-38 with the Rhineland, the Anschluss, the Munich Crisis and the takeover of Czechoslovakia, with nobody paying attention to anything he did till he invades Poland in 1939.
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)
TC, Allen checked in. The hope is that Tanya will be well enough to travel to Poland tomorrow. Good night.
###
WHAT CAN WE DO?
The Weakness of the Despot, by David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker (journalist and author) talks with Stephen Kotkin, ‘one of our most profound and prodigious scholars of Russian history. His masterwork is a biography of Joseph Stalin. So far he has published two volumes—“A third volume, the story through the Second World War; Stalin’s death, in 1953; and the totalitarian legacy that shaped the remainder of the Soviet experience.’
This conversation is an outstanding example of getting inside the very old and immensely difficult problem of Russia as it reflects on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
The following are a few excerpts.
Remnick – ‘We’ve been hearing voices both past and present saying that the reason for what has happened is, as George Kennan put it, the strategic blunder of the eastward expansion of NATO. The great-power realist-school historian John Mearsheimer insists that a great deal of the blame for what we’re witnessing must go to the United States. I thought we’d begin with your analysis of that argument.’
Kotkin – ‘I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had NATO not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before NATO existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.’
‘I would even go further. I would say that NATO expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in NATO?’
‘Russia is a remarkable civilization: in the arts, music, literature, dance, film. In every sphere, it’s a profound, remarkable place—a whole civilization, more than just a country. At the same time, Russia feels that it has a “special place” in the world, a special mission. It’s Eastern Orthodox, not Western. And it wants to stand out as a great power. Its problem has always been not this sense of self or identity but the fact that its capabilities have never matched its aspirations. It’s always in a struggle to live up to these aspirations, but it can’t, because the West has always been more powerful.’
'‘The worst part of this dynamic in Russian history is the conflation of the Russian state with a personal ruler. Instead of getting the strong state that they want, to manage the gulf with the West and push and force Russia up to the highest level, they instead get a personalist regime. They get a dictatorship, which usually becomes a despotism. They’ve been in this bind for a while because they cannot relinquish that sense of exceptionalism, that aspiration to be the greatest power, but they cannot match that in reality.’
‘He’s getting what he wants to hear. In any case, he believes that he’s superior and smarter. This is the problem of despotism. It’s why despotism, or even just authoritarianism, is all-powerful and brittle at the same time. Despotism creates the circumstances of its own undermining.’
‘Russia has a lot of weapons that they haven’t used yet, but there are a couple of factors here.'
'First of all, Ukraine is winning this war only on Twitter, not on the battlefield. They’re not winning this war. Russia is advancing very well in the south, which is an extremely valuable place because of the Black Sea littoral and the ports. They are advancing in the east. If the southern and eastern advances meet up, they will encircle and cut off the main forces of the Ukrainian Army. What’s failed so far is the Russian attempt to take Kyiv in a lightning advance. Otherwise, their war is unfolding well. It’s only a couple of weeks in; wars last much longer.’
Remnick – ‘Steve, Sun Tzu, the Chinese theorist of war, wrote that you must always build your opponent a “golden bridge” so that he can find a way to retreat. Can the United States and NATO help build a way for Russia to end this horrific and murderous invasion before it grows even worse?’
Kotkin – ‘You hit the nail on the head. That’s a brilliant quote. We have some options here. One option is he shatters Ukraine: if I can’t have it, nobody can have it, and he does to Ukraine what he did to Grozny or Syria. That would be an unbelievable, tragic outcome. That’s the pathway we’re on now.’
‘Even if the Ukrainians succeed in their insurgency, in their resistance, there will be countless deaths and destruction. We need a way to avoid that kind of outcome. That would mean catalyzing a process to engage Putin in discussion with, say, the President of Finland, whom he respects and knows well, or the Israeli Prime Minister, who has been in contact with him; less probably, with the Chinese leadership, with Xi Jinping. Someone to engage him in some type of process where he doesn’t have maximalist demands and it stalls for time, for things to happen on the ground, that rearrange the picture of what he can do.’
‘It’s not as if we’re not trying. The Finns know Russia better than any country in the world. Israel is another good option, potentially, depending on how skillful Naftali Bennett proves to be. And then China, the long shot, where they’re paying a heavy price and their élites below Xi Jinping understand that. There’s now quite a lot of worry inside the Chinese élites, but Xi Jinping is in charge and has a personal relationship with Putin. Xi has thrown in his lot with Putin. But how long that goes on depends upon whether the Europeans begin to punish the Chinese. The Europeans are their biggest trading partner.’
‘The Chinese are watching this very closely. They’re watching (a) our intelligence penetration, (b) the mistakes of a despotism, and (c) the costs that you have to pay as the U.S. and European private companies cancel Russia up and down. Xi Jinping, who is heading for an unprecedented third term in the fall, needed this like a hole in the head. But now he owns it.’
‘Finally, there’s another card that we’ve been trying to play: the Ukrainian resistance on the ground and our resupply of the Ukrainians in terms of arms and the sanctions. All of that could help change the calculus. Somehow, we have to keep at it with all the tools that we have—pressure but also diplomacy.’
Remnick - 'Finally, you’ve given credit to the Biden Administration for reading out its intelligence about the coming invasion, for sanctions, and for a kind of mature response to what’s happening. What have they gotten wrong?'
Kotkin –‘They’ve done much better than we anticipated based upon what we saw in Afghanistan and the botched run-up on the deal to sell nuclear submarines to the Australians. They’ve learned from their mistakes. That’s the thing about the United States. We have corrective mechanisms. We can learn from our mistakes. We have a political system that punishes mistakes. We have strong institutions. We have a powerful society, a powerful and free media. Administrations that perform badly can learn and get better, which is not the case in Russia or in China. It’s an advantage that we can’t forget.’
‘The problem now is not that the Biden Administration made mistakes; it’s that it’s hard to figure out how to de-escalate, how to get out of the spiral of mutual maximalism. We keep raising the stakes with more and more sanctions and cancellations. There is pressure on our side to “do something” because the Ukrainians are dying every day while we are sitting on the sidelines, militarily, in some ways. (Although, as I said, we’re supplying them with arms, and we’re doing a lot in cyber.) The pressure is on to be maximalist on our side, but, the more you corner them, the more there’s nothing to lose for Putin, the more he can raise the stakes, unfortunately. He has many tools that he hasn’t used that can hurt us. We need a de-escalation from the maximalist spiral, and we need a little bit of luck and good fortune, perhaps in Moscow, perhaps in Helsinki or Jerusalem, perhaps in Beijing, but certainly in Kyiv.’ (New Yorker)
Unfortunately, I could not gift the entire conversation but there is link of it below, in case you have a subscription to The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin
As gruesome and heart wrenching these videos and photos are, we must not turn away. We must keep our eyes wide open along with our aching hearts and our fierce desire to "do something."
During Vietnam the evening news showed clips of our troops in action, gaunt, battle worn, and surrounded by an aura of desperation. We saw bodies. We saw the wounded being carried to helicopters. We saw smoke and the burning of the jungles and the blowing up of homes of Vietnamese civilians. We saw Dover Air Force base - the hanger with its hundreds of coffins and flags. We saw lists of the dead - our boys and men. The dead were listed in our newspapers and named on TV. We here at home SAW that war and hated it and drew us into revolts and protests back home. (It also caused an unwarranted and mean-spirited attack on our soldiers when they returned from that war as if we were blaming THEM for being drafted and being forced to fight an unwelcome war.)
I am triggered now when I see what is going on in Ukraine by the feelings I had back then when I watched those horrific scenes night after night as a teen. And somehow, even though I want to throw up, throw SOMETHING, do SOMETHING, I am glad that MSM is finally, finally, getting over its squeamishness and beginning to bring that war into our homes and into our psyches with real scenes of the tragedy unfolding. It's going to take an outrage on a global scale to do that SOMETHING - whatever it is - and we have the means and media to involve this globe in that conflict. Maybe then, I hope, our collective horror at this genocide and our understanding of the monster behind it all will allow the SOMETHING to take place.
You know - that quantum theory - lots of butterfly wings SOMETHING?
Cruel Putin and his hideous war machine minions are unbelievably sick, depraved barstids.
Geez...TC, I should have heeded your earnest warning. No breakfast for me.
You are correct. There are no words. President Biden's 9 words continue to ring of the walls of the Polish castle. Russia as the center of world Fascism rings true as well. And the French will begin voting for a president tomorrow. Whatever you may think of Macron, the thought of Marine Le Pen as French president makes Putin dance. That should be enough for the French to go out in their millions and vote against her and any like her. There was an incredible article in today's Sueddeutschezeitung concerning a 91 year old woman who survived WW2, was herself a refugee, how the daily news brings back all the horrors of that time. Caregivers in nursing homes report that the people living there in their 80's plus have gone quiet, the war they experienced as children reawakening all the trauma they experienced then. The 91 year old woman recently found out her father was a pilot, shot down over England, and that he was a supporter of Hitler, along with her grandfather. A terrible shock after barely surviving the war years herself. Today marks the 77th year that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed at Flossenburg prison, just a few days before Hitler killed Eva and himself. She mentions that we need another Von Stauffenberg. (He was one of the folks who tried to assassinate Hitler with a bomb but only ended up injuring him. They did manage to kill a couple of generals. But the folks who tried to take Hitler out were executed. That's how Bonhoeffer had ended up arrested and was being held in prison. Nothing begins or ends well when Fascism has taken over.
I understand why the words have run out except for the blasphemies, vulgarities, and profanities (although I think I need to add "obscenities" to my list now although they might be considered in lieu of the vulgarities as being more appropriate, based upon my recent dictionary searches) in your words today. Snyder's quote "Russia has done the deeds and confessed to the intention" gives us a good map of what must be done in response.
I think of being planted firmly on the ground swinging my lasso over head and then bringing shirtless Putin off his horse…just like roping a steer. Except this barbarian will be hog tied and dragged. And when he is about to die, he will see the words written on the granite boulder in front of him. “This is done in memory of the children you ordered to be annihilated.”
No mercy in life, perhaps he will find it in death.