As much as we talk about multipolar politics, when it comes to global networks, there is just one superpower: the United States. Many global networks have centralized economic chokepoints, and the United States is able to seize these, turning them into tools of coercion. No other country can match this ability. America can now redeploy global networks to entangle and suffocate oligarchs, banks and even entire countries, as Russia has painfully discovered.
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Opinion | The U.S. Is the Only Sanctions Superpower. It Must Use That Power Wisely. - T... - 0 views
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It is now up to the United States to determine how to steward this enormous power. If it overreaches, it might provoke a military response or create the incentive for its adversaries to create and foster their own alternative networks
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Will we end up with a fragmented world economy where military and economic conflict become two sides of the same coin?
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While there are substitutes for Russian nickel, there’s no good substitute for the U.S. dollar and U.S. technology. It is very hard to get paid for things you sell if you can’t use SWIFT messaging and have been cut off by the U.S. regulated financial institutions that “clear” transactions in dollars. And it’s hard to build sophisticated machines without semiconductors that are made with U.S. intellectual property.
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The barrier isn’t just that the payment networks of Russia and China are three or four decades behind. Others also fear how they would abuse these networks if they controlled them. The United States has its problems, but it at least provides some legal protections to businesses and countries that have fallen afoul of its harsh measures.
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Often, U.S. officials treat these rules as an obstacle preventing them from taking strong actions. Yet these restrictions provide America with a strategic advantage: They give foreign countries and businesses some reason for trust.
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they illustrate a deeper danger. As a new book by the historian Nicholas Mulder emphasizes, the “economic weapon” of sanctions and blockades doesn’t work nearly as predictably or effectively as its proponents imagine. The more powerful sanctions are, the greater the danger that they will lead to an unpredictable response. As Mr. Mulder demonstrates, fears of sanctions helped propel Nazi Germany’s territorial ambitions
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measures should be just harsh enough to reach specific goals: to protect Ukrainian independence and to limit, to the greatest extent possible, Russia’s aggressive gains.
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The United States should also explicitly lay out the circumstances under which the executive branch will apply such economic measures, the range of permissible goals that they can accomplish, the review procedures that will ensure they are proportionate and the circumstances under which they will be withdrawn.
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shared by Javier E on 21 Mar 22
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Putin's war and the Chaos Climbers - by Noah Smith - 0 views
noahpinion.substack.com/...ins-war-and-the-chaos-climbers
opportunism careerism ambition elite rivalry crisis culture politics right-wing leftist
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The title of this post is a reference to a line from the TV show Game of Thrones, where the scheming nobleman Littlefinger declares that “Chaos is a ladder.” By disrupting the stability of the current regime, he intends to create space to move up in the world.
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I see many of the above-mentioned figures on both the Right and the Left as Chaos Climbers — people who believe that the travails of the liberal order built after World War 2 represent an opening for their own fringe ideologies to advance their power.
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If Putin defeats the Ukrainians, the conservatives that are standing against Putin will look ineffectual and weak. The Trumpists will then be able to solidify their control over the GOP.
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Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, the socialist Left that started to revive itself with the antiwar movement and Occupy blossomed into a full-blown generational movement with the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign that revived the DSA, spawned a new generation of activist orgs like the Sunrise movement, and created a new (though still modest) socialist medi
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So far, despite fierce factionalism, the socialists have not yet succeeded in taking over the Democratic party like Trump took over the GOP. But in highlighting the failures of centrist Dems to curb inequality, revive unions, fix health care, or save the welfare state, they clearly hope to be able to pull off a takeover at some point.
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Both the liberal center-Left and the conservative center-Right are basically committed to upholding the global liberal order. Putin, by invading and attempting to conquer a sovereign state, challenges that order. If Putin succeeds, even modestly, it represents a failure for the U.S. establishment figures who tried to stop him.
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It was the failure of conservatism that gave rise to the Trumpist movement and the alt-right. Bush’s muscular interventionism ran aground in Iraq, laissez-faire economics crashed the economy in 2008, and Christian conservatism failed to halt the gay rights movement. The conservative paradigm that had taken over the GOP in the 70s and 80s failed all at once, and fringe elements — the alt-right, conspiracy theorists, Trump — sort of took over the party.
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it also means a victory for raw power and will (perhaps implying that efforts like the January 6th putsch are the preferred method for attaining power).
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But if Putin loses, then Trump and his allies who for years praised and defended Putin’s regime will be discredited. Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan.
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Even more damningly, if Putin loses, it’ll be a success for the globalist order — sanctions and aid to Ukraine will represent a triumph of international cooperation. Exactly the kind of world order the Trumpists want so badly to smash.
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If Putin defeats Ukraine, it’ll be a debacle for Biden and the establishment, and perhaps a socialist candidate will be a little closer to winning the next primary.
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So Chaos Climbers on the Right and Left both have some incentive to want Putin to win — or at least for the war to be perceived as a NATO loss.
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What these people all fear is the return of the order of the 1990s — a return to the idea of liberal internationalism as the least bad of all possible systems of human organization.
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many people all over the ideological spectrum allowed themselves to see the chaos of the last decade as a high and beautiful wave that would carry them to power…and now, if Putin is ejected from Ukraine by a triumphant international liberal West, the various Chaos Climbers may see their waves break and roll back.
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Facebook bans death threats on Russia leader Putin despite Ukraine war - 0 views
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Meta Platforms, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, clarified Monday that users cannot make posts calling for the assassination of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin or other heads of state.
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Meta also said that a previously reported temporary easing of its hate speech policy only applies to allowing posts by users in Ukraine making threats to the attacking forces and “only in the context of speech regarding the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.”
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Reuters also reported Thursday that Facebook was allowing calls for violence against Russian soldiers in those three countries and several others in Eastern Europe, the Baltics and western Asia.
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The clarification comes after Russia opened a criminal inquiry into Meta on Friday because of the change in its hate speech policy
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“I want to be crystal clear: Our policies are focused on protecting people’s rights to speech as an expression of self-defense in reaction to a military invasion of their country,” he wrote.
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“The fact is, if we applied our standard content policies without any adjustments we would now be removing content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces, which would rightly be viewed as unacceptable.
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We will not tolerate Russophobia or any kind of discrimination, harassment or violence towards Russians on our platform.”
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U.S. sends 100 killer drones called Switchblades to Ukraine - 0 views
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WASHINGTON – The U.S. included 100 killer drones in a colossal weapons package for Ukraine that President Joe Biden approved earlier this month, U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday.
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Deploying Switchblades to the fight in Ukraine could be the most significant use of the weapons in combat, as it is not clear how often the U.S. military has used the killer drones on the battlefield.
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The Switchblades are equipped with cameras, navigation systems and guided explosives. The weapons can be programmed to automatically strike targets that are miles away or can loiter above a target until engaged by an operator to strike.
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African Union Head Will Urge Putin to Release Ukraine's Grain - The New York Times - 0 views
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DAKAR, Senegal — With many of the world’s poorest countries facing alarming levels of hunger and starvation, the leader of the African Union is set to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday and urge him to lift Russia’s blockade on urgently needed cereals and fertilizer from Ukraine.
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Warnings by the United Nations that Russia’s naval blockade in Ukraine could lead to famines around the world, and accusations by Ukrainian and Western leaders that Mr. Putin is weaponizing a major source of the world’s food supply, have so far produced limited results. Millions of to
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ns of grain remain stuck in Ukraine; Mr. Putin has suggested that this would change if the West lifted sanctions imposed on Moscow after the invasion.
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“The entire world is suffering from this conflict, but we in Africa are already facing the collateral damages,” said Ousmane Sène
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For months, African leaders also shunned President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who asked at least twice to address the African Union. Mr. Sall said Thursday that Mr. Zelensky could soon address the organization in a videoconference, although no date has been announced.
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More than 14 million people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa, according to relief groups, and nearly 40 million people are at imminent risk of famine in West Africa this year, according to the World Food Program, a United Nations agency.
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The Kremlin said in a statement that the two leaders would discuss “the expansion of political dialogue and economic and humanitarian cooperation with the countries of the continent.”
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In West Africa, one of the most visible effects of the war so far has been on bread prices that were already on the rise. In Burkina Faso, bakers went on strike last month after the government shuttered bakeries that had raised the price of a baguette. In the Ivory Coast, bakers have decreased the size of the baguette in the face of soaring wheat costs.
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Thousands Swept Up as Kremlin Clamps Down on War Criticism - The New York Times - 0 views
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Vladimir Efimov, a local politician on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East, was charged with “discrediting the army” and ordered to pay a $500 fine three times in recent months over antiwar images that he displayed on social media.
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Three months ago, President Vladimir V. Putin signed into law draconian measures designed to silence war critics, putting even use of the word “war” off-limits. They prompted some Russians appalled by the invasion to flee the country, forced independent news outlets to shut down, and created a climate of suspicion in which neighbor turned on neighbor.
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At least 50 people face prison sentences of up to either 10 years or five years hard labor, or fines of as much as $77,000, for spreading “false information” about the military.
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The harsher one criminalized deliberately spreading “false information” about the military, interpreted as anything outside the official version of events.
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With the first criminal cases only now coming to trial, it remains unclear how harshly judges — generally prone to toe the Kremlin line — will treat defendants.
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“It is impossible to keep silent,” Mr. Novashov said, while noting ruefully that people around town had mostly reacted to his case with indifference. He added: “People have been taught that nothing is going to change, so the less you know, the better you sleep.”
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Russians have been prosecuted for wearing workout clothes and even nail polish in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag, lawyers said.
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The swelling case list across Russia indicates that prosecutors realized that Moscow wanted results, lawyers said. “There is a feeling that there is a directive to push the cases to the court as soon as possible,” Mr. Chikov said. “Everyone immediately understood that this was of the highest political priority.”
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shared by Javier E on 24 Feb 23
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Opinion | Putin and the Right's Tough-Guy Problem - The New York Times - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...putin-ukraine-toughness.html
toxic masculinity foreign policy putin cult right-wing
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there are significant factions in U.S. politics — a small group on the left, a much more significant bloc on the right — that not only oppose Western support for Ukraine but also clearly want to see Russia win.
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Putin, by contrast, very much is the subject of a personality cult not just in Russia but also on the American right and has been for years
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I’d argue that many people on the right equate being powerful with being a swaggering tough guy and sneer at anything — like intellectual openness and respect for diversity — that might interfere with the swagger.
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Putin was their idea of what a powerful man should look like, and Russia, with its muscleman military vision, their idea of a powerful country.
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The key to understanding right-wingers’ growing Ukraine rage is that Russia’s failures don’t just show that a leader they idolized has feet of clay. They also show that their whole tough-guy view about the nature of power is wrong. And they’re having a hard time coping.
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Why has Russia’s military failed so spectacularly? Because modern wars aren’t won by strutting guys flexing their biceps. They’re won mainly through logistics, technology and intelligence (in both the military and the ordinary senses)
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Just to be clear, wars are still hell and can’t be won, even with superior weapons, without immense courage and endurance. But these are also qualities Ukrainians — men and women — turn out to have in remarkable abundance.
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National power in the modern world rests mainly on economic strength and technological capacity, not military prowess.
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None of this means that Russia can’t eventually conquer Ukraine. If it does, however, it will, in part, be because America’s Putin fans force a cutoff of crucial aid. And if this happens, it will be because the U.S. right can’t stand the idea of a world in which woke doesn’t mean weak and men who pose as tough guys are actually losers.
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Olympian flashes 'No War in Ukraine' sign after competing | AP News - 0 views
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A Ukrainian skeleton athlete flashed a small sign that read “ No War in Ukraine ” to the cameras as he finished a run at the Beijing Olympics on Friday night.
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he gesture came as Russia has amassed over 100,000 troops near Ukraine, stoking fears in the West that Moscow is planning an invasion. Russia insists it has no such designs but doesn’t want Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to be allowed to join the western NATO alliance.
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Shortly after the race, the International Olympic Committee said there would be no repercussions for the athlete. There had been a question of whether the body might consider Heraskevych’s act a violation of Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter. That rule, in part, states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
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“This was a general call for peace. For the IOC the matter is closed,” the Games’ governing body said Friday night.
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Meanwhile, the heightened tensions over Ukraine cast a pall over last week’s opening ceremony, when IOC President Thomas Bach implored participating countries to uphold the long-running Olympic Truce, which calls for a cessation of hostilities during the Games.
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Alexander Gabuev writes from Moscow on why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war | ... - 0 views
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What actually drives the Kremlin are the tough ideas and interests of a small group of longtime lieutenants to President Vladimir Putin, as well as those of the Russian leader himself. Emboldened by perceptions of the West’s terminal decline, no one in this group loses much sleep about the prospect of an open-ended confrontation with America and Europe
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In fact, the core members of this group would all be among the main beneficiaries of a deeper schism.
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Their average age is 68 years old and they have a lot in common. The collapse of the Soviet Union, which Mr Putin famously described as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, was the defining episode of their adult lives
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Four out of five have a KGB background, with three, including the president himself, coming from the ranks of counterintelligence. It is these hardened men, not polished diplomats like Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who run the country’s foreign policy.
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In recent years members of this group have become very vocal. Messrs Patrushev and Naryshkin frequently give lengthy interviews articulating their views on global developments and Russia’s international role.
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According to them, the American-led order is in deep crisis thanks to the failure of Western democracy and internal conflicts spurred by the promotion of tolerance, multiculturalism and respect for the rights of minorities. A new multipolar order is taking shape that reflects an unstoppable shift in power to authoritarian regimes that support traditional values.
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Given the state of affairs in Western countries, the pair contend, it's only natural that they seek to contain Russia and to install pro-Western regimes in former Soviet republics. The West’s ultimate goal of a colour revolution in Russia itself would lead to the country’s conclusive collapse.
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Washington sees unfinished business in Russia’s persistence and success, according to Mr Putin’s entourage. As America’s power wanes, its methods are becoming more aggressive. This is why the West cannot be trusted
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The best way to ensure the safety of Russia’s existing political regime and to advance its national interests is to keep America off balance.
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Seen this way, Ukraine is the central battleground of the struggle. The stakes could not be higher. Should Moscow allow that country to be fully absorbed into a western sphere of influence, Russia’s endurance as a great power will itself be under threat
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The fact that the new elite in Kyiv glorifies the Ukrainian nationalists of the 20th century and thumb their noses at Moscow is a huge personal affront.
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Messrs Patrushev, Bortnikov and Naryshkin all find themselves on the US Treasury’s blacklist already, along with many other members of Mr Putin’s inner circle. There is no way back for them to the West’s creature comforts. They are destined to end their lives in Fortress Russia, with their assets and their relatives alongside them.
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As for sanctions by sector, including those that President Joe Biden’s team plans to impose should Russia invade Ukraine, these may end up largely strengthening the hard men’s grip on the national economy
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Import substitution efforts have generated large flows of budget funds that are controlled by the coterie and their proxies, including through Rostec. The massive state conglomerate is run by a friend of Mr Putin’s from his KGB days in East Germany, Sergey Chemezov
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In a similar vein, a ban on food imports from countries that have sanctioned Russia has led to spectacular growth in Russian agribusiness. The sector is overseen by Mr Patrushev’s elder son Dmitry, who is Mr Putin’s agriculture minister.
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further sanctions wouldn’t just fail to hurt Mr Putin’s war cabinet, they would secure its members' place as the top beneficiaries of Russia’s deepening economic autarky.
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The same logic is true of domestic politics: as the country descends into a near-permanent state of siege, the security services will be the most important pillar of the regime. That further cements the hard men’s grip on the country
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Russia’s interests are increasingly becoming conflated with the personal interests of the people at the very top of the system.
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I'm in Kyiv and awake at the darkest hour - as Putin's bombs rain down | Nataliya Gumen... - 0 views
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I was one of those who until the very last moment could not accept the notion of a full-scale invasion with airstrikes on our major towns. Putin’s speech was sickening, but still there was a logical, if fictional, justification for a limited Russian operation. The full-scale attack on Ukraine destroys even that.
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I told my Russian journalist friend about our mood. For years I have been reluctant to compare any dictator to Hitler, or any war to the second world war. The comparison, to me, seemed exaggerated, even vulgar.
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But what other analogy is there? With no reason, in an act of pure madness, an old-fashioned air assault has been inflicted on a neighbouring country.
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There is a famous phrase, “4am Kyiv is bombed”. Every Ukrainian and Russian kid knows it. That’s how the announcement of the German bombardment of Kyiv in 1941 sounded.And here we are: 24 February 5am Kyiv is bombed by Russia.
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I said that to my Russian colleague, and tried very hard not to show how my voice was trembling. She asked for forgiveness again.
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A famous Russian independent journalist called me for a quote after Russia launched airstrikes all over Ukraine. We have never met but she started begging for forgiveness for what her country is doing and may do to mine. Both of us are experienced reporters and used to covering hard stories, conflicts. We talked, and we cried.
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shared by Javier E on 25 Feb 22
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Putin apologists are in a tricky bind now | Comment | The Times - 0 views
www.thetimes.co.uk/...in-a-tricky-bind-now-pzrqcjv7d
putin apologetics defense advocacy denial authoritarian
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Meanwhile on another Russian TV station, this time in Russia, Donald Trump’s former secretary of state and putative Republican candidate Mike Pompeo was shown saying of Putin that he is “very shrewd, very capable. I have enormous respect for him.”
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Kaboom! On Monday at 10pm Moscow time Putin himself, following up a bizarre nod-along ceremony, torpedoed their arguments. The problem wasn’t Nato and it wasn’t the EU. It wasn’t Russia’s “security concerns”. It was, as he told it, the terrible errors of Lenin and Stalin in creating an autonomous Ukrainian entity when historically it was all really Russian
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The speech might have been rambling and emotional but its motivation was clear. And it immediately created a quandary for many West-blamers and Putin-understanders. How would you square your belief in national sovereignty and the effective declaration by the Russian president that Ukraine shouldn’t have any?
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On the left Russia stood as a flawed bulwark against imperialism, on the right against the supranational machinations of the New World Order (the EU, Nato, the UN, whatever).
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I don’t call these western apologists for Putin traitors, or fifth columnists, or paid agents of Russia. They’re none of those things. I note that as of today, courtesy of Putin, these people all look foolish.
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But if the Moscow autocrat follows through the logic of his own words, then things may get very difficult for us all. A price will be paid, economically certainly and possibly in something more precious.
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It will be Putin’s doing but there will be an increasing number of voices raised blaming our own governments and institutions. Voices that must be heard but must be countered.
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Vladimir Putin's war | The Economist - 0 views
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In his battle speech, recorded on February 21st and released as he unleashed the first volleys of cruise missiles against his fellow Slavs, Russia’s president railed against “the empire of lies” that is the West. Crowing over his nuclear arsenal, he pointedly threatened to “crush” any country that stood in his way.
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It was unclear in what strength they were moving. But Mr Putin seemingly covets all of Ukraine, just as American and British intelligence reports had claimed all along. In acting, he has set aside the everyday calculus of political risks and benefits. Instead he is driven by the dangerous, delusional idea that he has an appointment with history.
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He may not invade the NATO countries that were once in the Soviet empire, at least not at first. But, bloated by victory, he will subject them to the cyber attacks and information warfare that fall short of the threshold of conflict.
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Mr Putin will threaten NATO in this way, because he has come to believe that NATO threatens Russia and its people.
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he raged at the alliance’s eastward expansion. Later, he decried a fictitious “genocide” that he says the West is sponsoring in Ukraine. Mr Putin can’t tell his people that his army is fighting against their Ukrainian brothers and sisters who gained freedom.
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He is obsessed with the defensive alliance to its west. And he is trampling the principles that underpin peace in the 21st century. That is why the world must inflict a heavy price for his aggression.
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Even though Russia has set out to build a fortress economy, the country is still connected to the world and, as the initial 45% fall in Russia’s stockmarket suggests, it will suffer.
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Russia is Europe’s main supplier of gas. It exports metals like nickel and palladium and along with Ukraine it exports wheat. All of that will present problems at a time when the world economy is struggling with inflation and supply-chain glitches.
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Until now, the alliance has sought to live within the pact signed with Russia in 1997, which limits NATO operations in the former Soviet bloc. NATO should rip it up and use the freedoms that creates to garrison troops in the east.
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NATO should prove its unity and intent by immediately deploying its 40,000-strong rapid-reaction force to the frontline states. These troops will add credibility to its doctrine that an attack on one member is an attack on all
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Some will say that it is too risky to challenge Mr Putin in these ways—because he has lost touch with reality, or because he will escalate, miscalculate or hug China
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After 22 years at the top, even a dictator with an overdeveloped sense of his own destiny has a nose for survival and the ebb and flow of power.
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Even China should see that a man who rampages across frontiers is a threat to the stability it seeks.
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They will also signal to Mr Putin that the further he pushes in Ukraine, the more likely he is to end up strengthening NATO’s presence on its border—the very opposite of what he intends.
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NATO is not about to deploy troops to Ukraine—rightly so, for fear of a confrontation between nuclear powers. But its members should give Ukraine assistance by providing arms, money and shelter to refugees and, if need be, a government in exile.
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Why Americans Are Uniting in Support of Ukraine - The Atlantic - 0 views
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what is happening right now in Ukraine—a nation being mauled by a brutal regime yet still willing to stand and to fight—is proof that honor and courage matter. They can stir hearts in powerful ways, shaking them out of complacency and even cynicism.
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It was seeing ordinary people—including the young and the elderly—act in extraordinary ways to defend the country they love, against overwhelming odds. It was seeing people do the right thing at the risk of death when nearly every instinct within them must have been screaming: Do what you have to do to survive, even if survival, though not dishonorable, is less honorable.
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“For it is only the love of honor that never grows old,” Pericles said after the first battles of the Peloponnesian War, “and honor it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.”
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the people and the president of Ukraine have shown that love of honor never grows old, even to a world that is sometimes indifferent, weary, and cynica
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“Today you, Ukrainians, are a symbol of invincibility,” Zelensky told his people today. “A symbol that people in any country can become the best people on Earth at any moment.”
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A War the Kremlin Tried to Disguise Becomes a Hard Reality for Russians - The New York ... - 0 views
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On Monday, Ukraine published a video of a captured soldier in his unit, apologizing for taking part in the invasion.
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While casualty figures in wartime are notoriously unreliable — and Ukraine has put the total of Russian dead in the thousands — the 498 Moscow acknowledged in the seven days of fighting is the largest in any of its military operations since the war in Chechnya, which marked the beginning of President Vladimir V. Putin’s tenure in 1999.
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The Education Ministry scheduled a video lesson to be shown in schools nationwide on Thursday that described the war against Ukraine as a “liberation mission.”
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Ukrainian government agencies and volunteers have published videos of disoriented Russian prisoners of war saying they had no idea they were about to be part of an invasion until just before it began, and photographs and footage showed the bodies of Russian soldiers strewn on streets and fields.
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I think they themselves do not know what they are doing. They are following orders without thinking.”
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“Individuals who carry out falsification must be punished in the most severe way,” said Vasily Piskaryov, a senior lawmaker in Mr. Putin’s party. “They are discrediting the absolutely rightful and understandable actions of our armed forces.”
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Tatiana Stanovaya, a scholar who has long studied Mr. Putin, wrote it was “more than logical” to expect that lawmakers this week would approve the imposition of martial law in order to block the open internet, ban all protests and restrict Russians from being able to leave the country.
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There was also evidence that, even though the war took many Russians by surprise, significant numbers had come to accept it as unavoidable or forced upon Russia by an aggressive NATO. The economic crisis touched off by the West’s harsh sanctions reinforced that narrative for some.
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At a Moscow shopping mall on Wednesday, a young couple lining up for cash at an A.T.M. said they opposed the war. And yet they said that the way the world was punishing them for it was not fair, either, considering that the United States had fought its own wars in recent decades without coming under harsh international sanctions.
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“We understand that no armed conflict comes without victims,” Mr. Latynin said. “But this was a necessary step, because it was impossible to go on like this.”
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4 things to remember about Trump, Ukraine and Putin - CNNPolitics - 0 views
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up tensions with the West for the better part of the last decade -- he annexed Crimea, meddled in US elections, poisoned an ex-spy on British soil, and more. Nearly every step of the way, former President Donald Trump parroted Kremlin talking points, excused Russian aggression and sometimes even embraced it outright.
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The GOP is the party of the Russia hawks. For a half-century, one of their central organizing principles was opposing the Soviet threat," Graff said, adding that Trump upended that history and made some Republicans go soft on Putin. "But in this last month, a lot of Republicans who became wishy-washy on Russia have come back to their natural position as Russia hawks."
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Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- who had spent a decade advising Yanukovych in Ukraine -- collaborated in 2016 with a Russian spy on a secret plan for Trump to help Russia control eastern Ukraine, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's report. The proposal envisioned that Yanukovych would return to lead a Russian puppet state in eastern Ukraine. This pro-Russian rhetoric didn't always translate into policy for the Trump White House. For instance, his administration said sanctions would continue until Russia returned Crimea. But the rhetoric gave Putin an unexpected cheerleader in DC and created tensions within NATO.
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President Joe Biden has dramatically increased the flow of arms to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft systems, drones, rifles and other weapons. Importantly, it was Trump who first sent lethal aid, in a major reversal from the Obama administration, which refused to send offensive weapons to Ukraine during the early stages of fighting in the eastern Donbas region.But Trump has a checkered past on this topic. As a candidate, his position was unclear at best. Trump campaign aides intervened during the 2016 Republican National Convention to block language from the GOP party platform that called on the US to send lethal arms to Ukraine.
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One of his 2016 campaign aides falsely claimed that "Russia did not seize Crimea." "Trump said that Crimea is Russian, because people speak Russian," said Elena Petukhova of Molfar, a Kyiv-based business intelligence firm, who called it an "absolutely pro-Kremlin" view. "According to this logic, the entire territory of the United States should belong to Great Britain."
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Trump's biggest lie was about the 2016 election. He rejected the reality that Russia interfered to help him win. Instead, he falsely claimed it was Ukraine who meddled, and that he was the victim. These lies, which he repeated dozens of times, were a double boon to the Kremlin: they downplayed Russia's brazen attack on US democracy, while simultaneously smearing Ukraine.
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This was a break from decades of warm US policy toward Ukraine, especially when dealing with leaders like Zelensky who tried to reorient the country toward the West. Former President George W. Bush praised the Ukrainian people in 2004 for protesting a rigged election, and Obama celebrated the 2014 revolution that ousted a Kremlin-friendly government in Kyiv. "When Trump muddies the water by praising Putin, or undermines Zelensky and spreads falsehoods about Ukraine, this has real implications for how this crisis plays out," said Jordan Gans-Morse, a Northwestern University professor who was a Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine. "It shapes public opinion in ways that tie Biden's hands when he's a de facto wartime president."
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This strong-arming by Team Trump forced Zelensky, in his first months in office, to navigate a surprisingly hostile relationship with the US, a supposed top ally in his fight against Russia. "Zelensky had more than enough on his plate when he came to power," Gans-Morse said. "The country was already at war with Russia. He's a political novice. And then, on top of that, the most powerful person in the world essentially extorted him, and he had to devote time and energy to deal with that. It's unclear what the full impact was, but it definitely tested Zelensky."
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Opinion | Meet Alexander Dugin, author of Putin's deadly playbook - The Washington Post - 0 views
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russia authoritarian thinker ideology author putin playbook
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a broader understanding is needed of Dugin’s deadly ideas. Russia has been running his playbook for the past 20 years, and it has brought us here, to the brink of another world war.
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A product of late-period Soviet decline, Dugin belongs to the long, dismal line of political theorists who invent a strong and glorious past — infused with mysticism and obedient to authority — to explain a failed present.
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The future lies in reclaiming this past from the liberal, commercial, cosmopolitan present (often represented by the Jewish people).
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Such thinkers had a heyday a century ago, in the European wreckage of World War I: Julius Evola, the mad monk of Italian fascism; Charles Maurras, the reactionary French nationalist; Charles Coughlin, the American radio ranter; and even the author of a German book called “Mein Kampf.”
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Putin has followed that counsel to the letter, and he must have felt things were going well when he saw window-smashing rioters in the corridors of the U.S. Congress, Britain’s Brexit from the European Union and Germany’s growing dependence on Russian natural gas.
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Alas, a competing sea-based empire of corrupt, money-grubbing individualists, led by the United States and Britain, thwarted Russia’s destiny and brought “Eurasia” — his term for the future Russian empire — low.
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In his magnum opus, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within the United States while promoting the United States’ isolationist factions. (Sound familiar?) In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Western Europe, meanwhile, should be drawn in Russia’s direction by the lure of natural resources: oil, gas and food. NATO would collapse from within.
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Dugin tells essentially the same story from a Russian point of view. Before modernity ruined everything, a spiritually motivated Russian people promised to unite Europe and Asia into one great empire, appropriately ruled by ethnic Russians.
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Putin has turned to the pages of Dugin’s text in which he declared: “Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia,” and “without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.”
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So what comes next, should Putin manage to “resolve” Russia’s “problem” in Ukraine? Dugin envisions a gradual dividing of Europe into zones of German and Russian influence, with Russia very much in charge thanks to its eventual stranglehold over Germany’s resource needs. As Great Britain crumbles and Russia picks up the pieces, the empire of Eurasia will ultimately stretch, in Dugin’s words, “from Dublin to Vladisvostok.”
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according to Dugin, China, too, must fall. Russia’s ambitions in Asia will require “the territorial disintegration, splintering and the political and administrative partition of the [Chinese] state,” Dugin writes. Russia’s natural partner in the Far East, according to Dugin, is Japan.
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Dugin’s 600-page doorstop can be boiled down to one idea: The wrong alliance won World War II. If only Hitler had not invaded Russia, Britain could have been broken. The United States would have remained at home, isolationist and divided, and Japan would have ruled the former China as Russia’s junior partner.
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Ukraine-Russia War Live News: Latest Updates - The New York Times - 0 views
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President Biden met with European leaders in Brussels to reinforce solidarity against Russia’s invasion and proposed excluding Russia from the G20. Ukraine said it had destroyed a Russian naval ship.
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BRUSSELS — President Biden and leaders of more than 30 nations convened Thursday to demonstrate united opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, announcing new economic sanctions, aid for refugees, deployment of additional forces to Eastern Europe and grim preparations in case Russia uses chemical
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As heavy fighting continued in the suburban town of Irpin, a steady stream of tired civilians, mainly older people, were evacuated to relative safety in the capital of Kyiv on Thursday. A day earlier, Ukrainian firefighters battled a fire at a home struck during a Russian rocket attack in western Kyiv.
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More than 320 miles to the south, a refugee family from Ukraine waited on Tuesday for a minibus to arrive to take them to a reception center after they crossed the border in the small village of Palanca, in eastern Moldova.
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Why the West Misunderstood Putin - The Atlantic - 0 views
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Anagnorisis is that moment of recognition when a character in a play finally understands their predicament and who they really are.
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It is Shakespeare’s Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII realizing that he has “ventured … this many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth,” or Richard II saying, “I have wasted time and now doth time waste me.”
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Putin’s behavior shocked many people because they bought into his image as a grand master of intricate policy maneuvers, which assumes intentionality, adroitness, and cunning. A more accurate judgment followed from saying to oneself: This is an aging dictator, who after 20 years of absolute power gets no pushback; who is paranoid, dismissive, and brutal
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, he is someone who has deteriorated both physically and—as seen in his delivery of rambling, querulous speeches—mentally.
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The personality of the Ukrainian president has made all the difference. Volodymyr Zelensky is an Everyman hero: reluctant, initially unsure, but patriotic and courageous.
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A second explanation is narrower. It has to do with military analysts’ focus on technology at the expense of the human element in war.
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War is a contest of wills; it is unpredictable; it is the domain of accident and contingency; nothing goes as planned; and events are smothered in a fog created by misinformation and fear.
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Finally, the democratic pessimism of the past two decades has obscured from many the extraordinary power of freedom, and the innate resilience of liberal-democratic countries and institutions.
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A culture of lies is corrosive, breeding cynicism and eventually self-doubt. Truth is not only more powerful but open to all of us, hence Václav Havel’s dictum that the way to resist tyranny is to live in truth.