My previous essay introduced Americans to a view of Russia with which you are probably unfamiliar—the collapse of the Soviet Union & then the separate collapse of the economy, of society, & the discrediting of democracy. My next in this series on war must turn instead to our own concerns in the various democratic countries that hope to safeguard political freedom.
The situation we are in is psychopathy & propaganda in face of things that might turn dangerous: Our press, our elites, & many ordinary people, many of them decent are losing their minds. The most obvious problem is with liberals: Terror in face of an epidemic has been replaced overnight by righteous anger asking for acts of war against Russia. Covid scares liberals more than Putin—the one thing paralyzes them, the other galvanizes them? On the argument that Putin is Hitler, the evil-most, a danger to democracy everywhere which we must treat with war? This is not an intelligent or plausible argument; our principled cowards have become reckless in such a short span of time that we must become worried. This is not mere madness, but psychopathy, what madness turns into once events force people to deal with things with which they can’t or won’t deal.
So I repeat what you all know for the sake of returning to sound principle instead of acceding to madness: Patriotic Americans should want the best for America; should take some modest care of American allies in relation to their loyalty & their power; & should always proclaim political freedom as a great good thing for people—freedom is enjoyed also in the pride in knowing it is rare & precious, also in the admiration & emulation it can stir in others who are not free, or at least not yet.
Patriotic Americans should not fall in love with Ukraine, however, not just because we know almost nothing about Ukraine, but because it’s on Russia’s borders, a very dangerous place to be, the world’s worst despotism next to China. This is not merely a matter of not being hypocrites—America famously was scandalized when the German Kaiser Wilhelm tried to make a Mexican alliance against America: This was part of the passion that led to entering into the Great War; America was even more shocked by Khrushchev’s reckless decision to put nuclear missiles in Cuba, in response to America doing more or less the same in Turkey. This is a fundamental principle of political safety: No nation & no empire wants danger on its borders—America should learn, therefore, to stay away from enemy borders, or borders that are likely to foster enmity. I remind you that JFK withdrew American missiles from Turkey in exchange for Khrushchev taking back the Soviet missiles, an admission of fault, if you will; of course, he lied to the country about it, by omission, which is perhaps part of why America still needs to learn not to provoke enemies if she doesn’t want to go to war with them.
For these reasons, I can't understand Americans taking the Ukrainian side in the war! Yes, Russia invaded, but powers all do that. America has done that more than a little. It is not justice, but it cannot often be helped. Necessity also plays a part—starting with the geographical necessity, that Ukraine is very close to Russia & very far from America, moving on to the human necessity that there are millions of Russians in Ukraine & no Americans, & closing with the political necessity that making an enemy of Russia means giving China the greatest ally it can get, for free, or at our own cost, rather. Our psychopathic public discourse is now unable to consider any of these important necessities, which makes me think that the moralism is all about proclaiming fantasy is more important than reality. The evils of Putin do nothing to change things, except to make the situation worse, since we are not dealing with a man who can be easily scared or whom we can be sure he will not do things to us as crazy as our own elites demand we do to him. Indeed, the identification of Putin with Hitler is supposed to lead us into another war, to prove American might by nostalgia for WWII, which is madness. In plain English, taking sides means waging war, not the sentimental stupidity of our press. We do not want a war with a nuclear Russia; the recent Middle Eastern wars have been enough of a catastrophe, though obviously, no one in the elite learned any lessons. Indeed, perhaps part of the war fever now taking over our media, foreign policy intellectuals, & even retired generals is all about pretending that the recent failures were not real & we can take on a much more dangerous enemy with guarantees of success & no harm to us.
So perhaps read some of the sane & the cautious voices. Sohrab Ahmari in the American Conservative, which was founded to oppose the Iraq War, offers three good lessons:
First, beware emotionally charged images that tend to overwhelm reason
Second, beware the treatment of dissent or criticism as treason.
Third and finally, beware delusions of total mastery over complex crises.
We should least of all be hurried into war—even more importantly, we should not assume we are the judge of events in Russia or Ukraine, not just because it’s mad to assume such power, but because our claims to justice are weak these days. We have to figure out how to bring America back together—not to find an enemy to blow up in the hope that it will fix our problems. Dan McCarthy in UnHerd, an English publication founded to offer an alternative to the competitive conformism of the liberal media, reminds us that the Russian situation is dangerous & we do not know enough about the regime or the character of the war itself to intervene intelligently. We can easily make things worse, including for ourselves. Young Tanner Greer, quoted by Tucker Carlson, wrote an essay on his blog to remind Americans to be cautious in deciding on war. Precisely because Putin wants to become tyrant in Ukraine, it’s not obvious that we can stop him. Also at UnHerd, Giles Fraser argues we don’t even understand Putin because we have caricatured him as Hitler, instead of looking at the influence of Russian realities, including Orthodox Christianity, on his life. As for Ukraine, read Lee Smith in Tablet, to remind you that today’s hero, Ukrainian President Zelensky, is an enemy to conservative Americans who took sides with the liberals who tore America apart for four years with claims that Mr. Trump was somehow under Russian influence, possibly Putin’s Manchurian candidate. The GOP electorate should certainly not be eager to help such a regime—I remind you it’s the regime that hired President’s Biden contemptible, drug-addict son, because paying the awful children of our own oligarchs in order to win influence is what their oligarchs do… (If you want information about the war operations in Ukraine, here’s Santi Ruiz’s list of Twitter accounts to keep up with.)
Of course, if you want more serious statements by America’s foremost realist foreign policy thinker, John Mearsheimer, here he is predicting today’s catastrophe in 2014, when Putin took the measure of Mr. Obama & invaded the Crimean peninsula; (he had taken the measure of Mr. Bush the younger in 2008 & briefly invaded Georgia, putting an end to ideas of NATO expansion). Or you can listen to him give a talk at the University of Chicago:
Mearsheimer is merely continuing the work of the most celebrated American strategist, George Kennan, the author of the containment doctrine that saw America through the Cold War, from Truman to Reagan. He was horrified by NATO expansion toward Russia in the ‘90s:
So much for the unwise & the wise things I recommend for your consideration. The situation now is, so far as America is concerned, not yet dangerous. President Biden is doing the right thing, for once, despite elite psychopathy. His Press Secretary explained that the US doesn’t want a war with Russia, despite press demands:
The State of The Union speech, a contemptible show that reveals our political decadence, an awful performance by the executive & legislative branches both, did at least confirm Biden’s unwillingness to commit to madness in Ukraine. I hope it lasts, but I think it would be very useful for every sane American interested in politics to make his voice loudly heard in favor of caution. Please also read Mearsheimer, as well as our pundits, linked above. Then reconsider my analysis of our elites at the beginning. The things I reveal there are shocking, perhaps blinding at first sight, but it is very important to remember that character sticks—our elites are today what they were last month & war is not their specialty. The generals are too contemptible for words, because they were all promoted for losing wars, if they fought at all, humiliating their country & getting their countrymen killed, & the media & political elites are if possible worse, since they’re only encouraging others to die or to kill. These elites do not deserve your trust; before we get better ones, let’s keep the little peace they have left us with their infernal meddling.
Am against the war-drums and the Ukraine-obsession also. But Mearsheimer's name is not a respected one in my book even if he got this call correct.
I know about Mearsheimer's book on Israel, which I deplore. But the possibility of a major war is much more important & he didn't just get one call right, he's been warning America for a long time about the most important NATO issue, post-Cold war. Not that patriotism gets any rewards or honors, but I'll acknowledge it.
Happy to have other people share in deploring The Israel Lobby again as soon as we're safe: But now, this is awful timing, Carl!