He also has some excellent analysis of the democracy-vs.-autocracy problem facing democracies worldwide.
But on contemporary foreign policy questions, especially on the Russia-Ukraine War, Snyder has an unfortunate tendency to repeat some of the worst aspects of the old Cold War mentality, particularly Russophobia and threat inflation. And those aspects of his view are painfully obvious in this recent presentation of his. (2)
The “Russia-Russia-Russia” phenomenon
The Democrats’ emphasis on Trump being some kind of Russian puppet had unfortunately repercussions. One of the dumber moments of the 2016 Presidential campaign was during the last debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Trump made a vague comment about how having good relations between the US and Russia wouldn’t be a bad thing and then said that Putting had not respect for Hillary.
She responded, “That's because he'd rather have a puppet [Trump] as president.” To which Trump snapped back, “You’re the puppet.”
The various official investigations of Russian activity in the 2016 election have established clearly that Russia did try to influence the election.
The problem in telling what that may mean has to do with the fact that countries try to influence each other’s politics all the time. That’s why there are international arrangements and national laws that define what is officially acceptable practice and what it not. So, giving or selling a classified document to a foreign power (or to anybody) without formal direction is illegal. Agreeing with some official statement or foreign-policy position of a foreign country is not illegal. In fact, pretty much all of foreign diplomacy is about countries agreeing with each other on many things and disagreeing on others.
That’s why it’s important to have professional press institutions that provide professional journalistic analysis of such things. And why it’s also important for press critics and readers to pay close attention to the potential conflicts of news agencies and their sources. When a government makes up something to discredit another country or otherwise to manipulate that country and other international actors, then, well, that’s manipulation. How clever or responsible that may be or not, it’s important to recognize that it’s a normal thing.
That’s also why I.F. Stone’s comment from 1967 is still so relevant, particularly with relevant to wars and rumors of war: “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.” (3)
Of course, countries pay attention to deliberated “disinformation” being propagated by other countries. That’s just how this thing works. Some of those anti-disinformation efforts are more substantial than others. The EU vs. Disinfo site is one of the more lightweight ones I’ve encountered. But the main thing for voters and news consumers is to pay attention to the quality of information sources.
Snyder on the current war
There seems to be a broad understanding among foreign policy and defense observers that Ukraine has lost the current war, whether we date it from 2014 or 2022. Some of them, especially ones working directly or indirectly for defense contractors, may not find it convenient to say so publicly. And Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government seems to think actively continuing the war is what the Ukrainian people want.
Snyder’s position on the war has been that it was essential for the West to support Ukraine in the war and the more armaments the better, and the faster they are delivered, the better. He doesn’t make any criticisms of the blunderbuss way the US handled NATO expansion when it came to Ukraine, in particular. Because his operative principle seems to be: Russia evil, NATO good, always and everywhere.
He frames his argument by claiming that Ukraine is fighting for “the West,” which is true as a secondary matter, It’s mainly fighting Russian aggression against its legitimate territory.
But he argues that Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion has saved the West from what Synder apparently thinks is Russia’s immediate desire to start seizing the territory of current NATO members. He also claims that Ukraine’s actions the last 2+ years have deterred China from invading Taiwan (!?) and contributed far more than any other country to nuclear nonproliferation in the last two years.
What is he smoking? He’s definitely not an adherent of the “realist” school of foreign policy thought.
Snyder also argues that Russia has said clearly that it intends to incorporate all of Ukraine. I’ve been following John Mearsheimer’s analysis as well as those of analysts who prefer a “restrainer” foreign policy for the US. Mearsheimer, I think, has been giving at least one interview a week on the Russia-Ukraine war. As annoying as Mearsheimer’s “offensive-realist” foreign policy framework can be (and often is!), he pays close attention to this war. He has repeatedly said that the Russians have never explicitly said they intend to take over all of Ukraine. (Snyder has some comments on Mearsheimer’s position on the war in the question period.)
Snyder also argues that Russia has said clearly that it intends to incorporate all of Ukraine. I’ve been following John Mearsheimer’s analysis as well as those of analysts who prefer a “restrainer” foreign policy for the US. Mearsheimer, I think, has been giving at least one interview a week on the Russia-Ukraine war. As annoying as Mearsheimer’s “offensive-realist” foreign policy framework can be (and often is!), he pays close attention to this war. He has repeatedly said that the Russians have never explicitly said they intend to take over all of Ukraine. (Snyder has some comments on Mearsheimer’s position on the war in the question period.)
Snyder is setting up a kind of stab-in-the-back theory of the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine lost because the West was too wimpy in supporting the war!
The NATO interest in Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion
At this point, there seems to be no realistic prospect of Ukraine taking back lost territory in the immediate future. Russia has a considerably larger supply of potential recruits and draftees, and Ukraine is obviously struggling to keep its military’s ranks filled. The first two years of the war meant that artillery for not only Ukraine but NATO countries has been running short. Of course there are plenty of companies that are happy to provide replacements. But they can’t just conjure them out of the air.
NATO also just added two new members, Sweden and Finland. While Ukraine is not a NATO member and NATO countries have no mutual-defense treaties with Ukraine, the NATO mutual-defense obligation does include countries sharing borders with Russia, Sweden and Finland included. As a very practical matter – which in this case does involve the much-overused “credibility” concern – the NATO countries have to give preference to shoring up their military deterrence against Russia over Ukraine’s needs. And despite French President Emmanuel Macron’s foolish speculations, sending NATO combat troops to Ukraine to fight the Russians directly is a highly unlikely prospect.
As a strictly practical matter, it made sense for NATO to provide substantial assistance to Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s 2022 invasion. That doesn’t reduce the need for the West to understand what the very negative practical effects of NATO’s reckless gamble with membership for Ukraine have been. The US in particular wanted to get Ukraine into NATO, and Russia wanted to keep it out. Russia has won that round for the foreseeable future.
Of course, they won that round by seizing Ukrainian territory in violation of international law, and illegally incorporating Crimea and the provinces of Luhansk and Donbas into Russia. The US is on the side of international law on that one, even while it’s trampling it into the dirt by supporting Israel’s gruesome war-and-starvation campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza.
At the moment, the best-case scenario for Ukraine would seem to be a Korean-style long-term ceasefire/armistice in which Ukraine would not be required to renounce sovereignty over their lost territory. But, as we’ve heard many times during this war, the Ukrainians themselves will have to decide what kind of peace they are willing to accept. And any deal the Russians offer them at this point will be bad from Ukraine’s view.
There is also a moral question for the US and other NATO countries whether it is right to continue to arm Ukraine to carry on a war that has no good end in sight – if the Russians offer any kind of half-workable settlement in the current situation.
But if the US doesn’t take the moral questions raised by Benjamin Netanyahu’s war against Gazans seriously enough to cut off military aid over them, it’s doubtful that actual moral considerations will weigh heavily on the Biden’s Administration’s policy toward Ukraine, either.
And, of course, a second Trump Administration wouldn’t even pretend to bother about moral considerations. Who is offering the best bribes to Trump and his family and businesses will be decisive on most foreign policy issues.
There are a lot of questions about the future of NATO, even if Trump doesn’t get elected again. Asking NATO to take a major presence in East Asia seems like a very risky undertaking.
Argentinian footnote
Finally, there is a silly footnote to the current NATO discussions. El Loco, aka, Argentine’s ultra-right President Javier Milei, wants Argentina to become a “global partner” of NATO. Also: “On Thursday, the U.S. government announced it was providing Argentina with $40 million in foreign military financing for the first time in more than two decades — a grant that allows key U.S. allies like Israel to buy American weaponry.” (4)
What are Biden’s people thinking? “Defense Minister Petri hailed the acquisition of the advanced warplanes as ‘the most important military purchase since Argentina’s return to democracy’ in 1983.” (5) In other words, since the military dictatorship of 1976-1983. But of all the democratically-minded national government Argentina has had since then, El Loco’s is the one the Biden Administration wants to boost with lavish military sales. El Loco wants to stop any further investigation into that dictatorship’s many crimes.
Yet another move not obviously compatible with the Administration’s preferred Democracy vs. Autocracy framing of the US international position.
Notes:
(1) First lecture in the series: Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine. Class 1: Ukrainian Questions Posed by Russian Invasion. YaleCourses YouTube channel 09/03//2022. <https://youtu.be/bJczLlwp-d8?si=iTmH-rHz5l4Cs6YK> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
(2) The Peril of Slowness: American Mistakes during Russia’s War of Aggression in Ukraine. Foreign Policy Association YouTube channel 04/08/2024.<https://youtu.be/JVs2y-YeiFM?si=2dH5egHVw602EQsf> (Accessed: 2024-21/or-04).
(3) From: In a Time of Torment, 1961-1967 (1967), 317. Source: I. F. Stone. Wikiquote 02/23/2024 <https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=I._F._Stone&oldid=3471027> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
(4) Argentina asks to join NATO as President Milei seeks a more prominent role for his nation. AP News 04/19/2024. <https://apnews.com/article/president-milei-argentina-nato-f16s-military-bf56ef4b18646438500c921250c66e93> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
See also: Kollman, Raúl (2024): Milei y su gobierno como sucursal de Washington. Página/12 21.04.2024. <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/730573-milei-y-su-gobierno-como-sucursal-de-washington> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
And: Argentina formally asks to become ‘global partner’ of NATO. Buenos Aires Times 18.04.2024. <https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/argentine-defence-minister-holds-high-level-nato-meeting.phtml> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
The Democrats’ emphasis on Trump being some kind of Russian puppet had unfortunately repercussions. One of the dumber moments of the 2016 Presidential campaign was during the last debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Trump made a vague comment about how having good relations between the US and Russia wouldn’t be a bad thing and then said that Putting had not respect for Hillary.
She responded, “That's because he'd rather have a puppet [Trump] as president.” To which Trump snapped back, “You’re the puppet.”
The various official investigations of Russian activity in the 2016 election have established clearly that Russia did try to influence the election.
The problem in telling what that may mean has to do with the fact that countries try to influence each other’s politics all the time. That’s why there are international arrangements and national laws that define what is officially acceptable practice and what it not. So, giving or selling a classified document to a foreign power (or to anybody) without formal direction is illegal. Agreeing with some official statement or foreign-policy position of a foreign country is not illegal. In fact, pretty much all of foreign diplomacy is about countries agreeing with each other on many things and disagreeing on others.
That’s why it’s important to have professional press institutions that provide professional journalistic analysis of such things. And why it’s also important for press critics and readers to pay close attention to the potential conflicts of news agencies and their sources. When a government makes up something to discredit another country or otherwise to manipulate that country and other international actors, then, well, that’s manipulation. How clever or responsible that may be or not, it’s important to recognize that it’s a normal thing.
That’s also why I.F. Stone’s comment from 1967 is still so relevant, particularly with relevant to wars and rumors of war: “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.” (3)
Of course, countries pay attention to deliberated “disinformation” being propagated by other countries. That’s just how this thing works. Some of those anti-disinformation efforts are more substantial than others. The EU vs. Disinfo site is one of the more lightweight ones I’ve encountered. But the main thing for voters and news consumers is to pay attention to the quality of information sources.
Snyder on the current war
There seems to be a broad understanding among foreign policy and defense observers that Ukraine has lost the current war, whether we date it from 2014 or 2022. Some of them, especially ones working directly or indirectly for defense contractors, may not find it convenient to say so publicly. And Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government seems to think actively continuing the war is what the Ukrainian people want.
Snyder’s position on the war has been that it was essential for the West to support Ukraine in the war and the more armaments the better, and the faster they are delivered, the better. He doesn’t make any criticisms of the blunderbuss way the US handled NATO expansion when it came to Ukraine, in particular. Because his operative principle seems to be: Russia evil, NATO good, always and everywhere.
He frames his argument by claiming that Ukraine is fighting for “the West,” which is true as a secondary matter, It’s mainly fighting Russian aggression against its legitimate territory.
But he argues that Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion has saved the West from what Synder apparently thinks is Russia’s immediate desire to start seizing the territory of current NATO members. He also claims that Ukraine’s actions the last 2+ years have deterred China from invading Taiwan (!?) and contributed far more than any other country to nuclear nonproliferation in the last two years.
What is he smoking? He’s definitely not an adherent of the “realist” school of foreign policy thought.
Snyder also argues that Russia has said clearly that it intends to incorporate all of Ukraine. I’ve been following John Mearsheimer’s analysis as well as those of analysts who prefer a “restrainer” foreign policy for the US. Mearsheimer, I think, has been giving at least one interview a week on the Russia-Ukraine war. As annoying as Mearsheimer’s “offensive-realist” foreign policy framework can be (and often is!), he pays close attention to this war. He has repeatedly said that the Russians have never explicitly said they intend to take over all of Ukraine. (Snyder has some comments on Mearsheimer’s position on the war in the question period.)
Snyder also argues that Russia has said clearly that it intends to incorporate all of Ukraine. I’ve been following John Mearsheimer’s analysis as well as those of analysts who prefer a “restrainer” foreign policy for the US. Mearsheimer, I think, has been giving at least one interview a week on the Russia-Ukraine war. As annoying as Mearsheimer’s “offensive-realist” foreign policy framework can be (and often is!), he pays close attention to this war. He has repeatedly said that the Russians have never explicitly said they intend to take over all of Ukraine. (Snyder has some comments on Mearsheimer’s position on the war in the question period.)
Snyder is setting up a kind of stab-in-the-back theory of the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine lost because the West was too wimpy in supporting the war!
The NATO interest in Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion
At this point, there seems to be no realistic prospect of Ukraine taking back lost territory in the immediate future. Russia has a considerably larger supply of potential recruits and draftees, and Ukraine is obviously struggling to keep its military’s ranks filled. The first two years of the war meant that artillery for not only Ukraine but NATO countries has been running short. Of course there are plenty of companies that are happy to provide replacements. But they can’t just conjure them out of the air.
NATO also just added two new members, Sweden and Finland. While Ukraine is not a NATO member and NATO countries have no mutual-defense treaties with Ukraine, the NATO mutual-defense obligation does include countries sharing borders with Russia, Sweden and Finland included. As a very practical matter – which in this case does involve the much-overused “credibility” concern – the NATO countries have to give preference to shoring up their military deterrence against Russia over Ukraine’s needs. And despite French President Emmanuel Macron’s foolish speculations, sending NATO combat troops to Ukraine to fight the Russians directly is a highly unlikely prospect.
As a strictly practical matter, it made sense for NATO to provide substantial assistance to Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s 2022 invasion. That doesn’t reduce the need for the West to understand what the very negative practical effects of NATO’s reckless gamble with membership for Ukraine have been. The US in particular wanted to get Ukraine into NATO, and Russia wanted to keep it out. Russia has won that round for the foreseeable future.
Of course, they won that round by seizing Ukrainian territory in violation of international law, and illegally incorporating Crimea and the provinces of Luhansk and Donbas into Russia. The US is on the side of international law on that one, even while it’s trampling it into the dirt by supporting Israel’s gruesome war-and-starvation campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza.
At the moment, the best-case scenario for Ukraine would seem to be a Korean-style long-term ceasefire/armistice in which Ukraine would not be required to renounce sovereignty over their lost territory. But, as we’ve heard many times during this war, the Ukrainians themselves will have to decide what kind of peace they are willing to accept. And any deal the Russians offer them at this point will be bad from Ukraine’s view.
There is also a moral question for the US and other NATO countries whether it is right to continue to arm Ukraine to carry on a war that has no good end in sight – if the Russians offer any kind of half-workable settlement in the current situation.
But if the US doesn’t take the moral questions raised by Benjamin Netanyahu’s war against Gazans seriously enough to cut off military aid over them, it’s doubtful that actual moral considerations will weigh heavily on the Biden’s Administration’s policy toward Ukraine, either.
And, of course, a second Trump Administration wouldn’t even pretend to bother about moral considerations. Who is offering the best bribes to Trump and his family and businesses will be decisive on most foreign policy issues.
There are a lot of questions about the future of NATO, even if Trump doesn’t get elected again. Asking NATO to take a major presence in East Asia seems like a very risky undertaking.
Argentinian footnote
Finally, there is a silly footnote to the current NATO discussions. El Loco, aka, Argentine’s ultra-right President Javier Milei, wants Argentina to become a “global partner” of NATO. Also: “On Thursday, the U.S. government announced it was providing Argentina with $40 million in foreign military financing for the first time in more than two decades — a grant that allows key U.S. allies like Israel to buy American weaponry.” (4)
What are Biden’s people thinking? “Defense Minister Petri hailed the acquisition of the advanced warplanes as ‘the most important military purchase since Argentina’s return to democracy’ in 1983.” (5) In other words, since the military dictatorship of 1976-1983. But of all the democratically-minded national government Argentina has had since then, El Loco’s is the one the Biden Administration wants to boost with lavish military sales. El Loco wants to stop any further investigation into that dictatorship’s many crimes.
Yet another move not obviously compatible with the Administration’s preferred Democracy vs. Autocracy framing of the US international position.
Notes:
(1) First lecture in the series: Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine. Class 1: Ukrainian Questions Posed by Russian Invasion. YaleCourses YouTube channel 09/03//2022. <https://youtu.be/bJczLlwp-d8?si=iTmH-rHz5l4Cs6YK> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
(2) The Peril of Slowness: American Mistakes during Russia’s War of Aggression in Ukraine. Foreign Policy Association YouTube channel 04/08/2024.<https://youtu.be/JVs2y-YeiFM?si=2dH5egHVw602EQsf> (Accessed: 2024-21/or-04).
(3) From: In a Time of Torment, 1961-1967 (1967), 317. Source: I. F. Stone. Wikiquote 02/23/2024 <https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=I._F._Stone&oldid=3471027> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
(4) Argentina asks to join NATO as President Milei seeks a more prominent role for his nation. AP News 04/19/2024. <https://apnews.com/article/president-milei-argentina-nato-f16s-military-bf56ef4b18646438500c921250c66e93> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
See also: Kollman, Raúl (2024): Milei y su gobierno como sucursal de Washington. Página/12 21.04.2024. <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/730573-milei-y-su-gobierno-como-sucursal-de-washington> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
And: Argentina formally asks to become ‘global partner’ of NATO. Buenos Aires Times 18.04.2024. <https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/argentine-defence-minister-holds-high-level-nato-meeting.phtml> (Accessed: 2024-21-04).
No comments:
Post a Comment