We blame this in part on the absence of true intellectual and ideological diversity in so much of the academy, the policy world and the mainstream media. Most college kids at good schools today know many more people from different races and cultural groups than their grandparents did, but they are much less exposed to people who think outside the left-liberal box. How many faithful New York Times readers have no idea what American conservatives think, much less how Russian oligarchs do? Well bred and well read Americans live in an ideological and cultural cocoon and this makes them fatally slow to understand the very different motivations that animate actors ranging from the Tea Party to the Kremlin to, dare we say it, the Supreme Leader and Guide of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
As far as we can tell, the default assumption guiding our political leadership these days is that the people on the other side of the bargaining table (unless they are mindless Tea Party Republicans) are fundamentally reasonable people who see the world as we do, and are motivated by the same things that motivate us. Many people are, of course, guided by an outlook not all that dissimilar from the standard upper middle class gentry American set of progressive ideas. But some aren’t, and when worlds collide, trouble comes.I'm skeptical of the value of pure diplomacy, but surely one thing it can do is ensure that we have a corps of people who have studied their corner of the world and learned something about how its inhabitants think. --OK, who am I kidding? It's nothing new to make know-nothing political appointments to ambassadorships, but there still needs to be a solid base of professional staff who know something about their host countries instead of congratulating themselves and their masters that geopolitics are a relic of the barbarous past.
It was a great week in which to announce the proposed dismantling of the military.
H/t Ace.
This cartoon was making the rounds even before Russia's invasion... er, "uncontested arrival."
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly, I'm unsure if the size of our military has a thing to do with Putin's calculations, RE: Ukraine. Mostly because we lack not just the political will to intervene militarily, but I think we lack the ability. Any move we'd make with regards to a military intervention would be easily detected and countered. The Russians share a huge common boarder with Ukraine, and their ability to reinforce is simply overwhelming in comparison with ours.
ReplyDeleteWhat this means is our only method of military deterrence is purely nuclear, and I don't think there's anyone willing to start a nuclear exchange with the Russians over the Ukraine. So, ultimately it's a moot point.
We are in no position to stop them, international sanctions will be non-existant (Russia does still hold a Security Council seat and won't be foolish enough NOT to veto any UN action), and that basically means there's nothing to stop Putin from doing exactly as he wants.
We are in no position to stop them
ReplyDeleteI disagree on the military capacity, but it would take more stones than our administration or those of Europe have to carry out.
KT McFarland is on the right track with her push for economic competition with Russia based on energy: it's essentially drill, Baby, drill, and drive down, hard, the price of oil and gas, destroying Russia's ability to bring in the rubles, and then to sell lots of (cheap) oil and gas to Europe and Ukraine, et al., thereby canceling Russia's ability to commit energy extortion. The boycott of out-competing.
Where McFarland goes wrong is her touting this as the way we destroyed the USSR under Reagan. But this was only one edge of Reagan's sword. The other was an arms buildup and an arms technology race that the USSR couldn't keep up with. In addition to the energy race she touts, we should be embarking on another all out arms race.
This won't produce results immediately, but the outcome will, in a not too distant future, be just as dramatic, and it will remove Russia from Ukraine (and relieve the growing Russian pressure on the Baltic States, the 'Stans, Poland) just as surely as it removed Russia from those places when the fiction of that Union of Soviets died.
But that takes stones, too. Absent any of that, though, Russia has lost the glow of the Winter Olympics and will find itself increasingly diplomatically isolated. Like the Bear cares.
Eric Hines
Perhaps I mispoke. We are in no position to prevent them from invading the Ukraine. We can react, we can plan for the future, but there's next to nothing we can do to stop them from walking in.
ReplyDeleteSome of my friends compared this to the invasion of Georgia (which Putin never actually paid a price for). And I hadn't realized till just now that the Russians learned from that failure. When the Russian Army was stalled in the mountains leading into Tbilisi, we took advantage of the pause to ship in "humanitarian aid" to Georgia via airlift. Ostensibly, it's a completely non-interventionary move. but it kept the Russians at bay. Why? Because if they rolled into Tbilisi, then American casualties might occur, and that was something they knew would put the lie to their invasion being "peacekeeping" and so forth. It was likely a bluff, because we'd not have been able to do much about it, but it would have been a bridge too far, as it were.
The first thing the Russians did this time was seize the airports in the Crimea and Russian friendly parts of the Ukraine. They wanted no chance of a repeat performance, and I think it was a smart move on their part.
The first thing the Russians did this time was seize the airports in the Crimea and Russian friendly parts of the Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteThe same bluff as with Georgia: humanitarian airlifts of aid into those airports. Are the Russians going to shoot down the humanitarian C-5s just because they have American markings on them?
Agree we can't stop an invasion that's complete as far as the Crimea is concerned. The economic and arms pressures, though, they will have impact.
The thing for a future President to learn is to anticipate that our enemies aren't going to be impressed with empty chit-chat or faded gray lines that might or might not have a tinge of pink in them; instead, we need to put forces in place after we've rebuilt trust in key nations. Say, stalwarts like Poland, Czech Republic. I'd be willing to go to eastern Ukraine and run a major missile defense facility in, let us say, Sverdlovs'k or Luhansk. Armyans'k wants a major American facility, too. Oh, wait, that's in the south of Ukraine....
And act unilaterally where there's no allied stomach. Which means having the capacity to act alone. But that needs major repairs done to our economy, our welfare program, and our debt position.
Eric Hines
The same bluff as with Georgia: humanitarian airlifts of aid into those airports. Are the Russians going to shoot down the humanitarian C-5s just because they have American markings on them?
ReplyDeleteNo, they'll just refuse them clearance to land. It's one thing to fly into an airport to deliver humanitarian aid. It's another to land when they tell you that you don't have clearance. By controlling the airport, they control who can arrive and leave.
And I don't think we'll be able to apply sufficient economic pressure to Russia even if we had the political will to do so. Putin clearly feels that the risks of invading are outweighed by the benefits. Maybe that calculus would change if we didn't have a linguine-spined chief executive, but while we're making wishes, why not also wish for a few extra Ukrainian armored divisions?
Withholding clearance to land as a barrier to landing depends on the strength of the bluff. Physical barriers to landing would prevent a landing, and it would prevent use of the airports by the Russians, too, until the barriers were removed.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the economic pressure. The grade school amateurism of a community organizer, a motor boat skipper, and a guy who won't be making defense policy has been unequal to the task of facing the world for quite some time, as has that of an erstwhile First Lady and a budget guy before them.
Had a different lady been heeded some years ago, we'd have plenty of oil and gas to sell to Europe, thereby both freeing them from Russian energy extortion and with the lower prices resulting from the steeply increased production, depriving Russia of badly needed funds for its adventurism.
Likely (though not certainly) too late for the current invasion, but with corrective action, not too late to eliminate further.
Eric Hines