Punditing On Russia’s War In Ukraine Continues
By Man, you look away for a few days, and all sorts of nonsense creeps in.
Like most of us, I’ve been focusing on the presidential campaign. What happens to everything else depends on that outcome. But Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, and so does opinionating on that war. Some of it is pretty bad.
But first, a long take that pretty much overlaps with mine: A peace deal in Ukraine is not going to happen. I’ve thought about how that war ends and read a bunch of articles advocating that talks start now to shape a peace deal. I’ve also read Volodymyr Zelensky’s comments and speeches, reports of how the war is going, and a great deal from Vladimir Putin. I’ve read speculations about how the war is being received in Russia, but most of those are thin or questionable. I don’t see a way the war ends except for when one or both sides are depleted. And I can’t see how that “peace” can hold.
Surprises come. I thought that the Soviet Union would be with us until it wasn’t. It will take a surprise of that order to bring a stable peace to Ukraine.
I disagree with this long take only in a few minor places. Its argument is that there is no way that Ukraine can have its security guaranteed. Putin believes it is Russia’s divine right (literally) to rule Ukraine and will continue to attack until Ukraine has been conquered. NATO cannot give a guarantee to a nation for which a path to a NATO-Russia war is so certain. There is no way to reconcile these conditions. Even if some settlement is reached, it will be favorable to Russia in that some Ukrainian territory will remain under Russian control. Ukraine knows how to mount a continuing guerilla campaign, and it will.
If Donald Trump becomes president again, he has said he will force Ukraine into a settlement. There is no reason to disbelieve him, but it will not end the suffering in Ukraine. The parts occupied by Russians will be subject to population transfers and other forms of brutality. Guerilla campaigns by Ukraine are likely. Russia will slow down its bombing, but is likely to resume against the guerillas.
In contrast, Paul Berman argues in an even longer take that if Putin thought the way Berman does, there would be no need for war. It is one of many articles that make this argument. It is pointless, of course, because if Putin thought that way, there would be no war at all. It’s an argument that sometimes likes to label itself as rational; Berman goes into a bit of “realism” – which may mean attempting to think about the real world or just the foreign policy doctrine of that name – stating facts that Putin should believe, rather than that Kiev (Russian spelling) is the spiritual home of Russia and therefore must be part of Russia. Berman would have Russia give up its colonial ambitions. He does not say how this will take place.
Adam Tooze, well, I don’t know what he’s getting at here.
We need some explanation for why the US is not doing more to calm the situation in the Middle East and to push for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
As is well known, the United States is the only world actor with agency.
On the one hand,
There is one school of thought that says the Biden administration is muddling through. It has no grand plan. It lacks the will or the means to discipline or direct either the Ukrainians or the Israelis. As a result, it is mainly focused on avoiding a third world war.
On the other,
What if key figures in the administration actually see this as a history-defining moment and an opportunity to reshape the balance of world power? What if what we are witnessing is the pivoting of the US to a deliberate and comprehensive revisionism by way of a strategy of tension?
And then we are on to “reversing years of decline apparently brought on by excessive favour shown to China” and an unprecedented set of alliances in the Indo-Pacific.
According to Tooze, we are seeing “a revival of the ruinous neoconservative ambition of the 1990s and 2000s” and “the controlled demolition of the 1990s post-cold war order.”
I would suggest to Tooze that sharp dichotomies like this are seldom helpful in interpreting events. I would think a historian would know that.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner