Guest post: A new global struggle now
Originally a comment by Papito on People’s Republics.
“Me,” the most charitable interpretation anyone could make of your remarks is ignorance. I will try to be charitable. I will lay out the fundamental reasons, as I see it, that opposing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is in the national interest of all Western democracies.
Nobody here believes Washington always has the interests of everybody in the world at heart. Such a belief would not be supported by historical events. The American government has done terrible things the world over. However, nobody except the most insular of right-wing zealots believes that Biden – a man who has spent his life in service to his country – hates America. If one claims that Biden’s actions are not intended to protect America, that is an extraordinary claim which would require extraordinary proof.
The US government has never proposed protecting America by sending American troops to fight Russian troops in Ukraine; that has neither strategic nor tactical value, and is just a red herring in a long series of red herrings. The US government, however, does have an inherent interest in stopping the progress of totalitarianism in Europe and in supporting the spread of democracy. Ukraine is a democratic country, with competitive elections, and Russia is a totalitarian state with the penalty for political participation frequently being death.
Much to our surprise, history did not end with the fall of the Soviet bloc. Instead, though the periphery of the former Soviet bloc turned to a variety of systems of government, some more democratic and others more authoritarian, the centre of that bloc, Russia, turned to an authoritarianism that would make former fascists envious. Based on a concept of historic grievance, Russia turned itself towards the destruction of Western democracy – in a way a continuation of the Soviet project, but this time with more appeal to a fifth column within Western countries, which was never comfortable with the extension of the franchise to all. Divisions within Western democracies have been exploited and amplified by a remarkably competent psyops war waged by Russia.
The historic Soviet infiltration pales in comparison to the effectiveness of the new Russian fascist infiltration. America has a more divided society than at any time since the Civil War, and that has a lot to do with Russian influence. America suffered, for the first time in its history, a coup attempt, led by a president who was not wanted as president by the majority of Americans, and who would not have secured that position without Russia’s help. The Soviets never accomplished so much; their attempts to draw attention to the divisions in American society were clumsy at best.
Internationally, Russia’s goal is to bring an end to the relatively peaceful period of history, during which Western democracies have grown. After WWII, no armed conflict emerged among major Western nations, and no nuclear weapons were used in open conflict. The lack of major conflict in Europe sets this period of history apart from all previous. After the collapse of the USSR, the Pax Americana had a chance to live up to Kennedy’s dreams:
I have, therefore, chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived. And that is the most important topic on earth: peace. What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time.
The formation of international institutions such as NATO and the European Union was fundamental to the maintenance of this peace, a peace which has allowed democracy to grow. To the autocrat, such as Putin, nothing can be so threatening as the prospect of democracy – democracy ends in a noose for the tyrant. Thus it is in the autocrat’s interest to undermine democracy wherever possible – in America by fomenting division and propping up a patsy; in Britain by supporting its separation from the EU, and in those wavering nations close to Russia’s borders by supporting autocracy or insurrection. The goal is as much inward as outward: in order to maintain power, Putin must prove that democracy is impossible in Russia.
For the person who believes in the classical liberal values on which Western democracies were founded, support of democracy abroad appears desirable. For the person who can read the room, and sees it rapidly filling with autocrats (to Putin, add Orban, Lukashenko, Maduro, Erdogan…), support of democracy abroad appears essential to the survival of democracy at home.
The Western interest in Ukraine isn’t about coal mines in Donetsk or trains in Luhansk. It’s about the idea that democracy should be growing now, instead of autocracy, about the idea that Ukrainians should be able to elect their own government and decide how their country belongs in the world. There is a new global struggle now, and it’s a struggle for the survival of democracy. Putin has no intention of stopping at the line of control in Donetsk and Luhansk, no intention at stopping at the borders of those two oblasts, and no intention of stopping with Ukraine. His goal is the recreation of a Russian sphere of influence – this time more fascist than communist – and, ultimately, the destruction of the West.
Which side are you on?
This ^
I missed this first exchange, and I must commend the regulars here for their patience. I’m not an expert by any means and I’m not nearly as cogent a thinker or elegant a writer as most here, but I have an abiding interest in Russian and Eastern European history. All I’m going to say is that “Me’s” characterization of the current conflict, in particular that Euromaidan was an American-backed coup and that the contested regions broke away due to ethnic tensions is also oversimplified and is essentially a Kremlin-favored framing of the issue.
That characterization leaves out that the majority of Ukrainians, even those in the invaded regions, want independence from Russian colonialism. Did the west help prop up Euromaidan? I would think so. Did Ukrainians who took part in the revolution wish to oust Yanukovich’s pro-kremlin puppet government in favor of a more open society? Also yes. Are there ethnic tensions in east Ukraine? Yeah. Is Russia using these as pretext to invade? Yup. This of course doesn’t even account for Russia’s role in engineering those tensions to begin with, both through their intelligence operations and the deeper history of genocide of Ukrainians and replacement with Russians and Belarusians during the Soviet era.
The same pattern happened recently in Belarus and Kazakhstan-use protests for an opportunity to “lend help” to Kremlin proxy. Crack down. Rinse-repeat. Maintain the sphere of influence. There is room for nuance in these discussions, and frankly I’m tired of so many equivocating this situation with the neocon warmongering (cf Glenn Greenwald). Yeah, the USA’s foreign policy record is brutal, imperialistic, and corporatist. Yes, Putin is committed to restoring the Russian empire and destroying multilateralism in favor of global kleptocracy, organized crime, and authoritarianism. Both are true and I think it’s important to address both.
This exchange took place while I was in bed, but as I read it, it struck me immediately that this closely matches discussions of Israel / Palestine. No matter where the topic is discussed, there will always be one person that pops up to chastise people for maligning the noble yet helpless Israel, the real victim in the situation donchaknow, while warlike Palestine forces their hand by mindlessly attacking. “Me” was not as extreme as that characterisation, but the similarities leapt out at me.
My view is closer to Me’s than I suspect mowt peole’s is.
Let us recall that during the Cold War the USSR had American bases all along its border or the borders of the satellite countries. That’s why its leaders attached so much importance to maintaining control over the satellites. Now that the Baltic countries, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Rumania and Bulgaria have joined the West (in spirit, though not necessarily as members of NATO) the threat to Russian feelings of security is that much greater. If the USA had made a firm commitment long ago that Ukraine would never be a member of NATO the Russians might feel more secure.
We hear a lot about how borders in Europe are sacred and bits of countries can’t be just chopped off. Did the people who are making that argument today say the same thing when NATO was bombing Serbia? Not as far as I remember.
One other thing. Yesterday President Biden said “Who in the Lord’s name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belonged to his neighbors? This is a flagrant violation of international law and demands a firm response from the international community.”
Who in the Lord’s name said anything similar when the USA recognized Kosovo as an independent country the day after Kosovo declared itself independent?
Athel, I am not sure what your point is. USA has a million hypocrisies to its name, yet it it is still appropriate to desribe Putin’s actions as an invasion deserving some response.
Athel,
The history of geopolitics is best summed up in the Athenian ultimatum to Melos, nearly 2,500 years ago: the strong do what they may, while the weak suffer what they must. Despite the Utopianism evinced in the original post and the relativism begged by your own and Me’s comments, this rule has never failed to apply in the competition between powers.
It so happens that the United States has spent much of the previous century building an international order of domestic peace and political stability and civil rights across North America and much of Europe that are unprecedented in the history of the world. It has not done this out of some blind idealism, but because the previous half-century proved that Europe was still strong enough to threaten the United States’ security and position in the world, and Germany in particular had proven to be a potent threat to American interests as well as the lives of tens of millions of people. The United States took up the mantle of European security against Russia largely in order to prevent Germany from having to do so, after Germany murdered nearly thirty million Russian subjects in a war of annihilation which the Soviets could not have won without American food and war materiel.
In our time, Putin has already butchered several of his neighbours in precisely the manner he is attempting to dismantle Ukraine. And it is true that, in a certain light, the United States may be accused of hypocrisy for imposing diplomatic and economic and political costs upon Russia for Putin’s adventurism, the fact remains that the Americans have the power to do what they will, and the Russians will suffer what they must.
Yes the situation is very Melian dialogue isn’t it.
Indeed. Putin has now cast his die and made his own ultimatum to the Ukrainians, who will suffer what they must. But in doing so he has committed his own people to suffering even more than they already have; we will see how far his ambition goes. If his ambition indeed goes go Kyiv, with the intention of holding all of Ukraine east of the Dnepr as a Russian puppet in the same vein as Belarus, that ambition will come with a great cost of suffering in Russia.