Deep Dive on Ukraine (Part 3)

It has taken me so long to collect my thoughts on the current crisis in Ukraine because 1) I never could understand what Putin is trying to accomplish and 2) I don't trust any of the news coming across my various feeds.

For weeks President Biden babbled about the imminent invasion of Ukraine but I never understood why Putin would invade, so I figured it was just an example of a POTUS trying to change the subject (*). The military maneuvers along the Ukrainian border that Biden continually cited are operations that tend to be planned months (if not years) in advance, so it still seemed to me like POTUS was just blowing a relatively ordinary occurrence out of proportion to deflect attention. And when Putin gave a rambling speech (which was filled with talking points that he's been saying for years, not exactly something new) about the territorial history of Russia, it seemed designed to inflame Western pundits rather than a preamble of what was to come, so I still didn't buy that an invasion was coming. 

So when the invasion actually did occur, I was blindsided because, well, I've spent much of my life doubting what I see on TV. 

Initially, it looked like the Russian forces methodically loaded into the eastern territories of Ukraine and simultaneously seized the Kiev airport. But, when Ukrainian forces took the airport back, social media was inundated with news that the Russians were losing and the mighty Ukrainians were on the rise. But, day after day, it felt like the Russians were still slowly but surely accumulating territory. 

One thing I think I can confidently say is that Putin wants to get rid of the pro-Western influence in the Ukrainian intelligentsia. How this invasion is meant to accomplish that...well....I dunno. I don't see how loading in tanks is supposed to change the minds of the resolute pro-Western, anti-Moscow fancy pants set in Kiev. If that crowd escaped to Poland and Romania, wouldn't that be right up Putin's alley? We think of refugees as poor huddled masses and that's true over time; but the first batch of refugees tend to be the rich people, the educated, influential moneyed classes that know when its time to get the heck out of Dodge. Aren't those the people Putin is trying to get rid of? He needn't kill them, seems like escorting them to the Polish and Romanian frontiers would be much easier than trying to militarily subdue the entire nation. 

The peace talks that have sporadically popped up over the last few weeks seem to be really starting in earnest now, seems like this is all winding down. So what did Putin accomplish?

The eastern territories of Donetsk and Luhansk seem to be pretty well out of Kiev's grasp now. And the southern territory along the Sea of Azov seems to be locked down by Russian armaments. The "land bridge" to Crimea seems pretty well intact. And that's really about it. Seems like Putin would've wanted to take all of the Black Sea-adjacent territory to keep that "land bridge" going all the way to Moldova--and perhaps that is still the plan--but for now it doesn't seem like Putin wants to reach past Crimea. From here, I would suggest any other territorial gains will be given back as the Russians recede. 

Okay. So what does Putin get out of that? He has liberated the chunks of Ukraine that were the most pro-Moscow....but doesn't that just make the rest of Ukraine more solidly anti-Moscow? How is that an improvement for Putin? Seems like an awful lot of effort to take what he more or less already had, while further inflaming the parts he didn't have. Furthermore, Zelensky is now in line to give away the districts that didn't vote for him, so hasn't this military action just strengthened Zelensky's hold on the rest of Ukraine?

Was the point to threaten Europe? I don't see how this would accomplish that or why he would want to do that anyway. The most excitable pundits thought that Poland was the next stop on Putin's tour but, dude, he never even came close to Poland. And considering how well the Ukrainians fought back without NATO involvement, how on earth can you think that Poland is in any way threatened by this advance? 

Was the point to completely annex Ukraine? I don't see why he would need to do that or how a column of tanks would get that done. If Putin was under the impression that just loading in some soldiers would cause Ukraine to collapse, well, that didn't work (and since I never thought that would work, I have trouble believing that's what Putin thought). And h's already got a pretty good grip on Ukraine's trade, seems like politically cultivating the pro-Moscow elements in Kiev (there must be some) would be infinitely more valuable more than a full-on invasion (dude, they have bribery in Kiev just like everywhere else, so much cheaper than an invasion). 

Was the point to keep Ukraine out of the EU? I don't think so. When Yanukovych was negotiating for EU acceptance between 2010 and 2013, Ukraine's parliament passed numerous pieces of legislation to appease the Europeans and Putin never did anything to stop it. Indeed, in 2013, Putin was willing to be a part of the negotiations--it was the EU that balked at that suggestion. I don't see that Putin ever did anything to stop Ukraine's admittance to the EU and, again, a column of tanks doesn't really keep that from happening anyway.

Was the point to destabilize NATO and/or the EU? Maybe, but I'm not sure how any of these military moves get that done. And, in fact, seemingly the opposite has happened, since even Finland and Switzerland expressed newfound interest in NATO and the rest of Europe (re: Germany) actually pledged to increase their defense spending (which they have mostly pledged to do in the past, so....maybe not really that big of a deal). (**)

Was Putin defeated? Well, not exactly. He did carve off a hunk of pro-Russian territory that he won't likely give back in negotiations and strengthened his position vis-à-vis Crimea, which won't be going back in any kind of peace agreement. So, Ukraine seems likely to concede territory here. 

Was Putin victorious? Well, not exactly. Again, he carved off some territory for further Russian control, but since those people were already (largely) on Moscow's side, seems like this just weakens his position in the rest of Ukraine. All of that territory was theoretically more valuable to Putin as part of Ukraine (an internal fifth column) rather than as part of Russia. So what was gained? 

Authoritarians fall prey to demanding so much subservience from their People that they never really know what's going on. Mao discovered that in the 1950s: he kept demanding specific targets from the party apparatchiks and meting out such brutal punishments when they failed, that all of his underlings just kept lying to him to save their own hides. (Happens to capitalists, too: all General Electric shareholders will remember the disastrous rule of CEO Jeff Immelt, a dude that just didn't like hearing bad news, so no one bothered to tell him his company was crumbling) If you've got no taste for the Truth, then everyone will gladly lie to you. (***) 

Did Putin simply fall prey to the surrounding himself with toadies? Maybe. On the other hand, this last month may have been a house cleaning (for example, these tales of generals killed in battle...how many of them were shot in the back?) and Putin may have a clearer sense of his military power than ever before. Perhaps the less effective parts of his military machine where sacrificed to make the rest of the machine more ready. (Ehhh, ideally, we'll never find out)

I never thought the invasion was gonna happen. I was mystified when it did happen. I never understood why it was happening. And now that it seems to be winding down, I can't really see what the point of any of it was. 

I think I'll keep going with these Ukraine posts but I have the sneaking suspicion I'm never going to grasp why any of this happened. And the coming posts on this topic will likely be a continuation of my confusion. We'll see, perhaps a clear picture will emerge, but I doubt it. 

(*) Oh, hey, good news: Coronavirus is over! Yeah...Covid-19 is finally the footnote it always deserved to be. 

(**) Yeah, actually that part of it could still be working in Putin's favor: the rhetoric ginned up by Putin's advance will likely turn back the other way (re: even more American involvement in Europe), when the Europeans realize (or tell themselves) that Putin is weak and incapable of being much of a real threat. NATO may well end up weaker rather than stronger by their newfound confidence. Not that any of that was really Putin's doing, but the backward effect of now seeing Russia as even less of a threat could mean even more of a retreat for NATO.

(***) That message was to you, Media-loving Americans: News is not Truth, it is Entertainment. Indulge at your own peril.

Deep Dive on Ukraine (Part 1)

AP, April 16, 1997

Mikhail Gorbachev, Former Soviet Leader says, "I believe it's a mistake, it is a bad mistake and I am not persuaded by the assurances I hear that Russia has nothing to worry about...You can not, you may not humiliate a nation, a people and think that it will have no consequences. So my question is, is this a new strategy?"

Well, no, it was the same strategy as always, going back at least to the Crimean War, where the point was to keep the Russians bottled up in the Black Sea. The Brits were always wary of the Russians and after World War II, the Americans picked up that paranoia and ran with it. Why? Having a powerful (-ish) adversary is good for stoking the weapons industry back home and the American economy is, all these decades later, still pretty much built on materiel manufacture (*). If Russia stops being our preferred adversary, where will our high tech export manufacturing go? Well, we have China to shake our big stick at, but China is not the same (re: they're not gonna fall for that "missile gap" nonsense that the Soviets bought hook, line and sinker). China's military interests are not based on USA or Europe (or won't be for much longer) and don't offer the proper counterpoint to our wasteful gov't spending.  

USA needs Russia to be the Russia it has always been: isolated, weird, paranoid and vaguely bent on world domination just like us. If we remove Russia as an enemy, American spycraft would turn inward, American politicians would have no easy targets, and our weapons industry would inevitably diminish. America would be a different country, a different place, a different economy and our political structure would be forced to deal with reality instead of the preferred daydreams the American electorate has been bred to enjoy. And, of course, without a common enemy, Europe may well collapse entirely. 

Hatred of Russia--and the defense industry it inspires--is part of America's DNA at this point. Terrorism is a diplomatic (rather than military) threat and China is a productivity (rather than military) threat. We cling to our animosity with Russia like a blankie. The ensuing militarism is precisely what keeps the globe potentially destabilized and how USA keeps its grip on global infrastructure. We're just not ready to tackle a world of equals after all this time of preparing for a world of savages. It is not that the world is challenging us, it is that the challenge itself is melting away and as the tide rolls out, we'll be wildly overdressed. Though for the moment, Russia still lives in the same daydream we do. 

Stephen F. Cohen on the Charlie Rose Show, June 28, 2006 (**)

Cohen: "...The Cold War didn't end in 1991..."

Not for us, anyway. USA's strategy after the fall of the Berlin Wall became to treat Russia as a "junior partner" rather than seeing Russia as a still powerful giant. Remember: mutually assured destruction didn't end when the Soviet Union collapsed. We still have great respect for their ICBM's, long range bombers and nuclear-tipped submarines, but otherwise the Americans have never even acknowledged that there is a Russian culture or People. 

Cohen: "We've treated Russia like a defeated nation....there was no attempt to cooperate with Russia..."

USA used our antagonism with Russia through the Cold War to justify all kinds of military buildup around the world and grew wealthy and dominant on Russia's inability to keep pace. When the Berlin Wall came down, USA never stopped living off potential Russian aggression, though we'd already had five decades of watching Russia get weaker. We just assumed that Russia was out of the game and we called that a "peace dividend". Rather than seeing Russia as a rehabilitated member of the int'l order, USA and Europe continued to see Russia as the same threat as always because bullying the Russians was so god damn profitable. 

Russia, on the other hand, has seen its territorial reach steadily decrease since May 8, 1945 (VE Day). Then Moscow controlled half of Germany and everything east of that, laid claim to oil fields in Syria and Iran and Stalin had his eye on Manchuria and a seat at the table for the carving up of Japan--all of which was given/promised by FDR and much of which was immediately rescinded by Truman. Make no mistake: Truman's insistence on using atomic bombs in Japan was precisely timed to keep Russia out of the Pacific theater of the war. What FDR promised Stalin, Truman took away. 

I'm not suggesting that Russian deserved those territorial claims, merely that that was the basis of Western antagonism to Russia. And after 9/11 when Putin made great efforts to secure alliance with USA, Bush started to give in but then backtracked and isolated Putin further. Putin tried to come to the table but Western politicians needed an enemy and Putin was it. And the plan to encircle Russia never stopped, rather it intensified as Russia got weaker. 

Cohen: "...(We must assure that) Russia's weapons of mass destruction and vast energy resources are not used against the West...we drove them in the direction (of using their resources as leverage)..." This could have been easily done by allowing Russia to become a modern nation like all the other modern nations and if they were defeated in the boardroom so be it. Using Russian resources as a sign of potential danger is a completely manufactured paranoia when the whole basis of the int'l order (right?) is fair development of natural resources to benefit the worldwide Human population (and let me make this clear: Western capitalism does that so much more efficiently and effectively than Eastern communism, so I am in no way rooting for Russian victory in anything). To bully Russia in this way is to cut off the Human population from our shared Earthly resources for shortsighted local political gains, which is the shameful by-product of the Western obsession with Democracy built on an us-vs-them dichotomy.

Cohen (in 2006, you will recall): "Ukraine in NATO is already announced policy...if we do that then it's over...." We can look to Putin's weird rambling speech back in February 2022 as an out of the blue example of his iron fisted tyrant nature....or we can acknowledge that we knew (long before 2006!) that Ukraine was sacred ground to the Russians. USA's only interest in Ukraine is to antagonize Russia (and if the Ukrainians themselves ever thought otherwise, well, god help them). 

Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007 ("Containing Russia" by Yulia Tymoshenko) (pay wall)

"After the USSR's collapse, the West made the mistake of assuming that Russia's reduced status meant it was unnecessary to accord the Kremlin any special diplomatic consideration--that Russia neither deserved nor should be offered a major role in world affairs. Accordingly, instead of drawing Russia into a network of dialogue and cooperation when it was weak--and thereby helping it form habits that would carry on when Russia regained strength--the West ignored Russia. This indifference caused Russia to regard the West's attempts to reassure eastern European countries about their security and place in the West as unfriendly acts, leading to today's problems. Had Russia been handled better in the 1990s--had its sense of insecurity not been aggravated--the country's tendency toward expansionism might well have been moderated."

Who is Yulia Tymoshenko, you ask? Another one of these fly-by night Putin apologists coming out of the woodwork to justify Russian crimes and blame the White House in some right wing knee jerk fashion? No. She was the prime minister of Ukraine, hardly a Russian asset. And is still active in Ukrainian politics, even after losing to Zelensky and Poroshenko in the last two elections. 

And it is no accident that she opens her op-ed by citing George Kennan's infamous telegram that became the architecture of the Truman Doctrine and the Cold War until....well, it is still the Western strategy. The encirclement of Russia is meant to limit Russian opportunities for trade and diplomacy in the Mediterranean and the Pacific specifically and itself is more or less based on the traditional Russian desire to surround itself with "buffer states" to ward off invaders. (Gotta admit: I never understood the Russian need for buffer state--it's a thousand miles to anywhere once you get inside Russia and six months of the year that thousand miles would be mostly mud, so what is Russia afraid of, exactly?) This has kept Russia isolated, and outside of gold and oil (and occasionally, timber) exports, Russia has never otherwise had any basis for interaction with the rest of the world. (This is, incidentally, also how we treat North Korea--and what has that gotten us?)

In 2007, Tymoshenko was clamoring for Ukraine to join the European Union "to confront instability and insecurity with a lasting structure of peace and prosperity in which all of Europe's nations and neighbors have a stake." The desire to break from Russia and move westward is not unpopular in Ukraine and has been in the air since the 1990s. But, first, she advocates that the EU "(must) negotiate a new EU-Russia treaty to replace the one written at the nadir of Russia's power....Angela Merkel must...forge a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship" with Russia. This is tough to do considering that "Germany will depend on Russia for 80% of its gas imports", which is why Germany during the Merkel years developed an utterly unique relationship with Russia, rather than a Euro-centric one where everyone has an equal stake. 

Tymoshenko here has already undone her belief in the European Union: the countries aren't equal or on the same page and adding Ukraine in 2007 would not have changed that. And without first coming to some understanding with Russia, adding Ukraine to EU would have been catastrophic (well, at least for Ukraine).  And she acknowledges that the Western belief that "peaceful evolution can be insured by democracy and...developing (Russia's) market economy" is not really appropriate, so what exactly does Tymoshenko think the EU was going to do for Ukraine? If there isn't  really equal protection in the Union and the Western view of Russian adventurism is misguided, then what does the West really have to offer Ukraine? And if, as she says, "Russia will change from within or not at all", then how does Ukraine jutting ever westward benefit the Ukrainian People?

Then she spends two pages complaining about Gazprom and we are reminded of the dog Tymoshenko has in this fight: she made her fortune through the oil/gas industry and while she speaks as a knowledgeable industry insider, she is not without her own personal motivations. Then the essay closes with some bland pabulum about "serious offers to participate on an equal basis", though I'm not sure what she's referring to since she's already acknowledged that those offers never came from the West. 

So while Tymoshenko was an early vocal advocate for Ukraine joining the EU, she is clear that the West needs to re-establish its ties to Russia first. And since this re-establishing of ties never came...how was the Ukraine supposed to join the EU? Even in Ukraine the idea of moving westward is not really a credible belief. They may wish for European "equality" but do Europeans even believe that really exists? And though she never really mentions NATO, though that is really more likely the "equality" she's dreaming of, or the IMF, clearly these organizations aren't really available to Ukraine until they work out some kind of realistic relationship with Moscow. 

The desire is there but the conditions are not realistic in 2008. And, frankly, that has nothing to do with Moscow but with the West. 

Radio Free Europe. September 8, 2009 ("Fears Rise Obama's 'Reset' May Run Aground in Former Soviet Bloc") 

"...Russia's biggest trump in Moldova is its support for breakaway region Transdniester, which split after a brutal war in 1992."

I highlight this merely to point out that I think that Moldova is Putin's next objective. Located along the southwestern edge of Ukraine, it is not yet a NATO country and Putin is eager to gobble it up before it can fully break away.

Why does Putin want to keep hold of all the former Soviet republics? Because those states have been getting invited into NATO and/or the EU for the purposes of isolating Russia. As Russia melts, the West has been luring away all of its traditional allies--but not Russia itself! Where is Russia's invitation to the EU? 

Boris Yeltsin once brought up the idea of joining NATO, which he was eager to entertain; no one in the West entertained this idea because the West needs an adversary to justify its military spending and Russia is that adversary. China is too far away and its military development will be of a different nature (***) and the West just doesn't have the same historical relation to it. We love hating Russia like we love hating Brussel sprouts. 

Russia is the enemy and no matter how hard they strive for inclusion, it ain't coming. We need an enemy to justify our own bad habits and that enemy is Russia. The encirclement will continue on into the future simply by inertia. That means that eventually the West must gouge away Ukraine no matter how devastating it is for the people living there. 

Center for Eastern Studies, November 27, 2013 ("Ukraine Withdraws from Signing the Association Agreement in Vilnius: Motives and Implications") 

But even then, Ukraine must come the way the West wants it to. So in 2013, when the offer to join the EU was first on the table for Ukraine, the president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, had to back away because the deal would have been ruinously expensive in the short term and would've negatively impacted their trading alliance with Russia. "At the same time, Kyiv suggested the creation of a tripartite commission of Ukraine, Russia and the EU, which would work to remove barriers in mutual economic cooperation and trade liberalization." This tripartite suggestion is later referred to as supported by Putin, so it was the EU that refused to countenance the notion of a Ukraine that was still even somewhat connected to Russia--a full 6 years after Tymoshenko was already warning that a new understanding with Russia was a necessary first step. 

Though Yanukovych had jumped through numerous hoops since 2010 ("...the Ukrainian Parliament began to rapidly pass the so-called 'European laws' which Brussels' condition for signing the agreement" and "45% of citizens favored moving closer to the EU"), it is the next sentence that I suspect tells the real story: "However, despite efforts and pressure from EU member states...the problem of Yulia Tymoshenko remain unresolved." From Wikipedia: On 2 October 2013, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution calling for the immediate release of Tymoshenko and, two days later, Pat Cox and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, representatives of the European Parliament mission, handed president Yanukovych a petition to pardon Tymoshenko.^[389][390]

Tymoshenko (author of the Foreign Affairs article cited above) is Yanukovych's political arch-rival and in 2013 was in jail as a convicted criminal. But she's the one the EU and the Americans wanted to deal with, not Yanukovych. So even when the West does reach out to Ukraine, it is picking and choosing who it will favor.

Putin responds by cutting off Ukrainian exports to Russia, reminding them Russia is still at least 1/3 of the Ukrainian economy, a figure not likely to be matched by the EU. Yanukovych realizes he can't move forward with the EU in a manner that cuts off a third of his exports. The EU isn't interested in ponying up the dough necessary to make the transition viable. The Agreement is a non-starter.

Later the article, with an amazing lack of sources says: "...Kyiv hoped the EU itself would decide to block the signing of the document in connection with the failure to resolve the Tymoshenko issue. However among the member states, voices favouring consent to...adopting the Agreement began to predominate...(W)hen it became impossible to blame the EU...for any failure...the Ukrainian gov't began to publicly highlight the negative consequences that would arise from implementing the agreement and to demand financial compensation from Brussels..."  

This is just positioning the facts for a Western audience. The idea that Yanukovych hoped the EU would "block the signing" comes off as little more than a convenient excuse for the author and the rising "voices" in Europe to sign the deal is a signal that they knew they had Yanukovych over a barrel and wanted him to cut his own throat. The fact that Yanukovych needed extra economic inducements to join the EU should have been obvious the whole time meaning the EU was negotiating in bad faith from the first meeting. This article is an attempt to put all the blame on Yanukovych, when it seems like the EU was trying to squeeze political concessions (re: Tymoshenko, Yanukovych's arch enemy), knowing full well that Ukraine could not leave the Russian economic sphere. The Europeans are playing with Ukraine the way a cat plays with a dead mouse and letting Yanukovych take all the blame, when actually Yanukovych was going pretty far out on a limb to make even considering this move to the EU possible. 

The article is sympathetic to the idea that Ukraine's economy at the time could not afford to join the EU, though they still couch this in terms of "the ruling elite", who "fear that the difficult reforms that the Agreement requires would lead to a further decline in support for the gov't and destabilize the economy." So the fact that Ukraine's entry to the EU would tank the economy and prove fatal to the rulers (democratically elected rulers, incidentally) is presented as a short-sighted blunder when compared to "the positive effects of joining the EU (which) would only be felt in the long term." And, of course, there's no guarantee of any positive effects! If Yanukovych had signed this Agreement in November 2013, it would have been guaranteed to tank the economy and destabilize the nation with absolutely no guarantee that EU membership would actually provide any stability. Where is the political leader that would sign on to that? (Presumably Western darling Tymoshenko....?)

Indeed, the Ukrainian economy already needed help: "Negotiations with the IMF have been under way since last year. Kyiv may have been hoping signing the Agreement would positively influence the IMF's decision...but the IMF's demand that the price of gas be increased by 40%...and the need for painful budget cuts....(make it) highly unlikely that Ukraine will reach any agreement with the IMF this year..." So Ukraine needed economic relief from the IMF, but without the Agreement with the EU all they got was the immediate austerity. The Agreement with the EU would not come with any offsetting funds to minimize Russian trade so....Ukraine joining the EU never had a chance. And nor did getting a workable deal from the IMF.

Yanukovych got dragged through a negotiation with the EU that would have damaged his domestic stranding, crushed his economy, and pissed off his largest trade partner with no hope of immediate gain and nothing but crippling debt to the IMF. All because, it would seem, he refused to pardon his main political rival that (for better or worse) had been duly convicted in court. If we don't trust Ukraine's court system to properly prosecute its own citizens, then why does the EU even want to extend to membership? Oh yeah: it pisses off Russia. 

But not signing the deal, which would've been ruinous, pissed off his own population and from there Yanukovych's downfall was already underway. Yankukovych is still the scapegoat for Ukraine not joining the EU, when in fact there was never a glimmer of a fuckin' chance that the conditions would be favorable for Ukraine--which the EU and the IMF (and NATO) knew the whole time. 

As for the Agreement: "The Ukrainian gov't's statements clearly indicate that it has lost interesting in signing the Agreement with the EU, which they see as a threat to economic situation and the country's relation to Russia....in addition, the economy is in crisis which would make it difficult for (Yanukovych) to win fair elections....the decision to opt out of the Agreement has paradoxically weakened Ukraine's negotiating position with Russia...." 

Conclusion: "....Ukraine has entered a period of political instability...." Notice that it's not that Ukraine will enter but "has entered". The whole point of the 2013 negotiation was to destabilize Ukraine and Yanukovych was the sucker that took the bait (and the blame). 

And there we have it: the EU and the IMF knew from the get-go that there was no credible chance of Ukraine getting any worthwhile agreement with them and that even entering into the negotiation was political suicide for Yanukovych, the guy the Europeans wanted to get rid of. This was a coldly calculated assassination from day one. Yanukovych's fatal mistake was thinking that the EU would actually accept Ukraine and help them detach from Russia. The West concocted his downfall by taking advantage of his actual desire to join the EU--all of which made Ukraine even more dependent on Russia. 

Seems like the EU got what it wanted, right? It gave Yanukovych just enough rope and that guy got hung. 

Reuters, December 19, 2013 ("Special Report: Why Ukraine Spurned the EU and Embraced Russia") 

A few weeks later this Reuters report gives another look at what Yanukovych was going through. In September he was eager--screamingly eager!--to move Ukraine away from Russian influence. But by November it's plainly obvious that the Europeans are just leading him on ("...the unwillingness of the EU and IMF to be flexible in their demands....(made) them less attractive partners"). 

The EU was not willing to even come close to covering Ukraine's short term needs. 

And again, it seems to hinge on Tymoshenko. Clearly the Europeans were willing (possibly) to fight for her but not for Yanukovych, who soon fled to Russia.

Meanwhile, here's then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland handing out cookies to Ukrainian police in December 2013. 

Notice that photographers are as prominent in this picture as the cops. Seems like Nuland knows how to orchestrate a photo op. It is the American State Department celebrating a job well done.

Stephen F. Cohen on Democracy Now!, February 20, 2014

Cohen is more or less reiterating what he said to Charlie Rose 6 years earlier. But as the violence on the streets of Ukraine is ramping up, he is clearly more impassioned. 

Also, check out the clips of President Obama's statement on the subject, about which Cohen is absolutely correct: how can we be promoting democracy and uprisings in the street at the same time? The whole nature of democracy is that there's another election around the corner where the citizenry is able to make its desires clear without resorting to street violence. (His thought experiment of an uprising in the US Capitol feels a bit creepy in hindsight, don't it?) Is it because USA cares about Ukrainian stability? Or the true spread of democracy?

Furthermore, Yanukovych was no threat to elections--indeed, he even moved up the elections as per outside demands. All so that it would look like it was an election that got him out of office rather than protests in the street (though technically Yanukovych abdicated and an interim gov't was in place before the next election).

Robert Perry on Real News, March 3, 2014

Journalist Robert Perry reminds us that Yanukovych was an elected leader who made every effort to convene a new election--one he was likely to lose!--when militia groups took over the capitol and forced him into exile. Just a reminder that this was never about "Democracy" since Ukraine's elections were never in danger and it wasn't until Yanukovych called for police to stand down that the (American-backed?) militias rose up.  

(*) And salty snacks and sugary beverages, an observation I'll expand on if I ever get back to Covid-19, which I probably won't.

(**) Wow, remember Charlie Rose? Now seems like a fine time to admit that I always thought Rose was a useless fuckin' idiot but he had good guests--that he would pepper with repetitive dumb questions. The only people Rose was really good at interviewing were journalists, which actually made him a sneaky good deep dive news guy back in the day, but an incredibly overrated cultural interlocuter. 

(***) China will want a massive Navy and all the cyber-capabilities it can muster but will likely eschew for the most part all those Cold War armaments. China doesn't care about ICBMs or long range bombers. China is pursuing outward protection for potential trade, not for potential territorial conquest. 

(****) Hat tip to Spondulix99 from whom I cannibalized a good deal of this deep dive.

How Trump Spent His Summer Vacation

The setup: When the G7 got together in Quebec, the vibe was already uptight by Trump's trade shenanigans and his non-stop rhetoric that Europe should pay more for its defense. By all accounts Trump was fine throughout the week but then refused to sign off on the Friday press release--which is the whole reason get-togethers like this happen--thus resulting in this already-classic photo. 

G7 Summit (June 10, 2018)

The takeaway: These meetings are pre-planned down to the last detail, there's no reason to meet unless you're all going to agree on something bland like the Friday communique. I suspect all week long, Trump told them he was going to be a jackass and they should prepare for his bull headedness, so I suspect all week long they worked on this precise pose: Trump being an obstinate ass and the other leaders of the world looking like exasperated parents. By now these leaders have properly internalized Trump for their own constituencies: Merkel is an inch away from a no-confidence vote, at least she can go back home and say it's all Trump's fault (and find much succor from her citizenry). Macron looks like a tough guy, John Bolton looks like a fucking ghoul, Abe is above all this. That said, let's be sure to remember that the G7 means nothing, these meetings mean nothing and, again, working out how best to make Trump look like a party pooper is in everyone's best interest. If the G7 disappeared tomorrow, no one would notice or care, it doesn't matter and its existence at the moment merely produced this already-classic photo (and nothing else because there's nothing for the G7 to do except produce photo ops).

The setup: If the G7 is an annual photo op, then the Singapore Summit was a seemingly impossible photo op. For decades the Kims of North Korea have demanded a public audience with the President of the USA and for decades American presidents have demurred. But Donald Trump is a different kind of president and he took Kim up on his offer. So here they are shaking hands shortly before signing an utterly meaningless piece of paper that pretty much matched the last piece of paper we signed with North Korea (in the Obama years). So what happened? Well...this now-classic photo...and not much else.

Singapore Summit (June 12, 2018)

The takeaway: I dunno, I can't for the life of me figure this one out, except that they each called each other's bluff...but they were both bluffing...so neither of them had anything in the end. It's like a theater company that booked a bunch of shows then forgot to rehearse. The world talked up this meeting like it was gonna be important and nothing happened. They shook hands, Trump looks more like Alfred Hitchcock than I'd ever noticed before and Kim is actually a little taller and fatter than I would've thought...but otherwise...that was pretty much it. Since then, Kim met once more with Xi in Beijing, called off all further meetings with South Korea, may have made a secret trip to Vladivostok, and otherwise has done nothing, said nothing and blown off most of his meetings with Sec State Pompeo and his underlings (where the actual work of diplomacy gets done). So who got played? Trump got nothing out of it, Kim got nothing but this now-classic photo (though I'm betting a top drawer Singapore hotel would probably be a pleasure palace to a great leader such as this), and the world isn't any safer. Indeed! The USA-North Korea relationship seems to be exactly where it was this time last year. After all the weird shit that has gone down in the last 12 months, we're in the exact same place! The Singapore Summit will go alongside Al Capone's Vaults for all-time over-hyped letdowns.


The setup: Unlike the G7 which could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice, NATO is so rock solid that dissolving it would likely take a major war or multiple presidential administrations. The general perception that Trump clamoring for the Europeans to spend more on defense was some great crisis to the institution is just hogwash. The POTUS complaining about money is the purest indication that there isn't anything more important to complain about. So, though NATO is important while the G7 is not, this meeting was pretty much the same (though Shinzo Abe doesn't appear in this now-classic photo).

NATO 2018 (July 11, 2018)

The takeaway: I think Trump genuinely believes the Europeans should pay more for their defense. And since the USA is paying so much for European defense, if POTUS really had something he wanted to discuss about the defense of Europe, I think he'd be eager to talk about it. Turns out there isn't anything to say about Ukraine or Serbia or Montenegro, so Trump went back to complaining about money. Now personally I agree that the Europeans should be paying more for their defense, it is unifying and empowering on their part to exert their control over NATO (and letting American presidents have this much power over their borders sure looks kinda dumb right now, don't it?); but the Europeans aren't ready to go down that road, they're still figuring out how their money works, so letting the Americans shoulder the burden in staring down Putin is something that will continue for a while. Rather, the Europeans will go back to their constituencies and turn Trump's NATO rhetoric back to his trade war (presumably his method of extracting value from allies) and blame all their local problems on Trump (and they'll be successful because...well, he's a total douche). The good news is NATO is so rock solid and without problems, they can spend an entire summit together and just goof around on nonsense (like producing this now-classic photo).


The setup: Supposedly Trump called for a one-on-one summit with Putin a few months back and now the time had come for the two to go mano-a-mano (and the interpreters to go lingua-a-lingua). Tongues wagged worldwide but no one knew what Putin and Trump discussed even after this now-classic press conference.

Trump-Putin Summit (July 15, 2018)

The takeaway: I dunno. What do I care what they talked about? At this particularly point in time, neither of these guys has anything to offer the other. There's no room for USA to budge on Ukraine or sanctions, no room for Russia to budge on Syria, Iran or oil. (If they were talking about anything really juicy it was probably North Korea, who knows what Putin knows about Kim?) Trump's one taboo back home is anything related to Russia, so I suspect this meeting is purely for Trump to annoy his political foes (they are his lifeblood). There's nothing for Trump and Putin to talk about,so this meeting was likely purely social, just a coupla joes ditching their wives and commiserating over political nonsense. (Or perhaps they peed on hookers together or whatever the conspiracy theory du jour is, I can see that, too) At any rate, there's nothing for them to talk about, so what difference does it matter what was said?


We increasingly live in a world where people want their leaders to take pictures together. The G7, for example, is of little use but a photo op, the organization does nothing, discusses nothing, administers nothing, and isn't even what it purports to be (top 7 economies in the world....so why isn't China there? India? Saudi Arabia? Or even *gasp*...Russia?). Seriously, the G7 does not need to exist and if Donald Trump harrumphs around and ruins the get-together, then honestly....who gives a shit? I got a better idea: let's never have another G7 meeting ever again! I'm all for multi-lateral organizations that can get stuff done but the G7 is not one of those, it can be done away with. No way POTUS can screw up something that doesn't happen.

NATO, on the other hand, is not going away and if there were grave matters to discuss, they would get discussed....not by the leaders, of course, the serious matters would get discussed by the various under-secretaries that actually do that kind of work. When this many national leaders get together it is either to discuss something very important or something not important at all. (I got two grand on the latter, who's taking the former?) This is a meeting that doesn't need to happen and the only point of it is the sure spectacle of getting this many leaders together (want a grave matter? How about discussing how comfortable everyone is with NATO member Turkey invading two other countries for the purposes of genocide and seems to be intent on annexing their ill-gotten territory...are we cool with that? Hmmm....never came up). If any one of those leaders wants to grandstand and make it all about him/herself, they are free to do so because these meetings don't mean anything.

Now the Kim summit and Putin summit would appear to be different, right? These aren't annual meetings where nothing but a photo-op can possibly be accomplished. These are wildly out of the ordinary affairs where important stuff must be going on, right? Well, no. In the case of Trump, he clearly loves to engineer moments like these to grab the attention--and Americans love nothing more than giving Trump attention. Meeting with Kim felt like it was going to be a breakthrough, it was not; it was all whimper, no bang. And the meeting with Putin was meant to be confusing and anticlimactic, it was meant to produce an awkward press conference and nothing more because, again, these guys have nothing to offer each other except an ambiguous public appearance together.

Trump is really good at playing the American media. The media is a 24-hour beast that needs constant feeding and Trump loves to feed. Perhaps this is undignified of the office of President...meh, it is the media that devalues the presidency by failing to differentiate between the G7 (unimportant) and NATO (indispensable). It is the media that pisses in the pool by not differentiating between the presidency and some other attention-hungry celebrity (like, say, Stormy Daniels).

Trump is the effect, not the cause. We've been on this road a long time and Trump is the end of it. I don't know what comes next (at the moment it feels like another 4 year term for Trump, which is even more shocking than his original victory!) but after Trump all this shit will be different. I never really felt it before but a third party seems to be in the offing. The Republicans and Democrats are gradually skewing to their extremes, time for a middle way to emerge.

As for foreign policy, North Korea is the same problem it always was. Libya is a mess, Yemen is embarrassing for all thinking, feeling human beings, Syria is still a clusterfuck, Ukraine is no closer to resolution. Otherwise, not bad. Trade wars are not anyone's idea of a good time but the worst of it has yet to hit the fan and its not hard to imagine all this trade kerfuffle actually leading to new and improved trade relations for everyone. Our world leaders still have time for photo-ops and perhaps that is a good thing.

As for the state of Trump, here's the good news:

Trump just needs to not be the 6th guy, right?