Foreign policy is like Las Vegas. If your bet pays off, you tend to bet more. Foreign policy is also like life in general. When confronting something new, people tend to fall back, consciously or unconsciously, on things they’ve seen before. The second dynamic is called analogical reasoning. The first is called hubris. Both make me worry about where US policy is headed on Ukraine.
I’ve been wondering how Peter would react to the horror out of Israel in the past few weeks, with stabbings and other attacks – but especially this one:
“3 dead, 4 injured in ax murder terror attack in Elad, Israel All three victims were men in their 40s. The victims were named as Yonatan Habakkuk, a father of five, Boaz Gol, a father of five, and Oren Ben Yiftach, a father of six from Lod. Two of the victims aged 60 and 35 were seriously wounded. "Unfortunately, this incident will be deeply etched in my heart," said MDA volunteer Moti Tsinvert. "In all my years as an emergency medicine paramedic, I have not encountered such a severe scene of multiple casualties with significant penetrating injuries, residents who went out just to breathe fresh air in the park, and their lives were ended so harshly."
Not too great a surprise…he ignored it. Not one word of condemnation. It’s a sickness.
I see the dynamic being discussed here as we speak. Hopefully cooler heads (EU) will prevail before Joe Biden blurts out anything more harmful to the cause. I am reading further down some of the comments here and am totally flummoxed at the out of context statements about Israel and Hamas. Honestly if I were you I wouldn't give these morons the time of day.
Peter, do you support a single binational state of Ukraine-Russia? Why do you consider the Ukrainians to be "struggling heroically for self-determination and freedom" instead of condemning Ukraine for being a country "structured around one racial or ethnic group, which enjoys legal, political and cultural dominance" ?
To post this immediately after the last post about anti-Zionism reveals pretty blatant hypocrisy.
Good analysis, Peter. I am looking forward to your talk with Chomsky. Shortly before he did that controversial interview you referenced with Nathan Robinson, I listened to one he gave to Jeremy Scahill. Much was the same. But unlike the Robinson interview, in answer to a specific question Chomsky acknowledged that the US/Nato military support and sanctions up to that point were probably necessary. He didn't particularly emphasize the point, and Chomsky's emphasis all along has been the need for serious negotiations -- knowing that unpalatable compromises will have to be made. But my interpretation was that he was acknowledging that under the circumstances, Ukraine needs to negotiate from a position of strength. His position may have shifted since then, but it struck me at the time that pragmatically he was somewhere in between Mearsheimer (who in your interview plainly stated his opposition to providing Ukraine with any military support whatsoever) and Timothy Snyder, who emphasizes the need for an outright "win" by Ukraine.
Since these interviews we have seen the growing hubris and loose talk coming from Washington, as you so rightly point out and put into sad historical context. In the face of this stupidity (I mean, hell, even Thomas Friedman is calling it out as dangerous), I doubt Chomsky will want to talk about the need for providing defensive arms in what is now looking like a war of attrition. But you may want to ask.
“ The USA, Britain and NATO believe that the war in Ukraine makes Russia weak, reduces Putin into an Amalek figure, makes NATO strong and will lead to an extensive boost to the USA’s military industrial complex. Accordingly, Biden, Johnson and NATO want an indefinite continuation of the war.
It is time to identify who needs the war to continue as Biden is not alone on that front. Zelensky also wants the war to continue. He knows that any agreement with Russia would make his situation ‘very complicated.’ Ukrainian nationalists who appear to be bravely fighting the Russian army and are lauded by every Western MSM outlet, won’t accept a single territorial concession. It is hard to imagine the war coming to an end without such a concession especially given Russia’s clear territorial gains in the south, the east and the north. And Zelensky, the actor, knows that his current theatrical role is, beyond doubt, the peak of his career. From now on it is downhill. For Zelensky, the war ought to continue forever.
And what about the Ukrainian people, do they want the war to end? It depends who you ask. If you follow the British and American press you are given the impression that Ukrainians are united behind their leader in a collective and suicidal mission. But the truth is that four million have left the country, ten million have been displaced within Ukraine and these numbers are increasing daily. The country is being systematically destroyed, some of its cities reduced to dust. If this is what the people want, as the BBC wants us to believe, the war will never end. If, instead, the Ukrainians are ordinary human beings, which is more likely and an intelligent assumption, they must be very tired of the disaster inflicted on them by their leader and the warmongering West. As ordinary human beings, Ukrainians care for the future of the land, their kids, their cities, their culture, their heritage – they may well want to preserve it all rather than to die in the ‘name of it.”
I did not write the above analysis, but most of it I am in agreement with.
It is becoming more obvious by the day that Russia has not been defeated in Ukraine, that it never intended to occupy the country and that there is outright lying being published as reporting in the West's corporate media. The Zionist Volodomyr Zelenskyy, just like Putin, Johnson, Macron, Biden et al, is the declared enemy of Ukraine's working class if we judge him by his actions against them and against Ukrainian democracy since he took power in 2019. I see nothing heroic about him, nor about the many violent fascists and self-declared Nazi sympathisers gathered around him. As has become common knowledge, Ukraine's people are being made to suffer for the US ruling class's goal of returning Russia to the dark years of the 1990s.
The sanctions being imposed on Russia are clearly not causing the reactionary, nationalist Vladimir Putin to withdraw his conscripted troops, nor are they reducing his popularity in a society with a very long history of enduring suffering imposed by Western governments. On the other hand, the sanctions - and those imposed by Putin against the West - are having an immediate impact in Europe on inflation which is inevitably felt far more by the working class than their true enemies, the boss class which owns the means of production.
I agree with your analysis, Mr. Beinart. I find myself occupying a relatively small space when it comes to this war. I reject the hard left's Greenwaldian contempt for the very idea of picking sides against Russia. But I also oppose the hubristic, ill-advised triumphalism that, depressingly, has emerged as a dynamic restorative of US bipartisanism in foreign policy.
Russia has already lost: such an outcome is realistically baked into the cake, and the only questions are just how bad Putin's defeat is, and just how gravely weakened Russia is when the dust has settled.
It would be advisable for the US and NATO (and Ukraine) to pocket that win in the context of an off-ramp for Putin. There are myriad dangers flowing from the ongoing conflict, not the least of which is a dangerous destabilization of the strategic situation.
I'm still waiting for someone to address the issues of Russia/Ukraine in the greater context. The war Putin wages, based on his personal history, is less about Ukraine than it is a war against the democratic nations that surround him. His internet armies attack elections, they violate civility across social media platforms, and they make it clear that as they see it, democracy cannot respond well to the needs of the 21st Century. From the start, the Putin team, along with the insurrectionist minded in the USA have worked together to destabilize the Biden government. They did not expect the response the war received from Biden, and they certainly didn't expect the west to unite. Russia and China want a west that is weakened, they are looking for their "close-ups" and a reordering of the world order. Ukraine is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The divides in the USA will eventually diminish our democratic institutions to a point where we may no longer be a nation of, by, and for the people. With Russia and China's continued support it may happen more quickly. Our elections this November, and certainly by 2024 will tell us a good deal more. Compromise with Russia, as it continues to support Trump and the overthrow of the US government, is a danger...pushing them to the point of nuclear war, a horrific possibility, and taking our eye off China the end of the world as we know it. These are surely interesting times, and one thing is directly tied to everything else. We cannot look at one element of this as if it is not part and parcel of everything else going on, including the economy, inflation, energy and food costs, and our very survival on the planet. I feel bad for my children, we did not give them a fair shot at a livable world.
Much of this analysis is honestly superfluous, and easily vulnerable to claims of appeasement, particularly since Ukraine was in the NATO accession process. It also largely ignores the strategic logic of international alliances and would make them more vulnerable to problems of shirking/free-riding.
That said, there is some value to it, mostly because of one claim that you buried in a paragraph towards the end, and really should be the focus of the column: "Making the weakening of Russia a goal of US policy is unnecessary because Russia has now clearly shown that it poses no serious conventional military threat to NATO countries. If the Kremlin can’t take Kharkiv, how can it take Warsaw?"
I'd love to see this logic expanded in more depth, and an argument why that's the central point of importance.
This article reeks of anti-Americanism to me. The United States is pushing for a policy, therefore it must be wrong. Yes the United States wants to permanently weaken Russia: we are going to do that by arming Ukraine with weapons so they can win the war and defeat Russia militarily. It is not up to the United States on when the war ends: it's up to Ukraine and Russia. The US will support Ukraine on whatever outcome they desire.
Far be it from "It means seeing Ukraine’s survival as a goal in and of itself, not a means of weakening Russia for the great power struggle ahead." Ukraine's survival is in and of itself proof of permanently weakening Russia, its conventional military forces, and its world prestige. What you offer to 'prove' American overreach is instead simply shows that America's 'base' interest is actually the goal all along.
Are Americans perhaps delusional in thinking that Putin's regime will collapse if his military adventurism ends in failure? Possibly. Does permanently weakening Russia require Putin's collapse? No, Ukraine surviving and defeating Russia does that on its own.
I also disagree with this analysis: "If the Kremlin can’t take Kharkiv, how can it take Warsaw?" Sure, Russia probably can't blitz Warsaw, but could they blitz the eastern provinces of the Baltic States? Romania? Finland and Norway? Perhaps. Just because Russia cannot force its maximalist demands on the United States and its allies does not mean its not a threat. Osama bin Laden couldn't overthrow Washington, did that mean he wasn't a threat worth considering before 9/11? Obviously the answer is no.
Finally while I do have some sympathy for this argument: "Making a weakened Russia America’s goal is also immoral because it requires indefinitely imposing sanctions that immiserate ordinary Russians who had no say in launching this war." I further disagree. Certainly the United States and Europe should not continue their sanctions indefinitely, that is both wrong and self-defeating. Sanctions only work as a deterrent if there's a chance they can be lifted (see the Iran sanctions and Cuba sanctions for proof of this), but they also hurt the Western economy. But more importantly, as I said above, the US doesn't need to make the sanctions permanent to weaken Russia: they just need Ukraine to win the war.
So there is no overreach in this case at all. Reflexive anti-Americanism is poor analysis.
ok sorry i meant Kyiv not Lviv as the Capitol of Ukraine. Yikes Rebecca. Here's a joke. Two Jews walk into a Bar ...........Mitzvah. First Jew says: " I used to play for a Jewish softball team" Second Jew asks: "Which position did you play?" First Jew replies "Kvetcher". Don't Kvetch so much.
I hope this kind of discussion and debate is front and center among Biden's Cabinet members. Biden has communicated nothing to the American people with regard to American objectives and a plausible scenario for a cease fire and some resolution to the conflict. We of all nations should know that wars don't end neatly in line with our preconceptions.
There is no analogy to Hitler' s war or Hitler's fate. Putin is not huddled in a bunker out of fear of assassination or internal rift. He is in control even when he is not in control of day-to-day outcomes from the war on Ukraine. He has patience while he is creating more patients among Ukraine civilians. The Russian populace is blissfully ignorant or willfully ignorant or in a state of denial. Their bodies are not being hurled about by the bombing of apartment buildings and schools.
We need to stop saying Ukraine as if a sovereign and functional state is defined by it's Capitol. Putin will undermine what's left of Ukraine so that it can't function economically as all its natural and manufacturing assets are captured and then absorbed as part of its economy. The Black Sea will be a Russian bath tub which will curtail Ukraine's ability to engage in international trade.
America always forgets that we are our own land mass encompassed by vast oceans. Not so with Eurasia which is all connected. Russia will never let its neighbors alone to enjoy a life independent of the Hungry Bear. There is no closure for an American President and the continuation of war by Russia without end but maybe with intermissions and pauses is a tough message to deliver to the American people. You can't win a ware without end much as the media only wants to keep score and judge you accordingly.
Biden is trying to make sure Team Ukraine wins without defining what win means. Biden's rhetoric exceeds his capabilities. What he needs to do is get NATO and NGO to occupy Lviv and protect its air space. Put some skin in the game. Do something pro-active. We are not going to regain for Ukraine all of the former Ukraine. That defeat would be too much for Putin. But show some muscle in Western Ukraine and maybe Putin will accept a half a loaf knowing the other half isn't going to be available for his appetite without directly confronting NATO.
I’ve been wondering how Peter would react to the horror out of Israel in the past few weeks, with stabbings and other attacks – but especially this one:
“3 dead, 4 injured in ax murder terror attack in Elad, Israel All three victims were men in their 40s. The victims were named as Yonatan Habakkuk, a father of five, Boaz Gol, a father of five, and Oren Ben Yiftach, a father of six from Lod. Two of the victims aged 60 and 35 were seriously wounded. "Unfortunately, this incident will be deeply etched in my heart," said MDA volunteer Moti Tsinvert. "In all my years as an emergency medicine paramedic, I have not encountered such a severe scene of multiple casualties with significant penetrating injuries, residents who went out just to breathe fresh air in the park, and their lives were ended so harshly."
Not too great a surprise…he ignored it. Not one word of condemnation. It’s a sickness.
I see the dynamic being discussed here as we speak. Hopefully cooler heads (EU) will prevail before Joe Biden blurts out anything more harmful to the cause. I am reading further down some of the comments here and am totally flummoxed at the out of context statements about Israel and Hamas. Honestly if I were you I wouldn't give these morons the time of day.
Peter, do you support a single binational state of Ukraine-Russia? Why do you consider the Ukrainians to be "struggling heroically for self-determination and freedom" instead of condemning Ukraine for being a country "structured around one racial or ethnic group, which enjoys legal, political and cultural dominance" ?
To post this immediately after the last post about anti-Zionism reveals pretty blatant hypocrisy.
Good analysis, Peter. I am looking forward to your talk with Chomsky. Shortly before he did that controversial interview you referenced with Nathan Robinson, I listened to one he gave to Jeremy Scahill. Much was the same. But unlike the Robinson interview, in answer to a specific question Chomsky acknowledged that the US/Nato military support and sanctions up to that point were probably necessary. He didn't particularly emphasize the point, and Chomsky's emphasis all along has been the need for serious negotiations -- knowing that unpalatable compromises will have to be made. But my interpretation was that he was acknowledging that under the circumstances, Ukraine needs to negotiate from a position of strength. His position may have shifted since then, but it struck me at the time that pragmatically he was somewhere in between Mearsheimer (who in your interview plainly stated his opposition to providing Ukraine with any military support whatsoever) and Timothy Snyder, who emphasizes the need for an outright "win" by Ukraine.
Since these interviews we have seen the growing hubris and loose talk coming from Washington, as you so rightly point out and put into sad historical context. In the face of this stupidity (I mean, hell, even Thomas Friedman is calling it out as dangerous), I doubt Chomsky will want to talk about the need for providing defensive arms in what is now looking like a war of attrition. But you may want to ask.
Thank you very much for the work you are doing.
“ The USA, Britain and NATO believe that the war in Ukraine makes Russia weak, reduces Putin into an Amalek figure, makes NATO strong and will lead to an extensive boost to the USA’s military industrial complex. Accordingly, Biden, Johnson and NATO want an indefinite continuation of the war.
It is time to identify who needs the war to continue as Biden is not alone on that front. Zelensky also wants the war to continue. He knows that any agreement with Russia would make his situation ‘very complicated.’ Ukrainian nationalists who appear to be bravely fighting the Russian army and are lauded by every Western MSM outlet, won’t accept a single territorial concession. It is hard to imagine the war coming to an end without such a concession especially given Russia’s clear territorial gains in the south, the east and the north. And Zelensky, the actor, knows that his current theatrical role is, beyond doubt, the peak of his career. From now on it is downhill. For Zelensky, the war ought to continue forever.
And what about the Ukrainian people, do they want the war to end? It depends who you ask. If you follow the British and American press you are given the impression that Ukrainians are united behind their leader in a collective and suicidal mission. But the truth is that four million have left the country, ten million have been displaced within Ukraine and these numbers are increasing daily. The country is being systematically destroyed, some of its cities reduced to dust. If this is what the people want, as the BBC wants us to believe, the war will never end. If, instead, the Ukrainians are ordinary human beings, which is more likely and an intelligent assumption, they must be very tired of the disaster inflicted on them by their leader and the warmongering West. As ordinary human beings, Ukrainians care for the future of the land, their kids, their cities, their culture, their heritage – they may well want to preserve it all rather than to die in the ‘name of it.”
I did not write the above analysis, but most of it I am in agreement with.
It is becoming more obvious by the day that Russia has not been defeated in Ukraine, that it never intended to occupy the country and that there is outright lying being published as reporting in the West's corporate media. The Zionist Volodomyr Zelenskyy, just like Putin, Johnson, Macron, Biden et al, is the declared enemy of Ukraine's working class if we judge him by his actions against them and against Ukrainian democracy since he took power in 2019. I see nothing heroic about him, nor about the many violent fascists and self-declared Nazi sympathisers gathered around him. As has become common knowledge, Ukraine's people are being made to suffer for the US ruling class's goal of returning Russia to the dark years of the 1990s.
The sanctions being imposed on Russia are clearly not causing the reactionary, nationalist Vladimir Putin to withdraw his conscripted troops, nor are they reducing his popularity in a society with a very long history of enduring suffering imposed by Western governments. On the other hand, the sanctions - and those imposed by Putin against the West - are having an immediate impact in Europe on inflation which is inevitably felt far more by the working class than their true enemies, the boss class which owns the means of production.
I agree with your analysis, Mr. Beinart. I find myself occupying a relatively small space when it comes to this war. I reject the hard left's Greenwaldian contempt for the very idea of picking sides against Russia. But I also oppose the hubristic, ill-advised triumphalism that, depressingly, has emerged as a dynamic restorative of US bipartisanism in foreign policy.
Russia has already lost: such an outcome is realistically baked into the cake, and the only questions are just how bad Putin's defeat is, and just how gravely weakened Russia is when the dust has settled.
It would be advisable for the US and NATO (and Ukraine) to pocket that win in the context of an off-ramp for Putin. There are myriad dangers flowing from the ongoing conflict, not the least of which is a dangerous destabilization of the strategic situation.
I'm still waiting for someone to address the issues of Russia/Ukraine in the greater context. The war Putin wages, based on his personal history, is less about Ukraine than it is a war against the democratic nations that surround him. His internet armies attack elections, they violate civility across social media platforms, and they make it clear that as they see it, democracy cannot respond well to the needs of the 21st Century. From the start, the Putin team, along with the insurrectionist minded in the USA have worked together to destabilize the Biden government. They did not expect the response the war received from Biden, and they certainly didn't expect the west to unite. Russia and China want a west that is weakened, they are looking for their "close-ups" and a reordering of the world order. Ukraine is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The divides in the USA will eventually diminish our democratic institutions to a point where we may no longer be a nation of, by, and for the people. With Russia and China's continued support it may happen more quickly. Our elections this November, and certainly by 2024 will tell us a good deal more. Compromise with Russia, as it continues to support Trump and the overthrow of the US government, is a danger...pushing them to the point of nuclear war, a horrific possibility, and taking our eye off China the end of the world as we know it. These are surely interesting times, and one thing is directly tied to everything else. We cannot look at one element of this as if it is not part and parcel of everything else going on, including the economy, inflation, energy and food costs, and our very survival on the planet. I feel bad for my children, we did not give them a fair shot at a livable world.
Much of this analysis is honestly superfluous, and easily vulnerable to claims of appeasement, particularly since Ukraine was in the NATO accession process. It also largely ignores the strategic logic of international alliances and would make them more vulnerable to problems of shirking/free-riding.
That said, there is some value to it, mostly because of one claim that you buried in a paragraph towards the end, and really should be the focus of the column: "Making the weakening of Russia a goal of US policy is unnecessary because Russia has now clearly shown that it poses no serious conventional military threat to NATO countries. If the Kremlin can’t take Kharkiv, how can it take Warsaw?"
I'd love to see this logic expanded in more depth, and an argument why that's the central point of importance.
This article reeks of anti-Americanism to me. The United States is pushing for a policy, therefore it must be wrong. Yes the United States wants to permanently weaken Russia: we are going to do that by arming Ukraine with weapons so they can win the war and defeat Russia militarily. It is not up to the United States on when the war ends: it's up to Ukraine and Russia. The US will support Ukraine on whatever outcome they desire.
Far be it from "It means seeing Ukraine’s survival as a goal in and of itself, not a means of weakening Russia for the great power struggle ahead." Ukraine's survival is in and of itself proof of permanently weakening Russia, its conventional military forces, and its world prestige. What you offer to 'prove' American overreach is instead simply shows that America's 'base' interest is actually the goal all along.
Are Americans perhaps delusional in thinking that Putin's regime will collapse if his military adventurism ends in failure? Possibly. Does permanently weakening Russia require Putin's collapse? No, Ukraine surviving and defeating Russia does that on its own.
I also disagree with this analysis: "If the Kremlin can’t take Kharkiv, how can it take Warsaw?" Sure, Russia probably can't blitz Warsaw, but could they blitz the eastern provinces of the Baltic States? Romania? Finland and Norway? Perhaps. Just because Russia cannot force its maximalist demands on the United States and its allies does not mean its not a threat. Osama bin Laden couldn't overthrow Washington, did that mean he wasn't a threat worth considering before 9/11? Obviously the answer is no.
Finally while I do have some sympathy for this argument: "Making a weakened Russia America’s goal is also immoral because it requires indefinitely imposing sanctions that immiserate ordinary Russians who had no say in launching this war." I further disagree. Certainly the United States and Europe should not continue their sanctions indefinitely, that is both wrong and self-defeating. Sanctions only work as a deterrent if there's a chance they can be lifted (see the Iran sanctions and Cuba sanctions for proof of this), but they also hurt the Western economy. But more importantly, as I said above, the US doesn't need to make the sanctions permanent to weaken Russia: they just need Ukraine to win the war.
So there is no overreach in this case at all. Reflexive anti-Americanism is poor analysis.
ok sorry i meant Kyiv not Lviv as the Capitol of Ukraine. Yikes Rebecca. Here's a joke. Two Jews walk into a Bar ...........Mitzvah. First Jew says: " I used to play for a Jewish softball team" Second Jew asks: "Which position did you play?" First Jew replies "Kvetcher". Don't Kvetch so much.
I hope this kind of discussion and debate is front and center among Biden's Cabinet members. Biden has communicated nothing to the American people with regard to American objectives and a plausible scenario for a cease fire and some resolution to the conflict. We of all nations should know that wars don't end neatly in line with our preconceptions.
There is no analogy to Hitler' s war or Hitler's fate. Putin is not huddled in a bunker out of fear of assassination or internal rift. He is in control even when he is not in control of day-to-day outcomes from the war on Ukraine. He has patience while he is creating more patients among Ukraine civilians. The Russian populace is blissfully ignorant or willfully ignorant or in a state of denial. Their bodies are not being hurled about by the bombing of apartment buildings and schools.
We need to stop saying Ukraine as if a sovereign and functional state is defined by it's Capitol. Putin will undermine what's left of Ukraine so that it can't function economically as all its natural and manufacturing assets are captured and then absorbed as part of its economy. The Black Sea will be a Russian bath tub which will curtail Ukraine's ability to engage in international trade.
America always forgets that we are our own land mass encompassed by vast oceans. Not so with Eurasia which is all connected. Russia will never let its neighbors alone to enjoy a life independent of the Hungry Bear. There is no closure for an American President and the continuation of war by Russia without end but maybe with intermissions and pauses is a tough message to deliver to the American people. You can't win a ware without end much as the media only wants to keep score and judge you accordingly.
Biden is trying to make sure Team Ukraine wins without defining what win means. Biden's rhetoric exceeds his capabilities. What he needs to do is get NATO and NGO to occupy Lviv and protect its air space. Put some skin in the game. Do something pro-active. We are not going to regain for Ukraine all of the former Ukraine. That defeat would be too much for Putin. But show some muscle in Western Ukraine and maybe Putin will accept a half a loaf knowing the other half isn't going to be available for his appetite without directly confronting NATO.