Apologies. This will be mostly about me. Consider it as an old man's therapy. Thinking aloud.
I feel conflicted, my thoughts jumbled, about the Ukraine crisis.
I spent nearly my whole career in the US foreign service viewing the USSR as our primary, even existential threat. I have bored my six readers with tales of dealing with the Soviets and won't repeat those. In sum: I hated the USSR and everything it stood for. I could not abide those in the West who wanted to go easy on the Soviets, much less those who betrayed the West for that hideous regime. When, however, the Soviet Union collapsed, my antipathy for that regime did not transition into hatred for Russia. I always liked Russian culture and history; liked the Russians I met; and saw no intrinsic reason for the US and Russia to pick up the conflict where the US and the USSR had left it. In other words, we could get along; yes, one had to deal with Russia with both eyes wide open, and watch for potential conflicts of interest, but those did not seem serious. For a time, I advocated to my poor glassy-eyed colleagues dissolving NATO; with the end of the Warsaw Pact, I saw NATO with no military purpose, as a needless provocation for Russia, and a liability for the USA. I certainly saw no reason to expand the size of NATO and extend its, I mean, OUR commitments.
I have written in this blog how I found appalling the attitude we exhibited towards post-USSR Russia. Full of hubris, the "End of History" people told us the world had become unipolar; the victorious US and its allies could and would set the rules for that world, now free of troublesome ideologies. We would have a world order established and ruled by the West's "expert" technocrats via the IMF, the World Bank, and, above all, the WTO. This new world held out the promise of an endless buffet of prosperity throughout the globe brought about by trade and investment. Economic linkages would overwhelm and extinguish military conflict. China would become a happy cog in the Western machine. We shouldn't worry about the hollowing out of our industrial base; we would all be better off in the long run.
Russia barely featured in our designs; it would hold the rank, at best, of junior partner, a tiny wheel in the gearbox, off to one side, not doing anything important. We sent Jeff Sachs and his minions to Russia to reorganize their economy. We dismissed or, better said, did not even take into consideration Russia's view of world history, and of Russia's place in that history. We ignored the central tenet of that view, to wit, that the West looked down on Russia, and would do what it could to deny Russia its rightful place among the powers. Hollywood, of course, fed into and helped further our image of Russia: it depicted Russians as mad terrorists, gangsters, and, of course, prostitutes. Recall the many TV shows and films with Russians as the most vile of villains, the enemies of peace and civilization. We drew a caricature of Russia, believed it, and could not see the nationalist upheaval taking place inside the real Russia, and, of course, the accompanying and growing resentment towards the imperious West.
We ignored the reemergence from the shadows and the revival of the Church in Russia. This institution not only survived decades of Communist oppression, but never relinquished its hold on the minds and souls of the majority of Russia's people. Christianity in Russia is an old-time, conservative, muscular Christianity; it, for example, does not accept gay marriage or other key articles of the Woke West. It, furthermore, sees Islam as an ancient and clear menace; history for Russia had not, and has not ended.
With the arrival of Vlad Putin on the scene, things began to change. A genuine Russian nationalist authoritarian--no friend of democracy, he--who lamented the death of the USSR, and the fracturing of its territorial empire, especially the weakening of its Slavic core. He saw himself as a 21st century pan-Slavic Tsar. He crushed Chechnya, humbled Georgia, turned Belarus into a puppet, and ate away at Ukraine. He spent a fortune renewing the Red Army, and instilling pride in the people for their country. He was and is a nationalist who places "Russia First." He, however, sought improved relations with the USA and the West, but made clear his opposition to the expansion of NATO up to Russia's borders. He, in particular, made known his strong negative view on Ukraine joining that expanded NATO.
The big opportunity to repair US-Russian relations came with the advent of Donald Trump to the White House. Trump was the American Putin when it came to foreign affairs. He placed America's interests first and had no trouble calling out the phony nature of the NATO alliance. Trump insisted on re-establishing America's energy independence, rebuilding its military-industrial base, and ending needless wars and adventures overseas. Putin knew that Trump was the kind of leader who would pull the trigger but would not be the first to put the gun on the table. The repairing of US-Russian relations, of course, was sabotaged by a relentless four-year campaign by the DNC to label Trump as Putin's puppet--when, in fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. Many of the same people involved in creating and promoting that destructive lie now hold senior positions in the Biden administration, including National Security Advisor Sullivan and the fraud who holds the title of President, the former Senator from Delaware.
Let us not forget that the corrupt Biden family has gotten rich thanks, not only to the credit card companies of Delaware, but also to Ukraine and China.
This brings me to my reluctance to cheer unabashedly for Ukraine. It is not just that Ukraine was not a democracy prior to the invasion, and while I normally would show myself partial to rich Jewish comedians--I think of myself as one in formation--I find Zelensky, well, yes, he's brave, but he also bears responsibility for leading his country irresponsibly. He did not rule as a democrat, and did little to fight the rampant corruption in Ukraine: Burisma, anyone? He proved inept in dealing with Russia and recognizing Ukraine's limitations in a tough neighborhood.
More important, however, in the past several years, our ruling elites have manipulated and lied to us so much--e.g., climate change, Covid, Russia "Collusion," Hunter Biden laptop, the 81 million Biden "voters"--that it now becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction. In sum: I don't like, much less trust many if not most of the people now pulling for Ukraine and insisting I do so, too. I know that might sound childish or unfair, but I remain suspicious of the nearly unanimous reporting beaming at us from the networks, right and left, and of the billionaire techno giants who seek to shape and limit our access to information. We even hear calls from otherwise once sane people for the murder of Putin--never heard such calls re the head of the USSR.
We certainly don't hear the Russian side of the story; in fact, the same people who proved lukewarm at best when it came to opposing the USSR, created and promoted the Trump-Putin collusion nonsense, and lied and hid the truth about the rigged 2020 elections, now busily try to ensure we can't hear or read the Russian version of events. Look, I have watched some of the RT broadcasts which you can still get on YouTube, and find them unconvincing, and redolent of old heavy-handed Soviet propaganda. As, however, a free citizen of a democracy, I have the right to watch those broadcasts without getting called a traitor. I can make up my own mind and don't need Biden or Google to "help" me.
I do not support the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A lot of innocent people are getting killed and hurt. The war should stop. I hope Russia has great difficulty; I hope China has backed the wrong horse.
That said, I recognize that the West has made this war possible and even likely: we have exhibited military and economic weakness--e.g., Afghanistan withdrawal, bizarre energy policy--and recklessly have encouraged NATO's expansion up to Russia's borders. Our leaders have shown themselves as idiots, who hate their own people, and as historical illiterates.
How would we have reacted--at least, in the Good Old Days--had Mexico expressed interest in joining the Warsaw Pact, or begun muttering about reclaiming lost territories or protecting areas in the US with a large Mexican population?
