I saw this post a few days ago and wanted to comment. I am not American, I am Australian, but I think I understand well enough why people would want to vote for Trump and why they would say, to hell with the entire ruling class and its cherished internationalism.
I was wondering where to begin, and meanwhile ran across an interview of Tucker Carlson by Glenn Beck, in which Carlson, and to some extent Beck, states many many things that exponents of this new populist nationalism would agree with.
The foreign policy dimension is that America's cities are in decline, the country has all kinds of internal problems, and yet its politicians care more about playing at world police than addressing those problems. In fact, the ruling party is even leaving the borders open so that they can get new, more compliant citizenry. The leadership is possessed with dreams of world empire and social transformation, and has lost all legitimacy. It's time for America to become a normal self-interested country.
Understand that I am presenting a kind of paraphrase of Carlson here. I think there is a lot of truth in what he says, but it is as much a statement of values as it is a claim about facts.
Claire, in another essay long ago you wrote that America has to be hegemon of the world, or things will go to hell. You say if Ukraine isn't supported now, the children of today's leaders will end up dying in European wars, or something like that.
I think the ordinary person in America doesn't want to rule the world, or want their country to rule the world. They may want America to be the best in the world, but that's not the same as actually being the world police. Similarly, I don't know where you get this idea that if America doesn't arm Ukraine, it will lead to wars in which future Americans die. You know, France has nukes, Germany has an industrial infrastructure, they can be the kernel of a European defense if such is needed. The US can stay in its own hemisphere, that would keep it out of most forms of trouble.
Then, in the specific case of the war in Ukraine, there is the problem that we in the West hardly know what our own governments and "special services" have been up to. The New York Times recently published an article on how the CIA was active in Ukraine for a decade before the Russian invasion of 2022. Ukrainian nationalists wanted western support against Russia, and volunteered to make their country a base of western activities directed against Russia.
It should be no surprise at all that tens of millions of Americans are sick of all this, and want nothing to do with it any more.
This is a good question, and to answer it, I'm going to ask you first to look out for today's issue of GLOBAL EYES. (It will be published later today.) Read the links to the analyses by Keir Giles, and perhaps listen to the podcasts, too. I think very highly of his scholarship and largely agree with his perspective. When you've read them, tell me what you think and whether it changes your sense of why the US doesn't really have the option of saying, "It's a European war--it doesn't affect me."
I don't believe that the US has to be the "hegemon of the world, or things will go to hell." I believe that if the US precipitously withdraws from regions where it has traditionally been a security guarantor, it won't be replaced by peace--it will be replaced by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. I also believe that the US is *treaty bound* to protect the security of certain key allies (including Australia!) and that these treaties were forged in response to geopolitical circumstances that haven't changed. I believe that not only would it be an act of extreme dishonor unilaterally and without warning to abrogate them, it would be an act of supreme folly: Who would ever sign a treaty with the United States again?
I believe that liberal, democratic states must either ally with each other to protect the kind of world from which we've all benefitted so greatly, or they will be slowly (or quickly) forced to subordinate themselves to imperial and autocratic states that share none of our values. Not just economically, but in all of the fundamental rights we take for granted. If people don't understand how they, personally, have benefitted, from a world in which autocracies are contained, it's because it's worked so well that they've come to see it as the natural state of things. It isn't.
I have had many thoughts, I don't know if I can remember them all. But here goes.
Maybe my counter-thesis is that the main threat to liberal democracy in the West, is from within the West. Russian money and Russian troll farms may pry for weakness, but the aggressive transformation of western society resulting from the combination of progressivism and neoliberalism among elites, and the populist reaction it has generated, is 100% our own creation. Trump is simply western values in "Caesarist" form.
I remember a moment from your latest conversation with Vlad, when he said that one way to obtain enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine from Trump Republicans, was to pitch it in terms of protecting white people, producing a brief shocked silence from you. This is an example of the racial communalism that has developed among many whites in response to the progressive/neoliberal synthesis. On the other hand, many other whites, e.g. among millennials, make their peace with it, by being aggressively anti-racist and anti-West. I don't know if I need to, but I could surely give many examples of these internal tensions in western societies, ranging from small to severe. One can optimistically try to see this as another instalment in a western saga of painful yet dynamic self-transformation. Maybe we'll see.
Here I will link to an interview with Zelensky's former advisor Arestovych
in which he makes similar points from a different perspective. But I would focus on his claim, that Putin managed to make the war about the global South versus the global West. All these countries joining associations like BRICS, they're not necessarily in the Chinese and Russian camp of outright opposition to the West, many like India are just being non-aligned or "multi-aligned" or just pursuing national self-interest. But one those associations do show is a different way to participate in globalization.
The western model has become one of open borders and subordination of the state to a global marketplace. This eastern model of globalization is one that preserves state sovereignty, and incidentally preserves nationhood - it's a model of cooperating states and cooperating peoples, rather than everything blending together. And this is a vision which, under the name of old-fasioned nationalism, the "far right" of the West can agree with.
Here I will object to another common claim, which is that people like Musk, Carlson, and Trump are Russian puppets. No, they are westerners pursuing a conception of western self-interest that places them at odds, with what I'm calling the progressive-neoliberal synthesis. Trump and Carlson are simply American nationalists; maybe you could put them in the tradition of Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Musk is a futurist technocrat who thinks that western progress is threatened by the "woke mind virus".
You asked my opinion on Keir Giles. I had a look, I dare say a lot of it is true, maybe some of it is exaggerated, but as Giles himself says, it's all more or less in the open now. Russia has become a place where any challenge to the ruling clique, whether it comes from a Prigozhin or a Navalny, may be met with murder rather than intellectual debate or legal process. Putin has volunteered to make Russia the armory of resistance to the West, in defense of independent traditional civilizations, etc.
Somewhere in my readings in the past 24 hours - I don't think it was in Giles - I came across a characterization of the Biden team's foreign policy as a mix of anti-interventionism and calibrated response. That not only seems plausible, but if I was somehow in their position, I would probably be doing something similar. People like Peter Zeihan and Noah Smith talk about the hidden continuities between the 21st century US presidents, this is probably one of them, and reflects something about the balance of power in the world. I doubt that it will change until objective conditions force it to change - maybe China attacks Taiwan, or AI gives the e/acc faction of Silicon Valley supreme power over the planet.
I read an excellent article on the weekend in the NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung: link is in German) about Russia’s presence in Africa and influence in the Sahel.
What is happening with Ukraine is not just Europe’s war.
Sechs Monate nach Prigoschins Tod: Die berüchtigte Wagner-Truppe lebt in neuer Form weiterhttps://www.nzz.ch/international/putins-mysterioeses-afrika-korps-russland-baut-wagner-truppe-um-ld.1807557
Two othet possibilities: fear of intimidation by MAGA mobs if he deviates from Trump's wishes; and contrarily, a christian-Millenarian lack of concern for the Earthly side of long term outcomes?
Sure, sounds nuts, but not without Rapturous precedents going back as far as Reagan.
Trump is an obsequious weirdo when it comes to Russia, but history will also look poorly on the Obama presidency’s track record on Russia and Iran. The infestation of progressives in the Obama administration giving terrible foreign policy advice and his own avoidant instincts made him a perfect weak-willed leader for Putin to deceive and bully. It makes me cringe to think back on Obama mocking Romney’s position that Russia was a dangerous, malign actor. I supported Obama, but he was wrong and a condescending prick about it. Both Romney and McCain turned out right about Russia’s goals in general and Putin’s in particular.
The ‘Reset’ with Russia turned out to be as much of a wishful-thinking self-deception as JCPOA. With Iran Obama was a confrontation-avoiding appeaser. We know now that he paid Iran to help him con the American public as if it froze nuclear weapons development due to Obama’s diplomacy. Iran kept doing high grade enrichment in secret, got paid by the US to play act that it stopped, Obama claimed success and Iran knew he couldn’t act and blow the charade.
With Russia Obama was indecisive and weak. There is no way his administration didn’t know Putin remained the true power in Russia, and not Medvedev. Obama was pathetic in not sending modern ATGMs (Trump ironically shipped the Javelins) and anti aircraft systems to Ukraine. Obama didn’t push NATO hard enough to modernize and grow in capacity, failed to convince Europe to avoid depending on Russia for energy, didn’t do much of anything to respond to Putin’s actions invasions of Ukraine, Syria, and the Russia information warfare campaigns against Europe and the US. Progressive foreign policy ideas bloomed under Obama and have brought us instability, multiple dangerous international wars, emboldened totalitarian countries. Putin got the president he wanted after Obama, and Obama got to watch Putin’s man in the White House dismantle most of his domestic and foreign actions.
That’s your comeback to a discussion of Obama’s weak foreign policy? Plain was a bad VP choice, but she wasn’t Romney’s choice. By that point Obama had already made the choice to believe in Putin, and his pathetic progressive advisors didn’t change course in 2014, and he did zero about direct influence operations of Russia during the 2016 election. Obama, like Bush, like Trump has been pathetic in facing Russia and Iran. That’s simply a fact.
The dirty secret of that election is George W Bush by late summer had already decided on Obama as his preferred successor because Obama was willing to support his economic policies(i.e. TARP) while McCain was not. Both George W Bush and his Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson are quite open that by mid summer they were already operating on the assumption that Obama was the next President and that was there preferred outcome.
BTW, when the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty collapses as I predict it will if Trump is elected it will collapse much like how a banking or financial crisis happens where much banks fall like dominos countries go nuclear like dominos. What is Paulson's line that most aggressive investor quickly becomes the same as most fearful investor.
That was evident around then. The longer time passes, the more it’s obvious that the democratic world is suffering the consequences of Obama’s 8 years of foreign policy failures.
It’s a shame that Biden and the US has to deal with those consequences, and unfortunately some of Obama’s terrible advisors are in the Biden administration.
The gentlemen from Lithuania imploring the world to more aggressively confront Russian aggression comes from a nation that may be more vulnerable to a Russian attack than almost any nation in the world. Certainly a country that vulnerable would have a robust motivation to maximize its defense expenditures. What would be appropriate given Lithuania’s vulnerability? Five percent of GDP? Seven percent? Ten percent?
Actually, Lithuania spends 2.5 percent of GDP on defense, barely exceeding the threshold required of NATO nations. Trump only threatened to abandon Article 5 for nations that don’t meet the threshold. Lithuania does (by the skin of its teeth) so presumably Trump would defend that nation if it was attacked.
For decades, the United States has been begging it’s European “allies” to spend more on defense. Until recently, they refused. That started to change when Trump was in office and slowly but surely, more NATO members have been meeting their financial obligations ever since. Only Trump’s threat of consequences has motivated European NATO members to do what they should have been doing all along.
But Europe’s refusal to devote adequate resources to its defense is the least of its problems. Several years ago, Gallup polled military-aged citizens of nations around the world; the question posed was a simple one. “Would you be willing to fight for your country?”
Only 29 percent in France answered in the affirmative. In the UK it was 27 percent. In Spain and Austria only 21 percent expressed a willingness to fight. In Italy it was 20 percent. In Belgium it was 19 percent and in Germany it was 18 percent. Pulling up the rear was the Netherlands at 15 percent of the fighting aged population willing to fight. It’s ironic that the man Biden wants for the next head of NATO is the current Prime Minister (care-taker status) of the nation with the fewest men willing to fight to preserve Dutch freedoms.
Despite all this, Claire has trouble getting her head around the possibility that the multitude of things wrong with NATO goes far beyond Trump. In fact, Trump is the least of NATO’s problems. It’s NATO’s European members that have turned the organization into a laughing stock.
The reason Europe is so diminished is because it’s decadent and desultory. Europe is spent. It’s in extremis. It doesn’t really matter if Trump or Biden wins; Europe is toast either way.
It is rather funny to see publications like Politico and it's correspondent Stuart Lau suggest Rutte is the best choice to run NATO because Rutte is some type of Trump whisperer.
I would also suggest that the survey about how only 29 percent of French military-aged citizens are willing to fight for there country is kind of a stupid question in a country with nuclear weapons. You don't need 29% of the military aged population to launch a nuclear strike.
You would have to be an extremely dumb leader to try invading France and thinking nuclear retaliation is nothing to be worried about because a Gallup survey says only 29% of military aged French citizens want to fight for there country.
What do you think of the idea of more European countries obtaining nuclear weapons beyond Britain and France like say even Lithuania having nukes? I know Claire opposes the expansion of more countries having nuclear weapons but I am curious about your opinion WigWag?
South Korea, Taiwan and even Japan yes. In Europe, maybe Poland (I’m not sure; I would have to think about it). The Baltic nations; no. They’re too small, too new to democracy and probably incapable of protecting those weapons. Besides any arsenal they developed would be too small. They would never have a second strike capability. That might actually inspire a Russian nuclear attack rather than deterring one.
Finland DID seriously think about nuclear weapons in the past(1960s) at least secretly. I am actually thinking of writing an article for Claire on the non-proliferation treaty where I suggest as a thesis that given past interest Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, and Finland should all be considered as possible nuclear weapons candidate countries in addition to Poland, Ukraine and perhaps another Eastern European country(Romania??) O'h, and I forgot about Turkey. I think it is safe to assume without NATO Erdogan will go nuclear.
It is perfectly consistent on a intellectual level to make an argument that such a security architecture i.e. instead of the US "leading" NATO it would be better for every or most existing NATO members just to have nuclear weapons of there own but I also think Donald Trump owes it to the American people to level with them and basically say this is his preferred security system if he is elected this fall. Do not let the Trump adjacent maybe Trump GOP establishment try to muddy this issue.
If the US withdrew from NATO what leverage would the US have to stop the Baltics from going nuclear in your opinion? Russia might have leverage i.e. invade them first before they go nuclear but if you are concerned about there ability to protect nuclear weapons and there newness to democracy by your own logic isn't it better that the US remain inside the NATO "tent"
This might be related more to the Middle East 101 Class but I am curious about how Claire feels about this interview with Michael Oren suggesting that no matter Israel needs to be less dependent on the United States. Obviously for those of you in the Middle East 101 class you remember that Michael Oren was on the guest speakers.
I assuming Claire as a proponent of American engagement in the world but be somewhat opposed to Oren's idea of Israel being less dependent on the US but I am curious about what Claire and everyone else thinks about this idea.
This is really getting into Middle East 101 territory but Oren also claims it was a mistake for Israel not to directly engage Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War and by NOT doing so this led to Israel being forced into the Gaza and Madrid processes. I am pretty sure Claire and Arun disagree with this view.
Oren also argues the Palestinian leadership on the West Bank really isn't Palestinian and was really imported from Tunis.
No words for these feckless, traitorous, Republican fools. They have given Putin permission to attack NATO countries, now, with no need to wait for Trump's possible re-election. In response, Putin is wasting no time. We've seen the Navalny murder, and I don't doubt that Russia will push for the annexation of Moldova's Transnisteria region when the region's deputies meet on February 28.
Meanwhile, if you want Congress to vote for aid to Ukraine, it might be well to contact your Representative at the local District office. It's easy for any big national advertising campaign to tell people to call the US Capitol switchboard but if people call/ write the local District offices that looks more like genuine, "grassroots" sentiment.
The only way to deter Putin is with nuclear arms. Wonder what would have happened if U had not given up its 2000 nuclear missiles in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the US and UK. What would happen if we gave U 2000 now out of our arsenal?
Do you think the world would be a better place with both Iran AND Ukraine having nuclear arms(No you can't just choose Ukraine you have to take both or neither)?
(Or Ukraine and Iraq lead by Saddam Hussein and his two sons to twist the knife?)
This is genuinely an open question of mine that I am curious what the readers and Claire respond back with.
Tim, I think an issue that’s rarely discussed but worth discussing is not whether Ukraine and Iran should be nuclear nations or even whether additional NATO members should go nuclear. An equally pressing question is whether the UK and France can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
The level of Islamic radicalism has become astoundingly obvious in both countries. If press reports are accurate, British MPs require police protection if they cast votes in a manner that radical Islamic residents and their progeny object to (not to mention student radicals attending Oxford and Cambridge).
The images of radical Islamists parading in the streets of London must strike terror in the hearts of London’s Jewish residents. Yet the police seem indifferent at best to the Islamic extremism.
In France, Islamic terrorism has become a regular feature of political life. A stabbing here, a woman thrown off a balcony there, hardly even justifies surprise any more. Of course, there’s also the regular confrontations between the Algerian and Moroccan communities and the French authorities.
The powers that be in both the UK and France seem to be at a loss about what to do about all of this. Remember that the fecundity of the Muslim community in the UK and France is far greater than the rest of the populations of those countries.
What we are witnessing in the UK and France now may simply foreshadow a looming disaster.
Given all of this, it’s fair to wonder about the safety of the nuclear arsenals in the UK and France or even who might control those arsenals in the future.
The thought of a nuclear armed Poland or Finland might, in the intermediate to long term, represent far less of a threat than the reality of a nuclear armed UK or France.
Claire you're really good! I suspect that I'm not alone in being overwhelmed by information about practically everything! I can't read all you write though I'd like to. What I'm hoping now is that the US will find a way around Mike Johnson to do what needs to be done with Ukraine and more - as you rightly say, the international rules based order is under attack. It's not just a Ukraine problem or even a European problem. It's global. Of course the order was largely constructed around US interests, but those interests were and are largely in everybody's interests and have proven adaptable to others - Kant's categorical imperative at work. Now the US in its Trumpian mode is acting against its own interests. The Trumpians, the Russians, the Hamasites and others have learned how to "flood the zone" as Bannon says and create doubt and division. Standing up to this turns out not to be easy. Brushfires on all sides coming together into a mighty conflagration.
I'd actually written more about that, but I deleted it because this was just too long. I wrote that you'd think a man who was for years at the very beating heart of the inter sanctum--privy to every secret--might be able to say something more authoritative about how to understand what is, or could be, going on in the halls of American power. But he sounds every bit as bewildered as I am.
I don't know much about Dearlove but I definitely know he has Brexit leanings. He might not have supported leaving during the 2016 referendum but after the referendum he was a big proponent of a "no deal" Brexit. Now supporting Brexit doesn't mean you support Russia but obviously Brexit has without a doubt benefited Russia.
My main objection to Dearlove is that he's an extraordinarily weak analyst, seemingly unable to overcome confirmation bias.
last year the BBC security editor did a decent retrospective on Iraq, 20 years on. Dearlove's conribution is remarkable:
'Asked if he looks back on Iraq as an intelligence failure, Sir Richard's answer is simple: "No." He still believes Iraq had some kind of weapons programme and that elements may have been moved over the border to Syria. '
Dearlove also suggested in 2017 that it was unlikely Russia would further invade Ukraine and it's support for separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk at the time was "quite expensive." Again Dearlove is hardly the only person to share this views at the time but he himself at times has been quite naive about Russia. Dearlove definitely has sympathies towards what you might call "National Conservativism." He is NOT a Obama or a Macron guy. He also thought the initial round of sanction on Russia after invading Crimea was too hard and or symptom of Obama and Merkel covering up for there failure in preventing Putin from taking Crimea. Again very Trumpian adjacent at times.
Dearlove also supports the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe ironically just as Russia has left both bodies(that are interconnected)
I saw this post a few days ago and wanted to comment. I am not American, I am Australian, but I think I understand well enough why people would want to vote for Trump and why they would say, to hell with the entire ruling class and its cherished internationalism.
I was wondering where to begin, and meanwhile ran across an interview of Tucker Carlson by Glenn Beck, in which Carlson, and to some extent Beck, states many many things that exponents of this new populist nationalism would agree with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64r6ko9o51o
The foreign policy dimension is that America's cities are in decline, the country has all kinds of internal problems, and yet its politicians care more about playing at world police than addressing those problems. In fact, the ruling party is even leaving the borders open so that they can get new, more compliant citizenry. The leadership is possessed with dreams of world empire and social transformation, and has lost all legitimacy. It's time for America to become a normal self-interested country.
Understand that I am presenting a kind of paraphrase of Carlson here. I think there is a lot of truth in what he says, but it is as much a statement of values as it is a claim about facts.
Claire, in another essay long ago you wrote that America has to be hegemon of the world, or things will go to hell. You say if Ukraine isn't supported now, the children of today's leaders will end up dying in European wars, or something like that.
I think the ordinary person in America doesn't want to rule the world, or want their country to rule the world. They may want America to be the best in the world, but that's not the same as actually being the world police. Similarly, I don't know where you get this idea that if America doesn't arm Ukraine, it will lead to wars in which future Americans die. You know, France has nukes, Germany has an industrial infrastructure, they can be the kernel of a European defense if such is needed. The US can stay in its own hemisphere, that would keep it out of most forms of trouble.
Then, in the specific case of the war in Ukraine, there is the problem that we in the West hardly know what our own governments and "special services" have been up to. The New York Times recently published an article on how the CIA was active in Ukraine for a decade before the Russian invasion of 2022. Ukrainian nationalists wanted western support against Russia, and volunteered to make their country a base of western activities directed against Russia.
It should be no surprise at all that tens of millions of Americans are sick of all this, and want nothing to do with it any more.
This is a good question, and to answer it, I'm going to ask you first to look out for today's issue of GLOBAL EYES. (It will be published later today.) Read the links to the analyses by Keir Giles, and perhaps listen to the podcasts, too. I think very highly of his scholarship and largely agree with his perspective. When you've read them, tell me what you think and whether it changes your sense of why the US doesn't really have the option of saying, "It's a European war--it doesn't affect me."
I don't believe that the US has to be the "hegemon of the world, or things will go to hell." I believe that if the US precipitously withdraws from regions where it has traditionally been a security guarantor, it won't be replaced by peace--it will be replaced by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. I also believe that the US is *treaty bound* to protect the security of certain key allies (including Australia!) and that these treaties were forged in response to geopolitical circumstances that haven't changed. I believe that not only would it be an act of extreme dishonor unilaterally and without warning to abrogate them, it would be an act of supreme folly: Who would ever sign a treaty with the United States again?
I believe that liberal, democratic states must either ally with each other to protect the kind of world from which we've all benefitted so greatly, or they will be slowly (or quickly) forced to subordinate themselves to imperial and autocratic states that share none of our values. Not just economically, but in all of the fundamental rights we take for granted. If people don't understand how they, personally, have benefitted, from a world in which autocracies are contained, it's because it's worked so well that they've come to see it as the natural state of things. It isn't.
I have had many thoughts, I don't know if I can remember them all. But here goes.
Maybe my counter-thesis is that the main threat to liberal democracy in the West, is from within the West. Russian money and Russian troll farms may pry for weakness, but the aggressive transformation of western society resulting from the combination of progressivism and neoliberalism among elites, and the populist reaction it has generated, is 100% our own creation. Trump is simply western values in "Caesarist" form.
I remember a moment from your latest conversation with Vlad, when he said that one way to obtain enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine from Trump Republicans, was to pitch it in terms of protecting white people, producing a brief shocked silence from you. This is an example of the racial communalism that has developed among many whites in response to the progressive/neoliberal synthesis. On the other hand, many other whites, e.g. among millennials, make their peace with it, by being aggressively anti-racist and anti-West. I don't know if I need to, but I could surely give many examples of these internal tensions in western societies, ranging from small to severe. One can optimistically try to see this as another instalment in a western saga of painful yet dynamic self-transformation. Maybe we'll see.
Here I will link to an interview with Zelensky's former advisor Arestovych
https://unherd.com/2024/01/oleksiy-arestovych-zelenskyys-challenger/
in which he makes similar points from a different perspective. But I would focus on his claim, that Putin managed to make the war about the global South versus the global West. All these countries joining associations like BRICS, they're not necessarily in the Chinese and Russian camp of outright opposition to the West, many like India are just being non-aligned or "multi-aligned" or just pursuing national self-interest. But one those associations do show is a different way to participate in globalization.
The western model has become one of open borders and subordination of the state to a global marketplace. This eastern model of globalization is one that preserves state sovereignty, and incidentally preserves nationhood - it's a model of cooperating states and cooperating peoples, rather than everything blending together. And this is a vision which, under the name of old-fasioned nationalism, the "far right" of the West can agree with.
Here I will object to another common claim, which is that people like Musk, Carlson, and Trump are Russian puppets. No, they are westerners pursuing a conception of western self-interest that places them at odds, with what I'm calling the progressive-neoliberal synthesis. Trump and Carlson are simply American nationalists; maybe you could put them in the tradition of Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Musk is a futurist technocrat who thinks that western progress is threatened by the "woke mind virus".
You asked my opinion on Keir Giles. I had a look, I dare say a lot of it is true, maybe some of it is exaggerated, but as Giles himself says, it's all more or less in the open now. Russia has become a place where any challenge to the ruling clique, whether it comes from a Prigozhin or a Navalny, may be met with murder rather than intellectual debate or legal process. Putin has volunteered to make Russia the armory of resistance to the West, in defense of independent traditional civilizations, etc.
Somewhere in my readings in the past 24 hours - I don't think it was in Giles - I came across a characterization of the Biden team's foreign policy as a mix of anti-interventionism and calibrated response. That not only seems plausible, but if I was somehow in their position, I would probably be doing something similar. People like Peter Zeihan and Noah Smith talk about the hidden continuities between the 21st century US presidents, this is probably one of them, and reflects something about the balance of power in the world. I doubt that it will change until objective conditions force it to change - maybe China attacks Taiwan, or AI gives the e/acc faction of Silicon Valley supreme power over the planet.
I read an excellent article on the weekend in the NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung: link is in German) about Russia’s presence in Africa and influence in the Sahel.
What is happening with Ukraine is not just Europe’s war.
Sechs Monate nach Prigoschins Tod: Die berüchtigte Wagner-Truppe lebt in neuer Form weiterhttps://www.nzz.ch/international/putins-mysterioeses-afrika-korps-russland-baut-wagner-truppe-um-ld.1807557
Could I ask you to double-check the link? I'm being told it's invalid. I'd very much like to read it.
ah shoot. yes, will check— maybe the “gift link” thing didn’t work.
sending you an email Claire
I didn't get it?
Mike Johnson is ‘doing this’ because he is a Little Man and now the world knows his name.
My instinct as well.
Two othet possibilities: fear of intimidation by MAGA mobs if he deviates from Trump's wishes; and contrarily, a christian-Millenarian lack of concern for the Earthly side of long term outcomes?
Sure, sounds nuts, but not without Rapturous precedents going back as far as Reagan.
Trump is an obsequious weirdo when it comes to Russia, but history will also look poorly on the Obama presidency’s track record on Russia and Iran. The infestation of progressives in the Obama administration giving terrible foreign policy advice and his own avoidant instincts made him a perfect weak-willed leader for Putin to deceive and bully. It makes me cringe to think back on Obama mocking Romney’s position that Russia was a dangerous, malign actor. I supported Obama, but he was wrong and a condescending prick about it. Both Romney and McCain turned out right about Russia’s goals in general and Putin’s in particular.
The ‘Reset’ with Russia turned out to be as much of a wishful-thinking self-deception as JCPOA. With Iran Obama was a confrontation-avoiding appeaser. We know now that he paid Iran to help him con the American public as if it froze nuclear weapons development due to Obama’s diplomacy. Iran kept doing high grade enrichment in secret, got paid by the US to play act that it stopped, Obama claimed success and Iran knew he couldn’t act and blow the charade.
With Russia Obama was indecisive and weak. There is no way his administration didn’t know Putin remained the true power in Russia, and not Medvedev. Obama was pathetic in not sending modern ATGMs (Trump ironically shipped the Javelins) and anti aircraft systems to Ukraine. Obama didn’t push NATO hard enough to modernize and grow in capacity, failed to convince Europe to avoid depending on Russia for energy, didn’t do much of anything to respond to Putin’s actions invasions of Ukraine, Syria, and the Russia information warfare campaigns against Europe and the US. Progressive foreign policy ideas bloomed under Obama and have brought us instability, multiple dangerous international wars, emboldened totalitarian countries. Putin got the president he wanted after Obama, and Obama got to watch Putin’s man in the White House dismantle most of his domestic and foreign actions.
Agree 100 percent. Obama was a foreign policy disaster.
Still want Palin for Vice President?
That’s your comeback to a discussion of Obama’s weak foreign policy? Plain was a bad VP choice, but she wasn’t Romney’s choice. By that point Obama had already made the choice to believe in Putin, and his pathetic progressive advisors didn’t change course in 2014, and he did zero about direct influence operations of Russia during the 2016 election. Obama, like Bush, like Trump has been pathetic in facing Russia and Iran. That’s simply a fact.
The dirty secret of that election is George W Bush by late summer had already decided on Obama as his preferred successor because Obama was willing to support his economic policies(i.e. TARP) while McCain was not. Both George W Bush and his Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson are quite open that by mid summer they were already operating on the assumption that Obama was the next President and that was there preferred outcome.
https://youtu.be/yL_PQ81vf74?si=Hd8xaIpRr6oaCqZC&t=1789
BTW, when the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty collapses as I predict it will if Trump is elected it will collapse much like how a banking or financial crisis happens where much banks fall like dominos countries go nuclear like dominos. What is Paulson's line that most aggressive investor quickly becomes the same as most fearful investor.
It’s been collapsing for a long while because weak US presidents didn’t absolutely nothing about Putin’s nuclear saber rattling, including Obama.
That was evident around then. The longer time passes, the more it’s obvious that the democratic world is suffering the consequences of Obama’s 8 years of foreign policy failures.
Whatever you think of Obama's failures is almost irrelevant to Biden vs Trump at this point.
It’s a shame that Biden and the US has to deal with those consequences, and unfortunately some of Obama’s terrible advisors are in the Biden administration.
The gentlemen from Lithuania imploring the world to more aggressively confront Russian aggression comes from a nation that may be more vulnerable to a Russian attack than almost any nation in the world. Certainly a country that vulnerable would have a robust motivation to maximize its defense expenditures. What would be appropriate given Lithuania’s vulnerability? Five percent of GDP? Seven percent? Ten percent?
Actually, Lithuania spends 2.5 percent of GDP on defense, barely exceeding the threshold required of NATO nations. Trump only threatened to abandon Article 5 for nations that don’t meet the threshold. Lithuania does (by the skin of its teeth) so presumably Trump would defend that nation if it was attacked.
For decades, the United States has been begging it’s European “allies” to spend more on defense. Until recently, they refused. That started to change when Trump was in office and slowly but surely, more NATO members have been meeting their financial obligations ever since. Only Trump’s threat of consequences has motivated European NATO members to do what they should have been doing all along.
But Europe’s refusal to devote adequate resources to its defense is the least of its problems. Several years ago, Gallup polled military-aged citizens of nations around the world; the question posed was a simple one. “Would you be willing to fight for your country?”
Only 29 percent in France answered in the affirmative. In the UK it was 27 percent. In Spain and Austria only 21 percent expressed a willingness to fight. In Italy it was 20 percent. In Belgium it was 19 percent and in Germany it was 18 percent. Pulling up the rear was the Netherlands at 15 percent of the fighting aged population willing to fight. It’s ironic that the man Biden wants for the next head of NATO is the current Prime Minister (care-taker status) of the nation with the fewest men willing to fight to preserve Dutch freedoms.
Despite all this, Claire has trouble getting her head around the possibility that the multitude of things wrong with NATO goes far beyond Trump. In fact, Trump is the least of NATO’s problems. It’s NATO’s European members that have turned the organization into a laughing stock.
The reason Europe is so diminished is because it’s decadent and desultory. Europe is spent. It’s in extremis. It doesn’t really matter if Trump or Biden wins; Europe is toast either way.
The survey I mentioned;
https://gallup.com.pk/bb_old_site/Polls/180315.pdf?t
It is rather funny to see publications like Politico and it's correspondent Stuart Lau suggest Rutte is the best choice to run NATO because Rutte is some type of Trump whisperer.
https://www.politico.eu/article/mark-rutte-nato-donald-trump-vladimir-putin/
I would also suggest that the survey about how only 29 percent of French military-aged citizens are willing to fight for there country is kind of a stupid question in a country with nuclear weapons. You don't need 29% of the military aged population to launch a nuclear strike.
https://youtu.be/dcOT9pLSeUs?si=NU4n6ms0k6XTXT94&t=905
You would have to be an extremely dumb leader to try invading France and thinking nuclear retaliation is nothing to be worried about because a Gallup survey says only 29% of military aged French citizens want to fight for there country.
What do you think of the idea of more European countries obtaining nuclear weapons beyond Britain and France like say even Lithuania having nukes? I know Claire opposes the expansion of more countries having nuclear weapons but I am curious about your opinion WigWag?
South Korea, Taiwan and even Japan yes. In Europe, maybe Poland (I’m not sure; I would have to think about it). The Baltic nations; no. They’re too small, too new to democracy and probably incapable of protecting those weapons. Besides any arsenal they developed would be too small. They would never have a second strike capability. That might actually inspire a Russian nuclear attack rather than deterring one.
Tim, another NATO country worth thinking about for a nuclear weapons program is Finland. If Finland had these weapons it might not need NATO.
Finland DID seriously think about nuclear weapons in the past(1960s) at least secretly. I am actually thinking of writing an article for Claire on the non-proliferation treaty where I suggest as a thesis that given past interest Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, and Finland should all be considered as possible nuclear weapons candidate countries in addition to Poland, Ukraine and perhaps another Eastern European country(Romania??) O'h, and I forgot about Turkey. I think it is safe to assume without NATO Erdogan will go nuclear.
It is perfectly consistent on a intellectual level to make an argument that such a security architecture i.e. instead of the US "leading" NATO it would be better for every or most existing NATO members just to have nuclear weapons of there own but I also think Donald Trump owes it to the American people to level with them and basically say this is his preferred security system if he is elected this fall. Do not let the Trump adjacent maybe Trump GOP establishment try to muddy this issue.
If the US withdrew from NATO what leverage would the US have to stop the Baltics from going nuclear in your opinion? Russia might have leverage i.e. invade them first before they go nuclear but if you are concerned about there ability to protect nuclear weapons and there newness to democracy by your own logic isn't it better that the US remain inside the NATO "tent"
This might be related more to the Middle East 101 Class but I am curious about how Claire feels about this interview with Michael Oren suggesting that no matter Israel needs to be less dependent on the United States. Obviously for those of you in the Middle East 101 class you remember that Michael Oren was on the guest speakers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCBAZYii53A
I assuming Claire as a proponent of American engagement in the world but be somewhat opposed to Oren's idea of Israel being less dependent on the US but I am curious about what Claire and everyone else thinks about this idea.
This is really getting into Middle East 101 territory but Oren also claims it was a mistake for Israel not to directly engage Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War and by NOT doing so this led to Israel being forced into the Gaza and Madrid processes. I am pretty sure Claire and Arun disagree with this view.
Oren also argues the Palestinian leadership on the West Bank really isn't Palestinian and was really imported from Tunis.
No words for these feckless, traitorous, Republican fools. They have given Putin permission to attack NATO countries, now, with no need to wait for Trump's possible re-election. In response, Putin is wasting no time. We've seen the Navalny murder, and I don't doubt that Russia will push for the annexation of Moldova's Transnisteria region when the region's deputies meet on February 28.
Meanwhile, if you want Congress to vote for aid to Ukraine, it might be well to contact your Representative at the local District office. It's easy for any big national advertising campaign to tell people to call the US Capitol switchboard but if people call/ write the local District offices that looks more like genuine, "grassroots" sentiment.
The only way to deter Putin is with nuclear arms. Wonder what would have happened if U had not given up its 2000 nuclear missiles in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the US and UK. What would happen if we gave U 2000 now out of our arsenal?
Do you think the world would be a better place with both Iran AND Ukraine having nuclear arms(No you can't just choose Ukraine you have to take both or neither)?
(Or Ukraine and Iraq lead by Saddam Hussein and his two sons to twist the knife?)
This is genuinely an open question of mine that I am curious what the readers and Claire respond back with.
Tim, I think an issue that’s rarely discussed but worth discussing is not whether Ukraine and Iran should be nuclear nations or even whether additional NATO members should go nuclear. An equally pressing question is whether the UK and France can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
The level of Islamic radicalism has become astoundingly obvious in both countries. If press reports are accurate, British MPs require police protection if they cast votes in a manner that radical Islamic residents and their progeny object to (not to mention student radicals attending Oxford and Cambridge).
The images of radical Islamists parading in the streets of London must strike terror in the hearts of London’s Jewish residents. Yet the police seem indifferent at best to the Islamic extremism.
In France, Islamic terrorism has become a regular feature of political life. A stabbing here, a woman thrown off a balcony there, hardly even justifies surprise any more. Of course, there’s also the regular confrontations between the Algerian and Moroccan communities and the French authorities.
The powers that be in both the UK and France seem to be at a loss about what to do about all of this. Remember that the fecundity of the Muslim community in the UK and France is far greater than the rest of the populations of those countries.
What we are witnessing in the UK and France now may simply foreshadow a looming disaster.
Given all of this, it’s fair to wonder about the safety of the nuclear arsenals in the UK and France or even who might control those arsenals in the future.
The thought of a nuclear armed Poland or Finland might, in the intermediate to long term, represent far less of a threat than the reality of a nuclear armed UK or France.
Claire you're really good! I suspect that I'm not alone in being overwhelmed by information about practically everything! I can't read all you write though I'd like to. What I'm hoping now is that the US will find a way around Mike Johnson to do what needs to be done with Ukraine and more - as you rightly say, the international rules based order is under attack. It's not just a Ukraine problem or even a European problem. It's global. Of course the order was largely constructed around US interests, but those interests were and are largely in everybody's interests and have proven adaptable to others - Kant's categorical imperative at work. Now the US in its Trumpian mode is acting against its own interests. The Trumpians, the Russians, the Hamasites and others have learned how to "flood the zone" as Bannon says and create doubt and division. Standing up to this turns out not to be easy. Brushfires on all sides coming together into a mighty conflagration.
Among the many depressing elements of this post, one stands out: "The former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, now has a podcast." Sigh.
I also like his restyling as Comrade Dearlov later on - a bit too young to be the Fifth Man, don't you think?
I know, right? So much for the mystique.
I'd actually written more about that, but I deleted it because this was just too long. I wrote that you'd think a man who was for years at the very beating heart of the inter sanctum--privy to every secret--might be able to say something more authoritative about how to understand what is, or could be, going on in the halls of American power. But he sounds every bit as bewildered as I am.
By the depth of their post-retirement gig portfolios shall ye know them...
1. Podcast
2. NED at https://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/leadership-team
3. President of Pembroke College Boat Club (cambridge)
I don't know much about Dearlove but I definitely know he has Brexit leanings. He might not have supported leaving during the 2016 referendum but after the referendum he was a big proponent of a "no deal" Brexit. Now supporting Brexit doesn't mean you support Russia but obviously Brexit has without a doubt benefited Russia.
My main objection to Dearlove is that he's an extraordinarily weak analyst, seemingly unable to overcome confirmation bias.
last year the BBC security editor did a decent retrospective on Iraq, 20 years on. Dearlove's conribution is remarkable:
'Asked if he looks back on Iraq as an intelligence failure, Sir Richard's answer is simple: "No." He still believes Iraq had some kind of weapons programme and that elements may have been moved over the border to Syria. '
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-64914542
Also naive on Putin as you note, but in good company there...
That and other judgements mostly discourage me from spending time listening to his podcast.
Agreed. I just listened for Kasparov.
Dearlove also suggested in 2017 that it was unlikely Russia would further invade Ukraine and it's support for separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk at the time was "quite expensive." Again Dearlove is hardly the only person to share this views at the time but he himself at times has been quite naive about Russia. Dearlove definitely has sympathies towards what you might call "National Conservativism." He is NOT a Obama or a Macron guy. He also thought the initial round of sanction on Russia after invading Crimea was too hard and or symptom of Obama and Merkel covering up for there failure in preventing Putin from taking Crimea. Again very Trumpian adjacent at times.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/44185/interview-richard-dearlovei-spy-nationalism
Dearlove also supports the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe ironically just as Russia has left both bodies(that are interconnected)