The Heart of the Matter: December 2024

1. INTRODUCTION

I know I’ve been posting a lot about the war in Ukraine. It’s a preoccupation for three reasons: (i) I think our rulers have lost their minds; (ii) I think the popular understanding of the reasons for and risks of the war are dangerously misguided; and (iii) there is a grave risk that the war will continue to escalate and go nuclear, leading to the end of civilization.

2. HOW THE WAR WILL END

There are only three ways this war will end: (i) the destruction of Ukraine; (ii) the destruction of the world; or (iii) a negotiated settlement that would include UN-supervised elections in Ukraine’s eastern provinces and Ukrainian neutrality. Russia will not allow Ukraine to join NATO, and though that might be upsetting, if you believe Ukrainian NATO membership is a goal worth continuing to slaughter and immiserate millions of Russians and Ukrainians over, you’re necessarily choosing one of the first two outcomes.

I know there’s hope in some quarters that if the war starts to go badly for Russia, Putin will be deposed. This is not something to hope for. The pressure on Putin is from hardliners, not doves. The pressure he’s been facing isn’t, “Why don’t you back down?” It’s “Why have you not responded to the imperialists more forcefully?”

So even if Putin were replaced, it would very likely be by someone less inclined toward restraint. And that’s to say nothing of the dangers of civil strife inside a country with 6,000 nuclear weapons.

The party that feels it’s winning a war continues with the tactics associated with winning. The party that feels it’s losing escalates until it can’t escalate anymore. So far, NATO has been the party escalating, because it recognizes that NATO is losing the war (even western war-supporting media no longer denies this). Russia, which has been winning, has been restrained. If you think Russia’s invasion has been brutal so far, wait until what happens if the Russian government believes it’s starting to lose.

3. WHY THE WAR STARTED

I know suggesting the nature of this war is a bit more complex than its typical presentation by the western establishment can seem like apostasy. But given the extreme risks (two years ago, President Biden claimed the war had brought the world closer to nuclear “armageddon” than since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962), and because if we don’t accurately understand the war’s nature and causes we’ll have a much poorer chance of a less catastrophic end to it, I think some effort toward accuracy is important. I guess if our rulers end organized human life over this thing it won’t really matter, but we should at least be clear-eyed about why it all happened before they blow up the world. So:

3.A: Is Putin the Latest New Hitler?

I know we’re supposed to believe Putin (not even Russia, just Putin) invaded Ukraine out of a mad desire to reconstitute the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, and “unprovoked, unprovoked, very double-plus unprovoked” to undermine the so-called Rules-Based Order because Putin knows Russia can’t compete with the west and so must sabotage it. Most of all, we’re supposed to believe that Putin is the New New Hitler, in support of which there has been an ongoing deluge of western propaganda blaring little else. The truth is, it would be extremely surprising if the USG and its mouthpieces in establishment media *weren’t* comparing Putin to Hitler, given that every enemy du jour of the US establishment is branded as the New New Hitler (NNH) or as Even Worse Than Hitler (EWTH). For example, Google “Hitler Saddam Hussein,” “Hitler Assad,” “Hitler Miloševi,” “Hitler Osama bin Laden,” “Hitler Noriega” (it’s been going on that long!). They’re even rolling it out now with regard to China—Google “Hitler Xi Jinping.” It’s entirely standard.

I’m sure sometimes an NNH or EWTH is done out of ignorance—many Americans know no history other than Hitler! and Appeasement! (here’s a stubborn example from just this morning), and have been trained and encouraged to reflexively defend themselves from psychological discomfort with this form of duckspeak. This is by design—if you know no history other than Hitler! and Appeasement!, you will have no other framework for understanding events, and every potential conflict will automatically be as existential and unavoidable as World War II. More often, I believe it’s done as a sales tactic, and in fairness it does seem to be effective. Much more here, here, here, here, here, and here.

None of this is remotely new, by the way. It tracks perfectly with George Orwell’s Principles of Newspeak, from 1984:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.

Of course I can’t prove or disprove the workings of Putin’s heart, and I don’t have access to the minutes of meetings of the Russian government. So at some point, arguments about motivations become declarations of faith. But I would argue that in addition to reasons to be suspicious regarding NNH and related explanations for the war, there is abundant evidence, much of it memory-holed or otherwise suppressed in western establishment discourse, that the real and obvious reason Russia invaded Ukraine has been NATO metastasis.

3.B: NATO Metastasis

My approach to creating characters in my novels is based on the recognition that humans are more alike than dissimilar, and that our commonalities are more consequential than our differences. If that’s true, than a good start to understanding the behavior of others is to understand ourselves. That is to say, the first resort of any sensible person trying to understand another person’s behavior should be to ask some version of, “What would I do under similar circumstances?”

In the case of America’s and NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine, that question would be, “What would I do if a foreign military alliance relentlessly expanded over the course of decades—eventually doubling in size, incorporating almost all my former allies, and ultimately attempting to incorporate nations along my most vulnerable borders?”

So my view is that NATO provoked Russia with nonstop expansion following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. For much more in support of this view, see Section 5, Additional Sources, below.

I know this view is commonly derided as Kremlin Talking Points, Russian Propaganda, Blame America First, etc., but KTP and BAF etc. are accusations, not arguments, best understood as more duckspeak. I think the facts of history and human nature support the view that NATO knowingly and deliberately, or at least recklessly and wantonly, provoked this war. Certainly the Monroe Doctrine and the Cuban Missile Crisis offer clues about great power reactions to other great powers encroaching on their near-abroad. But please don’t take my word for any of this; NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg himself in a moment of gloating forgot the official narrative and acknowledged that Russia invaded Ukraine to stop NATO from expanding.

(See also how referring to the war in Ukraine as a “proxy war” was widely attacked as KTP…until Boris Johnson acknowledged recently that this is exactly what the war is.)

But note that the question of what the US government would do under analogous circumstances—if, say Mexico or Canada or any countries in the Americas tried to enter into a military alliance with China or Russia—doesn’t need to be treated only as theory. Why does the US government have a Monroe Doctrine? Precisely because the US government feels threatened by foreign influence in our near abroad. Or consider the Cuban Missile Crisis. America provoked the USSR by placing nuclear missiles in Turkey, which bordered the USSR. The USSR provoked America back by placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, off the coast of Florida. It was only the dumbest luck that prevented those provocations from leading to a war that would have exterminated humanity.

3.C: Self-Determination

For anyone inclined at this point to say, “But Ukraine has a right to join NATO! Self-determination!”, first, note that no, no one has a right to join a club; only perhaps a right to apply, with the club then accepting or rejecting, based presumably on what the club considers to be its own interests.

Second, note the extremely obvious and critically important distortion built into the question. Because what any country or any person has a right to do—that is, what anyone can do—is entirely separate from the question of what any country or person should do, or what is sensible to do consistent with one’s overall interests.

There seems to be an assumption that Ukraine foregoing NATO membership out of fear of Russia displeasure is a form of slavery. This is at best silly. Smaller countries make decisions based in part of the reactions of their more powerful neighbors all the time (ask any country in Latin America about this, and about what typically happens if they displease the more powerful government to the north).

Concern about the reactions of more powerful actors might be unfortunate, but it is ubiquitous and unavoidable and it is not slavery. If I avoid a nearby park during my nighttime strolls because I know there’s a gang that hangs out there that might mug me, it is of course unfortunate. But it is a small price to pay to avoid being mugged, which would be catastrophic. If a truck is barreling towards a crosswalk and I as the pedestrian have the right of way, I’d have to be an idiot or suicidal to exercise my right to enter the intersection first (h/t for the crosswalk analogy to Wim Demeere).

None of this makes me a slave. None of it ruins my life (indeed, it avoids outcomes that could ruin my life). It is nothing more than the kind of common-sense behavior every human engages in—with the notable exception of the lunatics running Ukraine, NATO, and America.

4. HOW WE’RE TRAINED TO SEE THE WORLD

Here I’d like to pause to consider how discussions about the war in Ukraine are commonly framed.

Supporters of the war typically focus on Ukraine and what Ukraine wants, the rights of sovereign nations to self-determination, etc. Sometimes in these discussions I find myself pointing out that governments have internal factions that want different things, and that governments typically pursue interests that have nothing to do with what their people want. I wind up pointing out how many young Ukrainians have fled the country to avoid the draft; how the Ukrainian government has roving press gangs to force young people into the war; how the Ukrainian military struggles with desertion; how polls show a majority of Ukrainian people want a negotiated end to the war; how what Ukrainians want isn’t easy to know, given that the government suspended voting and other fundamental elements of democracy at the outset of the war. I ask how many more young Ukrainians and young Russians people think should be slaughtered in the service of whatever we’re supposed to believe this war is about.

And then I realize I’ve fallen into the trap of framing what America should do in terms of what another country might want.

One of the most fascinating and insidious aspects of American culture is the way we’re inculcated to believe it’s our duty to help other people with bombs—either by bombing them directly, or by providing the bombs for use by proxy. We don’t seem to think it’s our duty to help in other ways; mostly it’s help via bombing. It’s worth asking why this is.

At the same time, we’re trained never to ask about what Americans want or need. It’s always, “Think of the Ukrainians!” or “Think of the Yazidis!” or whoever else we’re supposed to send bombs on or to. And we’re equally trained to not even consider what all these bombs cost ordinary Americans, whose standard of living has been dropping for decades and who suffer from all sorts of health issues, crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, poor mass transit, etc. We’re not supposed to consider how many Americans could benefit if our government invested at home the $200 billion or so it has now siphoned from American taxpayers, or borrowed from China or Saudi Arabia, and shipped to this overseas war.

America is nearly $40 trillion in debt. The interest alone on that debt is approaching $1 trillion per year, and climbing. How much more should we borrow—how much more in debt servicing should we hang around the necks of our children and grandchildren—for the sake of building more bombs to provide or explode overseas?

Why are we trained to care so much about countries on the other side of the world (at least when it comes to bombing them), and so little about Americans? Why is it that the people who purport to care most about Ukraine are the most prepared to sacrifice Ukrainians?

As is so often the case, a good starting place is George Carlin.

But do the people who insist the war must continue to be fought really care about Ukraine?

Hint: not according to arch warmonger Lindsay Graham, who thinks the war was been a great American investment and is “about money [and] enriching ourselves.”

A useful question to ask people who want the war to continue—because Putin is the NNH, EWTH, Rules-Based Order, it’s a good investment for America, or for whatever other reason—is this:

How many more conscripts and civilians, whether Russian or Ukrainian, are you prepared to sacrifice for this cause beyond the million casualties to date? Ten? Ten million? What’s the number? How many?

Similarly, how much risk of nuclear war do you think is worth it? One percent? Five percent? Fifty percent? Higher?

War proponents tend to wiggle away from these questions. They’re worth asking regardless.

And if the response is some version of, “It’s not up to us; it’s up to Ukrainians,” note first that yes, it certainly is up to us and no one else, we are not obliged to fuel any foreign war just because local belligerents might be interested in fighting it; and second, that regardless it’s not even up to Ukrainians, because since the war began the Ukrainian government has consolidated control of all television stations, outlawed opposition political parties, and suspended elections.

5. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Hopefully the foregoing framework will be useful in developing a more accurate understanding of why this war started, and how it can be ended with the least possible additional death and suffering. For anyone who wants to go deeper:

If you want a corrective to NATO propaganda, in my experience a good first step is to Google “Jeffrey Sachs Ukraine.” Among other things, Sachs is a Columbia professor who was personally involved in every element of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. His five-minute video primer:

Another critical resource is John Mearsheimer. Among other things, Mearsheimer is a University of Chicago professor who over the course of nearly 20 years has accurately explained and predicted everything that’s happened in the region, including pointing out about 15 years ago that if NATO kept expanding and tried to bring in Ukraine, Ukraine was going to get “wrecked.” Start with his 2014 article, “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault:”

Stephen Walt of Foreign Policy Magazine, the Quincy Institute, and Professor of International Relations at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has written and spoken frequently on the causes and risks of the war.

Glenn Diesen is a professor of political science at the University of Southeastern Norway. He covers and analyzes many developments ignored by western establishment media and has been as prescient about this war as establishment voices have been wrong.

Just yesterday, Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Moscow. Lavrov’s 80-minute thoughts are worth listening to, unless you think it’s better to expose yourself only to the views of one side in a conflict.

(I know, I know, “Why is Tucker Carlson meeting with a representative of the New New Hitler?!”, etc. Well, I wish I could also post videos of western diplomats meeting with Lavrov (or with Putin himself, see below), but western diplomats are currently intent on mastering the advanced art of Diplomacy Without Talking.)

Of course, if only someone could have foreseen this disaster before NATO started expanding! Someone like, say, George Kennan, the father of Containment policy, who warned in 1997 that:

Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era…Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. And, last but not least, it might make it much more difficult, if not impossible, to secure the Russian Duma’s ratification of the Start II agreement and to achieve further reductions of nuclear weaponry.

Or if only 46 foreign policy experts—former senators, admirals, CIA directors, secretaries of defense—could also as far back as 1997 have foreseen that:

The current U.S.-led effort to expand NATO is a policy error of historic proportions. We believe that NATO expansion will decrease allied security and unsettle European stability for the following reasons: (i) In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition, undercut those who favor reform and cooperation with the West, bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement, and galvanize resistance in the Duma to the START II and III treaties; (ii) In Europe, NATO expansion will draw a new line of division between the “ins” and the “outs,” foster instability, and ultimately diminish the sense of security of those countries which are not included…

Or if only then-US ambassador to Russia and current director of the CIA William Burns could have warned in 2008 in a Wikileaks-uncovered secret cable called “Nyet Means Nyet” to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that:

Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face…

Or if only America’s last ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, could have warned in 1997 in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that:

I consider the [Clinton] administration’s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.

Then there’s historian podcaster Darryl Cooper. This episode, comparing the west’s treatment of Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union with the Treaty of Versailles the allies forced on Germany following WWI, is from spring 2022, not long after Russia invaded.

Oliver Stone’s 2016 documentary “Ukraine on Fire”, examining American meddling in Ukraine (I know, only other countries can meddle, never America) leading up to the American-led Maidan coup, is also excellent.

Stone’s 2017 series of interviews with Putin “The Putin Interviews” (available in video, book, and audiobook) is also fascinating and probably something we should all listen to before accepting our rulers’ claim to be gambling with nuclear war because Putin is the latest New Hitler.

Here’s Tucker Carlson’s February 2024 two-hour interview with Putin. Again, I’m glad at least someone is talking to the other side in this proxy war, though it would be nice if our professional diplomats thought talking might be part of their job, too.

(When you read the paragraph above, did you immediately feel phrases like “Hitler! Appeasement! Munich! Chamberlain!” flood into your brain? If so, consider duckspeak again, and ask yourself how and by whom the verbal reflex might have been implanted, and who it serves.)

If you really want to go deep, Scott Horton has a new book, “Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War and Provoked the Catastrophe in Ukraine,” with about 7,000 footnotes (my review here). It’s pretty much the definitive guide to how our rulers brought us to the brink of armageddon.

Here’s Horton discussing the book.

If you want to go straight to the source—even if only to better acquaint yourself with their devilish propaganda—the Russian Foreign Ministry has a Twitter/X page. Or you can ignore the stated views of the other side to this conflict and rely only on NATO as a reliable narrator incapable of self-serving propaganda of its own.

For a better idea of the global risk our rulers are creating with this insanity, I recommend Annie Jacobson’s horrifying but essential “Nuclear War: A Scenario.”

And for something even more visceral, spend a little time looking at photos of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is what our rulers are risking for everyone alive. What is worth this risk? Will the survivors even remember, or care?

Sorry this got a little long, but Brandolini’s Law is a bitch.