neutrality for Ukraine is a possibility in the long run. I would have no problem with that. But I think the war will go on until 1) Putin is overthrown or defeated or 2) Putin dies. I don't think most Russians really want to war to go on.
The bottom line is Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence and wants to be part of a free Europe. If Russia can cancel the independence and votes of a nation then who in Europe is safe?
Another thought I subsequently had involves the deterrent effect that Ukraine may have on China. Russia has plenty of malign intent towards the West but limited capability. It has always had an army more suited for homeland defense than for foreign conquest. One only needs to look at Russia's struggles to supply an army ninety miles from its borders and it's limited naval and sealift capabilities to understand Russia's limitations. It also has a small and shrinking economy and serious demographic challenges.
China on the other hand is much more capable. It is not as clear that their animus towards the West is as great. Russia hates the West because they are a loser country. China has not been ill-served by the current economic and security system. They have experienced great economic growth, although much of the population still lives in relative poverty. In general, countries with large economies can sustain large and powerful militaries. Countries like Russia can't. And China has advanced technologically due to students being educated abroad, forced technology transfers and economic espionage.
I don't completely believe that China is the economic powerhouse that they claim to be. In that system there is a lot of incentive for regional officials to fudge the numbers. Those with good numbers get promoted and those with bad numbers get fired. And China's GDP growth is heavily based on construction. Unfortunately, much that is built is unneeded and may never be occupied. Buildings built on credit from government-controlled banks that are not utilized are an economic drain.
I read a paper by an economist at the University of Chicago who contends that the real size of China's economy may be only 40% of what they claim. A lot of his research is based on studying nighttime satellite photos of China. The theory being that economic growth would be accompanied by increased electricity usage and more lights visible at night. He does not find that. He does not claim his research to be definitive but it does raise a lot of questions.
But even if China is not as big an economy as some think, it is still a far more squared away and technologically advanced country than Russia. In the long term, they are much more capable and a greater security threat to the West. And the best way not to have to fight China over Taiwan is to demonstrate to them in advance just how unproductive that such a war would be. China has an export driven economy. Showing them what the democratic economies can do to Russia with sanctions may deter them from emulating Russia's behavior. There are a lot of good reasons for helping Ukraine drive Russia out of all of their territory. There are also a lot of good reasons to keep Russia economically and diplomatically marginalized until they exhibit a sincere change of heart. Not all of these reasons are directly related to Russia.
I don't agree with your assessment. I lived twice in Russia and used to think of myself as a bit of a Russophile. Now I despise the vast majority of Russians and greatly admire the Ukrainians. I've lived the last nine years in Poland. The small roundabout in front of my house is dedicated to the victims of Katyn, the 22,000 Polish army officers and intellectuals rounded up by the Soviet NKVD after the unprovoked invasion of Poland in 1939, who were taken to Russia and murdered near Smolensk. It is wise to remember that the USSR invaded Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland long before anyone invaded them. Russia has always had an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy. And just as in its invasion of Ukraine, all of its invasions have been genocidal in nature. This has been so at least as far back as the Circassian Genocide of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
It isn't the West who needs to adapt to the reality of Russia. It is Russia that needs to adapt to the reality of reality. Russia is not a great country. It never has been. Even back a couple of centuries ago, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were regarded as the "sick men" of Europe. WWI forced modern Turkey to accept a new reality. Russia never had to face up to reality. Germany was held to account for the crimes of National Socialism and the mentality of Germans shifted dramatically. No one was ever held accountable for the crimes of communism and the mentality of Russians has shifted not at all. Putin has spent the last decade rehabilitating Stalin and moving Russia from merely authoritarian to totalitarian. One could argue that Russia was welcomed with open arms by the West at the end of the Cold War and that is a large reason why Russian attitudes are what they are today. They never had a meaningful reality check. Despite what they could see with their own eyes, the official narrative was always that Russia has always been great, is great now and will always be great. Many Russians believe that despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
If Russia is appeased, we will just be kicking the can down the road and can expect more of the same in the near future, not just in Ukraine but against NATO. Listen to the talking heads on Russian television. It is illuminating. Partly as it shows the complete detachment from reality of many Russian elites, but more importantly as an indicator of intention. How does NATO reconcile its survival to the Russian belief that Russia has no boundaries? Russian nationalists long not just for the reestablishment of the most expansive borders of the Russian Empire, but for a Russian dominated Eurasian state stretching from Vladivostok to Dublin and South to the Indian Ocean. The Russian narrative is that the West is in terminal decline. I see much more evidence of Russian decline than I do of Western decline. The West is not without its problems but they pale in comparison to Russia's problems.
I lived four years in Russia. Russia is totally пиздец. I have no desire to be dominated by these uncultured savages. There is nothing to be gained by appeasing Russia. Russia should be kept isolated diplomatically and economically and denied Western technology. Russians are not Germans. They are economically, technologically, educationally, judicially, politically, socially and morally backward. There is no reason for the West to give them a helping hand out of their complete dysfunction. Russians have been showing us who they are and who they aspire to be. Believe them. This war is not a Putin problem but a Russian problem.
Neutrality for Ukraine is not at all realistic. Partly because Ukrainians will never accept it but more importantly because Russians won't. Ukraine must be integrated into NATO and the EU. Ukrainians are Europeans. They largely think like us and want what we want. And as a practical matter, the rebuilding of Ukraine will require private investment and that cannot be secured without the ironclad security guarantee that comes with NATO membership.
I long ago quit caring about what the Russians want. Many in the West, especially in academic circles, are too heavily influenced by Russian agitprop. Russia is not an important country. When I first moved to Russia, one thing that surprised me was how much time the television news devoted to events in America. Russians assumed that because there was so much coverage of America, that America must have expansive coverage of Russia. It didn't. Russia only gets noticed when they perform some act of antisocial behavior. The West can get along just fine without Russia. Russia thought Europeans would be freezing this winter. We aren't. A mild winter helped, but the flexibility of Europeans was decisive. Never again will Russia be able to use energy as a weapon against Europe. Europe used to get something like 43% of its energy from Russia, but Russia sold more than 80% of its energy to Europe. It was always an unbalanced relationship. Russia always needed Europe far more than Europe needed Russia. And all of Russia's pipeline infrastructure heads West not South so finding new customers will be a slow and complicated task.
I'm a child of the Cold War and served as a soldier for part of the last decade of it. It would have been unthinkable at the time that I would have lived thirteen of the last sixteen years in Russia and Poland, both Cold War adversaries. Poland adjusted rather well to the end of communism. Poles never really bought into it so dropping it was quite natural. Russians have an unrealistically high opinion of themselves. Unfortunately, many in the West share this opinion. Living twice in Russia disabused me of many of my misconceptions. And I had traveled to Russia and had an interest in it long before I first lived there in 2006. Russia is screwed up. I was a little surprised by how poorly the Russian military has performed in Ukraine but hardly shocked. Soldiers reflect the societies they come from and Russian society is totally dysfunctional. Russia's military had many of the same issues in the 2008 Georgia war but overcame them with overwhelming numerical superiority. Little indication they have gotten better since. Russia's military has always been more suited to looking sharp during a Victory Day parade on Red Square than winning in combat. With the exception of WWII where the USSR had many allies and much support from America's industrial might, they have lost every modern war against a near peer enemy. They lost the Crimean War in the 1850's, they lost the Russo-Japanese War against a largely pre-industrial Japan, they collapsed in WWI, and the USSR lost the war against Poland in 1920. And of course they failed to vanquish Afghan tribesmen and struggled mightily in Chechnya. This narrative of invincible Russia does not stand up to scrutiny.
Russia's army is not deep. The 2008 war in Georgia, the 2014 invasion of Ukraine and the expeditionary activities in Syria were mostly done by the same small group of soldiers. The Spetsnaz (special forces) and VDV (airborne forces) who fought in these previous battles were largely wiped out in the first months of the 2022 invasion. The Russian army has always been officer heavy and always lacked a functional NCO corps. Junior officer ranks have been decimated in Ukraine. Without experienced NCOs or junior officers, who is going to turn the new waves of mobiks into effective fighting units? The chances of mobilization fixing Russia's dysfunctional army are very small. And Russia's air force is largely in hiding due to strong Ukrainian air defenses. Russia's Black Sea Fleet is also in hiding from Ukraine's non-existant navy. Russia is not the military power we had expected.
I always remember when I lived in Russia that they had to close down the rynek (like a market of individual merchant stalls) on the Day of the Paratroopers on August 2nd. This was to keep bands of drunken current and former Spetsnaz and VDV troopers from beating up Caucasian merchants. By Caucasian I mean from the Caucasus as opposed to White. It turns out that Russian soldiers were a much greater threat to vegetable sellers than they are to a modern army. The cemetery in the city of Pskov, where one of the larger VDV units is based, is full of soldiers killed in Ukraine. Russia does not have a professional military. It is an army of gopnik hooligans. We should not be cowed by them. NATO has four times the soldiers, five times the combat aircraft and more than twenty times the GDP. It is Russia who should fear NATO, not the other way around.
The reality that the West needs to adjust to is that Russia is an unimportant and completely dysfunctional country. It would be desirable to avoid a new Cold War. But a new Cold War against a collapsing Russia is more desirable than capitulation to barbarism. A new Cold War will turn out exactly the same as the old Cold War, only a lot sooner.
First, I think focusing on Hitler as a 'cause' of WW2 is to avoid what Mr Brands's points to in the article. He references empires and overseas possessions. As Richard Overy illustrates in his book "Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945" the Axis powers wanted empires also. Obviously, we cannot go back in time to demonstrate alternative history, but in my opinion, given how the Axis were treated after WW1 a WW2 was inevitable.
There may be some loose parallels with the current Ukrainian war instigated by Russia. Putin's ideological godfather, Alexander Dugin, has been at the forefront for years inciting the Russian nation to build back its empire and while doing so, demonizing and dehumanizing nearby nations such as Ukraine calling them sub-human and 'not a real nation."
But this is the 21st century! Wars of conquest and territory should not occur. I agree with Richard Munro's comment below. Finland and Sweden were neutral, but Putin's aggression pushed them into pursuing alliance. The Baltic's knew immediately all too well how Russia operates and allied as soon as they could after independence.
And Jack Henneman puts bluntly a point seemingly ignored by Putin apologists in the west (oddly, from both the far left AND far right) that Russia had already given Ukraine security guarantees in connection with the international deal to induce Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons yet breached those agreements continuously since 2014.
On the introductory point - was the end of the Cold War like the end of World War I? - I would propose one significant difference in the thinking of the victors: There was the widespread notion in Western security circles that the opportunities for material prosperity in globalization were so profound that even the worst people would eventually come around to playing ball. I am quite sure that a lot of people in the West regarded the settlement with the fragments of the Soviet Union as generous to the losers *because* it opened the door to material prosperity, which was precisely the opposite of the post 1919 reparations regime.
(Of course, that idea that globalization solves everything has fallen out of favor in the last few years because of the behavior of China and Russia, but it was quite popular in geopolitics circles thirty - and even 10 - years ago.)
Regarding Ukraine, the sticky bit is, as you know, that Russia had already given Ukraine security guarantees in connection with the international deal to induce Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. Since 2014, Russia has been systematically breaching those very guarantees. It is difficult to fault Ukrainians for wanting their national security to depend from something more credible than Russian guarantees.
neutrality for Ukraine is a possibility in the long run. I would have no problem with that. But I think the war will go on until 1) Putin is overthrown or defeated or 2) Putin dies. I don't think most Russians really want to war to go on.
The bottom line is Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for independence and wants to be part of a free Europe. If Russia can cancel the independence and votes of a nation then who in Europe is safe?
Another thought I subsequently had involves the deterrent effect that Ukraine may have on China. Russia has plenty of malign intent towards the West but limited capability. It has always had an army more suited for homeland defense than for foreign conquest. One only needs to look at Russia's struggles to supply an army ninety miles from its borders and it's limited naval and sealift capabilities to understand Russia's limitations. It also has a small and shrinking economy and serious demographic challenges.
China on the other hand is much more capable. It is not as clear that their animus towards the West is as great. Russia hates the West because they are a loser country. China has not been ill-served by the current economic and security system. They have experienced great economic growth, although much of the population still lives in relative poverty. In general, countries with large economies can sustain large and powerful militaries. Countries like Russia can't. And China has advanced technologically due to students being educated abroad, forced technology transfers and economic espionage.
I don't completely believe that China is the economic powerhouse that they claim to be. In that system there is a lot of incentive for regional officials to fudge the numbers. Those with good numbers get promoted and those with bad numbers get fired. And China's GDP growth is heavily based on construction. Unfortunately, much that is built is unneeded and may never be occupied. Buildings built on credit from government-controlled banks that are not utilized are an economic drain.
I read a paper by an economist at the University of Chicago who contends that the real size of China's economy may be only 40% of what they claim. A lot of his research is based on studying nighttime satellite photos of China. The theory being that economic growth would be accompanied by increased electricity usage and more lights visible at night. He does not find that. He does not claim his research to be definitive but it does raise a lot of questions.
But even if China is not as big an economy as some think, it is still a far more squared away and technologically advanced country than Russia. In the long term, they are much more capable and a greater security threat to the West. And the best way not to have to fight China over Taiwan is to demonstrate to them in advance just how unproductive that such a war would be. China has an export driven economy. Showing them what the democratic economies can do to Russia with sanctions may deter them from emulating Russia's behavior. There are a lot of good reasons for helping Ukraine drive Russia out of all of their territory. There are also a lot of good reasons to keep Russia economically and diplomatically marginalized until they exhibit a sincere change of heart. Not all of these reasons are directly related to Russia.
I don't agree with your assessment. I lived twice in Russia and used to think of myself as a bit of a Russophile. Now I despise the vast majority of Russians and greatly admire the Ukrainians. I've lived the last nine years in Poland. The small roundabout in front of my house is dedicated to the victims of Katyn, the 22,000 Polish army officers and intellectuals rounded up by the Soviet NKVD after the unprovoked invasion of Poland in 1939, who were taken to Russia and murdered near Smolensk. It is wise to remember that the USSR invaded Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland long before anyone invaded them. Russia has always had an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy. And just as in its invasion of Ukraine, all of its invasions have been genocidal in nature. This has been so at least as far back as the Circassian Genocide of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
It isn't the West who needs to adapt to the reality of Russia. It is Russia that needs to adapt to the reality of reality. Russia is not a great country. It never has been. Even back a couple of centuries ago, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were regarded as the "sick men" of Europe. WWI forced modern Turkey to accept a new reality. Russia never had to face up to reality. Germany was held to account for the crimes of National Socialism and the mentality of Germans shifted dramatically. No one was ever held accountable for the crimes of communism and the mentality of Russians has shifted not at all. Putin has spent the last decade rehabilitating Stalin and moving Russia from merely authoritarian to totalitarian. One could argue that Russia was welcomed with open arms by the West at the end of the Cold War and that is a large reason why Russian attitudes are what they are today. They never had a meaningful reality check. Despite what they could see with their own eyes, the official narrative was always that Russia has always been great, is great now and will always be great. Many Russians believe that despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
If Russia is appeased, we will just be kicking the can down the road and can expect more of the same in the near future, not just in Ukraine but against NATO. Listen to the talking heads on Russian television. It is illuminating. Partly as it shows the complete detachment from reality of many Russian elites, but more importantly as an indicator of intention. How does NATO reconcile its survival to the Russian belief that Russia has no boundaries? Russian nationalists long not just for the reestablishment of the most expansive borders of the Russian Empire, but for a Russian dominated Eurasian state stretching from Vladivostok to Dublin and South to the Indian Ocean. The Russian narrative is that the West is in terminal decline. I see much more evidence of Russian decline than I do of Western decline. The West is not without its problems but they pale in comparison to Russia's problems.
I lived four years in Russia. Russia is totally пиздец. I have no desire to be dominated by these uncultured savages. There is nothing to be gained by appeasing Russia. Russia should be kept isolated diplomatically and economically and denied Western technology. Russians are not Germans. They are economically, technologically, educationally, judicially, politically, socially and morally backward. There is no reason for the West to give them a helping hand out of their complete dysfunction. Russians have been showing us who they are and who they aspire to be. Believe them. This war is not a Putin problem but a Russian problem.
Neutrality for Ukraine is not at all realistic. Partly because Ukrainians will never accept it but more importantly because Russians won't. Ukraine must be integrated into NATO and the EU. Ukrainians are Europeans. They largely think like us and want what we want. And as a practical matter, the rebuilding of Ukraine will require private investment and that cannot be secured without the ironclad security guarantee that comes with NATO membership.
I long ago quit caring about what the Russians want. Many in the West, especially in academic circles, are too heavily influenced by Russian agitprop. Russia is not an important country. When I first moved to Russia, one thing that surprised me was how much time the television news devoted to events in America. Russians assumed that because there was so much coverage of America, that America must have expansive coverage of Russia. It didn't. Russia only gets noticed when they perform some act of antisocial behavior. The West can get along just fine without Russia. Russia thought Europeans would be freezing this winter. We aren't. A mild winter helped, but the flexibility of Europeans was decisive. Never again will Russia be able to use energy as a weapon against Europe. Europe used to get something like 43% of its energy from Russia, but Russia sold more than 80% of its energy to Europe. It was always an unbalanced relationship. Russia always needed Europe far more than Europe needed Russia. And all of Russia's pipeline infrastructure heads West not South so finding new customers will be a slow and complicated task.
I'm a child of the Cold War and served as a soldier for part of the last decade of it. It would have been unthinkable at the time that I would have lived thirteen of the last sixteen years in Russia and Poland, both Cold War adversaries. Poland adjusted rather well to the end of communism. Poles never really bought into it so dropping it was quite natural. Russians have an unrealistically high opinion of themselves. Unfortunately, many in the West share this opinion. Living twice in Russia disabused me of many of my misconceptions. And I had traveled to Russia and had an interest in it long before I first lived there in 2006. Russia is screwed up. I was a little surprised by how poorly the Russian military has performed in Ukraine but hardly shocked. Soldiers reflect the societies they come from and Russian society is totally dysfunctional. Russia's military had many of the same issues in the 2008 Georgia war but overcame them with overwhelming numerical superiority. Little indication they have gotten better since. Russia's military has always been more suited to looking sharp during a Victory Day parade on Red Square than winning in combat. With the exception of WWII where the USSR had many allies and much support from America's industrial might, they have lost every modern war against a near peer enemy. They lost the Crimean War in the 1850's, they lost the Russo-Japanese War against a largely pre-industrial Japan, they collapsed in WWI, and the USSR lost the war against Poland in 1920. And of course they failed to vanquish Afghan tribesmen and struggled mightily in Chechnya. This narrative of invincible Russia does not stand up to scrutiny.
Russia's army is not deep. The 2008 war in Georgia, the 2014 invasion of Ukraine and the expeditionary activities in Syria were mostly done by the same small group of soldiers. The Spetsnaz (special forces) and VDV (airborne forces) who fought in these previous battles were largely wiped out in the first months of the 2022 invasion. The Russian army has always been officer heavy and always lacked a functional NCO corps. Junior officer ranks have been decimated in Ukraine. Without experienced NCOs or junior officers, who is going to turn the new waves of mobiks into effective fighting units? The chances of mobilization fixing Russia's dysfunctional army are very small. And Russia's air force is largely in hiding due to strong Ukrainian air defenses. Russia's Black Sea Fleet is also in hiding from Ukraine's non-existant navy. Russia is not the military power we had expected.
I always remember when I lived in Russia that they had to close down the rynek (like a market of individual merchant stalls) on the Day of the Paratroopers on August 2nd. This was to keep bands of drunken current and former Spetsnaz and VDV troopers from beating up Caucasian merchants. By Caucasian I mean from the Caucasus as opposed to White. It turns out that Russian soldiers were a much greater threat to vegetable sellers than they are to a modern army. The cemetery in the city of Pskov, where one of the larger VDV units is based, is full of soldiers killed in Ukraine. Russia does not have a professional military. It is an army of gopnik hooligans. We should not be cowed by them. NATO has four times the soldiers, five times the combat aircraft and more than twenty times the GDP. It is Russia who should fear NATO, not the other way around.
The reality that the West needs to adjust to is that Russia is an unimportant and completely dysfunctional country. It would be desirable to avoid a new Cold War. But a new Cold War against a collapsing Russia is more desirable than capitulation to barbarism. A new Cold War will turn out exactly the same as the old Cold War, only a lot sooner.
A couple thoughts on this excellent piece.
First, I think focusing on Hitler as a 'cause' of WW2 is to avoid what Mr Brands's points to in the article. He references empires and overseas possessions. As Richard Overy illustrates in his book "Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945" the Axis powers wanted empires also. Obviously, we cannot go back in time to demonstrate alternative history, but in my opinion, given how the Axis were treated after WW1 a WW2 was inevitable.
There may be some loose parallels with the current Ukrainian war instigated by Russia. Putin's ideological godfather, Alexander Dugin, has been at the forefront for years inciting the Russian nation to build back its empire and while doing so, demonizing and dehumanizing nearby nations such as Ukraine calling them sub-human and 'not a real nation."
But this is the 21st century! Wars of conquest and territory should not occur. I agree with Richard Munro's comment below. Finland and Sweden were neutral, but Putin's aggression pushed them into pursuing alliance. The Baltic's knew immediately all too well how Russia operates and allied as soon as they could after independence.
And Jack Henneman puts bluntly a point seemingly ignored by Putin apologists in the west (oddly, from both the far left AND far right) that Russia had already given Ukraine security guarantees in connection with the international deal to induce Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons yet breached those agreements continuously since 2014.
On the introductory point - was the end of the Cold War like the end of World War I? - I would propose one significant difference in the thinking of the victors: There was the widespread notion in Western security circles that the opportunities for material prosperity in globalization were so profound that even the worst people would eventually come around to playing ball. I am quite sure that a lot of people in the West regarded the settlement with the fragments of the Soviet Union as generous to the losers *because* it opened the door to material prosperity, which was precisely the opposite of the post 1919 reparations regime.
(Of course, that idea that globalization solves everything has fallen out of favor in the last few years because of the behavior of China and Russia, but it was quite popular in geopolitics circles thirty - and even 10 - years ago.)
Regarding Ukraine, the sticky bit is, as you know, that Russia had already given Ukraine security guarantees in connection with the international deal to induce Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. Since 2014, Russia has been systematically breaching those very guarantees. It is difficult to fault Ukrainians for wanting their national security to depend from something more credible than Russian guarantees.
Great stuff!