Worth Reading February 28, 2020

We have been fascinated by the range of views as to why Putin invaded Ukraine and allied issues of the last week or two and what the interest of the U.S. really is.  There are many sources of actual news and facts available.  Indeed, much to our surprise, for the last week the most reliable source of straight news facts seems to have been CNN.  Once they have to deal with actual facts around the world, and are not selling domestic political propaganda, they have a fine network of reporters, especially inside of Ukraine.  Sadly, this is not true of MSNBC, which chose long ago to get off the rails, but which chooses to remain off the rails even as Ukraine is threatened with extinction. MSNBC still Nuts. 

It is also remarkable that in the space of just two days we have seen President Zelensky emerge as a worldwide hero, and the leader of the country of brave men and women, young and old, willing to take up arms and die for their country.  One hopes that such people exist in this country and that the events in Ukraine may focus American minds, especially young people, on the proposition that freedom and liberty are far more important than micro aggressions or pronouns and that those who want safe spaces might have to be prepared to die to protect them. 

JDQB and WDM have curated several readings and podcasts, which we think are all worthy of attention, all dealing with some aspect of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the largest country in Europe other than Russia itself. The differences of opinion revealed are largely not “political” or wholly ideological, and they are more engaging on that account.  In these readings, people with different views are respectful of each other.  There probably is no “right” or “wrong” view on the question of “why did Putin do this?”   In any case, the writings are important real-time memorials to what seems to be a critical pivotal moment in our history and world history.  

All of that said, our candidates for Worth Reading/Hearing are these, and not necessarily in the order listed:

Added Thursday 3-3

• MPD recommends a very timely link item.  It is not too soon for the West to consider the end game and this is a reasonable effort to think it through.  The author assumes that Putin will be interested; we are not so sure. 

• WDM has disagreed with many things written in Reason about Ukraine, but this one is right on: The Right to Bear Arms Is Still a Check on Tyranny.

Added Wednesday 3-2:

• Would Putin use nuclear weapons?  This veteran expert on Putin thinks he might but is not paralyzed with fear. She states that “It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared…. We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.”
• With frequent references to George Kennan’s thinking from the 1960s about containing the Soviet Union, this article presents a comprehensive framework for containing Putin.  Like Kennan, it sees this as process of isolation and weakening that could take decades with little prospect for immediate success.
• Turkey did it, blocking warships from passing through the Bosporus into the Black Sea bordering Ukraine.  An assessment of what effect this will have on Russia and other countries is here.
• This article lays out the case that Putin and those following his orders should be prosecuted as war criminals, though it is pessimistic they could ever be brought trial or punished. 
• A subscription is necessary to read all of this article on how Putin has unintentionally caused a revolution in German politics that he will regret.  At this point in history, I think the subscription to Foreign Policy is well worth the price.
• Patrick Deneen, whose intemperate tweets WDM quoted, published an (lengthy) article that amounts to a direct refutation of WDM’s arguments for intervention to contain and deter Russia.  It is very much in the post-liberal tradition and therefore worth reading by anyone whose interest has been piqued.
• A forceful article on the need to deter Communist China from invading Taiwan appears just now in very journal in which the diatribe against intervention in Ukraine was published last week.

Added Monday 2-28

• A personal account of the invasion by Robert Royal of The Catholic Thing appeared here.
• Singapore is more thoughtful and strategic in its policy formulation than the great majority of countries.  That is has decided to impose sanctions absent a UN Security Council decision is striking.  The observations by Bilihari Kausikan, a retired senior official of Singapore provide a clear insight to Singapore analysis.
• Robin Wright has provided an excellent overview of recent developments related to Ukraine.   She judges that the flaw in the West’s approach was its fear that preemptive steps would be invoked by Putin as justification to attack Ukraine.We have been pointing out for quite a while that Democrats’ war on oil and gas is just enriching Putin, but it does not hurt to read it in the WSJ.
• Ukraine’s leadership is heroically resisting Putin’s effort to recreate the Soviet empire. Will they face the same fate dealt to Poland’s leadership by Russia in 1940 in the Katyn Forest?
• Foreign Affairs daily email is indispensable. An example is this essay on sanctions that appeared just now.

Published Sunday 2-27

• Putin’s actual speech to the Russian people preparing them for the invasion.  It has been widely reported, but not completely published in the Western press.  The full text is here.

• A thoughtful article from Foreign Policy on “Why the Last War may have Triggered this One.”  We happen to disagree with the article, and do not blame NATO and the West for making Putin feel so insecure that felt he had to invade Ukraine.  Yet that is a view that seems widely held in several circles. 

• Andrew Sullivan’s Dishcast  interview of Anne Applebaum recorded on February 14, prior to the invasion of Ukraine.  Anne Applebaum refutes the proposition advanced in the Foreign Policy article identified above. 

•  This photograph from Ukraine is serious, sad, yet also somewhat humorous.  In case the text is hard to see, it says: “Dear Putin; Let’s speed up to the part where you kill yourself in a BUNKER.”

• A thoughtful piece from Foreign Affairs Magazine dealing with the matter of “What if Russia Wins.”

• While JDQB does not usually find a great deal of Thomas Friedman’s writings to be worth reading, his article from Friday’s New York Times is very much worth reading.  It is entitled: “We Have Never Been Here Before.”

• This article from The Guardian provides important detail on the inflection point of the 2014 Maidan uprisings, which represent  important background for American readers, most of whom  who are unlikely to be familiar with those events or their pertinence to today. 

• Here is a map of the Russian Empire under Catherine the Great circa 1789.  If Putin is to be believed, his territorial ambitions go beyond re-creation of the boundaries of the USSR, but rather go all the way to re-creation of the Russia of the 18^th century.

• The Commentary Magazine daily podcast has been a superb source of fascinating discussion.  JDQB  particularly commends to readers four episodes from last week: The Dawn of a Darker Era (Feb. 22); You’ll Miss Pax Americana Now that it’s Gone (Feb. 23); It Begins (Feb 24), and The Fog of War (Feb 25). 

• At the very beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Andrew Sullivan wrote a perceptive column about how our failure to deter Russia endangers Taiwan.

• WDM reminds us that we were not always so sanguine about Russia, See this gem by Ronald Reagan. 

• This tweet by the pseudonymous Tatiana McGrath has been called insensitive to the seriousness of the situation, but we find it both amusing and alarming about our ability to deter aggression. 

• Glen Greenwald joins the “who cares and it’s all our fault” crowd, although there is a good bit more to it than that and he writes with a certain nuance. He doubles down here.

• Robert Kagan is pretty savvy, and JDQB hopes he underestimates the Ukrainian ability to persevere in guerilla fashion for a long time.