Digest 37: Beyond the media blackout
“The nineteenth-century Russian satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin remarked of his country that everything changes dramatically every five to ten years but nothing changes in 200 years.” - Professor Stephen Kotkin
1) Stalin letter to Mao, October 1950
A fascinating document I came across, written several months into the Korean War. Analogy in [square brackets] with today:
the USA will be compelled to yield in the Korean question [Ukraine question] to China [Russia] behind which stands its ally, the USSR [China today]…
Of course, I took into account also that the USA, despite its unreadiness for a big war, could still be drawn into a big war out of prestige which, in turn, could drag China [Russia today] into the war, and along with this draw into the war the USSR [China today], which is bound by the Mutual Assistance Pact. Should we fear this? In my opinion, we should not, because together we will be stronger than the USA and England, while the other European capitalist states – with the exception of Germany which is unable to provide any assistance to the United States now [some things don’t change] – do not present serious military forces. If a war is inevitable, then let it be waged now, and not in a few years when Japanese militarism will be restored as an ally of the USA.
Quite chilling, isn’t it?
2) “How to do an Armistice” update
I’ve received some very positive feedback on the first significant piece for Listening to the Other Side, arguing the West should emulate Korea and 1953 today in Ukraine. Amongst others:
Some figures quite close to Trump have said praiseworthy things, also.
Yet all British editors continue to ignore it.
We live in a bizarre world in which it’s easier to reach a top three US Presidential candidate (and #1’s advisors) than it is to get a reply from any editor (who just ignore).
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Dominic Cummings recently wrote to this:
A week ago (5/6/24), Putin called in the international media. He told them: NATO has given Ukraine long range missiles to strike deep in Russia, why don’t we have the right to give weapons to other regimes to do the same to NATO, we are considering such options…
And what media coverage do you see?
The old UK media almost entirely censored the event. Although widely discussed globally, it is a non-event in the UK. I’d bet >95% of MPs don’t know it happened.
Not only is our Idiocracy escalating a disastrous war they’ve blundered into, they’re censoring statements from the world’s biggest nuclear power directly threatening us with reprisals for our actions, shoving celebrity gossip onto the BBC website rather than translating Putin’s words (then they claim ‘trust the BBC not disinformation’!). And funding Ukraine which is drone-striking Russian early-warning radars for nuclear weapons, of no relevance to the UKR war.
The gap between the self-perception of our elite media and the reality has not been starker since I started watching them.
As someone who once had faith in certain editors and media institutions, the blackout is very peculiar.
If you want reality on Ukraine, I encourage you to stop looking for it in British newspapers and magazines.
But read Reuters (hardly known for spinning conspiracy theories) directly.
Reuters does report what foreign leaders say faithfully. Public-facing newspapers/magazines (despite being briefed by Reuters on what’s happening) do not.
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Seymour Hersh:
“Biden just declared war on Russia and nobody cares,” the official said of the president’s recent decision to escalate the reach of American missiles supplied to Ukraine.
Steve Bryen:
the change in strategy underway is the NATO-US decision to unleash long range weapons in Ukraine on Russian territory. In the proxy wars prior to Ukraine, the US and Russia have been careful to avoid directly attacking each other. That is why Truman was against US forces crossing the Yalu River in Korea; why neither China nor Russia was attacked in the Vietnam war; why in the Cuban Missile Crisis President John F. Kennedy refused any nuclear attack on Cuba and the Soviet Union.
The (last week knighted) Sir Niall Ferguson:
believing American blandishments may ultimately doom Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan to follow South Vietnam and Afghanistan into oblivion.
Professor Philip Zelikow:
Also, three of these adversaries [Russia, China, North Korea] each have numerous nuclear weapons. Another, Iran, is on the verge. Pakistan, which is not a friendly country, has plenty of nuclear weapons too. All the nuclear-armed states believe they may now be able to deter American attacks against their homeland. All of them — including Iran — believe they are effectively invulnerable to being invaded. They may therefore feel greater freedom to design and wage limited wars.
The Spectator did allow one paragraph of commendable very good sense into its latest issue:
‘It’s devastatingly obvious how this war will end,’ says one former western senior statesman who travels frequently to Kyiv. ‘Ceasefire along the line of control, plus security guarantees for Kyiv short of full Nato membership. No formal ceding of territory. Ukraine becomes like Cyprus – an EU member which does not recognise that it’s been partitioned.’ [Exactly what I wrote in my Korea piece three weeks ago.]
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Why is the West continuing on its escalatory trajectory?
The best argument I’ve heard recently is from Yuval Noah Harari:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine breaks the biggest taboo of the international order. Since 1945, no internationally recognized state… If Russia wins, no state and no border could feel secure, and the world will enter a new era…
You could add: Ukraine being invaded and losing territory sets a very bad precedent for nuclear disarmament (Ukraine having given away its nuclear weapons in 1994 for some semblance of security assurance).
But I’m personally more cynical, and don’t think Seymour Hersh is far off the mark here:
…the seemingly irrational refusal of Johnson to agree to force the corrupt leadership of South Vietnam to join in settling the war with the North.
He [Daniel Ellsberg] could not understand why Johnson refused to see what was obvious at the time—America and its corrupt allies in South Vietnam would never win the war in the South—and respond accordingly.
Ellsberg wrote, “the decision maker acts as if he (usually male) sees only one kind of success and one kind of failure. . . . He sees his own humiliation, or loss of office or power as catastrophic—equivalently, indistinguishably catastrophic compared to other types of catastrophe such as . . . huge loss of life among his own people, enemy civilians, coerced enemy draftees, neutral neighborhood populations.
“Could any human, not clinically insane,” Ellsherg asked, “really act as if losing an election was equivalent to any of these disasters?”
But this was true in summer/fall of 1916, with Woodrow Wilson, too.
American diplomatic delay and then necessary involvement in WWI has proven that US leaders would rather engage in a World War than partake in diplomacy that might undermine a sitting President getting re-elected.
3) RFK Jr speech
I highly, highly recommend reading this speech.
It’s simultaneously inspiring and realistic.
It’s why I like RFK Jr so much.
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Professor Kotkin has been disparaging of the phrase “multipolarity” in certain interviews (2022: “I don’t blame them [Russia] for underestimating the West, because we do such a good job of self-flagellation. And we’re the ones to initiate the rhetoric about the West’s decline, the rise of China, the multipolarity. They [Russia] latched on to that rubbish. But we originate that and, in fact, that stuff wins book prizes and everything else.”)
But Professor Graham Allison has in the past week embraced it:
To me it seems obvious. I don’t know what the controversy is.
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It’s still not clear who Trump’s running mate/VP pick is going to be. He’s expected to announce at the Republican National Convention (July 15, 2024).
RFK Jr has claimed he was offered the role by Trump. (Seymour Hersh reported this almost a year ago.)
There’s still time. With the likes of David Sacks (who nine months ago said “RFK Jr might be my favourite, to be honest. I would certainly take Kennedy over Trump. For sure.”) and many others now endorsing Trump, I would love to see RFK Jr take the offer (if still there) – and to form an integral part of the next administration, which needs his talents and abilities.
If he did this, I think it’s plausible he would have a great shot in 2028 (entirely dislocating/reorienting the neocon faction of the Republican Party).
4) Bullet-point updates on Ukraine
The NYT has finally reported on March/April 2022 Ukraine-Russia talks, and notably published all the documents:
I have been talking about this since September. I failed to get the reality of these diplomatic talks published anywhere last year. And yet – even with the NYT publishing the actual documents – the British press blackout continues.
David Cameron, in May, granted Ukraine the right to use weapons provided by the UK to strike targets inside Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry noted (again: the NYT actually covered) this was the UK “de facto recognizing their country as a party to the conflict”.
The New York Times is increasingly honest/realistic on Ukraine – and I now quite rate their coverage. Far more, certainly, than British traditional media.
I wrote May 31, 2024: “Does the West today further arming Ukraine – prolonging the conflict and further straining relations with Russia – increase or decrease the likelihood of Russia arming the Houthis or Iran?” I got the country wrong. But directionally, Putin just having cozied up to North Korea, this was foreseeable. The idea that Russia couldn’t escalate (short of nukes) was so foolish. And Russia has more such options.
If Macron were to send forces into Ukraine, would a January 2025 President Trump come to help? Trump on the All-In Podcast: “Good luck to them.”
But the present White House, as recently as last week, is still “Reaffirming that Ukraine’s future is in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”.
With the balance of power as it now is, continuing militarily in Ukraine (rather than pulling together a face-saving armistice; going on peace treaty after the election) will diminish, not aid, deterrent credibility in other theatres. Present collective Western leadership is mindless not seeing this.
5) Quite an interesting point from Erik Prince
Lots of present/recent former European leaders (Macron, Merkel, May…) don’t have kids. (Clip for 30 seconds)
At age 31, this is true of me too, so I will only force this so much!
But it surely does lead to a difference in mentality (as I see on a basic level with many school-age friends around me having kids and their resulting shift in perspective).
Some more very good writing from Erik Prince:
“The foreign policy of the United States should be that our friends love us, our rivals respect us, and our enemies fear us.
…the State Department and the CIA restrict their thinking to coming up with PR strategies while America’s rivals implement military solutions.
After the Roman Empire lost a crushing defeat at the Battle of Cannae, the Roman Senate immediately became 40% undermanned, because the Roman leaders actually served in the defense of their Republic and risked their lives in battle for it. Today, America’s elites instead spend their time on Wall Street or in think tanks gathering degrees and attending conferences. The old concept of noblesse oblige has gone missing from our national culture and so has the concept of accountability.
The grand strategy of the so-called Global War on Terror was conceived on a false premise promoted by Neocon think tanks and the Military-Industrial Complex that American drone technology could revolutionize counter-insurgency warfare through surgical strikes targeting only the leadership of terror organizations. This delusion produced sclerosis in the military by stripping authority away from field commanders concerning when to shoot and when to hold fire. A fixation on large orbiting cameras likewise devolved into high-tech voyeurism with lawyers, not commanders making battlefield decisions even when friendly troops were in peril and requiring urgent air support.
America continues to wage futile forever wars of convenience because Washington believes we are immune to reality and evolved beyond history.”
Professor Kotkin concurs: “An all-volunteer force is much preferable from a military point of view. But from a societal point of view, as a politician, it enables you to go to war too easily. And it doesn’t engage the society.”
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Let’s see what happens in Thursday’s Presidential debate. I’ve got my popcorn ready!
Thank you for this analysis