Digest 40: A higher standard than victory
If you’ve been following this Substack for a few months, I hope you’re beginning to wake up.
This week’s digest feels like a good one...
1) What is Putin saying?
MOSCOW, July 28 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday warned the United States that if Washington deployed long-range missiles in Germany then Russia would station similar missiles in striking distance of the West.
"The flight time to targets on our territory of such missiles, which in the future may be equipped with nuclear warheads, will be about 10 minutes," Putin said.
"We will take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world."
Why is this – and US instigation of putting more long-range missiles into Germany – not being more widely reported?
Reuters has shown itself to be a very good source of truth. But almost all public-facing Western media continues to be unwilling to cover what’s actually happening.
2) “Updating” on Ukraine
The New York Times on Wednesday:
Increasingly frustrated, more Ukrainians appear to be opening up to the idea of a negotiated peace.
“Better a bad peace than a good war,” added Ms. Predchenko, 61.
Most Ukrainians still oppose ceding any territory to Russia, not even the Crimean peninsula that was seized by Russia 10 years ago, polls show. But those polls and recent remarks by the country’s leaders also highlight a palpable shift in the conversation around peace talks — from a no-deal-not-ever to a maybe-compromise-at-some-point.
The likes of Sir Niall Ferguson are now saying similar (video clip on X):
“There’s quite a lot of anxiety in Ukraine that they just can’t keep this war going. And the great fear in Kyiv is that the Biden administration strategy of ‘keep this war going, it’s great, it’s eating away at Russian military capability’ – this is a strategy that could end in Ukrainian defeat. And that of course would be the worst-case scenario. The outline I tried to sketch is, it’s a little bit like the Korean War. After a period of attrition, both sides ultimately need to stop fighting. That doesn’t mean ‘peace’. That doesn’t mean agreeing to give up substantial territory. But it means an end to the fighting – which I think the Ukrainians will need by the middle of next year, if not sooner. That of course creates the South Korean opportunity for Ukraine. But only if we provide the kind of guarantees we provided South Korea after 1953, which were vital for South Korea’s transformation – one of the great economic miracles of the 20th century. That’s really the argument I’m making. In reality, there’s a new and quite hawkish realism – and it’s going to end this war, and it’s not going to end it on Putin’s terms. That’s my hope.”
This picks up everything I have been saying for the past two months:
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David Sacks kindly shared the clip of Niall.
I listen to both All-In and GoodFellows. (Two podcasts, both with four male presenters, based in/around San Francisco, both started during Covid lockdowns, attempting to make sense of the world.) It’s striking to me on the biggest geopolitical question of the past two years (as well as political trend with the resurgence of Trump), four venture capitalists have, in my opinion, seen reality more clearly – and events with greater prescience – than four eminent Stanford academics (including a former National Security Advisor).
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The Spectator seems to have relaxed what’s permissibly said as well:
Slowly the establishment is coming to see reality.
Fred Fleitz, who was NSC Chief of Staff in Trump’s first term, gave a (not recorded) talk recently in which he spoke of an emerging “Trump Doctrine” as “being very tough to, but having dialogue with, our adversaries”. I am in ready support of this. Fleitz went on to call continuing on the present course in Ukraine (for the destruction it is causing Ukraine) “immoral”.
Sir Niall Ferguson in another piece:
The Biden administration represents the last gasp of a Democratic tradition of idealism in foreign policy that has got the United States into war after war, going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson in 1917.
A second Trump administration will represent not a revival of the isolationism that failed in the 1910s and failed again in the 1930s, but a long-needed return to foreign policy realism.
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The last thing I’ll say on this is that Ukraine wants China to be involved in talks (to enhance the likelihood of Russia living up to its word in an enduring way):
I suggested this almost a year ago (clip from this time-stamp for 1 minute):
The reason why is obvious – if you understand the necessity of getting meaningful leverage on all sides. But our broken media system all along has suggested such talk would be “appeasement”.
It is regrettable that we have allowed the conflict to advance this far – now being on the cusp of a slow motion collapse.
3) “The war is our red pill”
Viktor Orbán is, without doubt, Europe’s bravest leader. (As I put it three weeks ago.)
The following is a summary of a speech Orbán gave last week in Transylvania, Romania. RFK Jr kindly shared it, and was right to use the words “truth bombs” in introducing it.
The following is remarkable from a serving world leader.
The war is our red pill:
Dear Friends, the war is our red pill. Think of the “Matrix” films. The hero is faced with a choice. He has two pills to choose from: if he swallows the blue pill, he can stay in the world of surface appearances; if he swallows the red pill, he can look into and descend into reality. The war is our red pill: it is what we have been given, it is what we must swallow. And now, armed with new experiences, we must talk about reality.
On Democrats/US pressure:
All that Europe is doing today is unconditionally following the foreign policy line of the US Democrats – even at the cost of its own self-destruction.
We let the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline go unchallenged; Germany itself let an act of terrorism against its own property – which was obviously carried out under US direction – go unchallenged, and we are not saying a word about it, we are not investigating it, we do not want to clarify it, we do not want to raise it in a legal context.
[I wrote about Nord Stream in my fifth digest, two weeks after it happened – and quite a while before the remarkable Seymour Hersh piece.]
When, to the astonishment of Hungarians, one sees the German chancellor announcing that he is only sending helmets to the war, and then a week later he announces that he is in fact sending weapons, do not think that the man has lost his mind. Then when the same German chancellor announces that there may be sanctions, but that they must not cover energy, and then two weeks later he himself is at the head of the sanctions policy, do not think that the man has lost his mind. On the contrary, he is very much in his right mind. He is well aware that the Americans and the liberal opinion-forming vehicles they influence – universities, think tanks, research institutes, the media – are using public opinion to punish Franco–German policy that is not in line with American interests.
Reality today:
We [Hungary] have received a démarche from Brussels: they have condemned the Hungarian peace mission efforts. I have tried – without success – to explain that there is such a thing as Christian duty. This means that if you see something bad in the world – especially something very bad – and you receive some instrument for its correction, then it is a Christian duty to take action, without undue contemplation or reflection. The Hungarian peace mission is about this duty… The peace mission is not just about seeking peace, but is also about urging Europe to finally pursue an independent policy.
We [Hungary] will not allow ourselves to be locked into only one of either of the two emerging hemispheres in the world economy… We have to be in both, in the Western and in the Eastern… We will not get involved in the war against the East. We will not join in the formation of a technological bloc opposing the East, and we will not join in the formation of a trade bloc opposing the East. We are gathering friends and partners, not economic or ideological enemies. We are not taking the intellectually much easier path of latching on to someone, but we are going our own way. This is difficult – but then there is a reason that politics is described as an art.
Central Europeans like us are immediately reminded of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who taught that with the advent of communism the state will die, but that the state will die while first constantly strengthening. Brussels is also creating peace by constantly supporting war. Just as we did not understand Lenin’s thesis in our university lectures on the history of the labour movement, I do not understand the Brusseleers in European Council meetings. Perhaps Orwell was right after all when he wrote that in “Newspeak” peace is war and war is peace.
Red pill number six: the spiritual solitude of the West. Up until now the West has thought and behaved as if it sees itself as a reference point, a kind of benchmark for the world… Once again the West has declared its expectation, its instruction, for the world to take a moral stand against Russia and for the West. In contrast, the reality has become that, step-by-step, everyone is siding with Russia. That China and North Korea are doing so is perhaps no surprise. That Iran is doing the same – given Iran’s history and its relationship with Russia – is somewhat surprising. But the fact that India, which the Western world calls the most populous democracy, is also on the side of the Russians is astonishing. That Turkey refuses to accept the West’s morally based demands, even though it is a NATO member, is truly surprising. And the fact that the Muslim world sees Russia not as an enemy but as a partner is completely unexpected.
Echoing Ray Dalio:
In the past, change was Western: the Habsburgs rose and then fell; Spain was up, and it became the centre of power; it fell, and the English rose; the First World War finished off the monarchies; the British were replaced by the Americans as world leaders; then the Russo–American Cold War was won by the Americans. But all these developments remained within our Western logic. This is not the case now, however, and this is what we must face up to; because the Western world is not challenged from within the Western world, and so the logic of change has been disrupted. What I am talking about, and what we are facing, is actually a global system change.
Conclusion:
While Ukraine is asking us for more loans, negotiations are underway to write off the loans it has previously taken out. Today the creditors and Ukraine are arguing over whether it should repay 20 per cent or 60 per cent of the debt it has taken on. This is the reality of the situation. In other words, the European Union has to pay the price of this military adventure.
The war has helped us to understand the real state of power in the world. It is a sign that in its mission the West has shot itself in the foot, and is therefore accelerating the changes that are transforming the world.
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In addition to searing and courageous geopolitical analysis, there are several parts of the speech I found personally inspiring:
Here we must talk about the secret of greatness. What is the secret of greatness? The secret of greatness is to be able to serve something greater than yourself. To do this, you first have to acknowledge that in the world there is something or some things that are greater than you, and then you must dedicate yourself to serving those greater things.
…But if you do not do that, but instead you focus on your own greatness, thinking that you are smarter, more beautiful, more talented than most people, if you expend your energy on that, on communicating all that to others, then what you get is not greatness, but grandiosity.
This echos my favourite Robert F. Kennedy speech of 1966 (and a passage that in no small part guides my life):
For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread… But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty… All of us will ultimately be judged, and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
So, it’s fitting that Robert Kennedy Jr has read and shared it.
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The wider West (particularly the EU) can demonise Orbán, or it can recognise (in his words):
With all due modesty we must remind ourselves that we are the longest-serving government in Europe. I myself am the longest-serving European leader – and I should quietly point out that I am also the leader who has spent the longest time in opposition. So I have seen everything that I will talk about now. I am talking about something that I have lived through and continue to live through.
Mightn’t he have wisdom, and a point?
4) “The Games were once your fellow Olympians’ answer to war”
During the 1972 Munich Olympics, 11 Israeli athletes were killed in a terrorist attack. Palestinian militants infiltrated the Olympic Village at night, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The hostages were later killed during a failed rescue attempt by West German authorities.
The following is a clip from a film that covers the period. Bill Bowerman, a legendary running coach (who was also one of the founders of Nike) was head of the US track team. Here (played by Donald Sutherland) he addresses his athletes, when it’s up in the air whether or not the Games will continue. Very moving:
“If there’s one place that war doesn’t belong, it’s here. For twelve hundred years, from 776 BC to 393 AD, your fellow Olympians laid down their arms, to take part in these Games. They understood there was more honor in outrunning a man than killing him.
I hope the competition will resume. And if it does, you must not think that running, or throwing, or jumping is frivolous. The Games were once your fellow Olympians’ answer to war. Competition, not conquest.”
The clip is from the film “Without Limits” about Steve Prefontaine – an extremely charismatic American runner, who died tragically himself very young in a car crash shortly after this. He’s said to be the “James Dean of track”.
I’m not sure if the above speech is something Bowerman actually said, or was penned by the film’s scriptwriters. But either way it’s moving.
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To cover a little more on this Olympics running history, Prefontaine (as a 21-year-old, running in his first Olympics) believed that the beauty of a race well-run is more important than winning or placing well. He would often do the unstrategic thing of going out hard and running from the front.
In the 5,000m final (a few days after the above noted terrorist attack) he could easily have come third and medalled. But he went for broke, tried to win, ran out of steam and came fourth.
It’s as exhilarating a finish to any race as you will see:
(One YouTube commenter notes “Every time I watch this I think he's going to finally win”.)
Prefontaine had Conor McGregor levels of self-belief, daring and magnetism. There are two Hollywood films made about his life. (This one where he’s played by Jared Leto is actually my favourite, if anyone wants to get inspired to take up running.)
The below eulogy from Coach Bowerman (played by Donald Sutherland in the “Without Limits” version) is too moving not to share:
“All of my life, I’ve operated under the assumption that the main idea in running was to win the damned race. When I became a coach, I tried to teach people how to do that. I tried to teach Pre how to do that. I tried like hell to teach Pre to do that. And Pre taught me.
He taught me I was wrong. Pre, you see, was troubled by knowing that a mediocre effort can win a race. And a magnificent effort can lose one.
Winning a race wouldn’t necessarily demand that he give it everything he had from start to finish. He never ran any other way.
I tried to get him to. God knows I tried.
But Pre was stubborn. He insisted on holding himself to a higher standard than victory. A race is “a work of art”. That’s what he said. That’s what he believed. And he was out to make it one every step of the way.
Of course, he wanted to win. Those who saw him compete, and those who competed against him, were never in any doubt about how much he wanted to win. But how he won mattered to him more.
He finally got it through my head that the real purpose of running isn’t to win a race. It’s to test the limits of the human heart. And that he did. Nobody did it more often. Nobody did it better.”
5) 1968 redux
Many commentators are now making comparisons between today and 1968. Dominic Cummings was again 21 months ahead of everyone, making this comparison in November 2022.
If anyone would like a sense of the 1968 (Chicago) Democratic convention, the documentary linked here is an excellent one on that year in totality: “the year that shaped a generation”. It’s good to remind ourselves how bad things have been in the relatively recent past – and that we got through.
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Thank you for reading.
30 years without a threat has left the West vastly lacking competence.