Tag Archives: Russia

Missak Manouchian.

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            Off and on, the Ottoman Empire persecuted Armenians.  Many of the victims sought greener fields outside the empire.  Wherever they went, the emigres stayed in touch with other emigres and with their families at home.  In 1905, some of them established the Armenian General Benevolent Union.  The AGBU raised money to send seeds and farm equipment to Armenians still inside the Empire.  Then came the Ottoman Empire’s terrible genocide of the Armenians.  The AGBU provided much humanitarian aid at the time, but then also established orphanages to care for the hordes of children who had lost their parents.  Later, they paid for the higher education of talented Armenian orphans. 

Missak Manouchian (1909-1944) benefitted from the help of the AGBU.  He lost his parents in the genocide (must have been about 6 years old), grew up in an orphanage in French-ruled Lebanon, and went to France (1925) in search of work.  Eventually, he became a lathe-operator at Citroen near Paris.  Naturally, he joined the Confederation General du Travail (CGT), a trades union group.  He lost that job when the Depression hit France in the early Thirties.  Disappointed, like almost everyone else, in capitalism and parliamentary democracy, he joined the French Communist Party in 1934. 

He also had literary and intellectual aspirations.  From 1935 to 1937, the Party put him to editing an Armenian-language literary magazine, and working on a Party-inspired Relief Committee for Armenia. 

The Hitler-Stalin Pact (August 1939) led the French government to ban the Communist Party when war broke out a few days later.  Manouchian was one among many communists who were arrested.  Like others, he was then released for military service.  Assigned to a unit remote from the front lines, Manouchian was discharged after Germany defeated France in Summer 1940.  He went back to Paris; got arrested by the Germans; got released.  Then there is a gap in what is known of his life.  After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Communist Party went to war in a serious way.  Manouchian seems not to have been involved or involved much in any Resistance work.  The most likely thing is that he did some writing for clandestine newspapers. 

Things changed in February 1943.  Boris Milev, a Bulgarian Communist living in France, recruited Manouchian for the group being led by Boris Holban.[1]  In Summer 1943, Manouchian replaced Holban as head of the group.  In September 1943, Manouchian ordered a team to kill an SS General in Paris.  They did and Heinrich Himmler demanded action.  He got it.  Holban had worried that the group’s many young men were careless about security.  He had wanted to back off for a while and increase security.  He had been right.  The Vichy police had already identified some of the group, who led them to many others.  The French arrested 22 members of the group in November 1943.  They were turned over to the Germans, tried and executed in February 1944. 

Much later, an ugly quarrel over responsibility took place in the media.[2]   

Resistance movements were (and are) vulnerable.  They attracted enthusiasts who often were not suited by maturity or temperament or life experience to secret work.  Security services often have the bulge in all these areas, along with superior resources.  It can be a martyr’s game. 

[1] Boris Milev – Wikipedia 

[2] See: Affiche Rouge – Wikipedia and Missak Manouchian – Wikipedia.  These people deserved better. 

A Piece of Resistance.

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            Nationalism preaches that all the people speaking the same language should be grouped together in one independent country.  Nationalism came to Rumania in the later 19th Century, when part of it escaped from the Ottoman Empire to form the new country.  However, many Rumanian-speakers still lived outside the country.  After Russia collapsed into revolution and civil war during the First World War, Rumania grabbed the mostly-Rumanian territory of Bessarabia (1918). 

            Anti-Semitism walked in daylight in Rumania.[1]  Jews had no rights and could not be citizens.  Most lived in miserable poverty.  A large Jewish community lived in Bessarabia, so the change of borders brought them under Rumanian rule.  In 1923, a new constitution—imposed by the Western powers—granted Jews citizenship.  Nothing else changed.  Many Jews pined for the Soviet Union which they believed to be a socialist utopia where religion didn’t matter. 

            Baruch Bruhman (1908-2004) began life as a Jewish Russian subject in Bessarabia; then became Rumanian.[2]  He rejected everything about the Rumanian state: he joined the illegal Communist Party (1929); went to jail for it (1930); deserted from the army during compulsory service (1932); went to jail for it; did organizational work for the Communist Party; fled to Czechoslovakia one step ahead of the police (1936); went to France to join the International Brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War (1938), but arrived too late; worked for the French Communist Party (PCF) for a year; and enlisted in the French Foreign Legion under the name Boris Holban when the Second World War broke out (1939).[3] 

            The Germans captured Holban in June 1940, but he escaped in December 1940 and returned to Paris.  In June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union.  All foreign Communist parties were ordered to attack the Germans to divert troops from the Russian front.  The PCF knew that the Germans would shoot a lot of French civilian hostages in reprisal.  Holban had spent his life on the run and had been to war.  The PCF set him to recruiting immigrant workers to kill Germans.  Holban found Rumanians, Hungarians, Poles, and Italians willing to fight the Germans.  Most were Jews and veterans of Spain.  If Germany won, they were doomed. 

            From August 1942 to June 1943, Holban’s group derailed trains, attacked factories, and killed 83 Germans on the streets of Paris.  Both the Germans and the French police hunted the “terrorists.”  Holban fell out with his PCF bosses.  They wanted more attacks; he wanted to slow down while concentrating on security.  In July 1943, Holban was replaced by Missak Manouchian, who accelerated attacks.  Then Manouchian was caught.  The PCF brought Holban back to run a rat-hunt for whoever had betrayed the group (December 1943). 

            Returning to now-Communist Rumania after the war, Holban soon fell into the whirlpool of the Stalinist purges.  Many years later, after he had re-settled in France (1984), he was accused of betraying Manouchian.  A storm followed, but Holban was proved innocent. 

            A puzzle: Was this Jewish resistance or Communist resistance or French resistance? 

[1] Even if vampires did not.  See: Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897); “Nosferatu” (dir. F. W. Murnau, 1922). 

[2] Renee Poznansky, Jews in France during World War II (2001). 

[3] This is very significant.  In August 1939, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin did a deal with German dictator Adolf Hitler.  The Soviet Union would remain neutral in any war between Germany and other countries.  All foreign Communist parties were ordered to oppose their own nation’s war effort.  Bruhman/Holban was defying orders. 

EDC.

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            In the wake of the Second World War, Western European countries pondered some form of “unity.”  At first, this meant unity “at the peak”: countries surrendering some measure of sovereignty to form a “European” government.  This went nowhere.  So, attention turned to unity “at the base”: create specialized “European” institutions and let it cook.  This approach soon gave birth to the “European Coal and Steel Community” (ECSC, Schuman Plan).  It worked once, so try it in other areas (Common Market, Euratom). 

            The “wake of the Second World War” broadly overlapped the “dawning of the Cold War.”  The Americans and the Europeans shared an interest in preventing the Soviet Union from dominating Western Europe.[1]  Eventually (1947-), this led to the Marshall Plan and some CIA meddling in French and Italian elections.  Still, what if the Red Army marched west?  Military security rose up as an issue.  One part of the answer came in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  The United States would keep troops in Europe as a “trip wire.”[2] 

            In dealing with these problems, “Europe” faced three problems.  First, the British didn’t want to join.[3]  Second, how were countries to reconcile with the Germans?  Third, Many American officials disdained the Europeans.  The purpose of Marshall Plan aid was “to get the Europeans on their feet and off our back.” 

            Then, in June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea.  The “Cold War” wasn’t just going to be an economic and political struggle in Western Europe.  It could also be a military struggle.  American troops might have to be sent to the Far East or the Middle East.  So, Western Europeans would have to bulk-up their military forces.  In September 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson proposed re-arming West Germany.  The European responded with dismay.[4] 

            The “European integration” and American military themes soon came together.  In October 1950, French Defense Minister Rene Pleven suggested the creation of a “European Defense Community” to create a “European Army.”  West German troops would be raised, but would not be formed into units larger than battalion.  The German battalions would be mixed with troops from other countries and the higher commands would be held only by non-Germans.  The Americans reluctantly agreed if this was the only way to get West German troops. 

            Negotiation of the treaty dragged on for a year and a half.  The size of the German units rose to divisions, not battalions; and the European Army would be under the American commander of NATO, rather than independent.  After signatures (May 1952), the treaty went back to the national parliaments for ratification.  In the meantime, the context changed.  The Korean War ended in a truce; Joseph Stalin died and was succeeded by more moderate seeming men.  The EDC seemed less urgent.  The French parliament rejected the treaty (August 1954). 

            Afterwards, NATO admitted West Germany (and its army).  Europe enjoyed American nuclear “extended deterrence.”  Eventually, the Soviet Union fell.  Who needed armies now?[5] 

[1] Not much could be done about Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe what with the Red Army being what it was. 

[2] If Red Army troops attacked American troops, then nuclear weapons could come into play. 

[3] The British—understandably, labored under the illusion that they ranked among the “victors.”  In fact, Britain had suffered the ruin of its economy and loss of will to hold its empire.  Which is what Neville Chamberlain had feared. 

[4] See Category:Nazi war crimes in France – Wikipedia 

[5] European defense spending has fallen from 3.76 percent of GDP (1960) to 1.56 percent (2022).  That’s 58 percent.  European Union Military Spending/Defense Budget 1960-2025 | MacroTrends   

Ukraine Crisis.

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            The military situation of Ukraine continued to decline.[1]  Russian ground forces have been making steady progress against Ukrainian forces in the east of the country.  Hoping, perhaps, to stave off a Ukrainian defeat until the Biden administration had left office, “Biden”[2] agreed to allow Ukraine to fire American-supplied “ATACMS” missiles into Russia itself.  The prickly, humorless Vladimir Putin saw this as another of “NATO’s aggressive actions against Russia.”  He argued that Russia had the right to hit not only Ukraine itself, but also countries “that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.”  He didn’t say that Russia would do that, just that it had the right.  The incremental increases in Western military aid, always modulated by the United States, has been a long-running grievance for Putin.  Putin hasn’t wanted to come into a direct conflict with the West, any more than the West has wanted a direct conflict with Russia. 

What Putin did do was to order the bombardment of Ukraine with swarms of drones and a few new ballistic and nuclear-capable missiles.  Ukraine’s Volodymir Zelensky described the ballistic missile attack as an “escalation” that should be countered by the delivery of American more air defense artillery (like the HIMARS system). 

            War weariness is taking hold in Ukraine.  The share of the population that favors a negotiated peace has risen from 25 percent a year ago to over 50 percent now.  Why would Putin agree to negotiate or take less than his maximum aims?  It isn’t clear that Putin would have agreed to negotiate two years ago, when things were going badly for him.  Why would he negotiate now, when the boot is on the other neck?  Russian soldiers are fighting and dying, Vladimir Putin is not. 

            What does Putin want?  Some Western observers think that he will settle for possession of the Donbas and all the other territory acquired in the war.  Some think that Ukraine will now settle for remaining a sovereign state with most of its pre-war territory still in its possession. 

            What is NATO willing to do for a non-member under an unprovoked attack?  What NATO countries have done so far has not been enough to turn the tide.  Russia possesses a considerable numerical advantage over Ukraine. Providing weapons doesn’t create trained forces to use those weapons on the battlefield.  There is a degree of theater here. 

            There is one final, awful thing to consider.  The historian John Lewis Gaddis usefully renamed the “Cold War” as the “Long Peace.”  That peace was assured by deterrence based Mutual Assured Destruction.  The Indian-Pakistani nuclear rivalry has been based on a similar deterrence.  The American refusal to exploit its nuclear monopoly against Russia prevented the Berlin Crisis of 1948-1949 from becoming a one-sided nuclear war.  However, we’ve also seen what can happen when one country possesses nuclear weapons and its opponent in war does not.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

            How would the United States—under either Biden or Trump—respond to a nuclear attack on Ukraine? 

[1] “Russia gains ground as U.S. rushes aid to Ukraine,” The Week, 6 December 2024, p. 5.  See: Ukraine down the drain. | waroftheworldblog 

[2] Within quotation marks, the term refers to whatever group of people (perhaps Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Avril Haines) is conducting American foreign and defense policy behind the façade of the man in the Biden-Trump debate. 

Ukraine down the drain.

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            In November 2022, about a year into the Russo-Ukraine War, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, said publicly that neither side could win a decisive victory.  He argued that a negotiated peace offered the best hope for peace.[1] 

            This was emphatically not the advice that people wanted to hear.  The Biden administration chose a different course.  In essence, the United States has provided (and has encouraged European allies to provide) arms that could be used in a struggle to recapture the territories lost to Russia since the initial Russia seizure of Ukrainian territory in 2014. 

However, for most of the last two years the Biden administration has rejected any measures that would put the United States at risk of a war with Russia.  Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO.  Biden refused repeated requests from Ukraine for long-range weapons that would allow it to strike Russian forces and military sites within Russia itself. 

Now the Russians are driving the Ukrainians back in parts of the front lines.  Now they have been joined by 8-10,000 North Korean “volunteers.”  Now Ukraine has lost about 57,000 dead and many others wounded.  Now the Ukrainian army is finding it hard to replace such losses.  Now the danger of a collapse by the exhausted and increasingly demoralized Ukrainian army grows.  Essentially, events have proved General Milley correct.  A negotiated peace, or at least a cease-fire, is the logical step if Vladimir Putin will settle for half a loaf.  

            As Biden’s term staggers to a close, some administration defense and foreign policy officials have suggested that the United States do what it has not done so far.  Specifically, they have allowed Ukraine to use longer range missiles; they have committed to provide Ukraine with anti-personnel mines[2] to shore up the sagging front; and they are pushing the remaining authorized military aid out the door before President Trump can stop them.   The weapons “are unlikely to change much on the battlefield” and “it will be difficult for Ukraine to regain the ground that Russia has steadily seized over the past few months” authorized leakers in the intelligence community told the New York Times. 

So why do it?  Administration sources offer the rationale that better terms for a cease-fire or peace can be obtained if Ukraine can slow the Russian advance and punish Russia in the final stage of the war.  Moreover, any cease-fire or peace will be at risk of violation by Russia.  Building up a strong defensive capacity could deter or defeat any new Russian attack. 

This seems nonsensical.  If Russia is exhausting the Ukrainians now, why not keep going until they totally collapse?  NATO membership is the only thing that might deter Russia. 

At the same time, the despised Trump administration looms.  The Biden administration is hurrying to issue $2.1 billion worth of contracts for arms to be delivered to Ukraine.  They have two months to go before the Trump administration takes office, although “normally” it takes four to nine months to issue such contracts.[3]

Is the Biden administration trying to encumber the path of the new administration?    

[1] Helene Cooper, Andrew E. Kramer, Eric Schmitt, and Julian Barnes, “Trump’s Vow Leaves Kyiv With Few Options,” New York Times , 22 November 2024. 

[2] Neither the United States nor Russia have signed the Ottawa Treaty outlawing landmines, but Ukraine has signed and ratified the treaty.  List of parties to the Ottawa Treaty – Wikipedia  Who could blame them for breaking it? 

[3] It is good news that one can cut all the red tape at the Pentagon if you want to cut it.   

Decisions.

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            “War is pure Hell.  You cannot refine it.”—William Tecumseh Sherman.  Peace in the Russo-Ukraine war is desirable.  Under the right terms. 

Under what terms is “peace” with Russia desirable for Ukraine?  Should Ukraine give up the territory that Russia already holds in exchange for peace?[1]  Should they try to keep fighting with whatever aid the European Union can provide, even if the United States does a bunk?  Should they try to extract commitments for the West in exchange for ceding territory to Russia and halting the fighting?  Such commitments might involve reconstruction aid, modern arms for a post-war Ukrainian military, and membership in the European Union and NATO.  What if Russia’s terms include demands for Ukraine’s “neutralization” and disarmament so as not to “threaten” Russia in the future? 

Under what terms is peace desirable for Russia?  It would take extreme pressure to make Russia give up its territorial gains.  Vladimir Putin’s long-term goal appears to be the reassembly of the Soviet Union.  Any peace that leaves Ukraine functionally independent marks a defeat.  In terms of manpower, Russia has a big edge.  At the moment, it profits from an alliance of convenience with China, North Korea, and Iran.  Putin may calculate that he can keep the pressure on Ukraine until the front lines cave in.  If that happens, Russia could be in a position to take much more than anyone else is contemplating at this moment. 

Under what conditions is peace desirable for the United States?  This question involves asking other questions.  First, where does Ukraine figure in America’s global strategy?  The United States faces multiple dangers simultaneously.  The Far East is the most important of these challenges.  Then there is the Middle East.  The key concerns here are the oil, Iran’s forward policy, and Israel.  Then there’s Europe.  Putin’s ambitions pose an eventual danger to the former “satellite states” and to the Baltic countries.  How soon would it become an actual danger?  Russia’s attack on Ukraine has prompted a revival and expansion of NATO.  Putin’s “allies” all have a strong interest in keeping the eyes of the world focused on Ukraine (and Gaza).[2]  At the same time, a consciousness of danger is poking the Europeans to look to their own defenses.  This will take time to develop. 

Second, to what extent can the United States make good its global commitments?  It operates from a weakened position compared to the past.  The United States military’s command structure has ossified, the defense industrial base has eroded for decades, and the human manpower base is in poor shape.[3]  It is by no means guaranteed that the United States can fight and win multiple simultaneous wars.  Rearmament is going to take time and cost money even IF the political will exists to rearm. 

            What’s best for Ukraine?  Only they can decide. 

            What’s best for the United States?  Only they can decide. 

            What’s best for Russia?  Only Putin can decide. 

            Where, if at all, do those decisions overlap? 

[1] See: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine – Russo-Ukrainian War – Wikipedia 

[2] Someone once observed that Bismarck was the kind of guy who would set fire to your barn so that he could sleep through the night. 

[3] The country has a high rate of obesity, with attendant illnesses.  Wegovy in boot camp? 

“God is on the side of the big battalions”–Voltaire.

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            Russia and Ukraine have been “at war” since 2014.  Russia seized the Crimean peninsula and supported “rebellion” in two majority Russian “oblasts” in eastern Ukraine.  Then, in February 2024, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  They missed their punch.  Since then, the Russians and Ukrainians have been engaged in a prolonged war of attrition.  Recently, a Ukrainian offensive ground to a halt without reaching its ambitious goals.  Since then, the Russians have mostly been grinding away on the Ukrainian lines in the Donbas.  Western observers predicted that the Ukrainian defense would hold as Russian bodies piled up in “No Man’s Land.”  Moreover, the Ukrainians launched their own minor counter-offensive in the Kursk region.  The intent was to seize Russian territory and force the Russians to shift soldiers from the Donbas, blunting the Russian offensive. 

The West has provided Ukraine with far more “lethal” aid since February 2022 than it did before then.  That aid has come with restrictions however.  In particular, Western governments seem to have wanted Ukraine to bleed Russia white until Vladimir Putin would agree to negotiate a reasonable settlement.  On the other hand, they didn’t want Ukraine risking an expansion of the war toward a threshold where Putin might use nuclear weapons.  So long-range weapons that could reach deep into Russia have been off the table.  Ukrainian President Zelensky has kept asking all the same. 

The trouble is that there are more Russians than Ukrainians.  Specifically, there are 143 million Russians and 38 million Ukrainians.  The Russians have suffered between 400,000 and 600,000 military casualties dead and wounded since the invasion began almost three years ago; Ukraine has lost perhaps as many as 80,000 dead and 400,000 wounded.[1]  However, the Russians have managed to dredge up 25,000-30,000 replacements per month.  Now they have managed to recruit 8,000 North Korean soldiers.  (There may be more to come.)  In contrast, Ukraine is just running out of soldiers.  It is the one being “bled white.” 

As a result, Russians managed to contain the incursion near Kursk while still attacking in the Donbas.  Now the Russians are moving forward against the Ukrainian defenses in both the Donbas and Kursk.  On the Ukrainian side, the fighting men are becoming exhausted and “morale is eroding.” 

People sympathetic to Ukraine ask “Why must Ukraine keep fighting with one hand tied behind its back?”[2]  Because NATO countries do not want to go to war with Russia directly.  Hemingway has one of his characters explain how he went broke: “Gradually and then suddenly.”[3]  The same thing is true for Ukraine now.  Ukraine is going to have to make a deal with Russia.  Shrewd, realistic thinking says that Ukraine will have to accept the loss of the territory that the Russians have conquered.[4]  Ukraine will have to settle for some guarantee of its future security, coupled with financial aid for reconstruction.  Membership in NATO, or just fair words and promises from Putin, may be that guarantee.

[1] See: Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian War – Wikipedia 

[2] The Observer, quoted in “Ukraine: A grim reality sets in,” The Week, 15 November 2024, p. 15.

[3] Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926).  And Jackson Browne counsels “don’t think it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet.”  The Road and the Sky (Remastered) 

[4] Richard Haas, quoted in “Ukraine: A grim reality sets in,” The Week, 15 November 2024, p. 15. 

“The System Is Blinking Red” 2.

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The Armed Services Committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate created a “Commission on the National Defense Strategy.”  Eight people were appointed to the Commission by both parties in both committees.  The Commission examined both the current and foreseeable threat environment facing the United States and the military preparedness of the United States to address that environment.  The study makes grim reading.[1] 

First, the threat environment is familiar.  In first place is China; in second place is Russia; and in third and fourth places are Iran and North Korea.  All are aggressive tyrannies.  All devote a much larger share of their national resources to the military than does the United States.  All have grown closer to each other—formal or informal allies—over the last few years.  All are deeply aggrieved with the “rules-based order” fostered by the United States after the Cold War.  “The good old rule sufficeth them, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can.”[2]  One is already fully at war, one is using its proxies in war, and the others are using military power in an attempt to intimidate their neighbors, who are American allies.  In short, “the United States faces the most challenging and most dangerous international security environment since World War II.  It faces peer and near-peer competitors for the first time since the end of the Cold War.”  Once upon a time, such actions would have met a powerful American response as a matter of policy.[3] 

Now, “[the] consequences of an all-out war with a peer or near peer would be devastating.  Such a war would not only yield massive personnel and military costs but would also likely feature cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure and a global economic recession from disruptions to supply chains, manufacturing, and trade.” 

Why is this?  The Commission finds American power much reduced and hobbled, all by our own doing.  First, “The Commission finds that DoD’s business practices, byzantine research and development (R&D) and procurement systems, reliance on decades-old military hardware, and culture of risk avoidance reflect an era of uncontested military dominance.”  As a result, “the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” 

Second, “the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United States and its allies and partners. A protracted conflict, especially in multiple theaters, would require much greater capacity to produce, maintain, and replenish weapons and munitions.” 

Third, “today’s [DoD workforce and all-volunteer force ] is the smallest force in generations. It is stressed to maintain readiness today and is not sufficient to meet the needs of strategic global competition and multi-theater war.”  “Recent recruitment shortfalls [for the all-volunteer force] have decreased the size of the Army, Air Force, and Navy.” 

Fourth, we aren’t spending on–or raising money for–defense the way we used to when we were conscious of danger.  On the one hand, defense spending as a share of GDP has roller-coastered: in 1965, 6.9 percent; in 1967, 8.6 percent; in 1979, 4.9 percent; in 1983, 6.8 percent; in 1999, 2.9 percent; in 2010, 4.7 percent; and in 2025 it is projected that the US will spend 3 percent.  On the other hand, “Defense spending in the Cold War relied on top marginal income tax rates above 70 percent and corporate tax rates averaging 50 percent.” 

The Commission concludes that “The lack of preparedness to meet the challenges to U.S. national security is the result of many years of failure to recognize the changing threats and to transform the U.S. national security structure and has been exacerbated by the 2011 Budget Control Act, repeated continuing resolutions, and inflexible government systems. The United States is still failing to act with the urgency required, across administrations and without regard to governing party.” 

It offers a series of urgent recommendations that are well worth considering.  But not for too long.  Our enemies can see all these things.  They may not wait. 

[1] See: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/nds_commission_final_report.pdf  The Report was brought to my attention by Walter Russell Mead, “U.S. Shrugs as World War II Approaches,” WSJ, 17 September 2024. 

[2] William Wordsworth, “Rob Roy’s Grave.” 

[3] Bing Videos

Great Power Conflict in the Far East.

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            Ah, the 1990s!  The Soviet Union collapsed; its Eastern European subject states escaped from Communism; the Peoples’ Republic of China got religion in the form of a transition to capitalism (if not democracy); and all sorts of places junked much of the state-centered economic system that they had established during the Cold War.  Thereafter, China became increasingly tightly bound to the West.  It imported capital, technology, and “know-how” in exchange for cheap manufactured goods.  Meanwhile, the old Soviet Union came apart like a leper in a hot tub, while Russia itself plunged into corruption and economic chaos.  The United States employed its victory to push forward the boundaries of the “one right way”: free markets, an open world economy, democracy, human rights, and cultural freedom. 

            What a difference thirty years makes.  First, the economic component (labelled “globalization”) is under attack and in retreat.  Second, the political component (democratization, human rights) has not developed at the pace expected by many people.  (The unfulfilled promise of the economic and political components explains much about the flood of migrants from authoritarian developing countries into democratic developed countries.)  Third, the post-Cold War American-dominated world politico-economic system is under attack.[1] 

            At the heart of the matter lies China.  Zi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” initiative envisions building strong bonds, at the least, with surrounding countries.[2]  On the one hand, it means a focus on Central Asia.  On the other hand, it means domination of the little countries around the South China Sea.  Eventually, it may mean entirely driving the United States out of the Far East.  In the meantime, Russia’s war against Ukraine and Iran’s disruption of the Middle East pre-occupy the United States. 

            Vladimir Putin has been pursuing the resurrection of Russian power for two decades.  To this end he has used political manipulation, the fostering a Eurasian economic community among former members of the Soviet Union, the disruption of American policies in the Middle East, and war.  He has sought to escape isolation by tightening Russia’s relations with China, North Korea, and Iran.[3] 

            All through the Cold War, India was “neutral” on the side of the Soviet Union and at odds with China.  The Sino-Soviet conflict worked to India’s advantage.  Then the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s post-Mao economic and military transformation left India adrift.  Now, the working alliance between China and Russia leaves India in a more awkward position. 

            Real conflicts still divide China and Russia.  Putin’s desire to reunite the old Soviet Union (or recreate the Tsarist Empire) run cross-wise to Zi’s ambitions in Central Asia.  Putin’s recent tightening of relations with North Korea intrudes on an area of Chinese interest.  Putin’s recent visit to Vietnam may have vexed Zi because Vietnam is one of those nations around the South China Sea that China hopes to dominate. 

            No one should expect these conflicts to disrupt cooperation between China and Russia in the near term.  First they have to topple the Americans. 

[1] Walter Russell Mead, “Asia’s New ‘Game of Thrones’,” WSJ, 9 July 2024. 

[2] See: Belt and Road Initiative – Wikipedia; or Jane Perlez and Yufan Huang, “Behind China’s $1 Trillion Plan to Shake Up the Economic Order,” NYT, 13 May 2017. 

[3] All of which serve as “enablers” of his war against Ukraine. 

Russia 31 July 2017.

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Russia’s reclaiming of Crimea and its support for breakaway groups in eastern Ukraine led to American-led economic sanctions.  Putin’s sudden increased support for the Assad regime in Syria helped turn the tide in the civil war against American proxies.  Putin’s intervention in the American presidential election to the disadvantage of Hilary Clinton, led, first, to the expulsion of a number of Russian “diplomats” and, now, to the passage of further sanctions.

Vladimir Putin wanted Donald Trump elected president of the United States.  This is the gist of much of the explanation of the Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election.  Trump had said many positive things about Putin, especially in comparison to President Barack Obama.  As President, Donald Trump would take a softer line toward Putin’s effort to get Russia back on its feet.  In particular, Putin hoped for an easing of the sanctions imposed after the Crimean and Ukrainian initiatives.[1]  “That bet has now backfired spectacularly.”  A huge majority in Congress supported the new sanctions.  Putin responded by ordering 755 American “diplomats” out of Russia.

That order has been portrayed as a dramatic further step in a downward spiral of Russo-American relations.  However, there is a certain dissonance between the American and Russian discourse on these developments.  Putin’s public announcement of the reductions “was free of bombast,” said one White House official.  Putin’s order on staff reductions doesn’t take effect until 1 September 2017.  So, there’s time to talk.  Then the staff reductions could be accomplished in a number of ways.  David Sanger calculates that there are 1,279 people employed at the American embassy in Moscow and three consulates.  Cutting 755 people from 1,279 would leave 524 people.  Of the 1,279 current total staff, 934 are “locally employed” people (i.e. Russians in non-sensitive areas).  That would leave 345 “diplomats” in place along with 119 over-weight, chain-smoking cleaning ladies.  Then there are all sorts of other American government employees from non-diplomatic agencies.

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former American intelligence official and now director of intelligence and defense projects at the Belfer Center of the Kennedy School of Government, took a dispassionate approach.  He told Sanger that “We’ve been in a new Cold War for some time now.”  In his view, on the American side, “emotions took over the [Russo-American] relationship” late in the Obama administration.  First “fear,” and now “anger” drive American policy toward Russia.  “The Russians would have preferred not to head down this path, but Putin didn’t feel he had a choice but to respond in the classic tit-for-tat manner.”

In contrast, the American discourse emphasizes grave dangers.  Angela Stent argues that “One of Putin’s greatest goals is to assure Russia is treated as if it was still the Soviet Union, a nuclear power that has to be respected and feared.”  Dan Coats, the former Republican senator and current Director of National Intelligence (DNI), says that Russia is “trying to undermine Western democracy.”  James Clapper, predecessor to Coats as DNI, warned of “the very aggressive modernization program they’re embarked on with their strategic nuclear capability.”

Putin is wicked, but he doesn’t seem stupid.  He seems to hate Hilary Clinton, but he couldn’t have her killed.  So, he settled for trying to harm her chances of becoming president.  He could hardly have supposed that Russian intervention in the American election would not be discovered.  So, he was willing to suffer the consequences.  Where do we want the Russo-American relationship to go from here?

[1] For one recent example, see David Sanger, “Putin’s Hopes for Relief Under a Trump Presidency Backfire Spectacularly,” NYT, 31 July 2017.