Back in March, I had the opportunity to participate in an on-line forum where a well-known Russian expert provided a briefing on the “ground truth” as he saw it from Moscow.
Following the briefing, the floor was opened for questions. I had noted that the briefer, the moderator, and indeed the audience made repetitive use of the term “invasion” to describe what Russia has called a “Special Military Operation.”
I brought up the limited objectives of the Russian military effort at the time of its initiation, namely the goal of compelling Ukraine to agree to a negotiated settlement and asked if the term “Special Military Operation” was not a more accurate description of reality.
The expert understood my question and agreed that the term “Special Military Operation” carried with it a specific connotation which distinguished it from a classic military invasion. However, in the group chat, where participants were able to comment on the proceedings, one individual offered the following observation: “‘Special Military Operation?’ What’s that? I don’t speak Putin.”
[Related: SCOTT RITTER: On Horseradish & Nuclear War]
This forum was intended as a way to better inform the participants about one of the most pressing issues of the day — the conflict between Russia and Ukraine — and to better prepare them for assessing the consequences of this conflict globally.
Given the failure of the collective West to impose its will on Russia through what is widely considered a proxy conflict, one would think that some form of retrospective analysis would be in order. However, to engage in such an activity constructively, an agreed-upon lexicon would be needed to communicate effectively.
Since Russia is prevailing in the conflict, one would also think that a modicum of interest should be given to how Russia defines the conflict. In short, anyone who is interested in learning the lessons of the collective West’s failure in Ukraine should learn “to speak Putin.”
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Worn-Out Cold War Thinking
The problem is, those in the West who should be preparing a proper lexicon from which the Russian-Ukraine conflict could be more accurately assessed are instead operating from an outdated lexicon rooted in the language and mindset of a time that no longer exists, born of a Cold War mentality that prevents any deep-seated and relevant analysis of the true situation between Russia and the West.
Both the United States and NATO have described the Russia-Ukraine conflict as possessing existential consequences for Europe and the world, with the secretary general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, going so far as to declare in October 2022 that “Russia’s victory in the war against Ukraine will be a defeat of NATO,” adding ominously, “This cannot be allowed.”
Bad news, Mr. Stoltenberg — Russia has won. While the “Special Military Operation” has yet to be concluded, Russia has seized the strategic initiative across the board when it comes to conflict with Ukraine, forcing the Ukrainian military to terminate a counteroffensive, which the government of Ukraine and its NATO allies had invested tens of billions of dollars in military resources, and tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives in hopes of achieving a decisive victory over the Russian military on the battlefield.
Today, Ukraine finds its military decimated by the fighting and unable to sustain itself as a cohesive combat force on the field of battle. The U.S. and NATO likewise find themselves unable and/or unwilling to continue supplying Ukraine with the money and material needed to continue to maintain a viable military presence on the battlefield.
Russia is in the process of transitioning away from a posture of flexible defense, and instead initiating offensive operations along the length of the line of contact designed to exploit opportunities presented by an increasingly depleted, and defeated, Ukrainian army.
U.S. President Joe Biden has likewise argued that a Russian victory was unacceptable.
“We can’t let Putin win,” Biden said earlier this month to put pressure on a U.S. Congress that has allowed the Ukrainian conflict to become wrapped up in domestic American politics, with key Republicans in both the Senate and House refusing to support a funding bill that lumps some $60 billion in Ukraine assistance together with money for Israel and immigration reform.
“Any disruption in our ability to supply Ukraine clearly strengthens Putin’s position,” Biden concluded.
Biden’s articulation of the quandary faced by his administration underscores the extent to which the U.S. and its European allies have personalized the Russian-Ukraine conflict. In their eyes, this is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.
Indeed, Russia itself has been reduced to being a mere appendage of the Russian president. In this, Biden is not alone. An entire class of erstwhile Russian “experts” — including the likes of former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul; the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum; and a host of so-called national security experts, including former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia Andrea Kendall-Taylor and the former Russia Director for the National Security Council Fiona Hill — have all made the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia all about Putin.
In a recent interview with Politico, Hill, the co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, published in 2015, mirrored the statements by Stoltenberg and Biden that defined the Russia-Ukraine conflict as an existential crisis.
Kendall-Taylor, who in 2022 co-authored an article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Beginning of the End for Putin?” likewise views the conflict as an extension of Putin’s needs as an individual, more than Russia’s needs as a nation.
“Putin,” Kendall-Taylor told NPR in January 2022, before the start of the Special Military Operation,
“really is looking to keep Ukraine in Russia’s orbit. After 20 years of him being in power, he’s thinking about his legacy, and he wants to be the leader who returned Russia to greatness. And to do that, he has to restore Russian influence in Ukraine.
And for him, I think it’s really personal. Putin, over his 20 years — 22 years now in power, has tried and failed repeatedly to bring Ukraine back into the fold. And I think he senses that now is this — his time to take care of this unfinished business.”
Such an outcome, of course, is unacceptable, according to Kendall-Taylor. “I don’t think it’s overstating it to highlight how important the U.S. assistance is,” she recently told The New York Times. “If the assistance doesn’t continue, then this war takes on a radically different nature moving forward.”
Applebaum in November penned an article in The Atlantic titled “The Russian Empire Must Die,” wherein she argued that “a better future requires Putin’s defeat — and the end to imperial aspirations.” She recently gave her opinion of Putin’s legacy in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict.
“I don’t think there’s any question that Putin will be remembered as the man who really set out to destroy his own country,” Applebaum told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in an interview last August. Putin, Applebaum declared,
“is somebody who has worsened the living standards, and freedom, and culture of Russia itself. He doesn’t seem to care about the well-being or prosperity of ordinary Russians. They’re just cannon fodder to him. He’s not interested in, you know, Russian achievements in infrastructure or art or in literature and in anything else. He has impoverished Russians. And he’s also brought back a form of dictatorship that I think most Russians had thought they’d left behind.”
What the Russian president is doing, Applebaum said, “is really destroying modern Russia. And I think that’s what he’ll be remembered for overall.”
‘Russia Is the Problem Because it Empowers Putin’
McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, wrote a memoir, From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador to Putin’s Russia. In a recent interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, McFaul stated that, “I changed my views as a result of this horrific, barbaric war in Ukraine, because Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine.” Russia, McFaul now claims, is the problem because Russia has empowered Putin.
McFaul backs up his assessment with a bit of revisionist history.
Calling Putin “a completely accidental leader of Russia,” McFaul labeled Putin “a creature of the existing regime” appointed by Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, and lacking in any meaningful political constituency.
Putin, McFaul claims, “wants to create this myth that ‘there was the chaos of the ‘90s, and I came in as the hero.’ That’s complete and utter nonsense,” McFaul asserts. “That’s not the history the way it was in real time.”
Given Putin’s lack of political pedigree, McFaul says, “we don’t necessarily know if Russians support him. How do you know when there’s not real free and fair elections, when there’s no real media? You can’t know if he’s popular or not in those conditions.”
McFaul says that “I changed my views” about the culpability of the Russian people for Putin
“as a result of this horrific, barbaric war in Ukraine, because Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine. There was no vote; there’s no referendum. We don’t know what Russians actually thought about that decision. There is public-opinion polling before it to suggest that they didn’t want that fight, including by independent organizations, even Western organizations.
But once he went in, there was support — as there usually is when countries go to war — and now there are Russians that are raping Ukrainian women and children; there are Russians that are committing massive atrocities inside Ukraine. So Putin can’t do those things without the support of Russians. And therefore, this excuse that Russians are not guilty and they shouldn’t be treated badly, and they shouldn’t be sanctioned because of autocracy, I disagree with that.”
Putin’s war, McFaul concludes, is now Russia’s war.
McFaul’s unsubstantiated allegations of Russian atrocities provide a clear picture of the fact-free foundation used by the former ambassador to shape his narrative of Putin’s Russia.
McFaul’s assertion of rape is particularly egregious, considering that, at the time of his interview — July 2023 — these allegations had been quashed by Ukraine itself following the revelations that Lyudmila Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament’s commissioner for human rights, had issued official statements using unverified information.
In a letter to the Parliament, Ukrainian journalists said Denisova’s reports were harmful to Ukraine, noting that the information put out by Denisova’s office was regarded as factual by the media, and was “then used in articles and in speeches by public figures.”
Denisova was fired in May 2022 — more than a year before McFaul echoed her discredited allegations in a living manifestation of the caution set forth by the Ukrainian journalists.
[See: Caitlin Johnstone: Official Behind Media Reports of Russian Atrocities Fired by Ukrainian Parliament]
McFaul premised much of his altered view regarding the co-responsibility of the Russian people for the conflict with Ukraine on his understanding of the events of the 1990’s, and how these events shaped the rise to political prominence of Vladimir Putin.
Curiously, McFaul asserts that any notion of the decade of the 1990s as being one of “chaos” for Russia is a myth. What makes this assertion particularly curious is that McFaul himself was personally involved with the Russia of the 1990s, and should know better.
McFaul arrived in Moscow in 1990 as a visiting scholar at Moscow State University. He later took a position as a consultant with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), self-described as “a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization that has supported democratic institutions and practices in every region of the world,” blurring the line between academic and activist.
The NDI was founded in 1983 to promote “public diplomacy” operations in furtherance of U.S. national security interests. As the NDI’s representative in Moscow, McFaul actively supported “Democratic Russia,” a coalition of Russian politicians led by Yeltsin, whom McFaul later dubbed the “catalyst for the Cold War’s end.”
In his 2001 book, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin, McFaul openly espoused the concept of “democracy” as it was manifested in the form of Yeltsin, even though McFaul knew only too well that Yeltsin was little more than the hand-picked puppet of the United States.
McFaul took umbrage at Putin’s rise to prominence and power, proffering instead an alternative reality which had Yeltsin, who resigned from the Russian presidency on New Years Eve 1999, appointing Boris Nemtsov (whom McFaul describes as the “heir apparent”) instead of Putin as his replacement.
McFaul never forgave Russia the sin of Putin’s appointment — in Russia’s Unfinished Revolution, he declared that the former KGB officer had “inflicted considerable damage to democratic institutions” in Russia, a remarkable example of personal prejudice, given that Putin took power in 2000, and McFaul’s book was published in 2001.
Moreover, McFaul engaged in a good deal of historical revisionism, given that there were no “democratic institutions” in Russia under Yeltsin — Russian tanks firing on the Russian Parliament in October 1993 on the orders of Yeltsin, combined with the open rigging of the 1996 election with the support of the United States, guaranteed that.
McFaul was more than familiar with this history — he helped shape the conditions that produced it — making his present-day amnesia suspect.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
The cost of US fighting Houthis in the Red Sea just went up
Despite millions spent intercepting militant drones and missiles, experts fear expanding targets may risk a costlier regional war.
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
The Pentagon is marshaling a new international task force to combat Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, and not a moment too soon, it would seem, as it has been expending millions of dollars in munitions to intercept the militants’ drones and missiles since Oct. 7.
But is it essentially expanding the “target set” for the Houthis, who are clearly bent on proving their own strength (with, of course, Iranian backing) and scoring political points against Israel? Will this task force, named Operation Prosperity Guardian, bring the U.S. one step closer to a regional war that will, in the end, cost Americans much more?
According to the Department of Defense, the Houthis have conducted 100 drone and ballistic missile attacks since Oct. 7, targeting cargo vessels involving more than 35 flags from different nations in the Red Sea, including U.S Navy destroyers. Most have been intercepted, though some have hit their targets, causing minor injuries and damage. But with the hijacking of one ship, plus the major disruptions to shipping (the Houthis are blocking an estimated $10 million in cargo a day) and resulting price hikes, the situation has put security in the region on high alert.
It is also costing the United States a pretty penny to act as the key defender of these predominant global shipping lanes. Each munition used to shoot down the Houthi missiles and drones costs between $1 million and $4.3 million and the ships cannot reload at sea and will have to return to port — perhaps Djibouti? — to reload if the kinetic activity goes on much longer, according to experts that talked to Responsible Statecraft this week.
According to experts, the US Carney and US Mason destroyers (also joined by U.K. warships in some cases) could be using a mix of RIM66 SM-2 and RIM66 SM-6 interceptors as well as ESSM Sea Sparrows to take down the drones. The Carney is outfitted with SM-3s as well, but it is not clear that they are being used. This is all part of a “layered defense” that deploys different interceptors depending on the threat. The missiles mentioned so far in numerous interception reports have been the SM-2 and the Sparrows.
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According to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (as of 2022), the SM-2 costs $2.1 million per unit; the SM-6 costs $4.3 million; and the ESSM Sea Sparrows costs $1.7 million. The destroyers are also fitted with the Rolling Airframe missile, which cost $905,000 in 2022. One source suggested, however, not to assume the high end of the cost, adding that the U.S. Navy was likely cleaning out their old stocks and not using the latest versions of these interceptors.
The Pentagon spent $12.3 billion on its missile defense programs in 2022 and $24.7 billion on its missiles and munitions. There is a lot in the stockpile. Plus the countries called into the new task force will have their own capabilities. They include, according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain. Interestingly it does not include NATO ally Turkey, or Saudi Arabia (which of course is currently tied to a ceasefire in its own conflict with the Houthis in Yemen).
Maybe cost isn’t the most urgent concern, then. Others who have spoken to RS said the threat of escalation — that the U.S. is close to engaging in an all-out war in the Red Sea at a time when its energy and resources are stretched in Ukraine and in sending Israel everything it asks for in the Gaza conflict — is key right now. Our Navy fleets — and U.S. troops/sailors in the region — are in harm’s way, and it is important for the American people to assess if what happens next is truly in the national interest.
The Houthis have said they will target the ships and U.S. Navy in the Red Sea until Israel stops its bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza. If this video is any indication, the new Operation Prosperity Guardian is going to have its hands full, and millions more dollars in U.S. missile interceptors will be expended before this situation is resolved.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Red Sea’s Gateway of Tears… As Usual, Uncle Sam’s Euro Vassals Pay the Price
The major European states are finally making some noises calling for a ceasefire to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. What’s taken them so long?
By Finian Cunningham
The major European states are finally – at long last – making some noises calling for a ceasefire to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. What’s taken them so long?
It’s still pathetically insufficient and falls far short of a full-throated demand on Israel to stop its unbridled slaughter of Palestinians – 20,000 of whom have been killed in more than 70 days of relentless bombardment.
But now Britain, France and Germany are calling for a ceasefire. Well sort of. The British and German foreign ministers David Cameron and Annalena Baerbock wrote a joint article in Britain’s Sunday Times in which they said there needs to be a “sustainable ceasefire” but – bizarrely, they added – not right now.
Their French counterpart Catherine Colonna was a little more forthright. On a visit to Tel Aviv on Sunday, she mustered the conviction to call for an immediate truce.
The slightly stronger French position was presaged by the killing of one of its diplomatic staff in Gaza a few days earlier.
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Still, despite the outrage of the killing, the French minister’s words were softly spoken and couched with pandering to Israel’s so-called right to self-defense. Perhaps if the diplomatic staffer who died was a French national instead of being a Palestinian man working for France, then Paris would have been more condemnatory in its response.
Pathetic though the European response is with regard to demanding Israel obey international law and stop massacring civilians, nevertheless the divergence from the U.S. position is notable. Washington is also showing signs of pressure from the international outcry over Israel’s genocide with mealymouthed pleas for “restraint”. However, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration continues to repudiate all calls for a ceasefire and continues unreservedly arming Israel’s killing machine.
What is going on with the European calculation? After all, only as of last week, the Europeans were not calling for a ceasefire. Britain and Germany abstained from a vote at the United Nations General Assembly demanding a ceasefire. The U.S. voted No along with Israel, while 153 nations voted Yes.
The sudden shift by the Europeans is most likely spurred by their concerns over economic pain.
The closing down of the Red Sea shipping route by the Yemenis in solidarity with the Palestinians is starting to ramp up serious economic costs to global trade. The Yemenis have warned that any ships identified as Israeli-owned or bound will be prevented from passing. But the risk is deterring all shipping.
Yemen straddles the Bab el-Mandeb, the 32-kilometer-wide channel at the southern end of the Red Sea which in effect connects Europe to Asia. All ships passing from Asia to Europe use this route on their way to the Suez Canal in Egypt and thence to the Mediterranean Sea and the European mainland.
Aptly named, Bab el-Mandeb (“the Gate of Tears”) is a classic chokepoint. It controls an estimated 12 per cent of the global shipping trade. And the Yemenis have slammed the gate shut.
As a result of Yemeni military attacks targeting several Israeli ships, over the past week, four major global cargo companies have suspended their vessels using the Red Sea route.
All four shipping companies are European-based. They include the Swiss-registered Mediterranean Shipping Company – the world’s largest – as well as Maersk from Denmark, Hapag-Lloyd of Germany and France’s CMA CGM.
A fifth global giant to suspend its vessels using the Red Sea is Evergreen which is based in Taiwan.
Britain’s oil and gas major BP also announced Monday that it has ordered its tankers to avoid transiting the same route.
All firms are citing the deterioration in security conditions for their decision to halt shipping operations.
With the Bab el-Mandeb closed off, that means cargo vessels have to circumnavigate the continent of Africa by the Cape of Good Hope in the far south. That alternative route entails an additional 6,000 kilometers to shipping routes which means appreciably more transport costs from increased fuel consumption, port stops and supply logistics. The added costs will concatenate to hike consumer inflation and stress Europe’s already fragile economies.
It is the Asian-European trade that is most impacted by the Red Sea closure. China is the European Union’s biggest trading partner. The United States is also massively dependent on China for its imports but unlike the European economies, the U.S. receives its Asian trade from shipping across the Pacific Ocean.
The Yemenis have declared their actions will continue in support of “Palestinian brothers” until the Israeli regime ends its genocide.
Yemen may be the poorest among the Arab nations, but it is playing an ace card. It is squeezing the chokepoint on the Red Sea which is threatening severe damage on the Israeli and European economies.
This would explain why the major European states are suddenly finding a voice to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Europeans are finding that their economies are at grave risk from disruption of shipping as a result of the Yemenis closing down the Red Sea. Britain may no longer be part of the EU but it is still heavily reliant on Asian-European trade.
Once again, the Europeans are finding they are paying a heavy price for being vassals of the United States and not having any independent foreign policy.
The U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia has rebounded with far more damage on Europe than it has on the Americans. The Europeans have slavishly followed Washington’s aggression against Russia by implementing a raft of economic sanctions and cutting off vital energy trade. Germany’s economy, in particular, has been ravaged by the loss of Russia’s natural gas as fuel for its industries.
Likewise, the Europeans have meekly followed U.S. policy by pandering to Israel and giving Tel Aviv political and diplomatic cover for its genocide in Gaza. And as in the Ukraine-Russia debacle, the Europeans now stand to incur more severe economic repercussions as the Yemenis inflict the pain of increased shipping costs.
As that old war criminal Henry Kissinger is reputed to have quipped: to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be an ally is fatal.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Re: Red Sea’s Gateway of Tears… As Usual, Uncle Sam’s Euro Vassals Pay the Price
Europe willingly... (did it have a choice, it's about submission isn't it? Resistance would appear to be futile) chose castrate itself to appease Washington, satisfied with the role of pampered enuch in the imperial fortress; yet that role is changing and enuch Europe is no longer a priority for Washington. It's become expendable. More pawns to be sacrificed on the grand imperial chessboard. The Amricans have far bigger fish to fry.