Ukraine War, One Month In

My responses to those who feel a successful Ukrainian resistance is impossible. The objections of the doom sayers are in quotes. Long live freedom, and long live Ukraine.

"We cannot help the Ukrainians." Here are some places to help the Ukrainians.

Four things you can do for Ukraine

Four things you can do for Ukraine Robert Reich Small but practical steps

"This boycott of Russian everything is...useless..." Rather than assuming the worst, just imagine for a moment that there is hope. If there is hope, then anything, large or small, that can be done to improve the situation will contribute to the potential for a better outcome. In that case, it is not useless to stop sending money that aggrandizes the resources of the tyrannical aggressor, but an obvious thing to do. Is the aggressor stronger with more money and weaker with less? There is an obvious answer to that question. Then we try not to contribute to his resources. 

Does this aggressor or any aggressor calculate the costs and benefits of prospective aggressions? If so, then the prospect of weakening economic retaliations for aggression will factor into the calculus and act as a deterrent. 

Economic pain, especially during and as a result of war in which there are battlefield reversals, can energize a society and contribute to the organization of plots and coups, or even successful popular insurrections. Just ask the Romanovs, the Bourbons, or the Mussolinis. 

"they will soon (probably in the same time it took Hitler to take Poland) take Ukraine. Period."

Tomorrow, March 24, will mark the end of four weeks of war. That was the same time period after which Warsaw surrendered and organized Polish resistance ended. The Ukrainians are nowhere near surrender or collapse, so that prediction is already wrong. 

"The Russians are bombing the utter shit out of them..they will resist with our weapons that we gingerly push into the arena on long sticks to keep our hands from the fires they are burning alive in."

Yes, because they want to. It seems they would rather be free than alive, if that's the choice. That's how our own country was born. And sometimes the unexpected happens. Few thought the Americans could win their independence against the foremost world empire of the time. Few thought Britain could resist Hitler and Mussolini once France had fallen and Stalin was still on Hitler's side. Few expected the nascent Israelis could withstand the invasion of seven Arab nations, outnumbered 10-1. Few would have bet on North Vietnam and the Viet Cong to outlast South Vietnam and the United States in that war. Truman won the 1948 election. The Mets won the 1969 World Series. Usually the expected happens. But often enough, the underdog prevails, often enough to fire the dedication of freedom-loving people everywhere. 

Russia under Putin is not a happy, prosperous, and well-adjusted society or polity. Maybe, with enough losses, enough time, enough increasing economic privation, enough military and national humiliation, the oligarchs, the army, and/or the people will rise up there as they have four times in the past 117 years and rid themselves of an overweening despotism.

 

Of course maybe not, in this instance. But we don't know, and nobody knows. The only things that will absolutely insure Ukrainian defeat are if they themselves lose their will to fight or if no one gives them the weapons they need to give them a chance. They show no signs of losing their will to fight as of today. And the democratic world still stands united in giving them the tools they need to fight because it is the right thing to do. Do we stand up for our beliefs or do we abandon them when the going gets hard? Do we tell tyrants and thugs fine, go ahead, you can act with impunity or do we show them their depredations will cost them more than they can afford to pay? Do we help people fighting for their freedom or do we tell them we think they are better off slaves?

I deeply admire the Ukrainians and am proud that the US and so many other countries are supporting them however they can, be the support military, humanitarian, monetary, political, demonstrating in the streets to show support for their government's efforts on Ukraine's behalf, or sanctioning and boycotting Russian sources of income. Long live freedom, and long live Ukraine.

 

Ukraine: How We Got Here and What We do Next

1. Yes, Putin was emboldened by previous moves at little international cost. The sanctions after Crimea at least became consequential, but they are not disabling.

2. No, World War III has not started already. One country is battling another. No other combatants are directly involved. That is not a World War. Whether it becomes a world war depends on what we, Putin, and others do next.

3. Yes, we and our allies must continue to arm Ukraine. It ends the policy of appeasement and makes clear from now on that the price of aggression will be high. It signals to countries facing Russian or other intimidation that we will help them, and makes it more likely they will stand up to coercion. It multiplies the cost to Putin and makes him the aggressor if he goes beyond the boundaries of Ukraine to try to staunch the replenishment by widening the war into Poland or Romania. By not immediately intervening to take out these deliveries it is Putin who has emboldened us to continue supplying Ukraine, just as we emboldened him by weak responses to his earlier aggressions. Now if he retaliates directly against us or our NATO allies on NATO territory he would be the one escalating, and would initiate World War III. He's already having trouble bludgeoning Ukraine into line, so imagine his problems if he added Germany, Poland, Romania, the USA and the rest of the NATO Treaty signatories to his active enemies. That's why he hasn't done it. He believes the NATO Charter would be followed by its member nations. He knows that's a fight he can't win. The only way he could stop us all would be nuclear. But he knows if he uses that, he dies too. Again, he indicates he is a rational actor because he has not activated the NATO Alliance, which would insure his conventional defeat, or used nuclear weapons, which would be suicidal. 

4. No, we do not need to send ground troops into Ukraine or send our air forces over their skies to "enforce a no-fly zone." If we do that we become active belligerents, and we start World War III. A no-fly zone means our planes are there to shoot down the planes of any other power that enters that airspace. That means direct aerial combat with the Russian Air Force, because they are already there. It's an unmistakable act of war. No country currently engaged in combat could ever permit the withdrawal of air support for their ground forces currently engaged in life and death combat. The logic of operations would necessitate their striking NATO air bases in NATO territory and we then striking Russian air bases inside Russia. The air defenses of their ground forces would strike at our planes overhead to defend their planes, and our planes in turn would have to target Russian ground forces shooting at them. Before you know it, every American is shooting at every Russian, and vice versa, and it's World War III.

5. Yes, we ought to embargo Russian oil. We should let them know through confidential channels before hand that it's coming (which they can already see by watching the Western news) and let them know it ends when they withdraw. We should also let them know we will play that card any time they invade anybody, including neutrals such as Finland and Sweden. This is yet another case, in addition to the intensifying climate crisis, which clearly demonstrates the urgent need to direct our energy consumption away from oil and other fossil fuels as rapidly as possible.

6. It may well be that China stands as the likely diplomatic key to ending the Russia-Ukraine War. That's probably not what the USA wants to happen though, as doing so would greatly raise China's profile and prestige in the world. But as long as Putin feels he has Chinese support he may be willing to keep paying the costs to pursue his dream of reconstituting the glories of the Russian Empire, pouring more men and material into what looks to be Russia's equivalent of Vietnam. But if the Chinese were to let him know they could not continue to back his folly, he might have to realize the game was up and accept their mediation and some at least implicitly face-saving diplomatic solution. In this case, one wonders what price China would extract from both Russia and the West for their good offices.

Prospect for Ukraine

I write this on Day 5 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are inspiring the world with their much stronger than expected resistance to the Russian onslaught. It is absolutely certain that Putin will not countenance defeat or withdrawal. He's put his chips in and can never be seen to back down. I foresee continuing stiffening Ukrainian resistance as more of our wondrous precision weaponry reaches them, leading to heavier and heavier Russian losses such as the burning columns of T-72s and APCs we have already seen on video. This will multiply Putin's rage and the Russian Army's humiliation such that their campaign will become ever more brutal. 

We've already seen this model before with Putin in Chechnya and Syria. Cities that successfully resist will be heavily struck, then as frustration grows, leveled. Expect Kharkiv and Kiev to be turned fairly soon into piles of rubble. As the Germans discovered at Stalingrad, however, bombed out urban landscapes are extremely perilous places for offensive operations, with roads blocked and innumerable places for defenders to hide and ambush. Russian losses will swell. Still, their preponderance is great, and they will grind forward, and at length, conquer the whole of a devastated Ukraine. 

From what I've seen thus far, that will not be the end of the war. Ukrainian spirit is strong. The Russian occupiers will become bogged down in a widespread and effective insurgency. The resistance will be very well-supplied. Even neutral Sweden has pledged to send lethal weaponry. Think of that. Russian losses will be quite heavy on an ongoing basis. A steady stream of hundreds and thousands of body bags will be brought home for funerals attended by grieving relatives and friends. All the while, sanctions will be sapping the Russian economy. Videos will show dead children. Its pariah status will grow. Boycotts will dry up its exports. The ruble is already crashing. The cost of occupying the ruined Ukraine and fighting the insurgency will not be offset by the seizure of the Ukrainian economy, since much of it will be in ruins. 

The Russian economy, about 8% the size of America's, will crack under the strain. As privation and war weariness grow, anti-Putin demonstrations in Russia will become larger and increasingly more defiant. I wouldn't be surprised to see the denouement to this classic Shakespearean tragedy end with footage of Putin's blood-spattered carcass sprawled across the marbled floor of one of the Kremlin's ornately appointed halls, the victim of a coup engineered by an alliance of disaffected oligarchs and the top army brass, the former's fortunes and the latter's pride having been drastically depleted by Putin's grand overreach. 

On the Anniversary of the Attempted Overthrow of American Democracy

Today I print a letter by my friend Jeff Deiss to his Senators and Congressman. It is a letter which I wholeheartedly support. I will be sending similar letters to my congressional delegation as well. I invite you to do the same.

A year ago was the darkest day in American democracy in my lifetime.  The real possibility that a strongman would be able to override two centuries of gradually improving American democracy was shocking, something I never believed possible.  It seems clear that 2021’s ultimately successful transition of power to a democratically-elected Administration has not been enough to assure that the processes in place can be comfortably depended upon going forward.  Many States have enacted laws that diminish the rights of voters and the power of the majority of voters to see their choices honored.  A year later, the situation remains precarious, and the stakes remain high.  

Therefore I am writing to urge you to support a Senate rule change that will end the filibuster for a single bill on voting rights. 

I know that the filibuster rule has held a long and often honorable role in Senate deliberations, assuring that compromise and bipartisanship are used in enacting laws.  So I do not urge this lightly.  But the dangers to our democracy now transcend the importance of a traditional moderating rule of the Senate, however wise or respected.  

If the will of the people as expressed in free and fair elections is allowed to be compromised, our democracy is lost.  Given the choice between preserving our democracy or the filibuster, the decision must be to end the filibuster rule this once in favor of protecting voting rights. 

January 6 Commission and What's at Stake

The January 6 Committee is about to start hitting the country with absolutely damning information about what Trump and his team were up to before and during the insurrection. If we're fortunate it will destroy and discredit him. We'll have to see. Majorities of Americans already hold him culpable, according to a Washington Post University of Maryland poll released today. Republicans in general and his partisans in particular have drunk the cool aid. The New York Times editorial today said the nation is at an unprecedented critical juncture where a major national political party is openly attempting to thwart democracy and has resorted to violence to do it. This is true and we live in a fraught time. The Times editorial calls on everyone to fight against this. They call on the Democrats in the Senate to lift the filibuster so they can pass the elections and voting rights bills and safeguard democracy. They call on citizens to fight for fair elections and vote against those trying to corrupt them.

The two things to keep in mind are, first, that we are on the side of righteousness, and second, that we are the majority. Despite what you may see in Tulare County, remember, even there the Republican edge is shrinking, Devin Nunes' formerly easy 30-point wins fell to only 5 and 8 percent in his last two elections. So, I want you to keep some facts in mind. The Democratic candidate for president has gotten the most votes in 7 of the last 8 elections. The Republican candidate only got the most votes once in the last eight elections. It's been since 2004 that George W. Bush, a wartime incumbent (who himself had been elected with a minority of the votes thanks to the electoral college system in 2000) was the last GOP aspirant to get more votes than the Democrat. Clinton in 92 and 96, Gore in 2000, Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020 all outpolled their Republican adversaries. The GOP candidate for president has gotten the most votes once in the past thirty years. Democratic Senators represent 35,000,000 more people than their Republican counterparts. Democrats beat Republican candidates in the national popular vote in the House by 8.6% in 2018 and by 3% in 2020. Republicans are not the majority. They are the minority. That is why they are now doubling their efforts to gerrymander like crazy and tip the election process against fairness and equality. They know most people are against them, and that stacking the deck is the only way they can win. 

John F. Kennedy said: "In the long history of the world only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility-I welcome it." He referred to his generation's role in saving freedom from foreign totalitarianism in World War II and then the Cold War. Ours concerns saving it from would-be internal totalitarians. I admire what Kennedy did. It is our privilege to be called upon to fight this same recurring age-old battle in our own day. If we fail then what he and my dad did, along with millions of others, including the 400,000 who didn't come home and the hundreds of thousands who were maimed, did all that for nothing. And that just ain't good enough.

Dune a Must-See for Sci-Fi Fans

Just back from the new movie, "Dune," based on the Frank Herbert book. My God, I was blown away at how great it was. So was my show biz daughter, who's read the book a lot more recently than I have. It's rare to see a modern movie take its time, and this did, in perfect pace with the book. Faithful to the story, brilliantly directed and acted, some of the most unusual music you'll ever hear, because it's a different universe, and so incredibly effective at sustaining the story and mood. Hans Zimmer, the composer, is a genius. 

If you like the book you'll love the film. And also if so, you really need to see it now, while it's on the big screen. Some little phone, tablet, or even desktop image won't do it justice at all. This book presents one of the most difficult screen adaptations imaginable, and this movie is one of if not the best adaptations I've ever seen. The whole audience (ok, there were nine people in the theater) just sat there after it ended watching the credits roll for a good five minutes. That's how in awe everybody was.

Republican Party Becoming Overtly Fascist

The day they throw Liz Cheney out of the House leadership will be the signal that the old Republican Party has ended. It will still be called the Republican Party but will actually have become the American Fascist Party. Arch-conservative though she is, Cheney at least has the integrity to call a lie a lie and the truth the truth. Edmund Burke wrote that a political party without a platform is nothing but a conspiracy to seize power. That is what the Republican Party has become. 

All their efforts are directed to gain power without scruple at any cost. Lying, cheating, stacking the deck, Orwellian double-speak, welcoming foreign intervention, even armed insurrection have become simply tactical options for them. When the truth conflicts with the party line it is the truth that must be eliminated, as Ms. Cheney will be next week. Their intent is clear from their own statements and from the numerous voter suppression and election-rigging laws they are passing at the state and local levels with frantic haste. From where they are now it is but a short step to bribery, suppression of independent media, assassination and coup. 

When one major party in a republic abandons adherence to fair play and the rule of law and turns down the road to the pursuit of power at any cost, the endgame is invariably the same. We have seen it all before. Yes, it is happening here. Yes, it is happening now. And unless things drastically change, the next time the GOP gains control of the presidency and both houses of congress at the same time they will not be as undisciplined and disorganized as they were under Trump. Next time they will complete the job.