“This, this is living History. Everything we are doing and saying is thrilling—it will be read by a thousand generations, think of that! Why I would not be out of this glorious delicious war for anything the world could give me.”

quote/title from Winston Churchill, 1915

    Over two months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine, a sovereign country.  That cruel, illegal war has killed and maimed thousands and displaced many more.  The United States and much of the international community rightly has stood with Ukraine.  In the immediate, I think refugee resettlement, humanitarian aid, debt cancellation for Ukraine, and support of Russian dissenters should be our priorities.  Meanwhile, there exist valid arguments for and strong disagreements over the use of sanctions or weapons shipments.  I am wary of these more coercive measures because of their unintended consequences, but done to scale (and without the profit motive), they can possibly be effective in getting to the best possible negotiated settlement for Ukraine.  Wars tend to end in one of two ways: vanquishing of one side by the other or some type of negotiated settlement.  The former is unlikely to happen with Ukraine on top**, without wider, possibly nuclear war.  The latter leaves much to be desired, but I believe it is the best way to stop the bloodshed. (https://theintercept.com/2022/04/14/russia-ukraine-noam-chomsky-jeremy-scahill/).  Good, thoughtful people may disagree.

    However, we should beware of the less sober, less thoughtful columnists and essayists at outlets like “The Atlantic” (not to be confused with diligent journalists on the ground) who daily channel their inner Churchill to write beautiful sentences about the worldwide battle between “democracy” and “authoritarianism.”  They are often the same liberal and conservative (chicken)hawks who sold us the Iraq war, with beautiful prose back then too, and who now want us to fight to the last Ukrainian, regardless of what many Ukrainians think or want***.  True, Russia is not a democracy, and it invaded the more democratic Ukraine (ranked #86 on The Economist’s “Democracy Index”; Russia is 126 for reference; the US 26).  To call it a battle between authoritarian Russia and democratic Ukraine passes muster, I believe.  We can and should support Ukraine, whether or not it is a democracy.  But, to call this a worldwide battle between authoritarianism and democracy is simplistic and self-serving.  When US leaders and pundits speak of the “rules-based, liberal international order,” much of the rest of the world, especially the more melanated parts of the global south, laughs out loud.  Those people understand all too well that the rules have never applied to the US. They know that western governments, typically at the behest of western capital, make and break the "rules" whenever it suits them.   

    One might call this critique “What-About-ism.”  What-About-ism at its worst, yes, does deflect from the actual crimes and imperialism of Russia or other states/actors.  However, the charge of “What-About-ism” is now frequently being used to quell dissent, alongside the neo-McCarthyite tactic of calling people who complicate the narrative as “Putin apologists.”  At its best, the question of “What about…?” includes the question “What if…?”  For example, what if the US did join the International Criminal Court (we did not) and what if the US did not have a law that authorizes us to invade the Hague if American personnel are taken there (we do have such a law, passed with bipartisan support)?  So when Condoleezza Rice rightly, even if ironically, declares that Putin is a war criminal, what if we actually had a “rules-based” place to send him (and her).  I agree that maybe our best weapon against Russian and other states’ future aggression is a “rules-based, liberal international order.”  It just has never existed, that’s all.  I’m interested in building it, though.  Sign me up.

    With that, I re-share a longer essay from last summer on liberals and foreign policy and some of the clever psychological moves we make with history (let alone conservatives, for now): An Elegy for Ted McGrath: Lexus trumps olive tree: The limitations of a "good liberal" (Part 5: "You can't go from Saddam to Switzerland without getting stuck in Hobbes")

    Peace!  Solidarity!

*The Real Winston Churchill (jacobinmag.com)

**Feb. 27, 2023 addendum: It is unclear whether Ukraine will end up fully on top, as in a fully defeated Russia, but I did not think at the time of this writing that Ukraine would have fared so well (relatively speaking) militarily, now one year on.

***Feb. 27, 2023 addendum: While I do still think many hawks in the US want this war for, in part, their own psychological and other needs (in addition to right and just reasons), I stand corrected on the Ukrainian part.  It appears a year in, that most Ukrainians--or more of the ones I've been listening to--do want to keep fighting on.  That is, they are not just being pushed by the west as the sentence above seems to indicate.  I think the below article from Bill Fletcher, Jr. reflects how I feel, for what it's worth, on this day:

Nothing Is Worse Than Silence in the Face of Aggression | The Nation