Zelensky and Trump Come to Blows

 

I was appalled by the scene yesterday in the Oval Office. That is not the way to conduct diplomacy, and that is not the way to treat a guest. It seemed to give succor to Putin, and looked like two-on-one bullying.

The first thing I thought of was Hitler’s bullying of Czech president Benes and the Munich Agreement.

BUT: A lot depends on who started it. Did Trump invite Zelensky to the White House, or did Zelensky ask to come? Trump says it was Zelensky’s idea. Did Zelensky challenge Vance in front of the cameras to begin the row? I can’t sort that out. I can never tell whether I’m being shown the full exchange. This might have been Zelensky trying to push Trump around, grandstanding for the cameras to gain support in Europe. 

Sounds suicidal, but I think we have seen other European leaders try to do so. Macron publicly contradicted Trump before the cameras and in the latter’s presence a few days ago. Starmer was about to visit. If this was happening, Trump had to respond sharply, right now, before things got out of hand, to establish his authority. Better to go against Zelensky, now, than have a big diplomatic row with France or the UK later. You kill the chicken to scare the monkeys, as they say in China.

Trump is doing now with Zelensky just what NATO should have done when Russia invaded Ukraine: a quick and powerful response. It is because they did not, that we are in this mess now.

To state the obvious, Russia is in the wrong in this war, and Ukraine is in the right. Russia invaded Ukraine. All other considerations are a distraction and an alibi for not helping. Down to and including objecting to Zelensky not wearing a suit to visit the White House.

At that point, when Russia first invaded, it was the moral duty of all other nations to support Ukraine. But instead of reacting quickly and resolutely with massive support—they should have sent in air cover and declared a no-fly zone, then shipped in tanks and missiles--they kept giving Ukraine aid in dribs and drabs, just enough to continue the war, but not enough to win it. 

Their argument was that they did not want to escalate for fear of starting World War III. This made no sense: if Russia could not handle Ukraine alone, they were not going to expand the war and take on all of Nato. Go nuclear? Not unless they were suicidal. Mutual Assured Destruction. This stance simply allowed Russia to escalate at will, confident Nato would not allow them to lose. It forced both sides into a never-ending state of war. 

Makes you wonder about that old saw, the "military-industrial complex."

This stalemate has to be broken one way or another. Huge numbers of lives are being lost, daily, for nothing. Ukrainian lives matter. Russian lives matter. These are all innocent victims.

Or not quite a stalemate: someone I said this to recently pointed out that, in fact, Russia is slowly gaining ground. In a war of attrition, Russia can expect to eventually win. They have more population than Ukraine to send to the front to be ground to blood and powder. And they have oil to finance it.

The principle of the just war applies. You have a duty to self-defence, to fight for justice, and to defend the victim. But only so long as there is a real prospect of victory, and the suffering and death from war is less than the evil being threatened by the aggressor. Jesus told his followers to buy a sword. But when a large contingent of Roman soldiers appeared to arrest him in the garden, he told Peter to put away the sword. People would die, and the final result would be the same.

As an aside, this is why it is immoral for Canadians to speak of armed resistance should Trump invade. There is no way it is worth killing people just to avoid being ruled from Washington instead of Ottawa. Similarly, is it so much worse being ruled by a kleptocracy in Moscow than by a kleptocracy in Kiev? Worth killing an entire generation of men?

That is where we are in Ukraine; unless NATO is prepared to come in with much more at this late hour. I’m not sure they can; they’ve frittered away most of their available armaments now, and most of the Ukraine’s fighting-age men. If they can, I wonder if it would still be worth it; it would be far more costly now than it would have been in 2022. 

Perhaps Zelensky is calculating that they can and will. Perhaps Europe now has the confidence to go it alone. This itself would be a good thing, should they succeed. Trump may be happy enough to see Europe go ahead with it—he has been urging them to take more responsibility for their own defense. 

Failing that, it’s time to cut a deal. Trump was apparently upset that Zelensky was still badmouthing Putin and trying to get Trump to do so. Not good strategy if you want a deal. You need to preserve the other guy's dignity. And, if Zelensky is not prepared to coo a little at Putin, perhaps Trump's best course for peace is to disassociate himself, so that he looks to Putin like an honest broker. I half believe this confrontation was deliberately stage-acted in front of the cameras to let Putin save face while accepting a Trump-brokered deal.

Zelensky is, sensibly enough, concerned that Putin cannot be trusted to keep any peace agreement. All very well for Trump to make a quick bargain for "peace in our time"; he’s protected by an ocean from this incipient Hitler. For Zelensky, this is life or death. A ceasefire or a peace may only give Putin the opportunity to rearm and come at him again in a few years, making all of Ukraine’s present sacrifice futile. Putin has been a serial aggressor. Trump says “He won’t dare break a deal with me,” but even if this is true, Trump is only in office for four years.

A knotty problem. I feel for Zelensky. But I think Trump is right on the broad picture. The best course now is for Ukraine to take the deal, and surrender most of the ground lost, in return for European “peacekeeping” troops in Ukraine.

We must hope Putin’s nose is bloodied enough that he is deterred from further aggression.

The Future of War

 

Our first surprise in the current Russo-Ukraine War was that Russia was a paper tiger. Its vaunted military could not make progress after the initial surprise attack was stalled.

Our second surprise is that everyone is a paper tiger. Now Ukraine too, with NATO doctrine and all its NATO weapons, is struggling to make progress.

It turns out it is not that the Russians were so incompetent. It is that the current state of weaponry gives an advantage to defense. We did not see this coming, because the offense has been dominant since the Second World War, and as recently as the Second Gulf War. 

This balance between offence and defense has swung back and forth many times over history; although in the days of set battles it mattered less. Mounted knights gave advantage to the offense; a charge could mow down a static line. Then the longbow gave advantage to the defense. Muskets gave advantage to the offense: their accurate range was short, and cavalry could break through infantry with a charge. The machine gun decisively killed the cavalry charge, and we had the static tranches of WWI. Then the tank broke things open again, unexpectedly, aided by air power, and we had the shock of blitzkrieg. 

Now the era of the tank is over.

What has changed since the Gulf Wars? 

Drones and portable missiles like HIMARS. 

These are cheap weapons. Cheap and simple enough to be mass produced by countries like Iran and Turkey, not famous for efficiency and high-tech.

Cheap drones and HIMARS can too easily take out a fantastically expensive modern tank or jet fighter.

I wouldn’t want to risk an aircraft carrier in a war situation these days, either.

This is good news for world peace. So long as defense has the advantage over offense, aggressors are much less likely to start a war. War becomes too costly in general.

Divide and Rule

 

At this writing, it is not clear what is happening in Russia. This morning, Prigozhin’s Wagner group was marching for Moscow, Prigozhin saying Russia needed a new president. As of a couple of hours ago, Prigozhin has ordered them back to barracks. Has he lost, was it all some sort of play-acting, or is it a pause to allow for negotiation? 

However it turns out, it seems strange in the first place that Putin would have let this situation develop. It seems an obviously bad idea to allow private armies within a state. This is why the government, proverbially, has a monopoly on the use of force. It is an invitation to eventual civil war. In the conduct of a war against external enemies, it leaves command disjointed and coordination difficult. And, as happened here, one faction can pull out of the line at the worst possible moment.

Yet this divide and rule pattern seems to be Putin’s preference. I understand he likes to encourage competing centres of power. He positively builds up warlords like Prigozhin or Kadyrov.

This is a trait Putin shares with Hitler. The Fuehrer too had his various private armies: the Waffen SS under Himmler; the SA under Roehm; the Luftwaffe and Gestapo under Goering. He would also regularly charge two officials with the same responsibilities. According to William L. Shirer, he even once had two officials, unknown to each other, bid competitively for something at auction on his behalf—forcing himself to pay a higher price.

It seems mad; it is mad; but it is typical of a narcissist. A narcissist delights in seeing conflict among others. They will stir it up. They will do what they can to convince party A that party B has it in or them; then party B that party A is out to get them. Perhaps this is to distract from their own scheming and self-serving; perhaps it salves their conscience to see others act maliciously. But it also means that, if anyone underneath them gets too big, they can call on the other factions to pull them down.

It means that a narcissist in power is profoundly damaging to any state, community, or family. There will be ill-feelings and grudges everywhere.

And it explains the beatitude “Blessed are the peace-makers.” This refers not to those who negotiate formal peace treaties, not the Kissingers and the Arafats or even the Pearsons. It refers to those who, when in power over others, try to maintain peace among those subject to them, rather than fomenting trouble.

Justin Trudeau is a striking example of a leader who foments conflict instead of peace. Biden is his like. The entire doctrine of intersectionality is about setting us all at one another’s throats. And is liable to lead us, too, to civil war.

Whodunit?

 

The Novaya Kakhovka dam has been blown up in Ukraine: who did it? Half the commentators are sure it was the Russians. Half are sure it was the Ukrainians. Both sides deny it.

Why would the Ukrainians blow up the dam?

It will cut off much of the water supply to Crimea.

It will flood some lowlands where Russian troops have defensive lines.

Why would the Russians blow up the dam?

It makes a Ukrainian counteroffensive across the Dnepr harder, by making the Dnepr wider and deeper.

It floods the centre of Kherson, the large city in the area, now in Ukrainian hands.

The Ukrainians seem likely to recapture the area soon. Better, then, to blow it up as they retreat, rather than hand it over intact and give more strength to Ukraine. The Russians have been targeting Ukrainian infrastructure elsewhere.

By contrast, why would the Ukrainians blow it up, if they expect to capture it, and will need it to rebuild their country?

According to the Ukrainians, the Russians already had the dam wired up for destruction; the Russians deny this. The Ukrainians claim it is not practical to blow a dam of that size with a missile strike. In any case, since they held the dam, it would have been easier for the Russians to blow it than the Ukrainians.

On balance, given all these calculations, it seems most likely that the Russians did it. 

Perhaps in impotent fury.

On the Belgorod Road

 

Two Ukraine-sponsored Russian units, claiming they are fighting for the liberation of Russia, the Free Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps, have been attacking in the Belgorod region. It seems quixotic, although they are certainly striking a propaganda blow. However, now Prigozhin, head of the Wagner group, has pulled out of the line in Bakhmut, actually exchanging fire with the Russian regular forces, and has declared his intent to wheel up to Belgorod to defend the motherland. Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, has said he intends to do the same.

I wonder if this is coordinated. 

These four rogue forces will now be out of the main lines just as the Ukraine begins their big offensive. Instead, they are moving to the point at which they are closest to Moscow. They will also stand between Moscow and the bulk of the Russian army, soon to be fully engaged by the Ukrainian counter-offensive.

They are perfectly positioned, in other words, to march on the capital to overthrow the regime, while the regime's forces are occupied elsewhere.

Is this all planned and coordinated among them? It could be. Or it could be all four forces are just seeing the same main chance.

Things might happen quickly if the Russian lines collapse in the South.

I have suspected this was largely a civil war from the start.

See No Evil

 

Reports are that Vladimir Putin does not use the Internet. He relies entirely on printed reports.

An autocratic ruler, over time, is no longer told the truth by his advisers. He is in an information cocoon. It is safer to tell him what he wants to hear; and to assure him they have everything under control. 

This can lead to disastrous decisions.

With the rise of social media, a smart dictator has another option. They can monitor cyberspace for independent accounts of affairs on the ground. 

Putin, sources claim, has deliberately cut himself off from this. Why?

Anyone who has taken to themselves autocratic power is a narcissist. No non-narcissist would be so interested as to think this worthwhile.

Narcissists do not want to accept the existence of any external reality which they cannot control. 

They are therefore automatically delusional, and will demand that those around them support their delusions. 

They do not want the facts.

With luck, and some natural caution, they may still die in their beds, like Mao or Stalin. But collapse can also come suddenly, as with Saddam; or less suddenly, but as surely, as with Hitler.

The best way to tempt the latter fate is to start a war.

We are perhaps beginning to see how this war will end. A band of Russian partisans has invaded Russia from Ukraine. This is probably really a Ukrainian operation, just to draw reinforcements away from the site of the coming Ukrainian offensive. But it is also impressive how quickly and easily they made progress. It may be instructive to others: disaffected Chechens, the Wagner group, other independent armies Putin has unwisely allowed to organize.

Russian troops might u-turn from Kyiv or Bakhmut, and take the road to Moscow.

The Next Move for Ukraine

 

Had I been Ukraine’s chief military strategist, and assuming I had the resources, the ideal overall design for a counteroffensive against Russia is obvious. It is Napoleon’s classic strategy. First, you attack both flanks. In a small-scale battle this can be decisive, because you can then outflank and surround. In this case, you cannot, because the mass of foreign troops is spread out and you cannot move into Russian territory. 

But attacking the flanks is still the best option, because it pins down troops as far away as possible from the centre.

Which is where your main blow then falls.

In this case, there is all the more reason to hit hard now at the centre, the land just east of the Dnipro River, around Orkhiv. Now that the Kerch Bridge is blown, if the Ukrainians can slice through to Melitopol, they cut off the entire Russian army west of this point. 

And the road to Melitopol is flat terrain without natural obstacles or defensive lines.

If the Ukrainians know what they are doing, they will have kept their largest force in reserve until now. Gaining ground on the flanks had little strategic value. All that was necessary was to keep the Russians engaged. I expect the Ukrainian ground gains were not really part of the plan, but the Russians proved to be weaker than the Ukrainians expected.

And they should attack now, before the bridge can be repaired, and before winter sets in. They may not succeed, for the same strategic considerations must be apparent to the Russians, but I would expect this to be the plan.

Now let's see if I know what I'm talking about as a military strategist...

Ukraine Endgame

 

Elon Musk has publicly proposed a peace plan for Ukraine that would give Russia all that it currently demands. The annexation of Crimea formally recognized; Ukraine guarantees it will not join NATO; referenda are held, presumably under international supervision, in the Donbas, and Russia withdraws if they lose the vote, annexes if they win.

The argument given for this pro-Russian settlement, even while Ukraine is winning in the field, is that, realistically Ukraine is not in the end going to defeat a country three times its size.

I disagree. 

That sounds right if this is a war between Russia and Ukraine--although Afghanistan managed to fight the Russians off, didn’t they? But what if it is a war between Ukraine and Putin? What if the Russian people or even the Russian oligarchy are not solidly behind this war? Couldn’t Russian popular opinion force an end to the war?

It is absurd to ask Ukraine never to join NATO. The very fact that Russia has invaded, for a second time in a few years, proves they need a security guarantee. NATO is the only option.

Referenda in the disputed territories is a good solution—but under international mandate, after a Russian withdrawal. If before, it is likely the Russians will simply refuse to withdraw if they lose.

There is much talk of Russia deploying tactical nuclear weapons. And, if they do, how could the West respond?

I think General Petraeus has the right idea: NATO sends in the bombers and, using conventional munitions, bombs every Russian troop concentration in Ukraine, every supply depot, and every Russian warship on the Black Sea. They maintain air superiority and bomb whatever moves.

Some insist Petraeus cannot be serious. This, after all, would be direct war between Russia and NATO. This would be World War Three.

Yet why are we afraid of direct war between Russia and NATO? Russia cannot handle Ukraine acting alone. The quickest way to end this war would be to send in NATO to make the defeat quick and decisive. Many lives might be saved. NATO would establish itself as a vital guarantor of international security. The world would be a much safer place.

The only argument against is that direct conflict between nuclear powers might lead to nuclear war.

But if Putin uses nuclear weapons, that argument is gone. We are already in nuclear war. A swift and overwhelming response is the only way, then, to prevent more nuclear wars in the future. Nations must not discover they can go nuclear without repercussions.

Silver Linings Shining Through

 

I have felt for some time, intuitively, that we are on the cusp of something this fall; that the old order is passing away. Not just fading, but about to collapse. 

I see more signs of this in the day’s news.

Things are getting hot in Iran. The trigger was the death of a young woman in police custody.

One would not normally expect such an event to lead to mass protests; a lot of young people have died suddenly and mysteriously of late. That it has shows the people of Iran were tinder waiting for a match. This might be the end of that oligarchic regime.

In response to Putin’s mobilization of, at last report, one million conscripts, there is also turmoil in the streets of Russia. There are reports of long lineups at the borders, and overbooked flights out. This might be the end of that oligarchy as well.

American generals interviewed seem to agree that this call up sounds like desperation, that it is unlikely to turn things around in Ukraine, but carries huge domestic risks.

If the people are in the streets in Russia and Iran, and especially if one of those governments goes down, it is likely in this globalized world for the protests to spread. The next likely candidate is China, where people have been growing restive and economically desperate.

In Canada, the Twitter hashtag #TrudeauMustGo is becoming a phenomenon reminiscent of the Freedom Convoy. It seems to have caught on with the public, with over half a million Canadians at last count joining in. They—we--post a short bio and demand Trudeau’s resignation for calling us misogynists, racists, and the like.

If only half a million is not enough to turn out a government, Canadians value their social peace and quiet. If the message gets out that a large body of their fellow citizens are outraged by Trudeau, and they all have friendly, human faces, the likely conclusion in the minds of the Canadian majority is that, for social peace, Trudeau must indeed go. The unrest is not the fault of some deplorable “fringe minority.” These are ordinary, honest neighbours.

One of them is even Trudeau's half-brother.

I feel that things are moving fast. The government of Canada may also be gone soon. Nanos says recent polls show the NDP sucking support from the Liberals, This gives the Dippers a motive to pull the plug on the minority government. They can increase their seat total. At the same time, a closer split between Liberals and NDP is likely to throw seats to the Conservatives.

Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

What If Russia Cracks?

 

More tentatively good news: the attack by Azerbaijan on Armenia.

Not that this is good in itself. 

But the subtext is that Armenia is a Russian client state. Now that Russia is preoccupied in Ukraine, it is pulling resources from other areas, and its weakness is exposed. Other restive areas may similarly be emboldened. This could push the Russian regime towards general collapse. It could also overturn several other unsavory regimes.

The regimes in Kazakhistan, Belarus, and Syria all recently faced civil unrest that probably have overthrown the government had Russia not sent in troops. This might appear to many there as the ideal moment to try again, or launch a new offensive. Georgia might try to retake breakaway territory Russia seized from them.

Other vulnerable Russian client states: Mongolia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Transnistria.

Within the Russian Federation, there are 22 “republics,” ethnically distinct from Russia, which might seize the chance to split off. Often they are ethically linked to a neighboring country, which might be happy to assist in this process. Or, for that matter, invade.

We may be watching a snowball starting downhill.

While for a time things might get chaotic, the result might be major gains for liberal democracy. And a unified Europe stretching to the Urals.

British Confirmation of Ukrainian Gains

 

More Good News

 

Keeping track of the good news: reports from Ukraine suggests major gains against the Russians. At last report, the Ukrainian forces near Kharkov are advancing at a walking pace, twenty kilometers a day. They are through the Russian lines and, for now, moving more or less at will. It looks like blitzkrieg. 

I would have thought this impossible with modern missile weaponry—unless, that is, the Russians are out of missiles. It is possible the Ukrainians will soon cut off up to 20,000 Russian troops. They have fled so fast the Ukrainians are capturing large caches of weapons and ammunition intact. 

If Russian morale is as low as has sometimes been reported, this might lead to general collapse—on the front lines, and perhaps, in Moscow.

It is all going better than could have been expected.

Francis's Holy Week Procession

 

For perhaps too long, I tried to defend Pope Francis’s papacy. This Holy Week, he has shown himself to be morally depraved.

The procession featured, at one of the stations, a Ukrainian and a Russian woman carrying a candle together, and Francis then intoned the sentiment, “adversaries to shake hands so they can taste mutual forgiveness, to disarm the hand raised by a brother against a brother, so that concord can spring from where there is now hate."

The problem is that, in the current war in Ukraine, Russia is unambiguously the aggressor, Ukraine the victim, and Russia has not ceased their attack. Indeed, they are about to launch an offensive. Calling for reconciliation now is denying there is anything wrong with Russia’s action; the blame is on the Ukrainians, at least equally, for not accepting it and laying down their arms. It is like demanding a rape victim smile and embrace her assailant in the middle of a rape.

The worst of Francis’s crime is the attempt to assert that this position is virtuous, indeed, more virtuous than the Ukrainians are in their suffering. This is the sin of hypocrisy. This is not just making no distinction between right and wrong, but demanding that wrong be seen as right, for the sake of one’s own ego. This is the unforgivable sin, the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. 

Sadly, Francis is worse than just a heretic.

The Real Reason Russia Cannot Take Ukraine?

 

The lesson we might take from the current war in Ukraine is not that the Russian military is suprisingly incompetent, or the Ukrainians suprisingly competent, but that current technology favours the defense. This happens from time to time. The English longbow gave the defense the advantage over cavalry in the Hundred Years War. The machine gun gave the defense the advantage in the First World War, until overcome by the tank.

Currently, it seems that small, smart missiles and drones, some shoulder-carried, can take out more expensive tanks, ships, and planes. And even a relatively low-tech economy like Turkey can turn out effective drones.

Bad news for America projecting power. Good news for Taiwan should China want to invade.

How to Get Arrested in Russia

 

The Plan Shifts

 

This seems to reinforce my suspicion that Ukraine was planned as part of a one-two punch, although I sawthe second blow in April.

I also suggested that the Russian lack of success in Ukraine would now deter the Chinese.

The Mask Is Off

 

By now any residual support for Putin’s Russia in its invasion of Ukraine should be gone. 

Most conflicts are between good and evil. In most conflicts, there is a right and wrong. When we refuse to take sides, it is generally immoral. It is always easier and safer not to take a side. It’s not use being invaded, is it? 

None so guilty as the innocent bystander.

One argument made early on was that Russia was showing admirable restraint. They had not sent in their best troops. They had not taken out infrastructure. They were only applying measured pressure to get the Ukrainians to the negotiating table.

They are now bombing and shelling civilian targets. This seems to prove that, instead, they were simply overconfident and weak. Unable to achieve their objectives militarily, they are shifting to terror tactics, like Germany’s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. 

Another argument was that Ukraine was oppressing its Russian-speaking citizens. Putin even used the term “genocide.” The Russians were coming in to protect the weak.

There is now an obvious problem with this claim. The Russians have faced hard fighting, and have been unable to advance, in those areas of Eastern Ukraine that are Russian-speaking. It seems that the local populations are attached to Ukraine. Kharkiv, predominantly Russian-speaking, has been holding out. Mariaupol, which I believe is also predominantly Russian-speaking, has been holding out against a historic siege. As of the 12th, the Russians were not even able to take all of the two supposed breakaway regions, Doenetsk and Luhansk.

And they have been indiscriminately shelling both Kharkiv and Mariupol.

Another argument was that NATO was trying to “encircle” Russia, by considering Ukrainian membership. This was in violation of promises made in 1991; the Russians had a right to fear for their national security.

Apparently there was no promise by NATO not to advance further eastward. NATO did not view itself, and was not viewed in 1991, as an anti-Russian alliance. With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, it was there as a way to ensure peace in Europe, similarly to the EU. Russia itself is officially a “Partner for Peace.” If Russia is now hostile to NATO, this is apparently Russia’s choice. It is no threat to Russia unless Russia wants to invade.

Another argument was that the Ukrainian government was controlled by Nazi or neo-Nazi elements.

Putin’s government is itself close to the Fascist model, of tight government control with collusion between government and corporations. It is the typical game of Fascists calling themselves Antifascists, and calling the non-fascists Fascists. It was first played by Hitler himself, in claiming to be defending Germany from Bolshevism.

The Kremlin apologists point to the Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian forces. The Azov Battalion is tiny, 900 to 2,000 members. It denies being neo-Nazi. It includes Jews among its members; and the president of Ukraine is a Jew. The actual Nazis considered Slavs, including Ukrainians, an inferior race, fit only for servitude.

So, okay, at least the Azov Battalion is “ultra-nationalist,” right? 

But it also includes fifty Russian members, and its language of command is Russian, not Ukrainian. So if this is nationalism, it is apparently not a nationalism based on either race or ethnicity. It seems to be based solely on Ukrainian national unity and independence. Is this such a toxic concept? 

Symbols that reminiscent of Nazism may be for shock value, to look tough and scary to opponents. Rather like the Gadsden flag, doing a hakka dance, or painting shark jaws on your airplane’s fuselage. Nazi symbols would be particularly frightening in Russia-Ukraine. But it seems juvenile to get upset over this or that symbol.

At the same time, there seems to be an equal and opposite immorality emerging too: scapegoating Russia and Russians. Ordinary Russians have little say over their government. Ordinary Russians were not consulted, and are not responsible for what is happening in the Ukraine. It is cowardly and evil to attack or harm innocent Russians. Which is apparently happening in Western countries.

Wali in Ukraine

 

This seems real: reported by a neutral source, the Hindustan Times, and confirmed by the National Post and La Press in Canada and the Sun in the UK. The Canadian sniper "Wali," from the VanDoos, has joined the fight in the Ukrainian side.

Watching Russia Go Down?

 

An interesting piece by Francis Fukuyama on what is going on in Ukraine.

He thinks Russia is going to lose, and dramatically. He says “collapse.” He also thinks Putin has no off-ramp. He thinks Putin will not survive in power. He expects this to herald a “new birth of freedom.”

Unfortunately, Fukuyama has a track record of being over-optimistic.

He thinks the US decision not to send in the MIGS is right. Aside from any risk of escalation, they are not needed, and Putin’s defeat could then be blamed on NATO. It looks worse for Putin if he is beaten by Ukraine seemingly acting alone.

Fukuyama also thinks this war is discrediting populist movements in the West, because they have been sympathetic to Putin. Perhaps so, but I think he is off base here. I see populist figures insisting we in the West stay out of the war, but not because they support Putin. Because they oppose foreign entanglements generally, and distrust the reports they are getting from the legacy media and the various governments as probably propaganda. This goes for Ukraine, and the US, but equally for Russia.

We shall see.

Is Peace Near?

 

There are hopeful signs that peace might be possible in Ukraine. Russia says it will stop its invasion immediately if Ukraine agrees to four conditions:

1. Ukraine ceases fire

2. Ukraine recognizes that Crimea is part of Russia

3. Ukraine recognizes the independence of the two Donbas mini-states.

4. Ukraine changes its constitution to declare permanent neutrality.

The first condition goes without saying. The second and third are no great concessions, as they simply recognize facts on the ground. Crimea and the Donbas are primarily Russian-speaking, too. There is a good chance that, were a neutral referendum held, they would vote for this result.

A compromise might be to hold internationally supervised referenda in each of these regions. 

The fourth condition is trickier; but parties to negotiations rarely open with their final position. At present, joining NATO is actually in the preamble of the Ukrainian constitution. Might it be enough if this were removed?

We may have an off-ramp here. Sure beats starting World War III.