Are We Fooling Ourselves About Ukraine?

The Intercept thinks that we are not thinking through the problems of Ukraine:The Disturbing Groupthink Over the War in Ukraine. The whole thing needs to be read, but I make the following excerpts for anyone passing through here. I feel the need of the first is a reminder that debate is part of democratic society. With the second, I feel a false premise needs addressed.

We are in the midst of a perilous moment in world history, one that demands a robust debate about the motives and actions of powerful nation states. There should be more debate, not less. Groupthink does a disservice to a democratic society, particularly when the world is closer to the threat of nuclear war than at any time in recent history.

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Let there be no doubt: Putin should immediately stop this insanity in Ukraine. This is a gruesome and murderous campaign he’s engaged in, and the death toll is shocking. The Biden administration should do what we are constantly told is untenable, unrealistic, or characterized as appeasement: make a negotiated end to the war the top priority. China has recently indicated a greater willingness to play a direct role. This is an opportunity for a major reset among nations. But that won’t happen because we lack leaders in the U.S. who have such bold vision, leaders willing to shift from the dominant imperial posture. So we are stuck with the current prospect of countless more Ukrainian civilians dying. In the face of that, how does one tell the Ukrainians not to fight? How does one say, “No, we won’t give you weapons, but we also are against what the aggressor is doing”? It’s a reasonable position for people watching this bloodbath to want to do everything possible to help Ukrainians defend themselves, and supporting weapons transfers to Ukraine does not make you a pawn of the U.S. imperial state. But the argument over whether the U.S. and NATO should be giving military aid is a trap because it’s presented as a binary choice. What has our government done to seek alternative paths? Has it exhausted all diplomatic efforts?

It is the Chinese proposal that I think is a poor premise. From what I understand of the Chinese proposal, it is not so much a pace proposal as it is an attempt to prop up Putin.

I think there is one point that is not considered here any more than it is elsewhere: Putin has identified Ukraine with the anti-christ and Russia as defending Christian values. Such thinking makes both a retreat by Putin and negotiations with Putin a challenge.

Meanwhile, over at The Bulwark there is No, Critics of Western Aid to Ukraine Aren’t Being Silenced., another long, thoughtful, wide-ranging discussion of who is dissenting against supporting Ukraine. I suggest it requires reading in full.

Have people with dissenting views gotten too little attention or too few opportunities to be heard—at least, outside the right-wing and left-wing spaces that self-define as alternatives to the political mainstream? It’s difficult to say what constitutes sufficient attention. (Ashford’s Foreign Policy column is certainly a platform in a leading “establishment” outfit; the magazine’s roster of columnists also includes Harvard University international relations professor Stephen Walt, an avowed Ukraine aid skeptic.) What’s more, some complaints from the critics of pro-Ukraine-war “groupthink”—for instance, that the mainstream media relentlessly hype a rah-rah narrative in which the plucky Ukrainians are always doing so much winning and the bad Russkies are always getting their butts kicked—are simply wrong. The dreaded Russian winter offensive was widely trumpeted only a few weeks ago, before much of it apparently collapsed into, in one writer’s words, a “criminally incompetent” debacle.

The question of whether critics of U.S. support for Ukraine’s war effort are being sidelined is more complicated. I seriously doubt that anyone has ever been accused of being a Putin apologist, a Kremlin shill, or a Russian bot come to life simply because he or she suggested that the United States has higher priorities than Ukraine, that China is a greater international menace, that we are being too cavalier about the risk of a nuclear conflagration, or that Ukraine is not doing as well in the war as we are told it is.

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Good-faith critics of American and Western strategy in Ukraine need to acknowledge, engage, and condemn this ugliness if they want to contribute something useful to the debate. Should we talk about what our endgame is in Ukraine, or on what terms Ukraine can realistically win, or whether Russia should be given some version of a face-saving off-ramp? Of course we should. But first, let’s establish some basic ground rules of truth and decency. 

If we do not stand with Ukraine, then we will fight elsewhere. I see this as the Spanish Civil War for our times. If that means a negotiated end, then all the better. If it means Americans arms being used to push the Russians out of Ukraine, then so be it.

And while we are on the subject: “Remember Also Me: A Mosaic of Interviews from Ukraine, [part three]” by Laura Swart

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