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Is Peace Possible Between Russia & Ukraine?

Prime Minister of Hungary and President of Croatia warn that the West is walking into a catastrophe
Screen Shot 2023-02-02 at 6.41.20 PM

Political scientist Gladden Pappin was in last week's group meeting with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, and offers a richly detailed analytical account of it. It shows what a sophisticated thinker Orban is. Excerpts:

“The real problem,” Prime Minister Orbán told us, “is that there is nobody who would argue against the mainstream”—namely, the mainstream view that the war should be approached as a matter of being on the right side of history. The West has been caught between the view that materially supporting Ukraine is required in order to be on the right side of history, and the reality that such support carries risks with it. This analysis was the context for the prime minister’s conclusion that, “consequently, we”—that is, the primary Western actors whose view he was outlining, not Hungary itself—“are getting more and more involved in the war.”

What evidently weighed on the prime minister was the lack of a heuristic for deciding between the, if you will, world-historical and risk-adjusted approaches to material support for Ukraine. Is direct support for Ukraine a world-historical imperative (if so, why not go all the way?), or does the risk of uncontrollable escalation advise caution? Orbán’s specific conclusion was that, because no Western actors are seeking to evaluate the whole situation or pick one answer, “the situation is getting worse and worse.” In no sense was his remark a declaration that the West is at war per se. Rather, it was a lament that the West is “getting more and more involved” because of its stepwise approach over the last year, where grand rhetoric about the clash between democratic and authoritarian regimes actually yields only marginal—but increasingly dangerous—commitments of Western resources.

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My interpretation is only slightly different. According to my notes, Orban did say that the West is at war with Russia de facto, but he very clearly thinks this is a terrible idea, and, in my recollection, said it in the context of warning Hungary's Western allies that it is playing a dangerous game here. In other words, I understood him to be saying that decision-makers in other Western countries are deceiving themselves about what they are really doing in Ukraine, and putting us all in danger of a much wider conflict. More on this point:

The West has thus reached a kind of strategic paralysis (my term, essaying to capture the thought): it is not seeking an immediate cease-fire since that would fail the world-historical importance test, but it is not seeking an immediate or total victory since that would risk nuclear war. When asked what the answer to the conflict would be, Orbán did not hesitate to answer, almost axiomatically: “if we would like to have a peace, first we have to convince both sides to have a cease-fire.”

This seems right to me. Our leaders, by their rhetoric, are making a negotiated end to this extremely risky conflict less and less possible. This is the idiocy of the constant references in the American press, and by certain American politicians, to Munich 1938. If peace negotiations are described as Chamberlain's "peace in our time" foolishness after meeting with Hitler, then any attempt to bring this conflict to an end before further bloodshed, a widening of the war, or, God forbid, a nuclear exchange, becomes politically impossible. Whose interest does this serve? Not America's. Not the West's.

Another clip from Pappin's piece, because it conflicts slightly with my own reporting of the event:

It was at this point that the prime minister introduced his impression of the Russian view: first, that they believe time is on their side; and second, that they consider that they need a buffer between themselves and NATO. Combined with the West’s stepwise approach, Russia’s divergent view also reduces the likelihood of an immediate cessation of the conflict. It was in this context that Orbán described his impression of Russia’s view of Ukraine. The primary goal of the Russians, he said, is to keep NATO away from the Russian border and, “if it is not possible, to create an Afghanistan between Russia and the Ukrainian border.” Contrary to some initial impressions, the prime minister did not equate Ukraine and Afghanistan, but said that Russia has been, unfortunately, creating a destroyed “safe zone.”

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I understood Orban to say that Russia has turned Ukraine into Afghanistan, in the sense of turning much of the nation into an ungovernable, chaotic mess, for the sake of creating, yes, a destroyed "safe zone" between Russia and NATO countries. If Pappin's quote is correct -- and it might be; unfortunately my notes don't offer a clarification -- that's a meaningful difference. It makes strategic sense that if Russia cannot conquer Ukraine, it would attempt to destroy it to the point where it is useless as a NATO ally. (I'm not saying this is what Orban meant; I'm talking about my view.) When pro-Ukraine Western intellectuals and politicians talk about bringing Ukraine into NATO -- as then-President George W. Bush did in 2008 -- then they are condemning that suffering country to being wrecked by Russia, which cannot tolerate that outcome.

Anyway, read the whole thing. You might also check out Niccolo Soldo's report on what the left-wing Croatian president Zoran (Zoki) Milanovic has been saying lately about the war. Excerpt:

Since the beginning of this conflict, Milanovic has asserted two ideas: 1) this isn’t our (Croatia’s) war and b) Russia will be victorious one way or another, as it is an existential conflict for them, unlike it is for the West. The Presidency in Croatia is almost entirely ceremonial, except for the fact that the office holder is the Commander-in-Chief of the Croatian Armed Forces. Executive power is vested in the position of the Premier, who at present is Brussels’ favourite Andrej Plenkovic, of the centre-right HDZ. Unlike Milanovic, Plenkovic has chosen not to rock the boat on issue of the war in Ukraine, holding firm to the prevailing line coming out of Brussels.

OTOH, Milanovic has continuously stuck his neck out with his various declarations to the media, possibly due to concluding that an almost-entirely ceremonial role allows him the privilege of doing so. More on this below.

Zoki enraged supporters of Ukraine this past week by not only saying that the West (read: USA and UK) have been provoking Russia for years now, but that Kosovo was stolen from Serbia! I’ll now translate his words from a few sources in Croatia media.

Index (and others):

We cannot and will not be dragged into total submission to foreign interests in which we have zero influence. I see that the head of NATO is in South Korea and Japan. I’ve known that man for twenty years now and he does not represent me nor my country over there. That part of the world has nothing to do with NATO, but it is in China’s neighbourhood. Things are happening there in which we have no say, (and no one asks us anyway), but that could draw us in with deep obligations rather quickly.

We are utterly dependent on others’ ambitions and plans, and not just regarding Ukraine.

He continues:

Some in EU Parliament are discussing the dismemberment of Russia - that is wildly inappropriate. Even us and the Serbs never hated one another this much! This is madness, best distanced from, otherwise you will get caught up in it too.

more:

What is the objective of this war? A war against a nuclear power fighting in another country? Is there even a conventional way to defeat such a country? Who is paying the price for this war? Europe is. The USA is paying the least price.

The Russians? This is their Mexico….or Canada if you will. This is real and dangerous.

…………

From 2014 to 2022 we have been watching how the West has provoked Russia into launching this war. The war was launched. After almost one year, we are now talking about sending tanks. Not a single American tank will go to Ukraine this year. We will, however, send all the German tanks, and they will meet the same fate as those sent earlier. A Polish MP demands that Russia be partitioned, but Russia hasn’t attacked Poland, nor will it, as it is not strong enough to do so.

What we as the West are doing is collectively immoral. German tanks will only further unite Russia and its peoples…..and the same goes for China too. My task is for us to avoid that, so that we are not a circus of poodles. Any participation in such a conflict would be deadly. Do you think I am a Russian agent? I am not the one who handed over Agrokor (Croatia’s largest company) to the Russians (signed off by current Premier and Brussels’ darling, Plenkovic).

Read it all. It might be paywalled, though; I'm a Niccolo Soldo subscriber, and you should be too.

I don't see any of the US electronic media, so I don't know what the discourse on the war is like on TV and radio (aside from Tucker Carlson clips I catch online). I read the main print news outlets on their websites, and though I can't see everything, my impression is that the American people are getting very little of this perspective in the reporting and commentary about the war. I also don't know how much of this kind of analysis and perspective Europeans are getting in their media. Is it all pro-war jingoism? If I have readers of this blog in continental Europe, please let me know what the mainstream war coverage and commentary is in your media. Email me at rod -- at -- amconmag -- dot -- com. It is incredible to me, just incredible, that the US-led Western alliance is walking steadily into the increasingly likely prospect of a shooting war with a nuclear-armed Russia, and there is little to no antiwar effort. It's probably because the liberals and the progressives have finally found a war they can love.

I can't say it often enough: I remember 2002, and the way we all talked about the coming war in Iraq. There was more debate and discussion back then, though a lot of us -- yes, I was on this side, to my later shame and regret -- did not want to listen to anybody warning against the war. Not Pope John Paul II. Not Patrick J. Buchanan. Not anybody on the Left, for sure. And look what happened. What's going down now between Russia and the West over Ukraine is incalculably more consequential.

What I also can't understand is why other major nations, like India, China, and Brazil, won't use the United Nations as a way to get ceasefire talks started. Is it really in China's interest for this thing to go on? What is the United Nations for, anyway?

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Fran Macadam
Fran Macadam
The buffer zone is the eastern Ukraine, and it is not Russia that was attacking the people there. The US coup government has been fighting Ukrainians whose ethnicity they despise. Before the United States regime changed Kiev, there was peace. To say that this government is sacrificing its own population to the last Ukrainian on both sides of what was a civil war, to wreck Russia for us is beyond any Just War definition of either motive or proportionality, or conduct. What possible benefit is there to keep it going until Russia stops defending their eastern ethnic population? That simply means western Ukraine gets turned into a wasteland. You might wish Russia to withdraw, but what would happen then? Genocide of the ethnic Russian Ukrainians and America's nukes deployed on the Russian border, 7 minutes to the obliteration of the Russian capital. What then? Nuclear blackmail leading to desired regime change and American control of a disintegrated Russia, which would no longer exist as a nation, as per the Wolfowitz doctrine.
schedule 1 year ago
Fran Macadam
Fran Macadam
It's all pro war jingoism and how the brutal Russians deliberately kill women and children just for the Hell of it.

As for why other countries are mute? Secondary sanctions. As for the UN, where is it located? Hardly a neutral territory, by intention - the host country spies relentlessly on all the nations' missions, and even controls the makeup of the foreign delegations allowed passage.
schedule 1 year ago
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    At the end of 1916 the Germans promoted a peace plan of the Pope's, adding that they were willing to declare victory and retire to a status quo ante. Now this raised more questions than it answered, like, did the Belgians get any reparations, etc., etc.? But it would have stopped the carnage, at least until the conference collapsed, if it did, and might have saved Russia from the Bolsheviks.

    What really made it impossible was the propaganda machine that had been grinding away since Aug. 1, 1914. Since the Allies had declared themselves on the right side of history, as Orban brilliantly puts it, they couldn't very well climb down and say, "You know, you're right, this is a balance-of-power war, a kabinet Krieg on a monstrous scale, but still." And 1916 had been the year not only of Verdun but of the Somme. The Allies were simply in too deep. They couldn't accept anything short of victory; impossible simply as psychology.

    It's fair to note that the sincerity of the German proposal has to be measured against its reaction to Karl's offer to Wilson the following year of a separate peace for Austria-Hungary, when Berlin was quite prepared to bump him off if he went any further.

    That's where we are in Ukraine right now. Of course this is a proxy war, and of course neither side has a monopoly on the right, but who cares? Victoria Nuland certainly doesn't.
    schedule 1 year ago
Bogdán Emil
Bogdán Emil
"It's probably because the liberals and the progressives have finally found a war they can love."

You just explained that a Croatian liberal is taking Orban's position, while a Croatian conservative is in the EU's pocket.

This war against Russia is misguided and dangerous, but on the surface it's more righteous and less deplorable than Iraq, which had nothing to do with anything, except being Arab and Muslim and nasty. That war in 2003 was a racist generalized lashout, contrary to standard common sense and evidence: how many Iraqis flew those planes? But we just grouped "them" all together and our soldiers came up with the term "hajis" to make the point crystal clear.

I suppose, however, that one could make the same observation about Ukraine, in reverse. It's an essentially racist war, because we only seem to care about war and atrocities when we're attacked, or when the war involves "Europeans." So put that down to liberal racism, a possible point of compromise, a way forward? Maybe we do understand each other somewhat, after all. Ukraine and Russia is either none of our business because we're Americans, or, it's very much our business because we're Westerners, and both Russia and Ukraine are actually part of the West. Unless they're not. Does anyone actually know? Should it matter?

Maybe that's the very heart of the question, though. For my part, I say yes, they are part of the potential West, and no, they're not that different from each other, actually. They're brothers. The differences are real, but they're overwhelmed by their kinship and similarities. They're also both crazy and corrupt and need some time calming down.

This war in the generic liberal and centrist and even some conservative minds is a case where a Goliath attacked a David, and now people of good conscience are coming to David's help. However, these analysts don't realize that Realism is a cruel and godless anarchic system of insecurity, fear, and power-accumulation. They don't realize that we don't have permanent allies, only permanent interests. And our interest is to expand our power maximally while preventing others from doing so. All our machinations are designed to increase power, gathering our temporary allies and scattering our temporary enemies, ideally keeping everyone divided against everyone else, except us. And now assume that everyone else thinks the same way. That is the vision of Kissinger, Kennan and Mearsheimer, where everyone operates under the same selfish, fearful, forever triangulating philosophy in a lawless environment. Therefore, the only way to draw any kind of order out of this chaos is via Balance of Power. Obviously, "good" and "evil" must be relativized and balanced in this world. The interests of our enemies have to be taken into consideration, commensurately with their power, not with their morality. Their options for preserving their positions must be understood, and delicately balanced with our own options.

Hence, you were right in the beginning, Rod, and Ukraine will have to turn into the new Finland, while the old Finland apparently joins NATO, I guess as a price for Russia's violence.

After relenting on the anti-Russia pressure, and somehow forging a cease-fire and an agreement, America will have to assume the major responsibly for rebuilding Ukraine and guaranteeing their neutrality, having cruelly led them down the garden path for 15 years now.

It would be nice if we could wash our hands of everything conveniently and retire like a gentleman from the scene, but if it's true that America is the true Goliath and not Russia, and if it's true that we provoked this in some fashion -- without excusing Russia's crimes -- then we still have a role to play in trying to undo, or at the very least mitigate, the damage from our own follies.
schedule 1 year ago
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    Theodore Iacobuzio
    "It's probably because the liberals and the progressives have finally found a war they can love."

    That's an old story. You of all people remember Serbia. I wrote some wacky song lyrics at the time to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home":

    The social democrats go to war, it's cool, it's cool
    The social democrats go to war it's cool, it's cool
    Our cheerleaders--they're really impressive as hell
    We've got Susan Sontag and Elie Wiesel
    And we'll all feel butch cause lefties have gone to war

    The social democrats go to war it's fun, it's fun
    The social democrats go to war it's fun, it's fun
    It couldn't be easier, give it a try
    You just press a button and WHITE PEOPLE fry
    And we'll all feel butch cause lefties have gone to war
    schedule 1 year ago
      Bogdán Emil
      Bogdán Emil
      Liberals wanting "WHITE PEOPLE" to fry in Serbia is a bit off the mark when it comes to characterizing that situation. It's more like right-wing nationalist ethnic conflict became violent on a mass scale in the former Yugoslavia.

      Power is indeed exercised under realism, constrained and wisely, sure, but the world isn't pacifist. Nor do we stand by with arms folded constantly as events transpire, as if they're not subject to value judgments, as if we're in some meditative trance. Or else, we consort with full awareness on equal terms with villains and friends?

      We have neither permanent foes nor allies, but temporarily we do have them. Everyone has some sort of value system, an alliance system, and enemies of some sort. And everyone chafes against that most bitterly tragic aspect of Realism: there's no law, and there's no law enforcement. We're on our own. It's up to an unmoored world of independent states to work out the terms of their coexistence.

      As a result, international law stands on rickety legs, and sometimes regional groupings of "peacekeepers" are haphazardly and inefficiently and and inconsistently and incompetently deployed worldwide, whether UN-approved or not, including in the Balkans. It's a compromise situation.

      Nonetheless, I agree that the best course of action usually is to just let them be, and not get involved. Unless of course a Power emerges that could unify the Eurasian heartland, and consolidate the World-Island. That situation would be the same as a unitary global government, and a threat to everyone.

      Not intervening to prevent the rise of a global tyrant would amount to neglecting our own self-preservation.

      It should be noted that America is a geographically peripheral power, so it is not the prime candidate for world dominion, no matter how flawed and degenerating.
      schedule 1 year ago
        Theodore Iacobuzio
        Theodore Iacobuzio
        The gag was about the newfound desire for bloodshed on the part of American liberals. Bosnia was the fair-haired boy of the left in the '90s. I believe Susan Sontag (a wonderful writer) actually resided in Sarajevo for a while.
        schedule 1 year ago
          Bogdán Emil
          Bogdán Emil
          I got it! My point is that it wasn't desire for bloodshed of "white people," instead, it was the typical Achilles heel of liberals: desire to assist and protect and defend the weak and oppressed, usually minorities. Must you insist on seeing it through the lens of a right-winger?
          schedule 1 year ago
A734
A734
I listen to theduran on Locals. Alexander Mercouris is in London and he talks about how the media is very pro-war. And my impression is that they do not have the free access to alternative information about Ukraine/Russia as we do in the States. Peace is possible but not preferred by the powerful foreign policy apparatus in the UK and US. And NATO of course. It makes sense. After the fall of the Soviet Union NATO lost its primary mission. Rather than cut back (heaven forbid!) they found a new mission: expand to the Russian border Obvious provocation. So now we're here. My understanding too is that Ukraine and Russia were close to an agreement in peace talks in Istanbul back in March of 2022. But Boris Johnson carried the message to Zelensky that the US and the UK much preferred that he break off the talks and go back to fighting Russia. And (this is my guess) that they would protect him from the more nationalist elements in the Ukraine government AND supply the funds for rebuilding the country after the war was over. He wholeheartedly accepted the deal. So now Zelensky tours the world asking for/demanding more and more weapons. He's a comedian/actor and this is the script. So far the war has cost Ukraine many lives and much destruction but Western leaders think it's a small price to pay.
schedule 1 year ago
rksyrus
rksyrus
War in Ukraine already won!... by China.

"Is it really in China's interest for this thing to go on?"

Second only to Mao kicking Kuomintang ass, this is President Xi's favorite war ever:

a. China suffers no damage and gains cred as the sane superpower
b. America and NATO humiliated when Russia wins (Afghanistan x 100)
c. Listen to Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, Dugin, Russia is done with the West, will look East from now on.
d. Permanently higher energy costs in Europe will result in deindustrialization of Europe, these businesses will move to China or USA, thereby also pitting America against the EU.

Take that, round eyes!
schedule 1 year ago