19 Comments

Counter-points:

Historical claims can only ever be excuses, not legitimate reasons - where does one drop the marker and say: "To this year, but not further back"? Arbitrary as it can get, meaning it may be useful for understanding but not as anything else.

How about this to crank the aburdity up to 11: I and a great many other northern and western europeans of mainly germanic and celtic racial heritage have a significant amount of neanderthal DNA, in parts. So all Johnny-come-lately Heidelbergensis? Up sticks and leave. Ridiculous - "blut and boden" has a point, but it can't be used in a "Germany is where german is spoken" kind of fashion.

The issue is this: Russia has attacked a sovereign neighbour state. Was the attack warranted by an active threat to Russia? That's the issue. And it wasn't.

As for units using insignia - I will respect the reporting of this when the same journalists, politicians and media outlets make the same show of outrage and report on the constant use of nazi-symbolism by groups designated "victims" and "good guys" such as palestinians. 'Mein Kampf' is still one of the most sold books after the Koran in the Mid-East. Not meant as whataboutism, but to show the hypocrisy of the media's moral outrage at iconography when said outrage is selectivly applied for political reasons.

The swedish police's symbol, for comparison, is a pair of fasces beneath the national shield. Does that means swedish police are fascists? I've had to explain the iconography once or twice to italians. Not to mention the land of Dalarna. The emblem is two crossbow bolts forming an 'x', points up. Romanians, polacks and hungarians as well as russians I've worked with has more than once asked if it's a nationalist militia symbol. Semiotics sure is fun. Just look at where the doppeladler appears throughout history.

All military units use slogans. That some of these may overlap or have been used by others says nothing about a unit in question - again, that is pure misdirection. What have the irregulars been doing? Fighting Russian soldiers dressed up as civilians in the already occupied areas - "little green men" as the say. And fighting without proper uniform or insignia or fighting wearing the enemy's uniform as a cover is a war crime, not that Russia ever has acknowledged the concept except as a political tool.

Please don't read this as picking a side but as offering additional points of interest. Russia has several valid concerns, so has Ukraine - why both Russia and Ukraine couldn't instead expose the maneuvering by various US and EU interests that's led to this I don't understand.

Expand full comment
author

Hi Rikard,

I'm with you on the absurdity of historical 'explanations'; this is one of the things I'll never tire of when teaching and speaking on historical matters. That said, you're at least partially correct about the attacking a neighbouring state issue.

Mind you, I'm not picking a side here, but it must be pointed out that I consciously left out the 'sovereign' issue, for this is the crux of the matter at-hand: was Ukraine a 'sovereign' country before Russia's attack? I don't think so, and whatever one might wish to say or state, I'd argue that neither morality nor history play much of role in international relations.

I suppose that Russia will go to considerable lengths to assure its camp followers in the Global South--and its new BFF w/benefits in Beijing, for that matter--that this entire shitshow is, mainly, a show. Hence, I suspect for time being, Russia would favour a client-state 'resolution' of its security concerns over outright annexation, however temporary such an avenue might ultimately prove, and Russia may 'only' do so to reassure its Chinese 'friends'.

You're correct, furthermore, about the absurdity of the symbols; other examples would incl. one of the Swiss cantons (St Gall), whose insignia also consists of a fasces. My above point was to highlight and explain as to why Russia claims 'de-nazification' as one of the aims of its intervention.

Curiously, on the same subject, the Russian oligarchs appear to be on the same page as the Ukrainian oligarchs, i.e., firmly in support of their continued rule and in close cahoots with their 'Western' counterparts, which suggests that this is a sideshow in the struggle between ordinary people and the globalist cabal.

Finally, you correctly, I think, point to Russia's 'valid concern', which Mr. Putin tried to obtain assurances and written guarantees for, but he ultimately failed to get Zelensky's masters in DC to agree. Hence, the current explosion, but I suppose my above paragraph goes at least somehow in the direction as to why, in all honesty, Mr. Putin fails to address the root causes of Ukraine's non-sovereignty. Sure, he's correct in pointing to the futility of talking to minions (EUrocrats), but wouldn't it make more sense--from his point of view--to try to 'engage' the EUropeans to make them move away from the US?

Expand full comment

Oh, Ukraine as a sovereign state will always take us into the waters of "What's a state, really?" and then no matter how well intentioned the query we'll just mud wrestle. Remember the debates during the wars in Jugoslavia? Here there was zero focus on "How do we stop the killing?" and 100% on "Who's the bad guy, really?". And don't get me started on swedish political scientists and their take on Ireland historically, or Cyorus or Israel/Palestine. Every ------- time it's the same: can't debate the issues at hand or look at causality unless we know who is the bad guy first.

Ukraine is a state now. Whether or not it was one historically is moot. Israel wasn't a state historically, neither was Palestine. Or Germany for that matter. Or Italy. That's why I skip that issue - it goes nowhere.

(For swedes especially I think this "Find out who's the good guy" is an ongoing cultural trauma since WW2, seeing as when it started Germany was the Good Guy according to the socialist democrats and their news papers. somewhere around winter 1943-1943 they started coming around to the idea that naah, it was probably the Allies, and in 1944 it was definitively the Allies who were the Good Guys. The official narrative is we was on the right side all along, which is pure BS. Sweden holds the dubious honour of being the only nation in the world who had to pay reparations /to/ Germany after may 1945.)

I don't think making the european nations move away from the US is on the map at all, since that would mean we would then have to find a new compass point culturally, economically and military - and that compass is never going to point due Russia. Any such move would lead to a return to nationalism and stronger nation states and that's not in Russia's interest. A weak ineffective corrupt and US-dependant EU is, since it's a drain in the US as well. Keep the russian center strong (remember: they don't measure success in GDP, tokenism or dollars but in realpolitik), keep the bordering regions subservient as a buffer to the Motherland, and cause chaos outside as to prevent unified aggression towards Russia (which is what's happened every time someone or other has unified enough of western Europe).

I don't think its more complicated than that. One of my biggest Aha!-moments re: Russia was reading about Napoleon's war there and how he was made to defeat himself. That and studying the war against Finland taught me a lot of how the russians view war - they live and breathe the old saw that politics is war with other means. Life is struggle: dominate or serve, conquer or die. Where we see these as morals among others, they don't really see them, they just live them. Kind of how islam is for moslems, really. It just is, it can't be externalised or understood externally from living it.

I do not advocate war on Russia in Ukraine based on any notions of right or wrong but as a means to stop the invasion. Then the other issues needs solving - war can only ever solve issues by removing one of the parties involved, as all wars at the core are wars of genocide.

Expand full comment

"I'm with you on the absurdity of historical 'explanations'; this is one of the things I'll never tire of when teaching and speaking on historical matters."

Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Some territory is more meaningful than other, and you can get your military to fight harder (and the rest of the population to endure more hardship) to defend or (re)conquer it than would be the case for something less meaningful.

Expand full comment

"Historical claims can only ever be excuses, not legitimate reasons - where does one drop the marker and say: "To this year, but not further back"?"

Ah, this immediately made me think of Peter Turchin. Here's one article of his on the subject (from 2014):

https://aeon.co/essays/why-national-honour-trumps-rational-strategy

He says that nations that survive long term tend to have a core territory that they consider "sacred" and will defend at pretty much any cost. The reason is that sooner or later, any piece of territory becomes more expensive to defend than reasonable, and so if it's not sacred, you let it go. Ergo, if you have no sacred territory, then sooner or later you lose *all* of your territory, and you no longer have a country.

Is that what's going on now? Maybe or maybe not. On the one hand, the war is strategic for Russia. On the other hand, Russia was born in Kiev, and so it may be that, for what are right now strategic reasons, Kiev is being transformed into sacred Russian territory and will remain so for the centuries to come. It's too early to tell. (On that note: sacred land only becomes sacred at some point in history. It hasn't been sacred from time immemorial. Hence my assertion that we may be witnessing the *transformation* of Kiev into sacred Russian territory.)

Expand full comment

I always appreciate your in-depth analysis on The parts of west Europe where the language barrier make it hard for some people to penetrate. (Few statistics came out of Russia and the Baltic states+ Central Asia lately for the same reason) and I commend you for doing the work.

On this situation however I have a different take. If you will take a step back, you might see that ‘ plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose’. I have written just a few words about it in regards to masks and if history is a teacher, you know..,we may be all on the same side but IT moves on. Regards!

Expand full comment
author

I'm moving between providing these comments (Q&A) and not doing it. Personally, I decided to do so since most of my esteemed 'Western' colleagues don't know anything about Eastern Europe, hence the educator in me.

As to the veracity of it all, well, it's current events in the fog of war, so a lot of caution is warranted. I will say this, though, that 'Western' media is full of BS (no offence to cattle) on this one, and perhaps in the same ballpark as the BS on all matters Covid-19.

What I find most interesting is this: both issues are a good example to learn about the follies of 'whataboutism', which I'll write about in the next few days.

Thanks for reading these pieces here anyways! Cheers!

Expand full comment

"but this is such a high-risk endeavour that I consider it very likely right now"

You mean "unlikely"?

Expand full comment
author

You're right, a typo--thanks for spotting it. It's fixed now.

Expand full comment

The presence and use of ultra-nationalist/neo-nazi symbolism makes absolutely no sense prima facie.

From skull&bones to swastika to ss - it's all so historically burdened to such a degree that one has to wonder why would anybody defending his coutry (a worthy cause, something common people can relate to) use a symbol that can only introduce a suspicion of that persons motives.

By any stretch of the imagination, you don't have to be a neo-nazi to be able to defend yourself from an invader! So, this reeks of a false flag operation/special operation!

I say that as a Croatian who has witnessed how counter intelligence operations planned and carried out by KOS (Kontraobaveštajna služba, Yugoslavian military counter intelligence) were led against Croatian self determination efforts in August of 1991., hoping that, what was essentially a terrorist attack on a very specific targets (bombing of a Jewish synagogue/community space and cemetary), it would tarnish the international image of Croatia as a country seeking wide international recognition.

24 years later, we saw a swastika appear on a football field in Croatian city of Split (etched in the grass field one night before the match Croatia-Italy)! I'd argue - by the spiritual successors of vile scumbags who organized and carried out operations in August of '91.

Riddle me this, how could Croatia benefit from what went down in 1991 and 2015 and by extension how could Ukraine do the same today by using the same symbols?

Expand full comment

Your Ukraine think-pieces are far more interesting than the Covid-related stuff, and even better than the Austrian commentary. Keep it up, and please consider doing your Austrian commentary in this Q&A format, too!

Expand full comment
author

Well, Felix, thanks for the feedback. I shall certainly try to apply the Q&A to the Covidistand issues, too.

Expand full comment

I just had a horrible realisation as to why russian forces are occupying the Chernobyl area.

Using a nuclear device on Ukraine is hopefully out of the question even for Putin. But what about a conventional explosive blasting away the protective materials around the reactors (or the sludge that's left rather) and sending that cloud of radioavtive particles sweeping in over Ukraine?

Or just blasting the sarcophagi open and collect the material to dump it in water reservoirs, especially those for agriculture?

I wonder where there is a line that would cause Germany and the rest of the EU to go: "Enough! It's time for Operation: Barbarossa II, and this time we won't stop until we hit the Pacific Ocean".

Expand full comment

Re: Barbarossa II

That would lead to the destruction of Europe. Americans aren't particularly interested in dying for Europe: they're still traumatized by the 50K or so American deaths in Vietnam, and as far as wars go, 50K is a trifle. A war with Russia would entail millions of American deaths. (Millions of Russian deaths, too, but the Russians would be defending their own country.) Europe has no military capability to defeat Russia on Russia's own soil, and even if it did (it doesn't) it certainly doesn't have the willingness to make the gargantuan sacrifices that it would have to make to have any chance of doing so. The whole idea is a non-starter.

Expand full comment

US not required for that. The militaries of the EU nations are greater than Russia's by far, excluding nukes. In fact, the militaries of the Scandinavian nations, the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania are on par with Russia's.

Russia uses a lot of tricks to get its numbers up, such as counting the home guard as actual line troops. It's old hat and doesn't fool anyone but it does make good copy for the press and for politicians getting off on playing up the military strength of their or another country.

It's like China's aircraft carriers. When is an old soviet hull permanently undergoing reparis and renovations, and the other is used for propaganda. Againast an opponent such as Taiwan it's plenty enough, but against any nation with actual modern capabilities such as Japan it's sunk.

Expand full comment

Yes, yes, yes. Dream on. Western countries might be able to defeat Russia in some proxy war somewhere. On Russia's own soil? Puh-leez. And the "excluding nuclear weapons" is a particularly nice touch. If you attack Russia (or any other nuclear power, really, even a much smaller one), trust me, nuclear weapons will not be excluded.

And while we're at it, let me ask you this: would you personally be willing to go fight and die somewhere in Siberia? Let your sons and brothers (if you have either) do that? Let your parents freeze to death as Russia turns off gas? Don't tell me about liquid gas from the States: if you want to fight a war of annihilation, you're going to need all the energy you can possibly get (liquid, coal, wind, anything really) for the war effort. Old people not freezing to death is not a priority.

Expand full comment

They couldn't possibly send radioactive materials only over Ukraine. Those particles would go into Russia and Belarus, too. If anything, I think Russia has an interest in double-securing that reactor, and making sure it's well protected against any missiles from whatever side. I don't know to what extent this is technically possible, though.

Expand full comment

Speaking of which: yeah, so much for "clean nuclear energy." As soon as you have a war, a nuclear reactor becomes a huge liability. It doesn't even have to be hit by a missile. All that needs to happen is for maintenance to be interrupted, and you've got an enormous mess on your hands. All those geniuses trying to persuade us how safe and clean nuclear is are implicitly counting on thousands of years of uninterrupted peace.

Expand full comment

Unless of course you design your reactors to be walk-away safe. The technology to do that has existed since the 1960s.

https://www.ornl.gov/molten-salt-reactor/history

Expand full comment