My writings on the Russo-Ukrainian War have attracted a good deal of impolite criticism. It is as if stumbling over a rock and dislodging it, I’ve exposed an unsuspected nest of ugly and malicious creatures. Now of course, not all the critical commentary coming my way is of that unsavory character. There are people who can state their disagreements without descending to the level of V. Putin’s recent speech announcing Russia’s phony annexation of Ukrainian territory. Let it be stipulated that what follows is inapplicable to them.
My bad-faith critics cannot be mustered under one banner. Some are natcons (national conservatives), some are paleoconservatives whose ideology incorporates isolationism, and some belong to various factions of the radical Right. All of them, however, are bitterly critical of the US/NATO intervention on Ukraine's side in the present war. Objectively, all are apologists for Putin and his brutal invasion of Ukraine, though some deny this in a pro forma way. Many add to their opposition a bitter, indeed vicious, anti-Americanism. What interests me about these people is the mind-set that has detoured them into this intellectual and moral blind alley. I believe that the substance of what they say, their choice of words and their rhetorical style are pointers toward an understanding of that mind-set.
The Appeal to History
Among Putin’s Western apologists are those who assert that the present war is not a simple case of unprovoked aggression by a predatory power, but a complex conflict with deep roots in history. After all, they say, is there not some historical justification for Russia’s claim on Ukraine? One of my critics took this approach, asking me to agree with him that:
4)…the roots of the current civilization in the Ukraine go back to about 1000 AD and the establishment of Kievan Rus’, that extended from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the South, that bordered Sumi (Finland), Ests (Estonia), Latgalians (Latvia), Lithuania, The Kingdom of Poland/Prussia, and Hungary on the east, and the extended west to include what is now St-Petersburg, Moscow, Kursk, and Belgorod.
5) That in the 1500's the territory west of the Dnipro was invaded and annexed by the Poles who were definitively outsiders who had never figured into the Rus nation.
6) That in the 1700's the territory up to about Lviv was recaptured by Catherine the Great and Included into modern Russia, which as the portion of the Kievan Rus' that had not been captured by the Poles was most definitively a reconstitution of Russian nation.
7) Considering 4, 5, and 6 above it is 100% truth to state that for over 800 of the last 1,000 years, Lviv and Kiev were part of the same nation/country as Moscow and St-Petersburg.
Now all that may be true, but how is it relevant? Are we supposed to nod along, conceding that history somehow justifies Putin’s actions? Historical circumlocutions like this seem designed to obfuscate the fact that over time, a Ukrainian national identity has developed, such that today Ukraine is a nation distinct from Russia, oriented toward the West. And by any just measure, the Ukrainian people have the right to self-determination. To impose some tyranny of history on them would be a crime comparable to Putin’s aggression.
It was telling that my critic neglected to pass on to more recent and relevant history: Ukraine’s travails under the Russian boot in the Soviet era, which rose to the level of genocide. Recalling that historical tidbit, no one should be surprised that the Ukrainian people reject forcible reunion with Mother Russia.
A Plague on Both Houses
Other Putin apologists affect to concede that the Russian despot is an unsavory character—with a but! Putin is excused for his attitude toward Ukraine because allegedly that country is a sinkhole of corruption, authoritarian government, neo-Nazism, etc. etc. The war, then, is just a case of dueling despotisms, one as bad as the other. This, for example, came in response to a comment by me on another Substack:
And what the Ukrainians are doing to the Ukrainian Russians within their borders, that was perfectly fine I suppose. You need to do some reading. Zelensky is no angel and there is no "good guy" in this fight.
I had committed the heinous thought crime of noting that “V. Putin's Russia is a predatory despotism whose aim is to complete the work that the Bolsheviks started: the eradication of Ukraine and the Ukrainian national identity.” But that doesn’t matter; forget about the Holodomor. Where the Russo-Ukrainian War is concerned, the perfect is always the enemy of the good: Ukraine isn’t pure and saintly enough to merit assistance in its battle for survival.
The Existential Threat
Then there’s the argument that because the Russians are paranoid, their bad behavior can and must be excused. That’s the subtext embedded in this criticism of my position on the war:
one more time for the hard-of-learning. you don't have to give one iota about what the Russians are doing or not doing. you only need to understand one simple thing. the Russians take this war as an existential threat to their country. you seem to be a USgov fanboy cheerleading insanity. one more time... the Russians consider this war and EXISTENTIAL matter. the worse they do, the more severe their response will be. so keep goading them into losing. keep doing it. keep yacking. keep lying. keep attacking them. keep funding this shambolic waste of resources and lives orchestrated by the CIA.
I sometimes think that the word existential should be deleted from the vocabulary of English. All too often it serves as a rhetorical crutch: Something or other is an “existential threat” to Russia, so Putin can be forgiven for his over-the-top reaction. Left unexplained, of course, are the details of the threat so existentially looming over Russia. NATO is sometimes mentioned, the implication being that the alliance is bent on aggression against Russia. That, of course, is ridiculous. The only thing that NATO threatens is Putin’s plan to recreate the defunct Russian imperium.
Alternate Realities
Some of my critics are so far gone as to reject the evidence of their eyes. When I pointed out that Russia has suffered a number of battlefield reverses and appears to be losing the war, I got reactions like this:
The worst assessment I have read so far since the beginning of Russia's "de-Nazification" of Ukraine. In fact, it was so distorted and inaccurate I was only able to get about a third of the way through it.
The Chechens, the Wagner Group and Russian hard core regulars are leaving corpses of Ukrainian proxies all over the eastern battlefields of Ukraine. Meanwhile, there are rail cars of Russian military equipment heading west. Kiev is going to wake up to the sound of Iskander-M rockets.
This goes beyond wishful thinking—it’s pure bloody-minded fantasizing. But here in the real world, the leader of the Chechens is agitating for the use of nuclear weapons to stave off defeat. When last heard of, the supposedly invincible Wagner Group had flubbed its mission, which was to storm into Kyiv, and capture or assassinate President Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders. As for those “hard core Russian regulars,” in recent days they’ve performed one skedaddle after another.
The US-Led Globalist Conspiracy
Many of my critics seem to have forgotten that it was Putin who started the present war by invading Ukraine. They claim instead that the war was provoked by the US/NATO/the West, with the aim of destroying Russia, using Ukraine as their stooge. In this telling one belligerent is a country with a robustly conservative, nationalist government; the other is a soulless, decadent, money-grubbing yet all-powerful globalist cabal:
It is now a war between the US-UK-NATO and Russia with Ukraine as their proxy. NATO will bleed Ukraine dry of every male until they're all dead.
Quite often, this interpretation is given an anti-American twist:
In ALL MY LIFE being subjected to ENDLESS U.S. wars of aggression against Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Horn of Africa etcetera.... etcetera.... etcetera.... have I not seen the voluminous torrent of frantic "analysis" being poured on the Russians absent significant access to ANY valid data whatsoever, when these self-same analysts absolutely REFUSE to take their gigantic analyst brains and wield those selfsame powers of perception against the high and mighty US military that is essentially 0 for 12 over the last 40 years. you are essentially AWOL with your scathing indictments when it comes to turning a discerning eye toward the fraud that the US military has become, but here you sit hurling nonsense, distortions, lies and cherry-picked gibberish on the Russians.... I am forced to conclude the effort of this information campaign is to drag a gullible public along for another 20-year long ride turning the heart of Europe into an Afghanistan 2.0... in the heart of Europe.
Both the tone and content of this diatribe betray a real animosity toward the United States—and not from a leftist, either. This is the world according to the natcons: the voice, so to speak, of their collective id. It’s a world in which evildoers like Putin are really impelled to commit their crimes by the Great Satan, whose global presence is invariably toxic. Back in the day, this condemnatory view of America was a dogma of the radical Left. One of the peculiarities of our time is that a faction of the Right has adopted the same position: that America is corrupt, decadent, sinful, unworthy. Conspiracy theories based on the idea of a “dark state” fit right in with this remorselessly negative view of America and its role in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The Respectable Opposition
In view of these scathing comments on much of the criticism I’ve received, I feel compelled to reiterate the disclaimer preceding them. There are of course critics of my position on the Russo-Ukrainian War who are not malicious or deluded. They make out a straightforward case for US isolationism or at least retrenchment, without resorting to rhetorical extremism or ad hominem attacks. One such is National Review’s Michael Brenden Dougherty—a conservative who has opposed US support for Ukraine since the beginning of the war. While I disagree with his arguments, I recognize the force of them and appreciate the civility with which he propounds them. So let it be noted that there are others like him.
What a bunch of losers -- who cares if they hate you? It's only the Internet, after all.
It's amazing the rationalizations on offer for Putin and Russia. These people have been stuck in the Putin Disinformation Sphere® for probably better than a decade and can't cope with reality.
While the arguments of Dougherty et al. are not ad hominem or conspiratorial, they are unfortunately no less delusional. We don't live in the 18th century. The so-called "realism" behind this was already obsolete at the beginning of the 20th century and is all the more so now.
“More Geese than Swans now live,
More Fools than Wise”
(16th century madrigal ‘The Silver Swan’.)
Please continue the fight for truth and honor good Sir! Slava Ukraini.