Why is Russia like it is?

[simonineaston]

Has anyone been trudging through the marathon that is Adam Curtis' seemingly endless series of video montages of the recent history of post-Soviet Russia and its relationship with the other members of the erstwhile Soviet union? Apart from the slightly unattractive fact that they have no plot, no dialogue, no easily identifiable theme and little humour other than ironic... they've all been really interesting so far.
They all available on BBC's iPlayer.

[DevonDamo]

Has anyone been trudging through the ...

Yes - I watch anything that Adam Curtis does. This one is a new departure in that it doesn't have that authoritative narrator that was a trademark of previous work. (Is that his voice?) I've only watched the first two, but thoroughly enjoying them and loving the way he's curating the film clips to tell the story without any need for the narration.

As I haven't yet got through all of them, I haven't seen what his take is on the current Ukraine war, but I recently saw an interview with Noam Chomsky, who is my go-to for sane analysis of world politics. Like pretty much everyone else, I've been swept along with the anti-Russian sentiment, having seen wall-to-wall courage of a bullying nation carrying out war crimes and, when things don't go their way, threatening us all with Armageddon. Chomsky points out that we're being fed a one-sided story here: although Putin is despicable, the US has been promoting an aggressive policy towards Russia for its own reasons and has been insisting that its allies don't agree to any de-escalation and negotiation, which is the only way such situations can ever be resolved. It's a point of view is completely absent from mainstream media coverage:

[simonineaston]

I'm feeling v. sorry for the Russkie. What a past! And they have to put up with all that snow. That's enough to make anyone grumpy. And although communism was less than ideal, millions of people had a living from the system. All those dodgy Olly Garks took advantage of Yeltsin's crazy & ill-advised efforts to rush through a transformation to captialism and wrecked the lives of many ordinary peeps. Also, there's loads of dodgy vodka... still none of that in anyway justifies illegal invasion and annexation. So sad - all those poor Siberian mothers trying to come to terms with the news that their lovely sons have been splatted to burnt mince in a crappy tank. What for?

[slowster]

As I haven't yet got through all of them, I haven't seen what his take is on the current Ukraine war, but I recently saw an interview with Noam Chomsky, who is my go-to for sane analysis of world politics. Like pretty much everyone else, I've been swept along with the anti-Russian sentiment, having seen wall-to-wall courage of a bullying nation carrying out war crimes and, when things don't go their way, threatening us all with Armageddon. Chomsky points out that we're being fed a one-sided story here: although Putin is despicable, the US has been promoting an aggressive policy towards Russia for its own reasons and has been insisting that its allies don't agree to any de-escalation and negotiation, which is the only way such situations can ever be resolved. It's a point of view is completely absent from mainstream media coverage:

From the little that I have read, many of the arguments concerning Ukraine put forward by Chomsky and others are intellectually incoherent and frequently based on double standards. Typically they often take little or no account of the Ukrainian people's right to resist the Russian invasion and occupation, and its genocidal atrocities.

[DevonDamo]

From the little that I have read, many of the arguments concerning Ukraine put forward by Chomsky and others are intellectually incoherent and frequently based on double standards. Typically they often take little or no account of the Ukrainian people's right to resist the Russian invasion and occupation, and its genocidal atrocities.

A topic worthy of discussion if ever there were one, but first, so I don't accidentally find myself sticking up for a position I don't agree with, what do you think Chomsky's view of the Russian invasion, occupation and atrocities is?

[slowster]

what do you think Chomsky's view of the Russian invasion, occupation and atrocities is?

That he knows what's best for the Ukrainian people.

[DevonDamo]

That he knows what's best for the Ukrainian people.

Okay - I suspected you hadn't watched or read his views. Happy to discuss with you once you have.

[simonineaston]

Funnily enough Chomsky looks just like my old dad did, in his last days.

[Stevek76]

From the little that I have read, many of the arguments concerning Ukraine put forward by Chomsky and others are intellectually incoherent and frequently based on double standards. Typically they often take little or no account of the Ukrainian people's right to resist the Russian invasion and occupation, and its genocidal atrocities.

He tends to get misquoted by the more fringe elements who really are so obsessed by being an anti US that they can't see anything in any other light.

However he does tend to skirt the edges of it, he's certainly repeated misinformation regarding bush sr's 'promises' about nato expansion (Gorbachev has been clear there was no such thing) and generally seems a little conspiratorial on the wider geopolitical matters that tends to deny the agency and sovereignty of smaller countries. He also frames the failure of Minsk 2 being down to elements of Ukraine's far right threatening Zelenskyy and US not backing him, whilst ignoring that Russia failed to, and clearly had no intention of obeying art 10 given it continued to deny it had any presence on the ground. Similarly seems to overvalue Johnson's affect on the failed peace talks in April.

The thing I've found most noteworthy about any of the calls for peace and/or diplomacy is that they're almost always entirely vapid. Unless the person willing to actually state what they might think is an acceptable set of truce conditions then it strikes me as little more than hollow virtue signalling.

[slowster]

That he knows what's best for the Ukrainian people.

Okay - I suspected you hadn't watched or read his views. Happy to discuss with you once you have.

I watched the first part of the video you posted in which Chomsky speaks. It confirmed the critiques of of his position that I have read. His status quo argument regarding Taiwan completely ignores that the PRC has been spending billions on developing the capabilities of its military to invade Taiwan, which is de facto changing the status quo (both militarily and politically within Taiwan, and also outside it).

Just one of the criticisms of Chomsky, and also of many of the self-styled 'realists' in american academia, is that their positions and arguments are framed within a narrow perspective that sees global problems as being substantially the result of US policy, and the solutions as being for the US to change its policy. This allows those intellectuals to comment on complex and difficult geo-political issues and relationships between nations elsewhere in the world without having to have a good understanding of those nations, their histories, and their peoples. They are able to get away with such a superficial approach because their audience is largely american/anglophone. As far as I am aware Chomsky has not engaged in discourse to any significant extent with Ukrainian commentators.

[DevonDamo]

I watched the first part of the video you posted in which Chomsky speaks....

My bad. I was wondering why all the talk about Taiwan, and then realised I'd posted the wrong video. I'll post the one that I'd actually watched below, but here's the point he's making: he's no fan of Putin (describing him as a criminal in the video I mistakenly posted above) but there's never a reason to not negotiate: the worst that can happen is nothing, and the best is the prevention of suffering and death. There's clear evidence that the US is taking a hard line, prohibiting Ukraine from negotiating, and that Zelensky has to accede to this as he's relying on them for money and weapons. We're told that negotiation can only result in Russia securing huge swathes of Ukraine, but that's clearly not true - negotiation will only result in whatever you're prepared to accept. If your only acceptable outcome is Russia unconditionally leaving Ukraine, then entering into negotiations won't change that. Again: the worst that can happen is nothing. If you remember the film 'Thirteen Days,' you'll remember that what prevented the Cuban missile crisis turning to WW3 was the US talking to the Soviets. If they'd adopted a 'no negotiation' strategy at that time, there would almost certainly have been a very different outcome.

Bringing this back to Chomsky. He's a professor of linguistics, but what made him prominent in the world of politics were his theories on how you could artificially 'manufacture' consent in public opinion by the language you bombard the population with. At the moment, the mainstream media are pumping out a narrative whereby anything other than jubilation at the war is tantamount to treachery. The evidence that Chomsky is presenting in this interview is that the US are actively preventing negotiation and there's virtually no reporting of or questioning of this stance in the media. It's legitimate to ask why this is, and whether the Ukrainians benefit from it and, if not, who does.

[slowster]

I watched the first two minutes of that video. Again it confirms my view that he thinks he knows better than others, even when he is commenting on matters well outside of his experience and expertise. Just because he 'did his own research' and looked up the full text of Mohdi's comments to Putin does not qualify him to state that western commentators and experts misrepresented the significance of Mohdi's criticism of Russia's invasion. I would place far higher reliance on the experts in foreign policy relations and diplomacy, because the very nature of such public statements by heads of states usually requires interpretation by experts with a lot of experience of diplomacy and often of the countries and leaders in question (and often inside knowledge/off the record background briefings from the aides and spokespeople of the politicians concerned). The fact that Mohdi sugared his criticism with positive statements about Indian and Russian relations (AKA a 's*** sandwich') does not alter the fact that he said it and it was probably a very deliberate and carefully planned statement.

Mohdi's statement was widely considered to be significant by western journalists and commentators because it probably was significant. At the same conference Putin publicly acknowledged China's 'concerns' about the war in his comments to Xi Jinping, and that was similarly considered significant. Thinking that because you are a professor of linguistics and have read the full text of Mohdi's statement, you are better informed than a lot of other people with expertise in this specific field, is arrogant.

I tried watching more of the video, but gave up when he commented that the US and UK are isolated in supporting Ukraine's wish to continue fighting to achieve an outcome acceptable to Ukraine. That is so far from the truth that I am not going to waste any more time discussing such bad faith argument and reasoning.

Edit - I will however add that his statement about US/UK isolation confirms my previous point that he is able to get away with flawed and untrue statements because he is addressing an ill-informed/biased audience in the USA. He would be completely torn apart by an audience in Canada and many European countries.

[DevonDamo]

I tried watching more of the video, but gave up when he commented that the US and UK are isolated in supporting Ukraine's wish to continue fighting to achieve an outcome acceptable to Ukraine. That is so far from the truth that I am not going to waste any more time discussing such bad faith argument and reasoning.

He didn't comment that the UK/US are isolated in "supporting Ukraine's wish to continue fighting to achieve an outcome acceptable to Ukraine." He said they're isolated for their determination to undermine any possibility of negotiation. If you had managed to listen just beyond 2 minutes, you'd have also heard him criticising Putin for doing exactly the same thing at the beginning of the conflict.

I'm not criticising you for not watching the whole thing - I've got no right to force anyone to watch anything. But it does put you in the position where, if we're going to discuss the position he's taking in this interview, it will have to be on the basis of what I tell you about it. The point he's making is that there is nothing to be lost, and potentially many lives to be saved, by continually seeking to negotiate a settlement, which is how this situation will ultimately end anyway. Any prohibition on negotiation can only do harm. Do you think he's wrong to take this position?

[Ben@Forest]

Good open letter to Chomsky:

Dear Professor Chomsky,

We are a group of Ukrainian academic economists who were grieved by a series of your recent interviews and commentaries on the Russian war on Ukraine. We believe that your public opinion on this matter is counter-productive to bringing an end to the unjustified Russian invasion of Ukraine and all the deaths and suffering it has brought into our home country.

Having familiarized ourselves with the body of your interviews on this matter, we noticed several recurring fallacies in your line of argument. In what follows, we wish to point out these patterns to you, alongside our brief response:

Pattern #1: Denying Ukraine’s sovereign integrity

In your interview to Jeremy Scahill at The Intercept from April 14, 2022 you claimed: “The fact of the matter is Crimea is off the table. We may not like it. Crimeans apparently do like it.” We wish to bring to your attention several historical facts:

First, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 has violated the Budapest memorandum (in which it promised to respect and protect Ukrainian borders, including Crimea), the Treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation (which it signed with Ukraine in 1997 with the same promises), and, according to the order of the UN International Court of Justice, it violated the international law.

Second, “Crimeans” is not an ethnicity or a cohesive group of people—but Crimean Tatars are. These are the indigenous people of Crimea, who were deported by Stalin in 1944 (and were able to come back home only after the USSR fell apart), and were forced to flee again in 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea. Of those who stayed, dozens have been persecuted, jailed on false charges and missing, probably dead.

Third, if by “liking” you refer to the outcome of the Crimean “referendum” on March 16, 2014, please note that this “referendum” was held at gunpoint and declared invalid by the General Assembly of the United Nations. At the same time, the majority of voters in Crimea supported Ukraine’s independence in 1991.

Pattern #2: Treating Ukraine as an American pawn on a geo-political chessboard

Whether willingly or unwillingly, your interviews insinuate that Ukrainians are fighting with Russians because the US instigated them to do so, that Euromaidan happened because the US tried to detach Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence, etc. Such an attitude denies the agency of Ukraine and is a slap in the face to millions of Ukrainians who are risking their lives for the desire to live in a free country. Simply put, have you considered the possibility that Ukrainians would like to detach from the Russian sphere of influence due to a history of genocide, cultural oppression, and constant denial of the right to self-determination?

Pattern #3. Suggesting that Russia was threatened by NATO

In your interviews, you are eager to bring up the alleged promise by [US Secretary of State] James Baker and President George H.W. Bush to Gorbachev that, if he agreed to allow a unified Germany to rejoin NATO, the US would ensure that NATO would move “not one inch eastward.” First, please note that the historicity of this promise is highly contested among scholars, although Russia has been active in promoting it. The premise is that NATO’s eastward expansion left Putin with no other choice but to attack. But the reality is different. Eastern European states joined, and Ukraine and Georgia aspired to join NATO, in order to defend themselves from Russian imperialism. They were right in their aspirations, given that Russia did attack Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Moreover, current requests by Finland and Sweden to join NATO came in direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, consistent with NATO expansion being a consequence of Russian imperialism, and not vice versa.

In addition, we disagree with the notion that sovereign nations shouldn’t be making alliances based on the will of their people because of disputed verbal promises made by James Baker and George H.W. Bush to Gorbachev.

Pattern #4. Stating that the US isn’t any better than Russia

While you admittedly call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “war crime,” it appears to us that you cannot do so without naming in the same breath all of the past atrocities committed by the US abroad (e.g., in Iraq or Afghanistan) and, ultimately, spending most of your time discussing the latter. As economists, we are not in a position to correct your historical metaphors and, needless to say, we condemn the unjustified killings of civilians by any power in the past. However, not bringing Putin up on war crime charges at the International Criminal Court in the Hague just because some past leader did not receive similar treatment would be the wrong conclusion to draw from any historical analogy. In contrast, we argue that prosecuting Putin for the war crimes that are being deliberately committed in Ukraine would set an international precedent for the world leaders attempting to do the same in the future.

Pattern #5. Whitewashing Putin’s goals for invading Ukraine

In your interviews, you go to great lengths to rationalize Putin’s goals of “demilitarization” and “neutralization” of Ukraine. Please note that, in his TV address from February 24, 2022, marking the beginning of the war, the verbatim goal declared by Putin for this “military operation” is to “denazify” Ukraine. This concept builds on his long pseudo-historical article from July 2021, denying Ukraine’s existence and claiming that Ukrainians were not a nation. As elaborated in the “denazification manual” published by the Russian official press agency RIA Novosti, a “Nazi” is simply a human being who self-identifies as Ukrainian, the establishment of a Ukrainian state thirty years ago was the “Nazification of Ukraine,” and any attempt to build such a state has to be a “Nazi” act. According to this genocide handbook, denazification implies a military defeat, purging, and population-level “re-education.”“Demilitarization” and “neutralization” imply the same goal—without weapons Ukraine will not be able to defend itself, and Russia will reach its long-term goal of destroying Ukraine.

Pattern #6. Assuming that Putin is interested in a diplomatic solution

All of us very much hoped for a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement, which could have saved many human lives. Yet, we find it preposterous how you repeatedly assign the blame for not reaching this settlement to Ukraine (for not offering Putin some “escape hatch”) or the US (for supposedly insisting on the military rather than diplomatic solution) instead of the actual aggressor, who has repeatedly and intentionally bombed civilians, maternity wards, hospitals, and humanitarian corridors during those very “negotiations.” Given the escalatory rhetoric (cited above) of the Russian state media, Russia’s goal is erasure and subjugation of Ukraine, not a “diplomatic solution.”

Pattern #7. Advocating that yielding to Russian demands is the way to avert the nuclear war

Since the Russian invasion, Ukraine lives in a constant nuclear threat, not just due to being a prime target for Russian nuclear missiles but also due to the Russian occupation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

But what are the alternatives to fighting for freedom? Unconditional surrender and then elimination of Ukrainians off the face of the Earth (see above)? Have you ever wondered why President Zelenskyy, with the overwhelming support of the Ukrainian people, is pleading with Western leaders to provide heavy weapons despite the potential threat of nuclear escalation? The answer to this question is not “Because of Uncle Sam,” but rather due to the fact that Russian war crimes in Bucha and many other Ukrainian cities and villages have shown that living under Russian occupation is a tangible “hell on earth” happening right now, requiring immediate action.

Arguably, any concessions to Russia will not reduce the probability of a nuclear war but lead to escalation. If Ukraine falls, Russia may attack other countries (Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Finland or Sweden) and can also use its nuclear blackmail to push the rest of Europe into submission. And Russia is not the only nuclear power in the world. Other countries, such as China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are watching. Just imagine what will happen if they learn that nuclear powers can get whatever they want using nuclear blackmail.

Professor Chomsky, we hope you will consider the facts and re-evaluate your conclusions. If you truly value Ukrainian lives as you claim to, we would like to kindly ask you to refrain from adding further fuel to the Russian war machine by spreading views very much akin to Russian propaganda.

Should you wish to engage further on any of the above-mentioned points, we are always open to discussion.

Kind regards,

Bohdan Kukharskyy, City University of New York
Anastassia Fedyk, University of California, Berkeley
Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley
Ilona Sologoub, VoxUkraine NGO

[Stevek76]

I've not seen evidence that uk/us are currently blocking negotiations? Chomsky appears to be speculating based on the April incident, which according to the original source, has been rather misrepresented

The main pressure appears to be domestically if anything.