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Some observations about the Russia situation, some perhaps too obvious to type:
1. Amazing as it might seem, the Ukraine story could soon be bigger than the death of George Floyd, even bigger than the pandemic. There are obviously different metrics by which to measure such a thing, but a bloody ground war in Europe is very massive indeed, and would paralyze much of the activity of the USG.
2. At the same time, if Putin strikes the U.S. homeland, the nature and volume of American engagement will shoot through the roof; until and unless that happens, the events of Eastern Europe are going to be as remote to most of the country as “The Canterbury Tales.”
3. At the same, same time, even after any such attack, expect many Americans to be wary of being asked to “pay any price, bear any burden” in their daily lives, after living with COVID, inflation, etc.
4. If the months of chatter and speculation about China using this moment to take Taiwan turn into China taking Taiwan what has occurred up until now will seem very minor indeed.
5. America’s determination to not engage the Russians militarily no matter what will be tested if Putin uses nuclear or chemical weapons, or starts to assassinate Ukrainian leaders, or encroaches on the territory of a member of NATO; at that point, sanctions will seem asymmetrically insufficient indeed.
6. If you are betting on whether the Ukrainian military or militias put up a fight that deters Putin in the least, take the under.
7. I doubt the State of the Union address will be postponed under almost any circumstances, but it obviously will be heavily impacted by the facts on the ground in Europe; expect a lot of the “ideological struggle for the planet” rhetoric we have heard in the past from Candidate and President Biden – and (unfortunately) expect Red Congress and Red America to not be moved by it at all (because it comes from Joe Biden).
8. How presidents operate and the DC media covers crises are much different when Congress is in town versus when Congress is out of town; stuff is going to get much more complicated when the House and Senate return soon.
9. If the White House stays on track to announce its Supreme Court pick in the next week, it won’t matter how accomplished and compelling the nominee is; it will be the lowest impact such announcement in the modern age.
10. If Joe Biden has in fact lost more than a step or two, this period of less rest is going to test not just the commander-in-chief, but those around him.
11. In the contest to see who first breaks coalition unity in support of Joe Biden, congressional Republicans have jumped to a quick lead, but you can expect a German comeback before too long.
12. Hunter Biden, the CNN crew, and others who think the silver lining of a potential WWIII is to keep them out of the spotlight will eventually find that they are simply living on borrowed time.
13. American truckers and others who think they can break through the news cycle in a meaningful way anytime soon are kidding themselves.
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ESSENTIAL READS ON RUSSIA
1. The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker highlights the current administration quandary on how to deal with “invasion”/”not invasion,” while foreshadowing and teasing out all the weaknesses this one moment exposes in the Biden plan.
These tweets she cites tell much of the tale:
2. Walter Russell Mead looks back and forward, mustering a sliver of optimism amid a lot of dread and despair:
The West has two problems in countering Mr. Putin. The first is a problem of will. The West does not want a confrontation with Russia and in any crisis the goal remains to calm things down. That basic approach not only makes appeasement an attractive option whenever difficulties appear; it prevents us from thinking proactively. When Russia stops bothering us, we stop thinking about Russia.
The second is a problem of imagination. Western leaders still do not understand Mr. Putin. Most of them see that he is not just another colorless timeserver who thinks that appointing a record number of female economists to the board of his central bank constitutes a historic accomplishment. They are beginning to see that he is in quest of bigger game and that he means what he says about reassembling the Soviet Union and reviving Russian power. But they have not yet really fathomed the gulf between Mr. Putin’s world and their own—and until they do, he will continue to confound their expectations and disrupt their agendas.
Mr. Putin is, first and foremost, a gambler who is accustomed to taking large risks against long odds with a cool head. He is not infallible by any means, but he has years of experience in taking calculated risks, defying the odds, and imposing his will on stronger opponents. Like Napoleon Bonaparte, he can surprise and outmaneuver his opponents because he is willing to assume risks they would never consider, and so to attack in times and ways they can neither imagine nor plan for.
3. Gerard Baker also steps back, matching WRM’s pessimism:
The larger problem is that we in the West, in the U.S. especially, have been losing the war from within. Victory in the Cold War bred complacency, a loss of a defining sense of purpose. We failed to meet the most basic needs of many citizens for economic security, opportunity and belonging and in the process stoked resentment and political backlash. We failed to remember, respect and preserve the civilizational virtues that had driven our victory in the first place. We failed repeatedly in expeditions overseas.
Waking up to the challenge from the emerging hegemons, recommitting to a national-security policy that resists them as we did their predecessors in World War II and the Cold War, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reversing this cycle of failure. The damage at home must be repaired. As voters survey the collapsed landscape of post-Cold War America, there’s rising hope for domestic political renewal.
But we should remember above all that China and Russia didn’t win the post-Cold War. We lost it.
4. Like Baker, Tom Friedman puts some of the onus on NATO miscalculation, pointing out that expanding the defense alliance starting in the Clinton years was viewed by some at the time as a huge mistake and provocation. Don’t miss the long, vintage quote from 94-year-old George Kennan predicting this disaster:
“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.
“We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a lighthearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe.
“Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”
It’s EXACTLY what has happened.
5. Robert Kagan darkly games out what could happen after Russia takes Ukraine, with an emboldened Putin and an opportunistic Xi going hogwild:
Some analysts today imagine a Ukrainian insurgency sprouting up against Russian domination. Perhaps. But the Ukrainian people cannot be expected to fight a full-spectrum war with whatever they have in their homes. To have any hope against Russian occupation forces, an insurgency will need to be supplied and supported from neighboring countries. Will Poland play that role, with Russian forces directly across the border? Will the Baltics? Or Hungary? And if they do, will the Russians not feel justified in attacking the insurgents’ supply routes, even if they happen to lie in the territory of neighboring NATO members? It is wishful thinking to imagine that this conflict stops with Ukraine.
The map of Europe has experienced many changes over the centuries. Its current shape reflects the expansion of U.S. power and the collapse of Russian power from the 1980s until now; the next one will likely reflect the revival of Russian military power and the retraction of U.S. influence. If combined with Chinese gains in East Asia and the Western Pacific, it will herald the end of the present order and the beginning of an era of global disorder and conflict as every region in the world shakily adjusts to a new configuration of power.
6. A New York Times news team does a fine first draft of history of the last few months of Team Biden’s planning and operations, while also framing up the looming challenges for the West:
[W}hether to send more troops to NATO countries; how to support a Ukrainian resistance when Russia invades; how to deal with a flood of refugees; and how to manage the economic consequences of sanctions in Europe and the United States.
“The risk for the United States is that the allies don’t stay together,” said Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the C.I.A. and the Defense Department under President Barack Obama. “This crisis and this mode of a standoff with Russia is going to be around for months and years, not days and weeks.”
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OTHER ESSENTIAL READS
Do you want to know how Mitch McConnell and other top Republican strategists see the current state of the Democratic Party and the outlook for the 2022 and 2024 elections?
The quickest way to get that is to read Dan Balz’s column on the new report from Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck, whose diagnosis and projections match those of Team Mitch precisely.
Seriously, you must read this column to understand the bigger dynamics behind the current very gloomy polls for the Democrats.
Galston and Kamarck say of their own team:
[T]he party is “in the grip of myths that block progress toward victory” and that too many Democrats are engaged in a “new politics of evasion, the refusal to confront the unyielding arithmetic of electoral success.”
“Too many Democrats have evaded this truth and its implications for the party’s agenda and strategy,” the authors add. “They have been led astray by three persistent myths: that ‘people of color’ think and act in the same way; that economics always trumps culture; and that a progressive majority is emerging.”
The focus is on 2024 but the analysis is very germane to 2022, as you can tell from reading the companion New York Times article about the Senate’s four most vulnerable Democratic incumbents this year.
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GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU SMILE – AND IMPRESS
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