PMC Commentary

Putin's invasion - and the West's semantics game

Over the past 24 hours we have witnessed a rather ​​​​​bizarro debate on whether Russia is about to invade, is invading, or has invaded Ukraine. It's been weird. Really weird — these blurrings of the meaning of "invasion."

Yesterday, Putin ordered the "deployment" of troops into two Russian-separatist republics in Ukraine. The United Nations Security Council promptly condemned Putin's action as both a violation of international law and Ukrainian sovereignty, with America's U.N. ambassador labeling it a "clear attack" on the latter.

Now for the weird part. With all that going on, the Times reported yesterday, as did other news organs, that "the United States and its European allies [are holding] in reserve the more aggressive sanctions they have threatened to impose on Moscow if Mr. Putin sends Russian armed forces into Ukraine" (italics mine).

However, the same story acknowledged — and I quote — that neither Ukraine nor the rest of the world views the so-called republics as anything but Ukrainian territory.

In other words, there is no question of "if Putin sends Russian armed forces into Ukraine." He is already doing so. To repeat: "Neither Ukraine nor the rest of the world views the so-called republics as anything but Ukrainian territory."

Those republics had indeed fallen under Russian-backed forces, but actual Russian forces in Ukraine there were not. Now there are. And that's an invasion. There's no if about it.

Yet "ifs" and "maybes" and "possibilities" have flooded news coverage of the crisis for the past 24 hours.

As intimated above, there is, of course, a Western diplomatic reason for this bizarre game of semantics. By obfuscating the meaning of "invasion," the allies can temporize on the issue of whether to execute full sanctions straightaway.

But there's no lack of clarity in the minds of Ukrainians and "the rest of the world" as to what Putin has done. He has sent Russian armed forces into Ukraine. He has invaded. Period. 

Putin's free and open discussion

In meeting with his security council today, Vladimir demonstrated the value of informed, intelligent dissent, which is so essential to any national leader:

"Underscoring the possibility that he might recognize the [Russian-separatist regions] as independent states, Mr. Putin chided his foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, when he appeared to be equivocating on the issue, prompting Mr. Naryshkin to stutter and then say he was in favor of annexing the territories."

Still, this represents a certain amount of Russian progress. Stalin would have Sergei shot on the spot. Putin's intelligence chief, on the other hand, will be free to enjoy his new career at a Moscow McDonalds. 

Putin's westbound Lebensraum - and NATO's big mistake

Putin declared today that he may recognize — which means he will — two Russian-separatist republics in the sovereign nation of Ukraine. His announced intent is tantamount to Hitler's 1938 seizure of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, which, said the German dictator, would be "the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe." Nor will this be Putin's last.

No word yet on the West's reaction to Putin's territorial theft. But we do know what Volodymyr Zelensky would say, since he already said it on Saturday, in reminiscent Munich. "It was here 15 years ago that Russia announced its intention to challenge global security," said the Ukrainian president at an international security conference, from which Russia was tellingly AWOL. And "what did the world say? Appeasement. Result? At least the annexation of Crimea and aggression against my state."

Zelensky added that "this is not about war in Ukraine, this is about war in Europe." His real fury, however, was aimed at what he sees as Western procrastination in penalizing Russian imperialism. "We don’t need your sanctions after the bombardment will happen," fumed Zelensky, "and after our country will be fired at, or after we will have no borders and after we will have no economy or part of our country will be occupied. Why would we need those sanctions then?"

His was a good, understandable question, and one I can sympathize with. Nevertheless, I'll let Fiona Hill, a Russian affairs expert under several U.S. presidential administrations, answer it. A few days ago she was asked by The NY Times, "Do you think the United States needs ... to impose punishments now rather than waiting for some trigger to set off another round of sanctions?" Hill's response:

"That would be a mistake, to trigger off right now. It doesn’t work with just such crude messaging. You have to be able to show the cause and effect of sanctions when you put them on and off. Otherwise, the view then becomes, well, there’s nothing we can do anyway. Because the Russian point of view is that all the U.S. does is put sanctions on countries irrespective of what they do. We would just feed that narrative."

Foreign policy analysts aren't infallible, of course, as Ms. Hill would really agree. But here, her logic seems impenetrable: U.S. sanctions prior to bad acts would lack substantial cause, thus weakening their effect — and possibly costing allied support.

For now, what Zelensky needs more than sanctions is war matériel. And this, the Biden administration is supplying. On the day that Zelensky spoke in Munich, he received another "shipment of rifles, machine guns and other military equipment" in Lviv, western Ukraine.

Perhaps more legitimate than Zelensky's complaint about sanctions was his accompanying growl about Ukraine's NATO limbo. "If not all the members are willing to see us there [in NATO], or all members don’t want to see us there, be honest about it," he demanded. "Open doors are good, but we need open answers, and not the years and years of closed questions."

Years and years indeed. It's been 14 of them since NATO leaders openly declared that Ukraine "will become" a member of NATO. They overlooked, however, saying how or when, because of internal disagreements on both.

This is mere hindsight, of course, but NATO's foot-dragging on Ukrainian membership now seems an enormous error. Although it's true that Ukraine itself did little to responsibly expedite its membership — such as tackling widespread state corruption — the nation has long been in Putin's crosshairs. No one has ever doubted his aggressive intentions. Yet had NATO embraced Ukraine years ago, warts and all, Putin's crosshairs would perforce have fogged up, given the alliance's Article 5 protection. That, Putin would not have messed with, no way, no how.

Absent that, the world now faces Zelensky's direst assessment: "This is not about war in Ukraine, this is about war in Europe." And all the U.S. and its Western allies can do is defensively arm Ukraine for a long, grueling, bloody guerrilla action. But yet the pity of it, said a Shakespeare character; the pity of it!

Biden is still rebuffing the TPP, and he should stop

U.S. officials are increasingly worried about the tightening relationship between the autocratic powers of Russia and China. It "could amount to a realignment of the world order," as the Times frames the two nations' maturing coziness. And though most of our deepening worries are centered on military relations — the Russia-China alignment presents "a brazen challenge to American and European power" — there are other challenges in the form of augmented American angst, the diplomatic and economic. As such, reports the Times, "Biden administration officials say the United States will work to create and bolster its own coalitions" — including "Asia-Pacific strategic groups." 

Yet there, in the economic realm, which is inseparable from security concerns, the Biden administration isn't doing what it should be doing: rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Among all of Trump's presidential decisions that clashed with genuine U.S. interests, withdrawing from this international trade pact stands nearly unique in its prodigious stupidity. As the Bulwark's Mona Charen wrote recently, "One thing that Republicans persuaded themselves of during the past five years ... was the belief that whatever else Trump may have said or done, he sure was right about China. No, he was as wrong as could be on China," which Charen then proceeded to witheringly itemize. You can read her full piece here, but it's this that hurts the most:

"If Trump had been halfway literate about economics, he would have seized upon the golden opportunity available at the start of his term to enhance U.S. exports and rein in China—the Transpacific Partnership Agreement. As I wrote in 2020:

Standing alone, the United States represents about 24 percent of the world economy. Together with the allies who signed the TPP—Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Peru—the trading bloc would have represented 40 percent of the world’s GDP. Though it isn’t clear that Trump knew this—he seemed confused about it during the debates—the TPP did not include China and would have made the free Pacific nations a bulwark against China’s unfair practices. We would have called the tune.

"Instead, one of Trump’s first acts was to withdraw from the TPP."

That, in itself, was bad enough, stupid and self-destructive enough. But it gets worse. Noted Charen: "Sadly, the Democratic party has also abandoned free trade, and in deference to his left flank, President Biden has done little to reverse" Trump's policies.

One day before Charen's superb piece in the Bulwark, there appeared Paul Krugman's likeminded musings in the Times: "Trump’s trade policies were foolish and costly — they failed by any measure you choose — but it may be a long time before any president is in a position to undo the damage."

Krugman was specifically referring to Trump's damaging tariffs, but in describing the former president's "foolish and costly" trade policies, the Times economist was also most certainly thinking about TPP and Biden's refusal to rejoin it, because of what Charen correctly characterized as his unfortunate "deference to his left flank."

Economically, Biden knows better. He's not an economic illiterate like Trump. He'd rejoin in a flash, were it not for the backward, Trumplike, Sandersesque trade caucus in the Democratic Party. Politically, Biden is doing what he can to hold the party together. Yet his "left flank" is now suffering from electoral disenchantment for all sorts of reasons, hence this might be a good time for Biden to put himself some distance from it. He could start by revitalizing talk of TPP's enormous benefits to the U.S., and to hell with Bernie.

Such talk — and soon, actually rejoining TPP — would be the immensely responsible thing to do. As well, should Biden wish to elevate his presidential legacy, then talking up the Pacific trade pact is the right way to go. Our renewed membership would be a crucial element not only for the U.S. economy's long-term betterment, it would also "bolster [our coalition with] Asia-Pacific strategic groups," act as a powerful, economic counterweight to China, and help to circumscribe the latter's menacing alignment with Russia.   

A Broadway tune comes to Putin's mind

Putin is, once again, the parricidal orphan pleading for mercy. He can't quit Lukashenko's home since he has slaughtered any hope for familial peace in eastern Ukraine, which somehow threatens its Belarusian neighbor to the north, some 600 miles away, where the orphan should not have been in the first place.

But it's Lukashenko's defense ministry — not Putin's — that today declared an extension of its military workout with Russia's 30,000 troops. The orphan must project some semblance of innocence, especially since his separatists are wreaking all manner of bloody calamity in Ukraine's Donbas region.

There, in perhaps the weirdest twist in this entire, catastrophic melodrama, Putin's Russian separatists are warning President Zelensky's Ukrainian locals that Ukraine is poised to invade Ukraine.

It's because of this "exacerbation of the situation in the Donbas," said Belarus' defense minister, that his president and Russia's president "have made the decision to continue the inspection of reaction forces," cynically titled "Allied Resolve."

This was to be expected, since only last week Belarus' foreign minister swore to the world that "not a single Russian serviceman and not a single piece of Russian military hardware will remain after these maneuvers" conclude Sunday, while Moscow similarly swore that retaining troops in Belarus "is not being considered."

I understand that Vladimir Putin is considering a new national anthem, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" — since he is the one forever blowing it there.

What's missing in today's mostly right-wing politics? The basics of a classical education, that's what.

The libertarian-conservative humorist ​​​​​P.J. O'Rourke died Tuesday at the age of 74. It seems that many years since I read his 1991 book, Parliament of Whores, and a few other writings. They were all — to use an ancient descriptor — mirthful, but O'Rourke's relentless cynicism, lightly told, tended to wear me out. The Beltway, parliament's home and the object of O'Rourke's undeviating distrust, has always housed collections of anti-social imbeciles, of course. Yet incandescent minds there have been, ennobling the profession of politics. And this it is wise to note, at least now and then.

On the other hand, those entering the profession today — from young, subliterate Trumpers to even younger, illiberal progressives — often appear to have altogether swamped the profession, thus degrading rather than ennobling it. I'll countenance no "both sidesism" criticism, however, since I've always maintained the first-cited group is clearly the more ignorant, and more dangerous, aggressor. Here, even the rightward O'Rourke agreed. In his NYT eulogy, Christopher Buckley, son of Bill, wrote this of the man:

"The Trump era could have been one great big enormous sandbox for P.J. to play in. Instead, he found it dispiriting, a pageant of stupidity, boorishness and coarseness.... The last time I visited with him, he told me, 'You know, I’ve been doing this for a [expletive] half century. I’m tired.'"

I know how P.J. felt. I'm tired, too — not from a half-century of stupidity, boorishness and coarseness, but most definitely from that of the last several years. And much of my weariness comes from how David Brooks, in a next-door column to Buckley's eulogy, summarized those years: "History is reverting toward barbarism. We have an authoritarian strongman in Russia threatening to invade his neighbor, an increasingly authoritarian China waging genocide on its people and threatening Taiwan, cyberattacks undermining the world order, democracy in retreat worldwide, thuggish populists across the West undermining nations from within."

In the U.S., the last two elements of history's recidivist barbarism — democracy's retreat and thuggish, demagogue-voting populists — concern us the most. And much of that concern comes from a cultural necessity we seem to have lost, which the Founders, as Brooks notes, hoped we never would: "Leaders were to receive a classical education, so they might understand human virtue and vice and the fragility of democracy."

Look around and ponder so many of our political "leaders" of today; i.e., those who dominate the profession, dominate the news, dominate social media. They're exhausting. More pointedly, how many of these political leaders were at any time steeped, as the Founders urged, in a "classical education"? — that which might have taught them about human virtues, vice, and democracy's fragility? — that which might have humbled and civilized them?

Which brings me to this. Recently I read two seemingly unrelated, even incongruous, books: Columbia University professor Roosevelt Montás' newly published Rescuing Socrates and John Marquand's 1937 The Late George Apley. The former is an energetic defense of a classical, liberal education in American universities — a thematic advocacy which speaks for itself — the latter a satire on Boston's upper-class society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although Marquand pokes mild fun at Boston's Brahmins, they did uphold certain standards when it came to classical education, as well as healthy civic engagement — the very attributes that Prof. Montás so earnestly desires for today's Americans, or at the very least, for modern America's leaders. Political leaders, one would hope.

Yet in politics we're either rapidly losing the once-honored tradition of a liberal education or we have, in fact, already lost it. Good grief, just listening to virtually any Republican House member for a minute or two makes one fear for America's future, for the GOP conference at large is a loathsome bevy of historical, literary and civic ignorance. A profound ignorance, born of no mindful training in "human virtue and vice and the fragility of democracy." Which is to say, the wholesale absence of a classical education.

It is that, I'd argue, that has led us to our present "pageant of stupidity, boorishness and coarseness" in politics. It has exhausted us all, as it did P.J. O'Rourke. But he kept at it, in his own way, just as I shall keep at it, in mine. And I hope you continue to join me. 

A photographic lesson in "Shut the fuck up"

Here, Canadian police in Ottawa demonstrate the proper care and carriage of an anti-vax protester, whose likeminded scoundrels "taunt local residents for wearing masks, honk their horns in quiet residential neighborhoods, undermine local businesses," and impede international traffic and trade. (NYT photo.)

I await our homegrown Republican Party's calls for "defunding the Canadian police." 

"Russian diplomacy": translation, "Hooliganism in Action"

Stunning: 5:02 Eastern — President Biden says Putin has decided on war.

°°° 

Today, standing alongside the brazen election-stealing, Belarusian dictator, "President" Aleksandr Lukashenko, at a news conference, Vladimir Putin issued his Capone-like, diplomatic "offer" to the West: "We are ready to go on the negotiating track under the condition that all questions will be considered together, without being separated from Russia’s main proposals."

Picking up on the brief, aforementioned metaphor, Putin's "main proposals" somewhat mirror those of Al Capone to Bugs Moran: Turn over the — your — entire North Side of Chicago to us, and everything will be just peachy. Or perhaps Chamberlainesque would be more like it: There shall be "peace in our time" through injudicious appeasement, that sort of thing. 

Which is to say, as though it's necessary, that Putin's "main proposals" are nothing short of ludicrous — entailing, as they do, the West Side's promise that Ukraine never join NATO (that is, that Ukraine essentially relinquish its sovereignty), and not only that NATO stop any further eastward expansion, but that it pull back to mid-1990s lines, thereby dooming the Baltic states to Russian imperialism.

Should the West persist in its European peacekeeping obligations, Putin, in turn, promises a "tough response." For starters, tomorrow he'll be overseeing the launchings of "nuclear-capable missiles" in military drills: ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, "land-based launchers, bombers and warships used to deliver nuclear weapons." In short, Putin is upping his game to ever greater mobster-like behavior, which to him comes naturally.

Also, naturally, his defense ministry says these thermonuclear drills have been planned all along; they've nothing to do with Russian extortion. The ministry "denied that they were intended to raise tensions," which Russia already did yesterday in Eastern Ukraine, bombing kindergartens and the like. And, of course, Russia blamed Ukraine for the artillery shells raining down on it.

President Biden is joining our NATO allies today in a telephone conference, in which they'll all sing, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Vladimir Putin?" The answer is not altogether knowable, since the object of their inquiry is utterly unpredictable and extraordinarily reckless. This much, however, Putin has answered: Diplomacy will get them nowhere, since his "diplomatic" demands are as unmeetable as they are insane.

And so the world trembles at the alternatives. 

***

Update:

In a statement addressed to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the U.S. now estimates that Russia has amassed up to 190,000 troops on Ukraine's borders and its eastern region, calling it "the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the Second World War."

Russia's response, without further comment? "The troop deployments do not meet the organization’s definition of 'unusual and unscheduled military activities.'"

How can one conceivably negotiate with such defiant, mendacious thugs.

Update #2; some one-sided progress: Germany's foreign minister said today that should Russia invade Ukraine, "We in Germany are prepared to pay a high price economically. That’s why everything is on the table — also Nord Stream 2." Welcome to the anti-Putin club, Herren und Damen.

Update #3; classic, one-sided gibberish: "The Russian-backed leader of a separatist-controlled area of eastern Ukraine said officials there were launching a mass evacuation of civilians into Russia, citing a threat of military action by Ukraine.... Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had 'no information about what is happening,' while Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that officials were planning for the evacuation of 'several hundreds of thousands of people.'" (WaPo.) 

Trump's brilliant legal counsel

​​​​​Yesterday, as you may have read, a New York state judge ordered Trump, as well as Ivanka and Don Jr., to "comply with subpoenas issued in December by New York Attorney General Letitia James." They must answer questions "into his business practices," reported the Associated Press, and they must do so within 21 days, said Judge Arthur Engoron, who "issued the ruling after a two-hour hearing with lawyers for the Trumps and James' office."

So begins the AP's reporting on this contentious litigation, in which Trump and his offspring are, undoubtedly, guilty as Bernie Madoff. The AP's reporting is sober, impartial, thorough and eminently professional.

However, the best coverage of yesterday's hearing came from Peter Sagal, co-host of NPR's "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me." I encountered it on Twitter rather serendipitously, in that I don't follow that insidious social medium much. But I gather Sagal does, since he has nearly 300,000 followers.

Anyway, yesterday he was on the job, evidently following the hearing online — and here are the highlights of his coverage, specifically of Trump lawyer Alina Habba:

I'm not a lawyer, but based on her rant in a virtual courtroom just now, I'm not sure Donald Trump's attorney Alina Habbab [later corrected] is either.

Among other things, she's speaking to the Judge as if he's an opponent on a cable news panel, which strikes me as not wise? Also, the [court clerk] keeps having to tell her to stop talking over the judge....

She keeps trying to make the argument that the prosecution is invalid because Mr Trump is in a "special class" of person whose rights are protected, and the judge keeps saying, Wha?

Now she's arguing that the prosecution is invalid because its relying on the evidence of Michael Cohen, a convicted perjurer. Judge: "Um, was he convicted for lying about Mr Trump's finances?"

Yes, Trump hires only the most select of legal counsel, which means, one presumes, legal counsel that isn't all that interested in ever being paid. But I guess that's OK from the counsels' point of view, since, at any paid or unpaid rate, they don't really know what they're doing.

"Oh, shit," as they say. Has a Russia-Ukraine war finally begun?

And so it begins — or began?

Today, Russian separatists shelled the towns of Stanytsia Luhanska and Popasna, Ukraine, claiming they, the separatists, had come under fire from Ukrainians. This is the very sort of Russian-provoked humbug that Western analysts have been expecting from Putin's trigger-happy mind.

"We’ve said for some time that the Russians might do something like this in order to justify a military conflict," said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Locally, said one analyst: "Today it was long-distance and synchronized shelling" from the Russians. "It was simultaneous. This is notable."

The Kremlin, of course, persisted in its Putinesque fakery. "We have warned many times that excessive concentration of Ukrainian forces near the contact line, together with possible provocations, can pose terrible danger," said the presidential warmonger's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov.

In an added insult to Western intelligence — both meanings intended — the spokesman said he hoped we in the West would caution Kyiv against a "further escalation of tensions."

The Russian-backed separatists' claim that it was the Ukrainian army that had initiated the shelling of civilians in Eastern Ukraine was a claim, it should be needless to add, "that could not be independently verified."

Perhaps this Putin provocation will come to nothing. So far, his shelling of innocent Ukrainian citizens has caused no deaths. Today his artillery shells did hit a kindergarten, which wounded three teachers — they sustained concussions — "but no students," reports the Times and the Washington Post. Shockingly, the latter also reports that "Ukrainian soldiers are under instruction not to return fire."

But little imagination is required to envision a rapid escalation of firepower — from both sides.

Which has been Vladimir Putin's precise design, all along.

Oh, for another Vladimir - he of 1922

​​​​​The Russian Defense Ministry said again today that thousands of its troops had moved faraway from the Ukrainian border, redeploying to Kursk, Chechnya, or the Russian republic of Dagestan.

But "we’ve seen this movie before," notes Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute. In March 2016, after Russia had intervened in Syria, "Putin announced a partial withdrawal of the 'main part' of Russian armed forces." And U.S. officials believed him.

Addressing a policy forum at the time, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon said "the Russians did not sign up for an indefinite occupation of Syria." Based on such statements from U.S officials, the NY Times contemporaneously observed that Putin "had reached a turning point in his campaign, where the costs, domestically and internationally, of staying engaged outweighed the advantages."

Yet, writes Borshchevskaya, "No real withdrawal took place. The next year, Putin announced another faux withdrawal from Syria only to further entrench Russia’s position in the country." Putin also announced de-escalatory movements on Georgia's border, just before invading in 2008.

Ms. Borshchevskaya notes also that subsequent to its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, "the Kremlin periodically announced 'withdrawals' to confuse diplomacy and obfuscate its intentions."

But this time around, the U.S. isn't falling for Putin's head fakes. As his defense ministry was announcing troop withdrawals, our secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, speaking in Brussels, said Russia is still moving troops, combat aircraft and medical supplies to Ukraine’s borders.

Although predicting what Putin may ultimately do is a coin flip, I agree with Borshchevskaya when she writes that "Putin may have already approached a point of no return, where he cannot walk away empty-handed from Ukraine.... He will have little choice but to act."

As for his "fear" — air quotes mine — of Western sanctions, should he indeed act? Recently I read this remark from a Russian official: "[Putin] doesn't give a shit" about sanctions. He has his, as any good little kleptocrat would, and he's made sure his oligarchs will still have theirs. Neither do the economic consequences to the Russian people seem to trouble Putin. After all, what's the political risk? He has outlawed opposition parties and, pretty much, domestic opposition in general.

Adds Borshchevskaya, as we all do, to cover our prognosticating butts: "Or perhaps there is still time for him to pull back — temporarily." The adverb is the key word. For Putin, she further adds, "shows no signs of giving up his ultimate goal of playing out the Cold War with an alternate ending and undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty."

That is the only certainty in this entire, needless conflict.

If only we had another Vladimir back — Vladimir Lenin, that is, who in 1922 proclaimed to the political bureau of the Communist Party: "I declare war to the death on Great Russian chauvinism."

In Europe, it's 1938

​​​​​In NATO's Redzikowo, Poland, there sits a U.S. military installation containing "sophisticated radars capable of tracking hostile missiles and guiding interceptor rockets to knock them out of the sky." The installation is housed on a former Polish air force, and then civilian, base, and it's "expected to be operational this year." The U.S. insists the antiballistic installation is there only to guard against, say, Iranian — not Russian — missiles. Well, OK, so who believes that?

Certainly not Vladimir Putin. America's antiballistic missile base in Poland — there's another in Romania, already operational — infuriates him. And he wants it gone. This is one his present demands in the Ukrainian conflict. To Putin the U.S. base is another example of NATO's ominous expansion on his western borders — and this justifies, in his sick, jingoistic mind, his threatening stance against peaceful, democratic, non-NATO-member Ukraine, which he has cynically tangled up with peripheral issues.

Said the Russian autocrat at a December news conference: "Are we deploying missiles near the U.S. border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep."

And yet Putin suggested in the preceding month that he might deploy submarine-based missiles within close range of Washington, D.C. And in a January television interview, when asked if Russia was thinking about establishing military "infrastructure" in Venezuela or Cuba, his deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said "I don’t want to confirm anything or rule anything out."

At least that wasn't a Russian lie, as was its claim this week of withdrawing some number of troops from the Ukrainian border. U.S. intelligence maintains that Russia has actually added thousands more, and British intelligence says that "contrary to their claims, Russia continues to build up military capabilities near Ukraine," which has now given it "the military mass in place to conduct an invasion of Ukraine."

NATO's presence in Eastern Europe — and this would include U.S. military installations in Poland — is by now long-standing, and it has vouchsafed none other than a long-standing, European peace. So while Putin's saber-rattling is empirically unwarranted, his saber-rattling toward Ukraine, commenced more forcefully eight years ago in Crimea, is also just the beginning.

Says a former senior director for the National Security Council: "The current crisis is really much broader than Ukraine. Ukraine is a leverage point but it is more about Poland, Romania and the Baltics. The Russians think it is time to revise the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in their favor."

That indeed is what "the Russians think," or more accurately, what Putin thinks. To which I, as a U.S. negotiator, would harbor one additional thought: Fuck him.

Putin is playing the most dangerous game played since 1939. For now, though, it's still 1938. And however dangerous Western resolve might become — including, potentially, military involvement in Ukraine's defense — nothing could be more dangerous than permitting the appeasement of Vladimir Putin, as 1938 played out.

Putin is just a keener Trump, and that boils my combative blood

If I seem more confoundingly hawkish on the Russia-Ukraine-U.S.-NATO (and growing) conflict than my past writings and general political philosophies would suggest, the explanation for my rather uncharacteristic bellicosity lies in two factors: the reckless disruptions of a peaceful Europe being inflicted by one man abroad, and that man's grotesque similarities to another man we came to know too well, and far too regrettably, here at home.

As for the first — a wantonly disrupted Europe — consider these words from the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen: "Emergency bags [are being kept by Ukrainians] by their front doors, with basic clothes and important documents," all because of one man's egotistical cruelty. "Others," she said, "have stockpiled food cans to prepare for the worst. Some have even set up shelters in their basements. These are not stories from the 1940s. This is Europe in 2022."

In short, this is a 21st-century Europe that was unimaginable not that long ago. Historical comparisons with another European decade from the preceding century need not be detailed; they're just too bloody obvious. Let it suffice that local and regional European conflicts have a way of metastasizing.

As do the frightful consequences of appeasing a monster. I was shocked this morning to read that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "might drop [his] ambition to join the NATO alliance — a move that would help fulfill one of Mr. Putin’s key demands," and thus, theoretically, resolve this conflict. I can think of no better way to whet Putin's appetite for more — for more demands, more territory, more concessions, more demonstrated weakness from the West and its allies. As Ukraine goes, so could the Baltic states go. And then, who knows?

One man. One solitary, scheming man in the Kremlin is the cause of these entirely avoidable troubles — and we know him well, for he, in a sense, sat in the White House for four years. The world must detest and reject Mr. Putin the same as it did Mr. Trump, because from either, nothing good can ever come.

They're doppelgängers. This morning I also read a profile of Putin's brain, so to speak, and it was like reading a page from Trump's psychiatric chart. The Russian president, dictator and tyrant paranoiacally "avoids electronic devices, oftentimes bans note-takers, and tells his aides little." His head is filled with "grievances and anger." He withholds "details of his planning from close aides," which promotes hardline thinking among them (for he might be planning the unthinkably worst). Said one former U.S. intel official, "Putin’s not a good sharer, he didn’t pass that kindergarten class."

But there is a kind of sharing going on — and it's not of the good sort. Just as Zelensky is pondering forgoing NATO membership to appease the Russian autocrat, "Germany and other nations have looked at the wildly high cost of replacing Russian energy sources should they be cut off, [which] has made some European leaders more eager to negotiate a solution that would avoid needing to impose sanctions."

That would only spell short-term gain for long-term pain. For as one European negotiator observed, it's "extortion" — "noting that Mr. Putin thinks like an extortionist." Of course he does. Because he thinks like Trump. And extortionists don't stop extorting once their demands are met. Appeasing them only propels them to greater extortion demands.

So yes, my thinking about Putin, the U.S. and Europe has been abnormally combative of late. But grant me this: Much of my contemporary thinking comes from being a student of 20th-century European history, which suffered grievously from one man's cruel, twisted, extortionist personality. We and Europe were a bit slow on the uptake, then — and that, we should never repeat.

Putin is anybody's guess, but here's mine

​​​​​Putin said today that he had decided "to partially pull back troops" from Ukraine's borders, which might signal Russia's general de-escalation from bullying, needless international tensions and dictatorial madness. As the Times puts it, Putin’s remark suggested that Moscow might now be willing "to pursue its objectives through negotiations rather than launch immediate military action."

The U.S. is rightly skeptical and NATO's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, says the alliance has "not seen any sign of de-escalation." He added that Russia has played this game of mere words before, only to just move "forces around ... while leaving heavy weapons in place." Sunday, the Post's David Ignatius reported that "U.S. military officials say Putin has sent orders to his commanders to prepare for possible battle by the middle of this week."

I, for one, can't see Mr. Putin backing down. He has repeatedly said he'll withdraw his threats of military action — and, by implication, "kinetic" carry-through — only if his demands are met. Yet those demands — NATO's return to a status quo ante (of the mid-1990s), and Western assurances that Ukraine will never join NATO — are more than unmeetable. They're impossibly insane.

Nevertheless, Putin has been dogged in pressing them. Reversing course now would do vast injury not only to his grandiose self-image as the second coming of Peter the Great, but injury as well from government hardliners. Putin has certainly bribed enough Russian officials and bullheaded apparatchiks to prevent a Khrushchev-like removal from power, but his domestic position would be severely crippled.

He'd be left with half-measures in action after threatening full measures of domination: e.g., cyber-warfare strikes on Ukrainian and perhaps U.S. infrastructure; further, separatist aggression in Eastern Ukraine; nasty fossil-fuel diplomacy throughout Europe and the like. Hardly the stuff of Russia's strongest man since Stalin, his political idol.

Settle he might for such half-measures, but from what I've read of the man, that's not who he is. At near 70 years of age and with opportunities expiring, he wants and demands a Nietzschean legacy; a powerful fulfillment of will.  

Meanwhile, the Biden administration persists in talks with the megalomaniac, "address[ing] his security concerns by summarizing the ways America is prepared to discuss shared stability for Europe ... [and counseling] continued dialogue." Such talks, concerns-addressing and counseling are, regrettably, advisable, even necessary. Because the U.S. is now hopelessly snagged in negotiations with a conscienceless tyrant who could, with one barked order, entirely upend a continent that has been at peace for 77 years.

What, I wonder, would Putin have done had the U.S. instead early and openly signed on to Volodymyr Zelensky's long-standing appeal: "Ukraine will not give up on its mission to serve as an example of democracy for post-Soviet countries"; it would resist Russian aggression and welcome assistance from "everyone who is ready to fight side by side with us for our freedom and for yours."

More doubts about Trump's "iron grip" on the GOP

​​​​​As part of a growing theme in political journalism, a U.S. News headline announces that "Joe Biden’s approval ratings may have slipped, but that doesn’t mean voters are nostalgic for Donald Trump." His "iron grip over the Republican Party," says the story, "appears to be weakening."

That appearance is based, in part, on a Marquette Law School poll (which earns an "A/B" grade average from FiveThirtyEight), which found Biden beating Trump decisively, 53 percent to 43 percent, in a 2024 rematch. Although "some Democrats" are less than pleased with Biden, Marquette's polling director observed that "what those Democrats haven't done is decided they voted for the wrong guy." In other words, there is "no nostalgia for the Trump years," he said.

The polling's principal takeaway — as of today, anyway — is that we're unlikely to see the kind of flipped, Biden-to-Trump voter in 2024 that we saw in 2016, when disaffected voters abandoned the Democratic incumbent's would-be successor, Hillary Clinton, and opted for a two-bit, tin-foiled, tantrum-throwing con artist.

The U.S. News article centers less on polling statistics than the general, and rather discombobulated, Republican atmosphere. Not that the polling results are insignificant. Some of them, in fact, are downright astonishing, such as Morning Consult's finding that 60 percent of 65-year-old+ voters now view Trump unfavorably, as do 57 percent of those in the 45-64 age range (whom Trump won, 50-49, in 2020). Either these voters are beginning to listen to Republican leaders who have had enough of Trump, or the leaders are parroting Trump-disillusioned voters. Whichever the case, some major Republicans are, finally, speaking out.

Chris Christie, for example, said this last Monday to radio host Hugh Hewitt: "Let's face it.... Jan. 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress into ... overturn[ing] the election." (That reporting, from Axios.) Added Christie: "Now he's trying to do a cleanup on aisle one here in correcting that stuff, but it’s not going to change." Gov. Ron DeSantis has also "openly tangled with Trump," on pandemic issues, and Mike Pence, as you'll recall, recently and plainly said that "Trump is wrong." Precisely what Trump is, and always has been, wrong about is legion but nearly irrelevant; just saying he's wrong — about anything — is politically seismic in the GOP, in its own little way.

And then of course there's Mitch McConnell, who, as the NY Times reports, is "quietly, desperately maneuvering to try to thwart [Trump and his] slate of friendly candidates in midterm elections." McConnell unsuccessfully urged Maryland's Gov. Larry Hogan and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu to run for Senate, but he's still working on Doug Ducey, hoping the Arizona governor will take on Sen. Mark Kelly.

Elsewhere, McConnell's Senate colleague Susan Collins is saying that "no one should be afraid of President Trump, period," and another Senate ally, Lisa Murkowski, is trouncing Trump-endorsed challenger Kelly Tshibaka in fundraising. Of some interest as well is that the Republican Governors Association is "airing a television commercial," notes the Times, "defending the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, against his [Trump] opponent, former Senator David Perdue."

What does it all mean? Is Trump really losing his "iron grip" on the party? By 2024, will he be an also-ran? After giving these questions considerable thought, my considered answer is this: I haven't a clue.