Here are a few things I have been reading about Ukraine that are interesting takes.
Robert Wright, a liberal internationalist (not entirely sure if he calls himself that) has consistently posited that the United States foreclosed possibilities that would have avoided war. Bob has a plausible claim for inventing the term "the Blob," and is a vital and tireless critic of the foreign policy establishment. His main points, expressed in the link above and in his podcast, have been:
Robert Wright, a liberal internationalist (not entirely sure if he calls himself that) has consistently posited that the United States foreclosed possibilities that would have avoided war. Bob has a plausible claim for inventing the term "the Blob," and is a vital and tireless critic of the foreign policy establishment. His main points, expressed in the link above and in his podcast, have been:
- Putin is not obviously crazy or irrational. Portraying him as such is a dodge to avoid rational dealing and negotiation
- The US did not seriously entertain a declaration that Ukraine could never join NATO (or not join for at least several decades), even though this was a potential solution to quell Putin and NATO has no intention of letting Ukraine join anyway
- NATO expansion to Eastern Europe was provocative, unnecessary, and doesn't serve any strategic interest of the United States
Tom Friedman, who was recently a guest on Bob's podcast, has a good "how did we get here" column that reminds people that expanding NATO to Eastern Europe was a conscious and somewhat controversial choice in the decades following the collapse of the USSR. At least some prominent foreign policy thinkers were worried that expansion was an unnecessary provocation of Russia and would destabilize security in the region. Turns out they were right!
On the subject of how serious of a person Putin is, here is Tyler Cowen on Putin as a "man of ideas." People would do better to try to understand and grapple with Putin's ideas and worldview rather than assume them away.
Richard Hanania makes a case for why US foreign policy is worse than Putin. His concern is that anti-interventionists put themselves on the back foot by making "X person is bad, BUT" arguments for why America should stay out of conflict. It is absolutely worth a read and I think does an excellent job defending a strong claim. The upshot is not that Putin is in fact good, it is that people like Putin do bad things for predictable and comprehensible reasons, while the US is a chaotic destructive force that has seemingly no real interest in burning down much of the world, but does so anyway. Choose your fighter.
Freddie deBoer lays out the case against the "Good War" and warns people to not get caught up in the rhetoric of protecting freedom loving people and values. I think he is too pessimistic that we might actually put boots on the ground, but it is a helpful reminder that you cannot win a war with good intentions.
One reason I feel confident that we are not going to go to war over Ukraine is that there are high stakes in fighting Russia. My sense of our lack of resolve is supported by the substance of the sanctions we have so far placed on Russia. Adam Tooze has an excellent summary. The sanctions have carveouts for energy and agricultural products. What are Russia's main exports, you ask? From the OEC.
The most recent exports are led by Crude Petroleum ($123B), Refined Petroleum ($66.2B), Petroleum Gas ($26.3B), Coal Briquettes ($17.6B), and Wheat ($8.14B).
As Tooze notes:
So long as your energy-related transactions are channeled through non-sanctioned non-US financial institutions, for instance a European bank, you are in the clear.
On the flip side is Noah Smith. Noah has two columns recently laying out the pro-intervention case (but not actual boots on the ground). One is on sanctions. Smith's yardstick for which sanctions work the best are those that inflict the most pain on the Russian economy. Consequently, he is lukewarm on sanctions targeted at oligarchs or other individuals (i.e. the people who actually make the evil decisions). It's a fascinating definition of what "works." You'd think that we would evaluate sanctions based on whether they actually result in the collapse of the regime rather than how much they further immiserate the innocent people living in targeted countries. I am not aware of a sanctions regime actually bringing down an enemy (would love to know if I am wrong though). As far as I can tell, the ruling classes just scramble to secure a similarly sized slice of a smaller pie. It's a popular policy not because it has actual efficacy, but because America controls the global financial system and it accords with our messed up politics to implement sanctions while paying lip service to the greatness of liberal democracy.
Smith's other column is about how the Ukraine invasion is a "moment of clarity" that should "wake us up." He makes some perfectly valid points about how Ukraine didn't deserve this (it didn't) and how we are heading toward a multipolar and more uncertain world (seems that way!) but then draws some weird conclusions. One is that because a lot of people on the Left underestimated how belligerent Putin would be, their critique of NATO expansion is undermined. Bizarre. You don't have to speculate about NATO pissing Putin off. He has said as much numerous times in recent speeches. Perhaps he is overconfident, miscalculating, and angrier than many suspected, but that says little to nothing about the veracity of his stated reasons for invading Ukraine (this is not to say that NATO expansion is the sole reason). Noah goes on to say that those on the Right who correctly point out that Putin has done nothing to the United States must love him as an avatar of white power and trad culture.
Smith is right in his criticism of Germany. Germany unwisely and hastily abandoned nuclear power and is now dependent on Russian gas imports. It has the largest economy in Europe but has woefully underfunded its military. It is strategically vulnerable on its Eastern flank for reasons of its own making and that is preventing a coherent Western response to Putin. Germany should pivot to correct these mistakes, but doing so will take years and will not save Ukraine.
So what is Smith's solution?
The crisis of the 21st century is upon us. And we must go into this crisis with open eyes, discarding the illusions we spun for our own consumption when we took peace for granted. We can no longer afford to treat our wealthy liberal society as a fatted calf to be slaughtered and parceled out by faction.
I am not sure if this is the crisis of the 21st century -- it is plausible, but seems kind of early to make that claim. Given we have been living through an ongoing global pandemic the last two years, I am not even sure the invasion of Ukraine is even the crisis of the decade. But the human brain has not evolved beyond getting spun up about conflict between adversaries. In any event, I am not sure how a solemn moment of clarity is supposed to actually help Ukraine. That isn't the point though. Performing compassion is all that is needed to be on the right side of history.
I'll end by trying to offer some perspective, and then say what I think we should do.
- There is a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Almost the entire population is being thrown into desperate poverty and many, many people are going to starve to death. This crisis was largely manufactured by America who is actively making it hard for humanitarian assistance to enter the country and who has frozen all of the central bank's foreign reserves (the Biden administration has decided to give half back and keep the other half for 9/11 victims' families, who should be absolutely horrified to accept the money).
- Syria is a failed state, and millions of refugees have left or are actively trying to. This is a country where America decided to send weapons to arm an insurgency, thus prolonging what was likely to be a brief civil war and ensuring Syria is a permanent war zone.
- There's a horrific war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, our ally, is fighting a proxy war there. Other proxies are doing the same, and it is now also a permanent war zone.
- Libya is emerging from a decade of turmoil into an uncertain future. The US stuck its thumb on the scale in a civil war to depose the dictator Muammar Gaddafi, which left a power vacuum filled by various factions and a Potemkin UN-backed government. Muammar's son is running to lead the country in upcoming elections.
- Ethiopia is in the midst of a brutal civil war after its leader Abiy Ahmed, who won a Nobel Peace Prize, launched a campaign against the ethnic Tigrayans. As far as I can tell, the United States is not directly arming Abiy or the rebels. However, the tide has turned in that conflict after Turkey supplied drones to Abiy. Turkey, of course, is a NATO member.
- Myanmar is in the midst of civil unrest and ethnic violence after a military junta overthrew the democratically elected government. It, along with other pariah states like North Korea and Venezuela, is the target of various US-led sanctions which seem to have at best no effect other than walling off human misery.
The point here is that there is an immense amount of human suffering happening on this planet, much of it in places that have been a mess for a long time. Above are just a few examples of hot spots. The United States is not responsible for the evil perpetrated by the despots in these places; but, having inserted itself to varying degrees in many of these conflicts, it gains a stake in the outcome and some proportional responsibility for the outcome. So two takeaways:
- Don't get involved in things you cannot or will not fully commit to, or otherwise don't want to accept blame for.
- Recognize that whatever is going to happen to Ukraine is barely a blip in the amount of misery happening on this planet that most people spend their day willfully ignoring, and act appropriately.
So, that's what I am against. What am I for?
I believe in Pax Americana. I do actually believe that the United States has been on net a positive force in the world. That's a testament to how good the good stuff is! I want the United States to lead by example, which means committing itself to liberal government, civil rights, and supporting a system of open flows of goods and people among a community of nations bound by common values. These are widely held goals, but notice that none of them involves the military. Bombing people into freedom or impoverishing them into prosperity is not a real thing. I don't think people fully grasp the incongruity of what our leaders say and what they do. The real world is complex and messy, but we can do much, much better, or otherwise do nothing at all when the alternative is worse. We pull the levers that are easy to pull and have the least domestic political cost for our leaders, not necessarily the ones that make the world a better place.
Open flows of people means we should offer everyone who wants to come here a chance to do so. That includes Russians and Ukranians who want out. If you want to support democracy for Ukranians, don't prolong Russia's invasion and get more people killed by arming an insurgency there. The optimal solution is to let Ukranians come here. Ukraine is a weak democracy with rampant corruption and authoritative tendencies even when not being invaded. If people love Ukraine enough to stay and fight for it, then they should. If they don't, they should be able to come to an actually very free place.
If our politics doesn't allow us to do things that will actually help people, then we at least need to recognize the soaring rhetoric about protecting democratic values with sanctions and weapons for what it is: a grift.