How Are Things in Ukraine?

How are things in Ukraine? By now, the breathless coverage of grand Ukrainian victories over the big bad Russian bear have yielded to Vogue photoshoots of the president and first lady of Ukraine. 

I do not take this as a good sign.

At the least, I think it fair to say that certain voices on the political left have decided to go all-in on the Biden administration war policy. They want to make it appear that Joe Biden has things in hand, that he has incited Europe to unite around the great democratic cause and that it’s all going swimmingly.

As it happens, European economies are threatened by a long cold winter, without Russian gas. And a fertilizer shortage may also be looming. Besides, the resolute leaders in Europe, like Boris Johnson, Mario Draghi and even Emmanuel Macron have either been removed from power or had their power seriously diminished.

And yet, at the same time, nations allied with Russia-- there are many-- are working to create an alternative to the dollar as an international reserve currency. All signs suggest that they are working in that direction, but that the task will take some time and resolve. And yet, if the dollar loses its reserve status, the Biden policy of weaponizing the dollar will go down as one of the worst decisions in history.

Anyway, what matters to our political class is propaganda. Caitlin Johnstone explains it well, and leads us to reflect that while we are denouncing certain nations for turning their media into propaganda organs, we have been mostly doing exactly the same. It is difficult to sell freedom of the press and free expression when we do not practice them.

Johnstone writes in Medium:

Call me crazy, but I’m beginning to suspect that there might be a concerted effort to manipulate the way we think about the war in Ukraine. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say it’s the most aggressively perception-managed war we’ve ever experienced.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February we have not only been smashed with mass media propaganda unlike anything we’ve ever seen while Russian media are purged from the airwaves, we’re also seeing the new media element of unprecedented amounts of online censorship, algorithm-boosted propaganda, and social media trolling.

Obviously, it’s all about propping up the Biden presidency. Since the media has become the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, such is hardly surprising. 

But, Johnstone adds another salient point. She suggests that it is necessary for certain powers to wrap it all in propaganda, because if the people knew what was going on and knew what we were expending so much money on, they would be less than thrilled.

So we’ve literally never seen this much overall effort put into manipulating the way the public thinks about a war. Which makes sense, given that it’s a profoundly dangerous proxy war which stands to benefit ordinary people in no way, shape or form.

I mean, can you imagine if people were allowed to just think their own thoughts about their government’s economic warfare against Russia which is hurting them financially and pushing millions toward starvation with the full awareness and approval of the US government? Or if Americans were allowed to wonder if the billions they are pouring into this proxy conflict could be better spent at home? Or if people started objecting to a needless conflict for geostrategic domination threatening their lives and the lives of everyone they know with the risk of nuclear annihilation?

To be fair, Republicans are beating the war drums, at times, more loudly even than Democrats. They are not standing up and asking why we are spending so much money, when everyone knows and has known for quite some time that the result is largely predetermined, and that the more Ukraine resists the more of it will be turned to rubble.

As for the state of combat, we turn to military historian Victor Davis Hanson.

He opens a recent essay by noting that the war seems to have gotten to the “gridlocked carnage” stage. Russia seems not to be able to win outright, but it is not going to allow itself to lose. At the same time, its armies have taken over most of Eastern Ukraine. And it is reducing resistance by turning cities into rubble. Thus, Ukraine is being destroyed:

When war becomes such gridlocked carnage, each side looks to new game-changing diplomacy, strategies, allies, or weapons to break the deadlock.

For Putin, such escalation means more flesh, steel, and explosives. His country is 28 times bigger than Ukraine, and over three times more populous, with an economy 15 times larger.

How badly is Putin being hurt by Western sanctions? Not very badly at all, Hanson suggests. Besides, Europeans talk tough but their resolve will be sorely tested by a cold winter and by shut down factories:

As for Putin’s financial reserves, the Western oil boycott means increasingly little to him when 40% of the planet’s population in India and China are eager to secure near-limitless Russian energy.

Another 750 million people in Europe once talked tough. But as a second winter nears, their gas and oil imports from Russia will further wither. Then their Churchillian rhetoric may chill.

The result: America will be propping up Ukraine, increasingly, all by itself:

So, the Ukrainian war increasingly will depend on endless U.S. aid and escalation.

You might be thrilled to see the West united against Russian aggression, but still, Russian diplomacy has worked well:

As global inflation spikes, recession looms, and oil prices soar, some of our sworn and de facto allies, including India and Turkey, prefer Russian oil to Western sermons.

True enough, aside from the cash and weapons, the West is mostly offering sermons:

The heroic Ukrainian resistance may have brought European NATO states and the United States closer. But oddly, Ukraine’s supporters seemed to have soured the rest of the world on Western economic boycotts and sanctions — and the torpid leadership of President Joe Biden and his European counterparts.

In the West, there are dissident rumblings of a possible plebiscite to adjudicate the Russian-speaking Ukrainian borderlands — with possible guarantees of an Austria-like, non-NATO neutrality for Ukraine.

But such compromise talk earns charges of appeasement from Western zealots. Apparently, American moralists intend to fight for the principle of the sanctity of national borders to the last Ukrainian.

Of course, as has often been noted, we have opened our own borders to a flood of invading migrants, but we are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian for a principle that we do not obey.

And the propaganda media, not the mention the opposition political party, has not informed the public of the cost:

Vastly upping aid to Ukraine has become the cause celebre of the West. But few have fully explained the ensuing costs and dangers of escalation to the American people. The United States appears to be heading into a stagflationary recession following the loss of deterrence from the Afghanistan catastrophe and with restive renegades like Iran and North Korea joining the Beijing-Moscow nuclear axis.

Hanson hints at the possibility that we become militarily involved, an unlikely prospect. But given our sorry performance in Afghanistan and Iraq, we do not have very much credibility left.

For now, no one knows whether greater American escalation would tip the balance for an allied democratic victory, and a repeat of our savior role in the two World Wars. Or will the proxy war suck the United States into a Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan-like quagmire?

Worse: Will our intervention trump even the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis — with the nuclear standoff nightmarishly unpredictable?

As the old saying goes: Have a nice day!