Main Edition
US
FR
Don't play Putin's game (FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images)
The images emerging from Bucha are haunting. Dead civilians line the streets, many with their hands bound behind their backs. They are the victims of systematic executions, left to rot before the Russians decided to retreat.
Reports of such atrocities always strike a chord across Western Europe and North America. They played a key part in mobilising popular sentiment against Germany in 1914. They were crucial in persuading the United States to intervene in the Balkans in the Nineties. Every time, they have encouraged us to conceptualise war as a moral struggle between good and evil.
The invasion of Ukraine has been no different. It has become common for commentators in the West to compare Putin’s Russia to the ultimate evil actor of modern history, Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is portrayed as Captain America.
Even Joe Biden appeared to endorse this Manichean contrast during his recent trip to Warsaw, describing the conflict as a struggle between the light and the dark: “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.” The Pope also used similar language on his trip to Malta last weekend, declaring that “from the east of Europe, from the land of the sunrise, the dark shadows of war have now spread”.
I don’t disagree. When an invading army uses rape as a weapon of war and mercilessly bombs civilians in a theatre, what better word than evil can we use? Likewise, even if he is only human, Zelenskyy’s leadership has undoubtedly been heroic. Yet there is a problem with framing the war in Ukraine — and every struggle that came before it — as a battle between light and darkness. It may be a powerful rhetorical device, but it clouds our understanding of who is fighting and, ultimately, can prolong and intensify a conflict.
Consider the fact that, even as the West frames the war in Ukraine as a struggle of good against evil, the Kremlin is doing exactly the same. Putin has repeatedly portrayed the invasion as a “special operation” to “denazify” the region. Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, even blessed the invasion as “God’s truth”, a necessary measure to bring together the people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThe middle path is a lonely route these days. The internet has been so neatly polarised over the last decade – exponentially so in the last 2 years – that in the face of this horrific new global conundrum, the first instinctive question is: “which side am I on?”. Questioning the prevailing progressive narrative immediately provokes abstract and even unconscious associations with Donald Trump, COVID-sceptics, Brexiteers, misogyny, racism or even (insert favourite issue here).
Ironically, the extremes on the left and the right can almost agree on the war. Hopefully such painful contradictions will reveal both ideologies as useless vehicles to navigate a clear path ahead for a world hurtling towards an uncertain future. Thank you Unherd for being a safe haven for free thought and expression.
Whatever the problems in Ukraine they have invaded nobody and are simply defending themselves. They are not perfect but they are in the right by defending themselves by a brutal Russia. The West’s woke is a weakness and leaves us open to a legitimate criticism from Russia. We are called the land of sodom in Russia with good justification. So neither are we in the right. Regardless though the west is right in defending Ukraine in their quest for freedom and deliverance. Putin has no moral right to do what he is doing and neither has the Russian Orthodox Church who are anti Semitic and often against the christians who bring faith and healing to their land.
I agree with you friend. And let’s face it, not one of us as individuals would hold up to a perfection test. To expect brilliance out of a nation state or a culture is to ignore the brutal realities of human existence. Our collective suffering knows no bounds, and it is the best we can do to prevent the slide into tyranny and barbarism.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a staunch defender of liberal democracy and I respect her deeply. She is merely pointing out that if we are to truly meet the complexity of 2022 with grace, we must abandon the Good v Evil framework and prevent things from ossifying along neatly polarised lines. Our worst enemy is ourselves; Ukraine will suffer longer and more deeply if the West becomes polarised over it’s own global self-image.
We have to be able to question the political motivations of our leaders when it comes to supporting Ukraine (but failing to support them decisively). We must prevent ourselves from falling prey to our own propaganda. No one is immune from the pull towards self-righteousness and the tyranny that invariably follows.
The middle path was just as lonely 1939-45.
Think how few could see the good on both sides!
Hard to imagine being German in 1930’s. The reality of what happened there has stood in stark relief for the world to study and yet the lessons have all but been forgotten. Perhaps it really is cyclical?
Human nature never changes. That is why there is religion. (Cue “As an atheist…”)
I actually don’t understand the point this article is trying to make. Is it trying to say that there isn’t a right and wrong in this conflict, simply because Ukraine has a far right minority (the political parties poll nowhere, and the Azov battalion is a few thousand out of a population of 40 million) and Russia has Muslim conscripts?
I thought the point was that seeing the war as part of a titanic struggle between good and evil isn’t conducive to analyzing the complexity of the situation – an analysis that might allow for more effective retaliation.
That is true Russell.
In which case she might have said it all with just two or three sentences – a short paragraph at most.
When you’re being invaded, complexity is simplified. Surrender or resist.
No, it is saying that there might be a right side and a wrong side, but not a good side and an evil side. To actually understand – and fight – this, we need to look at reality. Ukraine is a democratic, independent nation with some blemishes that deserves to live in peace, but not a congregation of angels. Russia is a multi-ethnic empire, rump after the USSR fell to pieces, who wants a bigger share of the post-USSR spoils division, and who needs the false mystique of the great empire and ‘the Russian peoples’ as a way of keeping its nation together and its power up. They are not (just) evil madmen. If we airbrush out the Azov batallion and Russia’s actual interests, we present a picture that is visibly false. That leaves other people with a choice of lies, and they might not choose ours. Better to stick to a more realistic presentation so that the undecided can recognise the picture and might be willing to be convinced.
To me the author seemed to be confusing the two. I don’t believe any nation is inherently good or evil, however that isn’t to say they can’t be right or wrong which seemed to be the point the author was trying to make if I read it correctly. In my eyes it’s pretty clear cut who is who in this scenario, with one party simply defending its territory from a much larger aggressor.
I think there are at least two other points worth considering in this analysis (and I have no doubt I won’t garner much sympathy here for raising them).
The first is that the seeds of this conflict are not exclusively to be found in Putin’s despotism, or Russia’s hubris. There are legitimate security concerns that motivated the invasion. It is simply a fact that NATO has been pushing harder and harder against Russia’s western border, with no real attempt to find a solution. Why, for example, could a formal Finland-style agreement not have been agreed in 2014? This may not have stopped Russia from eventually invading, but it would at least have robbed Putin of any legitimate claims to his aggression. And likewise, does any serious objective commentator deny there have been serious human rights violations against ethnic Russians in the east of Ukraine? Where was the moral outrage over these things?
But the bigger point is that the West has sacrificed all claims to moral authority by failing to imprison Blair, Bush and the other war criminals who condemned hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to death, on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but credible enforcement of standards requires some degree of objectivity. The Western propaganda machine has none. So in the end, I am left to conclude that this proxy war is not a fight between good and bad at all, but merely a fight between Mordor and Isengaard. We (Mordor) will likely win. So what.
The fact Russia has been carving territory from Ukraine for the last 8 years (and Georgia before that) just shows why all those Eastern European nations were desperate to join NATO in the first place. If Ukraine had joined they wouldn’t now be facing the danger they now are. Why should they not have been allowed to improve their defensive capabilities just to appease the very nation that they wanted protecting from in the first place?
Or enabling the Russian majority in those regions to exercise the right of self-determination a la Kosovo
And what if those states in the east genuinely do want autonomy from Ukraine, and what if 14,000 citizens in that area really have been killed by Ukrainian forces since 2014, and what if the 2014 ‘revolution’ really was a regime-change implemented by USA and other interested parties, and what if the biolabs were installed for illegal weaponisation, and what if Hunter Biden really was involved in the building and funding of those labs, and what if Zelensky really is just a puppet leader installed by the west?
I don’t know the answers to all of these questions, but I do know that it isn’t quite as simple as Putin bad man and NATO/USA good.
I know the answer to several with quite high probability. First the easy ones:
On Donetsk you have a point. There are a lot of Russian-speakers in Eastern Ukraine, yes, and many of them surely would prefer to be part of Russia. This happens any time an Empire breaks up: People who were full imperial citizens (maybe even of the dominant group) suddenly find themselves a suspected minority in someone else’s nation state. Ethnic gouprs live too mixed-up to be separated cleanly. Language and loyalties do not match the old provincial borders. There are territories that could reasonably be claimed by several different nations (Russia and Ukraine would both seem to have some kind of reasonable claim on Crimea, for instance). Russia has legitimate grievances here. As does Ukraine. The solution, as practised all over Africa that is full of ill-fitting borders, is that whatever you do, do not go to war. There are infinite causes of war, if you want them, and the realignment is not worth the bloodshed. Russia went to war. The 14000 casualties you mention (Is the number real? Were they Russian? Were they killed by Ukrainians? Were they armed insurgents?) died in a civil war / separatist rebellion started and sustained by Russia. People die in civil wars. If you want to prove Ukrainian guilt you need to show that Ukraine has been committing war crimes or the equivalent, and that Ukrainian behaviour has been very much worse than (pro)Russian behaviour in that war. And even so a major part of the blame still falls on Russia, who started the fighting in the first place.
I wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing with any of the questions I posed. I was simply listing just a handful of questions that could and should be asked, and in some cases debated in the way you have so elequently done.
My concern is that we are now living in a world where in Europe/US/Australia/Canada, etc, you cannot even ask questions. There is rapidly becoming one narrative, one truth, and one opinion allowed Rather like with COVID there was only one viewpoint allowed and you had to follow ‘The Science’.
Thankfully on Unherd’ there is less censorship and a willingness for people to discuss and debate. That is healthy. Just accepting and repeating the MSM propaganda is not IMHO.
There is a lot of groupthink, yes. But except for the point about Donetsk, I do not think your questions are particularly good ones. As with COVID, there are the questions you ask because you want to understand what is happening, and there are the questions because you simply want to undermine the current story and use insinuations in the absence of reliable evidence. Hunter Biden as a key agent in a bioweapons plot does not deserve the time of day, unless you have specific evidence.
The questions I would hear more of are other ones: Are the Russians deliberately targeting and terrorising civilians, for instance? I would not be surprised – after all they did it in Syria – but it is hard from the unreliable evidence to distinguish between was crimes and just plain war. And Ukrainians are lying too. The attack on Krasnomosk railway station, for instance, was that really to kill refugees, or just a military operation to destroy a railway communications node behind the front? It makes no difference if it is your family being hit, of course, but it makes a difference to the coverage.
Also, what are Russia’s real aims here? It cannot be just border security, whatever their delusions, which means that simply having Ukraine neutral will not answer the question. My guess is that they need complete domination of Ukraine as part of 1) the myth of a strong, Russian empire they need to keep the nation together, 2) the status of great power, for teh same reaaon, 3) avoid subversive examples of functinoal democracy. Which is quite important for how to deal with them. But here it would be great with some knowledgable discussion.
I am sorry I see it very differently.
For example you might dismiss Hunter Biden’s involvement as a nothing-burger, but if it was a nothing-burger why was there a complete cover-up by the media, the CIA and the FBI for well over a year?
Even now we are still struggling to discover what Hunter Biden’s exact involvement was, why/if he was abusing his father’s position, how much money was involved, etc. This isn’t just some John Doe we are talking about. It is the son of (debatably) the most powerful man in the world. If this was a nothing-burger all of these questions would have been answered eighteen months ago. For all that time if you even mentioned this laptop you were thrown off Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc. If it is unimportant why the massive cover-up? Anyone following this for the last eighteen months knows it makes Watergate look like a bit of office politics. Problem is that most people believed the lies and didn’t even think it existed until the NYT broke the story.
I tend to watch Indian news, and news from other non-western countries (language permitting) so admittedly get a completely different perspective and all the questions you seem to think are unimportant are actually being reported on and discussed by probably two thirds of the world. Not everyone is as accepting of the answers being given by our politicians, many of whom have a known track record for telling lies.
Only ‘the West’ are dismissing these questions as not ‘particularly good ones’. Many people around the world, and even in the west, are not dismissing these things as conspiracy theories just because the BBC or factcheckers say it is so. I can’t help but think that this is completely down to the ‘groupthink’ you refer to.
Maybe you know more than I. But what the Hunter Biden story looks like from here is that Hunter Biden had a career as investor and lobbyist with various board positions. Did he profit a lot from his father being Senator and Vice President? Almost certainly – just like the oil career of Bush Junior surely benefited from the position of Bush Senior. Was he selling access to his father? Most likely. There seems to have been a meeting arranged with some Ukrainians. As for the laptop, it was surfaced by the Trump campaign just before the 2020 election, and it was not clear who had had it in hand or might have modified its contents. Genuine or not, it was an obvious Trump smear operation, and the media could not validate it in time and anyway refused to play Trumps game and give credibility to the laptop. I cannot see that there are any questions remaining that require an answer. And a ‘cover-up’ requires that there is something hidden to find. From here on I think the burden of proof is on the people who claim there is something big to find.
Ramus addressed the questions you posed very well. I would like to turn back to Putin.
Putin’s strategic objective is not a mystery. He has told the world several times: he wants to rebuild the Russian empire (both Soviet and czarist). It is a western conceit to think it is all about us and what we do and what we want.
With the Ukrainian breadbasket under his control Russia will be even more self sufficient than it already is. They don’t “need” the west, Europe needs Russia more than Russia needs Europe.
What I find interesting is that Iran, Russia, the Saudis seem to think that laying down with China will go well for them in the long run. But given the West’s apparent thirst for cultural self destruction, perhaps they are all simply hedging their bets. If that happens the West will experience the worst of it.
So please, yes, let’s assume we are the center of the universe, and that we are bad. We are certainly flawed but less so I think than the balance of the “great powers.”
Hunter is a misfit. And likely corrupt. But he’s not that important in the big picture. He’s a bit player, a distraction that just needs to be addressed.
agreed
1) There are no legitimate Russian security concerns. The risk of Nato attacking Russia is non-existent. According to the Rand corporation and their analysis of Russian defence procurement the Russians actually believe it, but it is still a fantasy.
2) The whole point of ‘Finlandisation’ was that Finland accepted up front that in return for not being invaded they would never do anything that upset the USSR. It is obvious why Ukraine was not willing to accept that – even before you consider that Putins Russia woudl be highly unlikely to tolerate a prosperous and democratic Ukraine. After all, he did not want his own people to get ideas.
“There are no legitimate Russian security concerns.” You and I may not think so, but we have to allow that some Russians may see the world differently. We should not be surprised, as our histories are so different. This should not be read as an excuse for Putin. But we have to take account of it.
Just look at our (UK) recent record. We and our friends set about them in the Crimea in 1854 to stop them rolling over ‘Johnny Turk’, their traditional enemy. Then the ‘Great Game’ which ultimately resulted in us releasing our ‘attack dog’ Japan on them with encouraging results in 1905. Come 1919, we made an albeit feeble attempt to ‘strangle the Bolshevik child in its cradle’, but the animosity was there.
Finally we all seem to have forgotten the Cold War rather quickly.
Indeed. Russian might forgive these transgressions as part and parcel of international relations. But if I were a Russian, The Great Patriotic War might seem like a determined attempt at the extermination of all Russians by a western power. I have to keep saying it “I do not sympathise with Putin and I find his behaviour bestial”, but I think that it is a good idea to understand where he is coming from.
Yes, completely agree, Adolph & Co did about the same amount of damage to the Russian psyche as the Mongols of the 13th century, which is quite a bit different to loosing 13 Test Matches on the trot.
Western behaviour is no less bestial, of course.
On the whole, no it isn’t. With of course the exception of Nazi Germany. Woke self-flagellation isn’t my thing.
A good idea if it can be achieved but who can get into the mind of the former head of the KGB who aleady had a murderous reputation against their own people?
More recently, they were given an absolute promise that there would never be NATO tanks on their border, until that promise was abandoned.
I have no doubt that there has always been an influential faction in US decision making circles which wishes to see regime change in Moscow, with Putin replaced by someone more pliable.
I do not doubt it that many in the US would like to see the back of Putin’s regime. Then, personally I would love to see Putin replaced with someone less revanchist and aggressive – not that I think the West woudl have much success if we tried to make it happen. But the risk to Russia is from subversion, support for democratic opposition, or support for nations who try to get out from under Russias domination. Having Ukraine in the EU (or even in NATO, much as that will never happen) is not a *military* threat to Russia.
As for ‘NATO tanks on their border’ foreign NATO troops only started to be garrisoned *after* Russia began to conquer bits of neighbouring countries. It would not be that hard for Russia to negotiate a reduced military presence in their neighbours – if they could give a credible guarantee that Russia would not exploit the situation to intimidate or conquer those same neighbours. But – since that is exactly what they do want to do – they can hardly make that guarantee.
But up until the Russians started helping themselves to the Ukrainians territory there were no tanks or heavy weapons situated in the eastern bloc, its only after those nations quite understandably became nervous of Russias increasingly aggressive behaviour that those type of offensive weapons were placed there.
Don’t forget that Ukraine had a written agreement from Russia not to invade in exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal, something Russia has blatantly ignored for the last 8 years so it’s a bit rich for them to blame NATO provocation for their aggression.
For years now the RAF have had to scramble fighter jets every few days to prevent Russian planes from entering its airspace north of Scotland, would this give the UK reason enough to launch cruise missiles into civilian areas of Moscow and St Petersburg citing Russian provocation and the need to defend itself?
Strangling the Bolshevik child in it’s cradle as you put it would have saved the death of millions, particularly in Siberia. If ever there was an evil empire it was the USSR who swallowed up countries like there was no tomorrow. Indeed strangling the Bolshevik child would have been a great service to Russia as many there can now see.
Czar Nicholas II had the hairbrained idea of attacking the Japanese navy in 1905. It resulted in Russia losing almost its entire fleet in the straits of Tsushima off Japan. Japan was not Britain’s “attack dog” as you so disparagingly describe it. Every Russian tyrant in history has gone down in a blaze of failure, including Stalin who was responsible for millions of unnecessary Russian deaths through his incompetence and paranoia. Putin is following the doleful tradition.
Fair enough
I suppose they cannot conceive of powerful nations not wanting to take over other nations as that is what they have been doing for practically the whole of the last centrury. We have to get across to them that we have no designs on their country and wish to live in peace.
You mean that we should accept a pychopathic dictator’s delusions as having some kind of moral value ?? If you take that course , then, you will be having sympathies with (fill in the gaps here). Nasties only respect the line in the sand and the big stick – which should have been drawn quite some time ago to prevent this catastrophe. we are such slow learners and so ignorant of history that the ukraine invasion looks almost like a cliche ie megalomaniac expansionist invades nieghbour to expand pseudo empire -timed to happen during world events that MIGHT distract from the blatant criminality of the act. How many times has this happened in history under similar circumstances – ad nauseum -and now one of the four horsemen has again been released – and once released is damn hard to ‘rein’ back in – as is the case always. Gawd who are the ignoramuses that we pay to hold perspective on likely excursions of the four horsemen – seems that 2 are out there now marauding- with no clear indications of the outcomes. A failure of leadership yet again, another cliche.
No legitimate security concerns? When were you last invaded, and compare that to recent Russian history? You may as well flip the sentiment on its head, and ask what NATO’s concerns are, considering it was founded to counter the USSR, which no longer exists.
NATO’s concerns are/were after c.1990, er, being invaded by Russia. I wonder why that would be a concern?
If you read the justifications for continuing NATO after the collapse of the USSR, you will not find any such fear expressed. Germany thought it would be useful to keep NATO because resource wars, such as for water, were bound to intensify. The huge machine and its bureaucracy produced other excuses, I think I remember the need to prevent Abkhazia conqueringGeorgia, but there was never any mention of continuing the Cold War. Indeed, Putin wanted to join NATO, which also signals a change of direction..
You think NATO was concerned about Russia, just after the entire USSR had bankrupted itself and collapsed? Even today, NATO spends ten times more than Russia on defence.
I’m not being a Russian apologist, but you have to look at things from both sides.
Indeed you do. Actually, I’m encouraged that so many, at least on UnHerd, are keeping a somewhat open mind, when you look at the faeces-storm of propaganda blowing out from the mainstream media.
It appears that it is raising it’s ugly head again though.
Most of Europe was either invaded or faced the threat of it just as recently as Russia did, in the Second World War.
You make some good point on here Rasmus.
Your first point palpably fails to hold water. Given the previous actions of the West, an in particular the US, most recently in Belarus (2021) and Ukraine (2014), I would say it is a legitimate concern
>There are no legitimate Russian security concerns.
Unfortunately it is not up to you or me to decide. If they have that concern that means it exists and it is real (for them). Or you are saying they should *believe* that there is no real concern? Like Libyans or Syrians or people in Belgrade a few of those I happen to know personally? And if Russians will be scared to the full extent and finally press the BIG RED button and we all perish in flames, our last squeak would be “we meant no harm”?
Unlike Libya or Syria or Serbia (or Ukraine) there is no real risk of a military attack on Russia. Apparently their fears are real, not a pretence, and as such we need to consider them. But I would not call their security concerns ‘legitimate’ when they are based on a fantasy.
Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan may well have thought there was no legitimate security concerns for them, but we decided to pump out the propaganda and go in with horrific effect killing millions of citizens of those countries either directly or indirectly
I agree with this comment. It’s spot on.
I recommend an article on 1 April 2022 in The Postil by Jacques Baud that lays out the overall chronology and drivers of the tragic conflict in Ukraine. He is an ex Swiss / UN intelligence service officer.
Fascinating that the author of this Unherd article sees Putin as deploying a colonial army. One person’s “empire” is another’s “association of nations”. In his speeches Putin actually lauds the multi national status of Russia and its diversity. There are videos of various people of different nationalities proclaiming how they are both Russian and Chechen, or even Russian and German.
Zero recognition in this article or the comments that a civil war in Ukraine was already in flight since 2014, nor that Putin invoked UN Article 51 to justify his intervention.
The western narrative is a highly propagandized one, tinged with Russophobia. A western world (primarily) with the track record it has of regime change, invasions and bombings may think of itself as Gondor but I am less convinced that much of the world sees us as that. We are evil imperialists in their eyes. More self reflection might be useful.
A civil war largely fomented by Russia, right? OK, there is nothing particularly surprising about the successor states of a broken-up empire having fights, left-behind linguistic minorities, and more or less legitimate conflicting territorial claims. But unlike NATO or the EU Russia is not an ‘association of nations’ because Russia is the one nation that has all the power (and indeed most of the other nations are actually part of Russia). Nor, as the author points out is it a nation-state, not even to the same degree as Spain or the UK are. Calling it an Empire, much like Rome, does sound like the most precise description.
A “civil war” in the east that is predominantly fought between Ukrainian soldiers and Russian soldiers and mercenaries
Oh no, not the “legitimate security concerns” argument again!
It sounds eminently reasonable, but isn’t, because all of the NATO members are active democracies, with vocal and disparate opinions, whereas Russia is steadily becoming more and more authoritarian, indeed ‘fascist’, glorifying nationalism and naked military might and suppressing or murdering those who resist.
How about Ukraine’s “legitimate security concerns”? If circumstances were different, i.e. that Ukraine was more populous, aggressive, and hadn’t voluntarily given up nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee of territorial integrity, might it not Russian occupation of Crimea be considered a threat to its security?
This excuse comes from Putin, and is based on the silly idea that NATO is an amorphous and monolithic entity, physically entering its members. For example, British armed forces in Estonia are small, a token, really, and are there only by invitation, and if tiny Estonia asked the , far more powerful British to remove them, who doubts but that they would?
So were the US, the UK, Australia and the other ‘coalition of the willing’ partners ‘active democracies’ in 2004 when they invaded Iraq and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians?
What about Canada’s treatment of the Truckers last month? Freeze your bank account if you don’t want our experimental vaccine?
Sorry if your exhausted by dissenting views, but your narrative simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Your argument seems to embody the overly simplistic framing of circumstances that, in hindsight, led to the rather foolish decisions made by western politicians you call out. The world is a complex place replete with arrogance on all sides.
My question is this: given your Mordor vs Isengard sentiment, what will you do? Is China or Iran your champion? If not then on which side will you fight? The west requires citizens to guide it. You may choose to be a spectator critic, but critics pick a side or at least argue a perspective.
All I get from your comment is: west bad. Russia bad. Okay, then now what?
I’m glad you asked. My champions are the values of liberal democracy and human rights, the things we are ‘meant’ to stand for.
What do you do? First, you clean up your own house. You stop the madness of lockdowns, medical tyranny, captured regulators and the visegrip of Big Tech on media discourse. Until this is done, we have no business looking to any third countries.
Then you tackle the problem of dependence on despots like Putin for energy, through a mix of smart nuclear and renewables. You build a strong 21st Century economy that can credibly export itsl model to the rest of the world, and you predicate that export product on adherence to liberal humanist values.
Then you implement actual defence policies, which recognise the geopolitical realities and legitimate interests of others. A demilitarised Ukraine. A non-nuclear proliferation agenda. International solutions for disputed regions like Donbass.
Actually, none of this stuff is rocket science. The issue is that our media narrative has steered the debate so that it is obscuring what should be obvious paths. Hence the need to clean up our own house first.
There are lies swimming about all the time in the airways, particularly from Russia in the present conflict. We have a duty to get a clear picture so that we ourselves don’t become part of the problem.
Yes, Manichaean is a good word to describe the way some – the internet, mostly – would have you view what’s happening in Ukraine.
“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
– George Orwell
The picture of the Azov Battalion given in this article is an outdated one, as experts on far right groups in Europe, will tell you. They have no link now to the far right and the overwhelming majority of its soldiers have not got far right sympathies. There are some with such unsavoury views, but so there are in every army. Also, in the last general election, Ukraine’s far right parties got some two and a half percent of the votes, that’s many fewer that in several other European countries including Germany and Austria.
I think in many ways we are looking at a war between bad and worse.
Ukraine is a state with endemic corruption, tolerance for fascist beliefs, mistreatment of ethnic minorities and so on. It’s bad. Given a choice between Ukraine and, say, Poland or Hungary I’d pick either of the latter over Ukraine. But it is an order of magnitude better than Russia, which is fundamentally a brutal mafia state that abuses history to claim dominion over places that do not want to be ruled from Moscow.
I don’t get the impression that it’s bad; flawed, more like, with good prospects for improvement.
Laughable. The author adopts a point of view- that ‘the West’ ( that’s you and me and curiously South Korea and Japan and the Antipodes) sees this in simple terms. That’s patently absurd. That’s why we’re debating this and that’s the difference compared to a country where a lawyer can be arrested outside a courthouse for merely defending the accused. Putin’s speeches are rapidly turning into deranged rants from the Stalinist era- recently accusing any Russian who lives in the West as being a rat who needs crushing etc. Very dangerous. Spare me the West isn’t perfect arguments. This is the Shangri La argument. Somewhere on Earth there is the perfect country and the West falls down against it. Except that country doesn’t exist and it turns out that this imaginary country is cast in the mould of the writer’s own politics and by that comparison the West is evil/incompetent/failing/morally corrupt/degenerate etc. Go and live in Shangri La then.
Wrong target. There are people who very much deserve your comments – but this article does not.
Fair point Rasmus though this morning I’d like to add three words: Kramatorsk Train Station. Time to read some more Natalya Gorbanevskaya ( put in a psychiatric hospital and tortured for being part of Samizdat). A very long history of brutal repression.
“Except that country doesn’t exist”.
I am sorry but I must disagree. That country is called England, and it still exists………….just.
Bravo! And I don’t mean that ironically.
I agree Arnaud. For God’s sake we’re imperfect and could do better. We don’t lock up people arbitrarily though. Recent case (sorry no ref) where source of info refused by defendant. Last I heard he hasn’t been spirited away and his lawyer hasn’t been arrested.
Not since Blair it hasn’t
Only just. We are heading downhill it appears unless something groundbreaking happens.
The ‘Winter of Discontent’ is only about nine months away. Perhaps this will prove the catalyst?
“A country where a lawyer can be arrested outside a courthouse for merely defending the accused”
Would that be the US or Russia?
“Spare me the West isn’t perfect arguments.”
On any balance assessment there is no a great deal of difference between the West (particularly the US) and Russia
There is a vast difference and you know it. I may not agree with the views of numerous politicians but I’m not going to be sent to the gulag for complaining about them
Er. I thought Manicheanism went out some two millennia ago.
Nobody that I’m aware of sees Ukraine as anything but a flawed, but still viable democracy.
The writer refutes a strawman argument–by making a strawman argument.
‘Manicheanism went out some two millennia ago’. It is very much still with us, and is the very essence of what now gets called ‘woke’.
It is indeed with us in the form of Wokeism, and especially in the thinking of many people (particularly amongst the young) in the West.
It is one of the three damaging thought patterns being inculcated in the young, as set out in The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff:
[My paraphrasing.]
Put more succinctly and eloquently than in my comment. Thanks.
While agree with most of Ayaan’s writing, let’s address existence of far-Right antisemitic groups in Ukraine. First we have to acknowledge existence of such groups and parties in pretty much every country of the West. Even Israel has its own antisemites. So why deny Ukraine’s “right” (in parentheses of course) to have their own Nazis? But let’s talk about the above mentioned Svoboda. Only once (!) they had been present in Ukrainian Rada (parliament) and disappeared from there after next elections. It is really a marginalized group of people without even slightest resemblance of the popular support. As for Azov, on numerous occasions it’s first and subsequent commanders unequivocally denounced Nazism. The issue of course is controversial and there had been reports from the past of some members expressing extremist views but we still yet to have credible information about their presence in today’s structure of Azov. If Nazis are still there today they are very well hidden. There are no good and bad wars, for they are all horrible. But there are necessary wars, and for Ukraine this war is necessary, and in that context it can be called “good”. As for evil, well, it is usually on the opposing side of the “good”.
I agree. It’s not a ‘good’ war, but a just war (from the Ukrainian perspective).
Very silly article. The good and evil stuff is irrelevant “ intellectual” indulgence. Doesn’t every half decent adult with an ounce of common sense and an open mind not see who is in the wrong here and needs to be sent packing? Of course nobody is perfect and to pretend otherwise would be foolish but when the scales are so obviously and incontrovertibly weighted on one side it’s just daft to suggest we should play a game of equivocation and pretended balance.
The good guys vs the bad guys is just the easiest way of describing it to the hoopleheads and getting them on board. All astute observers understand this as Ayaan must. I sympathise with the frustration but this article seems unnecessary.
“…it would be foolish to whitewash the far-Right elements in Ukraine’s politics and military.”
Sure, don’t whitewash them, just ignore them because they are irrelevant to the moral calculation, not to mention electorally insignificant. This is a very disappointing article from someone I respect.
Instead of making specious arguments like this, it might be well to consider Russian history, and how Putin’s failure will affect the country.
HIs regime has suffered a massive defeat, with massive casualties. Very soon this is going to become apparent to most Russians. In the 1930s, when Stalin’s failures at dekulakization, collectivization and industrialization resulted in mass deaths, he was forced to begin the Great Terror. It was either that or his own elimination.
And now, just as in the 1930s, the only real alternative is to place the blame on “traitors” and “spies.” The plan was foolproof–but it was betrayed to Japanese–oops–EU spies. So the question becomes: can Putin transfer his own psychosis about Ukraine and Ukrainians to the larger Russian population?
If he can do this, the number of victims inside Russia may well be far larger than any losses on the battlefield.
But, as with Stalin in the 1930s, Putin will survive.
And to Putin, that’s all that’s important .
“when Stalin’s failures at dekulakization, collectivization and industrialization resulted in mass deaths, he was forced to begin the Great Terror. It was either that or his own elimination.”
I do not think that is actually correct. On a political level the purges were about score settling an removing potential rivals.
On a more general the Soviet Union was, from the outset a terror state. It built a terror machine and it needed feeding. The purges of the 1930s were simply a continuation of dekulakization just with a different target.
As to the target, it is surprising how many of the pre-Soviet elite morphed into the Soviet elite (the elite never change just shape shift), so it is not surprising that Soviet elite, and particularly the armed forces and the intellectual class, became the focus of the purges. The way in which senior Party members were prepared to eat their own in the process suggests they actually believed in what they were doing.
As for Stalin’s “failures at dekulakization, collectivization and industrialization”, I think that mass deaths were part of the plan and thought that the Party believed them to be successes.
Correct. And the original revolution was a coalition of socialists, only once it had succeeded, Lenin set about eliminating those socialists in any way possible, by creating the Cheka, a predecessor of Putin’s employer and trainer, the KGB.
It was a very old-fashioned human drive, the thirst for power, followed by the need to maintain it and avoid replacement by someone else, and its also old-fashioned to use an ideology of some sort, to sanctify immoral acts.
You’re falling for the image that Stalin sought to project, not the actual reality of a leader whose grandiose plans were going awry, and feared his own elimination.
All three of these were disasters that greatly weakened Russia, particularly when they made then Stalin terrified of a military coup. The debacle in 1941 was a direct result of the earlier failures.
And “potential rivals” indeed. Any Soviet leader at the time could have presented an excellent case that Stalin need to be removed–and eliminated.
One has to understand the extreme vulnerabilities that nearly all Russian leaders have felt to understand why they behave in ways we find difficult to understand.
Again I think you are wrong.
If you read from the accounts at the time the senior members of the Party were travelling the republics competing to fill quota’s for executions and deportations regardless of reason. They were all bought in believing what they were doing was, for whatever reason, necessary.
No on in any position of power thought that any of the policies of dekulakization, collectivization and industrialization were failures and in many senses they were not.
As to potential rivals, well there was Trotsky who Stalin always loathed and Bukharin for whom he seemed to have utter contempt. Neither presented a threat to him but he took personal satisfaction in their deaths. There were also those that had crossed him on his way up. Again they were not threat and Stalin was just settling scores. Indeed, he even took satisfaction in tormenting his long standing allies such as Molotov which it seems to me he did as a demonstration of his contempt for their weakness, and much the same I think is true of the intellectual class.
The armed forces is a more interesting issue. They were never a threat to Stalin, but he could have been motivated by the thought that they might someday be a threat, especially as the officer ranks were stuffed with the elite of the old regime whose loyalty had to be suspect. But equally, because of the civil war, the old elite had been admitted into the ranks of the army as a last resort and it could have been a bit of house cleaning on the way to building a true peoples’ army. Also, you have to acknowledge the fact that even under totalitarian regimes purge, once started, run out of control and build a momentum all of their own.
What Putin is doing in Ukraine is evil. Is AHA really doubting that? That does not mean that all Ukrainians are saints – no one is seriously suggesting they are. What they are is victims who did nothing to provoke this invasion and the carnage that has followed. I am an admirer of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but I don’t see the point of this article.
She was saying that it is just more complicated than just good versus evil.
As if we didn’t know.
Most of the things in the world are complicated and complex. This war certainly is.
But I hope some capable writer will write an essay to clarify why we should condemns Putin’s war of invasion of Ukraine.
To me, Putin’s war is evil because it violates the fundamentals of the international law, i.e. national sovereignty and territorial integrity. If we sit on our hands watching Russian troops crossing the border to destroy Ukrainian cities and slaughter the people, human civilisation will soon be a slippery slope.
This is a perfectly reasonable case, although one has to immediately ask, is it then illegitimate or counter productive to paint Hitler himself – or indeed Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot as ‘Hitler’ or the devil?
At some stage there will have to be a negotiated settlement. Unless you intend to fight a war to the death, as the allies did with Hitler’s Germany, there is little advantage in painting the other guy as the devil. I note, grimly, that Putin is demonstrating the efficacy of a nuclear deterrent.
I’d wager Ukraine is regretting giving up their nuclear deterrent in exchange for Russian guarantees that clearly mean nothing
Difficult to argue with that. I would query though, how much control a Ukrainian government would have had over nuclear weapons based on its soil.
That’s true, but I think the only thing stopping NATO from helping is that they don’t trust Putin not to use his. Ukraine could have carried the same deterrent
This has nothing to do with morality. It’s about Russia’s STRATEGY.
The bombing of the Kramatorsk train station illustrates the essence of this conflict better than anything said by apologists for Putin.
Kramatorsk train station was evacuating Ukrainians who did not wish to live under Russian occupation. By Putin’s definition they were NOT Russians, and therefore traitors. Moreover, the fact that they were all gathered together made this a far more lucrative target than simply arresting and killing suspicious locals.
Just as hospitals in Syria housing wounded soldiers and enemies of the regime had to bombed, so too do concentrations of Ukrainian civilians likely to be hostile to Putin’s victory. It’s the most cost effective strategy at this stage of his unsuccessful war: kill as many enemies as possible, preferably in less well-defended civilian targets.
The moralistic, middle class haze of this piece simply obscures the true nature of this phase of the conflict. For Putin, this is an existential battle for Russia itself.
All morality goes out the window.
Is Ukraine perfect? No. Is the Azov battalion a PR triumph? No. But how many far right candidates made it into the Ukrainian parliament at the last elections? None. Fact is, Russia has launched a war of aggression against Ukraine. If it succeeds, aggression wins. Who then is next? Ukraine deserves to succeed in resisting gross aggression. Before it then becomes a member of the EU to which it aspires (I don’t), it needs to meet certain criteria. But this must be Ukraine’s democratic decision. Not imposed by Putin.
Politicians find it so easy to create wars. It is time they worked out how to ensure a peaceful existence. All sides are to blame for the death and destruction in Ukraine.
‘All sides are to blame for the death and destruction in Ukraine’.
So now what? Stop supporting Ukraine? We might them become to blame for the death and destruction then visited upon, say, Lithuania.
All sides are not to blame, unless you’re going to blame the damage on the Ukrainians trying to defend their nation
NOT OUR BUSINESS.
It’s true that this war is not a pure good vs evil struggle, but its the first one since the Second World War which gets close.
“Inter arma enim silent leges”.*
(*MTC.)
It’s a grave mistake to insist on a moral equivilance between the brutal and savage Russian invaders and what the writer calls “white supremists” and I suppose white nationalists.But I suppose the left finds this necessary to sleep better at night..
Really good article here, even if it is a bit long and you do not trust the Guardian as a source. Just this quote (Russian liberal politician, 2008): “We know we have committed human rights abuses in Chechnya. If Nato can bomb Belgrade for that, why could they not bomb Moscow?”
Receding empire? I think Ms Ali has misread the direction of global politics…USA / Europe are in a classic, end of empire cycle of currency debasement, cultural suicide, making “horses into Senators” and war diversions.
She seems to be arguing for more “real politic” in our view of this war and I agree. Russia can no more lose this war with Ukraine than USA could lose a war with Mexico.
Zelensky has already publicly stated that the USA stance is “NATO membership remains open publicly…but actually it will never happen.” See the clue there? USA will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Why are the West advising Zelensky against peacemaking compromises?
Lastly – Ms Ali has been on the sharp end of corporate media lies. So it baffles me she is not more clued up about how far the Azov/National Guard/Ukraine govt’ will use their willingness to manage the information wars on a public that has largely lost its ability to think critically.
Thegrayzone.com for example do independent journalism to present the awkward facts that are censored out, for those who want to avoid the good v evil cartoon scenarios people find so much simpler to believe in.
How about this link for a qualified, nuanced opinion and proper context. What we are told is mostly complete and utter…
“Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the proliferation of small arms. He was involved in discussions with the highest Russian military and intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and later participated in programs to assist the Ukraine.”
https://cf2r.org/documentation/la-situation-militaire-en-ukraine/
{select English top right)
This article is sub-standard for Ayaan. A pity as I have much respect for her.
This isn’t a war between good and evil? Yes it is. This Whitewash of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine does not make sense . Putin chance into some mythical white savior of the decedent West with justified claims, is a crap theory #AyaanHirsiAli is selling.
She never justifies the invasion. Far from it.
Why would the Russians bind, torture and execute Ukrainians before leaving Bucha? It sounds to me more like the execution of traitors by the Ukrainians after Russia had left…
Zelensky heroic? I’m sorry I had to stop reading there
Why? He’s turned down offers of escape and stayed in Ukraine despite the obvious danger to himself to lead the fight, I’d class that as fairly heroic
I wonder what our redoubtable Boris would have done under the same circumstances?
For my money he is an obvious “runner”.
I’d wager Westminster would be a ghost town
Yes, many in fact would be killed in the rush!
Heroic is being anonymous, picking up a gun and going to the front line.
You don’t think he’s of much more use to the conflict playing the role he’s currently playing, that of a wartime leader putting pressure on friendly nations to supply weapons and generally keeping up morale of his citizens? I personally think that he’s much more powerful in his current role than he would be running around Kyiv with a rifle, much like Churchill was much more dangerous as a PM and figurehead than he would have been on the beaches of Normandy
The portrayal of Zelensky as Ukraine’s answer to Capt America just shows how propaganda is centre stage in this conflict. But if people are getting all their news from ‘western’ MSM I can understand why people would think that.
Perhaps we should uncritically believe the news coming out of Russian state television instead
I am sure Russian state television is full of propaganda. Discerning people realise that both sides are firing on all cylinders with propaganda. Once you understand that you then can watch those sources with a critical eye, and also explore additional sources to try to uncover what is really happening, whilst always examining motives, funding and asking who is influencing them.
The problem with only consuming a single side of propaganda (which most people do) is that your views and knowledge of what is really happening very quickly become completely skewed.
Rather than consume just one side of propaganda it is better to get both sides as the truth will fall somewhere in the middle, but that requires a willingness to hear both sides and few people are willing to do that.
Indeed, how many did that in 1939-45?
Yes indeed, it won’t be long before MSM reports that Russian troops are barbecuing Ukrainian babies on their bayonets, inside a ruined Church, having crucified the Priest to the front door.
Pray that never happens.
That was last week
I never watch MSM but I would say that Zelensky is incredibly brave and patriotic. From a comedian to President to face Russia destroying your country is no easy road. I salute him personally.