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The Ukraine media coverage is mirroring last summer’s Afghan withdrawal commentary - the same tropes, hyperventilating, belligerence, and blob writers.
Bleh. The sheer cut-and-paste laziness coupled to endless belligerence is as embarrassing as it is exhausting.
No need
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The Ukraine media coverage is mirroring last summer’s Afghan withdrawal commentary - the same tropes, hyperventilating, belligerence, and blob writers.
Bleh. The sheer cut-and-paste laziness coupled to endless belligerence is as embarrassing as it is exhausting.
No need
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to learn about these places or re-consider given that US interventionism since the Gulf War has been at best a mixed bag, at worst a disaster.
You can always make the same claims about American ‘weakness’ contrasted with autocratic ‘strength’;
make the same analogies to the
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You can always make the same claims about American ‘weakness’ contrasted with autocratic ‘strength’;
make the same analogies to the
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1930s, Chamberlain, or Carter;
demand the same absurdly aggressively redlines to trigger US intervention;
breezily recommend relentless escalation which you can later disclaim as ‘badly implemented’ when it turns into a disaster;
make the same arguments about any crisis
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demand the same absurdly aggressively redlines to trigger US intervention;
breezily recommend relentless escalation which you can later disclaim as ‘badly implemented’ when it turns into a disaster;
make the same arguments about any crisis
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anywhere without knowing anything about Afghanistan, Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran, N Korea, Syria - because they’re all the same, amirite? - because they have no agency at all, because everything is about America, POTUS’ approval rating, and the blob's status-craving as experts even
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though it keeps getting Western intervention in the periphery wrong with disastrous consequences.
And should anyone disagree and encourage calm, you can just completely lose your mind and argue that world order itself is at stake! That China & its Russian wingman are seeking
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And should anyone disagree and encourage calm, you can just completely lose your mind and argue that world order itself is at stake! That China & its Russian wingman are seeking
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no less than global domination! Which seems to be particular obsession of the FT every time there’s a crisis somewhere: ft.com/content/d307ab…
The best take I've seen on Ukraine comes from @kdrum, who's not even a big name foreign policy analyst but is far less personally
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The best take I've seen on Ukraine comes from @kdrum, who's not even a big name foreign policy analyst but is far less personally
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vested in a relentlessly hawkish US foreign policy.
He's basically correct: Ukraine will turn into a quagmire if Russia invades, and the war will isolate R even further from the world economy. If it really goes bad and returns lots of civilian
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jabberwocking.com/vladimir-putin…
He's basically correct: Ukraine will turn into a quagmire if Russia invades, and the war will isolate R even further from the world economy. If it really goes bad and returns lots of civilian
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jabberwocking.com/vladimir-putin…
casualties and massacres, R may get expelled from SWIFT & Nord Stream 2 may be ended. All this will make Russia even more dependent on China, which the Chinese will take advantage of mercilessly. It will also drive all the small countries around R toward NATO & the US for help
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Putin knows all this which is why he hasn't invaded yet. Unlike the blob's mindless worship of Putin's 'strength' and tactical genius - where's America's Republican Daddy to protect our stock portf-, er, the American people! - Putin knows Russia is weak. Its GDP smaller than S
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Korea's and its economy is extremely corrupt. R's capacity to fight protracted counterinsurgency while under ever-tightening sanctions is limited. The parallels to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan are pretty obvious.
I don't have any particular policy advice on this. It's
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I don't have any particular policy advice on this. It's
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a thorny issue outside my lane. I lean toward offering Ukraine training and aid of some kind. We certainly should not agree that Putin gets a veto on who can apply to NATO. That's blackmail by a gangster
My concern rather is to note the lazy, repetitive quality of blob op-ed
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My concern rather is to note the lazy, repetitive quality of blob op-ed
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page analysis of crises in world politics. It's practically interchangeable, no matter where the conflict is or who the players are. Cp. the Ukraine writing to Afghanistan last summer. It's so hackneyed, hyperbolic, predictable, & hawkish, u don't even need to read it anymore
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I don’t mean to argue that hawkish responses or the blob’s analysis is always wrong. I am hawk myself on N Korea, for example. My concern, instead, is the cookie-cutter analytic template returning the same diagnosis and advice again and again:
- minimal local knowledge of
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- minimal local knowledge of
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the specific crisis
- turning it all into a debate about US and its supposed ‘weakness’ (the craving for a chest-thumping Republican Daddy-figure is just embarrassing)
- casually recommending escalation and belligerent messaging
- constant 1930s references as if every US
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- turning it all into a debate about US and its supposed ‘weakness’ (the craving for a chest-thumping Republican Daddy-figure is just embarrassing)
- casually recommending escalation and belligerent messaging
- constant 1930s references as if every US
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opponent is Hitler
- regular hyperbole that no less than the world order is at stake.
Needless to say, more nuanced analyses would almost certainly return different response options for different crisis. For example, even though I am a NK hawk, I am kinda dovish on China.
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- regular hyperbole that no less than the world order is at stake.
Needless to say, more nuanced analyses would almost certainly return different response options for different crisis. For example, even though I am a NK hawk, I am kinda dovish on China.
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This is only inconsistent if you take a neocon-blob view of the world where everything is a test of US resolve, dominoes are falling everywhere, and the US must therefore constantly be aggressive. If you don’t see the world order collapsing every time there’s a Western
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setback (go re-read, below, the absurd alarmism over last summer’s Afghan withdrawal), if crises are limited in scope, if our opponents are not Alexander the Great or Hitler, then more mixed response options open up.
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https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1428284800985550851
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