Broad range of views on what could happen next with Russia & what the US must do represented in @POLITICOMag, including from Lilia Shevtsova, Fiona Hill, @EvelynNFarkas, @steven_pifer, and more. Some of my thoughts included in this mix: /1
I have spent 18 long & increasingly bloody years listening to Russia dudebros explain how anything you do to expose/punish Putin “only makes him stronger”
It was the basis of our do-nothing-about-revanchism policy
It was flat wrong /1
All that time playing nice-nice can now be tallied in dead Ukrainians, African countries with Wagner-backed coups, the number of far-right parties still feeding off the teat of the migration crisis Russia sparked with its annihilation of Syria almost a decade ago /2
Closing the closet door and putting up fairy lights isn’t going to make any *actual* monsters disappear
Yes, they are creatures of rage and hate and they will *try* to turn any action against them into more blind rage to keep their converts numb
The real story of the “young” far-right M*G* “manhood”-heads is that none of them finished college — actually many never even went — because they were hand picked & cultivated via a right wing radicalization pipeline that has been deliberately built over the past 3 decades /1
The whole point of grabbing enthusiastic high school kids is that by giving them a vague position with pay and connection to authority, they are totally dependent on you and more likely to become unquestioning zealots of whatever ideology — also they can never leave /2
They have no education, no real experience, they can’t alienate whoever chose them or elevated them to edgelord because they have no skills and can easily be blacklisted from the gravy train /3
“Russia is bogged down in Ukraine & can’t do anything else” 🙄
Russia has used the Wagner turnkey resource theft model in Africa to help fund its war against 🇺🇦
This isn’t the first coup/attempted coup they have backed or benefitted from in Sudan /1
Russia has stolen (likely billions of dollars of gold) from Sudan. This CNN report from last year documents a flight that attempted to smuggle a ton of gold — as cookies — a few days after the war started /2
Astonishingly malicious BS against Estonia in this, sourced as west dip complaints
Estonia:
-sent huge amounts of its own new defensive equipment rapidly to help 🇺🇦
-sent functional needed equip
-has given more (as % def budget) than any other ally /1
The facts in the linked piece are simply incorrect.
Additionally, they do not include the absolute outpouring of civilian Estonian support, including crowdfunded/donated body armor, uniforms, ambulances, fire trucks, vehicles, medical supplies, other gear /2
Estonians — individuals, organizations, businesses — have donated hundreds and hundreds of vehicles to Ukraine.
Their military & civilian reserves are fully activated in support of the war in Ukraine.
They have expanded their defense budget and trained more reserves /3
Twitter was powerful was bc real valuable information—from historians, revolutionaries, reformers, emergencies, issue experts, OSINT, what have you—could come from ground level & have breakthru influence
Now it will just be another elite influence box crowding out real people /1
It is being re-engineered so you only see what the guy in charge thinks is important, with a back door for whoever is willing to pay to piggyback the same system, but 👆 story is important because even if you pay, you don’t have advantage
Advantage comes only from patronage /2
This has already changed how we get information about actually important things that matter.
We won’t see how disruptive this was until years on /3
Yeah we wouldn’t want anyone to take a moral stance against internal repression in their own country or external imperialist ambitions & the mass slaughter of civilians in a war of aggression. We’re just here to provide a soft normalization of Putin’s worldview, says hockey.
Maybe @NHLBlackhawks should think about tens of thousands of Ukrainian, Polish, Georgian, Baltic, and other former-captive-nation descended Americans who have made their home in Chicago, only to see this Moscow-pandering drivel. The team should invite them in, talk about history.