Thread by @irgarner

🧵 Another bizarre piece from Simon Jenkins in the Guardian. This time, he lays into the idea that Russia is any threat at all to Western Europe then, bizarrely, implies that Putin has had no hand in choosing his aggressive path. Let’s take it apart.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

First, Jenkins brings up “Godwin’s Law,” which is, frankly, a terrible argument. It’s a gambit used to lazily dismiss serious arguments about the nature of the past or dictatorships (see also: anyone who says fascism cannot exist today).

Jenkins then brings up two disastrously weak and ill-informed claims in one line, which is good going even by his standards:

(1) “No post-Revolution Russian leaders have sought to invade western Europe.” This idea rests on an imaginary divide between the “West” and the “East” – but that region as a bloc exists primarily because of, not in spite of, Russian imperialism both pre and post-revolution.

After all, who occupied the Baltic states post-war? Who invaded Prague and Hungary? Who propped up communist dictatorships all over the “East”?

Jenkins also neglects the fact that Putin’s Russia is already waging a form of hybrid war against the West already. It imagines itself in a war with Western Europe. It’s funding espionage, cybercrime, and terroristic attacks. It’s killing European citizens on European soil.

Jenkins seems unable to imagine a war that doesn’t look like the grand tank invasions of the 20th century. Doesn’t mean there isn’t something at least like a war going on. foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/09/rus…

(2) Simultaneously, Jenkins claims that Russia has only been out to “dominate...the ‘buffer zone’ of their immediate neighbours, such as Poland, Finland, Ukraine and Armenia.”

Oh, okay. If Russia’s neighbours fall beyond an imaginary boundary of “Easternness” that exists only because of Russian actions, then Russia doesn’t matter much and Russia can do what it wants over there in "Eastern" lands.

Next, Jenkins says that he has not “heard of Putin harbouring” any “imperial designs” on Western Europe. Has he been asleep? They may not be realistic – nobody thinks Russian tanks will reach Portugal – but state propagandists keep outlining these ideas!

Now the most brilliant twist of all: Putin is merely a “custodian of Russia’s paranoid patriotism” powerless to do anything but respond to NATO aggression! Brilliant. A man who has fuelled “paranoid patriotism” to cement power and justify his aggression is, apparently, merely an empty vessel for mythical forces.

The power of Russian mystical nationalism is irresistible! Putin has no choice! He doesn't make any decisions. He doesn't press any buttons. He doesn't send any soldiers into the attack. He's just a "custodian," after all.

(Weirdly, he now also says that Trump is just doing the same thing toward Canada and Panama. We're a very frightening bunch in Canada, Simon, but I don't quite buy it. I would like to try some of whatever the fuck you're smoking in the Guardian offices, though.)

“The politics of fear always has the best tunes and defence is never precise in its greed,” concludes Jenkins. The problem is that his “politics” is not based in reality. Those who have compared Putin to dictators of the past aren’t doing so because they enjoy fearmongering.

They’re doing it because they see that Russia is not merely a peaceable nation defending its self-appointed “buffer zone”: it, and Putin, have actively created a system that depends on violent aggression as a vital natural myth.

So in conclusion, according to Jenkins, nations and groups that have agency:
- USA
- NATO
- Canada
- Panama (wtf)

Nations that have no agency:
- Poor old Russia

Sorry, long thread, but this is one of the most whatthefuckable articles I've read in months