A large part of the problem is that Western political and media classes do not analyse anything. It seems that they simply don’t have the skill of objectively analysing a situation. As John Mearsheimer points out, (for example in his book How States Think, The Rationality of Foreign Policy) it isn’t enough just to think; you need some kind of theory as well. Western politicians lack both – a theory of International Relations, and the ability to analyse. So, we are left with the laughable, (if it wasn’t so sad), sight of no doubt highly educated people who have no deeper analysis of the Ukraine war than to say “it is caused by Putin’s lust and imperialism”.
This kind of ‘thinking’ is operating at the mythic level. (There is an excellent book by US sociologist Ken Wilber called Up From Eden in which he lays out a set of levels of human societal development, based on the type of thinking which characterises the age. Mythic comes after magical and before rational. The classic mythic societies were the Kingdoms of the Ancient Near East). The tribe is important in mythic thinking and the thinking is conditioned by certain myths. When Western media and political figures talk about, for example, “Putin’s lust for power”, or “imperialism”, this is a mythic image; an atavistic image of “Putin” which characterises Putin as some kind of medieval robber-King. A myth. That the Kremlin is thinking strategically, about Russia’s national security, doesn’t, apparently, enter their heads.
Following are two examples of this problem:
1. Observer Editorial.
This is an Observer editorial calling for Ukraine to be allowed to use donated long-range weapons to strike inside of Russian territory. It also calls for NATO to become involved in shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine. The editorial lambasts Russia for skipping the official commemoration ceremony for the Geneva Conventions which is being held in Switzerland. Russia’s position is that this is a distraction and that the place that matters in the Security Council. Of course; “human rights” and “war crimes” is a major part of the Western propaganda hybrid war and Russia has no intention of being set up for a patsy in Geneva.
The editorial puts a very positive gloss on Zelensky’s excursion into Kursk. As as Daniel Davis points out the treatment is purely tactical. The Observer essentially follows Ukrainian narrative that this is drawing Russian forces away from the Eastern front and is a morale boast for Ukraine. However; the reality seems to be that the Russian advance in Donetsk continues at just the same steady speed as before. If the objective was to take the pressure off the Eastern front it has failed. More likely the Kursk incursion can be seen as a media stunt and a pointless jab at Russia. Just as Daniel Davis argues in his piece to camera, there is zero strategic thinking in this. They just think about the very short-term. This is because of media cycles.
The Observer continues;
Ukraine is fighting this war on behalf of us all. It is defending Europe’s frontline and the UN-based international system against open aggression, criminality and illegitimacy. Anyone who doubts that contention should look at what happened in Geneva last week. Marking 75 years since the signing of the Geneva conventions – the crucial foundation stone of international humanitarian law and the laws of war – Switzerland hosted 14 of the 15 current members of the UN security council.
It is so flagrant. Russia stands accused, by Ukraine, of a small number of “war crimes”. Israel, without a shadow of doubt is engaged in systematic and multiple war crimes on a truly horrific scale in Gaza, and the West Bank. Even, perhaps, genocide. Yes; perhaps Russia has not facilitated the return of Ukrainian children as effectively as they could but they don’t use them as human shields. [1] Israel is actively supported by the US and the UK who send weapons and are a party to the crimes. But somehow they can kid themselves that they are in line with international law and Russia is not.
The best analysis of this line I have read about “defending the UN-based international system” is The Lost Peace. How the West failed to prevent a second Cold War by Richard Sakwa. He uses the phrase “The Great Substitution”. What the West has done is substitute their view of a liberal ‘democratic’ world order for the UN system. They use language like “rules-based order” to gloss this substitution. The UN Charter nowhere mandates any particular political system or path for development for any nation; it is focussed on relations between sovereign states. But the West tries to claim that their project to spread their liberal world order around the world is the UN Order. Ukraine is not ‘defending the UN-international system’. They are defending the Western liberal order in its war against “authoritarian states”. (With the additional irony that Ukraine post Maidan is very far from a model of liberal democracy with media outlets and political parties banned, even before the war).
The Observer can talk about “open aggression, criminality and illegitimacy” but where does that leave the illegal US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003? Or the illegal NATO bombing of Serbia at the end of the nineties? Or the sophist stretching of the UN Resolution to defend civilians in Libya to authorise regime change, an intervention which destroyed a functioning country? Digging your heels in and accusing the other side of crimes which you are certainly guilty of is no real substitute for analysis.
2. The absurd Ursula von der Leyen on the future of the EU
This is the absurd Ursula von der Leyen giving a keynote speech about the future of the EU. She has just been nominated President of the Commission again.
The most striking point is that von der Leyen very explicitly reorientates the EU away from the France-Germany axis to the states of Eastern Europe, Poland in particular. This is a bit of an about turn. Before the war Poland was in a legal battle with the Commission over its disregard of EU law. I believe that has quietly been dropped. I assume that the turn to the East excludes Hungary – that thorn in the side of the EU. If this means that EU Foreign Policy is now going to be dictated by the ferociously anti-Russian stance of the Baltic states and Poland that means a negotiated settled with Russia is being ruled out and an era of eternal confrontation is being prepared. (In our last post we quoted von der Leyen as saying that the EU would need to become “intrinsically a security project”). This is terrible news and entirely negative.
In this speech in which the absurd von der Leyen indicates an entire pivot for the EU to be based on war and being anti-Russia we might expect an analysis of why this has to be. A rational analysis of how Russia is such a threat to Europe for example. But, all we have is “Putin’s lust for power” and “Putin’s imperialism”. and “Putin’s delusional dreams of Empire”. That’s it. Zero analysis. (Nor is there anything at all about what has been lost by breaking all ties with Russia). So; all we have is a reference to a certain narrative that the cause of the war was “Putin’s imperialism”. This theory is not justified or explained in any way. As John Mearsheimer would point out, that is probably because it can’t be. This line about Putin’s imperialism simply started with the operation in 2022. No one talked about it before. If Russia’s motive for this war really is imperialistic expansion then we can say that the entire Russian elite has been engaged in a years long conspiracy whereby they talked about cooperation with Europe and (with some tension) their security concerns, when behind the scenes they were plotting an imperialistic conquest of Ukraine. It is implausible. On the other side, of course, the case that the ’cause’ of the war was the security threat to Russia posed by pushing Ukraine into NATO together with concerns that US-armed Kiev was about to launch an operation against the Donbas is very easy to document and establish. It is worth adding that the EU declined to even discuss with Russia legitimate Russian concerns about Ukraine joining a free trade area with the EU. [2]
The absurd von der Leyen is basing the whole future of the EU, a governmental organisation controlling the lives of hundreds of millions of people, on a theory which has no evidence and no argument to support it, in other words, on a delusion.
What I am pointing to here is the phenomenon that Western political and media classes are proceeding on their terrifying policies of total confrontation with Russia on the basis of simplistic slogans. They conduct foreign policy on the basis not of analysis but of memes, which look good in front of the cameras. It is a horrible disaster, a tragedy. (Notice how von der Leyen laps up the limelight).
Notes
1. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-human-shields-gaza-war-b2604589.html
2. Russia’s various proposals for the trilateral regulation of neighbourhood matters were consistently rebuffed. At the time of the Prague summit in May 2009 launching the EaP, Putin suggested creating a tripartite structure to modernise the Ukrainian gas pipeline system, but this was brusquely dismissed, as were all Russia’s later tripartite and Greater European initiatives.
Sakwa, Richard. Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (pp. 41-42). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Barroso being quoted by news agencies as late as 29 November 2013 as saying: ‘Russia’s inclusion in the talks on setting up an Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine is wholly unacceptable.’
Sakwa, Richard. Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (p. 76). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.