One of the oddities (well, it may not be that odd) of our time is when people who wax lyrical about liberty or the evils of oppression of certain kinds seem to be, well, rather weak at the knees when certain “tough guy” rulers flex their muscles in ways that seem hard to justify by reference to any sort of principle other than naked territorial aggression.
And sometimes defenders of these “tough guys” (or women) are so appalled at what they see as the behaviour of the “other side” in a dispute (such as the European Union or the current leadership of much of the West) that they want to make excuses for such tough guys’ actions, often excusing behaviour that one might assume they would, in other cases, condemn or at least question. . There has been a fair amount of “we had it coming and you cannot really blame X or Y since they were were brutalised by us” sort of thinking long before 9/11. (People sometimes excused Germany’s aggressions in the 1930s by invoking Versailles in a knee-jerk fashion, and for all I know, the Ancients were indulged in similar ways.)
A recent example of this sort of behaviour comes from Peter Hitchens, a columnist who, for those who haven’t encountered him before, is almost self-parodic in his scolding right wingery. (He’s the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens). Peter Hitchens is a lapsed Marxist and I sometimes wonder just how deep any conversion away from that intellectual foolishness has ever taken place. Anyway, it appears Mr Hitchens has big man love for Vladimir Putin, so to speak:
Col. Putin, he says, is at odds with the West because he feels unloved. By us, that is. This is an injustice Peter has set out to correct, sticking out for his bit of rough. Vladimir, according to his swain Peter, is like a murderer who, according to his lawyer, only killed because his Mummy was a whore, he never knew his Daddy and the flat-screen TV set in his room was only a 19-inch.
Thus the object of Peter’s affection is only raping the Ukraine the way he previously raped Chechnia, Georgia and his own people because “We have been rubbing Russia up the wrong way for nearly 25 years.” Had we been rubbing Russia up the right way, Col. Putin wouldn’t be murdering everyone he dislikes, including, incidentally, dozens of Peter’s Russian colleagues. He wouldn’t have blown up blocks of flats in his own country to provoke aggression against Chechnia. He wouldn’t have turned Russia into a giant crime syndicate. And he wouldn’t have waged nuclear war in London by using polonium to murder Litvinenko.
This broadside comes from some fellow called Alexander Boot, of whom I had not heard before. Judging by some other postings, I suspect I won’t be in much agreement with Mr Boot about a lot of issues, but he’s right here.
Some weeks ago, when the issue of Russia’s activities vis a vis the Ukraine came up, one commenter sniffed that we libertarians should not be so beastly about Russia, since for all its brutality/corruption/etc, that we must focus our efforts more on Islamic fanaticism, and that Russia, because of its brutality under Col Putin, was a sort of useful, if rather unwholesome, ally. I don’t fully buy that analysis on even the most hardnosed basis, and on a more highminded view, think that genuine defenders of liberty and justice should raise the bar a bit. Part of the dislike of the Putin regime and what it represents on my part comes from a disappointment in what now holds sway in Moscow. It could and should have been far better than this. Much better.
Although Boot makes some good points I can’t say I have much time for a blog post that still thinks it’s terribly clever to go on about Hitchens having the hots for his bit of rough. Is it 2003 again?
But I would like to see Perry taking a close look at Hitchins on Russia.
Oh I have concluded Hitchens really is channelling his inner useful idiot when it comes to Russia. And I say it more in sorry than anger.
This Rod Liddle comment is telling:
GAME OF MOANS
Tim Blair – Monday, March 09, 2015 (11:44am)
One highlight from a Rod Liddle piece composed almost entirely of highlights:
A time will come when all the competing tribes within that hideous thing ‘identity politics’ tear one another to pieces, and we can all get on with our lives and snigger at the carnage taking place stage left. The truth is, they really hate each other; within that dead-headed milieu there is an endless battle for the greatest sense of acquired victimhood. The paradigm may well be that they are all similarly oppressed by straight, male whitey’s cultural imperialism and horrible hegemony, but this is not how it actually works out in practice.
In practice it is a seething mass of people desperately trying to whine the loudest …
Attempts to find common ground founder time after time; there is always someone, somewhere, being terribly transgressed, being affronted, their sensibilities infracted and their human right to be a genuine victim, more of a victim than anyone else, made light of or just ignored
Useful idiot? Pot, meet kettle.
Oh we got got another PUTINBOT in the thread?
I read Hitchens’ article on Ukraine in the latest Spectator, where he describes Putin’s state as “beyond doubt a sinister tyranny.” This doesn’t sound much like “big man love” to me.
When I read the title I thought it might be a comment on the lefts infatuation with militant islam.
But no such luck…
James, if that is the case then Hitchens’ apologias for Vlad are even less rational.
Mr Blair argues that the West should ally with Mr Putin against Islam.
Mr Blair is an idiot – Mr Putin has a pathological (not ideological – pathological) hated of the West, as anyone who has bothered to watch “RT” would know (one reason it is important – it shows the attitude of Mr Putin, and always has done).
Mr Putin would back just about anyone – if he thought to do so would harm the West. He would do so because he-likes-stuff-doing-like-that. There is no ideological reason, he is just a very nasty thug.
And a clever thug – who has been quietly backing the Iranian regime and their proxies.
It is not just the end of the promises of an end to conscription and trial by jury made during the Yeltsin years.
Putin has got rid of the independent election of state Governors.
He has destroyed the opposition media.
He has nationalised natural resources.
And any business person who does not play ball with his regime is either imprisoned, exiled, or murdered.
Mr Putin is also a menace – not just quietly backing the Iranian regime and its proxies, but Latin American Marxists (not because he is a Marxist – just to be trouble maker) and invading Georgia and the Ukraine.
Setting up “People’s Republics” and having his savages dance round statues of Lenin in a nation, the Ukraine, where millions of people were slaughtered by the Marxists…….
Not good Mr Putin, not good.
As for Peter Hitchens.
This would be the person who denounces the “private” railway system in a country, Britain, where “Network Rail” is in fact 100% government owned.
The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
http://schlockmercenary.wikia.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_of_Maximally_Effective_Mercenaries
I can *sort* of see someone looking at President Obama and half the gutless wonders that are Heads of Government in Europe and then looking at Vlad the Impaler and going “Yeah, that’s a bit better”, but no, a sociopathic dictator is a sociopathic dictator whether he’s a top or a bottom.
Russia continues to produce leaders that are ‘tough’. I wonder if Russia needs such leaders? Do Russians feel insecure? If so, we’ll always have a Russian problem, since ‘tough’ rulers are what they will need, and create.
Putin is indeed a problem, but I don’t think that our Russian troubles will go away if he goes away.
As James mentions above, the view of Peter Hitchens is given, fairly comprehensively, in his article of 7th March in the Spectator: It’s Nato that’s empire-building, not Putin. Though Alexander Boot’s whinge predates this by a few days, I think Hitchens is consistent enough in his view to take the Spectator article as a good summary for criticism.
The trouble with the Boot article is that it comes across as an ad hominem: so the resort of one who cannot better argue their point.
I don’t know if Hitchens is right, but do think his argument needs a much more realistic refutation. Paul Marks, above at March 9, 2015 at 10:20pm, makes a start; more is needed.
Also, it is entirely possible that both Putin and the West are in the wrong over actions in the Ukraine, and their general position WRT each other.
Best regards
Paul Marks says “Mr Putin would back just about anyone – if he thought to do so would harm the West. He would do so because he-likes-stuff-doing-like-that.” I suppose that’s true. But to give credit where it’s due, it is precisely that mindset which prompted him to give Edward Snowden sanctuary. For which I, for one, am extremely grateful. I’m sure that Putin did it simply to stick his finger in Obama’s eye. That’s OK, I’ll accept the right action even if it’s for the wrong reason (although, frankly, sticking a finger into Obama’s eye is probably a “right” reason all by itself!).
As to Hitchens’ proposition that NATO is engaged in empire-building, what a laugh. Yes, it has allowed a few former Soviet client states to join its club, but as “empires” go it’s an absolute joke. It’s a toothless, incompetent pseudo-military alliance whose only talent is providing social services. If Putin really fears NATO he’s far more stupid than he seems.
Laird, it doesn’t matter if NATO is toothless, it looks like an anti-Russian alliance from Russia’s side on the border! NATO’s expansion looks more like a sign that Russia is weak! Otherwise, Russia could have held onto those lands!
We who live on islands are lucky that the sea fixes our borders. A country without natural borders tends to be heavy-handed to its’ neighbours, or treated like a patsy. Germany before unification comes to mind.
“it doesn’t matter if NATO is toothless, it looks like an anti-Russian alliance from Russia’s side on the border!”
If Putin really believes (which I seriously doubt) that NATO has actual teeth which it would ever put to use against Russia (or any major power), then I repeat my earlier comment about his stupidity. But if he does know the truth (and there’s no reason that he shouldn’t, if even I can discern it from half a world away), and is merely using the specter of NATO as a bogeyman to sow fear among his people and thus enhance his power, well, that’s what politicians always do. Yours and mine are hardly exceptions; they are forever holding up imaginary or exaggerated dangers as a justification for expanding government and diminishing our freedoms. But that hardly explains Hitchens writing what he has, and that was the real point of that paragraph. He is clearly a dupe, a dope, or a dissembler; take your pick.
Empires are not necessarily of the military kind.
More frequently they are economic, as is that of the USA, which includes much of Eastern Europe, and also the UK.
That’s true, mickc, but NATO is specifically a military alliance, not an economic one. If you’re talking about a “eurosphere” economic empire that’s fine, but it means the EU, not NATO, and it is NATO which we are talking about here.
And as an aside I would also point out that the US’s empire isn’t entirely economic; in case you haven’t noticed, it includes a fairly significant military component.
Very much like a spoiled child whose parents did not set clear limits for acceptable behavior, Putin does what he does not because he feels threatened by NATO, but because he knows that NATO is not a threat to him up to a certain point – or rather a certain line, to put it less metaphorically. What he does not know for sure is where that line is or will be drawn, and so like that proverbial spoiled brat, he will keep testing.
Laird,
Yes, the US Empire does indeed have a large military component, happily so when used to protect its vassals.
However, the problem is that power has been used fairly aggressively since the end of the Cold War. NATO was intended to protect its members, not to be a world policeman, or be used to expand the US Empire.
Hitchens’s point is that Russia’s interests in the Ukraine have been threatened by the overthrow of a democratically elected government by a mob encouraged and funded by the EU and USA. And yes, Russia has a legitimate interest in neighbouring countries being friendly rather than hostile. The USA has certainly always taken that view of its own neighbours, and acted accordingly.
So of course Russia may feel threatened.
Further, considering that the US attitude is “fuck the EU”, and it is the EU which is being hurt by sanctions, not the US, one can but wonder whether the whole exercise is intended to damage the US Empire’s commercial rivals, whilst extending that Empire.
The former US Ambassador to Moscow, Jack Matlock, has some very good points on his website…and no Putin fan he!
For the record, and before others start down that route as they have with Hitchens,no, I am not a “Putin fan”, Russian troll or other such.
My sole concern is what is in the interests of the UK (however long that may exist in any meaningful form!), and I cannot see that the UK suffering in order to profit the USA is a terribly good idea.
Nope. Pure Kremlin propaganda. I know people who were in the Euro Maidan, and the notion they were ‘funded by the EU and USA’ is preposterous. Were they ‘encouraged’ by the EU and USA? Yes, and it was probably 1/10th of the reason people felt emboldened to be out on the streets protesting against the corrupt Kremlin backed thugs in charge.
The idea the EU (hah, a more inept body would be hard to imagine) or the US State Department was at the centre of what happened is a form of bizarre arrogance that many people are prone to, as if mere locals and local issues could not possibly be driving things, it must be the ‘Dark Forces’ at work (to use the favoured Soviet era term when the CIA was blamed for failed crops or popular unrest or some state cock up).
And the fact the government was ‘democratically elected’ means less than nothing when said government starts throwing its opposition in jail, as was the case. History might have turned out for the better if a democratically elected government in Germany had been overthrown prior to 1939.
So what about Ukrainian legitimate interests? They have to accept being a Russian client state in order to serve Russia’s ‘legitimate’ interests’? Ukraine is now a hostile state and will be forever more now because of Russian actions. If their boy had not started killing people, even trying assassinate Viktor Yushchenko in 2004 for example, maybe cordial relations would have been possible, but given the reality of what happened, it is unsupportable to think Ukrainians could see Russia as anything less than a hostile power.
But your opinions are clearly informed by them. The whole notion the struggle against Russian domination is not primarily a locally driven one is Kremlin propoganda, pure and simple.
Ah our mighty “Empire Building”.
The British military is heading towards less than 2% of the economy and about 50 thousand men.
50 thousand men could be defeated by Israel – or by the Texas National Guard.
The United Kingdom is supposed to be nation of over 60 million people which claims world influence – how come we can not maintain an armed forces at least equal to those of Israel (a nation of only 4 million people which only seeks regional, not world, position).
If Mr Putin is scared of Britain he really is “insecure” (as Nick points out).
But what of America????
The United States armed forces has been in decline (decline) for half a century.
It is heading to around 3.5% of GDP – and the smallest navy, air force and so on since the 1930s.
Putin and the Chinese regime also are massively expanding their armed forces – the United States is massively cutting its armed forces.
So who is planning on building an empire?
Surely it is those who are expanding their armed forces, the People’s Republic of China and Mr Putin, – not the United States, which is massively cutting its army, navy and air force.
If Mr Edward Snowden had warned the world about the People’s Republic of China and Putin’s Russia then I would like Mr Snowden as much as Laird (and Perry) does.
However, Mr Snowden choose to warn the world about the evil United States – from first the People’s Republic of China and then Putin’s Russia.
Basically what Mr Snowden did was shout “fire” in the middle of Noah’s flood.
Much to the joy of the usual suspects – RT, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, and on and on.
That does not mean that I agree with what the NSA and so on have done to the American computer industry – and so on.
On the contrary they (with their demands for backdoors and so on)have made American softwear a laughing stock around the world.
Thus undermining a strategically important industry.
Indeed it might be said (in defence of Mr Snowden) that he has disclosed a “clear and present danger” to the United States – from its own government.
After all the fact that American softwear was full of deliberate weaknesses and so on was bound to “get out”.
Better that it get out sooner – so that something can be done about this.
I notice that Apple seems to have grown a backbone – in relation to CIA demands.
For commercial reasons certainly – but that is good, not bad.
Perry
Your first point:
so you agree that it is acceptable for a democratically elected government to be overthrown by a mob encouraged by outside interests.In short, you agree with Putin’s viewpoint and just disagree with the colour of the result.
Your second point:
you obviously agree that a country has a legitimate interest in having friendly neighbours.
Given that you agree with government change by force, you cannot logically disagree with Putin seeking to use such methods to ensure a neighbouring country is friendly.
Your third point:
my views are informed by many sources, including such well known “Putinbots” as ex Ambassador Matlock and Pat Buchanan….but not Russian propaganda.
Again, for the record, I believe Ukraine has been raped by crooks and thugs. I do not believe replacing one set of crooks and thugs with another helpful to the Ukraine people, or the risk entailed in doing so worthwhile for “the West” generally, and certainly not the UK.
Paul Marks
The UK no longer has an empire and cannot build one.However, it can, and does assist in extending US power and influence, often to the UKs disbenefit.
How on Earth could the Israeli army defeat the British army? It cannot project its power as far as the UK. As you point out, it is a regional power. So, in fact, is the UK, although our rulers pretend otherwise. No, Putin is not at all concerned about the UK. Conversely, Russia poses no threat to the UK.
The USA remains both militarily and economically the most powerful nation on Earth, and will be for decades. It can project power globally,unlike Russia and China, but even it cannot ensure the results of intervention are as intended.
China is indeed empire building, but economically rather than militarily (so far).However, it seems to understand spheres of influence, and will not brook interference.
Certainly China poses no threat to the UK or EU.
Yes indeed I do.
Ah but unlike you, I am not a moral relativist, so it is a false equivalence. It is like saying someone violently defending themselves from a mugger is the same as the mugger who attacks them. Both are using violence. I think they are different but you logically do not from your statements.
Indeed, which is why I deplore Russian behaviour that makes that impossible.
This manages to be both a non sequitur (these points do not follow) and a category error (Putin is not trying to turn Ukraine into a ‘friendly’ country, he is trying to make it a client state he dominates and has actually annexed part of it).
So better they be raped by Russian crooks and thugs that they cannot replace for fear of Russian military force, than by Ukrainian crooks and thugs who actually might be ejectable by internal Ukrainian political processes? And you say you are not a Putin supporter? Of course you are.
Perry,
You have agreed it is acceptable for a democratically elected government to be overthrown by force.You therefore agree with Putin. No moral relativism is involved, simply logic.
Again, it logically follows that if it is fine to overthrow an elected government, that is available to all.It is not a non sequitur at all. Neither is there a category error, other than the false one you seek to create.
In your last paragraph you talk of internal political processes having previously confirmed there was outside encouragement, so by your own definition the overthrow of the government was not an internal political process.
And again, contrary to your assertion,I am not a Putin supporter, and neither are Hitchens, Matlock or Buchanan, who hold similar views.
Anyway, as ever, an interesting exchange
If I may interfere, as a veteran regional blogger as it were, I’d like to take issue with this bit by mickc:
I would argue that the democratically elected government in Kyiv had lost legitimacy by the moment Yanukovich fled the country in panic, and that the provisional government had a democratic mandate no weaker than Yanukovich’s. I would also argue that the revolution was a largely middle-class uprising that counted, at most, on moral support from the West while Russia’s support to Yanukovich went far beyond words of encouragement. But PdH has explained some of that above better than I could.
If you reject his arguments, suppose you’re the decision maker in the Kremlin and you accept, rationally or otherwise, the interpretation of events quoted above. What would you do?
Would you immediately invade an important region of the neighboring country under the guise of a separatist rebellion, only to admit involvement weeks later? Would you send your soldiers and weaponry to attack that country from another flank in support of a previously non-existent separatist movement?
You would only do that if permanently alienating that previously friendly nation is not a problem for you – if you want it destroyed as a nation.
For the most part, Ukrainians were neutral or friendly to Russia before 2014. There was a lot of goodwill towards Russia at all levels of Ukrainian society. A crude measure of the strength of pre-war anti-Russian sentiment could be the share of Greek Catholics in total population, a meager 8%.
Then Russia annexed Crimea and, according to polls, 90% of Russian supported the move. A message to Ukraine: 90% of Russians think it’s OK to stab a brotherly nation in the back when it’s in dire straits. News of Ukrainians being killed by Russian “volunteers” in the East did not help either, especially as most Ukrainian fighters came from the supposedly pro-Russian Southeast and the tolerant Center and were either bilingual or Russian-speaking.
Add to this the devious, trust-shattering dishonesty. If Putin had openly declared, like the mensch he’s pretending to be, that Crimea was rightfully Russian, and the Russian army had openly occupied it, he would have emerged an honest aggressor. Instead, he denied involvement for weeks and faked a referendum: a lying, cheating aggressor.
All of which is self-defeating, I would say suicidal in the longer run.
Well I imagine I agree with Putin on many points, such as water is wet, noon in Moscow is 12:00 and Tatu were much underrated once you look past the whole faux-lesbian marketing shtick. But where your remark fails is the word “acceptable”. I think it is “acceptable” to use violence to defend yourself against a mugger, which means what? Acceptable in what sense? It is morally justified, indeed it is a ‘just’ use of violence: it is “acceptable”. Does this therefore mean that all uses of violence are justified? No. This is where your logical and semantic error becomes clear.
You simply repeat your error and your moral relativism. It is a non sequitur because one does not follow from the other. It is like saying there is only war, and refuting the notion of just and unjust war: you conflate the aggressor with the aggressed against. You conflate the mugger’s violence with the victim’s defensive violence. Are you taking the pacifist moral position that to use violence in self defence is morally unacceptable? Are you a pacifist? I did not get that impression 😉
And you do indeed make a category error, unless one accepts that there is no difference between the categories ‘friendly nations’ and ‘subject nations’.
Nope, this fails on several levels.
Firstly, outside encouragement means what? Let us imagine that the Government of Burkina Faso issued the following communiqué in Ouagadougou:
Well clearly the Euro Maidan demonstrations were only made possible by the encouragement of those meddling bastards in Ouagadougou, right?
The Kremlin’s version of events is no less preposterous. It simply acts as if, absent outside statements of encouragement for the Ukrainian protesters, mere local drivers of political events were not nearly important enough to be what made the Euro Maidan rebellion happen. It just ain’t true.
Perry,
I think we have debated this one to death, and we each believe we are right. Such is debate.
AlexK
Yes, of course the elected government fled. It had been overthrown by force!
The logic of your argument would mean that a government which flees, for example, because the country had been invaded would cease to have legitimacy.That cannot be right.
In reality, Ukraine is, regrettably, going to be somebody’s bitch. The argument is whether it is that of the USA, or Russia. Either way, the UK doesn’t have a dog in that fight.
I can say with no fear of contradiction that my Ukrainian friends who stood and fought in the Euro Maidan are of the view the Ukraine is going to be their bitch, and they intend to keep fighting to make that happen, whatever an outside like you or me might think.
And when the USA or EU (which is about as formidable as Boots the Chemists) annexes part of the Ukraine, we can talk of the political or moral equivalence of their ‘interference’, with that of the Kremlin.
Boots the Chemists is run by an Italian chap who lives in Monaco, a billionaire former nuclear physicist and skilled tax avoider. Who knows what lurks in Grimaldiland? Let us hope for a ‘James Bond’ hero, telling evil bureaucrat Mr Bond, (whom the late Auberon Waugh described as the most repulsive character in modern Britain) on his mission to collect some tax, that his tax-funded salary won’t be paid and his gadgets are rubbish, and that he had better show some respect for private property.
I am totally down for an OO7 spin off in which Ernst Stavro Blofeld is actually the good guy 😉 I know Brian Micklethwait has long argued that Bond is actually an anti-hero.
@mickc: I have claimed that even if the Kremlin sincerely believed in your version of events, annexing Crimea and invading Donbass would be unacceptable, unjustified and disastrous in the long run.
The UK’s financial sector is an outsized contributor to its economy and its success depends to a large degree on the UK’s ability to attract and shelter foreign capital, including funds of uncertain provenance from various oligarchs. The Ukrainian conflict should at least bring about a critical assessment of this reliance.