On Ukraine
From Monday 7 March 2022
How to deal with Russians
We talk about how “Russia” invaded Ukraine or what “the Russians have done”. By which we mean “the military of Russia, which is controlled by Putin”. But let’s talk about Russians in the literal sense, about “people from Russia”.
It is an important distinction, for several reasons.
The first is that this war is Putin’s and Putin’s alone. Nobody else wanted it. As is so often the case with aging dictators, he’s become emotional, unstable, isolated, and paranoid. This invasion will end with Putin loosing control of Russia, and the Russian people are the only ones who can do that. And it will be an enormous job. There is no other group, force, set of sanctions or policies, state, or person who can bring that about. All other things equal and peaceful, most people in Russia would be ok with him being out of power, certainly the most educated and worldly would. And that is who we are most likely to be dealing with.
Another part of it has to do with my experience as an American. The people of the world have been extremely generous these last few decades in not blaming me for Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, the invasion of Iraq, Trump, and the many other sins of the USA. Citizens are not responsible for the actions of their government.
And finally, all oppressors believe they are victims. And their favorite pastime is inventing, portraying, reposting ,and in general fetishizing examples of their oppression that they have made up. This legitimizes their oppression of whoever they are oppressing. The transition from the Soviet Union to Russia and successor states, from state control of everything and general equality to kleptocratic capitalism and brutal inequality, has been tough. Many believe the Kremin’s narrative that this was done intentionally to hurt or weaken Russia by various outsiders, particularly the US. That it didn’t just happen. There are some from Russia who will channel people being rude to them into that narrative of victim-hood. Any individual who cares about Ukraine needs allies, particularly people from Russia They are the most valuable allies because they have more power than the rest of us to solve this.
That said, it is people from Russia who are serving in the military and dropping bombs. And there are people in Russia, and even outside of Russia who are ok with that, or believe some of the Kremlin’s BS or even support the invasion. And it is reasonable to want to know how any person from Russia feels about the war. But keep in mind that this is complex and personal issue, for people from Russia particularly. So be ready to listen to what they say if you ask. And best to lead with open questions like, “How do you feel about the situation in Ukraine?” Or better, “How do you think most people in Russia feel about what is happening in Ukraine?” This will give them a chance to speak about others rather than themselves. But their views will be clear.
But just remember, the Russian government is horrible. Everybody knows that, most of all Russians. And it is important for people from Russia to know that people around the world respect a great deal about Russia, want the best for the Russian people but not for the Russian state, not for the Russian military, not for it’s invasion of Ukraine, and not those who support it.
Let them know we value them as allies and make it easy for them to be one.
From Thursday 24 February 2022
Putin’s target is Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy
With Putin everything is personal. His most perilous period was in December 2011 amidst the biggest demonstrations held in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union. He doesn’t believe that the public can do anything itself, he believes there must always be an instigator, apparent or hidden. Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State at the time and said, quite mildly, that there needed to be an investigation into the obviously fraudulent Russian election. Not wanting to face the truth that Russians didn’t want him to be life president, and were angry that he cheated in the election, he decided that she and the US were behind these protests and had sent a signal for them to start. It was after that when he began dedicating considerable resources to successfully undermine her and the Democratic Party in the US. Trump had been a Kremlin asset since the 1980’s, and Putin never imagined that Trump could actually win the election, but he thought Trump would be a willing and useful instrument against Clinton after she won; that Trump would do to her and the Democrats all the things he is doing now. But Trump won, so convenient for Putin. But Trump was originally just taken off the shelf to be Putin’s instrument against Clinton, nothing more.
Now Putin’s troops have entered Kiev, not to hold the territory but to try to force Zelenskiy to leave, to kill him, take him prisoner, or to take his family. It’s very medieval. Putin’s first choice would be that Zelenskiy leaves Ukraine because it would then be portrayed as cowardice and he could have his Ukrainian oligarchs put in somebody more compliant. Killing him could have serious repercussions, but Putin has ordered the murder of many others outside of Russia’s borders with negligible consequences, so maybe not. Taking Zelenskiy or his family prisoner would have the disadvantage for Putin of keeping around a constant reminder of this aggression, and may even further make Zelenskiy the embodiment of the Ukrainian nation, prisoner to Russia. But would still express his power, so still a win. As I write, lots of military targets have been destroyed and civilians killed. There will be many many more but Putin doesn’t care.
Watch Zelenskiy.
From Wednesday 23 February 2022
I wrote before about Putin’s motives. Now about his goals.
I was going to say his plan, but like Trump, he doesn’t have one. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t doing things, they just aren’t according to a plan. A plan requires anticipating and caring about consequences of each step of implementation. It means there is a vision. He has none of that. He believes that whatever the consequences, he can handle them. Because he views himself as the embodiment of the Russian nation and state, he doesn’t care about any suffering the consequences of his acts would bring upon the Russian people or his minions. Sadly he takes pride in what the Russian people can endure, or more accurately, what his actions can needlessly force them to endure.
But he does have goals, three main ones: Division, corruption, and instability.
He believes the world is strictly zero sum. The worse others are doing, the better he looks, and how he looks is the same for him as how he is doing. The worse off other countries are doing, particularly neighboring countries, Europe, and the US, the better he thinks Russia is doing. The easiest most cost effective way to manifest that world view is to promote division. He knows that virtually everybody in Russia who can leave, wants to leave, including his most senior minions. But he can mitigate this problem via “active measures”, which means simply creating division elsewhere using whatever resources can be used or appear. This is why the Kremlin supported Trump, Brexit, and Victor Orban who, by ending democracy in Hungary in practice, has divided the EU about whether or how to deal with that. It’s a long list. This is very different from how Europe or North America looks at the world.
Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. People who want to prove themselves by hurting other people are not just drawn to corruption, they are the root cause of corruption. Those who become successful via work, innovation, market insight, or even luck prefer the rule of law because they know where they stand and where they can go. Extractive industries, particularly oil and gas, promote corruption because the owners don’t have to do anything to get it. The corporate entities who do the work to extract it simply pay them and normally prefer to pay corrupt autocrats, because extraction in the long and short term is a very messy job. Fairly elected leaders care, corrupt autocrats don’t. But when corrupt autocrats see other places that have little to extract on their own territory, and yet are more equal, more peaceful, richer, better in every way, it can make thies corrupt autocrats feel bad. Part of being corrupt is a deep need to believe that everybody is corrupt, that there is no such thing as the rule of law or a society based on it, so promoting corruption abroad becomes not just an effective method of protecting the proceeds of corruption, but an actual psychological compulsion. The corrupt need everybody to be corrupt. It is quite easy for anybody who wants to pick almost any country, particularly those near Russia, and to understand specifically how Putin promotes corruption in any given country. This is certainly true for Ukraine.
One of the foundations of stability is agreed upon and safe borders. Borders create jurisdictional clarity, clear responsibility, and predictability. Honest people want those things and may thrive when they are present. But those things very much limit the ability of the corrupt to do what they want. That is both why and how Putin has engaged with his neighbors. He takes an ethnic difference, turns it into a fault line, exploits it, invades, and occupies, usually calling his invading and occupying force “peacekeepers”; Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, the Donbass, etc. The goal is not to formally subsume these territories into Russia, because then Russia would have to take responsibility for them. The goal is to replace progress with occupation at the top of the agenda in these neighboring countries, to keep them unstable, to provide an excuse to re-invade if they become too prosperous, or if they make alliances that could lead to prosperity, or otherwise show independence. It is also an opportunity for moving ethnic groups, which will create or enflame animosity that is often an effective method to prevent progress. Putin, by creating instability in Russia’s neighbors, gives himself the ability to point to the unity and stability of Russia itself.
All this can be very disorienting for those who respect and pursue unity, understanding, and clarity. Don’t we want to solve problems and move towards resolution? Putin and those like him do not. They create uncertainty wherever they can, and they are very comfortable perpetuating it for as long as they are allowed to.
Because without it, what are they?
From Tuesday 22 February 2022
Putin’s Motives
The central thing about Putin is not if he is crazy or if he is playing the long game or whatever. The thing to think about are his motives. Since his earliest childhood he needed to prove himself. Rather than compassion and support he was surrounded by paranoia and fear. But now he controls Russia completely. There are no oligarchs, meaning at least semi-independent sources of wealth or power, there’s only him. And like all with complete control, he increasingly identifies himself with his nation as its embodiment, and the Russian nation with the Russian state. And to him, there is only self interest for each, any appeal to fairness, the rule of law, or ethics are fake. There is only self interest and anybody who pretends otherwise is a hypocrite, naive, or both.
He bracketed his path to power over three years between two brutal acts. The first was a month after he had been chosen by Yeltsin as his successor to rule Russia in August of 1999. That September, he ordered the FSB/KGB to bomb different apartment buildings on several early mornings in September 1999, mainly in Moscow but in other places as well. Hundreds were killed as they slept. The population was terrified as they waited to see if they would die in the night from the next bomb. He blamed Chechen terrorists, said it was time for a strong hand, and started the Second Chechen War. The second was the arrest in October 2003 of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest man who had built Yukos, an oil company, Russia’s largest independent corporation.
With Khodorkovsky in prison, any remaining independent or wealthy individuals fell in line with Putin or fled the country. Over the years, Putin has ordered the assassination of many outside of Russia, in Washington DC when Mikhail Lesin, Putin’s former media chief, was murdered in the Dupont Circle Hotel the night before he was to speak to the US Department of Justice in 2015. Many others, particularly in the UK. It’s his way of projecting power.
The source of his power is stolen money. In Russia, all capital originates from extraction, of gas, mining, etc and he takes however much he wants, and deploys the funds or infrastructure of whatever business he wants, however he wants. Any business that grows to a certain level will be tested and told to comply. All of this is off the books. Over half of the capital stock of Russia is held by shell companies, laundered via off-shore accounts, invested mainly in the US and Europe, and deployed if and when it wants it to be. For example it has been the only source of funds to Trump Inc for decades. Those in Russia without access to these funds, or the businesses those funds sustain, have very little money and even less power.
Putin believes he can exploit division between and within the US and Europe, that he can buy off whoever he wants. Using his substantial resources he has been quite successful at this so far.
Nobody who is a bully thinks they are bullying. Nobody who is corrupt says to themselves they are now going to engage in an act of corruption. First, they tell themselves that this is how the world works, everybody is this way. But that’s not enough, they also need to make themselves the victim in as many ways as possible, no matter how implausible. That is what Putin is doing by pretending that he feels NATO is a threat, or that Ukraine is not a real country, or that is a part of Russia. He doesn’t even care if the Russian people believe that, it’s just creating some narratives for those in Europe or America to turn over. He has invaded and occupied his neighbors because he’s in charge. He’s in charge because he steals his people’s money and Europe and the US allow him to do whatever he wants with it..
So what can we each do about this?
1) There will be lots of talk of sanctions, are they serious? Serious enough? How serious is this country’s sanctions compared with that country’s sanctions? Sure, put on some sanctions, but that whole discussion is largely a smokescreen. Putin has contributed via shell companies, and assisted via social media, a large group of Republican politicians in the US and Conservative politicians in the UK and in every other country in Europe. Stolen Russian capital owns real estate within walking distance from where 90% of the people reading this are sitting. The key to dealing with this is stronger beneficial ownership legislation. That would require beneficial ownership to be disclosed in real estate and all other financial transactions. It is a very practical step that will strengthen democracy and hurt bullies, all of whom benefit from concealing their stolen funds.
2) Russia’s power and money comes mainly from Europeans paying their gas bills for Russian gas. European energy policy, particularly related to gas, needs to manage that problem. In a broader context, working for renewable energy directly fights against corruption because hydrocarbon extraction is virtually always corrupt and moving away from it starves corruption. Europe needs to move away from dependence on Russian gas, and the US needs to get its own house in order in terms of enabling money laundering as Europe’s consumers pay the price for this.
3) Remember when Kazakhstan was all over the news for the first week of January, then silence? Don’t let that happen to Ukraine. If you are telling yourself you care about Ukraine now, make a commitment to find out what is happening there when it’s not all over the news. Because remember, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.
And finally,
4) Seek out and listen to people from and in Ukraine. They know what’s going on.
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