Thursday, February 15, 2024

Tom Luongo nails the essential truth about Russia

 

Amidst all the fuss and bother over Tucker Carlson's interview with President Putin of Russia last week, the essential element appears to have been overlooked - possibly deliberately - by many commenters.  Tom Luongo puts his finger on the pulse of the matter.


Putin did present his version of history, of the truth. Shouldn’t we expect that?

But, as I’ve painstakingly laid out here, much like Putin himself, focusing on that is focusing on the wrong thing. It’s the wrong framework to view this interview given the current stakes of this conflict.

And this is what everyone missed about this interview. It literally does not matter one whit whose is right and who is wrong here. Putin’s version of history isn’t what’s at stake here.

. . .

What does matter is that is how Putin views this conflict. And we have to deal with it. Period.

. . .

This conflict between the West, and this includes all of Europe, the UK as well as the US, and Russia is one with existential consequences.

What Putin said, quite clearly, is that this ball is in our court. We can either sit down and have an honest discussion of a negotiated future or we will be at war. If that is what we in the West want, it is what we will get. Putin has put his sons on the line in eastern Ukraine. Are we?

You can dig in on being right or we can have peace. But, we cannot have both.

The Victoria Nulands and the Ursula Von Der Leyens of this world represent people who refuse to accept that Russia and/or China are not systems, but rather civilizations. They aren’t the current bogeyman 'ism' du jour, like Communism or authoritarianism, they are a people, a culture, an ethnos. The 'ism' is just the thing they’ve adopted now to help them preserve those things inherently Russian or Chinese.

Our leaders are this way because they don’t believe in those things for us no less anyone else. And they spend all their time trying to convince us that that is what divides us. But it isn’t. It’s simply their greed, their emptiness.

Because of this they lack any sense that these civilizations 1) have any right to exist and 2) deserve any empathy. So, logically, none of Russia’s demands are valid.

Putin put how he feels about history on the table. He’s angry about it. The West keeps saying, “Your version of history is wrong. So you have no right to be angry.”

Have you ever had an argument with someone important to you and they did this to you? I’ve done it and had it done to me. In my experience the argument doesn’t get resolved. It escalates.

And it escalates, eventually, even if it goes on for a long time, say, in a marriage, to the point of estrangement if not outright hatred. If you want to repair the relationship in some way then you have to lead with, “Okay, I hear you.”

Then you have to learn how to mean it.

That’s where we are today. The Russians are done with our leadership. We use diplomacy as a basis for betrayal, not as the foundation of a future.

They see us as a failing empire, a failing civilization on the long historical time line, because we have embraced cynicism and allowed the rapacious and the perverse to run our world.

This is why there is no basis for diplomacy at the head of state level. This is an argument between two people one of whom wants nothing to do with the other (The West) while the other one is insisting that no matter what the other does, they will survive (Russia).

Rock, meet Hard Place…. choose between chisels or sledgehammers.

. . .

If you want peace, deal with the facts of this war by acknowledging the feelings of the people on the other side of it while truly examining your own.


There's more at the link.

We've discussed the years between the breakup of the Soviet Union and the outbreak of the Ukraine war on more than one occasion in these pages.  It's very clear that Russia, under Putin, has never ceased to regard the demise of the Soviet Union as nothing less than a disaster.  Putin has been trying to undo that "mistake" ever since he gained power.

Peter Ziehan has some interesting material on Russia's geopolitical maneuvering to regain its position.  A couple of years ago he gave this address at the US Army's Maneuver Warfighter Conference.  We've seen it here before, but if you missed that, you should really take the time to watch it now;  it's still relevant despite the passage of time.  I've set it to start at (and stop after) the part of his talk addressing Russia's situation, but if you can take the time to watch the entire video, I recommend it.




President Putin is undoubtedly aware of those realities, and they're why he can't stop or pull back now.  If he does, his country must and will lose its position as a major power, because it will no longer be able to compete with the West on the world stage.  If he loses now, he loses forever - and that may include his own life, because his people will be unlikely to forgive him, and Russia has a tradition of dealing with failure in a somewhat terminal fashion.  Don't expect him to back down.

The late Robert Heinlein famously said:


What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!


In that light, allow me to highlight the key takeaway - the key fact - from Tom Luongo's article:


It literally does not matter one whit who is right and who is wrong here. Putin’s version of history isn’t what’s at stake here ... What does matter is ... how Putin views this conflict. And we have to deal with it. Period.


The mainstream media and our politicians are completely ignoring that fact, that reality.  They seem to think that if they brand Putin a liar, they can ignore his views and impose their own on Russia and the Ukraine war.  So far, the facts of the situation there are the diametric opposite of such false optimism;  and unless and until the USA and our leaders face the facts, and prioritize dealing with them, they (and we) can't and won't succeed.

We also have to acknowledge, and deal with, the undoubted and undeniable facts of the United States' meddling in Ukraine (to include downright dishonesty domestically and internationally, toppling governments and rampant corruption).  So far, nobody here appears willing to admit that those factors are at least as much to blame for the Ukraine imbroglio as Russian interference - but they are, and Putin knows it.  If our country lies to and about Russia, and ignores facts and reality, why are we surprised to find Russia and Putin doing unto us as we're doing unto them?

Peter


24 comments:

  1. Putin is better for the Russians than Biden is for we Americans simply because Putin doesn't hate his own people.

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  2. Putin has been trying to undo the demise of the Soviet Empire, chiefly by means of military force.

    Unfortunately, he's failed to realize his army isn't in 1978 anymore, and this time, after multiple prior walkover victories over token enemies, they've bitten into a rock, and broken their teeth over it.

    If they want peace, they can withdraw back within their own borders, and concern themselves solely with Russia, rather than trying to conquer their way back to 1978 borders.

    If instead they want to keep chewing on rocks, they can keep breaking their teeth.

    The last time they fought a war like this at barely 10% of the cost, it broke their empire.

    Now they're trying it with only 10% of that army, and 1000% of that cost.

    It is to laugh.

    All the interview did was confirm that this war is solely because of Putin's delusions of grandeur, running a Turd World economy with obsolescent nukes. His military power is like soap: the more you use, the less you have.

    News Flash: the whole world can see that now, and the sharks - including Russia's imaginary "allies" - can smell Russian blood in the water.

    Russia would be well off to simply retreat, and gear up for the coming challenges.

    Putin should settle his affairs.
    Time is not on his side, nor that of the Russian Federation.

    Ukraine "wins" (which nominal idea will look like France or Belgium circa 1919) by continuing to exist free of Moscow.
    Russia cannot win short of the total annihilation of Ukraine as a political entity, and even then, would face a decades-long insurgency.

    It was a foolish and delusionally misguided undertaking from the outset, spurred by Vlad believing his MoD press releases and gun-decked efficiency reports, smacking face-first into the granite wall of Reality.

    And Finland, Poland, and the Baltics are taking Russian saber-rattling and military adventurism and conquests seriously enough to expand NATO by another two countries as a direct result.

    If Vlad wanted peace, he should have stayed home.
    Coming up on two years into this debacle, he still hasn't grasped that fundamental truth.

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  3. To quote a historical figure from the last century, "There will be peace in our time." Didn't work out well for them either.

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  4. The current batch of Kleptocrats are not in the mood to be diplomatic.

    They NEED a War to HIDE their economic and social crimes against America and the WESTERN WORLD.

    Uncontrolled illegal immigration has made madhouses of much of Europe as rape and robbery even murder if a police report is made is called Islamophobic and YOUR arrested, not the immigrant.

    The Loss of Russian natural gas has forced several German companies to close down and start moving into more energy friendly nations.

    Our current batch of Kleptocrats will happily burn it all down than lose POWER.

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  5. Landroll in your clever historical comment, Britian wasn't paying and arming a 3rd nation to Attack Germany.

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  6. What I am frequently seeing missed by people who are discussing this is that the Ukrainians know quite well what a loss to the Russians will mean for them, which is why they're willing to fight to the last man, woman, and child. Better dead defending their homes than alive in Russian hands. No one who has the slightest contact with reality believes that the Russians will treat the civilians of Ukraine with any more dignity than they have historically done. It's all well and good to say that the war there needs to end, blah blah blah. It's another thing entirely to expect that the people who live there have any reason at all to stop fighting- ever. It has historically been preferable to commit suicide than to surrender to the Russians. That hasn't changed.

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  7. "What I am frequently seeing missed by people who are discussing this is that the Ukrainians know quite well what a loss to the Russians will mean for them, which is why they're willing to fight to the last man, woman, and child."

    21st century Ukrainians aren't 1940's Japanese...

    Large numbers of the Ukrainians fled long before the current troubles started or at the beginning of the conflict. The current mob "in charge" of the Western part of the country has been resorting to drafts and press gangs to get barely trained warm bodies into the meat grinder while the "Banderites" keep them from retreating. A mix of western "advisors" and mercenaries operate the higher technology equipment.

    The main purpose of the war since 2014 is to try to bait and break Russia while killing as many white Orthodox Christians as possible to preserve the farmland and mineral resources for Blackrock and that ilk. And enrich the MIC and others though corruption.

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  8. "Better dead defending their homes than alive in Russian hands."

    Its hard to see that in Ukraine. People are kidnapped off the street and forced into the armed forces and a sizeable chunk of the population has fled the country.

    More are surrendering to the Russians than before, hence the larger prisoner exchanges now.

    Why would anyone volunteer to die just so some megalomaniac in charge can say he won? Life as a Russian can't be worse than an experimental subject for some American biolab in Ukraine.

    This is a civil war, Zelensky and his new general-in-charge Syrsky are both Russian.

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  9. Putin is an old school KGB communist from the USSR. The "interview" was just another opportunity for him to engage in propaganda, distraction and subterfuge. He has a goal and an agenda. And it NOT friendly to the US or any other country. Not saying our government is any better. Different but nro better. Putin would like to go down in history as the an who reconstituted the USSR. Doing that will require him to reconquer and subjugate countries that are now free. Putin is an evil man. So is almost everyone in Mordor On The Potomac. We should not push Russia into a war where they feel they must use nukes to survive. Neither shour we be friendly with them. Their outlook, mentality and goals are not compatible with what ours should be. And our communists in power are not the same as the communists who run Russia or China.

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  10. Interesting comment. Care to provide some sort of factual links in support?

    Just for your information it seems for many decades before the USA got involved with the Ukrainian-Russian situation THE Ukrainians and Russians Worked and Lived together in reasonable peace and prosperity. INDEED, a large part of the building of the Russian Fleet was done in Ukraine as they were part of the ONLY WARM WATER PORT of Russia.

    No, Cold War Hero, NOT as slave labor, you don't build high tech stuff using forced labor.

    Pretty freaking ODD for a TRUE HATRED scenario you're bloviating about.

    Your comment:

    Anonymous Anonymous said...
    What I am frequently seeing missed by people who are discussing this is that the Ukrainians know quite well what a loss to the Russians will mean for them, which is why they're willing to fight to the last man, woman, and child. Better dead defending their homes than alive in Russian hands. No one who has the slightest contact with reality believes that the Russians will treat the civilians of Ukraine with any more dignity than they have historically done. It's all well and good to say that the war there needs to end, blah blah blah. It's another thing entirely to expect that the people who live there have any reason at all to stop fighting- ever. It has historically been preferable to commit suicide than to surrender to the Russians. That hasn't changed.

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  11. The thing is, quite a lot of people both in Ukraine and also in parts of Russia (e.g. Dagestan) would prefer not to be part of the Russian Empire. It's true Ukraine is not winning its war (but it isn't exactly losing either). The fact that many Russians including Putin want Ukraine to be a part of Russia (and then also add Poland, Baltic nations etc.) doesn't mean that it should. See also Hamass and Israel, Taiwan and West Taiwan etc. (and for that matter the USA and the British Empire ~200+ years ago)

    The only way to convince Russia to not want bits of its empire back is the way the nascent US convinced the British not to want that part of the British empire - i.e. military victories

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  12. Putin's vision of Russia cannot coexist with NATO or the European Union in the long term because both are coalitions of the willing. Putin neither recognises nor accepts the right of his nieghbours to have a will of their own.

    Seán

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  13. Just round up the illegal immigrants and ship them to Ukraine to serve as cannon fodder. Two problems solved!

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  14. Holodomor casts a looong shadow . . .

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  15. If you take the trouble to look you can see that Russia has annexed the parts of Ukraine that Ukraine was being egregiously unpleasant in and which they promised to stop doing that at Minsk in 2014. Russia has built an extensive (rivals Maginot in some respects) series of defensive positions on the "new" border with Ukraine but they are clever enough to know what we failed to remember--nobody can win a defensive war if it simply remains on the defensive. Thus the continued 'refining' of the lines and creation and destruction of cauldrons. Putin and Russia have absolutely no intention of taking Ukraine. They don't want it and why would they, again? What possible justification?
    Putin also knows that the ONLY way to prevent friction between great powers is to have buffer states. That is why Belgium even exists. It is what Stalin wanted and got out of the Warsaw Pact.
    The clip was fascinating but I think the speaker was basing his analysis on misconceptions.

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  16. Ukraine was "being unpleasant" to those territories, because Russia had infiltrated those regions with Spetsnaz and airborne troops wearing slapdash "civilian" clothes over their uniforms (FFS, it was on every channel, and seen by millions of people, with everyone's blue-and-white striped airborne t-shirts peeping through their overcoats), claiming to be "Ukrainian partisans", and tried to stealth-steal them.

    Ukraine wasn't in a position then to oppose that much at the time, but did what they could.

    Now Russia is belatedly paying for three earlier such outright thefts, along with the fourth attempted one, and it's costing them dearly, in material, men, blood, and treasure, which it will take them generations to replace.

    This war started long ago. 2022 was just the latest lava bubbling over, and this time, the backsplatter is burning Russia as much as anyone else.

    Boo frickin' hoo. The day Russia returns to 1991 Russian borders, and surrenders illegally "annexed" Ukrainian territory to Ukraine, the war is over.

    Russia also interfered heavily and ham-fistedly in every Ukrainian election from 1991 to present. Palming this off as "US interference", like photographing to tip of an iceberg, only tells 1/9th of the story.

    Ukraine finally got itself a leader who isn't Moscow's lap dog, and it galls them, mightily.

    Dulce et decorum est.

    Ukrainians realize that the quickest way to end a war, is to lose it.

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    Replies
    1. It's simple. One side is offering bounties for sacred, miracle-producing, Christian icons, so they can desecrate and destroy them. The other side isn't. One side has its troops deliberately blessed by priests...and the other side has embarked on a fanatical quest to exterminate Orthodox Christianity utterly. NATO is more impotent than ever before, and the warped shadow of These United States that survived 1865 is diseased and scrabbling desperately to keep hold of the pittance of imperial power it has left. Our Suez canal incident is within shouting distance, and anyone with a modicum of historical knowledge can see it. But you're more interested in explaining that Ukraine shelled civilian residences and slaughtered women and children long before this war began, because naughty Russians were also in the vicinity.

      Delete
  17. Aesop, I know it's a waste of time, but I have to discuss this with you,

    "If Vlad wanted peace, he should have stayed home.
    Coming up on two years into this debacle, he still hasn't grasped that fundamental truth."

    Stayed home and allowed the continued encirclement of Russia with American dual use nuclear capable missiles systems to "Defend NATO?

    How did WE respond to the Cuban Missile crisis when Nuclear missiles were emplaced so close to America? SEEMS WE didn't like the idea of a Nuclear Decapitation Strike against DC. Why should Vlad accept it for Moscow?

    It's not like we don't have dozens of diplomatic complaints and attempts to speak about this FROM Russia to America and the World.

    "Fundamental Truth" Whose TRUTH is Fundamental?

    Time will tell, just like the 20 YEAR Debacle of Afghanistan where we replaced the Taliban with the Taliban.

    A comment I responded to Dan seems apt as I don't want to retype it:

    Michael
    1 hour ago
    Reply to Dan
    Dan you mean this: Without them (nuclear weapons) they (Russia) are a third world country and military with a GDP smaller than Italy and a military that after nearly two years still hasn’t conquered Ukraine. It’s like the US declaring war on Mexico and not being able to accomplish the job.

    LOL, did you actually READ your post?

    A GDP smaller than Italy and YET Against the might of NATO and America’s PROXY WAR against them USING Ukraine as the meat sacks doing the dying part the THINK TANKS are replacing Ukraine Victory with STALEMATE?

    I’ll rewrite it for you. Like the USA declaring war on a bunch of goat herders, fighting them, arming the government WE established to be OUR PEOPLE there and leaving Afghanistan to the same Taliban goat herders we started fighting 20 YEARS AGO.

    YEAH, your RIGHT DANNY, AMERICA without Nuclear weapons would be a 3rd world country.

    The 70’s are calling Danny, go back soonest, they be missing you.



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  18. Well, Mr. Aesop, Ukies may very well lose this war. Your assertion that they are 'winning' contradicts assertions of the opposite by well-informed sources who are American patriots. Looks like we'll have to wait and see.

    Meantime, how the blazes does Luongo characterize Russia as "Eastern"? Granted, most of the land-mass is east of Moscow and St Petersburg, but those two cities are definitely Western, at least if one judges by literature and music.

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  19. Nice to see some honest commentary on the situation with Russia. The people who run the State Dept have lied and schemed so much that no one can trust the US government anymore. Their word is meaningless. They even brag about the deceptions. We are a good people being governed by some very bad people.

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  20. Michael,

    There are no nukes in Ukraine, a point they'll regret for ages in hindsight, and a lesson in nuclear proliferation that will not be lost on 130 other nations henceforth. The Norks and Iranians are the star pupils thus far. So your argument for justifying Vlad's attack is moot, and the example of Cuba is an apples-to-oranges fallacy.

    And MrDad, kindly show where I said Ukraine is "winning", and see if you can suss out what I actually said there.

    Anon 9:58,
    Kindly recount the sordid history of the Russian Orthodox Church's total infiltration and subornation by the KGB (and now, the FSB) from Lenin onwards. Then puzzle out why that bunch of admitted and confirmed Russian stooges and spies might be persona non grata in Ukraine lately as a result. Quite the poser.

    Donetsk and Luhansk weren't shelled because some Russians were "nearby", they were shelled because Russian troops wholly infiltrated both in 2014. You can tell this because for 24 years after independence, Ukraine never shelled those areas at all.
    The dictionary phrase for Russia's actions that changed that is "military invasion".
    Artillery bombardment of enemy invaders within one's territorial borders has been in-bounds for only about 2000 years, when last I looked.
    When Russia tried the same playbook in 2022, they got quite the bloody nose, because Ukraine hadn't sat idly by in the interim.

    And in the Suez Canal incident, we forced the invading British and French troops to withdraw, and give it back to Nasser. That has no similarity whatsoever to what's happened in Ukraine in the last decade. You could look it up.

    Opinions are anyone's to hold, but no one gets to keep a different set of facts separate from reality.

    Russia is a paranoid bully, as they've been for centuries, and now they're getting taught a bully's lesson, as they deserve.

    Ukraine has as much right to exist and act freely as an unborn baby does, but some people unaccountably chose cheer on abortionists.

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  21. I'm not claiming to favor Russia in this kerfluffle as I don't know enough about the issues involved. But I do know of those on "our" side that support Ukraine and I consider those people - Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Romney, et al - to be enemies of the US; therefore I don't support Ukraine. It appears too much to be a front for laundering money (and hosting US-funded biolabs) for many of the US powers that be.

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  22. You can tell this because for 24 years after independence, Ukraine never shelled those areas at all.

    Nope, Aesop. The shelling started at the behest of US State/Warmaking department after those plucky but obviously anti-"Democracy" people in the East voted to STAY with Russia:

    "In 2014, after the coup in Ukraine, there was an unexpected countercoup where Crimea and the Donbas broke away with essentially a military backstop that NATO was highly unprepared for at the time," he said. "They had one last hail-mary chance that was the Crimea annexation vote in 2014, and when the hearts and minds of the people of Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation, that was the last straw for the concept of free speech on the internet in the eyes of NATO. They saw the fundamental nature of war change at that moment."


    See: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/02/16/mike_benz_to_tucker_carlson_from_natos_perspective_the_entire_post-war_world_order_would_collapse_unless_they_censored_the_internet.html

    It is interesting to see that some folks still have a 1950's Cold War Narrative, Aesop. Sorta like seeing "X" all over again!

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  23. they've bitten into a rock, and broken their teeth over it.

    Adiivka, pal.

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