Month: March 2022

Some commentators argue that we drove Putin to desperate measures by expanding NATO to Russia’s borders. Is that correct? Would he have invaded Ukraine if the expansion had not occurred?

A month ago, I took the position that Putin was focused on dividing NATO, and would continue to turn the pressure on and off in lieu of invading. An invasion would only unify NATO and turn European public opinion against him. He must have known that, but he invaded anyway. That tells me his real objective was to inhale Ukraine at any cost, and that NATO expansion was just a pretext.

His Plan A having flopped ignominiously, assume Putin is already moving on to Plan B, which could well be to encircle and starve the defenders of Kyiv. The historical analogies are obvious: Paris in 1870; Leningrad in 1941; and, of course, Berlin in 1948. How would we respond?

We, and the rest of the world, would not intervene to prevent an assault on the city, but we would not let its defenders starve. We would organize an updated version of the Berlin Airlift, using planes from neutral countries in an effort to avoid a military confrontation. Technically, it can be done. But what if Putin, unlike Stalin, shoots down the planes?

The US would have to wipe out Putin’s anti-aircraft capabilities. Americans would have to kill Russians. At that point, anything, including nuclear war, is a possibility. We have moved from Berlin in 1948 to the Cuba Missile Crisis.

“My fellow Americans, I ran for president as an innocuous old white guy who could get votes from identity voters and save the country from Donald Trump. My sales pitch worked; that’s why I was the nominee, not because I ran a great campaign. But the virus, and the Georgia elections, changed everything. Suddenly, it seemed possible to turn America into a more worker-friendly country. We could replace the dollar store economy with a system that worked for everyone–not just wealthy businessmen. Those were heady times.

We got some important stuff done. We reduced poverty, brought back lots of jobs, and improved the safety net. But in the long run, we didn’t have enough votes in the Senate for the centerpiece of my agenda, the virus persisted, and inflation started to rage. I lost a lot of ground in the polls. Today, things look grim.

So, today, I’m announcing a reset. I won’t talk about being FDR anymore. Now I’m Bill Clinton, trying to get small, popular stuff done. Everything I suggest will sound reasonable and helpful to the average American. Then I’ll sit back and watch the Republicans destroy themselves by sounding like the dangerous extremists that they are.

I know this will disappoint the left. I share their disappointment. But what else can we do? I’m not an alchemist. I can’t conjure votes out of nothing. This is the best we can do. Learn to live with it.

Oh, and how ’bout them Ukrainians! Aren’t they awesome?”

In a sense, Putin has made writing Biden’s SOTU much easier; he’ll lead with support for liberal democracy in Ukraine, and get lots of bipartisan applause for it. It’s the kind of unifying theme that works perfectly in a SOTU. It will certainly play better than arguing for patience on inflation, or for bringing back the BBB.

The real question is, will Biden connect the dots between Putin’s threat to liberal democracy in Europe and Trump’s actions at home? Will he dare to lay out the equation Putin =Trump and call for the protection of our electoral system from thugs and opportunistic right-wing politicians?

My guess is that he will decide the SOTU is the wrong time and place to make that kind of divisive argument. While that may be correct, it remains a valid point, and it needs to be put forward between now and the election.

Jamelle Bouie says it is the conservatives and moderates in the Democratic Party, not the Squad, that are to blame for the government’s unpopularity, as they are responsible for the failure of the BBB. Is he right?

Yes and no. Instead of blaming “moderates,” he should name names–just Manchin and Sinema, both of whom are better described as independents than Democrats. Everyone else is on board with the BBB, so blaming a large group of people instead of two holdouts is inappropriate. That said, the Squad is not to blame, either, because its members are more interested in expanding the welfare state than in winning culture wars. It is the Twitter left, not anyone in Congress, that must take responsibility for raising the issues that the GOP loves to discuss: “defunding the police;” misguided attacks on the Founding Fathers; and cancel culture.

As plenty of Russians have told us, this is Putin’s war, not theirs. They were not consulted. There was no outpouring of support for it. With that in mind, what should we be attempting to accomplish with sanctions?

Obviously, the best case scenario would be a popular uprising and regime change. The government’s powers of repression make that highly unlikely. Nor is it likely that Putin will feel sufficiently threatened to change course; like Trump, he doubles down when he meets resistance for fear of looking weak. So what can we actually do?

The sanctions directed at Putin and the oligarchs should stay. Measures which make it clear to the Russian public that their country is an international pariah, and that their government is not as powerful as it claims to be, are also useful. It would be a mistake, however, to keep sanctions that impact the average Russian citizen’s ability to function at a basic level indefinitely. The Russian financial system, given time, will learn to adjust, and will no longer be vulnerable to international pressure; better to turn sanctions on and off to retain the current dependency and maximize the psychological impact to the public.