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Media Bullshit About Ugledar
A typical New York Times propaganda piece is demonstrating how it intentionally misleads its readers:
Moscow’s Military Capabilities Are in Question After Failed Battle for Ukrainian City
As Moscow steps up its offensive in eastern Ukraine, weeks of failed attacks on a Ukrainian stronghold have left two Russian brigades in tatters, raised questions about Russia’s military tactics and renewed doubts about its ability to maintain sustained, large-scale ground assaults.
The battle for the city of Vuhledar, which has been viewed as an opening move in an expected Russian spring offensive, has been playing out since the last week of January, but the scale of Moscow’s losses there is only now beginning to come into focus.
The piece claims that the Russian attack on Ugledar (Vuhledar) has failed to achieve its purpose. But that is wrong.
The attack on Ugledar was a diversion operation. Ugledar was originally defended by two territorial brigades. The Ukrainian command pulled two artillery brigades, one motorized infantry brigade and parts of one tank brigade from other front lines to hold onto Ugledar. The Russian attack thus did what it was supposed to do. It allowed for Russian breakthroughs at the northeastern Kharkiv front and in Bakhmut because Ukraine had moved forces away from those fronts. The fighting around Ugledar has cost Russia some, but not big losses.
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The Times itself admits that the Russian effort in Ugledar put the Ukrainian army into a bad situation:
The fighting over Vuhledar has come at a cost for Ukraine, too, both in terms of casualties and in the vast amounts of ammunition it has expended to repel Russia’s growing number of ground troops. Kyiv’s allies this week expressed concern about their ability to meet the demand, raising the possibly that Ukrainian commanders might at some point have to limit shelling to the most important targets.
Well, well …
[Col. Oleksii Dmytrashkivskyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian military forces in the area,] said the attacks on Vuhledar had been no surprise — the Russians even warned the Ukrainians of the coming assault through social media channels, in an apparent attempt to scare them. “It was announced and spread,” Colonel Dmytrashkivskyi said. “It was done to diminish the morale of the fighters.”
Yes. It was announced and spread. But that was obviously done because it was a diversion attack designed to drag Ukrainian units away from other fronts. The Ukrainian military fell for it and moved more then 10,000 soldiers from other fronts to Ugledar to defend an empty city.
The Russian president Vladimir Putin has lauded the marines who were fighting in Ugledar for doing their job well:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has highly praised the fighting efforts by marines during the special military operation, according to his remarks in a television program, an excerpt of which was posted by journalist Pavel Zarubin to his Telegram channel on Sunday.
"Marines are at work <…> right now. Fighting heroically. Both from the Pacific Fleet and the Northern Fleet," the president said following a meeting of the supervisory board of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives on February 9, according to the excerpt from the program called "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" that comes out on the Rossiya-1 television channel.
But the British disinformation minister insists:
Mr. Wallace, the British defense secretary, cited reports on Wednesday that “a whole Russian brigade was effectively annihilated” in Vuhledar, where he said that Moscow “lost over 1,000 people in two days.” The British Defense Intelligence Agency reported last week that Russian units had “likely suffered particularly heavy casualties around Vuhledar.”
In reality the Russian army lost probably two company sizes equivalents. Some 300 casualties plus three dozen piece of larger equipment. That was simply the cost of the business.
Within the Times piece there several other misleading claims which also regularly appear in other pieces of the outlet.
In recent weeks, Moscow has rushed tens of thousands more troops, many of them inexperienced new recruits, to the front lines …
There are no 'inexperienced new recruits' in the Russian forces in Ukraine.
I was drafted into the German army at the age of 18. I thereby was what one calls a conscript soldier. After four month I signed, mostly for financial reasons, a time limited contract. I had thus turned into a temporary regular soldier or contract soldier. When my two year contract ended I became a reservist. I was then mobilized thrice (each time on my request) to take part in large exercises in Canada and Britain and for additional qualification training. As a mobilized reservist I received the same pay, terms and conditions as a temporary regular soldier. There were also professional regular soldiers who had joined the military for a life time carrier.
Russia has fought most of the Ukraine campaign with contract soldiers and Wagner mercenaries. Conscripts were not supposed to take part. (A few accidentally did early on but were soon removed.) Only the Luhansk and Donetsk People Republics militia have used conscripts. Russia has mobilized reservists. These are trained former conscripts and contract soldiers who had done their regular time of service. They were retrained and then send into regular units to take part in Ukraine.
It is completely wrong and misleading to call these "inexperienced new recruits".
Then comes this:
Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, told the BBC on Wednesday that “97 percent of the Russian army” is in Ukraine, though he did not elaborate or offer evidence for the claim. U.S. military officials estimate that about 80 percent of Russia’s ground forces are dedicated to the war effort.
Before the war the Russian ground forces were 360,000 men strong. The mobilization activated 300,000 additional reservists. Some 70,000 volunteers have also joined military services. The numbers of Russian troops in Ukraine may be 200 to 250,000, a third of the 700,000+ men currently in the Russian ground forces.
It is not just the Times that is spreading utter nonsense. This is from the Washington Post:
As Russians inch forward near Bakhmut, Ukrainians dig fallback defenses
The soldiers here expect the same grinding dynamic to continue, with Russia throwing mostly untrained conscripts at the new Ukrainian defensive positions as they have in the bloody streets of Bakhmut.
Same bullshit, same unacknowledged bullshit source.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 16 2023 21:04 utc | 80
Thanks for the link. Here is the article Slavyangrad was referring to (or more likely, the source article, see below:
Lukashenko names conditions for Belarus to join Russia’s war
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/lukashenko-names-conditions-belarus-join-091226359.html
Relevant quotes:
“For now, I am ready to join Russians in the war from the territory of Belarus only in one case: if soldiers come from there to kill my people. If they were to attack Belarus, the retaliation would be most brutal. And the war would take on a completely different character,” he said.
Lukashenko emphasised that this applies not only to Ukraine, but to all other neighbouring countries.
Given what Gonzalo Lira talked about in his video yesterday about the rumor that Poland intends to attack Belarus in the next ten days, that last sentence may be related to that.
He voiced his confidence that Ukraine was only a pretext for waging a war that the West was actively pushing towards. “You blame Russia. Oh, but you want to dismember Ukraine at the hands of the Poles,” Lukashenko said.
Again, a reference to Poland.
Lukashenko also announced his intelligence data that the West wants to involve Belarus in the war and literally dreams of it, as this would make it possible, taking into account the length of the borders of Belarus, to stretch the front by an additional 2,500 kilometres, which would complicate the situation for the troops of Belarus and Russia.
“It is a correct calculation. But an empty, meaningless one. We will not give you this chance. But if only you dare to set foot on our land, the answer will be brutal. Westerners know how [it will be done – ed.] and with what weapons,” Lukashenko said.
Lukashenko also stated that the Belarusian army numbers 75,000 soldiers in peacetime, but its number can be increased to half a million if necessary.
Do note that this report comes from Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian source, however it claims to be quoting Belarus state media Belta. That Belta link, in Russian, is here: Lukashenka told who does not want peace in Ukraine and in what case Belarus will be ready to use the army.
There’s a bit more at the Belta link than the Yahoo article. Use a browser translator to read it. For instance, this quote:
The President is sure that Ukraine was only a pretext for unleashing a war, to which the West, and above all the United States, was pushing. Moreover, there is interest in the dismemberment of Ukraine. “I mean your ambitions to pull away Western Ukraine with the hands of the Poles. Well, it’s going to be a fight to the fullest. And then you will not ask me whether we will attack from the territory of Belarus or not. You accuse Russia of wanting to tear off a piece of Ukraine. And it is you who want to dismember Ukraine with the hands of the Poles. Those will be the events. It’s the masks going to be ripped off of you right up to the waist,” he said.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Feb 16 2023 22:18 utc | 104
On media BS, yesterday Lavrov held an informal meeting with the heads of foreign media bureaus accredited in Russia and had the following to say. Please do try to read the first six or so paragraphs before scrolling down the page, and you might even consider reading the last one too:
Dear colleagues,
I apologize for the delay. Today, a “government hour” was held in the State Duma, at which a lot of attention was paid to the topic of foreign policy activities and many questions were asked.
We are grateful that you accepted our invitation. Communicating in an informal atmosphere is a tradition.
Many of the faces here are familiar. We had the opportunity to talk during the big press conference in January. I think there was a good dialogue then. Today, it can be productively continued.
We are open to communication with the foreign media community. Your humble servant, another humble servant (Maria Zakharova), Deputy Foreign Ministers, Directors of Departments, our ambassadors are constantly open to communication and presentation of our point of view and truth. We are always at your disposal.
At the same time, we hope that everything you hear from us, learn, and objectively reach your audience – about our foreign policy, about the internal measures taken by the Russian Government to mitigate the negative consequences of sanctions that are part of the total hybrid war declared against us – economic, kulut and humanitarian war. Perhaps it is important for your readers who are interested in what is happening to have first-hand information along with what is told about us in your countries of origin.
I am convinced that a real journalist, like a real diplomat, values his reputation and tries to cover the events impartially and comprehensively. Especially when it comes to inferences that are brought to the attention of your and our audience.
Russian reports and publications are prepared on the basis of real facts. I hope you will not deny that in Russia there are many facts about what is happening in and around Ukraine. All of them are supported by concrete evidence. This information should always reach the end user, who is under the “hail” of speculation, fraud, various materials that directly distort reality. To convey the truth to you, and to us diplomats, is of particular importance now.
We constantly try to make work with foreign journalists as effective, intelligible, simplified in forms as possible. We organize regular press tours to the cities and towns of our country. They allow you to feel how the country, regions, citizens live – for the most part, open, friendly and ready for contacts. In recent years, we have organized about 60 such trips to our regions. That’s a lot. We will continue this useful and promising work. I invite you to the next tour, which will be announced soon.
We are not doing this because we are trying to somehow distinguish ourselves from Western states. They do not encourage this practice, although they call themselves “beacons of democracy.” But in fact, they introduce censorship and purge their information space from alternative points of view, fight against any manifestations of dissent. They are trying to “cancel” our journalists and the media by labeling them “mouthpieces of the Kremlin.” The ugly situation around the largest editions of RT and Sputnik in the European Union is a confirmation of this. They fell under the “roller” of censorship and discrimination not in connection with a special military operation. Five years ago, the Elysee Palace officially denied RT and Sputnik accreditation, directly explaining through French President Emmanuel Macron that this refusal was due to the fact that they were not the press, but “agents of influence and organs of false propaganda.”
That hybrid war, but with all the components of the military, economic, cultural, media, began long before the current events. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted this (in such “childish” naivety), saying yesterday that they began to prepare a war in 2014, that is, when they brought to power neo-Nazis, Russophobes, putschists, who first of all declared war against everything Russian and a campaign to expel Russians from the Crimea. He said that it was from then on that the war against Russia began to be prepared by our colleagues in NATO.
If we talk about “RT” and “Sputnik”, they (on the American initiative) were included in the list of foreign agents in the United States. Again, five years before the start of a special military operation. This is also part of the information war, which, in turn, is an integral component of the hybrid war, which has now unfolded in full.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Jean-Pierre Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said publicly a week ago, without shame, that the ban on the work of a number of Russian media in Europe is a “measure to protect freedom of speech.” I’ll leave that to your judgment. I am convinced that you are well acquainted with the principles of free journalism, well acquainted with what RT and Sputnik do. If in their activities you see gross violations of the principles of freedom of speech, then it would be interesting to know such examples today.
We see in this a complete intolerance for pluralism of opinions, which is one of the core values of classical liberalism, even if we side with neoliberals in defending truth and truth. But from a legal point of view, such a policy of “abolishing” Russian-language media grossly violates the commitments undertaken by all Western countries within the framework of the OSCE to ensure freedom of the media and equal access to information for the population of all OSCE countries. Moreover, access to information, the sources of which are located both inside the relevant party and outside it.
I will add an interesting fact – the main initiator of the adoption of such an obligation to ensure access to information in 1990 was France. The same country that kicked RT and Sputnik out of the Elysee Palace, declaring them instruments of Russian propaganda. This obligation of access to sources of information without any restrictions was made in 1990, when the Soviet Union was in the process of disappearing. Then the West believed that from now on there was the “end of history”, that all the rules of human life, including decisions on the question of what information to provide to the population would be decided only by the United States, the European Union and NATO. Therefore, we, the USSR, were actively imposed a decision within the framework of the OSCE, which will remove any obstacles to access to information. When we overcame the period of “national disorders” and created a truly independent and objective media, immediately it began to seem inconvenient to our Western partners, led by France. This truth “pricked my eyes.” Thus, confirming that the information “dumbing down” of the audience in Western governments had become the norm of the day and any information that in one way or another called into question the correctness of the official line was inconvenient. Exactly the same was done at one time by the leadership of the Soviet Union, which closed itself off from Western news agencies, allowing only loyal communist media to enter our information market. Now we are witnessing exactly this trend, exactly according to John Orwell, in the work of Western governments in terms of their aspirations to “keep the media in the county”.
One example is to look at the reaction that is observed in the West in response to the concrete, based on many facts, revelations of S. Hersh in connection with the explosions of Nord Streams. Imagine that something similar would be attributed to Russia in relation to the Canada-USA oil pipeline. You wouldn’t have another job. You would be forced to write about just that now. And here is a sensation based on facts. We have long assumed their existence. But nevertheless, this is a serious journalist who does not retract his statements, the results of the investigation. On the contrary, he confirms them daily and, as it were, calls for a conversation those who are mentioned in his investigation. And what’s the reaction? No.
Remember how, after British Prime Minister Theresa May’s statements that the Skripals were “highly likely” poisoned by the Russians, it took two days to expel 150 Russian diplomats from Europe and the United States. No one even thought about how to check it all. They said “hi” as well. Britain forced continental Europeans to expel Russian diplomats. At that time, I asked our colleagues in the European Union, many of whom felt uncomfortable, whether London had shown any evidence, other than Than May’s words, that “highly liked” because hardly anyone else had motives. They, embarrassed, said that no, no one from London provided them with facts, but they said – kick them out quickly, and then we will give you evidence. I was not lazy, after a while I talked to the same people from the EU, asked if they were eventually given evidence. They lowered their eyes and said no. This is how propaganda works when the Anglo-Saxons need it in the first place.
Is S. Hersh’s testimony less convincing than the “babble” that was presented in connection with Salisbury, in connection with A.A. Navalny, the data on the examination of which they still refuse to provide us? What does it have to do with “highly liked”. We are told that they have tests proving that he was poisoned. But they will not give us the results of these tests, because the Russian citizen himself does not want this. Then they began to tell us that these data already belong to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We went there, saying that the Germans say that now it is “your property”, share it. We were told that yes, the Germans gave them these tests, but they were told that they did not have the right to publish them in full. Such a sterile excerpt was made public, from which nothing is clear. It’s a mockery of common sense and free speech.
Today, the representative of the UN Secretary-General, answering the question of one of your colleagues whether there will be an investigation in connection with the reports of Sergei Hersh about the causes and author of the explosions of Nord Stream-1 and Nord Stream-2, said that they do not have the authority to conduct investigations. Look up the material from three to four months ago, when we raised the issue that the Secretary-General of the Organization does not have the authority to conduct an investigation at the request of one or two countries. This was due to another chemical incident in Syria or elsewhere. Easy to find on the internet. Then Deputy Secretary-General R. DiCarlo (who, by a strange coincidence, is a US citizen) said that they were conducting an investigation on behalf of the Security Council, the General Assembly or UN member states. We said that member countries could not commission an investigation. This is a legal procedure, you need to follow the rules – only the Security Council of the Organization. We were told that the appeal of the member countries was enough.
A member state, the Russian Federation, has now asked the Secretariat to investigate the material. This topic has become one of the dominant topics on the agenda of international discussions. Let’s see to what extent A. Guterres, official representative Nicolas Dujarric (a French citizen) or his deputy F. Haq (a US citizen) will be able to formulate their position “coherently”, given the recent statements by Deputy Secretary-General R. DiCarlo that the Secretariat has the right to conduct investigations at the request of member countries. I’m ironic. But the irony is based on outrageous facts.
The West’s policy of privatising the UN secretariats (we see this in the OPCW and the OSCE) crosses all the boundaries of diplomatic and human ethics. The rules of procedure are broken “through the knee”. The TECHNICAL SECRETARIAT of the OPCW is forced to engage in a “case” expressly prohibited in the CWC – they do not have the right to identify the perpetrators. It is their duty only to determine whether a banned chemical has been used or not. Anything else they can implement should be the subject of a consensus addition to the CWC.
A few years ago, by a vote, a minority of the parties to the Convention allowed them to “point fingers” (in this case) into the Syrian Arab Republic. Thus, to justify the frank, gross staging staged by the White Helmets. The ludicrous evidence they presented (they pulled boys out of basements without masks, poured them from a hose and said they were saving children from a chemical attack) were considered sufficient grounds not only for the investigation, but also for a verdict.
S. Hersh announces specific facts indicating the dates when everything was considered in the White House and other departments of the US Administration. What he put on paper coincides with the actually recorded events directly on the pipelines. The U.N. says it doesn’t have the authority to investigate. All the countries through whose economic zones the Nord Streams were laid have been silent for six months like a “fish on ice”.
Since September 2022, neither the Swedes nor the Danes have responded to the official letters of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who politely offered to appoint a contact person with whom it would be possible to conduct a conversation, since this happened in territorial waters, in the exclusive zone of Sweden and Denmark, and the pipelines are the property of the Russian company. You probably have a journalistic ethic: when someone addresses, you feel obliged to respond after a while, even if the answer is no. Since September 2022, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation has been waiting for a response from absolutely independent, sovereign states. Our ambassadors remind the prime ministers of these countries about once a month that they have been approached. They would write at least that they received an appeal, but so far they are “busy”. Not even that. I believe that this is rudeness, which hides the complete failure of attempts to gloss over the responsibility of the “collective West” led by the United States in this sabotage, the organization of a terrorist act.
S. Hersh named the reason. The main thing was to prevent Germany from feeling comfortable in the energy zone and start receiving gas through these two pipelines, financed by companies from Russia, Germany, Austria, and Italy. “Spit” in the face of many European enterprises. Just as it turned out many years ago that the phone of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was tapped by the US National Security Agency. This fact, which does not require investigation, was recognized by everyone. The German Chancellor behaved not as the leader of the main country of the European Union, but as the head of the government of the occupied power.
Now this is repeated in even more striking tones. Germany was not just humiliated, but put in its place – the satellite of the United States, which will decide whether Berlin can ensure its economic development, meet the social needs of citizens, using gas coming through the gas pipeline, paid for, among other things, by Germany itself. They were told to forget about the money, they were buried. US President Joe Biden promised in January 2022 that there would be no gas pipeline. This was also promised by US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. Former British Foreign Secretary L. Truss immediately after the terrorist attack expressed her delight in social networks, R. Sikorski (my former Polish colleague) wrote: “Thank you, USA.” Also, W. Nuland less than a month ago in the US Congress said that she shared the joy of senators that these gas pipelines turned out to be “a pile of metal at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.” Isn’t that a confession? Not turning up red-handed?
The most “funny” thing is that no one from the Western media writes about this at all. S. Hersh “fights” with his truth in social networks, in some Internet channels, but the mainstream media (maybe I don’t know something) are silent about it. This is a verdict on oneself on the part of the “collective West” and the United States regarding what “rules” are meant when the whole world is told to forget about international law and the UN. They say that there are a lot of autocrats, and they will build a “system of democracy”, where they will call those who want, they will live by the “rules” on which the world order should be based.
What is happening is one of the clearest examples of “rules”, the authors of which “do not care” what severe adversities will fall on the shoulders of many countries, including direct allies of the United States. Now they say that the Russians are arranging a crisis of food and energy security. In no case do I doubt your professionalism. You know what facts are cited by WHO, UNDP, FAO about when the food crisis began. As soon as the coronavirus pandemic broke out, the “collective West” in the best colonial traditions began to buy food, printing trillions of dollars and euros for this, if only they had everything for a “rainy day”.
Poor countries didn’t get anything then, and they do now. Today there were new statistics: the poorest countries in Africa received about 10%, half to the European Union. Food stocks are accumulating. Probably, some part will go to the countries of the “third world”, but for money. Much of what we call the result of Western “rules” is thought-provoking. It took them a long time to get there. The pipeline explosions were the final solution to the German gas issue. As they are now trying to finally resolve the “Russian question”, so did the German one, so did Berlin never try to play an independent role in the foreseeable historical perspective.
There are many studies of those who studied the history of Europe and came to the conclusion that whenever Russia and Germany had normal relations, built joint projects in the economy, in logistics, even in military affairs, Europe lived more calmly. But it was more turbulent for those who wanted to command this continent from across the ocean or from across the English Channel (this was even more relevant at many stages of historical development). We did not allow Germany to grow as a leading European power, primarily thanks to reliable Russian energy carriers at absolutely acceptable, competitive prices that ensure the outstripping growth of the German economy.
Now German Chancellor O.Scholz, Foreign Minister Alexander Berbok, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Jean-Pierre Borrell constantly say that the West has coped with Russian sanctions. With which ones? The West has forbidden us to sell oil and gas for the most part. He left some loopholes, decided to feel sorry for himself at least a little, as far as the Americans allowed the European West to do this. The head of the European Commission, U. von der Leyen, said that they “won.”
I appeal to the independent media: nowhere have I seen at least a rough estimate of how much more expensive it has become for Europe to meet its energy needs. Count. You will not find in any statistical report, not in any document of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or another structure, how much Europe spent on gas and oil purchases a year ago, how much this year and how much it will spend next year. There is only a bravura “report” that they have replaced Russian gas and oil and they are “doing well.” How much does it cost German, French (to a lesser extent), Austrian and other economies dependent on gas and oil generation?
No one forbids you to conduct a journalistic investigation? Instead of A. Guterres, you will try to find out the details of what S. Hersh reported. You do not have Sergei Dujarric (a French citizen by coincidence), who said that the UN is authorized for investigations. Journalistic, in my opinion, is quite appropriate. S. Hersh is a respected journalist. Mr. N. Price insults the Pulitzer Laureate’s investigation and says they don’t respond to nonsense. This is a testament to the U.S. State Department official’s great “respect” for those with whom he is called upon to work. Since not all of you have N. Price’s boss, try to investigate.
Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 17 2023 2:39 utc | 149
WARNING: LONG POST
So I’m listening to Ben Norton’s analysis of Emmanuel Todd’s article, which was recommended to me by several people at the bar.
Well, it’s nothing we don’t know so far, 15 minutes into the 29 minutes. He also references several relevant articles from the site GeoPoliticalEconomy.com.
Here is an English translation of the original (French) FigaroVox Todd article taken from the Mereja Forum Web site which reproduced it:
Emmanuel Todd: “World War III has begun”
By Alexandre Devecchio
Published on 12/01/2023 at 19:44 , Updated
https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/emmanuel-todd-la-troisieme-guerre-mondiale-a-commence-20230112
From the Mereja Forum copy at https://mereja.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=313446:
LE FIGARO. – Why publish a book on the war in Ukraine in Japan and not in France?
Emmanuel TODD. – Here, I have the absurd reputation of being a “rebel destroyer”, whereas in Japan I am a respected anthropologist, historian and geopolitician, who speaks in all the major newspapers and magazines, and whose the books are published. I can express myself there in a serene atmosphere, which I did first in magazines, then by publishing this book, which is a collection of interviews. This book is called “The Third World War has already begun”, with 100,000 copies sold today.
Why this title?
Because this is the reality, World War III has begun. It is true that it started “small” and with two surprises. We went into this war with the idea that the Russian army was very powerful and that its economy was very weak. We thought that Ukraine was going to be crushed militarily and that Russia would be crushed economically by the West. But the reverse happened. Ukraine was not crushed militarily even if it lost 16% of its territory on that date; Russia was not crushed economically. As I speak to you, the ruble has gained 8% against the dollar and 18% against the euro since the day before the start of the war.
So there was a sort of misunderstanding. But it is obvious that the conflict, going from a limited territorial war to a global economic confrontation, between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia backed by China on the other hand, has become a war world.
Aren’t you exaggerating? The West is not directly engaged militarily…
We still provide weapons. But it remains true that we Europeans are above all committed economically. We also feel our real entry into war coming through inflation and shortages.
Putin made a big mistake early on, which is of immense sociohistorical interest. Those who worked on Ukraine on the eve of the war saw it, not as a nascent democracy, but as a society in decay and a “failed state” in the making. We wondered if Ukraine had lost 10 million or 15 million inhabitants since its independence. We cannot decide because Ukraine has not conducted a census since 2001, a classic sign of a society that is afraid of reality.
I think the Kremlin’s calculation was that this decaying society would crumble at the first shock, or even say “welcome mom” to holy Russia. But what we have discovered, on the contrary, is that a society in decomposition, if it is fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope. The Russians could not have foreseen it. No one could.
For a long time, you did not believe in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia…
I admit that I was taken aback by the start of the war, I couldn’t believe it. Regarding the deep springs that led to the conflict, I share the analysis of the American “realist” geopolitician John Mearsheimer. The latter made the following observation: Ukraine, whose army had been taken over by NATO soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of NATO, and the Russians had announced that they would never tolerate a NATO-member Ukraine. These Russians are therefore waging (as Putin told us the day before the attack) a war from their defensive and preventive point of view. Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice in the eventual difficulties of the Russians because, since this is an existential question for them, the harder it was, the harder they would hit. The analysis seems to hold true. I would add a complement and a critique to Mearsheimer’s analysis.
Which ?
For the complement: when he says that Ukraine was a de facto member of NATO, he does not go far enough. Germany and France had become minor partners in NATO and were unaware of what was going on in Ukraine militarily. French and German naivety has been criticized. Certainly, but because they did not know that Americans, British and Poles could allow Ukraine to be able to wage a larger war. The fundamental axis of NATO now is Washington-London-Warsaw-kyiv.
Now the criticism: Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically only one “power game” among others. After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, one more or less debacle… what does it matter…? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: “We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us. Nothing would be existential for America. Insufficiency of analysis which today leads Biden to a headlong rush. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the “economic might” of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.
If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it itself remained, backed by China, American monetary and financial controls of the world would collapse, and with them the possibility for United States to fund their huge trade deficit for nothing. This war has therefore become existential for the United States. They cannot withdraw from the conflict any more than Russia. This is why we are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other. Chinese, Indians and Saudis, among others, are jubilant.
Many observers point out that Russia has the GDP of Spain; don’t you overestimate its economic power?
Indeed, the GDP of Russia and Belarus represents 3.3% of Western GDP, practically nothing. One wonders how this insignificant GDP can cope and continue to produce missiles. The reason is that GDP is a fictional measure of production. If we take out of the American GDP half of its overbilled health expenditure, then the “wealth produced” by the activity of its lawyers, by the most full prisons in the world, then by an entire economy of ill-defined services including the ” production” of its 15,000 to 20,000 economists with an average salary of 120,000 dollars, we realize that a large part of this GDP is water vapour.
War brings us back to the real economy, it allows us to understand what the real wealth of nations is, the production capacity, and therefore the capacity for war. If we come back to material variables, we see the Russian economy. In 2014, we put in place the first major sanctions against Russia, but then it increased its wheat production, which increased from 40 million to 90 million tons in 2020. While, thanks to neoliberalism, American wheat production, between 1980 and 2020, fell from 80 million to 40 million tonnes. Russia has also become the leading exporter of nuclear power plants. In 2007, the Americans explained that their strategic adversary was in such a state of nuclear decay that soon the United States would have a first-strike capability on a Russia that could not respond. Today, the Russians are in nuclear superiority with their hypersonic missiles.
The United States is now more than twice as populous as Russia (2.2 times in the student age groups). The fact remains that with comparable proportions by cohort of young people pursuing higher education, in the United States, 7% are studying engineering, while in Russia it is 25%. Which means that with 2.2 times fewer people studying, Russians train 30% more engineers. The United States fills the gap with foreign students, but who are mainly Indian and even more Chinese. This substitute resource is not safe and is already decreasing. This is the fundamental dilemma of the American economy: it can only face Chinese competition by importing skilled Chinese labor. The Russian economy, for its part, has accepted the operating rules of the market, but with a very large role for the State, and it also derives its flexibility from the training of engineers which allows adaptations, industrial and military.
Some think, on the contrary, that Vladimir Putin took advantage of the income from raw materials without having been able to develop his economy…
If that was the case, this war would not have happened. One of the striking things about this conflict, and which makes it so uncertain, is that it poses (like any modern war), the question of the balance between advanced technologies and mass production. There is no doubt that the United States has some of the most advanced military technologies, and which have sometimes been decisive for Ukrainian military successes.
But when we go into the long term, into a war of attrition, not only on the side of human resources but also material, the ability to continue depends on the production industry of less high-end weapons. And we find, coming back through the window, the question of globalization and the fundamental problem of the West: we have relocated such a proportion of our industrial activities that we do not know if our war production can follow. The problem is admitted. CNN, the New York Times and the Pentagon are wondering if America will be able to restart the production lines for this or that type of missile. But it is also unclear whether the Russians are able to keep up with the pace of such a conflict. The outcome and solution of the war will depend on the ability of both systems to produce armaments.
According to you, this war is not only military and economic, but also ideological and cultural…
I speak here mainly as an anthropologist. In Russia there were denser, communal family structures, certain values of which have survived. There is a Russian patriotic feeling that is something unimaginable here, fed by the subconscious of a nation family. Russia had a patrilineal family organization, that is to say in which men are central and it cannot adhere to all the neo-feminist, LGBT, [deleted] Western innovations…
When we see the Russian Duma pass even more repressive legislation on “LGBT propaganda”, we feel superior. I can feel that as an ordinary Westerner. But from a geopolitical point of view, if we think in terms of soft power, it is a mistake. On 75% of the planet, the kinship organization was patrilineal and one can sense a strong understanding of Russian attitudes. For the collective non-Western, Russia asserts a reassuring moral conservatism. When we do geopolitics, we are interested in the energy, military, etc. balance of power. But there is also the ideological and cultural balance of power, what the Americans call “soft power”.
The USSR had a certain form of soft power, communism, which influenced part of Italy, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Serbs, the French workers… But communism basically horrified the whole of the Muslim world by its atheism and did not inspire anything particular to India. However, today, Russia as it has repositioned itself as the archetype of the great power, not only “anti-colonialist”, but also patrilineal and conservative of traditional mores, can seduce much further. Americans today feel betrayed by Saudi Arabia, which refuses to increase its oil production, despite the energy crisis caused by the war, and in fact takes the side of the Russians: partly, of course, out of self-interest tanker. But it’s obvious that Putin’s Russia, having become morally conservative, has become sympathetic to the Saudis who I’m sure have a bit of a hard time with American debates over access for [deleted] women (defined as male to conception) in the ladies’ room.
Western newspapers are tragically funny, they keep saying, “Russia is isolated, Russia is isolated.” But when we look at the votes of the United Nations, we see that 75% of the world does not follow the West, which then seems very small. We then see that this conflict, described by our media as a conflict of political values, is at a deeper level a conflict of anthropological values. It is this unconsciousness and this depth that make the confrontation dangerous.
*Emmanuel Todd is an anthropologist, historian, essayist, futurist, author of numerous works. Several of them, such as “The Final Fall”, “The Economic Illusion” or “After the Empire”, have become classics of the social sciences. His latest book, “The Third World War Has Begun” was released in 2022 in Japan and sold 100,000 copies.
Norton’s other reference articles are here:
‘World War 3 has already started’ between US and Russia/China, argues French scholar
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/14/world-war-3-us-russia-china-emmanuel-todd/
CIA and NATO are waging sabotage attacks inside Russia
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/12/29/cia-nato-sabotage-attacks-russia/
French ambassador: US ‘rules-based order’ means Western domination, violating international law
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/11/21/gerard-araud-france-us-rules-based-order/
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Feb 17 2023 8:25 utc | 173
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