Valuing Life

Posted on April 6, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Znedell, April 6, 2022

I just returned from a funeral. Two friends gone in the blink of an eye this winter, very special ones who were a large part of what saved my sanity during COVID and the lockdown. Both were smart, fit, caring, generous, the kind of people we all wish we had in our lives. They were also diverse, as reflects our entire community. One was a progressive, the other a Trumper, yet in our community, we put all that aside in favor of what’s most important.

Robert and Jim represented everything that was good in all of us, and we valued them greatly and mourn their loss. They remind us how quickly things can change, not always for the better. Both in their seventies, they were alive and vital, and then suddenly they weren’t. Brain cancer and pancreatic cancer will do that. Missing them, mourning their loss reminds us of the sanctity of human life.

Not everyone is as special as Jim and Robert were, but we react the same way when any member of our community passes. In the final decades of our lives, we are all acutely aware that every time one of our sparks is extinguished, we all shine a little dimmer. Life is so precious, but not everywhere.

We now see what happens when people who have no respect for human life are allowed to run wild and commit murder, rape, and mayhem. Considering how the loss of two men has affected everyone who knew them, it’s almost impossible to conceive of the terror and loss of life Russia is wreaking on Ukraine. How incredibly strong the Ukrainian people are to stand up to Putin’s ravaging hordes. I hung a Ukrainian flag from my window a few days ago. It looks really good there.

Trying to celebrate the lives of our missing friends and to help their families move past their loss, we also think about the thousands of innocent Ukrainians whose lives have been snuffed out and the millions who fled their homes and are separated from their family members fighting on the front lines. At first, we even mourned the conscripted soldiers in the Russian army who had no idea why they were ordered to kill their neighbors. Russia being as big as it is, many of those military units were from thousands of miles to the east. I wonder how many of those soldiers had even heard of Ukraine before they were ordered to invade and pillage it.

The world sees their barbarism, the way they appear to revel in murdering innocent civilians. Many talking heads want us to believe that that’s just the Russian way of warfare: invade sovereign neighbors with impunity, ignore all the internationally recognized rules of war, (which I always considered a farce, anyway,) and destroy and kill wantonly until the enemy either succumbs or no longer exists. At the same time, wage a propaganda war of lies and delusional paranoia about Europe and America plotting to destroy Russia.

Is it really the Russian mentality that’s at fault here? I think not. Most of my extended family traces its roots back to that part of the world. If Russians were fundamentally as evil as they are being made out to be, what would that say about all of us who carry the same genes as these murdering savages? This is not the Russian way of warfare; it is not in the Russian psyche to have no regard for human life. It is greedy, power-mad, paranoid leaders like Vladimir Putin who wage war this way.

Doesn’t this sound hauntingly familiar? Don’t Putin’s lack of concern for life, his complete disdain for truth, and his brutal approach to dealing with anyone he perceives as an adversary remind you of someone? Donald Trump never ordered the kind of murder and destruction Putin has, but he callously allowed the preventable deaths of more than a half million Americans from COVID, simply because he believed it was his best path to increasing his power and wealth.

President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are entirely correct in demanding a world-wide tribunal to investigate the war crimes and genocide being committed in Mr. Putin’s name, while our erstwhile president cannot make himself condemn the leveling of once beautiful cities and the piecemeal destruction of a nation of forty-four million people.

All of this becomes especially poignant when we consider the loss of our friends. Life is life, whether it’s someone dearest to us, an ignorant Russian conscriptee thrown into a fight he never wanted, or one of the thousands killed by a psychopathic leader. As moral human beings, the rest of us must do everything in our power to push back against wanton destruction and killing no matter what the risks. Allowing this kind of creeping evil to spread and infect others is no less dangerous than the threat of nuclear war.

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After the NATO and European Council Summits

Posted on March 27, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 27, 2022,

In 1987, campaigning in the Democratic Primaries for the 1988 Nomination for President, Senator Joe Biden used some lines from a particularly moving speech by British MP Neil Kinnock without attributing them to him. The resulting accusations of plagiarism ended Biden’s campaign.

Knowing what I do about politicians and the thousands of speeches they deliver, and knowing what I do about Biden, I never believed he deliberately plagiarized Kinnock’s words. It’s the speech writer’s responsibility to vet the contents of every speech, and while, as Harry Truman said, the buck stops with the president (or in this case, the candidate) it’s quite a stretch to expect a politician on the stump to recognize every line from every speech given by every other politician.

Even Mr. Kinnock agrees. In 2020, when Biden was campaigning against Donald Trump, Kinnock was interviewed by The Guardian. Kinnock said he’d always regarded the incident as an innocent mistake. “Joe’s an honest guy…If Trump had done it, I would know that he was lying.” Even so, ever since, Biden’s critics have referred to him as a gaffe machine. Personally, even if he sometimes puts his foot in his mouth, I prefer a leader who speaks his mind without concern for political correctness to one who cannot utter a sentence without lying, insulting someone, or massacring the language.

The gaffe thing came up again yesterday, as President Biden was delivering a speech in support of Ukraine and his Polish hosts, who’ve taken the lead in resettling Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s aggression. Biden accused Vladimir Putin of starting a “war of choice” with Ukraine that had neither provocation nor justification other than Putin’s dream of recreating the former Soviet Union. After recounting acts of bombing and shelling against civilian targets, which he characterized as war crimes, Biden added, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

Oh, the furor. Every media hack who sensed that an alleged Biden gaffe would help ratings more than reporting that Russian forces had bombed another school or hospital reported, “Biden calls for regime change,” something American leaders and diplomats are apparently not supposed to do. That’s especially ironic in this case, because a large majority of Americans, including most politicians looking for new sound bites believe removing Putin from power is the only way the current war can end without risking World War 3.

The White House tried to spin Biden’s off the cuff comment to assure the world that he wasn’t advocating removing Putin as president, but referring to his potential power to threaten neighboring countries. In the process, they shifted the focus away from the unprecedented NATO summit and the meetings Biden held with the European Council and the Prime Minister of Poland. That’s more than disappointing. The world is on the edge of its collective seats trying to figure out how to defend Ukraine and prevent attacks that would trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty and risk direct conflict between NATO and Russia.

Although Biden’s speeches this week included lists of things the United States and Europe are doing to help Ukraine, the New York Times reported today that “the president ended his trip…and returned home with few concrete answers about how or when the war will end — and grim uncertainty about the brutal and grinding violence still to come.” That’s because Biden continues to reject the idea of relocating MIG fighter planes from Poland and sophisticated anti-aircraft missile systems from Slovakia to Ukraine.

We don’t know what was said behind closed doors in Europe this week. While NATO is happy to use Biden as their spokesperson to the world, in particular to address Putin, we’re not aware, for example, whether Biden is voicing his own beliefs or simply stating that the thirty NATO nations, which can only take military action by unanimous consent, disagree about supplying Ukraine with planes and missile systems.

NATO countries that border Russia and Ukraine see the war as a precursor to Putin’s ambition to invade them next and want Ukraine defended to the max. Western Europe and the United States appear to be more concerned about avoiding World War 3. A couple of days ago, I would have strongly advocated giving Ukraine the planes and missiles they need immediately, but as Russia seems to be backing off its initial goal of decapitating Ukraine’s government and occupying its cities, the war may become a regional struggle over pro-Russian breakaway provinces.

Given Ukraine’s stoic resistance, stopping the Russian invasion in its tracks and disrupting Putin’s ability to keep his forces supplied, it may be that the more cautious elements of NATO leadership are right to keep the threat of planes and missile systems in reserve. The killing of thousands of civilians and destruction of Ukrainian cities are tragic, but if the apparent change in strategy by Russia is real, nothing is more important than transitioning back from war to diplomacy.

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The Nuclear Elephant

Posted on March 23, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 23, 2022,

Conventional wisdom in the United States has it that Americans need not fear an accidental launch of nuclear missiles toward another country. It’s not something we can predict accurately, but we’ve seen evidence that our senior military leaders would be willing to defy a nuclear attack order from their Commander in Chief if they believed he was not in control of his faculties or if irresponsible political extremists seemed to be in control.

We saw Chief of Staff Alexander Haig build a virtual fortress around Richard Nixon during his final months as president to limit his ability to execute dangerous decisions, when friends and foes alike came to believe Nixon was no longer rational. Haig, who had been Supreme Commander of American Forces in Europe, understood the havoc a desperate, deranged president could wreak.

We also saw Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Mark Milley separate himself from the actions of President Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election, making it clear that he would not permit Trump to use the military in any way that violated the Constitution. Amid all the misinformation surrounding Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the election, and speculation among many pundits that Trump might instigate a war as a pretext for declaring emergency powers and martial law, whispers from military leaders were leaked to reassure Americans that that would not happen.

As Russia keeps pushing the envelope, escalating its brutal attacks on Ukraine, the possibility of nuclear war, should NATO forces come into direct conflict with Russia’s, has become the elephant in the room that everyone wishes they could ignore. But they can’t, and avoiding a nuclear exchange has become the dominant factor in NATO’s and the rest of the world’s attempts to aid Ukraine. Both President Biden and the Secretary General of NATO have consistently said the risk of nuclear war was too catastrophic a possibility should NATO forces become directly involved in the conflict.

Biden has been criticized by some Trump Republicans for publicly drawing that line in the sand, comparing it to announcing a definite date for withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan and suggesting that it plays into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Most Putin “experts” believe he will aggressively pursue his ambition of rebuilding the Soviet Union under his control until he is either forcefully stopped or ousted in a coup by his own people. Putin maintains his stranglehold on power in Russia by daily living up to his reputation for ruthless brutality. It’s a binary strategy. It will either succeed or end in chaos and destruction.

Yesterday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that if Putin perceived that an existential threat to Russia existed, the Russian constitution permitted first use of nuclear weapons. That point of view is diametrically opposed to the philosophy of mutually assured destruction that drove both sides in the Cold War to build huge arsenals of nuclear weapons. But the latter only works if leaders on both sides behave rationally. What if Putin is so desperate, with his conventional forces unable to overcome a military one tenth its size, that he believes his only option is to continue to escalate the conflict? What if, as some suggest, Putin is in fact losing his mind? Is there anyone in Russia with the power and courage to stop him from setting off a world-wide holocaust?

Former Trump National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster spoke about that, yesterday. He began by praising President Biden’s leadership in re-uniting NATO after Trump did his best to undermine it. He stressed that only united western strength had any chance restraining Putin. “McMaster urged the world to take Putin’s nuclear threats seriously because nobody knows what’s in the Russian leader’s mind…’We have to be concerned about him using some of the most heinous weapons on earth…But we need to make clear to him that he will suffer tremendous consequences if he does.’”

Where does that leave Biden and the western alliance? They can’t ignore the nuclear elephant, but neither can they be intimidated into giving Putin what he wants. As autocrats have proven for centuries, only determined force and resistance will stop them. If Putin has re-written the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, we have to accept that. The risks are huge either way, but one thing that’s clear is that letting fear of the consequences determine whether we’re willing to defend innocent nations can only lead to disaster.

I can’t imagine anything worse than the destruction of human civilization, unless it’s watching it decay and ultimately expire because we didn’t have the courage to defend it. Nuclear war will occur or not at the whim of Vladimir Putin, but that cannot determine our actions if he continues to destroy cities and civilians. Our best option is to stand firm, pour military and humanitarian resources into Ukraine, live up to our treaty obligations, and hope (possibly with our back channel assistance) that cooler heads prevail in Russia.

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Only Courage and Leadership Can Save Us

Posted on March 16, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Znedell, March 16, 2022

Interviewed by the Washington Examiner Tuesday, Donald Trump admitted he’d been wrong (well, not exactly,) about Vladimir Putin. Our former president, who repeatedly referred to himself as a genius who knew more about diplomacy than his professional diplomats and more about the military than his Joint Chiefs of Staff now realizes the only way he can retain any credibility with his supporters is to acknowledge the obvious.

“I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border…I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate…I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along [he can’t dispense with his self-aggrandizing BS even with the fate of the world in the balance]…And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

No, Donald, the very sad thing is that you set this up by trying to undermine NATO’s unity, thus convincing Putin that he could invade Ukraine without consequences. Even sadder is that the world had to come to the brink of a war that could mean the extinction of all life on Earth before your self-interest kicked in to try to change the narrative. You are a fool and not nearly as smart as you think you are. People with far more knowledge and acuity than you have accurately described Putin for thirty years. Putin hasn’t changed, you’ve been shown up for the charlatan you are. You don’t give a rat’s ass about Ukraine, Europe, the United States, or anything else unless it enriches you.

If the self-described master dealmaker who believes he can read and out-negotiate everyone thinks his change of tune gives him a free pass for his sociopathic arrogance, he’s going to be surprised. The emperor turns out to be stark naked before the world. A complete fraud. If someone starts a GoFundMe to buy Trump a one-way ticket to Hell, I’ll be the first to contribute. Does my anger feel inappropriate? Has anyone been paying attention? Trump’s narcissism and incompetence have brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

On the other hand, men who have been libeled and castigated by Trump, men who have shown courage and leadership Trump can only dream about, are now left to find a way to hold the line between autocracy and democracy without dropping into the abyss. When the Prime Ministers of three European countries, Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland, Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Janez Jansa of Slovenia traveled by train to Kyiv on Tuesday to show support for Ukraine, risking air and missile attacks by Russian forces guilty of killing indiscriminately, they honored the courage and tenacity of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

They will be followed by our President, Joe Biden, who will travel to Brussels next week for a NATO summit. Throughout 2021 and the recent leadup to the Russian invasion, European leaders have praised Biden, who has single-handedly rebuilt the crucial alliances Trump trashed. Only Biden’s leadership held NATO together, and that’s critical since it represents the only possible way out of this mess.

In Putin, the world is dealing with a man made desperate by his own paranoid delusions. That’s the most dangerous kind of craziness, because he really believed the future of Russia was at stake, and he was acting righteously when he ordered the destruction of historic cities and the killing of their civilian populations. There never was any threat to Russia from the west before the invasion of Ukraine; NATO never had any intention of attacking the Russian Federation. It has no reason to, and many reasons not to. But Putin’s actions put Russia very much at risk of economic collapse and internal dissension.

For four years, Donald Trump sucked up to autocrats wherever he found them while demonstrating complete disdain for our Constitution. For four years, he attacked and insulted allies like Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau and caused Europe, for the first time since the second world war to distrust America. Thank God for Mr. Biden and the courageous leaders of the twenty-nine other NATO countries who understand exactly what is at stake.

They have a very difficult choice to make, and very little time to make it. Do they continue to give Russian forces uncontested airspace to bomb and maim innocent Ukrainian civilians, or do they act to defend them, risking direct combat between Russian and NATO forces? I’m glad I don’t have to make that choice. Thanks a lot, Donald.

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Ukraine Reality Check: What Was Donald Trump’s Role?

Posted on March 15, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 15, 2022,

Note: for this article I have relied heavily on a couple of published reports: a July 21, 2021 piece in Business Insider; a July 15, 2021 article in Just Security.

It’s too late to save Ukraine and its citizens from destruction, but people are waking up to the role Donald Trump may have played in encouraging Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade. Trump’s dealings with Russia go back to the 1980s. In his book, The Art of the Deal, Trump bragged about working in partnership with the Soviet government in 1987 to build a luxury hotel across from the Kremlin. The project failed, but Trump returned to Moscow in 1996 and invested $250 million in Russian real estate.

In 2006-2007, Donald Trump Jr. visited Russia six times, sometimes accompanied by his sister Ivanka, to solidify business ties. While the New York Times reported today that it found no evidence that Trump currently is in debt to Russians, in 2008, Trump Jr. said, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” He was bragging, trying to impress his audience. It’s not clear what he was referring to, but Business Insider cited a Reuters report that almost $100 million was invested in Trump’s Florida properties by Russians, and the actual amount is almost certainly much higher, but difficult to trace because of LLC privacy rules.

In 2013, Trump thought he’d scored a major coup when Putin approved holding his Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. Trump famously referred to Putin as “his new best friend.” Apparently actually believing that, Trump said, “I have plans for the establishment of business in Russia. Now, I am in talks with several Russian companies to establish this skyscraper.” But in June, 2015, when Trump did his escalator descent into politics, the deal still lay dormant.

Enter the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s attorney/fixer, Michael Cohen, as late as June 2016 was visiting Moscow trying to close it. Imagine the lust for wealth and power Trump felt to believe anything emerging from the mouth of Putin, one of the few people who has even less respect for truth than Trump himself. Putin and his moneyed oligarchs knew Trump desperately wanted his Moscow monument. How naïve does any American have to be to think Trump wasn’t driven by personal greed and ambition every time he dealt with Putin as president?

Matters were complicated when then Vice President Biden’s son, Hunter, was appointed to the Board of Burisma, a Ukrainian oil company that was thought to be corrupt. When the UK initiated an investigation of Burisma, and the local prosecutor took no action to make Burisma comply with requests for information, VP Biden was in a tough spot. He ultimately castigated Burisma, demanding that then Ukrainian President Boroshenko fire the corrupt prosecutor. There was never any evidence that Hunter Biden had done anything illegal, but that didn’t stop Trump from lying about it during his re-election campaign.

Add to that the obvious adoration Trump held for Putin that was on display in Helsinki and every other time the two leaders met. When every American security organization offered proof that Putin directed Russian hackers to interfere in the 2016 election in favor of Trump, the world heard Trump respond, “I asked President Putin if Russia was responsible and he said No. I believe him.” He claimed, out of the blue, thaat it was Ukraine that had hacked the election. “Ukraine hated me. They were after me in the election. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win,” Trump told Fox News and Friends, in November 2019. That was two years after he was impeached for illegally withholding military aid funding for Ukraine in an attempt to blackmail newly elected President Volodomyr Zelensky to smear Hunter Biden.

Even with the invasion of Ukraine looming as Putin sent 200,000 troops to enclose Ukraine, Trump was telling his rallies how brilliant Putin’s strategy was. The entire world knew what was ahead for Ukraine; we’d seen the Russian playbook in action in Syria, Chechniya, and Georgia. It was brutal and violated every international law of warfare (admittedly an oxymoron) by targeting civilians and using chemical and biological weapons. Yet, as recently as a few weeks ago, Trump was still praising Putin.

I believe that among Putin’s gross miscalculations was overestimating Trump’s ability to disrupt the Biden administration’s effort to reunify NATO and the EU as allies speaking with one voice. Putin was certain his blitzkrieg approach to the invasion would succeed before a disorganized western alliance could get itself together to respond. Whether or not Donald Trump specifically intended to help Putin destroy Ukraine, he played an important role in helping Putin conclude he would be successful.

I saw a poll today suggesting that 62% of Americans think Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president. Of course not, he wouldn’t have had to. Trump would have simply ceded it to him and prevented NATO from responding.

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The Ukrainian Line in the Sand

Posted on March 12, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 12, 2022

Watching horrific videos and interviews with ordinary Ukrainians, it’s important to remember the elephant in the room: Nuclear War. That would be the end of civilization as we know it and possibly the destruction of all life on Earth. As some politicians and pundits beat war drums and others fuss about the cost of helping Ukraine, President Biden faces the defining challenge of his presidency.

When I studied game theory, whose principal purpose is learning to optimize positive outcomes in conflict situations, the first thing I learned was the difference between tactics and strategy. Tactics is about winning battles and defending people and places under threat. Strategy is about the long term. If battle tactics define victory as the “last man standing,” you picked the wrong strategy. What’s the point of winning if everything has been destroyed?

President Biden is keenly aware of the alternatives before him. Many people fantasize about the good guys rushing to Ukraine’s rescue, wiping out what appears to be a seriously over-rated Russian military. If the Ukrainians could hold off a force of 200,000 infantry for weeks, NATO ought to have an easy time of it, right? Our military leaders have dozens of winning tactical scenarios, and they’d probably work if Russia’s underperforming army weren’t backed up by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons controlled by a leader skilled at playing the madman game.

We’ve been here before. In 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin began an “anti-terrorist” campaign against Muslim insurgents in Chechniya. Within months, after the city of Grozny was reduced to rubble, Russia had re-absorbed the former Soviet Republic. Western countries stood by and watched. In 2008, Russia invaded the former Soviet nation of Georgia. The world tried minor sanctions, but otherwise let the Russian military take over the country in twelve days.

In 2014, Russia invaded the Crimea region of Ukraine. President Obama imposed a few sanctions, but again, the west sat by and let Russia annex the province. People who knew Putin well warned that he wouldn’t stop there and the west’s lack of response would embolden him.

Students of history compared Crimea to Hitler’s aggressive moves on the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia populated mostly by German-speaking people that borders Germany. Hitler insisted that Sudetenland was rightfully part of Germany, and he simply annexed it, running into little opposition. Western Europe, led by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, adopted a policy of appeasement. We know how that turned out, yet when Putin seized Crimea in an almost bloodless coup under virtually identical circumstances, Obama, whether because he was hamstrung by an obstructionist Republican majority in Congress or because he seriously misjudged Putin, committed the same error as Chamberlain.

Along came Donald Trump, who immediately set about creating discord among the NATO alliance, while simultaneously seeming to revere Putin. Trump praised Putin for being a strong leader and complained that if only he weren’t constrained by the Constitution he’d sworn to defend, he could be equally strong. Putin played Trump like a violin and did everything he could to create disunity among NATO countries. Experts warned that Putin’s ultimate goal was the reunification of the former Soviet countries under his dominion, some of which are now members of NATO.

With Ukraine making overtures to NATO and Biden setting about reunifying our allies, Putin had to act fast if he expected to re-absorb Ukraine without having to confront NATO forces. But master strategist Putin made some serious miscalculations. NATO turned out to be more united than ever, and Ukrainians were willing to fight to the death to defend their homeland. The irony is that the west, having finally learned the lesson of World War 2, that appeasement only encourages aggressors, was confronted by the reality that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty might result in World War 3.

The question all Americans are asking is how far Biden will go in defending Ukraine. His strategy has been to enclose Russia in a net of worldwide sanctions, and to re-evaluate our relationships with adversaries like China, Venezuela, and Iran. The objective is to create so much internal pressure on Putin that he either backs down (extremely unlikely) or is removed from power internally.

We and our allies, led by Biden, are pouring massive amounts of munitions and equipment into Ukraine. How far will Biden go? We got a clear message when Poland offered to funnel Soviet era MIGs to Ukraine through an American Air Base in Germany, which would support the creation of a No-Fly-Zone and raise the specter of NATO aircraft coming into direct conflict with Russian forces. Biden rejected the plan over the loud objections of some politicians. Interviewed yesterday, he said, “we will defend every inch of NATO territory… if we respond [to Russian aggression] it is World War III…we have a sacred duty [to defend] NATO territory… [but] we will not fight the third World War in Ukraine.”

I’m proud to have a president with sound judgment who knows the difference between friends and enemies.

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The Nuclear Madman Scenario

Posted on March 1, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, March 1, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was always going to be a risky proposition with the borders between Ukraine and four NATO countries within shelling and rocket range of the fighting. The risk seems greater now that Ukrainian forces have put up fierce resistance, upsetting Vladimir Putin’s plans for an early victory. Americans are asking questions. What would it take for NATO forces to be drawn into the fight? What would immediately trigger Article 5 and require American forces to engage against Russians?

With NATO having ordered its quick reaction force to be ready to move, why is anyone surprised that Vladimir Putin put his nuclear deterrence force on alert? And what does that mean, exactly? Nuclear deterrence means Russia has about 6,000 nuclear warheads attached to medium range and intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at every critical target in every NATO country. That’s enough explosive power to destroy life on Earth if not Earth itself.

If you’re much over sixty, you remember the Cuban Missile crisis. I was 19 in 1962. Like everyone around me, I was terrified that we could be nuked any minute as President Kennedy had laid down a gauntlet, blockading sea routes to Cuba, daring Russian naval vessels to cross it. It was especially terrifying because I was in New York City, a prime nuclear target. For some arcane reason, about a thousand students were lined up registering our presence with Columbia University, everyone listening to Walter Cronkite on our transistor radios and looking up at the sky. It was reminiscent of Philip Wylie’s 1954 novel, Tomorrow! wherein two twin midwestern cities are attacked with nuclear weapons. The scene that stuck in my mind was a man standing on a rooftop who, through some trick of light and luck, actually sees a nuclear missile heading towards him.

I believe the reason we didn’t see one approaching that day was that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev realized his American counterparts were out of their depth and therefore unpredictable, the worst possible scenario in a diplomatic crisis. The only way he could assure the world’s survival was to call back his navy. We older folks remember Khrushchev well, especially when he took off his shoe during an address to the UN Security Council and began banging it on a table. He was belligerent, loud, and intimidating, and many Americans thought he was a nuclear-armed madman. Fortunately for all of us, he wasn’t. It was all an act, and Khrushchev, the level-headed statesman, realizing the peril his ships had placed the world in, backed off.

In recent days, pundits around the western world have been debating whether Vladimir Putin is a nuclear-armed madman. The media immediately jumped on the notion, just as they hype and sensationalize anything that might attract viewers. From what I’ve heard, not a single one of these “experts” knows the first thing about mental illness, and it’s all speculation based on various observers claiming Putin has somehow changed in recent years. Consider the statement by Florida Senator Marco Rubio who warned that Putin is far more dangerous than he was in 2008 and 2014, and appears to suffer from a neuro-physiological disorder. What the hell does Rubio know about neuro-physiology and what’s the point of stirring up fears of nuclear war among the American people? It’s irresponsible, and can’t lead to any kind of positive outcome. The only voice that attempted to blunt this kind of dangerous gossip was President Biden’s. When asked by reporters if he thought Americans should worry about the fighting in Ukraine leading to nuclear war, his answer was eloquent. “NO!”

Conventional wisdom says a paranoid leader who lives in isolation and surrounds himself only with loyal yes men and women is at risk of losing touch with reality. We saw it happen with Richard Nixon, and many would say, with Donald Trump. In both cases, our military leaders made certain an irrational leader could not trigger a nuclear attack. The same conventional wisdom says senior Russian military leaders would act just as responsibly today, but can we count on that? If nuclear push comes to shove, could they prevent Putin from triggering a nuclear holocaust? Can pressure from Russian oligarchs who see their fortunes threatened by sanctions and growing unrest among ordinary Russians?

The media are pushing a dangerous narrative that Vladimir Putin is the most dangerous man in the world and that no one could stop him from escalating what he started into World War 3. My response is to turn off my TV and fly the Ukrainian flags I bought yesterday from my balcony. If Putin is as crazy as they want us to believe, there’s not much we as private citizens can do about it. Instead, let’s assume he still possesses the ability to think rationally and show him the world is aligned against him in solidarity.

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Heroism and Leadership

Posted on February 27, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 27, 2022

Every major conflict produces heroes; sometimes they’re not the people you might expect. The hero of the first week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is, hands down, Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. If the indiscriminate Nazi bombing of London was England’s (perhaps the world’s) darkest hour, the current assault by 200,000 Russian military is surely Ukraine’s. The comparison is apt for another reason.

When I see and hear Zelensky rallying his people in the streets of Kyiv (when did the capital’s name change from Kiev?) I can only think of Winston Churchhill. In reviewing Erik Larson’s book, The Splendid and the Vile, Smithsonian Magazine writer David Kindy described Churchhill’s role like this: “For 57 consecutive nights in 1940, Nazi Germany tried to bring England to its knees. Waves of planes pummeled cities with high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices as part of a campaign to break the English spirit and destroy the country’s capacity to make war. One man stood strong against the onslaught: Winston Churchill, [the] defiant prime minister who almost singlehandedly willed his nation to resist.” The article is accompanied by photographs of Churchhill visiting bombed out homes and churches, reassuring his people and encouraging them to fight on to defend their homeland.

The other person who comes to mind when I watch Zelensky is comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart, late of the The Daily Show. Many people have described Zelensky as Ukraine’s Stewart, because he, too, was a standup comedian who spoke out against the anti-democratic actions of his government. He is also an actor who starred in a Ukrainian television series about a Stewart-like character whose anti-government rants went viral all over the country. When the show was canceled, Zelensky ran for president to replace Petro Poroshenko who served for one year after corrupt pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned his office, fled the country, and was subsequently impeached..

Zelensky won with 73% of the vote, a number reached in American elections only by George Washington, who was elected unanimously, and in the narcissistic delusions of Donald Trump…speaking of whom, it was Zelensky from whom Trump tried to extort a political favor during the 2020 election, a violation of federal election laws that resulted in Trump’s second impeachment. With all the lies and disinformation campaigns by a combination of Trump supporters and Russian propaganda, we didn’t really know who Zelensky was back then, but we do now. Who would have expected a cross between Jon Stewart and Winston Churchhill to become a charismatic figure revered by the entire non-Communist world? Scenes of Zelensky out in the streets of Kyiv, refusing offers of evacuation to a safe place, armed and vowing to fight the Russian invaders himself have been seen by billions of people, most of whom are rallying to his cause.

It’s not unreasonable to credit Zelensky with the stout defense put up by the Ukrainian military against vastly superior numbers. Their courage and grit have given the rest of the world breathing space to work out how to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for ordering the invasion, which has resulted in several days of ever increasing unity among Europe, NATO, the United States, and even neutral nations of Africa and the Middle East. If the Russian invasion ultimately fails to achieve its objective, Zelensky will be the hero of his time.

There’s a kind of irony about Volodymyr Zelensky that’s very personal to me. Putin called Zelensky and his Cabinet a bunch of neo-Nazis and drug dealers – was he unaware that Zelensky is Jewish? The whole world knows he is now, and that is the best part of Zelensky’s saga for me. After years of Bernie Madoff, Michael Cohen, Stephen Miller, Steve Mnuchin, and Jared Kushner, all of whom I view as poster children for anti-Semitism, it’s a great relief to see a prominent Jewish leader stand tall. It even makes sense as the Nazi-like, anti-Semitic White Supremacist movement in the United States aligns itself with the Pro-Putin Trumpers.

Apparently, people in the United States and around the world, as Wolf Blitzer might say, are buying Ukrainian flags and flying them in honor and support of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people. What a wonderful idea! I just checked Amazon.com, and you can buy a three by five foot Ukrainian flag in its bright blue and yellow colors for as little as $5.79. I love the idea of Putin seeing millions of them flying in his face all over the world whenever he turns on his TV.

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Abetting Our Enemies

Posted on February 24, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 24, 2022

Try to imagine that far across the ocean, a large, powerful adversary has surrounded a neighboring sovereign nation with clear intent to invade and overthrow its legally elected government. No one has any illusions about whose military forces are stronger, but the smaller country is no patsy, and unlike the Afghan army we trained and paid for, these people will fight as long as they have life to defend their homeland. This nation is not a bunch of loosely connected regions ruled by warlords and religious zealots, but a country with a thousand years of history and tradition. The fight, now that it has begun, will be long and bloody, but allies along the beleaguered nation’s western flank have committed to support it with heavy equipment, and possibly even personnel.

That sounds troubling enough, but the reality is worse. Not since 1938 has one nation conducted this kind of aggression against its neighbor, and that led to the bloodiest war in our history. Overnight polls here at home imply that the vast majority of Americans view the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as someone else’s war. It’s understandable after two years of dealing with a pandemic and challenging economic problems, but as the experience of Europe in the last century proved, it’s completely wrongheaded. Because Ukraine is bordered by NATO countries, one stray Russian missile that lands in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, or Romania could set off a Europe-wide conflict, which, because of NATO charter commitments will involve the United States directly.

NATO countries know the only way to stabilize the situation short of global conflict is through strength and unity. The NATO Charter requires unanimity on the part of all thirty member states before joint military actions, even defensive ones can occur. Unlikely as that may appear, such unity exists and appears to be holding firm. Even the four NATO countries that border Ukraine, which lived under the domination of the Russian led USSR until its dissolution thirty years ago remain firm in their defense of Ukraine. We’ve seen no pro-Russian demonstrations in those countries, no voices raised in support of Vladimir Putin’s actions.

The only country in which prominent politicians have praised Putin and his gross violations of international law is ours. No sooner did we breathe a sigh of relief, that in Joe Biden we had a president willing to stand up to Mr. Putin and take every action short of direct military engagement, and a Republican Party that has mostly fallen in line behind Mr. Biden, then the Trumpers began marching in lockstep in support of the Russian President. Their leader, of course, was Donald Trump, who will probably be indicted for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. If fomenting insurrection weren’t serious enough, he has now turned to what smells very much like outright treason.

With the rest of the Free World condemning Putin’s bald-faced aggression, our mentally ill former president has instead chosen to praise and compliment him. Supported by people like Tucker Carlson, who as Russia was beginning a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and pushing toward Kyiv and its four million residents, referred to it as a border war that’s none of our business, Trump went further. He described the invading Russian army of nearly 200,000 as “the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen.” He might as well have written Putin’s speech for him, as the Russian leader proclaimed that Ukraine is rightly part of Russia, and he is obligated to cleanse and replace the “Nazis” who now control Ukraine to protect its citizens, who Putin claims are Russians being held hostage.

Describing Putin’s lies and misdirection in the past few weeks, Trump went on to say, in his barely literate style, “This is genius…Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re going to go out and we’re going to go in and we’re going to help keep peace.’ You’ve got to say that’s pretty savvy.”

No, you don’t. We knew Putin was a brilliant tactician, but his invasion strategy is exactly what most American military commentators predicted it would be, and after the initial couple of days, Putin’s forces could find themselves bogged down with bloody insurgencies with both civilian and Russian casualties mounting rapidly. Is that savvy or the result of desperation-driven risk taking?

More to the point, Trump has proven undeniably that America First is the farthest thing from his mind. The only thing that ever matters to Trump is himself, and with his latest attempt to glorify and aid Putin, the master war criminal, it’s clear that he needs to be locked away in a secure facility that will prevent him from doing further damage to America.

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Biden vs Putin

Posted on February 22, 2022 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, February 22, 2022

Remember the testimony during the Senate trial of Trump’s first impeachment? If you watched much of it, you were impressed with Fiona Hill, who served as Trump’s chief Russia expert, which is not to say he paid any attention to her advice or expertise. Ms. Hill may be the most qualified person among the western alliance to address both Russia’s cultural history and Vladimir Putin’s thought process. Educated in the UK, she served as Chief of Staff to the British Prime Minister before becoming an American citizen and advising American presidents, beginning with a position on George W. Bush’s National Security Council.

While Ms. Hill does not work for the Biden administration, (she is a fellow at the Brookings Institution,) the President is seeking her counsel concerning the Russia-Ukraine crisis. By way of context, Ms. Hill is no idealogue. Brookings is well known as non-partisan and centrist, and Hill has advised governments at both ends of the political spectrum. That makes her remarks contrasting Biden’s approach to Russia with Trump’s most enlightening.

In an interview with CNN’s John Harwood, she said Trump’s approach to foreign policy ”was like nothing Hill or her national security colleagues had ever seen.” She went on to say, “There’s no Team America for Trump…not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second,” claiming Trump treated NATO like a “protection racket.” In fact, historian Heather Richardson reported today that Russian state television said the Trump administration gave Putin a four-year reprieve from pushback from the west.

By contrast, she sees Biden’s strong approach to Russian President Vladimir Putin already paying dividends. “It might have deterred a full-scale invasion. Now (Putin) is basically recalibrating, recalculating.” Hill won’t go so far as to predict that Biden will convince Putin to back off, but gives him enormous credit for re-vitalizing NATO and holding the western alliance together. The final outcome, she says, will depend on whether he can keep it together indefinitely as the sanctions imposed by the US, UK, France, and Germany kick in.

The sanctions announced today are intended to cripple Russia’s ability to obtain financing from western countries, isolate the breakaway parts of Ukraine that Putin recognized as part of Russia, and prevent the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from coming online, which would cost Russia $15 billion in annual revenue. But there will be economic pain on our side as well, as we will see sharp increases in energy prices.

There’s been an unprecedented flurry of diplomatic activity to head off a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the possibility of a dangerous broader war involving Europe. Such a conflict would trigger the mutual defense clause of the NATO Charter, which means the United States would be obligated to defend any NATO state that came under attack. It’s a dangerous powder keg that must be handled with delicate precision, and in many ways is reminiscent of two previous situations. One is Europe’s failure to unite to prevent the Fascist regimes in Italy and Germany from seizing territory from their sovereign neighbors. Standing tough might not have averted World War 2, but it wouldn’t have looked like an open invitation to Hitler and Mussolini to take whatever they wanted…or like the one Trump gave Putin during four years of worshipping him.

The more relevant parallel is the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which a poorly prepared Kennedy administration went head-to-head with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Much has been written since then about how Kennedy’s foreign policy team handled the crisis, a lot of it negative, which is why the involvement of people like Fiona Hill matters so much now. Kennedy had filled his cabinet with what the media called the Harvard Elite, academically brilliant, but lacking an adequate understanding of the Russian mentality.

I was studying Russian at the time at Columbia, and my professor provided insights that in retrospect seem right on. Russian is subtly different from either the Latin or Germanic languages from which English evolved, and that difference can be critical in diplomacy. It’s virtually impossible to communicate clearly with an adversary if you are not fluent in its language, and many historians believe that Kennedy’s diplomacy was hopelessly outmatched. It’s possible that nuclear war was averted only by the wise statesmanship of Mr. Khrushchev. Some people attributed the disconnect to the fact that Russian does not use tenses as we understand them in English. Rather it uses “aspects” which involve entirely different conceptions of past, present, and future.

It’s essential that President Biden rely on advisers like Ms. Hill, who is both fluent in Russian and has decades of experience studying the Russian mindset. We can’t predict yet how successful Mr. Biden will be, but we should all be grateful that it is he at the helm instead of his predecessor.

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