New York Times Triumphs in Olympics

It’s too bad that the Olympics doesn't have a mental gymnastics event, because if it did, the New York Times would surely bring home the Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Acting as the State Department’s Pravda, the Times is waging preemptive strikes on any suggestion, advanced by respected scholars such as John Mearsheimer and politicians the world over, that NATO’s enlargement up to Russia’s borders might have had anything to do with Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine. This is to justify the West’s, led by the U.S., all out attack on the Russian economy, a long term U.S. goal formulated well before the Ukraine crisis. Russia’s invasion, a crime against humanity, is a godsent gift that permits the U.S. to posture on the moral high ground.

From the U.S. perspective, it remains necessary to disabuse the world of the notion that Russia is acting out of any credible threat to its security.

Ross Douthat, in the March 9 New York Times, in a column entitled They Predicted the Ukraine War, But Did They Still Get It Wrong? attempts this in a convoluted article.

He says of those, such as Mearsheimer , who said that NATO's expansion up to Russia's borders would be seen as an existential threat by Russia and would lead to war, that they were right but they were really wrong.

He notes as "curious" that those who accurately predicted this war have been discredited, because of the "partial" fulfillment of their prophesies. In fact, they have not been discredited, they have been proven correct. Apparently In the world of N.Y. Times, with its Pravda-esk support of U.S. foreign policy, correct predictions resulting from a theory prove the theory wrong.

First, advice not accepted does not mean advice discredited but accepting that view would have meant accepting some responsibility for events leading to the war. In the midst of the current moral fervor pushed by the Times, this cannot be.

Second, he says the predictions were “partially” fulfilled. Partial? War was predicted and a full blown war has erupted. Where is the "partial"? What would be complete fulfillment? Planetary nuclear annihilation?

He refers to Mearsheimer's prediction that “attempts to integrate Russia’s borderlands into Western institutions and alliances was poisoning relations with Moscow, making great-power conflict more likely, and exposing nations like Ukraine to disastrous risks.” as "cold-eyed" as opposed to "idealistic.”

So we are now asked to believe that NATO, a military alliance designed to oppose the Soviet Union, was an "idealistic" attempt at "integration" of countries on Russia's borders.

Once the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO, no longer needed to prevent the Soviets from marching through Europe, became the vehicle for maintaining the U.S. as the primary world power with a huge military and economic presence in Europe. Much of Europe accepted this in exchange for the savings allowed by the resulting low military budgets.

Douthat correctly quotes the right-wrong cold eyed non idealistic realists. “The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path,” Mearsheimer averred in 2015, “and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.”

Douthat acknowledges that this is in fact what has happened and then does a rhetorical somersault to say that "there" is a "widespread" view that this view is being as wrecked as are the people and cities of Ukraine.

In the Alice in Wonderland world of Douthat and the New York Times Mearsheimer, now having been shown to be correct, has “lost his reputation and credibility”. To support this he quotes a tweet, nothing more, no argument, just a tweet, by Bruno Maçães a Portuguese "thinker". Here we have an unsupported assertion using as supporting evidence a reference to the identical unsupported assertion. Maybe Douthat hoped that no one would check the reference.

Douthat then quotes Anne Applebaum of the Atlandic who declares that Puting's invasion of Ukraine is not based on "eternal interests or permanent geopolitical orientations, fixed motivations or predictable goals". That is, the notion that Putin is operating out of any perception of what he views as Russia's interest is dismissed out of hand. Accordingly, Putin is living in a fantasy world of Russia as a great imperial power, bent on world conquest, unlikely to be satisfied by any acknowledgement of Russia's expressed security concerns, enumerated over the last thirty years. How convenient.

Douthat claims that the unexpected strength of Ukraine's resistance proves that the reasons for Russia's attempted power projection do not matter. According to this logic, only successful invasions confirm aggressor motives as having acted in the pursuit of what they view as in their national interest. Failed aggressions happen for some other reason. Perhaps if Russia succeeds in conquering Ukraine, Douthat will do another somersault and acknowledge that Russia had, after all, pursued notions of national interests.

However, Mearsheimer’s prescience fails where, in a interview he gave to Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker, claims "idealism led America astray in the George W. Bush era, via a naïve theory of how aggressive war might democratize in the Middle East". Here we are asked to believe that the Bush Cheney invasion of Iraq was to promote democracy. The attempted justification was the exposed lie that Sadam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The real reason was the usual one. Iraq had stepped out of line by not willing to assume its economic and military assigned role in the U.S. world order.

Douthat criticizes Mearsheimer for claiming that Putin is aware of his limitations regarding Ukraine, and that the West should attempt to create friendly relations by negotiating with Moscow.

Since any normalization of relations between the U.S. and Moscow would entail each side recognizing the other's interests, this would be anathema in the current atmosphere of moral fervor, enhanced by the continual heart rending photos we see in the Times of the crimes Russia is committing against Ukrainians.

Putin’s decision to invade was rational according to what he thought the facts were. That he underestimated Ukraine resistance, European support, and above all, the abilities of his army, is his information failure, not his logic failure.

Douthat claims that since this war is assuming unexpected forms, Ukraine's resistance, the West's unity so far, the intensity of the sanctions levied, etc. prove that the realists' view is invalid. This makes no sense. The way the war is turning out has nothing to do with Putin's motives, only with his implementation. That Russia went to war confirms the realists view. Completely.

All countries operate to promote what they view as their national interest, or more accurately, what their elites view as the national interests (theirs). Morality is rarely a factor. How else to explain the aggressions and subversion the U.S., and the colonial empires before it, visited on peoples throughout the world. The cynicism of the U.S. is nowhere better illustrated their current attempt to make nice with Venezuela because Venezuela has lots of oil. I hope that the Venezuelans tell them where to go.

Either the West’s policies to contain Russia are beyond brilliant or extraordinarily lucky. The economic weapons that the U.S. regularly uses against weak nations that fall afoul of the U.S. world order can now, with impunity and high moral posturing, be used against Russia.

Putin has fallen into a trap with the Ukrainians being the bait. It now appears that “we” will fight to the last Ukrainian.