Category Archives: Life

Conning the Suckers

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You may not have thought much about it, but the facts that sperm prefer a pleasantly cool environment and a guy’s testicles are outside the body are related. Maybe Fox News blowhard Tucker Carlson hasn’t thought about it at all, or maybe he’s trying to stop members of his audience from reproducing. He’s currently promoting the benefits of “testicle tanning” on the theory that warming one’s scrotum will make men more “manly”, not kill sperm.

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If you need to know more, New York Magazine has the story.

I mention this because someone recently linked to a long article from 2012 called “The Long Con: Mail Order Conservatism”. It describes the modern Republican Party as a snake oil operation where candidates, policies, miracle cures and get rich quick schemes are all sold in the very same way to the very same gullible people. The author was surprised to find out thatonce he gave a few dollars to a right-wing politician or subscribed to a right-wing publication, he was inundated with advertisements on how to make thousands of dollars with hardly any effort or how to stay healthy taking pills the medical establishment and  pharmaceutical industry simply won’t tell you about.

The article is 6,000 words long, so I don’t insist you read it. But here’s an excerpt:

. . . the redeemer, the hero who tells you the tale, can see the innermost details of the most baleful conspiracies. Trust him. Send him your money. Surrender your will—and the monster shall be banished for good.

This method highlights the fundamental workings of all grassroots conservative political appeals, be they spurious claims of Barack Obama’s Islamic devotion, the supposed explosion of taxpayer-supported welfare fraud, or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And, in an intersection that is utterly crucial, this same theology of fear is how a certain sort of commercial appeal—a snake-oil-selling one—works as well. This is where the retail political lying practiced by Romney links up with the universe in which 23-cent miracle cures exist just out of reach, thanks to the conspiracy of some powerful cabal—a cabal that, wouldn’t you know it in these late-model hustles, perfectly resembles the ur-villain of the conservative mind: liberals.

In this respect, it’s not really useful, or possible, to specify a break point where the money game ends and the ideological one begins. They are two facets of the same coin—where the con selling 23-cent miracle cures for heart disease inches inexorably into the one selling miniscule marginal tax rates as the miracle cure for the nation itself. The proof is in the pitches—the come-ons in which the ideological and the transactional share the exact same vocabulary, moral claims, and cast of heroes and villains.

It’s not often pointed out, but the same people who are open to fantastic miracle cures are open to fantastic miracle politics. In both cases, there are blatant lies on one side and remarkable credulity on the other.

Where Putin’s Head Is At

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A Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, offers this explanation of Putin’s behavior. From The New York Times:

I have been talking to high-level businessmen and Kremlin insiders for years. In 2016 I published a book, “All the Kremlin’s Men,” about Mr. Putin’s inner circle. Since then I’ve been gathering reporting for a potential sequel. While the goings on around the president are opaque — Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. officer, has always been secretive and conspiratorial — my sources, who speak to me on condition of anonymity, have regularly been correct.

What I have heard about the president’s behavior over the past two years is alarming. His seclusion and inaccessibility, his deep belief that Russian domination over Ukraine must be restored and his decision to surround himself with ideologues and sycophants have all helped to bring Europe to its most dangerous moment since World War II.

Mr. Putin spent the spring and summer of 2020 quarantining at his residence in Valdai, approximately halfway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. According to sources in the administration, he was accompanied there by Yuri Kovalchuk. Mr. Kovalchuk, who is the largest shareholder in Rossiya Bank and controls several state-approved media outlets, has been Mr. Putin’s close friend and trusted adviser since the 1990s. But by 2020, according to my sources, he had established himself as the de facto second man in Russia, the most influential among the president’s entourage.

Mr. Kovalchuk has a doctorate in physics. . . But he isn’t just a man of science. He is also an ideologue, subscribing to a worldview that combines Orthodox Christian mysticism, anti-American conspiracy theories and hedonism. This appears to be Mr. Putin’s worldview, too. Since the summer of 2020, Mr. Putin and Mr. Kovalchuk have been almost inseparable, and the two of them have been making plans together to restore Russia’s greatness.

According to people with knowledge of Mr. Putin’s conversations with his aides over the past two years, the president has completely lost interest in the present: the economy, social issues, the coronavirus pandemic, these all annoy him. Instead, he and Mr. Kovalchuk obsess over the past. A French diplomat told me that President Emmanuel Macron of France was astonished when Mr. Putin gave him a lengthy history lecture during one of their talks last month. He shouldn’t have been surprised.

In his mind, Mr. Putin finds himself in a unique historical situation in which he can finally recover for the previous years of humiliation. In the 1990s, when Mr. Putin and Mr. Kovalchuk first met, they were both struggling to find their footing after the fall of the Soviet Union, and so was the country. The West, they believe, took advantage of Russia’s weakness to push NATO as close as possible to the country’s borders. In Mr. Putin’s view, the situation today is the opposite: It is the West that’s weak. The only Western leader that Mr. Putin took seriously was Germany’s previous chancellor, Angela Merkel. Now she is gone and it’s time for Russia to avenge the humiliations of the 1990s.

It seems that there is no one around to tell him otherwise. Mr. Putin no longer meets with his buddies for drinks and barbecues, according to people who know him. In recent years — and especially since the start of the pandemic — he has cut off most contacts with advisers and friends. While he used to look like an emperor who enjoyed playing on the controversies of his subjects, listening to them denounce one another and pitting them against one another, he is now isolated and distant, even from most of his old entourage.

. . . No one can see the president without a week’s quarantine — not even Igor Sechin, once his personal secretary, now head of the state-owned oil company Rosneft. Mr. Sechin is said to quarantine for two or three weeks a month, all for the sake of occasional meetings with the president.

In “All the Kremlin’s Men” I described the phenomenon of the “collective Putin” — the way his entourage always tried to eagerly anticipate what the president would want. These cronies would tell Mr. Putin exactly what he wanted to hear. The “collective Putin” still exists: The whole world saw it on the eve of the invasion when he summoned top officials, one by one, and asked them their views on the coming war. All of them understood their task and submissively tried to describe the president’s thoughts in their own words . . .

As I have reported for years, some members of Mr. Putin’s entourage have long worked to convince him that he is the only person who can save Russia, that every other potential leader would only fail the country. This was the message that the president heard going back to 2003, when he contemplated stepping down, only to be told by his advisers — many of whom also had backgrounds in the K.G.B. — that he should stay on. A few years later, Mr. Putin and his entourage were discussing “Operation Successor” and Dmitri Medvedev was made president. But after four years, Mr. Putin returned to replace him. Now he has really and truly come to believe that only he can save Russia. In fact, he believes it so much that he thinks the people around him are likely to foil his plans. He can’t trust them either. . . .

Why People Vote the Way They Do

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I finished a book recently and thought I might write about it here, but was too lazy. Then I read a comment after an article at Three Quarks Daily:

A crucial question: how does the party of oppression and social inequality get away with parading its commitment to liberty, and capture power with the votes of those whose interests it totally neglects?

That was the motivation I needed to write something in response:

Two political scientists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, cited a lot of surprising evidence in their book “Democracy for Realists” (2016) that “voters mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues” and that “voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties”. They concluded that most voters are remarkably ignorant about politics, but that even well-informed and engaged voters usually choose parties and candidates this way (in fact, more often than voters less interested in politics).

They admit that people do change their political identities sometimes, but say that, for the most part, the issues take a back seat to identity and partisanship. Once you see yourself as, e.g. a Democrat in the US or a Conservative in the UK, you will tend to vote and think a certain way. The subtitle of their book is “Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government”. It was both informative and depressing to read.

It’s depressing because one of our political parties makes a serious effort (sometimes successful, often not) to address issues and enact policies that will help average people’s lives, while the other mostly ignores real problems and policy, but gets their supporters (the non-wealthy ones anyway) riled up about things that didn’t happen or don’t matter (see, for example, how they got millions of people upset a “stolen” election). One might conclude that the party that tries to make our antiquated government work is at a permanent disadvantage. It’s so much easier to invent a “controversy” about Critical Race Theory in elementary schools than to replace all of their old lead pipes.

So when we hear that it’s the Democrats who are all about identity politics, we should keep in mind how important identity is to politics, even to coal miners in West Virginia, farmers in Nebraska and cops in New York City.

Russia’s Plan A, Followed by B, C and D

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I think this analysis of the war and what might come next is worth sharing. It’s by Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London. He’s been called “the dean of British strategic studies”: 

As the Russo-Ukrainian War takes a darker turn it is important to emphasise this essential point. This is a war that Vladimir Putin cannot win, however long it lasts and however cruel his methods.  

From the start the Russian campaign has been hampered by political objectives that cannot be translated into meaningful military objectives. Putin has described a mythical Ukraine, a product of a fevered imagination stimulated by cockeyed historical musings. His Ukraine appears as a wayward sibling to be rescued from the ‘drug addicts and Nazis’ (his phrase) that have led it astray. It is not a fantasy that Ukrainians recognise. They see it as an excuse to turn their country into a passive colony and this they will not allow. No Russian-backed government would have legitimacy and Russia lacks the capacity for an indefinite occupation to keep such a government in place. 

This underlying strategic folly has been reinforced by the tactical ineptitude with which the campaign has been prosecuted. A quick and relatively painless victory, with Kyiv in Russian hands and President Zelensky nowhere to be seen, might have allowed Putin to impose a victor’s peace of some sort, whether in promises of neutrality and demilitarisation, new constitutional arrangements, or even territorial concessions.

Instead, the Russian generals chose to show how smart they were by relying on speed and surprise to take key cities, using only a fraction of the assembled force, and not even bothering to gain control of the skies. The arrogance of the plan was shown in the move against the capital. This involved flying in regular units to the outskirts of the capital to meet up with special forces and sundry saboteurs already in its precincts. This ended as an operational shamble. 

The failure of Plan A hampered the switch to Plan B. The Ukrainians were able to slow the movement of incoming troops by harassing them and forcing them to follow roundabout routes, including by blowing up bridges. Advancing Russian forces were split up creating problems of coordination and enabling individual convoys to be ambushed up by the defenders. Problems of logistics grew as supply convoys, including those carrying essential fuel, were unable to keep up with the forward units. On 28 February a massive convoy was reported – 40 miles long – and said to be travelling towards Kyiv. In practice it turned out to be a series of smaller convoys, jammed together because the road is blocked by vehicles that have broken down or run out of fuel. The Ukrainians do not need to go to great lengths to interdict this offensive force: it has stopped itself.  

If only for reasons of prudence, and to avoid getting ahead of ourselves in the analysis, we must still assume that the Russians will be more successful in bringing the weight of their military strength to bear. We get far more sight on social media of Russian prisoners, along with their abandoned and destroyed vehicles, than we do of the travails of Ukrainian forces (although one suspects that Russian media would not have been slow to present images of miserable Ukrainian prisoners had they been available). In the South those forces moving in from Crimea continue to have more success, although even here progress has been less than expected.  If they are able to capture the Black Sea port city of Kherson that will be a blow to the Ukrainian war effort [Note: this may or may not have occurred today].

>>> Space for Time 

Yet even with such gains getting into a city is not the same as holding it. Contrary to the BBC’s map, territory in which the Russians move freely is not under their control. Control is a political and not a military concept. The Ukrainians have not tried to defend every inch of their land but instead have made their stands in the key cities, of which the two largest Kyiv and Kharkiv remain symbolically and politically the most important. They have traded space for time, and then used that time to strengthen their position.  

Most importantly, they have mobilised and organised a popular militia to help defend their cities. Zelensky found the words to motivate his people and gain international support. The Ukrainian narrative speaks of solidarity, heroism, and sacrifice, with no suggestion that the coming days and weeks will be anything other than tough. This forms a stark contrast to the Russian narrative of festering grievances and phony innocence, as Putin’s mouthpieces have been unable to provide convincing accounts of what Russian forces were doing and why, and left pointing to the unrelated crimes of others to justify their own.  

As a result of this the international community has been galvanised into action, promising to keep up arms supplies (assuming they can get through) and, crucially, imposing far more severe economic sanctions than most observers anticipated. Meanwhile, allies of Putin have kept their distance and, in some cases, have come out strongly against the Russia invasion. Hungary has fallen into line with its EU and NATO partners. China is not going to take the side of the West or impose sanctions, but it abstained in the UN Security Council vote and has insisted on the importance of Ukrainian sovereignty and protecting civilians. As Chinese citizens are in Ukraine it is alarmed by their vulnerability to Russian strikes. We know of other foreign nationals that have been killed, including from Greece, India, and Israel.

Apart from the odd exceptions such as the Assad regime in Syria, which owes its existence to Russian firepower, and Pakistan, which oddly took this moment to sign a new trade deal, Russia has minimal international support. Even Kazakhstan, where Russian troops were sent in January to help restore order, has refused to support Moscow. President Lukashenko of Belarus, Putin’s co-conspirator, provided a vital staging post for the Russian invasion, but even he may be dithering about the extent to which he wishes his own troops to be engaged, not least, one presumes, because this would add to his deep unpopularity.  

Lastly, though this has yet to be of value, the Russians accepted the possibility of a negotiated cease-fire, as opposed to an imposed peace, by agreeing to talks at the border with Belarus. It is worth noting that Putin prior to the war showed no interest in direct talks with the Ukrainian government, not least because this would confer upon them some legitimacy. Putin’s spokesman has acknowledged Zelensky as the true leader of Ukraine. In the past Putin proposed only that the Ukrainian government talked to the separatist leaders from the Donbas. A channel of sorts to the West is being kept up by President Macron’s conversations with Putin. China may now get engaged as a mediator. But in the end any deal has to be negotiated directly with the Ukrainians. It is not for others to decide on their behalf what they should accept.

>>> Plan C 

Putin has now been forced to move to Plan C. There are a number of elements, some of which are left over from Plans A and B. Because there is an improvised, ad hoc aspect to what is going on now, it would be unwise to be too definite about what is to come.  

On 27 February Putin highlighted Russia’s nuclear strength and announced that he had raised the alert status of his deterrent forces a notch, which is one still short of getting close to a war footing. There has been a lot of speculation about why he did this, which is normal these days when trying to understand any of his moves, and anxiety about where this might be heading, which is appropriate given his state of mind. The simplest explanation remains that in the face of growing material support from the West for Ukraine, and heightened sanctions against Russia, he wanted to reinforce the warning against foreign interference he made when announcing the invasion. He will be aware of proposals for NATO to announce a ‘No Fly Zone’. This would be tantamount to a declaration of war, as NATO aircraft took on Russian, and for that reason has been ruled out by NATO leaders. At any rate to fully protect Ukrainian cities a ‘No Artillery Zone’ would also be required.  

It is the strikes against cities that are the most alarming and upsetting aspect of this stage of the war. Their strategic effects remain difficult to gauge, but three points are worth noting. 

First, a lot depends on the reaction of the population. Although it is a cliché to assume that civilians under bombardment become more defiant and learn resilience that is not invariably the case. It depends on the extent of the bombing, the prior state of their morale, and the quality of their leaders. So far,  however, in this case the cliché appears to be true. Kharkiv, the city that has suffered the worst, remains defiant. This is supposedly one of the most Russophile cities in Ukraine, where the Russians hoped to trigger a popular counter-revolution to the EuroMaidan revolution of February 2014. No longer.

Second, it may be as the Russian claim that some strikes are directed against key military and government targets, but no serious effort has been made to avoid civilian death and destruction. Even if some of the targets have a tactical purpose, this may reflect another fallacy, that destroying administrative buildings or media towers really makes a big difference to a war at this stage.  Ukraine is being run from Kyiv’s Metro stations and underground passageways, and on zoom calls.

Third, to make a strategic difference these attacks need to be related to other military moves. Here we come to the big choices the Russian military must make. Artillery can be used, brutally, as an instrument of urban warfare, to demoralise the defenders, to remove defensive positions and create pathways for an offence. But we know, from Stalingrad to Grozny, that defenders can fight amongst the rubble. Even at that desperate stage, urban settings remain a challenge for invading force. Units can get lost and isolated, caught in city streets, with reliable intelligence difficult to acquire. If Russian commanders want to keep their casualties down this is an uncomfortable prospect.  

Furthermore, to emphasise an early point, and as we have seen in areas where Russians have moved in, presence is not the same as control. There are numerous images now of Russian troops being confronted by large crowds of angry, unarmed residents and unsure what to do. It is one thing to kill civilians from afar with artillery and missile strikes, but another to have to look ordinary people in the eye, who could be your relatives, in a street similar to your home town, and start to shoot them out of the way. Somehow if they wish to hold what they have taken, the occupying forces will have to introduce the numbers able to impose curfews and deal with protestors, while protecting themselves from ambushes.

The alternative might be to mount sieges. The population can be forced to spend their time in bunkers, while cities loses power, food and medicines becomes scarce, and the situation becomes progressively more distressing. This may end up being, by default, Plan C, especially if Russians continue to struggle with efforts to get more than footholds in the major cities.  Human beings can endure these conditions for some time but at some point this will lead to a humanitarian crisis. In this respect calls for corridors to allow civilians to escape or just efforts to get in extra supplies while the cities are not completely surrounded can be expected.

A siege is unlikely to bring results quickly enough for Putin. His people are not suffering in the same way but Russia’s economy is now under siege. He can cope with this for the moment, and clamp down on dissent and independent news outlets. But the human and economic costs of this war cannot be covered up for long. People discover what has happened to their sons and brothers, and how little their roubles can buy. Putin needs this war to be over sooner rather than later. He can’t afford to be too patient. Little about his demeanour has been reported, other than intense frustration.  

>>> Plan D 

If there was ever any possibility that this war would end with the complete subjugation of Ukraine by force of arms this has now gone. Nor will it end with Russian forces being chased out of the country. Most likely there will be a negotiated conclusion, probably at the cease-fire talks. Although it is possible to conjure up some document in which the Ukrainians promise not to do things that they would not have done anyway (like develop a nuclear arsenal or be Nazis), and might even make some major concessions, such as accept the loss of Crimea, they must emerge from this ordeal as a free and independent country with no Russian troops on their soil.

It is now as likely that there will be regime change in Moscow as in Kyiv. Machiavelli posed the question of whether it is better for a prince to be loved or feared. His answer was that it was best to be both, but if a choice must be made it had to be fear. ‘If the subjects fear the ruler, that fear guarantees support. They ask themselves: “What will he do to us, if we are disloyal?”’ Putin, who has isolated himself, in all senses of the word, risks now losing that aura of ruthless power that he has carefully cultivated. That aura meant that only the bravest of domestic opponents took him on and autocrats elsewhere embraced him as an exemplar to follow. We know that he still enjoys much popular support even though demonstrations against the war continue. What will matter most will be rumblings among the elite as they see the consequences of their leader’s recklessness. When we know more about how this war ends we will understand better how his regime ends.

Glory to the Heroes. Glory to Ukraine.

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