A successful prisoner swap occurred this past weekend between Moscow and Kiev. The exchange included 24 Ukrainian sailors involved in the Kerch Strait incident last November as well as 10 others, including Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov who had been held by Russia on terrorism charges since 2015. An equal number of Russians held prisoner in Ukraine were also part of the exchange but there has been less fanfare about them, even in Moscow (more on that point in the video below).

The exchange is intended to build trust to facilitate future negotiations for ending the Ukraine crisis that erupted after the Maidan coup in 2014, leading to civil war in the country’s eastern region known as the Donbas.

The OSCE Chair and Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia, Miroslav Lajčák made the following statement on Saturday:

“This exchange has the potential to build up confidence between the two countries, as well as lead to exchange of all detainees, as provided in Minsk agreements,” said Lajčák adding that no effort should be spared to solve the conflict and end the suffering of people. “The OSCE and the Slovak Chairmanship stand ready to assist in any way possible.”

The exchange marked an important moment for Zelensky, the new Ukrainian president, as he can point to obtaining concrete positive actions out of Moscow. Zelensky and Putin held a telephone conference after the exchange in which the Kremlin reported that both sides stressed the importance of making progress on the Donbas problem, particularly using the Normandy format. RT reported:

They both agreed that the swap is an important step to mending ties between the two countries, the Kremlin press service said. Putin and Zelensky also discussed the prospects of solving the crisis inside Ukraine and putting the lengthy conflict between Kiev and the breakaway Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk to an end.

The two presidents talked about have also discussed the prospects of a new meeting in the Normandy Four format, that comprises leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. The process has been somewhat stalled since 2016, but since his election in April 2019 Zelensky urged for leaders to meet. Such an event must be thoroughly prepared to yield some results in regards to actually implementing the Minsk agreements, Putin stressed.

A link to the statement put out by the Kremlin on the phone call can be found here.

The next day, Putin had a telephone conversation with French President Macron after which Macron announced that a summit would take place in the Normandy Four format of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany to revive the Minsk Agreement, but no date was set.

Commentary on the prisoner exchange can be viewed below from Bryan MacDonald – one of the best English-speaking journalists based in Russia.

This morning a diplomatic meeting was held between the French and the Russians with respect to paving the way for more engagement between the two countries, particularly with the goal of resolving the Ukrainian civil war. AFP reported the following:

France said Monday that the time had come to start easing tensions with Russia as senior ministers held four-way talks in Moscow not seen since the crisis over Ukraine broke out.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said there was a “window of opportunity” for resolving the Ukraine conflict after a landmark prisoner exchange on Saturday, but that it was too soon to talk of lifting sanctions on Russia.

Le Drian and French Defence Minister Florence Parly were in Moscow for talks under the so-called “2+2” format that been suspended since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine….

…Lavrov said progress on rebuilding ties with Europe was “possible and necessary”.

************************************************************************

Well, we’re at the point where they’re not even trying to be subtle about it. The Pentagon is now coming right out and saying that it wants to be able to essentially police the news that Americans get on the internet…because they don’t trust us rubes with democracy – especially that freedom of speech thing.

As Matt Taibbi reports for Rolling Stone magazine, the Pentagon – via its Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – wants to utilize software that can detect “fake news” using some sort of algorithm. Taibbi provides more detail:

One of the Pentagon’s most secretive agencies, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is developing “custom software that can unearth fakes hidden among more than 500,000 stories, photos, video and audio clips.”…

DARPA now is developing a semantic analysis program called “SemaFor” and an image analysis program called “MediFor,” ostensibly designed to prevent the use of fake images or text. The idea would be to develop these technologies to help private Internet providers sift through content.

It’s the latest in a string of stories about new methods of control over information flow that should, but for some reason do not, horrify every working journalist.

Taibbi goes on to point out that the worst examples of “fake news” historically have been propagated by the establishment to either crank up support for a dubious war or a dubious crackdown on the rights and liberties of Americans. Ironically, “fake news” itself is now being used as an excuse to curtail our free speech rights.

If there’s a fake news story out there, it’s the fake news panic itself. It has the hallmarks of an old-school, WMD-style propaganda campaign.

It includes terrifying pronouncements by unnamed “intelligence officials,” unprovable, overblown, or outright fake statistical assertions about the threat (like the oft-cited claim that fake election news had more engagement than real news), open conflation of legitimate domestic dissent with foreign attack, and routine dismissal of experts downplaying the problem (here are two significantstudies suggesting the “fake news” phenomenon is overstated).

Of course, the final, omnipresent ingredient in most major propaganda campaigns is the authoritarian solution. Here, it’s unelected, unsupervised algorithmic control over media. We’ve never had a true news regulator in this country, yet the public is being conditioned now to accept one, without thinking of the consequences.

As social critic Caitlin Johnstone has pointed out, the most powerful tool that the elites have in a society is not control of the money supply, energy or food, but control over the narrative. Control over what you think about what’s going on:

Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens, you can have power until the public gets sick of your bullshit and tosses you out on your ass. If you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there’s no limit to the evils you can get away with.

I’ll preface this post by saying that presidential hopeful Andrew Yang seems like a decent and authentic guy. He has some interesting ideas on domestic policy (e.g. universal basic income, renewable energy, electoral reform, etc.), so I’m glad that he’s still in the debates and the merits of some of his ideas can be discussed. He seems to have some breakout potential – more than, say, Marianne Williamson. I somehow got onto his email list and I saw that he made the individual donations mark before Gabbard did. He has a passionate following which has adopted the moniker of the “Yang Gang.” I can also picture some establishment types maybe being willing to eventually support him as a guy who has a few unconventional policy ideas but ultimately is more capitalist-friendly than a couple of other popular candidates. He would also satisfy the identity politics requirement that is disproportionately significant to some in the party leadership. That is why I’m taking the time to comment on him.

Unfortunately, whatever independent and out-of-the-box thinking that Yang is capable of on domestic policy doesn’t seem to extend to foreign policy. This is becoming clear as he is starting to develop and publicly discuss a foreign policy agenda. His comments on a “Yang Doctrine” were mentioned in a brief interview he did with a YouTuber who leads a Yang fan club. The Yang Doctrine as laid out in the video below consists of 3 criteria that would have to be met to trigger military intervention by the U.S.: 1) is a vital U.S. interest at stake or is there a humanitarian disaster that needs to be averted?, 2) is there a clear timeline for the commitment?, and 3) are our allies willing to engage and help?

Now, to his credit, Yang acknowledges that we’ve been engaged in too many wars and interventions over the past two decades. He also states that there must be more investment in diplomacy and willingness to talk to “dictators.” Additionally, on his website’s foreign policy page, he commits to rescinding the AUMF and giving Congress back the authority to declare war, except for “emergency military activity.” These are all things that are steps in the right direction.

However, what concerns me is the first point of his Yang Doctrine, which leaves a hell of a lot of wriggle room for aggressive shenanigans. He doesn’t define what a “vital U.S. interest” is. Also, he is embracing humanitarian intervention. There have literally been whole books written about how this often serves as a fig leaf for aggressive regime change wars. Again, Yang does not set out any specific details about what would constitute a “humanitarian disaster.” Would he have gone along with the Libya intervention? Libya was a perfect example of humanitarianism, which manipulates people to support a war, being used as a cover for a regime change agenda. Moreover, the humanitarian claims turned out to be bogus. But that inconvenient truth came out after the fact – after the damage had been done. After Libya was reduced from the most prosperous nation in Africa to a slave-trading, terrorist-infested failed state. How would Yang avoid ravaging another country like this in the future under the guise of humanitarianism?

Yang’s comments in this interview on the Crimea issue show that he doesn’t have any understanding of Crimea’s historical relationship to Russia and what even happened in 2014. He seems to think that Crimea was reunited with Russia against its will and is being mistreated. Given that our relationship with Russia is one of the most important and contentious bilateral relationships, a candidate should have at least a rudimentary understanding of the issues at play and Yang shows he doesn’t. His recent answers to foreign policy questions posed by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) to the Democratic candidates – which I’ll discuss in more detail below – merely reinforces this assessment. Yang stated in his answers that he wants to expand sanctions on Russia even further.  

Yang also made some comments on the Israel/Palestine issue during a media interview earlier this summer that showed he is not inclined to question the entrenched position in Washington of viewing Israel as entitled to the benefits and protections (and none of the accountability) of essentially being the 51st state. In fact, his answer seemed to indicate that he had little understanding of the actual history and dynamics of the conflict itself. This is not exactly an obscure conflict where only a few eggheads firmly ensconced in the deepest recesses of a university are going to understand it.  In his subsequent CFR answers regarding Israel/Palestine, Yang at least acknowledged that Israel has created illegal settlements that might be problematic. He also paid lip service to a 2-state solution but said nothing about the facts on the ground, which have been systematically created by Israel (i.e. settlements) to undermine any credible 2-state solution.  

Yang addressed some other major foreign policy issues with the CFR questions. One of those is Iran. Yang said he would rejoin the nuclear deal, but he still characterizes Iran as a destabilizing force in the region. This, along with his comments on Israel/Palestine, show little understanding of the Middle East, just the repetition of establishment talking points.

With regard to China, Yang again shows little understanding of another major country that represents an important but contentious bilateral relationship. For example, he suggests that China is “becoming more authoritarian” with its embrace of technology to censor and surveil – as if mainland China hasn’t been “authoritarian” for much of its history.  The utilization of recently available (surveillance) technology to reinforce these tendencies is less an example of “increasing authoritarianism” than the western democracies utilizing that same technology in a more gradual but very similar way to undermine pre-existing civil liberties.  The latter is an example of going from less authoritarian to more authoritarian.  China, not so much. If a supposed brainiac like Yang cannot recognize that his comments don’t make logical sense, then we have a problem.   

With respect to Venezuela, he repeats the establishment line that Maduro is “undemocratic” and that outside powers, led by the US, have the right and duty to force him to step down and allow Guaido to be in charge until further elections.  His position reveals that he believes in imposing regime change, just without a military invasion. He also doesn’t mention the deaths caused by our economic sanctions there.  

I understand that it’s still very early on and I also understand that most Americans are concerned with more immediate domestic policies. However, as I’ve said before, given the actual responsibilities that the job of U.S. president entails and the power that presidents wield on foreign policy, a serious candidate cannot simply view foreign policy as some b.s. afterthought. A politically inexperienced candidate who is utterly ignorant on foreign policy can be easily manipulated by the blob into dangerous actions that potentially have consequences for all Americans as well as the entire world.

Yang, along with all of the candidates, is applying for the toughest job in the country and if he – or any of those candidates – can’t show the intellectual grasp, critical thinking skills, and judgment to be commander in chief in addition to the other duties of the office, then they aren’t qualified for the job.  

A few years ago, when I would occasionally read Mark Galeotti’s commentary and analysis of Russia, I’d often disagree with his take, preferring professors Richard Sakwa and Dominic Lieven as the best British experts on Russia. However, Galeotti actually gives a more nuanced and interesting analysis during this interview with Russian journalist Oksana Boyko on Worlds Apart. A lot of what makes this an interesting discussion is Boyko’s pushback on some of the assumptions that Galeotti rolls out about Russia and Putin, which forces Galeotti to backtrack on some of the things he starts to say that, in my opinion, reflect lazy and stereotypical thinking. I think Galeotti knows better, but he’s so used to providing the group think assessment of Russia that the Anglo-American establishment demands that it’s a conditioned response.

Having a more reasonable sounding view of Russia suddenly seems to be gaining popularity. After last week’s G7 meeting – the mutual admiration society of the western liberal democracies – French president Macron made comments acknowledging that western hegemony in its recent iteration since the end of the Cold War is declining. He also acknowledged that western nations needed to change their current attitude toward Russia or risk dangerous and unnecessary strategic errors that are not in the west’s long-term interests, like a Russian partnership with China. Macron also wants to position France as a key arbiter of relations within Europe, filling the void that will be left by Britain’s exit from the EU and Merkel’s declining influence on behalf of Germany.

According to a new Rasumussen poll out last Friday, 56% of likely U.S. voters believe that ” … having Russia in a friendly posture, as opposed to always fighting with them, is an asset to the world and an asset to our country, not a liability.” Furthermore, the respondents admitted that Trump was actually being aggressive in his policies toward Russia. This appears to be evidence that the basic premise of the Russiagate narrative has been effectively debunked for a good portion of the electorate.