Gee, this whole neoliberal elitism and disdain for the general population thing sounds awfully familiar. – Natylie

By Prof. Paul Robinson, Canadian Dimension, 6/18/23

Theatre director Konstantin Bogomolov likes to shock. At the end of May, he was at it again, publishing an article denouncing his one-time ideological allies in Russia’s liberal intelligentsia for their attitude towards the Russian people and towards the war in Ukraine. Bogomolov was obviously out to provoke. Still, beneath its insulting rhetoric, his article contained a germ of truth about the prospects for Russia ever turning into a liberal democratic state.

Offending people on a regular basis has made Bogomolov famous, but whereas once he targeted conservatives, Putin, and the Russian state, more recently he’s been targeting the West and Russian liberals. Aggrieved by Western political correctness, in 2021 Bogomolov took up arms against it in an article entitled “The Rape of Europe 2.0.” In this, the director complained that Western Europe was constructing a “new ethical Reich” dominated by an “aggressive mix of queer activists, fem-fanatics, and eco-psychopaths.” Then in November 2022, the Financial Times described a play that Bogomolov directed as “clearly heralding the start of a new era in Russian culture, with new people and new authoritarian values centre stage.” “The uproarious laughter of the audience at jokes about blackface and homophobic slurs was nauseating,” said the FT.

In his latest article, Bogomolov writes that Russia contains a “society within a society” made up of people who perceive themselves as special. This is the intelligentsia, 90 percent of whom “call themselves Europeans and enlightened liberals. But in the depth of their souls, they despise their insufficiently successful, insufficiently advanced compatriots.” These “special people” would never agree to listen to the ordinary people, says Bogomolov, because if they did, ordinary people would tell them that “empire is good, and a whole lot of other things that are simply unacceptable in civilized European society.” Consequently, “the people must be silent.”

The war in Ukraine has horrified liberal intellectuals, writes Bogomolov, but not because they dislike the bloodshed. What really bothers them, he claims, is that it has deprived them of the opportunity to get subsidies from the state to produce works saying how terrible the state is. Russia’s intellectuals lament the loss of their former lives in which they could “sit on two stools, be progressive thieves, intelligent murderers, corrupt philanthropists, uneducated aristocrats, actors with conscience (an oxymoron), Europeanized racists … and so on and so forth.” The war has deprived them of the ability to “live in luxury” and sip “pumpkin lattes.”

The intelligentsia wants to go back to its good old life, says Bogomolov. But, he concludes: “In February 2022 [when Russian invaded Ukraine], the past died. … There is no turning back. … It’s necessary to stop viewing one’s country and one’s people with contempt and to listen to the hum of history and the voice of the people. Because their opinion matters.”

While exaggerated, Bogomolov’s complaints will ring true among many Russians. The sad fact is that the social gulf dividing the liberal intelligentsia and the mass of ordinary Russians is enormous, and the two parties do indeed often view each other with undisguised contempt.

Take, for instance, Moscow professor Sergei Medvedev, author of the Pushkin Prize-winning book The Return of the Russian Leviathan. Medvedev writes that the Russian “mass consciousness” is “embittered, alienated and provincial,” “undeveloped,” “archaic and superstitious.” In liberal discourse, the masses are often described as having the “morals of slaves,” and as such compared unfavourably with the enlightened intelligentsia, a contrast that is sometimes referred to as the “Two Russias Theory.” As one-time liberal icon Boris Nemtsov put it in his book, Testament of a Rebel, before his murder in 2015: “The Russian people, for the most part, is divided into two uneven groups. One part is the descendants of serfs, people with a slavish consciousness. There are very many of them and their leader is V.V. Putin. The other (smaller) part is born free, proud and independent. It does not have a leader but needs one.”

As for the idea that what liberals really hate about the war in Ukraine is the loss of their pumpkin lattes, that too contains a tiny bit of truth, although the point of complaint is more often cheese than coffee, good European cheeses having disappeared from Russian shops as a result of the sanctions and counter-sanctions that followed the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Medvedev again provides an example, writing that “Among the losses of recent years—the free press, fair elections, an independent court—what has hurt especially hard has been the disappearance of good cheese. … a piece of brie, a bottle of Italian chianti and a warm baguette … drew him [the Russian] close to Western values and were acts of social modernization. … Striking against cheese was equivalent to a strike against the quasi-Western idea of normality.”

Similarly, in a 2015 article Masha Gessen lamented the loss of Western cheeses in Russia due to sanctions, but found consolation in the fact that they could still be purchased at the Caviar House & Prunier Seafood Bar in a departure lounge at London’s Heathrow Airport. As she wrote:

“It’s my first time in Europe after all that’s happened,” the journalist and filmmaker Inna Denisova, a critic of the annexation of Crimea, wrote on her Facebook page …. “And of course it’s not seeing the historic churches and museums that has made me so emotional—it’s seeing cheese at the supermarket. My little Gorgonzola. My little mozzarella. My little Gruyère, chèvre and Brie. I held them all in my arms … and headed for the cash register.” There, Ms. Denisova wrote, she started crying.

Suffice it to say that the non-brie eating, non-Chianti sipping majority has a rather different perspective. While sentiments such as those above might not be the norm, their occasional expression has given Russian liberals a serious image problem.

Bogomolov’s article thus draws our attention to something quite important. Russian liberalism can never hope to gain power without finding some common ground with the Russian people, or at least of a sizeable section of it. But liberals and the rest of the population are so far removed from one another that this seems impossible. Doing what Bogomolov recommends—listening to the people—would mean accepting the unacceptable, including the war in Ukraine. Liberals don’t want to do this. Instead, they pin their hopes on the war going so badly for Russia that the Russian people changes its point of view. But that means wishing for their own country’s defeat in war, a stance that alienates them even further from the public. Frankly, it’s hard to see how they can escape from this conundrum. For now, all they can do is wait and pray for a miracle.

Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.

By Rick Sterling, Antiwar.com, 6/27/23

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is arguably the key person driving US foreign policy. He was mentored by Hillary Clinton with regime changes in Honduras, Libya and Syria. He was the link between Nuland and Biden during the 2014 coup in Ukraine. As reported by Seymour Hersh, Sullivan led the planning of the Nord Stream pipelines destruction in September 2022. Sullivan guides or makes many large and small foreign policy decisions. This article will describe Jake Sullivan’s background, what he says, what he has been doing, where the US is headed and why this should be debated.

Background

Jake Sullivan was born in November 1976. He describes his formative years like this:

“I was raised in Minnesota in the 1980s, a child of the later Cold War – of Rocky IV, the Miracle on Ice, and ‘Tear down this wall’. The 90s were my high school and college years. The Soviet Union collapsed. The Iron Curtain disappeared. Germany was reunified. An American-led alliance ended a genocide in Bosnia and prevented one in Kosovo. I went to graduate school in England and gave fiery speeches on the floor of the Oxford Union about how the United States was a force for good in the world.”

Sullivan’s education includes Yale (BA), Oxford (MA) and Yale again (JD). He went quickly from academic studies and legal work to political campaigning and government.

Sullivan made important contacts during his college years at elite institutions. For example, he worked with former Deputy Secretary of State and future Brookings Institution president, Strobe Talbott. After a few years clerking for judges, Sullivan transitioned to a law firm in his hometown of Minneapolis. He soon became chief counsel to Senator Amy Klobuchar who connected him to the rising Senator Hillary Clinton.

Mentored by Hillary

Sullivan became a key adviser to Hillary Clinton in her campaign to be Democratic party nominee in 2008. At age 32, Jake Sullivan became deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning when she became secretary of state. He was her constant companion, traveling with her to 112 countries.

The Clinton/Sullivan foreign policy was soon evident. In Honduras, Clinton clashed with progressive Honduras President Manuel Zelaya over whether to re-admit Cuba to the OAS. Seven weeks later, on June 28, Honduran soldiers invaded the president’s home and kidnapped him out of the country, stopping en route at the US Air Base. The coup was so outrageous that even the US ambassador to Honduras denounced it. This was quickly overruled as the Clinton/Sullivan team played semantics games to say it was a coup but not a “military coup.” Thus the Honduran coup regime continued to receive US support. They quickly held a dubious election to make the restoration of President Zelaya “moot”. Clinton is proud of this success in her book “Hard Choices.”

Two years later the target was Libya. With Victoria Nuland as State Department spokesperson, the Clinton/Sullivan team promoted sensational claims of a pending massacre and urged intervention in Libya under the “responsibility to protect.” When the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing a no-fly zone to protect civilians, the US, Qatar and other NATO members distorted that and started air attacks on Libyan government forces. Today, 12 years later, Libya is still in chaos and war. The sensational claims of 2011 were later found to be false.

When the Libyan government was overthrown in Fall 2011, the Clinton/Sullivan State Department and CIA plotted to seize the Libyan weapons arsenal. Weapons were transferred to the Syrian opposition. US Ambassador Stevens and other Americans were killed in an internecine conflict over control of the weapons cache.

Undeterred, Clinton and Sullivan stepped up their attempts to overthrow the Syrian government. They formed a club of western nations and allies called the “Friends of Syria.” The “Friends” divided tasks who would do what in the campaign to topple the sovereign state. Former policy planner at the Clinton/Sullivan State Department, Ann Marie Slaughter, called for “foreign military intervention.” Sullivan knew they were arming violent sectarian fanatics to overthrow the Syrian government. In an email to Hillary released by WikiLeaks, Sullivan noted “AQ is on our side in Syria.”

Biden’s Adviser During the 2014 Ukraine Coup

After being Clinton’s policy planner, Sullivan became President Obama’s director of policy planning (Feb 2011 to Feb 2013) then national security adviser to Vice President Biden (Feb 2013 to August 2014).

In his position with Biden, Sullivan had a close-up view of the February 2014 Ukraine coup. He was a key contact between Victoria Nuland, overseeing the coup, and Biden. In the secretly recorded conversation where Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine discuss how to manage the coup, Nuland remarks that Jake Sullivan told her “you need Biden.” Biden gave the “attaboy” and the coup was “midwifed” following a massacre of police AND protesters on the Maidan plaza.

Sullivan must have observed Biden’s use of the vice president’s position for personal family gain. He would have been aware of Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of the Burisima Ukrainian energy company, and the reason Joe Biden demanded that the Ukrainian special prosecutor who was investigating Burisima to be fired. Biden later bragged and joked about this.

In December 2013, at a conference hosted by Chevron Corporation, Victoria Nuland said the US has spent five BILLION dollars to bring “democracy” to Ukraine.

Sullivan Helped Create Russiagate

Jake Sullivan was a leading member of the 2016 Hillary Clinton team which promoted Russiagate. The false claim that Trump was secretly contacting Russia was promoted initially to distract from negative news about Hillary Clinton and to smear Trump as a puppet of Putin. Both the Mueller and Durham investigations officially discredited the main claims of Russiagate. There was no collusion. The accusations were untrue, and the FBI gave them unjustified credence for political reasons.

Sullivan played a major role in the deception as shown by his “Statement from Jake Sullivan on New Report Exposing Trump’s Secret Line of Communication to Russia.”

Sullivan’s Misinformation

Jake Sullivan is a good speaker, persuasive and with a dry sense of humor. At the same time, he can be disingenuous. Some of his statements are false. For example, in June 2017 Jake Sullivan was interviewed by Frontline television program about US foreign policy and especially US-Russia relations. Regarding NATO’s overthrow of the Libyan government, Sullivan says, “Putin came to believe that the United States had taken Russia for a ride in the UN Security Council that authorized the use of force in Libya…. He thought he was authorizing a purely defensive mission…. Now on the actual language of the resolution, it’s plain as day that Putin was wrong about that.” Contrary to what Sullivan claims, the UN Security Council resolution clearly authorizes a no-fly zone for the protection of civilians, no more. It’s plain as day there was NOT authorization for NATO’s offensive attacks and “regime change.”

Planning the Nord Stream Pipeline Destruction

The bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, filled with 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas, was a monstrous environmental disaster. The destruction also caused huge economic damage to Germany and other European countries. It has been a boon for US liquefied natural gas exports which have surged to fill the gap, but at a high price. Many European factories dependent on cheap gas have closed down. Tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs.

Seymour Hersh reported details of How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline. He says, “Biden authorized Jake Sullivan to bring together an interagency group to come up with a plan.” A sabotage plan was prepared and officials in Norway and Denmark included in the plot. The day after the sabotage, Jake Sullivan tweeted

“I spoke to my counterpart Jean-Charles Ellermann-Kingombe of Denmark about the apparent sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines. The U.S. is supporting efforts to investigate and we will continue our work to safeguard Europe’s energy security.”

Ellerman-Kingombe may have been one of the Danes informed in advance of the bombing. He is close to the US military and NATO command.

Since then, the Swedish investigation of Nord Stream bombing has made little progress. Contrary to Sullivan’s promise in the tweet, the US has not supported other efforts to investigate. When Russia proposed an independent international investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage at the UN Security Council, the resolution failed due to lack of support from the US and US allies. Hungary’s foreign minister recently asked,

“How on earth is it possible that someone blows up critical infrastructure on the territory of Europe and no one has a say, no one condemns, no one carries out an investigation?”

Economic Plans Devoid of Reality

Ten weeks ago Jake Sullivan delivered a major speech on “Renewing American Economic Leadership” at the Brookings Institution. He explains how the Biden administration is pursuing a “modern industrial and innovation strategy.” They are trying to implement a “foreign policy for the middle class” which better integrates domestic and foreign policies. The substance of their plan is to increase investments in semiconductors, clean energy minerals and manufacturing. However the new strategy is very unlikely to achieve the stated goal to “lift up all of America’s people, communities, and industries.” Sullivan’s speech completely ignores the elephant in the room: the costly US Empire including wars and 800 foreign military bases which consume about 60% of the total discretionary budget. Under Biden and Sullivan’s foreign policy, there is no intention to rein in the extremely costly military industrial complex. It is not even mentioned.

US Exceptionalism 2.0

In December 2018 Jake Sullivan wrote an essay titled “American Exceptionalism, Reclaimed.” It shows his foundational beliefs and philosophy. He separates himself from the “arrogant brand of exceptionalism” demonstrated by Dick Cheney. He also criticizes the “American first” policies of Donald Trump. Sullivan advocates for “a new American exceptionalism” and “American leadership in the 21^st Century.”

Sullivan has a shallow Hollywood understanding of history: “The United States stopped Hitler’s Germany, saved Western Europe from economic ruin, stood firm against the Soviet Union, and supported the spread of democracy worldwide.” He believes “The fact that the major powers have not returned to war with one another since 1945 is a remarkable achievement of American statecraft.”

Jake Sullivan is young in age but his ideas are old. The United States is no longer dominant economically or politically. It is certainly not “indispensable.” More and more countries are objecting to US bullying and defying Washington’s demands. Even key allies such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are ignoring US requests. The trend toward a multipolar world is escalating. Jake Sullivan is trying to reverse the trend but reality and history are working against him. Over the past four or five decades, the US has gone from being an investment, engineering and manufacturing powerhouse to a deficit spending consumer economy waging perpetual war with a bloated military industrial complex.

Instead of reforming and rebuilding the US, the national security state expends much of its energy and resources trying to destabilize countries deemed to be “adversaries”.

Conclusion

Previous national security advisers Henry Kissinger and Zbignew Brzezinski were very influential.

Kissinger is famous for wooing China and dividing the communist bloc. Jake Sullivan is now wooing India in hopes of dividing that country from China and the BRICS alliance (Brazil,Russia, India, China, South Africa).

Brzezinski is famous for plotting the Afghanistan trap. By destabilizing Afghanistan with foreign terrorists beginning 1978, the US induced the Soviet Union to send troops to Afghanistan at the Afghan government’s request. The result was the collapse of the progressive Afghan government, the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and 40 years of war and chaos.

On 28 February 2022, just four days after Russian troops entered Ukraine, Jake Sullivan’s mentor, Hillary Clinton, was explicit: “Afghanistan is the model.” It appears the US intentionally escalated the provocations in Ukraine to induce Russia to intervene. The goal is to “weaken Russia.” This explains why the US has spent over $100 billion sending weapons and other support to Ukraine. This explains why the US and UK undermined negotiations which could have ended the conflict early on.

The Americans who oversaw the 2014 coup in Kiev, are the same ones running US foreign policy today: Joe Biden, Victoria Nuland and Jake Sullivan. Prospects for ending the Ukraine war are very poor as long as they are in power.

Rick Sterling is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at RSterling1@gmail.com.

Apparently Sergey Karaganov is doubling down on his crazy idea of Russia potentially using nuclear weapons to get the US to act more rationally. His latest article can be found here.

Emphasis via bolding is mine. – Natylie

Fyodor Lukyanov is the editor-in-chief of the journal “Russia in Global Affairs”, Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (SVOP)

By Fyodor Lukyanov, Profil, 6/21/23 (translation to English via Google Translate)

Sergey Karaganov’s article “The Use of Nuclear Weapons Can Save Humanity from a Global Catastrophe” caused a violent reaction, which was probably part of the author’s plans. Public discussion about the permissibility of the use of nuclear weapons has been taboo, in fact, since the moment when their sole use by the United States against Japan led to certain consequences.

The relations of the nuclear superpowers in the last century were based on the presumption that any use would lead to total atomic war and the destruction of civilization. Confidence in the inevitability of such a scenario, fear of its implementation, made the nuclear bomb not a battlefield weapon, but a deterrent – both the enemy and the “hotheads” at home. And when someone dares to raise the question of the need to return the nuclear component to the status of conventional weapons, albeit incredibly powerful, it causes shock and indignation.

Your humble servant is not an expert on nuclear weapons and the principles of deterrence and does not pretend to be. But the topic raised by a senior colleague affects everyone, so I will venture to speculate from the position of an informed layman.

Deterrence as a child of its time

Everyone is free to evaluate Sergey Karaganov’s arguments in their own way, especially since they range from applied to religious. You can’t argue with one thing – today the risk of nuclear war is higher than at any time since the early 1960s. The reasons for this are the general increase in aggressiveness in international politics, and strategic frivolity as a result of thirty years of peace under American hegemony, and disbelief that a full-fledged nuclear war can really happen, that is, the departure of existential fear . The latter serves as a starting point. Only the return of the real fear of a nuclear apocalypse can sober up Western elites, who are ready to impose supremacy on the rest of the world by force, no matter what.The goal stated in the article is to “break the will” of the collective West, forcing it to abandon the desire for superiority. The last resort is a nuclear strike on a “group of targets in a number of countries.”

Let’s leave aside the moral aspect, with which everything is clear, the author himself recognizes the enormity of the proposed action. Let’s focus on the conceptual scheme, how effective it could be for “sobering up”.

Nuclear deterrence and the principle of mutually assured destruction (HLG) is a product of the political and technological development of the second half of the twentieth century, the era after World War II. It was a unique period of relative orderliness of international relations, based on a system of institutions – organizations and norms of varying degrees of formalization. Thanks to this orderliness, it was possible to regulate the interaction of the main players, primarily the two superpowers.

The presence of an approximate military-political, economic and ideological balance was cemented by the nuclear factor – first the appearance of atomic weapons in the USSR, then the achievement of Soviet-American parity. The degree of orderliness should not be exaggerated, but it was greater than ever before, and probably ever in the future.

A crisis of the old order

The end of the Cold War meant the disappearance of balance in most respects, but the institutional framework remained unchanged. It was assumed that there was no need to rebuild it, because in the absence of confrontation, the institutions would finally work as they should. The nuclear factor also remained unchanged – the principle of the HLG was preserved even during the period of Russia’s maximum weakness in the first years after the collapse of the USSR.

In practice, the viability of the institutions created in the last century and working effectively then began to decline rapidly – their mechanism was intended for a different alignment of forces and interests. Theoretically, it would be necessary to discuss the other infrastructure of international organizations and agree on their structure. But the victorious West did not consider it necessary. After all, the very system of institutions, starting with the UN, initially embodied American ideas. The Soviet Union agreed to them after World War II, because it had no doubt that it would play a leading role in any design.In other words, the stability of the world order of the second half of the last century was determined by Western design and the presence of a balance of power within it, which was provided by the USSR.

Without balance, the structure staggered and began to crumble. Hence the dysfunction of structures, from the United Nations to many sectoral and regional institutions, including those that were purely Western, such as the WTO, which arose on the basis of the GATT. They cannot cope with the heterogeneity of the world. Against this background, other types of associations are beginning to take shape, less formalized, including a smaller number of participants, designed for a more flexible approach. A fixed world order is not expected in the foreseeable future – it will not be possible to regulate multi-level international strife without a qualitative simplification of the picture. And it is just not expected, if you do not consider catastrophic scenarios.

Deterrence as an institution

Nuclear deterrence is one of the fundamental institutions of the second half of the last century. It did not take shape immediately, for the first decade and a half of the existence of atomic weapons, America and the USSR probed possible boundaries by provoking exacerbations. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the leaders of the two nuclear superpowers faced that very fear. And they finally fixed the inadmissibility of direct conflict.

Nuclear weapons are indeed capable of destroying humanity, and the institution of deterrence was considered almost unshakable. You can play different games, but you can’t put the existence of the planet on the line. Yes, no one will. The same Sergei Karaganov wrote a few years ago: the depth and scale of international contradictions are such that in former times they would have led to a world war long ago, only the presence of nuclear stops weapons. Now he comes to a different conclusion. The United States is not afraid to unleash a full-fledged war against a nuclear superpower, albeit by proxy.There is only one step before a world war, it will be universal thermonuclear, it may turn out that the only way to avoid it is to arrange a preventive nuclear war, but a local one.

Here it is reasonable to ask the question: why a nuclear attack against another state / bloc possessing nuclear weapons will not lead to a rapid escalation to the very thermonuclear universal, that is, an exchange of strikes between Russia and the United States? The entire system of relations in the nuclear sphere, as noted by theorists of deterrence, is built primarily not on strategy and technology, but on psychology. And this psychological game should discourage the enemy from even the thought of a possible nuclear attack.

The use of nuclear weapons means the end of the game and, in fact, nullifies its special role, turning it into a very powerful means of destruction. And competition in the means of destruction is a “normal” war, only in this case of a cyclopean scale. Mutually assured destruction may not happen, but the all-encompassing damage will be such that the participating countries and the world as a whole will change dramatically in horrific ways.

Is it possible to go back to basics?

Sergey Karaganov emphasizes that nuclear strikes are a last resort, and expects that the movement along the “ladder of escalation” itself will force the opposite side to realize the level of threat and move on to a conversation on the merits – how to start getting out of the clinch and remove contradictions. That is, he believes it is possible to return to the original institutional meaning of nuclear weapons – the production of absolute fear that limits the behavior of participants.

But, as mentioned above, at that time it was part of the overall system of balanced management of international processes. Yes, we can say that the existence of that system was largely determined by the presence of nuclear weapons, but it was not limited to this factor. And when other elements of the structure began to fall off after the Cold War, it turned out that nuclear deterrence as such was not enough to provide the previous behavioral limitations.

It is assumed that with the help of fear, on the escalation of the terminal threat, it is possible to recreate a system of mutually acceptable rules. This logic was applied at a lower level in December 2021, when Russia put forward ultimatums on long-term security guarantees, threatening “military-technical measures” in case of refusal. The nature of the measures manifested itself with the start of a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine and shocked the Western elites, who treated the ultimatum with disdain. This, however, did not lead to a willingness to enter into a discussion with Russia about its concerns, the effect was the opposite.

It can be argued: the comparison is incorrect, since the NWO does not pose a direct threat to the United States and its NATO allies, and nuclear escalation does. But this is where the very elites whose irresponsibility Sergei Karaganov complains about come into play. No matter how you treat them, but so far they demonstrate skill in managing public opinion and mobilizing in support of their policies. Even though objectively this policy is to the detriment of the welfare and security of their citizens.

It turns out that the plan is to return nuclear deterrence to the status it had in the second half of the twentieth century by inflating the level of threat. And to return the elites of the type that were in power at that time. Something romantic-nostalgic. It is not clear where such personnel could be obtained today – just look at alternative forces in the leading Western countries. Moreover, apart from everything else, legitimizing the use of nuclear weapons in someone’s eyes outside the obvious situation described in doctrinal documents (a threat to the existence of the state) looks like an impossible task.

Are we going to bang?

Immediately after the Americans detonated the atomic bomb in 1945, George Orwell wrote a short essay, “You and the Atomic Bomb.” He had no doubt that some others (at least the Russians and the Chinese) would acquire these weapons, and if they remained at the level of not only super-destructive, but also difficult to obtain and very expensive, then they could be useful: “For an indefinite period, it will put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of establishing” a world that will not be peace. That is, Orwell understood from the very beginning that the meaning of this invention is not in application, but in availability. According to Orwell, turning it into another “mere weapon”

Now nuclear weapons are becoming more and more accessible both technologically and materially. Are reflections on the likelihood of using the prerogative of only Russian minds looking for a way out of a difficult military-strategic situation? Of course not. Arguments on this subject are gradually filling the world public space. This confirms what has been said above – the institution of deterrence, like other institutions of the last century, is in crisis. A sharp increase in the degree of discussion does not lead to the strengthening of the institution, but to its final collapse. And the application will not be a way to make you come to your senses, but a formal removal of the general taboo with unpredictable consequences.Further actions will no longer be dictated by calculations of one kind or another, but by reactions to each next step of the other side. Playing nuclear peers is a gambling activity. But in the event of a breakdown, the net damage will multiply any hypothetical benefits for everyone.

The taboo on the use of nuclear weapons is undoubtedly weakening. You need to prepare for everything. And rational behavior here is not to break the taboo completely, preventively, but to try to preserve it as at least some kind of limiter. This does not mean that the topic itself cannot be touched, quite the opposite. It is sanctimonious to shy away from the very thought of application – an ostrich approach. In this sense, Sergey Karaganov should be thanked for such a direct statement of position. Its discussion should become part of the development of a new understanding of strategic stability to replace the one that can no longer be restored.

Moon of Alabama, 6/30/23

Last December the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, talked with The Economist. He asked for more weapons which, he said, would allow him to throw the Russian forces out of Ukraine:

“I know that I can beat this enemy. But I need resources. I need 300 tanks, 600-700 IFVs, 500 Howitzers. Then, I think it is completely realistic to get to the lines of February 23rd.”

Some seemed to believe his talk. Following the request Ukraine received more or less all of what it had requested. Ukraine then loudly announced a counter-offensive but took several months before launching it. In the meantime it threw all available resources into a useless battle to hold onto the city of Bakhmut against the steady advance of the Wagner mercenary forces. That fight alone cost the Ukraine some 70,000 casualties. Meanwhile the Russian army engineers were building multiple reinforced defense lines which any counter-offensive will now have to overcome.

At the beginning of June, under pressure for the U.S., the Ukrainian army finally launched its counteroffensive. It was a dud. The Ukrainian troops entered the Russian security zone miles away from the real defense lines and immediately ran into mine fields and came under intense artillery fire. After 4 weeks of fighting they ‘liberated’ some 50 square miles of open land and a few small settlements. This came at significant costs:

“There were fewer than 50 men in the unit, he said, and 30 did not return — they were killed, wounded or captured by the enemy. Five of the unit’s armored vehicles were destroyed within the first hour.

…

“For the first hour and a half of the 37th’s assault near Velyka Novosilka, the Russians bombarded the unit with nonstop shelling that penetrated their AMX-10 RC armored vehicles, according to Grey, another soldier in the battalion who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his call sign. The armored vehicles, sometimes called “light tanks,” were not heavy enough to protect the soldiers, Grey said, and had to be positioned behind them instead of in front.

…

“Everyone expected that we would have some kind of support, but unfortunately, for some reason, there was none,” Lumberjack said. His commander had little experience, he said, and had counted on assistance from artillery units. “But he got confused when he saw that there was none.”

At this speed it will take the Ukraine many years of fighting and an unlimited supply of weapons and men to kick the Russians out:

“To put the matter in perspective: Today, Russia controls about 17 percent of the territory that was previously Ukraine’s. If Ukrainian forces are no more successful in the weeks ahead than they have been so far, Ukraine will not recapture all of its territory for 16 years.”

Over the last months I used a spreadsheet to list and sum up the Ukrainian casualties as they are listed in the daily reports of the Defense Ministry of Russia. These numbers are likely a bit too high but by what percentage, 10 or 20%, is hard to say.

From June 1 to June 30 the numbers sum up to: 313 tanks, 815 Infantry Fighting Vehicles and other armored vehicles, 313 howitzer and other long range artillery systems. The Ukraine also lost some 21,900 men which gives an average of 730 per day.

During the month the Russian air defense claimed to have shot down 15 Ukraine planes, 5 helicopters, 200 HIMARS and 20 Storm Shadow ‘wonder weapon’ missiles. Those numbers do not include the significant damage Russia has done to defense repair shops, weapon and ammunition depots all over Ukraine with its constant long range missile attacks.

In total the Ukraine lost in one months more than Zaluzhny requested back in December and more than it has received during the time since.

In the Washington Post Zaluzhny is back and begging for more weapons:

“For Ukraine’s counteroffensive to progress faster, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the top officer in Ukraine’s armed forces, says he needs more — of every weapon. And he is telling anyone who will listen, including his American counterpart Gen. Mark A. Milley as recently as Wednesday, that he needs those resources now.

“In a rare, wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Zaluzhny expressed frustration that while his biggest Western backers would never launch an offensive without air superiority, Ukraine still has not received modern fighter jets but is expected to rapidly take back territory from the occupying Russians. American-made F-16s, promised only recently, are not likely to arrive until the fall — in a best-case scenario.

“His troops also should be firing at least as many artillery shells as their enemy, Zaluzhny said, but have been outshot tenfold at times because of limited resources.”

Zaluzhny wants F-16s and more ammunition but also more of ‘every weapon’. Here are the problems.

When Zaluzhny will get his F-16s he will immediately learn that the Russian Su-35 is by far superior to them. Its radar can see farther than the F-16’s and its long range over-the-horizon missiles can kill the F-16s before they even have a chance to fire their own ones.

The ‘west’ is currently unable to produce as much ammunition as Ukraine wants to fire. And while the U.S. still has some Bradleys and Abrams battle tanks in its reserves the depots for ‘every weapon’ in other NATO countries are already empty. There are no more tanks, armored vehicles or howitzers they could give away.

In total there simply is not enough to replace the losses the Ukraine has on a daily basis. Meanwhile Russia is already producing more of every weapon than its military needs for its daily operations.

There is no way the Ukraine can win this fight or even hold on to its current positions. That was easy to foresee and predict. Those who urged Ukraine on should be condemned for the murderous slaughter they caused.

Ukraine needs to make peace with Russia. Yes, it will come with conditions that are not easy to swallow. Still, there is no other way out.

To continue the fight, with ever increasing losses of men and land, is not a sustainable alternative.

By Dmitry Trenin, RT, 6/22/23

Dmitry Trenin is a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council.   

Professor Sergey Karaganov’s “Tough-but-necessary decision” article – which claims that by using its nuclear weapons, Russia could save humanity from a global catastrophe – has provoked plenty of reaction both at home and abroad. Partly because of the author’s status – he has been an advisor to both President Boris Yeltsin and President Vladimir Putin – and also due to the belief that his opinion may possibly be shared by some people in positions of power.

Dmitry Trenin, an extremely respected Russian expert who served in the Soviet military gives his response.

***

Professor Sergey Karaganov’s recent article brought into public focus the thorny issue of the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict. Many reactions to the piece boil down to the well-known reasoning that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and thus it cannot be fought.

Against this background, President Vladimir Putin, responding to a question at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, said that nuclear weapons are a deterrent and the conditions for their use is defined in a published doctrine. He explained that the theoretical possibility of using these weapons exists, but there is no need to use them now.

In principle, nuclear weapons have been “on the table” for Russia from the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict precisely as a means of deterring the US and its allies from becoming directly involved. Nevertheless, repeated public reminders from Putin and other officials about Russia’s nuclear status have so far not prevented a growing escalation of NATO’s participation. As a result, it has become clear that nuclear deterrence, on which many in Moscow have relied as a credible means of securing the country’s vital interests, has proven to be a much more limited tool than they expected.

In fact, the US has now set itself the task – unthinkable during the Cold War – of trying to defeat another nuclear superpower in a strategically important region, without resorting to atomic weapons, but instead by arming and controlling a third country. The Americans are proceeding cautiously, testing Moscow’s responses and consistently pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of arms supplied to Kiev, as well as the choice of targets for them. From starting with anti-tank ‘Javelins,’ to eventually cajoling allies to send actual tanks, the US is now apparently pondering transferring F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles.

It is likely that this US strategy is based on the belief that the Russian leadership would not dare use nuclear weapons in the current conflict, and that its references to the nuclear arsenal at its disposal are nothing more than a bluff. The Americans have even been calm – at least outwardly about the deployment of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus. Such “fearlessness” is a direct result of the geopolitical changes of the last three decades and the change of generations in power in the US and the West in general.

The fear of the atomic bomb, present in the second half of the twentieth century, has disappeared. Nuclear weapons have been taken out of the equation. The practical conclusion is clear: there is no need to be afraid of such a Russian response.

This is an extremely dangerous misconception. The trajectory of the Ukrainian war points to an escalation of the conflict both horizontally (by expanding the theater of military action) and vertically (by increasing the power of the weapons used and the intensity of their use). It must be soberly acknowledged that this momentum is heading towards a direct armed confrontation between Russia and NATO. If the accumulated inertia is not stopped, such a clash will take place, and in this case the war, having spread to Western Europe, will almost inevitably become nuclear. And after some time, a nuclear war in Europe will most likely lead to an exchange of blows between Russia and the US.

The Americans and their allies are truly playing Russian roulette. Yes, so far the Russian response to the bombing of Nord Stream, the drone attack on the strategic Engels airbase, the entry of Western-armed saboteurs into the Belgorod region and many other actions by the Washington-backed and controlled side has been relatively restrained.

As Putin recently made clear, there are good reasons for this restraint. Russia, the president said, is capable of destroying any building in Kiev, but will not stoop to the methods of terror used by the enemy. But Putin added that Russia was considering various options for destroying Western warplanes if they are based in NATO countries and directly take part in the war in Ukraine.

So far, Moscow’s strategy has been to allow the enemy to take the escalatory initiative. The West has taken advantage of this, trying to wear down Russia on the battlefield and undermine it from within. It makes no sense for the Kremlin to go along with this plan. On the contrary, it’s a better idea to clarify and modernize our nuclear deterrence strategy, taking into account the practical experience of the Ukrainian conflict. The existing doctrinal provisions were formulated not only before the start of the current military operation, but also apparently without a precise idea of what might happen in the course of such a situation.

Russia’s external strategy includes a basket of foreign diplomacy, information campaigns and other aspects – in addition to the military elements. The main adversary should be given an unambiguous signal that Moscow will not play by the rules set by the other side. Of course, this should be accompanied by a credible dialogue with both our strategic partners and neutral states, explaining the motives and objectives of our actions. The possibility of using nuclear weapons in the current conflict must not be concealed. This real, not just theoretical, prospect should be an incentive to limit and stop the escalation of the war and ultimately pave the way for a satisfactory strategic balance in Europe.

Regarding Russian nuclear strikes against NATO countries, as raised by Professor Karaganov: Hypothetically speaking, Washington would most likely not respond to such an attack with a nuclear response of its own against Russia – for fear of a Russian retaliatory launch against the US itself. This would dispel the mythology that has surrounded Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for decades and lead to a profound crisis for NATO – possibly even the dissolution of the organization. It is possible that, in such circumstances, the Atlantic elites of NATO and the EU would panic and be swept aside by patriotic forces that would see for themselves that their security does not in fact depend on a non-existent US nuclear umbrella, but on building a balanced relationship with Russia. It is also possible that the Americans could decide to leave Russia alone.

It could well be that the calculation just described would ultimately be correct. But it is unlikely.

Yes, a US nuclear strike on Russia would probably not follow immediately. It is unlikely that the Americans would sacrifice Boston for Poznan, just as they were not going to sacrifice Chicago for Hamburg during the Cold War. But there will probably be some sort of response from Washington. Perhaps of the non-atomic type, which, without speculating too wildly, could be sensitive and painful for us. It is likely that with it, Washington would try to pursue a goal similar to ours: paralyzing the Russian leadership’s will to continue the war and creating panic in our society.

Moscow’s leadership is unlikely to capitulate after such a blow, since, at this stage, Russia’s very existence would be at stake. It is more likely that a retaliatory strike would follow, and this time, one can assume, against the main adversary rather than its satellites.

Let us pause before this point of no return and summarize our analysis tentatively.

Should the nuclear bullet be demonstrably inserted into the cylinder of the revolver that the US leadership is recklessly playing with today? To paraphrase a late American statesman: Why do we need nuclear weapons if we refuse to use them in the face of an existential threat?

On the other hand, there is no need to scare others with words. Instead, we have to prepare practically for any possible turn of events by carefully considering the options and their consequences.

The war in Ukraine has become protracted. As far as we can tell from the actions of the Russian leadership, it expects to achieve strategic success by relying on Russian resources, which are many times greater than those in Ukraine. It also relies on the fact that Moscow has much more at stake in this war than the West. This calculation is probably correct, but it should be taken into account that the opponent assesses Russia’s chances differently than we do and may take steps which could lead to a direct armed clash between Russia and the US/NATO.

We must be prepared for such a development. To avoid a general catastrophe, it is necessary to put fear of armageddon back into politics and the public consciousness.

In the nuclear age, it is the only guarantee of preserving humanity.

This post was originally published by Russia in Global Affairs