A Few Thoughts about my lengthy absence, following the war, and the Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams Tanks

Had you asked me a year ago if Russia invading Ukraine would send me back to regular commentaries, I suspect I would have said yes, and yet, it is almost 11 months since my last post about Putin's problematic conception of Russian identity The thing is I found I had little to say. I am interested in providing thoughtful analysis where I can, but I am no expert on military affairs, nor on Russia, and that is a big part of understanding this war. So. convinced as I was that Ukrainians would fight for their independence, I had no reason to believe the many experts who said that Russia's overwhelming force would meet its initial objectives, and expected instead that initial success would be followed by a nasty and brutal guerrilla war that drag out and lead to even more refugees than we have seen. Yes it turned out differently, but I did not have the necessary knowledge, so I have read other people's blogs and twitter threads without feeling I could add much value.

For those who have not already found ready sources, may recommend Phillips Newsletter by the military studies scholar Phillips P. O'Brien's weekly reflections. I heartily recommend his book How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II, which gave taught this expert on Eastern Europe a great deal about the strategic realities of World War II. I follow some folks on Twitter, as well, but most of the time day-to-day events on the ground tell us little. That said, let me also tip my hat to Markos Moulitsas and Mark Sumner over at the Daily Kos, who provide excellent close to daily coverage that is worth reading no matter what you think of everything else at that site.

While I have been at my computer this today word has gone out Biden is set to announce that the US will deliver some M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine and Germany will be sending Leopard 2. For those who want to see this war over sooner rather than later, this is a good thing, though from what I read the M1 Tank is not the best fit for Ukraine --it is the kind of fighting machine that the most well funded army in the world than for a country faced can use to great advantage, but is not so well suited to an underdog that needs to be careful with its resources. In particular the Abrams Tank it is far thirstier than the Leopard Tank, and that could be a problem for Ukraine, which until recently was heavily dependent on Russia for petroleum products. Still, having the Americans in on the game is important as a trust building measure, and the Ukrainians trained on it will be a formidable force. Above all I see this as about restoring trust between the US and its European allies. We should not forget that the US ignored several of its best established European allies when it decided to go to war in Iraq, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan likewise sent shockwaves of concern among our NATO allies. Further, however unlikely it may seem right now, a pro-Russian Republican returning to the White House in 2025 is within the realm of possibility, and sending tanks will make it harder, though not impossible, for the US to walk away should Putin in desperation escalate in the hope of breaking the coalition supporting Ukraine in two along a Europe/US fault line. Indeed, the Netherlands will also end Leopard 2s in addition to the ones Poland and Finland were ready to send, and we may hear about others soon.

Readers of outlets that are highly supportive of Ukraine will likely be told that this shows Germany reluctantly getting in line, with Chancellor Scholz the perennial latecomer to the party to support Ukraine. It is an easy narrative to push for given history, when more than once Germany has been happy to prioritize relations with Russia over the smaller states between Russia and Germany. There are also a number of players happy to play up this line for their own purposes. In Poland, where an election campaign is looming, the PiS has a long history of demagoguery against Germany, and this fit that bill. Meanwhile, France has been the least generous major Western power, and so it suits Macron and the French establishment to make Germany the lightning rod. Just as importantly, for all the hubbub around "freeing the Leopards" in the run up to the Ramstein meeting last Friday, the notion that Germany alone was holding things back was well off the mark. Before the meeting only Finland had expressed willingness to join the coalition of countries willing to send Leopold 2s to Ukraine that Poland had been calling for. Why was this? I'm not plugged in to the policy makers in relevant countries, so I can't give a firm issue, but that situation speaks loudly against the notion that Germany was the problem. Perhaps if this helps put the worst of this war behind us sooner rather than later, and the US avoids a second dip into authoritarian populism, the Ramstein meeting will become seen as the moment when NATO finally got beyond the rift caused by George W. Bush's my way or the high way approach to Iraq.

Putin’s Vision of Russian National Identity is the Problem

 The Yale-based historian Timothy Snyder has called people’s attention to a document prepared by the Russian ministry of information prepared before the invasion. Apparently, it was to be read over the airwaves as the invasion of Ukraine proceeded apace as Ukrainians saw Russian soldiers, recognized their brothers and joined the march on Kyiv to celebrate the deposing of the Jewish President Zelenskyy in an anti-Nazi reverie. According to Snyder similar documents were prepared, but were quickly trashed as it became clear that the happy ending they imagined was delayed but this one is survived. I don’t feel comfortable enough reading Russian to go through in detail, but according to Snyder it is a dark document envisioning that following the Ukraine’s speedy capitulation would lead complete destruction of distinct Ukrainian and Belarusian identities the emergence of single Slavic state triumphing over the decadent west. 

This is scary stuff: an unapologetic celebration of genocide in the terms laid out by Rafael Lemkin, who first defined the term. Many already have died in the Putin’s effort to create that reality, and Ukraine’s cultural heritage has also been hit. One of the early casualties of the war was a museum of the work of a Ukrainian folk artist, Maria Prymachenko, where 25 of her paintings were destroyed. There are also legitimate concerns that Russians will seek to destroy the State archives where records relating to Soviet rule in Ukraine, including the Holodomor, are found, and that is just the start of the horrors we can imagine. Still without suggesting all is going to be okay, it is important to remember that the underlying idea of Putin’s plans are completely unrealistic. Yes, it is possible to imagine that under other circumstances a single Russian national identity that truly united Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians might have been forged, just as we should not assume that Belarusian and Ukrainian identities, as we know them, were inevitable. At this point rendering over 150 years of thought, cultural, and political activities moot as a result of Brutal actions in the twentieth-first centuries is absurd, This would have been true even if the cakewalk Putin imagined the Ukraine campaign would be had come to pass. 

The ostensible unity Putin sells this war on is grounded in a dream grounded in essentialist thinking about identity that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny in even the most culturally homogenous cultures. The history of Russian imperial culture, however, is closely related to the multiplicity of cultures encountered in the Russian state-building project. As Putin himself acknowledged just recently in a speech, in which he claimed to be a number of different nationalities, save conspicuously Ukrainian. Yet, the notion that Ukraine and Ukrainians all be absorbed in ways these other peoples have not been is a pipe-dream. At best, a client Ukrainian state will emerge, not direct rule from Moscow, and ordinary Ukrainians willingness to challenge Russian occupation in towns hardly bodes well for anyone thinking being appointed client president of Ukraine will be anything more than a gigantic headache.

To be sure, Putin’s essentialism is pretty common in the post-Soviet world, especially on those who grew up in the Soviet Union. Indeed, the intensity of the language issue in Ukraine, which Putin draws on to make claims about the discrimination faced by Russian speakers in Ukraine, derives largely from a belief than all Ukrainians must be Ukrainians in the exact same way, by speaking Ukrainian, loving Ukrainian literature etc. rather than participating in Ukraine’s political life from their personal perspectives. Admittedly. the way the Ukrainian language was at best siloed and and at worse actively discouraged in the Soviet Union makes language a touchy subject. Everyone wants to encourage Ukrainian, but language laws that emphasize Ukrainian as sole legal language as a way to get people to adopt Ukrainian is a mild version of Putin’s misunderstanding of modern political identities. Fortunately, the various versions of the language laws that have been in place since 1992 have been honored in the breech in ways that have rarely caused real harm. Pragmatism on the ground has invariably prevailed. Furthermore to a certain extent the laws have been made conceptually tolerable because even Russian-speakers in Ukraine share the same essentialism and agree that Ukrainian should be the language of state.

The real sadness is that Ukrainian pragmatism has been threatened by Putin’s Russian nationalist idealism. As Roman Szporluk pointed out over 30 years ago, despite the Azeri-Armenian conflict, and the crazed Georgian nationalism of Zviad Gamsakhurdia that had yet to come to pass, the most dangerous nationalism emerging as the Soviet Union collapsed was Russian nationalism. Linked to Russian dominance in the Soviet Union, the boundaries of Russian identity were far less defined than those of the various smaller nationalities. Russians Empire and their special position in the Soviet Union they had to decide what model of nation could opt to accept their new position as Russians in a Russian state, in which case the Commonwealth of Independent States might well have blossomed into a large community of independent but friendly nations. More ominously they could become exercised about their ostensibly lost empire and build a politics around protecting the rights of Russians in other territories. Many Russians may well have preferred the first alternative, but for reasons that may have little to do with concern for Russians abroad or the loss of Empire they chose Putin, and once having chosen Putin, he made the choice for them. As this war drags on becoming a disaster that Putin may not be able to live down, Russians will get a do-over. If indeed anger at Putin brings about the end of his rule, perhaps this time, Russians will be more comfortable with the possibilities opened up by taking a more narrow view of Russian identity.

The Donbas Republics Were Always Going to Go to the Loser

 The situation in Donbas is fluid. No one knows what Putin will decide to do. Reports are that military is still gathering on the borders, and the joint maneuvers with Belarus have been extended. That said, there is reason to think that US alarmist rhetoric boxed Putin in. If he doesn’t move farther into Ukraine, we will have to wonder if he ever really planned to move on Ukraine in the first place, but hoped to shake down Ukraine and the west to the point where he could force Ukraine to implement the Minsk 2 agreement according to Russian wishes, permanently crippling Ukraine. By raising the warnings of an invasion to fever pitch the US forced Putin to acknowledge that he can’t credibly do more than threaten an invasion of Ukraine, and recognizing the Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic was a way to save face, something that according to the exceedingly well connected and judicious Russia expert Mark Galeotti many in the Russian political class had been urging.

    We will know in the coming days and weeks if this truly was an off ramp for Putin. It would ring true with the Putin analysts like Galeotti are accustomed to, one who is pragmatic and a rational actor if viewed on his own terms. Seen in that light, both the staged meeting of his security council and the looney speech he gave later justifying his actions are best understood as the grudging and angry recognition that the US and just as importantly Ukraine’s Zelenskiy had out-foxed him. The fact that Ze, a former comedian, has managed to hold Ukraine together must be especially irksome to a man like Putin, who thinks of statesmen as anointed great men.

    To add insult to injury Putin now finds himself in charge of cleaning up the mess he made in Donbas eight years ago. He didn’t want that. Forcing Ukraine to keep Donbas was a way to weaken Ukraine, and that was why Putin hoped to get the west to go along with his plans to force Ukraine to accept Minsk 2 on his terms, formally creating a pocket veto on Ukraine’s efforts to move towards the west. But even without Minsk being implemented the Donbas was a drain on Ukraine. The limited but moderate intensity warfare with no resolution cost money and lives. Ukraine was also paying the pensions of people who were not living in territory controlled by Ukraine, an expense that was necessary for Ukrainian dignity, but of little good for its economy. Even implementing the Minsk agreement according to Ukrainian terms would have been costly and time consuming. Rebuilding the state and institutions systematically destroyed by the combination of Russian military operatives and organized crime gangs that ran the city would have been difficult, and the investment necessary to revive the Donbas’s mining-based economy in Donbas cost effective would have been huge. Modernization would not lead to employment for most miners — just look at the situation in West Virginia, Southeastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania and Eastern Kentucky. In times other businesses would develop, but with huge social costs. 

    Ever since the insurgencies of Spring 2014 the dirty secret of the conflict has been that whoever ends up with Donbas will be the loser of the war. Today, Putin took that honor and was forced to pretend that this was a good thing. Putin will now have to fix it; although whether he can do that is another question. Of course, Putin can break more. He can use the claims of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics to the whole administrative regions to justify pushing Ukrainian forces out there. He can move to create the so-called land bridge to Crimea that has been talked about since 2014, but that should not be confused with victory. That will be a drain on the Russian economy and cost lives that many Russians will resent, Ukrainians won’t like it much either but they will be fighting for their country and that will make a big difference.

Remembering Dondi

People of a certain age will recognize the face above as Dondi. I never followed the comic strip, in part because the New York Times was the paper of the house, but I think if I had I would have found it annoyingly cute, but after seeing the picture of little Aylan Kurdy lifeless on a beach a couple of weeks ago I've had a hard time getting Dondi out of my head.

Most of what I ever know about Dondi came from watching one of the movies made about him in the 1950s, an orphan with no one to tend him to GIs adopt him. According to Wikipedia, he was Italian, but in a sense he was the cute face of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people — after all the comic was inspired by a trip to Korea, where there were plenty of such similar kids walking around.  For their part, his benefactors,Ted Willis and Whitey McGowan, stood in for an America that recognized its good fortune and believed it had responsibility to help people in worse situations get on their feet, and if necessary give them a new home. As I think about America’s recent and uncharacteristically woeful record on taking in refugees I see is a loss of American values, 

where greed and fear have replaced a basic principle of generosity.  Yes, lots have changed since the 1950s, but if we wish to have a future where the fear of terrorism does not cripple us, perhaps the answer is not worrying first and foremost about letting in terrorists, but rather showing the world our hearts and our readiness to help the less fortunate.  With that in mind, perhaps it is time for someone to revive the Dondi comic.

Syriza, the Wrong Ally in the Left's War Against Neo-Liberalism

Ever since the election of Syriza government in Greece in January, prime minister Alexis Tsipras and its main interlocutor with the Troika (The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF), finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, have become heroes of the anti-austerity left.  Small wonder, enamored with austerity, the EU and IMF have managed the Greek catastrophe terribly, perhaps not so terribly as American politicians managed the bailout of Wall Street, while doing little for Main Street and borrowers — at least the EU forced a 50% haircut on the holders of some of Greece’s debt.  The austerity program imposed on Greece only weakened Greece’s economy further and has rightly made Greece the poster child for proponents of a revival of Keynesian economics, and the rejection of the neo-liberal belief that austerity is always economically judicious. Syriza’s election seemed to signal the long awaited revolt against austerity that many of the left have long hoped for, and so support among the left in Europe and America has remained strong as the Syriza government’s showdown with the EU troika has come to a head. Yet recognizing that further concessions to the Greek people are necessary should not be seen as a vindication of Syriza’s tactics. For if their rhetoric has been right, Tsipras and Varoufakis have been the worst representatives of the anti-austerity movement imaginable, and in the end it will not just be Greece that will pay the price but the whole left, which has struggled to find a new purpose since the collapse of Communism.

For almost three decades now the post-1989 left lived in a dreamworld unable to offer justification for their critiques of the Washington consensus other than saying “its not fair,” and as such they have been unable to offer a real vision, leaving the “neo-liberals” looking like the only adults in the room. Syriza's management of the crisis and their negotiating strategy has been almost a parody of that problem.  Rather than show some recognition of the broader political realities, i.e. that any further haircut the EU makes will effect millions of people, who are not terribly sympathic towards Greece, the Syriza leadership has just complained louder and louder about the unfairness of it all.

 If that had worked in the intervening months this blog would not be written. What we have seen, however, is that the Troika has dug in. Meanwhile, people on the left continue to assume that it is the Troika that must budge first, as if the other EU governments are not beholden to their own people. Given Greece’s recent history with the EU, it ought to be clear that the EU countries have quite good reasons for demanding Greece commit to structural reforms before making further concessions to insure that the EU never has to rescue Greece again. For this story begins with the dodgy accounting and especially a big currency swap set up by Goldman Sachs Greece used to get into the Euro. 

Now the EU shares some blame in as much everyone knew that had not historically managed to meet the deficit and debt limits required of entrants into the Eurozone, but it is also true that Greece went well beyond the fudging other countries did.  The miracle of Greece making the Eurozone requirements already began to unravel in 2004, but the EU did not kick Greece out then. Then the discovery of the Goldman Sachs currency swap when the Greek debt crisis began in earnest only damaged Greece’s credibility further with among fellow Europeans, and understandably so for it showed the Greek government was willing to partner with a private investment bank to cover up the truth that ultimately affected all members of the Eurozone. Then came the decision by the Greek constitutional court to declare pension reforms made in 2010 has left other European governments wondering how they can ask their constituents to support more aid when Greeks have not brought their pension systems in line with other European states, so that Greeks can continue to retire earlier than anywhere else in the EU and often at extraordinary percentages of work salaries that would be unheard of elsewhere.  That lack of sympathy is especially strong in East Central Europe where peoples all went through their own austerity programs just to get into the EU. Thus, Syriza’s decision not to accept concessions should not be seen just as standing up against neoliberalism as their supporters believe, but as a disregard for the principals that a united Europe which Greece has benefited from considerably. Rather Tsipras and Varoufakis have shown themselves to be stuck in the old mode of politics where national interest trumps all else. 

Now that is not to say that the EU has been right not to signal in some way that further haircut of Greek bonds should be on the table pending reforms, but it is remarkable that Tsipras and Varoufakis have shown little open appreciation for the political difficulties such a haircut poses for other European governments absent irreversible concessions. (It is telling that it was the IMF, whose leadership does not have to worry about getting re-elected that leaked the need for a further haircut of Greek debt.) Worse since coming to power Tsipras and Varoufakis have never been honest with the Greek people. They won election by telling Greeks they could keep the Euro without paying the price that the other EU governments say it must. Perhaps we should not chastise them for that, after all politics is about winning elections. Unlike many great politicians who have come into office and then changed their tune, however, Syriza have continued to promise what they could not and still deny the reality that they are not the masters of Greece’s fate. So among the justifications for a no vote is the disingenuous proposition that because keeping the Euro is not in the wording of the referendum proposal that a No vote will not mean Greeks will have to abandon the Euro as seen in bullet points 5 and 6 from Varoufakis’s justification for a No vote:

Why we recommend a NO in the referendum – in 6 short bullet points

Posted on July 1, 2015 by yanisv

5 Greece will stay in the euro.  Deposits in Greece’s banks are safe.  Creditors have chosen the  
        strategy of blackmail based on bank closures. The current impasse is due to this choice by the
        creditors and not by the Greek government discontinuing the negotiations or any Greek thoughts
        of Grexit and devaluation. Greece’s place in the Eurozone and in the European Union is non-
        negotiable.

6 The future demands a proud Greece within the Eurozone and at the heart of Europe. This future
       demands that Greeks say a big NO on Sunday, that we stay in the Euro Area, and that, with the
       power vested upon us by that NO, we renegotiate Greece’s public debt as well as the distribution
       of burdens between the haves and the have nots.

.

All this falls under Einstein’s definition of insanity — doing the same thing and expecting different results.  Since coming into office they have acted as if the Troika is not the ultimate arbiter of what will be acceptable, and apparently even being kicked out of the council of ministers last week after announcing the referendum has not brought that truth home.  Syriza was supposed to represent a new start in Greek politics, but has instead been a continuation of the same politics of wishful thinking that got Greece in this mess in the first place. If Greeks fall for that as they did 6 months ago, it will cease to be shame on Syriza, and become shame on the Greeks for continuing to believe something that is too good to be true.

Worse, for all of Varoufakis’s vaunted knowledge of game theory, he has shown little evidence that he has the same grasp of it in practice as he may have academically. The Syriza government’s brinksmanship over the past six months has been premised on the notion that the rest of the EU does not want to risk having Greece leave the Euro, setting the stage for destabilizing the Euro. For that to be credible, shouldn’t Syriza have been doing something to make Greece’s readiness to leave the Euro look serious? Despite getting moral support for leaving the Eurozone from leading economists, including Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Sachs, and Joseph Stiglitz, and guardedly even Martin Wolf, Varoufakis has apparently done nothing to make the threat look real. They have not educated voters on the advantages of leaving the Euro, and so as the bullet points above indicate, Syriza must retain the support of the majority of Greeks who wish to stay in the Euro to win the referendum.  In so doing Tsipras an Varoufakis are risking not just their own political lives, but Greece’s political stability, while the rest of the Eurozone has by all accounts prepared for the contingency that Greece must abandon the Euro.

So what happens under the two possible outcomes of Sunday’s referendum? Let’s start with the no vote Syriza wants.  It certainly looks most likely that Europe will begin to close the books on Greece as part of the Euro. As such Syriza is suddenly going to be very unpopular among the majority of Greeks who see staying in the Euro as their goal, and likely all the more because they have done so little to plan for this contingency. Under those circumstances, maybe Syriza will come into its own, but a popular revolt against a party that confidently promised so much without gaining anything seems a reasonable fear.  For many, the result will be that the Greek crisis becomes seen not as the rebirth of a new left, but a wooden stake in the heart of an inherently economically reckless left.  A victory for Yes doesn’t look much better for Syriza and the left; although, it will likely be better for the majority of Greeks who see keeping the Euro as a priority.  The Syriza government will resign, there will be new elections, probably won by the center right, which will make the left look impotent against the “realities of economics;” although not without Syriza and the left winning enough votes on the claim that their failure was all the fault of a great neoliberal plot, thereby threatening the new government’s stability.

What might Syriza have done differently beyond being more honest about the possibility of leaving the Euro?  Brutal as it may be, the key would have been to commit at the outset to implement the pension reforms that Europe has so clearly demanded as a means to demonstrate Greeks’ readiness to put themselves in line with the rest of Europe. In so doing, they would have committed to a vision of European unity in which the left can and must play an important part. Indeed, they could have used the need to adopt European norms on pensions to promote a parallel commitment to improve Greece’s notoriously stingy unemployment insurance system, so that old age pensions will no longer become the default safety net as is happening now, and which Syriza has used as its main justification for not reforming the pension system.  

Above all accepting that Greece is beholden to its creditors six months ago would have ended the uncertainty that has unquestionably helped perpetuate Greece’s depression. Further, it would have finally removed the obstacle that has prevented the Troika from being more forthcoming, because the need for debt relief and Greeks desire to stay in the Euro has been its only leverage to insure reforms actually get done. In short, Syriza squandered six months during which the mercy it has demanded might have been negotiated. Now all that sounds more neo-liberal than most on the left would like, but this is the reality of the modern left. Progress no longer naturally leads to a socialist paradise. Complaining about unfairness is not enough, it is incumbent on the left to show vision and compassion in a more complicated world than Marx allowed for.

My Piece on American press coverage for the online journal Logos

There are a number of reasons I have not posted here recently, but a major one was being commissioned by the people at the online journal Logos to write the article I am providing a link to here.

I will not offer any major additional insights here for now, beyond restating a belief I have held for some time that we should not allow the anxiety about troop movements from Russia naturally inspire among Ukrainians to lead to an overestimation of what Putin is capable of taking and holding in Ukraine beyond what he has taken.  Indeed, while I have seen no additional confirmation of this, there was even a report of a possible small mutiny among Russian regular army soldiers, who did not want to continue fighting in Ukraine.  At the same time all our eyes should be focused how Ukraine moves forward on the massive task of economic reform and anti-corruption measures.

What is Putin up to?

Churchill famously called Russia “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”  That comment was prompted by the Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland in 1939.  This week Vladimir Putin has lived up to that characterization; although, this time it is Russia’s actions towards Ukraine that has left heads people scratching heads.  

In as much as questions about Putin’s intentions have loomed over events in Ukraine since the beginning of the crisis there, I have been tempted several times to write a piece about Putin's role in events.  These efforts have always foundered because I am not really a Russian specialist and more to the point even the best informed analysts cannot get into Putin’s head.  This weeks news, however, offers a useful lesson about how Putin manipulates us even as it seems clear that that he has failed to foment civil war in Ukraine and that he is unlikely to succeed in creating a frozen conflict in the Donbas. 

From the moment of the bombings attributed to Chechen terrorists shortly after being named Prime Minister in 1999, Putin has demonstrated a deep appreciation for how the propaganda of fear can be used to manipulate events and the political atmosphere. This week’s announcement that Russia was sending a humanitarian aid convoy to the besieged Donbas city of Luhansk has been a textbook example of that tactic.  From the high diplomatic level where Russian claims that the convoy had the approval of the International Red Cross when it did not to the origination of the convoy’s journey from a town with a special forces base and the refusal to let independent journalists get a look at the cargo being loaded all was calculated to maximize anxiety that Putin had decided to go to war in Ukraine.  Almost immediately the phrase “Trojan horse” was on even casual observers’ lips; although, the notion that the trucks would be used to stage a provocation that would provide the justification for a full-fledged war seemed even more plausible.  In a climate created in the previous week by analysts of solid reputation saying we were reaching the moment when Putin would have to make a decision and that war was a very real possibility these seemed plausible concerns and even the idea that Putin might attempt a multi-pronged invasion could not be entirely dismissed.  

Of course, almost all informed experts knew such a move would be disaster and would bring little good to Russia, as the past several months have made it eminently clear there far too many Ukrainians committed to their independence to make long-term occupation successful even in the unlikely event that blitzkrieg tactics would succeed at first.  Most of those same people also knew that opinion polls showed the majority of Russians did not want an open war with Ukraine. Moreover, there were even signs that the Kremlin was not particularly interested in changing that.  While a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered in Moscow to support war with Ukraine at 2 August, anyone familiar with “managed democracy” knows that number could have been much higher if that is what the Kremlin had wanted, especially since the demonstration had a permit for 10,000 people.  Yet, with all eyes focused on those more than 260 trucks and word that Putin was going to make an important speech when he visited Crimea on 15 August those things did not matter and we willingly allowed Putin to appear once again to be master of events.  

That must have felt great for the man who has spent his political career, and no doubt his KGB career before that, making himself appear in command. The game continued with a Russian incursion early Friday that was verified by the presence of a Western journalist, although the Ukrainian military claims they substantially destroyed, the crucial fact was that the vehicles involved had not been unloaded from trucks from the convoy.  Indeed, so much materiel was already massed near the Ukrainian border that no massive convoy was needed, and when western journalists finally got access to the convoy they found the trucks were half empty.  Then, there was the curious matter of Putin’s speech in Crimea that same day.  During the week it had been billed as a major policy speech that would be broadcast nationally, but then at the last minute it was not, nor has a full transcript been published.  So we do not know what if any important policies Putin announced during his visit; although, quite clearly it was not a declaration of war on Ukraine.

No doubt, Putin has ideas about how he and his minions will use the convoy and other events this week to preserve the aura of mastery over Russia and its relations with the world.  Yet, the past week have done little to change the perception beyond Russia that Putin’s policy towards Ukraine has been a colossal mistake that Russians and Russia will be dealing with for years, and the question remains what other than fear were this weeks’ games supposed to achieve?  My guess, and it is only a guess; although I think it makes good sense of what otherwise quite confusing information, is the fear was used to obscure Putin’s decision to begin the recalibration of his Ukraine policy, and that his immediate aims may well have been quite successful.  By the end of the week, the most visible Russian face in the leadership of the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic, Ihor Girkin aka Strelkov had resigned, as had the leader of the Luhansk Peoples’ Republic Valery Bolotov.  Remarkably, reports suggest they were both injured within hours of each other, which raises suspicions.  Perhaps their injuries are real, and the timing is a coincidence.  Anyone following what the Ukrainian government calls the Anti-Terrorist Operation knows that the noose is tightening and were these men rallying their troops in the wrong place at the wrong time they could well have been seriously wounded.  Alternatively, and more likely, given that Girkin and Bolotov have totally disappeared from public eye, even though a picture of either men would cheer nationalists in Russia, something bigger is up.  

  Girkin and Bolotov are hard men committed to the the idea of a greater Russia and ideally the destruction of Ukraine.  As such. if Putin has decided to let their project rot on the vine, they must be removed in a way that does not rile other Russian nationalists.  With that in mind Putin's actions last week make good sense. For while Ukrainians and the outside world were worrying, Girkin and Bolotov would have been cheering the signs that Putin was finally ready to commit to their side.  They may even have been advised as much and told that the time had come for them to step aside and let the Russian military command take over with a promise of laurels as Russian heroes back in Moscow.  Wherever they are now, the two are likely dismayed to see that the full-bore invasion Russian Nationalists had hoped for has not materialized.

  Extricating Girkin and Bolotov could only happen if both were convinced that Putin was at last committed to a full-scale invasion of the Donbas, if not all of Ukraine.  At the same time, neither was born yesterday, and their previous careers have made them familiar enough with the ways of the double-cross that hard proof might well have been necessary.  In that case, how better to allay their concerns than letting a western journalist witness a Russian incursion and for supplies and reinforcements to continue cross the border along with continued shelling from the Russian side of the border?   To be sure, the chronology is a bit off. Girkin and Bolotov both resigned before the incursion occurred, or was at least reported, but maybe their egos got the better of them and they were more easily convinced than expected.  Ultimately, from Putin's perspective the key was getting the two militants out of the way, and that was achieved.

  Meanwhile, the war goes on and Putin may have conceded to himself that Novorossija will not be redeemed, but he does not see turning his back on pro-Russian fighters as acceptable either so fighters and equipment keep coming. On 16 August the head of the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic claimed  they have received 1,400 reinforcement fresh from training in Russia.  This remains unconfirmed but we would be wise not to attribute too much meaning to it even if it is true; although, it may also provide an indication of what else was in the half-empty trucks before they reached the Ukrainian border.  Still, this is beginning to be reminiscent of Nixon’s escalated bombing and Vietnamization circa 1970 with the twist that if these new troops are Russian and not Ukrainian, shipping these boys off to Ukraine with minimal training is an easy way to get rid of the kind of people who might cause problems at home if Putin starts appearing insufficiently committed to Ruskyi Mir.  Above all, it shows that Putin has little qualms asking some men to be the last to die for a mistake.  That is not exactly news, but it should help keep this story in perspective even as we mourn for those who because of Kremlin’s whims will die in what may well be the closing weeks of this phase of Ukraine’s move to real independence