A Primer on the Situation in Ukraine

Returning After an Absence

For the past several years I have been distracted by many things, but recent events in Ukraine compel me to bring this blog back to life.  In the coming weeks, I will post thoughts here about the situation.  While I am not on the ground there myself, I count people who are among my friends and believe my insights will be helpful to those who are unsatisfied with the information they are getting about the unrest in Ukraine they are getting in western media.   I anticipate things will be unsettled in Ukraine for a while, so that should keep the posts coming at regular intervals for a while.

My absence and a few thoughts

I would like to thank anyone who has shown up here in recent months for their patience and dedication, and please forgive me for trying that patience by disappearing once again. For those not in the loop, since just before my last post I have been working as customer service representative for a major television provider. The stability of having a job allowed me to recognize that I basically could not move forward with any of my dreams and ambitions until my book on the emergence of Polish and Ukrainian nationalism in the Habsburg monarchy was completely revised. So I have dedicated my days off to that whenever possible and deliberately avoided thinking too much about something that would fit here.

I have made considerable progress in that direction, enough so that I have decided to weigh in on the issue raised by Newsweek's new article How Wall Street Rolled Obama. While I don't think I have it documented, I have felt since the 2008 that despite hopes and expectations, Obama would find it difficult to do anything comparable to what FDR did to restore confidence in the economy. The fact of the matter is, the political and economic cycles did not coincide in the way necessary for radical rethinking of economics that is now evident to more and more people. FDR was elected president 3 years into the Depression and took power close to 3 1/2 years after the 1929 crash. By contrast, Obama was elected less than 2 months after the collapse of Lehman, which put an end to the notion that the mortgage backed security crisis could be ridden out. While the crash did upturn 20 years of dominance of market fundamentalism in the community of economists by reviving Keynesianism, the immediate solutions, ham-fisted as they were, were undertaken out an immediate panic rather than the long-term frustration and desperation that was leading Herbert Hoover to make suggestions to FDR during the interregnum that FDR would take full credit for during the 100 days.

None of this means that Obama could not have been tougher or been a bit more ready to break with the economic establishment of Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner, but I am not so sure such a break would have been as politically feasible as some critics seem to believe. After all, if you the Republicans on Capital Hill can cynically maintain that the bailout was not necessary imagine what would have happened if Obama had chosen to nominate Paul Krugman or some other economist who is not tainted by the economic reforms that made this mess possible. The Republicans might even have blocked that person's nomination with even more heated rhetoric about how a socialist was now in the White House.

Now three years on the Republicans will do what they can to make hay out of the continuing economic crisis, but they do not have a plan, and electoral success may well hurt them even more in the long-run because it won't take long for that to become apparent once the election campaign is over, although that may just mean the election campaign will just not end until after November 2012. I do hope not, because it is now clear as it was to anyone willing to look at the damage done by the mortgage-backed securities bolstered hosing bubble cannot be remedied quickly and will require new creative thinking that will both stabilize the country and reign in Wall Street in ways that people on Main Street will be able to see and appreciate.

CNN's Non-News Polling Unchanged in Twenty Years

Alongside the news that newspaper circulation has dropped 10% we learned today that CNN, the originator of the Cable 24-news model has sunk by 50% year on year. There are undoubtedly many reasons for this, and as someone who has done CNN no favors in the ratings department for many years, I'm not especially qualified to name them all. Nonetheless, thanks to my new job I'm now watching more CNN in years, and I can identify one problem, the persistence of the non-news poll that ostensibly provides an insight into how Americans understand the world, but in fact offers no insight, and worse obscures information that might actually increase Americans' understanding of the world.

Back when CNN was the only 24 News network in town, these polls were one of the least appealing aspects of the format, and having moved on myself long ago, I had forgotten just how damaging they are to the concept of news until I was reminded early last Tuesday morning when CNN announced that some 80% or so Americans believed Iran was seeking to obtain nuclear weapons. I don't doubt the veracity of the data, I'm sure an overwhelming number of Americans do believe Iran is actively working to obtain nuclear weapons and to be honest, I would probably have to count myself one of them. Nonetheless, it is not like the vast majority of Americans are experts either on nuclear proliferation or Iran, and hence what we think tells us little about the intentions of Iran's leadership. Worse, given that there has been next to no reporting on Iran's nuclear program that has not relied in some way on U.S. government sources that have made the case that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, all this poll tells us is that most Americans seem to believe what the government is telling them, at least on that issue, leaving the question of what Iranians hope to achieve by having nuclear weapons completely obscured. So while the assumption that Iranians chief concern is Israel is treated as axiomatic, the fact that Iran has a direct border with Pakistan, the only completely declared nuclear power in the middle East where as it would happen there is a strong current of anti-Shia violence. That fact, so easily ignored in all the handwringing about Iran's nuclear plans, would be far more useful information to the tens of thousands of CNN viewers, because it would have actually provided insight that many Americans have not gotten, and reporting like that would begin to renew and strengthen respect for CNN's coverage for more than a poll that can only be understood as a product and reflection of Washington's echo chamber.

The bizarre meaning of "choice" in American political rhetoric

Americans love the idea of choice.  It seems to embody the freedom that we value.  We elect, or choose our presidents, and when we go to the store we see the variety of toothpaste or dish detergents as a emblematic of our deeper political freedoms.  Politicians discovered this long ago, and it is hard to find a domestic issue that some do not attempt to frame in terms of choice on once side and government dictates, or lack of choice, on the other.  Often as not those who succeed in framing a political position in terms of choice wins the day, especially when that position fits well with the right-wing agenda.  But even when the left has successfully focused on choice, it has been relatively successful.  Had it not been, the abortion debate unending as it may be would long ago have been won by anti-abortion activists because so many people, including this reader can't get away from the awkwardness of what abortion means, the ending of a life.

Why the right is more successful in shaping debates in terms where they are the supporters of choice is something of a mystery, though I think one reason is that with the exception of the abortion debate, politicians on the left seem not to think of it as theirs, while the right treats it as their birthright  In so doing they have allowed, if not implicitly abetted a narrow consumerist understanding of choice that seems to focus more on enabling corporations than to enable Americans as individuals to make choices as they see fit.  This is perhaps best exemplified by the way cable companies have succeeded in winning approval for a most limited system of cable options, in which the vast majority of Americans end up paying for with a multitude of cable channels they rarely watch just so they can have access to the handful they do.   But it is in the healthcare debate that the concern about choice is talked about has its deepest and most perverse affects.

. During the campaign for health care reform in the 1990s the battle cry among opponents was the need to be able to choose one's physician, and on that point they have won for the most part, except for those of us who cannot necessarily access the doctor we would like because of our health insurance plan.  Yet, if being able to choose one's physician makes sense, and fits in well with the American understanding of freedom to choose.  After all we all want to have a doctor we feel is competent and seems to understand us and is preferably reasonably easy to access, and when we need a specialist that we can if needs be in the hands of the best qualified to deal with our problems.  Yet, as the healthcare debate has unfolded this year, we have not heard much about choosing our doctors, the issue of choice has been focused on the choice of health insurance provider, and whether the planned reforms will somehow curtail the existing choice, or leave the existing choice limited to private health insurers, which according to reform advocates will prevent the real reform by keeping the huge bureaucracies that determine eligibility intact.

There are a number of problems with this.  First, legitimate as anger at health insurers is, they are hardly the only ones at fault for our current mess. Indeed for a very different perspective from the one that has been at the center of the mainstream media narrative, I heartily urge people to listen to the two "This American Life" programs about America's healthcare system, sector is, especially chapter 3 of the second, where healthcare economist Uwe Reinhardt makes the case that the crux of our current crisis is the weakness of insurance company's vis-a-vis hospitals, not insurance company's near monopoly hold in many markets. Beyond the hospitals, the doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and even us and our demand for top care whenever and however much it costs. But at the heart of all this is fact that health care simply does not fit the normal assumptions of a economics, and focusing on choice, beyond the personal decisions we make to see a doctor we trust when we need to, will not solve the problem. 

Unfortunately, the last thirty years have made it very difficult to talk about that, thanks to the Milton Friedman and triumph of the Chicago school because they got licking inflation right and because the choice they proclaimed the solution seemed diametrically opposed to the failure of communism.   The notion that markets do not solve everything is so far out of the mainstream for most people, who are not already far to the left. Meanwhile, under the spell of Friedman's mentor F. A. Hayek the right has become so allergic to the notion that state involvement even when the importance of markets is a mantra that they are unable to process the contrary to Hayek's predictions the Western European social welfare state has not descended into Communism, and has remained thriving innovative economies.

Karzai Opens the Way for Early Withdraw of Western Forces

This week's news that the vote in Afghanistan was close and that Karzai or at least some of his supporters were involved in ballot rigging set the chattering classes a buzz, with most concerned that Karzai might lose.  When people talking about Afghanistan weren't talking about that they were noting that Obama appeared to be ready to okay an expected increase for more troops from the responsible generals, even as George Will was joining those on the left in suggesting that it was time to start pulling the troops out.  Right now there appears little reason to believe Obama will buck the request for more troops. If Obama did the Republicans who are currently beginning to talk dovishly will change their tune and start talking about Obama not giving the generals what they asked for.  But if Obama was looking for an excuse to show that he's not entirely beholden to the generals, Karzai, or his allies, have provided him a legitimate justification, and if the runoff election is as tainted as this election appears to be, then perhaps the best step Obama could take no matter what the costs is start withdrawing the troops, although keeping, if not extending other forms of aid.  For while winning the war in Afghanistan maybe impossible, we should not make the mistake that happened after the Soviets withdrew and decide because the troops are out that there is no further reason for engagement. 

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Prospects for Containing Hiler

Given recent comments by Russian President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin’s comments yesterday marking the observation of the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II were a welcome step back from what was becoming an uniquely Russian view of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.  In the coming days and months we will find out, if Putin’s words today mark the first step in a more honest Russian reassessment of Stalin’s role in making World War II possible, or if the differences were simply part of a Russian good cop-bad cop routine.  

Uncomfortable as it was for many other participants, and problematic as the comparisons between the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact with other questionable acts committed by other states in the run up to the war, I am glad Putin brought them up.  For one of the most important facts about the path leading to World War II is that Hitler posed a peculiar challenge to European diplomacy, one that as Richard Overy has just shown old school diplomats used to the idea of balance of power had no experience with, so mistakes were bound to be made.  Thus the real lesson of the path of World War II is the need for diplomats to be aware that the existing diplomatic order is not always the aim of all parties, and more controversially when a party shows an unhealthy readiness to go to war frustrating efforts to go to war with anyone should take precedence over any one state’s short term interest in peace.  

Even if we accept that Stalin sincerely believed that the only way to buy time was to reach an non-aggression pact with Hitler, we should note that unlike other negotiations with Hitler, which were aimed at preventing war, the deal the Stalin had Molotov make implicitly opened the way for Hitler to go to war.  In short, Stalin finally gave Hitler what he wanted the chance to use outright military force, and what is worse used the result of that war to annex Polish territory.  (While this is close to what the Poles did in regard to Tešen Cieszyń from Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement, it was not quite the same and is a diversion.  True the Polish government opportunistically, and in hindsight foolishly, played into the hands of Nazi diplomacy by ratifying the notion that the borders created by Versailles and associated treaties were illegitimate and subject to change by force or the threat of force.)  The key is that Stalin’s cooperation with Hitler, both prior to the Pact, and with the pact made the war possible, and all the brutality that followed, and this gets to the great thought experiment every future diplomat should engage in, what happens if Hitler is not given the opportunity to go to war.  While we can be sure that Hitler would have continued to seek to provoke the Polish government and work to keep his main potential allies from formulating a coherent strategy, had Stalin lent support to Poland in 1939 by joining France and Poland in declaring their readiness to go to war if Poland were invaded both  those aims would have been made much more difficult.  Furthermore, we might add it would have been a setback to Hitler, who up to that point could point to all his previous diplomatic ploys had gone his way, something that would have bolstered the hands of influential figures who had their doubts about Hitler. And just so we are perfectly clear on the significance of this, each day Hitler desire to go to war is a day that the circumstances that made the Holocaust possible would have been delayed.