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Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Is a Wake-Up Call for Germany
Anyone who has ever studied international relations in the United States has been exposed to the so-called Melian dialogue. The Melian dialogue refers to an episode in the Peloponnesian War, pitting the representative of Melos, a small island, against the representatives of Athens. The Athenians, engaged in a war with Sparta, demanded that the Melians submit to their power, join their side and, in the process, get absorbed into the Athenian empire.
Learning Lessons in Ukraine and Beyond
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In case the Melians refused, the Athenians threatened with complete destruction. The Melians did refuse, pointing out that justice was on their side. In response, the Athenians laid siege on the island, took its main city and, after its surrender, killed every surviving male and sold the women and children into slavery.
Exigencies of Defense
One of the central points of the Melian dialogue is the notion that might makes right, or, as the Athenians put it, “you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” It is a prime example of what in international relations theory is known as realism. Over the past few decades, realism has gone out of fashion, especially in Western Europe — and for good reason. Nobody is eager to live in a Hobbesian world where life is “nasty, brutish and short” — in Western Europe, nobody more so than the Germans.
This, of course, has had a lot to do with Berlin’s position during the Cold War, when Germany was, as the prominent German-American political scientist Peter Katzenstein put it, a semi-sovereign state. During the Cold War period, the Federal Republic of Germany pursued a number of strategies that marked a fundamental break with realism: toward its neighbors to the west, a process of economic integration; toward its neighbors to the east (particularly Poland) a policy of détente and reconciliation, which came to be known as Ostpolitik.
The idea behind Ostpolitik was that rapprochement would ultimately lead to change — Wandel durch Annäherung. When, in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, it appeared that the policy had worked.
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The fall of the Berlin Wall was soon followed by the crumbling of the Soviet Union and German unification, which meant that Germany had finally regained its sovereignty — somewhat of a troubling reality, and not only among Germany’s neighbors. In Germany, too, not a few people were worried. They shouldn’t have been. Germany was perfectly adapted to the new times where the “overwhelming exigencies of defence” appeared to have disappeared and where, as the then German minister of defense would put it in 1999, Germany, for the first time in its history, was “only surrounded by friends.”
The end of the Cold War appeared to have ushered in a fundamentally now global reality, informed by interdependence, globalization and the end of history. Here, Germany was poised to play a prominent role as the epitome of a “trading state” and a “civilian power.”
Civilian powers such as Germany rely on what the American international relations theorist Joseph Nye famously called soft power. Soft power comes from the appeal of consumer products (all those sleek BMWs and Mercedes Benzes) and popular culture (TV series like “Derrick” and Bundesliga clubs Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund with their millions of fans all over the world), rather than from the barrel of the gun.
Civilian powers scale down their military. After all, a country surrounded by friends has little use for a military that is up to the task of defending the country. Instead, they are tempted to follow the lead of the Danish Progress party whose late leader proposed in the early 1970s to replace the country’s ministry of defense with an answering machine with the recorded message of “We surrender” in Russian.
Mugged by Reality
On February 24, Germany got mugged by reality and was caught flat-footed. In the face of a Melian scenario, Germany is like the emperor with his new clothes. Over the recent days, a growing number of articles have appeared exposing the sorry state of the German military and lamenting its lack of preparedness. Some of the stories would make for great slapstick comedy were they not describing a pathetic reality.
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The German soldiers stationed in Lithuania, for instance, not only lack warm jackets but even underwear, or so Germany’s defense ombudsperson has charged. At the same time, the commander of Germany’s army went public, stating that the military “stands more or less naked.” His remarks led France’s center-left daily Liberation to claim that “the generals of the Bundeswehr were ready to lay down the arms at the first Russian attack.” Another French newspaper charged that the German military, because of “deficient gear and the lack of flexibility of its soldiers,” was not in a position to efficiently support its allies in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
None of this is new. It has all been known for years. In late 2018, for instance, Germany’s weekly Die Zeit raised alarm noting that only a third of the new tanks, fighter jets and helicopters the military had received were ready to use. Four years later, one of Germany’s major dailies, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, reported that the military continued to suffer from massive problems. The German navy, for instance, could count on less than 30% of its ships to be completely ready for action.
A few days before the Russian invasion on February 24, the Ukrainian government asked the Germans for anti-tank missile systems. Berlin declined. The reason is simple: Even if it had wanted to, Germany would not be in a position to supply the weapons — they were not available.
No matter the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Germany will be collateral damage. For too long, the Germans have believed that interdependence and constructive engagement would fundamentally change international relations. This view, however, is based on theoretical constructs that ignore some of the fundamentals informing international relations: the legacy of history and, closely linked to it, emotions. Europe’s history abounds with grievances and resentment, more often than not triggering intense passions. The Balkan wars of the 1990s should have served as a reminder. Instead, they were dismissed as a remnant of a bygone era.
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There is another lesson to be drawn from this disaster. A few years ago, two American political scientists coined the phrase “weaponizing interdependence.” The authors used network theory to explain how “coercing actors could exploit interdependence and why targeted actors would find it difficult to evade coercion attempts.” Germany is a textbook case. For decades now, it has increased its dependence on Russian inputs, particularly natural gas and oil.
The controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline is only the latest example of this. Dependence on Russian commodities was once again informed by the same belief in the power of interdependence to engage the other side in a way beneficial to both. But, once again, the whole thing is in shambles, and Germany is caught in the trap largely of its own making.
Time for a Change
But the times there are changing, and rapidly so. Over the weekend, Germany agreed to cut Russian banks off from the SWIFT payment system, announced it would deliver anti-tank missiles to Ukraine (leaving some observers wondering how they suddenly materialized) and sent a military contingent to be stationed in Slovakia.
What is much more significant, however, is the fundamental change in tone with regard to Russia, its assault on Ukraine and Germany’s response. The two parties that in the past have been most indulgent toward Vladimir Putin’s regime, the Social Democrats and the Left, have made a complete volte-face, condemning Moscow’s aggression.
At the same time, there has been growing recognition on the side of Germany’s left-wing intellectuals that the “times of illusion” are over, that the notion of “wehrhafte Demokratie” — a democracy that can defend itself — only has meaning if it is backed by real forces, and that this will require not only resources but a fundamental change of mindset. The reality is that Germany’s allies will no longer allow Germans to evoke the horrors of the Nazi regime as an explanation for their neglecting its defensive capabilities.
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Given the new geostrategic realities, what Western Europe needs, and desperately so, is a strong German military. It must be relieved that on Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced an allocation of €100 billion ($112 billion) toward the 2022 military budget, aiming to raise defense spending to over 2% of GDP set out in NATO guidelines going forward; last year, it stood at 1.53%.
Finally, it seems to dawn in Germany that Putin’s aggression is driven as much by historical revisionism and revanchism as by the boundless drive to snuff out and eradicate Ukraine’s civil society and democratic spirit, turning it into a second Belarus, a Russia en miniature. It is hardly a coincidence that the invasion of Ukraine started almost to the day of the anniversary of the end of Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Moscow regime in February 2014.
The only one who has remained steadfast in his Putinophilism is former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who has always prided himself in his close relationship with the Russian autocrat. Whereas Austria’s ex-chancellor, Christian Kern, and the former French premier, François Fillon, resigned from lucrative posts on the boards of Russian enterprises, Schröder refused to follow suit, much to the embarrassment of the German Social Democrats.
But then, Schröder belongs to the same generation as the Putins, Trumps and Xis of this world, old men living in an alternative reality who would like nothing more than to turn back the clock. In Germany, at least, dreams and illusions have given way to a new realism, one that is likely to have profound repercussions not only for Germany but for Europe in general.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
Learning Lessons in Ukraine and Beyond
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the international condemnation it has generated contains key lessons for policymakers. They are lessons that should have been learned in past global crises but weren’t. However, the Ukraine crisis offers an opportunity to correct that mistake.
International Law
A first lesson is that failure to firmly stand up to violations of international law as they occur convinces trespassers that they can get away with them. It emboldens violators to commit ever more flagrant infringements. Kicking the can down the road by failing to immediately and firmly respond to violations amounts to allowing an open wound to fester. The longer the wound festers, the more difficult, costly and risky it is to cure.
The last 14 years of Putin’s rule are a case in point. Putin began the recreation of his Russian world in 2008 when he recognized the two Georgian breakaway republics of Abkhazia and North Ossetia. The recognition constituted the first step in Putin’s defining of Russia’s borders in civilizational rather than international legal terms.
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Putin has made no bones about the fact that he sees territories populated by Russian speakers and adherents of Russian culture as the determinants of Russia’s borders, not international law. Ever since 2008, he has demonstrated his willingness to enforce his definition of Russia’s border with military might.
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Back then, the international community effectively looked the other way. The failure to stand up to Putin emboldened him six years later to annex Crimea, which is legally part of Ukraine, and foster insurgencies in the Ukrainian republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The United States and Europe responded by slapping Putin’s wrists. The sanctions imposed at the time did little to stop the Russian leader from increasing his war chest or making the cost of continued pursuit of his strongman tactics too costly and risky.
This month’s Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from the international community’s failure to draw a line in the sand back in 2008 or at the latest in 2014. “The Russian aggression is the result of years of appeasement of Russia by many countries,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
Human Rights Abuse
Russia is the most dramatic, most recent example of the cost of not responding firmly and unequivocally to infringements of international law as they occur. Other examples are numerous. They include the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and the subsequent military coup in Myanmar, the 2013 toppling of Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president in a takeover by the armed forces, the meek response to the brutal repression of Uyghur Muslims in China, the increasingly blatant discrimination and disenfranchisement of Muslims in India, and missed opportunities to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to name a few.
All of these examples, like Ukraine, contain lessons the international community asserted that it had learned from World War II. They all contain a lesson that should have been learned long before Ukraine but is undeniably evident in the Eastern European crisis: Abetting violations of human rights encourages and emboldens violations of sovereign, national, ethnic, religious, cultural and gender rights.
Back in 1989, Genocide Watch Director Greg Stanton warned then-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana that “if you don’t do something to prevent genocide in your country, there is going to be a genocide within five years.” Five years later, there was genocide in Rwanda. It is a word of warning that echoes in predictions by Indian journalist Rana Ayyub that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist policies could lead to large-scale violence against the country’s 200-million Muslims, the world’s largest Muslim minority.
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It is a warning that reverberates in the contrast between the reception and welcome that European states are justifiably according to refugees from Ukraine compared to the rejection of earlier waves of refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. A Moroccan journalist posted a video on Twitter of students from the Arab world and Africa watching buses on the Ukrainian-Polish border pick up Ukrainians every 15 minutes but transporting people from countries beyond Europe only every four hours. The journalist, Anas Daif, reported some students have been stranded for four days on the border trying to escape the war.
Freedom of Expression
In a similar vein, prominent BBC journalist Lyse Doucet, reporting from Kyiv, highlighted the fact that humans in distress are humans in distress irrespective of their ethnicity or religion. In a video message, she explained that her reporting on the current crisis in Ukraine prevented her from personally accepting in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil the 2022 Shifa Gardi Award named after a journalist killed in 2017 in Iraq by a roadside bomb.
“If anyone knows about the pain and hardship of living with war, it’s the people of Iraq, of Kurdistan. And if anyone knows what it’s like to live in a war that never seems to end, of living with powerful neighbors, and the importance of independent journalism, it is the Kurdish people,” Doucet said.
Doucet’s message brought it all together: the linkages between failing to stand up early and firmly to flagrant violations of international law, abuse of human rights and suppression of freedom of expression. Kurds formed the bulk of thousands of desperate refugees in Belarus who were trying to cross the border into Poland just four months ago. In contrast to Ukrainians being welcomed with blankets, cots, clothing and hot meals, the Kurds were brutally beaten back as they sought to storm the borders.
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Iraq, Syria and Turkey may have been different places if Kurdish national and/or cultural rights, which Kurds have asserted for more than a century, had been honored. Instead, the international community abetted repressive policies of both autocratic and democratic governments. Similarly, Ukraine would have been a different place if the international community had stood up to Putin from day one.
War in Europe Is Nothing New
It would also be a different place if Europeans had less of a sense of superiority. Many have expressed shock that “this could happen in 21st-century Europe.” Europeans would be better served to recognize that their continent is as prone to conflict as are other parts of the world.
Ukraine is not the first such incident in Europe. It was preceded by the brutal conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and the wars of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s that, three decades later, could erupt again. That realization may be seeping in. “War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” wrote Telegraph journalist Peter Hannan.
It’s never too late to learn lessons. The world is finally standing up to Vladimir Putin. Yet there is little indication that the broader lessons Ukraine offers are finally being learned.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
Sanctions as America’s Universal Response to Evil (and Anything Else)
Our regularly updated feature Language and the News will continue in the form of separate articles rather than as a single newsfeed. Click here to read the previous edition.
We invite readers to join us by submitting their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.
February 25: Appetite
Is it justified to think that nations have personalities, along with tastes, fears and desires? People do. But can we assume there is an equivalence between the demonstrable inclinations of a national government and the needs, ambitions and predilections of the people in a democracy? It appears ever more obvious that the political class — increasingly perceived as an isolated elite in modern societies — is less representative of and responsive to the people who elect its leaders and officials than to the economic and cultural elite those politicians tend to associate and identify with.
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In a Los Angeles Times article on the Kremlin’s view of international sanctions, David Pierson and Sam Dean seek to explain how the West has been elaborating an effective strategy designed to counter Russia’s militarily assault on Ukraine. “With no appetite for military confrontation,” they write, “the U.S. and its allies are relying on sweeping economic sanctions to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull out of Ukraine.”
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Most people would find this sentence a reasonable description of the American reaction to events in Eastern Europe. The comforting message is that the West has no interest in war. The damage and suffering caused by this war can be blamed on one government and indeed one man, Vladimir Putin.
But does it make any sense to talk of an “appetite” when speaking of the foreign policy of a nation? If the metaphor of a nation’s appetite has any factual foundation in the realm of foreign policy, the history of the United States over at least the past three-quarters of a century reveals an aptitude of American leaders for war in all its forms, which may or may not reflect an appetite or even a craving of its leaders.
Recent decades have revealed a proclivity of the American political class to toggle between physical warfare itself — which traditionally pitted trained and equipped armies against each other — and economic warfare directed against entire civilian populations. The latter has recently been deemed by political leaders to be more humane, even though it spreads suffering wider and disproportionately affects uncounted masses of people not remotely involved in wartime aggression or any of the practices cited to justify going to war.
In 1996, when Madeleine Albright, the US ambassador to the UN at the time, was asked about the death of 500,000 Iraqi children due to US sanctions, she said “the price is worth it.” This reflects the kind of political calculus that counts half a million lives not as a tragedy, but as a “price,” something to be evaluated in purely monetary terms. In moral terms, Albright was counting on a form of specious reasoning that says if we haven’t directly sought to kill those children, we bear no responsibility. Their sacrifice is thus of no concern.
A similar form of reasoning led to the policy privileged at least since Barack Obama’s presidency of seeing drone warfare as humane because it is “clean,” to the extent that it precludes any risk to the “good guys” (ourselves) doing the killing. If only bad people are being killed, war appears to be humane and possibly as fun as playing a video game.
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So now The Los Angeles Times wants us to accept the idea that American leaders have “no appetite for military confrontation” in the current Ukraine drama. Apart from the irrelevance of the question of appetite, that idea is contestable for another reason. In this case, it isn’t a question of desire, aptitude, proclivity or even ingrained habit. The unwillingness to mount a military operation is due to the simple fact that the United States has no legal justification for engaging in physical war with Russia, which has not threatened US security or the security of any NATO nation.
Invoking the idea of appetite is disingenuous. Had Ukraine achieved its goal of joining NATO, no one doubts that there would have been plenty of appetite, even a devouring hunger, at least on the part of the military-industrial complex in the US, who are nevertheless actively supplying weapons. Any war is good for business, even a war the US is not allowed to engage in directly. This one, which holds the promise of reinforcing NATO thanks to the magnified fear of Russia, already makes good economic sense for the defense industry at home. That stimulates a lot of appetites. And for the past five years, mainstream Democrats have plenty to munch on after doing everything in their power to enforce the belief that Vladimir Putin is Satan incarnate.
The complementary question The Times authors raise of “relying on sweeping economic sanctions” to wage war is more ambiguous. Sanctions can be, and in this case are very likely to be, a two-edged sword, even if it’s the only sword left in the armory due to the rules surrounding NATO defense. Disturbing the flow of global commerce entails a raft of unintended and often unanalyzed consequences for all parties concerned.
What is clear, however, is that US administrations have in recent decades developed not so much an appetite as a craving for applying sanctions in every direction whenever anything displeases them in the behavior of any country in the world. Sanctions have become the essential pheromone of the world’s unique hegemon, intent on leaving its odor in every nook, cranny, crevice or just bare wall of the global economy.
Why Monitoring Language Is Important
Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.
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In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.
Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.
Remember, Fair Observer’s Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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US condemns Putin nuclear deterrence order but cautiously welcomes talks report
US condemns Putin nuclear deterrence order but cautiously welcomes talks report
Psaki: Russia ‘manufacturing threats to justify aggression’
Analysis: Nuclear posturing requires west to tread carefully
Ukraine crisis – live coverage
The Biden administration on Sunday condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to place Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert. The White House also faced growing calls from senior Republicans to target Russia’s energy sector with new sanctions.Vladimir Putin puts Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alertRead moreAs Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its fourth day, the US also expressed guarded optimism over talks between delegations from the two countries set to take place inside Ukraine, near the Belarusian border, on Monday.Speaking on ABC’s This Week, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, described the nuclear deterrence announcement as an example of Putin “manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression”.In televised comments, Putin said he had ordered “the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty”, due to “aggressive statements” from Nato leaders. Analysts told the Guardian that while the order itself was not immediately clear, it was not indicative of preparation for a first strike.Psaki said: “At no point has Russia been under threat from Nato, has Russia been under threat from Ukraine, this is all a pattern from President Putin. And we’re going to stand up for it. We have the ability to defend ourselves, but we also need to call out what we’re seeing here from President Putin.”Biden administration officials expressed tentative support for planned talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, as announced by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told CNN’s State of the Union the US would “look forward to what comes out of those discussions.“As you know … we leaned in on diplomacy with the Russians throughout this process and we hoped that Putin would find a way to the negotiating table and he made the unfortunate decision of aggression over diplomacy.”Pressed on whether she believed the talks announcement indicated a good faith effort on behalf of Russia, Thomas Greenfield responded: “I can’t get into Putin’s head or into Russian reasoning, so it remains to be seen.”The talks announcement was tentatively welcomed by the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who told CNN he had “absolute and full confidence” in Zelenskiy’s judgment on “whether it is right to sit down and find a political solution”.But Stoltenberg also expressed concerns about Russia’s motivations.“It remains to be seen whether Russia is really willing to make some serious compromises and also to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine,” he said.Stoltenberg characterized Putin’s decision to order Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert as “dangerous rhetoric” and “a behaviour that is irresponsible”.The Biden administration has issued tough sanctions, targeting banks and the finances of some Russian oligarchs as well as restricting export of vital technologies key to Russian military and economic development.Over the weekend, the US and its European allies announced plans to target the Russian central bank’s foreign reserves and to block selected Russian financial institutions from the Swift messaging system for international payments.00:48But the sanctions have not yet targeted oil and gas exports, which reportedly accounted for 36% of Russia’s annual budget last year. That has lead to criticism both inside the Ukraine and in the US.On Sunday Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas and a prominent foreign policy hawk, urged the administration to continue to amplify sanctions.“It’s time for the president and some of our European partners to quit pussyfooting around,” he told ABC. “The financial sanctions announced last night are riddled with loopholes.”Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bidRead moreCotton was also grilled on Donald Trump’s stance on the war. Trump, who often praised Putin while he was in the White House, finally condemned the invasion during a speech on Saturday night, but also continued to praise the Russian leader.Cotton refused four times to condemn or comment on Trump’s record.The Biden administration has not ruled out further sanctions and has alluded to further measures being taken as the war progresses.“The purpose of the sanctions are to put as much pressure on the Russian economy as possible. And we want to do as much as we can to protect the impact on our own economy,” Thomas-Greenfield said.“But we’re continuing to look at new and even harsher measures against the Russians.”TopicsUkraineRussiaEuropeUS foreign policyUS national securityUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine
Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine
Stephanopoulos tries repeatedly to prise comment from him
Trump hints at 2024 presidential bid in CPAC speech
The Republican senator Tom Cotton refused four times on Sunday to condemn or even comment on Donald Trump’s repeated praise for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who ordered the invasion of Ukraine.Vladimir Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power | Vladimir SorokinRead more“If you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic,” Cotton told ABC’s This Week, “I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.”The former president’s views are clear. Trump has repeatedly praised Putin and though at CPAC on Saturday he condemned the invasion, he again called the Russian leader “smart”.Cotton, from Arkansas, is a military veteran and foreign policy hawk with reputed presidential ambitions from the hard Republican right. His host on ABC, George Stephanopoulos, tried repeatedly to prise comment from him. Cotton was happy to condemn Putin and praise Ukrainian bravery – and to criticise US allies in Europe.“I know that they say they sanctioned 80% of the banks in Russia,” he said. “Well, Vladimir Putin controls 100% of the banks in Russia. He can use the other 20% to continue to finance his war machine.“It’s time to remove all Russian financial institutions from the international payment system. It’s time to impose sanctions on his oil and gas exports, which he uses as his primary means of financial support.”Stephanopoulos cited Trump calling Putin “smart” and “savvy” and “say[ing] Nato and the US are dumb”, and asked: “Are you prepared to condemn that kind of rhetoric from the leader of your party?”Cotton said: “George, you heard what I had to say about Vladimir Putin. That he is a ruthless dictator who’s launched a naked, unprovoked war of aggression.“Thankfully, the Ukrainian army has anti-tank missiles that President Obama would not supply, that we did supply last time Republicans were in charge in Washington. That’s why it’s so urgent that we continue to supply those weapons to Ukraine.”Stephanopoulos asked: “Why can’t you condemn Donald Trump for those comments?”Cotton said: “George, if you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic, I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.“I speak on behalf of Arkansans, who I talked to this week and who are appalled at what they saw in Ukraine and they want me right now to fight in Washington to support those brave Ukrainians.”Stephanopoulos said: “You’re a senior member of the Republican party. Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican party. He said last night again, suggested that he’d be running for president. When Fox News asked him if he had a message for Vladimir Putin, he said he has no message.“Why can’t you condemn that? I feel quite confident that if … a Barack Obama or Joe Biden said something like that, you’d be first in line to criticise him.”Cotton said: “Again, George, if you want to talk to the former president about his views or his message, you can have him on your show.“My message to Vladimir Putin is quite clear. He needs to leave Ukraine unless he wants to face moms and teenagers with Molotov cocktails and grandmothers and grandfathers with AK-47s for years to come.”Stephanopoulos varied his line of attack, asking: “If Donald Trump runs again, can you support him?”But Cotton wasn’t for picking.‘Leaders lead during crises’ – but Biden’s approval rating hits new low, poll findsRead more“George,” he said, “I’m not worried about this fall’s elections right now, much less an election two years from now. I’m focused on the naked war of aggression that Vladimir Putin has launched in Ukraine right now. There’s not a moment to lose. We can worry about electoral politics down the road.”Stephanopoulos tried once more.“Former President Trump was out there talking about it last night. I simply don’t understand why you can’t condemn his praise of Vladimir Putin.”“George,” said Cotton, “again, I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can all speak for themselves.”Cotton’s refusal to criticise Trump – who has few critics in Congress and retains control of the Republican party – was not unique among Republicans but it was widely noted online.Reed Galen, a former Republican strategist now part of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, wrote: “Tom Cotton is wily, like a Fennec fox. He’ll come up, look around, listen, then skitter back into his hole until the time is right.”TopicsRepublicansDonald TrumpVladimir PutinRussiaUkraineUS politicsEuropenewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Poll: US majority believes no Russian invasion with Trump as president
Poll: US majority believes no Russian invasion with Trump as presidentCaps-Harris poll shows 62% of respondents believe Putin would not have ordered troops into Ukraine with Trump in White House A clear majority of Americans think Vladimir Putin would not have ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine had Donald Trump still been in the White House, according to a new poll.Tucker Carlson leads rightwing charge to blame everyone but PutinRead moreThe poll, by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies (Caps)-Harris, found that 62% of those surveyed believed Putin would not have sent troops into Ukraine with Trump in the White House.In partisan terms, the survey found that 85% of Republicans and 38% of Democrats held the view.The poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday this week among 2,026 registered voters, found that 59% said Putin only ordered the invasion because he saw weakness in Joe Biden. Forty-one percent said the US president was not a factor in Putin’s decision.Republicans in Congress have attacked Biden for perceived weakness in the face of autocratic leaders abroad. Party figures have been less keen to discuss Trump’s expressions of admiration for Putin during the Ukraine crisis.The Harvard study’s findings broadly buttressed a Fox News poll, carried out before Russia invaded, that found more Republicans had a negative view of Biden than of Putin and more Democrats had a negative view of Trump than of the Russian leader.That study said 92% of Republicans had a negative view of Biden while 81% had a negative view of Putin. Among Democrats, 87% had a negative view of Trump and 85% a negative view of Putin.Tucker Carlson condemned for Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘Rwanda’ commentsRead moreA third poll, released by NPR/PBS/Marist College, will add concern for a Biden administration battling low approval ratings generated by public dissatisfaction on fronts including handling of the pandemic, the Afghanistan withdrawal, a stalled legislative agenda and inflation.The NPR-Marist poll found that 56% of Americans said Biden’s first year in office was a “failure”. Just 39% called it a success.Two-thirds of independents said Biden’s first year was a failure, while 91% of Republicans said so. Among Democrats, 80% called Biden’s first year a success – but 15% said it had been a failure.TopicsUS newsUS politicsVladimir PutinRussianewsReuse this content More
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Tucker Carlson leads rightwing charge to blame everyone but Putin
Tucker Carlson leads rightwing charge to blame everyone but PutinThe Fox News host has defended the Russian leader’s invasion of Ukraine, saying ‘Has Putin ever called me a racist?’ As Russian troops encircled Ukraine, politicians and media pundits in the US were largely united in their condemnation of Vladimir Putin’s imminent attack.Tucker Carlson, however, took a different approach. Hours before Putin ordered his forces into Ukraine, Fox News’ biggest star was still praising the Russian president.Putin’s bellicose threats towards Ukraine and assembling of up to 190,000 troops on the country’s border, was, Carlson said, a mere “border dispute”. Carlson, who played into Kremlin talking points by declaring that Ukraine was “not a democracy”, launched an apparent attempt to humanize Putin.“Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia?” Carlson said as he then recited a right-wing tip sheet of pet causes.Tucker Carlson film on George Soros is his latest antisemitic dog-whistleRead more“Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity?”Just over 24 hours later, Putin effectively declared war on Ukraine.Carlson was roundly condemned, but he wasn’t alone. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s sometime-advisor turned podcast host, has praised Putin for being “anti-woke”, for not flying pride flags, and for his hostility to trans people.Charlie Kirk, a right-wing media personality and the founder of Turning Points USA, suggested Putin felt emboldened by “energy policies that Joe Biden put forward”.“Could it be that Greta Thunberg and Leonardo DiCaprio actually might be to blame for what Vladimir Putin is doing?” Kirk asked on his eponymous internet show.“That’s a take you will not hear anywhere else,” he added.By the end of the week Carlson’s colorful defense of Putin was being played on Russia 1 and the Kremlin-backed RT television network.“As Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, the biggest star on Fox News was busy doing what he does best: being thoroughly and appallingly wrong,” Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist for the Washington Post, wrote.By Thursday night, after Putin’s forces had begun bombing Ukraine, and after widespread US and global outrage at the carnage, Carlson had changed his tune.“I don’t think anybody approves of what Putin did yesterday. I certainly don’t,” he said on his show.Carlson added: “Vladimir Putin started this war.” He continued: “He is to blame tonight for what we’re seeing tonight in the Ukraine.”But those expecting a mea culpa from Carlson, who has recently also become enamored with the authoritarian regime of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, were disappointed.The overt praise for Putin may have receded, but Carlson and his Fox News co-hosts and pundits have continued to blame others for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.“Well, I think we all know if Donald Trump was president, this would not have happened,” Lara Trump, Fox News contributor and daughter-in-law of the former president, told Fox and Friends on Thursday.“We exuded strength on the world stage when Donald Trump was there. Now you see Joe Biden in office. And gosh, how many times have we all talked about how weak America has looked since the day that Joe Biden was inaugurated?”Fox News Twitter feed on Friday essentially served as a tribute to the same viewpoint, lavishly quoting almost identical statements from Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Marsha Blackburn.“Rather than blame the actual aggressor for attacking his weaker neighbor, right-wing media pinned the blame on Biden for supposedly projecting weakness and vulnerability to Putin,” Media Matters, a non-profit which monitors conservative media, wrote.“In the right-wing media echo chamber […] the fault for this invasion lies with a mind-boggling variety of scapegoats, including President Joe Biden, Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, American environmentalists, the LGBTQ community, and even the team here at Media Matters for America – anybody, that is, other than Putin.”The narrative has received some pushback from journalists at Fox News itself, particularly Jennifer Griffin, the network’s national security correspondent, who has spent weeks painstakingly correcting her opinion-host colleagues as Russia surrounded Ukraine.On Thursday morning, the anchors on the morning show Fox and Friends were opining about how sanctions against Russia “have not worked”. Steve Doocy asked Griffin if “the people at the Pentagon” were frustrated given American troops were not involved.“No I wouldn’t say that Steve. In fact they know that they had limited options going into this because Russia of course is a nuclear power, and Nato and the US are not go to war with Russia over Ukraine, their goal is to contain this and keep this from spilling over into an Article 5 nation,” Griffin said.“You talk about how the sanctions haven’t worked, I don’t know that we can say that yet. Overnight, the stock market in Russia fell by half, 50%.“This is just the beginning of what is being described as a ‘shock and awe,’ if you will, of rolling sanctions that have not even begun to be felt yet by Putin, by his oligarchs, by the cronies there.”The talk and tone among the hosts of Fox News and others in the right-wing media ecosystem is unlikely to change any time soon. But in some corners there are journalists willing to drag those hosts back to reality.TopicsFox NewsUS politicsRussiaUkrainefeaturesReuse this content More
