Misplaced faith in reason

Ukraine, Turkey, and Russian betrayal of its own interests

There is a lot to be said from many angles. Aside from the immediate wish of safety for civilians and even soldiers caught up in such a needless horror as such a needless war, my main concerns, as with my knowledge, comes from the perspective of Turkey.

I will perhaps write more about this at some other point, but from Turkish military partnerships with the Ukrainian state, to its total and even then clearly urgent commitment to the diplomatic path never genuinely pursued by NATO, to its steadfast rejection of Russian annexations in Ukraine, Turkey has in recent months provided a far better example of Ukraine policy than any Western power.

While Atlanticist Western pundits sit so brave in the safety of their distance and the second safety that they have no loyalties they aren’t happy to change when necessary, Turkey - for reasons beyond only proximity - faces severe threats from conflagration, from holding to its principles, and from mere outcomes of what is happening and happens next in Ukraine. Turkey controls the Bosphorus Strait and Ukraine has already requested further closures to Russian vessels, thus asking Turkey to take further difficult decisions on top of existing ones. A Turkish cargo ship in the Black Sea off Odessa has today been reported struck by a bomb.

On land and to the south, Turkey guards an internally displaced population of some 3 million Syrians inside Northwest Syria. Unlike the brave Atlanticists, Turkey and its army has already suffered deaths and constant threat in protecting that population from an offensive by Syrian forces that with Russian backing could elect to make life harder still for Turkey. Beyond the Syrian frontier are some further five million refugees inside Turkey, looking to make lives in an economy creaking more than most. They are mostly Syrian but increasingly Afghan and Iranian, too - victims of the monstrosity of US foreign policy and its sanctions that are every bit as and - not that there’s any use in ranking evils - possibly more evil than the Russian imperialism and aggression we now see. The irredeemably racist European Union, where Greek authorities now simply throw refugees overboard to drown in the Aegean, shutters the chances of Turkey finding any humanity across its western border by which it could help spread this burden.

There is a deep and despicable cowardice to performances of Western bravery that are made mostly in the face of wars the performer knows will never come to them. The solidarity with Ukraine is understandable, though it too is cheapened in the case of the many who did nothing to stop, and - whether cynically or just stupidly - all to assist it escalating this far.

Of Russia

But whatever could be said of all this, of the misinformation (from East and West) and missed opportunities for resolution this last month and past years, for now Russia is the primary actor in events and so it is Russia that must bear scrutiny.

I mostly avoid the propagandistic trait of making the leader of a country a synonym for the country itself; it trivialises an entire population and its politics, and in emphasising the human image of the leader it makes cheap propaganda all the more easy to perform. Nonetheless I find myself - even if helped by the training of the constant Western propaganda to which we are all exposed - instinctively talking about Vladimir Putin.

Of course this is not illogical because Russia is, and has over the decades, most often abetted by Western political and financial institutions, become increasingly centralised under the control of Vladimir Putin. But in this instance it is less because of this plain fact and more because of the spectre of human error that seems at-play in Russian calculations concerning Ukraine. The needless aggression, hubris, vanity and self-harming (as well as harming) stupidity of the Russian invasion of Ukraine appears - aside from its immediate and humanitarian consequences - as a failure of Russian interests.

As recently as a month ago, Russia had US approval in place for Nord Stream 2, its lucrative new gas pipeline into Germany. This piece of energy infrastructure awaited only the last stages of German consenting. It would import more energy to Europe, bypassing existing pipelines through Ukraine and thus depriving a corrupt, hostile and cash-starved government in Kiev of pipeline transit fees. More than that, it would have furthered structural integration of Russian interests and European interests through energy partnership. More than that, by the same token it would have furthered a distinction between European interests and US interests, advancing the space in which common European foreign policy can be formed, and advancing the discord between the US and its European partners. If there is a valid Russian goal to weaken NATO, or NATO encirclement of Russia, then integration with Europe was the path to it.

Russian actions in Ukraine now only serve to justify all the Russophobic, hawkish sentiment commonly raised against the country and its right to a foreign policy. The actions validate the argument of some that NATO should be advanced up to its borders, where before that principle could and was being resisted. US frackers stand ready to supply Europe with the gas that could have been piped from Russia (at - if even in such gravity it can remain relevant - a lower environmental and emissions cost). Were it not for the immediate political risk of a cost-of-living crisis, the outcome for the US - in terms of energy policy and Western foreign policy unity - is so perfect it gives cause to suspect that the weeks and weeks of “imminent invasion” talk from the US successfully bounced Putin into a choice so poor.

Russia must now do whatever it feels it can or must on the ground in the Ukraine, while simultaneously having to play catch-up in reassuring Western capitalist powers it is a safe pair of hands to be allowed and trusted in the world economy. Nobody ever went bust overestimating the capacity of Westerners to put money above principles, but on the back of so many years of propaganda (much of it false, racist and overblown) about Russia, it would seem a stretch even for the West to resume business-as-usual in such circumstances.

With all this taken together, the Russian decision to invade feels like such a miscalculation, and such a colossal error of judgment as to be impossible from minds acting in any sort of concert or consultation. Putin made his belligerent speech about the non-existence of Ukraine, satisfying his hardened nationalists and his own vanity in a way reminiscent of how Zionists love to talk of a Palestine that supposedly never existed, and that also lies currently annexed and - unlike Ukraine - shamefully ignored.

Putin got to announce an invasion, the success or otherwise of which is yet to be seen, but in a failure of Russian interests that appears indisputable.