Our Friday News Analysis | In Search of a Nation's Soul (Part 16)

“Will the Russian Federation Consider Declaring War
Against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
in Retaliation to NATO’s Explicit War Against Russia Albeit by Proxy?”

My Grown-Up Christmas List
Listen and enjoy the Song by Kelly Clarkson

Do you remember me
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies
Well, I'm all grown up now
And still need help somehow
I'm not a child, but my heart can still dream

So here's my lifelong wish
My grown-up Christmas list
Not for myself but for a world in need

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end, no
This is my grown-up Christmas list

As children, we believe
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely wrapped beneath the tree
But Heaven only knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal a hurting human soul

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end, no
This is my grown-up Christmas list

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth
Maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end, no
This is my grown-up Christmas list
This is my only lifelong wish
This is my grown-up Christmas list

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David Foster / Linda Thompson
My Grown-Up Christmas List lyrics © Peermusic Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

The Hague, 23 December 2022 | If you know of any story that is decisive, tell the world. We're still searching.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? By Abraham A. van Kempen, featuring:

“In war, people are more entrenched in make-believe than truth, its first casualty.”

Embarrassed after a call for residents to decorate the city themselves, the government of Gyor, Hungary, suddenly announced it had found money to string up some Christmas lights — though not as many as usual. Credit...Akos Stiller for The New York Times

“Dimmed festive lighting at an annual market in the city of Gyor underscores the economic pain felt across Hungary as energy costs and inflation soar.”

“Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, soaring energy costs have jolted countries across Europe and beyond. But the shock has been particularly acute in Hungary. Its right-wing government has often balked at supporting Ukraine and cozied up to Moscow in pursuit of what it hoped would be cheap and reliable natural gas supplies. Hungary has told its people that any problems they faced were the fault of the European Union, despite being a member of the bloc.

Last week, European finance ministers meeting in Brussels decided to release a portion of billions of dollars in frozen funding for Hungary after Mr. Orban’s government agreed to stop trying to block European aid to Ukraine.

To rally the public behind its narrative, unlike that of the Kremlin, Mr. Orban’s government is now holding what it calls a “national consultation” — a vote on a series of leading questions intended to show that “sanctions are destroying the economies of Europe.”

The European Union has imposed no sanctions on Russian natural gas, and Russia’s energy giant, Gazprom, has increased prices by cutting supplies to many customers. Hungary, which sent its foreign minister to Moscow this summer to beg Russia to keep gas flowing, has not been hit by these cuts but still has to pay more because market rates essentially set the price Gazprom charges.

‘The power and effect of propaganda are tremendous,’ said Bulcsu Hunyadi, a senior analyst at Political Capital, a Budapest research group. He said, ‘Hungary has created a system of informational autocracy that allows the government to ‘create an alternative reality.’

A recent Political Capital study found that most Hungarians think sanctions over Ukraine have hurt Europe more than Russia.”

Read more: ‘Dark Christmas Signals Tough Times for a Prosperous City in Hungary,’ by Andrew Higgins, New York Times, 21 December 2022.

One Response from Eastern Europe to ‘One American’s Opinion’

“It is hard to believe that such ignorance of the obvious can come from someone who must be a ‘Hill Billy’ redneck. To this one American, everything American is divine, righteous, and above everyone else – similar to Hitler Germany's ideology.”

Editor’s Note | Thank you for your response. My American friend, 76 years of age and highly educated with a Ph.D. in Physics, retired ten years ago as the Chief Financial Officer of a major US banking institution. This person prides him or herself on having visited 92 countries and drives a $200,000 high-performance car every time we meet, even at MacDonald’s.

I’ve invited this person to accompany me to my favorite countries in Eastern Europe, including Russia, to share a meal with the people he’ll meet. If he knows what I know, he’ll adjust his mindset about what is happening in Europe.

Most Russians, mainly the 82 percent who support President Putin, say:
“We’re not fighting Ukraine.
We’re at war with NATO.”

From their perspective, the regional conflict between Russia and Ukraine
has escalated to a struggle between East and West, a de-facto World War III.

What if President Vladimir Putin
Declares war on NATO?

Russia, US On Brink Of Direct Clash Due To Its 'dangerous, Short-sighted' Policies: Moscow

Source: https://www.republicworld.com (India)
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-crisis/russia-us-on-brink-of-direct-clash-due-to-its-dangerous-short-sighted-policies-moscow-articleshow.html

By Sagar Kar
Published on 19th December

Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said that Washington's destructive policies are putting US and Russia on the path of a direct clash.

Image: AP

Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said that Washington's destructive policies are putting US and Russia on the path of a direct clash. She responded to US State Department Spokesman Ned Price's comment that Russia was responsible for the deterioration in US-Russia bilateral relations. "After the high-profile fiasco in Afghanistan, America is increasingly drawn into a new conflict, not only supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv financially and with weapons, but also increasing its military presence on the ground," Zakharova said, as per a report from Russia's TASS.

She said that the current US policy is short-sighted and refuses to consider Russia's genuine security concerns. While the US blames Russia for the Russia-Ukraine war, Moscow accused the US policy of NATO expansion of the Russia-Ukraine war. Zakharova further stated that Russia wants to de-escalate the conflict. The tensions between Russia and the US are now at the highest point they have ever been since the end of the Cold War.

Factors that contributed to friction between US and Russia

Multiple factors and incidents have contributed to the high tension between the US and Russia. Some of these factors are listed here:

• The expansion of NATO: After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States and its NATO allies expanded the alliance to include many former Soviet-bloc countries in Eastern Europe. Russia has viewed this expansion as a threat to its security and has consistently opposed the inclusion of these countries in the alliance.
• The wars in Chechnya: The wars in Chechnya, which took place between 1994 and 2009, were a source of tension between the United States and Russia. The United States criticized Russia's conflict handling, while Russia accused Washington of supporting Chechen separatists.
• The conflict in Ukraine: The conflict in Ukraine, which began in 2014 and has now turned into a full-fledged war, has been a significant source of tension between the United States and Russia.
• Cyberattacks: The United States and Russia have been accused of cyberattacks against each other. In 2018, the United States indicted a group of Russian hackers for interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
• Disagreements over arms control: The United States and Russia have also had disputes over arms control, including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) and the New START Treaty. The United States has accused Russia of violating the INF Treaty, while Russia has accused the US of violating the New START Treaty.
• Differences over Syria: Moscow and Washington have also had differences over the conflict in Syria, with the United States supporting opposition forces and Russia supporting the Assad regime.
• Differences over Iran: The United States and Russia have also had differences over the nuclear deal with Iran, with Washington withdrawing from the agreement and reimposing sanctions on Iran. Russia has continued to support the arrangement.

John Mearsheimer on Putin's Ambitions After Nine Months of War

December 08, 2022
Source: The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war

By Isaac Chotiner
Published November 17, 2022

The realist political scientist explains why Russia’s move to annex four Ukrainian provinces isn’t imperialism.

“What motivates him is fear of Ukraine becoming a part of NATO,” John Mearsheimer says of Vladimir Putin.Photograph by Grigory Sysoyev / Sputnik / AFP / Getty

In February, a few days after Russia launched its war in Ukraine, I spoke with the political scientist John Mearsheimer. A longtime observer of US foreign policy—on which he has tended to cast a skeptical eye—Mearsheimer largely blamed Putin’s invasion on the West, arguing that, by expanding nato, the West had cornered Russia and made a conflict with Ukraine much more likely. Mearsheimer, a dedicated realist, had been making a version of this argument for some time. In 2014, when Putin annexed Crimea and offered support to separatists in Eastern Ukraine, Mearsheimer said that it was predominantly the fault of Europe and the United States. This June, a couple of months after our first conversation, against the backdrop of a war dragging on with increasing brutality, Mearsheimer said in a speech, “The United States is principally responsible for causing the Ukraine crisis.”

Recently, Mearsheimer and I spoke by phone again. He had just returned from a trip to Hungary, where he met with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Putin. (Mearsheimer is the author of multiple books, perhaps most famously “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” which he co-wrote with Stephen Walt.) During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why he thinks Putin told the truth about his motives for invading Ukraine, why he doesn’t believe Putin is trying to recreate the Russian imperial era, and why he doesn’t want to discuss his meeting with Orbán.

How was the Hungary trip?

It was fascinating. I learned a great deal. I was there for five days, Monday to Friday. I had a three-hour meeting with Viktor Orbán.

I’ve heard of him.

Yeah. And I had a one-hour meeting with the President of Hungary.

Let’s start with other stuff, and then I can ask you about that. Since the last time we talked, what has changed or stayed the same about how you see the war in Ukraine?

It had become clear that the Russians were having difficulties defeating the Ukrainians in ways most people didn’t anticipate back when we first talked. What also changed is that the war has escalated, and the Russians are behaving more ruthlessly towards the Ukrainians than they were initially. The Russians are now tearing apart the electric grid, which is causing immense human suffering and doing grave economic damage to Ukraine, is evidence of this.

Why do you think the Russians are being so brutal?

I think the Russians want to win the war, and to win the war, you invariably look for ways to escalate, to gain the advantage over the other side.

What do you think a Russian victory looks like to the Russians?

I think their goal is to conquer and control those four oblasts they have annexed and to ensure that the Ukrainian rump state that is left is neutral and is not associated with NATO in any formal or informal way.

When we last talked, you told me, “My argument is that [Putin is] not going to re-create the Soviet Union or try to build a greater Russia, that he’s not interested in conquering and integrating Ukraine into Russia. It’s vital to understand that we invented this story that Putin is highly aggressive and he’s principally responsible for this crisis in Ukraine.” How do you think that argument holds up?

I think it’s still true. We talked back in February about whether or not he was interested in conquering all of Ukraine, occupying it, and then integrating into a greater Russia. And I do not think he’s interested in doing that now. What he is interested in doing now that he was not interested in doing when we talked is integrating those four oblasts in the eastern part of Ukraine into Russia. I think there’s no question that his goals have escalated since the war started on February 24th, but not to the point where he’s interested in conquering all of Ukraine. But he is interested in dominating a part of Ukraine and incorporating that part into Russia.

Given that he is interested in successfully integrating the parts of Ukraine he’s conquered into Russia, does that suggest that the war had gone better for him? He’d been able to beat more of Ukraine and would’ve been interested in integrating those parts too.

It’s possible. It’s hard to say. He probably would’ve gone to Odesa and incorporated all of Ukraine that runs along the Black Sea up to Odesa into Russia. Whether he would’ve gone beyond that, it’s hard to say.

There was a recent article in the Times about the liberation of Kherson. In occupied Kherson, students were forced to sing the Russian national anthem. Bills had to be paid in rubles. You could be arrested for speaking Ukrainian. Students were even told that they were Russian, not Ukrainian. It seems that he is very interested in incorporating these areas.

I think that’s true. He said that Kherson is one of the four oblasts that is now part of Russia. The Russians have annexed it. They don’t control all of it. They certainly don’t own the city of Kherson today, but they have said they will return and take it.

In February, you also said, “The argument that the foreign-policy establishment in the United States, and in the West more generally, has invented revolves around the claim that [Putin] is interested in creating a greater Russia.” Do you think that that’s something he’s more interested in now?

I’ve thought from the beginning that this conflict is all about balance-of-power politics.

Read more: John Mearsheimer on Putin's Ambitions After Nine Months of War

Editor’s Note | Sometime around 1974, I met John Mearsheimer, then a graduate student at the Von Kleinschmidt Center School of International Relations of the University of Southern California, my home away from home.

Since 1982, Mearsheimer has been a faculty member of the Department of Political Science Faculty at the University of Chicago.^[7] He became an associate professor in 1984 and a full professor in 1987 and was appointed the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in 1996. From 1989 to 1992, he served as chairman of the department. He also holds a position as a faculty member in the Committee on International Relations graduate program and is a co-director of the Program on International Security Policy.[8]

Mearsheimer's books include Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss Jr. Book Award; Nuclear Deterrence: Ethics and Strategy (co-editor, 1985); Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), which won the Lepgold Book Prize; The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy (2007); and Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics (2011). His articles have appeared in academic journals like International Security and popular magazines like the London Review of Books. He has written op-ed pieces for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.^[8]

Mearsheimer has won several teaching awards. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching when he was a graduate student at Cornell in 1977, and he won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago in 1985. In addition, he was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the 1993–1994 academic year. He gave a series of talks at eight colleges and universities in that capacity. In 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[8] He is the recipient of the American Political Science Association's 2020 James Madison Award, which is presented every three years to an American political scientist who has made distinguished scholarly contributions. The Award Committee noted that Mearsheimer is "one of the most cited International Relations scholars in the discipline, but his works are read well beyond the academy as well."[9]

Mearsheimer's works are widely read and debated by 21st-century students of international relations.

A 2017 US international relations faculty survey ranks him third among "scholars whose work has had the greatest influence on the field of International Relations in the past 20 years."[10]

Mearsheimer – Age 75, Tenured Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago – is an Intellectual Swindler

By Hubert Smeets, Journalist, and Historian
Source: NRC The Netherlands
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/11/30/mearsheimer-is-een-intellectuele-oplichter-a4150050

Published on 30 November 2022

              "Do you know what to write about?

               About Mearsheimer. He's got it.

               Always look to the US first,” said a lawyer and peer I met on the street last month.

John Mearsheimer, a 74-year-old [ed. 75-year-old] political scientist at the University of Chicago has argued since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 that the "mindless" West is to blame for the war in Ukraine. And not Putin, a “first-class strategist” who has never set out to “capture territory in eastern Ukraine.”

Mearsheimer is not only a figurehead for this lawyer. He is also in academic circles for the so-called 'realists.' Realists pride themselves on soberly analyzing questions of war and peace, unlike liberal "idealists" who would moralize.

As befits a guru, Mearsheimer held his course unflinchingly, even after Russia had started its frontal attack on Ukraine at the end of February. In an interview with The New Yorker, he again advised Kyiv to break with the West and "adjust to the Russians." Putin was undoubtedly not building a “greater Russia and not interested in the conquest and integration of Ukraine.”

Mearsheimer had spoken. But was the case settled? No. After all, in the nine months, everything went differently than the realist pope ex-cathedra had predicted in Chicago. The New Yorker, therefore, called him again in November. Putin had just annexed four Ukrainian provinces and threatened to defend this new Russia with "all available means." Mearsheimer was not impressed by these facts. In the weekly, he repeated that "the story that Putin is aggressive" is a "fabrication" of the West. That Kyiv ignored his advice, did not “accommodate,” but fought back is strange, at least different “than most people had expected.”

Pretty is different! A little more introspection is perhaps too much to ask of a guru who only follows the main lines and, in the end, knows nothing about Ukraine and Russia. The tendency to dismiss facts that belie one's predictions as “surprises” is common among realists.

After that, however, the interview gets dirty. When asked why Putin acknowledged that Russia is imperialist on the 300th birthday of Tsar Peter the Great, Mearsheimer says: “There was no evidence of his imperial ambitions before the war. [...] There is no evidence that he wanted to occupy four provinces.” He dismisses the fact that Putin wrote in a historiographical article half a year before the invasion that Great Russians (Russia), Little Russians (Ukraine), and White Russians (Belarus) have one language and one religion, in short form "one people" with one goal. He even claims that Putin “makes it very clear in that article that he recognized Ukrainian nationalism, that he recognized that Ukraine was a sovereign state.” The idea that Putin would lie is unthinkable. That would be "unprecedented" in history, except for Hitler, according to Mearsheimer.

Here now, Mearsheimer is openly cheating. Because if Putin did anything in that essay from July 2021, it was to deny the authenticity of Ukraine. It was not for nothing that the title was 'On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.' Putin even argued in the article that Ukraine is historically nothing more than a Western "bridgehead against Russia," a plot by Habsburg Austrians, Poles, Nazis, and Americans, respectively, who use Ukraine as an "anti-Moscow" project.

Mearsheimer unmasked himself this year. Mearsheimer is an intellectual con artist.

Hubert Smeets is a journalist and historian. His column appears every other week in the NRC.

Why has Russia bungled its invasion so severely?

By Michael Schwirtz, Anton Troianovski, Yousur Al-Hlou, Masha Froliak, Adam Entous, and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Source: The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html?campaign_id=51&emc=edit_mbe_20221219&instance_id=80572&nl=morning-briefing%3A-europe-edition&regi_id=69909790&segment_id=120256&te=1&user_id=f9c06872cc476fdf04233a4c100d7930

Published on 16 December 2022

A dead Russian soldier in Kharkiv, Ukraine, the day after the war started in February. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

How Russia Fumbled the War

A team of New York Times reporters has published a comprehensive account of how Russia mismanaged its invasion of Ukraine based on battle plans, intercepts, and interviews with Russian soldiers and Kremlin confidants. Here are some significant points:

• Wounded Russian soldiers said they had little training, food, or supplies. Some turned to Wikipedia to learn how to use their weapons.
• President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle fed his suspicions and magnified his grievances. The war was planned in such secrecy that his spokesman and chief of staff learned of it only after it began.
• One NATO member is warning allies that Putin may accept the death or injury of as many as 300,000 Russian troops, roughly three times his estimated losses so far.
• Invading Russian troops used their cell phones to call home, revealing their positions to Ukraine’s military.

Read the piece in full:

“It was a cascade of failures, and at the top is Putin’s misguidedness, his isolation, and his conviction that he knew what was best,” reports Anton Troianovski, the NY Times Moscow Bureau Chief, told The Morning Newsletter.

Other updates:

• Ukraine said that Russia might sharply escalate the war in a winter offensive.
• Ukrainians raced to restore critical services after Russia fired dozens of missiles at Ukrainian power stations over the weekend.
• Putin made a rare visit to his war headquarters, signaling a shift to his more active involvement.
• Russian data journalists and volunteers are trying to count the country’s dead soldiers.

Editor’s Note | Next week, we’ll publish some of the many anticipated reactions from Eastern Europe.

I have read the voluminous New York Times article. The Times reporters give the impression that it is peaches and cream in Ukraine; in Russia, hell on earth.

In my opinion, both are losing the war. The biggest losers are neither Russia nor Ukraine. The European Union is the biggest loser, with the United States a close second. Next week, I will again explain my position on this matter.

With a combined GDP exceeding $40 trillion, the EU-US/NATO Axis has much more to lose than the Russian Federation, with a GDP of $2.2 trillion. But one with one nuclear bomb is as lethal as one with thousands. Russia has 5,000+ atomic warheads. They’re ready to fly.

It’s time to stop the war. Perhaps Russia should officially declare war on NATO. It will motivate the clowns in Brussels, the Bozos in Strasbourg, and the stooges in Washington, DC, to come to terms. Not one wants a nuclear crater in their backyard.

During this holiday, please think of the millions of Ukrainians who cannot heat their homes, drink water, or cook food. Dining at their local restaurants or grocery shopping is out of the question. Christmas is not on the list for many Ukrainians, including the nine million who have fled Ukraine. At least they are alive. Russia targets infrastructure, not homes, but some unfortunate mishaps happen.

________________

Related Articles Recently Posted on www.buildingthebridgefoundation.com:

Our Friday News Analysis | 'In Search of a Nation's Soul (Part 15),' 16 December 2022.

Our Wednesday News Analysis | ''Israel' and Ukraine; two sides with one ideology?,' 21 December 2022.

The Evangelical Pope| 'A Humane Future Before God,' 18 December 2022.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague.