Punditman Critiques Ukraine Subject-Matter Expert

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Punditman says…

For over a year I’ve worried that due to geo-political foolishness, we've been sleepwalking out of a horrible pandemic straight into World War III. Some say we're already in it — unfolding with a million bangs and mournful whimpers.

Many would rather hide, I’m sure. But that’s no answer.

A couple of months back I listened to renowned intellectual and podcaster, Sam Harris, interview Yale history professor and subject-matter-expert, Timothy Snyder, on the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Snyder is a celebrity academic whose writings can be found at your local book store, including the controversial best seller Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.

Sam Harris begins the interview by broadly articulating the “doubts and fears” and criticisms of those who are concerned that the US and NATO may have provoked the crisis and that the West is painting Putin into a corner. But rather than seriously address these arguments, he never really pushes Snyder.

I got the feeling the entire dialogue was set up as a way to dismiss competing viewpoints. As Harris said when introducing Snyder: “I have no illusions that this is the final word on the matter, but it is, as you'll hear, a deeply informed word. And it's one that echoes many of my far less informed misgivings about what I've been hearing largely on social media from, again, very prominent people who are speaking very much in the vein of what I've called the new contrarianism.”

The dialogue that follows is like listening to a CNN anchor person interview one of their vaunted list of “experts” — plucked as always from a revolving door of defense industry-funded think tanks, former military brass and government officials; albeit Snyder takes a deeper dive than the shallow talking points of corporate news.

He makes some solid points, particularly that Putin denies Ukrainian ethnicity independent of Russia and that Ukraine should have agency in deciding if and when to negotiate. But the latter merely begs the question: How much room to act independently does Ukraine really have? The role of the US in assisting the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s corrupt but democratically elected leader, in 2014, never enters the discussion, to say nothing of the enormous level of US military and economic support that Ukraine has received over the years and especially since Russia invaded.

Snyder goes on extensively about Putin’s fascism versus Ukraine’s democracy, which I found simple minded at best, especially since the Maidan uprising and overthrow of Yanukovych was in no small measure spearheaded by Ukrainian far right nationalists and neo-Nazis. Snyder ignores Ukraine’s corruption and other democratic deficits, particularly the presence and influence of these far-right factions.

Yet Ukraine’s far-right problem was well documented by Western media itself — years before Russia’s invasion. The issue is now conveniently whitewashed in mainstream Western discourse.

It wasn’t always thus. In 2015 the New York Times described Ukraine's Azov Battalion as “openly neo-Nazi,” only to soften the description to "far-right” on March 18 of 2022, followed by a further report labelling them “a unit in the Ukrainian military” on April 29 — entirely neutralizing the original portrayal.

In 2018, Ukraine’s far-right violence was openly acknowledged in a piece written by Josh Cohen for—of all organizations—the Atlantic Council, NATO’s de-facto think tank.

This BBC report by Kiev correspondent Jonah Fisher, also from 2018, reports on the increasing visibility of far-right groups in Ukraine.

According to Snyder, it’s all Russian propaganda, offering up a weird condition deemed “schizophascism” whereby fascists themselves are claiming to be fighting fascists. (Okay, but what if there actually are fascists on both sides?).

Interestingly, back in 2010, Snyder was well aware and worried about Ukraine’s far right problem. As David North of WSRS.org explains explains:

In an article published in the February 24, 2010 issue of that publication, “A Fascist Hero in Democratic Kiev,” Snyder expressed serious concern about then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s conferring the highest state honor of “Hero of Ukraine” upon Stepan Bandera.

Commenting on the protests of the chief rabbi of Ukraine, large numbers of Ukrainians, and even the president of Poland, Snyder wrote:

It is no wonder. Bandera aimed to make of Ukraine a one-party fascist dictatorship without national minorities. During World War II, his followers killed many Poles and Jews.

Clearly the narrative surrounding the far right issue in Ukraine has evolved according to the dictates of US/NATO policy. Snyder must know this.

Perhaps he is now so heavily invested in pushing the dominant narrative (which includes “there are no Nazis in Ukraine”) that it’s no surprise he now avoids repugnant aspects of Ukrainian politics, even, apparently if it means ignoring what he himself once acknowledged.

As I’ve stated previously, there is no point overstating Ukraine’s far-right problem; Ukraine is after all, a complex country.

And the slide of Putin’s Russia from imitation democracy towards outright authoritarianism (not the focus here) is undeniable. It’s also the easiest of targets. Yet by focusing exclusively on the hated man in the Kremlin while casting down the memory hole any sober assessment of Ukraine’s faults, Snyder merely echoes the incessant establishment propaganda.

One would hope that a subject level expert would offer a more nuanced analysis.  

Snyder claims any history before 1991 is irrelevant because the Russian Federation and Ukraine agreed upon the borders in December of that year.

His absolutist position that a return to the Ukraine-Russian borders of 1991 implicitly assumes that Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea is reversible. Barring a collapse of the Russian army and/or the deposing of Putin, it’s hard to imagine Crimea returning to Ukraine without an escalation involving NATO intervention.

Moreover, if territorial integrity and national sovereignty are sacrosanct what are we to make of Kosovo? It was after all, part of the heart of historical Serbia, until it was carved out as a NATO protectorate under the umbrella of NATO's 1999 bombing campaign. Declaring unilateral independence in 2008, Kosovo is a partially recognized state with 52.3% of UN member states on board while remaining unrecognized by Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Romania, and Greece within the EU alone. The stated justification for NATO intervention (to prevent genocide of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians) remains a matter of contentious scholarly debate. It was certainly illegal, and as Serbia’s traditional ally, Russia and Putin took careful note.

In addition, why does this same principle of sovereignty not apply to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine? Or when the US (under Trump) recognized Morroco’s illegal claim over Western Sahara, which it invaded in 1975?

Circling back to the interview, Sam Harris cites a podcast featuring Columbia University Economist, Jeffrey Sachs, whom he then accuses of echoing Kremlin talking points:

“It's hard to imagine the Kremlin not liking anything he said. He essentially said that the US and NATO have been provocative all along, and that the offramp for Russia was always obvious. We just have to declare the neutrality of Ukraine and given assurance that they'll never join NATO because that obviously impinges on Russia's core security concerns.”

It is disappointing to hear Harris stoop to what is in essence neo-McCarthyism, especially since he spends much of his impressive intellectual capital railing against polarization of discourse while pleading for civility.

According to Sach’s bio page: “Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries.” I found it off-putting for Sam Harris to view Jeffrey Sachs so dismissively.

Harris may be a neuroscientist, philosopher and New York Times best-selling author, but Sachs may know a thing or two about geo-politics that Harris does not. Sachs, for instance, worked on post-soviet economic restructuring in Poland and was disillusioned by US opposition to supporting Russian redevelopment and transformation.

Overall, the Harris-Snyder interview was heavy on theorizing about fascism and nihilism and divining Putin’s mindset and light on pertinent issues that many other “contrarians” have highlighted.

Snyder reiterates the common assumption in the Western media that Ukraine is winning the war. But despite a barrage of completely one-sided media coverage, many independent analysts see Russia as having the upper hand despite its initial setbacks and miscalculations. Caught in endless artillery duels across front lines extending hundreds of miles and with alternating advances and retreats, at the very least a more apt description is “bloody stalemate.”

Commenting on the recent visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington, Aaron Mate notes that:

The public fawning over Zelensky was belied by sobering admissions in private. Buried in the bipartisan jingoism was the quiet assessment that more US weapons will not turn the tide on the battlefield.

While Zelensky, in meetings with Biden and Congressional leaders, tried “to argue that Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright,” that prospect is one that “U.S. officials privately say is highly unlikely,” according to the Washington Post.

Snyder essentially wants us to "Keep calm and arm Ukraine" — to echo a meme from the Twitterverse.

Presumably this means indefinitely, no matter the time, cost, increased suffering or dangers of intensified conflict. Snyder’s reasoning parrots the Biden administration’s refusal to pressure Ukraine, at least publicly; namely, it’s entirely up to Ukraine to decide how and when and over what to negotiate. As if the US with its massive military support and legacy of interfering in Ukrainian politics somehow doesn’t have significant, if not overwhelming leverage.

Snyder questions the assumption that Putin actually cares about the interests of Russia:

“I see very little reason to think that Putin is a geopolitician who cares at all about the interests of Russia. If he were, he would be much more concerned about the fact that there is a great power on Russia's border, which, in fact, does have designs, unlike the United States, on Russian resources, which, unlike the United States, invests more in the Asian part of Russia than Russia does itself, and that is China.”

To say the United States has no designs on Russian resources is absurd. As economist Michael Hudson pointed out back in a 2021 interview:

The Democratic leadership seems to have an almost emotional, passionate antagonism towards Russia that can’t be explained on objective grounds. But it’s obviously there.

Their attempt to isolate Russia is as if somehow they can recapture the dream of the Yeltsin 1990s, the dream of somehow replacing Putin with a pliant alcoholic kleptocrat like Yeltsin who will resume the sale of Russia’s national resources and public utilities to Americans. There’s no way that’s going to happen.

Meanwhile, Russia and China are currently enjoying the best relations they have had since the late 1950s, as a result of increased diplomacy between Putin and Xi Jinping.

Snyder downplays the threat of nuclear escalation because “The Russian people are not afraid of nuclear war. That's not a thing in Russia at all.”

Interestingly, I found myself agreeing with Snyder’s statement that “we've suffered...from the decline of old fashioned battlefield military history because a lot of the answers...come from that realm of military history.”

But the problem is that the “logic of the battlefield” is now largely hidden from view because it has been usurped by propaganda warriors on all sides —with lies and clever distortions on all sides. But for Snyder the propaganda only goes one way: from Moscow.

I found Snyder’s answer to ending the carnage desultory (i.e. let the battlefield decide because “the Ukrainians have really good reasons to think they can win”).

At the same time, experts outside the dominant narrative continue to advocate for diplomacy. Examples include Anatol Lieven, Ray Mcgovern, Aaron Mate, Noam Chomsky, and the aforementioned Jeffrey Sachs — to name just a few. These and many others have been shut out of mainstream discussion on purely ideological grounds.

Underwhelmed by subject-matter expert Timothy Snyder, Punditman still sees no other way to stop the killing and the destruction of Ukraine than some kind of “ugly” diplomatic solution. That’s where things almost always end up anyway — unless the conflict spins out of control into something truly calamitous.

Sadly I’m under no illusion that talks will re-start any time soon.

But a pundit can always dream.

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