tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13622622.post5693330767518653920..comments2023-12-22T08:44:24.389-05:00Comments on threewayfight: No longer a gendarme for the West: Simon Pirani on Russia's invasion of UkraineMatthew N Lyonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664330735255207352noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13622622.post-56972135489824589812023-06-15T07:39:03.737-04:002023-06-15T07:39:03.737-04:00John, whatever their responses to Russia's inv...John, whatever their responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, both the U.S. and Germany remain imperialist powers whose interests are fundamentally incompatible with human liberation, and Baerbock is wholly complicit in that. One of things that I appreciate about Simon Pirani's discussions of Ukraine is that he subordinates geopolitics to a working class-centered social movement analysis. I also appreciate his warnings not to romanticize the Ukrainian resistance. Ukraine remains a capitalist state which, while nowhere near as bad as Putin's brutal authoritarianism, has its own oppressive and repressive tendencies.Matthew N Lyonshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15664330735255207352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13622622.post-34788908132555626322023-06-13T21:38:28.553-04:002023-06-13T21:38:28.553-04:00Hi Matthew. Since I last saw you in person, I'...Hi Matthew. Since I last saw you in person, I've become ever more of an ultra-realo green mostly parroting Annalena Baerbock, and finding myself really more or less in agreement with the Biden administration's war policy, except I think they left the Germans hanging too long on the Main Battle Tank issue, and am comfortable that most US citizens seem to want to send the fighter jets faster than the administration. As a geopolitics wonk, I'm trying to compare this whole thing to the asymmetry of the 1990 Gulf War in terms of the four counter-offensives needed to get to Melitopol. And to just effing get there and squeeze the land bridge at the choke point. The Ukrainians are trying as I write to get to Tokmak, and that will be as ugly as the Kherson fight. And that is about half-way to Melitopol.<br /><br />But the Russo-Ukraine War is fairly described as a people's war too. Except that it is not a 'founding' war as the 1775ff US war of independence, or Israel in 1948. And we get ourselves into the idea of a populist war, or a war led by a populist. But that is not also an inaccurate description of President Zelensky. He is a left populist statesman sui generis out of the world of TV. And it has the support of the most powerful military alliance on the planet. Hence the 'assymetry' in a fashion similar to the 1990 Gulf War, though that of course was a direct intervention of the Western powers, but given an international legal legitimacy for the military activities of the Western powers by an virtually equivalent violation of the UN Charter on the part of S Hussein and V Putin. And here for the anarchists as well, perhaps, there is also importantly, a comparison to the Syrian Civil War of all the outcomes from the Arab Spring. I think we would have to call that a people's war that was defeated.<br /><br />The neo-conservatives at the AEI are support a variant of 'reluctant internationalism'. Alas, in some senses, all supporters of Ukraine in this fight are in this sort of a united front, but perhaps it is even hard to describe that part of the left that supports Ukraine as 'reluctant'. I was terribly worried about a hyper-war faction of the Thomas Friedman sort early on, but no longer. So I am not really reluctant. Are you?John Elynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13622622.post-55934996292735127652022-06-14T07:20:45.788-04:002022-06-14T07:20:45.788-04:00Thanks very much for this thoughtful engagement wi...Thanks very much for this thoughtful engagement with what I have written. It's a refreshing contrast to many "discussions" in which people don't actually listen to each other. I totally agree that the Ukrainian far right needs to be analysed more fully than I have done; it's just not a subject I feel qualified to write on. There are people who specialise on it and it's better to listen to them. On Russia, yes, "authoritarian nationalism" sounds right, but we need to clarify respects in which the process has moved further, e.g. with the "Z" stuff and popular mobilisation. Yassin al-haj Saleh's designation of the Assad regime as fascist, quite different from the European analyses I grew up with, influenced me here. And yes, "people's war" is a really inadequate category; I suppose I used it to counter the "inter imperialist war" stuff that is repeated so incessantly. Anyway, let's continue the discussion. Thanks again. Simon Piranihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00836943937041022017noreply@blogger.com