This follows in the series triggered by my essay, “Crowdsourced ‘war.’” As I’ve described, a Russian friend from many years responded to my post. I published his response, and replied. Below is his reply, and here is my sur-surreply (and yes, that is a word, at least according to Volokh).
Dear Larry — once again I apologize for my slow reply. One of the reasons for this is that I followed your advice and tried to protest on the streets of Moscow against this war. On my way to the rally on Sunday, I was detained by the police — quite brutally and without even minimal regard for the rules and procedures. I spent more than 8 hours at the police station and was released only around midnight.
The station was full of people like me (the Moscow middle class), and I have to say that most of them were already quite demoralized. For our discussion, it is important to mention that they also feel betrayed by the West. The Western sanctions cut us off from the global financial systems — as a result, people in Russia cannot continue their paid subscriptions for digital services like VPN, for instance. As the Russian government already banned FB, Twitter, and other media without VPN and similar services, people have no access to information and society is increasingly dependent on the state propaganda machine. The same goes for the self-imposed sanctions announced by Apple, Microsoft, Coinbase, and other corporations which decided to join the ‘crowdsourced war’ against the Russians. They just hit mainly those who already have been opposing Putin and make them weaker and less prepared for any kind of resistance. But I don’t want to repeat my arguments here; I just tested the reality in Moscow and must confirm that my intuition was right — the urban middle class does not feel motivated to fight being caught in a crossfire.
Let me go straight to your question first:
“Maybe you think the world should do nothing. Then tell me: Is that your belief? And when he then would see that territorial aggression is costless, and continues into the NATO countries with a similar past, what then? Does the world forgive that too? Tolerate that as well? Could the West — bound as it is by treaty to respond with military force — do nothing then?”
My answer is ‘no’ — the West shares responsibility for the war in Ukraine and must do something to stop it now. The question is how. I think that your proposal of the crowdsourced war makes more harm than good both to the global interdependent society and to the Russian domestic opposition (which is probably the only part of the Russian society that belongs to the globalized world). This proposal is, in my opinion, counterproductive and cannot stop this war. It only brings us to another round of escalation while reducing chances for a sustainable peaceful coexistence of diverse countries on this planet. I doubt that you can stop the war by waging another one. It just gives you two wars instead of one. You don’t fight fire with oil, do you?
But what can be done? I think if the West is really determined to stop this war, it has two strong cards:
- Biden and other Western leaders knew about the potential attack and even made a lot of media buzz about this, but they did nothing to stop the attack. If the US had stationed in Ukraine some of its troops — aircrafts on the Ukrainian airfields and some military personnel — it would most probably have deterred the invasion. There is no need to accept Ukraine into NATO for this, it could be done as a part of drills or some form of bilateral cooperation. The US stationed some of its military forces in Ukraine for drills before and it was very surprising to me that they didn’t do it now as they had strong intelligence about the upcoming invasion. I think that Putin would not dare to attack knowing about a potential risk to kill American troops or destroy military equipment on the ground. The USSR did something like this back in 1971 when Pakistan, backed by the US and Britain, attacked India. In that case, the war was stopped in a matter of weeks mainly because the Soviet Union deployed nuclear submarines in the Bay of Bengal and the US had to withdraw its military support to Pakistan. The Soviet military didn’t participate in the war directly but became a deterring factor for the conflict to escalate. And it was already the atomic age we live in now. Things were settled relatively quickly. And yes, it required some courage and political will on the side of the Soviet leadership to intervene, but they wanted to stop the war and they did it. Probably, the US leadership now doesn’t want to stop it that much. Maybe there is another logic for their dealing with this situation. I don’t know. But you asked what can be done to stop this hot war. There is a clear scenario already proven in at least one major military conflict of the atomic age. And it did work.
- All the sanctions imposed by the West up to now — both by the governments and corporate and social crusaders — hit the Russian economy and society badly, no doubt about this. But Putin and his security apparatus don’t depend on those people and economic sectors that suffer most. The only thing he and his ‘siloviki’ depend on is a stable export of oil and gas for actual cash that he controls fully. This source of income has been only growing since the war started. The EU pays now around $1bln per day for gas pumped by Gazprom via the Ukrainian territory. Neither Scholtz, nor other EU leaders see any problems with this. Even Zelensky doesn’t talk about this, and the Ukrainian pumps keep working at their full capacity. Of course, it is easier to cut the Russian opposition from Visa/Mastercard, so that they cannot leave the country and get disconnected from the world than cut Putin off from the petrobucks he needs to sustain his security apparatus. You can also see that many members of his inner circle like Abramovich, who for years has been helping Putin to accomplish delicate business missions, are not sanctioned. So, another strong option for the West would be to cast the sanctions properly — not killing the Russian middle class but hurting the state monopolies like Gazprom and Rosneft which are essentially Putin’s pockets. Destroying the Russian airways by putting all the planes down, cutting the financial institutions from the West only make Russians more disconnected from the world. By these measures and by keeping export of oil and gas at the same time, the West makes Russia an ultimate petrostate autocracy. It is not a way to stop the war. It is something else. Probably, by cutting all the ties with the interconnected global society, Putin would be much less constrained in fulfilling his mission in Ukraine. In my humble opinion, if the West would like to stop the war it would try to hit the petrostate monopolies and support instead of hurting the middle class — the only potential Western ally in the current Russian society. The West does exactly the opposite. I don’t know if this is because of a lack of understanding and leadership or there is another rationale I don’t quite get, as it might be related to some sort of backchannel dealings and conspiracies.
I hope I answered your question. Just to summarize. The West must act, and it has enough resources to intervene. But both the Western governments and the ‘crowds’ don’t help to stop the war now but only help it to sustain or even escalate. Measured military engagement to deter the invasion before Feb 24th or to keep it contained in certain areas just after it happened could be effective. Sanctions should be directed at the core of the current autocratic regime rather than at the common people and businesses of Russia.
Now, the Western sanctions (both coming from the governments and from the ‘crowds’) look more like a carpet bombing of Vietnam and Laos in 1960s and only alienate the local population from the West rather than help to build resistance against the ruling group. I think it should be vice versa — the middle class should be supported, and the security apparatus deprived of resources. The West clearly doesn’t want to pay any serious price for this war to stop. In such a case, maybe yes — it is better to do nothing rather than make it worse. I think in global politics, Hippocrates’s principle should work as well.
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If you don’t mind, I would like also to comment on some of your reactions to my initial response.
It is a great tragedy that Russians and Ukrainians could not find a way to live in peace. Ok, come on, Alexey. “Could not find a way to live in peace”? No one is confused about how to “find a way to live in peace.” Not launching an invasion into a sovereign territory is a perfectly obvious “way to live in peace.” I get not liking what your neighbor is doing. Think about Mexico’s feeling about the United States under Trump. And I don’t support either the Carter Doctrine or the militarized Monroe Doctrine. But we “find” a way to “live in peace” by not waging aggressive war.
You know that this war didn’t start a week ago — it was an unsettled conflict lasting for the last 8 years or even longer. The background of this conflict is more complex than just one man’s ambition. India and Pakistan have been fighting continuously since the Partition of British India back in 1947. The collapse of Yugoslavia led to a few wars. Russia and Ukraine failed to find a way to live in peace as neighboring countries after the collapse and partition of the Soviet Union. It is a long story, but it is clearly not that easy as just two neighboring countries getting into war. The war was already there, and it was on so many different levels, it could not be simply ignored. The conflicts should be resolved peacefully. But clearly, not enough efforts were made on all sides to resolve this one. You cannot just focus on one abstract legal principle of territorial integrity to resolve this kind of long-lasting conflict. There are other important values (like human lives and wellbeing), and in this case, not all stakeholders and constituencies were included in the peacebuilding process for the last 8 years. I disagree that living in peace is an easy task. I think it does require courage, and intelligence, and goodwill, and a lot of time and energy. People usually are too extreme in their judgments and assumptions. It leads us to wars continuously. If we want to live in peace, it is not enough to comply with some abstract legal principles when there are serious tensions and conflicts in place.
Nothing in the notion of a “crowdsourced ‘war’” supports the idea of mobs and violence. The whole point is force short of violence.
Maybe it is not in the notion, but this is where it could most probably bring us to. Humans are the same now as they were back in 1930s or earlier. As soon as you make it ‘legal’ or socially acceptable to hate, the hatred and violence will prevail.
And yes, I certainly agree that any such principle should be applied consistently. The US in particular has exceeded its moral authority with violence repeatedly. And I would say that anytime such an act is condemned by the UN as overwhelmingly as this is condemned, I would not object to — even if I would not like — similar sanctions against US.
Sorry, but you know it would never happen. Not because the US’ aggressive wars against Iraq, Serbia, Syria, Yemen, and so on were less illegal but because the Western businesses and activists would not be waging a war against the US and American people. It would be essentially a war against themselves… But the idea of a crowdsourced war could be picked up later by China or other strong players, and then you could see exactly what crowdsourced war is — a global technological tribal war.
I don’t think it is fair to call it an “extension.” It is an alternative. If it became violent, then it is not what I am describing.
I understand you don’t call for any violent actions, but I don’t see how you can prevent this from happening as soon as you legalize a war (even in quotes) against the civilians based on their nationality. You can say it is not about nationality but citizenship, but the crowds usually don’t care. I also don’t think that it is an alternative. As soon as you get people agitated and filled with hate against Russians it would be very difficult not to stop this crowdsourced war from becoming a hot one. I don’t see what the checks and balances are there.
If the costs on Russia would have zero chance of effecting a change from Putin, then yes, they are as rational as punishing Wuhan for COVID.
In the case of the crowdsourced war against the middle class in Russia, it is even worse — it helps Putin rather than deters him and it perfectly fits his isolationist narrative.
This is not “total war.” “Total war” is what this is to avoid.
In my perception, a “total war” is something that is supported not only by the states and realpolitik interests but also fueled by the hate coming from ordinary people. It is something close to the religious or racial wars of the past that led to genocides. If my intuition is right and crowdsourced war is closer to this type of war, then a relatively contained regional war is a better option for humanity. It is important to remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Stopping the war in Ukraine now is of enormous importance but we must avoid falling into a more dangerous abyss.
