Listening to your Tuesday interview with Kim Wehle, I was shocked to hear her say that she had to teach basic critical thinking skills to third-year law students. I taught college-level philosophy for over 30 years, and saw a steady decline of such skills in my students. The Trump phenomenon has demonstrated to us that critical thinking skills in the general population are also not so well developed. But the fact that students can somehow reach their final year of law school and still be innocent of how to collect facts, appraise evidence, and engage in fundamental critical thinking skills absolutely stuns and frightens me.
I have to admit I'm almost speechless at people who are fine with the idea that we should risk a shooting war with Russia by instituting a no fly zone. Should we continue supplying weapons and humanitarian aid? Of course. Fighter planes for Ukrainian pilots? Yes. But am I willing to risk a nuclear exchange and possibly a full nuclear war with Russia that could result in millions of American deaths along with decimated cities? No, I am not. These things can escalate very quickly; and we need to be very careful here. The people calling for a no fly zone and NATO boots on the ground have to be aware what the butcher's bill will be if Putin lets the nukes fly. And this is a very real possibility.
Well...I get your opinion and most of the time...that's where I lean as well. At the same time....could we say that Putin is counting on everyone being so afraid of WW3 that we allow him to do what he wants with Ukraine? At what point is it not ok and we step in?
I made the point last week too...that the longer we wait...the more the situation is worse and harder to extricate him out of Ukraine.
Perhaps you're right and we'll find out that there are means to depose of leaders without going to war. If Russia can't trade with anyone and is made to be a real pariah...perhaps the Russian people will take of this themselves. Of course...that's a pretty dicey prospect as well...if Putin feels cornered by his own people.
Is Putin a rational actor? That certainly seems debatable at this point.
The photo of the St. Petersburg protestors reminded me of my visit there in March 2020...right before everything shut down due to Covid. I asked my host, a 60+ year old citizen of Russia, about whether he felt that he could share his feelings about the government of Russia. Of course, my question was alluding to the shadow of the previous USSR regime, and he took the question very much in stride and expressed "As long as Putin and his "friends" are making money...we can say whatever we want". So...he and his fellow countrymen know that Putin is making money illegally, but if it means a bit more freedom for the citizens...it's a deal they can handle.
Obviously that equation has changed and I've been unable to get in touch with him to understand how he and his friends are assessing the current situation. Given their pragmatism before...I'm sure that they understand exactly what's going on with this invasion. St. Petersburg was much more modern and European than what I was expecting. It's of no surprise that they are protesting the Ukraine invasion.
That Times photo of the murdered girls crumpled on the pavement did it for me. NATO you have my permission to begin war. Anything less is an abdication of our humanity. I'm prepared to take the consequences
With regard to the video of the Russian POW that has gone viral--- this may be a violation of Article 13 of the Geneva convention. POWs are not to be used for propaganda purposes. Especially in the pursuit of raising the profile of and empowering Twitter accounts.
"Exit take: Putin’s crackdown smells like… weakness"... or any other Sunday in Russia.
[Sarcasm alert] "Russia officially blocked Facebook and restricted Twitter. That’s a bad sign for global democracy." Ironic seeing how bad Facebook and Twitter are bad for democracy elsewhere. [End sarcasm alert]
“Putin and The Nuclear Endgame”, written by Stephen Peter Rosen, is perhaps the most timely, sobering, and significant article published by the Bulwark to date. This is not intended to diminish any other articles published by the Bulwark, which is excellent. But Mr. Rosen’s article is extraordinary because, well, we live in interesting times.
I'm not sure why Zelensky prioritizes a no-fly zone since (a) the Russian air force has not been particularly effective to date, and (b) NATO jets presumably would not provide aggressive air support for Ukrainian ground troops, but could potentially get into a shooting war with Russia, with dangerously unpredictable results. They might even be a hazard to Ukrainian aircraft, or deny air space to Ukraine altogether - in which case the latter would still be prey to indiscriminate Russian shelling.
Perhaps it's just more Zelensky PR, at which he has obviously been a one man armored division. But it would surely be in his interest to have the greater freedom of action that donated jets would provide.
When Mother Pence sent Mike out to castigate those naughty Putin rooters (read apologists), she neglected to remind her dear bible toting hubby that he, along with just about every outspoken spineless member of the GOP caucus were guilty of that very same sin. Yep, from Moscow Mitch on down, cabinet members to lowly Rep's, even presidential aides. By golly, Trump had them all nodding their lying heads, or running for the elevators, when reporters approached, when it came to questions about that "great leader Putin'" Why Pompus Pompeo practically wets himself when he talks about him, and he's a West Point alum. They must be so proud, his fellow U.S Army veterans.
re: the Russian POW, it is really hard to separate out propaganda from truth. (Not that propaganda can't be true, to add another frustrating layer.) for me that video falls under the "If it looks too good to be true then it probably isn't"
Following BBC, I did see these encouraging stories, (Sorry no links) The US is working out a deal with Poland where they get US made Jets and they send their soviet era planes to Ukraine. Of course for this to work Western Ukraine needs to be made safe. to give a base for these planes to fly out of. The other thing was about Ukraine's strategic plans basically were 2 pronged one defend the major cities and 2 harass the Russians out in the country., most specifically avoid the tanks and go after soft targets like big slow burnable truck tankers full of fuel. As I remember the point made was a tank out of fuel was no longer a tank but a road block.
I've heard it from none other than JVL that soon bulwark plus members will be spared the sponsorship segments.
I will say I feel compelled to gently chide the bulwark staff for not giving us a heads up that they would we're going to begin monetizing through sponsorship
I was disappointed in your and Tim's cynical take (during Friday podcast) on Republicans using the war to bludgeon Biden if "Russia wins". First, Russia will never win. I'm sure you watched that incredibly inspiring speech/interview with the captured Russian soldier that you posted. He understands it as well as you should. This conflict will never be over until Ukraine is restored as an independent nation. Any Republicans declaring Russian victory will merely prove themselves to be traitorous, pro-Putin trash.
Also, if the unthinkable happens and Zelensky is killed, it would not spell the end of Ukraine any more than Lincoln's assassination spelled the end of the United States. It would inarguably be a dark day for the world, but liberal democracies are built on laws - not men. Ukraine will live on.
And lastly, I feel like this is a case where a significant number of Republicans are actually operating in good faith. Biden has a blank check to do whatever is necessary sanctions-wise to secure a victory here. Whatever happens in the midterms, this seems like a good opportunity to build a coalition of serious adults that could later be leveraged to fend off the Trump clowns and the childish shenanigans that they have planned for the next term.
Ukraine won't survive this one because it's not the war the West's public and leadership seems to think it is -- a contest between nations or peoples.
It is a war to crush and eliminate Ukraine as an idea, and from all the evidence we can see (facts on the ground, instances of defiant heroism notwithstanding) -- it's proceeding on schedule and according to plan. The Ukrainian resistance has heroes. But Putin has what trumps heroism -- all the divisions he needs, the means to supply them, and all the time required to deploy them to victory because no none outside can dare intervene.
Putin has driven out now what, almost two million refugees? And more to follow. This will tax the West's ability to absorb them and its time and attention. This only makes Stalin/ --I mean Putin's work easier.
Next step will be a new "de-kulakization." Here Putin has tools available that Stalin did not. Ukraine is a modernized, electrified, urbanized nation. Putin can control electricity, water, and food. Stalin showed how to destroy a population -- starve it. Putin can also freeze it and dehouse it.
It will be some weeks or even months yet, but as Russia's military occupies each additional area, and the death squads go through and exterminate all leadership, the surviving population will not be allowed to eat until it capitulates and acquiesces...
if you want a ration card... or fuel... or your job... or permission to inhabit your dwelling place ... you will need to accuse friends and neighbors of being resisters. The point is not actually so much finding out those in whom the flame of opposition still flickers as it is breaking the belief in one another which is the essential feature of a community. Once you get everybody turning everybody else in to the secret police, they are broken.
That's the goal and the plan. Which is why Putin isn't really worried about the consequences of the brutality any more than someone setting out to hike the AT l is deterred by rain or mud or bears. If you are doing the hike, you do it.
The only way this "miscalculation" can be a miscalculation that creates a Ukraine that cannot be broken is if Putin makes the mistakes the West always makes -- which is to shrink back from doing all the evil in its power.
Why does he "hide" it from the Russian people? I don't see it as weakness to pass laws imprisoning people who report that the sky is blue when the official line is it's green any more than it is weakness in Republicans to insist that the election was stolen. It's the same strategy -- conform or die. The very fact of its falsehood makes acquiescence into complicity.
Far from being a sign of weakness -- it's a measure of how complete his actual power is.
Putin, unlike Americans, knows that history is not an arc bending toward justice. It's made by those strong and ruthless enough to exceed even the furthest limits of indecency and monstrousness.
It wasn't moral outrage that defeated Hitler. It was Stalin.
Sorry about the pessimism. But we've seen this before, and it works. Not sure there is a feasible strategy even to impede it, much less defeat it.
I am not sure about a disconnect with reality... it is to be hoped I am wrong about the future I foresee; but Putin's objective, and the means he is at this very moment using to attain it, seem to me as real as a punch in the nose.
And the consequent no-limits ruthlessness that will be required to secure victory against the ensuing resistance almost has to follow the formulae employed by empire after empire-- including the Russian empire in the twentieth century in Ukraine itself, and the new Russian empire's behavior since in places like Chechnya.
Certes I've come to a much darker view of reality than I had a month ago. Reality isn't what it used to be, and not for the better. Maybe I've been reading too much about Genghis Kahn, Caesar in Gaul, Suetonius, Procopius... but Putin looks to me a modern Cato in determination: Ukraine delenda est.
Putin is serious, which (I assume) not even Truth Socialists doubt -- and gives every indication of willingness to push to the brink of nuclear war rather than fail. Maybe it's bluster but not all bluster is mere pretense. Terrorists do also actually kill their hostages. I see no evidence Putin is anything less than an obsessive imperialist megalomaniac who may be running out of time personally and in any event has run out of patience with subtlety.
Maybe he was surprised, and even a bit taken aback, by the immediacy and intensity of current Western disapprobation, but in any case he was obviously angry enough about being thwarted hitherto that he decided he just didn't ultimately give a damn. Maybe he has overrerached and ends like MacBeth-- lay on, MacDuff, and cursed be he who first cries hold, enough... or maybe the MacDuffs are the ones who get painted on a pole.
If one assumes that Ukrainians today really are minded to resist, then Putin's only hope is to literally obliterate them as even the idea of a people or nation other than as a helot population within the Russian empire. And if they capitulate sooner rather than later -- well, maybe the same outcome, except with less destruction of property.
I think we are fooling ourselves to imagine that Putin's revanchist nightmare dream stops anywhere short of the point where Ukrainian resistance vanishes--by whatever means necessary. It isn't going to happen through persuasion.
I commend to all the article "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“ by Vladimir Putin himself which should be read in the context of what he is doing today in Ukraine. From its premises there is pretty much no action Russia could take that could not be justified as self-defense.
"...But the fact is that the situation in Ukraine today... involves a forced change of identity. And the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us."
You really should read the whole thing. In much of it there is only the thinnest pretense of self-control stretched taught over a surging ethnic rage. (The characterization of the Odessa fire in 2014 is a pretty good instance.) Most chilling to me is the final sentence: " And what Ukraine will be – it is up to its citizens to decide." Stripped from context it seems anodyne. But taken with the article as a whole, it means: The real Ukrainians are the Russian Ukrainians.
In fact, the first sentences of that same paragraph read, "Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways."
Whether objective reality turns into Putin's reality remains to be seen, but the odds against it don't look good. In any case the "reality" we are trying to comfort ourselves with in the West is completely discordant with Putin's. And because Putin's power, motivations, and perception of the world are themselves real world realities, our comforting version is also discordant with objective fact.
Sun Tzu famously wrote:
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
I'm not sure about the first sentence always being true. But the last one does have the odor of universality about it.
A bit hyperbolic as reconstruction did continue during the Grant presidency. It was the election fiasco after Grant’s two terms that ended reconstruction.
Listening to your Tuesday interview with Kim Wehle, I was shocked to hear her say that she had to teach basic critical thinking skills to third-year law students. I taught college-level philosophy for over 30 years, and saw a steady decline of such skills in my students. The Trump phenomenon has demonstrated to us that critical thinking skills in the general population are also not so well developed. But the fact that students can somehow reach their final year of law school and still be innocent of how to collect facts, appraise evidence, and engage in fundamental critical thinking skills absolutely stuns and frightens me.
https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1498692916511924232?s=20
Where cultures of honor and cultures of law coexist -- they don't.
I have to admit I'm almost speechless at people who are fine with the idea that we should risk a shooting war with Russia by instituting a no fly zone. Should we continue supplying weapons and humanitarian aid? Of course. Fighter planes for Ukrainian pilots? Yes. But am I willing to risk a nuclear exchange and possibly a full nuclear war with Russia that could result in millions of American deaths along with decimated cities? No, I am not. These things can escalate very quickly; and we need to be very careful here. The people calling for a no fly zone and NATO boots on the ground have to be aware what the butcher's bill will be if Putin lets the nukes fly. And this is a very real possibility.
Well...I get your opinion and most of the time...that's where I lean as well. At the same time....could we say that Putin is counting on everyone being so afraid of WW3 that we allow him to do what he wants with Ukraine? At what point is it not ok and we step in?
I made the point last week too...that the longer we wait...the more the situation is worse and harder to extricate him out of Ukraine.
Perhaps you're right and we'll find out that there are means to depose of leaders without going to war. If Russia can't trade with anyone and is made to be a real pariah...perhaps the Russian people will take of this themselves. Of course...that's a pretty dicey prospect as well...if Putin feels cornered by his own people.
Is Putin a rational actor? That certainly seems debatable at this point.
The photo of the St. Petersburg protestors reminded me of my visit there in March 2020...right before everything shut down due to Covid. I asked my host, a 60+ year old citizen of Russia, about whether he felt that he could share his feelings about the government of Russia. Of course, my question was alluding to the shadow of the previous USSR regime, and he took the question very much in stride and expressed "As long as Putin and his "friends" are making money...we can say whatever we want". So...he and his fellow countrymen know that Putin is making money illegally, but if it means a bit more freedom for the citizens...it's a deal they can handle.
Obviously that equation has changed and I've been unable to get in touch with him to understand how he and his friends are assessing the current situation. Given their pragmatism before...I'm sure that they understand exactly what's going on with this invasion. St. Petersburg was much more modern and European than what I was expecting. It's of no surprise that they are protesting the Ukraine invasion.
That Times photo of the murdered girls crumpled on the pavement did it for me. NATO you have my permission to begin war. Anything less is an abdication of our humanity. I'm prepared to take the consequences
With regard to the video of the Russian POW that has gone viral--- this may be a violation of Article 13 of the Geneva convention. POWs are not to be used for propaganda purposes. Especially in the pursuit of raising the profile of and empowering Twitter accounts.
"Exit take: Putin’s crackdown smells like… weakness"... or any other Sunday in Russia.
[Sarcasm alert] "Russia officially blocked Facebook and restricted Twitter. That’s a bad sign for global democracy." Ironic seeing how bad Facebook and Twitter are bad for democracy elsewhere. [End sarcasm alert]
“Putin and The Nuclear Endgame”, written by Stephen Peter Rosen, is perhaps the most timely, sobering, and significant article published by the Bulwark to date. This is not intended to diminish any other articles published by the Bulwark, which is excellent. But Mr. Rosen’s article is extraordinary because, well, we live in interesting times.
I'm not sure why Zelensky prioritizes a no-fly zone since (a) the Russian air force has not been particularly effective to date, and (b) NATO jets presumably would not provide aggressive air support for Ukrainian ground troops, but could potentially get into a shooting war with Russia, with dangerously unpredictable results. They might even be a hazard to Ukrainian aircraft, or deny air space to Ukraine altogether - in which case the latter would still be prey to indiscriminate Russian shelling.
Perhaps it's just more Zelensky PR, at which he has obviously been a one man armored division. But it would surely be in his interest to have the greater freedom of action that donated jets would provide.
As for the Putin Lobby here and abroad, they'll be back. Because, as David French observed in his latest piece, there will always be Putins. https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/on-the-enduring-power-of-malevolent?r=3xp1p&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Could be that Zelenskyy's plea for a No-Fly Zone was actually done to get fighter jets for his people to use as a trade-off.
When Mother Pence sent Mike out to castigate those naughty Putin rooters (read apologists), she neglected to remind her dear bible toting hubby that he, along with just about every outspoken spineless member of the GOP caucus were guilty of that very same sin. Yep, from Moscow Mitch on down, cabinet members to lowly Rep's, even presidential aides. By golly, Trump had them all nodding their lying heads, or running for the elevators, when reporters approached, when it came to questions about that "great leader Putin'" Why Pompus Pompeo practically wets himself when he talks about him, and he's a West Point alum. They must be so proud, his fellow U.S Army veterans.
re: the Russian POW, it is really hard to separate out propaganda from truth. (Not that propaganda can't be true, to add another frustrating layer.) for me that video falls under the "If it looks too good to be true then it probably isn't"
Following BBC, I did see these encouraging stories, (Sorry no links) The US is working out a deal with Poland where they get US made Jets and they send their soviet era planes to Ukraine. Of course for this to work Western Ukraine needs to be made safe. to give a base for these planes to fly out of. The other thing was about Ukraine's strategic plans basically were 2 pronged one defend the major cities and 2 harass the Russians out in the country., most specifically avoid the tanks and go after soft targets like big slow burnable truck tankers full of fuel. As I remember the point made was a tank out of fuel was no longer a tank but a road block.
If ya'll must run ads on the pods, do what you have to do, but is there any chance we might be spared them on the private feeds?
I've heard it from none other than JVL that soon bulwark plus members will be spared the sponsorship segments.
I will say I feel compelled to gently chide the bulwark staff for not giving us a heads up that they would we're going to begin monetizing through sponsorship
I appreciate the info, and I’d say your sourcing is pretty reliable there. Thank you.
RE: Universal Soldier's plea for humanity.
If that guy's a well-rehearsed psy-ops plant, he deserves a special Oscar for this performance.
I was disappointed in your and Tim's cynical take (during Friday podcast) on Republicans using the war to bludgeon Biden if "Russia wins". First, Russia will never win. I'm sure you watched that incredibly inspiring speech/interview with the captured Russian soldier that you posted. He understands it as well as you should. This conflict will never be over until Ukraine is restored as an independent nation. Any Republicans declaring Russian victory will merely prove themselves to be traitorous, pro-Putin trash.
Also, if the unthinkable happens and Zelensky is killed, it would not spell the end of Ukraine any more than Lincoln's assassination spelled the end of the United States. It would inarguably be a dark day for the world, but liberal democracies are built on laws - not men. Ukraine will live on.
And lastly, I feel like this is a case where a significant number of Republicans are actually operating in good faith. Biden has a blank check to do whatever is necessary sanctions-wise to secure a victory here. Whatever happens in the midterms, this seems like a good opportunity to build a coalition of serious adults that could later be leveraged to fend off the Trump clowns and the childish shenanigans that they have planned for the next term.
Ukraine won't survive this one because it's not the war the West's public and leadership seems to think it is -- a contest between nations or peoples.
It is a war to crush and eliminate Ukraine as an idea, and from all the evidence we can see (facts on the ground, instances of defiant heroism notwithstanding) -- it's proceeding on schedule and according to plan. The Ukrainian resistance has heroes. But Putin has what trumps heroism -- all the divisions he needs, the means to supply them, and all the time required to deploy them to victory because no none outside can dare intervene.
Putin has driven out now what, almost two million refugees? And more to follow. This will tax the West's ability to absorb them and its time and attention. This only makes Stalin/ --I mean Putin's work easier.
Next step will be a new "de-kulakization." Here Putin has tools available that Stalin did not. Ukraine is a modernized, electrified, urbanized nation. Putin can control electricity, water, and food. Stalin showed how to destroy a population -- starve it. Putin can also freeze it and dehouse it.
It will be some weeks or even months yet, but as Russia's military occupies each additional area, and the death squads go through and exterminate all leadership, the surviving population will not be allowed to eat until it capitulates and acquiesces...
if you want a ration card... or fuel... or your job... or permission to inhabit your dwelling place ... you will need to accuse friends and neighbors of being resisters. The point is not actually so much finding out those in whom the flame of opposition still flickers as it is breaking the belief in one another which is the essential feature of a community. Once you get everybody turning everybody else in to the secret police, they are broken.
That's the goal and the plan. Which is why Putin isn't really worried about the consequences of the brutality any more than someone setting out to hike the AT l is deterred by rain or mud or bears. If you are doing the hike, you do it.
The only way this "miscalculation" can be a miscalculation that creates a Ukraine that cannot be broken is if Putin makes the mistakes the West always makes -- which is to shrink back from doing all the evil in its power.
Why does he "hide" it from the Russian people? I don't see it as weakness to pass laws imprisoning people who report that the sky is blue when the official line is it's green any more than it is weakness in Republicans to insist that the election was stolen. It's the same strategy -- conform or die. The very fact of its falsehood makes acquiescence into complicity.
Far from being a sign of weakness -- it's a measure of how complete his actual power is.
Putin, unlike Americans, knows that history is not an arc bending toward justice. It's made by those strong and ruthless enough to exceed even the furthest limits of indecency and monstrousness.
It wasn't moral outrage that defeated Hitler. It was Stalin.
Sorry about the pessimism. But we've seen this before, and it works. Not sure there is a feasible strategy even to impede it, much less defeat it.
This post seems extremely disconnected from reality. Are you sure you didn't mean to post this on Truth Social?
I am not sure about a disconnect with reality... it is to be hoped I am wrong about the future I foresee; but Putin's objective, and the means he is at this very moment using to attain it, seem to me as real as a punch in the nose.
And the consequent no-limits ruthlessness that will be required to secure victory against the ensuing resistance almost has to follow the formulae employed by empire after empire-- including the Russian empire in the twentieth century in Ukraine itself, and the new Russian empire's behavior since in places like Chechnya.
Certes I've come to a much darker view of reality than I had a month ago. Reality isn't what it used to be, and not for the better. Maybe I've been reading too much about Genghis Kahn, Caesar in Gaul, Suetonius, Procopius... but Putin looks to me a modern Cato in determination: Ukraine delenda est.
Putin is serious, which (I assume) not even Truth Socialists doubt -- and gives every indication of willingness to push to the brink of nuclear war rather than fail. Maybe it's bluster but not all bluster is mere pretense. Terrorists do also actually kill their hostages. I see no evidence Putin is anything less than an obsessive imperialist megalomaniac who may be running out of time personally and in any event has run out of patience with subtlety.
Maybe he was surprised, and even a bit taken aback, by the immediacy and intensity of current Western disapprobation, but in any case he was obviously angry enough about being thwarted hitherto that he decided he just didn't ultimately give a damn. Maybe he has overrerached and ends like MacBeth-- lay on, MacDuff, and cursed be he who first cries hold, enough... or maybe the MacDuffs are the ones who get painted on a pole.
If one assumes that Ukrainians today really are minded to resist, then Putin's only hope is to literally obliterate them as even the idea of a people or nation other than as a helot population within the Russian empire. And if they capitulate sooner rather than later -- well, maybe the same outcome, except with less destruction of property.
I think we are fooling ourselves to imagine that Putin's revanchist nightmare dream stops anywhere short of the point where Ukrainian resistance vanishes--by whatever means necessary. It isn't going to happen through persuasion.
I commend to all the article "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“ by Vladimir Putin himself which should be read in the context of what he is doing today in Ukraine. From its premises there is pretty much no action Russia could take that could not be justified as self-defense.
"...But the fact is that the situation in Ukraine today... involves a forced change of identity. And the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us."
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
You really should read the whole thing. In much of it there is only the thinnest pretense of self-control stretched taught over a surging ethnic rage. (The characterization of the Odessa fire in 2014 is a pretty good instance.) Most chilling to me is the final sentence: " And what Ukraine will be – it is up to its citizens to decide." Stripped from context it seems anodyne. But taken with the article as a whole, it means: The real Ukrainians are the Russian Ukrainians.
In fact, the first sentences of that same paragraph read, "Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways."
Whether objective reality turns into Putin's reality remains to be seen, but the odds against it don't look good. In any case the "reality" we are trying to comfort ourselves with in the West is completely discordant with Putin's. And because Putin's power, motivations, and perception of the world are themselves real world realities, our comforting version is also discordant with objective fact.
Sun Tzu famously wrote:
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
I'm not sure about the first sentence always being true. But the last one does have the odor of universality about it.
Lincoln's assassination did doom the US as it ended any meaningful Reconstruction
Maybe a better way to say it would have been "any more than the assassinations of 4 presidents spelled the end of the United States."
A bit hyperbolic as reconstruction did continue during the Grant presidency. It was the election fiasco after Grant’s two terms that ended reconstruction.
Johnson kneecapped it and allowed the black codes to come into being.