Walt lectures us on “dispassionate” analysis — maybe he should learn to think

November 29, 2022 God help me, there's another diatribe by Stephen Walt in his house outlet, Foreign Policy, and it's as bad as one has come to expect. This time, the old wine of nonsense he peddles with Mearsheimer & Co. is packaged in a new bottle -- a call for dispassionate analysis. The problem …

The Pope goes full racist: on the whitewashing of collective guilt

November 29, 2022 The Pope's responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine have been generally OK-ish, if a bit confusing. But this response to a straight question asking him to explain why is a sight to behold: Let's start with the highlighted portion, which singles out Buddhist Buryatya and Muslim Chechnya for being "the cruelest" …

Foreign Affairs in Wonderland: Stanovaya and imaginary “peacemakers”

November 24, 2022 Each Ukrainian success on the battlefield is followed by two things: a ferocious terrorist attack on civilian infrastructure by Russia, and a slew of articles preaching capitulating to Putin in the West. This time, it's in Foreign Affairs, and is a fantasy short-story penned by Tatiana Stanovaya. Let me begin by summarizing …

Peak dishonesty: Mearsheimer in The New Yorker

November 18, 2022 The Kremlin Posse is out in force: first it was vanden Heuvel, then Walt, and now, of course, Mearsheimer, this time in an interview for The New Yorker. All peddling the same story, which is not surprising -- they are three people but it's the same circle jerk that's been peddling anti-Americanism …

It does not matter what happens, Putin must be given a slice of Ukraine: Walt in FP

November 17, 2022 It really does not matter what happens in this war, Walt and his ilk just want Putin to have Ukraine. The Russians invade (see? we told you! NATO is to blame), Russia captures nearly a third of Ukraine (Kyiv in 3 days, let Putin have it!), Russia stalls (don't help Ukraine, we …

Another abominable Putin-verstehener: vanden Heuvel in the WaPo

November 15, 2022 Another abominable screed by a Putin-verstehener who's been peddling Kremlin propaganda since the start of the war. Why is WaPo publishing this drivel, I do not know, but I do know that they have TWICE now rejected my submissions for the alternative view of what needs to be done. Quick summary of …

Countering the Russian narratives

November 13, 2022 With the liberation of Kherson now a fact, it is time to ask what might be happening next. While many expect the coming winter to create a lull in the fighting, I do not believe it will -- the weather might slow down operations, but they will certainly continue, and that's because …

Russia announces withdrawal from Kherson

November 10, 2022 Yesterday, the Russian Ministry of Defense staged a bit of performance theater when the commander of the VSRF in Ukraine, General Surovikin, reported to Defense Minister Shoigu -- on live TV -- that military necessity compels the Russian forces to withdraw from the right bank of the Dnipro River; that is, abandon …

Realism without reality: Kupchan in the NYT

November 3, 2022 Another day, and another shoddy analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian War, with appropriately counter-productive policy prescriptions: this time by Charles Kupchan in the New York Times. As usual, I will note problems with logic and evidence in specific parts of the argument. "The war in Ukraine is dangerously escalating." This is the opening …

When analogies go to war: Lieven on “the West” misreading the Russo-Ukrainian War

November 2, 2022 It has been a while since I wrote a response to a polemic about the war in Ukraine, but this one caught my eye. It's an article by Anatol Lieven published a few days ago in Foreign Policy. In it, the author advances the thesis that the correct analogy for the war …