I’m looking through the commentary on the Russia-Ukraine war and wondering where two clear positions are gradually profiling themselves. And I wonder what determines which one one one leans towards. Generational difference? Absolutely not. Where does one come from? If you’re not from Russia or Ukraine, the opinions go across nations. Left versus right? That doesn’t work either.
I’m afraid the difference lies in what Daniel Kahneman calls fast and slow thinking. There are people who want clarity in seconds. Then it’s clear. Russians bad – everyone else good – we don’t have to think any further. And we can experience a similar euphoria as our grandmothers did at Beatles concerts.
There are people who want clarity in seconds. Then it’s clear. Russians bad – everyone else good
And then there are people capable of analytical thinking and capable of surprising conclusions. By surprising conclusion I mean that after reading their text I know something I didn’t know before.
So it’s not surprising that those I’ve read for their analyses come to very similar conclusions.
I have reminded Sohrab Ahmari here.
Robert Spencer has given space on his site to the excellent Julia Gorin, who writes, among other things. She says, among others:
“Oh yes, the Putin of our imaginations just “messes with” neighbors. He invaded Georgia just because he wanted to, and not because we gave Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili the nod to invade South Ossetia; then Putin up and “took” Crimea, surely not because our Soros-sponsored operatives helped stage a Ukrainian coup against the Moscow-friendly government of Viktor Yanukovych, spurring a Crimean referendum that chose Russia. These events facilely enter the American lexicon as “Russian aggression,” such that right now Putin is about to “invade Ukraine” just because and not because we’ve been amping up Ukraine’s war preparations, practically buzzing Russian planes, or going on fly-alongs with trespassing British ships (see the HMS “Defender” incident). That’s without mentioning our performing military exercises on Putin’s borders, stoking his neighbors’ alienation of him, or liquidating nearby Yugoslavia, where America’s second-largest from-scratch military base promptly went up…”
That’s without mentioning our performing military exercises on Putin’s borders, stoking his neighbors’ alienation of him, or liquidating nearby Yugoslavia…
Brilliant Curtis Yarvin wrotes on his blog:
“A foreign policy conducted solely in the interest of Americans would not involve intervening in a civil war against a nuclear power on the banks of the Dnieper, for the reason that there is absolutely no resource of interest to Americans, on the banks of the Dnieper, which could outweigh the risk of a global thermonuclear war.
For instance, suppose we needed amber to power our fusion reactors, and amber was only found on the Dnieper. Then, NATO control of Ukraine’s rich amber mines would be of course imperative. But this is not the case. Can we find another realist motive?”
…there is absolutely no resource of interest to Americans, on the banks of the Dnieper, which could outweigh the risk of a global thermonuclear war.
On Unherd you can read Arta Moeni.
“Some might say the foreign policy hawks have not learned from their catastrophic regime-change wars in the Middle East. But they have. They learned the importance of narrative control and information warfare targeting domestic audiences: consolidating the media, tightening their hold on information, marginalising the few investigative journalists that remain, and nullifying scepticism as examples of appeasement or Putinism. Undoubtedly, the situation seriously endangers civil liberties and freedom of thought in the Anglosphere, undermining the very foundation of Western democracy.”
A samozřejmě nemůže chybět Ann Coulter:
“Unlike the experts and journalists whose deep study has led them to a sophisticated take on Russia (that flips back and forth with the politics of the moment), my position on Russia has been as unchanged as the Rock of Gibraltar, at least since the end of the Cold War. Coincidentally, it is exactly the same as my position on Taiwan, Haiti, Uganda and North Korea.
It is this: Tens of millions of illegals are pouring across our border and must be stopped.”
And that the West should mind its own business instead of constantly trying to attack Russia…
Everyone realizes that it is foolish to escalate the war. That bad American policy bears at least some of the blame. And that the West should mind its own business instead of constantly trying to attack Russia.
Why does everyone agree? Are they agents of Putin? The real explanation is that we all use our brains in the same way, so if we start from the same facts, we come to similar conclusions.
