"Sick to my stomach" part 2

I talked with Debbie last night. We chatted about inconsequential stuff for a while, and then she asked, "Do you want to talk about that Russian blog?" Yeah, sure, let's do that.

She said she had read "the whole thing," which she cannot have meant literally because it covers six years. Maybe she meant the whole first page, or at any rate the first couple of posts. She said the general description of how people were reacting to the current economic sanctions sounded believable to her. But then she said the part that upset her so much was that the author was "repeating all the propaganda" issued by the Russian government. I suggested that how you react to something depends on what you know about it; so if the only information you have is what is published by the state news media, you are going to believe that the official propaganda is right. She agreed with that part, but then pointed me to some other news sources she had found on the Internet: one was an interview with a man named Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch and political enemy of President Putin currently living in exile in London; and the other was a series of videos by a Russian YouTuber named Elina Bakunova, who goes by "Eli from Russia" and posts videos about Russian life and culture. Khodorkovsky said that Putin is crazy and has miscalculated, that he is an enemy of humanity, and that he won't be in power much longer. Eli was careful not to express any political opinions, but did mention that her income has been completely cut off because she can no longer receive payments from YouTube inside Russia. We talked a little bit longer and then wound down. She's not upset any more, which is the most important part from my point of view.

Of course I didn't argue with her. I had no desire to argue, and I was interested to watch the videos she showed me. But what do I think is the truth about what is really going on? There, honestly, I still have to say that I don't really know. I'm not physically on-site in Ukraine; I'm not seeing the events with my own eyes. Even if I were, I might be mistaken or mislead about what I was really seeing. And since, in reality, I sit thousands of miles away across a wide ocean -- there's no way I can really know. 

Are there atrocities? Probably. There are usually atrocities in wartime. Who's committing them? Probably both sides, at least if the recorded history of human warfare is anything to go by. Who's winning? We won't know that until we get peace, and see who comes out ahead in the settlement.

Is there anything I can say for sure? Only a little. There are stories that Putin is crazy or stupid. Of course these are the kinds of stories that we always tell about our adversaries, so there's nothing strange about that. But I find them implausible. The man has ruled Russia more or less continuously since 2000, more than twenty years. Stupid people and crazy people mostly don't see that kind of long-term success.* Naturally it's always possible for someone to wear out, or to be fed false information by flatterers. But on the whole I expect that someone who has survived in power this long has learned how to avoid flatterers, and has controlled his appetites enough to keep from going to seed. Therefore I think it is most likely that Putin is still sane and clear-headed.

That says nothing about whether the Russian troops are winning or losing, but it does suggest that they were not destined to lose, that the invasion was not an obvious strategic mistake.

But what about all the news we are hearing from the front? What about the videos? And what about the things Khodorkovsky tells us? He used to live there, after all. He was deeply engaged with the Russian ruling class. Surely he knows what he's talking about.

Yes, no doubt Khodorkovsky knows way more than most of us do, but he's hardly an unbiased source. He is avowedly an enemy of Putin. That doesn't mean his information is false (though it might be); but at the very least it means his information is likely to be one-sided and not the whole picture. As for the Western news media, the intercepted messages, the videos, and all the rest ... well that's an impressive amount of reporting, to be sure. And of course it might be true. But I remember back in the early 2000's, when there was an equally impressive amount of information out there to suggest that Saddam Hussein was harboring "weapons of mass destruction" which (we were told) he might use at any moment against Iraq's neighbors and enemies. But that conclusion turned out not to be true. Is it different this time? I have no way to know.**

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* And yes, there might be exceptions. Otto von Bismarck is alleged to have said once, "There is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America."

** Perhaps I had better emphasize that when I say "I don't know," I mean exactly that. After the war is all over, if it turns out that everything we've been told was true all along, that will be fine with me. I have no dog in this fight.