Hawks and Risks

There are strong arguments against Washington’s current official policy.

There have always been strong arguments for ending Washington’s official policy of opposing diplomacy regarding the war in Ukraine. I think that it’s accurate to say that Washington has been “blocking” or “impeding” or “opposing” diplomacy—the term “blocking” is obviously strong, but the point is that people should read my 2 June 2022 interview with Anatol Lieven in order to see where I’m coming from in making that assertion.

Morality and Self-Interest

There are clear reasons why Washington hawks love this war’s consequences and want to prolong it. First, this war is bleeding a US enemy—the hawks like to take opportunities to weaken adversaries. Second, this war is entrenching Washington’s control over Europe—however, it’s not like everything is necessarily destined to go the hawks’ way geopolitically.

There are also clear reasons why opposing diplomacy is a disaster in terms of morality and self-interest—there are all sorts of harms and risks associated with the war.

Morally speaking, it’s immoral to: (1) gamble with innocent Ukrainian lives; (2) gamble with Ukraine’s economy; (3) gamble with Ukraine’s infrastructure; and (4) gamble with Ukraine’s fragile environment.

And morally speaking, it’s immoral to gamble with the lives of innocent people all over the world—there’s a 15 September 2022 ABC piece that refers to “70 million pushed closer to starvation by the war in Ukraine”, which is an enormous number of people.

But there’s also moral argumentation that overlaps with self-interest—the most self-interested person on the planet doesn’t want to roll the dice when it comes to nuclear conflict that might escalate to terminal nuclear war.

The most self-interested person also understands that the war is harming efforts to decarbonize and save us all—we can’t afford that in 2022 if we want to protect ourselves and our families and our property from the looming cataclysm.

And the most self-interested person recognizes that there’s simply no room for conflict at this point in human history as global heating bears down on us—we need urgent cooperation if we want to survive our current situation.

Chomsky’s New Piece

Noam Chomsky has a 22 September 2022 piece where he says the the following:

General Austin and other U.S. officials have held that Ukraine can drive Russia out of all of Ukraine, presumably including Crimea. Suppose the prospect arises.

Then follows the crucial question: Will Putin pack up his bags and slink away silently to obscurity or worse? Or will he use the conventional weapons that all agree he has to escalate the attack on Ukraine? The U.S. is gambling on the former but is not unaware of the nature of this gamble with the lives of Ukrainians, and well beyond.

The issue is the gamble—obviously it’s possible that Putin will “pack up his bags and slink away silently” if you oppose diplomacy, but there’s no guarantee that something horrifying won’t happen.

And it’s not clear how long you’ll have to drag out the war—with “all of its tragic consequences”—in order to drive Russia out. The longer the war goes, the more damage is done in all sorts of domains.

Chomsky cites a 17 September 2022 NYT piece that says that Putin’s restraint has left Western officials baffled—he also cites a 7 September 2022 WaPo piece that quotes warnings from the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi about dangerous opportunities that Putin has to escalate the war.

One danger is limited nuclear war—we all know that “the escalation ladder from limited to terminal nuclear war is all too easy to climb”.

Chomsky says the following:

To put it simply, the U.S. position that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia, blocking negotiations, is based on a quite remarkable assumption: that facing defeat, Putin will pack his bags and slink away to a bitter fate. He will not do what he easily can: strike across Ukraine with impunity using Russia’s conventional weapons, destroying critical infrastructure and Ukrainian government buildings, attacking the supply hubs outside Ukraine, moving on to sophisticated cyberattacks against Ukrainian targets. All of this is easily within Russia’s conventional capacity, as the U.S. government and the Ukrainian military command acknowledge—with the possibility of escalation to nuclear war in the not remote background.

Putin has various weapons at his disposal—the issue again is the gamble, since it’s obviously possible that Putin will decline to use these weapons.

And Chomsky also cites a 22 March 2022 Newsweek piece that discusses Putin’s restraint.

Lieven’s New Piece

Anatol Lieven has a 22 September 2022 piece where he says that “Russia may now be ready for negotiations, as long as they achieve at least some of the Kremlin’s initial goals”.

It’s “truly dangerous” that Putin’s mobilization “was announced in tandem with Putin’s endorsement of planned votes in Donbas and other Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine over whether those regions will join the Russian federation”—if “these areas are annexed by Russia, this will make any peace settlement in Ukraine much more difficult for a long time to come”.

And if “on the other hand Ukraine looked as if it was going to reconquer these territories, then nuclear war would become a real possibility”—there’s a risk of Russia using nuclear weapons to defend Crimea from reconquest, so the same risk presumably applies if Russia annexes Kherson and the Donbas.

The “window of opportunity for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine is therefore narrowing fast”. The window does still exist, since Russia might “pocket the ‘results’ of the referendums as bargaining chips for negotiation” without moving to immediate annexation, which would “still leave open the possibility of peace talks”—we “do not know how long this possibility will exist, but given that time may be extremely short, Washington would be wise to urgently explore it”.

We “are now in an escalatory spiral with appalling potential dangers for all sides, which it is urgently necessary to break”—any “peace initiative will have to come from the United States”.

So far the Biden administration has said that it’s completely up to Ukraine to pursue peace negotiations—this position is “both politically and morally wrong”.

America is “very nearly a co-belligerent in this war”; American citizens have faced “serious economic loss” and “grave risks” due to US military involvement and US-led anti-Russia sanctions; the “impact on Washington’s allies in Europe and on the world economy has been even worse, threatening key Western partners with food shortages and internal revolt”; and “America could face the possibility of annihilation in nuclear war”.

In “these circumstances, to say that the United States has no right to engage in negotiations and put forward its own proposals for peace is an abdication of the Biden administration’s moral and constitutional responsibility to the American people”.

And “the involvement of third parties in brokering peace settlements and proposing their terms is entirely legitimate in terms of international tradition and America’s own past policies elsewhere”.

Diplomacy means that “both sides abandon preconditions for talks that are completely unacceptable to the other side”—a “good starting point for talks could be the proposals made by the Ukrainian government itself back in March, which met Russian demands on certain key issues including neutrality”. The “fact that Putin explicitly and favorably cited Ukraine’s peace proposal in his speech announcing Russia’s partial mobilization may offer a glimmer of hope for diplomacy”.

If “the Biden administration does not explore this potential chance of peace, the consequences of a continued escalatory spiral could be disastrous for all concerned”—to “seek peace and break the present escalatory spiral is in the interests of Ukraine itself, as well as those of America and the world”.