Tim - interesting as always. You may want to find out a little more about a fine group of young Ukrainian communicators, the Ukrainian PR Army, who are campaigning specifically on the issue of forcible deportations, highlighting precisely the issue you are. While there is general awareness that it is happening, its scale and significance as emblematic of Russia's overall approach, is underplayed. They believe the issue needs to be much higher on the radar of the international community as one of the reasons to sustain international support for Ukraine but also that the return of these stolen people needs to be a condition for the conflict ending. It is already one of the 10 points that Zelensky made in his G7 speech. The PR Army's campaign is called 'Where are our people?' and although it is still in its early stages it is already gaining attention.
3 million women and children kidnapped. Their cities reduced to ruble. The men killed. I spoke with a Bosnian immigrant yesterday. We spoke about Ukraine and her war, and this war. There was no loved lost discussing Russians and Putin. I am wondering if and how Russians helped influence the Serbs in that war and that genocide. Since the scope is greater than even WW2 in forced deportations of an occupied country by another, it leads me to ask, “Are we doing enough to stop it?”Earlier in the week I had a conversation with an American women who really believed the conspiracy theory that the US had ‘24’ bio weapons labs in Ukraine, which is false and crazy town. It is disconcerting that the horrible truths have to compete with such nonsense of propaganda and conspiracy nonsense. In this way I see the first battle is for truth. The lies only prolong the war. For me, the war doesn’t end until all those Ukrainians are brought home to rebuilt ones, and the border guarded by NATO.
I shuddered slightly when I read Professor Snyder's words, " An anxiety Putin shares with his far-right admirers is that of demography: soon there will not be enough of us, and there will be too many of them." I couldn't help but think of the fascists in our country, and yes, I'll use that word, who fervently espouse the 'great replacement theory'. Tragically, Putin has allies and enablers, who for their own reasons, embrace and promote this anxiety. It seems, although I'm no expert, that a majority of Russians at least tacitly accept this view, but for how long?
Demographic insecurity...fear of being “replaced” or simply “overshadowed”. But this does not answer the fundamental question of what being Russian means. As you know, but most Americans are completely unaware of, the idea of “Rus” dates back to Kievan Rus, but ethnically the first Rus came from the north from Scandinavian and Baltic regions as I recall my first course in Russian History with Marvin Entner nearly 35 years ago. But what we normally think of “Russia” really comes from Muscovy which emerged hundreds of years after Kiev/Kyiv, and only then with the Romanov dynasty starting in 1619, a geographically smaller and more “ethnically homogenous” until empire extended mostly east and south. Under the Tsars Russia was a feudal, agrarian society and economy up to and including WW I. The Soviet’s did not do much better.
With all that as background, an inherently Russian trait is insecurity about being Russian, as a society, as an economic power, and as a military power, and wanting to forget its own “backwardness” up to 100 years ago relative to what it deems are its neighbors and those it considers rivals. Every accusation made by Putin is projection and a confession. State TV as followed by Julia Davis is so over the top is trying to hide its insecurity that it screams insecurity (see the New Year clips as a prime example).
Thanks for pointing our this matter of security and insecurity. In foreign relations and in diplomatic exchanges, security and insecurity are mentioned and argued over repeatedly, to the extent, in fact, that it is a wonder that it keeps coming up, rather than being productively addressed. Is it so elusive a condition of relations that collectively arriving at a working definition of it and of its living form (how we do it together, how it is continuously reworked and renewed together) cannot be done?
I realize that this matter has many shades of meaning and understanding; I hope I've understood you.
My sense is that, whether or not it was achievable in the past, it is a mutual choice that can be made a real condition of a socially and conceptually pluralist world. To me, mutual security is achieved by collective process, i.e., it is doing; it is not a something that becomes some manner of static reality of intention, or reality of legislation or agreement. That is my view based on experience as a member of a family, a team, one working group in the context of many involved in a public interest action,...
Your comments and those of Prof Snyder's ("...Ukrainian self-understanding is spread wide and deep through the population of Ukraine, to the point where people take initiative themselves to help their country win the war. In this sense, Ukrainian identity is far easier to observe in this war than is Russian identity...." seem to indicate that personal awareness and effective use of personal agency in a society with understandable and shared norms and constituted rules which apply to all are conditions necessary and instrumental to moving toward improved conditions of security. The assumption of and fact of agency for choosing and adequately acting on and maintaining personal security, community security, and relations with others that contribute to each and all sensing collectively understood and maintained security are significant to have and mutually acknowledge.
How do we effectively convey that today so that that acknowledgement becomes very influential in how we relate to and choose to act in all relations with each other?
Powerfully interesting historical perspective on this sort of human behavior is presented in the chapters "The Crisis: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Cuba" and "The Illusionist: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy", in Tony Judt's book Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (Penguin Press, 2008).
Have you a sense of how this matter will inform negotiations on peace and security once the Ukrainians successfully repel the Russian invasion, ending the violence of war and occupation, and in the course of achieving bilateral, or multilateral, international agreement on terms, conditions and enforcement mechanisms for peaceful relations?
This indeed is what is so puzzling. What IT'S 'Russia'? Even before Putin, I wondered what on earth any young Russian was to make of his country's history? What was there that he could grasp, that wasn't covered in blood? And Putin hardly solves that problem. He glorifies Stalin. But he isn't a Communist. He reveres Lenin, but is certainly no Leninist. He isn't a Czarist either. He is backed by the Church but he is hardly an orthodox ( or Orthodox) Christian. He speaks mystically of 'Russia' but which Russia? Hitler, Mussolini had a national, racial myth to sustain their totalitarian, war-loving regines. But for Putin there seems an emptiness at the heart of it. I wonder if that is why he and his acolytes speak so longingly of the prospect, not of Russia's victory, but it's annihilation?
Peace terms should include the repatriation of every last kidnapped Ukrainian. I hope the big genetic testing companies like 23andMe are prepared to step up and help reunite stolen children with their Ukrainian families
If...Ukrainians must be exterminated, then does it not follow that to exterminate a people, by definition, proves Ukrainians exist? Nothing exists until we give it a name. Even "us" and "not us" still admits there exists a "not us."
If...Russia is sending ethnic "non-Russians," and prisoners to die, unprepared as they are for battle, so as to not risk the lives of "true Russians," at the cost of losing the war, this is internal genocide. And not so bright.
At least the Nazis believed in their racial superiority in action, sending Nazis to fight, while using other Nazis to systematically exterminate Jews, Socialists, Communists, Gays, etc...through other means.
This is Fascism and Folly.
Thank you, truly, Professor Snyder for making sense of non-sense.
Since the war started, I have learnt from my close Ukrainian friend about a woman and a family that left for Russia from a small town near Kupyansk (Kivsharivka). The young woman left when the Ukrainian army started to liberate the region and the Russians offered free transport and accommodation as well as the chance of getting employed in Russia. She was clearly panicking. My friend (whose best friend this woman was) says her friend has never been pro-Russian. Now my friend's boyfriend (a true love story amid all the chaos and destruction) had his teenage son taken to Russia by his ex-wife and her new husband. Apparently, they have family in Russia. This made me think about all the Ukrainians who have been living in Russia for decades. What are their feelings and how are they coping? I know that some of them do not believe their relatives who describe what has been happening in Ukraine. What could be their numbers? Millions or a couple of hundred thousand? Do they constitute a separate group or are they dispersed? I haven't seen this issue treated much in any of the talks or lectures by Professor Snyder or other social historians...
Reading this deeply insightful piece, one is drawn to the notion that what Putin is doing is clothed in terms of "Russian Exceptionalism", whereby Russia is exempt from the rules that bind civilized nations to a moral and ethical mode of behavior. As we in the US rise to condemn Putin's barbarism, we should simultaneously use his example to reflect on our own recent past, on "American Exceptionalism". How can we honestly demand that Putin be brought before the ICJ or a special war crimes tribunal when we as a nation do not recognize the authority of any such organization, and when we ourselves have conducted not one but three wars of aggression since the end of World War II? Are we moral enough to hand over Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama (along with their secretaries of state and defense, among others) to stand trial for the war crimes they committed? I would hope that we are, but realize the chances are vanishingly small.
If the United States is to occupy the moral high ground in the matter of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, it should do whatever is necessary militarily to ensure a Ukrainian victory, while supporting the efforts of other nations, nations accepting the authority of international tribunals, to bring the criminals to justice.
Any “exceptionalism” should be viewed as covering up for some kind of insecurity or means to hide from and not address any kind of unpleasant historical actions that cast a long shadow over any country. Hence, I agree with you on that, Stephen! We in the USA are far from immune from that. For every good thing, there is something awful and terrible that should never have happened. As Kurt Vonnegut opined shortly before his death, to follow American values and process as a democracy, and I paraphrase here, after 90 years you free your slaves, after 150 years give your women the right to vote. And the list went on. We tell ourselves that nobody should be above the law, but we know that is far from true and not acceding to The Hague is a perfect example.
We cannot go back and undo what was done. Nor can any- country, or empire. We have here, in time, come around regarding slavery and women's rights including the vote. So too have other countries moved forward. Progress. We have, after WW2, agreed to universal ideals and international rules, to order, principally about sovereignty and human rights. Should we therefore, by our past and presently recognized guilts, be morally prevented from acting when we are faced with this Russian aggression?This especially when Russia's recalls so much of Nazi Germany, and nothing like that since until now? Should we be immobilized by guilt when Russia ( takes advantage of our guilt and) proceeds with unrelenting destruction, cruelty, death and suffering? If so Putin will rationalize: look back what we did, and say so he can. What then?
Agree we cannot go back and undo what has been done. But we can learn from it, not make the same mistakes, and move forward. For any just cause and to guarantee self determination and human rights and to fight for what is right, past national sins should not cause us to shy away from our current and future duty, and dare I say obligation, to fight against all those who would engage in genocide, to defend the right to self determination, and human rights in general.
Re Paul's first comment: Are you referring to Armageddon in Retrospect? I really need to reread it. As to your and Potter's comments regarding moving on, may I suggest you read Andrew Bacevich, On Shedding an Obsolete Past, which replies much more articulately than I could.
Thank you the references. I have not read either of these but now will add to my reading list. Much appreciate the online discussion. It is refreshing to have these kind of thoughtful exchanges.
First off, in reply to Paul, my recommendation would be to read Man without a Country first. That dovetails well with the Bacevich book.
To Potter, it is difficult for me to summarize, having completed Bacevich's Boston University course on America's Wars in the Middle East on EdX, plus having also read his same titled book together with The Limits of Power and Breach of Trust. My impression is that of a man considerably more nuanced than your comment would imply. If I were to pick a single essay in the current book to represent the thrust of Bacevich's thinking, it would be number 12, Martin Luther King's Giant Triplets, in which the connection between racial injustice, militarism and materialism is reaffirmed. Though these topics are treated as separate and unrelated in our political discourse and in the press, both King and Bacevich saw their underlying unity as indicators of national moral deficiency. To expand on the militarism aspect, our lack of a national strategy or vision has led to ever increasing reliance on military solutions since the end of World War II. It is bad enough that we have a military presence in some 140 nations, that we sell military equipment to repressive regimes, and continue to perform extra-judicial killings via drone strikes around the world, but these activities take place with essentially no public awareness much less debate, and with very little Executive or Congressional oversight. Not only that, but our leaders appear never to have studied the reasons for our disasters in Vietnam, Iraq (2nd war) and Afghanistan. On top of that, the US has failed to come to grips with the tremendous suffering we have caused in those and other countries, a reckoning that would be necessary as a prelude to reconciling with the people we have so grievously harmed. This is what happens when we "forget and move on".
In no comment that I made regarding this issue-about our support militarily and politically for Ukraine- have I been suggesting forgetting. You added the forgetting part. My objection is to being hampered and handicapped by this guilt, especially being laid on at this moment, criticized about acting and "whatabouted" This is exactly what Putin is doing, pointing at us as if he has not been up to this himself for decades ( in Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia Chechnya with more horrific results), and as if we have not looked the other way a lot. I agree totally we pay a price for our misguided wars and some actions in hindsight. Some of these were felt to be necessary (we thought) or even with good intentions, were in concert or welcomed. This was also a product of our divided and changing leadership over the years. Sometimes it was very divided. I agree with Basevich's criticism. But he has no answer about the situation we have now. We can only act or not act in the present. Ukraine is like nothing we have had since WW2 many more agree. Are you saying that this assessment is again mistaken and misguided? We cannot see far into the future clearly enough to know consequences and benefits of acting or not acting in the present and possibly near future. We can see a lot more clearly in hindsight. Even then there are those who will say we should have stayed in Viet Nam and finished the job ( GW Bush).
I have listened to Basevich recently. He lost a son to the Iraq war and he is rightfully against the way we have used our power, military power especially, misused it. He does, though, say that the Russian war on Ukraine needs to be fought. His "but" is that we should be negotiating. We? We have said we will not impose a condition on Ukraine, tell them what to give up. And this is also regarding sovereignty and international order/law. This is serious and about the future. Basevich does not seem to acknowledge that there is no negotiating with Putin at the moment... or maybe never will be. Maybe you will read this by Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier (Foreign Affairs this month ) https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/long-war-ukraine-russia-protracted-conflict?.
Well... first I felt queasy... but then I thought, "this is so great, so important, to break it down this way, simply and easily understood. Step by step."
I'm hoping to go to Ukraine in the Spring to help them rebuild... or at least to volunteer to help alleviate the massive suffering.
The way I see it is, Ukraine is fighting for every democracy on the planet in these fraught and perilous days.
Can you recommend any orgs I can get in touch with to see how I can help when I get there? I'm not highly skilled (I was a just teacher and a tv producer, not a doctor or a builder) but I can hold a paintbrush, or a baby (I'm a grandmother). I need to go... but not sure where to begin to make the arrangements.
Thank you again for this explanation, Dr. Snyder. I understand the situation this much more.🙏🏽
This connects the dots making a strong case at the very least defacto if not stated policy for what is happening. Eugenics puts a label on a lot that adds up to that. Call it what it is. So genocide and eugenics. The exceptionalism and racial superiority and cleansing is blatant. So too the comparison to Nazi Germany must not be brushed away.
How does Ukraine get its women and children back?
I am afraid that with the incoming GOP Congress vital aid will be cut to Ukraine at a time when we need to keep it up.
I just read Roger Cohen's eye-opening report in the NYT from a couple of weeks ago "Putin Finds Allegiance in Africa". about Russia's Wagner mercenaries in the Central African Republic. Russia is well into making it a vassal state, first providing violent protection services and delivering order thereby against rebels and then taking mined resources, including gold and diamonds as well as timber. The country's leaders, pro-Russian, one of the "global south" countries that voted against the UN Resolutions condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine and annexations.
I wish that more people here in America would take heed of Professor Snyder’s warnings. I’ve listened to all of your Yale lectures on Kyiv and Rus from origins to current day. I’ve studied WWII since fourth grade after reading, “The Story of a Young Girl”, now known as “The Diary of Anne Frank. I thought we said, “Never again”. Sadly we are not unified in that regard. Thank you for the education and explanation that you have made available to the public at large.
As Andrew Bacevich has written in his book, On Shedding an Obsolete Past, "Never Again" has come to mean, never again will we be subject to a surprise attack. And, as exemplified by the size of our military budget and our continually expanding international military presence and operations, we remain true to that promise. During the Cold War, the right used any questioning of this behavior to accuse their opponents of being "soft on communism", or unpatriotic, and critics caved in. Feeding the military-industrial complex became so habitual that Cold War military expansionism has continued to this very day, with no thought whatsoever given to either necessity or appropriateness.
Putin argues for "survival of the fittest". But is Russia or any other group really fit without any moral compass? They are really "reversalists", moving backward toward eliminating all human development.
This trend is evident worldwide with those without purpose or identity other than destruction, including US Republicans as evidenced by opposing all "others" and dismissing platforms, policies, public investment in every facility that they and their supporters rely on to survive and prosper. God will eventually turn them all to compost all with their billions of victims.
Putin must not win just like Hitler cannot win. He must be totally and conclusively defeated. Russians must learn their lesson. You cannot support your own government when it has become a monster.
Hi Dr. Snyder (and any of the educated readership here who might know), I am curious, after reading this essay is anyone else comparing not just the actions of Putin and Hitler's regimes (kidnapping Polish and Ukrainian children, respectively, to be inculcated into the new "volk" the dictator wants to strengthen) but the ideology of racial anxiety motivating those actions? It's been a while and my memory may be failing me, but I recall in Brendan Simms' Hitler: A Global Biography, he attributes Hitler's fear of the German so-called master race being weakened and thus out-competed as a driving force behind their abduction of Polish (and other) children who seemed "racially useful," and even a few other drives such as attempts to lure Germans from other countries like the U.S to come back to Germany. Does anyone else think that in both abducting Ukrainians and forcing non-Russians to suffer disproportionately in the war, Putin is being driven by a similar sort of anxiety: The Russian people, despite his stated belief in their cultural-racial superiority, withering away unless revitalized by an influx of "racially healthy blood" in the form of Ukrainian abductees and the ruthless purgation of non-Russian ethnicities?
Tim - interesting as always. You may want to find out a little more about a fine group of young Ukrainian communicators, the Ukrainian PR Army, who are campaigning specifically on the issue of forcible deportations, highlighting precisely the issue you are. While there is general awareness that it is happening, its scale and significance as emblematic of Russia's overall approach, is underplayed. They believe the issue needs to be much higher on the radar of the international community as one of the reasons to sustain international support for Ukraine but also that the return of these stolen people needs to be a condition for the conflict ending. It is already one of the 10 points that Zelensky made in his G7 speech. The PR Army's campaign is called 'Where are our people?' and although it is still in its early stages it is already gaining attention.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/where-are-our-people/
https://deportation.org.ua/
3 million women and children kidnapped. Their cities reduced to ruble. The men killed. I spoke with a Bosnian immigrant yesterday. We spoke about Ukraine and her war, and this war. There was no loved lost discussing Russians and Putin. I am wondering if and how Russians helped influence the Serbs in that war and that genocide. Since the scope is greater than even WW2 in forced deportations of an occupied country by another, it leads me to ask, “Are we doing enough to stop it?”Earlier in the week I had a conversation with an American women who really believed the conspiracy theory that the US had ‘24’ bio weapons labs in Ukraine, which is false and crazy town. It is disconcerting that the horrible truths have to compete with such nonsense of propaganda and conspiracy nonsense. In this way I see the first battle is for truth. The lies only prolong the war. For me, the war doesn’t end until all those Ukrainians are brought home to rebuilt ones, and the border guarded by NATO.
Serbia continues to rattle its swords against Bosnia & Hercegovina. Russia appears to be making sure that Serbia has swords to rattle.
I shuddered slightly when I read Professor Snyder's words, " An anxiety Putin shares with his far-right admirers is that of demography: soon there will not be enough of us, and there will be too many of them." I couldn't help but think of the fascists in our country, and yes, I'll use that word, who fervently espouse the 'great replacement theory'. Tragically, Putin has allies and enablers, who for their own reasons, embrace and promote this anxiety. It seems, although I'm no expert, that a majority of Russians at least tacitly accept this view, but for how long?
There are times when new thinking comes in "out of left field" and might seem a bit too far.
But then you look more closely and see that the "new thinking" is shedding new light on murky ideas. Aha! That makes sense! I'll keep an eye on that.
Thank you, Prof. Snyder, for the serious work you do.
Demographic insecurity...fear of being “replaced” or simply “overshadowed”. But this does not answer the fundamental question of what being Russian means. As you know, but most Americans are completely unaware of, the idea of “Rus” dates back to Kievan Rus, but ethnically the first Rus came from the north from Scandinavian and Baltic regions as I recall my first course in Russian History with Marvin Entner nearly 35 years ago. But what we normally think of “Russia” really comes from Muscovy which emerged hundreds of years after Kiev/Kyiv, and only then with the Romanov dynasty starting in 1619, a geographically smaller and more “ethnically homogenous” until empire extended mostly east and south. Under the Tsars Russia was a feudal, agrarian society and economy up to and including WW I. The Soviet’s did not do much better.
With all that as background, an inherently Russian trait is insecurity about being Russian, as a society, as an economic power, and as a military power, and wanting to forget its own “backwardness” up to 100 years ago relative to what it deems are its neighbors and those it considers rivals. Every accusation made by Putin is projection and a confession. State TV as followed by Julia Davis is so over the top is trying to hide its insecurity that it screams insecurity (see the New Year clips as a prime example).
Thanks for pointing our this matter of security and insecurity. In foreign relations and in diplomatic exchanges, security and insecurity are mentioned and argued over repeatedly, to the extent, in fact, that it is a wonder that it keeps coming up, rather than being productively addressed. Is it so elusive a condition of relations that collectively arriving at a working definition of it and of its living form (how we do it together, how it is continuously reworked and renewed together) cannot be done?
I realize that this matter has many shades of meaning and understanding; I hope I've understood you.
My sense is that, whether or not it was achievable in the past, it is a mutual choice that can be made a real condition of a socially and conceptually pluralist world. To me, mutual security is achieved by collective process, i.e., it is doing; it is not a something that becomes some manner of static reality of intention, or reality of legislation or agreement. That is my view based on experience as a member of a family, a team, one working group in the context of many involved in a public interest action,...
Your comments and those of Prof Snyder's ("...Ukrainian self-understanding is spread wide and deep through the population of Ukraine, to the point where people take initiative themselves to help their country win the war. In this sense, Ukrainian identity is far easier to observe in this war than is Russian identity...." seem to indicate that personal awareness and effective use of personal agency in a society with understandable and shared norms and constituted rules which apply to all are conditions necessary and instrumental to moving toward improved conditions of security. The assumption of and fact of agency for choosing and adequately acting on and maintaining personal security, community security, and relations with others that contribute to each and all sensing collectively understood and maintained security are significant to have and mutually acknowledge.
How do we effectively convey that today so that that acknowledgement becomes very influential in how we relate to and choose to act in all relations with each other?
Powerfully interesting historical perspective on this sort of human behavior is presented in the chapters "The Crisis: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Cuba" and "The Illusionist: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy", in Tony Judt's book Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (Penguin Press, 2008).
Have you a sense of how this matter will inform negotiations on peace and security once the Ukrainians successfully repel the Russian invasion, ending the violence of war and occupation, and in the course of achieving bilateral, or multilateral, international agreement on terms, conditions and enforcement mechanisms for peaceful relations?
This indeed is what is so puzzling. What IT'S 'Russia'? Even before Putin, I wondered what on earth any young Russian was to make of his country's history? What was there that he could grasp, that wasn't covered in blood? And Putin hardly solves that problem. He glorifies Stalin. But he isn't a Communist. He reveres Lenin, but is certainly no Leninist. He isn't a Czarist either. He is backed by the Church but he is hardly an orthodox ( or Orthodox) Christian. He speaks mystically of 'Russia' but which Russia? Hitler, Mussolini had a national, racial myth to sustain their totalitarian, war-loving regines. But for Putin there seems an emptiness at the heart of it. I wonder if that is why he and his acolytes speak so longingly of the prospect, not of Russia's victory, but it's annihilation?
Peace terms should include the repatriation of every last kidnapped Ukrainian. I hope the big genetic testing companies like 23andMe are prepared to step up and help reunite stolen children with their Ukrainian families
If...Ukrainians must be exterminated, then does it not follow that to exterminate a people, by definition, proves Ukrainians exist? Nothing exists until we give it a name. Even "us" and "not us" still admits there exists a "not us."
If...Russia is sending ethnic "non-Russians," and prisoners to die, unprepared as they are for battle, so as to not risk the lives of "true Russians," at the cost of losing the war, this is internal genocide. And not so bright.
At least the Nazis believed in their racial superiority in action, sending Nazis to fight, while using other Nazis to systematically exterminate Jews, Socialists, Communists, Gays, etc...through other means.
This is Fascism and Folly.
Thank you, truly, Professor Snyder for making sense of non-sense.
Since the war started, I have learnt from my close Ukrainian friend about a woman and a family that left for Russia from a small town near Kupyansk (Kivsharivka). The young woman left when the Ukrainian army started to liberate the region and the Russians offered free transport and accommodation as well as the chance of getting employed in Russia. She was clearly panicking. My friend (whose best friend this woman was) says her friend has never been pro-Russian. Now my friend's boyfriend (a true love story amid all the chaos and destruction) had his teenage son taken to Russia by his ex-wife and her new husband. Apparently, they have family in Russia. This made me think about all the Ukrainians who have been living in Russia for decades. What are their feelings and how are they coping? I know that some of them do not believe their relatives who describe what has been happening in Ukraine. What could be their numbers? Millions or a couple of hundred thousand? Do they constitute a separate group or are they dispersed? I haven't seen this issue treated much in any of the talks or lectures by Professor Snyder or other social historians...
Reading this deeply insightful piece, one is drawn to the notion that what Putin is doing is clothed in terms of "Russian Exceptionalism", whereby Russia is exempt from the rules that bind civilized nations to a moral and ethical mode of behavior. As we in the US rise to condemn Putin's barbarism, we should simultaneously use his example to reflect on our own recent past, on "American Exceptionalism". How can we honestly demand that Putin be brought before the ICJ or a special war crimes tribunal when we as a nation do not recognize the authority of any such organization, and when we ourselves have conducted not one but three wars of aggression since the end of World War II? Are we moral enough to hand over Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama (along with their secretaries of state and defense, among others) to stand trial for the war crimes they committed? I would hope that we are, but realize the chances are vanishingly small.
If the United States is to occupy the moral high ground in the matter of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, it should do whatever is necessary militarily to ensure a Ukrainian victory, while supporting the efforts of other nations, nations accepting the authority of international tribunals, to bring the criminals to justice.
Any “exceptionalism” should be viewed as covering up for some kind of insecurity or means to hide from and not address any kind of unpleasant historical actions that cast a long shadow over any country. Hence, I agree with you on that, Stephen! We in the USA are far from immune from that. For every good thing, there is something awful and terrible that should never have happened. As Kurt Vonnegut opined shortly before his death, to follow American values and process as a democracy, and I paraphrase here, after 90 years you free your slaves, after 150 years give your women the right to vote. And the list went on. We tell ourselves that nobody should be above the law, but we know that is far from true and not acceding to The Hague is a perfect example.
We cannot go back and undo what was done. Nor can any- country, or empire. We have here, in time, come around regarding slavery and women's rights including the vote. So too have other countries moved forward. Progress. We have, after WW2, agreed to universal ideals and international rules, to order, principally about sovereignty and human rights. Should we therefore, by our past and presently recognized guilts, be morally prevented from acting when we are faced with this Russian aggression?This especially when Russia's recalls so much of Nazi Germany, and nothing like that since until now? Should we be immobilized by guilt when Russia ( takes advantage of our guilt and) proceeds with unrelenting destruction, cruelty, death and suffering? If so Putin will rationalize: look back what we did, and say so he can. What then?
We move forward.
Agree we cannot go back and undo what has been done. But we can learn from it, not make the same mistakes, and move forward. For any just cause and to guarantee self determination and human rights and to fight for what is right, past national sins should not cause us to shy away from our current and future duty, and dare I say obligation, to fight against all those who would engage in genocide, to defend the right to self determination, and human rights in general.
Re Paul's first comment: Are you referring to Armageddon in Retrospect? I really need to reread it. As to your and Potter's comments regarding moving on, may I suggest you read Andrew Bacevich, On Shedding an Obsolete Past, which replies much more articulately than I could.
Thank you the references. I have not read either of these but now will add to my reading list. Much appreciate the online discussion. It is refreshing to have these kind of thoughtful exchanges.
First off, in reply to Paul, my recommendation would be to read Man without a Country first. That dovetails well with the Bacevich book.
To Potter, it is difficult for me to summarize, having completed Bacevich's Boston University course on America's Wars in the Middle East on EdX, plus having also read his same titled book together with The Limits of Power and Breach of Trust. My impression is that of a man considerably more nuanced than your comment would imply. If I were to pick a single essay in the current book to represent the thrust of Bacevich's thinking, it would be number 12, Martin Luther King's Giant Triplets, in which the connection between racial injustice, militarism and materialism is reaffirmed. Though these topics are treated as separate and unrelated in our political discourse and in the press, both King and Bacevich saw their underlying unity as indicators of national moral deficiency. To expand on the militarism aspect, our lack of a national strategy or vision has led to ever increasing reliance on military solutions since the end of World War II. It is bad enough that we have a military presence in some 140 nations, that we sell military equipment to repressive regimes, and continue to perform extra-judicial killings via drone strikes around the world, but these activities take place with essentially no public awareness much less debate, and with very little Executive or Congressional oversight. Not only that, but our leaders appear never to have studied the reasons for our disasters in Vietnam, Iraq (2nd war) and Afghanistan. On top of that, the US has failed to come to grips with the tremendous suffering we have caused in those and other countries, a reckoning that would be necessary as a prelude to reconciling with the people we have so grievously harmed. This is what happens when we "forget and move on".
In no comment that I made regarding this issue-about our support militarily and politically for Ukraine- have I been suggesting forgetting. You added the forgetting part. My objection is to being hampered and handicapped by this guilt, especially being laid on at this moment, criticized about acting and "whatabouted" This is exactly what Putin is doing, pointing at us as if he has not been up to this himself for decades ( in Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia Chechnya with more horrific results), and as if we have not looked the other way a lot. I agree totally we pay a price for our misguided wars and some actions in hindsight. Some of these were felt to be necessary (we thought) or even with good intentions, were in concert or welcomed. This was also a product of our divided and changing leadership over the years. Sometimes it was very divided. I agree with Basevich's criticism. But he has no answer about the situation we have now. We can only act or not act in the present. Ukraine is like nothing we have had since WW2 many more agree. Are you saying that this assessment is again mistaken and misguided? We cannot see far into the future clearly enough to know consequences and benefits of acting or not acting in the present and possibly near future. We can see a lot more clearly in hindsight. Even then there are those who will say we should have stayed in Viet Nam and finished the job ( GW Bush).
I have listened to Basevich recently. He lost a son to the Iraq war and he is rightfully against the way we have used our power, military power especially, misused it. He does, though, say that the Russian war on Ukraine needs to be fought. His "but" is that we should be negotiating. We? We have said we will not impose a condition on Ukraine, tell them what to give up. And this is also regarding sovereignty and international order/law. This is serious and about the future. Basevich does not seem to acknowledge that there is no negotiating with Putin at the moment... or maybe never will be. Maybe you will read this by Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier (Foreign Affairs this month ) https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/long-war-ukraine-russia-protracted-conflict?.
You are assigning a book SS. I have a stack on deck. Can you make the points? Much appreciated.
see below
Thanks. I hope my response below is more nuanced.
Well... first I felt queasy... but then I thought, "this is so great, so important, to break it down this way, simply and easily understood. Step by step."
I'm hoping to go to Ukraine in the Spring to help them rebuild... or at least to volunteer to help alleviate the massive suffering.
The way I see it is, Ukraine is fighting for every democracy on the planet in these fraught and perilous days.
Can you recommend any orgs I can get in touch with to see how I can help when I get there? I'm not highly skilled (I was a just teacher and a tv producer, not a doctor or a builder) but I can hold a paintbrush, or a baby (I'm a grandmother). I need to go... but not sure where to begin to make the arrangements.
Thank you again for this explanation, Dr. Snyder. I understand the situation this much more.🙏🏽
This connects the dots making a strong case at the very least defacto if not stated policy for what is happening. Eugenics puts a label on a lot that adds up to that. Call it what it is. So genocide and eugenics. The exceptionalism and racial superiority and cleansing is blatant. So too the comparison to Nazi Germany must not be brushed away.
How does Ukraine get its women and children back?
I am afraid that with the incoming GOP Congress vital aid will be cut to Ukraine at a time when we need to keep it up.
I just read Roger Cohen's eye-opening report in the NYT from a couple of weeks ago "Putin Finds Allegiance in Africa". about Russia's Wagner mercenaries in the Central African Republic. Russia is well into making it a vassal state, first providing violent protection services and delivering order thereby against rebels and then taking mined resources, including gold and diamonds as well as timber. The country's leaders, pro-Russian, one of the "global south" countries that voted against the UN Resolutions condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine and annexations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/world/africa/central-african-republic-russia-wagner.html?
Putin Wants Fealty, and He’s Found It in Africa
"As Moscow wages war in Ukraine, its mercenaries have already established control in the Central African Republic — with scant Western reaction."
I wish that more people here in America would take heed of Professor Snyder’s warnings. I’ve listened to all of your Yale lectures on Kyiv and Rus from origins to current day. I’ve studied WWII since fourth grade after reading, “The Story of a Young Girl”, now known as “The Diary of Anne Frank. I thought we said, “Never again”. Sadly we are not unified in that regard. Thank you for the education and explanation that you have made available to the public at large.
As Andrew Bacevich has written in his book, On Shedding an Obsolete Past, "Never Again" has come to mean, never again will we be subject to a surprise attack. And, as exemplified by the size of our military budget and our continually expanding international military presence and operations, we remain true to that promise. During the Cold War, the right used any questioning of this behavior to accuse their opponents of being "soft on communism", or unpatriotic, and critics caved in. Feeding the military-industrial complex became so habitual that Cold War military expansionism has continued to this very day, with no thought whatsoever given to either necessity or appropriateness.
Putin argues for "survival of the fittest". But is Russia or any other group really fit without any moral compass? They are really "reversalists", moving backward toward eliminating all human development.
This trend is evident worldwide with those without purpose or identity other than destruction, including US Republicans as evidenced by opposing all "others" and dismissing platforms, policies, public investment in every facility that they and their supporters rely on to survive and prosper. God will eventually turn them all to compost all with their billions of victims.
Putin must not win just like Hitler cannot win. He must be totally and conclusively defeated. Russians must learn their lesson. You cannot support your own government when it has become a monster.
Hi Dr. Snyder (and any of the educated readership here who might know), I am curious, after reading this essay is anyone else comparing not just the actions of Putin and Hitler's regimes (kidnapping Polish and Ukrainian children, respectively, to be inculcated into the new "volk" the dictator wants to strengthen) but the ideology of racial anxiety motivating those actions? It's been a while and my memory may be failing me, but I recall in Brendan Simms' Hitler: A Global Biography, he attributes Hitler's fear of the German so-called master race being weakened and thus out-competed as a driving force behind their abduction of Polish (and other) children who seemed "racially useful," and even a few other drives such as attempts to lure Germans from other countries like the U.S to come back to Germany. Does anyone else think that in both abducting Ukrainians and forcing non-Russians to suffer disproportionately in the war, Putin is being driven by a similar sort of anxiety: The Russian people, despite his stated belief in their cultural-racial superiority, withering away unless revitalized by an influx of "racially healthy blood" in the form of Ukrainian abductees and the ruthless purgation of non-Russian ethnicities?
This sounds really nuts!