Are you getting accurate info on Putin's War?
Sometimes you are, but constant checking of sources is essential
The propaganda war is loud and constant. It flows from Russia, Ukraine, US governments and more. It gets passed on by mainstream media with some outlets doing constant fact checking and some just parroting propaganda talking points.
What’s an observer to do?
1) As most observers in the general public aren’t required to make swift wartime decisions, most should withhold judgments a bit. They’re not being paid to broadcast breaking news, so let the news percolate a few hours. Multiple sources can verify or debunk the early reports and are necessary to gain accuracy and perspective.
2) Try to avoid getting dragged into either/or arguments. There are multiple options facing multiple government leaders across the globe. If any leader or media pundit reverts to an either/or argument - like George W. Bush did after 9-11 when he said ‘you’re either with us or against us’ - they’re browbeating you to get you to join their herd, not to rely on your own reasoning skills. And it’s very important to utilize your best reasoning skills when people are dying because of inept or corrupt leaders.
3) It’s difficult to do but try to put yourself in the shoes of each leader, particularly those engaged in the war (the governments of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) or those providing military aid to those principals (the US, Germany, Holland, the UK, Australia, etc). It’s not necessary to play devil’s advocate to defend any of them but it helps to try and ascertain what drives their decisions, especially if you weigh the outcomes yourself instead of locking into a pundit’s opinion using confirmation bias.
4) Don’t get sucked into the labeling vortex that political advocates pushing propaganda utilize heavily. This war is not between opposing Gods, opposing faiths, or fixed spots on the political spectrum. Some politicians are ardent users of labels designed to trigger a desired response at a knee-jerk level. That’s exactly who to be highly suspicious of: leftist, rightwing, Marxist, Socialist, fascist, weak, strong, and godless are among the most common and deceptive trigger words they use.
5) Ask yourself why you’re considering the advice of this newsletter writer, too. I’m not offended if you have a healthy degree of skepticism about any source, including me.
My limited credentials rest on several life experiences and career choices. I’ve studied US elections since the first one I voted in 51 years ago, especially presidential and congressional ones. I’ve studied US history heavily 2 or 3 years longer than that. I’ve been a paid reporter, mostly on weekly newspapers in the 1980s and 1990s and I’m not the kind of reporter who’ll ask someone who just experienced a death in their family how they’re feeling. I dig to find out more, using multiple sources and different questioning techniques, to figure out what occurred, fully aware that I can be occasionally fooled, too. And I was heavily influenced by a 28 year US Air Force veteran - my father - who taught me not to follow the crowd and taught me a lot about classified information.
In 2002, I began political blogging and by 2008 was writing - largely about politics and current events - on Facebook. That’s just me, in my own words. How much do you know about the background of other journalists you read? We all have our influences and biases.
But there’s a big war afoot, so let’s take a look at a few different perspectives.
Why did Putin decide to attack Ukraine? Several strong possibilities emerge. The post-USSR world has seen NATO welcoming more countries into its mutual defense alliance, some of them former USSR countries. And just as JFK rejected the closeness of USSR missiles heading for placement on Cuba, Putin and his advisors and fellow Russian elites feel that NATO is too close to too much of the Russian border.
The USSR was a failed state that declined based on poor economic policies, bungled government management and poorly deployed military adventures. The power struggle that followed was between mostly corrupt gangsters (now most refer to them as oligarchs) who had amassed some degree of influence prior to that collapse. The US was widely regarded as the only remaining superpower while Russia’s main strength was its nuclear arsenal. For the past two decades, Russia observed China and the EU build more powerful economic systems. Russia’s economy also became more modernized but it still lagged behind. And it became more vulnerable to sanctions that were imposed on it more readily by the EU and US.
Its sphere of influence was jeopardized further in 2014 when Ukraine’s pro-Russia president was driven into exile.
Putin wants Russia to be as powerful as it was during the USSR days. He and other Russian elites view NATO as a threat that could provoke an internal revolt while NATO nations go after Russia’s oil and other resources.
They also feel by taking over Ukraine, NATO will back off and other former members of the USSR would stop seeking NATO membership. Overthrowing a democratic government in a country so large would definitely demonstrate that Russia’s might isn’t one to trifle with.
So what’s gone wrong with the plan? Nobody can tell if the war planning has gone as badly as some analysts claim it has. Because no one but Putin’s team knows what the original plan was.
They were well prepared for most sanctions, they wanted a fast resolution to avoid a drain of popular support and it’s likely they created a plan to move cautiously to limit civilian casualties, which also can drain support.
It does, however, appear that there’s been some military supply line problems. They’ve likely been surprised by the strength of the resistance of the military and citizenry of Ukraine. And they definitely were surprised by the unity within the EU and NATO in the application of sanctions. Germany’s decisions to send more weaponry to Ukraine especially had to surprise as it was their strongest positional change since WWII. And the sanctions dove deeper into the economic and military ranks of Russians than was anticipated.
Traditionally neutral Sweden and Switzerland have also made surprisingly bold moves that Putin couldn’t have anticipated. Turkey’s foreign minister defined the conflict as a ‘war’ and stated the 1936 Montreux Convention rules apply. Which means Turkey can choose to cut off any vessel transit between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. So Erdogan has the power to disrupt Russian exports of oil, wheat and other products. It’s doubtful Putin saw that one coming as well.
But for a war that only got hot last week, it’s just way too soon to predict the outcome. We’ve been flooded with propaganda from multiple sources, including our own government’s. Claims have been made and photos displayed that have been disproved or doubted. And few analysts believe Ukraine can outlast the Russian army.
Stories of the heroics of Ukrainians can easily be embellished to drum up more popular support; that’s common propaganda found in every war. (Though certainly, some reports could be true.) The point is, just be aware that attempts to manipulate your emotions and opinion are in full bloom. Aim for multiple verifications instead of following any crowd. It’s not always Good vs. Evil. We all have biases and favorites, but aiming to look beyond that narrow prism is advisable to get a clearer picture of what’s occurring in a war.
On the eve of the State of the Union speech, political analysts are also weighing the impact of Putin’s war on Biden. The President has resisted the call by some of his opponents to send in US troops or begin sanctions too quickly. He knew Putin would use those decisions as excuses to justify his invasion. Instead, Biden’s team stayed busy behind the scenes building an impenetrable coalition that stayed more united on sanctions and aid than Putin expected.
He hasn’t run around boasting, doing self-promos. He’s been quick to credit allied leaders instead.
I think he’s earned tremendous credit for doing so. But I also believe polling done now will have no bearing on the midterm elections in November. History indicates the last 6 months matter more, as do the economic conditions in the final three months.
I also worry that today and tomorrow may see bigger efforts from Russia, aware that the SOTU speech is imminent. With Russian election meddling over the past 13 years, Putin has some practice swaying US opinion.
One analyst definitely worth noting is Dmitri Alperovitch. His profile on Wikipedia lauds the expertise the Russian immigrant has brought to tech-based intel gathering. Based on the awards he’s received, he’s compared to the founders of Google, Facebook and Amazon, due to his leadership of Crowdstrike and earlier cybersecurity successes.
He began warning that Russia was readying this war two months before they launched it. Read this and the December 21st thread to see how accurate he was. And is.
I recommend you follow him today and afterward, as he keeps bringing up detail that many others miss.
I do have a few of my own thoughts and predictions. With over half a million Ukrainians fleeing across the borders now - mostly women, children, the aged and infirm - Putin’s troops are likely to move from mostly hitting military targets to hitting residential ones that they think are largely empty.
They now have the city of Kharkiv under siege, with major missile strikes on civilians occurring while negotiations were under way. Reports from there and Kiev are not as positive as they were yesterday. I’m going to refrain from posting many of the pictures as there’s no point in adding shock value to Putin’s crimes against humanity. Observers understand that morality and lack thereof don’t require examples to further shock our senses. I refrain out of respect for the families of the injured and murdered who don’t need the added pain.
I also won’t listen to theories that Putin is losing his marbles. That’s consistent with standard propaganda. He’s not crazy. He’s intelligent but brutal, lacking any moral compass. He’s consciously choosing the path of evil. And if he can’t deliver the desired results by Easter, he’s jeopardizing his continued leadership. He’s evil, he’s making a deadly gamble and both choices are stupid. Intelligence and stupidity aren’t opposites.
He’s already losing popular support. His neighbors aren’t flinching as Finland has now asked to join NATO and Ukraine has asked to join the EU. European leaders are now considering taking sanctions to the final step, cutting off Putin’s biggest export (oil) even if it adds extra burdens to their own citizens. And the Russian economy could crash completely. Putin’s taken risks before and has won a few, but this gamble is already starting to backfire on him.
But as I noted previously, don’t be surprised if he has something more devastating planned before or during the SOTU speech. It’s consistent with his past performances of evil and his past efforts to influence the impressions of US citizens.
Ciao for now. May we all see more people taking up the harder work of waging peace.
And because we all need a little uplift, here’s Rachel Price scatting a cover of a Peggy Lee tune.
Thanks for your intelligent analysis, Kevin. My propaganda alarm went off when I noticed, much to my surprise, that all female Ukrainian soldiers (and pilots!) are beautiful....
Great information, thank you