By Jonathan Michael Feldman, April 7, 2022, Updated April 9, 2022
Ecological Xenophobia as Metaphor
The photograph above is of the newly named courier firm, Bara Posten. This company used to be called “Ryska Posten” in Swedish, which means “the Russian post.” The reason for the name change, according to one news report, was “to reduce the risk of misunderstanding,” yet the opposite is closer to the truth. Jesper Bringby Bara Posten’s CEO declared, “we have not received any direct criticism that the name is inappropriate,” but “we, like all people, I hope, have known that Russia that it is not something you want to be associated with today.” The normalization of Russo-phobia as the reduction of misunderstanding is a classic case of Orwellian Speech and displacement. The absence of any direct criticism ends here and now as Orwellian speech is hardly desirable, particularly in times of war. This act of structural superficiality and encouraging mass confusion within the public is precisely the sort of thing that should be subject to a nuisance tax.
The mind-numbing nature of this company’s public imaging is also highlighted in the photograph which reads, “ridiculously environmental, travels only on electricity from our wind turbines.” Here we have a very interesting discursive sandwich. The first layer sounds fair enough, a green company with clean electricity. The second layer is the branding and assumed audience ratification of such, with the company playing off the audience’s ecological consciousness but also on their Russophobia. The third layer is the real irony, i.e. ecological sustainability is being married to Russophobia, we have here an ecological xenophobia.
It turns out, however, that ecological xenophobia is not limited to small Swedish companies engaging in delivering letters and other items. Rather, the ecological xenophobia also extends to the understanding of what might cause the end of the Ukraine war. As is obvious Russia has engaged in war crimes and horrific militarism that has destroyed parts of Ukraine and already killed thousands of Ukrainians as well as Russians forced or tricked into an immoral and unnecessary war. In addition, a Newsweek story states that “over 25,000 apartments and homes have been damaged and destroyed” and “more than 10 million people—a quarter of the population—have been displaced.” Despite these facts, the U.S. government still has agency, but prefers militarism to proactive diplomacy. The U.S. responsibility and dangers of the absence of diplomacy are not widely understood even if Russia is directly responsible for invading Ukraine.
Potential Dangers of Escalation and War Maintenance: No Diplomacy is a Fool’s Mission
Let us start with the dangers. The emerging consensus among some is that Putin is a horrific leader, akin to Hitler, who must not be appeased, but rather smashed. The problem with this analogy is that in the nuclear age it is rather difficult to smash tyrants and may be counterproductive. As Niall Ferguson, the Harvard University historian, explains in his Bloomberg Opinion essay Biden’s framing of Putin is detrimental to de-escalation: “Explicitly calling Putin a war criminal and for his removal from power meaningfully increases the risk of either chemical or nuclear weapons being used in Ukraine. And if nuclear weapons are used once in the 21st century, I fear they will be used again.” Fergusson also explains: “Biden and his advisers seem remarkably confident that the combination of attrition in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia will bring about a political crisis in Moscow comparable to the one that dissolved the Soviet Union 31 years ago. But Putin is not like the Middle Eastern despots who fell from power during the Iraq War and the Arab Spring. He already possesses weapons of mass destruction, including the largest arsenal of nuclear warheads in the world, as well as chemical and no doubt biological weapons. Those who prematurely proclaim Ukrainian victory seem to forget that the worse things go for Russia in conventional warfare, the higher the probability rises that Putin uses chemical weapons or a small nuclear weapon.” While other security experts doubt such risks of weapons deployment by design or intention, the risks of accidental nuclear weapons use persists; such accidents can be triggered by conflicts like the one in Ukraine, with many near accidents recorded. To take the risks of nuclear engagement by delaying diplomacy is a fool’s mission.
Militarized Ukraine/US/NATO as a Network State
Ukraine is not a simple autonomous state, it is a network state which is aligned with the US, NATO and fellow travelers. While Ukraine has the right to defend itself, the U.S. perpetuates arms transfers at the expense of diplomacy. A story by Steven Erlanger and Michael Crowley in The New York Times explains that on April 5, Secretary of State Blinken “announced a further $100 million worth of weapons and equipment from American stockpiles. Total U.S. military aid to Ukraine is worth some $2.4 billion since President Biden took office and more than $1.7 billion since the war began on Feb. 24.” Moreover, “how the war might finally end is an important issue not just for Ukraine but for the entire alliance. U.S. officials are skeptical that Russia is prepared to make real concessions in ongoing peace talks with Ukraine, although they do not rule out the possibility and want to ensure Kyiv’s leverage in the negotiations.” The article continues, that “while Ukraine will decide for itself how and when to try to end the war and what it will negotiate with Moscow, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government are in regular discussion with NATO country leaders, including the Americans.”
A Jane Coaston interview with Philip Breedlove, former head of NATO’s armed forces further explains the potential division of labor between the Ukrainian and U.S./NATO states. Coaston asks, “if Ukraine has asked for security guarantees, would that mean that NATO would need to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty? And if NATO is defending Ukraine’s neutrality, how is that different from essentially invoking Article V of the alliance, where a NATO member country must come to the defense of member countries?” Breedlove replies that while Ukraine is not seeking security guarantees from NATO, “Ukraine is seeking a coalition of nations, not NATO, that would be the guarantors of their security. And center to all of that is the United States, because they know that nothing else is going to hold this together unless the United States is a part of it.” He adds, “it is four or five of the big, old Western NATO nations and the United States…a coalition of the willing inside of NATO.”
From Erlanger, Crowley and Breedlove we learn several things. First, in contrast to the extreme xenophobes in the West even the U.S. reserves some hope for a diplomatic solution, although some have doubts about what Putin will do. Second, while Ukraine’s autonomy (with respect to other states) to make decisions is highlighted, Ukraine still “consults” NATO and the U.S., getting so much military support from the U.S. so as to be hardly “autonomous” from U.S. decisions. Third, the diplomatic solutions which some consider seem to hinge on NATO involvement, which others argue has helped trigger Putin’s “war of choice.”
The U.S. and NATO Can Help End the War: If and When They Want
In his Newsweek essay, William M. Arkin gets at one of the most essential issues here, the potential diplomatic capital of the U.S. In his essay, “‘Mindless’ Killing in Ukraine Won’t Stop Until Biden Changes Strategy,” Arkin explains, “Ukrainian civilians are dying while both sides are clearly poised to find a political settlement. But there is apparently little interest in the West, particularly in Washington, to intervene and broker a ceasefire.” A Defense Intelligence Agency official interviewed by Arkin says, “The Biden administration is so intent on punishing Putin, it can hardly focus on the Ukrainians who are dying every day.” Arkin suggests that diplomacy is thwarted because “Washington continues to insist on a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian soil even before talks can begin.”
Many will look at the Russian state’s war crimes and Ukraine’s bombed cities and conclude that Putin will never engage in diplomacy and believe that such diplomacy is a clear example of naive utopian thinking. In contrast, a grounded utopian approach looks at how material realities create possibilities and contingencies, i.e. choices for diplomacy. This grounded utopianism is based on actually looking at empirical developments and literal possibilities on the ground. Arkin argues that while “Russian air and missile attacks” are “still intense,” they “have plateaued” according to U.S. Air Force sources. In addition, “the effectiveness of the strikes that are being carried out is also declining.” Furthermore, “the majority of the airstrikes that are taking place are occurring in the Donbas region, in direct support of Russian ground forces in the south. The number of attacks on targets in and near Ukrainian cities outside of the forward battle zone has declined.” One retired senior U.S. Air Force officer told Newsweek that the argument “that Russia is escalating its air and missile attacks and that they are continuing to bomb is a bit disingenuous.” Moreover, not only did airstrikes not vary over the previous week, but “missile attacks” were “down to some 40 a day—half the previous firing rate.”
According to defense experts Arkin refers to, “Russia has abandoned completely the notion of taking Kyiv and deposing the Zelensky government (two of its original goals).” According to such sources, not only does Putin know what is going on, he also knows things are going badly: “The intelligence is now clear: the Russians themselves now know they can’t pull this off, and the internal discussions reflect that.” One intelligence source interviewed by Arkin argues that Putin himself “has to negotiate” even if he cannot admit that he may have lost in Ukraine. Yet, his ability to do that is constrained by the U.S. failing to make concessions, as Putin “has to look over his shoulder at sanctions, which Washington says it won’t lift until there is a full withdrawal from Ukrainian soil, including withdrawal from Crimea and the Donbas.”
Diplomacy vs. Militarism
Not all Ukrainians think alike, contrary to the implicit assumption of many falling victim to ecological xenophobia. in a March 27, 2022 interview with the Democracy Now radio program, Volodymyr Ishchenko, described as “one of the most prominent intellectuals on the Ukrainian Left,” stated that “weapons and sanctions are good at the initial stage of war, because they help to scale down the maximalist demands that Putin had on Ukraine, perhaps up to the regime change in Ukraine.” After having met strong resistance and sanctions the hope is that this would lead Putin to “be ready to negotiate and to agree on some more acceptable conditions of the peace settlement.” One might dispute the value of sending weapons when the diplomacy before the war broke out hardly emphasized Ukraine’s neutrality. Despite this caveat, Ishchenko acknowledges the potential opportunity costs of weapons transfers on diplomacy.
In contrast, to the “you can’t negotiate” line, leading experts, such as Anatol Lieven at the Quincy Institute have addressed the possibilities of diplomacy frontier in various writings and presentations. As early as March 19th, he wrote: “The contours of a peace settlement are now reasonably clear. Ukraine will sign a treaty of neutrality that will prevent it joining both NATO and any Russian-led security alliance. Russia will get to keep the territories in Crimea and the Donbas that it has occupied since 2014 (whether or not this is legally recognized as part of the peace agreement), together perhaps with some additional territory in the Donbas.”
Surplus Demonization
The hatred of Russians, linked to war crimes, and surplus demonization of Russia and Putin helps to thwart diplomatic options. According to demonization theory, a negative image of a leader or state can be used to rally domestic or foreign support against a state, as the U.S. demonized Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The limit to this theory is that both Hussein and Putin, and their respective states, did or have acted in diabolic or demonic ways. Yet, the demonization is relative for two reasons. First, states demonizing other states often have their own “dirty laundry” including engagement in war crimes, support for illegal wars, or guilt by association in which a large state seeking to ally itself with NATO or the US, itself offers support for war and bombings. Second, the demonization of a state can come at the expense of diplomacy or solutions short of war such that the demonization serves or services a purpose other than to simply point out the obvious limitations of a leader or state. For example, demonization can be used to promote various goals that are actually counterproductive for peace or conflict resolution or can be used to rally the public for immoral wars. Examples of this can be seen in how U.S. leaders rallied support for wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Surplus demonization refers to the opportunity costs of demonizing a state or leader without respect to any other considerations. It is not a statement to deny moral culpability and guilt or exempt persons or states from responsibility. The low intellectual road is to deny these opportunity costs and simply engage in reductionistic reasoning, i.e. Russia won’t negotiate or engage in diplomacy and only arms transfers matter as an axiom.
In the current conflict, Russia is more at fault than the U.S. and NATO, as Russia has invaded a largely democratic state. Nevertheless, NATO enlargement (and some would say sanctions, rightly or wrongly) facilitated Putin’s domestic and foreign policy goals of expansionism and militarism. At the very least, some report that nationalist factions within Ukraine may constrain diplomacy. Furthermore, as Arkin and others show, the U.S. and NATO still have a diplomatic role. In sum, Putin and Russia appear to be guilty of grievous war crimes (to be validated in a court of law). Yet, surplus demonization of both is used to indirectly perpetuate the horrors of war. Xenophobia is a fuel for such surplus demonization, representing the use of emotions detached from any logic whatsoever.
Postscript
A March 31, 2022 interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Russian-based oligarch now living in London, suggested that Putin would soon choose between accelerating violence and diplomacy. Khodorkovsky suggests that Putin is a “thug” and “force has to be met with force.” This interview unfortunately tells us little about the dangers of escalation or the role of the West and NATO as proactive actors. Instead, Khodorkovsky argues for a European military build up to counter Putin, which he at least admits is wasteful. A commentary by Dan Baer at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace illustrates the devaluation of the word “diplomacy”: “Before the war began, three countries were assisting Ukraine with defense equipment. That number has now risen to thirty-five—a tremendously effective internationalizing of military support that has been facilitated by U.S. diplomacy and operational planning” (emphasis added). Here diplomacy is not seen as the anti-thesis of military approaches in foreign policy but reduced to a system that aids militarized approaches.
