Two things that I have said before. One needs to be expanded, the other simply needs to be repeated. Expansion first.
Twice in the past several years I have made very brief
references to the Netflix miniseries The Queens Gambit. In the seventh and last
episode, you will recall, Beth Harmon goes to Moscow to play in an interzonal
tournament. Big-league international chess is run by the Federation Internationale des Echecs, or FIDE. FIDE divides the world into zones – the United
States and Russia are so big in the chess world that they are their own zones.
When an interzonal tournament is held, by custom (and perhaps by rule, I am not
sure) the reigning US champion is invited to represent the United States. That
is why Beth is there. The entire last episode is devoted to her game against
Borgov, the world champion, who is Russian. The great former world champion,
Gary Kasparov, served as an advisor to the producers of the show and instead of
making up a game for Beth to play and win against Borgov, Kasparov chose a real
game, played by the US champion in the 1993 interzonal against a powerful
Ukrainian Grandmaster named Ivanchuk. The
original game was a draw with the US champion playing black but analyzing the
game with the aid of a chess program, Kasparov found a dramatic winning move for
white. So in the show, Beth plays white,
makes the move, and wins the game. The original 1993 game was, as I say, played
by the US champion, who that year was my 25-year-old son, Patrick. Needless to
say, I taught him everything he knew about chess, at least until he was seven
years old. Then he got too good for me so I just served as his booster and
chauffeur as he went to tournaments in western Massachusetts.
Second, this business of battlefield tactical nukes. The
Ukrainians just sank the Moskva, described as the flagship of Russia’s
Black Sea fleet. It is thought that they used a cruise missile for the job. A
cruise missile is a fearsome weapon that carries a thousand pounds of high
explosive. A 3KT “tactical nuke” is thus the explosive equivalent of 6000 cruise
missiles. Not 6 or 60 or 600 but 6000. Think about that for a moment. Are
there even 6000 cruise missiles in the world? I doubt it. Only twice have
nuclear weapons been used in war, both times by the United States against
Japan. Those weapons were rated at 12 to 15 KT, which is to say four or five
times the size of a “tactical nuclear weapon.” There is no conceivable
battlefield situation in which one could rationally use a weapon with explosive
magnitude of 3KT. If a nuclear weapon rated at three KT had been used against
the Moskva, not only would it have vaporized the ship, it probably would have
created a tidal wave that sank the entire Russian fleet and flooded the mainland.
People who speak jauntily about “tactical nukes” have no idea what they are
talking about. They need to stop.
85 comments:
"There is no conceivable battlefield situation in which one could rationally use a weapon with explosive magnitude of 3KT."
Actually, according to Russian doctrine and practice there is. Terror and mass destruction in the blink of an eye instead of all that pesky loading and reloading.
A couple quibbles: The earthquakes that create killer tidal waves generate the energy equivalent to thousands or tens of thousands of Hiroshima bombs.
Tactical nukes can be "dialed down" to as low as a few tenths of a kiloton. I can see Russia using them in a way that causes the usual suspects to hem and haw and equivocate. All this assumes that the Russians have actually maintained their tactical nukes better then the rest of their kit (last time they tested some hypersonic thingee, they managed to kill several scientists and techs).
It seems Russia has lost yet another general - major, equivalent to brigadier in US.
This seems relevant: Robert Wright converses with Joe Cirincione from the Quincy Institute on the possibility of the Ukrainian conflict going nuclear and on nuclear weapons in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0DPzG8YTQo
The reason that tactical nukes have to be so big is that their explosive power is concentrated in one area, which is not very effective.
The Beirut blast was estimated to be 300-400 tons of TNT equivalent, one of the strongest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.
Here's a link to show you the relative size: How powerful was the Beirut blast?
It killed 218 people. Not a lot really for an explosion of that size in a densely populated city.
As for the recent Tochka-U missile at the train station in Ukraine, that killed 50 people with a missile that has about 1 ton of explosives, but it's believed that it contained cluster munitions. If 1 ton of explosive kills 50 people, then the Beirut blast would kill 15,000-20,000 people, which we see is not the case.
So while a cruise missile can take out a building, the explosive power of a thousand cruise missiles in a single bomb can not take out a thousand buildings. Most of that energy will go into making a huge crater and going up into the air. This is why cluster munitions are so effective, in that the explosive power stays close to the ground.
It's kind of like when terrorists started adding ball bearings to their explosives, which enhanced their lethality. Exactly the same explosive power as before, but now that power was distributed differently. No use in using a bomb to vaporize the few people closest to the bomb, which was overkill and pointless, when you could instead use some of that energy to drive projectiles and kill people further away.
s. wallerstein,
Thank you for the link to the discussion about nuclear weapons between Robert Wright and Joe Cirincione. It is superb and very, very scary. They are very knowledgeable. I urge everyone who is concerned about the issue to watch it.
As much as I despise Putin, it does appear that we have to give him some face-saving way to get out of the Ukraine conflict. But it will not be easy. And, as I stated in a prior comment, the fact that Putin has been charged with war crimes complicates. The Russian official doctrine is not to use nuclear weapons in a conventional war unless Russia is faced with an existential threat. But Putin interprets any threat to his continued rule as being an existential threat, justifying the use of tactical nuclear weapons so that the Russian people don’t view the invasion, and the loss of Russian soldiers’ lives, as having been a mistake. Unfortunately, aaall, though I agree with you that we should not give in to bullies, it is highly likely that if we don’t find some way for Putin to save face, he will use tactical nuclear weapons, and then the conflict will escalate out of control.
The other thing that was very informative was that not only did George W. Bush screw up by invading Iraq, he screwed up even worse by taking the U.S. out of the anti-AB Treaty which Nixon and Kissinger had negotiated with the Soviet Union. Putin warned Bush not to do this, but the neo-cons refused to listen, thinking that we would be able to develop an anti-missile defense, which never happened. However the current crisis gets resolved, it is likely to lead to another nuclear arms race. This is a terrible situation, which, I have to admit, it appears the U.S., under W., precipitated. Nixon comes out looking pretty savvy in comparison.
Politics
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
'In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.'
THOMAS MANN.
How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics,
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has both read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.
Marc,
I'm genuinely pleased that we both find the Wright-Circinione dialogue to be worthwhile.
s. wallerstein and others,
As an attorney who has represented plaintiffs in civil lawsuits for most of my 44 years of practicing law, I have learned that, even if I have won at the trial level, the best solution for my clients is to find a win-win solution for both sides, rather than insisting on the defendant paying 100% of the damages I believe my clients are entitled to. The defense attorneys will file appeal after appeal, dragging out the litigation for years, while my clients continue to suffer because they don’t have the money to pay their bills, to pay their mortgage, to pay for their child’s college tuition. It is better to take less in a settlement, so that my clients get the money sooner. Although this also results in less money for me, there is always the risk that I will lose on appeal. Settle and take the money while you can get it.
The stakes are obviously much higher in the Unkrainian-Russsian conflict. The risk of nuclear war may be low, but they are there, and the consequences are unthinkable. Better to find a win-win solution. one that allows Putin to save face. This is not an apology for Putin’s reprehensible behavior. But aggressors always have a certain advantage over their victims, because they can always choose to make matters much worse for everyone if they are painted into a corner. Might does not make right, but being right at the expense of mutual destruction is not a winning proposition. Is this appeasement that will encourage Putin to invade Moldova, or Latvia, or Poland? If we can find a way out of this mess and avoid Putin’s use of tactical nuclear weapons, I doubt he will have any taste for another invasion of another country, with the real risk of being deposed.
Marc,
Great. We finally seem to be reaching some sort of consensus here.
On the other hand:
1. The settling to get something and move on analogy is off point as it is done within a system where there can actually be finality. You aren't relying on the word of the counter-party, you are relying on law, precedent, and a judge who will balk (possibly with sanctions) should one of the parties endlessly attempt to reopen the case. Putin is more analogous to a vexatious litigant, a neighbor from hell, or a gangster. This ends when Putin ends. That is best accomplished with defeat and humiliation which would have the additional advantage of laying a marker down for other dictators with a nuke or three. Risky perhaps but IMO less then endlessly backing down until enough becomes too much.
2. The video was mostly off point and outdated. Putin didn't rob Russia blind, undermine Russian democracy and make himself president for life, poison/imprison his opponents, commit war crimes in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and now Ukraine because a narcissistic sociopath decided to actively campaign in a swing state thereby setting up the conditions for the Republican Gang of Five on the Supreme Court to do a coup and install a couple of Neo-Cons as president and vice president who then started two wars of aggression and abrogated a treaty with Russia. Apples and oranges. The history lesson was nice but irrelevant.
3. Once again we learn that only the United States and the Democratic Party has agency. Neo-liberal economists were "forced on Russia.?" Sure! The corruption and rot was well established before the Soviet Union fell apart. Having a drunk as your first president who then made an ex-KGB major his successor didn't help.
It would also help if those two guys knew how the Constitution worked and that Republican Senators still had holds on nominees for important positions in State and Defense. Hard to do things without staff.
Dems are too cautious? Look at Afghanistan. Bush drops the ball, Obama get played by the brass, and Trump/Pompeo cut out the Afghan government and surrender to the Taliban. Biden gets an impossible situation as well as a slow walked transition and those holds, does the best that could be expected, and he gets the Blob doing "botched" 24/7 for weeks. Then there was those five pointless but above the fold, front page NYT stories about "her emails" right before the 2016 election. The MSM refuses to understand that we have one political party and one insurrectionist cabal so both sides.
https://theintercept.com/2022/04/14/russia-ukraine-noam-chomsky-jeremy-scahill/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=The%20Intercept%20Newsletter
A question respecting the chess game: How long did it take Kasparov to come up with a winning approach for White? From watching some of the recent World Championship it seems that nowadays computer-assited commentators come up with winning possibilities and errors almost in real time, which may, I imagine, be quite frustrating for actual human players. Still, I take hope from Dreyfus’s claim that AI only works in quite well-defined domains—if, that is, I understand him properly.. On the other hand, I also derive some pleasure from the story of the SFPD trying to give a ticket to a driverless car for failing to have its lights turned on. rm
aaall.
You know from my past comments that I share many of the same views about the U.S. and Russia as you do. With all due respect, however, I believe your observations about how Bush and Trump came to power are irrelevant at this point. I am fairly confident that both Robert Wright and Joe Cirincione are quite knowledgeable about the Constitution and U.S. history. What Cirincione says about Russia’s nuclear arsenal and Putin’s mind set must be taken seriously. Before he is defeated, the fact of the matter is that there is a not insignificant risk that Putin could resort to using tactical nuclear weapons in order to claim a military victory and save face. Wait until he is dead? That could be years. Even the Eastern Orthodox Church has come out in support of the invasion of Ukraine. We have to deal with the cards that have been dealt, which include the fact that Russia has a massive nuclear arsenal that we cannot be sure Putin will not use. Although I share your concern about rewarding bullies, we cannot be cavalier about the risk that Putin may resort to using tactical nuclear weapons to insure a victory
Mr aaall's cynicism meets Mr. Susselman's win-win Realpolitik, when humanity shovels another chessboard called Ukraine, like Syria or Iraq, to the dustbin. Next stop, my own country, Hong Kong.
@ Marc Susselmann,
it would be really desirable if your experiences as a lawyer were transferable to the level of international conflicts. However, I am afraid that what works as wise and sensible behavior in civilian life is only transferable to armed conflicts to a very limited extent.
What could a "win-win solution" look like for Russia? Under Putin's dictatorship, the army of this country is waging a war of extermination against a neighbor. There are really no components of the definition of a "war of annihilation" that are not abundantly clear. It is clear to see how the Russian army is systematically destroying the country's infrastructure, killing and terrorizing the civilian population, with the aim of leaving nothing but "scorched earth" in Ukraine.
I really want to be very careful with historical comparisons. I have spent a lot of time in recent years watching the original recordings of the Nuremberg trials on YouTube. The Robert H. Jackson Center has published a lot of original recordings like testimonies and cross-examinations of all trials (not only of the main trial against the 24 main defendants).
Two of the Four Nuremberg Prosecutions are already justified in my eyes:
"Participation in the planning, preparation, unleashing and waging of wars of aggression in violation of international treaties, agreements and assurances." and "War crimes as crimes against members of enemy forces and the civilian population of occupied territories."
I am sorry, but I cannot think of a win-win solution worthy of the name.
A.K.,
What do you propose the West and the U.S. should do if Putin’s new offensive in the East falters and he feels it is necessary to use tactical nuclear weapons in order that he can claim victory to save his regime from being overthrown? How should they respond? How could they possibly respond? Send in U.S. and NATO ground forces into Ukraine? Respond with NATO’s own tactical nuclear weapons, which could lead to an exchange of intercontinental missiles?
Your consideration of the Nuremburg trials is all well and good (you have concluded at this point that 2 of the 4 prosecutons were justified? Why not the other 2?) The Nazis did not have nuclear weapons. If they had developed a nuclear weapon – and they were pretty close – before the U.S. did, the history of the world would have been far different. Russia does have nuclear weapons and plenty of them. How do you answer the above questions?
The risk that Putin will use tactical nuclear weapons is real. We cannot ignore it and hope for the best. Hope is not a strategy (I think Joe Cirincione said that in the video). I wholeheartedly agree that finding a win-win strategy in a lawsuit is far easier than in the case of international relations. I said that the stakes regarding the Ukrainian invasion are much higher. But trying to find a win-win solution is no less critical for that very reason. I agree that conceiving of what it may be is difficult, and strategizing to attain it equally difficult. But I believe negotiations in an effort to find one must be begun before it is too late and Putin feels he has no choice but to use tactical nuclear weapons. We are at the brink. The kind of person who could pull this off is Henry Kissinger, as much as most of us despise him for, among other things, his role in the overthrow of Allende in Chile. I do not know if Sec. Blinken, or anyone on his staff, has the skill to pull it off. But it must be attempted. What could it be? Clearly, an agreement by Ukraine not to seek to join NATO. This will likely not be enough. Conceding Russian’s annexation of Crimear also, but how much more. There is where the skills of a good poker player are called for. Putin probably wants to get out of the mess he has created for himself. A good negotiator has to figure out where the tipping point is that will satisfy Putin’s need for a sens of having saved face. The negotiator has be both tough and shrewd, giving just enough, but not too much. If this is not at least tried, what are your answers to my questions above?
ushekim,
Unfortunately, China has pretty much achieved its objectives in Hong Kong. The question is, has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine encourage China to consider invading Taiwan, with which the U.S. has commitments to defend. China’s nuclear arsenal is not as large as Russia’s, but give them time. In a world with nuclear weapons, the U.S. and the West may have to settle for a global equilibrium in which the super powers are ceded control over their respective spheres of influence, in order to avoid an Armageddon. But what about Iran?
A word about poker.
I am a poor poker player. I play what they call “tight,” that is, I only bet when I have a good hand. If my opponent figures that out, s/he can outplay me by bluffing. I have a friend who is a much better poker player than I, and he has a friend who plays poker for a living. They both insist that they can predict what an opponent’s hand is by how they bet, and, if they are playing in person, rather than on the internet, also by their “tells.” I have claimed that I do not think this is possible, particularly when playing on the internet, where you cannot see the tells. They maintain I am wrong.
In the movie “Ronders,” Matt Damon plays a law student who is an excellent poker player. He shows up one night at the judges’ weekly poker game to deliver some documents to one of the judges and watches the judges play. He is asked if he knows anything about poker (or something like that), and he says he does, He then goes around the table and tells each judge what cards they are holding – and he is right. My friends tell me that the is an accurate scene for a good poker player. In the movie, John Malkovich plays a Russian émigré who runs a high stakes poker game in Manhattan. Damon’s friend, played by Ed Norton, owes Malkovich a lot of money. Damon challenges Malkovich to a game to wipe out Norton’s debt. Watching Malkovich’s play during the long poker session, he figures out Malkovich’s tell.
I hope Blinken, or someone on his staff, is a very good poker player, to figure out Putin’s tell. I suspect that Putin is also a very good poker player.
Correction: The movie is "Rounders."
s. wallerstein,
A concurrence and a dissent.
I, of course, agree with your concurrence regarding seeking a negotiated win-win with Putin.
However, regarding the invasion of Iraq, I would point out that, although the invasion was ill-advised and poorly planned, there is this difference between Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, under the false pretext that Iraq had WMD. Zelensky is not a war criminal who has deliberately targeted his own people to be killed. Sadam Hussein was a war criminal, who deliberately gassed the Kurds. Whether Iraq is better off without him as their President, or not, given the destabilizing effect of the invasion is surely open to debate. But in removing Sadam Hussein, and ultimately trying him and sentencing him to death for killing his own people, I do not believe that the U.S. or Bush II committed war crimes. And while there was a lot of collateral damage, resulting in the deaths of many (thousands?) of Iraqi civilians, I do not know of evidence that the U.S. deliberately targeted civilians, Iraqi schools, Iraqi medical facilities, or Iraqi homes as Putin has done in Ukraine.
Post-script:
And I have not forgotten about the deliberate torture and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Grhaib prison by U.S. soldiers. But those soldiers were court-martialed, and some given prison sentences. Their commander, who did not authorize the conduct, was also demoted. No comparable disciplinary action has been taken, or will be taken, against the Russian soldirs who have committed atrocities in Ukraine.
Another post-script:
Blackwater.
Legality of the Iraq War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War#:~:text=The%20invasion%20of%20Iraq%20was%20neither%20in%20self%2Ddefense%20against,Jurists%20(ICJ)%20in%20Geneva.
The invasion of Iraq was neither in self-defense against armed attack nor sanctioned by UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force by member states and thus constituted the crime of war of aggression, according to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva.[63][64] A "war waged without a clear mandate from the United Nations Security Council would constitute a flagrant violation of the prohibition of the use of force". We note with "deep dismay that a small number of states are poised to launch an outright illegal invasion of Iraq, which amounts to a war of aggression".
Prof. Wolff,
This seems to be the game as recorded on the site Chess Games: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1060353
Mike
In the terminology of just war theory and in current intl law, there is a distinction betw the crime of aggression, on the one hand, and crimes committed in the conduct of a war, on the other hand, which are often labeled "war crimes" as a catch-all phrase.
Putin is guilty of both the crime of aggression and war crimes.
In the case of Bush 2, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was unlawful, hence was the crime of aggression. Whether Bush 2 (meaning the U.S. and its allies) *also* committed war crimes -- which, to repeat, is a separate category from the crime of aggression -- is perhaps slightly more debatable. In any case, Putin's war crimes are more blatant and obvious (which doesn't excuse the U.S.).
The question now though is what to do about the current situation. (I've looked at the lengthy Wikipedia entries on Blinken and Sullivan, the natl security adviser. Impressive establishment-style resumes. Blinken and Biden have a long association, going back to Biden's days as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee when Blinken worked for him.) I've seen no evidence in the reporting I've read or heard that the Biden admin is pursuing a two pronged approach, both arming the Ukrainians and seeking to facilitate a negotiated solution. The admin seems to be doing only the former, plus sanctions etc.
A (retired, I think) U.S. general on one of the Sunday talk shows was going on about how the Biden admin in his view had to give Ukraine more drones and more weapons of all kinds beyond what its currently doing to ensure that Ukraine wins. He didn't consider the risk, already discussed in this thread, that Putin will not accept a loss and will resort to nuclear weapons. Even if it's a small risk, it has to be taken seriously. I didn't watch the linked video but I am somewhat familiar with Cirincione; he knows a lot about nuclear weapons and policy, though he's not a Russia expert afaik. But I'd be inclined to take what he says seriously.
s. wallerstein,
Perhaps we should be thankful for small favors, i.e, that you and I concur regarding the need to seek a negotiated settlement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rather than risk an escalation which may involve tactical nuclear weapons.
Your point regarding the invasion of Iraq is that Iraq did not present a threat to the U.S. and therefore the invasion was an act of aggression, which I interpret to mean that unless a country presents a direct threat to a country’s security, even if the government of that country is performing atrocities to segments of its population, other country’s have no right to invade the country in question. Yet, in other comments, you have suggested that the West has come out in favor of the Ukrainians and have armed them because the Ukranians are White Europeans, compared to the Africans who were involved in the genocide in Rwanda, and the Ethiopians who are currently involved in a civil war. But neither Rwanda nor Ethiopia presents a threat to the United States that would justify its getting involved in those conflicts. Why was the invasion of Iraq, which had multiple objectives, one of which was to depose a ruthless dictator who had killed segments of his own population, an unlawful act of aggression, but the failure to get sufficiently involved in Rwanda or Ethiopia is attributable to racism? Are all unprovoked invasions unlawful, even if the country’s leader is a mass murderer, unless an invasion is to prevent Africans from killing each other?
To Marc Susselman:
Are you implying that the US invasion of Iraq was justified, not the grounds that Sadam, though no threat to the US was a murderer of his own people?
Is that the point of your invoking the case of Rwanda as a parallel?
I meant "... on the grounds..."
Marc,
As usual, you're attributing to me affirmations I never made and distorting those I did make.
I'm out.
Interesting article. Kirill is a Putin stooge with really bad ideas conflating religion and nationality. He's caused schisms and harmed Orthodoxy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/18/russian-orthodox-church-ukraine-war/
MS, if it's fair for Robert Wright and Joe Cirincione as well as Chomsky and Scahill to run through forty or fifty years (or more) of history, I see it as fair for me also. Besides I do enjoy reminding folks that Nader is a union busting rat bastard. It seems that every interview from the usual suspects has to spend most of the time chewing over every stupid and counterproductive adventure the US has engaged in.
Moving on, however one feels about Libya, I see that W&C noted that Qaddafi's fate made an personal impression on Putin. It occurred to me that was likely not the case with folks like Macron,Trudeau, Bush, Merkel, etc. because they aren't authoritarian dictators. They stood for office, served their terms and followed their constitutional orders. Of course a dictator is going to be freaked by another dictator getting offed. Way too close to home. Which, BTW, is never mentioned by these guys. Putin is treated like any other head of state. That's a problem.
Anyway, my reading is that in the present dispensation the best way to ensure a nuclear exchange in the short to medium term is to choke in Ukraine because Putin might use a nuke.
BTW, MS and LFC have good points on Iraq. That Chomsky, et al can't get past their priors and see the difference discredits them. One of the favorite neo-con tropes was that "democracies don't fight democracies" (remember Jean Kirkpatrick?). Folks then extrapolated (the oil helped). Chaos ensued.
s.w., if Putin is given a face saving deal, he won't be seen as a loser so no taste of poison.
David Zimmerman,
Regarding Blackwater, its contractors who were accused of having committed a massacre on September 17, 2007, in Nisour Square in Baghdad, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed, were prosecuted and convicted. There were other incidents which the FBI investigated and the evidence indicated that the ammunition used in the incidents were fired by insurgents, not by Blackwater contractors. At least these incidents were investigated, in some cases resulting in prosecutions. I will wager that none of the Russian soldiers who committed atrocities in Ukraine will be prosecuted by the Russian government.
Regarding the invasion of Iraq, there were mixed motives, the main motive being the pretext that Iraq had WMD which could be used against the U.S. and others. Some speculated that the main objective was to acquire the Iraqi oil fields, although none of the Iraqi oil fields are currently operated by U.S. corporations. It is also the case that one of the motives was to depose Sadam Hussein who had undoubtedly committed war crimes against his own people. Was this a trumped up reason? Was it an illegitimate reason? You are a professor of philosophy, whose expertise is in ethics. Does a country never have a moral obligation to intervene in another country’s politics where that government is committing atrocities against a minority segment of its own population? The genocide in Rwanda was a civil war between two African ethnic groups. The U.S. was instrumental in getting te U.N. involved to send a peace-keeping force there, to stop the genocide. Was the U.S. obligation greater with regard to Rwanda than its obligation to stop Hussein’s slaughter of his own people? Why? Was there no obligation because there were other motives? How pure must the obligation be in order to morally justify the intervention?
s. wallerstein,
I did not go back to check who the commenters were who accused the U.S. of being racist by virtue of advocating on behalf of the Ukrainians, while not sufficiently intervening in the Rwanda civil war. Whoever they were, they shared your view that the invasion of Iraq was unlawful because Iraq had not attacked the U.S. and presented no threat to do so, the pretext that it possessed WMD aside. If I improperly attributed the view that the U.S. support of Ukraine, vs. its less aggressive action in Rwanda, was a form of racism, my apologies.
To Marc Susselman:
Saddam's gassing of the Iraqi Kurds: 1988.
GHW Bush's "Operation Desert Storm": 1990-91, which a. was really about Iraq's incursion into Kuwait and b. stopped short of deposing Saddam.
GW Bush's invasion of Iraq: 2003, more than ten years later, ten years in which the US did nothing to prevent Saddam's further attacks on his pwn people.
Given this chronology, it is hugely implausible to believe that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 had anything to do with Saddam's viciousness toward Iraqis.
Moreover, the entire premise upon which that war was justified in the run-up, at the UN [Colin Powell], in TV interviews [Rumsfeld, Rice, et al] was that Saddam had WMDs, not to mention a nuclear capacity [that "mushroom cloud"], and was therefore an immanent threat to the US.
The Parallel with Rwanda is entirely specious.... on purely factual grounds.
One does not have to be a professor of philosophy specializing in ethics to see this.
MS
I'm fine with your opining on whatever subjects you like, even though I may disagree, but I wd like to draw a line when it comes to facts.
Without taking the time to do research, I can say that there was no robust UN force sent to Rwanda, certainly not when it cd have been useful. That's one of the reasons the genocide occurred on the scale that it did. Romeo Dallaire (I might have his first name wrong) was a UN official in Rwanda whose urging for more forceful and prompt action was not needed.
On Iraq, you are opening up the subject of "humanitarian intervention," a vexed subject on which huge amounts of ink have been spilled. As someone w some familiarity with international law, I feel confident in saying there was no compelling or persuasive *legal* rationale for the 2003 invasion. Intl lawyers cd be found on both sides of the question, but I'm sure the majority view among intl legal scholars was that the invasion was illegal.
Could it have been justified on moral grounds? I suppose that's a little more debatable, but I don't think so. There were (and are) lots of murderous dictators in the world, and I don't think powerful countries have a license, morally or legally, to invade and depose them, except perhaps in truly egregious circumstances that were not present in Iraq in '03. And the Bush admin, while it might have had multiple motives, really put down most of its chips on the WMD argument, which was a straight national-security argument that had nothing to do with humanitarian intervention.
David Zimmerman,
Apparently even a professor of philosophy can be blind to the truth when it contravene’s the professor’s political ideology. Since when is there a statute of limitations on intervening in order to prevent a potential repetition of atrocities. Hussein’s gassing of the Kurds was only one of the many atrocities which he committed against his people, including his jailing and torturing of Sunni Muslims, who outnumbered Hussein’s Shia Muslims. The fact that Bush I decided not to invade Baghdad and depose Hussein for strategic reasons did constitute an injunction against future intervention to put an end to his continued atrocities, and threatened atrocities, against both Kurds and Sunni Muslims. Those atrocities were clearly, repeatedly identified by the Bush II administration as one of several bases for deposing Hussein. Was this unethical?
Regarding Rwanda, I did not offer it as a parallel example, but as a counter-example to demonstrate the hypocrisy of those who condemn the intervention in Iraq, resulting in the overthrow of Hussein’s ruthless regime, at the same time as condemning the U.S. for its alleged failure in not intervening enough in the Rwandan genocide, which was a civil war. Are you willing to criticize that condemnation in order to be consistent with your condemnation of the invasion of Iraq?
"There is no conceivable battlefield situation in which one could rationally use a weapon with explosive magnitude of 3KT."
Dr. Wolff,
I'm pretty sure you would make an exception to a zombie apocalypse or even the intelligent insects Sigourney Weaver had to face in the movie Aliens. The movie Aliens is more realistic than zombies however. You can't create zombies through a chemical process or even by bio-techology but only zombie-like cyborgs by via nanotechnology--and I believe we don't have the technology for advanced nanites. And because of all of the exo-planets discovered by astronomers recently it is quite probable there is life out there & that the galaxy is not anything like Isaac Asimov's version of the universe where it's just men and robots doing their dance.
LFC,
First, the issue of Iraq was raised by s. wallerstein, and I responded because I did not want his opinion regarding Iraq to go without a rebuttal.
The fact that the United States cannot, from a practical standpoint, depose every ruthless tyrant who is abusing his/her power does not invalidate the rectitude of its doing so in a particular case. This was prior to Assad’s murdering his own people; prior to Saudi Arabia’s barbarism in Yemen. At that point in time, can you name any national leader who was as ruthless as Hussein in his abuse of his own people? Were there those who supported the invasion for whom Hussein’s brutality was not a concern or reason to invade? Most assuredly. But it is also the case that many in Bush I’s administration viewed Hussein’s barbaric treatment of his own people as a strong basis for intervening. The ulterior motives of some does not vitiate the legitimate motives of others – not all who opposed the South’s secession were abolitionists, but certainly many were. Does this mean that the U.S. has an obligation to do so in every instance? It’s a matter of calculating the odds, and assessing the multiple justifications. Obviously the U.S. is in no position to invade China in order to eradicate its abuse and persecution of the Uyghurs.
Regarding Rwanda, however ineffectual the intervention by the UN was, it was largely the result of US and Clinton’s insistence that something had to be done. My question for those who claim that not enough was done, why do they criticize the US for invading Iraq, many of whose supporters did so for humanitarian reasons.
Correction:
Hussein was a Sunni Muslim, who were outnumbered by the Shia, and whom he persecuted.
Marc,
Thank you for your apology. I have never advocated that the U.S. military unilaterally intervene in Rwanda or anywhere else.
Michael,
I believe the use of the word “conceivable” in this contest refers to possible scenarios based on our current knowledge of circumstances on Earth, and the absence of any concrete evidence that there is any intelligent life anywhere else in the universe. If we are attacked by creatures like that portrayed in Alien, and its sequels, I (and I suspect Prof. Wolff) will be all for using nuclear weapons in self-defense, if push comes to shove.
Marc,
In my view, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 can't be painted as a humanitarian intervention.
First, Saddam Hussein was not committing genocidal acts or their rough equivalent in 2003. There is no moral warrant, in my view, to violate sovereignty norms to depose a dictator, unless possibly the dictator is committing egregious human rights violations at the time. Hussein wasn't. I'm sure hundreds or thousands of his political opponents were rotting in prisons but, for better or worse, that doesn't rise to the level of justifying a humanitarian intervention.
Btw, al-Sisi in Egypt is an autocrat who jails his opponents. The U.S., far from thinking about invading to depose him, gives his govt a couple billion dollars in "security assistance" every year. Makes some geopolitical sense, maybe, and the U.S. has been doing it ever since the '79 Israel/Egypt peace treaty. Moral sense? Not so much.
Second, the U.S. govt did not claim the Iraq invasion was a humanitarian intervention.
Were there some people who supported the invasion because they were morally attracted to the idea of getting rid of a tyrant? No doubt, but that doesn't make it a humanitarian intervention.
I've not kept up well with the scholarly or other writing on humanitarian intervention in recent years (the U.S./NATO actions in Libya in 2011, which unlike Iraq 2003 were portrayed as a humanitarian intervention by the intervenors, at least as I recall, produced a new spate of writing on the subject), but for those interested I'll mention a couple of older things on the topic that could still serve as useful points of entry:
- Michael Akehurst, "Humanitarian Intervention," in H. Bull, ed., Intervention in World Politics (Oxford Univ. Press, 1984), pp. 95-118.
- Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (1977 and subsequent editions), ch. 6 on interventions.
The Indian intervention in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) is sometimes cited as a case of "true" humanitarian intervention, though Akehurst iirc argues that it wasn't. The Tanzanian invasion of Uganda to depose Idi Amin is also sometimes cited, and one or two others. Whether any of these was a genuine humanitarian intervention is debatable. Idi Amin, if memory serves, was a tyrant whose acts that "shocked the conscience," to use an old phrase, were ongoing when Tanzania invaded. (Unlike Hussein in 2003.)
For those interested in India's 1971 intervention in what was then E. Pakistan, there are a couple of good fairly recent books: Srinath Raghavan, 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh, which I've read, and Gary Bass, The Blood Telegram, which I haven't read.
A couple of slightly more recent refs on hum. intervention:
- Ryan Goodman, "Humanitarian Intervention and Pretexts for War," American Journal of International Law, v.100 n.1 (Jan 2006). I think Marc would find the position of this piece, based on a note I'd made about it, fairly congenial, though I don't know what Goodman says specifically about Iraq 2003. (a warning -- it's not short)
- Robert Jackson, The Global Covenant (Oxford U.P., 2000), ch. 10, "Armed Intervention for Humanity"
One last:
M. Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About the Use of Force (Cornell U.P., 2003)
Wrt Ralph Nader, is there any other case other than his conflict with Tim Shorrock back in 1984 (was it?)? Having read Shorrock on that matter--which he somewhere compares with the equally distant dismissal of Michael Moore from "Mother Jones" --it all comes across to me as a fairly typical bit of internecine conflict on the left, not as union busting per se.
But it's good to know that old conflicts can be resurrected to buttress one side or another in the most recent internecine warfare.
Anon, I was making two points. You seem to have missed both.
aaall, you didn't answer my question regarding your rather nasty ref. to Nader.
Those of us who grew up in the 60's and remember how Nader was the first public figure to take up the then dominant U.S. auto industry find it hard to consider him a villain.
I'm sure that he's made some mistakes in his life and committed a few sins here and there.
Which of us hasn't? Since none of us here are public figures, no one except the person directly involved is likely to remember our acts of cruelty and no one noticed the times we cheated because no one was looking.
There are no saints and Nader has lived long enough that the original glamour has worn off.
Still, all and all, he seems to have made a positive contribution to his fellows.
My error:
That should read "take on the then..", not "take up..."
Seat belts were inevitable while 911, Afghanistan, Iraq, torture, Roberts, Alito and the Financial Crisis weren't. The ledger is way in the red.
I can hear the shouts of outrage at aaall by the Usual Suspects at how dare he blame Nader for 911, Afghanistan, Iraq, torture, etc. He had no control over these events and was neither their factual, nor their proximate, cause.
But he has a point. Seat belts – Nader’s crowning achievement – were likely inevitable. He then used his deserved acclaim as a consumer advocate to run for President, an aspiration which was clearly a bridge too far. He had no chance of being elected, and in his heart of hearts he probably knew it. But he was selfish and sanctimonious, and he wound up splitting the Democratic vote, resulting in Bush II’s election. There is no question that had he not run, or had withdrawn, Al Gore would have been elected President, and think how different our world would be had Gore been elected, rather than Bush II. And for all you who condemn our invasion of Iraq, think about how different our world would be had that invasion – something a President Gore would not have initiated – had not occurred. Think about that when the Supreme Court sometime in May reverses Roe v. Wade. Sometimes the unintended consequences of one’s actions, however idealistic, are not all that unpredictable.
Could you clarify what relation Nader had with 9-11?
Thanks.
s. wallerstein,
9-11 occurred in large part because Bush II was asleep at the wheel. Prior to is inauguration, he had been briefed by members of Clinton’s administration about Osama bin Laden and the threat he presented to the U.S. But Bush II was too busy clearing brush on his Texas ranch to be bothered reading the intelligence reports which were coming in on a daily basis indicating that there was something afoot with Al Queda, and that an attack of some sort was anticipated. Gore, by contrast, was a much more studious, responsible individual who read a hell of a lot more than Bush, would in all likelihood have been aware of the intelligence reports, would have taken them more seriously, and would have taken steps in advance of September 11 to avert what occurred, by, for example, have the FBI arrest the suspects whom they had observed taking lessons in the U.S. on how to fly commercial planes. Why would a person from Saudi Arabia on a tourist visa to the U.S. be taking lessons on how to fly a commercial plane. Is there any guarantee that if Gore had been elected, 9/11 would have been averted. No, but the probability that it would have been averted was higher than with Bush II cutting bush on his Texas ranch.
Regarding Nader, I was unfamiliar with the Nader/Shorrock dispute referred to above, so I Googled it. All you pro-union readers, if you are also not familiar with this issue, you should read an account of what occurred at the link below. You will be appalled, and Nader comes out looking not so much the crusader for the common man as one would expect. Mr. Shorrock writes of the incident: “Ralph Nader may look like a democrat, smell like a populist, and sound like a socialist – but deep down he’s a frightened, petit bourgeois moralizer without a political compass, more concerned with his image than the movement he claims to lead: in short, an opportunist, a liberal hack. And a scab.” Having read the article, I despise Mr. Nader even more than I did when I wrote the comment above.
http://timshorrock.blogspot.com/2006/06/boss-nader-or-how-i-was-fired-by-ralph.html
Marc,
I've worked in many non-profit leftwing organizations and Nader's attitude is very common among those who run such groups: people who because they're involved in a good cause or the Good Cause believe that they have the right to mistreat others. Of course mainstream Democrats mistreat others too.
I can't say that I despise Nader for that. He's human, all too human. Power corrupts on the left and on the right, in the home and in the office.
s. wallerstein,
You have indicated, on a number of occasions on this blog, that you are a strong supporter of unions, as I am. When Nader was running for President in 2000, he characterized himself as pro-union. Mr. Shorrock's story exposes Nader as a hypocrite. And he was a spoiler during the 2000 election to boot. Yes, he is human and fallible, like you and me. But some character flaws, though human, are less excusable than others. Given Nader's hypocrisy, and his role in getting Bush II elected, I find it difficult to forgive him, human though he is. And, surely, he is not the hero you portrayed him as in one of your comments above.
Marc,
He's no hero, but when you look at people's lives closely, there are no heroes.
Maybe Mozart or Beethoven, not for their lives, but for their music.
In political life I have no heroes this morning, none.
“In 1984, [Nader] fired then-editor Tim Shorrock (an occasional contributor to LBO), allegedly for running a story on Bechtel's alleged bribery of South Korean officials to get construction contracts without getting Nader's approval. (So much for editorial independence.) But the sacking came after a long history of fights between Nader and Shorrock over near-sweatshop working conditions as well as editorial policy, with Nader, among other things, objecting to Shorrock's attempts to link CIA behavior to the interests of multinationals.
Shorrock was given three months to leave. In response, he and two colleagues organized a campaign to get reinstated”
https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Nader.html
Lawrence Wright's _The Looming Tower_, which I read some years ago (though for some reason never quite finished the last few pp), makes pretty clear that it was the mutual suspicion, infighting, and lack of coordination between CIA and FBI that had a great deal to do with why the 9-11 plotters were able to succeed. The 9-11 Commission came to a similar conclusion, I believe. These structural flaws would have been the same whether Gore or Bush had been in office.
My guess is that if the odds of preventing the attack were 10 percent to 90 percent w Bush, if Gore had been in office they wd have been only slightly better, say 20 to 80.
The problem was not that Bush didn't read the intelligence reports -- he read them. The problem was that the natl security apparatus and Bush himself did not have a sense of urgency about this and that the reports and warnings were not specific but general. It was a govt-wide screw-up. Bush 2 can be blamed for plenty of things, but 9-11 was a much wider problem than who was in the White House.
P.s. one of the key memos -- the report from a field office saying "why are these guys taking this flight course?" -- never got up to the highest officials, iirc. It just got lost, basically, in the bureaucracy. It's not that there were specific warnings that reached the Oval Office and that Bush didn't read bc he was cutting brush. That's not how it happened.
That said, cd he have been more attentive and on the ball? Yes but so cd C. Rice, G. Tenet etc.
LFC,
There is no way, of course, to place any exact probabilities on to what extent Gore would have been more attentive to a possible attack by al Queda than Bush II, I believe, however, that it would have been more than 20%. The attack on the USS Cole had just happened during the Clinton administration in October, 2020, just before the election. So Gore had already been alerted to the threat, and had participated in the CIA briefings regarding the terrorist threat from al Queda. This, and his general greater attention to detail and policy, which Bush II lacked, increase the likelihood that he would have acted quicker, and more decisively before the 9/11 attack than Bush II did. The 9/11 speculation aside, Gore was by far the better, and more electable. candidate with regard to the same progressive issues which Nader claimed to champion.
Let's just throw everything including the kitchen sink at Nader--the surprising cause of ALL our political, social, economic, and cultural woes--and move on. Who'd have thought we'd be so reduced to scapegoat 'thinking' when supposedly having a conversation (though to call it that is clearly some kind of category mistake) about some important questions such as the looming possibility of nuclear war (and perhaps also chess). rm
Back to the present:
Just because he’s said much of it before, and recognising that not everyone agrees with him, I still think it’s worth taking note of his most recent reflections on the matter:
“I agree . . . that this is the most dangerous crisis since the Second World War. I think it’s actually more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is not to minimize the danger of that crisis. But I think basically what we have here is a war between the United States and Russia and there’s no end in sight. I cannot think of how this can end in the near future. And I think there’s a very dangerous chance of escalation.”
https://usrussiaaccord.org/acura-viewpoint-transcript-of-john-mearsheimers-april-7th-presentation/
To Anonymous:
No one is blaming Nader for "everything."
The stress has been on his ridiculous decision to run in the 2000 presidential election, a decision that played a major [if not the only] role in Gore's defeat.
Please no strawmannirg Nader critics.
Professor Zimmerman,
I take it that ethics is your field.
Let me ask you then how does philosophical ethics treat the case of the responsibility of someone for the unforeseen consequences of his or her actions?
That is, Nader could not possibly have foreseen 9-11 and the ensuing "war on terror", the torture center in Guantanamo, the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, Islamophobia, etc. From Nader's point of view during the 2000 election, Bush 2 was a conventional Republican like his father and Gore was a mainstream corporate Democrat like Clinton.
Nader also could not have foreseen the situation in the electoral college in 2000: that a
Republican candidate who lost the popular vote would win the electoral college vote due to
a spurious Supreme Court decision, something which had never occurred during the 20th century in the U.S. previously.
My question above is a genuine question, not the beginning of a polemic. I am curious how academic philosophy would treat the question posed above.
"That said, cd he have been more attentive and on the ball? Yes but so cd C. Rice, G. Tenet etc."
LFC, the Cossacks work for the Czar. The Clinton Administration was all over OBL and they were adamant about that during the transition. Bush and Cheney blew it off. Rice, et al responded to hints from above.
I agree that there's no slam dunk here but the Clinton Administration did catch a guy with explosives headed for LAX (I believe) so a strong focus from the top could have made a difference.
Anon, I think Mearsheimer is well past his sell by date.
Why do you think Mearsheimer is "past his sell date," aaall. Do you disagree with him, that the Ukrainian situation is extremely troubling, not just because of what's happening on the ground there but also because of its potentiality, given the larger conflict-oriented configuration of power/force surrounding it, to really blow up into the horror Prof. Wolff keeps trying to bring to the fore. I'd appreciate a bit more discussion of your disagreements. Unexplained dismissiveness doesn't contribute much to anyone's understanding--and the advancement of understanding, not just a talking heads, he said she said type of exchange is surely to be preferred. Or is it the case that we are all now so locked into our positions that we're simply reduced to verbal warfare, including rehashing all the things that have probably divided us for decades? rm
s.w., just to clarify things, Nader didn't need to foresee the exact outcomes of the 2000 election, he only needed to apply some common sense. After the Gingrich Revolution and the Clinton impeachment it was clear that the Republican Party was going to the dark side. We were into do no harm territory. If he had figured that out and ran anyway then he's culpable. If he was too dumb to figure that out ...
"Now I think, to be honest, that the evidence is overwhelming that this is not a case of Putin acting as an imperialist and it is a case of NATO expansion. If you look at his February 24th speech justifying why Russia invaded Ukraine, it is all about NATO expansion and the fact that is perceived to be by him, an existential threat to Russia. If you look at the deployment of forces in Ukraine, it’s hard to make the argument that the Russians are bent on conquering and occupying and integrating Ukraine into a greater Russia."
anon, it seems obvious to me that Putin intended to do a sweep to Kiev, install a stooge, and create a vassal state like Belarus. That sort of defines imperialist, no? M seems unable to wrap his mind around the possibility that dealing with a isolated dictator in a personalist autocracy may not be possible.
aaall,
There are a lot of things that are clear in retrospect that were not clear at the moment.
While I was not in the U.S. in 2000 and only just had got internet (which allowed me to read U.S. media besides the international edition of Time Magazine or Newsweek), I don't recall that in 2000 it was common sense that the Republican Party had become or would become the monster it is today. Maybe you foresaw that and if so, I congratulate you on your exceptional insightfulness, but it certainly was not as clear then as now.
But it seems to me, aaall, that Mearsheimer is now looking to the situation which has arisen, not so much any longer to its origins. So to another passage from his talk:
"Now, you’ll know that it would be a devastating defeat for Joe Biden if the Russians were to win this war. And of course, as I just said to you, from the Russian point of view, they have to win this war because this is [as they see it] an existential threat that they are facing. So the question you then want to ask yourself is, where does at leave us? Both sides have to win. It’s impossible for both sides to win, not when you think about the situation that we’re facing here. So how do we get a negotiated settlement? I just don’t see it happening. I don’t see the Russians giving any meaningful ground and I certainly don’t see the Americans giving any meaningful ground. So what is likely to happen? There’s now talk on our side, and even on the Russian side, that this war is going to go on for years. In other words, we’re going to have a war between the United States and Russia that goes on for years."
He then goes on to ponder the possibility that this might lead to attempts to break out of that situation which might in turn lead to nuclear war.
To be sure, I can see that his evaluation of the present and the possible future might be linked to his understanding of the origins of it all--an understanding I happen to agree with. But I don't see it as a necessary link. His evaluation of the present situation and his apprehensions concerning the future could, I think, be held even by those who disagree with him as to how we got here. (I've no idea, e.g., whether Prof. Wolff agrees with Mearsheimer's views on the origins of the Ukraine conflict. But from what he's written, he does seem to entertain the same fears as to what might come from it sooner or later). rm
To Anonymous:
You are doing it again: Straw-manning those who criticize Nader for running for president in 2000because it was very probable that anyone on the vaguely defined left would take away votes from the person most likely to defeat Bush, viz. Gore.
Any sensible person who was paying attention to this presidential race would have had good reason to believe that "W" would turn out to be a much worse president than Gore.... And that is precisely what he turned out to be.
On the matter you stress: Nader should have anticipated that the 2000 race would be close.... and therefore he should have resisted the urge to throw himself into it to the highly probable detriment of Gore.
One need not be a "professor of philosophical ethics" to make such assessments.
Why do you have the urge to bale out Nader in this matter? I do wonder.
To buttress/supplement what Prof. Zimmerman has written, it is clear and indisputable that Nader had the right to run for President if he wished, and he could neither be sued civilly for doing so, or prosecuted criminally for doing so. But let make believe that he could have been sued. In such a lawsuit, or prosecution, the plaintiff or the prosecutor would have the burden of proving that by running for President, Nader, himself a lawyer, was either civilly negligent, or criminally negligent, respectively. The theory of causation in either of these venues hold one responsible for one’s acts, and for all subsequent events that are reasonably foreseeable as the consequence one’s negligence. Moreover, in order to prevail, the plaintiff, or the prosecutor, does not have to prove that the precise events which occurred after the negligent action was taken had to be foreseeable, but rather that the events which did occur were within the category of potential outcomes that were reasonably foreseeable. For example, in civil litigation there have been cases where a ship was not properly moored, broke loose from its mooring, floated down river and crashed into this or that other vessel, causing a catastrophic fire that destroyed hundreds of businesses and residences. The defendant has argue that, even if negligent, it was no foreseeable that the ship would collide with this particular vessel, and that that collisions would result in an explosion, which would destroy these particular businesses and residences. The courts have rejected such a defense on the basis that foreseeability does not require such specificity – it was foreseeable that if the ship broke from its mooring it would likely cause damage down river, and the defendant, whose negligence caused the ship to break from its mooring is responsible for all of the specific damage that negligence caused.
In Nader’s “case” I submit that the following proposition were reasonably foreseeable by him:
1. It was reasonably foreseeable that Nader would not win enough votes to actually win the national popular vote, and not likely that he would win any of the states and would not garnerr electoral votes, and certainly not enough to win the election.
2, It was reasonably foreseeable that, comparing his policies and political ideology to those of Gore and Bush, that the majority of the votes he would win, but for his running, were more likely to go to Gore, rather than Bush.
3. It was reasonably foreseeable, without knowing how many votes Nader would take away from Gore, that it created a not insignificant risk that in many states this re-direction of the votes from Gore to Nader could result in Bush winning that state over Gore, along with their electoral votes, and therefore an not insignificant risk that these votes would elect Bush President rather than Gore.
4. It was reasonably foreseeable that if Bush got elected over Gore, that the Bush administration would support and implement policies in all sorts of areas that would be anathema to, and deleterious to the interests of, the respective constituencies which supported Gore and Nader, even though it was not foreseeable precisely what these adverse policies and decisions would be.
Given these generally foreseeable outcomes if Nader ran for President, does the fact that Nader could not foresee the occurrence of 9/11; or the specific right-wing conservative Supreme Court nominations that a Bush administration would make, vs. Gore, and the consequences those nominations would have on such important progressive issues such as the right to an abortion and gun control; or the invasion of Iraq mean that he cannot be held responsible for these deleterious outcomes? If Nader could be sued for his decision to run for President in 2000, either in a civil lawsuit or a criminal prosecution, a jury would be justified in returning a verdict holding Nader civilly or criminally negligent for his decision to run.
s.w., I wouldn't expect regular folks with lives to necessarily pick up on that but anyone who was on the left and engaged should have. When the Gingrich Republicans took over the Congress in 1995, they went wild. In that life I knew folks and a Dem Rep (you would recognize the name) was initially frightened by their behavior. The total dishonesty around the impeachment should have sealed the deal. There's more. If one was paying attention Gingrich was a total heel turn.
BTW, and speaking of unions, today is the anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre in 1914 when Rockefeller coal operators murdered striking miners as well as their wives and children. Back in the late 1950s a neighbor who had been born on the Montana frontier told me he had been in the Colorado National Guard at Ludlow. He was still angry at what he saw.
Anon, what word seems to be missing in the passage you quoted?
I'm afraid you'll have to tell me what the missing word is, aaall. rm
Professor Zimmerman,
I asked for the opinion of academic ethical theory about the above issue because political passions run high in this forum and academic ethical theory is an attempt to reach a rational, non-passionate ethical judgment about diverse issues. I realize that academic ethical theory
is not always successful in purging itself of political passions, but it seems to be a positive step in that direction.
Anon, "Ukraine" which certainly has some agency here. M simply seems unable to get past his great power theorizing. Ukraine (and Estonia, et al) understand Putin and Russia. M doesn't.
Marc Susselman, s. wallerstein,
You have indicated, on a number of occasions on this blog, that you are a strong supporter of unions, as I am.
I've made statements to the effect that as regards real wages, unions are useless and even harmful. It appears I've been vindicated.
My new study w @asdomash shows that nominal wage growth and real wage growth are historically not correlated. Indeed, faster nominal wage growth above 4 percent is associated with slower real wage growth.
source with graph: Robin Brooks on Twitter
We first highlight that in general, the correlation between economy-wide wage increases and worker purchasing power is close to zero or negative. Table 1 shows the historical relationship between nominal wage growth and real wage growth going back to 1965. We show the correlation coefficient using alternating wage measures and inflation measures, and include both the contemporaneous correlation and the correlation between lagged nominal wages and real wages. Across all our series, the correlation between nominal wage growth and real wage growth is very low, and usually becomes negative with a lag.
The relation between nominal and real wage growth —Alex Domash and Lawrence H. Summers
Well, it certainly is the case, isn't it, that Mearsheimer does refer to Ukraine elsewhere in his comments, aaall. But by the point he came to at which I quoted he was, I believe, referring to the structure within which Ukraine is by and large rconstrained to act. That's a structure which Ukrainian agency can and perhaps already has affected to some degree, though not perhaps quite according to anyone's intentions. But its capacity to alter the international structure is relatively minor compared to what others can effect, primarily in the current case the USA and Russia. And Mearsheimer's point was surely to contemplate the frightening international-systemic predicament Russia and the USA now find themselves in respecting one another.
Anyway, the whole issue of agency and structure is an interesting one. It even applies, I suppose--and I hope this doesn't raise too many hackles!!!--to that other ongoing dispute over the 2000 US Presidential election. Just how much agency does anyone have to effect significant change in the structure of US politics? But there's lots of evidence that seemingly frozen systems of politics can be caused to melt.
To conjecture: should matters unfold as Mearsheimer fears they might, 20 years or so from now (if any are around to argue about it, though I'll be long gone no matter what) there might well be arguments over Zelensky's/Putin's/Biden's role in the ruin of our world which will parallel that over Nader's role in the ruin of the USA. No one will remember Boris Johnson. rm
rm (posting as anonymous -- you can post as rm btw, just fill in the "name" field):
I've read the transcript of Mearsheimer's talk. Thanks for linking it.
The most interesting part is where he says that he doesn't think the U.S. will let Ukraine make a settlement w the Russians that it (the U.S.) doesn't like. He cites a WaPo article that I didn't read. I hope he's wrong about that, but I don't know whether he is or not.
p.s. on reflection, I think Mearsheimer is wrong on that particular point, and there are some other things in the talk that strike me as weird. But still it's interesting. One shd keep in mind that it was given a couple of weeks ago, not that his message wd probably be really any different today.
Thanks, LFC. I'd be interested to know why you think he's wrong. I think he's right, though for reasons that are perhaps rather alien to his IR realism: Being neither a realist nor a liberal wrt IR, I tend to think that the US-led project, incorporating NATO and the EU, to maintain and advance an entity that will constitute the most powerful economic cum military cum political force in the world leads to the conclusion Mearsheimer voices. But as someone has written, "“Every false theory, of course, has infinitely many false consequences (as well as infinitely many true ones)” and a theory that is close to the truth gets some things “totally wrong.” "
As to how I sign myself, I find it psychologically easier not to be confronted by my initials (if they are my initials). rm
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Prof. of political economics at Columbia University (and the so of a prominent labor attorney in Detroit) believes that the only way to end the war in Ukraine is through a negotiated settlement, which includes Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO. Otherwise, there will be a stalemate that will last for years, and continuing death and destruction, and the risk that Russia will deploy nuclear weapons.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/opinions/sachs-ukraine-negotiation-op-ed/index.html
rm,
Since the premise, or a premise, of U.S. policy is respect for Ukrainian sovereignty, I think it wd be extremely difficult for the U.S. to block Ukraine from negotiating a settlement w Russia -- not that such a settlement seems likely to happen any time soon. That's why Mearsheimer strikes me as wrong on that particular point.
I think this new piece by Tony Wood (author of books on Russia and Chechnya) in the New Left Review's blog will of considerable interest here. He gives a great deal of detail about the geopolitical issues over the past 30 years leading up to the invasion of Ukraine. In particular, section 11 (including the assertion of the (alleged) falseness of "the apparent dichotomy now developing between two explanatory schemas—one emphasizing nato expansion, the other the long-hidden force of Russian nationalism; one supposedly exculpating Russia, the other muting the role of NATO") almost seems as if he wrote it after reading the comments here: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii133/articles/tony-wood-matrix-of-war?fbclid=IwAR1BMDm3LWL6baPO82E74Fa_OUD-4z6rDMNhuJalTXksGSff7CPsIPE2rZc
"Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Prof. of political economics at Columbia University (and the so of a prominent labor attorney in Detroit) believes..."
I would think that Jeff should fall back:
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150npp3q49x7w/how-harvard-lost-russia
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/27/magazine/dr-jeffrey-sachs-shock-therapist.html
Perhaps these are of interest:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09637494.2020.1796172?needAccess=true
https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531502157/the-moralist-international/
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/11/evangelicals-and-orthodox-together
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/putin-patriarch-ukraine-culture-power-decline/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/how-putin-matters-russian-orthodoxy-evangelicalism/
aaall
You have said that you want Putin to be defeated and humiliated (and one might readily agree that a defeat of Putin is much preferable to a victory by him), but how do you think that's going to be achieved in a way that does not result in: (1) the virtually total destruction and depopulation of Ukraine, and/or (2) a serious risk of major escalation and possible nuclear "exchange" (which in this context may be read as a euphemism for nuclear war)?
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