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There is already a thread on this, but I wanted to continue the discussion regarding the Lex/Zelenskyy interview. The other thread is mainly focused on Lex's language choice, and Lex's skills as an interviewer. I'm not very interested in this whole debate - it is pointless internet drama, and a modern form of celebrity worship. It's very disappointing that most people's takeaway "yay Lex" or "boo Lex" and not anything even slightly relevant to the actual war that is taking place.
My takeaway from the interview was that I think much less of Zelenskyy. This was his chance to explain the war from Ukraine's perspective, and the best he could come up with was a braindead "Putin = Hitler" take. People who rely on the "X = Hitler" argument are currently on a losing streak, and I am now more convinced than ever that Zelenskyy will continue that losing streak. I completely agree with Lex that if Zelenskyy believes that Putin is some mutant combination of Hitler and Stalin, yet somehow worse than both, compromise is not on the table. Zelenskyy dies or is forced into exile, or Putin dies or is forced into exile. In spite of biased media coverage in the West that only highlights Ukraine's successes and Russian setbacks, it's pretty clear at this point that if the status quo continues, Ukraine will lose a war of attrition first.
Zelenskyy could have tried to explain why Putin's narrative on the 2014 coup, or the ensuing War in Donbas, is incorrect. Instead, in 3 hours I don't remember him discussing Donbas even once. Maybe this is partially on Lex for not driving home the specifics. While Zelenskyy did not have time to address the core premise of the entire war, he did have time to engage in some psychotic rambling about how Putin would conquer all of Europe.
Maybe Zelenskyy is actually more reasonable in his private views, and he is simply running an outdated propaganda playbook that would have worked in the 1940's, or even the 2000's. But in today's age of high information availability, more subtlety is required. Even if you can convince the average person with a braindead argument like "Putin = Hitler", there will always be a subset of more intelligent people who demand a real argument. Since the more intelligent people tend to have out-sized influence, if you fail to offer them anything, they will not truly support you, or may even undermine you. If you are an intelligent person who doesn't really know much about the war, Zelenskyy offered nothing of substance. "Putin = Hitler" is not substance.
Maybe one possibility is that the two sides of the war are actually:
If these are the options, I'm afraid I have no choice but to take Russia's side. The coup and the War in Donbas, at minimum, happened and were upsetting to Russia, and it is not even remotely outside of the historical norm for such situations to eventually escalate into a full-blown war. On the other hand, 2 is a merely deflection of 1 - not a real argument, just a poor attempt at psychologizing why Putin's motivations aren't his stated motivations, which at least described by Putin are quite logical, but actually just that he is secretly Hitler for some reason. If there is an alternative version of 2, that actually addresses 1, I am certainly open to it.
This has been my experience with trying to talk to Ukraine supporters so far. It's basically how Zelenskyy talked to Lex as well. They do not seem to be able to form a coherent argument; instead they simply attempt to mock anybody who wants to hear someone address Russia's arguments directly from a pro-Ukraine perspective. Trying to shame people into supporting Ukraine, without actually addressing Russia's rationale for invading, is not going to work.
I believe that the reason Ukraine supporters refuse to address the history of the war is that the entire situation becomes more complex in a way that is unhelpful to their cause. Under certain ethical frames, even under Putin's assertions, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is still unquestionably wrong. However, to even make this observation, you admit that there is a question of ethical frame and values. Under some frames, Putin has some reasonable argument, assuming the facts are true. Some commentary has compared him to a "20th century statesman" in how he thinks about things. However, then you have a more difficult task of either refuting the facts or challenging the moral frame. Better then, to simply say "Putin = Hitler, anyone who doesn't agree with my ethical frame is a pyscho maniac murder," and avoid the conversation altogether. I understand this rationale, but I think it is the wrong approach for 2025, and it is certainly not any basis for negotiating an end to the war.
Trump wants to make peace, but it certainly appears that Zelenskyy is not open to it. He did talk about security guarantees - I think this is reasonable, depending on the specifics of the guarantees. Maybe even NATO membership. But he has to let go of the idea that he will get all of the land back. There is no universe in which the Putin regime stays and power and this happens, unless Ukraine achieves some military miracle. At an absolute minimum, the eastern Donbas is gone.
Where does this leave Trump? Obviously he is going to threaten Zelenskyy in various ways, such as threatening to completely ban the export of weapons to Ukraine, sanctions on Ukraine, sanctions on anyone who continues to support Ukraine until Zelenskyy is willing to come to the negotiating table, etc.. This is my prediction for how the war ends: Trump threatens Zelenskyy, Zelenskyy eventually gives in and negotiates, Russia gets some of the land, and Ukraine gets security guarantees backed by the US. The devil will be in the details, of course.
I am not, I am merely a casually observer who spends too much time online, and I am happy to hear your takes on XYZ. I'm not pro-Russia, I am just anti-terrible discourse, and the pro-Ukrainian discourse that I have observed has been horrendously poor. Disappointingly, Zelenskyy continued this. On the other hand, Putin's speeches were highly intellectual and several levels above any speech I have ever heard a Western leader give in terms of sophistication. I am also secure enough in myself that "well if you think that, it proves you're retarded" will not change my view. In the modern information environment, this argument is in fact less effective than ever.
The wars always follow the same patterns and have since the 1800s. A long backstory is ignored, and instead the new boogeyman is launched. There is no reason why this boogeyman exists, he is just evil and wants to wreck the world. A great sense of urgency is instilled and we all have to act now or else Ho Chi Minh, Gadaffi, Castro or whoever else is going to come to your town and murder babies! They are purely evil and have no arguments whatsoever, they are just cartoon villains.
Then the war starts with a big hype, freedom fries, this next war is so high tech, cheap precise and so different from all the others! Don't ask any critical questions, a few special forces operators can take all of Afghanistan in a few weeks and win! There is complete hype, the media asks barely any critical questions, and the psyops are in overdrive.
Then the war drags on, the casualties and costs mount, the refugee crisis grows and "we will be in Berlin next week" attitude is replaced with cynicism. During this phase the debate doesn't get better because now it is a sensitive topic. The war ends and people still don't want to talk about it, hold anyone responsible and even talk about it. It becomes embarrassing for the "Saddam will nuke as all crowd" when they have to face their fiasco.
These things become public frenzies whipped up by the media that fall apart with critical questioning. This isn't too different from defunding the police in Detroit. Every linkedin user is supposed to cheer it on, and a critical question makes everyone in the room deeply uncomfortable.
The west is incredibly good at psy-ops and unfortunately the main target is western leaders. Western leaders genuinely thought Ukraine's summer 2023 offensive would be a success because they had been psy-oped into thinking Russians are orcs with WWII tech who will collapse at the sight of a modern tank. The support for Ukraine has been haphazard because western leaders have been utterly convinced Russia is going to collapse any moment and the battlefield is Legolas and Aragon turning beheading Uruk-Hai into a sport.
The fact that so many in the west were shocked when the war broke out points to the absolute lack of understanding of the situation and what a filter bubble westerners are stuck in. The reaction was to double down and isolate their filter bubble even further.
During the invasion of Iraq Baghdad Bob was on CNN and there were at least some journalists running around on the ground. Today the media is so focused on purity that we would never see a live interview with even a Ukrainian soldier.
The sad thing is people who think every previous war was a farce will join the hype for the next war.
No, they don’t. Do you know anything about American reluctance to enter the World Wars?
I’d like to see you apply any of these standards to Putin’s Russia. You have a remarkable blind spot for anything you think pisses off your domestic enemies.
Obviously they don't follow the pattern he lays out here (Americans didn't lose those wars) but doesn't American reluctance to enter those wars support the "psy-opping people to get them to go to war" theory? This seems particularly true in WW1 where England (in addition to stirring up a lot of anti-German propaganda) passed the Zimmerman Note (which was authentic) to the US to get them to join the war in such a way as to conceal the fact that they obtained it by tapping American diplomatic lines as part of a concerted strategy to draw the United States into the war. Wilson was reelected on his track record of not getting involved and then...
There was a similar effort by the Brits in WW2 but I can't remember any of the really striking narratives from it.
I'll say "not particularly." America got to the brink of war for several other reasons, most prominently American deaths at the hands of U-boats. The sending, interception, and release of the Zimmerman telegram all hinged on Germany's actions at sea.
In elementary school, they taught us about the Lusitania and the policy of "unrestricted submarine warfare" all as one line item. This elided all the important questions.
What exactly did Germany do?
"Unrestricted" warfare never made sense to me until I learned what restrictions they were abandoning. Dating back to the Age of Sail, noncombatant ships were entitled to significant warning before being sunk. It wasn't as if sailing ships had any chance at stealth, anyway. They would surrender to the (faster, larger) warship, provide their papers, and allow a search for contraband cargo. If they proved to be a legal target, then, the raider was required to let them abandon ship, possibly taking them onboard as prisoners, before firing a shot. Such restrictions, known as "prize" or "cruiser rules", were codified by international treaties.
This was reasonable to ask of a surface combatant, which could comfortably outgun any prey or outrun any reinforcements appearing on the horizon. To a submarine, though, it was a terrifying prospect. Lacking the armor, firepower, or speed of a surface ship, subs were extremely vulnerable while surfaced. Requiring such a boat to expose its belly for the sake of propriety was extremely unpopular amongst submarine captains--and amongst their advocates in the German chain of command.
Twice, the German Navy declared that it would suspend these rules within a specific region of sea. The first of these campaigns lasted about six months before outrage from neutral nations forced them to walk it back. The second got America into the war.
Why did they think this was a good idea?
Britain was a powerhouse keeping the Western Front stable and Germany isolated. It was also an island reliant on imported food. The Germans had no expectations of beating the Royal Navy in a straight fight, so they tried to find another way to strike at the British Isles.
Initially, they believed their undersea blockade could be justified to neutrals as tit-for-tat with the more conventional British one. The first campaign was carried out with some limitations, preferring to target unambiguously Allied vessels, in an effort to minimize the backlash. But the British blockade didn't generate American corpses. Ultimately, this first campaign solidified the American government's position against unrestricted submarine warfare.
By 1917, the Western Front had ossified again. Jutland had thrown the Royal Navy into disarray but confined the Germans to port. Civilians and soldiers alike were faced with the abysmal Turnip Winter thanks to continued blockade and manpower shortages stemming from continued conscription. Germany was getting desperate.
Its informal military junta went for one last gamble. If the U-boats could break Britain, Germany could secure its position and make American diplomacy a moot point. They sent the Zimmerman note as part of an attempt to further delay the U.S. Unfortunately for Germany, British control of the seas extended to undersea cables. The telegram was sent on Jan 16 and intercepted immediately. Between its release to the American government and our declaration of war, German submarines began hunting American vessels in earnest, sinking ten.
Did it really matter so much?
Yes, it did.
I'd be willing to assume my main source, a book I just read, was too generous--it sure is a tidy conclusion for a book about naval power. But the chapters concerning submarines and American war support are well-sourced with statistics, letters, and quotes from the countries involved, all of which speak to the importance of these sinkings. My personal standout has to be Teddy Roosevelt, never the most reserved man, in the spring of 1917:
The trickle of American deaths into the headlines brought most Americans into Teddy's camp. Meanwhile, Wilson had drawn his lines in the sand, and Germany had finally, knowingly crossed them. We were done making excuses; it was time to "make the world safe for democracy."
I would add a few things –
First, I don't disagree re: the effects of unrestricted submarine warfare. In fact, I would add that the United States has a (reasonable, imho) history of getting involved in naval warfare due to seizure of its maritime assets and to preserve free trade, so it is possible that they would have been drawn in even if Germany did not adopt unrestricted submarine warfare.
But it's also fair to say that Germany was painted as a villain in English propaganda (and Germany did commit some fairly horrific war crimes during the war, so arguably they earned it). But certainly the casting of Germans as "the Hun" speaks to an effort to psy-op Americans into the war, even if the United States would have entered anyway. (It's also worth noting that American public opinion swung strongly against entry into the war, pushing Democrats at the polls and swinging to large majorities of anti-war sentiment in the intervening years. In fact it's not clear to me that a majority of Americans actually supported entering the war when war was declared – I don't know about that one way or the other).
To me that at least superficially pattern-matches the "psyop everyone into war" pattern, but I'm seeing that you, me, and functor may all have a slightly different theory as to what is meant by that. To be clear, though, I do agree you have a point about the importance of unrestricted submarine warfare, which was not something dreamed up by British propaganda.
Secondly, what's interesting is that while things like the English blockade you mention didn't prevent the US from entering the war against Germany, Wilson did try to resist characterizing the United States as allied with England and France, preferring to frame it as being coincidentally on the same side (and of course all the war-to-end-all-wars League of Nations stuff).
Thirdly, you (and I, earlier) skipped the
funniestbest part of the Zimmerman note! The Germans sent it to Mexico using American undersea cables, because the British had cut theirs and the US had extended use of their cables as a diplomatic courtesy. The British could hardly acknowledge that they had tapped the American diplomatic telegraph cables, so after intercepting the message they had to run a covert operation to steal a copy from its destination in Mexico so they could present it to the United States. Absolute Get Smart stuff, I love it.More options
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Trying a little hard for that good quality contribution link, eh?
(But seriously- well written.)
Thanks.
And...maybe a little. Though that last paragraph was actually the most haphazard. I was getting pretty tired at that point, and I couldn't figure out how to incorporate the "Finis Germaniae" which concludes Massie's book.
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Only if you apply the pejorative selectively in one direction but not the other, i.e. that efforts to propagandize the Americans into neutrality are not a psy-op of its own but some sort of moral normal, whereas efforts to propagandize the Americans into picking a side is illegitimate because -reasons-.
I think one can draw a legible distinction between a foreign government running an espionage operation coupled with an untruthful propaganda campaign and the normal process of domestic consensus-making, but I take your point. Particularly in This Day And Age (anything after the telegraph) you've got to presume the possibility of hostile psyops in all directions.
I wish I had your optimism, but I don't think you can make a legible distinction when there are foreign governments running espionage operations in opposite directions at the same time.
When things are hard to measure- and few things are as hard to measure as the actual effects any amount of propaganda has- it's an easy rationalization to attribute unwanted decisions to the malign influence of outsiders while your favored directions are obviously enlightened objectivity of reasonable people.
I think you can make a legible distinction between foreign psy-ops (organized campaigns conducted at the behest of foreign powers) and organic domestic consensus in principle – in other words, there is a difference between the two – which is all that I meant. You can condemn the one and think that the other is all right. I agree that you can't necessarily turn back time and rerun history without the impact of a psy-op to see what effect it might have, and I further agree that psyops run in different directions, making the measurement of impact difficult. But that does not mean that a psy-op has zero effect, or an inestimable effect. (If this was true, it would arguably follow that there was no measurable or real harm in believing psyops or allowing your policy to be shaped by them, and I don't think that's correct.)
I'm not sure that it's necessarily true that you cannot measure the impact of propaganda. In fact I'm fairly confident that it isn't true today – maybe it was in 1921. But today you can actually quantify things like the impact the Internet Research Agency had on the 2020 election, not perfectly, but enough to get a measurement on it and talk about the impact it has.
But even if you grant that it is, it doesn't follow that it is good to run propaganda campaigns (and I would say especially ones that involve untruths, especially on your own people) or that it is bad for domestic governments to resist the influence of foreign government propaganda.
For instance, to talk about something I think it even more clear-cut than the psyops surrounding the world wars, I think the Nayirah testimony was
And I think this was an effort to propagandize Americans into involvement that was illegitimate (from the American point of view – obviously a Kuwaiti may have a different perspective) precisely because it was based on lies. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of them is that the effectiveness of things like the Nayirah testimony generates callousness and suspicion towards actual atrocities.
The ability to distinguish which is which is what I am contesting. The ability to say normal is good and artificial is bad is the easy part of differentiation- the issue is actually being able to say what is 'normal' versus 'artificial.'
It's Russel conjugation all the way down. You psyop, I persuade, the people I agree with listen to reason, the people I disagree with are wrongfully misled.
Quiz question- do you know how researchers into Russian propaganda outfits like the IRA judge the effectiveness of Russian propaganda efforts like the IRA?
Answer - by reading the internal documentation of propaganda agencies citing western media coverage of them as proof that they are effective when justifying their budgets to paymasters.
Again, russel conjugation. You have to resist foreign government propaganda. Reasonable foreigners happen to agree with my authentic political positions.
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