Streetwise Professor

I am a longtime critic of Elon Musk. I have criticized his rent seeking, most notably his extensive reliance on government subsidies to build his business empire. I have criticized his deceptiveness and self-dealing in the Tesla acquisition of Solar City–which despite all his bloviation about synergies was flatly a bailout of a failing company paid for by Tesla shareholders. I have criticized his numerous misleading statements over the years, most notably his promising the moon and then failing to deliver (e.g., heard of the solar roof lately?).

I am also a longtime critic of Twitter. It is a censorship engine masquerading as a social media company. Its management has, and still does, viewed its mission as enforcing the leftist progressive political narrative, and in pursuit of that mission ruthlessly suppresses all dissenting voices–especially if they gain any prominence.

Therefore, my first reaction to the news of Elon mounting a takeover attempt of Twitter was cognitive dissonance. That soon passed, however. Life is about choices between less than ideal alternatives, and as problematic as he is, Elon still dominates Twitter and its allies, hands down.

He at least talks the talk on free speech, and his criticisms of Twitter are trenchant and largely in agreement with my views. Although one may question how truly committed he is (he blocks people who needle him, myself included) there is considerable option value here. We know Twitter is committed to being the speech police, Musk offers the possibility of a freer and fairer platform.

The hysterical (in both senses of the word) response of Twitter management, employees, and the phalanxes of leftist, statist orthodoxy is wildly entertaining, and suggests that Elon is a real threat to what they viewed as their plaything: they certainly believe he is. There is so much material to choose from here, but Robert Reich’s widely mocked article in the Guardian provides a good summary of the various panicked arguments opposing Musk’s move. This was particularly hysterical (again in both senses of the word):

Elon Musk’s vision for the Internet is dangerous nonsense: Musk has long advocated a libertarian vision of an ‘uncontrolled’ internet. That’s also the dream of every dictator, strongman and demagogue.

Dictators, strongmen, and demagogues have libertarian visions. Who knew?

It is also beyond amusing that those who for years sneeringly dismissed Twitter critics by saying “it’s a private company so it can do what it wants” are now in full psychological meltdown over the prospect that someone might take a company private and do what he wants–because it’s not what they want. Say, here’s an idea: if he takes over Twitter, start your own platform, bitches. That’s what you’ve been telling us for years, isn’t it?

If I had any doubts about whom to support in this battle, two of my other bêtes noires, Gary Gensler (SEC) and the Department of Justice immediately mounted up to ride to Twitter’s rescue:

BREAKING: As @elonmusk offers to buy the rest of @Twitter a legal source tells @FoxBusiness @SECGov and @TheJusticeDept have launched what he described as a "joint investigation" into a myriad of Musk regulatory issues primarily involving @Tesla https://t.co/TDFLED1XuI

— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) April 14, 2022

Regardless of whether there are issues at Tesla, they existed before he dropped his bomb on Twitter. But I’m sure the timing of this is just a coinky dink, right?

Like Peruvian General Benavides said: ““For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”

Further proof, moreover, that Twitter is just an appendage of the ruling class.

And the SEC should actually be more focused on corporate governance at Twitter. The company implemented a poison pill defense in order to fend off an offer at a price that Twitter would have no possibility in hell of reaching without it. (NB: it’s stock price is up 8 percent since its IPO.) But it’s OK to screw the shareholders to protect the guardians of the narrative, right?

(Musk has threatened to sue the board over this. Alas, poison pill defenses have survived legal challenges, and in fact thrived. That’s why hostile takeovers are largely a thing of the past. The political economy of American regulators and the judiciary decidedly works in favor of incumbent corporate interests.).

This epic thread is spot on:

Thank you everyone for coming in at such an ungodly hour. The folks at Blackrock have informed me that we need the collective brain trust here urgently to deal with this Elon offer. So – why doesn’t someone tell me what they think is going on here? ? pic.twitter.com/toeCBCKqcT

— Perpetual Use ? (@PerpetualUse) April 15, 2022

Seriously. Read the full conversation.

So how will it turn out? Well, it will provide numerous opportunities for schadenfreude. It will reveal the utter hypocrisy of the ruling class. It will reveal how Twitter is really an apparatchik of the ruling class. But I think Elon’s odds of success are low. He will be taking on the ruling class. And very practically speaking, poison pill defenses are extremely hard to overcome. And that will be especially true in this case because Twitter’s board is not using it as a means of extracting a better price: I seriously doubt that there is any price that they would accept if that involved giving control to Elon. But if anyone can beat these odds, it’s likely Elon. The very thing that I have criticized in the past, specifically the lack of any scruple in pursuing what he wants, is exactly what is needed to win a battle like this.

The optimal amount of any “bad” (e.g., crime, cancer) is very, very seldom zero.* This is because the marginal cost of reducing a harm increases (typically at an increasing, and often rapidly increasing, rate): eventually the cost of reducing the harm further exceeds the benefit, usually well before the harm is eliminated.

Unfortunately, a good fraction of the world is in the thrall of those with Zero obsessions who ignore this fundamental reality. COVID and climate are the two most telling examples.

Countries pursuing “zero COVID” strategies have subjected their citizens to draconian measures that have deprived them of the blessings of normal human interaction, and freedom of thought and movement. Children especially have been brutalized, losing two years of schooling, socialization, and even the ability to speak and understand and interpret the non-verbal due to absurd masking requirements.

This brutality has unsurprisingly reached its zenith (or nadir, if you prefer) in China, a nation of 1.3 billion governed by a despotic regime that has gone all in on Zero COVID. The outbreak of COVID in Shanghai after years of restrictions proves the futility of the objective. The CCP’s response to the proof of the futility shows its insanity.

In response to the outbreak, the regime has locked down a city of over 26 million people. And this ain’t your Aussie or Kiwi or American or Brit or Continental lockdown, boys and girls: this is a hardcore lockdown. Mandatory daily testing, with those testing positive sent right to hospital, symptomatic or no–despite the fact that this has overwhelmed the medical system and is depriving truly sick people of vital care. Children separated from parents. People locked in their abodes, often without adequate food. Pets slain.

It is draconian–and dystopian.

The other prominent example is “Net Zero” carbon emissions. This has become the idol which all the right thinking bow down before, especially in the West. Governments, financial institutions, and other businesses (especially in the energy industry) are judged based on a single criteria: do their actions contribute to achieving “net zero” emissions of greenhouse gases? And woe to those who do not pass this judgment.

It is absurd. And it is absurd because the monomaniacal focus on a single measure immediately banishes all considerations of trade-offs, of costs and benefits. The implicit belief is that the cost of carbon is infinite, and hence it is worth incurring any finite cost–no matter how huge–to achieve it.

And the costs are immense, have no doubt. In particular, the environmental costs–the production of battery metals involves massive environmental costs, for example–are huge. Yet they are ignored by people who preen over how green they are. Because to them, Only One Thing Matters.

This is beyond stupid. Those who will impose any cost, and force others to bear any burden, in order to achieve some Zero reveal that that number is a good approximation of their IQ.

Upon reflection, I believe that the worship of Zero is a mutation of the worship of central planning with dominated the pre-WWII era, and which was supposedly discredited by experience (e.g., the USSR) and intellectual argument (e.g., Hayek, von Mises). Central planning involved the determination by an elite of an objective to be achieved by a society, and the use of coercion–at whatever level necessary–to achieve that objective. Actually, compared to the Rule of the Zeroes, central planning was quite nuanced: it usually did involve some acknowledgement of trade-offs, whereas the Rule of the Zeros does not, with everything–literally everything–being subordinated to the One Zero.

But ultimately, central planning foundered on the reef of its internal contradictions. Attempting to impose a singular objective on a complex, emergent system consisting of myriad individuals pursuing their own idiosyncratic goals was doomed to failure. And it did. But only after inflicting tremendous costs in terms of human lives and human freedom, not to mention human prosperity.

The fundamental inconsistency between emergent and imposed orders meant that central planning required the application of massive coercion. The same is true in the Rule of Zeroes. This has been particularly evident in the case of COVID: what is going on in Shanghai proves this beyond cavil. But the same is inevitable for Net Zero. To impose a centrally dictated objective, and a unidimensional one to boot, on complex societies comprised of billions of individuals with extremely diverse preferences and capabilities is to wage war on human nature, and humanity. Sustaining it necessarily requires the application of massive, and massively increasing, coercion. Because it requires people to “choose” what they would not choose of their own volition.

The populism so scorned by the elite is a natural reaction to this fundamental inconsistency. Whether Le Pen prevails in France or no, the mere fact that it is a possibility reveals the seething discontent of large numbers of folks at the presumptions of their betters. And this is just the latest example of the disconnect between the Zeroes who presume rule, and those whom they presume to rule.

It is a disconnect born of a fundamental misunderstanding of the basic social reality that life involves trade-offs, and that different people value trade-offs differently. That supposedly Smart People have Zero understanding of this reality is a shocking commentary on our “progressive” age.

*Note that I do not say “is never zero.” That would be a paradox, no?

Apologies for the hiatus. Was traveling in Europe for my annual teaching gig in Geneva. Other than the unseasonably cold weather in Geneva it was a great trip.

And now that I am pretty much recovered from the travel, some new material:

Vladimir Putin no doubt imagines a sobriquet being attached to his name. You know, like “the Great,” as in Peter the Great or Catherine the Great, or Vladimir I the Great. He probably wouldn’t even mind “Grozny,” as in Ivan IV Grozny–under either of the offered translations of “Formidable” or “Terrible.”

What are some other possibilities that would appeal to his penchant for history?

Well, I think we can definitely rule out “the Humblest” (Alexei Mikhailovich). We can also clearly rule out “the Peacemaker” (Alexander III).

Putin no doubt views himself as “the Liberator” like Alexander II, who earned that nickname not for freeing the serfs, but for freeing the Balkans: Putin thinks he is liberating Russians in Ukraine and Georgia from a foreign yoke, and no doubt yearns to do the same in the Baltics. He also no doubt dreams of being known as “the Blessed” after Alexander I, who defeated the hated westerners (namely Napoleon), enforced autocratic rule in eastern Europe, and made Russia a world power.

But the trajectory of events suggests that other historical sobriquets are more likely to stick. “The Bloodstained” (Nicholas II) is certainly in the running. But I think that the best candidate is . . . “the Accursed” (after Sviatopolk, a Kievan prince, ironically).

Yes, Putin is riding a wave of popularity in Russia right now. But he is clearly cursed in Ukraine, the rest of eastern Europe, and much of the world. And I think that once the propaganda fueled euphoria fades, and reality intrudes, Putin will be known as The Accursed in Russia as well.

The invasion of Ukraine is a bloody fiasco. Stymied on the battlefield, Russia is resorting to indiscriminate bombardment. In the wake of its withdrawal from the Kievan front, evidence of atrocities is mounting. And just as the Soviets responded to German announcements of the discovery of mass graves at Katyn by claiming that the Germans were the actual murderers, the Russians claim that the mass graves and civilian corpses littering the streets of places like Bucha were not their doing, but the Ukrainians’, thereby proving Russia to be the true successor state to the USSR–and wrecking even further Russia’s already dismal credibility.

Russia had become a pariah state before these revelations. Russians going all Russian has made it even more of one, and it will always remain such as long as Putin is in power. This will relegate the country to persistent penury that propaganda will not be able to paper over for much longer. To maintain his stubby little fingers’ hold on power, Putin will resort to even more draconian measures and oppressions. Defeat (or even Pyrrhic victory), poverty, isolation, and oppression will, sooner or later, make Putin Vladimir the Accursed even in his own land.

As for the military situation, Russia has clearly experienced a major defeat in the north, to the west, north, and east of Kyiv/Kiev. It is withdrawing post haste from those areas, leaving the Ukrainians in control–and allowing them to uncover and broadcast the evidence of Russian atrocities.

One narrative is that the withdrawing units will be redeployed to the Donbas front, and bring a victory there by Victory Day (May 9). Quite frankly, this is delusional bullshit. Claims of redeployment are as convincing as Michael Palin’s insistence that the dead parrot is merely resting.

Units that have been as thoroughly thrashed as those around Kyiv/Kiev take weeks, if not months, to regenerate. And doing so requires a stream of men–which Russia does not have. (Note the extreme difficulty that the US had in keeping infantry units up to strength in the ETO during WWII.) No doubt Putin will find some way to circumvent the legal obstacle against deploying conscripts outside of Russia (e.g., by dragooning them into “volunteering” as kontraktniki, or claiming that Donbas is really Russia), but the new lot of conscripts are just being called up, and it will take them months just to figure out how to put on their gear and find the latrines. And once they are integrated into these units, why should it be expected that they will be any more militarily competent than their predecessors who died in droves while accomplishing nothing? Indeed, the experience of their predecessors means that they will no doubt start out with morale at rock bottom levels, even before they see any of their comrades incinerated by a Ukrainian ATGM. And their training will be, frankly, shit. They will be missile fodder, and nothing more.

Further, there are stories that replacement stocks of equipment are largely unusable. Not that that really matters, I guess, given how ineffective the front line equipment has proved to be. The best stuff blowed up real good. Just think what’s in store for the not so good stuff.

Moreover, if the Russians can redeploy, so can the Ukrainians now that the threat to the north has been reduced. And they can do so with less attrited units, and on interior lines. Adding more mass to the Donbas front–especially given the low quality of the mass to be added–will just add to the body count.

Putin’s alleged focus on 9 May/Victory Day is pathetic, and illustrates Marx’s maxim about history repeating, first as tragedy, then as farce. Even if by some miracle the Russians achieve some simulacrum of a tactical victory in Donbas . . . it is still Donbas, not Berlin–or even Kyiv/Kiev. A farcical achievement, at best.

So Putin is doomed to either a humiliating climb down (which I doubt he will choose, precisely because it would be humiliating), continuing a grinding, pointless battle that will kill thousands of Russians and Ukrainians (and bring more atrocities in its wake), or heaven forbid, escalating with nuclear or chemical weapons.

Whatever option he chooses, he will be cursed for it. By virtually the entire non-Russian world certainly, and eventually in the Russian world as well. He is deserving of the sobriquet The Accursed, but what death and destruction and poverty he will cause in order to well and truly earn it.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has ground to a shuddering halt. Not that it was ever that dynamic, but with the exception of meager gains achieved at great cost in Mariupol, the Russian army is not advancing. Indeed, in crucial sectors, including Kiev and Mykolaiv it is giving ground in the face of local Ukrainian counterattacks (not a counter offensive–that’s something different) and digging in. For now, at least, Russia has shot its bolt. And that bolt did not travel far.

Some of the stories that have been reported are rather remarkable. Most come from Ukrainian sources, so they must be taken with some skepticism, but given the situation on the ground, and a knowledge of the nature of the Russian military they are plausible. For example, desertions of large numbers of soldiers; orders to shoot deserters and malingerers (a tradition dating back to the Russian Civil War and World War II); large numbers of frostbite casualties; appalling medical care; failures to recover the dead; killing of officers (including one story of a tanker driving his vehicle over the legs of his commander in a unit that had suffered 50 percent casualties). Even discounting the most lurid of these stories, this is a picture of an army on the verge of collapse (if not past it). This would be consistent with the near cessation of offensive operations.

Perhaps the most remarkable data point is the largely confirmed (including by official Russian sources in some instances) spate of fatalities among generals and colonels. A handful of generals (including a lieutenant general) have been killed, and many handfuls of colonels are also apparently dead.

These are American Civil War rates of casualties among army, division, brigade, and regimental commanders–and those guys were on horses on the front lines under fire from massed musketry from a hundred or two yards away. Modern warfare has (until now) much safer for colonels and generals.

The explanation being floated by Ukrainian and western sources is that a breakdown in communications has forced these officers to go right to the front to get things under control, where they get taken out by snipers. Well, I’m pretty sure that communications have something to do with it, but I doubt it’s that simple: if it were, casualties among the rank and file would be greater than the (already appalling) 20-25 percent that has been estimated by US and UK sources.

My conjecture is that the communications problems (which I alluded to in earlier posts) have allowed the Ukrainians (likely with US help) to hack and monitor Russian communications, allowing them to target the Russian commanders. In other words: hack them, track them, and whack them.

Regardless, this has to be very demoralizing to both officers and enlisted alike. Further, it exacerbates the command and control problems that the communications issues already created.

So what next? Most likely stalemate, and increased Russian reliance on indirect fire–including most horribly largely indiscriminate shelling and bombing of urban centers, notably Kiev, in an attempt to break the as of now unshaken will of the Ukrainian people and government. The Russians do not have the manpower to mount serious infantry and armor attacks into the cities. They have already taken appalling casualties (human and materiel), and urban combat is a notorious consumer of men and machines.

The biggest potential for a dramatic change in the battle is if the Russians are able to break through on one of the shoulders of the salient in eastern Ukraine, thus allowing them to trap large numbers of the Ukrainian army. This is something I’ve warned about in previous posts. Western military sources have expressed a similar concern lately.

UPDATE: Russian forces are attempting to envelop Ukrainian forces in the east of the country on advances toward cities of Kharkiv & Mariupol: British Defense Intel

A senior US defense official said ?? wants to pin ?? troops in the Donbas to prevent them from reinforcing cities.

— Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) March 23, 2022

I suspect the Americans and Nato militaries have been telling the Ukrainians about this, but they are reluctant to leave. Hence, “defense officials” are making these concerns public in order to pressure the Ukrainians.

Giving up territory would be a bitter pill to swallow, especially given the success that Ukraine has had on the battlefield. But a flexible defense that trades space for time is advisable if the Russians threaten the bases of the salient. Withdrawal under pressure is difficult, and requires skill. But with well-timed counterattacks and indirect fire to interfere with Russian attempts to press the retreat, the demonstrated inability of the Russians to advance rapidly and to coordinate the movements of their various units, and the lengthening of Russian communications that the Ukrainians have already proven adept at attacking, a withdrawal that takes a far bigger toll on the attackers than the retreaters is very achievable.

So what next, if indeed a stalemate emerges? For better or worse, the initiative is in Putin’s hands. He can choose to accept defeat, fight it out by shelling Ukraine back into the stone age, or escalate in some way. Any escalation (e.g., use of a nuke, tactical or otherwise, attack on a Nato country–such as an attempt to build a corridor between Russia and Kaliningrad, or an attack on staging areas for supplies going to Ukraine) would be a horrible prospect, but cannot be ruled out.

The tone emanating from Russia is increasingly hysterical. Dmitry Medvedev’s recent diatribe on VKontakt is an example. Medvedev claims that the US wants to end “our Motherland,” and

“This means that Russia must be humiliated, limited, shaken, divided and destroyed,” Medvedev wrote, saying if Americans succeed in that objective, “here is the result: the largest nuclear power with an unstable political regime, weak leadership, a collapsed economy and the maximum number of nuclear warheads aimed at targets in the US and Europe.”

One interpretation of this is that Medvedev views the war in Ukraine as being an existential issue for Russia, and merely a battle in a Manichean struggle between the US and Russia, defeat in which would represent the end of the Russian state. Put this together with Kremlin spokesman Peskov’s statement that Russia would use nuclear weapons if the existence of the state is threatened, and the potential for nuclear escalation is very real.

Is this a bluff? Do we want to find out?

The US and Nato have to walk a fine line here, between concessions that could encourage Putin to pocket gains today and seek more tomorrow (and not just in Ukraine) on one hand, and an aggressive response that leads a paranoid, bitter, aggrieved Putin to play Sampson.

A chess player is said to be in zugzwang when he has to make a move, but any available move worsens his position. I think it is fair to say that Putin is currently in zugzwang in Ukraine due to the myriad operational, tactical, logistical, and intelligence failures of his invasion forces.

What are his available moves?

One would be just call the whole thing off, withdraw to Russia, and say “never mind.” That would represent an admission of humiliating failure, which would be not just completely out of character, but an act that usually seals the doom of autocrats. And it would probably not result in a return to the status quo ante: Russia would still be a pariah, and subject to myriad non-military punishments.

The other is to forge ahead. But that will almost certainly entail protracted battles on urban terrain, especially Kiev. (I seriously doubt Russia has the wherewithal to fight simultaneous city battles in Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, etc.) Urban battles are notorious consumers of men and materiel. Given Russia’s manpower limitations, the most likely approach will be to utilize massive quantities of artillery, turning cities to rubble while killing countless civilians. To paraphrase French General Koechlin-Schwartz speaking to Patton about American infantry in WWI: “The poorer the infantry, the more artillery it needs; the [Russian] infantry needs all it can get.” Further, Putin evidently has no scruples about employing the firepower against civilians.

So which of these two bad options will Putin choose? From Putin’s perspective, the second is decidedly superior. He is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian, his paeans to the unity of the Russian and Ukrainian people notwithstanding. Moreover, he can see some prospect of “victory” from this approach: if terror breaks the will of the Ukrainian government or the Ukrainian people, they will capitulate to his demands, and he will achieve his stated objective of subjugating Ukraine and removing it from the Western orbit.

This means that to Putin, the center of gravity of this conflict has now become the Ukrainian people and government. But history and operational realities are not on his side. Throughout the 20th century in particular, campaigns designed to win victory through terror (e.g., the London Blitz, the Allied bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan) have not broken the will of the enemy populace, and have often strengthened it. If Ukrainian will holds, Putin is unlikely to succeed. Given his limited numbers, their demonstrated tactical incapacity, and his army’s appalling logistics, the voracious maw of urban battle will consume the Russian army. All of his paper advantages–especially air power (not that he has utilized it effectively–are largely negated once the battle moves to the streets. Then it becomes war to the knife. Thus, Putin’s odds of taking control of Ukraine are low, but they are not zero. So it the best of his bad options.

It is important that the Ukrainians avoid a mistake that would help Putin redeem his currently grim prospects. In particular, their forces in the east are vulnerable to an attack breaking out of the Black Sea coast. They need to be willing to trade space for time and withdraw if that flank appears at any risk of cracking (assuming that they can manage the logistics of a withdrawal, and Russian air power does not exhibit a competence that has been lacking so far). Politically this is challenging because it sacrifices territory to a hated enemy: even an autocrat like Alexander I faced bitter criticism when employing it. But it has proved time and again the best way to prevail–eventually–against an invader on the steppes. As Russians have showed on multiple occasions. And I would argue that it is likely to be particularly effective given the Russians’ obvious logistical deficiencies: a withdrawal would extend their already groaning supply lines, and make them even more vulnerable to a variety of different kinds of attack (drones, guerrilla raids).

Ironically, Putin’s center of gravity is the same as his enemy’s: his population. Putin can continue a murderous campaign as long as the Russian people support it. At present, it appears that scattered protests aside, that flank is secure. Chauvinism combined with propaganda and a ruthless control of the information that Russians receive mean that at present there is either broad support for, or at least not broad opposition to, his invasion.

Severe economic distress resulting from sanctions is the most likely threat to this support. No doubt Putin’s regime will portray any such distress as evidence that Russia’s enemies truly intend to destroy it, and this will resonate with many Russians. But perhaps enough will realize that he is consigning them to misery for no prospect of real gain that Putin’s center of gravity will begin to crack.

Given all this, I estimate that the most likely outcome is a protracted, bloody stalemate lasting for months on the streets of Ukraine’s cities. If it could be guaranteed that the conflict would remain conventional, Nato intervention (through air power alone) could be decisive in days. But Russian doctrine has a low threshold for the employment of nuclear weapons, and that threat has to be taken very seriously. Thus, it is likely that Putin will grind on, under the cover of his nuclear shield.

Not a pretty prospect, but it’s hard to see Putin choosing differently.

Finally, a comment on some domestic US effects of this conflict. It is a depressing picture. Those on the Trump right detest Ukraine for its involvement with various efforts to undermine–and indeed, unseat–Trump. As a result, they are are clearly anti-Ukraine, and in many cases pro-Putin.

It must be said that Ukraine did make some horrible misjudgments. Thoroughly enmeshed in the US foreign policy establishment (Victoria Nuland, anyone?) and the Democratic Party (Hunter Biden, anyone?), and buying into the narrative that Trump was Putin’s puppet and therefore inimical to their interests, Ukraine played a part in the anti-Trump campaign that consumed his administration.

For that they are paying a price. Indeed, their fate would almost have certainly been better had Trump been reelected: it clearly could not have been worse. A Russian reporter friend asked me if this would be happening if Trump were still president. I cautioned against putting too much credence in alternative history, but made one observation. Putin’s ambitions haven’t changed, but his actions have.

Regardless of the folly of Ukrainian involvement in US politics, they do not deserve their current fate. They made a miscalculation about the best way to protect themselves against Putin, but it was clearly not wrong to seek desperately such protection–as current events bloodily demonstrate.

There is a single individual responsible for the current calamity: Vladimir Putin. Even if some Ukrainian actions enabled him, that does not mean that they deserve their current miseries. It is therefore beyond disgusting that a clique of Trump right chatterers cheer on Putin and fight against efforts to aid Ukraine.

And insofar as American interests are concerned, Putin’s public statements make it clear that subjugating Ukraine is not the limit of his ambitions. He has demanded the abandonment of everything east of the Elbe to Russian domination. Ukraine has laid bare his inability to achieve that using conventional military force, but that should hardly be consoling, given the only alternative available to him. He must be fought in Ukraine, and since direct US and Nato involvement is extremely risky due to the nuclear threat, that means finding all means to support a war of attrition in Ukraine. Ukraine has demonstrated its will to fight that grim war, and interest and compassion compel the US to support them.

It is important to avoid false choices. (I consider it ironic that the anti-Ukraine right in the US constantly offers false choices–e.g., “how can you defend the Ukrainian border when you don’t defend America’s?”–given that Obama was the master of the false choice. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.) It is possible to deal with those in the US whose misjudgments and manipulations greatly contributed to the current situation at the proper time while making the best choices on how to proceed from where we are–even if where we are is largely the product of those misjudgments and manipulations.

You have to play it as it lies. Sunk costs are sunk. The current lie is hardly ideal, the product of locust years, but the best play is not to abandon Ukraine and embolden Putin. The reverse is true.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has not shocked and awed the Ukrainian military, but it has shocked and awed Germany, fo’ sho’.

In a period of hours over the weekend (and remember, German stores close promptly at 6 and are not open on Sunday), Germany announced that it will:

(a) Increase defense spending to 2 pct of GDP.

(b) Build two new LNG import facilities.

(c) Consider delaying decommissioning its nukes.

(d) Consider all options for energy, including gas, nuclear, and coal: there are no longer any “taboos” on energy sources.

What will Greta say?:

The Germans are saying, in effect: Go away girl. The shit just got real.

I note that (a) and (b) topped the list of Donald Trump’s harangues against Germany, which caused the ruling class to shriek in anger: how dare he insult our dear allies? Actions speak far louder than an apology.

Alas, this reality therapy has not penetrated the thick skulls of the Biden administration. When asked about reversing Biden administration anti-fossil fuel policies, spokesmoron Jen Psaki instead continued to ride the renewables hobby horse. She thereby reinforced the message of the Most Clueless Man in the World, John Kerry, whose big concern about Ukraine is that it might distract Vladimir Putin from focusing on climate change.

Yes, reality is a mother. Enough of a mother to snap even the dreamy Germans out of their green and pacifistic reveries. But not enough of one to do the same in the Biden administration.

To the surprise of many, including to some extent me, the Russian assault on Ukraine has bogged down. But that’s probably not the right phrasing. It was never unbogged. It has made very little progress in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, and this was true from the opening moments of the assault.

The biggest surprise to me is that Russia has not been able to secure anything remotely approaching air superiority. On paper, they should dominate. But they have lost many aircraft, including not just ground attack SU-25s (which are pretty vulnerable) but also front line Sukhoi fighters and IL-76 transport aircraft (presumably loaded with airborne troopers, Russia’s best). Their main air attacks on Kiev have apparently used cruise missiles, which suggests concerns about the risks Ukrainian air defenses pose to Russian manned aircraft.

The first hours–days, actually–of a US assault would have been focused on dismantling the air defense system. (Remember the first 100 hours of Desert Storm.). Once that is achieved, the tanks roll. The Russians have done both simultaneously (perhaps for political reasons) and it is not working out for them.

On the ground, gains are apparently few, and achieved at high cost at places like Kharkiv/Kharkov. (Even though Ukraine probably has no von Mansteins in charge.) I thought Mariupol would fall pretty quickly, but the Russians appear to be more interested in moving east along the coast rather than securing the rest of Donetsk–which was ostensibly the pretext for this crime.

It seems that the Russian plan was to execute a coup de main to seize Kiev/Kyiv using airborne units and special forces (Alfa/Spetsnaz). They have not achieved that. They seized, then lost, then seized again an airport near Kiev that would have been the springboard for that. But damage to the runways and the losses of some planes that would ferry in the follow on forces have delayed that, and possibly scuppered it. Reports indicate that the VDV units are instead moving to Kiev/Kyiv overland from Belarus.

Some special forces units–in Ukrainian uniforms–have been killed and captured. (Here is an example from Nikopol.). Not a good look for the alleged elite. (Not a good look because of poor operational performance, and because of the violation of the rules of war: the Ukrainians had every right to shoot them on sight. But maybe they could serve as very effective weapons in the propaganda war.)

There are stories of some Russian penetrations into Kiev/Kyiv, but Zelensky is still there and the Ukrainians appear to be in control of the bulk of the capital.

Failure to execute a lightning strike that toppled the Ukrainian government now presents Putin with a grim choice. He obviously believes Kyiv/Kiev/the Ukrainian government is the center of gravity in this conflict. The failure of a decapitation strike against the Ukrainian government confronts Putin with the prospect of a protracted battle in the streets of the capital. Urban warfare is slow and bloody, a meat grinder par excellence.

The historical Russian approach to such battles is to use overwhelming firepower (cf. Berlin 1945, or more recently Grozny). But Putin supposedly venerates Kiev as the cradle of Russian civilization, and reveres St. Vladimir (a prince of Kiev) as “as the unifier and defender of Russian lands, as a visionary politician.” Will he subject this holy place to the Grozny treatment if Ukrainians (soldiers and civilians alike) fight his soldiers in the streets?

The cost in lives–including Russian lives–of such a choice would be immense. The financial burden on Russia of sustaining a high intensity conflict would also be acute. And making such a choice would almost certainly lead to the imposition of the most severe economic sanctions against Russia, namely its excision from the world financial system via expulsion from SWIFT and sanctioning of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. This would no doubt set off some intense political dynamics within Russia.

Putin was counting on a short, decisive, victorious war. With every passing minute, it becomes clearer that he won’t get it.

What then, Vova?

Given that he is quite likely mentally unbalanced–severely so–that question is as fraught for us as it is for him.

So why hasn’t the supposed juggernaut juggered?

Well, for one thing, the enemy gets a vote. (More on that in a bit.)

For another, Russia’s performance in Georgia in 2008 was something of an embarrassment to Putin and Russia. In its aftermath Russia embarked on a wholesale shakeup of the military, involving substantial investment in new equipment (not just tanks, planes, and the like, but things like radios) and an attempt to reform the manpower system.

From the outside–and here I and others likely fell for Russian information operations–the changes appeared to be working. The Russian army was not the shambolic wreck it had been. But it is clearly not the juggernaut it presented itself to be.

From the outset one question in my mind was not the hardware, but the meatware. I wrote a lot 10 years or so ago about the Russian military manpower problem. The military had become less reliant on conscripts, but the conscript cycle had become shortened to a single year, meaning that many of the soldiers currently violating Ukrainian soil have been in the army only a few months–hardly likely to be effective fighters. Just how this new mix would respond to contact with the enemy was much harder to evaluate than the change in Russian materiel. The initial results are not impressive.

And it must also be noted that Ukraine also engaged in a crash reform of its military post-2014. Its performance has been far more credible than most expected. Thus, if anything, it appears that the Ukrainian military reforms over the last 8 years have been more effective than Russia’s over the last 14. Indeed, the Ukrainians have demonstrated considerable pluck, with numerous incidents (telling a Russian ship to “go fuck yourself” when the ship demanded their surrender, a soldier sacrificing himself to blow up a bridge in the faces of advancing Russians) that will build a legend of national resistance. (This in turn would make any putative Russian occupation all the more difficult.)

Initial reports (which must always be treated with care) indicate the the Russians are already facing serious logistical difficulties. If true, this is gobsmacking. If you can’t support a campaign on your own doorstep, you may be a colossus, but you have logistical feet of clay. This is especially true since the Russians had considerable time to plan and prepare, lay in stocks, etc.

And their logistical difficulties will only get worse. It is axiomatic that the further the advance, the more logistical friction impairs operational effectiveness.

And supply lines present the Ukrainians with a perfect opportunity to turn the asymmetric warfare table on the Russians. Partisan warfare against invaders has long been a speciality of Ukrainians, whether it be against the Red Army in the Civil War, the Germans in WWII, or the Soviets in the aftermath of WWII. Tanks can’t move without gas. Soldiers can’t fight without food. Detaching units to hunt down guerrillas erodes combat power.

In sum, Putin wanted and expected–and in fact, absolutely needed–a quick victory. It is increasingly likely that he will not get it. Another example of “no plan survives contact with the enemy.”

On the one hand, that is encouraging–although Ukraine will pay a high price in a protracted conflict. But we have to ponder how Putin will respond to a stalemate, or a long slog towards victory.

Putin tells a story from his youth in which he cornered a rat–to his regret (Putin’s, not the rat’s). Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. But he tells it to send a message: if you corner me I will try to rip off your face.

He justifies his invasion of Ukraine as a legitimate act of self-defense because the US and Nato had backed him into a corner. That was a grotesque exaggeration, but he may well find himself in a corner in Ukraine.

One response to stalemate is to escalate. As Eisenhower said, “If you can’t solve a problem, enlarge it.” But if Putin’s military proves itself to be a brittle sword, what other means does he have to escalate? The answer to that question is obvious–and ominous. Especially when one considers Russian nuclear doctrine.

The most striking thing about the “Ukraine situation” (quote marks explained shortly) is its weirdness. All you hear about is Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, but Putin’s recent demarche was not only about Ukraine, or even primarily about Ukraine (hence calling it the Ukrainian situation is highly misleading). Instead, Putin has demanded a restoration of pre-1997 eastern Europe, specifically the rollback of Nato and the elimination of Nato forces in inter alia Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Baltics. To Russia, Ukraine matters primarily to the extent that its inclusion in western security (and economic) structures would exacerbate an already unacceptable status quo.

I am reminded of this classic National Lampoon cover:

In my imagined reboot, Ukraine is the dog, Putin is holding the gun, and the caption is “If you don’t get Nato out of eastern Europe, we’ll kill Ukraine.”

In other words, and not for the first time, Ukraine is a pawn in a bigger game between great powers. Or to shift metaphors, Ukraine is a stage for an elaborate kabuki between Russia and the US (with western Europe playing its usual bit part).

The US character in this drama is particularly weird. The US was hysterically screaming that the invasion is “imminent.” It even named the date–16 February. Then it dropped the word “imminent” for a bit, before resurrecting it. Yesterday Biden said he was “convinced” that an invasion is forthcoming, and even claimed that he knew the ultimate objective–Kiev/Kyiv, i.e., a complete overthrow of the Ukrainian state. (Perhaps this was a veiled attempt to walk back his previous “limited incursion” gaffe.)

But . . . those supposedly in the cross hairs continue to downplay the threat. Ukrainian president Zelensky has told Biden (and the Defense Department, State Department, and various Deep State leakers) to chill. Yesterday the Ukrainian defense minister said that “we estimate the probability of a large scale escalation as low.”

Why is the US so alarmist, when those whom it is ostensibly alarmed about are not? Only weird explanations come to mind. One is that Biden (or more accurately, those really in control) actually want a conflict with Russia. Insane–but plausible, because other agendas are at work here. Another is that this is a cynical manipulation. The government knows Putin is highly unlikely to invade but is exaggerating the threat in order to take credit for his not doing so: “See! We stood up to Putin and he backed down!” (Kind of like my invisible tiger gun. What? You don’t think it works? Well, you don’t see any tigers around, do you?)

I seriously doubt that Putin will invade, on any scale. Or let’s put it this way, any invasion would likely turn out very badly, so a sane Putin would not do it. Yes, that leaves the possibility that Putin is not rational, but then, how could he be deterred?

A large scale invasion–i.e., Biden’s scenario of a drive on Kiev and the overthrow of the Ukrainian state–would saddle Russia with a costly, long occupation at best, and a perhaps an extended guerrilla war. (The nationalist militias that figure greatly in Russian and pro-Russian narratives on Ukraine present a credible threat of such an outcome.) A Ukrainian Ulcer, as it were.

And that is not to mention the consequences of any economic measures against Russia. And most importantly, it would certainly result in the exact opposite of what Putin currently demands: namely, greater militarization of eastern Europe and greater integration of that area into Nato force structures. (The just announced sale of M1 Abrams tanks to Poland is a harbinger of such an outcome.) It would also greatly increase the odds of Sweden and Finland joining Nato.

A more limited operation (e.g., movements focused on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine) would be less costly in terms of the operation itself and the occupation aftermath, but would mainly succeed in extending the front (currently limited to Donetsk and Luhansk) with the concomitant costs, thereby expanding an already draining frozen conflict, and adding another economic sinkhole to the great Russian empire. Moreover, it would almost certainly result in the same western and eastern European reaction in terms of sanctions and bolstering of Nato.

Perhaps Putin’s demands regarding a return to the pre-1997 status quo are a bargaining chip that he will sacrifice for some concessions on Ukraine. Recognition of Russian possession of Crimea and the Donbas, perhaps. And/or preclusion of Ukraine joining Nato and western economic and government structures. Installation of a compliant regime in Ukraine, and de facto Russian veto over the Ukrainian government.

In other words, his reservation price for not shooting the dog is lower than his current offer.

But even this negotiating strategy requires a credible threat to back it. The credibility of the threat to invade Ukraine is dubious, for the reasons outlined above.

Predicting the outcome of bargaining games under asymmetric information is always very difficult, and that’s what we have here. If I had to guess, I would say that the ultimate outcome will be something along the lines that Macron mooted when he met Putin: Finlandization of Ukraine. (Though it is uncertain whether Putin heard him across a 17′ table, which is yet another weird tableau in this already weird drama.)

To me, the most worrisome is not Putin’s mental state, but the mental state of Biden and the real decision makers (who can easily manipulate a weak and befuddled president). US propaganda games and hysteria do not inspire confidence. There are other agendas at work here, and those agendas are not likely to be compatible with a reasoned approach to Ukraine.

The US has accused Zero Hedge of “amplifying Russian propaganda.”

Well, I have to agree. Indeed, you read it here first . . . if you’ve been reading for more than a decade. Because of that ZH has attacked me on several occasions, and blocked me on Twitter eons ago.

But does that mean that you should ignore Zero Hedge, and defer to what the US says, especially the “intelligence community,” and get all of your information from the US government sources and western media that relies on it? Absolutely not.

Alas, the US government–and the intelligence community in particular–is itself a font of propaganda and disinformation. Moreover, much of the mainstream media (especially the WaPo, NBC in all its variants, CNN, and NYT) is little more than a mouthpiece for the US intelligence community. By design. The CIA in particular has used and manipulated US media (often with the latter’s enthusiastic cooperation) for decades.

In other words, the US complaint about Zero Hedge is very much the pot calling the kettle black.

They remind me of the mirror image characters in the old Spy v. Spy cartoon in Mad Magazine:

In other words, pick your propaganda/info op.

In its McCarthy-esque fashion, the administration labels anyone who disbelieves its propaganda is a Russian shill. Recently, when challenged by the AP’s Matt Lee, State Department Spokesman Ned “Pencilneck” Price responded:

“If you doubt the credibility of the U.S. government, of the British government, of other governments and want to, you know, find solace in information that the Russians are putting out, that is for you to do.”

And I actually suggest you do it. As part of its function as a disruptor, Zero Hedge runs masses of material from sources and voices who confront the official, media sanctioned narrative, not just on Russia but on COVID, wokeism, and on and on. It is of wildly varying quality and credibility and viewpoint, but that actually gives it a leg up on the US media, which is monotonously uniform and of unvarying low quality. If you are a discriminating reader you can filter out the Russian disinformation (which as I noted in my 2011 piece is not the totality of its content, but which ZH includes in a mass of other material in class information operation style) and other crap, and get some valuable information that among other things allows you to identify US government and media disinformation. It’s also good to know what message the Russians are trying to send.

And definitely don’t rely on the official or leaked pronouncements of the US government, and especially the intelligence community (but also, alas, public health officials). If you do, you are a sucker.

The past days (weeks in the case of Canada) have seen a surge of protests in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France. The regimes have acted aggressively in France and Canada in particular. Protestors in Paris–and truth be told, innocent diners at cafes–were tear gassed and many were arrested (and some brutalized). Canadian authorities have taken escalating steps against truckers in Ottawa and on the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, OT.

The Canadian action followed a particularly egregious statement by the appalling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Adopting the wearied, condescending, and supercilious tone of an aggravated parent lecturing a 6 year old, Petit Justin said he had heard the truckers–but was blowing them off. And they had to go to their rooms like good little boys and girls or he would have to get out the whippin’ stick.

Trudeau’s words and actions (and those of bloated Ontario Premier Doug Ford) were welcomed with squeals of delight from the ruling class and its numerous pilot fish, such as the Harvard lecturer (who falsely advertises herself as a professor) who advocated slashing truck tires and siphoning their fuel, and who intimated that even more draconian measures to deliver “hurt” were justified. Similarly, the French crackdown won accolades from the usual suspects.

It is difficult to distinguish the government responses to civil disobedience in Canada, France, and other locations (e.g., the Netherlands, Germany) where anti-mandate/anti-NPI protests have occurred from how Russia responds to such agitation. The main difference being how the western ruling and chattering classes respond–cheering the former and damning the latter.

A common cause of mass civil disobedience in democratic societies–especially when it involves ordinary working people as is the case in Canada, etc.–is the well-known fact that democratic institutions such as voting and representative government are relatively unresponsive to the intensity of preferences. They are driven, roughly speaking, by the preferences of the median citizen. When there is a sizable group in the minority whose preferences diverge substantially and intensely from the median, governments will be at least unresponsive to and often virulently opposed to that minority: the incentives inherent in the democratic political institutions drive that response. Despairing recourse through normal political means, those with these intense but divergent preferences see civil disobedience as the only option available to them.

When such people are by-and-large ordinary, law abiding working people, the protests will be orderly and even carnival-like, as has been observed in Ottawa. But that matters not to the rulers. Such challenges to their authority enrage them. Moreover, in the scenario I am considering, in which protests are driven by a large divergence between minority and median preferences the government will often have considerable political support even if it acts quite aggressively.

I think that is what we are seeing throughout the world right now. In many countries COVID-rationalized restrictions garner considerable support, and arguably the median citizen supports them. Governments are heavily invested in these measures. But large numbers of people are intensely opposed. As a result we see large protests and obdurate governments which apparently believe that compromise is not politically advantageous. Hence the outbreaks of large protests that governments feel empowered to crush.

The US is an interesting case due to the fact that some vestiges of federalism remain. The median preference varies across states, and most police powers inhering in the states, individual states have adopted different policies. Compare say Texas and Florida with California and New York. This reduces the likelihood of a large minority holding intense preferences that differ substantially from the median in the polities that exercise police powers.

There is one important question to consider when evaluating this distribution-of-preferences-based story: what drives preferences?

In the case of COVID and the policy responses thereto, it is abundantly clear that government information operations, often facilitated by private corporations, have played a decisive role in shaping those preferences. The fomenting of fear, bordering on panic. The concerted efforts to quash any dissenting views–to the point now where in the US the Department of Homeland Security proclaims that opinions–and indeed, facts–contrary to official government pronouncements are “misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information” (including regarding COVID in particular) are tantamount to terrorism. Twitter and Facebook in particular have been enthusiastic handmaidens of government efforts to control the narrative. Efforts that are first and foremost directed at shaping preferences and combatting the formation of dissenting preferences and beliefs.

The DHS announcement also claims that what it asserts to be misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information–but which is increasingly clear is truth and fact–is dangerous because it “undermine[s] public trust in government institutions.” This betrays a sacralization of the state–which, perversely ironically, is also a primary objective of Putin’s policies, including his concerted efforts to control public discourse in Russia.

During the Cold War it was sometimes observed that the USSR and the west came to resemble one another in many ways. I think it is fair to say that is much more true today, with respect not just to Russia but China as well. 

Some people are more amenable to government propaganda than others. So one impact of domestic information warfare is to exacerbate divides between the median and large minorities. Further, those who are less vulnerable to information warfare and coercion, but recognize that they happening, are often outraged by it. This intensifies their preferences and makes them more militant.

I think the above is an accurate model of the trajectory of western societies in the past two years. The median has been manipulated by relentless government information warfare that played on fear. This has made it politically possible for ostensibly representative governments to impose draconian measures. But these measures have elicited intense opposition from those who have been resistant to–or repelled by–the measures themselves, and the propaganda used to promote them. The result is protests, and crackdowns thereon.

The one thing that will change this current equilibrium is an evident divide between government-driven panic narratives and the empirical reality that people experience: this would tend to move the median. That seems to be occurring now. In the US, some states are relaxing restrictions and changing their messaging when the latest scariant turned out to be largely benign–clear indications that the median is in fact moving.

We have experienced two years of the tyranny of a manipulated median. One big issue is whether there will be a widespread recognition of this fact, and whether this will engender a backlash. One thing is likely: governments fear this, and for this reason, they will continue and indeed amplify their manipulative information operations. And ironically, although the government believes that waging war on what it characterizes as misinformation etc. is necessary to maintain trust in government institutions, in the end nothing is more corrosive of trust than those very measures. The government has met the enemy, and it is them.