The Low-Level Subversion Menace
Blake Hounshell responds to my post suggesting that folks wielding the “appeasement” ax are drastically overstating Russia’s practical ability to coerce Ukraine by giving examples of a few kinds of mischief Russia coule plausibly cause and then saying “when people are talking about the Russian threat, this kind of low-level subversion is primarily what they mean — not tanks in the streets of Kiev.”
I agree that Russia could plausibly engage in low-level subversion against the Ukrainian government, but Blake’s being way too generousto the “every day is Munich” crowd here. The trouble with appeasement at Munich wasn’t that Hitler followed up the absorption of the Sudetenland with a campaign of low-level subversion aimed at the remaining parts of Czechoslovakia. It’s that he followed it up with a full scale invasion of Prague, the dismemberment of the country, and then a new round of war aimed at Poland all of which was part of a deranged scheme of world conquest. If people don’t mean to conjure up images of tanks rolling into Kiev — or at a minimum, bombers in the sky above — when they talk about future Russian pressure on Ukraine, then they shouldn’t use inflammatory language about Munich and appeasement. Writers choose these analogies for a reason — they’re intended to shut down consideration of costs and benefits in favor of creating an emergency mentality. The fact that some other, radically scaled-back version of the claim might be true doesn’t make the initial claims any less irresponsible and inaccurate.
25 Responses to “The Low-Level Subversion Menace”
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August 12th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I’d really like someone who is opposed to Russia’s “low-level subversion” of Eastern European countries– and there are very many, and they tend to be extremely animated about it– to turn around and straight-facedly defend America’s actions towards Cuba the last 50 years. I wonder if they might actually be hit by lightning as they spoke.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Freddie, it’s not just Cuba. Really, think of all the “low-level subversion” we have done in Central and South America in the last 50 years; Panama, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala. If any U.S. corporation cried “uncle” (literally), we were there.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I didn’t even know Hitler had ever appeared in a Fritz Lang film.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
The shock doctrine, brought to foreign policy. HOLY SHIT!!! THERE’S A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE AND A HITLER OVER THERE!!!
I KNOW YOU SEE THEM, TOO!!!
WHY DO YOU REFLEXIVELY OPPOSE ALL WAR?!?!?
.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Wow. I got to the bottom of the comments, and my name and email address were already in the little boxes. I just assumed that the capacity to remember that info would be eliminated from the site when Matt showed up.
Sorry for the off topic comment.
Hitler yada yada yada …
August 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Writers choose these analogies for a reason. . .
Now who’s being “way too generous,” Matt? Lots of the appeasement crowd throw these analogies around for no damned reason whatsoever.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Re “low-level subversion “, isn’t that what the US has been doing for the past decade in Ukraine, Georgia,etc with those shitpiles of money being passed to “democracy groups” via US NGOs?
CIA used to handle this job, until Washington discovered US civilian political operatives were more competent at bribery and rigging elections than the civil servants in the CIA. Plus it didn’t look as bad when they were caught.
Read Frank Snepps’s memoir re his CIA training in subversion and compare it to more recent memoirs. This used to be Directorate of OPs bread and butter.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
If you want to know about “low level subversion”, read Ron Paul’s account of US money flowing into the Ukrainian elections: http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2004/cr120704.htm
August 12th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 41 minutes ago
McCain told more than 2,000 voters in York, Pa., that he spoke Tuesday morning with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
“I told him that I know I speak for every American when I said to him, today, we are all Georgians,” McCain said to loud applause. He said Saakashvili asked him to express his thanks to Americans.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
McCain doesn’t speak for me. He didn’t ask my goddamned permission to speak for me. There isn’t a goddamned word that comes out of his mouth that represents my thoughts or wishes or desires. STFU.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I’d really like someone who is opposed to Russia’s “low-level subversion” of Eastern European countries– and there are very many, and they tend to be extremely animated about it– to turn around and straight-facedly defend America’s actions towards Cuba the last 50 years. I wonder if they might actually be hit by lightning as they spoke.
Well, it’s very simple: two wrongs don’t make a right - trite but true. So I’ll stand up and decry Russia’s meddling in other people’s affairs with a straight face (actually not so much in the current case, though they’ve overplayed their hand) - even animated if you’d like.
I also have a history of decrying similar actions by the US. Being a European (and not French or British), as I am, no doubt helps in this regard, but it’s not a necessity - else we would be bound in our ethical and political judgments by the actions of our governments, but since individual responsibility for its actions is extremely limited, that is simply not the case.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Matthew,
You, too, give these thugs and animals way too much credit. I suppose, for someone like you who believes that there is hope for this nation going forward, you have to pretend that the neocons and New American Century crowd aren’t deranged psychopathic monsters, simply because such truths aren’t spoken in polite company. But it would be nice if, every once and a while, you would step back and acknowledge that these peopel are evil bat shit crazy murderers, before you go back to pretending that this is the type of argument regarding which reasonable people can differ.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:33 am
What happened to half the comments?
August 13th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I keep thinking that it wasn’t that long ago that the right got angry with the left because liberals kept bringing up Hitler and the Nazis. Now, it seems every time I turn around, conservatives are bringing up Hitler and the Nazis.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:44 am
Matt gets this one right - which is unusual for Matt since he knows zip about psychology (but maybe something about propaganda since he’s a wannabe pundit).
Russia is not any more “imperialist” than the United States at this point - and probably less because they can assess their relative strength against the US probably more correctly than anybody in the US can.
Which doesn’t mean they won’t act in similar ways in countries on their borders who are being actively infiltrated and manipulated for US purposes.
There is a “proxy war” going on between the US and Russia - a new “Cold War” is about to start. And primarily it is the US which is intent on starting it - not Russia.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Re Richard’s comment “There is a “proxy war” going on between the US and Russia - a new “Cold War” is about to start. And primarily it is the US which is intent on starting it - not Russia.”
———
I agree with Richard. The Liberal Arts wienies who infest the News Media are total strangers to quantitative analysis.
Look at the SIZE of the US military budget relative to Russia’s — close to $800 Billion per YEAR versus only $60 Billion per YEAR — and its pretty clear who is bent on global conquest.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Sigh…imagine how brutal and tiresome the appeasement crowd will be once Obama wins the presidency? Every skirmish, no matter how remote and minor, will blown up into WWII by these people, with merciless, unending attacks on Obama for FAILING TO RESPOND!
Just consider: the response to the Georgia situation has actually been muted, since many neocons remain hesitant to directly accuse the Bush Administration of being traitorous liberal appeasers.
When Obama wins, the chorus will be deafening. Fuck, that will get old fast.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Matthew Yglesias is strawmanning here. Russia isn’t going to roll tanks into Kiev, but it could refuse to vacate the Crimea Black Sea Ports, whip up pro-Russian crowds there and then intervene militarily to protect Russian citizens, just like it just did in Georgia.
Crimea is already an autonomous republic in Ukraine with a notably pro-Russian government and a policy of linguistic Russification towards non-Russians in education and society. There is constant tension between post-World War II Russian settlers there and the returning Crimean Tatars (who tend to support Orange Revolution political figures) over land. There are paramilitary “Cossack” units being formed in Crimea with Russian funds. There was recently a movement to have a referendum in Crimea in favor of keeping the Russian Black Sea Fleet there indefinitely - essentially forcing Ukraine to put up with unwanted Russian forces in its own territory.
Russia currently controls many parts of Crimea militarily, like lighthouses, that it should have turned over to the Ukrainian government years ago, and there is a much stronger attachment to Crimea as Russian than there is to places like Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Should Russia get away with incorporating South Ossetia and Abkhazia into Russia, I can easily see a situation over the next few years where it attempts to wrest Crimea from Ukraine.
And I don’t think Yglesias knows anything about the situation in Crimea, so he’s just attacking the equally unknowledgeable people on the right who view everything from a Cold War prison.
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