I Have Seen Much Stupidity…

…in my career as a self-appointed political observer.

There are many candidates for the title of “dumbest thing I’ve ever seen”; the Kenilworth Tunnel, evacuating the Third Precinct, going logarithmic on the national debt, “shrinkflation” – I could go on.

But after the Potato’s State of the Union, really, the polls can close; the contest is over:

floating pier and causeway that will be used to deliver critical humanitarian aid by sea to Gaza is expected to take at least one month or possibly as long as two for the US military to build and become fully operational, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Friday.

We’ll be counting on the Israelis to keep the huge fat juicy target for drones, rockets and suicide bombers…er, I mean the pier secure, on top of actually, y’know, carrying out their mission.

I’d say “I’ll never mock and taunt a government idea quite like this”, but Americans are going to get killed in pursuit of literally no national interest whatsoever.

In other words, it fits right in with the rest of Biden’s foreign policy.

An American Hero

For like the 21st year in a row, I didn’t watch the State of the Union. I’ve joined the crowd that considers it a useless exercise at best, a nod to monarchy or worse at worst.

But I almost wish I had tuned in, for this alone:

“Thirteen Marines”

Including his son, LCPL Kareem Nikoui, whom I’ll bring out from under the rug under which he and his comrades were swept:

And I salute you, Steve Nikoui, wherever you are.

Everything’s Fine

In the 1960s and ’70s, the Peoples Republic of China had, very nominally, the world’s largest “army”, listed at the time in the Guinness Book of World Records as being 200 million strong.

Of course, those were CCP numbers, ginned up by adding up the nominal numbers of the “Peoples Militia” – basically most of the nation’s able-bodied people impressed (dare we say, “Shanghaied”) into a putative “fighting force” armed with antiques, spears and dogma.

The reason, of course, was to project a mien of power, resolve and invincibility, at a time when China was three decades removed from subjugation, warlordism and indolence.

Today, China is none of those things (other than perhaps run by the modern warlords, the CCP’s regional apparatuses).

And yet…:

Chinese companies are doing something rarely seen since the 1970s: setting up their own volunteer armies. At least 16 major Chinese firms, including a privately-owned dairy giant, have established fighting forces over the past year, according to a CNN analysis of state media reports.

These units, known as the People’s Armed Forces Departments, are composed of civilians who retain their regular jobs. They act as a reserve and auxiliary force for China’s military, the world’s largest, and are available for missions ranging from responding to natural disasters and helping maintain “social order” to providing support during wartime.

The reason?

Arguably, because all is not well in China. The pandemic exposed some of the internal fault lines that are perking up the ears of some China watchers; social unrest that’d been repressed or satiated for decades came boiling up to the surface (although you’d have to talk with those China watchers to know it, since the US media will never cover it until it’s too late).

“The return of corporate militias reflects Xi’s rising focus on the need to better integrate economic development with national security as the country faces a more difficult future of slower growth and rising geopolitical competition,” said Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

“Corporate militias under military leadership could help the Communist Party more effectively quell incidents of social unrest such as consumer protests and employee strikes,” he said.

This being CNN, the audience needed to be reassured that this wasn’t anything associated with the big, bad American right:

The forces, which do not currently operate outside China, have more in common with America’s National Guard than its militia movement, which refers to private paramilitary organizations that usually have a right-wing political focus.

Red China may or may not end up being a viable enterprise for purposes of governing itself, much less conquering the world. But given CNN’s performance, that ship may have left the docks.

I’ve Got Questions

As we’ve noted, Ilhan Omar gave a speech to a Somali audience last week that’s gotten some flak. It’s been in all the papers…

…Well, OK. It’s been in none of the Twin Cities papers. As usual.

Until now.

While “coverage” is out of the question, the Strib posted a “fact check” of the conservative response. There’s less in the fact check than meets the eye – but it hews closely to Rep. Omar’s claim that the translation is ambiguous, or just plain wrong.

The Strib’s claim (emphasis added, to return to later):

Omar’s office pointed to a more accurate translation of her speech posted online. A Star Tribune reporter who speaks Somali listened to the speech and reviewed the transcript, and found it matched Omar’s actual comments. It said:

“My answer was the U.S. government will do what we tell the U.S. government to do. We as Somalis should have that confidence in ourselves. We live in this country. We pay taxes in this country. It’s a country where one of your own sits in Congress. As long as I’m in Congress no one will take Somalia’s sea. And the United States will not support other people to rob us. Rest assured Minnesotans. The woman you sent to Congress is aware of you and has the same interest as you.”

The translation now under dispute characterized Omar’s comments this way: “The U.S. government will only do what Somalians in the U.S. tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else. They must follow our orders and that is how we will safeguard the interest of Somalia … together we will protect the interests of Somalia.”

As someone who knocks around in German and Norwegian, I know that translation begets ambiguity. It’s not unheard of for nuance to drift, or be yanked, in directions that weren’t intended.

So – is Somaliland’s Deputy Finance Minister, presumably a native speaker of Somali, as able to translate the Representative as the Strib’s translator?

She seemed pretty convinced:

Still waiting for the Strib/MPR/the Big Four to tell us whether and why the Somali Deputy Finance Minister’s take was wrong.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Like It Never Happened

You will search the Strib in vain for any mention of the fallout from Ilhan Omar’s speech, in which she basically told a Somali audience that she was there to uphold their side’s interests in an ongoing squabble with Ethiopia.

Now, normally you need to go to the London Daily Mail.

So the fact that it’s in the NYPost must mean it’s serious. Tom Emmer called on her to resign:

“Ilhan Omar’s appalling, Somalia-first comments are a slap in the face to the Minnesotans she was elected to serve and a direct violation of her oath of office,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) wrote on X. “She should resign in disgrace.”

If you’re confused by the fracas? It does need some explaining:

Omar, the first Somali American in Congress, appeared to assure her Somali American constituents that she would do everything in her power to prevent the disputed, breakaway Republic of Somaliland from entering into a sea-access deal with landlocked Ethiopia.

A clip of the Minnesota lawmaker went viral with over 2.6 million views after it was posted on X, with a translation saying Omar had said: “As Somalis, one day we will go after our missing territories.”

The congresswoman claims her remarks were lost in translation. 

“It’s not only slanted but completely off,” Omar said of the subtitles in a video of her speech shared by Republic of Somaliland Foreign Minister Rhoda Elmi. “But I wouldn’t expect more from these propagandists.”

Of course, as we noted yesterday, the Somali deputy foreign minister – presumably a Somali speaker – felt the need to disavow the speech in no uncertain terms:

My fearless prediction: Omar will do her usual on-air slumber party with Esme Murphy this Sunday. They’ll paint each others toenails on the air as they commiserate about all the bigotry that strong powerful women face in the world today.

And then it’ll get disappeared.

Mostly Peaceful

All is not well in China.

This video shows a Miao village (Miao are ethnic cousins of the H’mong) smacking down a group of local Communist Party thugs sent to enforce the party’s burial racket; locals are forced to bury the ashes of the dead in official, party-approved cemeteries, at immense expense.

The locals were having none of it.

This is part of a growing wave of unrest inside Red China, as the gap between “Have Nots” and “Have Lots” grows gapingly wide.

As to the locals beating the crap out of party thugs? It’s the kind of thing one hopes we see in Greater Minnesota the next time Keith Ellison sends his goons to enforce and unconstitutional lockdown…

Omission

Joe Doakes emails:

From Ace of Spades on Thursday the 23rd:

**

So I’m going to say something that is considered racially rude, but I’m sick of the bullshit.

Conquest without morality was the rule of all peoples and nations until a couple of hundred years ago. Only in the very recent past has morality become a major consideration in warfare.

And the people most responsible for adding moral considerations to the law of conquest were… Europeans.

People pushing the Victim Narrative pretend that their ancestors were morally superior to their conquerors. In fact, they were not. Their ancestors conquered everyone they could conquer. The Comanche Empire conquered other Indian tribes, which is why Indian tribes allied with the American government to fight the Comanches.

If Indians had advanced shipbuilding, navigation, and steel-working, they would have conquered Europe.

Native Americans’ ancestors did not refuse to do this because they were more moral. They didn’t do it because they simply couldn’t do it. They were not superior in morality; they were simply inferior in technology.

And all of this endless bullshit whining about generations-old conquests is just a nasty cope.

You’ve heard of “Victor’s Justice,” in which the winner of a war can vindictively set the terms for peace…? Well we live now in an age of Loser’s Justice, when the losers of the war can, somehow, endlessly torment the great-great-great-grandchildren of the winners of their ancestors having won in war.

And we’re sick of it, and we’re done with it. We never point this out, because we don’t want to upset people who are clearly insecure about their ancestors’ failures. Who wants to pick on the fat kid?

But by not shutting this bullshit down, we have invited endless demands on us. Endless reparations and payoffs, endless “land acknowledgements,” endless affirmative action programs, endless demands for apologies (which are endlessly offered, and endlessly rejected as insufficient), endless demands we change our lives to “honor” people we don’t even fucking know, endless demands we “center” other people and endlessly think about what we owe complete fucking strangers.

Enough. Enough.

The fact that my ancestors were good at war is no credit to me. I can’t take racial credit for what people that lived 200 years ago did.

But neither do I have to take responsibility for the actions of ghosts.

And the fact that some people’s ancestors were bad at war is not a credit card with no limits entitling the bearers to make endless demands on others.

I’m done with walking around eggshells because some people just cannot get over their distant ancestors having been shit at fighting.

***

Could not agree more.  The last man to have clear title to land was Adam, and he lost it when he got evicted for breaking the terms of his lease.   Everyone after him has title-by-right-of-conquest (nowadays called “adverse possession” by lawyers and “colonizer” by activists) including Noah, who didn’t do his own slaying but moved into a world where his patron had slain everyone for him.

Joe Doakes, no longer in Como Park

I would like to throw in a claim for my Viking ancestors and their history of fomenting what we now call democracy, along with their incredible facility at conquest.

But I can’t, because justice, the sins of the fathers are not visited on the sons, either their achievements.

Don’t Cry For Milei, Argentina

As Don Surber notes, suddenly everyone’s an expert on Argentina.

We’ll come back to that.

Libertarian-Conservative Javier Milei crushed his center-left opponent, showing Argentina’s crushing dissatisfaction with over a decade of center-to-far-left politics.

Big Left is, predictably, unhappy:

“A radical libertarian and admirer of Donald Trump rode a wave of voter rage to win Argentina’s presidency on Sunday, crushing the political establishment and bringing the sharpest turn to the right in four decades of democracy in the country.

“Javier Milei, a 53-year-old far-right economist and former television pundit with no governing experience, claimed nearly 56% of the vote in a stunning upset over Sergio Massa, the center-left economy minister who has struggled to resolve the country’s worst economic crisis in two decades. Even before the official results had been announced Sunday night, Massa acknowledged defeat and congratulated Milei on his win.

“Trump also congratulated Milei. ‘I am very proud of you,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. ‘You will turn your Country around and Make Argentina Great Again!’”

Don Surber’s response – “don’t anoint him yet, but the vote matters more than the candidate – isn’t wrong at all.

But he adds:

I don’t recall Argentina being great before but diplomacy requires a certain suspension of reality. It’s the 1970s chant of I’m OK, You’re OK updated for international relations. I’m Great Again, You’re Great Again.

Thing is, Argentina was, if not “great”, at least doing really, really well not that terribly long ago:

So what happened?

As Paul Johnson pointed out in Modern Times, socialism – in this case, populist socialism in the form of Juan and Eva Peron – happened. Argentina went from relative wealth to decay and authoritarianism, and all it got was a lousy musical.

Huh – a great political entity that got sucked into a vortex of authoritarianism, stagnancy and decay by leftists who just kept winning elections?

Huh. Weird.

History Talking

I wish more American – especially Minnesota DFL – politicians could speak with the moral clarity that German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck does:

While allowing that the Germans have a tighter definition of free speech than we do – when you let the depraved speak out loud, you can see what they’re doing in a way you can’t in Europe, and I vastly prefer the American way – this would still be considered pretty daring in the US.

And he’s a Green.o. Talking like a classical liberal, on this issue at least.

This is apposed to the avatar of modern left-liberal left-center-leftism, President Obama…

…who is right at the top of the short list for worst president ever, with Woodrow Wilson, and far and away the worst of my lifetime.

When Germans out-do Amercan pols on this subject, it’s time for some electoral bells to be rung.

(Links bogarted from Powerline).

Compromise

Someone walks up to you with a baseball bat. They say they want to kill you.

Your response is “no, I don’t want to get beaten to death with a baseball bat”.

Looks like you have a standoff. A controversy. A conundrum.

Someone else steps in and asks “How about we compromise? Will you settle for a traumatic brain injury?”

It’s the middle way, after all. The guy with the bat might even say “sure, I just wanna hit you, hard!“

You might respond “No – in fact, I don’t want anyone hurting me in any way. At all”

And the buttinski responds “Why won’t yiou compromise?”

Who’s right?

You?

The guy with the bat?

Or the person striving to find the middle ground between the two of you?

If your response is “I’m putting my foot down; nobody is hitting me with a bat for any reason at all“, and the other to ask “why do you hate the guy with the bat?“, does that change anybody’s mind?

Point being, sometimes the middle path, the compromise, is not the most moral path forward.

While I Get The Ambivalence…

…many conservatives feel about Kevin McCarthy, this is just glorious:

Seeing “Duke Nuke ‘Em” cashiered from everything requiring a security clearance is the perfect ending to the week.

Just a warning, progs; get walked around a hotel room on a dog leash by a Chinese spy? There might be consequences. Yes, even for a Democrat.

“If You Can’t Stand It, Stand It No Longer”

I know a few people with contacts in the Chinese diasporic and dissident communities. They’ve been telling me for the past few years – even before the pandemic – to watch out for what’s going on in China.

To Americans inured to rioting in Minneapolis and Portland, the news of riots in Shanghai, not long after rioting in formerly-free Hong King, might elicit an ignorant shrug.

So it may not be immediately apparent how striking it is to see scenes like this in China: a man, yelling “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” (at 3:08), is dragged away by police and militia…

…and then dragged back by the passersby.

Chinese subjects, forcefully re-capturing someone arrested by the cops.

That’s a little like the famous Tienanmen Square guy putting down his groceries, pulling a Molotov Cocktail out of the bag, and setting the tank on fire.

Lest you feel too happy, it gets much worse.

Around 7:15, the story follows a fire call at a large apartment in Xinjiang. Firemen have a hard time reaching the building at all, due to Covid lockdown restrictions. Since the building is locked down, the fire escapes are locked shut – and the death toll was horrific (as the cell phone conversation captured around 7:30 shows).

Around 8:35: residents unblock a neighborhood that had been sealed off for over three months, and send the police running.

I know – don’t give Tim Walz any ideas, right?

But the people were not amused.

Various whispers from the dissident community – which you can credit or not, as the attribution is pretty much all underground – is that a whooole lot of Chinese students and emigres are the children of party members who are trying to get their families ensconced somewhere safe before things blow up. Whether that’s wishful thinking or prescience, time will tell.

On the one hand, totalitarian dictators are generally very good at seeing to their own survival (until they’re not).

On the other? In 1980, the record shows Ronald Reagan was just about the only person who could see the USSR collapsing. In historical scale, it all happened so quickly after that – almost too quickly for the left to claim they’d predicted it all along.

Is China the same?

More on this in the future.

The Horror

I just got the best idea for a horror story.

Check this out: a computer application slowly, insidiously saps the compassion, perspectivel, moral equilibrium and finally, intelligence from millions of unwitting people.

Who would we get to write a story like that?

Oh…

Crap. It’s too late.

It’s a shame, too. Given Hollywood’s constricted sense of imagination these days, it’d likely become a franchise spawning sequels and reboots for decades).

Non Per Girare

This is Giorgia Meloni, the new prime MInister of Italy.

The media is referring to her as “Far Right” – or, in moments of revelatory candor, “Fascist”.

Check out the speech. You be the judge – while you still can.

And remember – if William F. Buckley, Jack Kemp, Barry Goldwater, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Lech Wałęsa and Newt Gingrich were coming onto the scene today, they’d all be called “fascists” too.

How do we know that?

Because they said it back then, too.

Fermented

This may be the most badly-aged tweet of the decade so far:

sometimes it feels like the world is in a race between those who are inventing fusion Power too cheap to be metered, and those who are trying to send us back to the 1600s as serfs to the progressive nobility.

Divorce, American Style

The divorce between Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, finalized three months ago, has entered its most half-cocked bizarro phase:

And people thought OJ Simpson’s legal team was big and expensive.

UPDATE: I’m informed the parties in this post are Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and the West.

Not sure it makes sense, but I’ll take it under advisement.

The Pacific – a Chinese lake?

Awhile back we touched on the arrangement China has entered into with the Solomon Islands, a deal which has sparked concerns that perhaps China has an eye towards an increased presence in the Pacific.

Starting today, the Chinese Foreign Minister is beginning a visit to several Pacific Island nations. From China’s Foreign Ministry:

From May 26 to June 4, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will pay official visits to eight countries, namely Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste, and a virtual visit to the Federated States of Micronesia upon invitation. He will also hold video conference with Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Cook Islands and Premier and Foreign Minister of Niue, and host the second China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Fiji. 

Also today, the Chinese Foreign Minister met with his counterpart in the Solomons and outlined three principles behind their cooperation:

The first principle is to fully respect the national sovereignty of Solomon Islands. China-Solomon Islands cooperation is based on Solomon Islands’ needs and requirements, on the premise of Solomon Islands’ consent, and on the basis of equal consultation. It is never China’s foreign policy, nor is it Chinese style, to impose business deals on others, interfere in Solomon Islands’ internal affairs, or damage other countries’ interests.

The second one is to help maintain the social stability of Solomon Islands. China-Solomon Islands security cooperation includes assistance in maintaining social order, protecting lives and property in accordance with the law as well as conducting humanitarian relief and natural disaster response at the request of Solomon Islands. The aim is to help Solomon Islands strengthen police capacity-building, offset the security governance deficit and maintain domestic stability and long-lasting peace and security. China-Solomon Islands security cooperation is aboveboard and frank, not imposing on others, not targeting third parties and not intending to establish military bases.

The third one is in parallel with regional arrangements. China supports Pacific Island Countries in strengthening security cooperation and working together to address regional security challenges. China also supports the existing regional security cooperation arrangements. At the same time, China-Solomon Islands security cooperation and the existing regional arrangements complement each other, sharing the same objectives and interests. China-Solomon Islands security cooperation conforms to the common interests of Solomon Islands and the South Pacific region.


The last one is our topic for today. What “regional arrangements” are we talking about here? The AP provides some details on what China is up to:

Continue reading

Cloak conceals dagger


On Sunday, an IRGC Colonel, Hassan Sayad Khodai, was assassinated in broad daylight outside his home by two assailants on a motorcycle. There’s been no official claim of responsibility.

It’s a mystery why Khodai was targeted. It’s possible it was in retaliation for Khodai’s involvement in plots against Israeli officials. But, consider the history of high-profile assassinations inside Iran.

Between 2007 and 2012, five people associated with Iran’s nuclear program were assassinated in Iran. Several of these instances involved assailants on motorcycles. Another prominent figure, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran’s atomic energy program, was assassinated in 2020. The complex operation involved smuggling in and assembling a remote-controlled gun.

A brazen Israeli intelligence operation in 2018 involving stealing thousands of documents related to Iran’s nuclear program from a secret warehouse in Tehran.

A Colonel doesn’t seem like a high enough profile target to risk such a daylight operation, especially if he isn’t involved with Iran’s nuclear program, the high profile, high risk target Israel is committed to spending valuable resources on.

If Israel was indeed behind it, clearly Israel has developed exceptional intelligence capabilities inside Iran. Who Israel works with is of course a closely guarded secret. Whether Israel smuggles in its own operatives, or works with natives such as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), is not known.

The war in the shadows continues apace.

A good defense is a good defense

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was established to “review the national security implications of trade and economic ties between the United States and the People’s Republic of China”.

Last week they held a day-long hearing with eleven witnesses on “China’s Activities and Influence in South and Central Asia.” Topics included China’s Interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan, China’s Reach in Central Asia, China’s Influence in Continental South Asia, and Competing Visions for the Indian Ocean.

As part of the latter, Christopher K. Colley outlined China’s naval goals, especially as they apply to the Indian Ocean, saying “the American navy is the driving force behind China’s security concerns in the IOR.” Written testimony is here.

The greatest structural change in the Chinese navy in terms of strategy and tactics is the transformation of a navy based on regional defense and access denial, to a force that is firmly inline with power projection and blue water capabilities. Such an evolution is a conscience decision by the top levels of the Chinese government to build a navy that has the ability to project sustained and meaningful power to locations thousands of miles from Chinese home ports. This transformation is one of the most critical developments in the security architecture of the Twenty-First Century.

Last week, before a full committee hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Adm Gilday, Chief of Naval Operation, spoke about the growing strength of China’s navy. Written testimony is here.

Over the past two decades, the PRC has built a comprehensive sea-denial, anti-access system of sophisticated sensors and long-range precision weapons. Backed by a robust industrial base and the largest shipbuilding infrastructure in the world, the PRC has extensively modernized its military and tripled the size of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN). It is also building next-generation strategic missile submarines, erecting hundreds of new missile silos, and growing its cyber and space capabilities.

Under the cover of this anti-access umbrella, the PRC has embraced the use of “gray zone” activities to turn incremental gains into long-term strategic advantages. Using a multi-layered fleet of naval ships, maritime militia, and coast guard, the PRC is undermining international norms by staking illegal maritime claims, militarizing geographic features in the South and East China Seas, and intimidating its neighbors regarding offshore resources. Additionally, the PRC is extending its global reach with its Belt and Road Initiative—leveraging predatory lending practices, aggressive mercantilism backed, and hard military power—to access critical maritime terrain, ports, and waterways.

Given China’s increased strength, Adm Gilday also tried to explain why the US Navy planned to scrap nine warships, some less than three years old.

“I refuse to put an additional dollar against a system that would not be able to track a high-end submarine in today’s environment,” Gilday told the committee. He said the main reason for the early retirement was that the anti-submarine warfare system on the ships “did not work out technically.” The decommissioning of the ships would save the Navy approximately $391 million, according to the service’s proposed FY23 budget. But that recoups only a fraction of the cost of the nine littoral combat ships, which totaled about $3.2 billion.

The arcs of Chinese and US naval strengths are heading in the wrong directions. As Conrad Crane writes about here, America’s ability to fight a major conflict, let alone two at the same time, for the first time in a long time can be questioned. Part of Russia’s strategic mistake in going into Ukraine is it revealed how weak Russia’s military really is. How long before someone decides to test how strong the US is these days?

Future History

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Story outline for my next novel:

Biden is declared unfit, removed from office two days into his third year, Kamala takes over just in time to serve out the remainder of Biden’s term and two full terms of her own

President Kamala (PK) orders US troops overseas to fight brush wars and orders private cars and home air conditioners in the US banned, because Climate Change

During the hot summer, riots break out in major US cities

PK invites the UN to send peacekeepers to maintain order in US cities

Un demands PK disarm the people to keep the peacekeepers safe from the people they’re keeping safe

Language barrier, cultural differences, resentment for past US wars: peacekeepers open fire on citizens, some of whom return fire (looking at you, Blade)

PK declares martial law, orders peacekeepers to round up those deplorable fly-over state residents bitterly clinging to their guns and Bibles, sends them to concentration camps ‘for their own good’

Deplorable people refuse to go, engage in guerilla war against peacekeepers, shortages of toilet paper, bottled water and SPAM, cities burning

PK blames Trump

Congress impeaches Trump again

Hey, this could be a decent Sci Fi story, if we added some aliens. Maybe they’re observing from the Moon saying, “What were they thinking, electing her?” before flying away to look for intelligent life on other planets

Joe Doakes

”Trulbert” is seeming less and less like satire these days.

Russia and Ukraine

Last year Vladimir Putin authored this paper arguing that “that Russians and Ukrainians were one people.” The paper looks back at the historical commonalities between Russia and present-day Ukraine, starting with the Kievan Rus, a federation formed in the 9th century of Slavic people but ruled by the Varangian, people of Norse (Viking) descent.

Putin emphasizes that the people of the Kievan Rus shared a common language and, with the baptism of Vladimir in the 10th century, which Putin mentions, a common religion in the Orthodox Church. With this conversion, the Kievan Rus developed strong ties with the Byzantine Empire. Many Varangians served Byzantine emperors. (One of them, Harald Sigurdsson, was defeated by Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in September 1066, just a few weeks before Harold was defeated by the Normans at Hastings.)

The unity of Kievan Rus began to unravel in the 11th century, related in part to the decline of the Byzantine Empire, which in turn was related to the rise of the Turks. Putin specifically points to the Mongols, though, which devastated the region in the 13th century. Putin does not mention the 4th Crusade in 1204 which greatly weakened the Byzantine Empire even further.

From there, Putin traces the rise of the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the pressure that put on what is now Ukraine, sandwiched between the Catholics and the descendants of the Rus now centered farther to the east.

The 17th century saw the rise of the Cossacks who carved out a state by rebelling against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the century saw considerable conflict between Poland, the Cossacks, the Russians and the Ottomans. Putin describes this conflict as a desire to maintain the Orthodox Church in the face of Polish opposition. Putin even uses the phrase “war of liberation.”

Ukrainians refer to this time as “The Ruin,” which is an indication of what they think of instability the conflict brought to the region. The conflict came to an end with the Truce of Andrusovo of 1667 and later the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1686. The result was Kiev and the “left bank” (which was actually the lands east of the Dnieper) were transferred to Moscow. On the “right bank”, ie west of the Dnieper, still held by Poland, Putin says “social and religious oppression intensified.”

Over the next two centuries, Putin says Polish influences fomented the stirrings of Ukrainian nationalism, and this in turn was used by the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in the World War I era. The chaos brought about by the Russian Civil War (see First Ringer’s recent post too) led to a declaration of independence in Ukraine. Putin says this “decision proved fatal for the ruling regime in Kiev.” Putin is not sympathetic.

Therefore, modern Ukraine is entirely the product of the Soviet era. We know and remember well that it was shaped – for a significant part – on the lands of historical Russia. To make sure of that, it is enough to look at the boundaries of the lands reunited with the Russian state in the 17th century and the territory of the Ukrainian SSR when it left the Soviet Union.

The Bolsheviks treated the Russian people as inexhaustible material for their social experiments. They dreamt of a world revolution that would wipe out national states. That is why they were so generous in drawing borders and bestowing territorial gifts. It is no longer important what exactly the idea of the Bolshevik leaders who were chopping the country into pieces was. We can disagree about minor details, background and logics behind certain decisions. One fact is crystal clear: Russia was robbed, indeed.

Putin’s argument throughout his paper is to emphasize the close ties in language, culture and religion between the people of Russia and Ukraine. He indicates that where there was separation between the two, the people who valued these close ties were not given a choice in the matter.

He goes on for a few paragraphs decrying this lack of choice, and he ends with this.

I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. Our spiritual, human and civilizational ties formed for centuries and have their origins in the same sources, they have been hardened by common trials, achievements and victories. Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people.

Today, these words may be perceived by some people with hostility. They can be interpreted in many possible ways. Yet, many people will hear me. And I will say one thing – Russia has never been and will never be ”anti-Ukraine“. And what Ukraine will be – it is up to its citizens to decide.

I don’t doubt that Putin does not think of Ukraine as a separate nation, with its own history and heritage apart from Russia’s own. But, Putin’s paper is conspicuous in its lack of acknowledgement that the Ukrainian independence movement in 1990 was a choice, as was the Orange Revolution of 2004. He instead continues to focus on how “the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy.” He also reiterates that “Our spiritual unity has also been attacked,” as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church maintains a separation from the Russian Orthodox Church.

And yet, even if Putin truly believes that by invading Ukraine he is merely standing up for these Russians who want to maintain their historical ties to Russia, Putin is ignoring the fact that many people in Ukraine have looked to the wealth to the west, the oppression and poverty to the east, and have made their choice. Bombing them is only hardening them against Russia.

Wrong Poll?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Poll says Americans would welcome 100,000 refugees from Ukraine. Sounds generous, not?

But why so few? Experts estimate 4 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country since Russia invaded. Why aren’t we taking more?

As I pointed out here, we take in 200,000 illegal aliens across the Southern Border EVERY MONTH and nobody says a word about it.

I wonder what the polls would say if Americans understood the numbers?

Joe Doakes

Another question: I wonder what it would take to make Americans understand the numbers?

Russia debt repayments

Russia is spending a fortune in Ukraine, perhaps as much as $20 billion a day. In turn though, Europe is sending hundreds of millions of euros a day to Russia for hydrocarbons. Putting sanctions on Russia while funding Russia is not a comfortable position. So, the EU is contemplating phasing out its dependence on Russian, and that might have enormous implications for Russia’s economy.

Maximilian Hess of the Foreign Policy Research Institute looks at some of those implications:

On April 29, Russia’s finance ministry announced that it would pay some $650m to foreign creditors on two overdue Eurobonds. And by making the payments before the bonds’ grace period expired on May 4, the Kremlin has avoided falling into sovereign default.

Ahead of the bond’s formal maturity on April 4, the Kremlin announced that it would buy back the bonds in roubles – and pay those who refused to accept the rouble buy-back as well. Nearly 75 percent of bondholders (almost certainly all domestic) agreed to the new terms .

Russia’s recent decision to pay the bonds in foreign currency enabled it to avoid the all-but-guaranteed acceleration of other debts and lawsuits that would have followed a default and further impoverished the Russian people.

However, the move also left the Kremlin in a position of extreme hypocrisy and embarrassment. In the end, what Putin did was to repay domestic bondholders with roubles, which they cannot convert freely into hard currency to spend abroad. And pay foreign holders in full, in dollars – hardly a feat worthy of praise.

In case there is any doubt just how exposed the shipping sector is to Western sanctions, one just needs to look to the actions of Russian state-owned shipping company Sovcomflot. On May 3 specialist maritime industry publication Lloyd’s List revealed that Sovcomflot was looking to sell at least 40 ships from its 121 ship fleet before wind-down authorisations expire and it becomes fully sanctioned on May 15.

If Sovcomflot fails to raise enough cash to honour its debts before then, it will fall into default and creditors will go after its ships. Just like the Russian state, Russian businesses are still fearful of defaulting on Western creditors – even amid a war.