High Alert – The Fundamental Risk of Autocracy

"But how anybody — how anybody in this country, which loves freedom — can side with Vladimir Putin — which is an oppressor, a dictator, he kills people, he imprisons his political opponents, he has been an adversary of America at every chance he's had — it's unthinkable to me. It's almost treasonous. 

And it just makes me ill to see some of these people do that." 

Utah GOP Senator Mitt Romney, February 27th.

The signs of autocracy are everywhere, not just in Russia, but here in the United States. Putin’s war is just a reminder of what happens when authoritarian trends are not nipped in the bud. From book and classroom censorship to voter exclusion to enhance a racial and ethnic purity to laudatory support of brutal dictators hell-bent on territorial expansionism regardless of the human toll. Politicians willing to sacrifice democratic principles, even their oaths of office, to erase “one person, one vote” to enhance their political careers at the expense of the republic itself. As the world condemns Vladimir Putin as the rogue tyrant he unequivocally is, witnessing a former president and too many of his lock-step followers compliment the “genius” and “shrewdness” of a brutal and mendacious dictator engaged in an unlawful siege of democratic neighbor is terrifying.

As I read the comments of so many online articles on Putin’s war, I see so many right-wing Trumpist condemnations of Joe Biden as a greater danger than Putin, I fear for our future and those who cannot live within a bona fide democracy. It should be a time of unifying the United States against a clearly evil foe. Nevertheless, as noted above, there is growing GOP support for our efforts to contain Russia’s assault. Trump’s grip on the Party just took a body slam, but there are still supporters of a new American order still clinging to this failed ex-president. 

I see the folk-hero status attaching to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, staying in the middle of his national capital to lead military resistance, and a rapidly growing international belief that Putin is mentally unstable, egomaniacal of historic proportions, a feeling that has sent shudders everywhere as he directly threatened NATO under the guise of putting his nuclear “deterrent” forces on full alert. Did Putin forget about Mutually Assured Destruction? Or has insanity eclipsed that clear and obvious risk? Isn’t there an operative treaty to prevent this?

According to the US Department of State website, “The [renewed] Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, enhances U.S. national security by placing verifiable limits on all Russian deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons. [On February 5, 2011, the] United States and the Russian Federation have agreed to extend the treaty through February 4, 2026.” Putin is threatening to withdraw from this accord, which would begin a massive renewed nuclear arms race. Does unexpected Ukraine defensive resistance increase the likelihood of nuclear war? Should Russia be expelled from the UN Security Council?

We have woefully under-supplied Ukraine with the necessary weapons to support a viable defense against Putin’s military. How did that happen? Remember the recorded July 25, 2019 telephone conversation between then-President Donald Trump and Zelensky? The one where Zelensky requested more sophisticated weapons from the US to deter Putin? If you recall, there was a less than subtle suggestion that such weapons would be provided only if Zelensky motivated a deep official Ukrainian dive to find criminal activity by Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine. When that did not happen, Trump stopped that weapons shipment. Putin was Trump’s friend, a reality that continues into the present day.

You can see the ongoing discomfort in the eyes of Putin’s cabinet and parliament. And you can also be sure that China and her leadership are beginning to realize the risks of supporting the Russian autocrat: unwilling to join Russia’s UN Security Council’s veto of a condemnation of the unprovoked Russian invasion of an autonomous region. Ukraine: a people and a country with particular disdain (if not pure, seething hatred) of Russian domination. You can feel the rage rising in NATO, now leading the charge against Russia’s central bank, even to the point of severing access to the SWIFT financial messaging transaction system as much as feasible at this time. Even Germany, the NATO country most at risk of losing necessary natural gas to fend off a freezing winter, has made an unprecedented commitment to supply massive weapons to Ukraine. The US Congress will soon be considering a massive upgrade in American military and humanitarian aid to Kyiv.

That thousands of protestors all over Russia, facing arrest and very long prison terms, are still taking to the streets, tells you that Putin’s hold on Russia, particularly among the younger generations, is slipping away. As of this writing, more than 6,000 Russian protestors have been arrested, but thousands continue to express their disenchantment with Putin’s war. Repression can work only so much for so long. Given the level of anti-Russian demonstrations the world over, Putin is hardly succeeding in his efforts.

Ordinary Russians – that middle class – are now experiencing a big personal hit, one that should render Vladimir Putin ever so much less an iconic idol. According to the February 28th BBC.com, “Russia has more than doubled its interest rate to 20% in a bid to halt a slump in the value of its currency… The Bank of Russia raised the rate from 9.5% after the rouble sank 30% after new Western sanctions. The currency then eased back to stand 20% down.

“The collapse in value erodes the currency's buying power and could wipe out the savings of ordinary Russians… Amid pictures at the weekend of queues at cash machines, Russia said it had the resources to ride out sanctions.” Trading on the Russian stock market, prices having plunged, is now suspended. Even neutral “banking secrecy pledged” Switzerland has frozen Russian assets! Add to these horribles, Russian forces on the ground in Ukraine are beginning to realize how much Russia is despised, how willing Ukrainians at every level are ready to fight – with Molotov cocktails and small arms – and even die rather than let Russia take over their cherished lands. With satellite images showing three quarters of the staged Russian troops (including those in Belarus) now deployed, Russia is amping up its attack, but this may be more costly to Russia than the Afghanistan debacle. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have also fled across the Polish border; misery and shortages abound.

Putin now has reason to look over his shoulder at his own entourage. His actions were insufficiently planned, the battle underestimated, his unpopularity growing and the consequences to all of Russia hardly appreciated. Clearly, his entourage will be particularly incented to act should Putin elect even to consider a nuclear attack. Putin must be aware that there is a very real possibility of a traditional “Russian solution” to a failing and flailing autocrat: an “unfortunate accident” or an accelerated retirement based on some form of medical cause. Even global autocrats are wincing at the potential inspiration of local uprisings against their own regimes that the Ukraine debacle has evoked.

Not only does the planet face accelerating inflation, inevitable in these sanction/wartime circumstances, but we are all at risk of the consequences of a mentally unstable, humiliated and angry autocrat with too many weapons – including one of the biggest nuclear arsenals on earth. Imagine what might happen if a rogue Russian pilot decides on his own to fly his bomber or fighter directly across the border to take on NATO… and impress his boss. Not a good outcome. The February 28th Ukraine/Belarus border meeting between Moscow and Kyiv was a predictable bust. The US has ordered 12 officials at Russia UN mission to leave, we and can expect a reciprocal Russian response against us. Will the UN Security Council push of the issue to the General Assembly make a difference to Mr. Putin? Don’t hold your breath. Putin is living in a parallel universe of horrific denial.

I’m Peter Dekom, Mr. Putin miscalculated, bit off more than he can chew, but every human being on earth is now at risk as a result of his distorted and insane actions.

Macrotrend_Shift Away from Autocracy

“Putin is acting from weakness, not strength. His short game is force, but our long game is law. 

Ukrainians love their freedom and will not surrender it easily. Russia could not subjugate 

Afghanistan despite massive extended effort. Russia, Putin, and the oligarchs who

 support him need access to the markets, cyberspace, money, oil, and 

other resources that are conditioned on lawful behavior.” 

Harold Hongju Koh, Yale University’s Sterling Professor of International Law

 

As the United States pulled out of global stabilizing trade agreements, treaty commitments to reduce the creation of fissionable materials and mutual defense accords, we developed a reputation for unreliability. There was a general notion that the election of a president with a very isolationist, America-can-do-whatever-it wants attitude, could undo the most essential global agreements with a waive of a pen. Domestically, that attitude has become the backbone of the Republican Party, pledged to reverse decades of Supreme Court precedents, firmly established inclusive voting rights, once cherished commitments to diversity and the accurate teaching of history in our schools and even in the books kept in our public libraries. 

What’s worse, people who grew up with and believe in those values are labeled “unpatriotic,” while those willing to use violence to overthrow a democratic election referred to as “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Rule by a privileged minority supporting the unilateral control of a single individual who does not consider himself bound by our constitutional legal system is called “autocracy.” The brotherhood of autocrats, dictators who encourage and support each other, was once perceived to be firm and immutable. The link to a president continuously awestruck by brutal dictatorship – Trump’s tripping all over himself to link himself to Vladimir Putin – is evidence of that cabal.

Trump’s suggestion that if he were president, a friendly request (“a favor” in his own words) of Mr. Putin would have instantly stopped the Ukraine attack, is emblematic of the unhinged mental state that typifies autocrats. As is this very recent statement (February 22nd) from Mr. Trump: This is genius… So Putin is now saying it’s independent — a large section of Ukraine. I said, how smart is that? And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace, all right." But the worm is turning.

Autocrats the world over are now looking over their shoulders. Two pro-Russian dictatorships have surprised Mr. Putin in their unwillingness to lend clear support for Putin’s false justification for attacking his democratic neighbor with clearly Western values: Ukraine. China refused to join in Russia’s UN Security Council veto of a motion of condemnation against Russia’s clearly unlawful assault against Ukraine. Xi Jinping was astute enough to see the global writing on the wall: the uniform global rejection of Putin’s unilateral and brutal war of expansion against an innocent, non-aggressive neighbor under painfully obvious false premises. And then, a fierce Russian ally has had second thoughts.

“Kazakhstan, one of Russia's closest allies and a [massive] southern neighbor, is denying a [Putin] request for its troops to join the offensive in Ukraine, officials said Friday [2/25]… Additionally, the former Soviet republic said it is not recognizing the Russia-created breakaway republics upheld by Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, as a pretext for its aggression in Ukraine.” NBCNews.com, February 25th. This is particularly surprising given the very recent request by Kazakhstan’s continuing strongman (but retired President) Nursultan Nazarbayev's hand-picked successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s request for Russian troops to quell a rising insurrection against the dictatorship. Russian sent the requested forces, and the uprising was stopped. But Tokayev is today equally aware of the tinderbox he governs, increasingly anti-Putin.

So Putin, now personally sanctioned by the West, can revel in his increasing global isolation with few remaining allies willing to accept the new breakaway “republics” and accept as justified his unprovoked attack of Ukraine… notably Belarus (which, with Russian support, crushed its own democratic rebellion in 2020) and Syria. Clearly, those within Putin’s own cabinet and the Duma (Russia’s parliament) fear for their own lives in voicing support for the Putin’s war. Moscow had to put on a strong face, but there was trepidation in their eyes:

“Moscow may respond to Western sanctions by opting out of the last nuclear arms deal with the U.S., cutting diplomatic ties with Western nations and freezing their assets, a senior Russian official warned Saturday as Russia's ties with the West dived to new lows over its invasion of Ukraine… Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, also warned that Moscow could restore the death penalty after it was removed from Europe's top rights group.

“In sarcastic comments posted on a Russian social platform, Medvedev dismissed the sanctions as a show of Western ‘political impotence’ that will only consolidate the Russian leadership and foment anti-Western feelings…  ‘We are being driven out of everywhere, punished and threatened, but we don't feel scared,’ he said, mocking the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies as an attempt to vindicate their past ‘shameful decisions, like a cowardly retreat from Afghanistan.’” Vladimir Isachenkov writing for the February 26th Associated Press.

Knowing that they face arrest and possible charges for terrorism, tens of thousands of mostly younger Russians, have gathered for anti-war protests in major cities across the country (the above picture is a protest in Moscow). As quickly as they can be arrested, more protestors are willing to take grave personal risks to reject Putin’s war. Russians now know that they have been lied to when Putin told them he had no intention to invade Ukraine. Indeed, even as Ukrainians once poo-pooed the “exaggerations” of the Biden’s predictions of an imminent all-out invasion, they are believers now. They now are also acutely aware of Putin’s “kill lists” of political targets, also predicted by US intelligence. 

I will make a few predictions, startling to some: 1. Putin has begun an accelerated end to his reign. He will hold power only by increasing local repression, which could easily end in his “assassination” by his underlings fearful that his egomaniacal and unhinged plans could easily place their own positions at risk. 2. Globally, the rising popularity of economically efficient autocracy, the Chinese model, will fade. 3. China will moderate some of its own repression, but not so much that Xi would lose power. 4. Trump is now thoroughly unelectable, and his hold over the Republican Party is fading. Those in his propaganda arm – Fox, OAN and Newsmax – who back his vision in Ukraine, are likewise losing viewers. 5. Whether or not Ukraine falls, its citizens now know they are fighting for their lives, for freedom, prosperity and independence. Russian occupiers will continue to die if they remain, even if they rule. Russia miscalculated their passion. 6. NATO will grow stronger with increasing US support. 7. As Germany, the NATO nation most dependent on Russian natural gas, works out how to create targeted restrictions on Russia’s using the SWIFT financial messaging system, strong global support should finally cut Russia further out of international financial transactions.

The world will suffer with a whole lot more inflation, especially in the arena of oil and gas as well as supply chain disruption. Americans may vote against the Democratic majority in Congress, but these harsh realities are beyond the control of any one country or any one leader. Will America understand that fact? Will there by a greater rally to unify America over this assault on Democracy? And if so, how far will they be willing to go? Stay tuned.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the world is experiencing some major seismic shifts against autocracy, a necessary result toward global stability.

Appeasement vs Remember Afghanistan – 1979-1989

 

The above two photographs, one representing the continuous “appeasement” of Adolph Hitler’s annexation of neighboring territory in the 1930s – U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s shameful shaking Hitler’s hand, accepting the latter’s pledge of no further territorial ambitions – and the other, representing a lesson that the United States learned years later, was the defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, just before the collapse of the entire USSR in 1991 – are the subtexts that West and East should never forget. 

Should Vladimir Putin avoid a diplomatic path to stop his incursion and continue with his purported effort to occupy all of Ukraine, positioning a puppet government in Kyiv, he faces a seething hatred of Russia, which could inspire an active underground Ukrainian insurgency, that might dog Russian occupation for its entire existence. Already meeting more armed resistance that he expected, Putin is acutely aware of history. 

If nothing else, even as Ukraine probably succumbs to a massive Russian invasion force if that continues, NATO allies would probably find a way to keep those underground Ukrainian insurgents supplied with weapons, much the way the CIA armed jihadist Mujahedeen fighters to take down Soviet fighters in Afghanistan in the 1980s. A new Cold War with shooting surrogates looms. The Soviet Union finally but reluctantly admitted its total military casualty figures during that Afghan conflict: 13,310 soldiers had been killed, 35,478 wounded and 311 were missing. They do remember history in Russia.

The slow and unrelenting asymmetrical attacks of loyal Ukrainian guerilla fighters, probable during any Russian occupation, combined with the longer-term withering impacts of “slow-to-have-an-impact” sanctions, may well spell the end of Vladimir Putin’s repressive reign. And he knows that. Although Putin seems stubbornly hell-bent on taking Ukraine… all of Ukraine… he also knows that he is now particularly well-positioned to neutralize Kyiv without incurring too many casualties, also giving the West pause on its sanctions. 

As Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the world on television, he expressed his disappointment at NATO’s unwillingness to go further in its sanctions and assistance to his country against the Russian invasion. He also begged Putin to cease fire and come to the bargaining table. A crack in the diplomatic door opened. As reported in the February 25th New York Times, following Zelensky’s call for all male able-bodied Ukrainians to take up arms against the Russians, there was a small ray of hope for a negotiated end to hostilities: “Russian officials signaled an openness to talks, but President Vladimir V. Putin derided the Ukrainian government and it was unclear under what conditions the Kremlin would consider negotiations.” Could this be viable? Would it hold against a Russian government that abrogated its commitment – expressed in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 which it signed – to respect Ukraine’s borders?

The West should never forget how it once dealt with another tyrant with territorial expansion on his mind: Pre-World War II Adolph Hitler. Then, the powerful anti-war constituency in Europe, led by the UK, granted Hitler free reign over specified territories with large populations of ethnic Germans. Western nations – the United States was not in the mix at the time – repeatedly ignored treaty violations and territorial annexations… until Hitler invaded Poland by force in 1939, and WWII began. Here’s a short history of those appeasement efforts to avoid war… that failed. 

“In March 1936, a cautious Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland, forbidden under Versailles [the German surrender after WWI]. The feared Anglo-French reaction never came. In the League's council, the USSR was the only country to propose sanctions. British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin ruled out the possibility.

“Germany and Italy now realised that the democracies were seeking to avoid confrontation, so both countries continued to 'test the limits'. During the Spanish Civil War, Hitler and Mussolini contravened the 'Non-Intervention Agreement', sending troops, equipment and planes to back the rebels. Their intervention was ignored by the international community. When [Neville] Chamberlain became [UK] Prime Minister in May 1937, the pattern of appeasement had already been set. In March 1938, Hitler's Anschluss (union) with Austria was once again met with Anglo-French impotence and inaction.

“Czechoslovakia had been created under Versailles, and included a large German minority mostly living in the Sudetenland on the border with Germany. In mid-September 1938, Hitler encouraged the leader of the Sudeten Nazis to rebel, demanding union with Germany. When the Czech government declared martial law, Hitler threatened war.

“On 15 September, Chamberlain met Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Without consulting the Czech authorities, he pledged to give Germany all the areas with a German population of more than 50 per cent. France was persuaded to agree. Hitler then altered his criteria, demanding all the Sudetenland. At the Munich Conference on 30 September, Britain and France agreed to his demands. Chamberlain was confident that he had secured 'peace for our time'.” History.co.uk

There are so many variables at stake in Ukraine. From “trusting” Russia – which is inherently untrustworthy – to contemplate military escalation and additional isolation of Russia from the major global markets… which can work only for a relatively short period. The most recent arguments have particularly focused on the privately-created inter-bank (11,000 banks) messaging/currency transfer system that operates in nearly 200 hundred nations – SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) – which is not controlled by any central governmental power. 

To cut this off, nations in Europe would instantly lose their ability to buy desperately needed natural gas from Russia… with no near-term hope of replacing that flow. Likewise, Russia would be seriously hampered in effecting overseas purchases, forcing it to rely and further develop its own alternative SWIFT-equivalent system with strong support from China. Russia would be further incented to go its own way without concern for participating in a Western-dominated financial network. A short-term solution could produce long-term blowback.

In the end, stopping violence, saving lives and restoring global stability are in our collective headlights. And there is absolutely no harm in supporting a ceasefire pending diplomatic exchanges, but…

I’m Peter Dekom, and those who do not study history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.

Russian Mothers and Body Bags

 

The Russian stock market collapsed until trading was halted. Putin expected that. The ruble fell to its lowest level against the major currencies of the world, until the central bank stopped the exchange. Putin didn’t care. Russia’s international borrowing rate exceeded 15%. Putin created a surplus to cover that. Freezing the assets of oligarchs globally, banning international travel for Russian politicians and oligarchs, creating a no-fly zone that includes most of Russia… Putin shrugged his shoulders. 

His intelligence units have uniformly informed him that the United States is in “terminal decline,” “hopelessly polarized” and unable to mount, sustain or lead international resistance to any military moves against Ukraine (and potentially other CIS republics that he may covet). Putin was surprised that the NATO bloc rallied so completely to President Biden’s leadership, but his intelligence officers tell him that holding his allies together is unsustainable. All this from our own intelligence services, which have been accurate to a fault.

The United States, however, reacted late and inadequately for what they predicted was occurring. We are no longer able to supply the upgraded weapons Kyiv needs to mount a critical resistance by air. That technology now has to be funneled in by land and would include Stringer 92 surface-to-air and air-to-air (via needed drones) missiles that are capable of taking out lower-flying Russian aircraft. This needs to happen big time and very quickly. A show of force with US moving large bodies troops and military weapon systems into NATO allies bordering Russia, Belarus (which is Russia lite) and Ukraine. Mr Putin’s reminder to the West that he has one of the biggest stockpiles of nuclear weapons is a threat without historical precedent… and suggests a degree of mental instability that should concern us all.

But it was precisely that Soviet era development and stockpile of nuclear weapons that should have protected Ukraine from Russian expansionism, both in 2014 (over Crimea) and today. Putin’s proclivity to abrogate treaty commitments, not entirely different from Donald Trump’s litany of the same sort during his brief tenure, was and is beyond blatant. The excuses, paralleling Adolph Hitler’s invasions of the Sudetenland (where many Czech citizens were of German ethnicity), Austria (Hitler was born there) and Poland, are still his go-to excuses today. Protecting ethnic brothers, reacting to protect the national security… and denying legitimacy to coveted land mass.

To understand how diabolical this abrogation of Ukrainian territorial rights is, you need to go back to 1994, when the young Russian republic sought to contain the spread of nuclear weapons houses in various new CIS countries. 

Shortly after Putin’s unlawful annexation of Crimea, Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, wrote: “When the Soviet Union collapsed [in 1991], Ukraine had on its territory the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. It was bigger than Britain, France and China combined. And the Ukrainians were prepared to eliminate that arsenal to transfer the warheads to Russia for their dismantlement, but the Ukrainians asked for certain things. And one was security assurances that the United States and Russia would pay attention and respect Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, that there would be no use of force or threat of force against Ukraine.

“And the 1994 Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances was the document that reflects those commitments by the United States. And Russia also joined by Great Britain to extend to Ukraine those assurances, including respect for its territorial integrity.” Putin has made a mockery of respecting treaty commitments. We can see it in the current massive pincer attacks to bring Ukraine to its knees, install a Putin puppet government, and repress dissent until stability returns. But Ukraine’s hatred of Russia has deep roots. For all the glory of WWII and Joseph Stalin, Ukraine found itself starved to death by Russia’s cutting off food supply to enforce Stalin’s yoke (four million Ukrainians starved to death) with untold hundreds of thousands (if not millions) simply executed in Stalin’s infamous pogroms.

But if Ukrainians, strong and stubborn people with their own culture and language, refuse to accept Putin’s jackboot on their necks, and slowly but consistently fight – even after conquest – never giving up… and assuming the US is able to continuously supply the needed weapons of insurrection (as did the CIA during the mujahedeen jihadists who ultimately forced the Soviets out of their country – see the above photo), Putin faces the ugliest crowd of unarmed power of his life. Soviet mothers gathering, growing and drowning his efforts at repression, as their sons become the sacrificial lambs for a brutal dictator’s unstable, unhinged lust for power. These mothers were one of the major forces that brought down the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and if those body bags with the sons come back in sufficient volume, Putin’s rule will end, perhaps violently as some Russian “patriot” – it’s the Russian way – terminates Mr Putin with extreme prejudice. It won’t be mere sanctions that take Putin down…  Body bags! A concept Russians understand. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and the unfortunate cost of the above scenario is time… time to kill, maim, repress and destroy human lives in that region… for no good reason.

Red Alert, Dems, If It Can Happen Here…

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party may be years ahead of the reality that might just become the overall direction of the American body politic. A time when even college-educated Americans may face extreme difficulty finding well-paying jobs… as artificial intelligence moves increasingly into what have traditionally been upscale college-education-required jobs. This has already brutally impacted the manufacturing sector and is increasingly moving into oil rigs and farm tasks, is about to slam into trucking… all blue-collar jobs that are in the process of “adjusting.” But even white-collar work – like financial analysis, retail and wholesale sales and tracking, insurance (including healthcare), legal research and even surgery – is in the early stages of that artificial intelligence slam. That’s not what worries Americans today, however.

Now is not their – the progressives’ – time. The nation is reeling from inflation (which may appear to be an American problem, although it is a global reality that US politicians cannot fix alone), regulation from COVID surges and the notion that we are heading in the wrong direction. While younger voters face absurd post-secondary education costs and life-delaying student debt, unaffordable housing and a society that still seems to ignore their worst-fear-climate-change concerns, they are not sufficiently cohesive to mount a successful progressive challenge to their elder’s fears of too much government and too much government spending. The battle between moderates and progressives is tearing the Democratic Party even more than the Trump vs No-Trump wars in the GOP-turned-into-the-Trump-Party that are tearing that party apart.

Liberal California is the canary in the Democrat’s coal mine, as local approval polls for California’s elder stateswomen, Senator Diane Feinstein, and California-born VP, Kamala Harris, hit unfathomly abysmal levels. The evidence is mounting: the ultra-liberal bastion of San Francisco – Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district – is rebelling against its progressive faction. And if this is happening in this exceptionally bright blue district, it is a seminal reality that faces the entire Democratic Party in the approaching midterm primaries/elections. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, be prepared!

The canary sang brightest in a recent recall filed against SF school board members, President Gabriela López, Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga… who were ousted in a recall election on February 15th. Extremely leftist, they were the only board members who had been in office long enough to be legally removed. All gone having made decisions that no longer, in the minds of angry parents, served the best educational interests of their children. Mark Barabak, writing for the February 17th Los Angeles Times, pointed out some of this school board’s distracted decisions:

“In a place that prides itself on social justice and forward thinking, members of the school board outdid themselves by moving to strip the names of, among others, Presidents Washington and Lincoln and Sen. Dianne Feinstein from 44 public schools… The intent was to remediate the country’s history of injustices: George Washington owned slaves, Abraham Lincoln oversaw the slaughter of Native Americans, and Feinstein, as mayor in 1984, replaced a Confederate flag that had been vandalized at City Hall with a new one. The result was outrage.

“In another instance of misplaced priorities, board members spent hours debating whether a father who was white and gay brought sufficient diversity to a parental advisory committee. His appointment was ultimately nixed, but there was no recovering the time that was wasted.

“Perhaps most antagonizing, the board moved to end merit-based admissions to Lowell High School, one of the city’s most sacred institutions, where Asian American students are the majority. (The move catalyzed the district’s Asian American community, long an important force in San Francisco politics.)

“Old comments surfaced from Collins, in which she stated Asian Americans used ‘white supremacist’ thinking to get ahead and were racist toward Black students. She apologized, then sued the school district and five fellow board members, seeking $87 million in damages, for removing her title as vice president. A judge summarily rejected the case…

“All of which was too much for this famously tolerant city as students struggled with distance learning and public schools remained closed even as schools in neighboring communities reopened.” Parents wanted to get their children back into physical classrooms, to upgrade educational standards and priorities ahead of all else. San Franciscans are not any less liberal than they were, but the question of focus and priorities drove the recall, led by Mayor London Breed with heavy financial support from equally angry local millionaires.

As Barabak noted: “What happened [in the recall election] was more a foreshock, a warning — as if Democrats needed any more of those — that November’s midterm elections could be very bad indeed, as parents unsettled by two years of pandemic-related upheaval vent their frustrations at the polls…

“Liesl Hickey, a veteran GOP strategist, is calling 2022 the year of the angry K-12 parent… ‘They are mad,’ Hickey told the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter, ‘and they want to hold someone accountable’… That’s what bodes poorly for President Biden and his fellow Democrats… Midterm elections are almost always a referendum on the party in power, and the voters most likely to turn out are those who are angry and wish to make known their discontent.

“Public schools may be back to regular business by the fall. Inflation may be tamed, and store shelves and car showrooms may be brimming with the inventory they now lack… But it’s a good bet that parents won’t be forgiving or forgetting what’s taken place over the last two plague years, and in that way San Francisco’s recall election may be the early rumblings of a much larger shake-up to come.”

It’s not as if the Dems can afford losing urban votes now; they lost the countryside a long time ago: “Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from many parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the nation's political landscape.” Steve Peoples, Associated Press, February 17th. Rural Republicans vs urban Democrats. Red alert, Dems… fix it or lose it. And fast!!!

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes obvious political realties must postpone the passionate desire for change that can often backfire and produce the opposite result.

Sanctions vs Retaliation – Russia or the West

"This is genius… So Putin is now saying it’s independent — a large section of Ukraine. I said, how smart is that? And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace, all right." 

Donald Trump reacting to Putin’s move on Ukraine (February 22nd)

We’re in a new kind of war with real victims that could easily break out into a full-on shooting war involving Western troops. But the ability to withstand sanctions and the expected retaliation may be determinative of the future of Russian expansionism, the fulfillment of the Russian President’s unambiguous efforts to pull the old countries of the Soviet Union, which dissolved into separate nations in 1991 – back into either the previous borders or at least into a unified political bloc of nations with Russia as the puppet master. 

In his address to the Russian Parliament (the Duma) in 2005, President Vladimir Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century. His speech on February 21st, justifying his recognition recognizing the two eastern Ukrainian rebel-held territories as independent nations – calling themselves Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) – after a rubber-stamp vote from his parliament, enabling Russian forces to cross the border en masse, made it very clear that he did not consider the current Ukrainian state as legitimate or acceptable. He also suggested that further territorial incursions were on the table, even as President Biden stated that he would move US troops into the NATO’s neighboring Baltic states.

But we know all that (or should). What we may not be aware of is what sanctions are likely to be applied, how Putin has prepared Russia to withstand them and what we can expect in retaliation. In his address to the world on February 21st, Putin explained to his people that he believed the West was going to impose severe sanctions no matter what course Russia chose. So what, he noted. And as a dictator of virtually the entire Russian empire, including subject states like Belarus, Putin does not face the factionalism within the Western allies and has never been concerned with the suffering of his people. Still under what have been fairly ineffective Western sanctions applied in 2014 after Russia’s unlawful annexation of Crimea (then also part of Ukraine), Putin seems clearly able to hold his people in line regardless of the harshness of the expected litany of sanctions from his latest military incursion into Ukraine.

The first reality for the West is that since 2014 Putin has expected sanctions to expand as he moved to annex or dominate more neighboring territory. So, he prepared. Big time. For the past few years, he has been building “rainy day” surpluses, including a $3 billion kitty to soften the blows he expected the West to apply to his oligarchs. His massive funding built up additional reserves as he anticipated that Russia would be denied credit in major financial markets, controlled by the West. He expected a cutback on natural gas and petroleum, even in underpowered and very desperate Germany. Germany had backed itself into a power deficiency corner by shutting down its very unpopular nuclear power generation capacity, finding itself too reliant on pipeline-delivered Russian natural gas. See my February 15th Frozen Diplomacy by Other Means blog for a detailed review of the dependency cycle.

At a news conference on February 22nd, President Joe Biden presented what he described as an initial round of new sanctions based on Russia’s moves to support DPR and LPR with a military guarantee: Denying Russia western access for national debt, taking away the ability of two mega-business/investment banks to link with corresponding Western banks to transact business, ordering US-based assets of named oligarchs to be frozen, and Germany’s shutting down the prospects for the new mega-pipeline between Russia and Europe (Nord Stream 2). UK P.M. Boris Johnson added five additional Russian banks, with a strong London presence, to the list and named additional oligarchs subject to having their assets frozen. According to the February 22nd BBC.com, “the anti-corruption group Transparency International says there is about £1.5bn [$2.4bn] of Russian money invested in London property alone, much of it from funds held in offshore havens.”

However, as noted, Russia has created a surplus to avoid needing to sell bonds internationally, and the sanctioned banks are mainly involved in corporate and government transactions, much less likely to impact the day-to-day financial activities of ordinary Russians and smaller businesses. Since 2014, Putin has slowly weaned Russia from carrying its foreign currency reserves in dollars, “trying to sanction-proof the Russian economy… By January this year, the [Russian] government's international reserves, in foreign exchange and gold, were at record levels - worth more than $630bn (£464bn).

“That is the fourth highest amount of such reserves in the world - and it could be used to help prop up Russia's currency, the rouble, for some considerable time… Notably only about 16% of Russia's foreign exchange is now actually held in dollars, down from 40% five years ago. About 13% is now held in Chinese renminbi.” Chris Morris, the BBC’s Global Trade Correspondent, writing for the January 22nd BBC.com. And if you have been reading the news, you may have noticed that Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping have reached a new, anti-Western accord, that will significantly soften the impact of Western sanctions. China’s banks and markets remain wide open to Russian transactions.

The West’s cutting off natural gas orders from Russia to Europe is obviously easier for some countries than it is for others. “The EU, for example, gets 40% of its natural gas supplies from Russia. The UK gets about 3%... Germany's decision to put the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline on hold, therefore, is damaging for Russia but will have a direct impact on energy prices in western Europe as well.” Chris Morris. As sanctions escalate, if required (probably), Russian banks would all be frozen out of the international financial exchanges (a business crusher), and boycotts of Russian fossil fuel would mount. That would include isolating Russia from the Swift interbank exchange/messaging system, but Russia is already creating its own alternative system of international payments, possibly through China.

Sanctions will hurt over time; they will impact travel and daily life for Russian citizens, but “sacrificing for the motherland” is a Russian tradition. For those who say we should find those massive secret bank accounts where Putin, possibly the richest man on earth, has parked his billions, President Putin doesn't hold money and other assets abroad in his own name for obvious reasons. That network of ultra-rich oligarchs do it for him. That’s why coming down on these individuals (even with “insurance” from Moscow’s special reserves) becomes so important. Russia enjoyed Trump’s close relationship during the latter’s tenure, unquestioning Russian desires to annex more territory and are now enjoying the extreme polarization that Trump has caused even since his departure. You can bet that Putin will amp up his election interference, attempting to put Trump-controlled politicians back on top, from disinformation direct voter manipulation to finding ways to fund GOP campaigns everywhere with hard-to-trace dark money.

 

Putin has been ignored in major global policymaking, eclipsed by his newfound buddy in China. With Trump gone, there is now an antagonist in the White House. And when it comes to economic power, Russia is very much a global also-ran. Remember, Russia doesn’t really have much in the way of meaningful exports. Except for munitions, oil and gas – and vodka – they really don’t have much to offer the world. Their total economy is literally half of that of California. Yet Putin is in control of his side. To date, however, Western nations are surprisingly uniform in their initial reaction against Putin’s unlawful aggression, but really, how long will that lockstep approach hold together?

 

America’s vulnerabilities are obvious, concerns carried into various other Western allies as well. Inflation fears dominate the news, particularly in the United States. After the above announcement, accelerated by Biden’s statement that “freedom has a cost,” stock markets tanked, fossil fuel costs everywhere skyrocketed, and Biden’s popularity dropped further. Putin believes he can outlast the West in tolerating financial pain, that he has prepared for most of the worst, and has so many ways to further destabilize his foes. The potential for cyberattacks against our Internet-driven economy, perhaps against our power grids and even ransomware to debilitate local governments and hospitals across the Western world… even with reciprocal attacks… are dramatically obvious. Like it or not, this is war.

 

I’m Peter Dekom, and about the only thing you can predict in this bizarre form of warfare is that nothing is certain, and anything can happen.