Hoover Institution. You’ve got to invite a historian just smart enough not to understand when they are inferring, constructing correlations -- but then the first example that springs into his mind still will be North Korea, when talking about an attack on democracy, so - who knows, maybe he is just right in all of his references, all the grandstanding - and somewhat sketchy logic. Or maybe not.
First point. “Although the entire political establishment in europe was warned, that this (an invasion) could be an action that was on the table, they didnt think it would be. But our [partners] intelligence services did! And then they expected everything correctly, and shared all the information - so in very short time [1,5 days in case of germany], they gained their allies trust, and now had been instrumental in “the revitalization of Nato””.
Thats the same narrative as Biden has saved Nato from all the damage Trump did to it. In essence. This will now be rammed down my neck for as long as I live.
Issues:
- There isn’t any outward orientated intelligence service in the world that in a standoff situation like the one that developed with military units on another countries borders will not have an action plan, for a case of war. And warn of a very real possibility of war.
- There is literally no way imaginable, that a President Biden would have considered not to take the public position of “We dont know, but we think russia will attack”. If he hadn’t and that eventuality took place, public opinion polls would have crashed him, and as he did - he still doesnt have do commit troops to an extent that it would impact his public reputation. Its simply a display of strength, probably not based on the intelligence reports at the time. While at the same time you have the europeans taking over negotiation duties, so all fronts are covered. At least that strikes me as much more likely, than that the US president makes decisions on a war in europe and Nato involvement purely based on intelligence information at the time.
- All our intelligence was right. No. Actually almost none of it was. Lets give them, that they warned of an invasion - (actually the possibility of an invasion, a fact, that by his own argument Kotkin depicts as something all european governments were privy to (just dindn’t expect to happen).) - even though most public voices at the munich security conference didnt warn of the possibility of the invasion (but according to Kotkin intelligence services did), the second thing they got correct was, that Kyiv was also going to be attacked early on, as part of a “full” invasion.
And they publicly did get that one, after they saw the altering of attack formations, before the first border incident. Before that, no one ever did speak of that possibility at least publicly.
- “And then because they expected everything correctly” they got the trust of european governments, and now the rejuvenation of Nato was perfect. And the sanctions where developed and could be implemented in a coordinated fashion. Issue: At least questionable, when looking at actual events.
Europes and especially the German governments position was, that they wanted primacy over when (and what) sanctions would be imposed although that would be coordinated with their partners. With the official language in place being, “we dont want to telegraph to Putin what we would be doing at what point” - (the points of contention were preanounced, and/or fully coordinated) then the first border crossing by troops without insignias happened, which were moved into the Donbas region, and russian forces were moved into attack formations outside the country. As a result of this the famous Nato “conference” happened, where Stoltenberg went on record with his “It is not yet an Invasion - but it also is an invasion, as russia was sending more troops into regions they had already occupied - but informally so.” statement. Now reenforcing them more formally (but still without russian insignias on the troops). With the key phrase being “It is never too late not to start a war.” Then there were direct follow up questions, if those movements wouldnt constitute an invasion anyhow. And the same lines were repeated. Yes, an invasion, but in an area that we had seen this previously, just not in an official capacity. Logic to back that up was vers betum “they had been invading those regions since 2014, it is an invasion.”. Could have still been diplomatic language to stop an attack, but those were the words of Nato (Stoltenberg). Then things started to happen very fast, Germany lost its position on Nordstream 2 and announced that it would “freeze” it. Which was reported by DW as a “permanent freeze”, and by other news outlets as “frozen for good for some time” (the method of choice were still bureaucratic modes of review). Then Uvdl didnt use the word invasion when questioned on CNN, and just a short while earlier, Russia had the “resistance Leader” in the Donbas announce, that they would fight on their own, and that they would no longer ask for russian support troops.” Which pretty much everyone saw as a farce. Then the Selenskyj speech in russian happened (which was a call for public anti-war protests in russia), and then the first russian rockets started flying - and the (not yet)full invasion force started to cross borders (including the forces that were heading for Kyiv) - which at first was reported to be around 30.000 troops strong.
Then the full intelligence services support action went into place - probably being very helpful in keeping Hostomel Airport from being taken over, targeting support units, and a few days after that the additional support infrastructure of Russia also seemed to be failing - with reason currently in the public discourse for that being, intelligent attacks on support convoys hitting vehicles in the middle of it - that were needed up front earlier (= very good intel), and command and control breaking down (partly by generals having been killed that had to come closer to the battlefield because of a communication breakdown).
So the phase in which because of “correct asesments” the intelligence services gained trust in the European governments must/should have been very, very short, and only after the first rocket strikes and the start of the big invasion.
Issue, at the same time, the coordinately released sanction packages (Japan did lag a little…) came in very fast and swift as well. And there are reports, that the position within SPD decision circles changed within one and a half days. That was one and a half days before the big german parliament speech where three policy pillars of german politics were publicly reversed (12 people knowing the full scope of the speech at the time before it was held in parliament).
Also - in the official arguments on policy reversal, in the german speech, inhumanity and violations of international law are mentioned as causes for those policy reversals.
And then four days after the german parliament speech, Switzerland is dropping neutrality. See: this
At least in the public ductus, this cant be explained, by european parliaments gaining trust in their partners intelligence services. Which then lead to a stronger cohesion within Nato.
“So Steven, I hadn’t actually thought of that, of course! - The reason to talk to you is because I haven’t thought of any of this -- but that right from the get go, the United States appeared [as] something it hasn’t appeared [as] for a long time. Competent. Competent. Our guys knew what they were doing. -- That turns out to be important for the whole psychology of this, from the very get go - is that right?” “Yes.”
And this is, why Nato aligned pr agencies are now doing media work for europe.
