Two points -
1. Same old circular logic regarding the internal reasoning for the prolongation of war.
So in essence - once you are in a protracted war like this, and you noticed, that things arent going well, the “nationbuilding” starts to happen in inwards/public facing propaganda - and I cant exist in a world, that just ignores internal propaganda reasoning, until the end of days.
You need internal propaganda, to stabilize societies, to prolong the war.
You dont call that “russias motivation” - you call that propaganda - and
2. On the “Historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians text” -
you cant use that as rectification for the main goal of the russian foreign politics going forward. You can read that into it. You cant use it as proof for that.
The text is crafted in a way - to mean absolutely nothing in terms of “actionable proof for anything” - until the latter events unfold.
Then you can use it as a stand-in for whatever argument you need to hold, by just elongating Putins historical revisionism into the near future, and proposing that this [whatever fits in your sketched out version of that prolongation (you’ve got five Tsars to pick from, and Fiona Hill picked all of them!)] was always his aim.
That said - at the time it could have meant
- proposed and or forced political “integration” of the Donbas,
- military support for the Donbas,
- a limited military intervention, …
Anything. And people acknowledged that at the time of its release. But as soon as the war started - it, and Putins speeches in security fora prior to it became the pinpoint “proof” of russia working on the reestablishment of the USSR.
And because those fears ran deep with nordic states - and the EU is a consensus based decision body… And the US pressed for “whatever this war is at this stage”… finally, prolonged war of attrition until 2028 or 2030, until russia runs out of stock to refurbish.
[And a germany that has lost its business model. Luckily enough we have the Zeitewende (where the GMF at the time was the only institution that got a debriefing on “what that would actually mean” ( https://harlekin.me/allgemein/a-real-broad-shift/ ) and no journalistic outlet did - they just all knew, that because of that speech, nothing would be the same on the day after -- because thats how speeches work…).]
Its like the worlds most stupidest McGuffin. As it was used to signal some “godgiven” (as in pseudo historical) “unity” narrative to someone for sure.
But you dont know to whom. To seperatists, to the religious crowd, to hardliners in the party, to the people who were corrupted and about to take action, to the russian public - as a guideline for political storytelling of what was to come --- but it is definitely, positively, no proof - that Putins war aim is the recreation of the USSR. Thats Mearsheimers position btw - and hes absolutely correct on that -
Thats not even remotely within the scope of the boundries of the text. Thats overinterpretation.
Sorbonne, or not.
That said, if you find other proof, that russia went into an irreversible path of action that aims for them becoming a superpower again at the end of it - then present it.
This in essence is what your argument hinges on. If you can prove that, then your argument holds.
If you cant, then we are not talking about zero sum games here.
And so far, the proof for that has been lousy. (Not just in that Sorbonne speech.)
For example:
The war aim for russias elite could have just been to avoid all the problems that come with an overaging society in terms of social cohesion. Yes the war also serves a bunch of internal purposes around creating a new power elite, raising it among certain myths, even reducing the prosperity of the russian public to some extent, which makes it more compatible with Chinas development trajectory. If you take the position, that the class thats in power in Russia really doesnt care much about anything other than “self replication/prolongation” - there are a bunch of reasons for “why a war might not have been the worst thing to start at that point in time”, that arent “to become a great power again”.
Simply to secure crimea once and for all (Sewastopol) could have been pretty high on that list (referencing Herfried Münkler) . Considering that the Ukraine did everything to prevent the long term functioning of annexed crimea f.e. (Suing (?) the company that got the contract to maintain the bridge - putting it under an international sanction regime, …)) - so “land bridge” to crimea, also probably pretty high on the same list.
So that the recreation of the USSR is the main aim, is - as far as I’m concerned, just storytelling.
Storytelling that prevents any latch on point for diplomacy.
And with that - I have a problem.
I am much more prone to the position of Sachs (stone me), that you could risk a “try run” - if “access to the black sea” was part of why russia “had to” start this war in its internal logic. Do what you have to do, to try to prevent the rearmament of russia, pronounce the conflict frozen - put in UN peace keepers, and see who rearms to what extent. Now its a bit late for that (also security guarantees are an issue) - but you’ve done everything imaginable to prevent a diplomatic solution from even being discussed in the open.
Sabotaged so called peace conferences, removed those voices from the public dialog, ridiculed them openly, denounced the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, -- this:
Und man kann VON GLÜCK REDEN, dass das IWM Vienna, also Wojciech Przybylski “united against Russia” als neues Initialmotiv einer geeinten Europaerzählung für angebracht, richtig und wesentlich hält, jetzt wo “Europa steht für Frieden” ausgedient hat.
Have Selenskyj stage a peace conference that only needs one of the conflict (yes, its a war) parties to attend to… Great stuff!
And it wasnt a risk based calculus why you did that - it was one that was potentiality/oportunity driven. “You probably could beat russia fast!” That was the sales pitch in the first year.
Thats about the extent of my criticism.
Also argue for “the Ukraine is fighting for survival” a bit more convincingly - when all you have are “acts of genozide” - which still might be other war crimes” - by the hundreds -
(Breaking dissidents, interrogation tactics, … Genozide?)
Scope and structure matters.
But who am I kidding now - that anyone is giving Russia here a “fair trial” approach - when it comes to interpreting their war aims.
No one would ever do that, Wertewesten or not - thats what history departments are for, right? And they are all about stories…
Just a bit early to write that history - in that Sorbonne video - one month ago…
On the other statements in the video I’m more favorable - but I just about had it - that no one EVER until this day, was able to identify propaganda, and propaganda logic, when they mention five fucking speeches, aimed at domestic publics in a war.
Propaganda hat ja wieder niemand entdeckt, am allerwenigsten der Gressel.
Gut - Militäranalyst, vielleicht kennt der nur die klassischen Anwendungsformen…
