SPÖ-Wehrsprecher sieht Druck auf Neutralität durch “transatlantische Elite-Zirkel”
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First off - it is amazing to see Fiona Hill show that much restraint. For once. The selective framings are few and far in between if you just look at the statements of Hill and Constanze Stelzenmüller. They are still there, but this time they are very muted.
Of course Hill is still needed to tell the story that this is one persons war - and Putin was so isolated, and mostly worried about his legacy, and that this was a plan that he had for years and planned out meticulously, which of course is disputed by both the initial Naftali Bennett Interview (the isolation part) - as well as Stephen Kotkin, and David Arakhamiia (the head of Selenskyjs party) by now -- but Fiona this time around has downgraded her “isolation” argument to “isolated with the same people” (so didnt talk to the west, during the Corona lockdowns?), which was when Putins decision - according to Fiona - was made to attack Ukraine, because Putin thought mostly about his lifes legacy in those days. Which Fiona of course knows, because she knows how Putin thinks. Because of those four stone statues she saw in his office in 2015 - when she last participated in a Valdai Discussion Club meeting. Thats a very tame version of her story (that still contains double Vladimir btw - which is amazing), but none of her other logic jumps - she previously made, when presenting her “what Putin thinks” story in the past.
Of course Fiona Hill is now also contradicted by Stephen Kotkin (the person who invented the initial western war narrative at the Hoover Institution, which then every european news outlet copied, see Kotkin at the Hoover Institution on the 4th of March 2022):
Because Kotkin by now states, that the most popular public narrative in the west has now changed from “crazy Putin” to a “this was the goal of the broader russian leadership” one, because the russian people seem ok with it, and because the “crazy Putin narrative” kind of fizzled out over time, making Fionas input, narrative wise, less and less important.
Stephen Kotkin: “So it’s really Putin personal, capricious, whimsical, his personality, his KGB past, all the things that you write about. That explanation was popular until recently when people started to see that it wasn’t only Putin in the war in Ukraine, that Russian elites seemed to fall in line. Not everyone, but many of them.
The Russian people didn’t seem on on mass to oppose the war. Yes, many did and suffered for it, and many are in exile or in prison as a result. But it’s hard to say that this is one person alone. It’s also hard to say that any of the alternatives would’ve been different once they’re in power.
Cause Putin wasn’t today’s Putin when he first came to power. It’s also hard to understand how if they had been different, they would’ve survived. Just because you come to power doesn’t mean you survive in power. You can come to power by accident. But surviving in power for decade after decade is not an accident.
And so this, the second explanation, it’s Putin or predominantly Putin, I don’t think holds water.”
Of course Fiona Hill is also famous for her appearance at the CFR here:
Where she encourages the audience the people in the CFR and journalists to come up with better storytelling, to tell to people in a simple way what has happened, trying to regain them in mass, after having lost them -- referencing the two thirds of the world that might believe in chinas view on the events f.e.
Here the moneyquote:
Fiona Hill: “You know, you’ve lost—forgotten—and this is exactly what he said. You’ve kind of lost humanity. What’s happened to the Americans who go out there and tell a story, you know, that makes it very clear about why people are doing things? And, you know, that’s something that members of the Council on Foreign Relations do. It’s why we’re having this event.
It’s also what people do in journalism, like Serge and, you know, all of his opinion and commentary pieces. But it’s kind of, you know, something that we’re all going to have to do on a regular basis. And, you know, I think some of you might have read just recently in the New York Times the movie of Bulgakov, Master and Margarita, that’s being shown, you know, right now in in Russia and having an impact. We’ve got to start being creative about things like this, about telling stories.
The story of Alexei Navalny dying—you know, somebody of that kind of unspeakable bravery to, you know, do the things that he did, and to sacrifice himself in the way that he did—telling that story and moving it forward.
Because you can’t just leave Vladimir Putin to tell the story. And I think that this documentary is a challenge to all of us about how do we get out there and work on the narrative.”
Thank you Fiona!
Next we look at Constanze Stelzenmüller, who of course, as always, finds it so hard to deal with that fact, that in germany there still isnt this notion, that there is a real war going on right now between the west and china, and that we really ought to take a hint and side with the americans on this -- “because of democracies vs. authocracies”, right?
Right. So - here is why thats so hard for the germans to understand. Because the german economic infrastructure is interwoven with China in a different way, than the one in the US is. So while the US benefits from 100% tarrifs on chinese goods, the german economy actually suffers even from the lower impact tarrifs the EU has by now put on chinese electric vehicles (see, Politico: Germany launches 11th-hour bid to avert trade war with China) but Constanze just cant fathom why thats still the dominant view in germany.
Trying to debunk the two male counterparts on this panel is an excercise in futility, because they flog emotional “US, the shining city on a hill” narratives where about every second sentence is wrong - in a fundamental way -- so I will not even try that to -- for once, keep this posting from exploding into 10 pages of dealing with idiotic gobbledigug.
And there is a final slight, soft framing thats established in the Brookings Institution panel discussion here, that still touches on -- well russia had no real reasons to start this war.
While on the fundamental level thats correct, this seeks to simply outfence all the international policy maneuvers the US and the Ukraine put in place beforehand to essentially free Crimea, which might have been an essential impetus for Russia to start this war -- as Herfried Münkler states here:
And which Angela Merkel also openly alluded to when talking about the nature of Minsk 2.
So take your NATO narrative, and essentially stuff it -- even though this is the tamest and closest version to what will be in our history books ten years from now.
(Putin manipulated russian history as a high priority goal since 2015 - I’m still an equal opportunity take your shit and stuff it kind of guy. (Hopefully.))
