02/05/15 – Daniel Larison – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's the Scott Horton Show.
I'm him.
I got Daniel Larrison on the line, blogger for the American Conservative Magazine.
Welcome back to the show.
Daniel, how are you doing?
I'm just fine, Scott.
Thanks for having me back.
Very happy to have you here.
Thank you very much for joining us.
So yeah, let's talk about the Ukraine.
We got this report by the Brookings Institution, which has Michelle Flournoy and some other prominent former government officials and think tanker types, I believe left and right, and very official, signed onto it that says that, listen, it makes sense that we need to send weapons to the Ukrainian military so that they can stymie Russia's effort to help the pro-Russian separatists, as they call them, in the east there.
What do you think about that?
Well, I think, as I've been saying a few times this week and before that, seems like a really terrible idea.
It's something that doesn't make sense for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that it's very likely going to cause an escalation in the fighting.
It's going to inflict more damage on Ukraine because the Russians are not going to respond favorably or respond as these advocates would like them to respond.
Instead, Russia is going to respond to the killing of their people and the separatists that they're supporting with more aggressive tactics.
And it's conceivable that Ukraine could end up being much worse off as a result of this.
But in failing that, it's not going to be able to inflict enough damage on the Russians to cause them to change their policy.
I think the key mistaken assumption in the argument that's in the report and in op-eds related to it is the idea that they can somehow raise the cost enough for the Russians that they're going to give up on this policy that they have committed to, when they've already suffered very significant losses in terms of their finances and economics, and they haven't budged so far.
And so it seems very far-fetched to think that if just a few more of their people get killed, that this is going to cause a major change in their thinking.
And then finally, I think U.S. involvement in the conflict is unwise for our interests.
We have nothing really at stake in terms of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
We certainly shouldn't be trying to inflame it and make it worse.
And we certainly shouldn't be trying to make a new commitment that we're going to have to back up in the future with additional support once we commit to them in the way that the people authoring this report want us to.
All right, now, so I heard the interview the other day on NPR News with Ivo Daalder, the former ambassador to the EU, whose name is first on the list of the authors of this report.
And he was asked by the NPR reporter about, OK, well, so what if they call our bluff then?
You know, we're playing chestnut checkers here, right?
So if they call our bluff and the new weapons don't make the Russians recalculate and back down, but they decide, I don't know, maybe to strike, then what?
And the answer, he seemed to kind of have not thought of it before, really.
And he sort of flubbed out a couple of incoherent lines that amounted to, well, if it backfires, well, that's good because it'll still just be more of the same.
It'll raise the costs for Russia.
And then ultimately, I guess, regardless of any other consequences, ultimately, it'll cause the debate in Moscow to go up, he said, which I guess means will cause dissent in Moscow against the Putin policy of sticking with it and that he'll be forced then to back down, if not the first round of escalation by the next one, then it'll really blow up in his face for intervening there.
But again, I'm not so sure he had even really thought that far ahead.
But then I think, come on, he must have, right?
Because these people, I don't agree with them about a lot of things, but they're not just complete dummies.
They must have thought through, you know, some possibility of it working another way than Putin simply saying, you're right.
You guys are just way too big and bad for me to ever stand up to.
So I'm going to take my stuff and go home.
Sorry.
Well, you'd like to think that they've thought it through more thoroughly than it seems that they have.
I'm not sure that it's true that they have.
There's not really any evidence in the report that they've considered any possible negative consequences of what they're proposing.
And they don't seem to consider that at every stage in the crisis over Ukraine in the last year, Russia has responded very severely to any action by Western governments that they had viewed as threatening.
And I think, well, if overthrowing Yanukovych caused them to take the actions that they did in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, why would they respond in any other sort of way to providing weapons to Ukrainians so that they can kill Russian proxies?
The Russians have already demonstrated that they're not prepared to let the rebels in the East go down to defeat.
And so anything that's trying to force the issue militarily is just going to generate retaliation.
I think that should be pretty obvious.
But I don't think they've thought it through, because like a lot of harsh proposals, the people that support this measure have basically assumed the best case scenario as the only likely scenario.
And they assume that this is going to work, and therefore what will work should be done.
And that's all there is to it.
And we've seen many times before how these kind of believed assumptions about everything going according to plan and the other side cooperating exactly as they're supposed to has been proven wrong again and again.
You know, this is sort of unreal.
If I understand the situation right, to me, I have to admit, even after years and years of this, Daniel, that my mind is kind of blown here.
Because I think, you know, as much as they claim to be so concerned about the domino theory and all that, it was understood that Russia and probably China, too, don't care that much about Vietnam.
We can bomb them for 10 years if we want, and that's not going to lead to a nuclear war because it's Vietnam out and down at the bottom of Southeast Asia.
Way the hell out where it barely even matters at all, except for some tungsten or something, right?
And yet they're kind of blundering into this Ukraine thing and they're treating it like, you know, we can just come in here and carve this out as our sphere of influence, as though they really don't know the history of Ukraine and Russia at all.
They have no idea where Kissinger sounds almost plaintive, saying, guys, please listen to me.
Ukraine is really important to Russia, OK?
Like he's talking to a kindergarten class full of State Department employees who don't know that, who never read a book and haven't been so concerned to find out just what Ukraine means to Russia, even as they would get us further into this crisis that they started.
Well, and I think they understand how important Ukraine is to them, you know, in a sort of a backwards, almost perverse way.
They assume that Ukraine is very important to Russia, but they think that if they can detach Ukraine from Russia's sphere of influence, that Russia will be significantly weakened.
And that's ultimately what they want to see happen.
And so it seems as if they're prepared to contemplate the complete ruination of Ukraine as a country in order to achieve that.
And so it becomes an issue not trying to do what's in the best interest of the parties on the ground, but what would be in the best interest of people that want to roll back Russian influence in the former Soviet Union.
And so I think they are underestimating the degree, the extent to which the Russians are going to resist that.
And that probably is evidence of historical ignorance on their part.
But well, and again, like you're saying, never even mind, you know, ancient history like, you know, a few years ago or anything like that.
But just in the last year, they thought they were going to kind of sneak away with Ukraine like they like Gideon Rose explained to Stephen Colbert, that we're going to kind of run away with them and hope that Russia doesn't react too bad.
Yeah.
Well, how's that been working out?
Well, exactly.
And it has been a case of provoking Russia and then hoping that the provocation doesn't lead to any negative consequences.
And so the belief is that they can somehow rope Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence without ever having to suffer any backlash from that.
And we've found, especially the Ukrainians have found to their detriment that that's not true.
All right.
Right back with Daniel Larrison after this, y'all.
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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
We're talking with Daniel Larrison.
From the American Conservative magazine, arming Ukraine is still a terrible idea, he writes.
You know, I saw a thing, Daniel, that was actually critical, pointing out that Obama told Fareed Zakaria over the weekend something along the lines of, hey, well, you know, they're not really a NATO ally and it's kind of far away from here.
And so I don't really know.
And this is the kind of thing that gets the word party all angry, but makes me a little bit hopeful.
The New York Times said they're strongly considering it.
But what do you think are the odds that Obama is really going to escalate this blunder that much further?
Well, I have been hopeful prior to this week that it wouldn't be happening, that the administration wouldn't go that far.
I know that they had said that they weren't going to veto the so-called Ukraine Freedom Act that passed by voice vote through both houses a few weeks ago.
And I was very critical of that decision not to pledge to veto it.
But I was still hoping that they wouldn't actually follow through and implement the terms of that bill, which includes the provision of weapons to the Ukrainian forces.
However, based on what Ashton Carter said in his confirmation hearings this week and his general hawkish approach to these sorts of issues, I get the impression that he is very much in favor of doing that.
And it seems to me that he was able to say that publicly because the administration is gradually shifting in that direction.
I hope that that's not right.
I hope that Carter was simply offering his opinion, which will then be overruled.
But it's certainly a bad sign for those of us that want to stay out of this.
Yeah.
Well, now, what do you think is really preventing peace?
Because there's been some negotiations and the Minsk agreement and this kind of thing, but the ceasefires keep falling apart and the violence continues on.
Do you think if, you know, I don't know, the Americans actually meant well here and they're willing to give up their attempt to grab Ukraine and take it away from Russia and all this that that they could help to negotiate a peace or just get the hell out?
Well, at this point, I'm not sure that our government would be in a position to do much in the way of negotiating anything.
I think from Moscow's perspective, the U.S. they're making the U.S. into the prime mover behind all of this.
And so they have a vested interest in not trying to negotiate with us.
So I think if there is any possibility of reaching some kind of settlement, it would come through the mediation of, for example, the Germans.
Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande are going first to Ukraine and then to Moscow this week in the hopes that they can find some kind of settlement that will prevent this conflict from escalating any further.
And I certainly wish them the best of luck and I hope that that can be successful.
But I think until the Ukrainian government is prepared to make the kind of concessions that the Russians expect them to make in terms of the way that the eastern part of Ukraine is governed and in terms of Ukraine's orientation towards the West, I'm afraid that both sides are going to continue to keep trying to find a way to settle this on the field.
And of course, the Ukrainians can't win.
So it's just going to lead to a prolonged conflict without any success on their part.
Yeah.
I mean, it seems pretty obvious.
In fact, I think Hollande told the radio, the president of France told the radio that, come on, he's not trying to conquer Eastern Europe and rebuild the old Russian empire or the old Soviet one or anything else here.
And we need to dispense with the false narrative so that we can come to a reasonable conclusion here.
It's nice to know that at least the Europeans are somewhat involved because you certainly probably have a better temperature on this than me.
But it sure seems like in D.C. it's more than just a consensus that let's all tell this lie.
They've all convinced themselves, like Brian Williams, that this is what really happened.
Never mind the coup of last February.
The Russians began this crisis with their aggression in Crimea.
And also they have sent more than five, maybe even 10,000 troops across the border over and over.
I don't know, 12, 13 times now Russia has invaded East Ukraine to fight against the Ukrainians.
And, you know, I don't know, I'm really worried that these idiots really believe their own narrative enough to to simply make their policy.
I mean, nobody wants to give in to Russian aggression if that's actually what we're dealing with here, you know.
Right.
Well, I think it's encouraging that some of the main European leaders are looking for a settlement that isn't military in nature.
Merkel, for her part, has said that Germany will not be providing any weapons.
And of course, the Europeans do a great deal more business with the Russians than we do.
And they have strong incentives to try to get back to something like a normal relationship as soon as possible, because as much as the sanctions and the drop in oil prices have been hurting the Russian economy, that will have and is having repercussions on the economies of Europe, which are already not doing that well, for the most part, prior to this crisis.
So one would hope that their mutual self-interest would lead them to that conclusion.
But we'll have to see.
Well, so let me ask you, and I'm sorry to ask you to be a mind reader, but do you think I'm right that, no, they really believe their whole false narrative that this crisis begins with Crimea and and that the Russians have invaded as many times as they've claimed the Russians have invaded?
Well, I think that there is a very broad, almost universal consensus that Russia is the only villain and the primary villain in all of this, and that Western policies have nothing to do with anything that's happened.
There's a strong desire on the part of foreign policy elites in both parties to exculpate the U.S. from any responsibility for anything that has happened there.
Certainly, Russia is responsible for its part, is responsible for what it has done, but it hasn't that hasn't happened in a vacuum.
That hasn't come out of nowhere.
And it's there's a strong desire to ignore our part in it and the part of some of our European allies in helping to create the crisis as they did in late 2013 or late 2014.
Well, you know, I mean, it seemed like not only did they do the coup, but then the coup leaders at least had an agenda of of really kind of treating the eastern provinces as outlaws from the very beginning, trying to ban Russian.
And then Timoshenko was was leaked, you know, saying, oh, blast them all kind of thing.
You know, there she didn't want to govern them.
She just wanted to fight them from the very beginning like that.
I wonder if you think did the Americans try to tell the new Ukrainian government, like, hey, let's not just keep making matters worse.
Or by then, the Russians left their base on the Crimean Peninsula.
And so it was too late for them to to kind of chill out.
You know, I think there is an impulse in Washington that whenever a government is deemed to be on our side or to be our proxy or our ally, although, of course, Ukraine is not an ally.
There's a strong impulse to whitewash whatever that government is doing to to present them in the best positive light in order to make our support for them appear more justifiable than it really is.
And so there's every incentive to push all of the blame on the other side and not recognize any of the ways that the Ukrainian government helped to worsen matters, especially in those early days after they had seized power.
Yeah, that makes sense, right.
Even in kind of, you know, whispered terms, they don't want to really acknowledge, hey, rein in your Nazis, because nobody wants to be the bureaucrat who admitted that, yeah, we're dealing with some Nazis here.
So it just goes unsaid.
We're all doing this right.
OK.
Yeah, well, unfortunately, that seems to be the case.
All right.
Well, listen, thanks so much for all your great writing and your time again on the show, Daniel.
Good to talk to you.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, so that's Daniel Larrison.
He's at The American Conservative Magazine, The American Conservative dot com slash Larrison.
Hey, I'll Scott here.
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