I have a new piece out for Sublation today commenting on the way Prigozhin’s rebellion was experienced by online westerners. There’s no paywall. You can read it here:
https://www.sublationmag.com/post/revolution-without-the-risks-enjoying-the-adventures-of-yevgeny-prigozhin
If somehow you haven’t heard, I also have a book out, available here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-28210-2
A journalist has alleged that the United States sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. The United States has suggested that Russia blew up the pipeline, but it has not provided evidence to substantiate this claim. The attack on the pipeline makes it much harder for the European Union to import gas from Russia, making the EU more dependent on expensive liquified natural gas from North America. By removing the prospect of resuming Russian gas imports in the near-term, the attack on the pipeline gives the EU less reason to seek a swift end to the war in Ukraine. It diminishes Russian leverage. The American narrative – that Russia destroyed the pipeline to deny Europe gas – doesn’t make a lot of sense. Russia controls the tap. It can turn the gas on and off as it pleases. The sabotage destroys Russia’s capacity to turn the gas back on, and therefore it takes away Russia’s diplomatic option to offer to turn the gas back on as part of a settlement.
Given these facts and the absence of conclusive evidence as to who is responsible for the attack, it is reasonable to question the US government’s narrative and to demand the US government provide evidence to support its account of what happened. The journalist is just one of many people who have asked questions about Nord Stream. But a funny thing has happened. Instead of discussing the issues at hand – the pipeline, the energy crisis, the war – media outlets are increasingly focused on the journalist’s character. He’s accused of being a crank, a conspiracy theorist, a crazy person. Those who think it’s important to question the US government’s narrative have increasingly become preoccupied with defending the journalist. Many people now know the journalist’s name and can tell you all sorts of things about the journalist’s career. But what does this have to do with anything?
Read the rest of this entry »Russia has moved ahead with annexing the occupied oblasts of Ukraine. This is a point of no return for the Putin regime. It is hard for the regime to maintain its legitimacy when it is trying and failing to invade a foreign country. The regime looks weak and incompetent, and with no real possibility of replacing the leadership through an election, there is no easy to way to restore confidence on short notice. But as difficult as that situation is, it is much harder for the regime to maintain its legitimacy when it is trying and failing to defend the territory the regime acknowledges as part of Russia. A Russian president who cannot successfully invade Ukraine is weak. A Russian president who cannot defend Russia is pathetic. The decision to annex the oblasts therefore sends a clear message–the Putin regime will defend the territory it now holds, or it will die trying.
Read the rest of this entry »I ran across this piece by Adam Tooze about John Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer is the University of Chicago professor who gave this controversial talk about Ukraine, which has gone viral:
I was at University of Chicago for my MA in 2014, when John started giving this talk. I took his American Grand Strategy class. I sometimes call him “John” because in his lectures he often refers to himself in the third person by his first name. John describes himself as a “realist par excellence.”
Tooze is an economic historian. Online, he’s become increasingly prominent for his economic analysis. He was a reader at the University of Cambridge while I was doing my PhD there. He’s now at Columbia. I often read his stuff. I like both of these people, and I like both Chicago and Cambridge. I want to talk a little bit about how they relate to each other.
Read the rest of this entry »Most of the people writing about the Ukraine crisis are too busy trying to prove that they are on the right side to give decent analysis of it. They are worried about appearing too friendly to either Russia or the United States, and their career concerns are crippling their ability to say anything useful. Let’s talk about what’s really going on.
Read the rest of this entry »
Benjamin Studebaker 