Thread: GWAR
Are we looking at real war or just more culture war?
It might just be me, but the current drive to war feels half-hearted. The last time we saw this kind of a full court press was 2003, and even though the justification for that war was even dumber and more of a lie than this time around, the passion and commitment were certainly there. Fox News anchors beat their chests and drooled over the prospect of calling anyone who dared question the wisdom of invading Iraq traitors and cowards. The New York Times went into overdrive using its adult-in-the-room voice to make the Bush administration’s case to liberal America. Neocon intellectuals and policy dorks founded fake think tanks to promote the cause. Everyone did their part to create the biggest global disaster since Vietnam.
This time, the scapegoating of antiwar voices is certainly there, but it feels like more just going through the motions. I’m not sure I even actually believe the people calling to confront Russia really want the US to storm the beaches of Рибаківка. This is a half-baked theory at best, but I kind of think that after years of Russiagate, Trump Derangement Syndrome and Covid political insanity, our discourse has become so unmoored from reality and so deeply invested in tribalism that people are just gravitating toward any news that they can turn into a bludgeon with which to call the other side enemies of the American people on Twitter. The culture war is now threatening to get us into an actual war.
The good news is that unlike the last time we were swept up in collective brain damage by the pundits and politicians itching to send other people’s kids to their deaths, they were deadly serious about it. If I’m right, this time it’s an inch deep and won’t amount to much.
On the other hand, knowing Biden, he’ll try to split the baby by steering well clear of war but throwing up sanctions that will draw us inexorably into the geopolitical quagmire of Eastern Europe for years to come. That’ll give the diplomatic bureaucracy the excuse to pursue illusory national interests in the Crimea until the blob can create enough think tanks and generate enough op-eds to draw some future President into a disastrous and gratuitous armed conflict with Russia. So it’s not like we don’t have something to worry about from these idiotic theatrics.
I’ll admit though that I’ve only really just recently begun to follow all of this closely. I’ve been preoccupied with Covid inanity and crazy local drug policies, and also with a rat and mite invasion of my house. So there might be better informed and better thought-through opinions among you, the commenters.
Open thread.
Leighton's comment reflects the post-Iraq generation's attitude toward American foreign policy, which views even the discussion of containment as part of a "manufactured consent" hyped-up rush to war. Everything is Iraq II, just as twenty years ago everything was Greatest Generation II.
The fact is that post-Iraq/Afghanistan, no American on the Right or Left feels that anything justifies putting troops in harm's way. Putin (and Xi) both know there's no domestic support for any form of overseas engagement, which is why he/they are engaging in this brinksmanship.
America has always swung between the two poles of isolationism and adventurism. Both approaches have had a price in human lives. Right now we're maxed out on isolationism. At some point we'll learn the limits of this approach, and the pendulum will swing back again.
Unfortunately we have and are continuing to arm the Ukraine government with the latest ground war weaponry, including missiles. So this apparently corrupt, autocratic pro-US president could will start the war on his own volition, and drag the 8500 US troops we have on standby alert as well as NATO forces into a shooting war. It’s not just Biden‘s call anymore, but if he doesn’t respond, even if Ukraine starts the war, Biden will be seen as week & undecisive. He’s going to have to send the troops in to do enough damage to prove how tough he is. Problem is that once you start hostilities, it’s not like you can change your mind after you made your point.