'Russia can't lose...'
... said the the bots and the trolls and the clickbaiters and eventually the well-intentioned Westerners...
Recently I attended a discussion group on the subject of the war. There were 40 people present, so ‘discussion group’ was stretching it a bit, but the moderators managed to keep order rather well. Chatham House rules applied.
Nobody was pro-Russian, or at any rate didn’t speak up if they were, but it was interesting that among those who were vocal there were four people, all sincere, with whom I would describe myself as being in vigorous disagreement, in very different ways:
The Idealist: An older man who had been in a position of influence in his younger years. He was convinced that peaceful, rational settlement can and should be achieved between Ukraine and Russia by means of negotiations, mediated by the UN.
Counter-argument: (made by a number of people, not just me): Russia has broken dozens of treaties and agreements. It will simply use any negotiated ceasefire as a lull in which to re-arm.
Outcome: I don’t think he addressed that point. I wonder if maybe there’s a class of powerbrokers who don’t see the end result as important: what’s important is that the West follows the script, so we can know that whatever happens next is not our fault.
The Sage: Another older man with an impressive CV and in-depth knowledge of international politics and history. He maintained that history is an unchanging cycle of rising and falling empires, and trust has completely broken down in the modern world with the result that nuclear war is inevitable. The idea that anyone, particularly the collective West, might do anything for moral reasons, struck him as so absurd he could barely contain his derision.
Counter-argument: Forget ‘moral’, then; you could equally well say the West is the biggest thief in history, and we are consequently sitting on a pile of loot. So let’s at least try to use the loot in our own self-interest.
Outcome: A show of hands revealed that most people in the room did not agree that Russia was going to nuke the West (unless we nuke them first) The sage never elaborated on what, if anything, people should do other than despair.
The Resolute: One woman who didn’t consider herself an expert and was interested in listening to other people’s points nevertheless framed everything she said by repeating in a grim and weighty tone that ‘Russia cannot lose.’
Counter-argument: OK… Why?
Outcome: The group did not come to a conclusion.
The Earnestly Clueless: A bit of dark comic relief. After the event, some money was surplus from room hire and I suggested that it should go to Ukraine. She looked horrified. I elaborated that it should go to humanitarian causes in Ukraine, as it was probably not the time for this debate. ‘And Russia!’ she declared in a swell of mighty righteousness. ‘It’s Ukraine that’s been invaded so the money should go to them,’ I countered. ‘Well, I think that’s very racist!’ she declared. In response to which I unsurprisingly burst into (slightly manic) laughter, because, really? At which the woman somehow managed to look even more appalled without exploding, which was quite impressive.
Counter-argument: Reality. Russia has now taken a few civilian losses, mostly as a result of their air defence shooting down Ukrainian drones that are aimed at military facilities but that then fall on towns when intercepted. That’s your lot.
Outcome: Perhaps she went home and traced the families of those civilians and found a way to send them money. But I rather doubt it.
I am summarising those arguments from my own viewpoint, but I think I’ve represented the basic content correctly. This particular event has stuck with me for a couple of reasons. One is that I was surprised by my own ability to hold the room’s attention with some very clear and fundamental arguments. Public speaking, as opposed to writing, is not my forte. But I did well. I need to find a way to use this.
The other reason, which has much wider significance, is the woman I dubbed ‘resolute’ above. Because in that little detail, the repetition of ‘Russia can’t lose’ delivered with tragic finality, lies one of the biggest dangers we are currently facing.
However, there’s a particular tone a person uses when they sincerely believe they are repeating a hard truth that the grown-ups have arrived at, but it’s actually a quoted line. I was hearing that tone clearly in the woman’s voice. Never mind the genuinely vast and complicated question of Russia’s actual capacities and chances, a moment’s thought would dismiss the absolute statement ‘Russia can’t lose’, because we, by which I mean the USA if it gets out of its MAGA death spiral, and/or a sufficiently large and determined coalition of European countries, could wipe Russia’s conventional forces off the map if we chose to put our energies into doing so. It is a matter of choice.
I said the group did not come to a conclusion. But if Westerners just sit around and sadly repeat to each other that ‘Russia can’t lose’… the conclusion will write itself. This is the single most successful point of Russian disinformation: talking us out of fighting and then making us think we’re clever and grown-up for rejecting hope. As I’m sure the Sage would point out, the global West should not have as much power as we still do, even in arguable decline, but as we do… what is it for?
I found an excellent article that goes into much more detail on this. The authors maintain that the only way Russia can win the war is by convincing us that they can, so that we then make decisions in a Kremlin-generated alternative reality that allow Russia to win in the real world.
I wonder what that sincere and resolute woman and other people like her will be saying thirty years from now when asked, ‘What did you do in World War III, Grandma/Grandpa?’
‘Well, child, to start with, I helped make sure Russia got as powerful as possible and that nobody did enough to stop it…’