Now that we are starting to get some clarity on how the military situation in Ukraine is going to play out this year, it is a good time to contextualize the war, which means understanding the politics of it. The only way to understand this war is to understand the people responsible for it and the people responsible for this war and the many other wars since 1990 are the neoconservatives.
It is a bit ironic that this bizarre cult may meet its end in the place where their ancestors got their start. Most of the neocons from the middle of the last century were from parents who emigrated from places like Galicia, which is currently part of Ukraine, but was part of the Russian empire a century ago. That part of the world has produced far more than its share of troublemakers.
Stefan Bandera was from Galicia. He is the inspirational leader of current Ukrainian nationalists, like the Azov battalion, which have been fighting Russian militias in the Donbas since the coup in 2014. Interestingly, many prominent Bolsheviks were from this part of the world as well. Of course, many of the most important neocons came from that part of the world as well.
It would be nice if 2023 brought some attention to this bizarre cult of fanatics responsible for this Ukraine disaster, but these people are better at avoiding sunlight than they are at starting monstrous wars. People like Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland should be brought center stage and explained to the public. They are responsible for death and carnage that would make a certain Austrian blush.
The show this week is a primer on these people and their machinations over the last thirty years with regards to Russia. It looks like this long bloody history will come to a head this year, which means the official narrative will collapse. It also means the nationalist narratives will fall apart as well. The Ukraine war is about imperialism, but not the sort of imperialism they imagine.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- Neoconservatives
- Kaganites – Post-Cold War Neocons
- Russophobia
- Ukraine War
- It Is Complicated
Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed
Full Show On Spreaker
Full Show On Odysee
Norman Podhoretz presents:
A John Podhoretz joint –
“My Cossack Problem- And Ours.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x9nqMl5pJSQ
4
I might be wrong, but I think Eastern Galicia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918, after which time it passed briefly into Polish hands from 1920 until September 1939. It was the apparent crackdown by the Poles in those 20 years against Ukraine that generated the genocidal hostility the Ukrainians showed in 1942-3 to the Poles in Galicia and Volhynia.
8
Yes, Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv was its metropolitan center. Long a part of the former Polish state it came to the Habsburgs in the late 18th century. Sometimes referred to as Ruthenes these Ukrainians were favored by Vienna as a balance to the ethnic Polish elite. The region is also the cradle of Uniate Eastern Slavic Catholicism.
5
Remember how before 9/11 we realized we knew almost nothing about the Arab Islamic world, and then an avalanche of history poured out?
This is going to be good stuff right here. I don’t think anyone else has done a study of the relevant history. I can hardly wait to see what you worthies will bring us today!
4
Don’t know but maybe the crackdown was caused by the Ukies behaving so badly that they earned what they got.
2
A bunch of half-breed troublemakers from the destruction of Mesopatamia cut their chops in the Bronze Age Collapse, and then went on causing enough troubles they eventually got kicked out Egypt, then later the Roman Empire. (With many stops along the way since Labanayama the Canaanite let them in.)
From there, they ran north; in what is now the Ukraine they met another band of troublemakers who had gotten kicked out somewhere else. This, we can tell, was the start of a beautiful friendship.
Not going to change a leopard’s spots.
Or, a scorpion’s nature.
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1
I was enjoying today’s instalment and you had to ruin it by mentioning Jonah goul-berg 😉
12
“They are responsible for death and carnage that would make a certain Austrian blush.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger? 🤔
17
No, Sigmund Freud
11
It’s funny you should mention Freud. Supposedly when Freud was sailing into the New York harbor, visiting the USA for the first time, he said, “They don’t realize that we’re bringing them the plague.”
Quotes like these seem too good to be true, so I treat it is apocryphal. My best effort, less than 5 minutes of searching this morning, to find the source of this quote is a 1996 book by Bruce Fink.
8
Plausible. Fink’s a believer, and Freud was funny, more insightful than he’s now given credit for, and prone to that kind of Nietzschean self-irony. I’ve never bumped into that quote because nothing’s worse than a book *about* Freud, but it’s a characteristic remark. And it’s true.
The Viennese upper-class/intellectual/Jewish milieu he’d stewed in was uniquely insane, blighted by “social contagions” (suicide especially) and shared delusions, etc. It was a soap opera of neurosis with the contrast jacked all the way up. So he saw people’s failings very clearly—though heavily “artifacted.”
The harbor was full of literal ships of fools.
5
Yes! I remember hating communists back in the 70s and 80s. The walls came down and we liked Poles, Czechs, and Russians again. Except our foreign policy makers didn’t stop hating Russians. It was weird until all the dots got connected.
25
Yeah, I was in college for the Solidarity stuff in Poland…..I met some Polish and Hungarian refugees…..I immediately recognized that these people would be a huge pain in the ass if we ever tried to make peace with the Russkies. The Refusenik Jewish dissidents actually took a mellower line, because they wanted the Eastern Bloc to allow Jews to emigrate to Israel, so they were more focused on that issue than the denouement of the Cold War.
The aggressive, Jewish Neocon party line was not prominent on campus in those days at all. If anything, because of Pope John Paul II, the Catholics were more strident in those days than the Jews.
Don’t normally comment before listening but wanted to say that I’m in the camp of wanting Z to devote some of his writing/podcasts to Ukraine. I’m also in the camp of enjoying podcasts that focus on a certain topic, particularly a historic (Rome, Greece) or ideology topic.
These probably take more time, but they are very useful because I can send them to family or friends. These topics tend to be good gateways to our thinking as they’re more neutral emotionally. Current events seem to get up people’s guard. Historic topics are about another people or another time, so normies can listen with some indifference and thus we can plant some seeds.
11
One of the great tragedies of the hyper-moralization of politics is you need to dig into several layers of detail to get any idea of the actual reasons for state actors acting the way they do. It used to be they would at least talk about the interests of the people they rule, but the case in Ukraine is entirely based off the idea of being the good guys enforcing peace around the world.
It goes along with the statement that these people don’t see the need for nations anymore, but a moral hegemony every people must adhere to. Problem is, even most religions understood, even if the general moral principles are the same, that different cultures had different virtues and vices, and their society had to be organized with that in mind. The modern neocons are far more totalitarian, controlling both the overriding morality and structure of a society.
12
Cherchez le juif.
5
Yeah, Chet nails it here.
Over drinks, ask your Griller friends to explain our vital national interest in Ukraine. I do. The dialogue goes like this: ” blah blah Putin…..blah Poland…..um, aggression…….uh NATO….blah democracy…um, pass me another beer, what are the Minsk Accords?…..really 6000 nuclear warheads pointed at us? …..so where is Donetsk?
The Congress-critters aren’t much better.
6
Good podcast, I plan to pass this one around.
3
I agree, as primers go, this is one of the best.
3
Nothing to add; good primer Zman, love the Ukraine war talks.
Except this: What one country can do, another can do. Surely China would prefer to see a collapsed and destitute West, particularly the US?
I’m sure they’re taking notes. TikTock, mass technology theft, bribe and blackmail operations against government officials; Xi only knows what else.
There’s an enlightening piece by Susan Watkins, written about three months ago, at New Left Review. One doesn’t have to agree with all of it but she does do a fine job of providing context.
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii137/articles/susan-watkins-five-wars-in-one
5
I opened it and will read later but from skimming it, it’s useful.
4
Galicia was part of Austria-Hungary, along with Zakarpattia, both of which are now part of Ukraine. Both areas had a large Jewish population, which was slowly emigrating to the West, including interesting individuals like Robert Maxwell.
To the east of these areas was Bessarabia, which was also full of troublemakers. Now it’s partly in Ukraine, but mostly in Moldova.
Btw, did you know that Moldovans like to pickle water melons? Weird people.
5
“Moldovans like to pickle water melons”
Let’s try ’em with vodka!
2
Good show! I believe the Ukraine area was once called Red Ruthenia. Towards the end of WW1, the German Army which occupied the area helped promote Ukrainian independence. It may have had a short independence following WW1.
Z-man’s theory about the origins of the Iraq invasion may be true, but I think it was too close to home for neocons. Remember the SCUD missiles during the 1991 Gulf War! Iraq was working on a nuclear power plant in the early 80’s that got bombed by Israelis. The Iranians tried bombing it previously and probably gave the Israelis intelligence on it.
4
The Russians ran the Iraq military, so it was reported at length, the night the war began. (John Batchelor, WABC New York)
Saddam’s top brass were escorted to Syria in a long convoy of Russian limousines, so it might be a two-fer.
The factional dislike between German and Pale juden holds a seed of optimism; it might explain why the Diaspora are happy to throw the Israelis over.
The neocons appear to be Maccabbees, zealots intent on punishing their own for impurity, as ever the Tribes have done between each other.
Like the Bloods and Crips.
Could the rift be exploited into a full-on fight between elites?
2
I’ve settled on petrodollar politics as the primary driver of the 2003 invasion. But there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen.
You could be right about this. There were probably many things driving the invasion. Lots of cooks in the kitchen, and some of the utensils may have been kosher.
A good read on the ugly history of Eastern Europe is Bloodlands by Timothy Snider
2
2
I remember looking at that book in a bookstore and feeling that I should hold it by the corner because it seemed to be dripping blood! I’m depressed enough at the present and I think I’ll avoid reading it until my mood improves.
Does anybody know what the song/artist is at the 57:30 mark? My “shazam” app has gotten it wrong twice, so I’m hoping someone on this thread knows. Maybe Z man?!
1
I fell asleep, and it woke me up.
I was dreaming that I heard the Elves in Rivendale singing.
I do like that, would love to know what it is.
On the issue of whether neoconservatism is driven by anti-Russia or pro-Israel, I am of the camp that sees it as both.
11
Auron MacIntyre, who is actually pretty decent on a lot of subjects we care about uploaded a video on neoconservatives yesterday completely redefining neoconservatives to not include our special friends at all. It is absolutely laughable to talk about neocons without talking about our small hatted friends from the Middle East.
What he describes is a very real problem for the mainstream conservative movement, but has absolutely nothing to do with neoconservatives. Roughly, he defines “neoconservatives” as disgruntled leftists who lose their home in the left and drift over to the GOP bringing their leftists ideas with them.
This MacIntyre character is picking up a lot of steam and is corralling conservatives into yet another cul-de-sac.
The video is called “The Neocon Cycle” if anyone is interested.
7
Auron is great for primers on things like Oswald Spengler and Italian elite theory (Carl Schmitt, Mosca, Praeto, even James Burnham).
But he’s also a working man; took at job at the Blaze so now he has editors to answer to. It’ll color his writing going forward, because generating clicks will be his fundamental mission.
3
Good post by the Z-man! There was also a 17 minute Youtube video that Larry Johnson did explaining the background of the conflict to some church group that is worth watching but I’ve lost the link.
If the U.S. survives for another decade I predict that the Indian imports will influence U.S. foreign policy in a similar manner as have these mostly Jewish imports from eastern Europe. Look for the U.S. to become increasingly hostile to China and Pakistan as Indians become more and more influential in Washington.
7
Ugh. That’s the ugly reality of a multipolar world, isn’t it. We’re getting dragged into everybody else’s feuds, as if our own azzholes aren’t enough.
7
Very possible, but the thing is, Indians don’t pass for white people. it would be a very hard to to sell to normal Americans that a war with Pakistan is in their interests
2
I remember in the 90s, when the GAE had a secretary of state from eastern Europe who did her part to get it involved in an eastern European war, I was thinking that the constitutional prohibition on non native born citizens being president should have been extended, probably at least to all cabinet level posts and congress, the senate, and the supreme court too. But you can file that away under ideas to save a republic that is already dead.
“The neocons just hate Russia” sort of strikes me as the flipside of alleging that one day, for no reason at all, Putin decided to invade Ukraine. Although it’s certainly true that GAE foreign policy of the last several decades has largely revolved around isolating and weakening Russia. After all, that’s what multiple generations of GAE foreign policy personnel were trained and educated to do. It’s hard to just turn that off merely because a wall came down.
As for the neocons, and those over whom they hold sway, they must truly believe that they can succeed. That they really can be the ones to subjugate and carve up The Bear. Since there’s no other obvious GAE interest in Ukraine.
Seems like I can recall another empire or two which believed the same thing.
3
I think oil did play a pretty decent role in the Iraq war. George W was very worried about “peak oil.” America was down to like 3.x million barrels a day from a peak in 1970 of about 10mbd. Saudi Arabia had been playing accounting games for decades and appeared to be peaking. Mexico was past their peak. Venezuela was past their peak. It looked the Russians were peaking out at the time. Iran had past peak. Also, conventional natural gas peaked in the US during the W presidency. Bush even commissioned a study to show how long it would take to overturn the US passenger vehicle fleet presumably to EVs. By the end of the Bush presidency, oil was 150 Dollars a barrel. From what I can tell, he was already concerned about “Peak Oil” when he went to Washington in 2001. Presumably he believed we could procure oil from Iraq to make up for the shortfall.
Oil was probably not the only reason. Surely Israel played a role. Grift was playing a role too. Lots of reasons. But I think oil was probably close to the top of that list. I certainly don’t think its a bad idea. I’m OK with bombing countries for their oil, especially if we have good reason to think we are near global peak oil.