Dept. of Learning Stuff

[kaffy_r]

Political Language

One of the few positively interesting things I've learned as I've watched the Russian invasion of Ukraine (for varying powers of "positively interesting") is the existence of a couple of phrases smarter folks than I have used to describe what Putin's doing, even as his invasion stalls. 

He is gambling for resurrection. 

According to a political science specialist interviewed on MSNBC, this is the practice that one takes when one's policy/mission does the opposite of what you've expected to do, but you double down - nay, triple and quadruple down - on that policy, in hopes that those viewing you and seeing how illogically wedded you are to that policy, and how much you're willing to personally risk on behalf of that policy, will back off (probably hoping to avoid pieces of you as you explode), and you'll be able to pull off your original mission because they've finally stopped attacking you. 

That really does appear to describe Putin. 

Of course, the other phrase I learned apparently was coined by Dat Ol' Facist Otto Von Bismark, who supposedly described a particularly foolish military maneuver, of the type I tried to describe above, as "committing suicide for fear of death."

Comments

[lokifan]

Interesting. It kind of reminds me of the element of American foreign policy (and that of other major powers too, maybe? But it seems especially American) where the American defence establishment very deliberately wants to look a bit irrational and likely to react disproportionately to attacks, on the basis that it makes enemies less willing to attack in the first place - you don't know if America with throw an unreasonable tantrum so you don't try it.

NOT to correlate what Putin's doing morally with the States at all! But just in terms of the practical uses of being irrational.

[kaffy_r]

As a Canadian living in the U.S. for *thinks* 41 years, I'm in a sort of an insider-outsider position. I was raised with Canadian values and worldviews and came to adulthood there, but I've now spent more of my life in the U.S. I say that as context for my thoughts on this.

As far as I can tell, the belief in Mutually Assured Destruction - which has been long abandoned as a political policy here (and even in the USSR/Russian Federation) - may be the closest to what you're describing.

But I don't think that's the case here.

Instead, what I've watched happen in the U.S. over the past 40 years or so is less the deliberate use of irrationality to escape an impending defeat, than the equally stupid exercise of realpolitik, as championed by war criminals like Henry Kissinger - whose entire political philosophy was, as far as I can tell, built on European conservatism as developed and championed by German assholes like Metternich.

Nasty, yes; ultimately anti-democratic, yes. But the military and political structure of a nearly one-man autocracy setting policy - which is what I think we're dealing with when it comes to the current situation in Putin, - is lacking here in the States, as it is in western Europe and Britain, so I think gambling for resurrection is far less of an American failing than, say, American exceptionalism.

[lokifan]

I mean, the context I saw this in definitely wasn't talking about MAD, and that wasn't what I was thinking of - this was actually in the context of the Bush administration and others since deliberately wanting to give the impression that relatively small attacks might draw a disproportionate response, e.g. 'don't risk bombing our base, small country/faction that might think we'll be proportional/merciful in our response, or we'll destroy several villages.' It's also not on the scale of overarching strategy/policy! So I think we're talking past each other there.

[kaffy_r]

You might be right. You seem to be speaking of things that fall in that grey area between what's done by individual or group command structures and the political powers/top military command structures that determine overall strategy. I may still be wrong, and I'm not sure I completely agree. But your clarification has made me sure that, were we to sit down over a coffee, tea, beer, or martini, and enough time, we'd have the chance to find our common ground.

Also, I think we can agree that Putin's the kind of dangerous that Kissinger always was, that Bush was, that too many policy-makers in the First World have been.

[lokifan]

ou seem to be speaking of things that fall in that grey area between what's done by individual or group command structures and the political powers/top military command structures that determine overall strategy.

Yeah, I'd say that's true.

I think we can agree that Putin's the kind of dangerous that Kissinger always was, that Bush was, that too many policy-makers in the First World have been.

100%. Terrifying. Especially since, as you alluded to, he's less accountable to anybody else and that's only got more and more true.

[kaffy_r]

Yep. "Terrifying" appears to be the name of the game.