The Guardian reports:

Joe Biden has now appeared at the podium in the East Room for his speech on Russia and Ukraine, after Vladimir Putin acknowledged the two self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk and ordered troops into the region.

The US president warned that Putin is “setting up a rationale to go much further” in Ukraine, predicting a larger-scale attack in the days to come.

“This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Biden said.

I was wrong. Russia is invading Ukraine. I still have no idea of how this ends let alone ends well.

I find myself in the unexpected position of agreeing with Tom Friedman’s remarks in his New York Times column:

This is ugly, visceral stuff. Nevertheless, there is a back story here that is relevant. Putin’s attachment to Ukraine is not just mystical nationalism.

In my view, there are two huge logs fueling this fire. The first log was the ill-considered decision by the U.S. in the 1990s to expand NATO after — indeed, despite — the collapse of the Soviet Union.

And the second and far bigger log is how Putin cynically exploited NATO’s expansion closer to Russia’s borders to rally Russians to his side to cover for his huge failure of leadership. Putin has utterly failed to build Russia into an economic model that would actually attract its neighbors, not repel them, and inspire its most talented people to want to stay, not get in line for visas to the West.

We need to look at both of these logs. Most Americans paid scant attention to the expansion of NATO in the late 1990s and early 2000s to countries in Eastern and Central Europe like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all of which had been part of the former Soviet Union or its sphere of influence. It was no mystery why these nations would want to be part of an alliance that obligated the U.S. to come to their defense in the event of an attack by Russia, the rump successor to the Soviet Union.

The mystery was why the U.S. — which throughout the Cold War dreamed that Russia might one day have a democratic revolution and a leader who, however haltingly, would try to make Russia into a democracy and join the West — would choose to quickly push NATO into Russia’s face when it was weak.

He then includes a lengthy extract from correspondence with George Kennan from back in the 1990s:

I am going to share Kennan’s whole answer:

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.

“We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a lighthearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe.

“Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”

It’s EXACTLY what has happened.

And that is one of the things I meant in my first post this morning by “botched foreign policy”. Thirty years ago we should have exerted our utmost efforts at incorporating the post-Soviet Russia into Europe. Instead we went out of our way, as the quote documents, to alienate post-Soviet Russia from Europe. But that’s not all

• We should not have dismembered Yugoslavia into ever-smaller ethnic enclaves, moved NATO troops into them, and bombed Serbia.
• We should not have invaded Iraq, a sovereign state, without Security Council authorization and without having been attacked by Iraq.
• We should not have spent the last 20 years wearing down our military in Afghanistan.
• We should not have deployed our own troops in Syria in aid of the anti-government rebels.
• We should not have allowed ourselves to become dependent on China.

What’s the relationship between those mistakes and the present situation? The dissolution of Yugoslavia began with the EEC’s recognition of Croatia as an independent state. What right did it have to do that? Do you believe that today’s Russia would have approved that recognition by the United Nations? Or was that recognition an artifact of Yeltsin’s Russia? How can we complain coherently that today’s Russia has no right to recognize Donetsk as an independent state?

Is invading sovereign states that have not attacked us and pose no material threat to us right or wrong? After invading Iraq how can we complain coherently that it is wrong?

Is aiding rebels in opposition to the legitimate government of a sovereign state right or wrong? After our actions in Syria how can we complain coherently that Russia has no right to aid rebels opposed to the Ukrainian government?

And with respect to the other two bullet points, if you’re going to make out like a tall dog, you’ve got to be a tall dog.

Do I support Russia? Absolutely not. I agree with Tom Friedman’s conclusion:

Countries and leaders usually react to humiliation in one of two ways — aggression or introspection. After China experienced what it called a “century of humiliation” from the West, it responded under Deng Xiaoping by essentially saying: “We’ll show you. We’ll beat you at your own game.”

When Putin felt humiliated by the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the expansion of NATO, he responded: “I’ll show you. I’ll beat up Ukraine.”

Yes, it’s all more complicated than that, but my point is this: This is Putin’s war. He’s a bad leader for Russia and its neighbors. But America and NATO are not just innocent bystanders in his evolution.

I have no idea how the U. S. and our NATO allies will extricate ourselves from this mess. I agree with those who are saying we’re all going to lose.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been but I was surprised by yesterday’s developments between Russia and Ukraine. I hadn’t credited how much the way NATO treated Serbia had galled Putin. I should have. After all, the Serbs are Orthodox Slavs. Remember that hierarchy of values I’ve explained?

The Donetsk oblast and the Luhansk oblast, which have ethnic Russian majorities, are each half again the size of Kosovo. You may recall that at the time I mused over what the unit of measure of sovereignty was, understanding the risks of recognizing tiny ethnic enclaves as states of their own.

Now Russia has recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, following the precedent already established. Donetsk and Luhansk will presumably invite the Russians in, which the Russians will undoubtedly construe as not violating the UN Charter even though Russia be the only country that recognizes the two mini-states.

Don’t let it escape us the risks this move raises for Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, which have ethnic Russian minorities of their own, the product of spurts of Russianization that have taken place over the last 200 years. I’m sure the Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians understand them.

Now there’s a major snafu in which a botched U. S. foreign policy over the last 30 years plays a significant role. If we send troops to support the Ukrainians on the grounds that the Kyiv government is the internationally recognized government of the entire territory of the Ukraine, we are behaving hypocritically, essentially doing the opposite of what we did in Yugoslavia and Syria. If we don’t, we’re putting NATO member states at risk.

Update

Does Germany’s move to suspend certifying the Nord Stream pipeline remind anyone else of that scene in Blazing Saddles in which Cleavon Little puts a gun to his own head and threatens to blow his own head off? Germany has put itself into its present circumstances by underspending on its own defense and making itself dependent on Russia for energy. It will be interesting to see how or, indeed, whether it extricates itself from the situation.

There’s an interesting article by Michelle Lewis at Electrek on Illinois’s plans to stop using fossil fuels:

February 15, 2022, update: In less than a half year, solar companies have installed more than 2,000 rooftop and community solar projects in the state, which is enough clean energy to power 30,000 homes, the Solar Energy Industries Association reported today.

Further, Illinois businesses are expected to complete more than 8,400 rooftop and community solar projects by the end of 2022, and the state’s solar workforce is expected to increase 47% by the end of the year.

Clean energy businesses reported that they have already expanded work on diversity, equity, and inclusion by recruiting from solar job training programs, creating internal committees focused on diversity, and hiring consultants and recruiters to guide their diversity efforts.

Data was provided by members of the Solar Energy Industries Association, Illinois Solar Energy Association and the Coalition for Community Solar Access, and the Illinois Power Agency.

September 15 update: Governor JB Pritzker today signed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act into law today. In the new bill signed into law, the Prairie State coal plant will be required to cut its emissions by 45% by 2038, and to close altogether by 2045.

A bipartisan majority in the Illinois House has voted (83 yes to 33 no) to pass the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (SB2408).

Governor JB Pritzker (D-IL) will sign the historic clean energy bill tomorrow that will shut down all of the state’s fossil fuel plants by 2045. It also sets more aggressive targets for the dirtiest plants and those in environmental justice communities.

The bill includes spending $580 million per year to increase “clean energy”.

A couple of comments. First, to put those 30,000 homes into perspective, there are about 4 million homes in Illinois (that doesn’t count multi-family dwellings). Second, $580 million sounds like a lot but by the time it has run the gauntlet of politicians, politically-connected community organizations, and cronies, I’ll be surprised if there’s anything lef to spend on increasing clean energy.

I’m reading a lot of highly emotional, heart-rending, actually, pieces about the plight of the people in Afghanistan.

Let me recap my views: I don’t think we should ever have put “boots on the ground” in Afghanistan. I think in the aftermath of 9/11 we should have mounted what amounts to an enormously damaging raid against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan—something so destructive it would be hard to imagine. Tora Bora should have been reduced to slag.

We spent the last 20 years in a futile attempt at removing the Taliban and building up the country. Now what?

In my opinion now nothing. The situation is sad, tragic even but we are under no moral obligation to to send life-saving supplies to people who want to kill us. We have no way of keeping those supplies out of the hands of the Taliban.

The people of Afghanistan are quite capable of removing the Taliban themselves but, yes, it would bear costs. The Taliban are Afghans and well-armed.

What did they think would happen when we left?

I won’t go quite so far as saying that I materially agree with Ian Hill’s analysis at RealClearDefense

What does Putin want?

Firstly, he wants to bring Ukraine back within Russia’s orbit. This is partly for emotional reasons of national identity and imperial nostalgia: Putin, like many Russians, doesn’t really accept Ukraine as a separate country and people, and resents its post-Soviet independence.

But more than this, Putin has a wider geopolitical goal. He wants to redraw Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture.

In particular, he wants to forestall and reverse NATO’s eastward expansion. And as a corollary, restore Russia’s sphere of influence around its western borders, to give it strategic depth.

but I do agree with a lot of it. I think he overstates this:

It’s also about political insecurity. The Kremlin is fearful of open democracies flourishing on Russia’s doorstep (whether in Ukraine or Belarus), providing an unhelpful model for its domestic opponents and vectors of foreign influence.

Somehow he manages to omit the possibility of stationing missiles including tactical nuclear weapons right on Russia’s border. And the persecution of ethnic Russians in some of those formerly Soviet republics. But I think this is about right:

The bigger context is Putin’s overriding aim to reassert Russia’s standing and influence globally as a great power, especially in its near neighbourhood, and rebuild Russia’s hard power – a strong Russian military – to support this ambition.

So far, coercive diplomacy seems to have worked for Putin. He’s got the West’s attention – in buckets. Russia’s security guarantee demands, accompanied by bellicose rhetoric and the menacing buildup of over 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders (and more in Belarus), have forced Western leaders to engage with Moscow on Russia’s terms.

By limiting gas supplies, Russia has reminded European leaders of the leverage it enjoys through Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.

And he’s taken steps to reaffirm and deepen relations with China, to ensure Beijing has Moscow’s back in any crisis with the West.

Tactically, then, the threat of force has proved effective for Putin, securing the negotiating high ground and the ability to dial up and down the pressure on Ukraine, and the West.

which you will notice echoes what I’ve been saying around here. But I think this is open to question:

But if, as Western leaders are warning, Putin now decides actually to invade Ukraine, this could prove a strategic blunder, proving counter-productive longer-term for Russia. Far from drawing Ukraine closer to Russia, such intervention would alienate the Ukrainian people, and drive them closer to Europe. Russia’s invasion would be fiercely resisted by Ukrainians and inflame nationalist sentiment among the 43 million strong population.

Next, it would galvanise the cohesion and sense of common purpose within NATO, strengthening ties between the United States and its European allies. It would bring down far-reaching sanctions on Russia. This would badly damage the Russian economy, and worsen the livelihoods of ordinary Russians (with whom a war now with Ukraine is unlikely to play as well as the Crimea annexation did in 2014). And this would likely drive Russia into greater dependence on China.

That hasn’t happened so far. Germany has stalwartly refused to do anything that might actually bear costs for Germany. And I’m afraid this is fanciful:

Moreover, energy dependence works both ways. While Europe needs Russian gas, Russia also needs to sell it, and Europe is Moscow’s biggest customer. Cutting off gas supplies would ultimately be self-defeating for Russia.

Does he really think that Russia won’t be able to sell the natural gas it produces? Here’s a pretty good summary of the situation:

Russia has a range of options to destabilise Ukraine, short of fully-fledged invasion – including a limited military incursion ostensibly to protect Russian citizens in the separatist regions of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, waging cyber-attacks on Ukrainian institutions and infrastructure, and cutting off gas and electricity supplies to Ukraine. Or any combination of these.

which in general is what I think is likely. He concludes with what is to me an unlikely description of European steps to defuse the situation. Read the whole thing.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal consider the implications of a Russian invasion of Ukraine:

It’s worth saying what should have been obvious long ago but was forgotten after decades of relative peace in Europe: A Russian invasion of Ukraine should mean the end to illusions about shared international values and norms. The era of authoritarian imperialism is back with a vengeance.

Russia and China want to topple the U.S.-led international order and create spheres of influence they dominate. They see a retreating America, consumed with internal division, and they are going to exploit it. Ukraine is only the first target. The world may soon recall with nostalgia the decades when American power and principles enforced global peace.

I will only say that you cannot coherently speak of a rules-based liberal international order while invading other countries at will without Security Council authorization or deploy armed drones in a dozen countries to assassinate people you don’t like. We’ve been doing that for 50 years under both Republican and Democratic presidents.

At The Nation economist James Galbraith argues for leaving interest rates just where they are and engaging in a large number of policy changes including reducing the scale of our military, nationalizing the large banks, “Medicare for All”, imposing controls on prices, rents, substantial spending on infrastructure, mass transit, housing, an “rebuilding cities”.

What would be the likely outcome of such a program?

I’ll start. Since the federal government would be unable to extract sufficient taxes, the federal deficit would balloon. There would be shortages of many consumer goods and a substantial increase in homelessness and unemployment.

I return to what one of my economics profs once said all those many years ago: we don’t know how to produce prosperity but we do know how to produce shortages.

In his most recent Washington Post column Fareed Zakaria asks a very good question: why is the Biden Administration driving Russia and China closer together?

The Biden administration has handled the Ukraine crisis intelligently and effectively, formulating a policy that could be described as “deterrence plus diplomacy.” It made credible threats about the costs of a Russian invasion and rallied its European allies in an impressive show of unity. And while (correctly) refusing to promise that Ukraine will be barred from NATO, it has offered to discuss almost everything else, from arms control to missile deployments.

This crisis, however, has highlighted a larger strategic failure, one that extends beyond this administration. One of the central rules of strategy is to divide your adversaries. But, increasingly, U.S. foreign policy is doing the opposite. Earlier this month, in a more-than-5,000-word document, Russia and China affirmed a “friendship” with “no limits.” The two powers appear to be closer to one another than at any time in 50 years.

but this is the part of the column that caught my eye:

For Russia — essentially a declining power — China’s support is a godsend. The most significant reason even tough sanctions against Russia might not work is that China, the world’s second-largest economy, could help. Russia recently announced new deals to sell more oil and gas to China, and Beijing could buy even more energy and other imports from the country. It could also let Moscow use various Chinese mechanisms and institutions to evade U.S. financial restrictions. “China is our strategic cushion,” Sergey Karaganov, a Kremlin adviser, told Nikkei. “We know that in any difficult situation, we can lean on it for military, political and economic support.”

To those who would argue that this is simply a case of two autocracies ganging up, it’s worth noting that it was not always thus. In 2014 (when both countries were also autocracies), China pointedly refused to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has still not recognized the annexation of Crimea. Similarly, Beijing did not support Russia’s intervention in Georgia and has expressed its support for that country’s territorial integrity and independence.

China and Russia are both adversaries of the West, but they are very different from one another. Lumping them together is a sign that ideology has triumphed over strategy in Washington these days. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a geopolitical spoiler state. It has invaded two neighbors, Georgia and Ukraine, and occupied territory in those countries, something almost unprecedented in Europe since World War II. It has reportedly used cyberwarfare to attack and weaken more than a dozen democracies, including the United States. It has supported allies such as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad with brute force. It has murdered its opponents, even when they are living in countries such as Germany and England. And as a petrostate, it actually benefits from instability, which can raise oil and gas prices.

China is different. It is a rising world power that seeks greater influence as it gains economic strength. It has been aggressive in its policies toward some nations, but as a big economic actor, it can credibly claim to want stability in the world. As Robert Manning noted in Foreign Policy in 2020, “Beijing is not trying to replace the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and other U.N. institutions; it is trying to play a more dominant role in them.”

That China has gained economic strength over the last 30 years is indisputable. Is it a “rising world power”? For that matter is Russia a “declining power”? Let’s see some objective criteria.

In China’s case its population continues to grow but its rate of increase has declined sharply—its population is expected to start declining soon. Indeed, that decline may already have started. Similarly, its GDP per capita continues to grow but that growth, too, has declined sharply. It’s just about the same as Russia’s and a fraction of ours.

In recent years China has expanded its foreign relations network. Its strongest bids for world power status may be in the several South American ports China has negotiated and presently has under construction. These include a “megaport” in Chancay, Peru and a newly-negotiated port in Argentina, on the Atlantic, a major milestone.

For years China’s “Belt and Road” strategy resulted in improving relations with many of its neighbors. Today it is embroiled in disputes with a number of them including South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, and Australia.

After a steep decline, Russia’s population is now roughly stable and its real per capita GDP is approximate stable as well. It remains the pre-eminent nuclear power in the world with a nuclear arsenal of about 4,500 warheads (compare with our 4,000).

IMO I find claims that Russia is declining suspect and, while China continues to strengthen, the rate appears to be slowing. For our part I think we’re certainly declining in a relative sense. Whether we’re declining absolutely depends on definitions. Despite some recent PR losses I still think we have the most capable military on the planet.