I really like Freddie deBoer’s writing.
I enjoyed his piece on Marxism and how many claim it as an identity purely because of aesthetics, with no consideration of what they’re actually supporting. And I like the way he addresses the stupidities of the culture war from a left-wing standpoint, regularly defending things like free speech when it has become increasingly unpopular to do so amongst left-liberal circles. He writes beautifully.
Yet, it has to be said, he is having A Bad War. And his post on Ukraine today was a bit much.
For all the flowing prose, the piece boils down to “maybe if we didn’t poke the Russian bear, none of this would be happening”. Which is not an uncommon reaction from “anti-imperialists” (who are nothing of the sort, but more on that later), we have seen similar from the ironically-titled Stop The War coalition in the UK.
But scanning deBoer’s piece, I find myself searching in vain for one thing that seems rather important. Where do the democratic wishes of forty million Ukrainians get acknowledged? Oh, that’s right, they don’t.
NATO expansion is presented as a logical pretext for Russia invading Ukraine, even though Putin himself didn’t make this claim in his recent speech; Putin clearly sees Ukraine as an illegitimate country, one which should be wrapped up in a Russian empire. But why would we even entertain the notion that NATO expansion in any way justifies this?
Look at the countries which have joined NATO since 1997. Hungary, who were crushed by Soviet tanks in 1956. The Czechs and Slovaks, who met a similar fate in 1968. Poland and the Baltics have good reason to fear Russian invasions, and sought protection from such a fate.
NATO didn’t drive tanks into these countries and demand they join. These are democracies, making democratic and sovereign decisions to join a defensive alliance; NATO represents an umbrella to take shelter under, a level of protection from the east which they simply could not muster on their own. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Finland is expressing a desire to join up in the wake of recent events.
Ultimately if you’re blaming NATO for the current war in Ukraine, your argument implicitly assumes that Russia should have a say over Ukraine’s foreign policy and alliances. That it is legitimate for Putin to decide whether a sovereign nation should be able to join a collective security bloc.
This is “Great Powers” thinking, which says that the world ought to be carved up into spheres of influence. Forget democracy, which large nation are you near? This is imperialism.
Predictably, Owen Jones found himself arguing the same recently too. Some countries should have been set aside as buffer zones after the Cold War, he said. Which countries, Owen? Which people get to live in these buffer zones? This isn’t left-wing, or progressive. This is drawing lines on a map. This is throwing Ukraine to the dogs.
DeBoer talks about how American hegemony won’t last forever, as if that’s relevant, but looking at the former Warsaw Pact countries over the last twenty years shows that the West holds far more appeal to them than aligning with Russia, and understandably so. Putin’s legacy may yet be to give a huge shot in the arm to NATO and liberal democracies everywhere.
And if you are a democrat, it must surely follow as a basic principle that all sovereign nations should be able to freely align with whichever grouping they wish, regardless of who their neighbours are. Appealing to what America might do if a neighbouring country links up with a rival bloc, whilst Putin’s troops are right this moment killing Ukrainians, is just whataboutism of the highest order.
If your analysis of this conflict ignores what Ukrainians want, fails to acknowledge a long history of Ukrainians being starved, crushed and killed by aggression from the east, and sweeps aside the fact that a young sovereign democracy is being militarily attacked by a madman, it is worthless.
I believe Ukraine has the right to decide for itself. I believe in democracy and sovereignty.
Слава Україні!
I agree that Ukraine is a sovereign nation, but Cuba was (and is) a sovereign nation during the Cuban missile crisis, too, as was Turkey:
https://indianbronson.substack.com/p/39b?s=w