War and Punishment
I just finished “War and Punishment: The story of Russian oppression and Ukranian resistance” by Mikhail Zygar. I’ve read several books on Russian and Ukranian history written by historians. Zygar isn’t a historian, and the style of this book is more of a reporter, albeit one describing history.
The writing here is vivid, if somewhat quirky. Zygar toggles frequently between present and past tense, which is sometimes distracting but can enliven the prose.
I’ve found the writing of Serhii Plokhy and Timothy Snyder that cover much of this material more authoritative, but Zygar’s purpose is different. The biggest lesson I learned from this book was how much events in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine have become dominated by media and appearances. In particular, while I knew that Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s career before becoming president of Ukraine was as a comedian, Zygar does a deep dive into that biography and we come to appreciate how such an unlikely career path, pursued by a Russian-speaking Ukranian Jew, prepared him for the present moment.
Zygar begins and ends with apologies for his previous Russian chauvinism. This book is certainly an impressive act of expiation and atonement. There are better books on the subject, but this one is good and entertaining to boot.
Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, annexed Ukraine about 250 years ago.
Prior to that, Ukraine has had a very complicated history but was at one time known as Kievan Rus’.
When Catherine the Great annexed Ukraine
… Nearly 250 years ago, Empress Catherine II “the Great” played a similar hand (to Putin) when she attempted to impress the West while ruthlessly enforcing her authority over Russia and the surrounding region. Catherine presented herself to the world as an “Enlightened” autocrat who did not govern as a despot but as a monarch guided by the rule of law and the welfare of her subjects. Yet at the same time, she annexed much of what is now the Ukraine through wars with the Ottoman Empire and the partition of Poland and brutally supressed the largest peasant rebellion in Russian history. …
It is debatable whether Ukraine represents a ‘proxy war’. Conventional wisdom is that it is not, because Russia invaded its neighbor Ukraine. It seems to me that the situation strongly resembles both the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War, which are listed as ‘Cold War proxy wars’ in Wikipedia.
List of proxy wars
@Fred,
I haven’t seen anyone claiming that the Russian invasion and military occupation of Ukraine is a proxy war. Have you?
There is a piece in the Washington Post about this, but it’s behind a pay wall. Apparently they think it could be such. I’m guessing that neo-cons would have us believe it is nothing of the sort.
There are more op-eds out there that it is NOT. As much as the plucky, incredibly brave Ukrainians are heroic, their war (which seems to be as much ours & Nato’s,) is incredibly dangerous for world stability.
In the end, it matters not whether it is called a proxy war. Or does it?
One of the aspects of this is that Russia stands to be greatly weakened by what is transpiring over there, unless they win. Perhaps even if they do.
@Fred,
“In the end, it matters not whether it is called a proxy war. Or does it?”
“Matters” to whom? Maybe it doesn’t matter to you. It matters to me as a human being on this planet, when one of the antagonists has field-tested thermonuclear warheads. YMMV.
What does the ‘proxy war’ issue have to do with nukes?
Both sides, so to speak have them. Not including the Ukrainians, presumably. Nato sure does.
That presents a serious issue in and of itself. With ‘instability’ comes the increased likelihood of their use.
Korea and Vietnam were both really civil wars with the respective sides being backed by rival international powers. So was the American Civil War. Is that distinguishable from a proxy war? Most revolutions find the respective sides aided by foreign countries in one way or another.
@Koeea/Jack,
A proxy war is a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved. Nations have allies, but simply having allies doesn’t make a war a proxy war.
In Vietnam, the US didn’t just “back” South Vietnam, it was directly involved to the tune of ca. 50,000 Americans killed. In the case of the American Civil war, who were the proxies, in your view?
Military aid doesn’t ipso facto define a proxy war, as far as I can tell.
Joel
It was closer to 58,000 of us who died in or from wounds received in that war. Jack was in country there even before the build up. If I remember this correctly. The issue of European support for the South? Although England did issue a Declaration of Neutrality to signify its official stance on the American Civil War, it did value the South’s cotton. The British politically aligned conservative aristocracy tended to favor the Confederacy, due to the supposedly shared racial sensibilities of the English landed gentry and southern planters. And Britain’s workers and its radical middle classes, on the other hand skewed the other way. It wasn’t clear cut.
That is the book detail of it from my maybe flawed remembrance of my readings. The Gov said no and people made up their own minds. Someone had to be buying that cotton regardless.:)
Does a proxy war require direct military action by the “supporter’s” army? If so, Ukraine doesn’t qualify, does it? Nor does the American Revolutionary War despite substantial aid from the French.
There are perhaps ‘proxy’ elements to most wars.
France was involved in the American Revolution, at least with naval forces, at Yorktown. They did so at at least to annoy England. No troops at risk otherwise, it seems.
Europe stayed out of the American civil war mostly.
Loans were made to the North, more than to the South.
Putin has asserted that Russia will only use nukes as a last resort, which is taken to mean ‘only if the soverignty’ of his country is threatened.
It’s up to him to determine what that means, of course. This is not a good situation.
It may be a worse situation than most people appreciate.
@ Fred,
“Both sides, so to speak have them. Not including the Ukrainians, presumably. Nato sure does.”
Yes, but Ukraine is not a member of NATO. I haven’t seen any polls about what people “appreciate” about the risks. Have you?
The risks are quite obvious really. Europe (those in Nato) and the US are acting to oppose Russia so as to assist Ukraine. That in itself is very serious, and threatening to Russia. It really does not seem to matter to them they they brought this on themselves.
All hell, quite literally, could break out at any moment. Only UK & France, of Nato, have their own nukes. They might not use them. Unless Russia does. In which case, the US will also, presumably.
Will it matter, then, who started this?
Y’know, not so long ago, Ukraine had many nukes, positioned there by the USSR, and Russia, US, Ukraine agreed that part of the deal that secured the independence of the post-USSR Ukraine was the surrender of those nukes, to Russia where they were dismantled.
Declaration of Independence of Ukraine
adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR on 24 August 1991.
The Soviet Union officially dissolved on 26 December 1991.
But de-nuclearization did not happen until rhree years later, with an agreement signed on Dec 5, 1994.
The Budapest Memorandum
Bill, please see if you can erase Koeea as my name. That was a mistake and I still don’t understand how it happened.
I wasn’t in Vietnam before the buildup. I missed it by 2 months when the drawdown from Germany took place in 1966.
JackD
Jack:
Everything else is Jackd. I kept it as such to be consistent..
Joel:
Nice review. And on a current topic of Ukraine.