Tangle - An update on Ukraine-Russia.

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

In short, the world is watching this story because Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed 150,000 troops along Ukraine's border. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a kind of trench warfare in Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine, for years. But Russia's latest troop build-up signals to many the potential for a full-scale war or invasion.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about Ukraine and Russia and the latest updates. We've covered this a couple times now, but there's been significant movement on this topic to justify another newsletter on it. So we're going to cover that. Before we jump in, as always,

we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, the Senate confirmed Robert Califf by a 50 to 46 vote to lead the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA. Four Democrats defected from the vote, saying Califf's ties to the pharmaceutical industry worried them. Number two, President Biden ordered the release of White House visitor logs to the House Committee investigating the January 6th riot. Number three, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was arrested after U.S. officials called for his extradition on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Number four, federal agencies will run out of money tomorrow night as the Senate is working to clear a procedural hurdle to keep the government open until March 11th. Number five, three members of the San Francisco Board of Education were ousted amid a debate over remote learning and changes to admissions for the city's most elite high school. All right, before we jump into today's main topic, I want to give a quick promotion for tomorrow's newsletter.

Our members onlyonly Friday edition will be about Kamala Harris. Where has the vice president been? What has she been doing? What is her role in the administration? Is she still the heir apparent to Joe Biden in 2024? These are the kinds of questions I've been getting. Tomorrow, I'm going to write about her and what's been up and what she's doing and what I think about the whole thing. If you want to receive that newsletter, though, you must be a Tangle member. That means you have to pay. You have to give us money to get that good good. All right. So subscribe. ReadTangle.com slash membership. There is a link to that membership page in every episode description of the podcast.

All right. That brings us to today's main topic, which is Russia and Ukraine. Russia has started moving some military units into, quote, attack positions along the Ukrainian border. The Pentagon says Russia could launch an invasion by the end of the week. However, the officials say it's still unclear what a potential invasion could actually look like. We begin the day unable to say that the threat of war in eastern Ukraine has passed. Earlier today, Russia announced that it was pulling back some of its forces near the Ukrainian border and sending them back to their barracks. At first, it seemed to be a tentative sign of de-escalation. Coming

right now, Russia has more than 150,000 troops encircling Ukraine and Belarus and along Ukraine's border. President Biden said an attack on Ukraine remains a distinct possibility. We have covered the situation in Ukraine twice in the last two months. First, we did an explainer of Ukraine and Russia. Then on January 25th, we published an issue on the rising tensions in Ukraine. I suggest reading one or both of these if you missed our previous coverage. Briefly though, the world is watching this story because Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed 150,000 troops on much of Ukraine's border. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a kind of trench warfare in Donbass, the eastern region of

Ukraine, for years, but Russia's latest troop buildup signals to many the potential for a full-scale war or invasion of Ukraine. Putin's stated motivations are a desire to keep Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, a post-Soviet Western alliance, though more broadly, many believe his goal is to return Ukraine to Russia, given his view that Ukraine is really part of the Russian Empire just as it was a part of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to maintain Ukraine's independence while also working to contain Putin's aggressive expansionist tendencies. Because joining NATO requires unanimous consent, and nations like Germany may oppose the addition

of Ukraine, it seems unlikely to be able to join NATO even if it wanted to. In the meantime, the U.S. has been supplying Ukraine's military with weapons and funding to help defend itself, and recently sent an additional 3,000 troops to Eastern Europe, bringing the total to just shy of 5,000 in the region to provide refugee support in the event Russia does invade. Biden has also pledged to inflict damaging sanctions that would debilitate the Russian economy if they invade. On Tuesday, reports began breaking that Russia was removing some troops from parts of the Ukrainian border, a signal that they may be moving toward diplomacy. On Wednesday, U.S. officials and NATO leaders said they were still looking for proof that Vladimir Putin was open to a diplomatic resolution and was actually pulling

troops back from the Ukraine's border. But President Biden has said the 150,000 troops remain near the border and very much in a threatening position. Zelensky, meanwhile, is reportedly considering holding a referendum that would keep his country from joining NATO to hand a key concession to Putin with the hope that he may back down. That being said, Zelensky's public comments have contradicted that reporting. This morning, pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian soldiers exchanged allegations of breaches in a ceasefire, and U.S. officials claim Putin is actually adding troops to the border, not removing them. Below, we'll take a look at some commentary on the latest developments from the left and the right, and then my take.

First up, there is some agreement on this issue. There is actually a good deal of alignment on the left and the right. In both parties, the consensus is that we should exert pressure on Russia and prevent them from invading Ukraine in any way possible. Both parties seem intent on avoiding a shooting war, though, and both parties have more populist wings that criticize our involvement at all, areas where progressives and the populist right align. So we'll start with what the left is saying. The left gives credit to Biden for navigating this crisis and says his diplomacy appears to be working. Many say the cost of avoiding war is worth the investment. Some criticize the U.S. for attempting to reassert itself internationally when we have issues to solve at home.

Thomas Friedman asked if sleepy Joe Biden is making Putin blink. If Vladimir Putin opts to back away from invading Ukraine, even temporarily, If Vladimir Putin opts to back away from invading Ukraine, even temporarily, it's because Joe Biden, that guy whose right-wing critics suggest is so deep in dementia he wouldn't know Kiev from Kansas or AARP from NATO, has matched every Putin chess move with an effective counter of his own, Friedman said. Putin has been on such a run at outmaneuvering the West and destabling our politics that it's easy to overrate him. It's also hard to believe a word that comes out of his mouth. But if Putin was sincere when he said Tuesday that he was ready

to continue on the negotiating track to ensure that Ukraine never joins NATO and was also pulling back some of his menacing forces, U.S. officials say there's no sign of that yet. It's because Biden's statecraft has given Putin pause. Specifically, the Biden team has mobilized enough solidarity among the NATO allies, enough advanced defensive arms transfers to Ukraine, and enough potentially biting economic sanctions on Russia to put into Putin's mind the only thought that matters. If I go ahead with a full-scale invasion and it goes bad, wrecking Russia's economy and resulting in Russian soldiers returning home in body bags from a war with fellow Slavs,

could it lead to my own downfall? Andrei Zahurdenik wrote that deterring Putin may be expensive, but it's much cheaper than war. From a Russian perspective, therefore, the stakes in the current confrontation could hardly be higher, and a dramatic military escalation cannot be ruled out. Putin regards the loss of Ukraine as a potentially decisive setback for Russian national interests and is prepared to pay a very high price to prevent this from happening. To counter this, the West must convince the Kremlin that it is also willing to pay a far higher price than anticipated in order to defend Ukraine from attack. The international response to Putin's recent saber-rattling has so far focused on the threat of massive sanctions,

along with increased military support for Ukraine. These sensible policies must now be clarified and dramatically enhanced. There is still time to send the right messages to Moscow, particularly in terms of detailing the personal sanctions Putin and his inner circle can expect in the event of an invasion. Above all else, deliveries of military equipment must be rapidly and significantly increased. While Ukraine has welcomed numerous plane loads of arms from the country's partners in recent weeks, Russia's unchanged posture suggests that the amount and type of weapons entering Ukraine has failed to deter Putin. Rather than regarding this military aid as an expense, Western governments should view it as an investment. The return on this investment will be regional stability. In The Nation, Andrew Pachevich said

all this is really about re-establishing a facade of American exceptionalism. Who, in their right mind, would identify with a nation that has, in the not-so-distant past, engaged in a costly and arguably illegal war in one country, Iraq, while waging a 20-year-long war in another, Afghanistan, that ended in humiliating defeat. In what sense does a nation that loses over 900,000 of its citizens to a pandemic, whose dysfunctional central government annually spends trillions more than it takes in, and that cannot even control its own borders, qualify as exceptional? Can a nation in which the richest 1% control 16 times more wealth than the bottom 50% be deemed exceptional? Or one in which a major political

party characterizes violent insurrection as legitimate political discourse? As for a nation that elects Donald Trump president and may do so again, the term exceptional hardly seems appropriate. Reckless, incompetent, alienated, extravagantly wasteful, and deeply confused more accurately describe our predicament, he wrote. How to get out of the political, cultural, and economic mess in which we find ourselves, yes, how to make America great again, is the overarching question of the day. Those eager for a showdown with Russia over Ukraine offer one answer to that question. Putting a brutal bully in his place will go far toward restoring American exceptionalism's lost luster. It's wag the dog in modified form.

Militarized assertiveness in faraway places promising a shortcut to redemption. Don't believe it. All right, that is it for what the left is saying. That brings us to the right's take. Many on the right say we need to hold Putin accountable and keep him from a larger invasion of Ukraine. Some say we have no business dictating what happens in Ukraine or Russia. Others argue there are no pro-war calls on either side, just a call to use our best non-war tools to prevent Putin's advancement. Pullman Jenkins said don't let Putin off the hook in Ukraine. Mr. Putin would be invading Ukraine purely as a

political solution, Jenkins wrote. He can plainly see how NATO has constituted an alliance of pacifist countries with no desire for war or even a desire to spend on their militaries. NATO poses no threat to Russia. His real concern, undisclosed by the Kremlin, not listed in its implausible and unactionable negotiation documents presented to the U.S., is of a democratic Ukraine attached to the West becoming free and prosperous. The impact on Russia of invading Ukraine would be so disastrous, the only reason Mr. Putin and his cronies might nevertheless proceed is because they see no other way to assure continuation of their own rule and privileges for another decade. Mr. Putin has

been living a more dangerous life than appreciated. His regime's attempted murder of its most prominent critic, Alexei Navalny, was an infamous screw-up. Mr. Navalny escaped and then came back voluntarily to be arrested, making Mr. Putin the protector and cultivator of the man most likely to preside over his regime's liquidation. Mr. Putin's lackeys have been overthrown in Ukraine. Ukraine is rapidly attaching itself to the West. His lackey in Belarus had to be rescued from a voter revolt. His lackey in Kazakhstan had to be propped up with Russian troops last month. You might wonder of politicians in any country whether they really love their country or just crave power. In the West, we render this question moot with a routinized process of

regime change reallocating power continually on the basis of results. The nature and record of the Putin regime speaks for itself. In the American Conservative, Rod Dreher wrote about the New World Order. Look, I don't want Russia to invade Ukraine either, and I am literally praying on and off throughout the day for peace, he said. Ukrainian people have had to suffer horribly at the hands of Moscow over the last century, and I don't want them to suffer more. But this is the New World Order we live in, a post-American world order in which the United States is a diminished power on the world stage. One of my interlocutors this week pointed out that the French, in particular, don't want this Ukraine war, and that the French tried to warn the U.S. administration to stay out of Iraq back in the early 2000s.

Yes, and we hated them for it, I replied, but they were correct. It is so difficult for Americans to come to terms with the idea that we are no longer what we were, he wrote. I replied, but they were correct. defeatism. Both sorts of hawks squawk Munich as a way of closing off deliberation about the wisdom of risking war with Russia over Ukraine. Again, if you were around in the early 2000s and paying attention, this Munich thing showed up a lot in debates over the wisdom of going to war with Iraq. None of this, mind you, is to say that Russia is right to invade or to threaten to invade Ukraine. It is rather to say that I find it impossible to see what America's vital interest is in risking war with Russia to try to prevent this from happening. It is not in America's interest to rattle its saber in this part of the world. David French criticized an

anti-war movement when there is no pro-war side in this conflict. A strange thing is happening online and over the airwaves, one of the strangest I've ever seen, he wrote. The old left and the new right are launching a vigorous anti-war movement in response to a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine when there is no pro-war movement. There is not a single national leader who is arguing that the United States should deploy to Ukraine and fight the Russians. President Biden has ruled it out. The GOP isn't demanding that the president send troops to Kiev. But you never know it from the rhetoric. Support for crippling sanctions, including blocking the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would kneecap the Russian economy along with supplying weapons that could inflict real damage on Russian forces, is a far cry from a call for war.

It's an effort to tell Russia that war would be too costly to wage, even if our boots aren't on the ground, French wrote. Russia is testing the West. Vladimir Putin knows we're not going to fight for Ukraine. He knows he can take Ukraine. But what he doesn't know is whether his conquests will be worth the cost. And here's the fundamental reality. The leave Russia alone position is the position most likely to lead to conflict, to enable a war that will kill thousands and inevitably inflict unintended consequences on Europe and the world. All right, so that is it for the left and the right's take. That brings me to my take. I want to reiterate what I've said before. The most important thing here is what the Ukrainian people want. I don't doubt for a moment the assertion that, for some in the foreign policy

establishment, this showdown is about reasserting American greatness on the world stage. But motivations are less important than outcomes here. There are, fundamentally, two simple sides to this issue. On one side is a belief that Russia has a right to dictate what happens in Ukraine. Generally, Putin, China, some pro-Russian separatists, and citizens in Ukraine are on this side. On the other side is a belief that the Ukrainian people should determine their own future. Generally, the US, Europe, NATO, the Ukrainian government, and many Ukrainian citizens are on this side. Putin's determination to go to war is fundamentally about ensuring that he doesn't lose Ukraine to the West, a blemish that would live on his historical record forever. He knows this. Our motivations to stop him, whether it's reaching for American assertiveness,

stuffing the pockets of the military-industrial complex, or a genuine concern and obligation to the Ukrainian people, is less relevant to me than actually stopping him. From the American perspective, our goal should be to do everything we can possible, save engaging in an actual shooting war to prevent Putin from invading. I am staunchly anti-war, and was outspoken about the need to withdraw from Afghanistan in the pages of this very newsletter. I generally use my platform here to advocate for a version of America that leans into diplomacy, keeps our troops safely out of harm's way, and attempts to model a functioning

democracy for the world. But being anti-war does not mean minding our own business. In this case, the best way to prevent a war is actually to stick our nose into another part of the world and make it clear we're watching. Credit where credit is due. That's precisely what Biden is doing. Many conservatives, even Biden's biggest critics, are acknowledging that he is navigating this crisis deftly. And he is. Blasting out Russian troop movements to the world, arming Ukraine, pulling every sanction we have in the book, speaking directly to the Russian people, all of it is undermining Putin's power and the faith Putin's advisors have in his brilliance. And tentatively, it's working. Zahornik argues well that the cost of preventing a war is much

cheaper than the cost of allowing one, even if we never send our soldiers into Ukraine. That's a critical point a lot of anti-war populists seem to overlook. If we were to do nothing and Russia were to invade, it would not just royal global markets set off a massive refugee crisis and destabilize Eastern Europe, it would also force our hand to give aid, protect more traditional European allies, and manage the fallout, not to mention potentially emboldening China. Stopping that now with military aid and sanctions is worth the price of admission. There's also a stronger point to be made. Let's stop worrying about what Putin wants and start asking what Ukrainians want. Mihailo Vinitsky has made the point well in a piece I linked to in today's newsletter.

After all, Russian aggression itself is a reaction to Ukraine agency, he writes. Putin's war only makes sense when viewed in the context of Ukraine's own efforts to embrace a democratic future as part of the Euro-Atlantic community, while the present invasion threat is a direct response to eight long years of Ukrainian defiance. The recent developments are certainly better than what we saw a few months ago, but this is by no means over. Even U.S. and NATO advisors are being clear they're not sure Russia is really in retreat. But for Putin's sake, for our sake, and for Ukraine's sake, we should hope that they are. All right, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to your questions answered. All right, that is it for the left and the right's take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from Bill in Wayne, New Jersey. I think he's a repeat writer in, repeat caller here. Bill said, what leverage does the executive branch have over Congress

members when negotiating legislation, i.e. Biden and Manchin? A lot of people frame it as if the president is in charge of other elected members of their party, which by the very nature of our process is obviously untrue, especially if the president is unpopular with that member's constituents. Besides publicly shaming them, is there any funding or government benefits they could threaten to hold up? Bill, this is a great question. There are certainly federal programs that the executive branch can dangle or take away in negotiations as leverage. But the truth is, most of the leverage comes from other legislators in Congress. The federal government provided about $750 billion in federal grants to states in 2019. That's everything from transportation to health

care. Off the top of my head, I struggle to think of a grant program Biden could unilaterally end without also hurting other members of Congress. So if he wanted to pressure Manchin into moving on a position on something, the best thing he could do would be to get other members of Congress behind a pressure point, something the president is perfectly capable of doing. Threatening federal funding is actually a little bit dangerous politically for a president because the media would obviously notice and call it what it is, which is basically open extortion. Not that that's uncommon in Congress, but it's not always a good look. Aside from executive orders, though, one of the most powerful tools the president does have is the power of the veto, which is important.

Biden could privately threaten to veto major legislation Manchin cares about if he doesn't step in line on another bill. He could also get the party leadership to include certain amendments to legislation and threaten the veto if they aren't added. There are lots of ways to cut it, but you're generally right that his leverage can be overstated, especially at a time when he is weak politically. All right, next up is our story that matters. This one is from a piece we referenced earlier this week. The families of Sandy Hook victims settled for $73 million with Remington, the makers behind the gun used in the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that killed 21st graders and six adults in 2012. The settlement marks a major turning point in a long battle activists have been fighting

to hold gun manufacturers accountable for violence in the U.S. Remington, which filed for bankruptcy in 2020, was long expected to be protected by federal laws, but the Sandy Hook parents maneuvered around the law protecting gun companies from litigation by arguing that their marketing of the weapon violated Connecticut consumer law. Jury selection was supposed to begin in the trial in September, and this case is the first damages award of this magnitude against a U.S. gun manufacturer based on a mass shooting. President Biden responded to the news by encouraging other families who are victims of gun violence to replicate the tactic across the country. The New York Times has the story, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. the story and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, that brings us to our numbers section. 620 is the length in miles of the journey from Ukraine's borders back to permanent

deployments that Russian troops are alleged to be making right now, according to the Kremlin. 150,000 is the current estimates of how many Russian troops are along Ukraine's border. 13,000 is the estimated number of people who have died since 2014 in fighting in Donbass, the eastern region of Ukraine. Number two is the ranking of John J. Sullivan, the deputy U.S. ambassador to Russia, who was expelled from Russia this morning. 11,000 is the total number of U.S. troops expected to be in Poland and Romania by the end of the week. 80,000 is the number of U.S. troops in total currently stationed in Europe. All right, last but not least, our have a nice day story. I'm going to start with the bad news. Florida's manatees are dying at an alarming rate. This is largely from starvation. It is very sad.

But the good news part of this story, us humans are trying to do something about it. A new program in Florida is working to feed literal tons of lettuce a week to manatees, and state wildlife officials say the program is showing signs of success. An average of 350 manatees a day are now coming out to eat the greens in a temporary response station along Florida's east coast. Roughly 20,000 pounds of vegetation is being fed to the manatees a week, primarily romaine and butterleaf lettuce. CNN has the good news and there's a link to that in today's newsletter. All right everybody, again, a quick reminder. You will not hear from us tomorrow unless you go subscribe to Tangle.

ReadTangle.com slash membership. Do that and you'll get our Friday edition tomorrow on Kamala Harris and what's been going on with her. If not, we'll be back here in your ears on Monday. Have a great weekend. See ya. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter

or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com.