Unclear and Present Danger - Going Under

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

In this tenth episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John talk a little about this week’s movie, the 1991 submarine farce “Going Under,” but devote most of the episode to discussing the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, and the way the world has underestimated the power of democracy.Also, you might notice that we have a new logo. That is courtesy of the great Rachel Eck! You can find her on Instagram.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!New York Times for Friday, August 23, 1991A comprehensive explainer of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Jewish Currents magazine.Wikipedia entry for the French Revolutionary ArmyWikipedia entry for the United States Colored Troops

Up, periscope. Batten down the hatchet and anchors away. The U.S. Sun stand. The end of the sea. Or on the light. Hold. Get ready for the ride of your life. Captain!

Captain! Get out of it! Now hear this, now hear this. We are going under... Welcome to Episode 10 of Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s, and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write a column for Gawker. I have a newsletter called Unpopular Front, and I'm working on a book about American politics in the early 90s.

Today we are talking about Going Under, a 1991 farce directed by Mark W. Travis and starring Bill Pullman, Wendy Shaw, and the great Ned Beatty. Going Under was never actually released in theaters and only got a straight VHS release. There aren't really many reviews of it, but TV Guy did give it just two stars. And I think it's fair to say that this is basically a forgotten movie. There's no box office information. There's no budget information, although the movie looks pretty low budget, very low budget, in fact. And there's not really that much to say about it overall.

We can go to the New York Times. Yeah. It's pretty bad. Here's the thing. We can go to the New York Times page for the day of its release, which was August 23rd, 1991. And this is a pretty significant day. On the front page, the big headline is Gorbachev says coup will hasten reform. Yeltsin leads a celebration in Moscow. this was this was the aftermath of the failed coup against Gorbachev by Soviet hardliners

who wanted to basically get him out of there because he thought not incorrectly that he was leading the Soviet Union to its dissolution

that coup that coup that coup attempt lasted a couple days it failed and this is like I said this is the aftermath

and most of this front page is dedicated to that aftermath. The headline below this is needing each other even as they stand apart. Gorbachev and Yeltsun are bound by a complex

mutual dependency. And then those here, Soviet leader says that oucing reactionaries will lead to Union. And then another one here, watching the distant storm Americans feel for Russians.

Yeah, I mean, this was a, this was a momentous moment in the, in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. And, you know, it was seen at the time as, you know, a triumphant expression of the population's democratic will against, you know, these old. old Soviet hardliners, you know, and now we can see things didn't quite develop in the way that they might have appeared to be going in 1991, but I think there was a lot of excitement in the West and in Russia at the failure of this coup, and it really was seen as a very optimistic moment. And, yeah, I think this was really, really it for any kind of hopes that the old school of the Russian Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was going to, you know, hold on to power and things were going to go on the way they had been for, you know, the previous decades. yeah it is it is really the the beginning of the the beginning of the end i mean not even really the

beginning of the end that's it's it's sort of it's i mean in four months the soviet union will of more or less dissolved in that process you could sort of say kind of began a little before this this is this is i feel like the point in which it becomes clear that things are are not going to head there isn't going to be if the soviet union survives past the this point. It's not going to be what it was. And of course, as we know, it did not survive. And this is, you know, by the end of the year, it's going to be going to be a new day for Russia. This feels like a... So as far as the movie goes, The basics of going under is that it's a farce about a barely completed nuclear submarine

that needs to operate, needs to have its maiden voyage, so that the defense contractors who built it can make their money or something. I don't know. The story is like barely intelligible. And during the course of this, they encounter a, Soviet satellite with a nuclear weapon or nuclear materials on it that they're racing to get. And that sort of adds a whole other bunch of farce into the mix. To the extent that the movie is really saying anything at all, it is kind of, you know,

very arch about the military industrial complex, the ways in which American foreign policy is shaped by the needs of military industrialists. But that's sort of, I mean, it's all very surface. There's not really much of there in terms of any kind of message. And although I love Bill Pullman and I love Ned Beatty, especially, they're not, I mean, they're kind of phoning it in. It's just like no one cared about this movie. Like, I bet we're like, this movie has not been seen in 30 years.

It's like, you know, it's not exactly on the level of the of those mystery science through 3,000 movies because it's a comedy and like it's hard to do like a spoof of a comedy. But it's the same level of like totally forgotten piece of shit movie. And I think giving it two stars is generous. I think this is just especially in as time has passed. I don't know that I laughed a single time watching this movie. And I have a low bar. You know what this reminded me of and it's just like a very, it's a worse version of is those eight. those Zucker Abram Zucker movies like the naked gun and top secret which are very funny and but just as silly or even more silly than this like this movie just like was not like those movies are absolutely uh off the wall silly you know I think Bill Pullman is in airplane right I believe so it's been years since I've seen airplane yeah so he's in airplane or airplane to maybe I'm wrong but but uh

but he definitely like could be in one of those movies especially in the role he sort of plays here and those movies are just way better and this movie kind of like seems to be kind of trying to do the same thing with the silly sight gags and the completely like ridiculous stuff going on but it just doesn't work and um you know it has kind of like one like simpsony uh naked gun like satire moment where it's the beginning when you know there's like some kids getting toured around the the uh the pentagon or the capital i forget which it is and the the tour guide is like this is where your tax dollars are turned into horrible weapons of mass destruction that was the one thing that i laughed at i thought that was pretty funny that was like

yeah it was almost like a joke you could imagine on the simpsons or something like that like but the rest of the movie was just really awful and like you know just not not doing it for me anyone i would imagine at this point i mean i would be it would be very funny to meet somebody who was like yeah this movie rocks it's my favorite like i just don't imagine it yeah you know as far as bill pullman goes he was not in the airplane movies but he was in space balls oh yeah okay exactly so space space balls is another is is mel brooks but it's like a farce on on the level of this like it's really silly movie um and uh like this is this is just it's It's, I have no problem with that.

I don't need everything to be serious, but this one is just like, you know, there's another, there's another, like, submarine comedy, down periscope that came out of the middle of 90s. I liked when I was a kid because I was really into a submarine movies. And it's way better than that. I'm sure in retrospect that that's like not a good movie, but I just, it was way better than this. Down parasites with Kelsey Grammer. Yeah, down parricite. Down periscope is.

with Kelsey Grammer, I remember that. Yeah, Kelsey Grammer, yeah. And it's, it's like, it's pretty silly, but it's like more believable premise and plot than going under, which is justly forgotten. And it's like, you know, even some of the movies that we've watched where, which weren't great movies and maybe were more made for TV, low budget, didn't, not classics. But usually, like, there's some little artifact in there that I'm like. like hmm that's kind of an interesting i can't it's very hard for me to pull anything out of

this movies except to say it was from a time when obviously a lot of this there's like moments where they kind of like send up hunt for october in this movie uh because which came out shortly after you know and there's just not i would say this was a time when these sorts of things kind of seem like a joke but they they made they made farcical movies at the height of the cold war there's another submarine movie well it has a submarine movie well it has a submarine in it. The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming, which is kind of like a comedy, a Cold War comedy. Cold War has existed. Right. I mean, Dr. Strangelove is a Cold War, yeah. It's a very dark sort of satire and more fitting to the fears of the time. This movie just like doesn't take any of it seriously

anymore, which is, you know, must have been a real relief. Must have been nice guys. Kind of a very cynical, you know, this thing never really mattered in the first place. It was just kind of an excuse for wealthy industrialists to get wealthier. I think the industrialist in this movie who is played by an actor who I recognize, but I don't recognize necessarily because I've seen him in anything. I recognize him. It's Robert Vaughn. I recognize him more because when I was a kid, there would be those commercials for like law firm, like personal injury lawyers, and he would always be playing, like, the lawyer that you call, you know, like, called the offices at Calphus and Dachman, and it would be like Robert Vaughn, you know,

reading the ad. And I have to mention he did this for all sorts of law firms around the country, but that's, that's, that's like my primary memory of Robert Baum, but he plays the wealthy industrialists in this and, you know, the guy who's trying to get rich. But that's, like we said, that's really kind of the extent of any, if any, any, you know a political message or ideas here and it really is just kind of like a a low budget farce that yeah has a couple good visual gags um has a one or two like good jokes but is mostly just 80 minutes of you know whoever directed whoever produced this and the funder is like trying to just slap something together um uh to you know for the home market

Since again, this was released directly to VHS. Yeah, that's not surprising that you said that. I was like, what did this have possibly come out in theaters? But yeah, you know, like, I used to rent movies like this. Like, I wasn't even aware that they were, like, they just sneak them in there, you know? And you don't even know they're direct to VHS movies. And then you just like, as a kid, you would just like grab it because it looked like interesting to your kids' sensibilities. And then you realize, like, there's something kind of off with this movie.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's that because there's an age it's like you're eight or nine about and so you know for my parents that was the age when I could pick a movie right and so it's sort of like prior to that your parents are mostly curating your media and so you're probably watching just like decent stuff and it's like that age when you begin picking stuff on your own and you're like oh things can be bad yeah exactly you're like oh this is cool it has like an airplane on the cover and then it just turns out to suck um So since it's like 15 minutes and nothing really else to say about this movie, but the front page for this day, the failed coup against Gorbachev, and sort of the fact that this movie kind of coincides, its release coincides, it's sort of this momentous event in the future of the Soviet Union or the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I think actually provides a nice pivot point to talk about something that we have both been interested in that's in the news, and that is the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine, which Vladimir Putin, is he the president? He's not the president. Yeah, he's the president. He did a switching around. They did a switching around with Medvedev in the 2000s, but he's back to presidency now. Okay, yeah. I wasn't sure what exactly his title was, but President Vladimir Putin, in the speech he gave kind of basically like broadcasting to the world when he was going to do this, you know, one of the claims he made was that Ukraine only owes its national identity to the Soviet Union,

in that the Soviet, the Bolsheviks, his word, giving, recognizing an independent Ukrainian kind of way, an independent Ukrainian nationality was a mistake that he is going to rectify by bringing the country back into the fold of Russia proper. And so this is the link I'm going to use between the movie and events to talk about the invasion of Ukraine, which if you've been on Twitter, the past couple days. It's been kind of like terrible because it's sort of just like endless, you know, constant speculation, lots of bad tweets and bad posts, sort of experts kind of getting drowned out by, you know, people who shouldn't be spouting off. But if you, for me, what I've been

trying to do these past couple days is like step back from social media and kind of just like read proper news sources to get a handle on what's happening. And from that perspective, it really, I mean, invasion, and the invasion of a country is always a big deal. But this, I think, is especially weighty because it is kind of the first major mobilization in continental Europe in some time, right? It's not, there have been wars in Europe, right? The Balkan conflict. but this sort of like major mobilization by a major power on the European continent hasn't happened since what since has it been since the Second World War would be count you know

Hungary or or 67 68 yeah would be count yeah 56 and 68 yeah would we count those things they weren't wars they were revolutions or uprisings that were brutally put down immediately. Right. No, this is a really different order of phenomenon than when we're used to seeing in our lifetimes, or at least you're in my lifetime. Yeah, it's a really shocking last few days that has profoundly changed the world. And, you know, there's a lot of deeply disturbing images and the level of

in the world, types of rhetoric being used, the types of things being contemplated in public and are of an order that, you know, I didn't fully appreciate was possible. I mean, we had a conversation about, you know, this kind of burgeoning crisis came up a few times in our podcast and I sort of said, you know, well, as serious as it is, it doesn't seem to have the same um it doesn't seem have the same balance as cold war fears and i take that back now i mean it is quite uh some of the things being said and some of the threats being made um are of a piece with you know the worst moments of the cold war and the in the tensest moments of the cold war you know i think what's what sorry go ahead oh you go ahead go ahead i think you know what's what's

What's really interesting about this is, you know, situated, the roots of it were sort of very much kind of seen coming by people who, you know, had experience with foreign policy, you know, in the early 90s around the time of the, around the same time of the movies were watching. And, you know, I just want to read this from 1992, from March 10th, 1992, the West has failed so far to seize the moment to shape the history of the next half century. If Yeltsin fails, the prospect for the next 50 years will turn grim. The Russian people will not turn back to communism, but a new, more dangerous despotism based on extremist Russian nationalism will take power. If a new despotism prevails, everything gained in the great, peaceful revolution of 1991 will be lost.

War could break out in the former Soviet Union as a new despots used force to restore the historical borders of Russia. That is Richard M. Nixon, writing in 1992, a memo that was sort of dinging the H.W. Bush administration for not being doing enough to promote democracy and a peaceful transition in the Soviet, in the post-Soviet world. And, you know, say what you like about Nixon, he was not a stupid man, and I'm sure other people said this and predicted this, but this turns out to be prophetic and right on the money. I mean, the Russia's Putin put his speech in terms of this great Russian nationalism that didn't, doesn't recognize Ukraine as a different, you know, cultural entity and country and wanted to restore that, you know, the Russian. Empire's boundaries, which included Ukraine and, you know, presumably the Baltic, you know, one

fears the Baltic states and God knows what else. So, yeah, I mean, there was a, there was a, you know, we talk very much on our podcast, I would say, about things that were missed or possibilities that were not recognized and the kind of false consciousness a little bit of the post-Cold War moment, and especially now in retrospect and how that's interesting, and it showed all these different weird hopes and fears. But it has to be admitted that some people had foresight. And I don't know how much of it, well, we'll see as the films we watch progress, but you know, had some had some foresight on what could possibly happen.

And, you know, I have to say, I think our... Our decision to let, which was, you know, the Marshall Plan happened in an age of social democracy and Keynesianism and big government spending and so and so forth. And unfortunately, the end of the Soviet Union happened in the age of neoliberalism, free markets, shock therapy, so on and so forth. And that was believed to be the path. And I think that that just unleashed such chaos in the former Soviet Union that it just opened. up the first of all just created these you know totally irresponsible um oligarchs and then their kind of chaotic competition with each other um created the need in their mind to set up a kind of state that would mediate between their problems and and sort of guarantee their their private

property at this almost hobbsian uh kind of state that would just guarantee everybody's private and, you know, in force order. And, you know, what we, what you got in, in the former Soviet Union is this really rapacious form of capitalism without democracy, without lip, sorry, without the traditions of liberalism to mediate it. And, you know, we're seeing the, we're seeing the fruits of that now. which is quite frightening, and I think it really, I mean, I don't think this is the takeaway that people are going to have, but I think it really should, it really should make people think about

how we should constitute these societies in terms of, you know, how political power is built and transferred and then also just how, you know, wealth, productivity, and the social product is divided. And I think that, you know, this is a deeply dysfunctional state in both of those terms and both of its political organization and its society. The United States is too, but this is an extraordinarily different you know, level of dysfunction.

A couple of scattered thoughts. The first, just on Cold War fears. One thing, I mean, one thing that's been part of the conversation here from the beginning, from the day one of the invasion, Putin announced that he would retaliate against any kind of Western intervention, direct Western intervention into the conflict. And I think people have taken that to mean a willingness to use nuclear armaments. And my understanding of at least Russian combat doctrine is that there is a greater willingness to use tactical nuclear weapons within Russian combat doctrine as opposed to the United States. Tactical nuclear weapons meaning battlefield nuclear weapons, sort of, you know, small yield.

I'm using air quotes here to try to communicate that. These are still nukes and they're still immensely destructive, but they're designed for battlefield use. Anyway, the fact that this has now entered the picture, I think, I mean, thinking of the movies we've watched, by Don's Early Light, which is the film about a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States, what that movie, I think, captures very well is kind of the fog of war, the sense that neither side is really entirely. certain what is happening, what, where each side is, where, what the threat is, what the

willingness to inflict damages, what the willingness to absorb it is, and that fog of war itself can be, I mean, as has been recognized again and again, can be very, very dangerous because it can lead to miscalculations. And I think, I think some of that, Some of that, I'm not sure, just as I read commentary, I'm not sure there's a really a greater, a great enough appreciation, at least someone commentators of commentators who are suggesting things like no fly zones or some sort of like direct intervention, not not enough appreciation for the amount of chaos that would introduce them to the situation. situation, given the threats Putin is made and sort of the reality of the fact that this is a nuclear-armed state. The other thing, the other observation I've had these past few days is the extent to which, and this feels a little unusual to me, this conflict has, on the domestic side,

the United States, it's been, it's, it's been much less partisan division in terms of responses to this, you know, the Republican Party, which has been, had been flirting with kind of Putin admiration for the past couple years, really quickly clamped down on that stuff. Donald Trump notwithstanding, at least the kind of more mainstream, or more traditional, because they're all mainstream, more traditional Republican politicians have, uh, avoided kind of the crass, you know, Putin admiration. And then internationally, I mean, I think it has been kind of remarkable to watch the European Union and European nations kind of act collectively to impose sanctions to begin to limit Russia's ability to operate

in terms of financial markets, in terms of, you know, other soft power. elements. That's not necessarily something I was expecting to happen. So there's this, I mean, there's this one of the ironies thus far. I mean, the war obviously is ongoing. We kind of have no idea how this will actually end. But one of the irony is, I think you can say at this point, is that the things that Putin was trying to avoid, things that the Russian foreign policy establishments have been trying to avoid a Europe that is more unisonable. against it, neighboring states that are interested in deeper European integration, this invasion is prompting those things to happen, right?

Like Finland is taking a vote over whether it wants to join NATO, there's been, you know, the EU is making overtures towards Ukraine. I mean, these things are now in the motion. because of this invasion, which I think raises a question that I'm not sure anyone's really been able to answer, which is like, what is, what exactly was Putin thinking? Just from a strategic perspective, this just does not seem like a good idea. No, I mean, that's a really good question. Okay, so to your first point about the nuclear stuff, I mean, first of all, that's, I just want to note that that's terrifying. And I think the U.S. and NATO's response to that has been pretty correct,

which is to not change the defense posture and take the bait with this kind of rhetoric and just basically saying, like, we're not looking for a decontentation, this kind of rhetoric is irresponsible. I think that response has been good. I think that, you know, I think the red line is pretty clear that Putin thinks that have NATO directly assists Ukraine. That's when he would feel the need to do this kind of, this kind of thing. To your second point about the surprising response to the United States in Europe and Putin's lack of a clear strategic aim or are having trouble understanding what his strategic game was,

I think these are all related in a certain sense. I think that my read on this is that he thought that the West was divided, that Ukraine's political situation was tenuous and its military not in great shape. There are serious internal divisions in Ukraine between the Russian-speaking part of the country, Ukrainian part of the country. And, you know, so I could see how he could sort of begin. to believe his own bullshit about, you know, quickly moving in on Ukraine, causing the government to collapse, the military to rout. And that seems to be what military analysts are saying about

the strategy at this point. They're like, this was just designed to, like, kind of kick down a rotten structure. And it turns out, like, it was actually much more solid. And now, you know, this, this mad dash hasn't worked. And I think basically what this, you can summarize this whole thing and is about Putin's misunderstanding of what democracy is

in Putin's view I mean in there's certain there's something to it which is that you know democracy is basically just you know capital capitalists manipulating pulling the strings and it's all bullshit that switches between different parties

and they just represent different factions of capital and so and so forth It's a very cynical, oligarchic view of what is actually going on Western democracies. And look, is that entirely false? No, these interests are extremely powerful. They have prevent, you know, the public will from being expressed. But public will is something they have to contend with. And I think that what people don't realize, especially when it comes to democracies in wartime

and or the threat of war or the threat of war or the threat of, of an external enemy is that the political energy that exists in the entire nation and not just in the elite or in broad sections of the elite and not just in the very top of the elite becomes very galvanizing and opinion changes very fast and in almost frightening ways I mean in quite frightening ways and I think this is kind of what we're seeing in Europe is that the political nation of European countries, of European democracies, has been activated by this in a way that's reminiscent of, you know, well, the 20th century, but also really 19th century kind of revolutions, 1848 and stuff like that.

And, you know, like, yeah. Not to interrupt, but that's exactly what I was thinking about. Just the, I mean, the innovation, right, of. the of the French Revolutionary armies in the 1790s was the ability to mobilize mass public sentiment for military purposes.

Exactly. Nationalistic armies of that sort were a novel development in an extremely powerful one and a frightening one for rival powers. And while this isn't of the same scope, it's in the same neighborhood of

sentiment. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The nation the nation arising and and you know Ukraine in its imperfect way became a democracy and in a way that Russia did not and its resistance to this invasion so far I think I don't think I have high hopes for its success but I would say it's it's energy and fierceness is because the whole people feel like they have a stake in in defending their their country and and I think so So the relationship between democracy and nationalism, which, you know, was sort of a given for people living in the 19th century as being related phenomenon, has sort of been

forgot. And I think that Putin believed that he had a strong national system that didn't require a democracy. But the problem is that, you know, this is, I think nobody, I think Alexander, Alexis de Tocqueville understood this and I think that some people understand this about the actual power of democracy which is that the people are giving their consent to the state in a way that actually like gives it concrete power and like in a way that is significant and it's not and I think dictatorships are way more um they can do things quickly sometimes they don't have to worry about public syndrome but they're way more brittle in a way because like you know when when the public

sentiment is behind um you know when you have millions of people standing behind a politician or a policy like that is is significant um it's a significant amount of power that has been granted to them So I think that this like misunderstanding of democracy, which Putin has and which I think many people in the West have, which is not to say that democracy is a system without flaws or a system that's not even can be, you know, I think De Tocqueville's insight was there are repressive and frightening aspects of democracy. And certainly we can see that in Europe with the, unprecedented or just outboring of hawkish sentiments in this conflict, which is I can understand

the sentiment. I want to see Russia defeated here. I feel a great deal of sympathy for the Ukrainians and their resistance. But this business of a no-fly zone, you know, being a public idea being floated, is just madness because that would require a direct military confrontation between NATO, and the United States and Russia and this is just that's just not something that we can have for obvious reasons. So I would say, you know, my feelings in this moment are a good deal of sympathy for, I mean, unbounded sympathy and admiration for the Ukrainians, but also a degree of concern about, which I think everyone talks about, oh, we underestimate Putin, we underestimate Putin, and we didn't think about Putin. The West did this, the West did that.

I don't know if Putin understood what democracies roused in anger look like and how that can take on a dynamic of its own. And something that its politicians may have trouble even getting a handle on. So I would say, first of all, all, okay, we know the lesson, stop underestimating Putin. I think we need to stop underestimating Western democracies and what they're capable of in under circumstances, under emergency circumstances or circumstances where, you know, this, where the kind of oldest passions of a democratic, of democratic Europe are reignited, which is wars of national liberation.

And, you know, like that sort of thing. These are really deep old, you know, things that people are getting re-sparked here. And, you know, there are parts of it that I admire, you know, I admire seeing the Western countries not bickering and being resolute. And there are other parts of it that frighten me. I'm saying, well, you know, in this case, a kind of war fever would have consequences that are unimaginable. So I fear, I fear democracy more than I fear Putin in a weird way. No, I think, I think that's, I think that is a fair observation. I think that's a fair feeling.

And I think you're right to say that not just Putin, but people here in the West have forgotten, have underestimated what fully roused democracies are capable of. There is a tweet going around. This is what I mean when I talked about the bad tweets that have been on the website for the past couple days. There's a tweet going around by someone, by a foreign policy, you know, commentator or expert or someone who should know better, which was something to be effective. I can't, I can't think of another case of this kind of, you know, resistance happening. No, sorry, that's a different bad tweet. The tweet I'm thinking of is something about, I can't imagine, I can't think of,

it's hard for me to imagine a war like disrupting in Europe. But this is a classic European war. Right. It's a classic European war. And I think it's the past 60 or 70 years or so, a relative peace in Europe. And again, I think it's important to emphasize in the 90s, there is like a significant conflict in the Balkans, which killed a lot of people and required sort of significant military intervention. There have been suppressed uprisings through the 20th century.

So it's not as if post-second World War Europe was completely peaceful, but the relative peace of Western Europe specifically, but the European kind generally, I think has led to this complacency and forgetfulness about what European history was like basically before 1950, and it was non-stop conflict. I mean, in a real sense, it was constant conflict and the unleashing of passions

that could mobilize entire nations to fight, you know, bloody destructive wars. Yeah, which got increasingly bloody and destructive with the development of technology and the, and the sharpness of the ideologies

involved, which, you know, you have to, is a process that, as you pointed out, begins with the French Revolution, which is this this kind of ideological warfare that animates the nation, the entire nation, is sort of a new phenomenon, a new political technology, if you will. And, you know, we've seen it, we've seen its descendants and, you know, and its various reactions to it that have, you know, And in a way, you know, we're still dealing with the, we're still dealing with the birth of nationalism and the, and the, and what that means and, and the different contradictions that that has. We're still dealing with, you know, what, um, what the, what the, what the meaning of the French Revolution was. Um, and that's sort of, uh, you know, the nature of, of, of the conflicts we're seeing, which is sort of like, I know there's, like, I know there's like, people are reviewing the Fukuyama, you know, end of history stuff in this life.

I mean, again, I think what he's saying is a little more subtle than people give it credit for. But look, I mean, this is, I mean, the way some people are framing it is this is, you know, liberal democracy versus autocracy, which is just the same, you know, struggle as the French Revolution. so that historical sequence hasn't really ended at all. It's just proceeding. I don't know. Perhaps, I don't know how why is it, if I was a policy maker at a high level, I might have my doubts about trying to use those grand historical ideas to deal with a crisis

because it might not be the most helpful way to look at it. But from our perspective, just trying to understand the world, I think you can play around with those sorts of abstractions. Right. I mean, and I think it's worth a sideboard here to say that the policy response, especially from the Biden administration, I think, has been very smart. It's been very wise in attempting to clearly coordinate with European allies, release, you know, kind of box in Putin in terms of the information environment to make it difficult to sort of sell any pretext and to avoid saber-rattling as much as possible. I think those have all been smart choices from President Biden. The other thing I wanted to say just regards to sort of like these bigger ideas and with regards to kind of the ways in which Westerners have underestimated the power of democracy and the power of nationalism.

For Americans in particular, we're in this unusual situation where we've never really faced any direct threat to the country itself, to the nation. itself, external threat in that way. And so sort of the fervor that can develop might seem a little foreign to Americans. And also may not, it's sort of, from the American perspective, it's sort of like, I think there are people who find it hard to imagine being able to sort of like work up that kind of energy. But having said that, we do have, I think we do have one example, one prominent example of this phenomenon within the United States, it meant the last years of the Civil War, right? And in the last two years of the Civil War,

you had the mass mobilization of free and formerly enslaved African-Americans. So if you read about their way of fighting, will sound remarkably similar to reading about French armies. Right. Revolutionary armies. Yeah. French Revolutionary Armies, this sort of like total, being completely committed to combat in a kind of totalizing way.

It was something that characterize black regiments who weren't just fighting for the union, but were fighting for this very, very real freedom and opposition to. to oppression, you know, autocracy of a kind, that kind of thing. And so that's, I mean, it's funny. That's sort of like the one,

that's, I think, the American experience of this sort of stuff. But because, because in the mainstream, we don't think of the Civil War in those terms necessarily, I think it's a little difficult to see, but it's here within our country's own

history. Absolutely. And it's also a fan, it's a, it's a of fantasy that we never get to act on and so it gets frustrated and and and and expressed in weird ways but it's like look this was the revolutionary ideal of the militia man too and like you know in our own kind of it's not quite as sweeping as the civil war or the european wars of revolutionary wars but like you know the the militiamen and you know rising up against the red coats, which inspires the whole ideological BS behind second amendment fantasies and so on and so forth. Like we have this like, we have this like democratic populate armed democratic

republic population ideology, but we just like focus it against each other because like we're not actually threatened by a foreign foe and we turn each other into foreign foes very often. But, yeah, like, I think some Americans definitely look at this sort of thing for better or worse and say, oh, I wish I was, you know, grabbing my gun and going out and defending my country, you know, a sentiment that is common in the United States, but really not acted upon very frequently because of just the way we are in the world and the way our military works and so and so forth. and there's other people in the United States who I think just don't understand the sentiment at all and think it's completely it's both alien there's something bad about it I think that you know I have respect for it and I think it's not necessarily it's neither it's part of what it means to be a nation is this sort of and good and bad is this kind of phenomenon and um it's it is frightening it does lead to i mean it would be much easier if

ukraine just surrendered and didn't want to do this kind of mass resistance um but uh you know this is this is just a fact and um it's it's one of those it's one of those fundamental political forces um and one that you know we're seeing exercised in a significant way for the first time in Europe in a long time. And, yeah. A point you made in your newsletter that I think is worth just raising here is that, you know, from the American, there's been a lot of cheerleading of Ukrainians here in the United States. So I think some elements of kind of like, you know, wish fulfillment,

if only I could have the same opportunity. But a thing you pointed out, and again, I think it's worth saying here, is that the decision of ordinary people to take up arms like this is actually like a very harrowing and serious one. That, like, this is for as much as I think, for as much as I admire it, for as you admire it, for as much as there's as much to admire, it's also I think important to remember that we aren't like watching, we aren't watching a movie here. These are, these are real people who are taking steps that, that you may not be able to come back from, right?

That, like, things will be fundamentally different after this. And the, you know, one thing I haven't been thinking about while we've been talking is that in the Russian army very clearly did not expect the amount of resistance it's getting to say nothing of the lack of preparation. there are reports that Russian supply chains are very shaky, right? That there's not really like a supply chain that can support the amount of men and armament that's been brought in. And so we don't really know what's going to happen if Putin starts to get desperate. We know that in the past he has shown a willingness to really unleash brutality in a serious way. And so that's also to say that like ordinary Ukrainians taking up arms, depending on how brutal Putin wants to get, can mean, you know, the kinds of mass reprisals against civilians that, that we haven't seen in Europe for some time, although we've, of course, seen around the world in various conflicts. And that's, that's like serious business. And if I have, I mean, if I have like a frustration,

just as someone kind of following media, it's the extent to which I think too many voices are not treating this as the dead, I mean, no pun intended, the deadly serious business that this is. Yeah, I completely agree. This isn't something to, this isn't something to cheerlead. It's tragic all around. Yeah, and I think it, you know, like, it's, it is a, it is something, I don't think people fully understand the seriousness of what's happening here, good and bad.

I mean, mostly on the bad, but the forces that are being unleashed here are, you know, things that people don't really have a clear understanding of. The enthusiasm for the resistance fighter as a romantic figure is understandable, But again, the actual prosecution of a partisan war, a war of liberation, especially one that, you know, is meeting a determined opponent that has a lot of firepower to fight it back is a horrible thing to contemplate and is going to lead to a lot of destruction and death, especially if you see the way Russia has prosecuted its wars in Chechnya and in Syria. and if they, it seems as if, you know, the, the, the, the cultural and even familial proximity of Ukraine and Russia has seemed to have given Russians pause about using the kind of violence that they might use, you know, less reluctantly against Chechens or, or Syrians, you know, many Russian people have relatives and friends in Ukraine and vice versa, uh, during the social. system you know these these places were not strongly uh different countries and you know people were born in Kiev and then would go to school in Moscow and settle there or vice versa and um and these kinds of family connections still exist and it's very likely that you know people will have friends

and relatives in the towns that that they are shelling or go through on a tank and you know hopefully that will that will restrain some of the violence but um or even lead to the attack being untenable. But, you know, it is the, if this turns into a guerrilla, partisan war and, you know, the Ukrainians are determined to fight to the last, which I don't blame them, it's going to be really something terrible. And I think our real hope as, you know, my hope at this point is, is somehow Russia realizes that it cannot win the war in this kind of quick and easy way that it hoped

that Ukrainians are not going to give up easily. They have to find some face-saving de-escalation, say they won, and China has to get involved in brokering some kind of ceasefire. And, you know, this comes to a diplomatic resolution. It may be an unfair one or an imperfect one within the next weeks or what we will see will be truly horrifying. So, you know, I'm rooting mostly for that. I mean, as much as I, again, I sympathize and admire the fighting spirit of the Ukrainian people. I really hope this has a diplomatic solution in the immediate future.

same and i mean that the unfortunate thing is i just i have a hard time imagining what what face-saving thing there could be for putin um who doesn't seem to have really given due consideration to this decision um certainly doesn't seem to have the support of the entire you know russian elite, and there's a real public discontent. And, you know, I mean, this gets to what you said about this kind of autocracies being brittle, and especially these highly personalist autocracies, right? That, like, you know, someone like Putin, who at this point has been in power for a couple decades now, almost two decades.

And, you know, there's a... There's no one you can say no to him. There's really no one you can push back. It doesn't have a communist party. There's no party behind him, really. I mean, United Russia is not a party in the way the Communist Party was, where it's like, look, we have a clear system of political succession in mind where obviously there's a power struggle at the top.

But like, look, we know that this list of five people is one of these guys is going to be the next guy. Right, right. you know and and and and in the guy at the top still has to give some consideration even if it's sort of like a even if it's a formality even if it's superficial there needs to be some consideration to everyone in the governing elite it's just it's just kind of Putin uh and that i think that i think that makes things genuinely complicated for how this can resolve it be resolved peacefully right um and it all i mean it here's the thing right here is the here is the thing. If Russian civil society is not happy about this, if Russian elites turn against Putin,

then this directly threatens Putin's ability to hold on to power. And I don't think we actually know what the guy would do in a situation where his ability to stay in power. And in here, I mean, for as much as I would have loved to see Donald Trump, go to jail. The fact of the matter is, is that, like, knocking, Donald Trump being removed from power means that if he doesn't, if he stays at a politics, he'll just die a rich man in his bed. Yeah. If Vladimir Putin loses power, no guarantee of the guy stays alive. Right. And that's sort of, I mean, that's ultimately the issue with this sort of regime that, like, that's stolen and killed too much. Right. And so that losing the power

becomes completely untenable. And it's just hard to know what he does. This is the scary thing to me. It's sort of, it becomes, it's so tied to this guy's psychology that who knows what he does if things get, if the going gets truly tough for him in a way that it's never been before. Well, yeah, I mean, look, you know, I mean, eventually. People could stop cooperating with him. He's got to have people cooperating with him on some level to function as a leader. But, yeah, I mean, look, he can interpret, you know, a move against him by, you know, people in his circle or its former circle or by the nation at large as being treasonous and, you know, and react with extreme violence and, you know, interpret it as the West coming after him and blame it on the West.

So I think people in the West need to be very careful. I know this message is not going to reach anybody it needs to. But people in the West need to be very careful about talking about regime change or hopes for a revolution in Russia. Because in the context of a war and the instability of that and his paranoia about NATO and its intentions towards Russian Federation, The way he might interpret instability in his regime could be to lash out at the West. And, yeah, so I think that that's something to really keep in mind as we, as, you know, we think about the next few weeks. I don't think anybody should be. At this point, as idealistic as I am, my hope is the great power's sort of ability to see their own, in this moment I'm a realist.

I'm just like, want them to see their rational interests here, come to some kind of mutually acceptable solution, at least in the short term. I don't want to see things like a revolution happened in Russia as much as, you know, you know, that's attractive to Western democratic sensibilities. I think the stakes at this point are just too high. This needs to be de-escalated to the point where, you know, threats of great power, conflict, nuclear war, whatever, are off the table. And we, first piece, and then we can think about, you know, what the political future of these different places is.

The last point I want to make before we wrap things up, is that just thinking domestically I do think this all provides this is a little crass on my part but I do think this all provides an opportunity for the Biden administration which is that right now there is

there's this anti-putin fervor within the United States within Europe there is a level of bipartisanship in terms of American foreign policy that we haven't seen in some time and this seems

like an opportunity for Biden to leverage that for his domestic agenda, and specifically his climate agenda. This, you know, you can imagine a anti-Puton energy independence bill of 2022, which amounts to just like a big climate package meant to decarbonize the American economy as much as possible and reduce reliance on fossil fuels from petro-states like the Russian Federation. I don't think that Democratic Party leadership is that aggressive or forward thinking or frankly that crass impartisan. But if they were, I think that that's probably the approach one should take to kind of leverage this for a larger agenda, for a domestic

agenda as well as international action. And I mean, Right now, the polling I've seen, the public sees Biden is more reactive than proactive with regards to this crisis. And something like this might be able to change that perception in terms of his own domestic political standing. Yeah, I don't know. I think that they, yeah, I just think the partisanship at this point is so deep. I don't even know what he could do. But, I mean, maybe he could move the needle a little bit with stuff like that. But yeah.

Yeah. if you don't have any final thoughts i can wrap things up i guess that's it i'm just hoping that this somehow works out yes and that was the movie going under yeah uh all right well that's our show uh if you're not a subscriber please subscribe we're available in itunes spotify sit your radio and google podcast and wherever else podcast are found If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. It does help people find the show, and we like reading their reviews. Good or bad.

But a good review would be preferable. Please write a good review. You can reach out to both of us on Twitter. I am at Jay Bowie. John, you are... At Lionel underscore trolling. We have a feedback email, so you can actually shoot us email and we'll respond. or whatnot, that email is unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com.

Episodes come out every other Friday, so we'll see you in two weeks with the movie Flight of the Intruder, directed by John Milius. Oh, wow. Millius, a famous Hollywood right winger, but kind of the best kind of Hollywood right winger in that he's like a good filmmaker and writer. And also sort of like so bananas. that it makes things interesting. Yeah, it's totally nuts.

This movie, U.S. Navy pilot, and its bombardier are embedded in the Vietnam War, growing frustrated by the military's constraints on their missions. I saw, I've seen this. I've seen this when I was a kid. Yeah. You can sort of, you can, just in that sentence, you can, like, you can hear Millie's politics. Right. Despite the best efforts of their commanding officer to reengage them,

this disillusioned pair just had to take the war effort into their own hands with an explosive battle plan that could get them court-martialed. We'll have a guest for this episode, so that'll be exciting. But that's her next movie. Be sure to watch it before listening to the podcast. For John Gans, I am Jamel Bowie, and this is unclear and present danger. We'll see you next time. I'm going to be.