#284 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday February 25)
Good morning!
LET’S GO TO THE MOVIES
Tomorrow is the 34th annual Scripter Award ceremony, sponsored by the USC Libraries (full disclosure: I sit on the board of the Libraries Board of Counselors and am co-founder of this annual event). It honors the best adaptation of the printed word into film and, for the past several years, the best episodic series adaptation (i.e., TV). This year, here are the finalists:
FILM FINALISTS
Dune
The Lost Daughter
Passing
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
EPISODIC FINALISTS
Dopesick
Maid
Station Eleven
The Underground Railroad
Wandavision
I find each year the Scripter Awards finalists offer a consistent presentation of the best well-written and thoughtful entertainment from the past year. I’m one of the few non-industry members of the Selection Committee. I’ll report back after this weekend whether my choices won. In the meantime, during the first round of voting, I voted for four of the finalists in each category (not a bad batting average).
If you want to watch the event, it’s at 7:30 pm PST tomorrow. It can be accessed at usc.edu/scripter. It will be over in but an hour and a half. Stick around until the end—I’ll be presenting the award for the best film adaptation.
UKRAINE
At this point, we all have read all too much about the ongoing violence in the Putin-generated warfare in Ukraine. Instead of adding too much in the way of strategy analysis or advice on what we should do, I have a few observations, in no particular order of importance:
I have a pet peeve when people describe events as tragedies. The word “tragedy” implies natural disaster or, in the theatrical sense, when an untimely end comes to an imperfect protagonist. In this case, it’s not really a tragedy—it’s really a crime. This crime is the sole responsibility of Mr. Putin.
There are two narratives coming out of the Trumpists these days. The first is that Putin really isn’t so wrong—after all, human history is based on the powerful taking what they can and Russia has an interest in Ukraine. In fact, Mr. Trump has come out publicly praising Mr. Putin. Many of his supporters look to Mr. Putin’s statements and find perceived “truths” in them, led by the hand the whole way by Fox News and Mr. Trump. Putin says Ukraine is merely a province of Russia and never was an independent nation (they ignore the Ukrainian referendum of 1991). This is a misreading of history and unworthy of response. They also concede Russia’s sphere of influence—but forget the Ukrainians aren’t interested in being in that sphere. They now have drawn comparisons to the U.S.’s seizure of Mexican lands in the 1840s as somehow justifying Putin’s actions. Also a misreading of history; while correct that it may have been an overreach nearly two centuries ago, the lands were sparsely occupied, only loosely held by Mexico and civilian centers weren’t targeted. And it was a long, long time ago. The rules of engagement change.
The second Trumpist narrative is that “this would have been different if Trump were still president.” This is such a ridiculous reach, I hardly know how to respond. Mr. Trump coddled Mr. Putin and sought to justify his bad behaviors at every turn. Mr. Trump sat idly by as Mr. Putin forcibly took the Crimea from Ukraine—so we already have an idea what he would have done in this instance. Mr. Trump pooh-poohed NATO as an alliance of the past. And finally, Mr. Trump and his MAGA platform were vocally against overseas commitments (and sought to reduce U.S. troop deployment in Europe).
As much as I’d like to think this began with Trump, it actually began with Putin’s prior incursion to his taking of the Crimean Peninsula, his moves in Georgia, his support of the Asaad regime in Syria, and other acts to subjugate and neutralize former Soviet republics. All of this occurred under the administrations of Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump. We have allowed him relatively free rein without consequence. Where we are is a factor of what has happened before and what was permitted before.
One of the challenges of autocratic leaders is that they are not easily advised and don’t seek approval of their actions. The Russian people seem against this. I’m guessing most of the Russian leadership may question the advisability of this action. Unilateralism is often brutal and just as often leads to unintended—usually undesired—consequences. This seems to be not unlike the unilateralism of other totalitarian leaders who have brought massive death and ruin (e.g., Stalin, Hitler, Mao).
I don’t dispute the narrative that perhaps the hubris of victory after the end of the Cold War prevented actions to help stabilize what was left of the East. Rather than pushing NATO eastward, perhaps a better course would have been partnering in economic development projects with Russia and working to include them more in the family of nations. But it’s too late for that.
Watch the Taiwan Strait. After Trump’s pulling back from our international presence, the messy departure from Afghanistan under Biden and the long-time looking away from Mr. Putin’s dangerous adventures and manipulation of our elections and social media, China has a road map for moving on Taiwan. We have become a paper tiger.
The bottom line is this is an autocratic leader hell-bent on territory, military victory and expansion of his revanchist vision of a new Soviet Union. I doubt he’s stopping any time soon. Prediction: Ukraine will be a client-state under a puppet government by this time next year. Much of the leadership of Ukraine will be tried in kangaroo courts and discharged to the Russian gulag (or at least those who couldn’t escape in time). But resistance will continue. The unanswered question is where Mr. Putin will turn his attentions—and war machine—next.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
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