The Absurd Politics of Appeasement
To respond effectively to Putin's nuclear brinkmanship, Western allies need to understand the language of force
1 Stumbling onto the Brink
Here we are again, stumbling onto the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The tried, true, time tested, all too simple solution suddenly seems out of reach -- unless we in the West start understanding how we contribute to this catastrophe and how largely responsible we are for what looms ahead. Start understanding – and reverse the tragic course we have meandered.
Various voices insist the U.S. and NATO are to blame for provoking Russia’s attempted genocide of Ukraine. In order to avoid nuclear escalation by Putin, so they argue, it is now imperative to make real, serious concessions to Russia. Any hope coaxing Putin away from the nuclear option requires sacrificing Ukraine’s security, territorial integrity and democratic future. Otherwise, editorialized Beijing’s Global Times, should NATO permit Ukraine membership, “European countries will tremble under the shadow of a possible nuclear war.”
These are the voices of capitulation. They issue not only from the typical suspects – Russia’s allies in totalitarianism boasting similar nefarious designs, such as China’s towards Taiwan – but also from all sorts in the West. Rand Paul, the Pope and Elon Musk among many others.
Then there are those calling out for restraint and diplomatic overtures, hoping to calm Putin – or at least avoid triggering him further. Theirs are the numerous voices of appeasement, ranging from India to Europe – with Macron’s perhaps most prominent among them. While not blaming the U.S. or NATO for provoking Putin, nor contending for Russia to succeed in its genocidal ambitions, they nonetheless maintain Russia must suffer no glaring defeats, either. Don’t humiliate Putin, keeps insisting Macron, speaking not just for France but perhaps, to at least some tacit extent, for Western Europe and North America as well.
Seeking to not humiliate, to appease rather than defeat Putin – it seems delusional indeed in hindsight. Attempts to appease the greatest bully of a past generation are recalled among the worst historic mistakes ever – and attempting to appease Putin is even worse. Even more misguided.
Prior to World War 2, European leaders were confronted with blitzkrieg-fast, victorious German military actions. It was therefore plausible – just barely – that Germany would be satisfied with its already accomplished gains. The Munich Agreement was somewhat forgivable – barely. Moreover, Hitler’s genocidal final solution agenda was not initially recognized.
In contrast, there has been no fast victorious military Russian action in Ukraine – only atrocities coupled with creeping, dismal failure. There can be no illusion of Russian satisfaction with accomplished gains. There are none. No one outside Russia can pretend to be fooled by Russia’s gun-point, cargo-cult-democratic annexations. Moreover, Putin’s genocidal final solution agenda to the problem of Ukrainian identity has been far too long and well advertised not to be recognized.
And how not humiliate Putin? In blood steeped so far as to render retreat inconceivable, Putin’s Russia is terminally, irretrievably self-humiliating. Seeking to distract from ludicrous internal corruption, incompetence and sad sequences of goodwill battlefield defeats, Russia continually escalates the atrocities it then victim-blames on Ukraine. But of course distractions from defeats cannot produce victories. Eventually, as battlefield defeats stockpile, some critical scorn mass shall be reached when all fingers of blame currently pointing between Russian factions will turn on Putin. Meaning the end of him. Totalitarian strongmen bared as incompetently, helplessly weak last but until the once-fearful, vengeful mob finds them.
Putin is cornered. Can’t manage to advance, can’t afford to retreat. As one wit too eloquently put it, he cannot swallow – but nor can he spit. Thus, in desperation, he continues bluffing nuclear threats. There can be no doubt he is bluffing – the nuclear option is a recipe for disaster, not victory. In Putin’s case, however, the question is not what he might win. The question when it comes to Putin is what might he resort to when there is nothing – including his life – left to lose.
Urgently as we need to understand Putin’s Russia – in the West we do not. That’s why interviews with Western experts and leaders typically start with “Why is Putin doing this?” What reason or cause can there possibly be for Putin’s seemingly insane actions in Ukraine? That was how, for instance, CNN’s Jake Tapper interview with France’s Macron began on September 22. Why is he doing this was the express spoken question. Is he crazy was the unspoken question resonating beneath.
Not much from Macron in response. Nothing cogent. It’s irrational, he said – meaning Putin might be crazy or maybe had a terrible breakfast. Putin keeps on making mistakes, he said – as if Putin was not the most lethal strategic enemy but just some confused, lost, blundering acquaintance. It’s a colonial war, he said – not quite falsely but ever so incompletely in reference to the ongoing attempted genocide of Ukraine. Finally, excavating his most profound insight, he said Putin felt resentful – disrespected by the West. He didn’t come right out and say Putin must not be humiliated lest he lash out more viciously still – but he could not seem to stop himself from insinuating precisely that. Again.
As a certain Ukrainian correspondent would say, this is just nonsense my friends. Children may understandably ask why are you doing this when first bullied at pre-school playgrounds – but for the collective West to keep asking it on the world stage is beyond ludicrous. It is absurd and terminally hazardous. Ridiculous.
Putin, it is repeatedly said, understands only the language of force. No one means this literally, though. Or seriously. Clearly Putin is not stupid. The dire, potentially apocalyptic global issues metastasizing now on Ukraine’s front lines cannot be reduced or attributed to any mere failure of understanding.
Less inaccurately, then, let’s say Putin is acting as if the language of force not only does but yet more-so should reign supreme. Which very notion, that it so should, utterly contradicts Western sensibilities. So utterly as to become nigh incomprehensible for us. Unthinkable.
2 Force and Legitimation
That’s the trouble. We in the West – central Europe, North America – have been speaking the language of legitimation exclusively so long that we have lost almost all fluency in and comprehension of the language of force. Legitimation: the classical liberal Western notion that coercive force must not be applied unless some adequate threshold of justification is first met. The intersubjective sense that naked force justifies nothing in itself but, instead, must be justified, leads to a general expectation of legitimacy absent which rights, freedoms, civil liberties and however flawed democracy could not exist. Thus, in thoroughly Western contexts, military coups become vanishingly rare – since Western power hinges on legitimation. It cannot be acquired by mere demonstration of superior force. Assassinations produce no legitimate authority — merely criminality.
Relative to the language of force, the language of legitimation may represent real, rare progress in human history. Loss of fluency in the language of force, however, is an unintended, unfortunate consequence. Since, having lost fluency in the language of force, we are now deer in the headlights of Putin’s world historical genocidal bullying.
Ultimately in dispute is whether future ascendancy in human affairs will rest with the language of force or the language of legitimation. Shall only might ultimately make rights? Will any global rules-based order remain to secure even partial freedoms and democracies?
Unlike past Russian dictators, Putin understands the language of legitimation very well – but his commitment is absolute to the language of force. His life mission is to restore the force Soviet Russia projected — and the fear it inspired. Whereas, in contrast, most westerners — including political and military leaders — lack corresponding commitment to the language of legitimation – taking it entirely for granted – and have also lost fluency, even understanding when it comes to the language of force – as if it had ceased anywhere to exist.
But the language of force will never cease to exist. It cannot be eradicated. It is reborn full-fledged each time some playground bully discovers what awesome empowerment it alone produces when successfully deployed. Rather, instead, for the language of legitimation to survive as more than yet another forgotten dialect, it must forever be defended by adequate resistance to the language of force. By sufficient deterrence. Deterrence which we in much of the West, having lost fluency in the language of force, are no longer able to provide.
Force can be neither deterred nor defeated by mere charges of illegitimacy. Force must be confronted with counter-force. Otherwise, lacking any real force, charges of illegitimacy alone can serve only to embolden those who persist in the language of force.
The language of legitimation remains viable only so long as adequately defended from the language of force. Defended by all who understand the language of force well enough – who can speak it just fine, thank you – but soberly and conscientiously elect not to do so unless warranted. Until it becomes necessary and legitimate to do so.
This is how and why Western deterrence has been lost. During the Cuban Missile Crisis Khrushchev blinked first. He respected – feared – Kennedy’s MAD deterrence then, when our fluency in the language of force had not yet been lost. It is not possible to imagine Khrushchev so deterred today. To the contrary. He would be emboldened – just as Putin has been. Appeasement can only embolden world historical bullies. Conversely, mutually and multiply assured destruction is intended not to appease but rather to terrify.
Similarly, from Putin’s perspective, NATO’s Article 5 – requiring attack on any one member state to be regarded and defended as attack on all – has lost much if not most deterrent force. Chains are no stronger than weakest links – and some NATO links are now so weak there may be no semblance of chain remaining. Can France be relied to enforce Article 5 should Russia invade Poland? Romania? Latvia? Putin cannot but believe otherwise – and become increasingly emboldened each time Macron again contributes to Putin’s contempt for Western fear and trembling.
The fear is in the West – but the weakness is all Russian. Had Ukraine received marginally adequate offensive weaponry from the West – even modest modern aviation, tanks, long range munitions – the war would long since have resolved in complete liberation. Instead, in fear of humiliating and further triggering Putin, the West has been providing almost entirely defensive weaponry. The effect has been to prolong the war indefinitely – for how can even a basketball game, never mind a war be won entirely on defense? Thus, by not providing adequate offensive weaponry, the West simultaneously prolongs the war and signals fear. Putin, for his part, while weakened by incessant offensive failure and self-defeating Russian corruption, grows ever more emboldened by Western fear signaling.
Prolonging the war while fear signaling does not appease Putin. It emboldens him. Like prancing red flags before a wounded, madly frustrated bull. It is a recipe for nuclear catastrophe. As well, continually prolonging the war accelerates erosion of global networks and institutions – whereby economic and environmental damage may already prove irreparable. Nor least is the cost in human suffering and lost lives. But how can the West reverse course sufficiently to cause Putin to blink first – to re-establish any real degree of deterrence?
Part 3 How Western Allies Must Respond
We cannot do it without Ukraine’s help. Not since publicly quailing and quaking too much for Putin or his followers to ever respect – fear – us again. There can be no hope of successfully confronting bullies after wetting oneself. But Putin, his followers, his generals, his soldiers – they all have learned to fear the indomitable Ukrainian spirit. The Ukrainian will that, while yearning to converse in the language of legitimation, yet speaks the language of force so eloquently even if only in defense. That’s the answer.
Recently, in efforts to reassure the US into providing longer range munitions, Ukraine offered to share and subject targeting to US approval. The answer is in reverse. To let it be known that in any event of deployment of weapons of mass destruction by Russia in Ukraine, Western arsenal targeting will be made available to the Ukrainian military to deploy as they should see fit in response. Funny as it may sound – that’s no joke. We need to let Ukraine protect us from our lost fluency in the language of force. Protect us as they – the Ukrainians -- have been doing in fighting our war throughout.
Granted – none will take this suggestion seriously. The general point remains valid, however. We must do the precise opposite to everything Macron insists. We must distract Putin from the Western fears emboldening him and focus his attention on Ukrainian heroism instead. Only then, at his last moments, when there is nothing remaining for him to lose but after having been taught some respect – fear – will he flinch away from the nuclear option. It is time to support Ukraine with the offensive weapons required to win this war. Help Ukraine finally get offensive and teach Putin some respect. Now. Before it grows too late for us all.