Category: Russia

Cold War redux and the Empire’s demise

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 2 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—November 11, 2025

At the end of World War II, the leaders of the United States faced one of the most fateful crossroads in the history of the nation. What kind of relationship with the Soviet Union would they pursue? Since the Russian Revolution in 1917, the relationship had been adversarial. When Hitler declared war on the US following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, new possibilities and necessities opened up for US/USSR relations. Shouldn’t our enemy’s enemy be our friend? “Friend” would be too strong of a term for what followed, but over the next several years the Soviets and Americans formed a successful alliance that defeated the Germans.

The Cold War

As the War wound down, US leaders envisioned a new adversarial dynamic. The Soviet Union had a long history of being threatened, even invaded as in the Napoleonic wars, efforts by the West to abort the Russian Revolution, and the invasion from the Nazis. As the Soviets looked to the postwar era, the need for security would define their disposition toward the world. On the other hand, the US had hardly been under serious threat during the War and emerged with an expansive sensibility oriented toward establishing the nation as the single world leader.

The US could have gone in two different directions. One would be to respect and seek to find ways to accommodate Soviet security needs. The other would be to see the Soviets as an intractable adversary. The Americans chose the second. The alliance of World War II became a “Cold War.” The US sought, most of all, to enhance its military superiority. Between 1945 and the end of the Soviet Union, the US initiated virtually every step of intensification of the conflict. The Soviets could never match America’s lead in military capability, but they could establish a rough sense of “mutually assured destruction.” This dance deepened both blocs’ warism. Eventually, the Soviets could not keep up. Their empire imploded.

The Cold War victory left the US at another fateful crossroads. A question similar to 1945 posed itself to American leaders: Would they seek to establish a collegial and mutually respectful relationship with the new Russia? Would they recognize the major shift from the ideology of the Soviet Union? Or would they see the demise of the Communist empire as an opportunity to enhance the global power of the US as the world’s single superpower?

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Peace in Ukraine? [American Politics #17]

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 7 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—August 20, 2025

I found what seems to me to be to be a good, short analysis of the current status of the war in Ukraine, an article “The Peace Delusion,” by a political analyst named Thomas Fazi, who writes regularly for the web-based magazine UnHerd. In a nutshell, Fazi suggests that the core issue in the struggle is the question of whether the United States will remain the single global hegemon or if we will transition to what many are calling a multipolar world order, where there will be several great powers that can manage to co-exist in relative peace.

Peace in Ukraine will require Ukraine and its US/NATO backers to acquiesce to Russia’s demands. It’s not simply recognizing Russia’s control over the various parts of eastern Ukraine that they have or will soon have taken over. “It’s about addressing the ‘primary roots of the conflict,’ as Putin repeated in Anchorage: that Ukraine will never join NATO, that the West will not transform it into a de facto military outpost on Russia’s border, and that a broader ‘balance of security in Europe’ be restored.”

Were those demands to be met, Fazi argues, the result would be “a wholesale reconfiguration of the global security order—one that would reduce NATO’s role, end US supremacy, and acknowledge a multipolar world in which other powers can rise without Western interference.” These demands have been stated clearly and consistently by the Russians since before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The reason why peace remains impossible in Ukraine is that such demands (and the resultant “reconfiguration of the global security order”) is simply something that “Trump—and more fundamentally the US imperial establishment, which operates largely independent of whoever occupies the White House—cannot concede to.”

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Pacifism in a time of war and chaos [American Politics #16]

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 5 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—March 10, 2025

I am deeply troubled by the wars and rumors of war, the social chaos, and the strong sense of pessimism that seem to be so much a part of our current situation. I also feel confused, uncertain, and relatively powerless. At such a moment, reflection on my core convictions is one way to steady my nerves, if nothing else. Almost exactly three years, a couple of weeks after Russia’s intensifying the conflict with Ukraine with their “special military operation,” I published a blog post on my Thinking Pacifism site that came out of such reflection, “Thinking as an American pacifist about the Russian invasion.” In this post, I want to update the thoughts I shared then.

“Pacifism” as a core conviction

It is challenging to be a pacifist in an environment with a strong cultural consensus in favor of military action. The United States has been deeply involved in the war that has been going on in Ukraine since 2014. When that conflict greatly intensified three years ago, the US prowar consensus also intensified, with both strong support for accelerated military aid for Ukraine and strong condemnation of Russia, usually couched as condemnation of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It has been virtually impossible to find dissent from the insistence on support for war in the American mainstream media, among Democratic Party politicians, and in my social media circles. But this support for war is at odds with my pacifist convictions.

I do believe that being a minority, even a small minority, due to one’s convictions is not a good reason to weaken one’s convictions. We should, of course, always be open to testing the validity of our convictions in face of challenges. However, it is actually to be expected that pacifist convictions will not widely be shared when the cultural zeitgeist favors war. Rather than doubt the validity of my pacifist convictions, I want to ask how these convictions speak to my warist context.

I use “pacifism” here to refer to a fairly general belief. I use it as roughly equivalent to, say, being a humane person, a person who supports social and political self-determination for all people, a person who affirms the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pacifism affirms that to support war is antithetical to humane values, to the practice of self-determination, and to an affirmation of universal human rights. In what follows, when I use “we” I mean those of us who affirm these pacifist convictions (even if one may not like to use the term “pacifism” itself—I use this term as a convenient rubric for this set of convictions, but I care about the convictions more than the term itself).

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Theater of the absurd [American Politics #15]

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Ted Grimsrud—March 3, 2025

As I try to pay attention to the wider world spinning out of control and heading toward who knows what kind of fresh hell, I keep trying to reflect on my peace-oriented core convictions and to learn more about history. My core convictions remind me that the US seems bent on world domination and thus, by definition as long as this is the case, seems unable actually to contribute to world peace. Americans who do care about peace need to question the idea that there is some way in our current world for the US to play a constructive role in peacemaking. It has rarely happened in the past eighty years, and it doesn’t seem likely to be happening any time in the foreseeable future.

Two fantasies

From the questionable idea of the US role as an agent for peace comes the fantasy that the Biden/US/NATO policies in Ukraine were about something other than trying to take down Russia and seeking to further enrich US-based war profiteers through the proxy war. Many liberal pundits and corporate media reporters continue to push the idea that the war is a stalemate that can be turned in Ukraine’s favor rather than recognizing that Russia pretty much controls the situation and will heretofore call the shots with Ukraine on the brink of collapse.

Or, we have the fantasy that Trump is a genuine peacemaker who has a plan in mind that will lead to an end to the war. This second fantasy attractively serves as an alternative to the first. I am not as confident in my critique of it. However, because Trump also seeks US world domination and because he also seems to want to somehow squash China (hence, the motive to leave the Ukraine war to the Europeans and focus US energy on China), I actually see little hope that he genuinely seeks peace. We should also note that at the same time that Trump lectures Zelensky about peace he also approves an “emergency” allotment of $3 billion of weaponry to Israel in apparent support for the Israeli refusal to negotiate in the second phase of the agreed-upon ceasefire with Hamas and instead to plan for more violence.

The amazing dustup between Trump (with his faithful sidekick J.D. Vance) and Ukrainian president Zelensky on Friday was shocking theater. As never before we saw a US president being intensely argued with in public—and arguing back. I have no idea what was and is going on in the background and what the fallout will be from this angry display. Reactions I have read seem to show more about the various observers’ predispositions concerning these people than any particular insights about what was actually going on.

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Where is American Warism Headed?

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 4 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—October 22, 2024

We live in a time of great uncertainty. I find it difficult not to be quite discouraged about the direction the world seems to be going. What kind of future do we have? The presidential election in the United States that we are in the middle of (I mailed in my ballot the other day) is considered by many to be one of the most important we have ever faced.

No matter the outcome, warism will win the election

One of the outcomes of this election, though, that does seem fairly certain is that the American military and American militarism in general will remain engaged and expansive regardless of who is elected. We all know that Trump is all for militarism even if his (empty) rhetoric at times may seem to claim otherwise. Likewise, the Harris campaign has made it clear that she will be committed to continue on the warist path followed by the Biden administration in both Ukraine and Western Asia. So, with regard to what I believe is the most important issue facing our country—our involvement in global wars and preparations for war—this election will change nothing no matter how it turns out.

The two big wars we currently are fighting—in Ukraine and in Israel/Palestine—have not been going all that well for our side. In both cases, we see that American might seems to count for much less than what has been assumed. Simply the fact that both continue to be unresolved in itself tells us a great deal about the ineffectiveness of our weapons and leadership. Could it be that we are nearing the end of the post-World War II era of American military domination? Has the US quest for global dominance finally failed? If so, what will be the consequences?

Is American dominance coming to an end?

I recently read a challenging and surprising book that argues that indeed the end of an era is at hand. America’s Final War by Andrei Martynov (Clarity Press, 2024) argues that the US military is facing a failure in Ukraine that signals a profound shift in the balance of power and a certain descent into loss of power and influence by the American Empire. I thought that the failure to achieve quick victory in these two wars might indicate that American dominance is no longer what it once was. Martyanov goes further—the end is actually at hand. Is this possible?

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One pacifist’s reflections on the Russia/Ukraine war

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 21 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—September 4, 2023

I have a number of friends who are quite sympathetic to the plight of the Ukrainian people in the face of the terrible war that is going on in the eastern part of that nation. Along with that sympathy seems to exist a corresponding sympathy with the American military support for Ukraine and the account of this war given by US/NATO sources. I share the first sympathy but not the second.

As has famously been said, the “fog of war” renders clear understanding of the elements of any war very difficult—generally, this “fog” extends to the various stories that are told about the factors that led to a war and the factors that could resolve it. I certainly don’t claim to be able to pierce all these levels of fog in relation to the Ukraine war, but as I struggle to make what sense of the situation as I can, I have some reflections to offer. (I want to thank one of my doubly sympathetic friends, Howard Pepper, for some stimulating comments he made in response to my recent blog post on Philip Short’s biography of Vladimir Putin. What follows is meant not so much as an argument with Howard as simply a chance to spell out my position without an attempt to offer evidence or justifications.)

The Russian choice for war is morally wrong

As a pacifist, I *do* condemn Russia’s military engagement with Ukraine as immoral. I think it is wrong in principle, and I think in practice it does not and will not serve the wellbeing of Russia and its people. At the same time, I condemn as immoral Ukraine and its US/NATO backers for provoking that engagement and fueling it with weaponry and training. I condemn US/NATO for building up Ukraine’s military for many years and for helping to exacerbate the longstanding tensions among the Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine. It is quite clear already that pursuing a military response to Russia is not and cannot hope to serve the wellbeing of Ukraine and its people. I don’t think one has to be a pacifist to express this condemnation on both sides, but certainly no pacifist should fail to do so.

I condemn the Russians for not working harder to find ways through diplomacy to address the concerns that led them to take the step of greatly accelerating the militarization of the conflict with Ukraine that had been simmering since at least 2014. Probably even more, though, I condemn the US/NATO and their allies in the Ukrainian leadership for not respecting what seem to be legitimate security fears on the Russians’ part in relation to the eastward expansion of NATO nor being willing to converse with Russia’s expressed concerns and expressed willingness to negotiate in the months leading up the Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

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Trying to understand Putin and Russia better

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 8 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—August 28, 2023

I realized at the beginning of the current iteration of the Russia/Ukraine war that I knew very little about Vladimir Putin and present-day Russia. Since then, I have tried a bit to remedy my ignorance. However, I am uncomfortable with popular understandings of Putin in the US, characterized as they are by a tendency (in the words of historian Richard Hofstadter from the Cold War years) to view every enemy as “a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel who profits from the misery he has produced.” I found that tendency to be widespread in the treatments of Putin I have seen and heard.

When I recently read a review of several recent biographies of Putin, I noticed one was praised for its relative objectivity. So, I decided to read it. The author is Philip Short, a British journalist who has written biographies of other American “enemies” such as Mao and Pol Pot. The book has a simple title: Putin (no subtitle) and was published by Henry Holt. The manuscript was completed in April 2022, so it does include a discussion of the lead up to and early months of the Russia/Ukraine war.

I would like to share a few thoughts stimulated by my reading. I was glad I read the book. I found it to be pretty carefully researched and reasonably objective. I didn’t love reading it, and it is very long (864 pages total, including 140 pages of end notes)—though the writing is clear and generally irenic. The book helped satisfy my curiosity and provided some useful knowledge and analysis to put the present situation in context.

I appreciate that Short does not treat Putin as “a kind of amoral superman.” Perhaps his relative objectivity will lead those who are US/NATO apologists to criticize him as a Putin defender—but I think that is far from the truth. In fact, I think in the end this book does still give too much of the benefit of the doubt to the US/NATO agenda, but I have no hesitation in recommending it to others who are interested in trying to understand Putin and Russia. It makes a good contribution. Let me share a few observations that follow from my reading.

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