Simon Kuper. He’s a “columnist” for the Monetary Instances. I believe a extra correct title is, “fabulist.” For these whose native tongue is aside from English the phrase, “fabulist”, is a well mannered synonym for LIAR. And boy did he lie in his newest column, “What If Russia Wins — A Counterfactual View of the Conflict in Ukraine.” His subtitle ought to have been, “A Fabricated Account of the Conflict in Ukraine.” I’m not stunned that the Monetary Instances would embrace hysterical propaganda like this, however I did count on one thing elegant and good. That is crude and silly. Simply the sort of stuff that Joseph Goebbels put out for his boy, Adolf.
Listed below are probably the most weird straw-men from his dystopian imaginative and prescient of a Russian victory:
1. Russia exacts horrible victor’s justice on Ukrainians. This isn’t hypothesis. It’s exactly what the Russians have already achieved in Ukraine: mass executions, castrations, rapes, torture and abductions of youngsters. Keep in mind Russia’s pre-invasion lists of Ukrainian public figures to be “removed”. . . .
4. Putin’s success would encourage nations thinking about invading a neighbour: China, Venezuela, Azerbaijan and, certainly, Russia. Dara Massicot of the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace: “Every time the Russians think that they have ‘won’ in a conflict under Putin — Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014, Syria 2015 — they learn something about us . . . become overconfident in their abilities and in a few years they try bigger and bolder operations.” The seemingly creation of a Ukrainian military in exile working sorties from European nations would additional incentivise Russian assaults on these locations.
Kuper is engaged in good, old style projection. For instance, Russian troopers haven’t carried out “mass executions” until your definition of mass execution relies on the Russian victories in Mariupol or Bakhmut. Ditto for castration. The video proof of that conflict crime exhibits Ukrainian troopers doing the soiled deed. And it’s Ukraine that has earned the sordid repute for trafficking in kids to service pedophiles and harvesting organs from wounded troopers.
Kuper’s reinvention of historical past could also be a operate of his relative youth, i.e. he’s uneducated and didn’t learn his historical past classes. What number of international army adventures has Kuper’s dwelling nation, the UK, carried out within the final 30 plus years? Iraq twice, Libya, the Balkans/Serbia, and Syria. Russia’s historical past just isn’t affected by repeated cases of international conquest and colonial exploitation (and, oh sure, enslavement of native populations). That will be the UK. Kuper can be properly suggested to heed the phrases of Jesus, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Offers me an concept for a correct nickname for Kuper — Glass Home. For those who dwell in a glass home you shouldn’t be heaving rocks.
With respect to Russia’s function in Syria, Kuper conveniently ignores the truth that the UK, together with the USA, had been closely concerned in launching the insurgency to oust Syrian President Assad. It was solely after Assad requested for assist that Russia despatched its army to Syria to beat again the Western subversion, which included funding radical Islamists. Putin discovered the lesson of the Maidan (the place the U.S. and the U.Ok additionally performed a key function in overthrowing a democratically elected chief in 2014) and succeeded in derailing the Western coup try in Syria in 2015. Each Washington and London are nonetheless pissed at Putin over that.
Kuper seals his repute as a person dumber than Ben Hodges with this beauty:
Russia has a low-tech economic system concerning the measurement of Canada’s. The Europeans might assist Ukraine stand up to Putin even when Trump pulled out. We’d must construct up our arms industries quick, however the effort required of us can be tiny in contrast with Russia’s.
Low tech, huh? You imply just like the hypersonic missiles that neither the USA or the UK can construct and deploy? You imply just like the drones Russia is manufacturing on an industrial scale whereas Ukraine depends on Mother & Pop workshops to crank out a couple of hundred? You imply just like the thousands and thousands of artillery shells Russia is producing whereas the West, having stripped itself of its industrial base, is begging South Korea to offer what Washington can’t? Final I checked the one constructive factor one might say concerning the British Challenger tank is that it burns properly when hit by a Russian ATGM.
Evaluating Russia’s economic system to Canada’s is laughable. Think about this. In 2023 Russia surpassed Germany as the most important economic system in Europe and fifth largest on the planet with a purchasing power parity GDP of $5.3 trillion dollars. Canada is ranked number 12.
Simon Kuper ought to resign from the Monetary Instances and get a job with a satirical journal. He might proceed to write down this sort of nonsense and it might appropriately be labeled as darkish humor and fantasy.
Though Mr. Kuper has zero expertise as an intelligence analyst, I believe he would match proper in with the present crop of sycophants that inhabit the headquarters of the CIA and MI6. Ray Mcgovern and I mentioned the reason for intelligence failures with Decide Napolitano at present.
