On deterrence; bravery in journalism; Ukraine and Russia; George Crumb; Saturday Night Live; and more
I’m all for speech, including “corporate speech.” (“Corporations are people, my friend.”) Ben & Jerry’s, as you know, is a politically minded company. It also has a Twitter account. And here is a Ben & Jerry’s tweet from last week:
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
We call on President Biden to de-escalate tensions and work for peace rather than prepare for war.
Sending thousands more US troops to Europe in response to Russia’s threats against Ukraine only fans the flame of war.
As I said in response, “I have many prayers for this world. But near the top of my list is: that people gain even a rudimentary understanding of deterrence. The absence of this understanding is responsible for endless harm.”
People understand deterrence at a more personal level, I think. They lock their doors. They put up a sign that says “Beware of Dog.” Another sign might say “This House Protected by Smith & Wesson.” People appreciate seeing a cop walk the beat, etc.
“Si vis pacem, para bellum,” goes a classic expression. “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Across the generations, some people have turned this expression on its head: “Si vis pacem, para pacem.” “If you want peace, prepare for peace.” The brilliant Einstein said, “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
As I wrote once, “That sounds more like something that ought to be true than like something that actually is.”
The first American president had a solid understanding of deterrence. “To be prepared for war,” said Washington, “is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” Generations later, another president, Kennedy, said, “We prepare for war in order to deter war.”
Reagan put it in a nicely folksy way: “No one ever picked a fight with Jack Dempsey” (heavyweight boxing champion in the 1920s).
Let me quote a bit from the piece I linked to, a few paragraphs above:
In the Reagan years, there was a missile called the “Peacekeeper” — and this was a name that caused many to gag. A missile? “Peacekeeper”? In 1984, Reagan campaigned for reelection on the slogan “Peace through Strength.” That caused its share of gagging, too. And how about the slogan of the U.S. Strategic Air Command? “Peace Is Our Profession.” There could hardly be a balder proclamation of the deterrence doctrine. Also bald was something Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography: “The most important service that I rendered to peace was the voyage of the battle fleet around the world.”
I have quoted from an essay published in 2012, derived from my history of the Nobel Peace Prize. That book has an afterword, and maybe you will indulge me in a few lines from it:
Not long ago, I had a conversation with a young Norwegian historian in Oslo. With real indignation, he spoke of Norway’s helplessness before the Nazi onslaught of 1940. The dictum had always been, Si vis pacem, para bellum . . . Clever, sanctimonious, and self-congratulatory people had changed this into Si vis pacem, para pacem . . . My Norwegian friend was contemptuously angry about this notion, saying, “When the Nazis came here, we were defenseless, and Nazis are very bad people to be occupied by.” It was moving to see this kind of emotion — well-informed emotion — in a man born decades after the events in question.
• Here is a tweet — a bulletin — from Anna Ahronheim of the Jerusalem Post:
91-year-old Holocaust survivor Naomi Perlman died of wounds she sustained after a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip made a direct impact on her home in Ashkelon during the May fighting. Her Indian caregiver Soumaya Santoush died in the attack. Perlman will be buried later today.
(A picture of Naomi Perlman accompanies the tweet.)
“No words,” is what I should say. Instead, I will say this: There is no alternative to eternal vigilance — not in this earthly realm. Wearying as such vigilance may be, there is no alternative. Or no good one.
• Have a report from RFE/RL, that combination of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty:
Journalist Elena Milashina says she has decided to temporarily leave Russia amid death threats against her by the Kremlin-backed authoritarian leader of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov.
The courage of these people — these journalists — knows no bounds. Elena Milashina works for Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper whose editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year. I wrote about Muratov and his Nobel lecture here. Six of his colleagues at the paper have been murdered: Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov, and Natalia Estemirova.
• Here is an Associated Press report from Kharkiv, in Ukraine. “Ukrainians train in guerrilla tactics in case Russia invades.” The report begins,
The table tennis coach, the chaplain’s wife, the dentist and the firebrand nationalist have little in common except a desire to defend their hometown . . .
Later, we read the following:
If Russia invades Ukraine, some of Kharkiv’s 1 million-plus people say they will stand ready to defend their city against one of the world’s greatest military powers. They expect many Ukrainians will do the same.
Every day, you hear that Vladimir Putin must be allowed a “sphere of influence.” (What people really mean is sphere of control, wherein Russia’s neighbors have no say in their own destinies.) But old ladies are being trained in guerrilla tactics. See? Putin has influence already. He influences people every single day, both in and outside Russia.
Bastard. Bastards.
• I recall Ron Paul, especially during his presidential campaigns. He did not like a hawkish policy toward Iran. He was isolation-minded, or “anti-interventionist,” as people like to say. (Kind of a stupid phrase. Most people are for intervention in some cases and against it in others — in most, in fact.)
Regular readers know that I am not an isolationist. But I understand the position and, in a way, respect it. I also understand — and, in a way, respect — the conscientious objector. I can also understand and respect the person who refuses to pay his taxes, because he cannot bear funding nuclear weapons, for example.
Thoreau went to jail over such a thing. This is a famous episode in American history.
But Ron Paul did not say, “Look, guys: The Iranian regime is a ghastly dictatorship and a threat to the Middle East. But it is not a threat to us, or at least not yet. I think we should stay out of it. Fortress America. Hunker down. Let me know when they breach our borders.”
He did not say that. Instead, he sneaked in defenses of the Iranian regime.
Today, I would understand an isolationist position, or an anti-interventionist position, on Ukraine. I would think it was foolish and even dangerous. But I would understand it, and could possibly respect it.
You will notice something, however. Those who take a “stay out of it” position tend not to be content with saying “stay out of it.” No. They defend or make excuses for Putin — when they don’t outright support him — and they defame Ukraine, in its efforts to be an independent and sovereign democracy.
Watch this. You will see a clear pattern.
• George Crumb, the American composer, has died at 92. To read his obit in the New York Times, go here. Interesting life, interesting mind. I would like to say something about one work of his: Apparition, for soprano and amplified piano, composed in 1979. It sets words of Walt Whitman, about Abraham Lincoln.
Let me quote a review of mine, please, from the 2001–2 season in New York:
Christine Schäfer, the German soprano, appeared in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, for some lieder and a distinguished American work. She was fresh from starring as Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera (in the Berg opera of the same name). . . .
Schäfer’s American work was George Crumb’s shimmering, exotic, impressionistic Apparition . . . On this music, Schäfer can bring all her formidable skills to bear: delicacy, deftness, sensuousness, slinkiness, superb technical control. She executed bird sounds that were much like vocalizing (singing practice): we heard owls and whippoorwills, and a smidgeon of coloratura. Unusual intervals posed no problem for Schäfer, for anyone who can sing Lulu accurately can sing Crumb. Her pianissimos were spell-binding, and her singing generally had the entire hall in a trance. Apparition and Schäfer were made for each other, and she should get this work on CD, soon.
To hear a recording of Crumb’s Apparition by Schäfer, and the pianist Eric Schneider, go here. (You will need about a half hour and absolute quiet.)
• A smidge more music? Rather, my “New York chronicle,” in the current New Criterion, which is more like a generous wedge of pie — or half a pie — than a smidgeon? Here.
• In Minnesota, the department of transportation does a wonderful thing: It asks the public to submit names for snowplows, in a grand contest. There are eight winners in the Class of ’22. Three of them are “The Big Leplowski,” “No More Mr. Ice Guy,” and “Betty Whiteout.”
• Tom Brady’s been retired for, what? Two weeks now? I wonder whether he’s had a cookie. Or a slice of pizza.
It begins with just one cookie, or one slice, you know . . .
• Hey, speaking of sports: If you’d like to watch some Winter Olympics, and have a good laugh, try this, from Saturday Night Live. These five minutes or so constitute one of the greatest comedy sketches in world history, in my view. Some of us laughed — I’m not saying me — until tears rolled down our cheeks.
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