On the menu today: The week wraps up with the United Nations preparing to tell Russia and Ukraine to stop fighting the war; continuing questions about the mental and physical health of elected leaders; and the reveal of text messages showing that Fox News anchors didn’t believe what they were saying in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
U.N. to Russia and Ukraine: ‘Stop Fighting’
Next week, the United Nations is expected to vote on a resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities and a peace that ensures Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.” It is likely that a majority, even an overwhelming majority, of the 193 member countries will vote in favor of the resolution. And it is likely that the resolution will have no impact on the conflict whatsoever.
Historian Paul Johnson passed away last month, and one of his most revered works was his comprehensive review of the 20th century, Modern Times. Early on in that 870-page tome, Johnson lays out the early objections to the League of Nations, and the naïveté of one of its chief architects, Walter Phillimore:
[British diplomat] Eyre Crowe noted tartly that a “solemn league and covenant” would be like any other treaty. “What is there to ensure that it will not, like other treaties, be broken?” The only answer, of course, was force. But Phillimore had not consulted the Armed Services, and when the Admirality got to hear of the scheme they minuted that to be effective, it would require more warships, not less. All of these warnings, made at the very instant the League of Nations was conceived, were to be abundantly justified by its dismal history.
The only thing that guarantees the honoring of a treaty is the potential consequences for violating it, including the threat of military force. This is a good lesson to keep in mind when contemplating a diplomatic solution to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Everyone with a functioning conscience wants to see the needless suffering and horrors of the invasion end as quickly as possible. But everyone with a functioning mind can also recognize that there’s not much point to a peace treaty if Russia is just going to restart its invasion a few weeks, months, or years down the road. Just weeks before the war, Russian officials looked their Western counterparts in the eye and declared that, “We have no plans to invade Ukraine.” As we see with the extension of the START treaty that President Biden touted, Russia ignores its treaty obligations the moment they become inconvenient.
The only lasting peace will be when either there isn’t much of a Russian military left or the leadership of Russia fears the consequences of breaking a post-invasion treaty. On the first option, the Russian military is considerably smaller than it was a year ago; Norway’s military intelligence estimates that Russia has suffered 180,000 soldiers wounded or killed. The “human wave attacks” strategy of recent weeks indicate that Russia will suffer even higher losses; the U.K. Ministry of Defense calculates that the Russian forces are suffering about 824 casualties per day. But Russia has plans to expand its military to 1.5 million personnel, so for the foreseeable future, Moscow is likely to still have a large army capable of territorial aggression against its neighbors.
Keep in mind, Ukraine has suffered significant casualties as well. Norway estimates 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been wounded or killed so far, while “other Western sources estimate the war has caused 150,000 casualties on each side,” according to the Japan Times.
As for getting Russia’s leaders to fear the consequences of breaking a post-invasion treaty, it is worth keeping in mind that for decades, Russian foreign policy could be summarized by the slogan, “Let’s see what we can get away with.” From cyberwarfare to the annexation of Crimea to the effort to meddle in U.S. elections, Vladimir Putin and his henchmen were always probing for potential weaknesses in the West. They bet, over and over again, that the consequences for their skullduggery wouldn’t be too severe, and almost every time, they were right.
There is little reason to think that the Russian government’s desire to conquer and annex Ukraine will go away by itself anytime soon. Everyone around Putin fears crossing him more than they fear the consequences of this bloody, poorly managed, unprovoked war. While it is conceivable that Putin’s successor could be less aggressive and reckless, it isn’t a safe bet. If Putin died tomorrow, the new head of state would be Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, a man likely selected for that job because he has no ambition to replace Putin or any willingness to disagree with him. He spent a decade as the head of the Russian equivalent of the IRS. According to the Russian constitution, after the president dies, an election to replace him should be called within 90 days. Mishustin would be eligible to run, but he doesn’t seem like a man with a burning hunger to run a nuclear-armed state that is in a de facto state of war with the West.
Even if Putin had a heart attack tomorrow, Ukraine and the West would still face the threat of Russia continuing or expanding its war of aggression, or only briefly halting and then restarting it at its convenience.
So what is the effective deterrent? As Johnson wrote, “the only answer, of course, was force.” For all his reckless belligerence, Putin hasn’t sent a single troop across the border into the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. He knows an all-out fight with NATO would go very badly for Russia.
Just as those British admirals observed that to be effective, any treaty would require more warships, not fewer, any lasting peace in Eastern Europe will require a very well-armed, well-trained, robust military force — both within the borders of NATO allies and within Ukraine. Ten years ago, NATO members pledged to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic products on defense, and they are now debating raising that to 2.5 percent.
Those who set the budgetary priorities of NATO countries must recognize that there is no cheap, easy, or quick path to peace in Ukraine.
Or in other parts of the globe, like the South China Sea, either.
The Health of the Leaders and the Health of the Nation
May God help Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman, who checked himself into Walter Reed Medical Center to receive inpatient care for clinical depression. Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said yesterday that, “After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs, and will soon be back to himself.” Hopefully, Fetterman will be one of the lucky ones; some people struggle with clinical depression for a long time. I can remember in October, about a week before the Pennsylvania Senate debate, when Fetterman’s primary-care physician assured the public that Fetterman “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office. . . . He spoke intelligently without cognitive deficits.”
In other news, President Biden’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, conducted the president’s physical on Thursday and concluded that Biden is “a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute duties of the presidency.”
And meanwhile, elsewhere in the Senate this week:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein emerged from the Senate chamber on Wednesday seemingly confused about what she had done during a two-vote series.
“Did I vote for that?” Insider overheard the California Democrat ask her long-time chief of staff, David Grannis, about approving a judicial nominee to the federal bench.
Grannis, who had just finished explaining to his 89-year-old boss that the six Senate votes scheduled throughout the day would be on Biden appointees, shook his head and said, “no.”
There is a reason we ask tough questions about the health of elected officials and candidates, and we have good reason to doubt the nonspecific assurances we are given about officials’ and candidates’ excellent health.
So, What Do TV Anchors Really Think?
When you read text messages from Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity acknowledging that Joe Biden won the presidential election in 2020 and declaring the claims that Trump had his victory stolen “mind-blowingly nuts,” “totally off the rails,” and “completely bs” — and then saying the opposite on air — you should feel very betrayed if you believed them. They are not committed to telling you the truth. They are committed to telling you what you want to hear, what will rile you up, and what will get you to keep watching.
ADDENDUM: Megyn Kelly, my colleague Michael Brendan Dougherty, and I had a lot to talk about yesterday, starting with CNN morning anchor Don Lemon’s bizarre and deeply misogynistic rant about Nikki Haley and women in general — “Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime. Sorry, when a woman is in their prime in 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. . . . It depends. It’s just like, prime. If you look it up — if you Google, ‘When is a woman in her prime?’ — it’ll say 20s, 30s, 40s. . . . Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just saying what the facts are. Google it. Everybody at home, when is a woman in her prime? It says 20s, 30s, and 40s.”
Lemon later offered a mealy mouthed apology that didn’t even mention Haley.
I have only been in the world of television news as a guest, and everyone I’ve interacted with has seemed sane at the time. But we, as in the general public, hear enough stories — and see enough high-profile falls from grace (e.g., Matt Lauer, Chris Cuomo) — to conclude that something about the world of television news attracts a higher-than-normal proportion of crazy people. Or perhaps those anchors start out as normal enough people. And then some combination of money, fame, long or unusual hours, a daily grind, a news environment that can change on a dime, or the pressures of live television bring out an anchor’s character flaws and pour gasoline on the smoldering embers of their worst traits.