Skibinskiy: Russia - a 'failed, mafia state' - sees Ukraine's break as 'existential threat'

(HT: NK). Here are links to two blog posts (Part 1 and Part 2) by a Russian emigre Max Skibinskiy who works in Silicon Valley.  They're long so I'm going to highlight the best parts. Here's from Part 1, about Russia today [emphasis mine]:

Russia was and is a failed state. What is seen from the outside is just a facade imitating a functional country and government. High oil prices, residual infrastructure of USSR and internal mass propaganda machine maintained the illusion for more than a decade.

[...]   In simple terms, Russia is a mafia state. All the way from Moscow to regions and to small towns, everything is controlled by various mafia gangs. Police and judiciary are parts of most powerful gangs. They usually assist in extortion or theft of property earned by local small and medium size businessmen. Big business is subject to federal mafia clan wars.

The mafia-state formation is logical consequence of Russian economy: it is totally dominated by oil and gas revenues. Oil, gas and derivatives provide meaningful employment to about 1M people. Russian population is about 150M. How do they survive? The majority depends on various forms of government handouts.

With Russian-style oil production you don’t have to think, innovate or even hire smart people. All you have to do is to cash the check. Gazprom is ranked as one of the most grossly inefficient enterprises in the world. So what happens when a small, totally incompetent minority controls country-wide oil rent while the rest of 149 million people are a burden? The answer is obvious: that 1M would create a mafia state to keep the rest of 149M in check by means of police and judiciary abuse and mass propaganda.

Russian propaganda machine is vast, it now exceeds the one of Soviet Union. 

About the degradation of the Russian population:

The population at large is, statistically speaking, not very bright. Many are deranged from overuse of alcohol or drugs.  A big number are simply aging elderly rooted in USSR-centric mindset who never adjusted to the modern world.  Most of them do not “work” in the sense we understand full-time employment here: they occupy placeholder positions sponsored by the government. Being dependent their whole life on government help, they are psychologically unable even to think government can do something wrong.

About the Russian "brand":

I think we came to the end of the line with regards to Russia as a name, culture, a global brand. For the time being the country future is destroyed, police state is well-entrenched and the narrative for the brainwashed locals would be xenophobic tale of struggle with the “West”.

And here he finally gets to Ukraine:

The differences between “Ukrainian” and “Russian” people are cosmetic. [I certainly disagree, as did many of Max's readers, and he corrected himself in Part 2, basically saying Russians come from Kievan Rus', which is historically accurate and another reason Putin doesn't want to "lose" Ukraine. - J]  The distance between Kiev and Moscow is about same as Sacramento to San Diego. Even today, after all that happened, the most likely language you will hear on the streets of Kiev is Russian. So why Kremlin was so enraged about recent Ukrainian revolution? After all Ukraine has no natural gas or oil, there were no riches to divide, what was the fuss all about?

What happened is that first time in history, large group of ethnic “Russians” had overthrown a mafia clan in a popular uprising.  Until then, Ukraine was a satellite state, and exactly because it had no natural oil and gas, much larger portion of the population had to develop “creative class” skills rather than going to work for oil company or police enforcement. Then suddenly this social group had enough heft and popular power to overthrow local mafia don.

You can imagine the amount of terror it produced in the gang occupying Kremlin right now.  If was and still is an extensional threat to them, hence they pulled out all the stops to overthrow or destabilize a new government in Kiev, and at the same time whip out xenophobic mass-hysteria in a local population.

At this moment, Kremlin can not really stop. If Kiev government survives, it will fairly quickly unlock economic benefits of non-mafia, free economy. The large parasitic class living by bribes and extortion will be displaced: it will have the same effect as if base tax rate would suddenly drop by a double digit percentage. Next door, progressive Russians would quickly notice and spread information about growing prosperity and opportunity in a city next door. What was half million Euro-leaning progressives, would become a million, then few million: before long you can picture a Gaddafi-style demise for the Kremlin gang.

Kremlin is fighting for its own survival: supplying weapon system and military crew to a roaming criminal gangs [in Ukraine] is nothing for them in big scheme of things.

And here's what Silicon Valley can do to help Ukraine:

• Help Ukraine. They have terrific outsourcing shops and consulting firms. Send them business if you can. Recent revolution would unlock even more creative force in this economically modest, yet energetic country. They are the first large group of ethnic “Russians” who become free on their own power and valor. To understand the scale of that achievement, here is the last group of Russians who were not ruled by khans, czars, communist chairmans or KGB generals: Free Novgorod Republic. That was over 1000 years go. Ukraine was a cradle of Russian civilization – they might become a source of its rebirth yet again.

• Boycott anything and everything related to Russian government and associated banks and corporations. Any business you send to them only strengthen the regime. Your contract dollars will pay for next Buk missile.

Then in Part 2, here is what Max says about Ukrainians's and Russians' common heritage:

Ukrainian side, deservedly, had a lot of critique for calling Ukrainians “ethnic Russians”. It was interpreted as usual Russian chauvinism rejecting Ukrainian identity, language and rights as a sovereign nation. Ouch.

My apologies to Ukrainians. From a historical perspective I was referring to, the article would be unchanged if I were to say “Russia is populated by ethnic Ukrainians from Kievan-Rus“. inosmi.ru did astute and very subtle translation as “Russich”, which precisely the meaning I was trying to convey. Keep in mind, there is no English word I know for “Russich”, and if one exists, I’m sure last person around here who knew it left after he locked gates at Fort Ross after himself.

In Part 2, here's his take on economic sanctions against Russia:

At the same time, make no mistake: current Russian’s regime is ruthless, efficient and fully in control. It not going to change soon, especially with 81% popularity rating. It has no obvious weaknesses besides potential economic collapse from sanctions (and still would take 10 to 20 months  and resulting political change that might not be for the better at all). The ruling elite is not considering Russia their homeland: it is occupied territory with captive native population to be exploited for monetary gain which is to be squirreled away overseas. If country and it’s people would be irrevocably ruined by the process so be it: the elite and their children will just permanently move their European residences.

That is the key problem that makes sanctions such a blunt and imprecise weapon: until they include all extended families of the corrupt Russian government-industrial complex officials they are toothless.  If they do include them (and assets registered in the name of *all* their relatives) it will have big negative impact on EU/UK economy, and it becomes equivalent of nuclear weapon against Russian ruling class: they will have absolutely nothing to loose [sic], the whole purpose of their life (Western wealth) would be wiped out in an instant. In general, it is not a smart move to put a nuclear-armed power in that position.

And on how Kiev's techies are smarter than Moscow's:

Kiev is a cosmopolitan European capital with good climate and great people. Unlike Moscow, it much less infected with toxic poison of oil and gas revenues – here you got to work to make your fortune. I observed many times that when it comes to cutting edge technologies Ukranian and Kiev teams are far ahead of Russia as whole – and Russia is a pretty big place! The reason is simple: Kiev teams already compete, learn and grown on the world level – they wouldn’t get any contracts otherwise. Russian teams always have a fallback to easy low-competency contracts driven by oil and gas: they have much less pressure to become exceptionally good. That how global technology competition works.

No Russian (Part 1)

Posted by Max

July 20, 2014 | The Vault of the Future

URL: http://skibinsky.com/no-russian/

No Russian (Part 2)

July 25, 2014

URL: http://skibinsky.com/no-russian-2/

Cato: Beware proxy wars

Here's a Cato Institute scholar saying what I've already said, but since the messenger matters to conservatives as much as the message....

The danger of America's 'proxy war'

By Erica D. Borghard

August 14, 2013 | CNN

The past few months have been difficult for the Syrian rebels as government forces, bolstered by Iranian support and Hezbollah fighters, have routed anti-Assad fighters around Damascus and Homs. However, recent reports suggest Syria’s rebels have successfully seized the key Minakh air base in Aleppo and are orchestrating a push to challenge Bashar al-Assad’s control of Latakia, a regime stronghold. If the rebels can consolidate these reported gains, it would certainly suggest a shift in momentum.

Yet the seesawing dynamic of the Syrian civil war suggests that these advances are likely to prove fleeting, and U.S. policymakers should not point to them as evidence that the Obama administration’s decision to arm the rebels represents sound policy. In fact, providing arms to the Syrian rebels is unlikely to decisively tip the scales to their advantage. As I argued in a recent Cato Institute paper, the United States is instead likely to be dragged into a more extensive involvement later – the very scenario advocates for intervention claim they are trying to avoid.

Waging war by proxy, whereby states provide nonstate groups with arms and other resources in exchange for fighting on the former’s behalf, is an attractive policy option for states when they are hesitant to use force directly. In this case, the Obama administration’s decision to arm the Syrian rebels is taking place in a broader context of American retrenchment and public wariness about extensive foreign interventions.

Advocates of arming the Syrian rebels claim that U.S. policy objectives in Syria can be achieved at a relatively low cost without forcing the United States to commit to a large-scale intervention. However, the very aspects of proxy warfare that appeal to states – their covert, indirect and informal nature – also create the conditions for unwarranted commitment by states to conflicts.

First, the United States could become locked into a path of increasing involvement in the Syrian conflict through the institutional incentives that are present in covert operations. While the White House publicly announced on June 13 that the U.S. government was initiating a program of lethal support to the Syrian rebels, it was in fact already authorized under current covert operations law. Accordingly, the president can authorize covert action, provided he or she informs congressional intelligence committees, and is not required to make the nature of the operation known to the public.

What this means is that the specific parameters of the U.S. intervention in Syria remain vague and underspecified.

The secrecy surrounding aid to the Syrian rebels creates a real risk that the U.S. could get locked into even greater commitments in Syria later. Delegating authority for alliance management to bureaucrats, the CIA in the case of Syria, and providing them with a broad and ill-defined mandate to execute policies, impinges on political leaders’ abilities to use threats to influence the behavior of their nonstate allies. Specifically, proxies will not take threats to withhold or moderate support seriously if the political leaders making the threats cannot rein in the individuals responsible for executing them.

Second, the United States could get trapped in an over-commitment in Syria through erroneous understandings of credibility and reputation. The fact is that despite claims by some policymakers, U.S. credibility is not at stake in Syria. The idea that Obama’s failure to adequately support the rebels would undermine the administration’s reputation for resolve in other arenas is misguided because Syria does not threaten core U.S. national security interests. Other states assess credibility based on a state’s power and interests in the issue at hand, on a case-by-case basis, rather than past behavior. Iran, for example, should not infer from Obama’s actions in Syria that the United States would not stand firm with regard to its nuclear program.

The rebels’ military vulnerability exacerbates these two problems. Their military deficiencies raise the question of what the United States should do if they are still unable to achieve and maintain pivotal military gains on the ground after receiving U.S. arms. As it becomes apparent that U.S.-backed rebels cannot complete the job, the United States will be tempted to escalate its involvement in the civil war to achieve its political objectives.

One thing should be clear: the United States should not have initiated a program to provide arms to the Syrian rebels. If our government is not careful, it will get sucked into an even deeper – and extremely costly – international commitment.

Elite 'liberal' media slants toward war in Syria

Lately, I've been posting op-eds and editorials from the "liberal" Washington Post about Syria because it shows how strong is the consensus of Left-Right elite opinion in America that the U.S. Government must be actively involved and "leading" in every conflict zone in the world, but especially in the Middle East.  

The good news is, 70 percent of Americans oppose the U.S. sending weapons to Syria's "good" rebels.  Only 20 percent favor it.  

Whereas elite U.S. opinion makers believe that President Obama should "lead" on Syria, which is elite-speak for "ignore public opinion." 

Some opinion elites might argue that 80 percent of Americans doesn't really understand what's at stake in Syria.  But the onus is on them -- and President Obama, if he wants to get the U.S. military involved -- to explain to us what's at stake.  Myself I have been following developments there and I cannot say what vital U.S. interests are at stake in Syria.  Sure, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are supporting Assad, but if Assad prevails, then they will have only paid dearly in materiel and diplomatic face to preserve the status quo ante.  As noted CNN/Time's Fareed Zakaria, one of the few "big thinkers" on foreign policy in the mainstream media:

Contrary to much of the media commentary, the fact that Iran and Hezbollah are sending militias, arms, and money into Syria is not a sign of strength. It is a sign that they are worried that the Syrian regime might fall and are desperately seeking to shore it up. Keeping them engaged and pouring resources into Syria weakens them substantially.

Unlike Iran and Hezbollah, Russia might yet enjoy the additional moral satisfaction of having publicly stood up to America and gotten its way, but so what? Let Russia choose its battles; we'll choose ours.  

Even if we believe some of our interests are at stake in Syria, we now understand too well the potential for sectarian war, U.S. escalation, and eventual terrorist blowback in our faces.  So far, the costs of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan have far outweighed any benefits.  And two years after Gadhafi's death and NATO intervention, Libya is a tribal-sectarian basketcase.  Why should Syria be any different?    

Some pundits are still trying their best to convince us.  For example, WaPo's Jim Hoagland actually warned us, quoting an unnamed French diplomat, "that a loss of U.S. credibility in Syria will encourage Iran to intensify its quest for nuclear weapons."  Really?  If we don't get involved in Syria then Iran will develop nuclear weapons?  Gimme a break!

This argument is the last refuge of neoconservative scoundrels.  Think what he's saying: the U.S. must lead in every instance or forfeit its right to lead in necessary instances.  This is the road to empire, overreach and collapse.

Hoagland's main cheapshot argument is that Obama is worried about his presidential legacy: Obama wants to be known for getting us out of two wars, not starting a third one in Syria.  But even if it's true, what's so wrong with that?  

It's too bad Hoagland and the Washington Post's editorial board don't read the Washington Post's news section:

The difference this time is that the mobilization [of foreign fighters] has been stunningly rapid — what took six years to build in Iraq at the height of the U.S. occupation may have accumulated inside Syria in less than half that.

For Syria's neighbors, the conflict in Syria has become a Sunni-Shia regional war by proxy.  And the U.S. is injecting itself into this sectarian divide, taking the Sunnis' side... that incidentally includes al-Qaeda.

Next, let's take the "liberal" New York Times' Thomas Friedman, America's biggest "big thinker" on foreign policy, (God help us).  In his latest op-ed, Friedman gives two options for U.S. actions in Syria.  Conspicuously, not arming the rebels is not one of those options.  This is how elite opinion-makers do their black magic: they give a sense of inevitability to U.S. military action. 

Friedman actually describes the "idealist approach" to Syria (option #2) as putting U.S. boots on the ground and doing another Iraq debacle, er, occupation.  This is what "idealists" want in Tom Friedman's mind!  Who are these people?!

Next, for the record let's note that the "liberal" Chicago Tribune also supports America's arming Syria's "good" rebels.  But the Tribune holds onto the very slim hope that those arms will force a stalemate and Syria's President Assad to the negotiating table.  (I should note that the Tribune's owner, McClatchy Newspapers, has been doing excellent reporting on Syria.)

Likewise the "liberal" Boston Globe also agrees with President Obama's decision to arm Syria's rebels, although it urges mommy-like "caution" and "care" in doing so: "Now you be careful playing with those guns, rebels!  Don't shoot at anybody who doesn't shoot at your first.  And remember, we're not giving these weapons to you because we hate Shiites; and don't give them to terrorists!"  Pathetic.     

Some of you may say I'm getting too worked up about a few U.S. weapons to Syria.  Maybe so.  Maybe this is a classic Obama maneuver: appearing to do something while actually doing nothing.  According to the New York Times, "Mr. Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome, but privately expressed hope it might buy time to bring about a negotiated settlement."

However, once he involves the U.S. and puts his and our nation's credibility on the line, President Obama will be under immense international pressure and pressure from Congress to turn the tide against Assad's forces.  Then he (we) could be "dragged into an escalating level of support: from light arms to anti-tank weapons to a no-fly zone and so on" ... and so forth, up to putting U.S. boots on the ground -- the "idealist" outcome for the Friedmanites, but the nightmare scenario for Americans.

For admirable lessons on U.S. military restraint vis-a-vis Syria (and Iran), you have to look past the major U.S. newspapers and read stuff like...Daniel Larison at The American Conservative.  

I know, I know, these are strange times....

Lib'rul media hawks squawk for war with Syria

Not one but two op-eds today in the "liberal" Washington Post urge the U.S. to get involved militarily in Syria.  Wow. 

Columnist Richard Cohen's calling liberals against military intervention in Syria "cold-hearted" is like Charles Krauthammer calling conservatives a bunch of "bleeding hearts."  That landed below the belt.  

Well, now we see once again how the good ole' lib'rul media ain't so liberal when it comes to sending U.S. troops and weapons into Arab-Muslim countries.  Then they're all blood & guts, John McCain style.

Let me repeat: Syria is not our country, it is a sovereign state.  It hasn't attacked us.  There are no UN resolutions allowing us to take military action there, legally.  The U.S. Congress has not declared war on Syria.  And it's a country filled with nasty people on all sides.  Oh, and if we arm the other side, the first thing that will happen is the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists will kill the other "liberal" rebels.  Or they'll do so immediately after they (we) topple Assad.

Moreover, Russia really cares about Syria.  They have a naval base there.  It's their last position of power in the Mideast.  They are willing to fight hard to keep Assad in power.  Are we?  Are we ready for a proxy war with Russia?  What's in it for us?  Nothing.  This is not to mention Turkey, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and other regional countries' interests there.  The spillover potential is immense.  

Significantly, Israel is taking a cautious approach to Syria in their own back yard.  Although Assad is aligned with Iran and Iran-backed Hizballah, many Israelis favor Assad as "the devil we know," and according to Time, "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered government officials to keep mum about Syria."  Of course Israel may just be waiting for the U.S. to make up its mind....  

Don't let the media wear you down on Assad and Syria like they did with Saddam and Iraq!  All this talk by liberal hawks about the U.S. "squandering its leadership" is just that -- talk.  This is all France and Britain's fault, high off the toppling of Qaddafi in Libya, they thought they could make the same thing happen in Libya.  Now it's their problem.  Obama is absolutely right not to make it ours.  

And finally, remember the "Pottery Barn rule:" the same chickenhawks typing at their Macs in Washington, DC today that we have no choice but to get involved in a war in Syria will be the same ones typing tomorrow that we have no choice but to take responsibility for Syria's nation-building, peacekeeping and anti-terrorist operations after Assad has been "taken out."  I guaran-fucking-tee it.  We've been there, done that, folks.  Forget it! 

If we really want to help, we can continue to aid Syrian refugees and send food, medicine and flak jackets to Syrians stuck inside. 

UPDATE (06.08.2013):  Here's another great analysis by McClatchy describing the wonderful folks whom the McCains, Grahams, Krauthhamers, et al want to give U.S. weapons and airpower in Syria: "Analysts: Foreign militant Islamists streaming into Syria to face Hezbollah."

UPDATE (06.17.2013):  Just to make it perfectly clear that they're not satisfied with half measures, the neoconservative Editorial Board at the "liberal" Washington Post called President Obama's decision to send "limited" arms supplies to Syria's rebels too little, too late: "U.S. intervention in Syria must be robust."  They want Obama to give the rebels anti-tank rockets and anti-aircraft systems because "the war in Syria threatens U.S. vital interests -- from the fight against al-Qaeda to the security of Israel."

Cold-hearted liberals have abandoned Syria

By Richard Cohen

June 4, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/17Udsf6

The U.S. has tragically misplayed Syria

By Michael Gerson

June 4, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/17Uh155