Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: A Ukrainian news slowdown does not mean peace
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Greg Sargent/WaPo:
The real reason Lauren Boebert wants to cancel Mickey Mouse
In the right-wing populist imagination, this [government protection] enabled Disney to oppose a law that most parents support, and insert pro-gay material into content — while remaining insulated from punishment at the hands of the market via, say, customer boycotts.
And so, these right-wingers see ending such privileges as key to exposing Disney to the harsh realities of actual public opinion about its wokeness. As [Samuel Hammond of the Niskanen Center] put it, this is really an effort to weaken Disney’s economic shield in “the culture war,” making them more vulnerable to customer backlash.
This is what Boebert is really up to in attempting to cancel Mickey Mouse.
The ‘next pivotal battle’ in Ukraine? Sloviansk, military analysts say.
Russian success in capturing the Luhansk and Donetsk regions — two areas where there has been intense fighting between Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatists since 2014 — may hinge on its ability to capture Sloviansk, a city of 111,000 about 400 miles east of the capital, Kyiv.
Phillips P. O’Brien/Twitter:
Reflections on the state of the war, attrition, atrocity and why Russia is heading for an even greater disaster than expected (and I wrote from the start I didnt see how they could win this war)–all compounded by their own choices which are speeding up their army’s dissolution.
We start with the mathematics of war and Russian loss rates. Best to focus on vehicles (large, easier to count, photographic evidence) and there we turn to the excellent @oryxspioenkop who has listed those with pictures attesting to loss.
With not all the losses of the last few days listed, the Russian minimum losses are 391 Tanks, 255 Armored Fighting Vehicles, 375 infantry fighting vehicles, 81 Armoured Personnel carriers, etc.
Justin Hendrix/Just Security:
Ukraine May Mark A Turning Point in Documenting War Crimes
Accountability, though, requires evidence. The collection and preservation of digital media and other evidentiary material in Ukraine is a massive undertaking. It is being met by brave Ukrainian officials and local civil society groups operating in besieged cities and towns, as well as by an international coalition of human rights, open source intelligence and digital forensics researchers. This loose coalition is drawing strength from relationships formed with one another and lessons learned while investigating past conflicts, including in Syria, Yemen, Myanmar and elsewhere.
The ongoing effort in Ukraine, then, can be seen as part of an evolution – or a maturation – of an expanding community of volunteers and professionals gathering user-generated evidence and open source intelligence. It may also represent a crucial test of whether the evidence produced by these methods can play a substantial role in securing convictions.
James Siebens/War On The Rocks:
IS RUSSIA’S INVASION A CASE OF COERCIVE DIPLOMACY GONE WRONG?
Rather than interpreting the invasion as proof of Putin’s revanchist ambitions, or of secret plans to conquer the former-Soviet “near-abroad” by force, policymakers, analysts, and other observers should consider an alternate hypothesis: that Putin intended, and indeed expected, to achieve his political aims merely by presenting a highly credible threat. As Charles Michel, the president of the European Council aptly put it, Putin was attempting to commit “geopolitical terrorism,” holding Ukraine hostage in order to coerce its leaders, the United States, and NATO to meet his political demands. The invasion may have been the cruel consequence of Putin’s failed coercive diplomacy, and evidence of an inept strategist at the helm of the Russian state.
Scott MacFarlane with his latest Jan 6 committee summary.
Daniel Drezner/WaPo:
When national conservatives flail at foreign policy
Natcons have not handled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine terribly well.
In bashing the Iraq war and then winning the GOP nomination, Trump’s biting critique of the Iraq war in particular and neoconservative foreign policy pronouncements in general caused a sea change in GOP discourse. Trump’s worldview was grounded in more reactionary, nationalist, Jacksonian impulses. Sometimes this meant a more dovish approach toward U.S. adversaries, although just as often it meant acting unilaterally and/or incoherently, since Trump’s national security team was not always on board with his policies.
This has left the GOP’s foreign policy discourse in something of a mess. A motley crew of paleoconservatives, traditional conservatives, right-wing economic populists, and Trump grifters have attempted to reorient Republican foreign policy toward their more insular worldview. They have partially succeeded in areas like trade and immigration.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, it appears that national conservatives have met their own version of the war in Iraq. Many of them pooh-poohed the idea of a war occurring prior to the invasion, and many others pooh-poohed the very idea of Ukrainian statehood. Even after the invasion began, some Republicans defended Vladimir Putin while sympathizers of national conservatism argued that the war itself did not undercut the ideas animating their movement.
Five weeks later, polling shows most Americans oppose Putin’s invasion of its sovereign neighbor. Americans support U.S. efforts to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, helped in no small part by Ukraine proving to be more stalwart on the battlefield than many expected (due in no small part to assistance from NATO countries). At the same time Americans want to avoid a wider war with Russia. In other words, the mass American public is pretty prudent.
In response, national conservatives are left… well, sounding pretty weird to be honest.
Thomas Zimmer/Twitter:
On the Trumpian Right, where all the energy in the Republican Party is, there can be no moderation, no acceptance of democratic political culture. There can only ever be escalation in what they see as a life-and-death struggle against “Un-American” enemies – without and within.
The notion that these people are just cynical opportunists who will say whatever they think gets them elected is dangerously flawed both analytically and political. Analytically, it ignores the fact that ideology always circumscribes and defines the realm of opportunity.Of course there is a good measure of opportunism involved, but what’s on display here is also a manifestation of deeply held ideological convictions. It’s white nationalist ideology and opportunism reinforcing each other in dangerous ways.