In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

In yesterday's post, I noted that the US has an open-ended commitment to aid Ukraine based not just on a goal of securing its pre-2014 borders, but on a vaguely expressed additional objective that embraces preventing Russia from being able to re-invade in the future -- although this must also imply changing Russia itself in some fundamental way, which Anne Applebaum, an ally of Secretary Blinken, explains. This will inevitably involve remaking the global political and military order in a way comparable to the Congress of Vienna, Versailles, or Yalta/Potsdam. In fact, looking at circumstances from that perspective, it appears that Russia's decline as a major power has already rendered Potsdam and its consequences obsolete. Resolving the dilemma will be expensive, and expensive at a world war level. I assume that Secretaries Blinken and Austin see the problem from specific diplomatic and military perspectives, but I would also guess that if pressed, they would say that evalua...

I've kept returning to Anne Applebaum's Atlantic piece that I linked Tuesday, The Russian Empire Must Die . Let's keep in mind that this wasn't written by a raving right-winger; it was published in almost the most prestigious of establishment outlets (I don't know if she shopped it to Foreign Affairs ) and written by a fully formed, fully vetted member of the liberal Democrat establishment with credentials comparable to, say, Secretary Blinken, who is currently following policies with goals that, while not as clearly expressed, are at least congruent with those Ms Applebaum outlines in her essay. Her argument is clear: Ideas move across time and space, sometimes in unexpected ways. The notion that a country should be different—differently ruled, differently organized—can come from old books, from foreign travel, or just from its citizens’ imaginations. At the height of the Russian empire, in the 19th century, under the rule of some of the most ponderous a...

Yahoo links, somewhat misleadingly, a strange paper in which the authors argue that Malthusianism governs the destiny of life in the universe. NASA scientists have explained in a new paper why they believe it’s likely we haven’t ever encountered intelligent extraterrestrial life — and it’s heartbreaking. Curious, I went to the paper itself . The lead author, Jonathan H Jiang , is a "principal scientist" (whatever that means) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with degrees including a PhD in fields related to astrophysics. This is a field that, like linguistics, seems to be dominated by wild speculation, so that's red flag number one. Number two is that, although he's the lead author, his co-authors include Philip E. Rosen , who is listed as an "independent researcher" in Vancouver, WA but is elsewhere listed as "retired"; Kelly Lu , a member of the class of 2024 at Santa Margarita Catholic High School; Kristen A. Fahy , a member of the Tropos...

I keep thinking about George Kennan's 1946 Long Telegram , which formed the basis for the consensus US Soviet policy up to the Reagan administration. One of his major conclusions in the telegram, though, is questionable in long term perspective, although it was justifiable in 1946 with Stalin still in power. At best, it was long delayed and not the result of individual transfer of power: Success of Soviet system, as form of internal power, is not yet finally proven. It has yet to be demonstrated that it can survive supreme [test] of successive transfer of power from one individual or group to another. Lenin's death was first such transfer, and its effect wracked Soviet state for 15 years[. . . .] Stalin's death or retirement will be second. But even this will not be final test. Soviet internal system will now be subjected, by virtue of recent territorial expansions, to series of additional strains which once proved severe tax on Tsardom. Kennan wasn't an advocate ...

The least-noticed development of the midterm elections' aftermath is this one: Former US President George W. Bush will hold a public conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky next week with the aim of underscoring the importance of the US continuing to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia https://t.co/aI0uXJt4sX — CNN International (@cnni) November 11, 2022 CNN continues at greater length in a story : The Struggle for Freedom event will take place on Wednesday, in partnership with the Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy, at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. This will be the first public discussion between Zelensky – whose participation will be virtual – and the former president, following a private meeting they had earlier this year. After that initial meeting Bush called Zelensky the “Winston Churchill of our time.” Both Dubya and his father have scrupulously followed the traditional protocol whereby former presidents main...

The Institute for the Study of War, normally a snoozer on my list of sites to visit, gave me a surprising flash of insight in last night's summation of the Ukraine war : A pro-war Russian ideologist, Alexander Dugin, openly criticized Putin — whom he referred to as the autocrat — for failing to uphold Russian ideology by surrendering Kherson City on November 12. Dugin said this Russian ideology defines Russia’s responsibility to defend “Russian cities” such as Kherson, Belgorod, Kursk, Donetsk, and Simferopol. Dugin noted that an autocrat has a responsibility to save his nation all by himself or face the fate of “king of the rains,” a reference to Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough in which a king was killed because he was unable to deliver rain amidst a drought. I hadn't thought of Frazer in decades. I ran into him in graduate school, a 19th century bourgeois optimist along the line of Hegel, Darwin, or Carlyle, a distinctly minor figure, but the trope was so intriguing ...

One of my favorite films of all time is The Big Short . My sixth sense tells me it's time to short Elon Musk, and at the end of yesterday's post, I began to muse on how his kids (who apparently owe him very little) might lock in their inheritance in the event he dies a pauper. Of those, one died in infancy, and another, Vivian, changed their name based on "gender identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form." This would make Vivian an unlikely candidate for the strategy I have in mind. But if the others can get their act together, they need to approach Dad in a body and propose jointly that each has a reasonable expectation of $xx,xxx,xxx inheritance at the time of Dad's demise. (Among other things, they would need to engage serious financial analysts as well as estate attorneys in determining this amount.) However, given Dad's recent record, there appears to be a significant chan...