The Weekly Distillation No.63
War; Worldviews; Web3; Putin's Restraint; Justice; Lent
Photo of Kharkiv, Ukraine. Friday March 4th 2022.
This newsletter is written for entrepreneurial leaders who want to learn about the moment we are living in but don’t have time to read broadly; who want to grasp the key themes; and who want to create better ways of advancing their mission. The Weekly Distillation covers a broad range of topics with the intent to curate the key narratives of the week, how they fit the broader themes of society and to pose questions that help you to think deeper on the application in your context. You can read more about the key themes I see here.
People once said……..
“On the no fly-zone, it was mentioned. At the same time, Allies agree that we should not have NATO planes operating over Ukrainian airspace, or NATO troops on Ukrainian territory.” - Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO - Fri March 4th
“He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined … Putin was wrong. We were ready.” - US President Biden
“The Prime Minister said the reckless actions of President Putin could now directly threaten the safety of all of Europe. He said the UK would do everything it could to ensure the situation did not deteriorate further.” - Gov.UK website summarising a call between the UK Prime Minster & Ukrainian President Zelensky.
“And you, my friends, shall be acquainted / By me, with all that history: / A grievous record it will be.” - Alexander Pushkin, The Bronze Horseman
"For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." - JFK
“The potential of crypto to shield a murderous dictator from the full impacts of international opprobrium will be used to rebut any arguments against stricter crypto regulation” - Michele Alt, Klaros Group
Skim it in a minute
When our worldviews come up short and people die
Photo by Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash
I didn’t grow up in a faith tradition that followed Lent. One of the consequences of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago is that it eschewed many things that involved the senses (although the stain glass windows seemed to be ok) and structures (man should be free to practise religion without any pongs, payment, process or Pope) and Lent seemed to fit into that bracket, along with Christian calendars etc. So the beginning of Lent has meant little to me in recent years. This week though I’ve found myself reflecting on what it was meant for. It covers the 40 days prior to Easter, historically it was a time for people to reflect on their own need for Easter, to mourn at their own brokenness and that of the world, to prepare themselves for the coming redemption.
Regardless of your perspectives on religion, we have lost something in failing to reflect on evil and brokenness. The arrival of Putin’s army in Ukraine and the devastation it is laying down is a clear expression of evil. And here is where the worldviews of the West get beyond an academic argument and into whether children live or die.
The narrative of the left since the war in Ukraine has been to reinforce the core narrative of the average, or oppressed / subjugated, person is inherently good but is constrained by inequitable systems and privilege. Therefore, the problem is those in power (Putin et al in Russia) not the Russian people. The Ukrainian people are all good and are heroes and do no evil. Evil doesn’t exist and Putin (and the Russian leaders) need to hand power to the people and then all will be well. Russian mothers are crying for their children. Russians don’t want this war. Russian soldiers are hungry, confused and don’t want to fight the Ukrainians. If we provide weapons, clothing, money to Ukraine, and give them all the tools we can, the Ukrainian people will overcome. Sanctions will work, the pressure will grow from the population and Putin will be forced to withdraw.
The narrative of the right is to accept that this is a tragedy. However, it’s not our tragedy and we have to be careful that we don’t blow it out of proportion. We have our own problems to deal with. We give each person opportunity but it’s up to them what to do with it. It’s not our fight. We’re good and they (Russians) are bad. Let’s be goodies. As long as they don’t attack us, they can do whatever they want in their back yard. Putin is a madman but we’re not going to war over it. Evil is over there, not over here. We’re interested in what matters for us.
When the left says that man is basically good and that systems are the problem, I give you Putin and every Russian soldier that shelled Mariupol and Kharkiv this week. When the right says that there might be evil but only in others and the key is to create liberty and then justice to go with it, I say really? When we stand by and watch children dying because we value our lives more than theirs? I was brought up to believe that all lives matter. Yes, we’re hypocritical and we have ignored many other wars. But this is now.
The left’s narrative will be crushed by the evil of shelling of residences and driving tanks through 60 year old Ukrainians in the TDF with AK47s who have never fired a weapon in their life but are up against battle-hardened mercenaries from Wagner PMC. Both sides will commit horrors. Ukrainian Special Forces are already threatening to kill and gut any captured Russian artillery men, a clear war crime. (I’m not arguing moral equivalence for Ukraine & Russia here, there is clearly an aggressor and a defender).
The right’s narrative will be crushed in the face of Putin continuing to march through country after country over time. It will fall in the face of compassion that we are already seeing in the West on the streets. It will fall in the face of tales of compassion and kindness demonstrated by some Russian soldiers. It will fall in the face of a dictator who looks at a West offering liberty without force and realises it can be replaced with an authoritarian kleptocracy by force. With every child that is blown apart, every grandparent murdered, every bomb that is dropped on a residential area, the ‘it’s not our fight’ gets weaker. Self interest without empathy, in the face of a dictator ends up badly.
Listen to what chess master Kasparov says in this thread (click through and read the whole thing, it’s gold):
Why do we believe this is not heading to another 1962? Is Russia really more powerful now than when JFK faced off against Kruschev? Do we really believe Putin is more likely to attack than Kruschev was? Or can we be honest with ourselves and say that Ukraine has no strategic value, isn’t in NATO, and our lives and worth more to us than their lives, and politically we will not enter this war?
From the former PM of Finalnd:
I remember visiting Pearl Harbor once and the tour guide telling me how the Americans saved the world (twice) and they won WW2. I didn’t point out the 20m Russians that died to win WW2 but I did point out that because of the internal debate they were having, the US didn’t turn up until 1941, 2 years after the war started and even then only because Japan attacked them. Is history repeating itself? Will America (and the UK) stay out of this war until it can’t, until public opinion moves and until they are attacked? It seems not an impossibility to see that scenario play out.
Putin’s restraint suggests he’s not losing this war at all
The Western media narrative this week on the military front appears to be 1) Ukraine is winning 2) Putin has over-reached and 3) if we keep going we can defeat him. I’ve been reading this and then looking at the maps.
Russia started pre-war with solely presence in Luhansk and Donetsk. And yes, the map above suggests total control between roads and cities where none might exist but it does capture a broad picture. Russia is winning in the South clearly, it now appears to have momentum in the East, and although it is paused in the North this surely is temporary.
The Southern front (Kherson, Melitipol, Mariupol) seems to be falling to the Russians one front at a time. Odesa is next on the list. The Eastern front is brutal but that is where the Ukrainian’s had their biggest deployment of forces and where they expected the attack. The NW attack seems to be turning inwards at pace towards Kiev. The one that everyone focuses on, the 40 mile convoy North of Kiev is stalled - and the narrative is it is out of fuel, soldiers are deserting, there is no food.
If Putin is stuck, out of fuel, out of options and out of money, why has he shown relative restraint? There is belief amongst military analysts that Russia’s military doctrine has long included ‘escalate to de-escalate’. So introduce a smaller (tactical) nuclear weapon, use it and then open the door for peace talks. Russia has 10* the number of these nukes than the US. Two missiles and Kiev is gone and Odessa is gone. War over. So why has Putin been so restrained if he thinks he is losing, as the Western media narrative makes out? The military doctrine of Russia states that nuclear weapons can be used “in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.” Haven’t we met that threshold? The provision of missiles and small arms from the West is definitely getting closer to an interpretation of it.
On top of nukes there are chemical weapons, biological weapons, flat out carpet bombing from the air, greater use of cruise missiles, and the shelling of Kiev to flatten it. None of these have happened yet. This doesn’t feel like a plan that is a lost cause for him yet.
One ex-General this week said that "when it comes to peace negotiations, what you have you tend to hold”. So strategically, Russia’s focus on the South allows 1) a bridge to Crimea 2) turning Ukraine into a landlocked country 3) ensuring multiple warm water ports for Russia (a major issue as so much of their coastline freezes in the winter, not good for a large navy) 4) a basing point for attacks into Moldova and Romania.
The French believe that it could get much worse in Ukraine in coming days and that seems valid. Either Putin wins, or Putin flattens everything and wins.
The re-writing of the European project is not enough
I sat with my children over dinner yesterday, with a world map in front of us and some pieces from Risk to play out the movements of Russia since 2008 - Georgia, Syria, Crimea and now Ukraine (let alone what it has done to divide the West in that period). What Putin has done - the decision by Germany to add £84bn to its defence budget and start exporting weapons to a conflict zone for, I believe, the first time since WW2 is unbelievable. There is talk of Finland and Sweden maybe joining NATO. Ukraine, Moldova & Georgia apply to join the EU (perhaps opportunistically). 1m people have fled the country in a week. Russia’s economy is in freefall and oligarchs are losing presence and assets in the West. Hungary fell into line with the EU very quickly. The reshaping of Europe politically, militarily and economically is phenomenal.
And yet. Children are dying.
What next?
There will be no multi-year war for Putin. The opening of peace talks has already signified that and sanctions mean he can’t afford it. The strategy (ignoring what surely is disinformation from the Belarussian President from his picture showing the map of past and future attack points) appears to be 1) Secure Eastern Ukraine 2) Connect the South (which requires taking Odessa) 3) Drive North through Dnipro up the Dnepr to divide the nation and surround 1/2 of Ukraine 4) Capture key cities 5) offer peace in exchange for a puppet regime, financial compensation, neutral to NATO and a reduced or demobilised armed forces. The BBC wrote a piece on 5 scenarios as to how the war might end. In their terminology, a short war followed by European war seem the two most likely scenarios, with a very fine line between them.
What next for Putin? When the West claims victory for Putin’s withdrawal (it was our sanctions wot won it says the headline in the tabloids), and sanctions are gradually lifted to ease suffering on the ‘ordinary’ Russian people, Putin can begin to build again for the next assault. And the next. And the next. Kasparov is right. If you stand off him now, you either hope for 1) a coup (Russia has a long track record of willingly living under worse people than Putin) and this seems high on Western leaders playbook right now 2) Putin to die (some way off it seems) 3) the general population to overthrow him (will never happen).
India & China are standing on the sidelines, with Brazil condemning Russia but also being very careful to reassure it of its long-term commitment and friendship. Three major current or future powers and all not aligning with the West.
Why do you think the geopolitical risk will get better in the long term?
Web 3 & War
When we get into worldviews and tech, most of it is either super left (bring justice) or super libertarian (leave us alone). The Web3 advocate purists have been having their own existential crisis this week, with crypto companies refusing to allow Russians to use their apps e.g. Metamask denying access to wallets. So either it is decentralised and Governments can’t shut it down, or the whole thing is a joke? It’s not that simple and companies like Metamask get that. Here’s some of the Web3 stories that caught my eye this week:
Some people thought they could spin up a DAO to send money to buy arms in Ukraine and were surprised when told this wasn’t allowed
Why you’re better donating to the Red Cross than sending Bitcoin
The Web3 world thinks its clever to set out how to get around the impact of sanctions via crypto
The rise of the DAO - better than crowdfunding sites?
The launch of the Unchain fund
A crowdsourced list of how to help Ukrainians based on which country you are in
Thanks for reading. May a heart for justice be greater than our own desire for self-interest.