Ethno-Narcissism is a Helluva Drug-And so is American Imperialism

So, this happened the other day:

Everyone by now has heard about the blow up between Zelensky and Trump. At first, I was shocked like everyone else, and couldn’t understand what Zelensky was doing. But then you forget things you already know sometimes and upon further reflection, there is probably something else going on here.

Zelensky has been tied to the US for so long, which is what makes his actions puzzling at first. But if you have been paying attention, it his not only his American paymasters he has to please. Zelensky was elected in Ukraine on an anti-corruption, peace platform, but his American allies notoriously pushed him away from making a deal in 2022 with Russia, and as Niccolo Soldo reminds us, such pressure almost certainly began much earlier:

I think this is correct. As people have noted, this confrontation took place near the end of a forty-eight minute conversation, which was cordial right up until the time Zelensky flipped. This performance fits in with the role Zelensky—a former actor and comedian—has been playing for years now. He’s been playing the brave defender of his country against Putin/Hitler and this is no different; it is just the characters and the scene that have changed. Zelensky had to show up Trump to prove to his supporters in Europe and Ukraine that he was still fighting for his country. As Soldo comments, this doesn’t mean he is going to reject a deal with the Americans. If he is going to accept any offer, he has to make it clear to Ukrainians that it was forced on him and that he did everything he could do to keep fighting.

The reason for this has to do with the politics of Ukraine. You are probably aware the Western part of Ukraine is culturally closer to the West, having been ruled by Poland and Austria in the past. It is also the home of some very, very hardcore Ukrainian nationalists, people who are literally Nazis in some cases, who will see any cessation of the war as a betrayal. These are the people the US supported in 2014 to overthrow the democratically elected but Russia friendly President Yanukovich and replace him with someone more amenable to American interests. Western Ukrainians hate Russia and Russians with a passion, and this, not any love for democracy, has been their primary motivation all along.

I know this because I have friends who are Ukrainians; one is a deacon in the Ukrainian Catholic, and both his and his friends social media feeds are constantly full of little else but expressions of hatred and contempt for Putin (understandably). But they seem to think the U.S. was actually committed to helping them and not attempt to bleed Russia dry for its own purposes. This seems astonishing to me at this point, but I guess hatred really does blind people to reality.

Of course, there are others who apparently took US propaganda at their word. I know some people like this too. I knew a couple back in Kansas—an American married to a very nice Ukrainian lady from Lviv—who at dinner one night at a friend’s house gave a toast to the hope that Ukraine would one day become “a normal country.” I think by that they meant a functioning democratic state, with things like the rule of law, one that was not a kleptocratic basket case. They were and are such good people, but I remember thinking at the time what a dubious hope this was. Current events have confirmed my doubts, to say the least, and it is these Westernized types who must really be in disarray right now. I see them posting screeds on Facebook by Timothy Snyder, who once upon a time was an historian and is now a meme generator for shitlib imperialism. I admit it depresses me, because I do not want to see the Ukrainians lose their country, but it is difficult to be hopeful when

Needless to say, I never discuss any of this with these friends, because there would be little point. How exactly do you tell them that your country has used them and the lives of thousands of their fellow countrymen as fodder for their design to bring Russia to heel? Or that their country will almost certainly never be a Western style democracy, since their fellow countrymen are simply too corrupt and incompetent to govern themselves? It is not a subject you broach casually to friends over Paska bread.

Lots of conservatives on the Right (well, some anyway) think Ukraine should be a neutral buffer state between Russia and the West, but I doubt there was ever much chance they would embrace this idea. After the invasion, there is none. The uber-nationalist Ukrainians would rather the whole country be destroyed than be neutral toward Russia. In a sense I don’t blame them—it is not as if Russia has a divine right to bully its neighbors—but Providence placed them next to a Great Power with no real geographic boundaries, just flat plains easy for armies to traverse, and their inability to govern themselves means they will have to suffer the influence of Russia one way or the other. There are better and worse ways to do this though, and for my friends’ sake I hope the Ukrainians find a way to do this. But I am not sanguine about their prospects.

As for the U.S. government—the Deep State, the NatSec community, whoever the hell is actually running the country—they seemingly got what they wanted, a war that drained Russia’s resources. All this in service of the goal of turning every country on earth into a friendly regime they can dictate to. It is better to be the hammer than the nail, but it is no more admirable for all that.

The world really is a cruel place in many ways.