Gleb Pavlovskiy On Putin, Obama & Trump

On December 7, I moseyed on down to Yale to listen to Gleb Pavlovskiy discuss, "The Future of Containment: The Gap Between the Real and Imagined Possibilities in Russian-American Relations in the Age of Trump”.

Pavlovskiy is Professor, State University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia); President, Effective Policy Foundation (Russia).  Born in 1951, Pavlovskiy became a dissident in the 1970s and, in 1982, was sentenced to three years of internal exile for anti-Soviet activities. From 1996 through 2011 he served as a consultant to the Kremlin, working for Yeltsin, Putin and Dimtry Medvedev.  For the April 2016 edition of Foreign Affairs he wrote an article  (well-worth reading) expounding on his theory of the Russian sistema under Putin.

Pavlovsky bears some physical resemblance to Mikhael Gorbachev.  The presentation and Q&A was in Russian (spoken by at least 2/3 of the 16 attendees), with followup translation so I may have lost some of the nuance.  The summary is in two parts; Gleb's views of the Russian system and then his comments on US-Russia relations.

The Russian Sistema

Russia does not have a state or regime, it has a sistema, a"complex system of decision-making and power management".  By that Gleb means it does not have the structure or organization of a state or regime.  Pavlovskiy thought when he began working with the Kremlin that it would evolve the institutions necessary to a state, but it has not done so.

The system is informal, not just run by Putin alone, and there are no checks or balances.  Official titles bear little resemblance to real political power and much of what happens is improvisation and done by indirection.  There is not a lot of long-term strategic thinking and they operate internationally from a position of weakness, because of lack of economic strength.  Putin operates on the assumption that he will take some action and then "something will happen".  Because of this decision-making is unpredictable which has become an asset because the West doesn't know how to deal with it (though this may change with Trump).  Gleb remarked that "our politics consist of special operations".

Because the system has no long-term goals, it's always focused on buying more time, which has had "monstrous" effects on the economy and lack of nation building.

There is no development of government institutions, nor training for next generation of leadership.  "The most frightening topic is the mass media".  It has constructed a fantasy world in which it is impossible for citizens to knowledgeably discuss anything.

To illustrate the lack of long-term thinking, Gleb mentioned that, on several occasions, Putin remarked to him that he did not understand why Stalin withdrew from Iran in 1946.  Gleb said it was because Stalin was thinking longer-term about the stability of the political order he had established, while for Putin you never give up what you have, you just wait to see what happens next.

On specific issues; while the Crimea takeover was a success, the Ukraine operation in the Donbass has become a quagmire.  Putin brilliantly exploited the Syrian intervention to detract attention, both foreign and domestic, from the Donbass.  Syria also provides the ability to openly test Russian military capabilities (which could not be done in Donbass) and changed the international status of Russia by converting weakness into strength.  He also mentioned that one of the most powerful figures in Russia today is the strongman of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrovc.

U.S. - Russia Relations

During his talk, Gleb made reference to Obama "leaving the Russian system feeling good about itself".  In the Q&A, I asked him to explain why.  He responded that the imposition of sanctions (which he characterized as a failure), levied after the invasion of Crimea, strengthened the regime by allowing it to portray itself as under attack by the West and triggering a wave of Russian nationalism.  He said the better course of action by Obama would have been to put an army battalion on the ground in Crimea.  Russia would have understood that message and not taken action.  He then added:

"Sometimes there are actions that are seen as moderate but have radical impacts"

He believes sanctions were such a "moderate" action and emboldened the Russian regime, adding to its unpredictability.

His views on Trump were mixed.  He started off by saying:

"For the first time Russia has received a worthy partner - almost as unpredictable as we are"

Later, he referred to Putin now having "a strong sparring partner".  He felt the way Trump had wrong-footed his opponents along the way to victory was very much like Putin's style; splitting your opponents but keeping together your supporters.  On the one hand, with Trump in office there was an opportunity for "a new strategic dialogue" and "reduction in tensions", but on the other, the very unpredictability of Putin and Trump made it difficult to forecast any specifics.  He did emphasize the Trump is playing a much stronger hand than Putin.  Overall, I took from the discussion that he thinks Trump may be as big an improviser as Putin.


 

The Day After Pearl Harbor

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.  A tragic day for America, with more than 2,400 servicemen dying and, longer-term, a disaster for Japan.

On December 8, 2012, THC carried the post below: 

On December 8, 1941 President Franklin D Roosevelt asked Congress to declare that since the prior day a state of war had existed between the Empire of Japan and the United States.  In his "day of infamy" speech you can hear the anger and outrage in his voice, reflecting that Japanese peace negotiators were in the US Capital, even as Japanese carriers launched their air strike on Pearl Harbor.  You can also hear his recital of the other attacks simultaneously carried out by Japan across the Pacific which conveys the massive scale of the assault. For an edited, but very high quality audio and picture, version click here.

Something often missed is that the US did not declare war on Germany on December 8.  This created a dilemma for American policy and military planners who believed American involvement in WWII was inevitable and who viewed Germany as the greater threat.  In fact, it had already been agreed that in the event of war with both Germany and Japan that 85% of America's resources would be devoted to defeating the Nazis.  Hitler solved the American dilemma by declaring war on the US (for reasons that are still debated today) on December 11.

Over the decades there have been suggestions that FDR knew of the planned attack on Pearl Harbor and let it proceed in order to draw the US into WWII.  I've read quite a lot about these accusations and believe them to be utterly without merit as do most historians who've reviewed the documents.

In 1941 was FDR seeking a way to get the US to intervene in the war?  Yes, but it was on the side of Britain against Germany.  War with Japan would interfere with that goal.

There have also been exhaustive studies of the intelligence (particularly via code-breaking) that the US had available to it in the weeks leading up to Pearl Harbor.  During those last days, FDR and our military were tracking Japanese naval forces and believed an attack was imminent with the likely targets being the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia and/or the Kingdom of Siam along with a lesser probability that American forces in the Philippines would be attacked.  There were only very scattered references to Pearl Harbor amongst a blizzard of intelligence from the broken codes.

As is often the case I'll let Winston Churchill have the last word with his reaction to Pearl Harbor:

"No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy . . .  So we had won after all! . . . We should not be wiped out.  Our history would not come to an end . . .I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before - that the United States is like 'a giant boiler.  Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate'.  Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."

The Yankles

A movie about a Yeshiva which decides to field a college level baseball team from among its students studying to be rabbis?  Filmed in Utah with a mostly Mormon cast?  Yeah, I'll be there!

Our friends invited us to a Saturday night showing of The Yankles, a 2009 film never theatrically released, but available on DVD, at Temple Shalom.  My family was one of the founding members of the congregation, but I'd left town in 1972 and hadn't been there in ten years.

I can report that watching The Yankles is an enjoyable experience; it's funny and warm, while managing to take both baseball and religion seriously, and making a point about their relative importance in the process.  It's not a great movie and has some amateurish moments but you'll feel better for having seen it.

The plot is straight forward.  A former major leaguer, Charlie Jones, ruined his career with three DUI's, the last of which lands him in jail for 18 months.  When released, he can't find a job with his old contacts and needs to perform community service as part of his parole.  Deborah, his Jewish former girlfriend, rediscovers her roots in his absence and has become devoutly Orthodox.  Her brother, a former minor leaguer, is now at the Yeshiva, studying to be a rabbi when his Rebbe decides to start the baseball team.  Charlie, desperate to reconnect with Deborah, ends up as their coach and complications ensue.

The leads are solid and believable; Brian Wimmer at Charlie and Susanne Sutchy as Deborah, (and married in real life).  Don Most (Ralph from Happy Days!), plays Susanne's estranged Dad.  In the smaller roles, I particularly enjoyed Kenneth F Brown as Rabbi Meyer, Charlie's assistant coach, and Jesse Bennett as The Rebbe.

"I Know Nothing!"

Andrew Sachs, the accomplished English actor best known for his role as Manuel on Fawlty Towers, my favorite TV comedy, died recently at the age of 86.  Fawlty Towers was the creation of John Cleese (of Monty Python) and his then wife, Connie Booth.  Only 12 episodes, aired on the BBC in the mid and late 1970s, were made, but each is perfect.
(Manuel, from The Independent)

The incompetent, snobby, socially frustrated, and unhappily married Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) and his bossy, and unsympathetic, but more realistic, wife, Sybil (Prunella Scales), operate a small hotel (Fawlty Towers) in Torquay on the southwest coast of England.   Manuel (Andrew Sachs), is a waiter, from Barcelona with a shaky command of English, hired by Basil because he doesn't have to pay him much, while the competent chambermaid, Polly (Connie Booth), frantically, and usually futilely, tries to keep the insanity in check.
(Andrew Sachs, from The Daily Mail)

Andrew Sachs was born in Germany in 1930 of a Jewish father and Catholic mother.  The family emigrated to England in 1938.  Andrew's acting career began in the late 1950s.  Although best known for Fawlty Towers he had a very long and successful career, playing multiple roles on Dr Who, as a narrator of BBC TV and radio documentaries, as well as appearing in the popular British soap opera, Coronation Street.  He left behind his wife of 54 years.

Our family discovered Fawlty Towers while renting videotapes while vacationing in Maine during the 1980s.  All four of us watched the entire series multiple times and the THC Son could do a pretty good imitation of Manuel.

The interplay between Manuel and Basil is one of the keys to each show, as, at some point, Basil, always full of suppressed rage, has his volcanic temper erupt, usually with Manuel as the victim.

Happy Jack

On this date in 1966, The Who released their 7th single in the UK, where it quickly rose to #3 on the charts.  Yet another smash hit in their home country.  In March 1967, Happy Jack was issued in the United States, becoming their first American single to receive substantial airplay.  According to Billboard, it peaked at #24, reaching #13 on Cashbox, and on WABC in New York, which I listened to, managed to briefly enter the Top 10.

In Live At Leeds, Pete Townshend mentioned that it was also the band's biggest hit in Germany, speculating it was because of the oompah rhythm.

To me, what has always stood out about Happy Jack, is Keith Moon's drumming.  It's the first, and maybe the only, hit single with the drum as the lead instrument.  Also featured is John Entwhistle's fat bass.

Planetary Defense Officer

How's this for coincidence?  Right after seeing Arrival, about mysterious alien spaceships landing on Earth, I find out NASA has someone with the title of Planetary Defense Officer!  Now that is a big job.

The PDO is Lindley Johnson, an Air Force veteran, who heads the Planetary Defense Coordination Office established by NASA in January 2016.  According to NASA:
(PDO Johnson)

The office will be responsible for supervision of all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earth's orbit around the sun. It will also take a leading role in coordinating interagency and intergovernmental efforts in response to any potential impact threats.

To date, about 13,000 Near-Earth objects (NEOs) have been detected with about 1,500 new discoveries every year.  NASA is searching for all objects more than 450 feet in diameter.  In 2012, President Obama and Congress significantly increased funding for the program, which is now about $40 million annually.

Bloomberg recently carried this interview with Johnson.  I was disappointed to find out that we can't plan on sending Bruce Willis and his crew of drillers to a threatening asteroid and destroy it with a nuke.  Johnson doesn't care for Armaggedon, calling it "a total fantasy"; I still consider it one of the best bad movies ever made.

A day in the life of a PDO:

That’s when a surprise meteor hit Chelyabinsk, Russia, the same day as a different asteroid was predicted to fly by?

The international network of astronomers who do this had discovered an object in February 2012 that would pass closely by the Earth in February of 2013. They predicted the orbit for it and found that although it was going to come very close—within the distance of a satellite orbit—it would be a miss.
That event also coincided with the annual meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The Near-Earth Object working group had been developing a recommendation to the UN about what the space-capable nations of the world ought to be doing in response to a possible impact threat. I was actually in Vienna that day getting ready to brief the committee when the Chelyabinsk incident happened.
Mother nature sort of put an exclamation point on our recommendations.

I still think Bruce Willis is the best bet.