The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities by John J. Mearsheimer

 

Mearsheimer's most recent (2018) book

John Mearsheimer: controversial IR theorist, especially viz. Ukraine-Russia

John Mearsheimer, a professor of international relations at the University of Chicago, has been in the news of late. Such notoriety seems unlikely for what would otherwise be an obscure professor (outside the world of academia and government). But Mearsheimer is a proponent of what he terms “offensive” and “structural” realism as the best understanding of how nations behave toward one another. In short, a conceptual framework that attempts to gauge whether we will enjoy peace or suffer war. Among Mearsheimer’s opinions, based on his conception of realism, has been a long-standing series of warnings about NATO expansion toward Russia and about the West becoming too involved in the status of Ukraine. This concern about NATO expansion and Ukraine, in particular, is not recent. He wrote about the topic extensively in 2014, when Putin grabbed Crimea from Ukraine and began his effort to eventually grab the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. But Mearsheimer’s concern with Ukraine goes back even further. In 1993, Mearsheimer published an article in Foreign Affairs arguing that Ukraine should retain the nuclear weapons that fell into its hands with the collapse of the Soviet Union. (“The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent.”) In this piece, Mearsheimer presciently argues:

A nuclear Ukraine makes sense for two reasons. First, it is imperative to maintain peace between Russia and Ukraine. That means ensuring that the Russians, who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it. Ukraine cannot defend itself against a nuclear-armed Russia with conventional weapons, and no state, including the United States, is going to extend to it a meaningful security guarantee. Ukrainian nuclear weapons are the only reliable deterrent to Russian aggression. If the U.S. aim is to enhance stability in Europe, the case against a nuclear-armed Ukraine in unpersuasive. (p.50-51.) 

Mearsheimer continues: 

A war between Russia and Ukraine would be a disaster. Great power wars are very costly and dangerous, causing massive loss of life and worldwide turmoil, and possibly spreading to involve other countries. The likely result of that war? Russia's reconquest of Ukraine would injure prospects for peace throughout Europe. It would increase the danger of a Russian-German collision, and sharply intensify the security competition across the continent. 

A conventional war between Russia and Ukraine would entail vast military casualties and the possible murder of many thousands of civilians. Russians and Ukrainians have a history of mutual enmity; this hostility, combined with the intermixing of their populations, raises the possibility that war between them could entail Bosnian style ethnic cleansing and mass murder. This war could produce mil lions of refugees clamoring at the borders of Western Europe. 

In addition, there are 14 operational nuclear reactors in Ukraine that might produce new Chernobyls if left unattended or attacked during a conventional war. The consequences of such a war would dwarf the death and suffering in the Balkans, where more than 50,000 people have died since the summer of 1991. Needless to say, if nuclear weapons were used the costs would be immeasurable. 

There is also the threat of escalation beyond the borders of Russia and Ukraine. For example, the Russians might decide to reconquer other parts of the former Soviet Union in the midst of a war, or might try to take back some of Eastern Europe. Poland and Belarus might join forces with Russia against Ukraine or gang up with Ukraine to prevent a Russian resurgence. The Germans, Americans or Chinese could get pulled in by their fear of a Russian victory. (Doubters should remember that the United States had no intention of fighting in Europe when war broke out in 1914 and again in 1939.) Finally, nuclear weapons might be used accidentally or purposefully against a third state. 

The security environment in Europe would certainly become heated and competitive in the wake of a Russian war with Ukraine. Other great powers would move quickly and sharply to contain further Russian expansion. The Russians would then think seriously for security reasons about controlling their many smaller neighbors. Other great powers would move to check them. Ukrainian nuclear weapons are the only reliable deterrent to Russian aggression. 

One might expect the burden of deterring a resurgent Russia to fall to an American-dominated NATO, in effect, bringing back the Cold War order that kept Europe at peace for 45 years. (p.52-54.) 

I could continue the quote for some length, but I assume by now you have Mearsheimer’s point, and you appreciate the accuracy of his analysis. (I highly commend the entirety of the article to you. And if you want more articles by him, go to his website: https://www.mearsheimer.com/. And be sure and appreciate the faux portrait. ) 

Why all of this background for a review of Mearsheimer’s most recent book, The Great Delusion (2018)? First, I want you to understand why I chose to read this book. Given all that Mearsheimer has stated about Ukraine and Russia, I wanted a deeper background. This book does have some discussion of the situation in Ukraine that meshes with his previous writing on the topic. Also, I’d read his The Tragedy of Great Power Politics near the time of its original publication in 2001, and I found it an accessible and comprehensive guide to Mearsheimer’s thinking about realism. And like The Tragedy, The Great Delusion is a comprehensive, learned, and accessible guide to Mearsheimer’s thought about liberalism in foreign policy. And--spoiler alert--he thinks very poorly of it. 

Before going further with Mearsheimer’s critique of liberalism in foreign policy (especially in contemporary U.S. foreign policy), I should make it clear that Mearsheimer clearly states his preference for a liberal democratic nation-state. But his enthusiasm for liberalism ends at the water’s edge. For in addition to liberalism, two other factors contend with liberalism (and other forms of domestic political arrangements) in guiding a nation’s behavior towards other nation-states: nationalism and realism. And to jump again to a Mearsheimer conclusion: both considerations of nationalism and realism trump liberalism’s aspirations when it comes to issues of foreign policy. This is so even in U.S. foreign policy, despite ongoing U.S. aspirations to establish a liberal hegemony throughout as much of the world as possible. 

Mearsheimer is excellent in providing a taxonomy of contemporary liberalism. He identifies “modus vivendi liberalism, which is essentially classical liberalism defined by primary concerns for negative liberty or “freedom from” and that tends toward libertarianism, and “progressive liberalism,” which is concerned with providing its citizenry with opportunities and promotes conceptions of positive freedom, or “freedom to,” the ability to live in an environment that maximizes opportunities and that uses government to provide such an environment. Mearsheimer also identifies two close relatives of liberalism, utilitarianism and “liberal idealism” (which was very prominent in nineteenth-century Britain via T.H. Green and others). Mearsheimer concludes that “progressive liberalism” is now the dominant variety, with, for instance, the application of Keynesian and monetary economics to smooth economic turbulence. (We saw this in spades with the economic stimulus during the height of the COVID pandemic.) 

But while Mearsheimer expresses no significant reluctance about the practice of progressive liberalism domestically, he finds liberal attitudes inadequate when trying to apply its principles abroad. The reality of nationalism and the structure of the international political arena (anarchical) don't work with liberalism. Here, too, Mearsheimer, thoroughly, fairly, and accurately presents the realities of nationalism and realism. Nationalism, now reflected in the dominance of the nation-state system, is a potent force that all states must reckon with, both domestically and in foreign relations. As Mearsheimer notes, nationalism has overwhelmed ideas of class and ideology in defining relations among nations in ways that both liberal democracies and Marxist regimes couldn’t appreciate. Vietnam fought a war with the French and then the U.S. based much more on nationalism than on commitment to Marxist doctrine. Then after defeating the U.S., Vietnam battled its Marxist neighbors China and Cambodia. I should note (as Mearsheimer does) that Vietnam currently enjoys good relations with the U.S. because the Vietnamese (as good realists) share a common commitment with the U.S. and other nations to check Chinese power in Southeast Asia. This current relationship with the U.S. enhances, not threatens, Vietnamese nationalism. 

In addition to serving as a leading exponent of the realist tradition in international relations (a lineage that can be traced back to the ancient Greek, Thucydides), Mearsheimer is an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy as practiced by recent Republican and Democrat administrations. Why? Because, as he argues at length in this book, liberalism doesn’t work as an export. Only in a unipolar world (a world with only one dominant great power) could such a project be undertaken, as it was in the immediate post-Cold War era.  But now, with the rise of China and the residual military might of Russia, we no longer live in a unipolar world. And, as Mearsheimer points out, in any event, U.S. efforts to export democracy to unwilling nations have failed miserably at great cost to the U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan provide only the two most recent and dramatic instances of failure to forcibly export democracy and the rule of law. And for its effort, the U.S. has suffered a decline in its own democratic norms and commitment to the rule of law. 

Mearsheimer prosecutes a strong case. He makes a persuasive argument. He emphasizes the structural imperatives reflected in realism. In brief, there are the strong and the weak among nations, and there is no 9-1-1 to call in the event of an emergency. Therefore, there’s an imperative to be among the strong, including the use of alliances. All true, I agree. But in weighing threats and the power dynamics behind any threats, Mearsheimer doesn’t address the nature of regimes, at least not directly. He doubts democratic peace theory, economic interdependence theory, and international institutions theory as guarantors—or even as promotors—of peace. But he neglects to consider how regimes contribute to the mix. For example, as he notes, liberal democracies have to jump through more hoops—including pleasing (or cajoling) their voting public—to pursue any foreign adventures. Of course, it's been done; the U.S. provides too many examples. But popular descent can throw sand in the works, unlike authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia, where dissent, even internal (intra-government) dissent is quashed.

But more importantly to an argument about the limits of realism, some borders, once hotly contested, have become pacific. In the early nineteenth century the U.S. took the territory it coveted from Mexico, and many in the U.S. had their eyes on Canada during that same period. But now no armies patrol those borders. (In the U.S., border patrols and vigilantes monitor, but that’s because so many in Latin America want to come to the U.S., not because the U.S. covets those territories or the U.S. fears an invasion by the Mexican army.) And could any president to date have gotten the U.S. behind a war to conquer Canada? The imperialist ideology of the nineteenth and early twentieth century might have garnered some support for such ventures (witness the result of the Spanish-American War), but now? I think not. The nature of our regime, including the electorate, has changed. In realist theory, Canadians should perpetually be nervously scanning their southern border: their neighbor to the south is bigger: bigger population, bigger economy, bigger armed forces (including nukes), and it’s more militaristic.  Yet, the Canadians, I don't believe, live in fear of a U.S. invasion. How does realist theory explain this? As far as power dynamics go, is this so different from Russia and Ukraine? 

Let’s consider a hypothetical. Canada remains Canada, but the U.S. falls to an authoritarian regime. A strongman [sic] has taken over. Predictably, except for a privileged few (let’s call them oligarchs or plutocrats if you’re old-fashioned), things are going poorly in the U.S. The economy is a wreck, people are constrained from exercising their traditional rights, and popular discontent is on the rise. Americans have begun looking north to how well Canadians are doing with a government committed to liberal democracy and the rule of law. In fact, the migration of U.S. citizens to Canada has increased dramatically. The U.S. rulers begin talking about how the U.S. and Canada are really much the same, with so many shared traditions. Really, the strongman [sic] argues, the Manifest Destiny of the U.S. (taken out and dusted off) is to encompass the whole of North America. Might a U.S.-Canadian war break out? 

Mearsheimer would suggest the more likely scenario would be if Canada decided to become an ally of China. Then the U.S. would consider war against Canada to stem a Chinese encroachment so close to the U.S. (citing the Monroe Doctrine, no doubt). But while I wouldn’t disagree with Mearsheimer's counter-scenario, I don’t believe that it negates mine, nor would I consider his scenario the more likely. My point is that regimes make a difference. The culture, the political system, the traditions, the discourse, and all the beliefs of those active in a nation-state count toward whether and to what extent a realist paradigm becomes the dominant mode of relations between (or among) various nation-states. The constitutions and cultures of Japan and Germany are different now than they were at the beginning of WWII. Their geography didn’t change, but their regimes did, including the friends they kept (the alliances that they joined). Also, the popular culture in each nation was greatly pacified by the defeat both suffered in the war. These and other factors greatly affected the policies and actions of their decision-makers. Of course, realistic considerations have always played a role in their thinking, and of late, significant trends toward re-armament have gained traction in both Germany and Japan; but even so, they move only slowly and cautiously. 

So is Mearsheimer right that the West is at “fault” for the current war in Ukraine? Let me ask you this: A person enters a neighborhood known for its muggers, and the person knows of this danger. The person has every right to be there and to be free from harm. The person chooses to walk through the neighborhood, and sure enough, gets mugged. Is the person at fault? Does the person who exercised a perfectly legitimate right in a peaceful, non-threatening manner deserve the blame? By the way, the mugger, upon being confronted, defended himself by saying that he didn’t want “their type” in our neighborhood. Besides, the mugger says, the person kept bad friends (hostile to the mugger and his group), and they might have weapons. Again, is the person mugged at fault? Should the cops, who warned the person not to enter this bad neighborhood, decline to act because the person acted foolishly in picking this route? “Rights be damned, you’re a fool, and you have to pay the price,” says the cop standing down. Is this the course the cops should take?

To be clear, Mearsheimer isn’t arguing in favor of Putin’s invasion, nor does he support Putin’s cause. Mearsheimer is only saying that the whole bad situation could have been avoided with the exercise of greater prudence (to wit, a realist analysis of the dynamics of the situation). He has a point, but we're in it now. The cops have arrived (or at least are providing assistance to the person amid the mugging), so how far should they—should we—go? How much should we--the U.S., NATO--risk in defense of Ukraine? Should the mugger walk away with the victim's purse, or even the victim's life, with impunity?

There are no easy, clearly right or wrong answers here. And, however you come down on these issues, Mearsheimer’s analysis provides a bracing tonic against wishful thinking and continuing fantasies. Liberalism, especially U.S. liberalism that seeks export abroad, is called to question in a detailed and knowledgeable exposition that challenges the status quo. We’d all be advised to take heed and govern ourselves accordingly. 

The Return of Holy Russia by Gary Lachman

When I think about Russia, two thoughts immediately pop into my mind. The first is Winston Churchill's observation (made in 1939) that Russia is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." The second thought is a visual image of Russian nesting dolls shown in the 1979 BBC production of John LeCare's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Alex Guinness. As the opening credits roll*, one doll after another is removed until the final, innermost doll is revealed--and this doll has no face. Of course, in the context of the story, this final, faceless doll no doubt references the mole inside the Circus. But for me, it also represents the seeming inscrutability of the Russian mind and its culture. One needn't be an expert on Russian history and culture (and I'm not), to hold this sense of perplexity, at least those of us living to the "West" of Russia. 

But if you, like me, don't wish to remain in confused ignorance about this rich culture and the nation-state that it supports, then Gary Lachman's The Return of Holy Russia: Apocalyptic History, Mystical Awakening, and the Struggle for the Soul of the World (2020) can provide you a comprehensive and accessible tour of Russian history and culture that shines a light into the events, ideas, and attitudes that mark this complicated (and often perplexing) behemoth of a culture and nation. In this book, Lachman looks backward in time to unpack the nesting dolls of Russian culture that he broached in his Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump (2018). In that book, Lachman explored the many tributaries outside of mainstream cultures that altered (and continue to alter) political reality in the U.S., Europe, and Russia in this current time of troubles. In Dark Star Rising, Lachman ranges from Trump's New Thought heritage (via Norman Vincent Peale) to an extended consideration of the culture of Putin's contemporary Russia, a witch's brew of resuscitated czarist aspirations for empire and Slavic glory, Stalinism, Orthodoxy, and "Eurasianism," all overseen by a criminal syndicate posing as a national government. I suspect that as Lachman looked at the tangled mass of threads that run through the Putin regime, he must have wondered (or at least I did), where did all these threads come from? What among the many justifications (and lies) that this particular regime promotes to retain its control could resonate with enough ordinary Russians to maintain the legitimacy of the regime at a level sufficient to allow it to remain in power? The Return of Holy Russia is an attempt to identify those threads from near their beginning and then follow them through to the present. In undertaking this project, Lachman, in his typically thorough, well-paced, and accessible prose, has completed a comprehensive history of Russian thought and culture centered on its religious, philosophical, and high-cultural aspirations. So does this book answer the riddle, solve the mystery, and de-code the enigma? No, but it helps. In this book, Lachman serves as a tour guide in a massive museum of Russian history and culture, providing a grand tour that touches upon the significant exhibits without lingering on any one exhibit too long. By doing so, many readers will emerge from their reading experience wanting to further explore those exhibits that they found most intriguing. I recently read an interview of Lachman where he observed that reading the works of Colin Wilson was like receiving a liberal arts education. The same can be said for reading Lachman. 

In the Introduction and first two chapters, Lachman provides an overview of his subject and a sense of his undertaking, which is an exploration of the Russian "soul" or "character" through time, the result of accretions laid down over hundreds of years of history that lead us the ever-elusive present. Lachman, in these initial pages, identifies some of those who've looked deeply into Russian culture in attempts to arrive at an understanding of the Russian mind. (Lachman notes up-front that he doesn't read or speak the Russian language.) This undertaking by Lachman and his sources is by nature the equivalent of an impressionist painting as opposed to, for instance, an engineering blueprint. In an impressionist work, the colors are bright but often blended into one another and the lines are often blurred. We see the big picture but we remain relaxed toward the details, foregoing (or postponing) concerns with details of structure and causal relationships. In this extended metaphor, the Russian "mind," "soul," or "character" is the impressionist vision as a whole, taken-in while knowing that such entities consist of many individual minds that, like flowers, share many common, identifiable attributes, but that reveal individual markers upon close inspection. Lachman addresses the challenge in a footnote (p. 24): 

I apologize to readers who may find these comments about “the Russian character” or "soul” offensive and outdated, given our current concern with avoiding racial or national stereotypes. I personally do not find this danger so serious, and my outline of the characteristics of “Russian man”—and “Russian woman” too—are based on wide reading and multiple sources.

Anyone writing a history of ideas (or more broadly, of culture) must deal with negotiating between the Scylla of over or unjustified generalizations and the Charybdis of extreme skepticism about identifying shared traits among groups, be those groups as large and diverse as a nation or as small as a family. Of course, any observer must be careful to avoid convenient and popular stereotypes and lazy generalizations. And groups have outliers, those who don't fit the prevailing pattern of group norms and characteristics and who march to the beat of different drummers. In short, we have to use sound judgment and discernment before arriving at any conclusions. I find that Lachman negotiates these narrows artfully, not only in addressing generalizations or the ubiquity of cultural traits but in addressing all of the ideas that he identifies over the course of Russian history. Lachman maintains a light touch, not allowing his judgments to intrude into his subject matter. Indeed, one of the features that I enjoy when reading Lachman is to watch for those fleeting moments when he tips his hand--often ever so slightly--to reveal judgments he holds about his subject matter. In his introduction and conclusions, in this book and others, Lachman allows himself to emerge from behind the author's screen to share some more explicit judgments with readers, although I've never found that he proselytizes. Indeed, Lachman does a fine job of following the adage of the great British philosopher R. G. Collingwood that the historian should "re-enact" the thought of his historical subjects.** Only when one has, in a sense, gotten inside the head of one's historical subject can the historian place himself in a position to reach conclusions and pass judgments. 

Early in the book, Lachman ties three key figures from the Silver Age of Russian thought and culture to the present regime of Vladimir Putin. Putin recommended that his regional governors read specific works from three Silver Age thinkers: Vladimir Solovyev (d. 1900), an Orthodox mystic and labeled "Russia's greatest philosopher" by the American scholar of Russian thought, James P. Scanlan; Nicholas Berdyaev (d. 1948), the Orthodox philosopher and theologian exiled by Lenin who became one of the foremost "Christian existentialists" and whose ideas about freedom and creativity remain important;  and Ivan Ilyin (d. 1950), a philosopher also exiled by Lenin who became a proponent of fascism, although he and the Mussolini and Nazi regimes parted with differences. He ended his days living in Switzerland. Of the three, Ilych is the least surprising person among the three on Putin's reading list, while Solovyev and Berdyaev are perplexing. (Lachman wisely avoids offering an opinion about whether Putin himself has read any of these thinkers; it would be a safe "no" vote if Trump recommended reading certain books, but Putin? Who knows? So mysterious he is.) All three of these figures were products of Russia's "Silver Age" of 1890 until 1920, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks ended any meaningful philosophy or theology in Russia, although Berdyaev and Ilyin made their most significant contributions after they were exiled. In fact, the Silver Age may be seen as the fulcrum of Russian thought and spirituality, and Lachman's book is an account of the advance of Russian thought to this point and then its abrupt disbursal after 1920, with several Silver Age thinkers being recycled of late, which may--or may not--presage a genuine renewal and invigoration of Russian thought and spirituality. I'd wager that it is the Silver Age and some of its thinkers that most intrigue Lachman, as they attempt to forge a way that transcends the opposition between Western science, rationality, and material well-being, and the collective energy, passion, and spirituality of the Russian heritage. These thinkers were looking for a "third-way" that took Russia beyond political and economic servitude without buying the ethos of Western modernity in full. (If I were to hedge my bet, I'd put some money on Lachman saying "Just Dostoyevsky" as the most telling point in his survey.)

The book takes the reader back to the early days of Russia and patiently recounts the development of Russian culture as influenced by Byzantium, Orthodox Christianity, pagan traditions, and the continuing influx of horsemen from Central Asia with the Mongols (Tartars) as the final and perhaps most formative set of invaders from the east. Lachman also touches upon the struggle for control among the elites to claim dominion over the territories that eventually grew into Russia. This chronicle of elite struggles can become a bit repetitive, as chronicles are want to do unless you're into the type of raw data that gives rise to Robert Graves's Claudius books, the History Plays of Shakespeare, or George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones***. These works provide a sense of the futility and carnage that these repetitive struggles for power entail.  But while the early stages of the chronology of rulers and would-be rulers are noted, Lachman's main focus remains on the various influences of thought and practice that formed the Russian Orthodox tradition. While religious disputes remain on the whole less brutal than struggles for political control (to the extent the two arenas remain separate), the trends in Russian Orthodoxy are dynamic and contribute mightily--for good and ill--to the formation of modern Russia. Russian political history, too, eventually gets to the point where Peter the Great (the late 1600s) and Catherine the Great (the mid-late 1700s) come on the scene. Lachman addresses the efforts of these rulers to change Russian culture based on the innovations of Western Europe, especially in the fields of science and technology. By the 1600s, the West had begun the Scientific Revolution, which was also a revolution in the ability of societies and nations to gain control over nature through technology. And while Galileo, Bacon, Hooker, and Newton were the most significant names in science, Russians were also exposed to Western thought flowing from the Rennaissance and occult traditions (e.g., Freemasonry) and liberal political thought (e.g., Locke, Voltaire). It's at this point where ideas associated with Western modernity begin to clash with Russia's Orthodox Christian, Asian, and traditionalist heritages. Earlier in the book Lachman addresses the differences between Orthodox and Western (Catholic) Christianity, which seem subtle to the point of trivial at first glance--just try grasping the significance of the filioque clause on a first pass--but the sometimes perplexing differences that often seem over-emphasized by elite churchmen and theologians prompt quite different attitudes and practices in the religious life of the faithful (and sort-of faithful). 

When Lachman's narrative arrives at the nineteenth century, he moves into an era in which many of the names become familiar, especially in literature: Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and, most importantly, Dostoyevsky. In addition to the rich insights into Russian thought and life provided by these authors and their literary works, Russian thought blossomed in many other fields as well. And despite the efforts at the Congress of Vienna and the failures of the revolutionary movements of 1848 throughout Europe, pressure for political change and the political writing promoting change grew in importance. One might think given the eventual success of the Bolsheviks that Marxist thought dominated the political conversation, but this seems not to have been the case. Many members of the intelligentsia went through a youthful infatuation with Marxism before moving on. (Alas, Lenin and his ilk didn't move on.) This is also the era of Slavic and Russian nationalism, with writers of the magnitude of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, among many others, who promoted ideas about the importance of Christianity and Pan-Slavism. 

As I suggested earlier in this review, the Silver Age from 1890 to 1920 can be seen as a high point in Russian culture and thought. Vladimir Solovyev, as a philosopher and theologian, comes across as the most important thinker of that era. During this period, which involved significant social and political unrest, members of the intelligentsia were seeking ways to organize a new Russia, with or without the czar. Thinkers like Solovyev, Bulgakov, Berdyaev, and others wanted to bridge the gap between Russia's unique and deeply felt Orthodox Christian culture and the rationality of the West, to find, as it were, a "third way" (a term it seems as popular the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning). But, as Lachman recounts, the few thinkers and searchers lucky enough to have survived the initial stages of the Bolshevik seizure of control were shipped abroad by Lenin, including Berdyaev and Ilyin. 

Lachman takes his account to the present, bringing it up to where he first recounted it in Dark Star Rising. We learn of Putin's reading list of Silver Age thinkers and of his use of technology, propaganda, and political machinations (apologies to the misunderstood Machiavelli) to maintain his regime. Lachman describes what seems to be the attitude of Putin and many of those who buy into his narrative: what is the liberal West's dream is Russia's nightmare; indeed, there is a strain of the Russian character that sees history only as a nightmare. The horrors of the twentieth century in Russia certainly contribute to this dour outlook. But interestingly, Putin, in speaking of his self-described "conservative position" and defense of "traditional values," quotes Berdyaev. Lachman, channeling Putin, writes: 

The point of conservatism, Berdyaev, the spiritual anarchist, said was that it did not prevent movement “forward and upward,” but was a safeguard against a movement “backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state.”  (384)

As a Western liberal, albeit one living in a time of troubles, I can endorse Berdyaev's adage. Change is change: it may be for the better or for the worse. Some changes, such as many liberations, have been for the good. Changes that foster and enhance human dignity are highlights of the Western tradition. But not everything branded as "progress" has resulted in change for the better. No engine of change has been more pronounced than contemporary consumer capitalism and the material and technological worldview upon which it is based. This system, which has led us to untold material wealth, has also led us to frightening environmental degradation, disruptive economic inequality and dysfunction, and political and social incoherence--to provide only the short-list. And, of course, we quite often don't know in which direction change will take us. The best we can do is apply our reason and imagination to create our future. Lachman captures the dilemma for Russia and for the rest of us in this footnote that draws upon the insight of the British historian Arnold Toynbee: 

In some ways we can see the return of ancient pagan beliefs and the revival of futurist visions in post-Soviet Russia as an example of the historian Arnold Toynbee’s dictum that when faced with a “time of troubles,” a people respond in two stereotypical ways: by retreating into the past or leaping into the future. That examples of “archaism” and “futurism” can be found in the West as well, suggests that our current “time of troubles” is a global phenomenon.

We cannot live in the past; there is no past to return to. But we can benefit from it by exploring the wisdom and perspective that it provides us if we approach it with a spirit of reverence and truth. We can't leap into the future; the future only arrives one moment at a time. The future is shaped moment-to-moment by the forces of nature's inertia and the dynamics of human thought and action. We can't take a rocket ship to the future or upload a simulation to replace the reality of the present. The future is built moment-to-moment by humans making plans and choices, or by following the blind inertia of habit and instinct.

A history book like this one provides value by granting the reader access to information that the reader may not have held before. And this book does that quite well. But the mark of an even better book of this sort--one that addresses history, thought, and culture--is that it prompts the reader to want to learn even more about the topic. And Lachman's book does that. He's provided a wide-angle view of the course of Russian history and culture. With the encouragement and direction that Lachman has provided, I'm eager to explore further this terrain with other guides to explore a finer-grained resolution of the images that Lachman has identified, from the beauty of the great Russian writers to the "third way" of the Silver Age thinkers to the tangled-web of influences visible today in the era of Putin and his disruption-restoration. Or to return it to the beginning of this review, I'm encouraged to further seek to answer the riddle, solve the mystery, de-code the enigma, and keep removing the nesting dolls in an attempt to arrive at the essential core--if one can be found. 

*The opening credits of Tinker, Tailor begin to roll at about 2:12 into the video of the first episode. BTW, this is an extraordinarily fine production, very much worth watching. 

**Collingwood's use of the term "re-enact" has caused some commentators consternation. He at times used the term "reconstruct," which I find more felicitous, but the intended impetus remains the same: to get inside the head of historical actors to think and understand what they thought and understood before passing any judgments about them and their actions. 

*** Of course, each of these works comes in video as well as literary format. Anyone living probably knows of the Game of Thrones series. And there are many productions of the various History plays, with the recent BBC production of The Hollow Crown that includes Richard II, Henry IV (Parts 1 & 2), Henry V, and Richard III. But the gem that many may not be aware of is the I, Claudius series from 1976 with a superb cast, that included some (then) young and upcoming actors Derek Jacobi (Claudius), John Hurt (Caligula), and Patrick Stewart (Sejanus). Suetonius for television (with plenty of gore & sex). I'm sure that there are Russian dynastic rivalry plays or operas to match these and similar accounts. 

Russia Supports Trump: The News That's Not New & Going Deeper

A wonderfully blunt news article from a mainstream media outlet (The Washington Post). Why does Putin favor Trump? The article provides some ready answers. If you want a deeper dive, read Timothy Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018) (my review: https://sngthoughts.blogspot.com/…/the-road-to-unfreedom-ru…) & Gary Lachman's Dark Star Rising: Magick & Power in the Age of Trump (2018) (my review: https://sngthoughts.blogspot.com/…/dark-star-rising-magick-…). Hold on a couple of months and you can dive even deeper into the enigma of Putin and Russian history and culture via Lachman's forthcoming The Return of Holy Russia: Apocalyptic History, Mystical Awakening, and the Struggle for the Soul of the World (release coming 5 May 2020). 

In short, there's a hell of a story here (the play on words intended). We can see the tip of the iceberg quite clearly, clearly enough to turn away, but will we? With deep background from the likes of Snyder & Lachman, and reporting like that of the article below, a true captain would turn away, but we have a crazed Ahab at the helm. Heaven help us.

To Trump's frustration.

WASHINGTONPOST.COM

Analysis | In one incident, a series of realities about Trump’s presidency seem to be confirmed

To Trump's frustration.

Dark Star Rising: Magick & Power in the Age of Trump by Gary Lachman

No collusion here, but revealing comparisons abound

Having become a fan of Gary Lachman’s work a few years ago, I’ve known that he’s had Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump in the works for some time. The time between his announcement of the project and his report that he’d sent the manuscript to the publisher was some months ago, so it’s been a long wait. As time passed my anticipation grew, and upon receiving the book I had to wonder whether the reality would match the level of my anticipation. The answer, I’m happy to report, is a resounding “Yes!”

I’d learned that Lachman would be exploring the complex of ideas that surround Putin’s regime in Russia, a daunting task given Russia’s cultural heritage that’s as tangled and enigmatic as a great Russian novel. Lachman delivers on this end of the story, but to my delight, he also shines his light upon the American side of this time of political turmoil. His consideration of American-as-apple-pie New Thought and its relation to Trump provides a valuable contribution to our understanding. How does one start with a train of thought that can claim greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James—two of the most significant and encouraging of American thinkers—and arrive at Donald Trump?

Also, Lachman provides readers with a new lens through which we can better perceive the Trump phenomena. I’d initially perceived Trump as a clown in the mold of Silviu Berlusconi (Italy’s former PM)—a wealthy philanderer out to massage his own ego and line his pockets while his boorish behavior and grandiose promises distract voters long enough to pick their pockets (which seems all too acceptable in Italy). Later, I came to see Trump as a full-scale demagogue, precisely the type of candidate that political thinkers from Plato to the American Founders (Hamilton and Madison in particular) warned us about and against whom the Founders designed the Constitution. (This blog post addresses both of the first two of my Trump images.)Later, in part as a reaction to Scott Adams’s “Trump is a master persuader and can do no wrong” refrain (my initial response that I now find inadequate). I came to see Trump as a master salesman, a huckster in the classic American mold of hucksters. Only he didn’t sell land in Florida or shares in the Brooklyn Bridge; instead, he sold worthless educational certificates from Trump University and stiffed contractors and investors. A friend of mine captured Trump’s essence by describing him as “a man of low cunning.” More recently, and to use a more contemporary vocabulary, both Max Boot and Tim Egan (and undoubtedly others) have described Trump as a grifter. (Slate has an interesting piece that distinguishes a “grifter” from a “grafter,” but we needn’t quibble.) But while all of these characterizations hold validity, they’re not completely satisfying. While money is a VERY BIG THING for Trump (as it is, less ostentatiously, for Putin, who’s now probably richer than Trump), money alone doesn’t provide a satisfactory explanation for the Trump phenomena. Something more, something deeper is at play, and here’s where Lachman has provided us with a more revealing lens. Drawing on the writings of Colin Wilson that deal with “rogue messiahs” (gurus) and “Right Men” (those who cannot admit errors or flaws), Lachman establishes a strong connection between “gurus” and “demagogues.” When reflecting on the traits of gurus gone bad--most prove human, all too human--and demagogues like Trump or Putin, one discovers very similar traits.  Lachman follows this trail of traits to establish—for me at least—that Trump is not just not a normal politician (compromise, give-and-take, follows established norms), but a guru-demagogue in about every conceivable way. He's intolerant of criticism, lacks friends, prefers mass audiences of adulating fans, holds a simplistic worldview of “us versus them,” and so on. This trope of the bad guru fits as well as any . . . Well, except for one more perspective that Lachman provides us.

A more far-fetched, but most intriguing perspective, is to consider Trump a “tulpa,” (or ‘telly-tulpa”), a thought-form, an apparition (albeit one with some material reality) created by mental processes. Lachman draws the idea of a tulpa from Tibetan and magical lore. Whatever the empirical validity of such an entity, as a metaphor, it fits. From this, I can conjure a great opening for a piece about Trump: “A specter is haunting America, the specter of Donald Trump.” Catchy, don’t you think? Just keep in mind that this specter is not a friendly genie that will do our bidding and fulfill our wishes, but an evil jinn who seeks to entice us into our own imprisonment.

Lachman is a thorough, reliable guide through the under-explored and labyrinthian ways of experiencing the world that lies outside of the modern mainstream. Lachman has developed a solid reputation for exploring these less traveled by-ways, and this work proves no exception. And I must mention that Lachman approximates an ideal teacher. He informs his reader about ideas, events, and persons with a very light, unobtrusive touch. One must read carefully to get a sense of where his preferences and perspectives lie. He tosses off comments and asides that provide clues, but he’s never ponderous or pedantic. Only at the end of the book, as on the last day of class, does Lachman pull back the curtain and provide a direct statement of his perspective about what he’s shared. His peroration merits careful contemplation:

Exactly what guidelines we impose on our imaginations is, of course, a serious question . . . . But the very power involved suggests we should proceed with caution, as anyone of any seriousness would; only children play with matches. This does not mean timidly, but with care and an awareness of the responsibility involved. The future perhaps is not only in our hands, but in our minds, and the reality that awaits us in the time ahead may be germinating there now. Let us hope that when it arrives we will be equal to it and that it will bring clearer skies and brighter stars on the horizon. 

Lachman, Gary. Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump (p. 192). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 As usual, I find myself mostly agreeing or at least sympathetic with Lachman's arguments, even about points where I’m more skeptical—or perhaps to say cautious—about conclusions and connections. All the points in his case merit careful consideration and invite us to a more in-depth exploration of the issues raised.

For me, a book that promotes—even demands—further explorations of its subjects merits the highest valuation, and this book meets this criterion. I could go on at great length sharing and then riffing on the many issues that Lachman’s book raises: the nature of persuasion; the relation between thoughts, beliefs, actions, and reality; the role of ideas in the material world of politics; the thinning barrier between appearance and reality (or simulacra and simulation); the distinction between “imagination” and “fancy” (or “creativity); critiques of modernity and alternatives to modernity; the illusions and deceptions of postmodernism; the potential for civilizational disruption; and (in my words), why the human herd is so spooked that we have stampeded toward a cliff.

I’ll save exploration of these issues for later blogs, but suffice it to say, I highly recommend reading this book to better understand and investigate the uncertain times in which we now live. 

The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder

In his latest work, Timothy Snyder sets a high bar for himself: he compares his project to that of Thucydides in The Peloponnesian Wars. Snyder justifies the comparison by noting that Thucydides, like him, was writing about the events of his lifetime.

Can history be so contemporary? We think of the Peloponnesian Wars as ancient history . . . . Yet their historian Thucydides was describing events that he experienced. He included discussions of the past insofar as this was necessary to clarify the stakes in the present. This work humbly follows that approach. (12)

Snyder also explains his invocation of Thucydides on two additional grounds. First, with Thucydides, "History as a discipline began as a confrontation with war propaganda." Snyder continues,  "Thucydides was careful to make a distinction between leaders' accounts of their actions and the real reasons for their decisions." (10). In the remainder of the book, Snyder endeavors to lift the curtain that seeks to conceal the wizards who are busy pulling levers (or in more contemporary terms, programming content) to beguile the gullible. Second, Thucydides identified "oligarchy" as "rule by the few," and that term has since found its way into contemporary English via the Russian experience of the 1990s. (I, however, prefer the more old-fashioned American term, "plutocrats," but I concede the point.)

So does Snyder justify his audacious comparison in this book? Yes. I don't know that it will go down into history with the same staying power of Thucydides' classic work, but it certainly meets a similar need in our time.

Snyder provides a crucial scheme to give shape to his tale. He distinguishes three varieties of politics: the politics of inevitability, the politics of eternity, and their mutual alternative, which he doesn't label until the end of the book, but that I'll label the politics of action. (He doesn't explicitly reference the political thought of Hannah Arendt (although he does quote her), but I perceive that his political thinking is very much influenced by Arendt, so I propose the label the "politics of action" in her honor. N.B. In the next to last paragraph of the book he uses the term "the politics of responsibility," I believe the two terms interchangeable from this perspective.)

What Snyder labels as "the politics of inevitability" arises from the idea that "the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done." (7). He notes that Soviet Communism held these traits before it morphed into the politics of eternity, but he's most concerned that this type of politics marked American and European thinking at the end of the Cold War, at "the end of history." (Snyder, unlike many other writers on this topic, does not stop to slam Francis Fukuyama at this point, which I find refreshing, given that I believe Fukuyama has been at least in some measure unfairly maligned on this topic. Blog post.)

But when the inevitable doesn't arrive as promised, the politics of inevitability will collapse and "like a ghost from a corpse" (15) the politics of eternity will arise. In contrast to the good times promised by the politics of inevitability, the politics of eternity "places one nation at the center of a cyclical story of victimhood. Time is no longer a line into the future, but a circle that endlessly returns the same threats from the past. . . . Progress gives way to doom." (8). Yet despite their competing accounts of the schema of events, these two modes of politics share specific defining characteristics.

Inevitability and eternity translated facts into narratives. Those ways by inevitability see every fact as a blip that does not alter the overall story of progress; those who shift to eternity classify every new event as just one more instance of a timeless threat. Each masquerades as history; each does away with history. Inevitability politicians teach that the specifics of the past are irrelevant, since anything that happens is just grist for the mill of progress. Eternity politicians leap from one moment to another, over decades or centuries, to build a myth of innocence and danger. . They imagine cycles of threat in the past, creating an imagined pattern that they realize in the present by producing artificial crises and daily drama. (8-9). 

Each of these two visions has its own style of propaganda and creating a "political fiction" (9). It is at this point (and undoubtedly others) that the politics of action pushes back. As Snyder notes:

[W]hatever impression propaganda makes at the time, it is not history's final verdict. There is a difference between memory, the impressions we are given; and history, the connections that we work to make--if we wish. (9)

One final point about the distinction between Snyder's two models of misleading politics. Each, he claims, has "no ideas." This true in some sense, but it misses the point that these competing visions are both marked by one big idea (inevitability or eternity) that spin off the rest of (what passes for) for thought in these two regimes. Snyder spends most of a chapter on Ivan Ilyin, an early 20th-century fascist Russian "thinker" whom Putin and his court adopted to provide a model for the politics of eternity (and whose remains were brought back to Russia for re-internment more than 60 years after his death, with great ceremony). It seems that the politics of eternity does have "ideas," but that it does not entertain any novel ideas that are grounded in historical reality. (Again, we're reminded of Arendt, who emphasized plurality and "beginning" in her work.).

Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man's freedom.

--Hannah Arendt (1951) (p.111) 

Snyder chronicles the descent of the Soviet Union into the politics of eternity, the chaos after the fall of Communist rule, the early Putin years, and then Putin's gradual adoption of the politics of eternity. I found Putin's metamorphosis most interesting: in his first years of rule, he didn't promote the politics of eternity nor excessive hostility toward the West. Snyder suggests (and I have no reason to disagree) that Putin's takedown of the oligarchs as a political threat and resulted in access to their wealth that he took advantage of and that converted his regime into a full-blown kleptocracy (rule by thieves, in essence). In such a scheme, Putin and Russia could not compete with the West, and therefore, drawing upon a long-standing Russian inferiority complex (my term, not Snyder's), he turned to the politics of eternity. Putin and the politics of eternity practice what Snyder labels as "strategic relativism;" in short, if you can't reach up to your rival's level, then pull them down to yours. And this became Putin's operating principle viz. Europe and the U.S.

Snyder also untangles the confusion about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and all the surrounding issues. As a seasoned historian of Eastern Europe (and knowledgeable in several of those languages), he watched events unfold in real time. He provides a coherent account of events as well as explaining how those events fit his rubric of the politics of eternity. Snyder realizes how vital the project of getting the facts straight is. As he notes, "To end factuality is to begin eternity" (160) and "The ink of political fiction is blood."  For just a moment, ponder the meaning of that quote in light of the character--or lack thereof--of the current American president.

The final section of the book deals with America. As Putin moved Russia moved more deeply into the politics of eternity, his government began to take what they term "active measures" to weaken and confound the United States. There best weapon? "Donald Trump, successful businessman," a fiction that Snyder describes as "the payload of a cyberweapon." I will not repeat the details here, but suffice it to say that if I'd read this a few years ago, I would have thought someone was trying to update "The Manchurian Candidate" (again, but don't bother with that one). So now when I read the paper, even earlier today, I'm not surprised. Snyder is as honest, forthright, and meticulous as the House Intelligence [sic] Committee was duplicitous in its claim that the Russians didn't favor Trump. (Thank you, Senator Burr, for some refreshing honesty and candor.) Of course, we Americans must take responsibility for the policies and developments that allowed so many Americans to be exploited by this Russian adversary (not the nation, the regime). We set ourselves up; they played us.

As Snyder's prologue was a call to question and understand, his epilogue is a call to action, the politics of action (or "responsibility," as he describes it below).

To experience its destruction is to see a world for the first time. Inheritors of an order we did not build, we are now witnesses to a decline we did not foresee.  

To see our moment is to step away from the stories supplied for our stupefaction, myths of inevitability and eternity, progress and doom. Life is elsewhere. Inevitability and eternity are not history but ideas within history, ways of experiencing our time that accelerates its trends while slowing our thoughts. To see, we must set aside the dark glass, and see as we are seen, ideas for what they are, history as what we make. 

. . . .

If we see history as it is, we see our places in it, what we might change, and how we might do better. We halt our thoughtless journey from inevitability to eternity; ad exit the road to unfreedom. We being a politics of responsibility.  

To take part in its creation is to see a world for a second time. Students of the virtues that history reveals, we become the makers of a renewal that no one can foresee. 

This is a brilliant history, meditation, and call to action. I heartily recommend it.