Why Putin will never truly conquer Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has never been completely clear about his war aims. But he gives clues. He endlessly talks of the brotherhood of Russians and Ukrainians – and in this relationship he always puts Russia first. In Ukraine he wants Russian language schooling to be restored and he of course wishes to annex more Ukrainian territory. He would like Russian businesses to receive privileged access and for Ukraine to be barred from having an independent foreign and security policy. In other words, he wishes to pursue ‘Russification’.

Russification is an objective that has taken changing forms over the centuries. Under the Russian Empire, the tsars saw Ukraine as a problem as they feared the growth of nationalism. The Ukrainian language was restricted in the press. Ukraine made no appearance on official maps. The territories around Kyiv were called Malorossia (Little Russia) while those near the Black Sea were dubbed Novorossia (New Russia). These names expressed an insistence that the entire destiny of Ukrainian speakers lay with Great Russia.

Imperial Germany coveted Ukraine’s wheat fields and iron mines during the Great War. When Soviet Russia went down to defeat in 1918, the Germans established a Ukrainian puppet state which was obliged to supply them with the grain and labour they craved. Ukrainians nevertheless cherish those brief months as their first experience of statehood. When the communists took charge after the ensuing civil war, Vladimir Lenin saw that Ukraine would remain difficult to rule inside the USSR unless granted the status of a Soviet republic and permitted a degree of cultural and linguistic autonomy – as Putin sees it, this was a cardinal blunder of statecraft that prepared the way for a split between Moscow and Kyiv.

Joseph Stalin eyed Ukraine as crucial for his forcible imposition of collective farming from the late 1920s. Ukrainian agriculture had been central Europe’s breadbasket before 1914 and the intention was to fund Soviet industrialisation by means of massive cereal exports. Instead there was searing damage to peasant farms and millions of Ukrainians perished in the avoidable famine. Stalin also reintroduced restrictions on the Ukrainian language. More Russians than ever moved to Ukraine seeking work in the mines and steel plants. Moscow offered the Ukrainian people little except poverty and repression. This was one of the reasons why many initially welcomed the Nazi invaders in 1941 – another event that Putin has not forgotten.

Throughout the decades that followed, Soviet rulers met with trouble in Ukraine. Stalin’s occupation forces at the end of the second world war had to contend against partisans who fought to thwart the reimposition of Soviet rule. The communist order was restored by the 1950s. The Ukrainian Soviet republic acquired a seat at the United Nations – perhaps Putin thinks this a blunder on Stalin’s part. Ukraine never became the ‘model’ of Marxist-Leninist affluence that Lenin and Stalin had envisaged and the USSR failed to grow enough food for itself, far less to export grain to foreign parts.

When Mikhail Gorbachëv announced reforms of communism in the late 1980s, he tried to keep a lid on Ukrainian nationalism. But the collapse of the Soviet economy intensified Ukrainians’ resentment about their treatment by Moscow. Leonid Kravchuk, the communist leader in Kyiv, sniffed the nationalist wind in 1991 and aligned himself with Ukrainian opinion by demanding a referendum on independence. That December, after Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to secede, the USSR fell apart – an event described by Putin as the century’s ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe’.

Throughout the 1990s the Ukrainian economy was in a deep depression and was mocked by Russian rulers who themselves had little to boast about. Ukraine’s politics, however, were looser than Russia’s. In the present century they have given rise to presidential electoral contests won by candidates who wanted close ties with the European Union and an open democratic system under the rule of law. Under Volodymyr Zelensky this orientation was consolidated. Putin’s Crimean land grab in 2014 persuaded even the millions of pro-Russia Ukrainian citizens that Ukraine should prioritise cooperation and alliance with the West. Putin’s bullying of Russia’s ‘brother people’ turned that nation into hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism.

So how could Putin ever go about denationalising Ukraine and making it more Russia-friendly? The collapse of Ukrainian statehood now seems unlikely thanks to the bravery of its politicians and armed forces. Territorial annexation is another matter. Large parts of the Donbas, apart from Kharkiv, are occupied by Russian forces. The Black Sea coast has also been overrun. Currently what is left of Ukraine is blockaded by the Russian navy.

In order to keep hold of what he already has, Putin has imposed puppet administrations in the occupied territories. He has recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk so-called people’s republics, and he may well arrange plebiscites for their incorporation in the Russian Federation on similar terms to Crimea. He has already deported thousands of Ukrainian citizens deep into Russia. A further campaign of ethno-political cleansing is probable. The Russian language will be re-imposed. Russian business interests will be privileged. All this is possible but it would require a massive enduring presence of security forces to stamp out Ukrainian resistance.

A Russian military victory even in Donbass and along the Black Sea coast could never be without horrendous costs for Russia’s ruling group and big business. Russia would remain the world’s pariah state and economy. Resentment of Russia both in the conquered and still-free parts of Ukraine would be greater than anything known to Nicholas II, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Putin will surely at some point – let’s hope it is soon – be asked whether his ‘special military operation’ was worth it all. And it will be the Russians, including some of their ruling group, who will be putting the question.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/05/why-putin-will-never-truly-conquer-ukraine/

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The feminization of Sweden

The Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede is known for his studies of national values. On two occasions he collected extensive data from IBM employees in 53 countries, first in 1968 and again in 1972. He received 116,000 responses to questions about attitudes and preferences. In the 1970s, he organised the material into five themes and summarised them in a “cultural dimension theory”. Hofstede then scored the countries and compared them with each other. His study has attracted a lot of attention, mainly because the conclusions are based on such a large body of material. Hofstede is one of the 100 most-cited social scientists in the world.

On the basis of his vast material, Hofstede established no fewer than 76 criteria for male and female. Japan came first among the masculine countries. Both the United States and Germany are also high on the ranking list. Among the most feminine countries, he placed Sweden in first place, with Norway second.

Note that the data is now a half-century old and that Sweden has since become even more feminised. In most universities and colleges, women are in the majority among teachers and researchers. Six out of eight parliamentary parties have female leaders. We have a female prime minister and there are twelve women and eleven men in the government.

In the media, the imbalance is probably even greater. I have not looked for studies that show this, because it is so obvious both to me and to others who follow Swedish news reporting. Women, women and more women both report and are interviewed on every conceivable subject. This female expertise covers everything from football and ice hockey to advanced and male-dominated high technology to gang crime, which is almost 100% a male activity. We find out how women think, what they find interesting and how they want to solve various social problems.

One of the traditionally most male-dominated professions, policing, is represented in the Police Federation by a woman. This is only right. In 2019, 33% of Sweden’s police officers were women. In total, 44% of all police employees are women. Among civilian employees, women are in the majority, a whopping 67%. When 43% of those admitted to the police training programme in Malmö were women last year, Caroline Mellgren, who oversees the unit for police work and police training at the university, was very happy and hoped that the trend of more and more female police officers would continue.

A couple of years ago, a young, beautiful female police officer explained that when she and other female officers took the metro home from late-night duty in Rinkeby’s new police station, they needed an escort. If there had been only male police officers there, would they have made that demand? Hardly; they would realise it was ridiculous. If they felt unsafe on their own, they would have to arrange to protect each other. But for a graceful and good-looking female police officer, the question of an escort was certainly relevant, and I don’t think she would then feel entirely comfortable being escorted by another young and attractive female officer.

Recruitment films for the Armed Forces are another example. In the American ones, it is crystal clear that the military is a male profession and also a very physically demanding one. In the Swedish ones, either the main characters are women or they are gender-neutral.

Now, war is not just any activity. It’s about killing your opponents, winning. A country that does not recruit optimally efficient soldiers, but deliberately reduces efficiency for ideological reasons, will be responsible in war for more soldiers dying, both men and women. The reason is that these mixed corps of soldiers are likely to fight against opponents who are all men. In that case, it is a question of not really wanting to win, which is the same as losing, and since it is a question of war, it can be said to be a form of social suicide. Nor should it be forgotten that in war people are injured. Women are less able than men to cope with injuries.

In the autumn of 2016, the Swedish Armed Forces released a new handbook for Swedish military personnel. It makes it quite clear that in Sweden the Armed Forces prefer political correctness to efficiency. There are several so-called gender advisors in Swedish units. The goal, according to Jan Thörnqvist, who is responsible for the Swedish Armed Forces, is to be far ahead of other countries. As the book says: “Swedish units can also contribute to raising awareness within multilateral organisations of the importance of the gender perspective. This can be done by developing gender-inclusive reporting formats and proposing gender mainstreaming in meetings and plans.”

OK, we have female police officers in Sweden, we have female firefighters (gender-neutral language: firemen?) and we have female soldiers. Gender equality is a political goal that is close to the heart of left-liberals.

At the same time, the state has a reasonable responsibility to choose the optimum solution for important social services. I think that if the people had a choice, the distribution between male and female police officers would be more clearly skewed in favour of the men.

But if, for reasons I will not go into here, the people also choose women for these posts, then it is the duty of the state in a democracy to make not an ideological but an efficiency-optimal choice. Which means: women in higher positions are welcome, but if physical strength and other male “virtues” are required, then it should be men — and also women who meet the requirements for men. Ultimately, this is about competence. Police officers in Rinkeby should not have to ask for an external escort when they go home from work.

Is this a reactionary perspective? Yes; reactionary means reacting, and it is right to react to stupid decisions. I and many others react to the politicisation of society. At its core, it is totalitarian when politicians neither listen to what citizens want, nor look out for the best interests of citizens.

In a totalitarian state, ideology wins out over both democracy and optimal choices.

https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/05/the-estrogen-revolution/#more-53890

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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