On his Substack page, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has an amazing piece. The gist is that the two top generals in the war in Ukraine, Valery Gerasimov of Russia and Valery Zaluzhny of Ukraine, have essentially agreed to end the war. Both realize it is unwinnable and neither desires the additional slaughter of combatants and civilians, economic devastation, the ruination of infrastructure, etc. What could be called a mutiny is also an agreement on the basic outlines of a deal.
Russia would be left with unchallenged control of Crimea and, pending an election to be held under martial law in March, with essential control of the four provinces, or oblasts, that Russia annexed last year: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and the still embattled Kherson. In return—in a concession not foreseen—Russia, that is, Putin himself, would not object to Ukraine joining NATO.
If Putin doesn’t object, the only major obstacle is Volodymyr Zelensky. European nations want an end to the war and for Ukrainian refugees to return home. The Biden Administration is adamantly opposed, but, with the president’s many problems at home, can do little to prolong a war neither side’s combatants want. Meanwhile, Zaluzhny gave a frank and revealing interview to The Economist that seems to have been aimed specifically at informing Zelensky of the “facts on the ground.”
The general revealed that his troops had advanced by less than eleven miles since the much advertised Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia got under way early last summer. “There will be most likely no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” Zaluzhny said. “The simple fact is that we see everything that the enemy is doing and they see everything we are doing.”
The Russian high command seems to agree.
“Gerasimov also realized that from a military perspective the war in Ukraine was a destructive stalemate.” The Russian general “finally convinced Putin that there was no victory to be had. The Russian losses were disproportionate.”
Perhaps most interesting is the fact that two of the major players in the war, Zelensky and Biden, seem to be not players in the peace, but pawns to be manipulated and, if necessary, simply left on the board.
The White House is totally against the proposed agreement,” the [American] official said. “But it will happen. Putin has not disagreed.”
And,
The American official said that Zelensky has been told that “this is a military-to-military problem to solve and the talks will go on with or without you.” If necessary, the American official told me, “We can finance his voyage to the Caribbean.”
If Hersh’s sources are right, this is a remarkable and welcome development. No one knows how it’ll play out, but what I see as the salient feature is that supposedly important political players are mostly being ignored and a peace plan advanced not only without them but over their opposition. I call that the salient feature because in certain ways, it fits with otherwise-unrelated developments that either bypass political establishments or openly oppose them.
Brexit is the most significant example, but the election of Donald Trump is plainly another. Just last week Dutch voters upended the status quo with the election of Geert Wilders, a figure previously considered beyond the pale of the country’s politics. The rebellion of Dutch farmers likely had a lot to do with his election as did the failing European “Green Deal,” but more important were the country’s immigration policies. Marine le Pen in France isn’t Prime Minister yet, but is more popular than the current one, Emmanuel Macron. Trump’s continuing popularity despite (or because of) his targeting by the legal system fairly shouts “anti-establishment!” In Argentina, the election of Javier Milei does much the same, as did Giorgia Meloni’s in Italy last year.
This didn’t come from nowhere. It came from the arrogance of political elites who, predictably, overplayed their hand. They embraced ideology-based notions like critical race theory, trans theory, unlimited immigration, the uselessness of the police, the necessity of sharply reducing our (but not their) standard of living to fit shaky (and increasingly rejected) notions of climate crisis, the danger of free speech, curtailing due process of law, the wonders of endless war, frank dishonesty, in Europe the diminution of national sovereignty, etc. and all the while ignoring issues important to the “deplorables,” i.e., everyday people.
What those elites now find so disconcerting (and, needless to say, anti-democratic, white supremacist, phobic, etc.) is that We the People think for ourselves and have concluded that those who presume to rule us are barking mad and bent on destroying everything good we’ve accomplished over the centuries and, into the bargain, blaming us for the mess.
So we’re saying ‘no.’ Throughout the West, we’re wiring around traditional norms of political engagement and protest. Yes, much of that involves little more than voting – scarcely a revolutionary act. But it’s what we’re voting for (and against) that tells the tale. We’re choosing candidates (Trump, Wilders, Meloni, Milei) and initiatives (Brexit, ‘No’ to racial preferences) that are doggedly opposed by the political status quo. We’re also taking to the streets (the truckers’ protest in Canada, the farmers in the Netherlands, practically everyone in France).
This is a profoundly conservative response (note the lowercase ‘c’). These multiple rejections of the policies and attitudes of political elites are not those of coherent movements with coherent ideologies driven by established organizations. No, these are ad hoc rejections by loosely-connected – and often opposed – groups that coalesce around specific issues and, when satisfied, vanish. They leave political systems in place while focusing on – in England, membership in the EU, in the Netherlands and Italy, immigration, in Canada, COVID restrictions, etc. – while attacking their failures and excesses. As such, they don’t presage the fascistic overthrow of existing orders as elites like to claim, but a continuation of them, albeit still replete with ad hoc discontent.
That’s an important point made by Martin Gurri in his book, The Revolt of the Public. The outsiders attacking political power consist of networks digitally connected, voluntarily joined and egalitarian (i.e., anti-hierarchy). Those networks, Gurri says, have “no intention of governing” and develop “no capacity for exercising power.” After all, how would an unorganized and temporary alliance of people, spread out over an entire country and beyond, bring power to bear except by doing those most civil of things – protesting and voting. As such, they are inherently conservative.
Of course, any deal struck by Gerasimov and Zaluzhny won’t be a product of any such network, but will be similar in its limited aims. The war will end, Vladimir Putin will remain in power and Russia in Crimea. But one thing will have changed – no more young men will be sacrificed to the global bloodlust of faraway elites.
On my office wall hangs an old Honoré Daumier print. It’s from the late 19th century and features a huge, bloated man who represents the government. He’s standing in the street fecklessly offering passersby folios marked “War,” “Commerce,” “Justice,” and the like. But no one’s interested, no one cares; they ignore him and simply walk on by.
