A few days ago, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton replied to my question about Ukraine at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She and John Sullivan, who served as Ambassador to Russia under both Presidents Trump and Biden, revealed themselves to be either liars or so ignorant of reasons for the U.S. Ukraine war as to be utter fools. [The full video can be found here].
This was a fly-on-the-wall event where you get to hear the delusions of the people who shape US foreign policy. The CFR meeting was hosted by the Dean of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, Keren Yarhi-Milo, who talked about the biases commonly found among policymakers and the intelligence community when they try to understand the intentions of US adversaries. She spoke about mirror imaging, which is what happens when you think that the adversary thinks in exactly the same way that you do; she spoke about the inability to empathize, she spoke about other biases that lead us to misunderstand and misperceive the intentions of our adversaries. She said it happens in the United States, repeatedly. All important.
But then Keren Yarhi-Milo veered into arm-chair psychology, telling the audience that in her view, ”[if] you want to understand the Ukraine, the decision to invade Ukraine, what’s driving this, you have to really understand Putin’s psychology, and the reference point, and how it’s all about, in his mind, regaining the Soviet empire.” So she knows what is in Putin’s mind, though he has never said that!
At the event, Ambassador John Sullivan, who also served as Deputy Secretary of State under Trump, echoed Yarhi-Milo, asserting that “you have to really understand Putin’s psychology” when evaluating his policy in Ukraine. He said, “I once had a conversation with my then-boss Secretary Blinken. And we were talking about what Putin is like. And, you know, he’s often compared to a gangster. And I didn’t want to make an ethnic reference, or if I made one it would be one that would be from my own tribe. So I’m from South Boston. And I started talking about Whitey Bulger.”
Bulger was a mafioso, murderer and a crook. Is that how Sullivan really feels about the Boston Irish?
“And I mean, you’ve got to understand, you can’t understand Putin unless you really understand where he’s from, what he’s about. He’s a tough kid from Leningrad, right? And not understanding who—his sense of grievance, his sense of loss.” He adds: “He is committed to the proposition that the great geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century was the demise of the Soviet Union. …He doesn’t lament the demise of Soviet communism. He famously says, if you’re not nostalgic for how we lived in Soviet days you don’t have a heart, but if you want to return to Soviet communism you don’t have a brain. I mean, it’s hard to be the richest person in the world with a billion-dollar palace in Sochi.”
So, Putin is like the Bulgar of the American politics, not Russia?
In fact, there is no evidence that Putin is richest person in the world (that seems to be Elon Musk) and there is also no evidence of this palace. But who cares about evidence! And even his “you don’t have a brain” quote contradicts what Putin said! But who cares!
For once, Clinton got closer to the truth when she said, “… it’s been our experience, and certainly the research shows, that you introduce, through this over-personalization, volatility. And really, the volatility becomes a greater driver than your credibility, your ability to really read this person, to manage this person, to try to shape the events.” But she didn’t challenge Yarhi-Milo or Sullivan on Putin. And she certainly didn’t like me raising the point when I asked her question:
My name is Lucy Komisar. I’m a journalist.
I was very impressed with the Dean’s analysis of how one should look with empathy and look at the other side. And then I saw in the discussion of Russia absolutely the opposite. I didn’t hear anybody talk about Kissinger and Kennan talking about not moving NATO one inch to the east, the 2014 American-sponsored coup that threw out an elected Ukraine head of government because he was too pro-Russian, the new government bombing the Russian speakers for eight years.”
David Westin of Bloomberg News, serving as moderator, then broke in:
There’s a question here, right? I’m sorry, ma’am, is there a question in here? Is there a question? This is a speech. I’m sorry.
[Here I would note that my comment was way shorter than others were allowed to make without interruption. But then again, those didn’t challenge the speaker.]
After the unasked for interruption, I continued:
Let me finish. That the Soviet Union, anybody that wanted it—that talked about it being collapsed, that it was a tragedy, but anybody that wanted to have it come back had no brain. Why did you not talk about any of these facts? And instead of that do a lot of armchair psychologizing about Putin and his motives?.
Enter Hillary.
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