Background interviews in "The Putin Files" at Frontline

Frontline PBS recently ran a two-part documentary called Putin's Revenge, focused on the story of Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential election. Part 1 focuses on Putin's experiences with and understanding of US foreign policy.

Part 2 deals more specifically with the events of 2016 in connection with Russian hacking and the US election.

Frontline has also made available hours of background interviews of the authorities quoted in the documentary. Since they largely deal with the same set of events and questions, they do begin to sound a bit repetitive after a while. But they do provide a wide range of views, all largely within a safely Establishment perspective. Which, of course, has its advantages and disadvantages.

My most interesting and informative of the ones I've listened to so far is this one, The Putin Files: Julia Ioffe, which is 1 3/4 hours long. Her columns the past year for The Atlantic on Russia have also been helpful. Unlike our typical Pod Pundits on TV, she tells stories like you would hope a journalist would. She's very good in relating a chronological narrative. And she's careful to include a lot of factual detail and meaningful context. And she gives the appearance of trying to stick with confirmed facts, or at a minimum to explain what sources on which she's relying. That emerges at the start of the interview, where she responds to the question on whether the highest levels of Russian government knew about the hacking of the Democratic Party and election system in 2016.

Her account is also notably useful in that she conveys an image of how Putin was likely to have understood events that affected him and his political career. Understanding how the "other side" sees itself is something our TV pundits aren't generally very good about doing. Understanding isn't defending, and explaining isn't defending. But it's easy for people in politics and especially international politics to forget about those two things.

Celeste Wallander's interview in interesting in that she recounts the Ukraine crisis of 2013 as though the US is a de facto military ally of the US, The Putin Files: Celeste Wallander 10/25/2017.

Although she also recognizes that the Russians had the ability and the intent to escalate with additional Russian troops if they judged it necessary.

Victoria Nuland strikes me as a particularly unsympathetic public figure, and this interview didn't do anything to disabuse me of that impression, The Putin Files: Victoria Nuland 10/25/2017:

She insists on starting off by making the dubious point that the Clinton Administration was serious in trying to make Russia a part of NATO in the early 1990s. Of the interviews in this series that I've heard, Nuland's seemed the most carefully worded to further a hawkish foreign policy narrative. She talks as though the US approach in everything she's talking about are obviously pure and noble. And manages to sound condescending and remarkably smug through most of it. Rightly or wrongly, I tend to think that someone who can keep an expression like this for most of a 1 1/4 hour interview is probably trying to con her listeners:

It's striking in her interview that she speaks as if Russia had no legitimate security concerns about NATO expansion. Which reinforces the perception that she's making a hawkish political pitch rather than speaking as a foreign policy expert in a more technical sense here.

Nuland is so immersed in Cold War hawkish thinking that she even rolls out the hoary old Domino Theory for Europe today. Just after 47:00, we hear this interchange:

Frontline: Of course, there's another argument that some people have come in here and said, which is, [if] you don't stop Putin there, y'know, where do you stop Putin, when do you stop Putin, that's the moment.

Nuland: Well, that was the argument that those of us favoring at least defense lethal systems made, was that, you know, if he really wanted it, he would be in Kiev, and the next thing you knew he would be in Warsaw if we weren't careful.

One difference: Poland is a member of the NATO mutual-defense alliance. Ukraine is not. Nuland's words would indicate that she doesn't understand even a basic distinction like that. (I'm guessing she's faking it on that point!)

From this interview, I would have to conclude that her only regret about the 2013 Ukraine crisis is that we didn't Americanize the conflict and expand the war even more.

This interview with a former Obama adviser gives us an idea of how it sounds for someone to take Putin's outlook seriously - whether it's right or wrong - as contrasted with the strict advocacy perspective of Victoria Nuland, The Putin Files: Antony Blinken 10/25/2017:

Just after 16:30, Blinken straightforwardly explains the basic fact that makes Nuland's point about Putin marching from Kiev to Warsaw is so silly, that Poland is a NATO member.

New York Times Reporter David Sanger's interview is also notable it his seemingly pragmatic and realistic take on the topics covered, The Putin Files: David Sanger 10/25/2017:

Much of screen time on the two-part documentary itself is composed of excerpts from the set of interviews that Frontline placed on YouTube and from which these five were taken.

Philip Breedlove and the New Cold War hawks

Spiegel International recently reported on new details that have come to light on the hawkish maneuvers of Gen. Philip Breedlove in the Ukraine crisis. (Christoph Schult and Klaus Wiegrefe, Dangerous Propaganda: Network Close To NATO Military Leader Fueled Ukraine Conflict 07/28/2016) Breedlove was the commander of the US European Command and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 2013 to 2016. Schult and Wiegrefe report:

The newly leaked emails reveal a clandestine network of Western agitators around the NATO military chief, whose presence fueled the conflict in Ukraine. Many allies found in Breedlove's alarmist public statements about alleged large Russian troop movements cause for concern early on. Earlier this year, the general was assuring the world that US European Command was "deterring Russia now and preparing to fight and win if necessary."

The emails document for the first time the questionable sources from whom Breedlove was getting his information. He had exaggerated Russian activities in eastern Ukraine with the overt goal of delivering weapons to Kiev.

The general and his likeminded colleagues perceived US President Barack Obama, the commander-in-chief of all American forces, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel as obstacles. Obama and Merkel were being "politically naive & counter-productive" in their calls for de-escalation, according to Phillip Karber, a central figure in Breedlove's network who was feeding information from Ukraine to the general.

Some of the more prominent names they mention as collaborating with Breedlove on his hawkish project are Wesley Clark, Colin Powell and Victoria Nuland, the neocon heavyweight and wife of Robert Kagan. Nuland serves as the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and played a key role in the Obama Administration's regime-change efforts in Ukraine against Viktor Yanukovych's government, deposed in 2014. Her "f**k the EU" comment over Yanukovych's ouster didn't set well with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, unsurprisingly. (Angela Merkel: Victoria Nuland's remarks on EU are unacceptable Guardian 02/07/2014)

Breedlove's hawkish stance and the differences Merkel's government had with him aren't news. (Erik Kirschbaum and Tom Körkemeier, NATO and Germany are not on the same page Business Insider/Reuters 03/07/2015)

Spiegel International reported 03/06/2015 (Breedlove's Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine):

... General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery" having been sent to the Donbass. "What is clear," Breedlove said, "is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day."

German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.

The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove's comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

The same article mentions German concern over Nuland's role in pushing escalation against Russia over Ukraine.

Schult and Wiegrefe note that Nuland is "considered a potential candidate for secretary of state" in a Hillary Clinton Administration. They don't say whom is doing the considering in this case. But a Nuland appointment would be a strong sign that Clinton intends to pursue a "new Cold War" approach against Russia.

Wiegrefe writes in Eastern Flank Security: The Siren Song of NATO's Hawks Spiegel International 07/12/25016:

Hawks like the former NATO commander Wesley Clark and former German General Egon Ramms refer to the border [between Russia and the Baltic states] as the "Baltic Gap," an allusion to the famous Fulda Gap of the Cold War, the site on the eastern border of the German state of Hesse where military strategists feared a major Soviet tank offensive. It never happened. Now, though, the fear is that a massive Russian invasion could take place somewhere along the plains between the Estonian town of Narva, in the country's northeast, and the Belorussian town of Brest, located on the border with Poland.

At the NATO summit in Warsaw on Friday and Saturday, the alliance followed through on its desire to bolster its conventional forces. A rapid reaction force had already been established, but now, the alliance intends to station thousands of soldiers in the three Baltic countries and Poland. In case of a Russian attack, NATO is to have almost 50,000 troops available to beat it back. And there are plenty of military and political leaders who would like to see an even more robust presence.

The hawks would seem to be setting the tone at the moment. Russia is an "existential threat," NATO's then-top military commander, Philip Breedlove -- who also adopted a hardline position during the height of the Ukraine crisis -- said not long ago. This spring, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said that Russia represents a greater risk to Europe than Islamic State. And at the beginning of June, the Danish NATO officer Jakob Larsen publicly suggested that "we need to learn to fight total war again." Larsen commands NATO's advance post in Lithuania and apparently isn't aware that the last call for "total war" was made in Germany during the infamous 1943 speech delivered in a Berlin sports stadium by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. [my emphasis]

Wiegrefe notes, apparently in line the official German position, "The democratic West could certainly afford to be a bit more even-tempered. It is, after all, vastly superior to semi-authoritarian Russia in many respects,including militarily, economically and politically."

Wiegrefe cites this article by Elbridge Colby as an example of the hawkish position, America Must Prepare for 'Limited War' The National Interest 10/21/20155. (Behind subscription; full text available from the Center for a New American Security).