Latest from Coffee House

Wednesday

2 Mar 2022

The Russian Orthodox Church eyes Ukraine

Christopher Hitchens, allergic to the idea that secular regimes might actually be more bloodthirsty than religious ones, infamously attempted to blame the atrocities of Stalin’s Soviet Union on the Russian Orthodox Church. It was an end run worthy of the NFL Hall of Fame, and no doubt Hitch would be attempting something similar if he’d lived to see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He would be wrong, but as Putin fights to reclaim territory once held by the Soviet and tsarist empires, the church appears to be conducting its own parallel campaign of spiritual imperialism. There’s little doubt Putin sees the church as politically useful.

Andrew Bacevich

The Ukraine invasion is nothing compared to Iraq

Of the war in Ukraine, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes, “Our world is not going to be the same again because this war has no historical parallel.” In the very next sentence, he describes the Russian invasion of Ukraine as “a raw, eighteenth-century-style land grab by a superpower,” thereby acknowledging that the episode actually has innumerable historical parallels — just not ones that Friedman cares to acknowledge as legitimate. Friedman figures prominently among those claiming to have divined the essential character of the present age. His key finding: tech-driven globalization has rendered old-fashioned power politics obsolete. The rules of the game have changed irrevocably. Practically speaking, nations have no choice but to submit.

Gilbert T. Sewall

Putin understands America’s moral decay

Last October, Vladimir Putin aired a speech to the Russian nation chiding the United States for its moral decay. He observed an America “blotting out whole pages” of its history, pursuing “reverse discrimination against the majority in the interests of minorities,” and renouncing time-honored values in an effort at “public renewal.” “It’s their right, but we are asking them to steer clear of our home,” he warned. “We have a different viewpoint.” This iteration of family values and conservative critique went barely noticed by the American press at the time.

Peter Wood

Is Europe a continent? Does it matter?

Nikole Hannah-Jones, who is never at a loss for a tweet, ridiculed Americans who are expressing alarm over the threat to Europe implicit in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. She put down those spoilsports for their referring to Europe as a “continent.” Quoth Hannah-Jones, under her nom-de-plume Ida Bae Wells: What if I told you Europe is not a continent by definition, but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia and so the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us. The triumphant silliness of the author of the 1619 Project always comes down to her desire to find racism at the root of whatever happens.

Oliver Wiseman

Biden’s vibe shift

Biden’s vibe shift Ahead of last night’s State of the Union, the Biden White House had promised a reset. What he delivered certainly fell short of the full system reboot a president with such dire approval ratings needs. But there was a change in tone. A vibe shift, if you will. Out with the FDR tribute act, in with a torpid moderation. Not an enthusiastic tack to the center but a partial acknowledgment of political reality. The president may not have offered an especially energizing reboot to his presidency in his speech, but it nonetheless felt like a page was turned last night. That was most immediately obvious when it came to the pandemic. Democrats had contrived to make March 1 the day the pandemic ended: rules lifted on the Hill, in the White House and across Washington.

Taylor Millard

The creeping authoritarianism of facial recognition

In an effort to lower crime rates, American law enforcement is pushing to combine facial recognition with expanded video surveillance. Politicians worried about their re-election chances due to a perceived crime wave see the expansion as necessary. It’s a sharp swing from 2019 and 2020, when cities like San Francisco and New Orleans were banning or at least enacting limits on facial recognition technology due to privacy concerns. Now, New Orleans plans to roll back its facial recognition prohibition. The Virginia State Senate gave law enforcement a late Valentine’s Day gift by passing a facial recognition expansion bill on February 15 — the Democrats who unanimously approved a ban on facial recognition last year suddenly changed their minds, as did five Republicans.

Tuesday

1 Mar 2022

Teresa Mull

Ash Wednesday and the gift of guilt

Deep in the gloomy last days of winter, Ash Wednesday once again descends upon us. Dutiful Catholics worldwide, soaked with enough sugar and spirits from Mardi Gras to last forty days and forty nights, will drag themselves to church to have their hungover heads smudged with ashes and be reminded that “You are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Ah, Lent. As a Catholic myself, this time of year always fills me with mixed emotions, sort of like going to the gym: I know it’s good for me, I know I’ll feel better afterward, but the Good Lord knows I’m no saint…let’s get on with it already! Lent is a season that bewilders a lot of non-Catholics. Fasting? Abstaining from meat? Almsgiving? It's 2022, guys.

Daniel DePetris

Putin is making the EU great again

The Europeans have been jolted awake from their deep Pax Americana slumber, when the continent was largely content to eat the spoils of economic prosperity and allow the United States to do the heavy lifting on all things security. And we have Vladimir Putin to thank for it. Russia’s nearly week-long invasion of Ukraine has shocked the conscience of many who believed Europe would never return to the dark days of large-scale land warfare.

Will Collins

Even Hungary has soured on Vladimir Putin

As Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border, the front page of the Hungarian tabloid Pesti Hírlap revived an old rallying cry to capture the national mood. “Ruszkik haza!” (“Russians go home!”) was the headline, with Budapest 1956, Prague 1968, and Kyiv 2022 listed below the fold. The line was borrowed from graffiti scrawled on Budapest street corners during the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, a heroic but doomed effort that has since entered into Hungarian national lore. Is it 1956 all over again? Despite some eerie parallels, the political geography of Europe has changed considerably since the bad old days of the Cold War. Budapest is two hours from Vienna by train and Prague is actually further West than the Austrian capital.

Oliver Wiseman

The myth of the Putin Party

The Putin Party myth In recent weeks, the two most influential men on the American right have come under close scrutiny for their views on Russian president Vladimir Putin and his increasingly indiscriminate attack on Ukraine. The first is Donald Trump, whose repeated insistence of Vladimir Putin’s “genius” and “savvy” have earned him unflattering headlines. The former president certainly seems to have an unhealthy fascination with, and, on a certain level, admiration for, strongmen, authoritarians and dictators. Out of office, he is reportedly pen pals with Kim Jong-un, for instance. However, it’s not just a stretch but a straightforward misrepresentation to describe Trump as pro-Putin.

Michael R. Auslin

What does Ukraine really mean for Taiwan?

No one should think that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine means that Xi Jinping will decide to use force against Taiwan anytime soon, if ever. China is not Russia, nor Taiwan Ukraine. Yet neither should policymakers presume that Beijing will not be influenced by what happens on the other end of Eurasia. Washington must consider whether and how Putin’s aggression has raised the stakes in defending Taiwan from the People’s Republic of China. At the least, US strategists will seriously have to assess whether a global environment in which norms of international behavior are regressing may serve to spur Beijing to military action that once seemed unlikely.

Monday

28 Feb 2022

Amber Duke

The GOP isn’t quitting on Trump

Will he or won't he? Americans tired of the rampant speculation are surely having a relief-filled two months. First Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady responded to a hasty ESPN report by announcing his retirement from the NFL. Then, former president Donald Trump told a roaring crowd at CPAC that he intends to run for America's highest office a third time. "We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” Trump said. “We’re going to be doing it again." Trump's announcement is a gut punch for other 2024 contenders who secretly hoped he'd step back and play kingmaker.

Daniel McCarthy

Putin’s endgame is preserving ‘his’ Russia

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine does not appear to be going well, and the Russian economy is about to experience the full force of Western sanctions. American social media is already in a celebratory mood. But caution is in order — it’s never smart to underestimate your opponent. Putin was expecting sanctions, and he and his war planners could not have discounted Ukrainian resistance, even if they underestimated its intensity. Maybe they did expect the invasion to be a cakewalk and are taken aback by how difficult it’s proved to be in just these first few days. But as of now the invasion still seems to be on its timetable, and its military objectives are achievable. Russians are surrounding Kyiv.

Stephen L. Miller

The Ukraine invasion is the first social media war

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not only the largest European land conflict since the 1940s — it’s also the first for the TikTok and YouTube generation. As videos pour in across Twitter and Instagram and other social media platforms are leveraged for credit or propaganda, it’s become evident that we are in a brand new era, much like the one that arrived with twenty-four-hour cable news coverage of the US invasion of Iraq in 1990. Back then it was grainy night vision images of patriot missile launches and target explosions that dazzled homes all over the United States.

Bill Zeiser

And now the dumbest takes about Ukraine

If hot takes brought peace, mankind would never know war again. At least, that’s the impression one is left with after spending time on Twitter during Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine. Some social media users seem to operate under the understanding that they are legally required to put their first — and often worst — opinions immediately onto the internet for all to see. Many of these tweets reflect the understandable human tendency to grasp at an explanation for terrible events. Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who is considered an oracle of sorts on the coronavirus pandemic, put forth an interesting theory. “It’s been suggested that #Putin isn’t thinking properly, perhaps due to long #COVID19,” she wrote.

Tim Ogden

How to turn the tide against Russia

The abrupt eruption of the worst military conflict in Europe since World War Two has naturally left the world in a state of shock, perhaps only comparable in living memory to that felt on 9/11. But as responses are considered and argued over, there will be more blows to come — as well as recriminations over how this could have been avoided. Naturally, much depends on which side emerges victorious, and at the time of writing the end result has yet to be determined. Certainly any assumption that the might of Russia's military machine would roll into Ukraine and quickly overwhelm the defenders has been categorically proven wrong; Russia's Blitzkrieg-style offensive failed to achieve its first-day objectives in the face of fierce Ukrainian defense.

Oliver Wiseman

The West wakes up

The West wakes up As Lenin probably didn’t say, “there are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen.” The last seven days have felt like such a week. Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression and Ukraine’s heroic resistance have shocked the West into action and, in doing so, transformed the world. Only a few days ago, Joe Biden was cool on some of the harsher sanctions being discussed and European leaders were squabbling over carve-outs from the package of punitive measures being prepared for Russia. But, in the last seventy-two hours, all that has changed. Galvanized by Ukrainian bravery and Russian folly, Europe and America have reached for the toughest sanctions on the table.

floyd officers tou thao j. alexander kueng

Rachel K. Paulose

What’s next for the officers who watched George Floyd die?

A federal jury in St. Paul, Minnesota found guilty on all counts the three fired officers who failed to intervene as Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes on May 25, 2020, leading to Floyd’s death in police custody. On that Memorial Day evening, Officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane first confronted Floyd for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at the Cup Foods convenience store in Minneapolis. As they handcuffed Floyd and attempted to place him in a squad car, they were joined by Chauvin and Tou Thao. After officers were unable to place Floyd in the squad car, Chauvin, Kueng and Lane restrained Floyd on the ground for over nine minutes as a growing crowd recorded the events unfolding in public view. Floyd stopped breathing at the scene.

Sunday

27 Feb 2022

Harry J. Kazianis

Yes, Russia could use nuclear weapons

“Nuclear war is part of our strategic culture. Yes, we would start one if our homeland, our way of life, was threatened, absolutely. Why wouldn't we?” That’s what a retired Russian diplomat told me on the sidelines of a track-two dialogue between US, Russian and Chinese experts back in 2012. And to be honest, for several years, I didn’t believe him. I took his comments as bragging, atomic machismo, if you will. The context of the conversation was a response to a question to my Russian colleague on the subject of Moscow’s nuclear weapons doctrine and thinking. Russia for several years has believed in the concept of escalating nuclear tensions to deescalate tensions, or what defense scholars call “escalate to deescalate.

Leon Hadar

Biden’s confusion over sanctions

Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine requires a swift and effective Western response. But according to neoconservative and liberal internationalist pundits like columnist Walter Russell Mead, the invasion marks nothing less than an assault on the “world order” akin to Nazi aggression at the opening of World War II. “Not since Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 has a European leader committed an act of aggression as brutal or as nakedly cynical as Mr. Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine,” Mead writes in the Wall Street Journal.

Saturday

26 Feb 2022

Peter Wood

Our present bewilderment

Bewilderment, a novel by Richard Powers issued last September, has been praised to high heavens by Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Naomi Klein, and reviewers at NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The New Republic, among others. This ought to be enough to warn any sensible reader to stay far away from its pages and to resign promptly from any reading group that nominates it for collective perusal. But I am not always sensible. The title lured me, for what better word to describe our Zeitgeist?

Friday

25 Feb 2022

Peter Van Buren

No, China isn’t about to invade Taiwan

I have a medal for winning the Cold War. And I'm not alone — they were awarded to all members of the military and federal civilian employees who served during the Cold War. That included me, at the tail end, with the State Department. Ironically, my so-called Cold War service was in Taiwan. I probably should return the thing; the Cold War is far from over. Part of the Cold War's real conclusion is playing out in Ukraine in real time. Is Taiwan, another hanging chad from that era, next? Is President Xi watching a weakened America giving in to the Russians and seeing his chance to seize Taiwan? Nope. Taiwan is not Ukraine is not Taiwan. The two places only exist next to each other in articles like this one because both are the results of American policy.

Christopher Barnard

Europe’s ‘green’ transition put it at Russia’s mercy

Germany’s “halt” on the certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on Tuesday is a classic case of too little, too late — a fact made all the more painfully clear in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Oil and gas still flow through Nord Stream 1 and many other Russian pipelines to Europe, and the continent has no choice but to keep importing the fossil fuels that finance Vladimir Putin’s offensive. We all saw this coming. Europe’s supposed “green” energy transition disregarded energy security and common sense, and Ukraine is now paying the price. The world will never tackle climate change if it's in a constant state of geopolitical energy insecurity, relying on authoritarian regimes like Russia and China to meet its basic needs.

Oliver Wiseman

Biden picks Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court

Biden picks Brown Jackson The president has chosen Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, multiple outlets have reported. Biden had interviewed two other candidates: Leandra Kruger, a judge on the California Supreme Court, and J. Michelle Childs, the South Carolina judge backed by Jim Clyburn and Lindsey Graham. With Russian troops laying siege to the Ukrainian capital, some will question the timing of this announcement. And with all eyes on Eastern Europe, the ceremony promises to be one of the most low-key in recent memory. The White House has good reason to expect a reasonably smooth nomination process.

Grace Curley

What happened to Tough Guy Joe Biden?

If you watched President Joe Biden’s press conference on Thursday afternoon, you wouldn’t know you were looking at the same man who allegedly looked Vladimir Putin in the eyes and told him he had no soul. Hell, based on Biden’s weak performance you might start to question whether or not he actually confronted and defeated a straight-razor-carrying bad dude named Corn Pop outside of a Delaware swimming pool in 1962. The president seemed to want to follow the theme of his last press conference: “Saying the Quiet Part Loud.” Who can forget the recent two-hour presser in which Biden essentially green-lit a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine.

Amber Duke

Where is the neocon war cry over Russia?

A foreign policy debate is raging in the United States as Russia escalates its attacks on Ukraine — chiefly over what America should do in response. What is oddly absent is the unmistakable neoconservative war cry to send in the troops. Sure, some talking heads haven't been shy about where they'd like the conflict to lead. But most of it is implied. Establishment media outlets have hinted at getting involved militarily, asking Biden what he'll do next if sanctions do not work and if the US will have to use force if Putin expands beyond Ukraine. The old hawkish right has used similar softened rhetoric to imply support for a military response. Jonah Goldberg hit at the nationalist right, claiming they "don't care very much when an imperial power tries to erase a nation.

James W. Carden

Putin’s path to war in three speeches

With regard to the illegal war being waged by Russia against Ukraine, no one has any right to be surprised. For all the understandable and justifiable outrage over Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to abandon diplomacy and launch what appears to be an unprovoked act of aggression, a look at prior statements by Mr. Putin shows that, with the passage of time, patience and rationality gave way to irrationally, paranoia and ultimately the decision to launch an armed conflict. Any proper accounting of the history of the downturn in US-Russia relations must include Putin’s 2007 address to the Munich Security Conference. To many, this was a kind of point of no return, with Putin putting the US and its European allies on notice: there are red lines not to be crossed.

Thursday

24 Feb 2022

Bill Wirtz

The stakes for Europe are even higher than in 1938

Any analysis of the Ukraine situation risks lagging behind the news. As of the time this article was published, Russia had conquered the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Its forces are only about sixty miles away from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, which has already experienced shelling. Russians have also attempted to capture Antonov International Airport, just fifteen minutes away from the capital’s ring road. Meanwhile, European leaders are resorting to the usual responses: “concerned,” “strongly condemning." There is even a Twitter account mocking the EU’s approach to all major crises, called “Is EU Concerned?” The response to the invasion of Ukraine is not spared from similar mockery. Here in Europe, it feels like 1938 all over again.

Ben Sixsmith

Eating donuts in Poland as the bombs fall

Tarnowskie Góry, Poland There was something faintly obscene about lining up outside the bakery to celebrate Fat Thursday. Granted, it made no difference to Ukrainians whether I ate donuts or scrambled eggs for breakfast. But I had a brief sense of how fortunate it is to live in a peaceful society. Ukraine is not so lucky. Missiles have been falling throughout the night and day, and Russian soldiers have occupied key positions, right up to the outskirts of Kyiv. Some of us expected Putin to occupy Donbas and leave Western Ukraine alone. That has been proved entirely, tragically mistaken. After such a long, mysterious military build-up, the speed and scale of the Russian offensive has been stunning.

Harry J. Kazianis

Let Russia choke on Ukraine

At least for the moment, it looks like Russian president Vladimir Putin is intent on conquering Ukraine, a nation he's never believed has the right to exist. While the fog of war always limits accurate real-time military analysis, it seems for now that Russia has committed to annexing at least large sections of Ukraine and is winning the day militarily with ease. Of course, the media has predictably gone into overdrive, warning of World War Three, gas prices that will stay high for years and perhaps even Putin attacking NATO and nuclear war. But let’s put away the hysterics for a moment and think about the here and now. Russia’s goal in Ukraine has always been clear and does not involve war on NATO or even conquering Ukraine in its entirety.

Oliver Wiseman

The hard left and hard right got Putin dead wrong

War in Europe When Joe Biden addresses the American people later today, he will find himself in a changed world. His Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin outlined an imperialist vision of Russia fit for a czar on Monday. In the early hours of this morning, he backed up that nineteenth-century sentiment with nineteenth-century action: the start of a full-scale great power conquest of a sovereign neighbor. The events of the last twelve hours are something that my own end-of-history generation was brought up to believe would never happen in our lifetimes. And yet here we are. More recently, we were told that modern warfare was all cyber attacks and disinformation, deep fakes and propaganda.

Bill Zeiser

Never Trumpers play 4D chess over Russia — and lose

“Pro-democracy” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin — she long ago ditched the “conservative” descriptor — had a howler of a tweet about foreign policy the other day. On the subject of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Rubin wrote that “we don’t have to guess what Trump would have done – he would have praised Putin and rolled out the red carpet to the rest of Europe. THIS is who the GOP follows.” Rubin was joined in this opinion by novelist Stephen King, who tweeted that “Mr. Putin has made a serious miscalculation. He forgot he is no longer dealing with Trump.” King is right in at least one key respect: Putin is not dealing with Trump. And we need not speculate — contra Rubin’s advice — as to what Trump would have done.

Cockburn

Biden’s weak words on the Russian invasion

Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine, a chilling moment that cries out for a tough response. Thankfully, the president of the United States has deployed his usual silver tongue. "The world will hold Russia accountable," Joe Biden said last night. "I will be monitoring the situation from the White House this evening and will continue to get regular updates from my national security team." Cue Cockburn nearly collapsing from the sheer rhetorical power of that statement. It's a wonder the Russian tanks didn't screech into reverse and roll back over the border. Cockburn understands this is a dangerous situation that calls for delicacy and forethought. But were such bland bromides really the best the leader of the free world could do?

Slavoj Zizek

Was Russia’s ‘rape’ of Ukraine inevitable?

In a press conference earlier this month, Vladimir Putin noted that the Ukrainian government does not like the Minsk agreement and then added: "Like it or not, it's your duty, my beauty." The saying has well-known sexual connotations: Putin appeared to be quoting from “Sleeping Beauty in a Coffin” by the Soviet-era punk rock group Red Mold: “Sleeping beauty in a coffin, I crept up and fucked her. Like it, or dislike it, sleep my beauty.” Although the Kremlin press representative claimed that Putin referred to an old folkloric expression, reference to Ukraine as an object of necrophilia and rape is clear.