{"id":255933,"date":"2024-03-04T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=255933"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:20:00","slug":"more-anti-russian-hysteria-from-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/03\/more-anti-russian-hysteria-from-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"More Anti-Russian Hysteria from the New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Putin is a ruthless autocrat, but once again the news media get the \u201cRussian threat\u201d all wrong.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A little while back, I challenged a group of graduate students to find one article in the New York Times<\/em> written in the last five years that had anything favorable to say about Russia. Their extensive research turned up one article published in 2021 that described the beneficial effects of global warming on cold countries. The piece was entitled, \u201cHow Russia Cashes In On Climate Change.\u201d Other than that, the newspaper\u2019s sizeable cadre of Russia specialists reported virtually nothing about Europe\u2019s most populous nation other than stories picturing Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation as scheming plotters, corrupt and incompetent rulers, meddlers in other nations\u2019 elections, brutal oppressors of their own people, and aggressive expansionists threatening everyone else\u2019s independence and freedom.<\/p>\n

One does not have to be an admirer of Mr. Putin or his right-wing regime to consider this coverage so unbalanced and Russophobic as to amount to a form of warmongering.\u00a0 Consider a recent article by David Sanger and Steven Erlanger headlined \u201cGravity of Putin Threats is Dawning on Europe.\u201d It is worth examining how this sort of journalism operates.<\/p>\n

The story begins (and in many ways ends) by stating an assumption about Russia\u2019s evil motives as a fact. According to the reporters, Putin \u201chad a message\u201d for the Western leaders gathered for a conference in Munich.\u00a0 The message: \u201cNothing they\u2019ve done so far \u2013 sanctions, condemnation, attempted containment \u2013 would alter his intentions to disrupt the current world order.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no evidence cited for this \u201cmessage\u201d because it doesn\u2019t exist, except as a metaphor. The authors\u2019 assumption is that since Putin is a congenital aggressor, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and attempt to assert control over the Russian-speaking provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk are very likely a prelude to further aggression against other European states.\u00a0 The source cited for this conclusion is NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, who \u201creferred repeatedly to recent intelligence conclusions that in three to five years Mr. Putin might attempt to test NATO\u2019s credibility by attacking one of the countries on Russia\u2019s borders, most probably a small Baltic nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

If this sentence does not leave you scratching your head, you\u2019re not paying attention. What sort of \u201cintelligence conclusions\u201d project a possible attack by a great power in \u201cthree to five years\u201d?\u00a0 How reliable is this sort of prediction? Why would Russia mount such an attack on a NATO member \u2013 simply to \u201ctest NATO\u2019s credibility\u201d?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t they understand that to attack a \u201csmall Baltic nation\u201d would activate the entire alliance?\u00a0 And why, oh why, would the Times<\/em> reporters accept and quote this fanciful speculation without asking Jens Stoltenberg, a well- known hawk and advocate of NATO expansion, to prove his case?<\/p>\n

In fact, there is no evidence that the Russians are planning any such action, nor is there any reason for them to do so. Putin moved against Ukraine only after its elected pro-Russian government was overthrown in 2014 in a Western-backed revolt, the U.S. and NATO announced their intention to incorporate the nation into NATO, a civil war erupted in the Russian-speaking eastern provinces, and the United States declared Russia\u2019s proposal to negotiate over perceived threats to its vital security interests a \u201cnon-starter.\u201d Having lost more than 45,000 troops in the Ukraine war, the idea that Russian leaders would think of attacking an existing NATO member like Latvia, Lithuania, or Poland, thereby declaring war on all its other members including the U.S., is senseless.<\/p>\n

But assumptions, however senseless, require their authors to produce some sort of evidence if they want to be considered minimally credible. Messrs. Sanger and Erlander therefore offer three pieces of information purporting to be evidentiary. First, they note that \u201cRussia made its first major gain in Ukraine in nearly a year, taking the ruined city of Avdiivka, at huge human cost to both sides.\u201d Next, they remark that \u201cAleksei A. Navalny\u2019s suspicious death in a remote Arctic prison made ever clearer that Mr. Putin will tolerate no dissent as elections approach.” Finally, they refer to the U.S. discovery that \u201cMr. Putin may be planning to place a nuclear weapon in space\u201d \u2013 an anti-satellite weapon that could \u201cwipe out the connective tissues of global communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whew!\u00a0 Are these Russians bad guys, or what? But notice how the allegations, even if true, fail to produce even a hint of aggressive intentions toward Europe.<\/p>\n

The Russians are winning the war in Ukraine.<\/em> Yes, this has been the case ever since the much-ballyhooed Ukrainian \u201ccounter-offensive\u201d of summer 2023 failed to achieve its objectives. But do Russia\u2019s gains in the Donbass region imply that they will attack Kyiv itself or invade some other nation? Clearly not. The last thing that Putin and his colleagues want is another major war. While the Biden regime blames Congress and an alleged shortage of ammunition for the fall of Avdiivka \u2013 an exercise in historical fiction \u2013 Times<\/em> reporters continue to promote the paranoic notion that Putin is an incurable megalomaniac who simply can\u2019t stop aggressing. \u00a0All this noise is intended to distract attention from the need for a negotiated settlement that recognizes Ukraine\u2019s independence and right to join the EU, and the eastern provinces\u2019 independence and right to join the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

Putin is responsible for Alex Navalny\u2019s death. <\/em>Again, this is true but irrelevant to the subject at hand. Whether or not Russian agents had anything to do with Navalny\u2019s poisoning in 2020, the regime did try him on trumped up charges and did imprison him in a colony on the Arctic Circle, where he died at the age of 47. This was a tragedy but not a great surprise. With the brief exception of the Gorbachev regime (1985-1991), Russian rulers from the czars onward have often persecuted domestic dissenters, and Putin\u2019s government is no exception. But this does not constitute a threat to Europe unless one is a neocon ideologue trying to construct a neo-Cold War struggle between \u201cdemocratic\u201d and \u201cauthoritarian\u201d blocs.<\/p>\n

Please spare us a return to the political theology of Whitaker Chambers and the Dulles brothers! The idea that Putin is some sort of Hitlerian or Napoleonic adventurer with a messiah complex may seem convincing to some U.S. and NATO neocons, but most sensible people understand that it is a bias-ridden fantasy.<\/p>\n

Russia is planning to put a nuclear anti-satellite weapon into space. <\/em>Could be . . . but reporters from the Times <\/em>and other journals manage to broadcast this charge by U.S. National Security chief John Kirby without either asking for proof or inquiring why Russian leaders would consider doing such a thing. As to proof, the alleged evidence for the alleged plan is, of course, \u201cclassified.\u201d As to motive, could it be that the U.S. is using some of its more than 300 military satellites to convey intelligence on Russian troop movements to the Ukrainian military, which then uses it to kill Russian combatants? But no discussion of possible motives is to be found in these accounts. Nor is such discussion needed if one accepts the idea that Putin aggresses because he is an aggressor. After all, it makes little sense to inquire into the Devil\u2019s motives for being devilish.<\/p>\n

To summarize: the \u201cevidence\u201d for bad intentions toward Europe on the Russians\u2019 part boils down to an assumption of their leader\u2019s evil nature. Particularly notable is the absence of any other connective tissue binding together the three items that are said to create the Russian threat. The victory at Avdiivika, the death of Navalny, and the alleged anti-satellite weapon plan are unrelated pieces of information or speculation, but rattling them off in sequence (in a tone of grave concern) is intended to send the message that \u201cthe Russkies are coming! Circle the wagons!\u201d<\/p>\n

All of which makes one wonder what the New York Times <\/em>considers \u201cresponsible journalism.\u201d The accumulation of unrelated bits of information presented as evidence of an unprovable motivation is one of the oldest propaganda tricks on the books. Isn\u2019t it time that journalists learned to be independent reporters and news interpreters rather than slavish mouthpieces for pro-war politicians and corporations? I have focused here on reporters for the Times<\/em>, but television and radio journalists are, if anything, less inclined to think critically about such allegations than their print colleagues. Whether the topic is Putin\u2019s Russia, China, or Iran, the unchallenged, unproved assumption is always that some demonically aggressive adversary is out to eat our lunch.<\/p>\n

The problem with this approach, it should be clear, is not just that it creates an exaggerated sense of threat, but also that this produces an exaggerated pseudo-defensive response. Having failed to absorb Ukraine, as NATO threatened to do as early as 2008, that organization\u2019s members are now arming to the teeth to \u201cdeter\u201d a nonexistent Russian threat to Europe. Could this rearmament, combined with a refusal to negotiate security issues, be considered a serious threat by Russia? Certainly!\u00a0 And so, the initial exaggeration of threat can end by producing a real threat and, quite possibly, a real war.<\/p>\n

At times like this, one can only hope that a few sane leaders supported by a public tired of inflammatory rhetoric and needless killing will call a halt to jingoist assumptions of our own side\u2019s essential innocence and the other side\u2019s essential aggressiveness. That these assumptions generate billions of dollars in profits for military-industrial corporations does not make them easy to extirpate. Even so, we can demand that journalists who ought to know better stop peddling these lies and exaggerations \u2013 and a growing number of clear-eyed citizens will say, \u201cAmen!\u201d<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em>Richard E. Rubenstein is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a> and a <\/em>professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University\u2019s Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School, Rubenstein is the author of nine books on analyzing and resolving violent social conflicts. His most recent book is <\/em>Resolving Structural Conflicts: How Violent Systems Can Be Transformed (Routledge, 2017).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Putin is a ruthless autocrat, but once again the news media get the \u201cRussian threat\u201d all wrong. One can only hope that a few sane leaders will call a halt to jingoist assumptions of our own side\u2019s essential innocence and the other side\u2019s essential aggressiveness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1061,2314,1268,1126,1050,1855,91,688,253,278,95,70,1594,1365,172],"class_list":["post-255933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-cold-war-ii","tag-corporate-media","tag-european-union","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-nato","tag-peace-journalism","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-war-economy","tag-war-journalism","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255935,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255933\/revisions\/255935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}