Tucker: You can afford to be wrong. You can’t afford to look stupid.

20241204

Tucker, nuclear Armageddon figures into your every utterance about the war in Ukraine. You are out in left field, all alone. What is everybody else talking about?

There is a lot of discussion about the Russian economy. Russia is simply expending resources much faster than it can afford. Interest rates are skyrocketing. Elvira Nabuilina, head of the national Bank of Russia, is bravely saying as much. See Streamfortyseven, The Russian Dude and The Military Show. Read pro-Russian bloggers such as Rurik Skywalker.

Russia is suffering tremendous losses in personnel and equipment in Kursk and in the Donbas. They are winning territory, one empty field at a time, at a horrendous cost. These are levels of losses that cannot be sustained. See daily reporting from Denys Davidov, Reporting from Ukraine, and Bogdan Chomiak/Bob Homans (on my blog)

Russia has exhausted many pools of manpower. They started the war with their Eastern ethnic minorities, the predominantly Muslim Buryats, Bashkirs, Chechens, Dagestanis, Ingush and others. They emptied the prisons for Prigozhin’s attacks on Bakhmut and Adiivka. They have raised sign-up bonuses and monthly pay exorbitantly to attract volunteers. Conscription of big-city citizens would be a tremendous political risk. However, Putin now has press gangs roaming the streets of even Moscow and St. Petersburg. He is at the end of his rope.

Russia long ago exhausted their supply of modern military equipment. They have been taking Cold War era tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers out of deep storage. Even that is running dry. The barrels of artillery pieces are wearing out. They do not have the industrial capacity to replace them. They are having to buy drones from Iran and artillery shells from North Korea. They are throwing North Korean troops into the front line. Sanctions have made it difficult to manufacture drones, the emergent technology of this war.

Russian soldiers are on the brink of mutiny and desertion. Although throughout the war Russia has relied on its age-old strategy of stationing enforcers behind the front-line troops to shoot deserters, the demoralized soldiers are increasingly taking their chances deserting rather than face the Ukrainians.

Russia is losing influence elsewhere in the world. The Russian soldiers are being pushed out of Syria. Russian stooges and proxies are under pressure in Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Romania and elsewhere. There is a growing sense that Russia is not in the position to impose its will on its neighbors.

If everybody else sees these things, why don’t you, Tucker? Will they even come up in a conversation with Lavrov? Will you give the Russian Foreign Minister the same kid glove treatment that you gave Putin in February, when Russia’s position on most of the above-mentioned factors was significantly stronger? Will you allow Lavrov to lecture you on the distant history of Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland?

The trailer for the interview makes some contentious claims about the extent to which the United States is pushing toward a nuclear war. Tucker, you claim that “US servicemen are killing Russians in Russia right now.” I would like you to substantiate the claim. I have not seen it elsewhere. Why would you need American servicemen? The munitions that I know about are HIMARS and ATACAMS, which Ukraine has had and has used for attacks across the Russian border for many months now. So far as I know these weapons are in the hands of Ukrainians. They are not so sophisticated that Ukrainians could not handle them. Is there anything new to report, Tucker?

Tucker, you make the claim that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. You do not address the people who do not agree with you, including those such as Gen. Kellogg that have been appointed by your victorious candidate Donald Trump. Kellogg, and many others, have offered the opinion that Putin has been bluffing about using nuclear weapons ever since he started the war three years ago. He has drawn line after line in the sand, and the coalition supporting Ukraine has stepped over each of them. Now, with all sides actively talking about peace plans, it would seem an unusual moment in history for Putin to unleash nuclear weapons.

Tucker, you claim that the US has cut off all contact between the United States and Russia. You claim “there is no back channel.” That is obviously untrue. Both sides have frequently put forward negotiating points for a peace agreement. They certainly communicate through the newspapers of nothing else. There have been go-betweens such as Victor Orban who could carry messages. Whatever the formal structure, Tucker, you are wrong to claim that there is no communication.

What would be correct to claim is that the Russians have been obstinate in their demands. They claim that full control of the Ukrainian oblast that were incorporated into Russia two years ago, Luhansk, Donbas, Zaporizhia, Kherson and Crimea is nonnegotiable. This despite the fact that Russia only has 100% control over one of them, Crimea, and less than 50% control over three others. It is a ludicrous demand. Some claim that there was a viable peace deal to be had in 2022, one which was rejected by Zelinski at the instigation of the West. However, despite the vast amount of talk no details have ever emerged. Any such deal was obviously no more than a mirage.

I will close in saying that I will watch the video closely and likewise critique it closely. While I do not believe that you are a paid Russian agent or anything of the sort, I have to admit that I am incredulous at the degree to which you swallow the Russian propaganda. It detracts greatly from your strong credibility on issues of domestic politics in the US.

Graham