To Win His War, Vladimir Putin Will Become a Monster
PLUS: Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story" AND the Jaw-Dropping Ja Morant
The world has been inspired by the bravery and defiance of the Ukrainian people as they confront Vladimir Putin’s invasion of their country. Most assumed Putin would have quickly conquered Ukraine, but that has yet to happen due to the Ukrainian army’s resourcefulness, the resolve of the Ukrainian people, and the incompetence of Russia’s military.
In fact, for as much damage and loss of life as Putin has inflicted on Ukraine, Russia has taken a serious beating over the past week and half. With the charred wreckage of its military equipment littering Ukraine, Russia’s reputation as a formidable fighting force has been shattered on the terrain of a neighboring country. Russia is now an international pariah whose actions have unified the Western coalition Putin spent much of the past decade trying to weaken. Russia’s economy, which had supposedly been bolstered to withstand Western sanctions, is in shambles, the ruble plunging in value. Foreign investors and some of Russia’s own citizens are fleeing for the exits as some believe the country is on the verge of default. The only thing keeping its economy afloat at this point is its fossil fuel exports, and nations seem eager to turn that faucet off as soon as possible. (It won’t be easy.)
Yet we shouldn’t assume simply because this war so far hasn’t gone the way Putin planned that Russia’s forces are about to be repelled and that the world is soon to awaken from this nightmare. It’s more likely the opposite is true: That having committed Russia’s military might to conquering Ukraine, Putin will conclude he has no choice now but to win this war. To do that, he will have to become a monster.
I’m still holding out hope for the best-case scenario: That Putin will be summoned to the Kremlin one morning soon by the ghost of Leonid Brezhnev and told to pack for a long stay at his dacha. As unlikely as that may seem, that’s still within the realm of possibility, right? It’s not just that Russia’s international prestige is on the line. As a matter of naked self-interest, Russia’s elites have had their status significantly downgraded as well over what they have to know is a manageable tiff. They may have profited mightily under Vladimir the Strongman but they’re taking a huge hit now that Vladimir the Maniac is in charge. Would Russia’s oligarchs or government ministers have the guts to remove Putin from power? Would Russia’s military leaders—the backbone of Putin’s political power—tolerate such a move?
And then there’s the matter of Russia’s citizens. Russians know Putin has invaded Ukraine, but state media doesn’t have much to brag about yet. What has leaked into the country is not flattering to the Russian war effort. Meanwhile, the Russian standard of living is slipping fast as its economy veers toward a recession brought on by a swift and perhaps unanticipated avalanche of Western sanctions and disinvestment. Russian consumers may soon find their economic choices severely constrained by Putin’s “special operation.” Since the start of hostilities, thousands of Russians—ranging in age from children to babooshki—have been arrested for protesting the war. Having already cracked down on the last vestiges of the free press in Russia, there is talk the government may soon impose martial law. Might such a decree compel Russians to take to the streets en masse in an attempt to push back against Putin? With its military preoccupied in Ukraine, would the government have the requisite force levels needed to suppress a mass uprising? And even if they did, given reports of low morale among soldiers who have been deployed to Ukraine, would the military rank and file really turn on their own?
Russia is also dealing with massive logistical issues in Ukraine. Reports indicate the forty-mile-long convoy of Russian military vehicles currently stopped on the road to Kyiv is short on gas, food, and mechanical parts. Putin had months to get ready for this invasion but he’s struggling to get supplies to his forces less than two weeks into it. It makes one question if he lacks the organizational capacity to effectively support a siege of Kyiv. While the Russian army has had more success in the south, it’s fair to wonder how Putin plans to maintain control over a conquered city like Kherson (population 280,000) when they still have most of a country to conquer. The other cities currently in the line of fire—Mariupol (pop. 430,000), Lviv (717,000), Dnipro (980,000), Odessa (1,015,000), Kharkiv (1,433,000), Kyiv (2,962,000)—won’t be any easier for the Russians to subdue and police.
But it’s doubtful Putin will be deterred by military setbacks in the short term. He may have assumed the fearsome reputation of the Russian military would have been enough to melt Ukraine’s defenses and compel its citizens to accept Russia’s occupation. Or maybe he was operating under a delusion regarding his military’s effectiveness and preparedness. Regardless, Putin has more lethal and terrifying options at his disposal, and it would be foolish to assume he would be constrained by moral conventions intended to regulate actions during wartime. It is likely Putin regards the military humiliation and economic distress Russia has thus far endured not as a sunk cost but rather something that must be redeemed by a victory that proves not only the might of his regime but the lengths his regime is willing to go to in order to leverage that might for political gain.
We’ve already seen this in the indiscriminate bombing of civilian apartment buildings in Ukraine. The only military objective that serves is to prove he is able and willing to make innocent people suffer in order to achieve his goals. Such a strategy—which I fear up to this point has amounted to warning shots—does not require Russian boots on the ground or the occupation of Ukrainian territory, although that may follow with the ease Putin originally assumed it would if the toll on Ukraine’s population proves too great. It is a form of superpower sponsored terrorism.
I suspect a similar strategy will be used to subdue Kyiv once he resolves the logistical issues dogging his operation: Surround the city, deprive it of food and fuel, and start leveling neighborhoods with missiles. (That a son of Leningrad would resort to siege tactics is a terrible irony, but we’ve seen him use them before in Grozny and Aleppo.) Reporting from Kyiv over the past week indicates the mood of the city is shifting to one of dread as the prospects of a siege increase. Groceries are already scarce in the western city of Lviv, which is not under immediate threat; the situation must be much more dire in the capital. If Putin begins firing guided missiles at the entrances of subway stations being used as bomb shelters in Kyiv, could the leaders of Ukraine continue to justify resistance?
The most extreme action Putin could take would be to deploy a tactical nuclear weapon either as a demonstration or on the field of battle to signal just how far he’s willing to escalate this crisis. Again, Ukraine’s leaders would be hard-pressed to continue their fight after such a turn of events. The world would gasp in horror if Putin did use a nuclear bomb, but Putin isn’t looking for friends at this point. He’s demanding the respect he believes Russia is owed and deserves.
At home in Russia, Putin would not hesitate to crush his domestic opposition. If mass demonstrations arose, Putin would quickly turn Russia into a police state. Public servants and oligarchs deemed disloyal would be purged. State media would justify the repression as necessary to counter Western efforts to weaken and sow division within Russian society. The average Russian, faced with economic distress wrought by Western sanctions, may ultimately agree. The irony of it all is that Russia’s regained prominence on the international stage would be achieved via the degradation of Russian society.
Western leaders hope the prospect of a Fortress Russia isolated from much of the world and diminished domestically will convince Putin to back down. Some foreign policy experts talk of providing Putin with an offramp that will allow him to back down and save face. It won’t be enough for Putin, however, to trade Ukraine’s freedom for sanction relief. He’ll need to be given something he didn’t have before he invaded Ukraine. A demilitarized, neutral Ukraine wouldn’t seem to be enough, not after the reputational hit Russia’s military has taken. He’ll demand some form of capitulation so Ukraine and the world know his military is a force that must be reckoned with.
That’s why, absent a defeat on the field of battle in Ukraine or an intervention in Russia, I expect this war will not only escalate but take an absolutely brutal turn over the coming weeks and months. Whatever clout Russia may claim on the world stage on account of the size of its population, its economy, or its land mass, Russia’s strength—Putin’s strength—resides in its military. If its armies are not feared and respected, then Russia will be expected to go along to get along. Military might—buttressed by a willingness to use that might in whatever way necessary to achieve its ambitions—is how Russia forces the world to accept its return to superpower status.
Putin’s initial strategy in Ukraine was to use his military’s monstrous reputation to compel Ukraine to surrender with minimal resistance. Not only has Ukraine refused to do so, but they have exposed the weaknesses of the Russian military. That means to redeem his military’s reputation and prove its might (as well as prove his resolve to do whatever it takes to command a victory) Putin will need to become a monster both in Ukraine and perhaps even in his homeland. Don’t fall for the claims Putin is crazy or out of touch. There’s a logic to it, as horrifying as it may be.
Again, it’s possible this conflict doesn’t play itself out this way. Ukraine is not a tiny, ill-equipped republic that will easily surrender its sovereignty. Even if Russia conquers it, it’s unclear how they could possibly rule it. Russian morale appears to be low, and its not clear if Russia’s military setbacks to this point are glitches or features of the operation. In our global, digital era, it seems unlikely Russia will be able to keep its citizens from learning the truth about what’s really going on in Ukraine. Putin may have made a massive miscalculation that will come back to haunt his regime. Yet it’s also hard to believe Putin wasn’t prepared to utilize awful means to achieve his ends when he initiated this conflict. In some ways, the real question isn’t if Putin will become a monster to achieve victory in Ukraine, but what he’ll be willing to do with his newfound status as a monster on the world stage should Ukraine fall to his onslaught.
Signals and Noise
Over the past week and a half, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become an international hero for leading his nation’s resistance to Vladimir Putin. Most Americans probably hadn’t heard of him before, but he actually played a part in a major American political drama/farce back in 2019, the year the photo below was taken.
Two months after Zelensky won election, Trump had a telephone conversation with him in which Trump asked the newly-elected Ukrainian president for a “favor”: To begin an investigation into Hunter Biden’s activities as a member of a Ukrainian energy company’s board of directors. (Trump believed he could use the investigation to smear Biden, whom he regarded as a formidable opponent in the upcoming 2020 election.) Trump also asked Zelensky to announce it had been Ukraine—not Russia—that had interfered in the 2016 election. At least a week before that phone call, Trump had ordered a hold on $400 million in congressionally-authorized military aid to Ukraine in what acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney would later basically admit was a quid pro quo. Zelensky for his part didn’t do as Trump desired. When a whistleblower filed a complaint about this phone call with the intelligence community’s inspector general, the details of the telephone call initiated an investigation that led to Trump’s first impeachment, which was about as open-and-shut a case of abuse of power possible. Only one Republican senator, however, voted to acquit Trump.
In case they were worried about it, Ukrainian citizens who capture a Russian tank DO NOT need to declare their newly-acquired property on their tax forms this year.
Texas is now investigating parents who provide their transgender children with puberty-suppressing drugs and other medically accepted treatments for child abuse. As the New York Times reports, “According to the lawsuit, the state’s investigator told the parents that the only allegation against them was that their transgender daughter might have been provided with gender-affirming health care and was ‘currently transitioning from male to female.’” This directive comes from the same state government that thinks asking people to wear a piece of cloth over their face to prevent the spread of a highly contagious disease is too great an infringement upon their personal freedoms.
Wisconsin: The state upon which one shoulder sits the ghost of Robert La Follette and the other the ghost of Joe McCarthy. This week, state Republicans there are pursing a quixotic(?…I mean, when we’re dealing with this level of crazy you never can know for sure) plan to decertify their state’s 2020 presidential election results. A commission investigating the election led by a former state Supreme Court justice is drunk on Trump’s Kool-Aid and recommending the state look into the possibility of actually rescinding Wisconsin’s results on account of all sorts of unfounded claims about its legitimacy. Wouldn’t that be a fun precedent. It’s ludicrous until it isn’t.
Remember last week when I wrote about Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey not regretting giving $500,000 to a white supremacist’s successful campaign for the Arizona State Senate? Well, that State Senate just censured that white supremacist on a bipartisan basis for also speaking at last weekend’s white supremacist rally, calling for the hanging of her political enemies, and denouncing Volodymyr Zelensky (a Jew) for being the puppet of “global bankers” and George Soros. (Actually, they censured the “senator from District 6”; they didn’t have the guts to actually name her in the resolution.) Gov. Ducey supported the move, saying, “Antisemitic and hateful language has no place in Arizona” and that “picking a side in the fight to protect western democracy is an easy call. It’s Putin versus freedom. I will always side with freedom.” And sometimes white supremacists, right? Yeah, sometimes.
And in further white supremacist news, remember last week when I wrote about Republican Rep. and State of the Union heckler Marjorie Taylor Greene attending a white supremacist rally? She says she was only there to “talk to the audience” and that she “[didn’t] know what [the rally organizer’s] views are.” But come on, this isn’t the sort of misunderstanding that underlies a Seinfeld episode here; when you’re about to be introduced and the speaker says people are comparing Putin to Hitler as if that’s “not a good thing,” that’s a hint, right? And we know she thinks Nazis are bad because a month ago she called the Capitol Police “Nancy Pelosi’s Gestapo police” but that’s not quite accurate because she actually called them “Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police,” gazpacho being a cold tomato soup. You would think either speaking at a white supremacist rally (Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona—what’s with Arizona?—was also a speaker) or being too stupid to not know you’re at a white supremacist rally on top of everything else you’ve pulled might get you booted from the House of Representatives rather than just a “talking to” and a dressing down from your fellow members. Which also begs the question: Why aren’t Democrats making MTG the face of the Republican Party?
“And Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, I don’t know them, but I’m reminded of that old line from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie, where one character says: ‘Morons. I have got morons on my team.’”—Sen. Mitt Romney. But Mitt: It’s your choice to be on that team. You don’t have to be on a team that enables white supremacists.
Vincent’s Picks: West Side Story
I last watched the original 1961 West Side Story in high school so I feel I am in no position to authoritatively compare it to Steven Spielberg’s new version, which has been nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards and is now available for streaming on both Disney+ and HBO Max. The obvious question to ask, though, is why we need a new cinematic production of West Side Story at this moment in time.
Spielberg answers this question with his long opening shot, a sweep through the rubble of a demolished New York City neighborhood and the wrecking balls that leveled it to make way for the planned Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which would open in 1962. It is within these ruins—declared a “slum” by the New York Housing Authority—that much of the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks takes place. It’s a gang war being fought over turf destined to be condemned by a city to better serve the interests of its upper class patrons (notably the members of the arts community, to which Spielberg belongs). We know West Side Story is ultimately a tragedy about a doomed love that transcends a seemingly intractable difference. By releasing this film in this highly polarized era of ours, Spielberg shows us just how pointless that rivalry is when the community both sides share and fight over is being destroyed by more powerful forces that are a more deserving target of their collective resistance.
With its washed-out colors reminiscent of a 1950s postcard, Spielberg’s production is beautiful to watch. I also liked how Spielberg frequently films his characters behind the bars of fire escapes or bed frames, suggesting the ways they are trapped or separated from one another. Yet the film falters in its casting. Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (newcomer Rachel Zegler) don’t leave much of an impression. In stills, Elgort resembles a young Marlon Brando, but there’s no edge to his screen presence at all. Zegler, chosen after a 30,000 person casting call, is not served well by the production, which presents her more as an angel than someone with her own individual spark and charm. When Tony and Maria spot each other across the gym at the neighborhood dance and then fall in love behind the bleachers, it felt like it wasn’t due to some magical romantic chemistry but because the script said they had to. It’s unclear what they see in each other, if they realize just how star-crossed they are, or why they would run away together after knowing each other for little more than a day.
I don’t want that critique, however, to discourage you from seeing one the great American musicals directed by one of America’s greatest filmmakers. The rest of the cast more than makes up for it anyway. Bernardo (Tony Award winner David Alvarez) and Riff (Tony Award nominee Mike Faist) are great as the leaders of the Sharks and Jets. But it’s another Tony Award nominee—Ariana DeBose—who is absolutely riveting as Anita, stealing the show with (what else) “America”. DeBose is favored to win the Oscar this year for Best Supporting Actress, just as Rita Moreno, who in this film plays Valentina (Doc in the original, reimagined here as his widow) did for playing the same role sixty years ago.
Garbage Time: The Jaw-Dropping Ja Morant
(Garbage Time theme song here)
It is exhilarating to watch a great athlete become a star, to not only see them reach their full potential as a player but become appointment viewing because they may, at any moment, not only do something extraordinary but unprecedented and you want to be able to say you saw their latest astonishing feat happen in real time.
Third-year Memphis Grizzlies point guard Ja Morant trails a handful of players in the race for NBA MVP this season, but maybe prognosticators should start taking his case more seriously. Many of those currently ranked ahead of him—Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokoumpo, DeMar DeRozan—play for teams with a lower winning percentage than Morant’s Grizzlies (.623), who currently sit in third place in the West and are closing fast on Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors. Memphis has no business being that good right now, but Morant is insisting otherwise.
Here’s the key stat: Morant is averaging 27.6 points per game, with nearly 17 of those points coming in the paint. That PitPpg stat leads the NBA. You read that right: The NBA leader in points in the paint per game isn’t Giannis or LeBron or a center like Embiid or Jokic but rather a 6’3” point guard who often has to navigate his way around a forest of human trees to get close to the rim. In the past twenty-five years, no guard has done that.
But it’s not just that Ja Morant is the little guard that could. He’s absolutely electrified the NBA with his spectacular play this year, in some cases with highlights that will make the all-time reel. Here’s Exhibit A. Sure, it begins with a Morant turnover, but he definitely makes up for it.
That’s springy. Morant gets his hands as high as the top of the shooting square on the backboard. Last weekend I heard ESPN analyst Chiney Ogwumike refer to this play as a “bleal,” a portmanteau of block and steal. The term doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but that’s bound to happen when something new comes along that needs a name.
He’s also taken to doing 360 degree layups, like this one from last weekend.
He did the same to the Bulls the last time he played them. Nice to have that move in one’s repertoire.
Morant set the Grizzlies’ single-game scoring record in their win against the Bulls on February 26 with 46 points. He then broke that record in his very next game by posting 52 against the Spurs last Monday, which saw him posterizing Jakob Poeltl and throwing up a ridiculous buzzer-beater (with a full-court assist from Steven Adams) with 0.4 on the clock. He’s the most exciting player to watch right now in the NBA.
Can the Grizzlies make a deep playoff run? Morant is the sort of player who can put a team on his back and discombobulate an opponent. That’s enough to get them into the second round, but Memphis’s depth will likely catch up to them when they will probably have to face either the Phoenix Suns or a fully-healthy Golden State Warriors team. Jaren Jackson Jr. is a solid running mate for Morant, but the Grizz are going to need an extra scorer before they really start scaring elite opponents in a seven-game series. That doesn’t mean Morant can’t put a good team on notice, though, as he did when he wrested Game 1 from the top-seeded Utah Jazz last season.
Despite his talent, Morant has been underestimated at every stage of his basketball career. His only major conference Division I offer came from South Carolina. He was inadvertently discovered by an assistant coach from mid-major Murray State, who, while visiting a basketball camp to watch another recruit, spotted Morant playing in another gym. Morant led Murray State to two NCAA tournament appearances during his two years in college before declaring for the draft in 2019. He was taken second that year behind Zion Williamson but ended up winning Rookie of the Year. This year, he not only made his first All-Star game, but was voted in by fans as a starter.
The comparison to Williamson—a more graceful version of Charles Barkley who plays for the New Orleans Pelicans—is striking. Both play for small market teams (I doubt the average American is aware there are NBA teams in either New Orleans or Memphis) and neither possesses the conventional makeup of an NBA star. Unlike Morant, though, Williamson was a top national recruit and attended Duke for one year before going pro. He’s been hobbled by injuries, however, and appears either disgruntled with or disengaged from the Pelicans (he hasn’t played all season) even though New Orleans is building a serviceable team around him. Morant, meanwhile, just keeps balling, his athleticism and tenacity drawing comparisons to Russell Westbrook and Allen Iverson, both of whom have MVP awards to their names.
Morant is only 22 years old, but like every other NBA player, he won’t be getting any younger. Undersized players who play in Morant’s style tend to age-out after 10-12 years in the league, but fortunately for us, Morant is in his prime now. Even better, he’s averaging 2-3 jaw-dropping highlights a night. Take the opportunity to marvel at his talent every chance you get.