This is probably a bad idea, because the last thing I want is to get a few dozen DM’s or texts from friends or acquaintances telling me (again) that I need to watch some fifteen-minute video on YouTube that some fuck-knuckle with a political agenda put out to tell their followers what narrative to believe about the Russo-Ukrainian War. So, if you are one of those people that sends me shit on a variety of topics, understand that I decide to what to watch because of the legitimacy of the source, based on whether or not a reasonable person would consider that source to be of value. This means I probably won’t watch your Charlie Kirk video.

Before I get into the topic at hand, allow me to clarify my political affiliations and beliefs, I promise I’m doing this for a reason.

I am a registered independent, simply because I do not believe that the Republican Party represents conservatism anymore, similar to how a lot of classical liberals feel disenfranchised by the Democratic Party. I believe that the U.S. generally has a responsibility to support other free societies around the world, both long-standing and budding, in order to continue to better stand in contrast to other competing nations and ideologies, i.e. China and Russia.

That said, none of my political opinions matter here, because for the purposes of this post, I do not view the war in Ukraine through the lens of a politically-minded American. I can do that in the privacy of my own home, or amongst trusted individuals that would approach a discussion on the topic in good faith. My only goal here is to point out where the Right has read this war all wrong.

Shallow Approach

It starts with what the Right has read into the war. Instead of this being a battle between a large, aggressive nation intent of seizing land and economic benefits from a smaller neighboring state, it’s turned into the latest iteration of political warfare between the ideological left and right in our own country. As the cannons cooled from their first volleys into Ukrainian positions in the Donbas, a former congresswoman went on Fox News and stated that if only the U.S. had acquiesced to Putin’s legitimate security concerns, this war would have been avoided. As events unfolded in the first few days of the conflict, news stories about joint American-Ukrainian biological warfare facilities in Ukraine become headline news for a short period of time, likely pushed through social media and Russia’s significant information warfare department. Then came the narrative that Biden was being blackmailed by the Ukrainians because Zelenskyy threatened to expose Hunter Biden’s’ illicit activities in Ukraine. Why were we sending billion of dollars to Ukraine? To commentators on the Right, it was to launder cash for the ‘Biden Crime Family”.

These weren’t the only outrageous narratives that were lapped up by folks on the Right, early on I heard about a woman who believed Putin had invaded to shutdown pedophile brothels that existed in Ukraine. Some of the more religious among us believed this was a holy war against Ukrainian devil worshippers.

Some of these narratives would be comical if it didn’t effect the believers to such a degree that they parrot them online, spreading them to others who lack the critical thinking skills necessary to hold opinions on anything more important than their preferred flavor of Mountain Dew. Despite the fact that they are demonstrably false, it seems more reasonable for people to believe nonsense like this instead of trying to understand the reality of this situation; that this war is a real danger to the western world, even more-so if the Russians somehow pull a W out of their ass after months of Ukraine ripping them to shreds.

These narratives are in most cases demonstrably false, in others they blur the lines between fact and fiction to such a degree that it’s like they were designed that on purpose. Who benefits from narratives that are hard to prove but impossible to disprove? Historically, the intelligence agencies of the former Soviet Union, it’s Warsaw Pact allies, and the modern Russian Federation have used Active Measures and Information Operations to influence populaces through targeted “half-truths”. Comprised of part fact and part fiction, these narratives are easily identifiable through basic media literacy, which is in short supply in the United States as of now. What’s most concerning to me about all of this is how often these obviously questionable narratives get so much traction in right-wing media, presented in a way that doesn’t point out the biased nature of the claims but isn’t covered in the “main stream media”, therefore it’s more trustworthy in the eyes of that audience.

Lack of historical understanding

Probably the most reasonable of the assumptions made by the right is that NATO brought this conflict into fruition. Well, it’s reasonable unless you have a basic understanding of history or the role of NATO.

Let’s begin with the fall of the Soviet Union and NATO’s place in the world following. NATO was formed to align the Western European powers, those most likely to feel the mechanical sting of war with the USSR, with the industrial and economic capacity of the United States. Once the USSR fell, was NATO still necessary? Many people believed it wasn’t, and calls to shutter the organization began not too long after. Peace had broken out, hadn’t it? NATO found a role in the Yugoslav Wars, conducting Peacekeeping missions and in some cases combat operations to quell the violence. Then the Global War on Terror started, and while many NATO allies contributed to the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, NATO as a whole wasn’t performing as intended. Despite the Russian wars in Chechnya and the invasion of Georgia, NATO didn’t seem to be an important part of European defense in the new millennia.

Then Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and began military operations in Eastern Ukraine. At this point, NATO was at it’s lowest level of readiness in history. There was no longer a single American tank platoon in Europe, much less the division size elements that occupied large kasernes in Germany during the Cold War. America was still conducting operations in Afghanistan, as well as fighting against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Our eyes were still firmly on the Middle East. NATO was not a threat to Russia at this point.

Yes, since the end of the Cold War NATO had added former Soviet bloc states like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland to the organization. These are nations that suffered mightily under the rule of the Soviet Union, with Poland making the most abrupt reorientation towards the west of any former Soviet state. They joined NATO because of those experiences, they were not forced into an organization which requires every member to accept the admission of new members. You can make the argument that the United States promised not to add more nations to NATO in the 1990’s, and I would say you’re right. However it became obvious to many of those same former Soviet states that Russia hadn’t really democratized and they petitioned to join NATO as a result. They understood the threat posed by their large neighbor.

The Ideological Purity Test

My sense of this tells me that the Right falls victim to Nietzsche’s Error of False Causation in various ways regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War.

First, the soft approach to Russia by Donald Trump, at least in rhetoric, signaled to his followers a level of support and admiration for Russia generally and Putin specifically. I’m not going to dig up the quotes here, but Trump went out of his way to not criticize Putin and his obvious anti-Western agenda. During his pre-election campaign in 2016, he signaled his support for the hacking of the DNC and Hillary Clinton by Russian intelligence agencies, I would assume because he believed that he could paint Clinton as a sleazy politician committing numerous crimes. This is in keeping with the Russian narrative of Mrs. Clinton, who they believe supported anti-Putin protests in 2011 during her time at the Department of State. I suspect they are the source of all the claims of her and husband Bill being devil worshippers who feed off adrenochrome harvested from young children that they also molest. While the DoS under Clinton did have what appears to be a role in aiding the Arab Spring*, which Putin saw as a direct threat against his rule if the same was done in Russia, there is no significant evidence that any such action was taken by the U.S. to aid the 2011 protests in Russia. The jury is still out on the claims that she is a devil worshipping pedophile**.

Regardless of the legitimacy of any of the narratives surrounding Clinton, Trump used those narratives to paint himself as the only legitimate option to combat what many have taken to referring as the “Clinton Crime Family”, do you see the similarities yet?

Secondly, after the phone call that led to the first impeachment of Donald Trump, which revolved around his alleged blackmailing of Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden’s also alleged corruption in Ukraine in exchange for military weapons, the Right seems to hold Zelenskyy and by extension the nation of Ukraine in contempt. That whole situation seems to be a bit of a clusterfuck, but the Right seems to think that because no investigation happened, somehow Ukraine is complicit in enabling the “Biden Crime Family”, possibly even blackmailing Biden to continue to support them in this war. As nonsensical as it seems, it appears to me that elements of the Right are more than willing to embrace outrageous narratives to push their political agendas.

Now it would be dishonest of me to say that the right doesn’t have legitimate concerns about the war in Ukraine, predominantly focused around whether or not we should continue to send them money and military equipment, or the specter of potential escalation that leads to conflict between NATO and Russia. Those are legitimate issues that deserve discussion, because sending billions of dollars to a country to fund a war doesn’t seem like a smart choice on our part. While I believe that we should continue despite the cost and potential for escalation, we should do so with resolve to see this through now matter what political party is in power.

Conclusion

While the Right continues to get a lot of things wrong about this conflict, and the right-wing online community seems to be more willing to buy into conspiracy theories than trust their own fellow countrymen unless they adhere religiously to so called “conservative” beliefs, there is a capacity amongst the Right to continually bring us back to issues that do need resolving. How long do we plan to send Ukraine funds and military equipment at the expense of our own military readiness? To what degree do we continue to support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression? These are just two very important questions that we as Americans need to have answers to. The nonsensical theories are easily disproven, and should be rigorously shredded by factual counters, but the longer term, more pressing issues require a solid analysis and well thought out way forward.