FADE IN:
SOUND: Theme music, PERKY GUITAR as we see –
RADIO HOST is maybe 45. Slightly pale. Looks BUSINESS LIKE in shirt and tie. Sits at TABLE across from ASHBURY. Both wear HEADPHONES.
Welcome to CNMBS’ FRESH AIR.
ASHBURY, in dark suit, black glasses. A green room WARRIOR of plastic age, demeanor is one who just UPGRADED TO FIOS.
Call me Ash. All my interns do.
Sooo. Your NRO review on Christopher Nolan’s
Ashbury UNFOLDS SMILE.
We’re already at war. I’m just saying it out loud.
Radio host reaches for a DUNKIN DONUTS coffee but pauses, picks up handwritten question LIST.
Another war? What’s going on?
Ashbury’s smile WIDENS.
Look, it’s Russia. Same deal. Stalin. Nukes. Putin. They’re marching.
Angela Merkel? She’s pushing sanctions on Russia. I thought Hillary…
Ashbury looks like he’s repeating lines from MEMORY. He is.
Sanctions are useless. They never work. Ever.
Radio host checks off list question with BLUNT short PENCIL.
So why do sanctions at all?
Ashbury feigns surprise. He’s bored already. He’s been in this EXACT conversation dozens of times before.
Sanctions are vital. The West’s resolve to defend Sloviansk. Russians study every signal.
Producer informs Radio host in headphone Sloviansk is in Ukraine. Radio host losses train of thought.
Uhhhh… so you call for US troops in Ukraine,
Ashbury drifts into his ZONE. He loves this one ROCK STAR moment. He turns in chair like Roger Ebert on his old TV show.
It’s that or surrender.
What about the Ukrainian people?
Ashbury waves hand.
Radio host scans his list. Can’t read his own handwriting.
What if you push too far
Not a problem. This time Russia really is
Radio host drops his list, starts to twirl pencil.
This feels like recent tired Daily Show sketches. Even Colbert’s leaving.
Let me put it this way. What if Putin nukes Kharkov?
Producer via headphones tells Radio host where Kharkov is.
The West? We’d fold.
Stop the nuking? Or the war?
Some people take you literally.
I’m not responsible for HOW people react.
Objectivity. Just kills us.
Ukrainians are in a real war, right?
No kidding. Big time. Total high risk deal.
So calling airstrikes to defeat our question of a possible Russian
All I did was ask a question. It’s simple. Russians are playing NFL, we’re baseball.
SOUND: Theme music begins to swell.
Both men slide off headphones. PLEDGE DRIVE promo in BACKGROUND. Off air.
How was it? Did you get what you need for the teaser?
Yeah. Thanks. One more segment before the next bump?
Ashbury nods. Both re-center their headphones.
SOUND: Theme music begins to fade OUT.
And we’re back. Dr. Ashbury, a final question. Over drinks say — what’s your real opinion?
Very meta. Don’t normally go there. Not even for donors…clients.
Keeping sanctions, rebuilding and eventually arming Ukraine is…
Total dog. Tested it with every demo.
Ashbury points at window. Maybe trying to find the White House but it’s a CLOSED SBARROS.
Who even knew what a KOBANI was 5 weeks ago?
Wait. You’re talking scripts or a real war? It doesn’t end.
Nope. And it never did.
Ashbury shows Radio host his LEFT HAND with a number on it in BLACK SHARPIE: 34.
Each time you feel you’ve lived this re-boot loop before? Mark it.
SOUND: Theme music. PRE-RECORDED host sign off, theme music. OFF AIR SIGN lights.
Both remove headphones. They shake hands.
We’ll send a web link. Sorry we missed Interstellar. You were different —
Yeah, I get that a lot. We’re from the Yonkers branch …
Interstellar? Long Brit chick flick with rockets. Guy next to me cried. (laughs, hands Radio host a new Sharpie).
THE END.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Interesting observations, always great to hear impressions of experienced Ukraine observers. The civic awakening is remarkable. Putin no doubt is the father of the new Ukrainian nationalism.
Agree that economic and social reforms (lustration done right, corruption, etc.) are urgent. You’re right, a modernizing Ukraine heading towards the Poland/Estonia path of reform is the greatest means of undermining Putinism. Ukraine should act now to show Kiev is serious about reform and corruption. EU representatives are becoming concerned that portions of economic aid will be diverted down the rat hole of self-dealing.
Ukraine already has about $30 billion plus in aid and loan guarantees. Although I have doubts about his wisdom and judgment sometimes, spoke with Anders Aslund not long ago. He agreed with the growing consensus that another $15 billion will be needed first quarter 2015. (His idea of a larger Marshall Plan – not such a good one).
NATO is not a viable option for Kiev for many years. Her military is hopelessly incompetent at senior levels, corrupt and ineffective. The Illiovsk catastrophe merely one example of many. (The volunteers far more effective if despite their lack of formal training and support from regular military).
The entire C3I structure would have to be replaced/reformed and upgraded to meet NATO interoperability standards, along with changes in accompanying doctrine, training and weapons systems. Maybe in 10 years Ukraine might be ready to start a conversation, but that’s not even addressing the wisdom of NATO extending membership.
I asked the Ukrainian Foreign Minister this exact question. He’s hoping for some kind of NATO life line (and rejected the “bridge” concept). He also embraced alternative security arrangements, such a regional EE defense and some security cooperation and training.
Putin and the Russians make a big deal about NATO but that’s partly a narrative excuse. Igor Jurgens, a respected Centrist “liberal” who coordinated policy for Medvedev 2008-2012, summed things up well. He noted that all the Russian apparat — liberals, conservatives, nationalists, etc. were stunned by Poland and the Baltics’ economic progress *in the EU*. Jurgens said the official Russian delegations to Warsaw and EE resented their former satellite/republics in the EU talking down to Russia about economic reform as “second class” status.
This wounded self-image and Russian frustration being unable to find a development model beyond gas/oil is the real proximate cause of the crisis. More than “NATO” by itself. To the Kremlin factions, they’ve tried (in their minds) Stolypin/Witte, centralization, “liberalism” in the 1990s and can’t match Poland or the Baltics developing a functioning internally developing economy.
“Russians from the steppe” – yes not all Russians embrace or passively support the war against “Banderites, fascists, junta, Xoxoli, etc.” But a stunningly larger percent do, and reject alternative news sources available in Russian internationally. The “zombification” by Ernst, Kiselyov/Izvestia/Channel 24 works only if people decide to tune in.
In the same light, American collective responsibility for Iraq (and Abu Ghraib) is much broader (and air brushed away), too. The Arab ecumene is distinct from the Anglo-European cockpit, combined with American insularity/ignorance. Such wars (for example against Japan/Vietnam) are more prone to demodernization and moral collapse.
Ukraine is Ukraine with all that means for Russians and their interconnections of blood, family, business, culture and professional contact. It’s true that civil wars can be the most intense, but the scale and degree of Russian crimes committed in the Donbass are typically wars against the Other, supra – indicative of the Russian mindset.
sglover says
Der Spiegel has another truly excellent piece about EU-Ukrainian association negotiations in the months before Maidan:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/war-in-ukraine-a-result-of-misunderstandings-between-europe-and-russia-a-1004706.html#spLeserKommentare
Dr Leo Strauss says
Useful reminder of the geo-political irresponsibility and general incompetence of both the permanent EU apparat and the disconnected and not fully engaged member states. When this piece is married to Moscow’s failure of strategic intelligence in a neighboring former Soviet state it’s a minor miracle the tragedy has been limited to innocents in Donbass.
Having said that, after the annexation of Crimea, Russian war crimes on the Ukrainian people and against the passengers of MH17 transcend the above petty squabbling. In fact, beyond Girkin et al.’s reign of murder, rape and internal infighting among Russian factions, the desecration of the MH17 passengers’ bodies and the pilfering of their belongings by Russians and Russian mercenaries proved decisively that Russians remain steppe primitives.
Russia collectively, not just Putin, Bortnikov, Ivanov, Patrushev et al. is complicit in embracing the revanchist Big Lie. Their price for this temporary euphoria will stun them all a the reckoning.
sglover says
Hiya… Please please please — surely you mean, “… SOME Russians remain steppe primitives”. Otherwise one could draw all kinds of unpleasant extrapolations about Yanks from, say, Abu Ghraib.
I was in Ukraine, my fourth trip there, about two weeks ago. I saw Kiev and Lviv and Korosten, a small city/large town an hour or two northwest of Kiev where a friend of mine lives. I wanted to see how things are going, and I’m happy to say that although I was expecting to see very hard times, on the whole people seem to be no worse off than what I saw in 2012. Money’s a problem, the gryhvia’s slide has people worried (it dropped every day that I was there), and the war has them even more worried and dismayed. But the near-total social implosion that I saw a dozen years ago still seems a thing of the past.
My superficial impression is that if Putin was hoping to rope a wayward client back in, he has accomplished pretty much the opposite. It’s not overwhelming, but signs of a self-conscious “Ukrainian-ness” (ugly, but I don’t know what else to call it) were hard to miss: A lot of clothing now mixes in elements of traditional Ukrainian garb. My friend tells me that nowadays you hear Ukrainian spoken much more often. The national colors are more prominent than I’ve ever seen. And there’s a lot of volunteerism, most of it concerned with raising money or supplies for the war or humanitarian relief.
My understanding is that the right-wingers got only very small tallies in the Rada elections, which is encouraging. Also, those elections seem to have been free and fair and inclusive, so now I think the government can claim real legitimacy. My hope is that the new gang doesn’t get too obsessed with reclaiming Donbas. I understand that it’s not very palatable, but I think they’d be much better off accepting an uneasy status quo for now, in order to concentrate on economic development. Over the long haul it’s not hard to imagine Donbas/Transdniestria II attracted to a prosperous Ukraine much more strongly than to Moscow.
In the short haul, Ukraine needs aid now. This is the EU’s problem, in culpability and proximity, more than anyone else’s. But the offers I’ve heard so far are laughably small…
On a related note, I hope we agree that McCain and Graham and their ilk are meddling nitwits, and that it’s best for everybody, most especially Ukrainians, if Ukraine stays unaligned, out of NATO.