Published by gilbertdoctorow
Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write.
Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975).
After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility.
From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University.
Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.
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Gilbert Doctorow 
The debate was interesting and just a bit heated at the beginning, but it definitely wasn’t anything like let’s say Prof Finkelstein vs Prof Morris on Piers Morgan show…
However, I do think that Mr. Helmer/Stavka have a point. There is not going to be any guarantor but the Russian Army, not with the non-agreement capable US and EU and Ukraine. For Ukraine, the only true guarantor for its peace and security is Russia, but that can hold only as long as Ukraine is truly neutral.
Butin 2014 neuther Russian Army nor the Russian economy were prepared. In fact, even in 2022, the Russian Army was not ready. Only now with the mobilization and almost 2 years of war, Russian Army is in better position. Same with the Russian economy. And maybe only now Mr Putin would feel his hand stronger are more able to follow on Stavka’s advice.
If US is still in Irak after 21 years of occupation, for security interests, I can well see a Russian occupation force in Ukraine, after UAF colapses, for the forseable force, regardless of how Poland and Romania would feel about that. Poland shouldn’t have poked the bear…
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My reaction to the discussion has three sections: 1) how the debate was framed and moderated, 2) how the vast potential benefit of this discussion went unrealized, and 3) the main points of take-away that made listening to the debate so very worthwhile.
Framing and Moderation. The moderator – Mr. Mercouris – did not do the debate any service. He’s a smart man, but spent too much time listening to himself talk. He did not frame the debate well – e.g. identify key things to cover, and insure that the presenters covered those points.
In the intro, he spent a lot of time explaining how the Russian Military General Staff has no modern counterpart, and how much impact it has on Russian military and foreign policy decisions … and that was the last we heard of the subject.
If it’s so important, why so, and what impact did/does/will it have? Helmer touched on this briefly, tangentially, and I’ll point that out later in the take-aways. I think Mr. Mercouris missed a major opportunity to educate.
Unrealized Potential. Next, the presenters spent far too much time on details and on questioning the basis for the other presenter’s perspectives (this is Helmer, mainly).
These are two very seasoned, highly educated people, and there should have been _no time spent_ on one-upsmanship. Instead, the discussion should have centered on “what are the forces, how are decisions made, who are the key players, what is the past, current, and prospective situation (e.g. trajectory, and past events that cast a shadow on today’s situation), and what are the key options/paths going forward”.
Only some of that got done.
Take-Aways. Now let’s talk about the take-aways.
Helmer made the point – and made it well – that Russia’s mistake in the past was to make agreements (for ex: no NATO move into former Soviet satellites) without having soldiers on the ground to _enforce_ those agreements.
Helmer says “the West has secret agreements with its “allies” – (Helmer calls them “secret annexes”) – that serve to install military threats of one form or another into the nations abutting Russia that the U.S. somehow has influence over. They’re secret, they’re dangerous, they need to be prevented. Essentially, Helmer’s stating that Russia has to keep the thumb on all the countries that surround it. More Cold War.
Helmer also made it crystal clear that the West cannot, will not tolerate a Germany-Russia alliance, because that means the end of U.S. control over Europe. Plain and simple. Hence NordStream, et. al.
Helmer also pointed out that there’s “no guarantor of peace”. No matter what peace agreement is reached, who says it’ll be enforced? Who could Russia trust, beside itself with its military, to enforce _any_ peace agreement reached with the West?
Helmer also stated that one key demand, commitment, closely-held perspective of the Russian Military Staff is that any “end” to the current Ukraine war _not_ create conditions that lead … directly to the next one.
Now let me offer a selection of my favorite points made by Dr. Doctorow:
Putin is the consummate politician. He is able to conceive, order, plan, execute, manipulate and otherwise cause to act … players at all levels – global, regional, national, local – military, industrial, social … to the systematic advantage of Russia.
He’s the ultimate HR (human resources) manager. He tolerates malignants (e.g. oligarchs, corrupt military leaders) so long as they do more good than harm. Then he gets rid of them, and puts in someone better, as conditions permit. This is Putin’s signature genius.
Putin understands timing. There was a time when Russia wasn’t ready for war, so war was avoided (at great cost). Now it’s ready, and so it’s conducting war, and its winning. There was political, economic, military and industrial prep-work to be done, and it got done. And then there was war.
Russia is a different country today than it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Russia of today is exceptionally well-positioned for the future. Not only militarily and industrially and economically, but global-politically. Russia is one of two leads on the BRICS project, which offers the promise of a vastly different world than the one crafted by the West. This confers enormous promise and access and status for Russia.
While Helmer states absolutes about what Russia’s end-game might be, Doctorow introduces shades of gray in the form of political and military realities that modulate what Russia can reasonably get without resorting, for example, to nuclear war.
Doctorow’s mental model of the situation emphasizes continued maneuver – politics, management over immediate absolutes (unconditional surrender in Ukraine / West vacates the former satellites, for ex.). This “maneuver” at the national level is, of course, Russia’s strong suit; not just with Putin, but increasingly the entire government management team. There are remaining trouble spots (Nabulina’s name came up a time or two). It’s not all roses. But Russia has astonished the world with its ability to adapt, to manage, to execute its vision.
More To Come?
Of course I’m leaving out a great deal of really excellent material; awkwardness and occasional mis-direction aside, that’s the best hour I’ve spent on geopolitics in a very, very long time. I would not have missed that discussion.
Could it have been better? Yes, and I think all the players involved would acknowledge that.
For Mr. Mercouris – the moderator – I ask: “what indeed _is_ the role and significance of the Russian Military General Staff? What impact _will_ they have on the course of events?”
Well, we didn’t find that out.
I confess that I empathize with Mr. Mercouris, in that it must be daunting to try to direct the flow of conversation between two such powerful stallions. Yes.
But Mercouris did himself no favors in his discussion setup, and didn’t steer the conversation with appropriate, penetrating questions, and he let the presenters – mainly Helmer – take the conversation into unprofitable territory.
But the good news is … there might be a redux. I really look forward to that, should it happen.
=== Lastly: Mr. Mercouris did, as moderator, a much better job than I ever could have. Hopefully, he’ll use this feedback in the spirit it’s intended: “we’re all in this together. We need to help one another improve”.
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Many thanks for taking the time to submit this very well thought-out and constructive review of last night’s debvate….
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Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed summary
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A superb summary of the discussion. I think you’re being too kind to Mercouris, who began the discussion by a long winded recitation of his own perspective. He frequently noted that his role was supposed to be that of moderator, but he was clearly more inclined to engage as a participant.
I also think you’re too kind to Mr Helmer, who was, from the start, belligerent, as is his wont. I read his blog regularly and it is almost always tinged with condescension. So he was here toward Doctorow, who was consistently unwilling to engage in such pettiness (except, perhaps, in the silly citing of fathers-in-law as sources of information about the Russian perspective). Because of Doctorow’s not descending into a brawling style, Helmer came off as needlessly combative and personal. I think he realized that and backed off as the discussion wore on, even seeking some common ground toward the end.
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Helmer is not wrong because his conduct was questionable, Doctorow not right because his conduct was impeccable.
Inadequate preparation by moderators for this talk.
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I never suggested that Helmer’s attitude made him wrong, or that Doctorow’s made him right. Surely, attitude is not a barometer of righteousness. But I believe that discussion would have been significantly improved if Helmer hadn’t behaved that way.
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The most illuminating moment for me was when Doctorow said that Putin’s most recent statement of peace conditions concluded with the demand that all sanctions must be removed, and that therefore there would not likely be peace on these terms. I hope I represent that correctly, but in any case I think it is the position.
I further think that this is the key to the relation of the SMO to the general world situation. The removal of all sanctions is equivalent to the effective full establishment of multipolarity as a new world order. For either of these to be the case, both must be the case. If that is so, then the Russian Federation is de facto at war in Ukraine for, and until, the achievement of effective multipolarity (or polynodality) in the world.
Otherwise, I think that this debate was a breakthrough. Hats off to Dr Doctorow in particular for creating substantial discussion between the talking heads of the alternative media in this matter, and previously in the matter of the priority of Israel or the USA in their joint war-making. More, please.
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You were the adult
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I believe someone needs to characterise the Pentagon approach correctly. If the Pentagon is a rational force responding to reason then negotiation with it might make sense.
The evidence, unfortunately, would suggest this not being the case. The 1991 Wolfowitz doctrine clearly shows the Pentagon will leave no space to genuine negotiations, meaning the role of the military will, in the end, be decisive.
Even if the Pentagon realise there being a risk to their approach their sense of danger is likely to be reduced by the prospective of vast (unprecedented) profit if their war approach succeeds. This would be fully in line what Karl Marx said some 150 years ago.
The Russian government conduct does not correspond this reality. They could have known that appeasement/detente with the Pentagon and its satraps will not succeed. So if Doctorow is right in saying Russia wasn’t ready for war in 2014, then the question should be why the Russian government continued with its illusions after the declaration of the Wolfowitz doctrine, leading Russia into a situation unable to fight while this was required?
And even today: Why does the Russian government continue to offer favourable deals on hydrocarbons to the West (regardless of the West accepting or not) when they know full well (or ought to) that the Pentagon is at war with Russia? (Quite a bit of Russian nuclear fuel is still going to USA), e.g.)
Historical comparison: What happened after 22/6/41 to the Soviet/German trade (after Germany following the August 1939 agreement had becom
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