Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

Narratives have been constructed to support a long war in Ukraine. For example, the narrative of an “unprovoked invasion” was important to criminalise diplomacy as the premise suggests negotiations would reward Russian military adventurism and embolden further Russian aggression. Meanwhile, NATO escalating the war creates costs that outweigh the benefits to Russia.

Russia’s violation of the Budapest Memorandum is a key narrative that supports a long war. It is constantly referenced as a reason why Russia cannot be trusted to abide by a peace agreement, and why the war must keep going. The argument is that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees for its territorial integrity. Russia’s breach of this agreement suggests it cannot be trusted and that the only reliable security guarantees must come from NATO membership. Furthermore, the West must continue to send weapons to Ukraine to honour the security guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum.

In February 2022, a few days before the Russian invasion, Zelensky referred to the Budapest Memorandum: “Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third nuclear capability. We don't have that weapon. We also have no security.” The Budapest Memorandum was again used by Zelensky in October 2024 to support the argument that Ukraine must either have NATO or nukes: “Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and then it will be a defence for us, or Ukraine will be in NATO”.

This article presents facts and arguments that challenge the false narrative of the Budapest Memorandum, which aims to delegitimise diplomacy. Criticising the narrative of the Budapest Memorandum does not entail “legitimising” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is a common tactic to smear and censor criticism against the narratives supporting a long war.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

The challenge of our time is that government and corporate interests go increasingly hand-in-hand

Organisations operating under the banner of “human rights non-governmental organisations” (NGOs) have become key actors in disseminating war propaganda, intimidating academics, and corrupting civil society. These NGOs act as gatekeepers determining which voices should be elevated and which should be censored and cancelled.

Civil society is imperative to balance the power of the state, yet the state is increasingly seeking to hijack the representation of civil society through NGOs. The NGOs can be problematic on their own as they can enable a loud minority to override a silent majority. Yet, the Reagan doctrine exacerbated the problem as these “human rights NGOs” were financed by the government and staffed by people with ties to intelligence agencies to ensure civil society does not deviate significantly from government policies.

The ability of academics to speak openly and honestly is restricted by these gatekeepers. Case in point, the NGOs limit dissent in academic debates about the great power rivalry in Ukraine. Well-documented and proven facts that are imperative to understanding the conflict are simply not reported in the media, and any efforts to address these facts are confronted with vague accusations of being “controversial” or “pro-Russian”, a transgression that must be punished with intimidation, censorship, and cancellation. I will outline here first my personal experiences with one of these NGOs, and second how the NGOs are hijacking civil society:

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 laid the foundation for the modern world order, which is based on a balance of power between sovereign equals to obstruct hegemonic ambitions. The Westphalian balance of power could reduce zero-sum rivalries by championing the principle of indivisible security, as enhancing adversaries' security would also improve one's security.

Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been promoting a revisionist world order based on US hegemony and sovereign inequality, which is legitimized under the banner of universal liberal values. The hegemonic world order aimed to transcend international anarchy, yet it was inevitably temporary and unstable as its durability depended on obstructing the rise of potential rivals and promoting a system of sovereign inequality. The era of hegemony is already over as the world transitioned to a multipolar balance of power, and there is a need to rediscover the principle of indivisible security.

China's Global Civilisational Initiative can contribute to restoring and improving a stable Westphalian world order based on a balance of power among sovereign equals. China's Global Civilizational Initiative, organized around the principle of "the diversity of civilizations", can be interpreted as a rejection of universalism and thus support for sovereign equality. By rejecting the right to represent the values of other people, the Global Civilizational Initiative reassures the world that an intrusive US hegemony will not be replaced by an intrusive Chinese hegemony. The Global Civilization Initiative complements China's economic and security initiatives around the world, which are also organized around the principle that stability requires a multipolar world order.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn's Substack

Propaganda is a science of persuasion that commonly circumvents the rational considerations of the individual by instead appealing to the unconscious group psychology. The conscious mind tends to be rational, but human behaviour and actions are largely shaped by the unconscious, primordial instincts, and emotions. The rational individual has strong impulses to adapt to the group, thus propaganda aims to influence the irrational group psychology.

Propaganda as a Science—Sigmund Freud explored the irrationality of “group psychology” that overrides the rational and critical capacities of the individual. Freud recognised that “a group is extraordinarily credulous and open to influence, it has no critical faculty”.[1] Conformity to the ideas of the group is powerful exactly because it is unconscious. Freud defined group psychology as being: “concerned with the individual man as a member of a race, of a nation, of a caste, of a profession, of an institution, or as a component part of a crowd of people”, which form a collective group consciousness, social instinct, herd instinct or tribal mentality.[2]

The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays, built on the work of his uncle to develop the foundational literature on political propaganda. Bernays aimed to manipulate the collective consciousness and identity of the group to control the hearts and minds of the masses without their awareness of being manipulated:

💬 “The group has mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual psychology. So the question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?”.[3]

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn’s Substack

Crossing the Line Between Proxy War & Direct War

The discussions about authorising long-range missile strikes on Russia are profoundly dishonest and misleading. The political-media elites present deeply flawed arguments to support the conclusion that attacking Russia with long-range missiles does not cross the line between proxy war and direct war. NATO may be successful in deluding itself, yet for Russia there is no doubt that this is an act of war.

1) “Ukraine has the right to defend itself”—The argument that Ukraine has the right to defend itself as a justification for NATO to authorise long-range strikes into Russia is very manipulative. The public is pulled in with a very reasonable premise, based on the universal acceptance of the right to self-defence. Once the public has accepted the premise, then it is presented as a foregone conclusion that Ukraine should be supplied with long-range missiles to attack Russia. The extent of NATO’s involvement in the war, as the main issue, is subsequently eliminated entirely from the argument.

The point of departure in an honest discussion should start with the right question: When is the line between proxy war and direct war crossed? These are US long-range missiles, their use is entirely dependent on US intelligence and targeting, they will be operated by US soldiers and guided by US satellites. Launching them from Ukrainian territory does not make it any less of a direct US attack on Russia. The US did not use these weapons against Russia for three years as it would amount to a direct attack, yet now the media is attempting to sell the narrative of this merely being uncontroversial military aid to enable Ukraine to defend itself. The US and some of its NATO allies have decided to attack Russia directly, and they should be honest about this intention. Attempts to present this as merely giving military aid to Ukraine to defend itself is an irresponsible effort to shame any dissent and avoid a serious discussion about attacking the world’s largest nuclear power.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn’s Substack

The election victory of Trump should not have been a surprise. The era of liberal hegemony has already come to an end, and a correction is long overdue. The liberal hegemony is no longer liberal, and the hegemony is exhausted. Trump is often denounced for being transactional, yet the de-ideologization of America and return to pragmatism is exactly what the country needs.

Change or Preserve the Unsustainable Status-Quo?—The overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, which placed Harris as the incumbent in an unfavorable position. Harris as the Vice President could not distance herself sufficiently from President Biden’s policies, which meant that she had to own the failures of the past four years. The message of “turning the page” did not resonate, and she was left with the meaningless slogan of “joy” - which only demonstrated her detachment from the growing concerns of Americans.

The borders have been wide open, media freedom is in decline, the government’s overreach is growing, US industries are no longer competitive, the national debt is out of control, social problems and culture wars are going from bad to worse, the political climate becomes increasingly divisive, the US military is overstretched, the global majority rejects Washington’s simplistic and dangerous heuristics of dividing the world into liberal democracy versus authoritarianism, the US is complicit in genocide in Palestine and is heading towards nuclear war with Russia.

Who would vote for four more years when the status quo entails driving off a cliff? It is a good time to be in opposition and offer change. Being a populist with a bombastic demeanor, seemingly immune to consequences from breaking social norms, is a good feature when breaking free from decades-old ideological dogmas that constrain necessary pragmatism.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn’s Substack

The Economist reports that "Russia is slicing through Ukrainian defenses" and Ukraine is subsequently "struggling to survive".[1] Across the Western media, the public is prepared for defeat and painful concessions in future negotiations. The media is changing the narrative as reality can no longer be ignored. Russia's coming victory has been obvious since at least the summer of 2023, yet this was ignored to keep the proxy war going.

We are witnessing an impressive demonstration of narrative control: For more than two years, the political-media elites have been chanting “Ukraine is winning” and denounced any dissent to their narrative as “Kremlin talking points” that aim to reduce support for the war. What was “Russian propaganda” yesterday is now suddenly the consensus of the collective media. Critical self-reflection is as absent as it was after the Russiagate reporting.

Similar narrative control was displayed when the media reassured the public for two decades that NATO was winning, before fleeing in a great rush with dramatic images of people falling off an airplane.

The media deceived the public by presenting the stagnant frontlines as evidence that Russia was not winning. However, in a war of attrition, the direction of the war is measured by attrition rates – the losses on each side. Territorial control comes after the adversary has been exhausted as territorial expansion is very costly in such high-intensity warfare with powerful defensive lines. The attrition rates have throughout the war been extremely unfavourable to Ukraine, and they continuously get worse. The current collapse of the Ukrainian frontlines was very predictable as the manpower and weaponry had been exhausted.

Why has the former narrative expired? The public could be misled by fake attrition rates, yet it is not possible to cover up territorial changes after the eventual breaking point. Furthermore, the proxy war was beneficial to NATO when the Russians and Ukrainians were bleeding each other without any significant territorial changes. Once the Ukrainians are exhausted and begin to lose strategic territory, it is no longer in the interest of NATO to continue the war.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn’s Substack

Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat, and NATO has openly stated its intention to make Ukraine a member state after the war. Without a political settlement that restores Ukraine’s neutrality, Russia will therefore likely annex the strategic territories it cannot accept ending up under NATO control and then turning what remains of Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state.

As the war is being lost, the rational policy for the Europeans would therefore be to offer an agreement based on ending NATO’s eastward expansion to save Ukrainian lives, territory, and the nation itself. Yet, no European leader has been able even to suggest such a solution publicly. Why?

Present the average European politician, journalist, or academic with the following thought experiment: If you were an advisor to the Kremlin, what would be your advice to Russia if there are no negotiations to resolve the Ukraine War? Most would feel morally compelled to give ridiculous answers such as advising the Kremlin to capitulate and withdraw, even if Russia is on the cusp of victory. Any impulse to adhere to reason and address Russia’s security concerns would likely be deterred by the threat of being shamed for “legitimizing” Russia’s invasion.

What explains the decline of strategic thinking, pragmatism, and rationality in European politics?

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Glenn Diesen
RT.com/Glenn’s Substack

The decision of the US and UK to conduct a proxy war led to the unavoidable Istanbul+ endgame

In February 2022, Russia started its military operation against Ukraine to impose a settlement after a group of NATO countries had undermined the Minsk II peace agreement for seven years. On the first day after the start of hostilities, Vladimir Zelensky confirmed that Moscow had contacted him to discuss negotiations based on restoring Ukrainian neutrality. On the third day, Russia and Ukraine agreed to start peace negotiations based on a Russian military withdrawal in return for this. Zelensky responded favorably to this condition, and he even called for a “collective security agreement” to include Russia to mitigate the security competition that had sparked the war.

The talks that followed are referred to as the Istanbul negotiations, in which Russia and Ukraine were close to an agreement before the US and UK sabotaged it, according to numerous claims by people close to the process.

Washington rejects negotiations without preconditions

For Washington, there were great incentives to use the large proxy army it had built in Ukraine to weaken Russia as a strategic rival, rather than accepting a neutral Kiev. On the first day after the start of the military operation, when Zelensky responded favorably to starting negotiations without preconditions, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price rejected this stance – saying Russia would first have to withdraw all its forces.

💬 “Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy… If President Putin is serious about diplomacy, he knows what he can do. He should immediately stop the bombing campaign against civilians, order the withdrawal of his forces from Ukraine, and indicate very clearly, unambiguously to the world, that Moscow is prepared to de-escalate.”

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