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Radio War Nerd EP #360 — It Was The War-st of Times (2022 in Review) (Patreon)

Published:
2022-12-27 18:09:20
Imported:
2026-06
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Recorded: December 20, 2022

The War Nerd & Ames look back on the year in wars that was 2022, and consider how a failed regime-change movement in Belarus influenced Putin's cockamamie Ukraine war plan.

Total time: 1:39:51

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Matt Las

Love the music, is this available for streaming/purchase?

Conor

Not sure what the situation is like in Rochester, but I hope Mark and his family are keeping well.

Matt Colston

Will say about those who called the Russian invasion... Many of them constantly say Russia will invade every thing.

Of course

Mark's narrative re Belarus was the most productive and satisfying 30-45 minutes of podcast listening I experienced in 2022. And then the promise of an analysis of the trillion-plus-dollar military budget... for which I was typing out a request for in the comments! Much gratitude for all your work and hopes for a better 2023: May your show be nothing more than antiquarian curios someday... "Remember when people used to do war stuff?"

Broadway Joe

Gulls can be pretty terrifying. A guy told me once that the larger species can bite your fingers off. Some beaches will use falconers to ward them off so they stop bothering beach goers.

blazed uncle

You guys should be really proud of the job you did this year. I learned a lot and enjoyed it immensely (to the extent that one can, of course).

Ellen Harold

True. There was a video on the internet during the pandemic of a famished (because few tourists hence less garbage) of a Roman gull catching and eating a rat.

David Andrews

Yes. Please do a "defense" budget episode. Be sure to mention the intelligence budget as well, it's part of the same program.

Mark Ames

Nothing like Buffalo. Elliot saw me standing on the driveway shaking my fist at the clouds, and tucked tail like Snagglepus.

etienne

the Civil War series was fantastic this year! looking forwards to more installments

John Waaben

Crappy Poo Year everyone…..

G W

I have asked for this before but with a Marcos back in power in the Phillipines can we get a show on the longest running communist insurgency in the world? Someone in the FB group recently screened a film in NYC that is a gonzo style documentary about a filam hanging out with the guerilla in the jungle. Really really inspiring stuff and doesn't flinch at all from what they are up against. Was released just before the pandemic. Or alternatively another episode about the Filipino-American war? The previous episode was not bad don't get me wrong but it didn't deal much with the actual war. So many fascinating things alongside just atrocities. I'd love to know more about how the US worked with local governments against the nationalist forces or to know more about wooden armor, the revolver, "kill everyone over 10" etc.

Kevin Hickey

I would like to echo an earlier sentiment about how transfixing Mark’s analysis was in this episode. In a world not made by the demiurge this is what NPR would sound like. Thanks for another great year of RWN!

etienne

personally I think the biggest screwup this year is that John thinks Trieste is better than Montreal but whatever, can't get them all of em right

Mark Ames

Thanks. I tried to keep it simple and keep out some of the names, like the name of the Gazprom banker (Viktor Babariko) that the Kremlin backed to replace Lukashenko in 2020 who was subsequently jailed by Lukashenko... but I worry that nevertheless it might still sound a bit convoluted.

William

I think the largest development not really explored on the podcast is the development of a viable economic order alternative to the US dominated hegemony - a decline of economic power largely due to the the US's own stupidity. Editorializing aside, India, Russia, China, Japan to some degree, other BRICS countries, etc - we're starting to see china's belt and road initiatives take shape and my guess is that they and India will become such huge markets it will pull people into their orbits US hegemony or not

a clash of purple

Doubtful. India and China still need the U.S. as their customer to buy all the crap they make. Despite the trappings of communism they drape themselves in, the PRC is not a viable alternative to U.S. hegemony. They don't want to organize society any differently than it is now, they just want to take the U.S.'s place as the king of shit mountain. They can't, because frankly the world is already suffering ecological disaster with the U.S. being the way it is. If Chinese people lived like Americans do, it would only hasten environmental armageddon because there's more of them. People seem to have just given up thinking about climate change by and large, but it's the completely gigantic elephant in the room, slowly growing ever larger and crushing all of us against the walls. Speaking of India, the Indian subcontinent hosts several nuclear-armed countries that are all suffering disproportionately due to climate change while there's already massive sectarian tension throughout the region. India won't have much chance to take over the world or whatever after the entire subcontinent is incinerated by a nuclear exchange between, say, India and Pakistan over increasingly scarce food and water.

etienne

gonna have an alternative to the dollar system ... any minute now ... it's gonna happen ... now ... right ... now ... common

Doug Cartel

German TV is calling the Serbian president a "mini-Putin" so that goes to show whose side they're on if the shit hits the fan.

Doug Cartel

Whether it's because they suck at fighting or because the Ukrainians have a larger army, I think Russia's reliance on defense and attrition makes sense, at least for now. Pretty funny to hear NYT claim this whole thing is a loss just because the Kiev rush failed when these guys have been saying Russia was out of ammo once a week every week and were genuinely confused when Russia sent multiple waves of drones and missiles at Ukraine.

Of course

There's a notion of US managed capitalist-liberal unipolar totalitarianism fraying and falling apart from its own contradictions... and being further undermined by a neo-feudal paradigm of multipolar, multistructure local deal-making. It's not that the petrodollar will be universally replaced, just local substitutions termite-ing their way. It's not that any other country wants to be "king of the shitpile", they'll just carve out regional arrangements that diminish or cut out the US. Networked communication and finance + climate disasters all make the neo-feudal response more urgent, but not necessarily less destructive. I'm adapting Jodi Dean's take on this (35 min): https://youtu.be/XGq3hdWEe10

Ben

i second this! also, if you can find the name of that doc I would be super interested

G W

@Ben The film is called "Revolution Selfie" Last I checked it is not available for streaming anywhere but there are screenings put on by various CPP/NPA affiliated groups fairly regularly. If you are in the FB group search the film for the guy who put on a screening in NYC he may be able to help you get a copy of the film

Hexagon Truth

i'm sorry but when has anyone, anywhere referred to ukraine as anything like a "jeffersonian democracy"? i've never heard this even from the most goofy, die-hard neocon outlets. quite the opposite — every summary/explainer article i read in the spring put out by the usual suspects went out of its way to characterize their government as deeply flawed and corrupt. certainly haven't seen anything like it in any e.g. official government communications either. it's difficult to take your arguments seriously when your rhetoric is so gratuitously wrapped up in this sort of sarcastic strawman hyperbole.

William

Purple - I don't think you understand at all what I'm saying. Or the developing situation. The emerging Chinese middle class is 1.67x the size of the US population. They won't need the US market as much as you think. You've made so many assumptions in your reply I don't really have much to say. For instance, anyone who's credible is talking about a multipolar world supplanting the current unipolar world order. Where are you getting this "china becoming an alternative to US hegemony"? That was never explicitly said

Mark Ames

Been hearing about this most of my life now, more years than I'd like to think about, and some day it will be true. But if what you mean by this is the US dollar ceasing to be the world's reserve currency, I seriously doubt that'll happen any time soon. There's no other country striving to be the world's reserve currency, in large part because it would mean deliberately running massive trade deficits (and exporting jobs with it), and no other powerful state or superstate is ready to do that to compete with US dollar power. There are a lot of other reasons the dollar won't be replaced that I won't bother getting into now, but you're right that this could be good material for an episode or at least part of an episode.

Max

Want an actually worthwhile wwi movie? Crosses of Wood (Les croix des bois) -1932. French movie made with (and largely by) real veterans at a time when it was still very, very raw. As if to scream “this is what it was like, you stupid sons of bitches” to all future generations. The level of detail is astonishing, as if to make everyone who had been there concede it was at least fair. A scene where a German counterattack gradually comes into view as it bobs up and down across artillery blasted terrain seems straight out of a survivor’s literal nightmares. You start to appreciate what it was like to face weapons (with a dry twig of a human body) that were capable of continuously transforming the very terrain around you. It’s was on the criterion channel a while back. Westfront 1918 was a German movie made around the same time (~1930), also very good. Never knew these two films even existed. They are just incredible, not just for the time they were made but still today.

a clash of purple

Well, William, you were talking about an alternative to the U.S.-dominated global markets and then said you weren't talking about an alternative to the U.S.-dominated global markets, so... whatever. Nevermind then. It's fine. I know that there are some arrangements being made to help countries ameliorate the damage caused by U.S. sanctions, but I can't imagine it amounting to anything more than that; damage control, and wholly inadequate damage control at that. Like, North Korea and Cuba are able to survive despite essentially being cut off from the outside world, but they're not doing any more than (barely) surviving. I don't think China and Russia being bigger will help them fare much better if they're reduced to rogue state status. If North and South Korea reunified and aligned with China, if China's new Silk Road paid off fantastically, if the Indian subcontinent could overcome its sectarian divides, if Russia could rebuild the old Soviet bloc in some new and improved form, if if if... It would take some truly seismic change to build anything that could be called a "viable economic order alternative to the U.S.-dominated hegemony." And the U.S. is working hard to keep anything like that from ever happening.

a clash of purple

Ames and Dolan aren't trying to 'argue' anything with anyone. They're not in debate club...

a clash of purple

I don't know if he's a mini-Putin, but Vučić is really ugly.

Hexagon Truth

really? when i first read your reply i thought about posting a definition of "argument" here but u know what that's beneath my fucking dignity. i have a feeling in another context e.g. dolan would have no truck with this sort of fake sophist nonsense, but since you're clearly backing their reflexive tankie line i assume they'll give it a pass. they are putting out a media product that is intended to convey a point of view via a body of commentary on e.g. current events, and i don't think it's unreasonable at fucking all to suggest it would behoove them to do it with some semblance of intellectual and rhetorical honesty, even allowing for occasional fact-blurring zingers, etc. if this podcast is just going to degenerate into "hurr durr nato bad lol" tropes episode after episode i'm honestly not even sure what i am getting out of it. tl;dr this is a stupid reply and you should feel stupid for posting it.

a clash of purple

I donno man, you're the one paying for an entertainment product you apparently don't enjoy...

Bryan Nicholson

Kudos for John and Mark’s work in 2022, especially with this ep. Mark’s analysis of the Byelorussian connection to Putin’s invasion plans was illuminating, and I also appreciated the reference to the Wartorn documentary. If I had it in me to chip in $100/mo for this show and it’s contributions, I would.

Henry Ermer

So glad to hear the sea gull admiration on the podcast. They're beautiful animals. While they don't seem to be as bright as other birds, when you watch them fly and drop food items to catch them before they hit the ground it's hard not to think that's a type of intelligence

Anil Nair

Why people see India as a serious anything is beyond me. Woeful corruption, society and the economy of both China and India will nosedive. Russia is down for the count already and south Africa is the same.

Jim Vail

Mark why don't you interview Fred W.

Lojban Chauvinist

@Henry Ermer they seem to have catlike intelligence

Lojban Chauvinist

@Hexagon Truth I'm also in that tiny minority of fans who think sometimes the hosts' hot emotions regarding NATO and mainstream media can at times warp the commentary. However, you can't deny that the podcast has more facts than unsubstantiated opinions, and covers lots of material that is at more of an emotional/historical remove from the current discourse

HarshMalarkey

Wait is the civil war series over? What about *a battle only i am interested in*?

Arielle Curtin

A neocon I am not, but I have been relatively correct on Ukraine all along due to the news that I read. I took President Putin at his word and continue to do so. There have been no surprises.

Snackator

Thank you Mark & John to yet another great year! An entire episode on the military budget sounds promising.

Joe McNiff

mark sounds like how i feel 😂😂

Ilya Fishman

Wait so Ukrainians, upon hearing that one of their heroines was Judophobic, dropped her from popularity and political office? Sounds more enlightened than some southern states here in the US.....

Mark Ames

The Westerners who'd made an official hero of Nadia Savchenko dropped her, they were her main base of support. I haven't heard of a Ukrainian politician ever suffering a ratings drop after saying something disparaging towards Jews, and most of them have, including Yulia Tymoshenko (but not as far as I know Zelensky, which would be weird of course, though he did have some well-known extreme-righties in his government). As for Nadia Savchenko, she was jailed by Poroshenko for allegedly trying to stage some kind of fascist coup, which was probably more of an intra-fascist setup than anything else.

Hans Anders

The Burns memo outlines the reasons for the Ukraine conflict perfectly. It’s been an escalating matter ever since at least 2008. No need for psychoanalysis of Putin. The rant on Belarus was very insightful in that regard!