How to filibuster
Russia doesn’t know how to filibuster.
Here’s a perspective on the Ukraine war that has haunted me for three years, but I’ve never seen anyone else really discuss. In this essay I will…
For the record, filibuster in the US Senate sense was adapted from filibuster in the original, which as a private military expedition, usually organized by Southerners before the Civil War hoping to expand slavery to Central America. They basically all failed, except for Texas.
Was Texas a filibuster? Well, maybe Sam Austin didn’t think so, but on the other hand, they did revolt against Mexico in part because Mexico didn’t allow slavery. And the US government wasn’t involved, although they sourced equipment from here. I haven’t looked up whether they had significant private support from wealthy Southerners in high positions (probably did). So it does check the boxes.
The main difference from a regular filibuster is that the Anglophone Texans had immigrated first and integrated with wealthy Trianon somewhat. (Step 1 that Putin forgot. Active-duty Girkin emphatically does not count).
Step 2 is that the immigrants convinced their Tejano neighbors that independence was a good idea. The Russians completely skipped this step, pulling their leaders from a failed politician, a former Father-Frost-for-Hire, a guy who still lived with his mother, etc.
Step 3 is to acquire military equipment and maybe train a bit. In the 19th century US, militias were still a thing. Some of the Texans probably had served in the US or Mexican Army, but I didn’t look that up. In any case, less specialized equipment was needed: mainly cannons, which civilians could buy. Nowadays war, as opposed to a protracted insurgency, requires tons of heavy equipment—tanks, APCs, MANPADs, howitzers, and their ammo—which would tax the funding of even the richest crowd, if any government would even let civilians or NGOs buy them.
Come to think of it, Putin failed even in Step 0: pick somewhere hard to get to. Ukraine has a good rail network and a full highway network. Even when the central government was still convulsed by the aftermath of revolution, volunteers could flood the Donbass for the price of a ticket or a gas-tank. (And flood they did: volunteers who had been organizing themselves into centuries to train self-defense during Euromaidan). Not like pre-rail, mostly pre-steamboat Texas, on the other side of the desert from Mexico City, governed by generals over an unmobilized populace.
So in short, if Putin wanted the Donbass, he completely failed to filibuster it properly. Good thing, too, because Ukraine deserves a better future than kleptocracy.
