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Week 9 Blog Post - Robert

 In “The Global, the Local, and the Return of Ethnicity,” there is a quote that reads, “Capital has never allowed its aspirations to be determined by national boundaries” (630), and I thought about this quote when reading the list of companies that have pulled out Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine and global economic sanctions. I won’t pretend to know much about the ins and outs of Russia’s economic structure, nor am I intimately familiar with the complexities of the economic sanctions imposed by the rest of the world which leads me to my question:


How have Putin and Russia ignored the evolving landscape of globalization in their attempt to wage a war of maneuver in Ukraine? Or, did Russia simply miscalculate how complicated waging a war of position would be? It seems a country, forged in espionage, well-versed in creating propaganda, would be aware of the potential consequences of waging all-out war in Eastern Europe without—pardon the phrasing—proper messaging. (Ignoring the blatant racism of global outrage toward the invasion of Ukraine and near silence about the US’s invasion of Iraq) What implications does the direct involvement of Capital have for the war in Ukraine? How have Ideological State Apparatuses been deployed in regard to the war in Ukraine?

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