The Lucifer Effect
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The Lucifer Effect

Our analyst looks at how the game is changing, and how war in the Middle East is part of the plan

President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks on screen during the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, 2022. (Rich Fury/Getty Images for the Recording Academy)
President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks on screen during the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, 2022. (Rich Fury/Getty Images for the Recording Academy)

In 2007, a book called “The Lucifer Effect” by Philip Zimbardo explained, as its subtitle made clear, “How Good People Turn Evil.”

He’s done a lot of thinking about the message of that highly regarded book, Alexander Smukler, now of Montclair but for the first 30 years of his life of Moscow, said. Mr. Smukler analyzes the war Russia began in Ukraine almost three years ago, and he has extended that analysis to the effects of that war on what he calls the “global game of thrones.”

Dr. Zimbardo “analyzes how people become evil,” Mr. Smukler said. “How they turn from being normal people when they are in a situation where suddenly they have power, top power, world power. Then they become Lucifers.

“They’re like Kim Jung Un,” the dictator who rules North Korea, “who went to high school in Switzerland, lived in a dorm like everyone else, a sad, nice, shy kid who loved basketball. Who could imagine what he’d become?

“Who would think that he’d become one of the bloodiest dictators alive now, who is playing a significant role on the front lines in the war between Russia and Ukraine?

“Then there’s Vladimir Putin, the skinny little boy who grew up on the street in Leningrad, with very poor working-class parents who lost their older son during the siege of that city. Putin was raised and educated by a Jewish couple, his neighbors in the communal apartment where he lived, who had lost their son in the war. They convinced him to study German, to go to law school, and to start his sports career.” His sports career? What? “Putin is very athletic, and he is a master of martial arts,” Mr. Smukler said. “That is how he was admitted to law school. His academics weren’t impressive,” but his athleticism was. “Who would imagine that one day he’d become a dictator, an aggressor, a person who is bombing cities and innocent civilians every day, and is conducting a war against the civilized world?”

“There’s Alexander Lukashenko,” the strongman whose position in Belarus makes him the longest-serving head of state in Europe. “Who could imagine when he was the head of an agriculture farm there, 40 years ago, that he would become the dictator of Belarus, and Putin’s strongest ally?

“Or Xi Jinping, who went through an incredibly difficult life, including being a prisoner in a labor camp, and now is the ruler of China?

“And of course Yahya Sinwar, who was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis and became a brutal murderer with blood on his own hands?

“So when we analyze the Russia/Ukraine war, of course we understand that there are lots of people who are good examples of the Lucifer effect. So let’s see what they’re doing lately.”

The situation’s been changing rapidly, Mr. Smukler said. He’s described it before as being in mittlespiel, the middle of a long chess game — in this case the global game of thrones — but now, he said grimly, it’s moving toward the endgame.

“In this phase,” this transitional time, “I must admit that Putin is winning,” he said. Since last year, “I’ve been saying that Putin was looking for a way out.” He’d cornered himself — he’d invaded Ukraine basically because he wanted to and he could. He expected to win easily and to be welcomed gratefully, but he didn’t and he wasn’t. Ukraine defended itself far more successfully than onlookers had thought that it could. “Putin was cornered in the international arena, and he was losing on the frontlines.

Alexander Smukler

But “after the Ukrainian counteroffensive operation during the summer and into the fall of 2023, which unfortunately did not succeed,” that changed.

Mr. Smukler had predicted that “one of the few ways out of that corner (was) if Putin could destabilize another part of the world. And he did. He succeeded in shifting the world’s attention from the frontlines in Ukraine to the Middle East.”

Does he think that Putin had a hand in helping Hamas invade Israel on October 7, and in the barbarity that followed? Yes, he does. “I think that what happened on October 7 was initiated and ignited by Putin’s regime,” Mr. Smukler said. “I cannot believe that it happened randomly. It was the only option that allowed Putin to get out of the corner he was in, and he succeeded.

“Putin is the major beneficiary of what is happening in the Middle East. He strengthened his military relations with Iran, shifted world attention from Ukraine to Israel, and affected internal politics in the West, including in the United States. From September 2023 to now Putin increased his military production, increased his military ties, and created a united front against Western civilization that includes North Korea and Iran, which are both involved militarily in the conflict in Ukraine, and also includes China, which is staying behind the scenes but is fully supportive of Russia.

“No one is paying attention to the situation in Ukraine now, but we have massive demonstrations against Israel, our only ally and the only democratic country in the Middle East.

“How can that be random?

“That is why I see this as moving toward the endgame, and unfortunately I do not expect that this change will be favorable for Ukraine.”

Western countries know this, Mr. Smukler said, and they’re changing their approach to the situation. “The meeting of Western leaders in Ramstein, in Germany, that was supposed to discuss the situation in Ukraine was postponed, and the decision about what kind of help to give did not take place. President Biden canceled because of Hurricane Milton in Florida, but everyone understands that this was not the reason. He could have sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken, or his chief of staff, Jeff Zients, but he didn’t send anyone, and so the European leaders canceled the meeting for the first time.”

It has not been rescheduled yet, although plans to hold it on Zoom have been circulating.

“That showed me and other analysts that Western leaders are tired,” Mr. Smukler said. “They don’t have a solution. They don’t know what to do with the conflict in Ukraine, because it continues to escalate, and nobody sees how to finish it.”

There’s been a huge change, too, and it’s to Russia’s advantage.

“In the last four weeks, most of the intelligence reports, including from South Korea and Britain, confirm that 12,000 troops from North Korea, specially trained troops, were sent to participate in the fighting.”

That was unexpected. Western analysts knew that North Korea’s dictator was planning to send hundreds of thousands of workers to staff Russia’s quickly growing military plants, but they did not know about the fighters. “I had said that Putin went to North Korea to visit Kim Jung Un, I didn’t know that China would give North Korea permission to send troops for direct participation.” But it did, they’re there now.

“That is an incredible shift in our global game of thrones, because North Korea would never do it without permission from China.”

It’s important because Russia and Ukraine both have been running out of the human cannon fodder they need to continue the war. “Their loss rate is incredibly high,” Mr. Smukler said. Estimates based on credible intelligence show “that together, both sides lost one million lives.” That’s one million soldiers who either are dead or incapacitated to the point that they no longer can return to fight. That does not count any of the civilians killed by Putin’s bombs, which he’s been dropping on cities.

“Putin and Zelensky both need to find sources to replace these men on the front lines,” Mr. Smukler said. “Zelensky is ready to mobilize women. He’s trying to send everyone who could possibly hold a machine gun to the front lines. Putin has unlimited human resources, but he is reluctant to announce mobilization. That is why the North Korean dictator who can easily send many more soldiers to the front line in Ukraine is an incredible help to Putin.”

It’s not as if sending those men to Ukraine is legal according to international law. “It is a violation of the resolution of the United Nations Security Council, which does not allow any country in the world to cooperate militarily with North Korea.”

“So once again a red line was crossed, and the world is silent.

“We will see how the Security Council reacts, but it seems to me that the U.N. is much busier condemning Israel for fighting against terrorism in Lebanon or looking for hostages in Gaza than finding a solution to what to do with an existing Security Council member violating its own resolutions.

Meanwhile, in North Korea, “Kim is extremely excited to do what he’s doing, not only because he sees his participation in the war as a strategic military partnership, but also because it helps his economy. Russia will pay for this, not only with money but also with food, which Kim desperately needs, and with mineral resources, oil and gas. It also will pay with technology, particularly nuclear technology. Russia will help North Korea develop its nuclear industry. So Kim is a direct beneficiary of the military conflict in Ukraine.”

And there’s more, Mr. Smukler said.

“This also trains the North Korean army. Kim is sending the elite part of his army to be trained on a real military field. That’s why Seoul is so nervous. It sees what North Korea is doing. It’s a violation of South Korea’s national security.

“This is a new level of escalation.”

Back on the front lines, “Ukraine lost approximately 2,200 square kilometers of land during 2024,” Mr. Smukler said. “Russia is slowly, slowly advancing, occupying more and more territory, and taking key points of defense lines.

“In 2024 Russia took two major fortresses — cities called Vuhledar and Toretsk — and they are moving toward another city, Kupyansk, which probably will fall very soon. If the Russians take Kupyansk, they will basically open a window of opportunity to take one of Ukraine’s most important industrial cities, Kramatorsk, and move on to Ukraine’s two largest cities after Kyiv, Kharkov and Dnipro.” That would be a disaster for Ukraine.

So, how is the situation now? “On the one hand, the Russians do have 2,200 square kilometers, which is a giant territory, but on the other hand it is a very small piece of Ukraine. If the Russians were to move on to Kyiv at the same rate, it would take another 20 years. So obviously it is clear that the Russian are not able to move fast, or at least to move fast enough. They don’t have enough capacity for aggressive offensive operations. They can’t go to the capital and force Ukraine to sign a capitulation.

“On the other hand” — that’s a lot of hands, Mr. Smukler — “Ukrainians are exhausted. They don’t have the manpower.”

Winter is coming — the war’s third winter — “and everything will slow down,” Mr. Smukler said. “Ukraine will have time to reorganize its troops, replace those who are tired, and sent fresh brigades to the front lines. They’ll also have more time to accept more military help that’s coming from Western allies. But at the same time, Russia also will have time to increase its military muscle, to bring more troops from North Korea, prepare fresh military divisions from Russian, and produce more equipment, including thousands of drones, that it can use in the spring.

“I expect that the front lines will be quite for the next few months, and most of the events will be on the diplomatic field.”

And then there’s the most important change-maker, which will take place in neither Russia nor Ukraine. The U.S. presidential election. “It will have a major impact on the future of the military conflict,” Mr. Smukler said.

“Both sides recognize that this is not just a regional conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Both sides now recognize that this is a conflict between China and the United States.” Between East and West. “Ukraine is just a battlefield.

“For a long time, Russian propaganda has been about how they are fighting not against Ukraine but against NATO and the United States, their real enemies. But now, with North Korea and Iran directly involved in the conflict, and China staying silent and letting them do it — that means that the conflict has turned from regional to global.”

Then Mr. Smukler turned to a moral dilemma, which he put in the starkest possible terms.

“Someone just called me — someone who reads the Global Game of Thrones stories we write — and asked me a question. He asked me to predict what would happen if Trump or Harris wins.

“I started thinking about it, with the understanding that everything could change depending on major external events. But let’s analyze this.

“Trump says that he has a plan. He doesn’t release any” — most onlookers think that he doesn’t have one — “but he says that he will end the war even before he is inaugurated.

“We know that the delay in American help for the war — and yes, we also know that it is the Republicans in Congress who delayed it — created an enormous problem for the Ukrainian army on the battlefield. They have been suffering and bleeding during the nine months when they expected American help.

“I assume that Trump will push Ukraine to admit that it lost between 22 to 26 percent of its territory, and he will stop the conflict by pushing Ukraine to sign a peace treaty that Is not in its favor. It will have to admit to losing Crimea and the territories.

“But the effect of this probably is that Ukraine will be saved as a state, and might have a change sooner or later to join NATO.

“Yes, Trump has said that he will pull out of NATO, but if he does not, or if it survives, then Ukraine may be able to join it. And the bloodshed will be stopped.

“Remember, we talked about a million people who were lost. That number counted only soldiers. Nobody knows or even cares how many civilians died. And up to nine million Ukrainians have left the country; the population is now 30 percent less than it was before the war.

Of course, we have no particular reason to believe that Putin will accept Trump’s plan, even if that plan includes Ukrainian surrender. Putin well might want more.

“Harris hasn’t released a plan. She just repeats what Biden was saying, that we will help Ukraine win, but we have no idea what she plans to do. If she continues to supply Ukraine with help at the same rate the Biden administration is doing now, so that Ukraine can defend itself, then Ukraine will bleed and die slowly. They won’t be able to win.

“So which position is more moral?”

It is possible — in fact, it is tempting — to argue with Mr. Smukler’s presentation of the problem. He is not advocating for either candidate, he says; he is simply laying out the facts as he sees them.

The question haunts.

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