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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   30458 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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Everyone tired of RU/UA war? Well, Biden okayed long-range missile strikes against Russian territory as most of you know. Russia's response? After Putin threatening nuclear war in the event of this happening for months, Lavrov (the FM) came out today by going out of his way saying Russia doesn't want nuclear war.

What can we learn from this?

  1. Don't set ridiculous red lines that are easily broken.

  2. Don't threaten a massive response if you were never serious. You will lose face.

What's bizarre to me is that Russia is clearly winning the war, so this type of rhetorical hysteria was an unforced error by Putin. It should also be noted that the recent decision by Biden is a naked attempt to bind the hands of Trump, in order to make it harder to de-escalate once he enters the WH.

This also creates a bizarre internal dynamic within Russia as I'm already seeing Russians on social media saying that Putin is once again displaying weakness. This is of course nonsense (Putin's threats could never be realised), but it nevertheless allows for a narrative to set in that will make any negotiation harder for the Russian side as a popular understanding of Putin as a softie will slowly calcify. Any concession will be ferociously contested as proof of Putin once again going soft.

What's bizarre to me is that Russia is clearly winning the war,

I would disagree. Russia is clearly losing the war, not least because they already defined what victory looks like, and it's not like circa 2025.

Saying Russia is winning the war requires ignoring the vast majority of the context, and claimed reasons, for why Russia started the war in the first place. It requires forgetting what they themselves claimed was the impact and implications of victory as they intended it to be when they thought they were in reach of their earliest intentions. It requires forgetting the pre-war demands, the pre-war justifications for what the war would achieve, and what the war was supposed to result in.

Russia is not winning the war because it is taking and may keep territory in the Donbas, it is losing the war because Russia itself framed the war not as a conflict between itself and Ukraine, but between the Russian world and the west. Instead of a campaign to unify of the Russian peoples, a gain of the Donbas is the formalized loss of the greater Ukraine in a civil war of the Russian peoples that will cost the Russian nation blood and treasure for decades and centuries to come. Millions of Russian-worlders have died, fled, or defected to the adversaries that the war was meant to improve the Russian position against. In so much that NATO is worse off in 2024 than 2022, it's because of reasons other than Ukraine, and in many respects NATO is considerably stronger and more threatening than before.

To quote a wit, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was worse than a crime, it was a mistake. One does not clearly win a mistake.

Edit

To elaborate by copy-pasting a response lower down up here-

When Russia invaded Ukraine, it did set out with clear goals on the scope of its intended Ukraine results at the time.

For example, we know they sincerely considered taking Kyiv a capital as a war goal in the opening days of the war not only because they indicated regime change as a goal (the de-nazification line, the flying of Yanukovych to Belarus in the early days to stage with the probable expectation of imposing him as a figurehead of a new government), but because early Russians were found with parade gear and a Russian riot police convoy memorably drove past the front lines into Kyiv. This would make no sense in the 'it's a feint' cope argument from 2022, but is entirely consistent if your stated goal of replacing the current government is an actual goal.

We also know because the Russians accidentally auto-published pre-written post-victory propaganda editorials that reflected the intended narratives and framings they intended. Here is a reddit post of a full machine translation. RIA is a Russian domestic news agency, with this message being intended for the Russian audience what this victory means for Russia.

These sort of 'what victory means to us' are propaganda, but propaganda useful for identifying what was to be considered a Russian success to the Russian audience. Part of why they are so useful is precisely because only the strategic-level planners knew enough ahead of time to write and plan the release, and thus give insights into the mindset of what Russian leaders wanted to convey as why the victory was a glorious success. These elements of success, in turn, are goals- goals the war is meant to change versus no war.

Noting that this was published under the expectation that overall victory was achieved by that non-decisive fighting remained, relevant points of 'did this war succeed in its goals' include-

Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia.

Will the post-war Ukraine be anti-Russia?

If yes, war goal failed.

Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to solve it would always remain the main problem for Russia - for two key reasons. And the issue of national security, that is, the creation of anti-Russia from Ukraine and an outpost for the West to put pressure on us, is only the second most important among them.

Will the post-war situation leave the Ukraine issue as an issue for the next generation to deal with, and leave a anti-Russian/pro-Western Ukraine?

If yes to both, two war goals failed.

The first would always be the complex of a divided people, the complex of national humiliation - when the Russian house first lost part of its foundation (Kiev), and then was forced to come to terms with the existence of two states, not one, but two peoples. That is, either to abandon their history, agreeing with the crazy versions that "only Ukraine is the real Russia," or to gnash one's teeth helplessly, remembering the times when "we lost Ukraine." Returning Ukraine, that is, turning it back to Russia, would be more and more difficult with every decade - recoding, de-Russification of Russians and inciting Ukrainian Little Russians against Russians would gain momentum. And in the event of the consolidation of the full geopolitical and military control of the West over Ukraine, its return to Russia would become completely impossible - it would have to fight for it with the Atlantic bloc.

Will the post-war situation in Ukraine mean Kiev is returned to the Russian house? If no, war goal failed.

Will the post-war situation in Ukraine mean that a following fight will mean having to fight with 'the Atlantic block' in the next round? If yes, war goal failed.

Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world. Within what boundaries, in what form will the alliance with Russia be consolidated (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus)? This will be decided after the end is put in the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case, the period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end.

Will the war end with Ukraine in some form of Russian alliance-consolidation (CSTO, Eurasian Union, Union State, etc.)?

If not, war goal failed.

And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era - it concerns Russia's relations with the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting in geopolitical terms as a single whole. These relations have entered a new stage - the West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe. And he is loudly indignant at this, although in the depths of his soul he must admit to himself that it could not be otherwise.

Will post-war Ukraine act as a geopolitical whole with Russia?

If not, war goal failed.

Did anyone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kyiv? That the Russians will forever be a divided people? And at the same time when Europe is uniting, when the German and French elites are trying to seize control of European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and assemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe became possible only thanks to the unification of Germany, which took place according to the good Russian (albeit not very smart) will. To swipe after that also on Russian lands is not even the height of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe in particular, did not have the strength to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence, and even more so to take Ukraine for itself. In order not to understand this, one had to be just geopolitical fools.

Did Russia give up Kyiv?

If yes, war goal failed.

(I will break flow to note here that this refrain of Kyiv is part of the very explicit acknowledgement that Russian war aims were well beyond the eastern most Russian-speaking provinces. There was no 'we only wanted the Russia-speaking bits,' which has become a more modern revisionism of downplaying Russian failures by de-scoping the initial claims.)

More precisely, there was only one option: to bet on the further collapse of Russia, that is, the Russian Federation. But the fact that it did not work should have been clear twenty years ago. And already fifteen years ago, after Putin's Munich speech, even the deaf could hear - Russia is returning.

Will this war end with Russia returning as a great power?

If not, war goal failed.

And so on. Most of the article then begins pontificating on geopolitics, where you get more into bad analysis than actual objectives, but what the Russian perspective of Russian victory to a Russian audience is already established enough for the point.

I'm reminded of this Onion article:

U.S. loses Vietnam War: Ford Urges All Americans to Salute Our Vietcong Rulers

Russia is losing Ukraine in the sense that the US lost in Vietnam. They are failing to achieve their war objectives and are paying a high cost in blood and treasure.

But, in a different way, they are winning since they are grinding Ukraine down faster than they themselves are being ground down.

In any case, war is almost always negative sum. There can be multiple losers. This seems to be the case here. Russia is losing, but Ukraine is losing ever worse. And, in the end, it will be Russia, not Ukraine which imposes its conditions upon the other side unless a truce is arranged soon.

They’re paying a cost, but I would argue Ukraine is paying a much greater one and thus losing. Ukraine always had a much smaller population, was less militarized, more rural, etc. than Russia. If NATO a we’re not sending billions in aide and weapons, Russia would be much closer to victory than they are now. Ukraine can absolutely stalemate them for a while — until their military population shrinks to the point where they can’t hold territory, or the “allowance” gets cut off, or the public turns against the war because life without electricity and running water is miserable. Basically all we can do is keep Ukraine from losing for a while, at a cost of billions a month, at risk of Russia going after NATO, and until the last Ukrainian dies in a foxhole. That’s not us winning. It’s certainly not winning for Ukraine.

Basically all we can do is keep Ukraine from losing for a while, at a cost of billions a month,

Do you think billions a month is a burdonsome amount in the context of government policy?

As a reminder- last year the Americans allocated $820 billion to national defense in 2023. As of earlier this year, the Americans spent about $64 billion in military assistance across the 30-ish since the Feb 22 invasion.

Over 3 years the entire Ukraine War military support costs has been less than 8% of 1 year of American DoD spending, or less than 3% per year on an annual spending level. 3% isn't nothing, but it would take decades for the current level of Ukraine War spending to match (1) year of 'normal' DoD spending.

DoD spending which is, by US treaty-law, required to enable/prepare the US to fight... Russia. Who incurs the harm and cost of every munition provided to the Ukrainians used against them. A war-preparation requirement which is increasingly less likely as the Russians lose their cold war strategic stockpiles and devolve into a Soviet Era military which will require years to decades of recapitalization, particularly if the Russians bork themselves by unsustainable spending for medium/longterm economic overheating issues.

There are plenty of other arguments one can make about Ukraine, and I'm not going to argue them in this point, but 'we're spending unsustainable amounts of money' is the opposite of reality. The business case / government finance case is for supporting the Ukraine War, not against it.

This is the same bot talking point NAFO bots spam all over twitter...

It's less an endorsement of the war and more an indictment of our government spending. DOGE save us.

Thank you for not contesting the point of affordability, I appreciate the concession in good humor. You do, however, bring an interesting question.

What are the maximum, and the minimum, non-indictable levels of military spending?

For the level of spending to be an indictment implies a non-indictable level of spending. That amount, in turn, would morally need to align with the legal obligations that the American legislature has passed on the American government, which includes things like security treaties.

Treaties are pieces of paper, ask the native american's how much the US cares about treaties. Trying to hold the US population hostage to a group of war mongering imperialists because some out of them have made agreements with other countries has nothing to do with morality. It's part of this whole conveniently framing things in bizarre ways in a weak attempt to justify your position thing you have going here that isn't convincing anyone.

Treaties are pieces of paper, ask the native american's how much the US cares about treaties. Trying to hold the US population hostage to a group of war mongering imperialists because some out of them have made agreements with other countries has nothing to do with morality. It's part of this whole conveniently framing things in bizarre ways in a weak attempt to justify your position thing you have going here that isn't convincing anyone.

Thank you for continuing to not contest the point on affordability. Thank you also for continuing the underscore your lack of counter-argument on the issue of affordability by introducing amusing divergences that demonstrate good humor.

Comedy is, after all, about the gap between expectations and delivery. For example, one might expect that a moral condemnation of broken treaties and war mongers of a century ago to be an admonishment to not break other treaties or tolerate imperialist war mongers in the present. Instead, spending treasure to honor treaties and otherwise protect independent states from a warmongering imperialist is itself the basis of condemnation.

This is funny because the punchline is that you don't actually care about unindictable spending or honoring treaties or opposing warmongering imperialists.

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