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A defense of... what, exactly? Haiti, Ukraine, and the Calculus of Sovereignty
Imagine that tomorrow, by some insane folly, Brazil decides to invade and annex Haiti. Brazil in general is... not great. Lots of poverty, questionable rule of law, wild swings in politics in recent years. But compared to Haiti, whose government is a strong contender for worst in the world? Living in a society merely as flawed as Brazil would be an incredible improvement. So okay, in our imagination, Brazil definitely annexed Haitian territory through unprovoked aggression. But would we encourage Haitians to resist? Put Haitian flags in our Twitter bios? Would we support a government that is failing its people? Or would we ask whether Brazilian rule, however illegitimate, might offer Haitians marginally better prospects? So there's the question: Under what conditions does a state's right to sovereignty outweigh its failure to secure the welfare of its people?
This is the question I keep trying to answer for myself on Ukraine. In 2022, I didn't know much about Ukraine but my stance aligned with the general consensus: Russia's invasion was a brazen violation of international law, and Ukraine's territorial integrity demanded defense. But after three years of stalemate, over 500,000 casualties reported, a failed counteroffensive, and no plausible path to Ukrainian victory, I'm asking "What's it all for?" The conflict will ultimately end in negotiated concessions. Crimea retained by Russia, Donbas partitioned, security guarantees exchanged. Why prolong a war of attrition that sacrifices a generation to marginally adjust the terms? Why fight for Ukraine at all?
Poland vs. Ukraine: Reform and Stagnation
For contrast, consider Poland, a nation that, like Ukraine, emerged from Soviet domination in 1991. Both inherited corrupt, centrally planned economies and oligarchic rot. Yet Poland since then has been growing like crazy and today boasts a GDP per capita around $21,000. Ukraine, by contrast, basically didn't advance at all, and was at $4,500 per capita pre-war. As I said, I was ignorant about the details before, and I am only slightly less ignorant now of the specifics of these two countries' trajectories, but as a big believer in Adam Smith's economics, I am convinced that a GDP of $4,500 indicates something really, really wrong with Ukrainian governance.
So if Poland were being invaded by Russia, I would see their post-Soviet trajectory as something worth dying for. I would feel like they were fighting to stay on the one true path, all that is good and right about liberal democracy. But Ukraine? "Fighting for all that's good and right" is definitely the vibe on Twitter, but where is the evidence that Ukraine is on the path to becoming Poland? Okay, they elected Zelenskyy in 2019, but what has he done? What have been the fruits of Ukrainian reforms?
Conclusion
Shouldn't the hypothetical Brazilians invading Haiti be greeted as liberators? It truly would be hard for Brazilian colonial rule to be any worse than the current government of Haiti. Ukraine isn't the basket case that Haiti is, but its pre-war stagnation, evidenced by a $4,500 GDP per capita, casts doubt on its claim to be a bastion of liberal democracy, an ideal actually worth dying for. I see no virtue in increasing this war's death toll merely to tweak an inevitable settlement's borders. Russia's aggression is unjust, but if Ukraine's fight preserves only a corrupt stasis rather than a transformative future, why are we supporting it? It used to be that more cynical people said the US supported Ukraine because Russia is our enemy, and it's good for us that their soldiers die. But now we just hear the idealistic case. Is the idealistic case strong?
I was hoping the American Grand Strategy in Ukraine was to bleed Russia dry, at the expense of Ukraine. I think it has basically worked, as beyond WMD, I think Russia has very little in their arsenal to threaten the West with. I am surprised, however, by the turn of events where Trump accuses Ukraine of having started the Russian invasion. My hope remains that Trump is playing 4D chess with Putin, softening him up for a triumphant blow, but my hope wavers. It seems clear that Ukraine would be a much more likely and loyal ally than Russia could ever be.
In my view, here are the American interests in the region:
American fears:
The Biden strategy seemed pretty reasonable if tepid in light of these points. I'm not sure what Trump would think of the above.
Russia is stronger now than they've been in decades; Russians currently possesses the best army in the world which has been battletested by what was likely the 2nd best army in the world. Because Europe and the US have drained their armories, Russia is now deeply acquainted with NATO weapons and has developed effective countermeasures (e.g., the success rate of HIMARS is less than 10%). There are only a few weapons which the US and NATO have held in reserve, but there is little reason to think they will perform much better. In fact, the war has exposed NATOs reliance on fewer more advanced weapon systems will not work against a peer adversary. Even if these weapons were impressive, and they're not, there are simply too few of them and too small an arms industry to produce them in numbers which will significantly affect a serious conflict. When Europe drained its armories with promises of (subsidized) replacements from the US, they're getting contract delivery dates (and these are already being pushed back) in the 2030s. Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly demonstrated effective hypersonic missiles which the West has no counter against. Instead of a bled Russia, you have a resurgent and invigorated one.
This war should be a bat to the side of the head of the US military and defense industrial complex and its satrapies that what they're doing is the wrong direction, but it's currently not even being perceived as a stiff wind.
Your hope is misplaced. Trump is pivoting towards the Pacific and a Great Powers game between China, Russia, and the US, with Europe being irrelevant because they are. Trump is abandoning the tut-tutting moralism empire and reestablishing sovereignty over core interests. IMO, Trump is going to use Ukraine to get a deal with Russia to counter Chinese influence. Putin will get additional land he's currently not occupying, Ukraine never in NATO, an end to the sanctions regime, some other concessions, and if I had to guess both the US and Russia will get some reparations from Ukraine in the form of mineral or other rights/payments. Ukraine is gone, destroyed, finished. It's a husk of a country only propped up by authoritarianism and foreign money.
I can see why Ukraine is in the Europeans' interests, and they can put-up or shut-up about it. The US should have never signed onto or encouraged this idiocy nor in expanding NATO past its sell-by date which was decades ago. The West got a gift when Putin took power; a person who could end the deracinated chaos which had befallen post-Soviet Russia but who was so pro-West he was almost a Europhile and wanted to integrate Russia into the market economies of Europe. Putin-lead Russia repeatedly attempted
reproachrapprochement with Europe from trying to get into NATO to willingly and seriously participating in any European organization it was allowed to enter for years and years. They sidestepped the US to build infrastructure to strengthen ties with Europe (especially Germany). Instead of genuinely working with Russia, the Americans and Europeans constantly took advantage of their weakness and rapprochement attempts.A greatly weakened Russia is not in the United States' interests because the United States should want Russia to counterbalance the Chinese in the coming multipolar world.
Joe Biden's (or really the faction of the US regime he was the puppet of) strategy of pissing off Russia and making them turn to China is catastrophically stupid politics. What's worse is it was entirely predictable that Russia was going to win the war from the word "go," that the Europeans were never going to do what was necessary to stop that, and instead Ukraine and Europe would repeatedly try to get the US into direct conflict with Russia which the US would bear the brunt of. What we saw was a laughably incorrect view of the situation and the world; it is sadly humorous listening to American and European statements about this war and predictions of it over the last few years.
So not only were mountains of treasure and weapons now burned in a giant heap of trash (or stolen), but NATO and the US lost badly and embarrassingly. The Biden admin has already burned through so much of the US's advantages which would have enabled a far better negotiated outcome. This whole endeavor was catastrophically stupid and costly and totally unnecessary. It's not as stupid and costly as the 2nd Iraq War and Afghan War, but when all is said and done it won't be far off. Here are predictions I made months ago about how this would play out.
Can you please explain the contextual framework which can make "Russia currently possesses the best army in the world" appear true?
E.g. China, India have much large numbers to brute force their attacks with. USA has much more advanced tech, most of the prominent AI developing companies, control over chip producers, control over a world-spanning satellite internet system. To some degree this applies to China too. Israel has decades of war experience, and has shown hypercompetent achievements in its last stage as well.
What does the Russian army have, or done, to merit being classified as the best one among them?
How can you know what he truly wanted or didn't want?
(to prevent misunderstandings, I am guessing you meant "reapproach")
And if we judged by his actions, then he started sabotaging Europe almost as soon as he more or less concentrated power and built up his authoritarian regime. Most prominent of all by invading Ukraine in 2014.
Infrastructure-related ties are not necessarily a good thing, if other conditions are not being met. As we've seen with how Russia has been blackmailing the same Europe when the latter was reliant on it for fuel imports.
How did they constantly take advantage of Russia? Please rely on concrete and valid sources when answering this question, rather than on hearsay.
How do you know this? Wouldn't the true capabilities and stocks be classified info?
Same with this.
Similarly, that the truly bleeding edge technology and capabilities would not have been shared with Ukraine to be exposed to rivals and potential enemies?
I'll be honest, I'm pretty hesitant to write an effort post in response to a user who will delete half the dialogue later especially when their comment is 90% questions.
Did you read that article you linked? Which part was the hearsay? The author admits exactly what Putin is accusing American (and NATO) officials of doing in the first few paragraphs, then writes it wasn't written down in a treaty which means it doesn't matter, and then throws a bunch of confetti in the air about the Soviet Union not being entirely dissolved at the time, and also NATO talked about enlargement in 1995 years later when Eastern block countries asked, and then Russia signed a document which in no way, shape, or form, endorses or acquiesces to NATO enlargement in 1997, but NATO enlargement didn't happen until 1999 (I suppose that the Russians opposing and protesting this at the time using the previous assurances wasn't important enough for this gem of an article). And also, like there was some intra-NATO debate about adding new members which undermines the "myth of betrayal" except this fact is irrelevant to the Russian's claims about betrayal of the assurances the author already admitted in the sixth paragraph. Wow, that's a great example of European media. Hopefully something significant was lost in translation.
And I meant "rapprochement," I'll correct the message and thank you.
Not the dialogue, but the user account. On this engine it should make the posts themselves remain, AFAIK.
And is it really an effort post? Mostly I'm just asking for you to back up the multiple claims that you've made in your original one. Which I think should be expected by default, no? And if you did back them up previously, I can't know that either, because 1) there are no references to those supporting comments in your current one and 2) your comment history is private, so I can't be Ctrl+F-ing through it to try finding the relevant parts.
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