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There's been a fair amount of discussion of America's military aid to Ukraine, and no few condemnations of those of us who have opposed that aid. I am informed, in fact, that this forum is overrun with Russian Propaganda, such that some no longer wish to participate. This is lamentable if true, so I thought it might help to prompt some elaboration of the pro-Ukraine case.
People who support aid to Ukraine, in whatever form, suppose that you personally are given complete control over the US government, and can set policy however you wish. What would your answers be to the following questions?
How much aid would you provide? Weapons? Money? No-Fly Zone? Air support? Troops on the ground? Nuclear umbrella? Something else?
What is the end-state your policy is aiming for? A ceasefire? Deter subsequent Russian invasion? Restoration of Ukraine's original borders? The Russian army destroyed? Putin deposed? Russia broken up? Something else?
Is there an end-state or a potential event in the war that you think would falsify your understanding of the war, and convince you that providing aid was a bad idea? Another way of putting it is, do you think your views on the Ukraine war are falsifiable, and if so, what evidence would be sufficient for you to consider it falsified?
...Reading comments from those arguing for Ukraine, I've noted from the start that many of the arguments presented in favor of aid appear to be mutually-exclusive. In this most recent discussion, I've seen some people arguing that we should be sending in US or NATO troops, and other people arguing that of course no US or NATO troops are needed and that sending them would be obviously crazy. This is a natural consequence of many people arguing many points of view in one forum, but it seems helpful for people to lay out their own views when possible; often, these positions are just stated as though they should be obviously true.
A lot of the pro-Trump/pro-deal faction on here like to describe themselves as realists and pat themselves on the back for understanding Realpolitik and not being squishy idealists. It seems to me, though, that the Realpolitik goes in the other direction. Russia is our biggest foreign military threat, and is the biggest threat to our allies as well. While I'd prefer a world in which they didn't invade Ukraine, they've proven both that they are too incompetent to score a quick victory and too bullheaded to call off their dogs. For their part, the Ukrainians don't seem to have any interest in capitulating.
What we have here, boys and girls, is a proxy war. Whether or not Ukraine has a shot at "winning" or regaining significant territory is irrelevant. Every day that the war continues is another day that the Russian military continues to deteriorate without any loss of American life? But what about the Ukrainians? As long as they're want to keep fighting, we should support them. They're morally in the right here, so I don't see what forcing a settlement on them accomplishes. If the war becomes unpopular enough that the situation changes, then I'm all for changing along with it, but other than a few anecdotal accounts of people fleeing conscription, I'm not seeing it. If there were mass anti-Zelensky protests in the street, we'd know about it. And the idea that Ukraine can't sustain these kinds of losses for much longer is hogwash. In World War I, Germany, with about the same population, lost close to 2 million war dead. Ukraine's population was similar at the beginning of World War II and they lost 1.6 million war dead, in addition to over 5 million civilians. In 3 years of fighting, Ukraine has lost about 100,000 soldiers and a few thousand more civilians. This war can continue for a very long time.
The thing that pisses me off the most about this, though, is that Trump makes it sound like a deal is ready to go and all that's missing is Zelensky's signature, but I haven't seen any evidence of that. All we have is Trump's word that Putin is willing to deal, but for all we know that could mean anything. There seems to be some suggestion that the front lines will be frozen, but I just don't see that happening. I don't see Putin letting the forces in Kursk who he's been unable to dislodge in 6 months being allowed to stay indefinitely. It wouldn't surprise me if, in addition to this, Putin were to start demanding additional concessions, like Ukrainian withdrawal from the entirety of the regions he wants to annex.
And at this point there's no reason for Puitin not to make such demands. If he gets them he gets them, and if he doesn't, then he's in the same position he was a few months ago. And what does Trump do in that situation? He certainly hasn't indicated that if Putin is the one that isn't willing to deal, that he'd send US troops or drastically increase aid or anything like that. In other words, I really just don't see how making this deal furthers American interests in the region. I can see how it furthers Donald Trump's personal interest, in that he wants credit for ending the war regardless of how bad a deal it is or whether the peace lasts longer than the end of his administration. I honestly don't see the point in all this.
And one final point: A bunch of people have said that it's better for Ukrainians that the killing stops and that they still have a country, period. First, if you're going to make that argument, at least acknowledge that Putin is more to blame for all of this than Zelensky. He could end this war right now if he cared to, but he's more concerned about pursuing his revanchist vision of Mother Russia. Second, if you want to do this, don't talk about realism, and don't talk about how you personally don't give a fuck about whether Ukraine survives because you only care about America. These views simply aren't compatible.
This is only arguably true at all because they have a huge nuclear arsenal. China is much larger economically and their military is comparably sized (I don't think this would be true in a normal year but Russia's military is unusually large right now). China also has a very good territorial claim to Taiwan, which is (from what I can gather) viewed as a red line by our ally Japan. If China moves to take it, there's a very good chance they start with ballistic missile strikes on Japan. So I suspect China might actually be the bigger threat to us-and-our-allies here, in part because they hold the stronger hand, relative to Russia. (Or they seem to. I think we might live in a world where LRASM just works fantastically and we actually sink the entire Chinese fleet in a week and go home, which ironically would likely mean the Russians win their war, for a certain value of winning, and the Chinese lose theirs for any reasonable value of losing.)
This would be a better argument IMHO if Western generals didn't keep coming out and saying "well the Russian army is more capable now than before the invasion" which isn't startling if you know a thing or two about war: wars typically make militaries more capable, not less. Unless you lose decisively, or hit economic trouble. I'd say the calculus for giving arms to Ukraine really varies a lot on the ultimate outcome. If the West can win the war, or deal a very bad economic hit, it begins to look like a decent deal. If the West throws its own tanks into Ukraine for them to get ground up and Russia to come out stronger than ever before while European NATO is weaker than before, well, you've made yourself weaker and your enemy stronger and that seems less than ideal. I don't think Ukraine will win the war outright, but it does seem plausible there will still be bad economic consequences for Russia.
A quick Google suggests that the median age in Germany during World War one was likely about 28; the media age in Ukraine is about 42 now. I think this matters even if Ukraine can absorb the same number of causalities on paper.
At the risk of steelmanning a view that may diverge from my own, it seems to me that "America first" implicitly suggests other nations to count, just...second. Or third. Or fifteenth.
I think almost everything you say about China is true, except for this:
I would be surprised if China took this approach. I think they're just biding their time and patiently waiting to outgrow the US to the point that the gap in military capability and logistics insofar as it relates to Taiwan will be too obvious for the US to want to defend it. The U.S. is already making moves to secure semiconductor production at home in order to wind down the strategic importance of Taiwan, so the writing is starting to be put on the wall.
There's also a strong likelihood that when Democrats come back into power, they'll have another Mark Milley type chairman who will tuck his tail and submit to the will of China. I think China is banking on the cost-benefit calculus becoming too lopsided for the US, and in this scenario all they have to do is wait it out a little longer.
I’d be interested to read any argument against this scenario. I’m curious if there are angles I’m not seeing.
You're not seeing China's atrocious demographic structure and their stalling economic growth. China's fertility rates are worse than Japan's, and unlike Japan, China will get old before (and more probably without) getting rich. Welcome to the middle income trap.
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Sure, I think this is plausible. I am not convinced that China will make an opening move. But if they do, missile strikes on Japan (to hit fighters and airbases there, and ships in harbor) make sense if you're not willing to wait for a counterpunch.
I've discussed this before a bit on here. I am not firmly convinced the Chinese will take one route or the other, but I think the argument against is that every year that goes by, it might actually grow harder to take the island by force. US anti-ship weapons stockpiles grow deeper and more sophisticated, as we begin to deploy hypersonic missiles and next-generation stealth bombers, and Australia begins to acquire nuclear submarines. Taiwan might begin to focus on area denial weapons instead of prestige equipment such as ships, tanks, and fighter aircraft, and from what I understand every year Taiwanese begin to think of themselves as more "Taiwanese" and less "Chinese." China's potential aging problems have also been discussed. All that being said, I think there might be a window of time where China's chance to retake the island militarily peaks and they might act during that time.
I also think the cheap drone revolution (and AI revolution, to the degree it's applicable) don't help China as much as people think in this scenario. In fact I think they might cut against China. If China can make a million cheap suicide drones per year and has 1,000 ships, then you just need (let's say) 2,000 drones and 2,000 mines to hold off an amphibious attack, and the fact that China can kill a million people with drones, while scary, doesn't get them any closer to successfully invading Taiwan than having nuclear weapons does.
Now, as you say, maybe this will all be moot since China won't invade. But China's chances of coercing Taiwan rise with their chances of being able to successfully invade (whether or not a single shot is fired) so I can see it mattering regardless.
I wouldn't count on that remaining the case forever. This form of self-identification is pretty far downstream from information diet, and we might still be in the phase where we are seeing the delayed effects of the 1950s-1990s period in which Mainland China was a relative memetic non-entity, and Taiwan looked to itself (and Japan, and the US) for narratives. In recent years, though, the PRC's output has grown so much that it is pushing to dominate certain segments (live-service games, in particular) even in non-Chinese-speaking locales. What would that be like if you are primarily a Chinese, rather than English, speaker? All my Chinese diaspora friends watch PRC films, listen to PRC music and play PRC games, even if they have no family ties to the mainland, and among them are many suckers for shared cultural patrimony wanks.
VERY interesting. Yes, I think that "the West" is just now realizing that perhaps we're locked in here with them, with here being the internet and them being the entire population of China (both as consumers and producers).
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