This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What would the Russian reaction to this be? Would Russia sit around idly while a neighbour with a hostile government nuclearizes? Or would they go in hard and pre-empt nuclearization? One of Zelensky's many bizarre pre-war diplomatic maneuvers was making strange threats about nuclearization. Big nuclear powers tend to get hysterical when hostile neighbours nuclearize or are nuclearized. See the Cuban Missile Crisis for example. The US was hours away from launching a disarming strike on Cuba, they were dropping dummy depth charges on Russian submarines.
Furthermore, the Ukraine war is if anything much less a war of conquest than our Middle East wars. Ukraine is full of Russians and Russian speakers. The commander of the Ukrainian army is Russian, Russian family, educated in Moscow. A significant number of the forces Russia has were drawn from Donetsk and Luhansk which were provinces of Ukraine. Many of the territories in question were part of Novorossiya: Catherine the Great founded Dnipropetrovsk, for instance. Both sides appeal to common historical concepts, calling each other Nazis. The majority of fighting is conventional, between uniformed soldiers.
In Iraq and Afghanistan there was a much clearer division between 'us' and 'them'. Nobody ever found any historical claim for the US to be involved in running Afghanistan or Iraq, such an idea is ludicrous. They're on the other side of the world! The wars were justified via broader universal liberal principles, the need to reshape the Middle East...
At no point was the commander of the Taliban American or British, it was a war between Muslim Afghans/Arabs vs secular European/Americans. There were some auxiliaries drawn from the locals but these proved to be extremely low-quality troops and caused considerable green-on-blue attacks. Western-trained auxiliaries usually disintegrated the moment they ran into any motivated local force (like the Taliban or ISIS) without Western backup. The local population was not really aligned with Western forces and much of the fighting was unconventional with guerrilla tactics and suicide bombings. There was a massive ideological clash in all respects, the forces of Islam vs the forces of secular liberal democracy.
If an alien race shows up and conquers the world, installing strange values like mandatory veganism and bestiality, that's a war of conquest. They can't say 'oh we're just installing a new regime not conquering anything!' when they have no legitimate claim to Earth and only a bunch of perverts and weirdoes collaborating for them.
My point is that we should not conclude that because Russia invaded Ukraine, they will also try and invade Poland or Sweden or Azerbaijan. Ukraine-Russia is a special case where there are a wide range of justifications for Russia beyond 'Russia must grow larger'. The naval base in Crimea, the Novorussia territories, laws regarding the Russian language, potential NATO expansion...
Nor should the rules-based order be held up as this golden age because there was no conquest. The 'rules-based order' directly led to the situation today. Putin has complained repeatedly about the invasion of Iraq, various unilateral actions from the West. China wasn't keen on it either. What were the rules of the rules based order, are they listed anywhere? If we lack the strength to enforce the 'only we can invade countries' equilibrium because we abused it (and failed to even reap any gains from abusing it), then it's time to abandon it and move on without any nostalgia. Rebuilding this equilibrium is not desirable! Lessons must sink in.
They might, however, try to invade the Baltics, which seems to be the much more common claim.
What are the gains from invading the Baltics relative to the risks? It doesn't make sense from Russia's perspective unless NATO dissolves. The botched handling of the Russia-Ukraine war seems to have done a lot of damage to NATO unity but NATO isn't totally broken right now.
Fears about the Baltics from Ukraine are rehashed domino syndrome that makes even less sense.
NATO is, in fact, larger than it was at the start of the war.
And substantially less militarily equipped. Vast sums of arms and ammunition (and plenty of "trainers") were sent to Ukraine to be destroyed or sold on the black market. Sure, there are more nations in NATO, but the USA is making loud noises about leaving and the military investment just isn't there. NATO being larger doesn't even rise to the level of a refutation of RandomRanger's point - bigger is not always better.
I mean one of Russia's stated aims, halting NATO expansion at its borders, has resoundingly failed.
Those NATO arms also erased vast quantities of Russian invaders and their hardware, making Russia even less of a threat to NATO than they were before the war. I do agree with RandomRanger that Russia is unlikely to try invading the Baltics. Not because they don't want to, but because we and they now know they're completely incapable of such a feat.
It is generally agreed that the Russian army is stronger than it was before the war started. A lot of the corruption and dead weight was forcibly cleaned out by actual combat, and they've made multiple advances in weapon technology in the same timeframe. Their missile technology has advanced to the point that it is superior to NATO technology (there's no NATO equivalent to the Oreshnik) and their soldiers have substantially more experience on modern battlefields than NATO troops, and against NATO weaponry to boot. Even on the manufacturing side, they're producing substantially more shells and ammunition than NATO is, especially if you include all their other allies. If Russia wanted to invade and take over the entirety of Western Europe the only way to stop them would be nuclear. Have you seen the pathetic size and readiness of most NATO militaries?
Before we engage in fantasies of mighty Russian army reaching the English channel like the last three years never happened, how long would you estimate it would take them to reach Zaporizhzhia & Odessa, let alone Lviv?
The current situation is the equivalent of the entire US army being halted in Tijuana during an attempted invasion of Mexico (and indeed, having to fight the Mexicans in Arizona two years into the war).
All of Russia's "superpower" credentials are gone.
They'd just let the British leadership know that the start of the conflict would involve an oreshnik hitting them and the Brits would immediately surrender when they learned that it wouldn't just be poor people dying.
If we're going to adopt that metaphor then you would also have the entirety of China and Latin America supplying advanced munitions, satellite targeting data, ammunition, "trainers", training and equipment while also sanctioning the US' economy and preventing any chips from TSMC getting exported. It's actually entirely believable to me that the US would struggle to take territory in those circumstances - and at the same time, when that support came to an end, the US would be able to bulldoze their way to Chile without much difficulty.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link