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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31585 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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Considering how much of current American culture war debates revolve around national identity, sovereignty, and international influence, it makes me wonder: are conflicts like Russia’s move into Ukraine and China’s posture towards Taiwan fundamentally rooted in the same security dilemma, rather than pure expansionism?

I’ve been thinking about the deeper drivers behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s stance on Taiwan.

For Russia, Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border, severely shrinking Russia’s strategic buffer zone. Similarly, for China, the growing U.S. military presence around Taiwan raises a direct security concern.

Since U.S.-China relations have deteriorated, there has been increasing discussion about the possibility of the U.S. deploying missiles or even establishing a permanent military presence in Taiwan. Given Taiwan’s geographic position, major Chinese cities like Fuzhou, Xiamen, and even Shanghai would fall within the range of intermediate-range missiles.

This makes the Taiwan issue not purely about nationalism or ideology, but also about very tangible security calculations.

In 2024, U.S. defense reports indicated a rising focus on “hardening Taiwan” against potential Chinese action（https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/19/2003375866/-1/-1/1/2024-NDS.PDF”

China has repeatedly emphasized that foreign military deployments in Taiwan would cross a “red line”（https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-says-us-should-stop-official-exchanges-with-taiwan-2024-03-05/）

Russia and China's positions on Ukraine and Taiwan are first and foremost based on nationalism and what you could call ethnic sovereignty, and only secondarily based on pragmatic security concerns. You can read Putin's essay on the topic for a pretty clear description of what motivates him. Some excerpts below:

Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe.

...

Most importantly, people both in the western and eastern Russian lands spoke the same language. Their faith was Orthodox. Up to the middle of the 15th century, the unified church government remained in place.

...

The incorporation of the western Russian lands into the single state was not merely the result of political and diplomatic decisions. It was underlain by the common faith, shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – language similarity.

...

At the same time, the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite and a part of the Malorussian intelligentsia. Since there was no historical basis – and could not have been any, conclusions were substantiated by all sorts of concoctions, which went as far as to claim that the Ukrainians are the true Slavs and the Russians, the Muscovites, are not. Such ”hypotheses“ became increasingly used for political purposes as a tool of rivalry between European states.

...

But in 1991, all those territories, and, which is more important, people, found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland.

...

In essence, Ukraine's ruling circles decided to justify their country's independence through the denial of its past, however, except for border issues. They began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united us, and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation. The common tragedy of collectivization and famine of the early 1930s was portrayed as the genocide of the Ukrainian people.

...

Step by step, Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia, a springboard against Russia. Inevitably, there came a time when the concept of ”Ukraine is not Russia“ was no longer an option. There was a need for the ”anti-Russia“ concept which we will never accept.

...

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.

You can see that while the idea that Ukraine is a springboard for foreign powers to threaten Russia geopolitically makes an appearance, issues of national identity take precedence, including the idea that Ukrainian identity itself is a weapon that threatens Russia. This is not the kind of essay an American could or would write about Cuba in 1962, which is a case when there was a strategic threat from a foreign power without any shared ancient history or blood and soil concerns involved.

As for Taiwan, while it is not an ancient part of China the way Ukraine is an ancient part of Russia, its significance is that it is the last piece of territory (with a Han majority) taken from Qing China by foreign powers during the Century of Humiliation that remains outside of PRC control today. The CCP justifies its rule to a domestic audience by claiming that only they can undo the damage done by the Western powers and Japan during those years, firstly by making China too rich and powerful to be invaded or subjugated ever again and secondly by getting back all the territory that was stolen from them, including Taiwan. The fact that Taiwan is part of the First Island Chain with the potential to strangle Chinese naval trade in the event of a war is certainly of interest to their military planners, but it is a distant second in terms of motivations for invading or blockading the island.

I think Americans often have trouble understanding the way nationalists in other parts of the world think because it is quite alien to their own thought process, but imagine for a moment if most Anglo-Canadians were still diehard royalists who held a grudge against the US for expelling their ancestors during the Revolution and for being traitors who deny their true English identity, and would seize on any opportunity to punish them and force them back into the imperial fold. Sure, there might be offshore oil wells, cod fisheries, or Great Lakes ports of strategic importance involved in any dispute, but that's not really what it would be about.

the way Ukraine is an ancient part of Russia

What's "ancient" for you? Ukraine was incorporated in Russian Empire in late 18 century. That's not something people really call "ancient" usually - that's like saying "Texas is one of the ancient states of the US" or "Lincoln's Gettysburg address is one of the great ancient speeches". Surely there's no strict definition of "ancient" but that's not the usage most of people would be comfortable with.

I was referring to Kiev, the first capital of the original Rus state from which modern Russia claims cultural, linguistic, and religious continuity. To the extent that one can claim that Russia itself is ancient (which is debatable), Kiev was a part of it. It is true that the territories that comprise "Novorussia" in the southeast of Ukraine were seized from the Crimean Khanate over a thousand years later, but they are peripheral to the importance of Ukraine in the Russian mind, despite having been easier for them to conquer in the current war on account of their terrain and their population not having gone through the cultural separation from Moscow and St. Petersburg that the rest of Ukraine has.

I was referring to Kiev, the first capital of the original Rus state from which modern Russia claims cultural, linguistic, and religious continuity.

That is an extremely tortured argument. Like claiming US must invade and annex Italy because our culture has so much connections to Romans. Kiev, as you know, is the capital of Ukraine, and not Russia, and while it is true that Kiev, at certain times, was the center of the civilizational entity which gave birth to many other that eventually become modern entities including Russia, treating this as a claim that "Ukraine was an ancient part of Russia" makes as much sense as claiming "Rome is an ancient part of the US". It's just ahistorical nonsense based on shallow TV-news-level knowledge - which is exactly why Putin is using it btw, his target audience knows "there was something with the name vaguely resembling "Russia" in Kiev at one time, so that means Kiev always belonged to Russia".

despite having been easier for them to conquer in the current war on account of their terrain and their population not having gone through the cultural separation from Moscow and St. Petersburg that the rest of Ukraine has.

This has nothing to do with the population or what they would want or not want. Pre-2022, the territories were mostly conquered by using Ukrainian internal turmoil and weakness to capture control. The population wishes had precisely little to do with it - it's not like Russia is a democracy or cares what the population thinks - people that think wrong just get jailed (or die of mysterious illnesses, or fall out of windows, you get the idea). Once they expanded their interest to the territories which couldn't be easily grabbed, the default mode became just bomb the shit out of it until nothing but barren scorched earth is left. Again, nothing to do with "cultural separation". It's not like Civilization games when there's a "cultural vote" among the population and if the culture of other country wins, this city joins it. What actually happens Russian just bomb this city into dust, and it matters preciously little what the former occupants of the former city thought about St. Peterburg's culture.

This may be referring to the Kievan Rus' - perhaps "ancient" is used more poetically in Russian and the translator chose to keep it. However, I couldn't tell if the Kievan Rus' had ever included Crimea, so...

Is "Ancient Rus" the Kievan Rus'? If so, did the Kievan Rus' ever possess Crimea? And how should Belarusians interpret this?

It’s still hard to believe, even despite intellectually knowing why, how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings; the fact that this is a batshit insane reason to start a war over a territory that has self governed with no major problems for over 30 years is so outrageous many are tempted to look for deeper meaning when there is none. Even if the US literally sent 10x the arms to Taiwan, do you know the impact that would have on Chinese national security? Almost literally zero. Zero. Nothing. Nil. Zilch. Nada.

Hell, Taiwan doesn’t even present a regional influence threat. They don’t and couldn’t project power into the South China Sea for example. The only vague threat is as a refuge for Hong Kongers and other dissidents, and even that is far overblown.

Well, maybe some of it has to do with America’s short memory when it comes to the potency of war fever. A lot of Americans try to pretend they didn’t support the Iraq war, but the opinion polls at the time don’t lie. I’ll grant there was some government deception of course but that doesn’t fully explain it.

Thanks for your response. Just to clarify upfront: I absolutely do not support war or military unification. War is cruel and costly, and I don’t wish it on either side of the strait. That said, I think your framing of the issue significantly underestimates the real factors involved and oversimplifies the strategic logic behind PRC’s position.

First, reducing China’s stance to merely “hurt feelings” is, frankly, a strawman. The Taiwan issue isn’t just an emotional matter—it’s deeply tied to historical legitimacy, national identity, and decades of unresolved civil war politics. You may disagree with the PRC’s claims, but characterizing them as purely irrational makes real understanding impossible.

Second, to suggest that U.S. arms shipments to Taiwan would have “almost literally zero” impact on China’s national security is factually incorrect. Taiwan sits on a crucial chokepoint in the First Island Chain. It’s not just about Taiwan’s own military capabilities; it’s about the strategic potential of allied deployment, surveillance, and missile systems within striking distance of China’s eastern seaboard.

Third, the idea that Taiwan poses no “regional threat” misses the point. No one claims Taiwan is projecting power—but its role in the regional power balance is not about direct aggression. It’s about access, influence, and containment mechanics that any state actor would care about in that geographical position.

Lastly, invoking the U.S. experience with the Iraq War as a vague parallel while simultaneously denying China any strategic reasoning feels disingenuous. If Americans can be misled into supporting intervention based on complex narratives of fear, security, or nationalism, why assume other nations act out of mere irrational pride?

I grew up in China and recently became an adult, and I’m trying to understand these issues from both sides. But a good-faith discussion starts with acknowledging that states—yes, even authoritarian ones—often act from layered, strategic motives, not just unhinged emotion. Painting China as incapable of rational calculation doesn’t just weaken your argument; it reflects a refusal to take seriously a major geopolitical actor. If you’re older than me and still think national defense decisions are made based on ‘hurt feelings,’ maybe you should be less confident in your worldview and more open to reading some actual IR theory.<3

I think it can be difficult for Americans to understand, because in the immortal words of a great hero, “you have big ocean”. Unlike Russia or China, America has basically never faced an existential foreign threat since the Revolution. It’s only existential crisis since then was a civil war, and barring a nuclear conflict its only potential future existential crisis is a civil war. Even the Revolution was a form of civil conflict. Because of that, Americans don’t really have that deep gnawing insecure feeling of “I need to keep my borders secure lest the Mongels/French/Nazis/Japanese rape and pillage my homeland.”

Either you've completely missed the point or, much more likely, I made the point way too clumsily and misled you. I wasn't presenting a worldview or anything like that, nor trying to provide a comprehensive accounting of all the factors at play.

I'm simply making an observation/claim: when conflicts are primarily feelings-based (deliberately a broad category - set up in contrast to more practical considerations like security concerns, economic considerations, and other more direct impacts - maybe "material" would be a better word?) there's a temptation and tendency for observers, even intelligent ones, to sometimes go "that can't possibly be the main reason(s), there must be some practical aspect I'm missing". They conjure up reasonable-sounding material reasons that either do not exist or are immaterial to the roots of the conflict, and assign them excessive weight. That's not to say emotional considerations are, ipso fact, irrational, nor to say that emotional considerations can't be strategic either; I merely observe the tendency for people to keep searching for non-emotional reasons even when they already have the most important pieces right there in front of them.

As the two most recent examples go:

  • Russia says they want to invade Ukraine to restore a pan-Russian empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about NATO military aggression" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrated Russia's own stated reasons.

  • China says they want to reunify Taiwan with force to restore a pan-Chinese empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about US military aggression/encirclement" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrate China's own stated reasons.

  • To extend it even a little farther, at risk of diluting my point, Dick Cheney and co say they want to forcibly export democracy to the Middle East. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be wanting more oil" when the reality is that Western observers just severely underrated the idiocy of neocons. This is a little post-hoc but I think it works.

The Taiwan issue isn’t just an emotional matter—it’s deeply tied to historical legitimacy, national identity, and decades of unresolved civil war politics. You may disagree with the PRC’s claims, but characterizing them as purely irrational makes real understanding impossible.

To be clear, "historical legitimacy" is a matter of feelings. "National identity" is a matter of feelings. Politics, abstractly, are feelings. At least in the sense that they only weakly and indirectly correspond to the fundamental physical prosperity of a country.

I absolutely agree with you that it's actually of critical importance to understand that "hurt feelings" are powerful and need to be understood as valid - or at least, if not valid, then necessary to understand - and indeed are common motivations for conflict throughout history. I'm very aware of the seriousness of some of those feelings in the China-Taiwan issue. Ignoring and downplaying them is often the result of hubris and/or ignorance. But if we zoom out a little bit, that's still all they are, feelings! Whether strategically deployed or entirely organic, that doesn't change their nature.

From a moral perspective, I would further advance the argument that however understandable the above reasons might be, these are still bad/insufficient moral reasons to invade an effectively sovereign and separate country. That wasn't my main point however. Hope that clears things up.

how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings;

I am curious how you feel about the War of Northern Imperialism Civil War: the American founding documents talk a lot about "just consent of the governed" but when some of the (state governments as proxies for) regions decided they no longer consented, Lincoln sent in troops. My own thoughts are complicated: I think the US is, for a variety of reasons (ending slavery, combined economic power) better off for the Union winning, but it does seem against the general principle of self-governance. It's not even hard to find takes today justifying curtailing the rights of the region on the basis of the actions of their forefathers.

I agree that it’s one the more philosophically tricky questions around. However, time and circumstance are hugely important factors here. The Civil War is worlds apart because it happened, in historical terms, more or less immediately. A better analogy would be, would either North or South Korea be justified (or heck, forget justified, would it even be rational) in finishing off the unification, today? Obviously not. Time and ability to self govern strongly determine ‘legitimacy’ as an independent state, and Taiwan and South Korea have demonstrated both. It’s not even close. Most of the original combatants are dead! it’s truly intergenerational now. Wars of reunification within a few years of the split wouldn’t bat an eye - and didn’t, really. If the PRC had actually gone through and invaded in the decade or so after WW2 the US would maybe have been annoyed or supplied arms or whatever but on some level that’s still an “understandable” war. The only thing that weakens these protections is when a state effectively goes into collapse. For example, I am on record as being decidedly “meh” about Israel grabbing Syrian land in the civil war period (not to get into a big discussion there but just as an illustration).

If we did get in to the Civil War philosophy, I think the important point is that American political philosophy (with the Declaration of Independence as an example) generally held not quite that it was only a consent of the governed thing, but also that subjects needed to have been oppressed or have some notable grievances on order for rebellion to be justified - to the best of my knowledge the consensus was not as simple as “anyone can revolt at any time for any reason if the people support it”. Under that logic, the South would only be allowed to secede for “good reason” or something like that - simply seceding because a president they thought they wouldn’t like won, and on fears of what he might do, hardly rise to that level.

(state governments as proxies for)

general principle of self-governance

This matters - in no Confederate state did the pro-secession majority of whites represent a majority of the whole population. The Confederate states were (in most cases explicitly) seceding in order to prevent self-governance by numerical majorities of their multiracial populations.

You can argue that secession was legal based on respect for actual existing sovereignty, but that gets you into the obscure historico-legal argument about the de jure division of sovereignty between the Feds and the States and whether the 1789 Constitution was intended to be irrevocable.

To justify Southern slavery at all, you need to start with a position of "No Good, only Law" which means you are arguing about what rights the South did have under the Constitution, not what rights they should have had. The only rights the southern slavers should have had under the general principles we believe in in 2025 were the right to a fair trial and the right to execution by long-drop hanging or some other civilised method.

This matters - in no Confederate state did the pro-secession majority of whites represent a majority of the whole population. The Confederate states were (in most cases explicitly) seceding in order to prevent self-governance by numerical majorities of their multiracial populations.

But the slaves weren't citizens. Non-citizens don't get to be part of a ruling majority.

You might have a point if the Confederacy had suddenly deprived the slaves of citizenship after secession in order to gain a majority of voting citizens, but that's not what had happened--it was already accepted, even by the north and even before secession, that slaves weren't and didn't need to be citizens. When the south seceded, the secessionists were a majority by this preexisting, accepted, standard. The north can't just change their mind and decide that slaves have to count as citizens in order to deprive the south of legitimacy.

But the slaves weren't citizens. Non-citizens don't get to be part of a ruling majority.

And women couldn't vote either. That doesn't mean they are not part of the whole population, or the voting minorities were not preventing self-governance by numerical majorities.

You are arguing by a different standard. I can appreciate why, but it is a different standard. The political legitimacy of the Confederacy derived from claiming to represent the legitimate will of 'the people' is certainly up for dispute when 'the people' is retroactively gerrymandered to exclude people who might disagree after making a claim to represent them.

But it wasn't "retroactively gerrymandered", that's my point! It was accepted at the time, and by the north, before secession, that slaves weren't citizens and couldn't vote. Nothing changed retroactively.

And women couldn't vote either.

Ah, so the north's government wasn't legitimate either?

Is the current US government illegitimate because illegal aliens can't vote, and if they could we probably wouldn't have elected Trump?

But it wasn't "retroactively gerrymandered", that's my point! It was accepted at the time, and by the north, before secession, that slaves weren't citizens and couldn't vote. Nothing changed retroactively.

And the point that people who were denied representation don't get to have the legitimacy of their implicit support invoked remains. As does the point that they are, in fact, part of regional population majorities.

Franchisement and representation of non-voters was a significant aspect of the foundational american political disputes. The 3/5ths compromise resulted from the slavers wanting slaves to count as much as a citizen for legitimate representation in the political system.

Ah, so the north's government wasn't legitimate either?

Sure, why not? It's not like Union (il)legitimacy affects whether the Confederacy was or was not legitimate. Independent variables.

We could question whether legitimacy is a binary state (legitimate or not legitimate), or a status of degrees (more or less legitimate), but if you don't want to stake a position I won't force you.

Is the current US government illegitimate because illegal aliens can't vote,

If you define the scope of legitimacy to include illegal aliens, certainly. Hence why various pro-migration coalitions support things like giving Congressional representation based on non-citizen (and thus including illegal) residents, and why other parts of their coalitions are very uninterested in proof-of-citizenship requirements in elections that are routinely popular with the electorate that opponents claim to be defending against disenfranchisement.

and if they could we probably wouldn't have elected Trump?

Sure, why not?

More comments

While this wasn't exactly the language used at the time, it doesn't seem incoherent to say that the Civil War amounted to "well done, you've exercised your right to self-determination to become a nation of your own. unfortunately, judged as a neighboring foreign nation, we find you guilty of crimes so intolerable that we have no choice but to declare war on you and annex you".

You don't get to annex a nation because they do bad things. You can invade them, but that's not the same thing. The US did not annex Germany after World War II.

It also leads to the question of when the 13 colonies seceded from Britain, could Britain find some act that the Americans have committed that they decide is an intolerable crime, and annex the colonies again?

By your standard could the British invade and annex Zimbabwe?

Not to mention that the Union maintained the institution of slavery in multiple states throughout the war, including the practice of denying them the vote.

This argument is a bit like invading someone for their heinous crime of capital punishment, while continuing to hang your own criminals.

The US Civil War might have also gone very differently had the Confederacy not initiated various engagements, giving Lincoln a stronger basis to send in the troops. Had the civil war started not with the South bombarding Fort Sumter, but with the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, Lincoln would have been in a very different political position.

In some respects, the opening of the civil war was a boundary dispute, and the South had no shortage of reasons to try and set / maximize expected gains, but those proactive efforts placed a greater political onus on them as instigating the violence that followed.

Would bombarding Fort Sumter have been different if the Confederacy had first insisted that the residents at the fort give up their unregistered weapons, pay property taxes on the fort, and allow building inspectors in to make sure it's up to code, and only bombarded the fort when they refused to do that?

If the delay of bombardment for the claims of process had allowed other events to occur first, sure.

The mid-19th century was a period where the telegraph was changing the political evolution/initiation of conflicts. 'How' a conflict started becomes more and more important the more people can know about it before and during the fact, rather than have it summarized for them afterwards.

Not to forget that the Confederacy claimed several states that never formally seceded from the Union, seated their representatives in the Confederate Congress etc.

I think Americans often have trouble understanding the way nationalists in other parts of the world think because it is quite alien to their own thought process

Is it? The US spent two trillion dollars trying to spread liberalism to Afghanistan. Americans would rather bomb a village half way around the world to pieces than accept that they have a different view on feminism, transphobia or lgbtqaxzypdfsdfsffw than Americans have. If a country doesn't have McDonalds, Coca cola and tinder Americans become so outraged that they want to invade it before they even can find it on a map. There is no country or group that is as obsessed with ensuring the rest of the world follows their rules as the US.

The US can't accept that countries in Latin America aren't copies of the US.

Americans would rather bomb a village half way around the world to pieces than accept that they have a different view on feminism, transphobia or lgbtqaxzypdfsdfsffw

Isn't this typically the excuse not the reason? It's the kayfabe of diplomacy or war mongering.

It's like Putin Gaddafi Saddam Osama Kim Jong Il hates our freedom.

Has the US ever bombed a country with a state endorsed pride parade?

Is it? The US spent two trillion dollars trying to spread liberalism to Afghanistan.

That is how they justified it to themselves. But what the US was actually doing in Afghanistan was spending two trillion dollars to (unsuccessfully) spread not-the-Taliban, in order to punish the Taliban for harbouring Osama Bin Laden pre-9/11. The not-the-Taliban the US spread included a bit of liberalism, but rather more drug dealing, bacha bazi, Pashtunwali, and stealing of US aid money. This was not a problem, except for the Afghans, who quite sensibly brought back the Taliban at the first reasonable opportunity.

I remember the pre-9/11 days when the treatment of Afghan women under the Taliban was a big deal (a fake petition against it was the first big viral fake e-mail) among Blue Tribers who wrongly considered themselves to be elites (undergraduates at top universities and suchlike), while the actual Blue Tribe elites of the US Deep State was turning a blind eye because friends of friends of the Taliban were on our side against Iran. Counterfactual (but obviously true) premise: The US would not have bombed Afghanistan without a 9/11-scale Al-Qaeda outrage. Conclusion: The US did not bomb Afghanistan for feminism.

The US power elite remains entirely comfortable with the treatment of women, gays, and journalists in Saudi Arabia for crissake. Because the al-Saud keep the oil flowing and hand out the DC largesse on a grand scale.

Hey, what's wrong with the Pashtunwali?

Ask the Afghans (very much including the women) who would rather live under the Taliban than under Pashtunwali. But my understanding is that Pashtunwali is a goatfucker culture honour code similar to the Albanian Law of Lek and is bad because it institutionalises all the pathologies of goatfucker cultures, including blood feuds, bridal kidnapping, goatfucking etc.

But what the US was actually doing in Afghanistan was spending two trillion dollars to (unsuccessfully) spread not-the-Taliban,

So why did they force the king of Afghanistan to abdicate, instead if putting him on the throne?

I wouldn't say the US forced him to abdicate - he was couped in the 1970's by his Prime Minister. But if the question is "why did the US not put Zahir Shah on the throne as part of their policy of building not-the-Taliban?" then per Wikipedia the answer is that Pakistan vetoed it. That the US deep state still (wrongly) considered Pakistan an ally who might have a better sense of Afghan politics than they did was obvious if you were paying attention in the noughties.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that their assessment of Pakistan was wrong. They knew Pakistan was unstable and unreliable, but it was a much better option to keep Pakistan a nominal ally and de facto neutral, then to let them tip over into being an adversary.

I wouldn't say the US forced him to abdicate - he was couped in the 1970's by his Prime Minister. But if the question is "why did the US not put Zahir Shah on the throne as part of their policy of building not-the-Taliban?"

Then you'd be wrong, and that's not the question. They forced him to renounce all future claims the throne.

then per Wikipedia

Please, no.

That the US deep state still (wrongly) considered Pakistan an ally who might have a better sense of Afghan politics than they did was obvious if you were paying attention in the noughties.

Maybe, but given this, and the decision to rebuild Iraq as a democracy seems to indicate ideological commitment, and your theory that it was all cynical is far from obvious.

Thank you very much for offering another perspective. However, regarding the part about Taiwan and China, I would like to offer some corrections and additional context.

While Taiwan may not have been historically as integrated with mainland China as Ukraine was with Russia, Taiwan was formally incorporated into Qing China’s territory in 1683 and remained so until it was ceded to Japan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War. Thus, Taiwan does have significant historical connections to China.

In more recent history, during World War II, the Kuomintang (led by Chiang Kai-shek) and the Chinese Communist Party (led by Mao Zedong) temporarily cooperated to resist the Japanese invasion. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, a civil war broke out between the two sides, ultimately resulting in the Communist Party’s victory and the Kuomintang’s retreat to Taiwan.

Although the PRC initially emphasized the goal of peaceful reunification, over time, shifts in domestic public opinion and strategic considerations have led to increasing support among the general populace for the use of force if necessary. That said, the official position of the PRC still emphasizes “peaceful reunification” under the “one country, two systems” framework.

I’m someone who grew up in China and have just recently reached adulthood, so there may be gaps in my understanding due to my environment and limited experience. If there are any inaccuracies, omissions, or misinterpretations in what I have presented, I would genuinely appreciate any corrections or further discussion. Thank you!<3

I believe you misunderstand.

The Kievan Rus' (or Kyivan Rus', I guess, now) is the first East Slav state founded in the 9th century, and the histories of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus start from this point (East Slavs having had no language prior to this point). This state was literally dominated by Kiev during its inception. The names of both Russia and Belarus are etymologically derived after this medieval state, and all three East Slavic nations claim descent from it. Ukraine is literally where Russian civilisation starts*.

Taiwan, on the other hand, is first settled by Austronesians and was relatively untouched by the mainland; the first real attempts at settlement beyond that actually came under the Dutch (who encouraged Han migration over to the island), then the portion of Ming remnants led by Zheng Chenggong who founded the Kingdom of Tungning, until its conquest by the Qing. Taiwan's prehistory lasts well into late Chinese imperial history, it was first properly settled under a European banner, and up until the Japanese invasion it remained a pretty marginal borderland — nobody would think much about it if there wasn't another straggler "Chinese" government trying to set up shop there!

A more analogous comparison to Russia and Ukraine, for (a state of) China, would be if it no longer controlled large swathes its cradle of civilisation — if it "lost" parts of the North China Plain including Anyang and Luoyang, say. Maybe consider an alternate timeline where the Ming somehow doesn't reconquer the North China Plain and the Northern Yuan end up setting shop there indefinitely, or the Southern Song don't fall to the Yuan and no Han-dominated state ever is able to claw back land above the Huai river, or the Northern and Southern Dynasties doesn't end with the Sui, or the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms permanently entrenched a north-south split, and now a modern alt-Chinese government based in the south, claiming descent from those alt-dynasties, is engaging in a little taste of revanchism some few centuries late by appealing to how northerners and southerners are actually one people and should be ruled together.

Edit: better examples. None of those really match exactly; Moscow actually came into prominence during/after the Mongols, so an even better example would be if somehow the Yuan got pushed into a rump Southern state and centuries later the descendant states of the Southern Yuan decide to march back up, but this is a bit too ludicrous

*also where Ukrainian and Belaroussian history starts — I am not making a case that Kyiv is especially Russian, or that Russia has a good case for invading Ukraine

I did not mean to imply that there were no historical ties between Taiwan and China, only that Taiwan is not thick with collective memory for Chinese people the same way that Ukraine is for Russians or say Kosovo is for Serbians. No Warring States philosophers, Three Kingdoms generals, or Tang Dynasty poets ever lived, fought, or even set foot there, and Han settlers only arrived in Taiwan in large numbers at about the same time the US (i.e. a country "with no history" according to most Chinese) was being colonized by the British.

For what it's worth, while I feel the need to point out that the cultural, linguistic, and political differences between Taiwan and mainland China are already greater than those between the 13 colonies and England on the eve of the American Revolution, I don't have any firm position on Taiwanese independence, only that fighting a major war in East Asia would be a catastrophe and probably lead to at least a half dozen of the greatest cities in the world being blown to pieces by missiles and drone strikes, since Japan, Korea, etc. would likely be dragged in. However, I can tell you that my relatives in Taiwan have in the last five years gone from being dyed-in-the-wool Chinese nationalists (as in they would be insulted if you called them Taiwanese) who wished for reunification to basically the exact opposite position (China is the enemy, we are not the same). I don't consume enough Chinese language media and news to be able to tell if this is based on an honest assessment of PRC statements and positions in recent years, or whether they have been sucked down a social media/propaganda rabbithole of some sort, but presumably the latter is at least a contributing factor, and this does not bode well for the future stability of the region.

Russia is sitting on the world's second most largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and they remain a pretty significant deterrent against any nation state which might consider an invasion.

Sure, there is only 400km or so separating Ukraine from Moscow (which is the kind of strategic depth most countries could only dream they had), but they can fortify that at their leisure. Historic precedent is also rather in their favor.

For China, there is no significant military threat from Taiwan. The PRC doing an amphibious assault on Taiwan is plausible, Taiwan being the staging ground for an US-led amphibious assault on mainland China is utterly ridiculous. D-Day succeeded because the Allies were able to field three ground troops for every German. No plausible attacker of China is going to have that kind of advantage.

The three countries least likely to be successfully conquered in the world, by my reckoning, are the US, China and Russia. All three have large standing armies which will enjoy a significant home advantage in any war, and all three have enough nukes to go out with a bang.

Nor is there much political will from anyone to pay the blood price required to conquer them. The Nazis were great at convincing the other superpowers that they were a disease which needed to be burned out to the root. While there certainly is much mutual dislike between the US and the other two, there is just not that deep belief that spending the lives of a generation on defeating the other side is anything remotely assembling a good trade. Russia might care a lot about NATO, but (especially pre-2022, and especially European) NATO countries did not care a lot about either NATO or Russia. If anything, NATO resembled the Wall in ASOIAF -- a militant order whose purpose was widely believed obsolete, an anachronism, a relic.

If the fear of conquest is not the reason for the animosity towards Ukraine and Taiwan, then what is?

I think that there are two reasons. One is cultural dominance. Both China and Russia are somewhat totalitarian. Both would like to claim the set bonuses which come from controlling virtually all people of a certain culture (sans some inevitable diaspora). I will not delve in the question if Russian and Ukrainian are two cultures or two branches of one culture, but simply note that they seem mutually understandable to a degree that Russian and Polish are not, for example. Without Taiwan, the CCP would have control over most of the Chinese cultural output. Sure, some expats would still to run counter-newspapers from the US, but these might lack the critical mass to keep a flame alive which might at some point ignite mass protests within China (not that I am holding my breath, there). Taiwan is the living proof that Chinese culture without communism is viable, and as such is likely seen as a much greater threat than South Korea or Japan.

The other reason, especially for Russia, is force projection. Crimea with its ice-free harbors is not crucial for Russia the country, but it is crucial for Russia the superpower (or major regional power, if you prefer).

Russia is sitting on the world's second most largest stockpile of nuclear weapons,

I'm pretty sure the (published) warhead counts actually have Russia with slightly more than the US, largely because of odd treaty wordings on specific delivery mechanisms.

You are technically correct, the best kind of correct!

On the one hand – actually, yes.

On the other hand – this is already the case. Taiwan (by itself) already has intermediate-range missiles. They can probably strike the Three Gorges Dam, which I am given to understand – if successful – could be "pretty bad" (millions dead).

Furthermore, if you look at the Chinese coastline, you'll see that it is hemmed in by its rivals – Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are, on paper, trivially able to establish a maritime blockade of China. This is probably why China has gone to such great lengths to establish a perimeter in the Spratlys and other island groups. Controlling Taiwan goes a long way toward mitigating this problem and giving China an avenue "out" into the Pacific, allowing them to operate carrier groups and nuclear submarines to their full advantage. (It also lets them turn the tables on Japan and blockade Japan instead of the other way around much more easily, which I think is part of why Japan has shown so much willingness to get involved).

The TLDR; is that there are very tangible security reasons for China to want Taiwan.

However I do question if Taiwan is a stable stopping point. Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia can still keep China cut off from maritime trade with Europe and Africa in that scenario. So I definitely wonder if a reunification of Taiwan with China would satisfy Chinese security risks, or simply cause them to turn towards other potential threats.

While I appreciate the direction of thought (control over Taiwan certainly does enable more “offensive” options), it’s incorrect to say that anyone, even a coalition, would be able to effectively blockade China. They simply have too much coastline and too large a navy. Maybe 20 years ago yes, but currently? No. That’s not projected to change in the next 20 years either no matter how big a peacetime buildup of their neighbors.

Also, I personally believe the South China Sea moves to be primarily about resources (fishing, oil, etc) than a power projection, but reasonable people can absolutely disagree there.

it’s incorrect to say that anyone, even a coalition, would be able to effectively blockade China.

The United States could do it, almost certainly. Keep in mind that the US has the largest (by VLS cells) and most capable navy on Earth, and the Houthis (with, to be fair, powerful backers) have been able to run a fairly effective local blockade against their wishes. A pan-Asian coalition (including India, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia) might also be able to do it right now. Frankly...a single Asian nation could probably do it effectively for a limited time just with sea mines.

Let me walk through this, just a little bit – basically, surface ships are very vulnerable. If you don't have them to escort your cargo ships, then your cargo ships will all get captured by helicopter boarding parties, or sunk by maritime patrol aircraft and submarines. Or, if they have to transit a strait (like Malacca) they are vulnerable to even cheaper weapons systems, like short-range anti-ship missiles, speedboats, and artillery.

So you need to escort them with destroyers and frigates to keep away the helicopters and submarines (there's no guarantee you do anything to American submarines except get sunk by them, of course). But destroyers and frigates by themselves aren't sufficient to run a blockade by an opponent with combat aircraft – a country like India or the United States will locate your surface ship and then dispatch tactical aircraft with Brahmos or LRASM missiles to sink it, and a country like Singapore, or the Philippines can just mass anti-ship fires, or even use the good old artillery tactic, and then you're back where you started, because surface ships (unsupported) are not good at finding and destroying shoot-and-scoot weapons like missile launchers.

And that's without getting into mines. The best way to close Malacca is with anti-ship mines – they are small and terribly cheap (it would probably be affordable for Malaysia or Indonesia to buy tens or even hundreds of thousands of mines) and it could require hours to clear each one. You're going to have to escort specialized (practically unarmed) minesweepers to the area to slowly clear the entire strait of mines. Said minesweepers will die without adequate protection against submarines and aircraft. But of course if your destroyers and frigates get too close to provide that cover, they will die to mines.

So you're going to need to more than run a few escort ships if your threat is greater than maritime patrol aircraft and submarines. If you want to transit Malacca opposed, you might need to actually seize territory around the strait to make it safe. A lot of territory. Or, you'll need to destroy all the potential anti-ship weapons in all of Malaysia and Indonesia – which is not easy. It's definitely something you can't do with just surface ships, you'll need marines.

And then, even if you clear out the strait, with your surface ship group, you're going to only be able to escort one convoy at a time, because even if you seize all the tactical air bases the bomber threat is real. Against the United States, even a large flotilla will be sunk by bombers. The US bomber force can attack you anywhere on Earth and they're going to lob missiles at you. Even if your air defenses are perfect, they can do this until your VLS cells are dry. Then they're going to sink you with 1000-lb bombs. (Actually realistically you just get sunk by a submarine but we're pretending like our surface ships can prevent that for a moment).

So now you need something that can defend you against bombers. And that's the aircraft carrier. China has three. This means they can probably keep one on station for an extended period of time (rotating between the three carriers). One carrier isn't enough to defend shipping between China and Europe against the American navy (probably not enough to defend it against India, either). The US has bigger, better carriers and tactical carrier aircraft than you do, and more of them, so it's going to steam out with two of them, shoot down all your planes, and then kill your ships with bombers, and then blockade you again.

So, to "bust a blockade" against the United States or a similar maritime power, you need to be able to patrol thousands of square miles against submarines and defeat the enemy navy at sea.

Let's review real quick – against a pan-Asian coalition, to make the sea lanes clear reliably, you need to

  • invade Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia (or maybe you can clear them with a sufficiently large air campaign?)
  • conduct air operations against Japan, the Philippines, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and probably Vietnam
  • conduct anti-submarine operations throughout the the East and South China seas, the strait of Malacca, the Andaman Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea

(These countries, by the way, combined, have more submarines than China does!)

I am very skeptical that China can do this. I'm skeptical the US Navy could do this.

And to defeat a blockade by the US, you're plausibly going to need to defeat their entire navy on the high seas (otherwise they can far blockade you), not to mention the above mentioned anti-submarine operations, and to say nothing of doing something about the bombers and maritime patrol aircraft.

Also, I personally believe the South China Sea moves to be primarily about resources (fishing, oil, etc)

Sure, this seems plausible.

You've convinced me I overstated the case. Good comment. But still, there are some considerations that make it not entirely clear-cut. This map taken from this Naval War College report on an oil blockade demonstrates that yes, there are a number of choke points for trade flows out of China. I should note however that Taiwan being Chinese controlled or not makes a big deal to Japan/SK, but doesn't necessarily provide a better defensive blockade escape route in general - there's already quite a bit of water in that direction, as you can see, that directly isn't a choke point for non-Taiwanese conflicts, where Taiwan is surely sitting out.

Naval mining would be pretty effective yes in the straights but in a blockade-first scenario (i.e. not-war) I don't see it happening (would the surrounding nations be mad? Almost certainly. And it would hinder trade to our own allies too - Japan/SK are supplied via the same channels). There's also the matter of scale to consider. Although the PLAN doesn't have great force projection capabilities right now, the US naval readiness is also quite lackluster, which is fairly well-documented. The US would only be able to bring over a little over half of their fleet, I bet - would it be able to sustain a blockade operation against thousands of ships attempting to blockade-run for more than a couple of months? The US would probably say yes, but I actually think that's uncertain. There are a lot of ships that transit, and all of them would need to be checked or identified on some level. Again I struggle to come up with a scenario where Taiwan would ever be an active participant in a blockade (would be poking the bear) unless they were already under existential threat. And going down that reasoning just leads to circular, tautological reasoning (you can't threaten Taiwan's existence and then use actions it would take to secure its own existence as evidence for threatening Taiwan's existence). Even then, it seems to me a far more likely scenario that China is blockading Taiwan, which I think the PLAN is currently capable of doing (if just barely).

So yeah, we are basically left with the war scenarios. Blockades are already acts of war on some level. The linked report concludes that an oil embargo probably wouldn't work, but the reasons given are mostly non-military. I stand corrected on that front.

Good comment.

Thanks :)

The US would only be able to bring over a little over half of their fleet, I bet - would it be able to sustain a blockade operation against thousands of ships attempting to blockade-run for more than a couple of months? The US would probably say yes, but I actually think that's uncertain.

I think a lot of this depends on the exact scenario at hand. The US has a lot of submarines and they have very good endurance, and you don't need that many aircraft to run a blockade properly (especially if you've just decided to sink all shipping). Similarly the US is likely to lay mines via aircraft. I think that surface fleet endurance is likely to be more limited.

And, to clarify my position a bit: my position is that a successful blockade could be put in place, not necessarily established indefinitely (for instance I could see China eventually beating a pan-Asian coalition).

There are a lot of ships that transit, and all of them would need to be checked or identified on some level.

It's pretty simple to ID ship types - you can do this acoustically, and most large navies surely have libraries of ~all ship types just to help IFF in wartime.

Discriminating between individual ships might be harder, I'm not sure exactly how hard it would be, if that's an already solved problem, or how much it would matter in a blockade scenario - I could see a world for instance where we just presumptively turn back (or sink) all traffic that we haven't already green-flagged (doubtless in "coordination with our allied and partner nations"). It might also be possible that just type identification is good enough for our purposes here.

Even then, it seems to me a far more likely scenario that China is blockading Taiwan, which I think the PLAN is currently capable of doing (if just barely).

Yes, this I tend to agree with. And like you said, any blockade is likely to be part of a war. And I think that the US - whose mine stockpiles are very limited compared to Chinese stockpiles - would probably focus on hitting more specific targets closer to home. Why mine Malacca when you could mine the Taiwan Strait, or the Qiongzhou Strait, or the entrance to the PLA's submarine pens in Hainan? :trollface:

an oil embargo probably wouldn't work

Without having read it (although I might, thanks for linking!) I tend to agree. I suspect they would be able to get what they needed for the duration of a war from Russia overland, although I seem to recall a prior commenter noting that they had no oil pipeline hookup and thus it would be an insanely inefficient way to get oil.

The best way to close Malacca is with anti-ship mines – they are small and terribly cheap (it would probably be affordable for Malaysia or Indonesia to buy tens or even hundreds of thousands of mines) and it could require hours to clear each one.

These countries also need the strait, don't they? Why would they want to blockade it for everyone?

Except for Vietnam and Singapore, I think the other countries have ports with access to the Indian or Pacific Oceans.

But I think the real answer to your question is "yes, as long as you can control the strait, you wouldn't want mine it." But if the Chinese were going to wrest control of it from you, they'd be able to use it to blockade you anyway...so you might as well lay the sea mines.

At least that's what I think.

And this is the point of the "First Island Chain" logic.

If the anti-China coalition controls Taiwan, then they can maintain an effective blockade of China using mostly land-based aircraft operating out of bases in Japan (and its islands), Taiwan, the Philippines, and Malaysian Borneo. If China controls Taiwan, then maintaining the blockade means either bringing US carriers within range of Chinese land-based aircraft operating out of Taiwan, or engaging Chinese short-range fighters with American long-range fighters. Both of these are generally believed to be insta-lose conditions against a peer competitor.

China appears to be building a blue-water navy. This only makes strategic sense if they can break out into the Pacific beyond the First Island Chain, which either means they plan to take Taiwan, or that they know something we don't and think they can run a blockade.

Yes.

To be fair to China, I think a pocket blue-water force to respond to overseas contingencies does make sense, particularly as China and Chinese companies begin to do more and more business overseas. I rather doubt this is the ultimate intent for the large blue-water build up they are doing, however.

Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia can still keep China cut off from maritime trade with Europe and Africa in that scenario.

Chinese civilization expands slowly, it doesn't have the booms associated with the west or the assabiyah cycle of Islam. And the three probably have to work together(with Singapore, too) to blockade China; it just needs one ally out of the three.

Russia already had multiple NATO states on its border, and the war added Finland which Russia pretty much shrugged at. Ukraine has somewhat more advantageous terrain if NATO wanted a ground invasion to Moscow, but there's long been zero appetite for that AND Russia has the ultimate deterrent in the form of a huge nuclear arsenal. The major reasons Russia actually invaded are:

  1. Putin hates democracy because it shows his people what life could look like if they didn't exist in a kleptocratic dictatorship. It's the same reason why he screwed over Armenia when they democratized a bit, and why he went after Georgia. There's a reason Russian leadership seethes so much over Poland too, given that it's a shining example of how much better the West is than the Warsaw Pact (i.e. the former Russian sphere of influence). Ukraine was threatening to become that, but even closer to home. Dictators are always thinking of ways to coup-proof their regimes, and getting rid of pesky alternative political systems on the borders is one option.
  2. Putin has amateurish views of "The Russian People" and thinks Ukrainians are misguided mini-Russians who need to be shown who's the big brother here.
  3. He thought he could get away with it easily, and once he made an effort it would look foolish if he had to run home with his tail between his legs, so he constantly doubled down.

Taiwan is a similar problem for China. The direct threat on the border part is an element of the equation, but it's far from the whole story. Taiwan is a democracy full of Han Chinese that shows what life could be like without the CCP. Hong Kong was crushed for similar reasons. It also occupies a special place in the political myth that is the Century of Humiliation, a victimization narrative similar to what the Treaty of Versailles did for Weimar Germany, i.e. it's a fairly mundane piece of history dressed up to be this hugely unjust violation that must be corrected if China is ever to stand tall.

Taiwan is a democracy full of Han Chinese

Taiwan is undergoing its own ethnic speciation event. Increasingly, if you were to call a Taiwanese person “ethnically Han Chinese” they would bristle in the same way a Ukrainian would if you called them Russian. That’s part of what’s leading to some of the friction between the KMT and some of the other parties.

Putin hates democracy because it shows his people what life could look like if they didn't exist in a kleptocratic dictatorship. It's the same reason why he screwed over Armenia when they democratized a bit, and why he went after Georgia. There's a reason Russian leadership seethes so much over Poland too, given that it's a shining example of how much better the West is than the Warsaw Pact (i.e. the former Russian sphere of influence). Ukraine was threatening to become that, but even closer to home. Dictators are always thinking of ways to coup-proof their regimes, and getting rid of pesky alternative political systems on the borders is one option.

To support this:

Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable. -- Milton Friedman

Putin, and Xi, and their various functionaries and courtiers etc, know this in their bones. In a crisis, change will result, and the kind of change you get will be based on what ideological infrastructure exists. The Bolsheviks didn't launch the revolution, they hijacked it, but they were able to do so because they had an existing ideological discipline and infrastructure.

Culturally compatible countries with alternative ideas provide soil for alternative ideologies to grow. And when the mother country goes into crisis, those chickens come home to roost. An ideologically hostile Ukraine is dangerous because so much of it is Russian, Taiwan is dangerous because it is Chinese.

Putin hates democracy

The year is 2025 and we're unironically busting out "they hate our freedom" for the purposes of neocon war propaganda.

More effort than this, please.

It’s been less than two weeks and less than five comments since your last ban. I suppose this marks an improvement. Three day ban, this time, to see if we can extrapolate.

Your political biases are really showing lately.

Somebody who posted "the year is 2025 and we're unironically X" as a one-liner would almost certainly get modded regardless of the political valence of X.

Knock it off. You are also accumulating a history of anklebiting mods every time someone you agree with gets modded (but curiously, never when someone you disagree with gets modded for the same behavior).

People who post low effort comments that are nothing more than "boo" posts get modded. This has been true since we were still on reddit. People who do this repeatedly and refuse to alter their behavior eventually get escalated responses from warnings to tempbans.

You have a lengthy history of whining, sneering, bad-faith griping, and claiming any mod action you don't like is politically biased. Your history is basically terrible in every way. Not a single AAQC, not a single thoughtful or intelligent argument, just posts like this and a long, long string of warnings and temp bans.

If you want to substantively discuss moderation and why you think someone made a mistake, there are acceptable ways to do this. You are allowed to criticize the moderation here. You are even allowed to accuse mods of being biased. But you need to present it articulately and reasonably. There are several (leftist!) posters recently who've made a habit of writing lengthy complaints, mostly directed at myself but sometimes other mods, about how bad our moderation is and how we let righties get away with anything. I did not like those posts, I did not agree with their complaints, and I found it frustrating to engage with them and explain why I thought they were mistaken. But I did not tell them to stop making such complaints, as aggravating as I find their constant griping, because at least they were being civil and putting forward a sincere case for why they think we suck.

You just hawk and spit.

Stop it or you will be banned.

Can you please link one of these leftist poster complaints? I haven't seen them and I appreciate a good argument.

Where you see "democracy" and "freedom", dictators see "coup" and "regime change". Check out Putin's rants on "Color Revolutions" for instance.

You cannot properly understand dictators without understanding how much they obsess over coup proofing.

Sure, Putin identified Ukraine as a threat to his regime, but the story is just a bit more complex than 'democracy spreading into the Russian sphere'. Ukraine recently overthrew a Russian-aligned guy before the first invasion, after all.

Sure, I'm by no means claiming democracy explains 100% of the reason. Single explanations rarely have high r-squared values when dealing with entire countries with millions of people, even if one of them is led by a dictator.

But it's likewise foolish to dismiss democracy as a major explanation.

Yes, it strikes me as funny to suggest that Putin's invasion of Ukraine (precipitated as it was by an illegal coup with foreign support that overthrow a democratically elected leader) was a response to too much democracy. To Western-alignment, perhaps.

I could be very wrong, but I doubt that Ukraine (which as I recall had done fairly poorly compared to Russia) would have suddenly eclipsed it in standard-of-living if Russia had resorted simply to economic warfare instead of, well, literal warfare.

And? It's not like he has no reason to hate freedom.

I think NATO instigated color revolutions on his doorstep are more of a concern for Putin than a burning hatred for alternate political systems. The man's entire post psychoanalyzes Putin as if he were a petulant child instead of one of the most cunning men on the planet. I haven't forgotten 2000-2008 when every gas station clerk thought she was smarter than the POTUS. People remain unable to analyze men smarter than they are.

That's the wrong framing. "Realist" defense concerns play little role in Russia, otherwise it wouldn't have emptied its borders with NATO to feed the grinder in Ukraine. There've been a gish-gallop of contradictory reasons how x or y impact and threaten Russia's security posture, but they are trivially rejected when looking at Russia's actions and the arguments in totality. Rather, for both Russia, this is a question of self identity:

The standard Russian self-image includes Ukraine, where the reformers (1654) and leaders of the church for most recent history, where the first educators, language reformers, where your ancestors (1000 years ago and 80 years ago) came from, where the very fairy tales happened! At the same time, most of Ukraine was not Slavic until the Russians came and took the South, letting the central planes populate, now safe from Turkic slavers. Over time, Russia developed into a great, welcoming multiethnic empire, a true melting pot for its peoples with the sternest nationalist smiling on his Muslim Tatar friends and the president kissing the Quran, brought man into space and brought the arts and mathematics to great heights (otherwise abandoned in most of the West, today). Yes, this great project has had many struggles, but... How can you believe your brothers spit on this, abandon your shared history, authors, everything and move out? (Think of your wife showing you divorce papers...) Love turns to hate, spite, evil, post facto justifying the split.

Translated to American sensibilities, imagine Philadelphia succeeding, the great colonial cities, home of the liberty bell, the continental congress etc. and insisting you have nothing in common, you New Yorkers and Georgians just oppressed them and they don't even want to speak English anymore, but create some new literary tradition etc. etc.

The same process happened in Yugoslavia (which one common Russian narrative holds, broke hope of Russia-West integration.) China is not identical (Taiwan being far smaller and weaker, today and lacking historic relevance), with explicit reunification rather being an important political point. But most importantly, China has already won, as it races past the West in wealth, cultural power and future shaping vibrancy, the growing support for reunification will see Taiwan (even if only by creative interpretation) in the PRC's sphere.

The worst part about Russia in this is that, had they just gone in in 2014 or integrated the Donbas, instead of turning it into a mafia run hell hole, Ukraine wouldn't really have resisted now - indeed, had Putin not invaded, but worked with Zelensky who won on a pro-Russia platform, none of this would have happened. This is a self-own the US is now copying. (For lack of time, I will not go into polyphonic government, where seeing your neighbors thrive might inspire you that there's a better way. Squashing this threat by incorporating or forcing Ukrainians out helped regime stability.)

I'd like to dunk on Mearsheimer as a broken clock which looks right twice a day, but actually that's a stain and it's missing hands entirely. For one thing, he repeatedly stated that Russia would not invade Ukraine (as I too believed) and after it started began “There is no evidence that Putin wanted to take over the whole of Ukraine” yet somehow people claim he predicted everything? Baffling! He constantly praises Russia on the field, claims victory's just on the horizon, that Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk and and and will soon fall, while the lines haven't shifted a day's walk since the end of 2022.

Translated to American sensibilities...

Conveniently enough, we Americans once made a propaganda map comparing our two countries, and in it we compared Ukraine to the American south, and the Black Sea to the Gulf of Mexico.

Recall that the American South once tried to assert itself as a new nation and true heir to the American Revolution. Sure, there are "realist" reasons why having a foreign/rival nation (that would be poorer than their richer Yankee neighbors and thus liable toward foreign alliance or influence) in charge of part of the Mississippi River would be a security nightmare for the USA, but that's not why we fought the Civil War (My fun take there is that the Civil War was fought over what western expansion would look like.).

That's actually perfect. I first thought of Texas (since it was acquired after the main project was underway, developed its own self-identity by interaction with the main project etc. But the US civil war being fought over how manifest destiny would play out (slavery, filibustering Central America) rhymes perfectly with fighting over how the Rus/East Slavs' future should play out.

Translated to American sensibilities, imagine Philadelphia succeeding, the great colonial cities, home of the liberty bell, the continental congress etc. and insisting you have nothing in common, you New Yorkers and Georgians just oppressed them and they don't even want to speak English anymore, but create some new literary tradition etc. etc.

The American national identity is not based on common descent from some decrepit yankee cities.

Mearsheimer looks like a better geopolitical analyst so long as you ignore not only his pre-war predictions, but his pre-1995 proposals for eastern europe.

I don’t think you’re using “security dilemma” correctly.

The traditional dilemma is a race to the bottom. Either you gobble up your neighbor or you’re the next meal for someone who consumed theirs. In this model, Russia would invade Ukraine because it needs it to have a chance against NATO. But this is obviously false when Russia has a much, much stronger deterrent already.

(I have seen the argument that NATO missiles launched from Ukraine would somehow invalidate that deterrent, but I don’t find it very convincing.)

More importantly, it should be symmetric, right? Doesn’t NATO have an incentive to keep Russian missiles off its borders? Why aren’t the Baltics clamoring for NATO to invade?

The post-Cold-War international order avoided the security dilemma because it wasn’t a peer competition. America won, we set up the rules which benefited us, and we got what we wanted without having to invade Russia. We don’t have to invade neighbors to feel secure. Maybe that's become less true in the last decade or two. It’s still a hole in the pro-Russian apologetics.

Your analysis is very structured, but I think there are two points where you might be overstating certain factors. First, regarding nuclear deterrence: while Russia certainly possesses a powerful nuclear arsenal, nuclear weapons are generally regarded as a last-resort measure, not a practical tool for day-to-day security competition. Unless we are talking about a full-scale conflict — something on the level of a World War III — nuclear deterrence does not effectively address concerns over border security or the loss of geopolitical buffer zones. Moreover, all five permanent members of the UN Security Council have nuclear weapons, yet this has never entirely eliminated regional anxieties.

Second, I think your argument reflects a fairly strong American-centered perspective. After the Cold War, the U.S.-led international order did indeed mitigate traditional security dilemmas, but that system has not been equally safe or fair for all actors — especially for states facing the direct expansion of U.S. influence and alliances. From Russia’s point of view, NATO expansion has not simply been a matter of extending norms; it has appeared as a tangible existential threat. Whether or not we find that perception reasonable, it undeniably shapes their strategic behavior.

Of course, I agree with your observation that symmetry isn’t always present, and that state actions aren’t purely rational — but I see those more as additional nuances rather than the main points of contention.

First, my whole point was that a "security dilemma" refers to last-resort measures and tangible existential threats, which are the exact situations where nuclear weapons change the calculus.

Second, I want to argue with you, not your pet robot.

It seems like there’s a misunderstanding of what a security dilemma actually is. It’s not limited to last-resort existential threats or nuclear contexts.

The term refers to a recurring structural problem in international relations, where one state’s defensive measures are perceived as offensive by another, leading to escalation—even if both sides claim defensive intent.

This applies to all levels of military posturing, not just existential brinkmanship. Arms shipments, base placements, even rhetoric can trigger this.

Just so we’re on the same page, here’s a straightforward summary from the Wikipedia entry:

A security dilemma occurs when the actions taken by a state to increase its own security cause reactions from other states, which in turn lead to a decrease rather than an increase in the original state’s security.

If you think this only kicks in at the nuclear threshold, I’d seriously recommend rereading the foundational IR literature, or even just that page.

It’s funny you bring up robots. Personally, I’d rather consult a logic-checking tool than rely entirely on one worldview expressed in one language formed by one country’s political myths.

Some of us are navigating ideas across six languages, including dialects that evolved in parallel to Western nation-state concepts.

I’m not offended that you think that’s less legitimate than cowboy-tier geopolitics— just mildly amused that you thought “Texas is freedom land” was a mic drop.<3

It’s funny you bring up robots. Personally, I’d rather consult a logic-checking tool than rely entirely on one worldview expressed in one language formed by one country’s political myths.

You can consult all you want, but speaking frankly, a lot of your posts read like they were run through ChatGPT. We do not like people using LLMs to argue here. If you're using it for grammar checking, that's one thing, but no one here wants to argue with a bot, even if the bot has been told to express your argument for you. Unless you are willing to stop doing this, I will be unwilling to let any of your posts out of the new user filter in the future.

It's not the annoyingness of arguing with ChatGPT. It's that it calls your entire identity and presentation into question. On the surface, you seem to offer an uncommon perspective that would be valued here: a Chinese person with a Western-critical viewpoint. But bringing ChatGPT * into the discussion calls all that into question-- we have lots of trolls and sockpuppets who show up here thinking they are clever, and now I wonder if you're just one of them who got the cute idea: "ChatGPT, pretend you are a Chinese person critical of the West arguing with a forum full of Western rationalist nerds."

* I am using ChatGPT as a generic term here, but probably I shouldn't, you could be using any number of LLMs available nowadays.

I do use GPT-chan to help polish my grammar and phrasing, yes. But the core of what I post—my arguments, references, and even the scattered little complaints I can’t seem to edit out (like “Does ChatGPT remind itself not to binge and purge?”)—are all mine.

There are two main reasons I rely on it:

1.My English level isn’t quite strong enough to support long, technical, terminologically dense replies.

2.Even if my native language were English—or if, say, we were all in a parallel universe where this forum ran in Chinese—I would still use GPT for polishing. Why? Because TheMotte has a very specific house style: cool, articulate, often high-context. My natural voice is more like Natsuki from DDLC—filled with interjections, emotional fragments, and too many emojis. In this environment, that just looks immature.

谁家小孩！嬉皮笑脸

As for the idea that I’m “a Chinese person critical of the West”—that’s… funny. I looked back over my old posts and realized I’ve barely said anything explicit about my views on the CCP. I hint, I sidestep, I use passive framing. Why?

Because being ambiguous on sensitive political topics is… a habit.

If I were the kind of idealist who loudly denounced the system and believed I could change society, I imagine my neighborhood police station would’ve flagged me as a “person of interest” by now, waiting for the next National Congress to invite me in for tea. (That’s a joke. I think.I hope.)

You’re right. I’m used to seeing “security dilemma” deployed in reference to existential threats, since that’s usually when people are most motivated to find an excuse. It seems clear that the academic definition includes any sort of military advantage.

Would you agree that Ukraine reaching out to NATO was driven by a security dilemma? Or that Western support for Ukraine was likewise justified by the tangible security benefits of thousands of dead Russians?

There’s also the Taiwan situation. Increased Chinese influence in the Pacific is, of course, a threat to American hegemony. Does that make a preemptive deployment to Taiwan rational?

I appreciate you taking the time to engage seriously. That said, I think there’s a key distinction you’re missing.

First, it’s natural that I focus more on China’s actions. I’m Chinese. If a war breaks out across the strait, it could directly disrupt my life, my plans, my family’s future. Of course that weighs more heavily on my mind than the tragedy of Ukraine, which, while terrible, doesn’t immediately threaten me.

Second, I think you’re conflating very different dynamics under the umbrella of the “security dilemma.”

• Ukraine reaching out to NATO was a small country trying to secure its survival against a regional hegemon.

• U.S. deployment in Taiwan would be a global superpower extending military infrastructure directly into another major state’s core security zone.

These aren’t symmetrical. The actors, scale, and power dynamics are fundamentally different. Equating them as the same type of rational move erases the imbalance of power involved.

Lastly, when you frame Western support for Ukraine in terms of “the tangible security benefits of thousands of dead Russians,” it exposes a very narrow view of security—focused on enemy casualties rather than long-term strategic stability.

Real security gains aren’t about counting corpses. They’re about shaping the regional balance, undermining adversaries’ capacity for future aggression, and stabilizing your own influence network.

If we can’t differentiate between those layers, any discussion about security dilemmas risks collapsing into just “whose kill count is higher,” which I think we can both agree is an inadequate model for understanding international relations.

Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border, severely shrinking Russia’s strategic buffer zone

Well FWIW Peter Zeihan is a big fan of this theory. Not sure which way it weights though, given it's Peter Zeihan.

(except that the NATO part is a red herring and is usually skipped, including by Zeihan iirc)

He's not alone, Mearsheimer's famous prediction is exactly along those lines.

But not everyone agrees with the Realist priors so the idea that GPs have spheres of influence in any legitimate sense is not consensual. There are people to this day that will say that Russia's war is illegitimate because it is illegal. Or that Ukraine being in NATO doesn't matter because Poland is already in it.

I would personally file Mearsheimer under "pure expansionism, and that's not bad", taking his arguments realistically and in good faith. His justification through spheres of influence and great powers does not require any actual threat to be present.

Zeihan is lot more straightforward, he talks about very conventional military threat, in very direct conventional sense. Like actual land invasion.

Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border

That was already true before the war (Poland, Baltic states), and even more so after Finland and Sweden joined up.

Man, isn't it weird how all the nations with direct experience of Mother Russia's loving embrace fight so hard to avoid feeling it once more?

Also, why can't people just listen to what Putin actually says? He's on some medieval LARP of Russians and Ukrainians being the same people. Richard Hanania had a great take on Tucker Carlson's interview with him:

I'm glad that we got to see this, because it revealed how out of touch Putin is. Tucker begins with a simple question of what the threat was on February 22. Putin's response spends half an hour on the entire history of Russia.

We're used to people in the Middle East talking like this. An obsession with deep history is the characteristic of cultures that fight wars that never end. No one wonder no one even in the Russian speaking part of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia. Modern people care about their own lives and freedom and want a vision of the future.

That's what Ukraine and the West offer. Not endless lectures from a grumpy uncle on how Vlad Vladimirovich sent love letters to Svetlana the Elegant in 1207 and why this proves that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.

When talking about geopolitics, the deeper someone goes in history, the more disconnected they are from modern reality, and the less likely they are to be a rational actor who can be negotiated with. Putin had arguments he could've started with about the US interfering in Russian affairs or whatever, but he's deranged enough to think that leading with a lecture on the history of the Slavic peoples is how you sell a war in the twenty first century.

Surely a case of free speech is the best disinfectant. I knew Putin talked a lot about history, I had no idea his brain had deteriorated to this point. Hopefully Russians can one day soon have a leader who cares about making their lives better, rather than fighting wars based on what he read in history books.

https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1755750991964913902

Ukraine joining NATO would have meant that a major military alliance would sit directly on its border

That was already true before the war (Poland, Baltic states), and even more so after Finland and Sweden joined up.

Russia, like most countries, does not consider every square foot of their country equally important.

Remember of how in the first days of his special military operation, Putin tried to take Kiev? This was not a random whim, but made perfect strategic sense given his objectives. Taking the capital of a country will both disrupt that countries efforts to defend itself and send a clear message to its troops that the war is not going well and it might be better to stop resisting.

If you want to conquer France, a key objective is Paris. If you want to conquer England, you go for London. If you want to conquer Russia, taking Moscow early would be very helpful.

Look at a map. Anyone mad enough to start an invasion of Russia would want to start in Ukraine (or Belarus), and then strike straight for Moscow. It is just about 400km of steppe without big natural impediments. Starting from Finland, you would need to besiege St. Petersburg, and then advance through 500km of heavily forested area before you could invest Moscow.

Now, as I have argued above, even with Ukraine in NATO, Russia would be one of the countries which is least likely to get invaded, but it makes sense that Putin cares a lot more about Ukraine than he cares about Finland or Sweden.

400km of steppe without big natural impediments

What's the Russian Air Force doing while this hypothetical invasion force is rolling across wide open steppe?

Svetlana the Elegant in 1207

Impossible! The mighty philologist Vostokov first coined the name Svetlana in an 1802 poem, further popularized by Russia's greatest pre-Pushkin poet Zhukovsky's eponymous poem.

I would never have guessed it's that recent!

Along these lines:

(Old) English is rather special, being the 2nd non-classical European written language (after old Irish). Literacy (around 880 King Alfred tried to impose universal (male) literacy!) and our native tongue's long played a role, competing with Latin since the beginning. But most European standard languages were intentionally created in the last few hundred years (deciding which grammar to use and coining tens of thousands of words) by greats like Joachim Campe and Philipp von Zesen who coined modern German words for ancient, author, university, project, address, spelling etc. Vuk Karadžić, Ljudevit Gaj etc.did similar for Serbo-Croatian (oddly, a Slovak Bogoslav Šulek played a huge role in Croatian!) In Finnland, Mikael Agricola was quite early, Antero Warelius and August Ahlqvist made many words. In Hungary, Ferenc Kazinczy and Dávid Baróti Szabó tirelessly created thousands of words! For the Czechs Josef Jungmann and Josef Dobrovský etc. etc. It was only a short leap from here to creating a brand new language like Volapuk or Esperanto or bringing Hebrew back to life. (Indeed, Hungarian had almost disappeared in the late 18th century! The great Hungarian project turned everyone it could into a Hungarian through public schooling - Trianon hurt so badly, because within a few generations those lost Romanians etc. would have been Hungarians too!)

This german “professor of game theory” thought putin’s historical justifications for the ukrainian war were so dumb and manifestly absurd that he explained putin’s statements in tucker’s interview as deliberate madman theory, lol. (in german)

Well did you listen to him or did you just use the incongruity to dismiss what he said out of hand and substitute what you think he ought to say? Because in that exact interview Putin quite specifically mentions at length Russia's relationship to NATO vis à vis Ukraine. Never mind in his numerous speeches prior.

It's not the whole of the justification, because he is clearly using the persecution of Russians to motivate his intervention in part, but reducing "we have ties to this land and these people and a historical context to our claims" to muh medieval LARP is flippant nonsense that I'm not at all surprised to see Hanania peddling.

I don't think geopolitics should be mixed with internet bloodsports, personally.

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