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The Foreign Service is who runs State (leaving aside the whole appointee issue). I don't know what the downsizing breakdown was. But that's not what we've been arguing.
You need to understand that monetary comp is but one thing people look for in their careers. And that many ambitious and highly capable people optimize for something other than wealth in their utility function. The IQ -> Income correlation is positive, but weaker than merely "smart people do things to make more money." Salespeople, for example, can be talented and wealthy from hard work and charisma, more than being "very capable" in the same dimensions as a biologist making far less money researching some fly.
Inasmuch as the FSOT is g-loaded at all you're getting pretty smart people into the Foreign Service. But you're also getting ideologically self-selected people. Same general issue as much of academia and teaching and government at large.
The funny thing about this is how much of US diplomacy is not carried out by career diplomats. Dang appointees.
Ideology is the mind killer, almost always. Every single one I know of causes people to have huge blindspots.
People who think everyone is essentially the same and any differences between nations are down to institutions cannot be effective. I guess that explains the Afghanistan projects state dept ran.
I also doubt there are very smart committed liberal hegemonists. I've yet to see a single one. Feel free to provide an example though.
Well, not mine.
By some definition of "liberal hegemonist" I would fit the bill. But I also believe in the "constrained vision," so that keeps a lid on a lot of wild ideas.
People who believe in the "unconstrained vision" and apply that not only to domestic policy, but to international policy, are bound to do some stupid shit.
But, I do firmly believe that the US is better off if it exists in a world order that is trending towards liberal democracy and capitalism.
I call it "Neoliberal Neorealism."
To get on the same page, you're okay with the way liberal democracy functions in practice- the sock-puppeting of civil society, the media manipulation of public opinion in the interest of stability ?
I don't know how much of this I'd sign on for as you've characterized it. As a classic liberal/gray tribe rationalist type, I very much would prefer to see a return to limited government and greater economic freedom on many fronts. But most things aren't plots, and I usually take a very dim view of the MAGA approach, even when I agree there is a problem with Progressive Ideological Capture in any given institution. I'm a bit to Scott's right on several fronts in the Culture War, and I'm less EA-pilled. I generally agree with Garrett Jones about democracy and immigration.
In terms of foreign policy, I also have many gripes with both the Left and MAGA Right. For example, in my view we should use free trade agreements against China. And we should arm Ukraine and Israel to the teeth to unleash on Russian and Iran.
All of this is to say that, even with the faults of "the way liberal democracy functions in practice," we still have it pretty good in the US.
Arm with what? The only thing US has plenty of are mothballed Abrams and Bradley vehicles. There isn't even enough ammo for Abrams tanks. Right now, you can't even give Ukrainians air defenses to keep their skies clear of drones. You can't even supply them with artillery shells, or enough newly built military hardware - because it doesn't exist. Even though it was obvious in fall of '23 that Ukraine will get nowhere with what it has, little has been done.
US forgot to develop an industry capable of either innovating and mass producing useful weapons.
'Arming Ukraine' to take on Russia is basically a dream. Maybe if you gave them all Tomahawks (2000, yearly procurement.. 60?) you have, and enough launchers (which you don't have, there's like one prototype ground battery) they could blow up a Kremlin tower and 5% of Russian industry. Russia is now making in two months as many drones as NATO makes guided anti-air missiles in a year. Of all types. (from Patriots through AIM-120/AIM-9 down to humble Pioruns. )
Any normal military industrial complex would have developed something, say, a cheap rocket-takeoff pulsejet drone, easily capable of outrunning a Geran and blowing it up with a decent range. Nah - best Ukrainians do is battery powered interceptor drones (I'm not even sure such can keep up with it it much so very limited range, batteries truly suck)
Yeah, sure, there's APKWS and Ukraine has F-16, but somehow, those drones are not getting intercepted even though they could easily be bc Russian SAM doesn't cover areas >100 km beyond the front. The Gerans are still raining on Lviv etc and there are no videos of F-16s taking them down even though theoretically, an F-16 could take down 28, so 10 planes could, in ideal conditions, take down an entire wave of Geran drones.
Honestly, if you squint your eyes a little, once Russians win in Ukraine, them taking over the Baltics becomes a possibility. No, I don't believe F-35s would be able to waltz through their air defences on day 1 at will and range 500 km inland to take out all missile / drone launchers.
Unsustainable budget deficits, endlessly accumulating debt, a very serious political situation, where one party is huffing glue and the other is full of not very competent people now ? It doesn't look good.
Oh I agree. But by comparison, at least, the US hasn't gone off the deep end entirely and I pray e.g. the UK's insanity will help us avoid the same fate.
Without getting into a whole thing on Ukraine vs. Russia and also caveating that the US should not be the primary supporter (Europe should), your overall argument is hilarious to me in that Ukraine has been taking on Russia quite successfully for years now with far lower levels of materiel support than we/Europe could have given them. And one technique is simply having the Europeans give their existing hardware to the Ukrainians ASAP. Gotta prime the defense industrial complex pump.
Well the defense tech fellas are trying to fix that.
At present rates of military progress how long do ya reckon that's gonna take? I agree that Putin would love to reassert the ~level of regional control the USSR once had over its neighbors, but boy is that not going well.
I just don't understand how you take the stance this far on that Russia is clearly going to "win" in the sense of a total Ukrainian defeat.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-battlefield-woes-ukraine
The entire European inventory of air defence would sustain Ukraine for.. a few months. Maybe a year if they were purposefully ignoring all the Geran drones and staying off the front lines, exclusively defending the rear.
There's maybe 200 modern self-propelled guns left to give. What should they give ? Tanks? Storm Shadows aren't coming. There's the 500 Taurus missiles, which are air launched (so can't salvo), I'm not even sure how many launch platforms Ukraine has and which Russia can likely pick off using their few AWACS planes. And in addition, they don't range far enough either, just about capable of hitting Moscow.
Ukrainians have suffered drastically higher casualties than Russians (because they have less artillery(src, Syrski) and fewer drones(src: Sukharevsky interview in Economist)) for the last two years at least, have lost strategic initiative and are now falling back at an ever increasing pace? Putin, ever the reptile, cares more to end the way predictably and with maximum loss of life for Ukrainian fighting men, as that's going to make the occupation of everything east of the Dniepr less of a problem.
You seem to take ISW and Ukrainian numbers (we kill 1500 Russians a day) at face value. It's not like that. The article you posted is typical. Ukraine's mediazona count got only to 120k, not 250k. Maybe it goes up to 180k if you count in the prisoners.
Meanwhile, the growth in cemeteries in Ukraine indicates war deaths of well north of 500k. Data on amputees, until they stopped publishing it likewise - north of 300k dead, easily.
Even though looking at satellite photos of cemeteries is quite simple, no one seems motivated to perform this calculation when it comes to Ukraine. They did so for Russia, but strangely, they neglected top apply the same methodology for Ukraine. Why? I mean, if they were sure Ukrainian government was telling the truth, or even just bending it by 2x, so ~100k dead, that's less than 0.3% of Ukrainian population. In short, there shouldn't be that many new graves.
You should read this article by retired US officer, not some 'international relations' pukes. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-battlefield/
So, in your view, the war has actually been going way better this whole time for Russia than Ukraine in terms of efficiency/losses?
Why then has Russia not made significant territorial gains in so long? I don't understand why the Ukrainians haven't collapsed already if it's so lopsided against them, even when they have a defender's advantage tactically.
Your allegation is that ISW is making it up? How does all this square with identifiable vehicle losses? Why can't Russia establish air superiority?
How many more months need to go on before you think the CSIS analysis is more correct than "Responsible Statecraft's" about the present state of affairs? What is "deteriorating fast" here?
Funny, that's how I feel about an establishment that employs Trita Parsi at all, let alone as management.
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