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Notes -
To anyone who has discussed the issue with pro-Ukraine people.
Why do people support Ukraine fighting against Russia, with a strange militaristic fervor, instead of supporting surrendering / negotiating peace?
Anglin makes the points that:
-the war is severely impoverishing Europe due to high energy costs
-the war is destroying Ukraine ( population + territory / infrastructures / institutions)
-continuing the war increases the chances of a world war
Is it cheering for the possible destruction of Russia?
Something to do with the current leadership of Russia, anti-LGBTQ, pro-family policies?
Is it about the 1991 borders of Ukraine, issues with post-Soviet Union border disputes?
Notion that 'if we don't stop Putin now he will never stop no matter what'? Is it something about broadly standing up against aggression of one state vs another, supporting the 'underdog'?
The issue with that one which seems to be central to Alexander's March 22 post is that there isn't much that seems capable of stopping Russia.
Sending another 100k Ukrainians to the meatgrinder for that end seems a little bit harsh coming from people with very little skin in the game.
Just signaling what they are told is the correct opinion?
Is it about saving face, sunk cost at this point?
What would be the best case scenario for a Ukraine/State Department victory?
To my understanding, Putin is not the most radical or dangerous politician in Russia, and an implosion into ethnicity-based sub-regions would cause similar problems to the 'Arab Spring'. Chechens for example would not appear very West-friendly once 'liberated' from Russia.
Not only that, but economic crisis in Europe could generate additional security risks.
Your questions seem predicated on the assumption that no one actually believes Russia is in the wrong here, but that it's all signaling and anti-Russian culture war. I think people genuinely believe Russia is in the wrong here and should not be rewarded for invading other countries.
Why would anyone be arguing that Ukraine should surrender?
So far, the only peace proposal on offer from Russia seems to be "Let us keep everything we've taken so far, with no promise that we won't try to finish the job once we've had time to regroup."
You make some arguments for why it would be better for the rest of Europe if Ukraine just rolled over and accepted whatever shitty terms Russia gives them, but no arguments for why Ukraine would want to do that.
There seems to be a general presumption that a withdrawal of European support would result in Ukraine only having the choice between surrender on better terms sooner or more comprehensive defeat later, so just arguing European self-interest in this matter is sufficient. (I don't think that this is actually quite clear - the US probably would be perfectly capable of picking up arbitrarily much more of the slack if it had to, and Europe would not go as far as actively preventing US access (overflight and basing) needed to do it even if they cooled on the idea themselves.)
Yes, that is the presumption, that Ukraine has no agency and that Europe and/or the US will decide when to end the war.
Obviously Ukraine depends on European and American support and might be strong-armed into accepting an unfavorable treaty, but I'm not sure it would be easy as all that for us to simply tell them to surrender, or that the US would be willing to do that. (Europe probably would.)
If EU and US drop their support, the war will end as Ukraine's leadership get captured.
This will prevent Ukraine's leadership from rounding up and forcing more men to die in the war, and if the sanctions are loosened, Europeans will afford cheaper heating and power, and possibly still keep some industry in the future.
The only winner if the war keeps going on and on is the American military-industrial complex and its deep state affiliates.
If you have a lot of shares of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman or LNG companies then you will definitely profit.
Perhaps if like Andrew Tate you're invested in the adult entertainment industry then access to cheap Ukrainian / Russian workforce would also interest you.
Or perhaps you are involved in the international child adoption business, and would really like to see Russia reopen its orphanages to international customers... Who knows?
You are acting like the economics of Western Europe are fixed. The thing about capitalist systems is in the medium term they figure out new supply lines/routes. 2008 US had high oil prices. Then the next decade they figured out shale and became an exporter.
Europes biggest issue might not even be energy right now. Germany exported basically everything russia needed for their industry and all their machine tools. Eventually Germany will figure out new countries to export too but that does hurt short term. But the west will figure out how to stay rich. Russia probably won’t figure out how to get the machine tools they need.
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