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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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I keep hearing hysterical rhetoric that the West must win this war or... something something bad. It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory' that was used to justify the Vietnam intervention. While I don't think NATO will ever proceed towards direct intervention á la Vietnam, I can't help but think that too many of the West's elites have trapped themselves rhetorically where Ukraine's importance is overblown for political reasons (so as to overcome domestic opposition towards sending arms) and it has now become established canon in a way that is difficult to dislodge.

Ukraine is fairly small economically, yes, and its production capacity will not fall to zero if it is under Russian administration, yes. So it would seem that Russia's victory (of dubious probability) would not change much. But that ignores Ukraine's importance as a corrupt western-friendly country with concentrated, exploitable resources such as fossil fuels. For the US, as a whole, or the EU, as a whole, it is seemingly unimportant. But for a few well-connected people, it represents a large portion of their personal cashflow and financial interests. So, it is indeed, in an isolated way, very important.

It is also very important because of the west's extremely lax refugee standards which means countries will be flooded with Ukrainian men looking for work using the crisis as an excuse.