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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25651 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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The Motte’s Declining Audience

Several times this month I have tried to load the site and it’s been very slow, looked weird (with a kind of almost rdrama pink theme and unusual spacing) or failed to load at all.

I’d guess that this is a big reason why, after 5+ years of relative stability, the last few months have seen a huge drop off in culture war thread comments. Posting here for visibility, but this seems like something we should fix or this place is going to die pretty quickly.

Technical issues aside, I've had the thought the place would benefit from some limited grass roots marketing. Once or twice a year mods could pick a week and suggest holding a goodpost for it. When it hits everyone all at once breaks the don't talk about Fight Club rule:

Finally, in the interest of the health of this community, we ask that you do not post links to this community on other high-participation platforms. They are invitations for users unfamiliar with our norms to come here and (often angrily) make posts that break our rules. Exceptions may be made for communities specifically designed for compatible content, but these will be examined by the moderators on a case by case basis. If in doubt, please ask first by messaging the moderators.

For 5-7 days people are encouraged to blast links into the ether. Twitter, Substack, reddit, or wherever. This results in an influx which results in a period of managed headache. Downsides are this might result in more attacks, unwanted attention, or permanent damage to a fragile ecological system.

Still loading slow today.

To be honest, most times I contemplate making a top level post, I just contemplate getting modded for it and go do something else. We don't need to tolerate end to end bare links, but we'd benefit from somewhat reducing the minimum conversion activation energy.

Same. We should bring back the Bare Link Repository.

To be honest, most times I contemplate making a top level post, I just contemplate getting modded for it and go do something else. We don't need to tolerate end to end bare links, but we'd benefit from somewhat reducing the minimum conversion activation energy.

Are people overestimating how much effort the mods require? I see OPs either posting 50 words (leading to them getting modded) or writing mini-essays. But usually a solid three paragraphs is enough for mods to leave a toplevel alone.

The Motte’s Declining Audience

I don't think the problem is pageload time. Fewer people are posting high quality toplevel posts. Most people, myself included, just respond to toplevel conversations that strike our fancy. What's causing this, IMO:

  1. Motte's audience is now on average 5-10 years older than when they started. We have less testosterone, more responsibility, and less truth-seeking fire.
  2. "Discourse is dead", as my bae Dave Greene says every single stream. 2012-2022 was a very dynamic decade ideologically speaking. Now most of us have settled into one bunker or another. The culture war is still live, but in a All Quiet on the Western Front sense, not a Guns of August sense.

So what we have here is not a problem, but a predicament. Even if we invited new friends for fresh voices, our friends are also 30yo+ (#1) and they also live in a world where discourse is dead (#2). The Motte is on its nice, slow decline from here on out.

We can mitigate it by being less lazy and striving to post more middle-effort toplevel content. Responses per toplevel are still healthy. I tried this today, posting something on my mind that I usually wouldn't bother, wouldn't think was "good enough" back in the golden age of The Motte.

Are you willing to pay for a web-developer's time to fix/maintain it?

Sure, although I think we have plenty of potential volunteers here.

Is there a repo with tickets that we're tracking ?

I am happy to volunteer 8 hours (1 weekend day) of my time for fixes. I should be able to find 1 day the week after thanksgiving. Could pick up a couple of tickets and make some progress on them if no-one is looking at them.

I mostly do ml/backend work, but have done a little bit of front end too. If it is just profiling and debug cycles, it should be straight forward.

There is a wider question here: discoverability. Some friends have inquired if a space like the theMotte exists. I usually shurg and pretend this place doesn't exist. My policy has been that if you are meant to find it, you will find it. But, after our divorce from Reddit, I'm not so sure anymore.

Please do recommend this place to other people. We’re small enough that we really need the exposure. If they come here and then they don’t like it or can’t follow the rules then you can say well, guess it wasn’t meant to be.

I do feel extremely bad we leave all the web admin stuff to Zorba.

Would also be willing to contribute one day's work, but wouldn't be able to contribute a dedicated block until after the new year. Unfortunately, I don't do any web/front-end stuff, so would have a decent amount of on-boarding work to get up to speed alone. Further complicated by probably not wanting my public github associated with my notionally pseudonymous motte account.

The real problem though, I suspect, is that we're being effectively periodically DoSed. Either accidentally by various AI scraping tools (not just the one guy). Or intentionally because someone somewhere believes we allow people to say naughty things. The conventional way to deal with this is to pay Cloudflare or Radware to filter the traffic, but then The Motte would be as beholden to Cloudflare as we were to reddit. I'm not aware of a quick fix that bypasses the third-party dependency problem, hopefully someone more familiar with web stuff has an idea though.

There is a wider question here: discoverability. Some friends have inquired if a space like the theMotte exists. I usually shurg and pretend this place doesn't exist. My policy has been that if you are meant to find it, you will find it. But, after our divorce from Reddit, I'm not so sure anymore.

We don't have a pipeline anymore. You should absolutely be recommending The Motte to your friends. If we don't get new members, we are going to die of attrition.

https://github.com/themotte/rDrama

It's a fork of the rDrama codebase, there have been a moderate amount of changes done to it

I have been getting 5-10 second page loads and intermittent 504s as well. It isn't completely broken, but it's definitely annoying and I could see it impacting site usage.

Is Zorba competent?

Yes, extremely, though he is also very busy.

I think he mentioned a while ago that he does have a job and this website is just a side project.

1189 comments at the time of this writing, which is close to the all time low but we've had a few other threads in the same neighborhood since the site migration. Around 1500 has been the average for probably over a year now.

It might be selling out but it also might be time to do cloudflare with maximum protection enabled.

I haven't seen the rdrama pink theme etc. but have been having loading issues over the last few days. Something somewhere is broken.

Yes I very much agree. I want this place to live and the issues with loading speed and strange loading issues have been an issue for me as well.

As someone who mostly consumes and produces content here on quick little breaks from work while in the field, I must say it’s had an impact on me being here.

Didn’t someone complain about the speed once, Zorba turned up to say he put in a quick fix, and then someone else showed up and asked why his Motte-scraping bot doesn’t work anymore?

Should we find that guy and tell him to knock it off?

I only tried to get an ai to summarize the thread like 5 times, and I haven't tried it since they said there is a blocker in place. Find someone else to scapegoat.

Relax I thought it was funny.

Ah, alright

Yeah I'm getting "504 Bad Gateway" (or something close to that) errors all the time lately. Thought the site had shut down for a minute.

It was fixed for a few weeks but the last day or so got bad again

Not really. It comes and goes in waves ever since it was "solved".

idk man just sharing my lived experience , you should check your 504 bad gateway-privilege

Yes there were a few very brief outages or periods of bad performance over the years, but nothing like what’s happened over the last couple of months.

Same. I don't want to have to go crawling back to reddit.

Why did we get ejected from Reddit again? Reddit admins let us know we couldn't debate trans stuff?

Discussion of it here.

Reddit admins let us know we couldn't debate trans stuff?

Not so much that (although it seemed like would be only a matter of time), but individuals were catching site-wide bans for the triple-brackets (as mentioned below) but also trans stuff -- I seem to remember getting a three day one for something trivial-ish around trans stuff.

What I suspect was happening is bad/motivated actors hanging around using the "report to admins" (as opposed to moderation team) function directly -- which at best would go to some blue-hair for evaluation, or at worst an auto-filter catching things like triple brackets.

Never was ejected. /r/TheMotte is still there. Every month /u/naraburns bot still posts an (empty) QC thread.

We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.

We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.

I think it was the right decision. I'm very proud that our little community survived the migration, despite all the nay-sayers at the time!

I think the timing was fine and allowed the migration to proceed with maximum cohesion. Trying to do it while /r/themotte was under administrative sanctions would have lost more users.

The writing was on the wall considering correspondence from the admins. It seemed to be 'You know what you did, no we aren't going to tell you' as a cover for 'we just don't like you, but don't have any specific rule we can point to'. It reminds me of 'Performance Managing' someone out of their job in corporate. Once the process has started, its almost impossible to reverse. They have made their mind up that they are going to get rid of you and that's that.

As it stands, Reddit is completely ruined for any serious political discourse these days. Bots, datamining for AI, making things 'advertiser friendly'.

It seemed to be 'You know what you did, no we aren't going to tell you' as a cover for 'we just don't like you, but don't have any specific rule we can point to'.

Yup, which makes it all the more depressing when this place occasionally pulls that same bullshit.

Considering how often I write lengthy explanations of mod decisions (including my own), I consider complaints like yours (still seething over a slap on the wrist two years ago!) to be nothing less than disingenuous. Especially given that you are one of our most irritating serial reporters who reports every post you don't like. So getting a warning two years ago is cause for outrage and lingering resentment, but you want us to warn and/or ban anyone who says anything that chaps your fragile hide?

I'm calling you out here on this where I don't normally make an issue of people who click the report button frivolously because I think the juxtaposition between what you think would be just moderation where you are concerned and what you think would be just moderation where people who are not you are concerned is illustrative.

Especially given that you are one of our most irritating serial reporters who reports every post you don't like

ROFL. I can't remember the last time I reported a comment. You're off your rocker. (EDIT: I don't think you can claim with a straight face that there hasn't been even one comment in say, even the last two weeks, that I "didn't like".)

It's clear from your response that you still can't point to anything specific. You have literally nothing. You just have another vague accusation. Pure deflection to an unrelated issue, too. Which is exactly the pattern described by the comment I responded to. You keep a bullshit secret list that you vaguely refer to, conveniently preventing the target from being able to show that any particular item on that list is bullshit.

I am not "seething"; I'm simply responding with a specific example of a particular pattern that was described. That's better than you can do.

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I've never had a slap from the mods and I think its very easy to say ruthless words with a razor's edge without getting modded.

You could advocate for Aztec child sacrifice here if you crafted your words in the right way. Anyone getting modded has a skill issue.

Yup. I already knew it was going to be Amadan before even clicking the link. Most mod work is trivial janitorial duties and some mods should really be forbidden from doing any other type.

But sometimes it's all worth it.

I believe the straw on the camel's back was when we had a comment removed over someone trying to civilly and factually explain (((parentheses))).

It was just someone using a regular set of [brackets] for a parenthetical statement and the Reddit turbo-jannies jumped on it as a supposedly bannable offense. Which indicated that the jig was probably up and someone higher up on the food chain was hunting for any excuse to start the witch burnings.

@erwgv3g34 @FistfullOfCrows @sarker

Guy A used guillemets. Guy B said Guy A sounded like a Nazi. Guy C said:

Nazis do (((this)))

But « thiis » [sic] is just a different type of quotation mark used in French, German, Russian and so on.

Guy C got whacked; other two did not. Hence, it's SoulFire that was correct to begin with.

Probably a Third World sweatshop worker or bot solely working on "does post contain naughty thing".

I was guy C. But it was just the random last straw, other removals happened and they were already preparing to migrate.

Wasn't it a set of «««guillemets»»»?

Who wants to bet a turbo jannie that had never seen russian quotes just thought it was a fancy new alt-right version of the echo brackets.

It was, iirc, a single «pair».

Technically we didn't, but the feeling was that we were close. Because we were willing to let people freely speak their minds on a number of topics (including transgender stuff), we had posts getting removed by site admins. The belief was that it was only a matter of time until the admins closed the sub for refusing to uphold the site-wide rules about what opinions one is allowed to express. Personally I agree with that belief, but we didn't technically get shut down.

Too many no-no words meant the sub was at risk of deletion, iirc. Much easier to respect the spirit of the community off-site where we could set our own standards for what content needs moderated.

I don't know about "die", but yeah, poor performance is going to be very bad for user activity.

Zorba has been looking into the performance issues.

So because YouTube is an essential subscription on the internet if you want to avoid being bombarded by nonstop ads, I use YouTube Music as my primary streaming app to avoid paying for another service. I’ve been beta testing their YouTube Labs ‘AI Hosts’ feature. I’ve been noticing a distinct lean towards the kinds of things.

It is comfortable summarizing a musician or a song. It will go on about an artist’s queer journey or struggles with mental health or how a song is meant to represent the Iraq War. It will also go into a Latino accent when playing songs or artists whose names sound like they’re from Central America, though the host is a milquetoast man.

I’ve been trying an experiment where I play traditional conservative, usually country, songs to see what it says about them. I’ve been trying old Johnny Cash, that Rich Men North of Richmond song, and old Dixie songs. Haven’t been able to get the host to comment on any of these. I was just thinking about how this should work if released out of beta.

It’s pretty hard to provoke the host to talk about certain songs. Sometimes it will describe the last track or the upcoming track - or the song / artist from either in general. Not easy to predict when it will jump in between songs.

I could be wrong, but it seems odd to let an AI talk about music with left leaning undertones but (possibly..) not do the same for right wing music because it’s not as ‘safe’. But then again, there is some left leaning extremist music à la ‘Punch a Nazi’ - should YouTube not allow their host to talk about real underground punk band origins or Dixie songs?

Seems contentious and risky to let your AI potentially talk about music or musicians with extremist undertones. But what about like Kanye? What should it say about his antisemitism? Should his name just blacklisted from mention by an AI host?

Music is the one place where there is little to no appetite for outright censorship - it is very bad PR to gatekeep music, in most cases. In Kanye’s case, you might get removed from official playlists, but they’re not going to prevent people from listening to your music.

Curious why folks jump through so many hoops to avoid either ads or paying for a subscription.

If the content is so compelling that you’re willing to give it a slice of your finite attention, why would you not want creators to be compensated for it?

I say this somewhat hypocritically as someone who used to sail the high seas. Decades ago that was a matter of funds, then convenience, and now both those are non-issues.

If the content is so compelling that you’re willing to give it a slice of your finite attention, why would you not want creators to be compensated for it?

A) There is effectively infinite content out there. The value of any individual slice of it asymptotically approaches zero. My life would not degrade notably if it were to disappear.

B) Ads are a GENUINE waste of time, 99% of the time I will never click on it, have no interest in the product or service in question, and in fact am driven AWAY from such product if the ad is particularly offputting. Get better at targeting your ads if you want my attention. I will not spend my money, why would I spend my time watching?

C) I'd rather give money to the creator directly, and not to the platform that is honestly a minimal value-add, but leverages its network effects to continue to act as the middleman between creator and viewer whilst pretending to be the reason this connection happened at all.

I want to punish the platform for bad behavior.

I'd rather give money to the creator directly, and not to the platform that is honestly a minimal value-add, but leverages its network effects to continue to act as the middleman between creator and viewer whilst pretending to be the reason this connection happened at all.

But platforms are the reason that creators and viewers can match each other at all. It's not a minimal value-add, it's a necessary (but not sufficient) piece of the entire transaction.

But platforms are the reason that creators and viewers can match each other at all. It's not a minimal value-add, it's a necessary (but not sufficient) piece of the entire transaction.

Which platform?

I find creators and content I like via Twitter, Facebook, Reddit (well, not much anymore), Youtube, Goodreads, Rottentomatoes/Metacritic, Google searches, like six different streaming services, group chats, very rarely via normal broadcast television, and the occasional word of mouth.

TheMotte occasionally, too.

Which of these should I be sending money to to 'thank' for acting as an intermediary for my awareness of some creator and their content?

Like, do I owe a local Movie Theater an ongoing allegiance past my ticket purchase for showing me a movie that I later go on to purchase on a DVD?

The Algorithms are not providing some unique functions that isn't available elsewhere, and the content they're 'curating' is, as stated, nearly infinite.

If these platforms were happy to act as just dumb "show me what I want and help me find other things I want" services, I'd be more tolerant. What they ACT as is "we'll show you what you want, smothered in Ads, then try our damnedest to funnel you to the content we want to show you and keeps your attention as long as possible... while shoving ads into your eyes the whole time."

Its practically hostile design, and I return that hostility with hostility.

The Algorithms are not providing some unique functions that isn't available elsewhere, and the content they're 'curating' is, as stated, nearly infinite.

Sure. Neither is a gas station or a grocery store or any other service. The fact that you can go to Whole Foods doesn't mean Albertson's isn't providing value. And I guess it's hypothetically possible to contract with General Mills to buy your Lucky Charms directly, just about as impractical as viewers and content creators figuring out how to interact directly without TikTok or Instagram.

Which of these should I be sending money to 'thank' for acting as an intermediary for my awareness of some creator and their content?

With the exception of TheMotte, they all already have very solid business plans. And FWIW, I doubt most of them are basing it on curation or discovery as a fundamental source of value. If anything, their only metric when deciding what to show is whatever scores the highest engagement when they A/B test, which I think you already grok.

Its practically hostile design, and I return that hostility with hostility.

You're only burning your own soul, being angry at the world like that. Especially for something that you can very well live without (live everyone pre-2010).

Neither is a gas station or a grocery store or any other service.

The gas station or grocery store sells me the desired product, takes my money, and gives me a receipt.

If a grocery store also attempted to add random items to my grocery cart that I had to physically remove before I hit the checkout line, because "we algorithmically predicted you'd want to buy this one too!" I would probably go to a different grocery store.

Incidentally Aldi is my favorite Grocery Store because it doesn't play games with putting items on 'sale' or do weird pricing practices with coupons. It provides reasonable quality products at what I can generally expect is the lowest price around, and that's it. I appreciate this commitment to simply providing the goods and not trying to futz with the customer to get them to buy more.

That's the sum total of what I want from my media platforms too.

I hope I don't have to explain why grocery stores putting all the products in one physical place is certainly a greater value-add to me (from a pure logistics standpoint) than youtube attempting to shove random videos into my eyes, when I can go to any website I wish with no effort and find the precise content I want with minimal time investment.

Grocery stores have put trashy magazines, Diet Coke and candy bars in the checkout aisle since time immemorial.

Not Aldi. At least, not so aggressively.

And I have dreamed of setting the magazine rack at the Publix checkout on fire for as long as I can remember.

Someone buys those things, I assume. I've literally never seen someone pick one up.

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checkout aisle =/= grocery cart

Most of the people on youtube I watch are already having to supplement their income via ads they willingly insert into their videos. Or setup patreons, or advertise for off-youtube streaming sites(because youtube is a censoring hell that would make Orwell blush), or...

So no, I'm not giving youtube access to my hardware and internet to force their advertising on me. If I want to support the people I watch on youtube, I'll do so directly.

My first reason is the less important of the two and may be futile, but I like to make a best effort at privacy: Watching YouTube logged out without persistent cookies, Google is probably doing a fair amount of tracking. Watching YouTube logged in, Google is definitely doing an awful lot of tracking.

Secondly, and more importantly, I prefer not to give money to de facto monopolies which participate in culture-war censorship. YouTube’s most obvious offenses from my perspective are on COVID, guns, and the alt-right broadly construed. If anyone has a more complete list, I am interested.

In a market with more intermediaries, focusing on niches is fine. If you want to restrict your little video platform to the five Quakers still adhering to the plain speech testimony, using “thee” instead of “you,” knock thyself out. But if YouTube starts banning every video containing the word “you,” that is best interpreted as an attempt at social control by a powerful company, and I don’t want to support it.

I used to give to a few creators through Patreon. But Patreon, then a de facto monopoly in its niche, began dropping right-wing creators and I stopped for the same reason. Now that there are SubscribeStar, Floatplane, etc., as alternatives, I should figure out whom I want to support and for how much and get back to it. And since Patreon is no longer a gatekeeper, I can also be comfortable giving through Patreon again.

I have also switched to buying books through Barnes & Noble rather than Amazon when I can, because Amazon started down the road to censorship. But it looks like maybe it has reversed course, so I should reëvaluate Amazon too.

I wouldn't mind compensating some of my favorite creators. I just don't want Google getting my money.

Curious why folks jump through so many hoops to avoid either ads or paying for a subscription.

Because the hoops are minor (install noscript and ublock origin which you have to do anyway) and the platform has been enshittified to hell even without the ads.

Unless, like me, you like to watch videos on an actual television, and don't want to figure out how to side load apps. That being said, I don't pay for You Tube, just suffer.

How much of the money is going to the creators? I assumed it was an elsevier situation where the creators make it for free and then tje publisher makes all the money.

Curious why folks jump through so many hoops to avoid either ads

Using Brave browser to listen to ad-free music on YT is essentially 0 hoops.

Most content is not so compelling that I am willing to pay for it compared to all the other content that is out there and free.

Beyond that, getting an adblock is not a lot of hoops in my mind. If I cared a lot for my time I would not want to waste any of it on an ad. Or waste any of it by paying for something I don't have to. Given I had to spend time to get money in the first place.

it is very bad PR to gatekeep music, in most cases.

If you're not being deleted from youtube and other normie platforms and thrown in jail you're not musicing hard enough.

So you get Music included when you pay for YouTube?

Is Music a worthy alternative to Spotify? All the same podcasts etc?

Yeah imo it’s great. Recommendations are solid and community playlists are really good. There’s a lot of edits that you can only find on YouTube, which is a nice bonus. Never used it for podcasts but I’m sure you can use it for ones that aren’t platform exclusive (and you can probably find a reup on YouTube anyways)

If there’s anything I potentially would want from YouTube such that I’d consider paying for it is to tell me what the background music is that’s often playing in the background of certain videos that I like. Sometimes the music only gets sampled in part of the video, making it impossible for you to determine what it is or where it’s from. It doesn’t happen often but it’s happened a small handful of times such that an option to extract or point to the other contents involved in the creation of the video may be worthwhile. Content creators often don’t list it in the video description.

If there’s anything I potentially would want from YouTube such that I’d consider paying for it is to tell me what the background music is that’s often playing in the background of certain videos that I like.

It depends on the subject area in question, but a lot of Youtube background music is just taken from the soundtrack to a Japanese Fighting game called Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes].

proxy frontend: inv.nadeko.net - give that guy your money, instead of Google.

Adblock and it's mobile equivalents like AdGuard/NewPipe mean you never need to subscribe to YouTube etc.

NewPipe breaks often. I use it but it's buggy and needs updates often to get past the latest attempt by alphabet to stop it.

Ublock origin and the like don't get past the often pretty long "loading" period when the ad would have been playing.

It's often enough that when it happens, you're not surprised, but not so often that paying for a subscription makes any sort of sense.

And on the off chance it was taking them a while to update the alternative players, I never experienced the issues ublock / Brave's builtin blocker.

I do most of my YTing on my pc though, so a phone app is always of partial use to me.

So do I:

I mostly stick with FreeTube.

One minor issue that you may or may not have any idea about:

I've set the Firefox addon LibRedirect to open youtube links in freetube. When it does so, a new freetube window is not created, it'll 'overwrite' the current first/main window, regardless of any video already playing there. Any way to remedy that?

Sorry, clicking youtube link is such a rare scenario for me that I'm completely satisfied copy-pasting them like a caveman.

FreeTube seems great. Thanks!

This is possibly worth its own top level post at some point but AdGuard is currently fighting what looks like state actor attempts to censor archive.is (it's not clear which state if any is actually responsible, but they at least claim to represent French regulators). AdGuard responded pretty well in this case but the general method of spamming CSAM reports to censorship-friendly regulators scales much better than most private internet infrastructure middlemen can handle.

They’re getting progressively more aggressive on this front, though. It’s a cat and mouse game, so you may be right. Lately it sounds like they’ve been doing backend delays that force the duration of the ad to complete before you can view the video.

For those that just want to use the iOS app or use their TV’s built in app, it’s easier to stomach the $25 dollars a month. But I know a lot of people that won’t out of principle.

uBlock Origin still works for me. I get the delay occasionally but not all the time.

I'm fine wirh backend delays forcing the end of the ad, it's better to stare at a blank screen than have typical advertising slop served to you.

How about just VPN to a country where Google doesn’t serve ads?

If you believe your time is worth money, it might be worth the tradeoff to not have to bother. My main thing is I use iOS where you can’t get vanced YouTube apk or whatever. Until recently, my whole family was under a premium plan until they started gating location of family organizer.

I use YouTube 100x more than HBO Max or anything else. I feel the current price point is worth not hassling with VPNs / ad blockers and knowing I’ll never see an ad on any device.

Edited for correctness, clarity, and tone...

With apologies to the motte for the tardiness on this, I've been recovering from an injury.

A reply to https://www.themotte.org/post/3359/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/381026?context=8#context

Russia.

"We will eat grass rather than become a Russian colony again" — Polish FM Sikorski (and every other sane person in Eastern Europe)

Not to worry, the Russophiles may have a counterproposal, "Your country and women will be raped anyways, wouldn't you rather spend your few remaining years in a nice camp in Siberia rather than the frontlines?" — @No_one, probably

By now, wise people, who read the newspapers (Russian newspapers generally never lie), have noticed that the news out of Russia is bad. After years of relentless and very stupid propaganda, even 'Izvestia' is running articles such as "Nearly 7000 transport companies in Russia on verge of bankruptcy" and "The share of companies with overdue loans reached a record one in four." A bit of lying around the end, "there is no recession, but of course there are negative trends." (https://youtube.com/watch?v=xbTDbAosRVM)

'Nezavisimaya Gazeta' ditto "the total volume of mutual trade [with China] continues to decline. […] imports of Russian oil decreased by 21%." (https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vs2xNro016M)

That means something. Not at all clear what. Obsessive observers of the war believe Russia is likely to hold out until end of '26, early '27. However:

1- There's a financing issue.

Sure, the Chinese may be willing to keep buying Russian crude at obscene discounts of nearly $20 dollars per barrel (https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Sanctions-Widen-Russias-Crude-Discount-to-20-a-Barrel.html) but will that be enough to keep financing the war?

Russia, as everyone knows, is mostly broke, with the exception of oil and gas revenue, which is only because Europe propped them up. Paying through the nose for overpriced recruits like e.g. convicted criminals and 50 year old grandpas (2 million rubles sign-on bonus, 5 million first year salary) which are going to be used as meat assaults for a gain of 2 meters of frontline doesn't seem like a winning strategy, especially when $500 fpv drones being able to destroy them.

Unlike Ukraine, which will be getting direct Russian cash (which will be replaced by zero-coupon AAA bonds for Russia to pay reparations out of after the war lol) https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/eu-finance-ministers-agree-using-frozen-russian-assets-most-effective-way-to-fund-ukraine, Russia will be resorting to raising money from its Chinese handlers (except because of the sanctions, China can't participate) in Yuan-denominated domestic bonds. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/11/12/russia-to-issue-first-yuan-denominated-domestic-bonds-on-december-8/ Russia-Ukraine watchers will be paying close attention to the interest rates on these.

2- Materially, it's bad.

We know the gist of the situation, Russia has too few IFVs, AFVs, tanks. After losing upwards of 60% of their gigantic pre-war stockpile (the remaining ones being rusted out hulls with their insides scrapped or sold by corrupt base managers), Russian forces are resorting to using donkeys and camels to resupply their frontlines. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-depletes-tank-reserves-due-to-wear-and-tear-in-ukraine/ar-AA1JRlKJ https://www.newsweek.com/russia-deploys-donkeys-camels-ukraine-amid-resupply-struggles-2037097

There is a shortage of everything in Russia, petrol (https://youtube.com/watch?v=CSK7hPhwQl0), bread, potatoes, milk, even vodka (https://youtube.com/watch?v=HncXBqcedCg), but also cars too (https://youtube.com/watch?v=xt6_axtjJMs). Why there is a shortage of cars seems… mysterious. China surely should be able to keep Russians knee deep in cheap trucks. What gives?

There is even a shortage of artillery shells, Russia famously resorting to using North Korean bottom shelf products with 50% failure rates. Not to worry, I'm sure their drones will be way better. https://www.newsweek.com/half-russia-north-korea-made-artillery-shells-do-not-work-vadym-skibitsky-1873612 https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/north-korea-runs-out-of-shells-for-putin-1763159907.html

Russia drops bombs using their many planes daily, but Ukrainians sometimes deliver up to 300 drones and ballistic cruise missile strikes a day. Any refinery, power plant, supply dump even far away from the front can be hit. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/11/14/ukraine-war-kyiv-hit-russian-attack/ https://i.redd.it/zxpc8b6p9b1g1.jpeg

3- The front.

In 2025, Russian forces have made significant territorial gains in Ukraine, capturing approximately 165 square miles in the four weeks leading up to November 11, 2025. At these rates, Russia should be able to take all of Ukraine in a few decades. https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-11-2025

Overall, as you probably know, the situation on the front is bad. Russia is trading immense amounts of blood and treasure for small territorial gains, and patting themselves on the back for it.

Going by the aphorism 'If you're reading this, it's for you,' it looks like the Russian press is preparing the public for 2-3 more years of depression (https://youtube.com/watch?v=z3BVZ66KcrE), a closing act of its imperial ambitions that started with the little green men invasion of the Donbas. Russians may or may not be eager for peace, "61%, up from 54% in 2024 believe it is time to start peace negotiations rather than continue military operations in Ukraine," (https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/three-four-russians-expect-military-victory-over-ukraine) but unfortunately they have chosen a strong man as a leader (https://youtube.com/watch?v=rXwuLlZeIN0) that has tied his political fortunes to the result of this war, claiming such things as "Russia's border doesn't end anywhere" (https://youtube.com/watch?v=fWaXH7N__LU).

Someone posted a link to a Substack a rather neat summary of the state of the war last week.

  • Ukraine has practically no capacity left to turn the war around: the most it can do is launch some tactical counteroffensives in Kupyansk and north of Mirnograd
  • Ukrainian deep strikes are now predominantly targeting civilian infrastructure (it's not like camels and donkeys and golf carts and meat waves need fuel, eh, eh?) to get Russia to agree to a ceasefire the sooner, the better
  • at the same time, Russia knows that any promise is not worth the paper it's written on (Lord knows how many of them have been broken by it), so it rejects any peace plan that starts with "you stop shooting now and then we can talk about what you have done"

Ukraine most likely will never gain back any clay lost, that is true. However, what it can do is intensify its economic damage to Russia, in the hopes that it can keep its sovereignty, and make continuing the war unappealing for Russia.

Remember that it was Russia that rejected Trump's peace plan, which included international recognition of Crimea as Russian, no NATO membership for Ukraine, and Russia gets to keep captured territories, including the land bridge.

Piggybacking on this comment, there's an interesting discussion on what will be done with all the veterans of the war. This Russian economics professor believes they will not be allowed to return, but will be given land in conquered Ukraine https://youtube.com/watch?v=GCalxQCXt7A (turn the infernal youtube auto-dub off)

Re: a more credible report on the state of the frontline comes from Michael Kofman https://x.com/KofmanMichael/status/1989384479098679688. TL;DR: bad but not dire for Ukraine, mobilization is an issue, no signs of impending operational breakthroughs or accelerations in Russian gains.

Notably, Russia promised it would have Pokrovsk (and much more) by the end of the summer. They may or may not have it by the end of the year. Kofman believes Ukraine may suffer some setbacks but will stabilize over winter.

Much of the Russian advance has taken place further southwest at the Zap-Dnipro-Donetsk border, and has accelerated in recent weeks. Ukrainian defenses around Huliapole look increasingly incohesive. This area appears to be a lower priority for Russia, and Ukraine. 30/

I think Kofman is wrong. This is a sign of an impending operational breakthrough. It's not going to be a mechanized assault, but advancing the frontline by 1km a day is a cheetah's pace in this war.

Remember that it was Russia that rejected Trump's peace plan, which included international recognition of Crimea as Russian, no NATO membership for Ukraine, and Russia gets to keep captured territories, including the land bridge.

It had to include other conditions as well for them to reject it, provided that this allegation is true in the first place.

Notably, Russia promised it would have Pokrovsk (and much more) by the end of the summer.

What is the source for that promise? I'm seeing this "our top secret leaks from the enemy suggest they aimed to achieve X by time Y, since they didn't that means they are losers" pattern since the start of the war, and it's a bit facile.

Generally, I think there's a strange sort of alignment of interests between the two sides in continuing the current near-static attrition warfare until one of the sides folds. For the Ukrainian side, it's not like anything that's behind the current frontline is more defensible than the commieblock smelter fortress hellscape of the Donbass; and for the Russians, between having to fight a given Ukrainian soldier while pulverising anything he could use for cover in Pokrovsk and having to do the same thing while pulverising cover in Zaporizhia/Kharkiv, the former is preferable, since if they do the former and prevail, they eventually can capture Zaporizhia/Kharkiv (which are actually worth something) intact. Allowing the frontline to move while there is still meat to keep it where it is is more or less strictly negative-sum.

not be allowed to return, but will be given land in conquered Ukraine

I don't think they really have the social machinery, or stomach, to actually implement some sort of way to prevent them from returning - after all, many of the contract soldiers likely signed to get money for their families, which means that they have ties in the old country forcefully cutting which would cause widespread discontent. Just turning them into some modern version of Székely-style marchers by giving them allotments of conquered land, in the hope that the most unhinged elements stay put and perhaps even make the land more defensible should Ukraine go in for a rematch, seems fairly plausible though.

What is the source for that promise?

I can't find a direct source. Still am 90% certain that there were demands/promises high up in the RuAF to take Pokrovsk by the end of the summer offensive. I actually think this was the hope during Trump's 50 day deadline

I think the weakness with this analysis is that it focuses mainly on Russia for the first two points and misses the context for Ukraine. Point number two is even more dire for Ukraine than Russia, especially manpower-wise. There's really no solution for it other than getting Western countries to send troops, and I don't see that happening.

My read is that Ukraine in 2025 is similar to Germany in 1943 -- everyone who knows anything about the war knows that the loss inevitable given the strategic picture. But still, they have to play pretend to keep the public morale high and go through the motions just in case Ukraine rolls a series of nat-20s, or to maximize its negotiating position, or to squirrel away more personal wealth. But just because the war is inevitably lost doesn't mean Russian propagandists are right and Ukraine is just two weeks away from collapse. It can still drag the war out for two more years and inflict hundreds of thousands more Russian casualties.

In 2025, Russian forces have made significant territorial gains in Ukraine, capturing approximately 165 square miles in the four weeks leading up to November 11, 2025. At these rates, Russia should be able to take all of Ukraine in a few decades.

If it worked like this WW1 would have ended in the 1960s or something. Just stop with this, it's stupid and makes me assume I'm reading assbrained worthless propaganda. The only worse thing you could do is start blurfing about the Budapest Memorandum.

Edit: Whoops I meant to reply to @theSinisterMushroom with this.

Budapest Memorandum

Can you give me a brief case against the Budapest Memorandum's relevance to this issue?

So the Budapest Memorandum said, in brief, that Ukraine would give up the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed within its borders, and in return the other signatories would agree not to attack them. Also, they would agree to go before the UN and raise a formal stink on Ukraine's behalf in the event that someone else attacked them. It wasn't an especially great deal, but Ukraine didn't have the ability to launch the weapons so their leverage was not that of a proper nuclear power.

However, Ukraine-aligned propagandists shitting up places like /r/worldnews love to refer to it as a "security guarantee" and behave as if it's outrageous that everyone hasn't declared war on Russia already. That and the aforementioned linear model of war where Ukraine loses its last mile of territory in 2060 are the two big tells that you're looking at pro-Ukraine, well, drivel.

Ukraine didn't have the ability to launch the weapons so their leverage was not that of a proper nuclear power.

Oh, come on. It was Ukrainians soldiers and scientists that maintained these weapons. Yeah, they didn't have the launch codes, but it would have taken them less than a year month to hack a solution to make them operational.

Edit: just to reiterate, since I drastically adjusted my estimate, the Ukrainian nuclear forces had full physical control over the ICBMs, had detailed plans for these weapons, had been maintaining them for years. The only thing they did not have were the launch codes

The only thing they did not have were the launch codes

Not launch codes; PAL codes.

Permissive Action Links (and their Russian equivalents) are designed for paranoia against literally this scenario - someone with physical control of the weapon activating it. The weapon is designed in such a way that it is impossible to remove or bypass the PAL without rendering the weapon useless (basically, other stuff breaks first).

To turn a PAL-protected nuke into a working nuke (without the code), you have to disassemble it and remanufacture the physics package. This is easier than somebody acquiring nukes ex nihilo, because you can at least recover the weapons-grade plutonium* and as such you can skip the actinide acquisition, nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant. But it's not trivial; you still need the actual bomb-manufacturing plant.

*This is somewhat more complicated if the PAL fired one of the lenses, because then the core will have been pulverised by the (conventional) explosion. My limited understanding, though, is that they aren't generally rigged to do that on tamper; it's more a deliberately-triggered self-destruct.

So about eleven months longer than it takes American and Russian forces to meet up and shake hands in the ruins of Kiev after they're branded a rogue state, you mean. Get out of here dude, nobody wanted them to keep those weapons.

Get over yourself dude. Necessity is the mother of invention, and if the Ukrainians had decided to keep them, and the Russians/Americans invaded, they could have had two dozen hacked up nuclear ICBMs launched in days.

Edit: That said, they were never going to keep them, as never in their wildest dreams would the Ukrainians of the 1990s have predicted that Russia would be the one attacking them. And also, if the Russians had attacked, many soldiers would have refused orders to launch. But some still might have. Would you have taken the chance were you Russia?

Get over yourself dude. Necessity is the mother of invention, and if the Ukrainians had decided to keep them, and the Russians/Americans invaded, they could have had two dozen hacked up nuclear ICBMs launched in days.

They get wiped from the face of the planet the moment anyone anywhere believes they're even vaguely contemplating such a thing. Fuck off with this stupid fanfic, dog.

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Yes, no one wanted them to keep those weapons, and yet giving them up seems an obvious mistake in hindsight.

It reminds me of this bit of supposed* German WWII propaganda.

*It’s probably real, but I’ve never bothered to verify.

/images/17633013471257672.webp

I think it is probably from the period, I am much less convinced it is German. For one thing, the text is English. Also, the perspective is more Western Allied. For a German propagandist, the fact that the Allies were able to push back Fascist Italy would not be sufficient reason to suppose that the Allies could also push back the Wehrmacht in its homeland.

It's in English because it's aimed at the Allies. Cornell thinks its genuine.

Thanks for the link. I could only find Reddit links when I briefly searched, but I’m glad to see it on a more reputable site.

Which is, of course, why the Allies did not march all the way to Berlin from Italy; they invaded Normandy.

Point number two is even more dire for Ukraine than Russia, especially manpower-wise. There's really no solution for it other than getting Western countries to send troops, and I don't see that happening.

The solution is actually pretty easy, and Russia is already doing it. Based and trad white Russia is importing thousands of Arabs on the promise that they can settle in Russia if they survive the war. Go to various third world shitholes and promise citizenship for service, an EU visa is vastly more valuable than a Russian one. EU/USA visas would of course have to use oblique language regarding "Ukrainian freedom fighters" in credible fear of "Russian atrocities." But as long as one is as brutal as the Russians have been, you don't end up with many of them leftover anyway.

May I ask why are you talking of 'based and trad white Russia' as if this was some sort of pwnage? I'm sure you're also aware that the very simple reasons why the notion of 'based and trad' Russia even exists is that Russian society a) does not promote or expect white ethnomasochism b) does not normalize feminism and the LGBT+ agenda. That's it; there's nothing else to it. The idea that Russia is a white supremacist or nativist regime which strictly limits immigration is a fantasy alleged by virtually nobody anywhere.

Russia can only do that because they punish deserters and disappearing into the Russian countryside sucks. US made the same deal for local allies in Afghanistan and every ANA proceeded to both defect to the taliban and demand asylum in the USA for the promised riches available to every ubereats rider. The EU making that offer just ends up with a shitload of refugees making demands for asylum from 'forced recruitment'.

If throwing thirdworlders into the war to cripple Russia is the objective, the easier thing to do is pretend to be a Russian recruiter and hire from the opposing tribe. You'll have instant fratricide if you get a Sunni Iraqi in the same recruiting office as a Shia Iranian, and the only way to stop them infighting will be to hire a mutually hated enemy like an Indian to be introduced. For the price of a Novorossiysk embassy officers annual Lada payments and an Air India flight, the west can flood Russia with "volunteers" that will murder each other on sight and leave the corpses for noble muscovy to deal with.

Makes me wonder if Putin is thinking: "And come winter, the Arabs will freeze to death".

It's not like random largely-unabsorbed ethnic groups of Islamic leaning fringes are anything especially new for Russians. If anything their border population is already worse and more warlike.

Whatever Putin is thinking, it's a fair bet that Russian commanders and soldiers on the ground are going to have no problem putting Arab adventurer mercenaries in higher risk roles with worse equipment compared to Russians serving their country.

From what I recall these foreigners were not trusted with guns because they are too incompetent and presumably disloyal. Foreigners were pressganged into mobik support as porters and trenchdiggers. They're basically GLA workers with shoes pre-issued. Russia would have 0 problems sending them all to die, problem is whether they would even do so in the first place. Actual adventurers seeking to kill are rare and usually are ideologically motivated or psychologically damaged or have ulterior motives like the columbian cartel boys racking up xp in Ukraine before going back for the real war. Most pressganged foreigners in Russia end up in low risk (to Russia) roles that still need to be done, which means Russia needs to liquidate these guys by some other means to avoid paying out recruitment bonuses.

It can still drag the war out for two more years and inflict hundreds of thousands more Russian casualties.

This is always the thing though -- does something else happen in those two years that changes the reality.

"Maybe the horse will sing!"

A much more cultured way to make that point :-)

This is mostly misleading, misleadingly framed or outright propaganda. Why, say, should the key takeaway from https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/three-four-russians-expect-military-victory-over-ukraine be that 7% more Russians want peace talks than last year? "As in past surveys, three in four support the continued military action in Ukraine" seems just as relevant?

'Meat assaults' aren't a real thing in this war. It's just a reheated trope from WW2 and was scarcely a thing there (besides banzai charges), it's just a pejorative way of describing a frontal assault. In an era of ubuiquitous ISR and long range strikes, it's very difficult for either side to concentrate a large force for a major offensive so they end up launching various small probing attacks, using infiltration tactics.

All your link says is that the EU has 'agreed' that frozen Russian assets should be sent to Ukraine. But they can't actually figure out a way to do this for fear of legal/reputational risks. Nations will understandably have some difficulty trusting the EU with their money if the EU can just take it and give it away as they please. It's just talk until they do it.

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/eu-finance-ministers-agree-using-frozen-russian-assets-most-effective-way-to-fund-ukraine

Your link saying North Korean shells have a failure rate of 50% comes directly from Ukrainian intelligence.

"But these munitions are from the 70s and 80s. Half of them do not function, and the rest require either restoration or inspection before use," the GUR official said, citing Ukraine's latest assessment.

As does this link: https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/north-korea-runs-out-of-shells-for-putin-1763159907.html

Ukrainian intelligence is not a reliable source on the war.

Russia drops bombs using their many planes daily, but Ukrainians sometimes deliver up to 300 drones and ballistic cruise missile strikes a day. Any refinery, power plant, supply dump even far away from the front can be hit.

There's a huge disparity between these strikes. The Russians have far more missile striking power, much bigger warheads on Iskander or Kinzhals than Ukraine has with their measly drones. That's why electricity and water distribution in Kiev has been heavily degraded whereas there have been no similar blackouts and load-shedding in Moscow, only in border areas like Belgorod that are in range of Ukraine's smaller, shorter-range missile arsenal.

What's actually happening in this war is that the bigger, stronger power is inflicting proportionately more damage on the smaller, weaker power. The side with more bombs, more shells, more guns, more drones, more men and more missiles has the advantage. That's why Russia has the initiative and is attacking, why Ukraine and Ukraine's allies have been shifting from their stance of 'pre-2014 borders' to demanding a 'ceasefire at the frontlines'.

That's why Russia is paying soldiers lavishly, whereas Ukraine is grabbing men off the street and shoving them in vans. This war is fought with vast disparity. Russia loses warships. Ukraine has no warships left to lose. Russia pays for soldiers, Ukraine drafts. Russia produces drones en masse, Ukraine has to ration with 'gamified' currency and score-based requisition for the best units. Russian allies fight on the frontlines, Ukrainian allies provide ambiguous promises and military aid while remilitarizing themselves, fearing some aggression. If Russia is faring so poorly against Ukraine, why is the EU so alarmed?

It's no good to just shine a spotlight on every Russian shortcoming, real or imagined, the situation needs to be considered in aggregate. The story has been the same over the whole war. The bigger, stronger power has more cards, more options, more ability to absorb damage and recover from reverses.

"But these munitions are from the 70s and 80s. Half of them do not function, and the rest require either restoration or inspection before use," the GUR official said, citing Ukraine's latest assessment.

Ignoring Ukrainian propaganda aims for a moment, I'd suspect this statement is basically accurate, except for the 50% figure maybe (it's probably lower). I imagine it's merely a standard procedure at the artillery arm. It makes practical sense that at least the first batches of the shipped North Korean shells are the oldest ones in stock, as these are the ones that need to be used up first when the necessity arises.

All your link says is that the EU has 'agreed' that frozen Russian assets should be sent to Ukraine. But they can't actually figure out a way to do this for fear of legal/reputational risks. Nations will understandably have some difficulty trusting the EU with their money if the EU can just take it and give it away as they please. It's just talk until they do it.

The problem is that appropriating the interests on frozen assets is likely illegal and russians will eventually be able to win that money back in court. Since the EU isn't actually in custody of the frozen assets, its member states are, and mostly Belgium specifically is, what really happened is that the other EU member states effectively voted a "Make Belgium Pay" bill, to which Belgium is currently objecting.

I'm curious how this is going to end, in the EU we've been overdosing on luxury beliefs for a long time, is this the point we come back to reality?

Why, say, should the key takeaway from https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/three-four-russians-expect-military-victory-over-ukraine be that 7% more Russians want peace talks than last year? "As in past surveys, three in four support the continued military action in Ukraine" seems just as relevant?

Because, in Russia, disparaging the SMO is punishable by being sent to the gulag, so every poll/interview is full of equivocations, "we fully 100% support great leader Putin and the SMO, we believe 100% in inevitable total victory over the khokhols, but perhaps the czar should consider thinking about, if it pleases him of course, making steps toward peace."

All your link says is that the EU has 'agreed' that frozen Russian assets should be sent to Ukraine. But they can't actually figure out a way to do this for fear of legal/reputational risks. Nations will understandably have some difficulty trusting the EU with their money if the EU can just take it and give it away as they please. It's just talk until they do it.

I will put down (up to) $5000 that money from frozen Russian assets will be used toward Ukraine by the end of 2026. Will you meet me?

Your link saying North Korean shells have a failure rate of 50% comes directly from Ukrainian intelligence.

There's plenty of Russian army telegram channels complaining about the shells. Is it 30% or 50%? I won't litigate this, so willing to concede this point.

There's a huge disparity between these strikes. The Russians have far more missile striking power, much bigger warheads on Iskander or Kinzhals than Ukraine has with their measly drones.

Yes, there's a huge disparity in the strikes in that Russia has kind of run out of high value targets within easy reach in eastern Ukraine. Unless they're going to strike Ukraine's benefactors in the West, or get their missiles on Ukraine's arms factories in western Ukraine (which they don't seem to be doing much for some reason) then Ukraine's puny and sparse drone and cruise missiles will keep doing outsized damage to Russia.

It's no good to just shine a spotlight on every Russian shortcoming, real or imagined, the situation needs to be considered in aggregate.

I agree, my post was an overreaction to an infuriatingly bad and partisan post not worthy of The Motte. Sadly two wrongs don't make a right, I apologize for taking the bait and not raising the discourse level.

What I hate about this war is that both sides are doing the same, Soviet-style propaganda of shamelessly lying while asserting that they are the clear-sighted purveyors of truth and their enemies are a cesspit of vile and false lies. "Our Great Victory In Novishitburg in Mud Province", "Our Tactical Retreat In Pigachevsky Village", and so on are trumpeted as imminent collapses of the enemy when the relative movement is what, a hundred meters?

The truth - that the line is static and depressingly high casualty - is unsexy and unnewsworthy. That both sides are corrupt shitholes who are willing to grind up their young men into a fine meat paste rather than make a peace. Leave me out of it, or, at the very least, stop telling me about it.

Not sure why Ukraine gets the ‘ both sides … grind their young men … meat paste ‘ when they are doing it so as not to be taken over via war?

What else are they supposed to do ?

By now? Surrender.

They evidently can't win this. There's no hope of a reprieve if they delay either. Hence no glory in a pointless slaughter.

The terms Putin offered to Trump were the best they are ever going to get and it got blocked because neither Euros nor Ukie radicals want any concession.

I love war far more than is generally considered reasonable. But fighting any war that isn't existential to the last man is insane, and the Russians aren't going to exterminate those they are kidnapping as their countrymen. Unless the Ukies have information we don't, like promises of NATO involvement if they collapse, this is madness.

Usually when I see a war being called existential, "your country becomes a political nonentity" is included into the definition. Certainly there have been many times the current war was described as existential for Russia.

It might be madness for citizens to fight on for the sake of the state, but the state is what's making decisions at the moment.

My contention is precisely that a State acting in service of itself rather than the security and welfare of its people is mad.

How so? Would you die to keep your finger safe?

Ukraine is a nation state, not an empire. The welfare of the Ukrainian people is the sole political formula of the Ukrainian state.

To betray it is to succumb to tyranny and become a degenerate organization of pure power that has lost any ability to justify itself. Why should Ukraine even exist if not for Ukrainians?

Such things do not last. Because though I am not made of fingers, States are made of men. And men need to believe in things.

How did the finger get put in a position of danger? It is not so much that governments should sacrifice themselves to keep each individual citizen safe, but that it should at least stop putting them in danger to advance government interests.

Well unfortunately, states are not human and at times their interests are against the collective interests of citizens. That doesn't make states mad, it makes them evil.

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They evidently can't win this.

citation needed

neither Euros nor Ukie radicals want any concession.

oh, I see, the concession required is just a small thing called loss of sovereignty.

"Ukraine loses" is the null hypothesis because if trends continue that will inevitably happen out of simple manpower losses.

If you have an alternate scenario to propose I'm all ears.

And no, concessions are not "small things". Losing wars has consequences.

They should have assassinated Zelensky before the war started. Not being turned into a US puppet. If modern day Russia flipped the leadership of Cuba and Mexico and installed ICBMs there the US would flip its shit and declare a full ground scale invasion.

I can't stand the Main Character Syndrome people have about the USA and its foreign influence. Moldbug wrote the same bullshit near the war's beginning, that the Ukrainian government is a puppet and that poor Russia was forced into a war.

Other countries and their interests actually exist, they're not extras in your show, and every single country in the region did everything they could from the very first day of regaining independence in 1989-1991 to distance and defend itself from Russia, and we can always see what happens when you don't do it: Belarus. They ally with the USA not because of nefarious CIA mind control tentacles, but because it's the way to be shielded from the Russian influence, western Europe led by Germany certainly can't be trusted with it.

No it wouldn't, because this has, uh, happened, and Cuba didn't get invaded.

Because they worked out a solution, the USA was however credibly willing to throw down in a full nuclear war to stop this

They worked out a solution where Cuba got to keep their communist Soviet-aligned regime but didn't get ICBMs? Great, let's do that for Ukraine now.

there is no credible American threat of nuclear war over Ukrainian sovereignty or territory

and there won't be because very few Americans have any interest in risking nuclear war over Ukrainian sovereignty or territory

and so Russia would just call the bluff, like they've already done multiple times with other threats from the US or NATO, and American diplomatic credibility will continue to be dragged through the mud

What else are they supposed to do ?

Cut a deal in 2022 that gives Russia veto over their international military cooperation. The one that according to the rumor mill was offered by Russia, Ukraine was close to accepting, the body count was still low enough for the thing to be swept under the rug and the UK pressured them to refuse.

Where can I read more on this?

Worth asking what the goal of a defensive war is.

One of the common points of contention between Rationalists and Evangelicals back in the LiveJournal and LessWrong days was the claim that an Atheist could not be a moral person. I have found that as I have gotten older I have become more sympathetic towards that argument not in the sense that I think a belief in God makes someone a good person but in the sense that I have come to recognize that being a moral person is incompatible with being a reasonable person. At it it's most basic level what is a moral conviction if not a pre-commitment to be unreasonable.

A large chunk of morals can be rationally justified along the lines of 'Whilst I may make an immediate advantage from doing X, repeated iterations of this same game-state where everybody does X creates a prisoner's dilemma' which doesn't then require an 'irrational' approach to extend towards things like the Golden Rule.

On the other hand, this also means that the post-religious West as-is struggles to deal with people who are just happy to hammer the defect button as there's no real spiritual authority to push along hard consequences and you're relying somewhat on everybody deciding to contribute to the greater project of society.

If you believe in God, then being morally scrupulous is much more reasonable, I think.

At it it's most basic level what is a moral conviction if not a pre-commitment to be unreasonable.

A positive term in your value function. Rationalism is about achieving your terminal goals, not about choosing them. There is nothing "irrational" about acting optimally to, say, purge all idolatry.

Finlandization. It's a dirty word.

But it's the pragmatic equilibrium when you got a large land border with a belligerent neighbor.

Was it humiliating for the Finns to have to give up Karelia and the north? Yes.

But to hold on to those territories would have cost even more.

If the West isn't willing to intervene to return the oblasts and Crimea, then every day spent fighting now is a waste. Russia lacks the ability to threaten the entirety of its sovereignty, but has more than enough to hold on to what it has already gained. It's easy for politicians to spout rhetoric over not surrendering one inch of ground, but young men pay the price for that kind of talk. They're conscripting the 21-year olds now: how much of Ukraine's seed corn will be eaten?

If this war goes on long enough, you might as well start giving conscription papers to the elementary schools and maternity wards. The fighting has gone on for twelve years and there is still no political settlement. The land is important, yes. But the Ukrainian people are even more important. If there is to be a demographic future for the nation (for Russia, too!) peace sooner is better.

Finlandization after 1944 (remember, after 1940 Finland's eventual choice was to refight the Soviets) was possible specifically because the Soviets were willing to sign a separate peace to free up troops for the vastly bigger and more important cause of vanquishing Germany. This time Russians are only fighting Ukraine and have basically no need to accept anything beyond complete submission, for now, unless the costs become too large.

EU policy towards Russia seems to entirely hinge on the assumption though that Russia is planning the invasion of Moldova, the Baltics and Poland. Also, Finland was in the markedly different situation that only one external power was supporting them by 1944 and only in a rather limited sense.

This time Russians are only fighting Ukraine and have basically no need to accept anything beyond complete submission, for now, unless the costs become too large.

It seems to me that the demands made of Finland and the demands made of Ukraine are quite similar, although I suppose it's a bit debatable because Russia's postwar relationship with Finland was hammered out over a period of time.

  • Ceding territory: Ultimately, Moscow got half of Karelia (more than their prewar demands) and other choice parts of Finland, amounting to nearly 12% of their total territory. This is similar to Russian territorial demands of Ukraine (which it looks like amounts to something like 15% - 20%?), although it seems Putin may be climbing down from earlier demands for the totality of four full provinces.

  • "Denazification" - Finland paid war reparations, had to remove German troops from its territory, ban parties that the USSR considered fascist (and legalize the Communist party) and hold war-responsibility trials. The Reuters' story I linked to does not mention any details of "denazification" of Ukraine. It's been a public Russian demand in the past, but perhaps they've backed off of this as well.

  • Neutralization/disarmament: Finland had to accept limitations on its armed forces as per the 1947 Treaty of Paris and neutralization in the Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948. Similarly, Russia is demanding limits on the Ukrainian army and essentially neutralization by forcing Ukraine to give up its NATO aspirations.

Similarly, Russia is demanding limits on the Ukrainian army and essentially neutralization by forcing Ukraine to give up its NATO aspirations

In Finland's case though there was nothing similar to give up because there wasn't even any external power inviting them to join any anti-Soviet alliance.

that was the peace treaty. the follow-up was a president-for-life ruling with support from USSR, and public submission of "the cathedral" (or anyone who aspired joining it) to Soviet interests.

And I'm sure Russia would like to achieve a similar outcome in this case via "denazification" although achieving it might be more difficult.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Energy Minister siphoned off $100,000,000 of aid money and fled the country, always a good sign that the war is going well.

I'm surprised they didn't send a hit squad after him. Stealing $100 million during war time isn't low level treason.

Corvus oculum corvi non eruit. The whole scheme was run by one of Zelensky's old business partners.

Amazing how buried this was. I can't help but wonder if Ukraine would have been able to "succeed" in some way by this point if they weren't so relentlessly corrupt.

On the other hand, I'd wonder if Ukraine's leadership wouldn't have jumped ship and left the country headless by now if they saw that there is no opportunity for profiteering. Kickbacks are the superstar CEO salaries of politics.

Trust me - the amounts stolen in Ukraine since the first year of the war are probably $100,000,000 per day. Just Eastern European things. I think that also the reason so many Russian nouveau riche decided to commit suicide by jumping from tall buildings - Putin was sending a message that right now is not business as usual and the rules about state money have changed for the duration of the war.

The whole operation was just a shot over the bow towards Zelensky from EU.

Trust me - the amounts stolen in Ukraine since the first year of the war are probably $100,000,000 per day.

That would be around a quarter of their pre-war GDP, so it is less implausible than I first thought.

It gets buried under the general mythology, but WWII was full of war profiteering and corruption within the US Armed Forces and on the homefront.

I'm not sure that individual incidents of corruption are all that strong a signal. We'd need to really have a strong idea of what the base rate of corruption is.

Let's just say that if you cremate all of the honest government officials and big company CEOs in eastern Europe, you will be able to cram their remains in a matchbox.

What do you mean, cram? Gently pour.

Hey, if they can steal so much and the front still doesn't collapse, what does that say about the state of the war?

… what does that say about the state of the war?

Well per Sun Tzu or whoever it was, the first casualty of war is always the truth. Anyone who doesn’t keep their ear close to the ground on the propaganda on both sides is at high risk for concealing themselves in their own bubble. My own personal digest every other day or week has been HistoryLegends who’s actually dedicated some videos specifically to debunking the western propaganda narrative, and Defense Politics Asia who looks at things directly from an operational perspective. I know what I’m going to get from the BBC or CNN and I know what I’m going to get from RT, so I seldom bother with those from the get go.

That said, whether you agree with Russia or Ukraine is beside the point. I’d much rather want to be on the Russian side of the front line than the Ukrainian one.

Ukrainians sometimes deliver up to 300 drones and ballistic missile strikes a day.

Nitpick-y point, but I don't think the Ukrainians actually have any ballistic missiles left at this point, or if they do it's just a handful. I think you're thinking of cruise missiles (which is what the headline of the linked article references).

Not to worry, the Russophiles may have a counterproposal, "Your country and women will be raped anyways, wouldn't you rather spend your few remaining years in a nice camp in Siberia rather than the frontlines?" — @No_one, probably

I just don't see how this is helpful or productive.

I'd be much more interested in reading an argument against No_one's past positions - and honestly, although your assessment that the Russian press is prepping the people for hard years ahead is interesting, I'm interested in more from you on what you think this "bad-news-for-Russia" round up amounts to. There's been no shortage of bad news for Russia ever since their initial attempt to blitz Ukraine failed. If you think this collection of bad news will reverse the trajectory of the war, or how you think the war will play out from here, I would be interested in knowing why you personally think this.

To add an actual thesis to Mushroom’s unhinged screed, I would steelman it as:

  1. Ukraine has a decent chance of continuing attritional warfare until Russia gives up.

  2. Even if part or all of Ukraine falls, it performed a valuable service in keeping Russia from advancing further into Eastern Europe.

I don’t think either of those theses are inherently ridiculous (especially not the second one), but they both rely on Russia really being as banged up as Mushroom thinks they are. Which who knows. I know for a fact that previous popular estimates of vast Russian men and vehicle losses were quietly and sheepishly exposed as bullshit by all the actual intelligence agencies that were keeping track (CIA, SIS, Mossad). I am really looking forward to reading some assessments of the war 20 years from now when it’s not a live political issue.

I also suspect that China has a much stronger interest in keeping Russia whole and threatening Eastern Europe than they publicly let on. That threat is what’s keeping a lot of US attention and resources flowing to places other than the countries of the South China Sea.

Its pretty clear from satellite imagery that Russian vehicle parks were drawing down rapidly, but the pace of drawdown slowing is largely to do with tactical evolutions. Russias strategy of infiltrate and airstrike identified strongpoints has no place for armor partially because armor has many more limitations but simply because there isnt anything useful available to call up: vehicle parks are dry, the vehicle operators suck shit, and generals cant coordinate for fuck.

I am curious as to what the CIA Mossad SIS info you cite is, because all evidence shows that Russia has lost the thousands of vehicles cited byOryx and has not meaningfully replenished their TOE, and there is no statement from any of those entities to the contrary. If the claim is that Russia has a strong reserve that it can spring forth when the moment is right, there us no evidence for that still: the 1st Guards Tank Army and 4th Guards Tank Division (fuck Russia for their inconsistent nomenclature) are not on the front and are still functionally degraded, sitting pretty in the LMD for propaganda purposes. Russian C2 is degraded by institutional incapacity and the adhoc nature of any push being scraped from whatever is present. There is no actual reconstituted Russian Bear waiting to roll over once Pokrovsk breaks.

Chinas support of Russia seems the most hilarious part to me. China is buying up Russian oil continually, but it is RMB-effected (nominally presented in USD terms) so the actual levers of international finance to punish either China or Russia are limited. Yet China does not provide explicit military equipment to Russia, instead selling dual use components and forcibly adapted shitty golf carts or ebikes for Russia to get blown up. If China was kinetically supporting Russia like North Korea did, Russia would get its thousand tank fleet immediately: there are about 2000 type 96 idling in mongolia visible from Russia, pristine tanks preserved in sandy but dry terrain, needing less to reup than even tanks atmosphere protected facilities.

Instead Russia gets alibaba Desertcross jeeps and suicide tier dirt bikes. If Russia had better frontline electrification they would get the fields of Light Electric Vehicles with 40 mile range that China produced in the hundreds of thousands back in the 2010s. I don't doubt that China is happy to see western treasure expended on internal conflicts far from its border, but China didn't need to start this fight. Its not like the US seems to care about China given that the US is busy preparing for a Venezuela regime overthrow (Monroe is BACK baby!) while China is gearing up for a new Sino Japan war.

I am curious as to what the CIA Mossad SIS info you cite is

I’m referring to a specific incident about a year into the war, when the Ukrainian MoD claimed that Russia had suffered 140,000 KIA so far, and the White House started trumpeting that figure. The CIA quietly said that they thought the number of Russian KIA was more like 20,000, and you actually had the White House press secretary ridiculing the CIA’s estimate, even though British and Israeli intelligence had similar figures.

From what I remember this was a very common confusion between Ukrainians reporting casualties (still probably overestimated, but not really that egregious) and some newspapers reporting KIAs

Meduza confirmations of Russian KIA based on orbituaries were far more in line with Ukrainian estimates for casualties based on a 4:1 wounded to dead ratio, while Russia was just hilariously reporting "no casualties to glorious Russia, Kiev quakes in fear as we approach". Russia only started reporting casualties when Wagner untouchables were being killed. Ukraine also underreports their own casualties by massive amounts but the zigger smugposting about "well we still have missiles and tanks and people to throw so the west is clearly wrong about how much we are losing" is just neener neener loser shit. If you've got the resources then fucking win you useless shitheads. Either you're facing a tough opponent which explains your abysmal pace of advance or you're gassed out against a weakling. Dean writes that "all we have to do is wait for the enemy to lose the will to fight" is a great example of Bad Theories Of Victory, but "we can win but just choose not to" is a strong contender for the top prize of copesnorting. Its fucking Ukraine, a flat open land that used to be your own fucking territory and with compatible rail gauges. If fucking ziggers can't take on their bumfuck rural cousins then they aren't a great power exercising regional strength they're just the dying office boomer bullying juniors while whining about the good old days.

Dude, stop sanewashing the Russian lost a million. Meduza only got up to what, 130k, which would give 700k total losses.

their bumfuck rural cousins

Yeah, let's just elide the fact the bumfuck 'rural cousins' used to be the most industrialized part of USSR, are getting loads of assistance from Americans, and are, per capita, at least as capable as Russians and likely way more motivated.

or, you're content disarming Ukraine by physically killing its fighting men and destroying its fighting equipment as well emptying the armories of Europe on good terms in optimal situations close to your border and can do it as long as they're willing to fill their fortifications with soldiers and equipment

Russia was reporting casualty figures until fall 2022 when they stopped publicly releasing the figures. The Ukrainian MoD and government has claimed various casualty and KIA figures from laughable to completely ridiculous over the last 3 1/2 years.

If we listened to Western media, you should be scratching your head that despite how close Russia has been to collapse and failure and how many bagillion Russian men are dead in wave attacks, Russia continues to take land and destroy the AFU. Attempting to quote ISW or even Oryx is just unserious; those people are uncredible clowns with a 3 1/2 year record of just being wrong.

Copesnorting Ukrainians and cheerleaders are their own problem, but directionally they were never as bad as "rossiya stronk forever" antiwest ziggers whether DSA communist or antiwoke conservative. That doesn't mean the RUSSIAN theory of its path to victory is any more resilient. Russia force generation is "on pace" with casualties, and they recruit approcimately 20-30k a month. Math it out however you want, the Russian milbloggers are themselves bitching about massive losses for meters of dead dirt. If the AFU recruitment crisis is so abysmal and they're a shattered force with no men left, then why is Russia not just steamrolling back to Kharkiv or Kherson, the prizes won back early on. You have to make an affirmative case for your own theory of victory, and the Russian theory of victory has, ever since its inception, been "we can lose bodies forever". Their only major true victory in any war since founding was annihilating the Reich, and THAT had its own 'the enemy is on its last legs and we totally didn't lose the entire 6th to a useless siege' copesnorting.

Again, its fucking Ukraine. Flat empty land, equivalent rail gauges, fully mapped out, and literally the poorest country in Europe BEFORE the invasion. To fuck this up is fucking pathetic. Without nukes modern Russia would have been curbstomped to the dustbin of history like the failed traitors they were to the Kievan Rus and the Golden Horde. Muscovy delenda est.

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Drones have made armored assaults extremely difficult. It's just too hard to amass a strike force without being spotted, much less crossing the killzone. That's why they switched to light 'vehicles' like golf carts and whatnot - the best survivability is speed and concealment. The idea behind "Line of Drones" was to remove the need for frontline infantry - it hasn't lived up to those goals, but it's the reason they haven't collapsed when they have such a manpower crisis.

I honestly think that excuse from Russians (and Ukrainians) about not massing armor due to drones is just cope. They aren't massing vehicles tread to tread, mobility kills on vehicles are still overwhelmingly mines and artillery is for (great) effect. No, the slavs just suck at coordinating multi prong advances whether it is armored or unarmored, and doing ATV spam is proof of incapability not prudence. Russians certainly effected multi prong armored pushes in Kursk when the ground wasnt mined and torn to shit, and any massing being within artillery range is fucking criminal since you shouldn't be massing within 5km of a first line of contact and if you're rushing to wait under an enemys artillery range then you're fucked whether you're sitting in an ATV or a BMP.

the slavs just suck at coordinating multi prong advances whether it is armored or unarmored

I believe this, but I also believe that drone ISR and resulting drone directed fires (to say nothing of drone strikes themselves) have made armored assaults, and worse breaching a minefield (already one of the hardest ops) an order of magnitude harder.

I am confident that in some sort of US Army vs Russian Army showdown, while the US Army would probably eventually prevail, as they are much better at independence and adaption (and importantly, course use more smoke and EW due to less micro from generals in the back). But they would get fucking SHELLACKED in the process.

Now of course they wouldn't breach the minefield without first airstriking everything remotely enemy shaped within 100km, and then go on to airstrike anything remotely shaped within 1,000km before they even contemplated the breach.

So the real lesson here is that if you don't have air superiority, offense is really really fucking hard. Defense was always powerful in the modern era, but with drones it got even better

I am confident that in some sort of US Army vs Russian Army showdown

Russia lacks the force projection ability to really pose a threat to the US, but I don't think the US would be capable of invading Russia and winning in a conventional military engagement. Their supply chains and logistics would be far too vulnerable in any kind of protracted conflict, and I don't think the US can actually stop the newest hypersonics. That said I think the only thing I can say with real confidence is that no matter what happens the US would have lost a lot more money than Russia did. And of course this assumes that nuclear weapons have been disabled by a kindly wizard too, otherwise the conflict only ever ends in "everybody loses".

Hypersonics dont do shit. SSM intercept rates are low enough to begin with, yet they fail to consistently degrade tactical level CNC nodes meaningfully, let alone operational. The idea that Russian hypersonics will lock down the backline is entirely out of step with platform count and magazine depth. What is a hypersonic supposed to cripple, an airfield? A big tent labelled "HQ"? A carrier battle group? Russia throwing Shahed (I know they have a local name I refuse to use it because these worthless copycats need to be continually reminded that they prostrated before Iran to get ANFO tipped glorified microlights) is proof of total incapability, not genius adaptation.

Wunderwaffen don't matter. If Russia wants to really cripple the USA now, investing in flashy hypersonic shit that pops off a few times and then gasses out isn't worth it. That Poseidon thing sounds much better, since you can annihilate US/Western economic overmatch by choking off Panama, Suez or North Sea, not to mention cutting underwater cables or pipes. Pity that stuff is not sexy enough for the retards staffing the Russian MOD. Shoigu! Gerasimov! Where is my wunderwaffen!

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The Russians have actually tried a bunch of large armored assaults recently and they got shredded by drones and arty directed by drones immediately.

I agree that neither of these are ridiculous.

I actually think it is reasonably clear that some version of #1 has been correct ever since the attempt to seize Kiev failed: it would be extremely hard for Russia to seize all of Ukraine and this has been acknowledged by the Russians in their negotiation proposals (and I don't even think their attempt to seize Kiev was an attempt to do this). Thus, if by "Ukraine continuing attritional warfare until Russia gives up" we mean "until Russia comes to the table and negotiates," that's already happened.

If however we take "Russia gives up" to mean "Ukraine accomplishes their war goals" - yeah I don't think Ukraine is getting Crimea back.

Ukraine isn't achieving any of their headline goals. DPR and LPR are basically North Korea, unreintegrable and a net drain on the patron. Russia also can't achieve its goal (rapid overthrow signalling rebirth of the empire) and is just seeing how long they can keep throwing racial minorities into the meat grinder to get a mission accomplished banner. I maintain that the Wests continued interest in Ukraine is not (just) to continue poking the bear but to ensure the bear doesn't get kidney punched and does a nuclear spergout. Leashing the dog is better than letting it run wild in its dying breath.

Russia also can't achieve its goal (rapid overthrow signalling rebirth of the empire)

I don't see the need to stretch for some 4D chess signalling goal when Russia's actual and obvious goals (ceding territory, neutralization, demilitarization, "denazification") have been stated openly and repeatedly and are borne out by their actions.

I maintain that the Wests continued interest in Ukraine is not (just) to continue poking the bear but to ensure the bear doesn't get kidney punched and does a nuclear spergout. Leashing the dog is better than letting it run wild in its dying breath.

What nobody seems to have contemplated is how Ukraine is going to feel about all of this in the aftermath, although quite possibly they will be so reduced to a nonentity that it will not matter if they grow to hate the West for precisely this attitude.

What nobody seems to have contemplated is how Ukraine is going to feel about all of this in the aftermath, although quite possibly they will be so reduced to a nonentity that it will not matter if they grow to hate the West for precisely this attitude.

There’s certainly been some selective pressure against those with strong feelings in favor Ukrainian of identity.

If the Ukrainians can claim victory, which at this point may be just keeping their identity and an independent state, they could conceivably go through a reconstruction boom (baby and economic). Few things catalyze identity formation like resisting a bully.

I think the second point still is ridiculous, because there is neither the means (unless you really flog your brain into accepting the "the enemy simultaneously weak and strong" pattern that is every propagandist's dream goal) nor really the motive (unless the Baltics really decide to force it by blockading Kaliningrad or the like) for them to take on NATO. Ukraine really was, in many ways, sui generis: at the outset it was almost 50% culturally and politically Russian, it hosted the best European warm-water port Russia had (and if you accept that the Russians did not want to surrender it, that alone almost made the path to the current situation inevitable - the Maidan government wanted to tear up the lease so Crimea had to be taken, and the post-Maidan governments wanted to starve out Crimea so more territory had to be taken), and it's a single-authority transit country linking Russia to the easternmost loyal hydrocarbon customers it has in Europe (Hungary and Slovakia), which the pro-Atlanticist forces in Europe and Ukraine were very keen on using against them through out the 200Xes.

Well I was trying to steelman OP’s thesis so I had to accept at least some of his assertions. I meant it’s not unreasonable to assume that Russian forces have possibly taken enough damage to make it not feasible to mount an invasion of Poland even if they wanted to. I don’t agree but I don’t laugh in his face for making the argument. Personally I think this whole boondoggle has probably increased the capability of the Russian army and made them more likely to go for Poland or the Baltic states, like one of those self-fulfilling prophecies from a Greek tragedy.

Well, we shouldn't forget that Poland, too, has actually greatly increased the size and funding of its army since 2022. Besides, how likely is it really that there would be no NATO response in case of a Russian invasion of the Baltics/Poland? (even if it's not immediate, the rest of the EU certainly would get involved, and if it possibly goes badly for them, I don't see a world in which the US stands by idly)

It seems to me that you just need to believe a lot of fairly peculiar (and likely unacceptable to any in the pro-UA camp apart from people like Julian Roepcke who went off the deep end in contrarianism) things to imagine a Russian invasion of Poland or the Baltics being successful: either you really think that NATO is already lending Ukraine most of its power (and so Russia is really currently barely prevailing in a stalemate against the collective West) and so Poland and friends will be weaker when Russia comes for them because they were already stripped bare, or that NATO is not giving Ukraine that big a fraction of its power and so the current stalemate means that Russia and Ukraine alone are about evenly matched and each stronger than NATO.

(Mind you, technically I think the picture is more complicated than that because the non-entry of the West has currently kept Russia several steps below the top of the escalation ladder, e.g. by leaving NPPs and civilians alone. However, to use this in your argument, you would have to concede that Russia is not currently evilmaxxing, which is also taboo for pro-UA.)

I think it’s plausible for a few reasons:

  1. Since the Maidan revolution, Russia has had every paranoid fear of NATO being out to get them validated by NATO. I think Russia genuinely views it as an existential struggle. Both the leadership and a good chunk of the people.

  2. Poland just isn’t as well suited to turning into a four year grinding trench war. It’s geographically a lot smaller, it’s land army manpower is somewhere between 15 percent and 50 percent the size of the Ukrainian Army. Most of the modernization went into magic beans (F16s, M1 tanks) that are serviceable but apparently not that magical in modern warfare.

  3. God only knows what the hell is going to be going on in Burgerland in six months, much less three years. They may or may not get involved.

  4. Europe is in pretty good shape to drip-feed equipment to Ukraine. But if that turned into “immediately mobilize 115 divisions and rush them into Eastern Europe while hypersonic missiles are crashing into every railway station and airfield Between Paris and Warsaw” they would be up Shit Creek.

  5. If Ukraine really does fall I suspect a lot of countries are going to rapidly revaluate their commitment to the cause.

Most of the modernization went into magic beans (F16s, M1 tanks) that are serviceable but apparently not that magical in modern warfare.

I don't think this is as clear-cut as you want it to be: maybe it is, but we also just saw a brief war between Israel and Iran in which the former was seemingly able to establish air dominance with modern "magic beans" against a country equipped with largely modern Eastern bloc air defense systems. I don't think Iran even claims to have shot down a manned aircraft (compare to this years' India-Pakistan skirmish, which had several).

I don't think it's completely crazy to suggest that a Russia-NATO conflict might look, in the air, like a scaled up version of the Israel-Iran conflict, and I'd expect air dominance to make it pretty one-sided. It's also believable that it'd fall into something looking more like the present Ukraine conflict where manned air assets are of limited utility. But for anyone thinking it's a good idea to start such a conflict, to steal a good movie quote: "You've got to ask yourself one question, 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well do you, punk?"

I don't think it's completely crazy to suggest that a Russia-NATO conflict might look, in the air, like a scaled up version of the Israel-Iran conflict

Israel is a country the size of New Jersey, with one of the strongest air defense networks in the entire world. They burned through their entire interceptor stockpile in about a week. After that, they were looking at having their airfields and critical infrastructure systematically dismantled by Iranian missile strikes. Burgerland had to force Israel into a ceasefire because Burgerland didn’t want to have to spend 1/3 of its entire national stockpile (that took 30 years to build up) refilling Israel’s interceptor batteries for another week. Air Defense is just generally on the back-foot in this century. Now picture Europe, an area about 500 times the size of Israel, with hardly any air defense batteries. They would be getting systematically diced up from day one, including all those airfields and hangers that NATO air units are supposed to be flying missions out of.

Also, this all hinges on the United States actually entering the conflict, which nowadays I would call a pretty big if.

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5: Which ones specifically?

4: Russia hasn't even managed to wipe out Ukraine's aviation or train network yet, and most of Europe would be rather further away.

2: It's about half the size (of presumably full-sized Ukraine), plus Poland and the Baltics have Russia by the balls due to Kaliningrad (whatever happens later on, it probably gets turned into a parking lot or occupied/taken hostage in the opening weeks of a conflict)

1: I mean, if Ukraine falls, what further ways does NATO have to validate Russia's fears? There will be no immediate Russian objectives like controlling Ukraine that NATO can actively prevent, so the ball will be in their court. If they then actually start something (like the aforementioned moves on Kaliningrad), then sure, all bets are off, but so far I thought the lizardmen were trying to be a bit more subtle about the whole "look how dangerous and unhinged they are, if we punch them they punch back" schtick.

Russian victim complex is as bad as SJW. Why is everyone mean to me after I belittled and degraded them at every opportunity. I am such a victim boohoo. Maybe thats why progressives love Russia, they love a victim narrative especially if its against the USA.

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Strange that the nearly word-for-word identical pro-Russia post didn't pass your screed bar.

But yes, I think Ukraine will accelerate its economic damage to Russia in 2026.

Not sure about the deboonkings you're talking about, pretty sure there's an open source database with video or picture proof of the tens of thousands of destroyed Russian hardware.

China would also like to stay on Europe's good side presumably. Still, it's funny that we're back to accepting Russia-Ukraine as a proxy Chinese-European war.

pretty sure there's an open source database with video or picture proof of the tens of thousands of destroyed Russian hardware.

Yes, Oryx, which abruptly shut down in late 2023 when it was about to become obvious how totally full of shit they were.

It took many years of way until Daniel Ellsberg released the true scale of the lying and failure of Vietnam. It took a decade of fiascos in the middle east before Bradley Manning revealed the scale of lies and propaganda in the middle east. Those wars at least had some critical media that put some pressure on participants not to behave as if they were in a banana republic. People are naive if they think this war isn't at least as corrupt and as lied about as any of the previous neo con debacles.

I mean, if your goal was to actually make a mirror image of that post by @No_one, you didn't quite succeed. He didn't resort to putting crass quotes in the mouths of those he argued against implicitly or explicitly, said what he meant rather than engaging in ironic snark, and most importantly the sources he linked to bolster his point were all pro-Ukrainian, while yours were also mostly pro-Ukrainian.

I'm quoting such pro-Ukraine sources as Putin, Izvestia, Moskovsky Komsomolets, and Komsomolskaya Pravda

said what he meant

he concern trolled without abandon, built consensus and had so many air-quotes he may as well have been winking to his pro-Russian fanbase over here.

You're quoting the latter for the economic argument, which is indeed the more solid part of your post (though I think that the "two weeks to flatten the curvecrash the Russian economy" arguments also have a really bad track record). Not sure where you are even getting the P-man himself (I don't particularly count a pro-Ukrainian source cherrypicking his quotes as being him as a source, any more than Russian telegram channels quoting Zelensky become pro-Ukrainian).

It also assumes Ukraine can keep up its share of losses.


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Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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