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Notes -
It has been a while since we have had a Ukraine thread, and I thought this time it might be worth crossing the aisle from what is happening (our typical topic) to what we would prefer to see as an outcome – our oughts.
As Hume argued we can’t get from a stack of “is” statements to an ought, and that often leaves our ought assumptions being left implicit rather than discussed when we focus on what is happening day to day. I think one of the really interesting things about this conflict is that it reveals a lot of different ground level preferences and assumptions, and while the war itself is largely limited to Russia fighting in Europe’s eastern fringes it has serious worldwide geopolitical implications.
Imagine it is mid 2026 and you wake up to a final victory by one side or the other, say in the top 90% percentile plus of favourability, however you wish to define it.
For example, on one hand perhaps something like Russia breaks through the Ukrainian lines, takes all four oblasts that it claims (or even up to Lviv, if that’s your expectation), sanctions are rolled back and Russia has arguably gained from the war. NATO is shown to be divided, America is unwilling or unable to intervene in such conflicts and Russia has a clear sphere of influence where it has veto that is starting to put pressure on eastern members of NATO, if it wishes. Meanwhile for Ukraine, it might be Russia being forced back to prewar borders, maybe even Crimea is on the path to being returned conditional on lifting sanctions, on the road to the EU and with clear NATO security guarantees, whatever you want to add or take out for either as their ideal goals.
How would you feel in each of these scenarios: which one would you prefer and thinks leads to a better world on balance?
I’m certainly not saying either of these extremes are equally likely – or even likely at all. If you feel like I’m being unfair or trying to trap you just talk about one or the other for sure, but I think the exercise might show something interesting.
For me, I personally sympathize with the Ukrainians and think that their quality of life will be better should they win, but that’s only a small part of the picture for why I think the Ukrainian victory scenario is pretty much all upside, and the Russian one a serious blow to global flourishing. I worry about a world where wars of aggression are seen to be net positive, and if small countries look upon this and see that the past promises of allies aren’t worth nearly as much as they were expecting they may well scramble for nuclear weapons or launch arms races. Taiwan, South Korea and even Japan might be in this category, and South East Asia may well follow. Should China wish to act on Taiwan, it might both be emboldened by the US pulling back support/western sanctions being weak + transitory and see its window before nuclear weapons are in the picture closing, leading to further conflicts that could go very wrong.
However, many people outside of Russia hope for a Russian victory, and not only bots for sure. Some may simply be pro Russia in the sense of wanting Russia to do well as a terminal end in itself, but that is far from the central reason: a lot of the MAGA/Vance position seems to be something like hoping to get America out of forever wars by showing countries that they can’t use the US as backstop of treasure to unpin their security. A world where America won’t back them up or push them to do so leads to less money spent and be positive for America, either preserving its power for the key fights or stopping the need for it to get entangled abroad altogether, Russia clearly winning can be positive for those advocating this vision. Meanwhile, those who dislike the west itself or its efforts to project its liberal views worldwide might see NATO/the US being shown as unable to win proxy wars or being weaker/more divided than the alliance hopes is a good in itself. I also know some commenters here think that Ukraine was basically pushed into conflict and then left to die by the US establishment/deep state. Maybe a clear Russian victory would make others in future not fall for this and avoid all the pain of further invasions, those in the sphere of Russia and China will have to accept their sovereignty has more asterisks than others and this is clearly better as an equilibrium.
I’m really interested in what others have to say on this though, have I got the “pro” Russia position roughly right for example? Or have I missed something else fairly fundamental that someone wants to add to the ought framing?
I may be the rare example of a European who wants Russia to win, and even though I can't shake off the suspicion of having motivated thinking due to having Russian roots and family, my motivation is really that I think that this outcome would be better for the modal European, too. (Matter of fact, I have left Russia long ago and do not regret my loss of any ties to it.)
Bluntly speaking, the only way to ever get a ruling class to make concessions to their powerless subjects is for those subjects to be able to credibly threaten betraying the rulers for another. This is how Bismarck was forced to install one of the first systems of social security and workers' rights over his own ideological disgust (lest the workers become communist), the US mellowed out its capitalism and the USSR mellowed out its communism during the cold war (lest the populace sympathise too much with the other), and Europe got flooded with free American money and support (lest it too develop Russian sympathies), not too mention all the free shit China, Russia and the US throw at third world countries routinely to get them to vote in some way in the UN.
The 1990-2008 era was a tragedy for Europe as we got one thing after the other rammed down our throats (DMCA analogues, deregulating trade treaties...), even being forced to go to war for the US and eat the terrorist backlash, because what were we going to do, declare allegiance to the ghost of the Soviets? There's nowhere to defect to anymore!
I don't want this to continue, and for that, Russia and/or China being strong is necessary. (...and the two are unfortunately entangled) When each of them and the US fears nothing more than that we might fully side with the other, they will once again have to buy our loyalty.
(Unless you are a senator or SV millionaire, the same reasoning applies for Americans too. The threat of Soviet subversion is surely nontrivially part of why you were not forced to go die in Vietnam etc.)
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