site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34539 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Dreher apparently wrote an article that too specifically quoted Orbans thoughts. Supposedly it’s a bigger deal in Hungary but I believe there’s a few money quotes to discuss.

On Ukraine:

“To be clear, Viktor Orban doesn’t want the West to be in a war with Russia. But he says that far too many Westerners are deluding themselves about what’s really happening—and what could happen. . . .

Orban said that the West needs to understand that Putin cannot afford to lose, and will not lose, because he’s up for re-election next year, and he cannot run as the president who lost a war. What’s more, he said, Russia cannot allow NATO to establish a presence in Ukraine. The time has long passed when Russia might have been able to conquer Ukraine, or install a friendly regime. Had Russia won a quick victory, that might have been possible, but it’s hopeless now. Therefore, said Orban, Russia’s goal is to make Ukraine an ungovernable wreck, so the West cannot claim it as a prize. At this, they have already succeeded.”

On Ukraine I 100% the west, specifically NATO and the US, is at war with Russia. I often see the criticism from critics of the war that we do not understand this point. We do. It’s just in the modern world country’s don’t officially declare war. Russia did not. Nato did not. Perhaps it gives you cover for peace or something to not say it directly, but for whatever reason war is not called war. I agree Putin probably can’t lose the war or he’s out of office and perhaps a sacrificial lamb for the next dude. Disagree Russia had any strategic fear of NATO. 100% agree a fear of EU in Russia was justified as the western cultural umbrella would spread easier which he didn’t mention but culture war I’ve always believed was far stronger than any military war. Think Putin could have won the war earlier with better planning by crushing the military in the east first. But they had bad intel. Now the west is invested so theirs no way for Putin to win so his only play I guess is to make Ukraine in the east depopulated. Perhaps that’s not losing at a high costs.

On EU:

“Someone asked the prime minister if he wanted Hungary to stay in the EU. “Definitely not!” he said, adding that Hungary has no choice, because 85 percent of its exports are within the EU.”

This is true everywhere. Our wealth is thru trade. The old meme - the right can just invent their own twitter, their own internet, their own payment system…….Everything is interconnected and dependent on others. Centralized services have better economies of scale. Hungary due to geography can only be wealthy by becoming interconnected in the EU. Some businesses more constant costs businesses do not have these factors - farming, light manufacturing, etc (mostly right dominated industries). The lefts conquered all the industries that scale or have strong network effects. And that’s where the culture war fight has come from of trying to not be dominated.

https://www.thebulwark.com/how-rod-dreher-caused-an-international-scandal-in-eastern-europe/

I never get the calls for the west (the USA) to understand this or that about russia. We get it! This whole thing is kinda miraculous in a great power realpolitik way, even as it's a humanitarian disaster.

Russia is Pounding nails through their dick into Ukraine saying "We're crazy! We'll do it again" and uncle sam is just standing there like "Well, if you insist"

Disagree Russia had any strategic fear of NATO.

What is the basis for this belief? Doesn't the current war prove that they would have been right to have a strategic fear of NATO proximity, considering that right now NATO is using its proximity to successfully stop Russia from attaining its interests in a third country?

What is the basis for this belief? Doesn't the current war prove that they would have been right to have a strategic fear of NATO proximity, considering that right now NATO is using its proximity to successfully stop Russia from attaining its interests in a third country?

I've never understood this argument. Switzerland (a non-NATO country) is surrounded by NATO on almost all of its borders and doesn't seem the slightest bit concerned. Is the argument that Russia is different than Switzerland because Russia might do things like invade its neighbors and Switzerland has no such intentions? I don't think Russia can then expect anyone to take seriously the argument that their fear of NATO is morally justified.

The qualifier "morally", which was not in the discussion before, is doing all the work here. You can surely argue that Russia's desire for the ability to invade its neighbours when this inclined is immoral, but that's not an argument that it is irrational as OP seems to have intended to imply - after all, countries do not optimise for your sense of morality but for (depending on what sort of cynic/idealist you are) the welfare of their citizens, ruling class or culture.

If their fear was that NATO would prevent them from invading their neighbors, they were quite right to be afraid. That just means that the fear is more projection than rational opposition.

What are the definitions of "projection" and "rational" you are using here? The former doesn't seem to make sense at all, and the latter seems to directly contradict your first sentence under any meaning of "rational" I'm aware of. (What other examples of beliefs that are "right, but not rational" do you have?)

You may be right that rational is not the right word (I actually kind of hate that word, I just wasn't being precise enough I guess) but projection and the general meaning of the statement as a whole should be pretty obvious--they are projecting their worldview and values onto other countries, that America and co have the same zero sum authoritarian worldview and that will lead them to conflict with russia, when it's obvious by their different actions (How NATO plays out vs historic Russian alliances) that this isn't the case. They then use this claimed worldview to justify things they were going to do anyways (invade a third party). I think it's totally fair to call this irrational, in that it's just not an argument that stands up to any scrutiny, but it is also has a clear purpose and the term rational is too wishy washy relativistic to be meaningful.

The NATO fear is always stated as NATO invading Russia which is irrational. Not to stop Russia from invading a neighbor

I'm not sure it's always stated this way (and even if it is, this may not reflect their real thinking: after all, "we want to be able to invade neighbours" has terrible optics), but either way I think that "NATO invading Russia" is now solidly in that territory that some of our residents like glossing as "it won't happen and when it happens you bigots will have deserved it". Western support for separatist groups and exile opposition has ramped up, Ukraine has actually been making noises about pushing into Belgorod, and the strange meekness of Russia's nuclear posture given the course of the war and Western participation to me suggests that the Western bloc has found some way through the game-theoretical thicket that gives it confidence that Russia can be prevented from effectively using its assured-destruction card.

The NATO fear is always stated as NATO invading Russia

This is both an uncharitable and untrue strawman of the Russian position.

is always stated as

why would you include this?

A year into this war your the first person I’ve come across to say that Russians nato fear was about stopping their ability to invade other countries.

your the first person I’ve come across to say that Russians nato fear was about stopping their ability to invade other countries.

are you confusing me with someone else or are you strawmaning me aswell?

If you would like to hear different analysis after a year of hearing the apparently same, this is a quote from a British political scientist working at the Institute for International Relations Prague.

As one analyst (Galeotti 2016) wrote, “In Russia, NATO is periodically portrayed as a military threat. … Realistically, this is not a military one. … To many in and close to the Kremlin, Russia faces a real threat, not borne by tanks and missiles but cultural influences, economic pressure, and political penetration. This is, in their eyes, a civilizational threat aimed at making Russia a homogenised, neutered, subaltern state.”

As for their fear of NATO in their sphere of influence, and Russian politics, here are some choosen quotes from the same paper. It would be better to read the paper itself

In the context of the conventional insecurity perception, political changes in Georgia and Ukraine were viewed by the Kremlin as a Trojan horse for getting these countries into the Atlantic alliance and push Russia in the direction of regime change.

This securitized perception of political change was at the heart of Russia-Georgia conflict. In addition to grown instability in the region, the colored revolutions added to the perception within the Kremlin that Washington’s chief objective was in fact to change regime in Russia. Although the public support for a revolution was weak, the Kremlin’s political technologists took the threat seriously knowing that influential elites in the United States maintained contacts with some radical organizations in Russia. For instance, in April 2007 the U.S. State Department issued a report highly critical of Russia’s political system pledging various assistance to “democratic organizations” inside the country.

Russia can go all North Korea and close their borders if their fear is cultural hegemony.

Your the one who accused my take of NATO invading Russia as uncharitable. And elsewhere I’ve said cultural conquest is a more legitimate fear. Nato though is explicitly a military alliance so you should have specified their fear was the EU not Nato.

The conflict is great for US interests. Russia is getting wrecked by sanctions, has become internationally isolated, has lost its natural gas exports to Europe, looks like a chump on the international stage, is getting brain drained. US has demonstrated the ability to fight a regional power to a standstill, and probably to an ultimate loss, with nothing but pocket change and outdated equipment -- not a single (official) boot on the ground, no modern armaments, just political will made manifest all the way across the globe with some military surplus and some military consultants. Europe is shivering but this is the price they pay for outsourcing their military might to the US; they are vassal states that must obey their imperial capital and now must pay down their past intransigence with interest. They have no agency here and they know it. So NATO has no reason to back down. I agree that Russia cannot back down; their politics are too invested in their sunk cost. They can threaten nuclear armageddon, but I think NATO does enough to prevent that by trying to avoid empowering Ukraine to directly attack Russian territory. Making further concessions is just capitulating to nuclear blackmail, and there's no limiting factor once that is established as precedent. I'd rather we didn't run that risk, but it was Putin's decision to put us on this path.

The only party that can end the conflict in the short term is Ukraine. But they understandably want to defend their homeland, and while they are losing their infrastructure, they are gaining a strong national identity. And I dunno, I'm not a student of Ukraine politics but I sure don't see any cracks in their resolve from where I'm sitting.

So yeah, it seems like the trajectory is pretty much locked in and we are just going to grind down Russia until they break, no matter the opinions of Orban and his fellow Putin stans. Maybe Russia "can't" back down, but they're going to have to at some point.

nuclear blackmail, and there's no limiting factor once that is established as precedent.

There is. There are other countries with nukes. So any nuclear blackmail has equilibrium.

It's dishonest to say there isn't.

Phrasing this as "consequences of this precedent would be horribly bad and really unwanted" would be a better phrasing.

"there's no limiting factor" is clearly false, for start it hits one of theoretical extreme limits at conquering entire humanity. You cannot extort for example Jupiter or gravity with nukes.

“Someone asked the prime minister if he wanted Hungary to stay in the EU. “Definitely not!” he said, adding that Hungary has no choice, because 85 percent of its exports are within the EU.”

What is that supposed to mean? He doesn't want to be in the EU but he "has no choice" because being in the EU is good for Hungary? He always has the option to pull a UK and tank the country's economy in exchange for "sovereignty" if that's what he wants. It seems that he realizes that leaving the EU would be a monumentally stupid decision, and is just using "the EU" as some kind of vague bogeyman.

I'm just going to be honest and say, I think Dreher got Orban's actual views down, and since he's a commentator, author, and columnist, not a reporter, he wasn't aware that wasn't supposed to be shared outside of that interview room and the "of course we want to be in the EU" is typical political CYA.

It means the Germans and the French successfully incentivized Orban to wreck the EU from the inside rather than leave it in a parting way of vision.

The 'you could always tank your economy and leave the EU if you wanted to' links two competing interests- not-tanking the EU, and leaving the EU. If not-tanking the economy trumps, it doesn't mean you like the EU, it just means you dislike it less than tanking your economy. You can absolutely recognize that you are dependent on something you don't like- it's not some paradox, and is a common point when you can't change circumstances you would have avoided or changed if you could have without

What this means in practical terms, however, is that if you can't leave the current environment you don't like- and the French and Germans made a very deliberate policy choice of making Brexit, and implicitly any other exit, as painful as possible- then you have no reason not to reshape it from the inside. The EU ceased to be credibly based on a common commitment to liberal values after Brexit, when a country significantly more liberal than much of Europe left, and the primary objections to it's departer- and examples made of it- were economic in nature.

the French and Germans made a very deliberate policy choice of making Brexit, and implicitly any other exit, as painful as possible

If Brexit is painful, it is because the British public made the demand that it be so - repeatedly. The EU has done remarkably little to make Brexit 'painful', and any pain the Brits suffer is somewhere between an unforced error and a deliberate choice. The EU very much could have done more to put on the screws, and didn't. The obvious consequences of leaving the EU market are not, in fact, some shadowy Franco-German plot to hurt those who leave.

If Brexit is painful, it is because the British public made the demand that it be so - repeatedly. The EU has done remarkably little to make Brexit 'painful',

Well, besides refusing to consider ultimately-accepted Irish border inspection measures for several years, selective laxening of migrant enforcement across the channel, coordinated media campaigns, grouping in various European projects the British were already paying members of that don't require EU membership to renegotiation as part of the broader trade deal negotiations, immediate objection on safety grounds of standards that were still in alignment at arbitrary cutoff dates, and deliberate demands for politically unviable demands that led to the collapse of the entire pro-EU British establishment when they tried to actually deliver a Brexit-in-name-only but which were dropped afterwards.

As a project to actually keep Britain in the European orbit, as was initially attempted by trying to offer an exceptional number of 'you can change your mind' avenues and the May BINO terms while heightening the prospects of departure with numerous techhniques, the EU position was a bumbling failure of trying to not-lose one of their most significant strategic-relevance contributors, and ended up in the impressive result of starting with a Parliamentary practical-majority of Remainers to negotiate with at the start changing to a hard-Brexit wave. As a secondary effort to try and keep the EU together, it was a decent success, albeit missing the obvious third order effects for how Euroskeptical states would adjust policy on the expectation of staying in the EU.

and any pain the Brits suffer is somewhere between an unforced error and a deliberate choice. The EU very much could have done more to put on the screws, and didn't.

That there were options the EU could have done and didn't does not mean that they weren't also options that the Europeans didn't have to do, but did.

The obvious consequences of leaving the EU market are not, in fact, some shadowy Franco-German plot to hurt those who leave.

Of course not. It was just formal policy by various European leaders to show that exiting the EU would hurt anyone more than staying in, while taking multiple efforts to undermine confidence in the departed member's business environment, maintaining various European Union media campaigns continuing cultivate Brexit messaging themes years after macro-economic trends surpassed it, and post-Brexit attempts by the German and French governments to try to centralize power in European institutions they collectively dominated in the absence of British obstruction.

Things do not need to be shadowy plots to be confluence of interests between parties. 'Soft Brexit' was never going to be an option due to interests, not technical impossiblity.

Well, besides refusing to consider ultimately-accepted Irish border inspection measures for several years, selective laxening of migrant enforcement across the channel, coordinated media campaigns, grouping in various European projects the British were already paying members of that don't require EU membership to renegotiation as part of the broader trade deal negotiations, immediate objection on safety grounds of standards that were still in alignment at arbitrary cutoff dates, and deliberate demands for politically unviable demands that led to the collapse of the entire pro-EU British establishment when they tried to actually deliver a Brexit-in-name-only but which were dropped afterwards.

Yes, the EU could've gone out of its way to offer favorable stuff to a nation leaving the union. For no reason, nor any gain to itself. A painful Brexit could well have gone further than close existing deals and have the EU dip out, which (again!) is precisely what the British public voter repeatedly asked for. I will not blame the EU for giving the Brits what they asked for, nor will I blame them for failing to go out of their way to put on the kid gloves. 'Not maximally lenient' does not painful equate.

As a project to actually keep Britain in the European orbit, as was initially attempted by trying to offer an exceptional number of 'you can change your mind' avenues and the May BINO terms while heightening the prospects of departure with numerous techhniques, the EU position was a bumbling failure of trying to not-lose one of their most significant strategic-relevance contributors, and ended up in the impressive result of starting with a Parliamentary practical-majority of Remainers to negotiate with at the start changing to a hard-Brexit wave. As a secondary effort to try and keep the EU together, it was a decent success, albeit missing the obvious third order effects for how Euroskeptical states would adjust policy on the expectation of staying in the EU.

Yes, the EU did not go out of its way to be maximally lenient. I don't want it to become a second Canada, where the Quebecois can extract cash and prizes by holding the rest of the nation hostage - I would much prefer the Brits don't get theirs either. This doesn't require hurting them, which the EU still didn't do. It just requires you don't let them keep the spoils while shedding the burdens, which still isn't putting on the hurt. Any whinging on the Brits' part they got no special concessions is just that - whinging.

Of course not. It was just formal policy by various European leaders to show that exiting the EU would hurt anyone more than staying in, while taking multiple efforts to undermine confidence in the departed member's business environment, maintaining various European Union media campaigns continuing cultivate Brexit messaging themes years after macro-economic trends surpassed it, and post-Brexit attempts by the German and French governments to try to centralize power in European institutions they collectively dominated in the absence of British obstruction.

This doesn't read as a strong condemnation to me. An organisation... Wants to convince people they're better off with than without? Don't want those inside to leave? Want not to be the single most centralised monstrosity int he world?

If this is the EU working to hurt Britain, it is the most benign institution known to man; the very weakest level of wrath ever conceived of. If this is the EU being evil, eurosceptics are the most ornery of men for finding the absolute horror that is an organisation not caving for defectors intolerable in the face of generations-spanning peace.

Or maybe, this one time, we needn't treat the EU as a big boogeyman. The British asked for something, did it again, had years to figure out themselves, and got what they wanted. Good and hard, as they saying goes. I wish them good luck, I sincerely hope they do well for themselves, but speaking ill of the EU for not giving them more than they got and calling it hardball is silly as silly gets.

This doesn't read as a strong condemnation to me.

That is because it is not a condemnation, and suggests to me that you are mis-interpreting the position.

As @Harlequin5942 stated, I am not condemning. I maintain the EU made Brexit more painful than it had to be. Making things more painful than necessary is only a condemnation if you believe the point of geopolitics and diplomatic negotiations with allies is to minimize harm to all parties involved.

In so much as I condemn the EU's handling of Brexit, it is on grounds of competence in pursuit of what I view was their desired results of the negotiation strategy.

Britain gets hurt leaving the EU simply by trade distance. They really never had a choice about being in the EU. Replacing more trade with America was never possible. The distances are too far. And I don’t mean actual physical trade. Like a merchant banker in the UK would never be financing a factory at the same ability in North Carolina as he would in Southern France.

Geography binds them to Europe. And while certain things on a lot fronts need standardized to reduce all sorts of trade frictions there’s also a desire to not have to take on all European cultural demands.

And part of Brexxit was not just cultural but a realization EU had bad policy. Monetary was far too tight leading to bad growth and then Syria happened because we fucked up Syria and a bunch of poor brown people invaded Europe that no one really wanted.

Britain gets hurt leaving the EU simply by trade distance. They really never had a choice about being in the EU.

Yes, and they did this to themselves. You need no malice, not a shred, to explain this. Merely an absence of saintliness for not extending to the British all the benefits that come with the EU anyway.

Yes, the EU has poor policy along with good policy - so it goes. Not really relevant to the meme of someone shoving a stick up their bicycle's stake and crying why the EU would do this.

You need no malice, not a shred, to explain this. Merely an absence of saintliness for not extending to the British all the benefits that come with the EU anyway.

Who is attributing malice? The initial topic of your debate was whether EU actions had made Brexit more or less painful than it had to be.

Thought that comment was as interesting as the war comments but no one said anything.

I’ve studied trade economics well one course and trade is dominated inversely by distance for obvious reasons. Which means economically they need to be aligned with Europe but they also don’t want to give in to cultural hegemony etc. Which I think plays into a lot of political arrangements. The land in California is very red but dominated by the populace in a few small areas. Same thing with the broader US. They all need to be integrated even blue population need the red land to feed them. So we have this conundrum of necessary political integration with much different cultural values.

Orban said that the West needs to understand that Putin cannot afford to lose, and will not lose, because he’s up for re-election next year, and he cannot run as the president who lost a war.

I'll just note that none of these clauses logically flow from one to the other.

Putin could afford to lose even if he's up for re-election because he controls the election and domestic political apparatus.

Putin can lose the war regardless of his domestic interests, because Putin's domestic political needs aren't what determines military success. No one 'chooses' to win a conflict in order to win election.

Putin being up for re-election next year doesn't mean he has to run as the president who lost a war- Putin can claim he hasn't lost it, that whatever ending is actually a victory for some superficial reason, or even that the real war is ongoing.

At the end of the day, 'Putin can't afford to lose' arguments always ignore that Putin can shoot the protestors in the much the same way that 'Russia is at threat of NATO attack' always ignores nuclear deterrence. Putin isn't in power because he maintains a veneer of democracy; Putin maintains a veneer of democracy because he is in power. The inversion is only useful as a rhetorical technique to try and impose a problem on someone else.

Putin can lose the war regardless of his domestic interests, because Putin's domestic political needs aren't what determines military success. No one 'chooses' to win a conflict in order to win election.

That is unless ones survival is contingent upon winning AND there is no question that you do in actuality have the ability to win the war. What determines the military success is Russia's risk aversion towards escalation, and if put in a situation, where Putin thinks that it is worth it for HIMSELF that Russia should risk escalation by making the choice to win (which they obviously can), the the entire world is at risk.

That is unless ones survival is contingent upon winning AND there is no question that you do in actuality have the ability to win the war.

But there is always question whether you do, in actuality, have the ability to win the war. You may think there is no question, but then you go into the war not choosing to win the war vis-a-vis choosing to fail, but simply believing failure is impossible.

Which is the crux of what it means to choose victory- no one 'chooses' victory, as if it were an alternative to choosing failure, because no one chooses to fail by preference.

What determines the military success is Russia's risk aversion towards escalation, and if put in a situation, where Putin thinks that it is worth it for HIMSELF that Russia should risk escalation by making the choice to win (which they obviously can), the the entire world is at risk.

Not really. If Putin is not risk-adverse, and escalates to the point of NATO intervention (or nuclear retaliation), the military success is lost regardless of what Putin thinks. Likewise, what Putin thinks is irrelevant to what the rest of the critical actors believe must be done regardless of what Putin thinks. Putin can, of course, claim to be a madman who Really Might Do It, but (a) Putin has a long established history that undermines the credibility of this claim, and (b) the nuclear deterrence modeling that Madman theory relies on has a pretty direct answer to this strategy- which is not to concede to the madman.

Madman ploys are based on the assumption that, when faced with a madman, nash equilibrium rewards conceeding to the madman. But if the madman can be appeased by concessions, he's a rational actor, and thus not a madman. Whereas if he's a genuine madman, no concession can be rationally predicted to result in a stable nash equilibrium, because the candidate is, well, a madman. A madman bluff will not actually do a madman-only action even if denied, while a madman might do a madman-only action even if conceeded.

In such a context, game theory shifts from risk avoidance- the conceit of nuclear deterrence- to damage mitigation- which is to minimize the potential harm the madman can do.

Disagree Russia had any strategic fear of NATO.

I find it really curious how it's hard for you to believe this rather than Putin being afraid that his kids will turn gay and do the nae nae on tiktok (aka the culture war).

The Russian ruling class are made of westophiles. All of them own(ed) properties in the West. They send(t) their kids to study at Western institutions. Their wives start(ed) designer brands to try to buy their way into Paris fashion week, and host(ed) museum installations to get clout. They enjoy(ed) traveling to Davos on their private jet every year to mingle with all the western thought leaders.

All the cultural anti-west rhetoric is just for show. The culture was already getting watered down by the western influence to the point where American pop/hip hop future stars would cultivate cult-like fanbases in Russia early on in their careers before getting any recognition on their own turf.

Putin and everyone around him don't give a fuck about the culture war. Putin loved the west. Hell, he even idolized Bush Jr. in 2003.

NT: How is Putin coming in in 2003?

Putin appears to be maneuvering. He is now dependent on his inner circle and does not trust them. Yes, an artist is born. There was also such a factor as the idolizing of U.S. President Bush Jr. One of the elements that swept Putin into the empire was the fact that he found himself in the club of world leaders. And which ones! Chirac, Tony Blair, Schroeder, Bush. That was a stronger team than the ones we have today. Although there was also a downward trend in that level. Source - Gleb Pavlovskiy, advisor to Putin from 1996 to 2011

Putin desperately wanted 'in'. He wanted Russia to be accepted into 'the West' (or I should say NATO). Not as another vassal, but as a peer (Source).

So here's my interpretation of Putin's POV. Institutions that were created solely to contrast USSR militarily don't disappear after USSR's collapse. They don't want to include you as a peer. They also start expanding. Does that justify being fearful about it? You tell me

Putin and everyone around him don't give a fuck about the culture war. Putin loved the west. Hell, he even idolized Bush Jr. in 2003.

The oligarchs have pragmatic reasons to want money in the West just like rich people in China try to get money into open markets where the state can't seize them (though Putin has shown that they themselves aren't safe there). And, certainly, we know of the hypocrisy of the Arab leaders who wish to enjoy "sin" themselves but have no intention of spreading that contagion to the rest of their populace.

Interestingly, your description of Putin being pro-West and then anti-West or a Eurasianist or whatever they're calling it nowadays, it that it sounds exactly like a tale of radicalization: man looks to the West/dominant power, gets rejected or becomes disillusioned and then turns around and starts militating against it.

There're many such cases. IIRC Gandhi's "awakening" was when he was mistreated in South Africa (as he saw it) despite being a British subject.

He wanted Russia to be accepted into 'the West' (or I should say NATO).

Obviously. Given that purpose of NATO was to counter Russia[1] (for very good reason) and Russian aggression, especially in Europe, then getting fox into henhouse and wrecking it would be a great idea. For Putin and Russian imperialism.

Fortunately it has not happened.

[1] At least from perspective of Poland.

but as a peer

Have you read source that you provided? This is untrue claim and contradicted by your own source.

Given that purpose of NATO was to counter Russia

The original purpose of NATO was to counter USSR, not Russia. There was no country called 'Russia' in 1949 when it was created.

Fortunately it has not happened.

Ukraine is going to be an economic and demographic shithole after this is over and the EU is stuck being dependent on US for at least the next half a century. Is that the price worth paying for not accepting Russia into NATO and acknowledging its interests? Why am I even asking, for a pole it for sure is.

Have you read source that you provided? This is untrue claim and contradicted by your own source.

I have. Have you? Here's words directly from horse's mouth.

Putin told Frost he would not rule out joining Nato “if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner”.

There was no country called 'Russia' in 1949 when it was created.

There is no country called America or Britain. Proper names are for tombstones.

The USSR was the successor state of the Russian Empire for a reason, and Russia was the successor state of the USSR for a reason too. These were all Russian-dominated states.

Moreover, from the perspective of people like the Poles, the USSR was the Russian Empire + communism.

Is that the price worth paying for not accepting Russia into NATO and acknowledging its interests? Why am I even asking, for a pole it for sure is.

I will happily admit that yes, whether I or my family or my nation will be oppressed by Russia means to me more than X million dead in second Congo civil war or gas price.

Second, I am fine with "acknowledging its interests" - and then countering where interests diverge from ours.

Third, no idea why you think that accepting Russia into NATO would help. They would still do the same, and would make harder to counter them.

The original purpose of NATO was to counter USSR, not Russia. There was no country called 'Russia' in 1949 when it was created.

As far as geopolitics are concerned there is a clear succession from Grand Duchy of Moscow, Tsardom of Russia, Russian Empire, Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, USSR and Russian Federation.

I use Russia to refer to imperialist, aggressive and problematic country that used to be named USSR and after it got less powerful and lost ability to occupy part of invaded areas rebranded itself to Russian Federation.

I have. Have you? Here's words directly from horse's mouth.

Have you noticed "George Robertson recalls Russian president did not want to wait in line with ‘countries that don’t matter’" line? Exactly the first sentence of the article and clearly presenting that Russia was not ready to get rid of primary problem - its imperialistic ambitions.

And even if we assume that ‘countries that don’t matter’ is misinterpretation and "did not want to wait in line" is understandable... Then "did not want his country to have to go through the usual application process" from the first paragraph below photo is not at all.

Germany managed to give up militaristic imperial ambitions, hopefully Russia will crash and burn during current war enough to do the same and without selling their nukes to Iran or something.

Putin told Frost he would not rule out joining Nato “if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner”.

Russia was not ready to be an equal partner, see above.

Germany managed to give up militaristic imperial ambitions

I think that's a very flattering way to describe what happened which obscures why it won't happen for Russia and China.

Germany and Japan didn't so much give up imperial ambitions as they were ripped from their cold, nearly dead hands and then faced significant occupation and social engineering (especially in Germany)

As a nuclear power, this is impossible for Russia. If it isn't then - as you yourself worry - something has gone horribly wrong and it probably won't be to our benefit.

Ukraine is going to be an economic and demographic shithole after this is over and the EU is stuck being dependent on US for at least the next half a century. Is that the price worth paying for not accepting Russia into NATO and acknowledging its interests?

Which perspective are you taking here, EU or US? Because the arguments are not interchangeable. One can argue that from a US perspective, eastern europe is far away and unimportant and should be granted to russia for cheap. Otoh, for western europe, it's their backyard, their strategic sphere of influence. That euphemism of 'acknowledging russian interests', a russian geopolitical triumph would really mean brutal vassalage for eastern europeans, and partial finlandization for the stronger/further away european states. Avoiding that fate is definitely worth a lot of damage and some dependence on the US for western europeans. As to poles and ukrainians, understandably they are not keen on their countries being handed over because americans think they are too far away.

but as a peer (Source).

From your source:

“Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

Even from the start, Putin expected to be treated as a special snowflake. And coincidentally, being a NATO member in those days would have enabled him to veto its expansion.

Russia is a special snowflake compared to all the countries that joined around that time

Right, so Putin didn't want Russia to join NATO as a peer?

As a peer to US/UK yes, as a peer to the likes of Estonia no

Not the sort of attitude that gets a country into NATO, if its leaders are serious about it. If Putin wanted the benefits of NATO but not the cost of taking small states seriously, then that's no more of a serious interest than a child wanting a chocolate cake but not being willing to pay for it.

I just find it hard to take fear over self preservation seriously when the guy has a fleet of nuclear armed submarines. The fear is not that NATO tanks will roll through Ukraine and try to partition Russia, that would obviously end in global Armageddon and so will never happen. The fear is that Russia will not be able to determine the internal politics of neighbor former SSR's.

This is a predictable fear, states would rather be stronger than weaker, if Russia can boss around their neighbors they would like to continue doing that. NATO is a threat to reduce Russia from regional hegemon to irrelevancy and the EU/NATO bears responsibility in the sense that Russian aggression against it's neighbors was a predictable outcome of offering Ukraine self determination. But Russia bears responsibility in the moral sense because resolving to control your neighbors trade policies when you have less GDP than Brazil or Italy means you're going to have to resort to force or skullduggery because you can't compete economically.

IIRC the stated fear was actually the positioning of nuclear interdiction systems in Poland, which could convince Americans that they'd be able to launch a nuclear first strike without fear of retaliation. Those US leaders would be wrong to think that and wrong to even start going down that road, but they've put out a few white-papers on the subject, and by actually putting those ideas out into the world they have given Putin an iron-clad motivation for the war in Ukraine.

I just find it hard to take fear over self preservation seriously when the guy has a fleet of nuclear armed submarines.

Would the US of A get uneasy if China starts forming military partnerships with Mexico or Canada?

In my personal opinion, I don't think Putin was worried about NATO invasion. But being rejected a seat at the table and not having your concerns heard time and time again would probably induce some paranoia.

But Russia bears responsibility in the moral sense because resolving to control your neighbors trade policies when you have less GDP than Brazil or Italy means you're going to have to resort to force or skullduggery because you can't compete economically.

Don't think morals and world politics fit together. Overall, this is a correct statement. Not applicable to Ukraine though. In 2013, the EU deal Ukraine was offered (and which was rightfully rejected) was downright disrespectful. Russia's terms included trade agreements and cold hard cash amounts Ukraine couldn't even think of getting from EU at the time. So the carrot attempts were attempted before the stick came out. Didn't prevent Maidan from happening though.

From your logic they are already have culturally conquored by the west. So it doesn’t even matter if their militarily conquored. Our military occupation would just be forcing their kids to go to pride events and love black people.

Your logic leads to a conclusion that this war is just about ego. They weren’t happy being a junior partner in western instititions. They wanted the respect of a peer. They weren’t happy with Ukraine becoming a full western member and their ego wanted Ukraine to be their junior partner.

Fearful no. Ego yes.

They wanted the respect of a peer.

Maybe I'm saying the quiet part out loud here, but Russia is not a peer. It's the rump-state left behind by the collapse of the USSR. The countries in Eastern Europe are its peers, not Western Europe or America.

I think that some countries, which have little hope of competing internationally by themselves, willingly subordinate themselves to more powerful coalition leaders like the US, whereas other countries, which have the hope of standing on their own two feet, are reluctant to do this and instead try and act as autonomous agents. Subordinate agents don't hatch geopolitical complots by themselves, they instead go along with whatever the coalition leader organizes, sometimes leveraging their support in order to extract aid or benefits. Autonomous agents do attempt to move and shape things by themselves, generally with a view to maintaining or enhancing their relative power, with this being in view of maximizing their security. This describes how all states operate, including the US, either subordinating themselves or attempting to carve out their own fates.

They weren’t happy with Ukraine becoming a full western member and their ego wanted Ukraine to be their junior partner.

That's true. The fear may not be about NATO attacking Russia's land, but it's about attacking its sphere of influence. Is Russia entitled to the sphere of influence it inherited from USSR? We're finding it out now.

  1. Why be fearful? What exactly is the fear?

  2. If you are fearful, how does invading Ukraine help? It only makes NATO stronger. Is Russia more secure now?

Why be fearful? What exactly is the fear?

A military alliance set up specifically to contrast you comes closer and closer to your borders while taking over your sphere of influence and completely ignoring your voicing of concerns. Would US be ok with Mexico or Canada seeking closer military ties with China? Hell, let's not even go that far. What if China starts forming military partnerships with SK or Japan, how would US react? You know the answer.

If you are fearful, how does invading Ukraine help?

It doesn't. I have multiple theories why that happened, but I'm too lazy to write out a full thesis. In short: It was getting clear Ukraine is not gonna budge on staying neutral (not abiding by Minsk agreements, pro-peace politicians in Ukraine being pressured by pro-war factions to not back down, US getting more involved into Donbas conflict as time went on), so it was a now or never situation for Putin if he wanted to hold any influence over countries around Russia's borders. I doubt the war we have now was planned - analysts, even Western ones, didn't predict Ukraine would hold off that long. Also think Putin didn't expect EU to get as involved as it did. US's involvement was expected, but it wouldn't be able to do much if Germany or France lobbied against involvement within EU.

  1. One of the many justified fears could have been of something like what is happening right now: Russia feels compelled to enforce its interests militarily in a third country, but NATO uses its proximity to prevent it from doing so (by backing said country with equipment and intel, easily conveyed across shared borders and gathered with AWACS with range measured in the hundreds of kilometres).

    If Ukraine had actually joined NATO, this would obviously have been even worse: Russia clearly has interests in Ukraine (ranging from trade access, which was a core contention behind the 2014 revolution, via transit of petroleum products to Western Europe, where Ukraine stealing some portion was an issue decades before that, to the political implications of having a large neighbouring russophone country that might provide a safe harbour to opposition and subversives), which it would then have become impossible to enforce.

  2. They presumably didn't invade expecting to fail this hard. Had they won, at least Western commentators seemed to have been of the opinion that NATO would have been weakened (as its Eastern fringe would be more incentivised to hedge its bets between the US and Russia).

You know, it's funny, while I recognize that I'm being unreasonable and likely biased when I say that this shit pisses me off. It does piss me off. I'm not sure if I would classify it as an "Eastern" or "Marxist" perspective but it does seem to me that both Orban and Dehrer seem to have failed to grasp certain fundamental tenets of western philosophy and thus the stakes being fought over.

Dhrer seems to be complaining about how the Ukrainians and various former SSRs have reacted to Russia's actions as though they were an existentiantial threat, Meanwhile I would suggest that they are quite right to do so. It's not as though Putin and his supporters have been shy about their intentions.

I find it Ironic given Dehrer's professed beliefs. He (if anyone) should appreciate stubborn resistance in the face of overwhelming odds, but he won't because he's more afraid of consequences than he is of evil. I would expect the people who accuse the Ukrainians of "making things worse" by refusing to bend the knee to their rightful Tzar, and who accuse NATO of risking nuclear war by assisting them to take an equally dim view of the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto for defying the will of their rightful Fuher. My reply to whom can be summed up in two words "fuck that".

I was just thinking about how Dreher is here basically taking a "Why can't these other guys just lay down and die kindly, since otherwise there's a (marginal) threat to my life and welfare?" point, since - as far as I remember - he has criticized similar thinking when it comes to Covid response.

Of course, deep down, it's a familiar scenario - a rather naive American journalist encounters an authoritarian power (here mostly the Hungarian government, though Dreher seems to also feel his Orthodoxy should predispose him to at least some Russia sympathies), learns that the narrative is a bit more complicated than how Western media might generally talk about authoritarian governments that it dislikes, and resolves that actually the authoritarian government is a Much Maligned Victim and should be trusted on everything. (Though he has never offered an explanation why he thinks that the American government's Covid response was overbearing but the Hungarian government's considerably tighter Covid measures were nothing to particularly comment on, but then again similar double standards are nothing new here.)

Orban said that the West needs to understand that Putin cannot afford to lose, and will not lose, because he’s up for re-election next year, and he cannot run as the president who lost a war. What’s more, he said, Russia cannot allow NATO to establish a presence in Ukraine. The time has long passed when Russia might have been able to conquer Ukraine, or install a friendly regime. Had Russia won a quick victory, that might have been possible, but it’s hopeless now. Therefore, said Orban, Russia’s goal is to make Ukraine an ungovernable wreck, so the West cannot claim it as a prize. At this, they have already succeeded.”

Interestingly, this was also Mearsheimer's prediction after they took Ukraine and pushed little green men into Eastern Ukraine.

He also thought Russia was too smart to try to annex the whole thing because they'd run into a quagmire. So just wreck it.

Disagree Russia had any strategic fear of NATO.

If they don't have a strategic fear of NATO, they've been remarkably consistent in this lie about this since they've held to it under two administrations starting from the end of the Cold War and the first wave of enlargements.

Also: it would mean that Cold War planners like Kennan were wrong about how aggravating it was to Russia, yet somehow right about the diplomatic consequences that they predicted would follow. My priors are that Kennan had a relatively good grasp of Russia's imperatives here.

Not to be uncharitable but I think the persistent widespread belief that NATO is no threat has multiple roots that I disagree with.

  1. NATO is defensive and has good intentions: states don't take other states at their word and Russians especially don't trust the West. Rightly or wrongly, they perceive NATO expansion as based on a lie ("not one inch") and a conqueror's peace

  2. More like 1b: well, NATO has good intentions and tough. This one is more of a normative argument which I have less to disagree with but isn't really a good look into Russian psychology then.

  3. States with so many nuclear weapons need not worry either way, they have deterrence: states don't like to give inches, cause it leads to miles. During the height of the Cold War both states had vastly more nukes yet cared about conventional armaments and proximity (the US nearly ended the world over missiles in Cuba).

That said, I've been getting more and more convinced by the "land bridge to Crimea" mundane theory as a direct motivator.

If they don't have a strategic fear of NATO, they've been remarkably consistent in this lie about this since they've held to it under two administrations starting from the end of the Cold War and the first wave of enlargements.

"Strategic fear" is ambiguous.

NATO is not a threat to Russia in the sense of that a march to Moscow by NATO is a realistic danger, due to Russia's nuclear deterrent.

NATO is a threat to Russia in the sense that it stops Russia from being able to invade an increasing number of its neighbours, who lack their own nuclear deterrents or sufficient conventional forces to hold Russia off. That's why Eastern European countries have been so enthusiastic about joining NATO - enthusiasm that has not faded now that the tanks are rolling across the Steppes again.

NATO was fading even as late as the Trump years. Thanks to Putin, NATO is revitalised, and this may be one of his main legacies.

Russia has no reasonable fear that NATO would launch some sort of land invasion of their internationally recognized territory because they have nuclear deterrent. America theoretically being able to put nuclear missiles closer to Russia doesn't erase that deterrent. Proximity of missiles mattered way more in 1962 when nuclear armed submarines and ICBMs we're just getting started. Also in the post WWII era there was this thought that winning a nuclear exchange was a thing that mattered, where now I don't think there's any Foreign Policy goal the American public would be willing to tolerate once city getting nuked in order to accomplish, so as long as you can credibly threaten that you're safe.

Russia has a totally reasonable fear that NATO is in the process of turning them from a global super power into an impotent commodities provider. But I also think it's totally unreasonable for Russia to expect to remain a regional hegemon in light of it's economic weakness. If you insist on trying to dominate part of Europe with an economy smaller than Italy's or Brazil's you have to use force or skulduggery because you're not outcompeting the EU on trade deals. If you could frame America & NATO as foreign colonizers to unite against maybe you could do it, but former SSR's are the strongest supporters of Ukraine precisely because they see Russia as a threat to dominate them not as a force to protect them from outside powers.

If Russia is determined to dominate it's neighbors internal politics without the soft power to compete with America or the EU then it is resolving to use force eventually.

Russia has no reasonable fear that NATO would launch some sort of land invasion of their internationally recognized territory because they have nuclear deterrent.

During and after the Cold War both powers had credible deterrent. Yet they maintained large conventional forces. Why, if war was so unthinkable? My take: so they didn't get pushed on the conventional front until they were trapped in a nasty nuclear dilemma.

As I said: nations don't like to take chances or give inches.

Proximity of missiles mattered way more in 1962 when nuclear armed submarines and ICBMs we're just getting started.

The US was ahead in missiles. There was no way the Soviets would "win". The Soviets weren't trying to "win" a nuclear exchange, they were trying to balance against Jupiter missiles in Turkey.

Kennedy knew this: IIRC there's record of him using that exact example to highlight how escalatory Russian behavior was and he was told "um...yeah, we did that". He had to have known why Russia wanted balance (not annihilation)

He...didn't change his mind. No inches.

Russia has a totally reasonable fear that NATO is in the process of turning them from a global super power into an impotent commodities provider

They're not a global superpower, though it flatters them to think they are. But yes, they are afraid of being knocked out of the ranks of the Great Powers.

That is a serious strategic fear. Wars have been fought for less and the US would raise holy hell it got knocked down to a Great Power, let alone out of those ranks altogether. Look at the absolute paranoid and forceful behavior it engaged in when it had marginal losses in the Cold War when some random Third World country flirted with communism (Which often harmed their own people more than anyone else)

Again: states don't like to give inches.

If the US can knock Russia down that far, they can try to knock them even farther down. While I'm sure there's a normative argument to the effect of "you deserve it" or "it wouldn't be necessary if Russia wasn't imperialist", states don't want to be at the mercy of other states if they can help it. Regardless of whether that state thinks it's more benevolent and knowing.

But I also think it's totally unreasonable for Russia to expect to remain a regional hegemon in light of it's economic weakness.

Maybe. As I said: I disagree less with the normative argument. But I don't think it says much about how Russians see this (the denial in the OP was about Russian perceptions of the threat - which is a very common thing, especially now )

Yet they maintained large conventional forces. Why, if war was so unthinkable?

Mainly, to project conventional power elsewhere. The Soviets invaded or threatened to invade their "allies" in every decade of the Cold War. The US army fought overseas in every decade of the Cold War, including the Soviet-style invasion of Grenada (though one followed by a restoration of democracy, not a feature of Soviet invasions...).

Mainly, to project conventional power elsewhere.

They had troops in Europe, where it almost certainly would have gone nuclear.

Depends where. Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, plus a threatened invasion of Poland, did not create a serious nuclear risk. US intervention to e.g. stop a communist revolution in France or Italy would not have caused a serious nuclear risk.

Something relevant is the rumor that Hungary had armed forces standing by when the invasion kicked off, ready to occupy the sub-Carpathian part of Ukraine - the one with a big Hungarian minority, that was annexed by Soviets from Czechoslovakia during WW2.

Something relevant is the rumor

Why is this relevant?

Among other reasons, former Polish government officials alleged as early as 2014 that Russia extended feelers about partitioning Ukraine with Poland as far back as 2008.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-poland-sikorski/polish-ex-minister-quoted-saying-putin-offered-to-divide-ukraine-with-poland-idUSKCN0I92A720141020

There is, was, and remains reason to take that claim with much skepticism, but there were also (generally unsupported / long since lost in the wave of reporting) diplomatic media whispers that Russia tried to do the same in early 2022. If the Hungarian rumor is true, it'd be corroborating of an attempt by Russia to basically split the west by making the partition of Ukraine a regional affair. In practice, this would have gone a long way towards deflecting the international blame by Russia, as by giving up even small parts of Ukraine to other European countries it could easily equivocate the blame with other opportunists, split the west in a way to prevent meaningful sanctions, and underscore Ukraine's status as a fake country composed of other, 'real' nations retaking their rightful people.

Obviously that never played out,but Russia continues to maintain media campaigns alleging that Poland is planning to intervene and annex parts of Ukraine.

A Carnegie article from July of last year summarizes some of the points

https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88585

We don't have any Hungarian members at all ?

This is exactly the kind of thing that would be both completely embarrassing and not at all covered in media, especially English language media.

EfficientSyllabus?

Seems so.

@EfficientSyllabus

However, he (I mean, 95%+ odds) hasn't been around for a couple of months, which is sad.

Hungarian rumor is true

A rumour being interesting if true is not enough to make it relevant.

"Big if true" is exactly the way to take:

Russia continues to maintain media campaigns alleging that Poland is planning to intervene and annex parts of Ukraine

and the like more seriously than they deserve.

A rumour being interesting if true is not enough to make it relevant.

No, but an allegation reported in different contexts over an extended period of time may be indiciative of a trend rather than a solitary reason. The plural of circumstantial evidence is still circumstantial evidence, but more of it is more relevant than less of it.

What Orban says keeps me up at night simply because he’s right. And what’s really scary is that I don’t think either side can back down. We’re giving Ukraine everything, and talking about even fighter jets. If we give Ukraine everything and they lose, that’s a serious blow to the credibility of NATO as a protector of the current international order. I think this is why China is supportive. If we can’t defend Ukraine, why would we be able to protect our Asian Allies in Korea or Japan? If we can’t actually protect Ukraine despite billions in sanctions and giving the most powerful weapons we have, what sane country is going to trust us to be their defense or to protect their trade or solve their disputes? And without that perception, we lose a lot of power. If you’re not looking to NATO as much for defense and trade protection, why do you care what they say?

And given that neither side can afford to lose, I fear an out of control escalation. NATO leaders know that their power will be diminished by a loss, that’s why Ukraine keeps getting more and more weapons, more advanced weapons, etc. they can’t afford to lose, especially after investing heavily in Ukrainian victory. Putin likewise can’t lose (though I think there’s a fig leaf in that if he gets Donbas in a peace deal, it’s more than he had to start with, while for NATO anything short of the 1990s border is a loss). It’s just not a situation that either side can back away from.

Long series of questions are rarely intended to actually be engaged in good faith, but here we go anyway.

If we can’t defend Ukraine, why would we be able to protect our Asian Allies in Korea or Japan?

Why do you think any American ally believes the Americans were trying to 'defend' Ukraine in the way they do treaty-allies?

Ukraine, after all, has and had no treaty with the Americans. It does not host American forces. Despite much diplomatic discussion, the Americans haven't even been the pre-eminent western diplomatic presence in Ukraine for the last decade- that's been mostly the Germans and the French. The US provided many years of low-key and occasionally mid-key diplomatic support, but not heavy weapons and never combat forces, nor the sort of security guarantees it openly states about others.

Why would allies think that America not having a defense alliance with another country means the US won't honor it's defense alliances with them?

...especially when what only a year ago was still being called 'the world's second strongest army' has been driven into a ditch thanks to American support without any sort of treaty-level involvement?

If we can’t actually protect Ukraine despite billions in sanctions and giving the most powerful weapons we have, what sane country is going to trust us to be their defense or to protect their trade or solve their disputes?

Why would any sane country think one has to do with the other?

Just start from what, exactly, 'defend' is supposed to mean in this context. Sanctions were a retaliation, not a shield- what do you think sane people thought they were supposed to do? Similarly, 'most powerful weapons' is, ahem, not what sane people would characterize a military support chain that, just the other week, finally consented to some modern tanks. Sane countries know that when the United States is very publicly saying it is NOT going to send it's most modern air force, ground force, missile force, other other forms of current kit, it's not a shock when it doesn't.

Meanwhile, people expect the US to protect their trade because the US routinely protects trade with counter-piracy patrols and sufficient pressure on states that might otherwise think of 'taxing' international waters that oil still ships through the strait of hormuz even when Iranian proxies attack Saudi oil infrastructure. They don't start forgetting that because the US didn't do something it didn't claim to be doing (ie. solving all their disputes).

And without that perception, we lose a lot of power.

Evidence that you ever had that perception from your allies.

If you’re not looking to NATO as much for defense and trade protection, why do you care what they say?

Probably because the Americans demonstrated that, without even being directly involved in a conflict, they can decisively ruin the day of one of the strongest military powers in the world with a super-power's worth of military surplus... with just a fraction of the American military surplus.

If you're a potential military aggressor, that's a heck of a lot of reason not to be an aggressor against any American client, or even states the Americans might feel sympathetic enough to support. If you're a potential military target, that's an overkill amount of potential support for your defense needs, and well worth trying to solicit sympathy to the American public.

Evidence that you ever had that perception from your allies.

The value of "perception" and "credibility" is precisely in how they're so nebulous that it's too hard to pin down the concrete cost-benefit math.

They may be nebulous, but they are nebulous concepts held by the allies, not the speaker. Which American ally has indicated they hold the view ascribed to them in the hypothetical?

As-is, no indication was given that any sane ally actually held the view, as opposed to a projection that 'sane allies' would agree with the speaker's framing. This is disputed, because the questions evidenced a lack of perspective that allies would consider relevant.

If we give Ukraine everything and they lose, that’s a serious blow to the credibility of NATO as a protector of the current international order.

NATO only needs to deter Great Power competition. Arguably, only Russia really (US has other alliances for China).

And I think it has done a sufficient job bleeding Russia for a country that isn't even in NATO that Putin's gains here will be minimal. Even if he wins, Ukraine dies on the street and Russia will be bleeding fast in the ambulance. Good outcome for the US.

Maybe the American public will freak out over "not winning" (a war that most probably expected Ukraine to lose handily at the outset) but autocrats are going to look at the situation and I doubt it looks appealing.

The supposedly "brain-dead" alliance hasn't agreed on everything, but it has worked surprisingly well for a nation that Obama and co. wrote off in 2014.

I think this is why China is supportive.

Is China supportive? The reporting on this has been mixed at best but I've seen some stuff that essentially boils down to "sure, we're allied against the West. But this is your boondoggle"

If we can’t actually protect Ukraine despite billions in sanctions and giving the most powerful weapons we have, what sane country is going to trust us to be their defense or to protect their trade or solve their disputes?

Ukraine isn't getting the most powerful stuff NATO has. Ukraine got a bunch of old Soviet equipment from the ex-WARPAC NATO members and it's gotten some stuff a generation or two out of date from the US. They're also only getting some of the wider environment of military organization NATO militaries operate with. They don't have the training, the military traditions, the economy...

Ukraine is NATO supporting a country it has no formal commitments to because NATO countries think it's either the right thing to do, a good realist move, or some mixture thereof. If it doesn't work out, that's humiliating, in a way, but not incredibly moreso than the Afghanistan pullout or the mess in Iraq. Countries with whom NATO or the US have actual treaty obligations will know they have nothing to worry about. They saw what happened with the HIMARs. They know how far ahead of everyone else NATO is. If things don't work out for Ukraine on a strategic level, that's ultimately because the West didn't care enough to do more than throw some pocket change and old equipment at them.

Japan and Korea may develop a niggling fear in the back of their mind about just how far the willingness of the US and NATO to commit to a war in their defense may go, but they also know the situation is sufficiently different that they can re-assure themselves and move on with their day.

Ukraine isn't getting the most powerful stuff NATO has.

They're giving UA everything good it can possibly use.

Tanks and planes would just get wasted because Ukraine armed forces aren't really competent. According to some of the people fighting there, they're about as incompetent as Russia, with a few good formations but mostly it's bad.

Link is a talk where some Australian veteran who's fighting over there is almost succeeding in making the podcaster cry. Not sure why - it's mostly a honest look at Wagner (competent, well equipped ruthless bastards, apparently 'near peer' according to the Aus soldier), Ukraine army -apart from certain brigades, almost as bad as Russian but less well equipped, corrupt, prone to wasting lives by the hundred in senseless attacks by green formations, Ukrainian government (almost afghanistan tier corruption), western aid (given without regard to effectiveness).

The artillery given to UA is fairly good, especially HIMARs, which together with the spy satellite data was probably some of the most help Ukraine got.

But too little. It's really notable that America, once the world's most industrialised nation can't even scrape up a thousand good self-propelled howitzers for Ukraine, or enough spotting drones and ammunition.

Tanks and planes would just get wasted because Ukraine armed forces aren't really competent.

Competent relative to what standard is the key question here. Much like the old saw about the two hikers confronted by a bear, you don't need to be "fast" so much as "faster than the other guy".

They're giving UA everything good it can possibly use.

Yeah, and all the really good stuff is dependent on a level of infrastructural support and training the Ukrainians can't replicate. Instead, they get the stuff that can be deployed independently, which is usually old or relatively less effective.

Also, if Wagner were near-peer, they'd be wiping the floor with the Ukrainians.

Also, if Wagner were near-peer, they'd be wiping the floor with the Ukrainians.

Well, the Aussie guy in the video says that they're inflicting massively disproportionate casualties on Ukrainians who don't rotate heavily attrited units and are thus being pushed out of position after position.

Wagner might not be big enough to do that, though.

The US needs to win this war because their credibility re sanctions is in the toilet.

:Presses X to Doubt:

There's no damage to the US or NATO that can be done in Ukraine that wasn't already done in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact there is actually a pretty strong argument to be made (both strategic and economic) that expending munitions that had already been paid for against the Russians is better than expending them in exercises or scrapping them after they've exceeded their shelf-life.

Let us be blunt, every Russian killed in Ukraine, every aircraft shot down, every armored vehicle burned, makes Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Et Al safer. If the neo-bolsheviks decide that they would rather throw nukes than live in a world they can't bully their neighbors that's on them not us.

In fact there is actually a pretty strong argument to be made (both strategic and economic) that expending munitions that had already been paid for against the Russians is better than expending them in exercises or scrapping them after they've exceeded their shelf-life.

You can see this in how much of the donations from Europe have been equipment that's still serviceable but getting near the end of its shelf life. There's little point in hoarding such equipment when you can instead put that equipment to use right now against the opponent you kept it for and while doing so, lower your own future risk of retaliation.

There's no damage to the US or NATO that can be done in Ukraine that wasn't already done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If anything, seeing Russia bungle their lightning invasion/coup makes the maneuver warfare phase of the Iraqi War look even more impressive.

Somehow, the US didn't learn its lesson re: sactions 215 years ago, with the Embargo Act.

Unfortunately, you’re right. If Russia had won a quick victory, then it might be different, but they’re making a convincing show of our sanctions being a paper tiger and so we need to win the war on the ground(without putting boots there, it’s political suicide) to showcase the strength of the US as the leader of the international order.

Convincing who of what?

People who thought that the sanctions were meant to cripple Russia within months weren't paying attention when key parts of the Russian economy- such as energy sales to Europe, non-removal from SWIFT, non-targetting of third-party trade (ie. India and CHina)- were very clearly kept off the table in favor of different sorts of sanctions targeting different things. Similarly, people who thought that Russia would be unable to buy anything from anyone or build anything technological clearly weren't familiar with the practical impossibility. Maybe they believed propaganda hype, but they probably weren't paying attention that much of the hype was coming from the people lobbying for the carve-outs.

What the sanctions have done is considerable, and enough for anyone who dismisses them as being a paper tiger to not really understand what they have been structured to do- which are a number of political objectives targetting international relations of Russia, not a total collapse of the Russian system.

If we can’t defend Ukraine, why would we be able to protect our Asian Allies in Korea or Japan?

From realpolitik perspective the use of war in Ukraine for NATO and USA is not defending Ukraine. It is defending NATO countries and inflicting damage on Russia by helping Ukraine to defend itself.

Also, Japan, really? Attempt to invade Japan would have hilarious effects.

Loss of Taiwan would cut off a lot of important shipping lanes to Japan.

Control of Taiwan is endangering Chinese shipping lanes in a major way.

There's really no winning for Taiwan.

Control of Taiwan is endangering Chinese shipping lanes in a major way.

In which way?

Taiwan has lots of anti-ship missiles.

Furthermore, the island has numerous airfields which can be used to attack China and ships around China. It also has ports and air defenses.

It also has very strong ties with China's chief rival power.

But US has never threatened Chinese shipping lanes. We actually built them

Sailing a carrier group right past the coastline through the country's busiest shipping lanes is not a show of force, and not an unspoken reminder of 'do what we want or else'.

Maybe it looks that way to minds brought up on nothing but Disney cartoons.

We actually built them

You didn't build them. US can claim it built the Panama Canal, not the Malacca strait.

You took them over from the British after you defeated Britain in WW2 and explained to them that yes, they're your bitch after WW2.

If we give Ukraine everything and they lose, that’s a serious blow to the credibility of NATO as a protector of the current international order.

Well, for now we are far far far away from giving Ukraine everything.

What Orban says keeps me up at night simply because he’s right. And what’s really scary is that I don’t think either side can back down.

Sadly, I strongly suspect this will end up as an extremely extended case of sunken cost fallacy. It will drag on and on with both sides refusing to make any concessions towards peace until it's years later, countless lives lost, billions of dollars spent, destruction everywhere. Only then will both sides be so exhausted that they will be forced into negotiating a peace that makes no one happy, when they could have negotiated a similiar diplomatic postion prior to the invasion with far less cost to everyone.

I don’t think the US can be exhausted. We are not a poor nation. Exhaustion perhaps if Ukraine runs out of troops. But then you still have an option of Polish boots on the ground who have no interest in Russia on there border and plenty of past grievances.

Personally I think the west losing would be a huge negative. It puts a lot of national security guarantees under threat. Even our enemies like Iran benefit from international standards. Russia losing isn’t necessarily bad for the average guy but bad for Putin.

I don’t think the US can be exhausted. We are not a poor nation.

Exhaustion as in "according to polls stopping funding Ukraine gives us 2 extra percentage points"

Public opinion has to have a direct effect

on voting to sway politicians. The American public will never vote for one guy over another because he wants to send 1/1000th less of the yearly budget to Ukraine.

I want to stop funding Ukraine. Think it’s absurd when facing these massive deficits we are borrowing about 100b to fund Ukraine. Yes it isn’t causing the deficit but it sure ain’t helping.

What is your source on the US borrowing $100 billion to fund Ukraine? The total aid according to this article is worth only $50 billion, and most of that is in-kind (old weapons stockpiles etc.) and not financial.

Here says 66b was approved by congress prior to the Omni bill at end of 2022 which promised another 48b.

https://www.factcheck.org/2022/12/u-s-aid-to-ukraine-explained/

Granted, maybe some of it is in kind. But still we’ve committed to use over 100b of assets.

But still we’ve committed to use over 100b of assets.

Note that it is much, much different from "we are borrowing about 100b to fund Ukraine". To the point that "we are borrowing about 100b to fund Ukraine" claim is untrue.

More comments

I mean, personally, as a left-winger, I'm glad some of our bloated defense department budget is finally get put to use for a good reason for once. If we have to "spend" (ie. send basically our leftover equipment in the back of the garage to Ukraine) a stupidly small amount of GDP to turn Russia into a wreck, win-win.

More comments

I really doubt it. Maybe if there were Americans dying on the ground for nothing like Iraq.

But Biden's party hates Putin and the MIC is very good at finding enough slack in the democratic process to continue working, except when there really is an overwhelming, bipartisan counter-reaction (like Iraq).

Rest of the time they seem to get away with throwing arms and funding at the conflicts they want.

I don’t think the US can be exhausted.

I would just say Iraq and Afghanistan.

We won Iraq. It’s a Democracy. Afghanistan still 20 years. So possible but long.

So the people of Iraq, that hate America and wish for nothing more than to see it destroyed, can now vote and this is a win for the US because? Not that this is an actual worry since Iraq, by some think tank standards, has not been less democratic since they starting measuring the country in 2006. And is categorized as "authoritarian", ranking 124th out of 167.

I'm reminded of the color revolution in Egypt and the democratic upheaval in the country that resulted in the most backward Islamic rule in recent times to win control over the country because, contrary to the words of liberal-progressive English speaking university students that could give interviews to CNN on the ground, the voting majority was anything but. This then lead to a hastily organized military coup to correct the record of the peoples will. Democracy indeed.

I guess I am asking what on earth 'you' won.

These are always boring semantic debates. If I set out to beat you until you love me, and after an hour of beating I give up because you still hate me, leaving you a bloody unconscious mess on the ground while I’ve scraped my knuckles who has lost? Who won? I failed to achieve my goal, it’s true. But I was hardly scratched while you are near death. Even harder to say I lost and you won. Perhaps my goal and plan to achieve it was foolish and impossible, but at the same time I demonstrated my ability to beat the shit out of you without even breaking a sweat. Win and lose in situations like this are just silly labels like we are keeping score.

But I was hardly scratched while you are near death.

Bar the other person not being near death, and you being hardly scratched.

I mean, if we're taking this example as Russia, then 'you' have a very visibly broken nose, an eye and a half swollen shut, a hand already with mangled fingers, and are still banging 'your' head into the other guy's fist, even as the bystanders pass him another shiv while steadying him on his feet.

No one takes Russian claims about not being affected by the war seriously- Russia is going to be in recovery for over a decade, and it's not exactly standing over someone else kicking down anymore either. The war has destroyed Russia as a strategic competitor, let alone regional hegemon, for a generation, and the question is whether the Western support gets bored and goes away in the next few years.

Considering the Americans have made anaconda strategies something of a strategic art, press X to doubt.*

*Or, mea culpa, I missed the proper target of the metaphor.

More comments

These are always boring semantic debates. If I set out to beat you until you love me, and after an hour of beating I give up because you still hate me, leaving you a bloody unconscious mess on the ground while I’ve scraped my knuckles who has lost?

You have. I'm tempted to say "obviously" but it's clearly not obvious. Chalk it up as another one of those cultural disconnects.

More comments

These are not semantic debates when the people who instigate them insist that the bleeding unconscious mess on the floor loves them.

And that still took 20 years.

Yes, that's what scares me.

when they could have negotiated a similiar diplomatic postion prior to the invasion with far less cost to everyone.

That the war is an idiotic idea was obvious from start. Sadly, not to Putin.

And when one side is ready to wage war of conquest, than the other can choose war or surrender and occupation - but not peace.

I mean, I agree with your point about Putin but I'm not sure why people are insistent or implying that the US has been actively seeking peace in contrast. The foreign policy of the US for the last thirty or so years (at the very least in this region) has be pursing unreleting, antagonistic hegemony.

So sure, maybe the US was not actively seeking war, but at best they weren't really taking efforts to ensure peaceble relations either.

Antagonistic is too strong.

We offered anyone who wanted to join the west the option to join the west. Many chose that because well the west is better.

When an imperial power offers the option of joining its hegemony to a smaller state that directly borders an opposing empire that is egregiously antagonistic. Offering the option to join the American hegemony to anyone who wants to regardless of the effects that will have on the balance of power is obviously antagonistic.

That seems so clearly antagonistic to me that i'm not sure your statement is in good faith. Can you explain how you think that isn't antagonistic?

First Russia is not a great power. Second there is no military threat of an invasion of Russia.

The US hasn’t invaded Venezuela despite their installation of a government that opposes us in the American sphere of influence.

Russia is openly concerned about western hegemony expanding near its borders. Therefore western hegemony threatening to expand near its borders is antagonistic.

Offering entry into its hegemony to anyone who wants it regardless of context is universally antagonistic.

You can argue that it’s morally justified but it’s clearly antagonistic

More comments

We offered anyone who wanted to join the west the option to join the west. Many chose that because well the west is better.

Russia wanted to join NATO, but was rebuffed. So, that's not really true.

According to people into geopolitics, US cannot stand the idea of EU and Russia being on friendly terms, because the combined industrial and resource bases would be a threat to America.

Not sure why they're worrying seeing as there's China, but hey, maybe they live in the past.

Not sure why they're worrying seeing as there's China, but hey, maybe they live in the past.

Bulk of population of Russia is in its west, not east, exports pipelines

Plus, Russians used to dislike Chinese strongly (I saw opinion polls where Chinese were treated only above Chechens and gypsies), this is only changed due to neccessity.

Do you really think if Russia bent the knee especially with bigger Chinese threats we would turn them down? Like Russia is the crown jewel of having China surrounded.

Hardly. Militarily indefensible, economically more interested in entangling than curtailing, and politically more interested in getting the Americans out of Europe than in being on the American side of a US-China fight. Russia would be a bigger France than France in trying to subvert the European pillar of the Atlanticist alliance in the name of 'strategic autonomy' of Europe from the US, except with even less interest in, well, the things the US and France actually agree and care about.

There are bad alliances where the ally costs more than they could possibly offer, there are bad alliances that have toxic internal dynamics, and there are bad alliances where one has nothing to offer the other. A post-Soviet US-Russia alliance would have been all three.

More comments

That's the thing. I can imagine Russia wanting to be part of a defensive alliance against a resurgent China. Except at the time, China wasn't seen as much of a threat.

I can't imagine Russia 'bending the knee' and subordinating itself to US interests. Which is probably why the whole thing was sort of doomed from the start.

Hell, we're even fine w/ Russia not being part of the West. If it wants to be an authoritarian state treating it's people like crap, we honestly don't care that much. Just stop invading other nations, and Putin's kids will have billions to play with in Swiss accounts for generation after he kicks the bucket, but Putin is honestly, too dumb to do that.

More comments

The only true pathway to peace for Ukraine is NATO accession, which requires defeating the Russians.

From this perspective, the US is absolutely seeking peace.

but I'm not sure why people are insistent or implying that the US has been actively seeking peace in contrast.

And my claim is that USA was not antagonistic enough and that Russians for example fooled Obama into Russian reset (or that Americans fooled themselves into it on their own).

So sure, maybe the US was not actively seeking war, but at best they weren't really taking efforts to ensure peaceble relations either.

What they were supposed to do? One option would be helping Russia to keep occupied areas after USSR has fallen but I am not convinced that it would end better in any aspect.

USA can be blamed for many wars, but here Russia jumped into it on their own due to believing own propaganda and trying to rebuild its empire. Russia is not entitled to USSR-sized sphere of influence.

What they were supposed to do? One option would be helping Russia to keep occupied areas after USSR has fallen but I am not convinced that it would end better in any aspect.

Simply not meddle with regions directly bordering other empires.

Ideally try to maintain polite diplomatic relationships and worldwide power balance between the big dogs.

Russia is not an empire with a real strength, should not be an empire and is not entitled to be an empire.

And even that war would result in less misery than Russia managing to recreate its empire and subjugate central and eastern Europe again.

Why is America/the west entitled to be an empire and behave like an empire but Russia is not.

And I don’t want Russia to try to expand its hegemony either, but America attempting to expand its hegemony near Russia is antagonistic.

Even if you are arguing that Russia is bad and the west is good, therefore an expansion of western hegemony is not immoral - that’s irrelevant to the argument.

I didn’t say is was immoral for the west to expand its hegemony into Ukraine - all I said was that it is antagonistic. Something can be both morally justified, or even morally obligated, but still antagonistic.

Russia is not entitled to USSR-sized sphere of influence.

It's doubtful that's what they were going for. Eastern Ukraine? Probably. Getting to USSR levels?

This "as Ukraine goes, so does Europe" is a talking point by hawks to try to leverage the domino theory instincts from the Cold War* so Americans can pay the price (at least in ammo, not blood this time) for a nation that most of them previously couldn't find on the map.

* In this case justified by the psychologization of the Russian imperatives as a product of Putin's particular feeling of humiliation at the end of the USSR rather than justified via the evangelical nature of communism.

It's doubtful that's what they were going for. Eastern Ukraine? Probably.

Their initial move was to try to take ALL of Ukraine in a coup de main. Their second strategy after that failed was still to try to take all of Ukraine. This certainly points to them going for more than Eastern Ukraine. USSR levels? Maybe not today, but I see no reason they would stop before that (or at that) if they didn't have to.

Take,yes. Annex...I don't know. Holding the entire country would be very difficult. Trying to force a puppet leader to allow the annexation of the East and creating a land bridge to Crimea? More viable.

This is in line with what Naryshkin let slip too early in that amazingly cinematic National Security meeting: they were definitely going to annex Donetsk and Luhansk. He didn't say they would take the whole thing.

More comments

What they were supposed to do?

Not fuck up Russia in the first place with the Clinton administration's disasterious attempt to 'reform' a post-Soviet Russia and seek partnership instead of hegemony? Agree to a healthy buffer zone in Eastern Europe? Not create and amplify the various revolutions in Eastern Europe, including the various 'Color Revolutions', and more recently and relevantly the heavy American involvement in Euromaidan and Ukrainian politics generally? Not deliberately antagonize Russia by constantly demanding Ukraine and Georgia should be admitted into NATO (despite their questionable strategic value) the same way the US would never tolerate a country in their immediate sphere (Monroe Doctrine) to ally with a hostile power (e.g. China or Russia) let alone one on their border?

Agree to a healthy buffer zone in Eastern Europe?

Nope. If you let Russia reconquer this area again then it may be many things but it will not be healthy.

Not fuck up Russia in the first place with the Clinton administration's disasterious attempt to 'reform' a post-Soviet Russia

Neoliberal policies and selloffs of Soviet industry were an absolute disaster and this should have been predictable but we have to recall that this wasn't a Japan situation where MacArthur and America could totally get their way (though I wonder if they'd have followed the same policies if occupation had happened in the 90s...)

Even at its weakest Russia was never occupied and was a nuclear-armed state. A lot more of their destiny was in their hands.

Yeltsin and co. could have had a less corrupt process for privatizing resources but their country has no long history of democracy and transparency so it isn't surprising it went the way it did. But that's still a failure of Russians and Russian institutions.

This line on Russia also seems a bit paradoxical: the demand seems to be that the US treat Russia as an equal (it wasn't; they lost) but also that the US is responsible for Russia's economic and political malaise , as if it was a vassal or occupied state like Japan or South Korea (which, btw, didn't just uncritically bow to neoliberal policy- if a small Asian country could forge a smarter path...)

This line on Russia also seems a bit paradoxical: the demand seems to be that the US treat Russia as an equal (it wasn't; they lost) but also that the US is responsible for Russia's economic and political malaise , as if it was a vassal or occupied state like Japan or South Korea (which, btw, didn't just uncritically bow to neoliberal policy- if a small Asian country could forge a smarter path...)

It's not paradoxical because I never used the word equal. As with all the other times, I commented on this issue on the Motte, I will say that Russia is and can only ever be a regional power in its current state. I used the word 'partnership' which does not require equal status. This is contrast to 'hegemony' which this absolutely the approach the US has taken in this region and many others. As to the issue of America's responsibility to the current political and economic status of Russia, I strongly recommend reading "Russia's Road to Corruption" a US Congressional report on the issue from the year 2000. At best, you can say this was the result of gross incompetence by the Clinton administration and their economic advisors. At worst, it wouldn't be remiss to believe that that Clinton administration's policies were actively malicious. At some level, it's hard to distinguish between the two.

More comments

The US allows Cuba and Venezuela to maintain alliances with hostile foreign powers. It is actually backing the pro-Russian and Chinese faction in Brazilian politics.

seek partnership instead of hegemony

The US tried that in the 1990s, when they gave billions in aid to a country that had recently been an enemy, even as Yeltsin was shelling his parliament, supporting Serbia against NATO (as best Russia could at that point), and using the Russian army to occupy parts of sovereign countries next to Russia.

How much more should the West have given Russia in aid? And what fewer conditions should they have given on internal reform?

Agree to a healthy buffer zone in Eastern Europe

This might have been an option in 1945. By the 1990s, it was too late for Russia to say "We'll be good, honest."

supporting Serbia against NATO (as best Russia could at that point)

If the U.S. was not acting as a hegemon against Russia, NATO would not have been helping Albania annex part of Serbia in the first place. (Ironically, in pretty much the same way Russia is now trying to annex parts of Ukraine but with less historical justification.)

More comments

There is no evidence of heavy American involvement in Euromaiden. The evidence shown is Americans discussing what is going on which is quite normal.

In retrospect America should have looked for hegemony in Russia after the USSR failed and written big checks like a Marshall Plan. As things have played out that was a better game.

It would have looked pretty silly if the US aided Russia just as anti-US generals took over in a coup, as nearly happened in August 1991. Or Yeltsin created a dictatorship, which looked quite plausible given what was happening in 1993.

There was never a golden dawn of democracy and pro-Western elite sentiment in Russia.

I think the US could afford for Ukraine to lose because so few Americans care about Ukraine. Even if Russia gains territory, the US will be able to rightfully claim that Russia is weaker because of the invasion because of the economic, military, and diplomatic costs it has suffered.

Disagree. We have security guarantees across the world. Most of the world system depends on these things.

The US never had a security guarantee with Ukraine, so this doesn't particularly impact the validity of formal security guarantees with NATO or countries like South Korea or Japan.

But we do have informal security guarantees. And weakness in an informal guarantee would still threaten formal guarantees. At this point in the war everyone knows the west has aligned with Ukraine. And we have a side. And we’ve invested now a lot in that side. If we back away now it would make even formal guarantees as something we might walk away from if the price got too high.

On Ukraine I 100% the west, specifically NATO and the US, is at war with Russia. I often see the criticism from critics of the war that we do not understand this point. We do. It’s just in the modern world country’s don’t officially declare war. Russia did not. Nato did not.

It's an interesting question of how one defines war. Nazi Germany was not at war with Republican Spain, yet they had troops fighting alongside Franco unofficially as volunteers. The Soviets similarly sent air volunteers to China and fought some fairly large battles in Manchuria

You can have gradations of war below declared war. For instance, the US in Korea was doing a 'police action' as opposed to a declared war yet I think we all agree that the US was at war.

The British admitted to sending special forces to Ukraine (supposedly just for training or recon/ISR purposes), I have no doubt that the US has troops there as well. The assistance of Western intelligence and communications to Ukrainian forces is considerable, they're using US satellites down to a tactical level of firing at coordinates that are given to them.

But is this an actual war? I lean against it, on the basis that US and Russian brigades aren't actually fighting eachother. Even then it might still fall below the level of war, by some miracle, if the fighting starts and stops without officially being recognized. PRC and the USSR weren't at war, they just had some border skirmishes back in the day.

Didn't Zelensky make a joke like:

Russian 1: We're at war with NATO!

Russian 2: A war? How many troops have we lost?

Russian 1: 100,00 men, 100s of tanks and a battleship

Russian 2: That's a lot, how many casualties has NATO taken?

Russian 1: None.

It does seem a little absurd to say NATO is at war when the Russians aren't shooting at any NATO member states or their armed forces.

Well Russia is in a “special military operation” - obviously they are in a war. Nato is financing the Ukranian war and providing other things. Our industrial base and military depots are providing all the means to fight the war. So Natos mercenaries with NATO weapons are fighting the war. Pick your definition of war.

Funny thing is if we just sent American boots on the ground Putin would either have a choice of going full nuclear war (I think low probability 1%) or he could use it as an excuse for sueing for peace and saving face. That would actually solve his election issues he fought but couldn’t fight America cuz America is too strong and he didn’t want to end the world and showed prudence versus the Americans escalating.

Outside the box thinking what if Biden just got on airforce 1 and flew to Moscow to discuss peace? Would show a lot of respect that maybe a deal could be cut.

Natos mercenaries with NATO weapons are fighting the war.

Mercenary is a strange term to use for soldiers that will demobilise when the war ends, rather than being deployed by NATO to the next trouble spot.

Outside the box thinking what if Biden just got on airforce 1 and flew to Moscow to discuss peace? Would show a lot of respect that maybe a deal could be cut.

or you could ask Japanese Emperor or Abu-Bakr al-Bagadi as a mediator or arbiter. People from side that didn't work to start this mess.

If you are of my opinion that this war is about egos at this point then those guys don’t cut it. The Western emperor showing up deals with ego issues.

The term "war" generally means having many soldiers from both sides shooting at each other. Since there aren't NATO troops directly shooting at the Russians, the term "war" is indeed misleading. You could qualify it by calling it a "proxy war" which reasonable people could disagree on, but just referring to it as "Nato's war with Russia" is wrong.

The term "mercenary" refers to soldiers who fight for money. If they aren't paid, they'll refuse to fight. It was clear shortly after the onset of the conflict that the Ukrainian nation was going to fight regardless of whether the West gave them money. Sure, the money helped stabilize the economy and buy more arms, but Ukraine isn't fighting as part of a get-rich-quick scheme, it's fighting to survive.

You are mangling definitions to use the noncentral fallacy to try to inappropriately attach negative moral valence to political causes you disagree with. There's almost no practical difference between what you're doing here, and, say, wokists redefining the term "racism" as "power + privilege" to ensure that only white people can ever be "racist". Words have meanings, and we should all avoid abusing the dictionary to suit our political purposes.

What terms would you use in their stead?

Im using those terms because the anti war people will use those terms and I just want to admit to what they say so they can’t use those things as an argument. The Ukranians are still fighting for NATO interest with NATO pay and NATO weapons. It’s just they have their own interest too.

Sure proxy-war and proxy-mercenaries.

Natos mercenaries

[citation needed]

Sure they are mostly fighting for themselves. I remember an article of increase in wages for the Ukranian military early in the invasion. Since Ukraines economy has significantly shrunk who do you think is funding that.

And will eventually be responsible for significant rebuilding costs like in Iraq/Afghanistan. It might not be explicit $40k a soldier straight from US treasury but I don’t think the mercenary label for US interest is misleading.

To add onto what someone_from_poland is talking about, I think "mercenary" needs to be defined here. When I hear the word "mercenary," I imagine that which mercenaries in fiction are (sort-of?) based on: distinct paramilitary/private armed force units, available for contract to whoever is willing to pay. This includes what are typically called "private military contractors," a la Blackwater and Wagner, though it seems to me that groups like that tend to operate as paid additions to their home country's military, with the occasional aid to allied/client nations of their home country.

(Speaking of Blackwater, I almost wonder if they would be in their element in Ukraine, given their reputation as skull-crackers.)

Whereas I get the sense that "mercenaries" in Ukraine are just assorted foreign volunteers who might also get a decent paycheck on top of helping out. I also get the sense that these guys get mixed in with the regular troops (granted, PMCs from America and Russia are also used in this way, I think).

(Speaking of Blackwater, I almost wonder if they would be in their element in Ukraine, given their reputation as skull-crackers.)

I have no evidence of military behaviour, but officially they're doing humanitarian work. And to whatever extent it's a cover, there is real work going on for refugees.

To add onto what someone_from_poland is talking about, I think "mercenary" needs to be defined here.

Already had been done, in full legal way.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-against-recruitment-use-financing-and

For the purposes of the present Convention,

A mercenary is any person who:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;

(c) Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;

(d) Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; and

(e) Has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

First part of b/ is purely subjective, second part is not. What pay, if any do foreign volunteers in Ukraine get?

I think they get the same as the Ukrainian regulars, (which is probably not very much) -- otherwise they would be unlawful combatants and subject to all sorts of bad consequences if captured etc.

I get the point. If I’m talking to certain people that they are fighting for western interests. I like just giving them the term mercenary as American funded and American armed.

But on the pure front. I believe before Switzerland went neutral and everyone wanted that they were known as great soldiers for hirer who would fight for whichever side would fund them. They are not that.

In a more modern example a lot in Afghanistan seem to have been America backers as long as we were writing checks but were Taliban the second we decided not to pay them. I don’t think Ukrainians are suddenly Russians if we don’t back them.

I don’t think the mercenary label for US interest is misleading.

Describing Ukraine as deciding to be involved in war because they are paid for this is not matching what is actually happening. At all.

So it is heavily misleading.

I get your point. But armed with NATO guns and wages paid by NATO even if they are fighting for their own land I don’t think is hugely extreme to call them NATO mercenaries. False in the sense that your not hiring random country people to do the fighting.

The term you're looking for is "backed by NATO" or "NATO backed".

I don’t think is hugely extreme to call them NATO mercenaries. False in the sense that your not hiring random country people to do the fighting.

Well then you think wrong, it's false in the sense that it's false.

We are paying their wages. So mercenaries also isn’t false.

More comments

"NATO mercenary" has specific meaning. Is there any actual proof that NATO is sending its mercenaries? Or that NATO even has mercenaries to send?

Since Ukraines economy has significantly shrunk who do you think is funding that.

Well, countries during war have will to do drastic action like fire sale of resources, extra taxes, printing massive amount of money, dept repaid later for decades or centuries or never repaid, repurposing production, suspending labour laws...

To say nothing that people often are actually do much more than usual to spite people bombing them, especially of that is stuff like denouncing tax fraud.

"country at war manages to increase funding of military despite economic contraction" is not proving much

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


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.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats