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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   37381 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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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.

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.

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.

I think you misunderstood. America is the assailant in this analogy, and America's enemies are the ones being beaten.

Is that so? If so, I misunderstood the comparison. Mea culpa.

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