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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   37383 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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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ability to fight a regional power to a standstill, and probably to an ultimate loss, with nothing but pocket change and outdated equipment -- not a single (official) boot on the ground, no modern armaments, just political will made manifest all the way across the globe with some military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.

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