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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34531 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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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/

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?

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

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.

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