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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32442 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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So, Curtis Yarvin just dropped a long essay about why he doesn't like the West's support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia: https://graymirror.substack.com/p/ukraine-the-tomb-of-liberal-nationalism

Or, at least, that's what I think his point is. As usual with his writings, it can be hard to tell.

FWIW, reading Unqualified Reservations was probably the single most important event in my journey to this weird part of the internet that we call the Ratsphere, even though Yarvin probably doesn't consider himself a rationalist (and I neither do I, really).

However, on this particular point (Ukraine), I find myself quite frustrated. All those words, and he never once (as far as I can tell - I admit that I only had time to skim the article) addressed what I would think would be the most obvious point if you're trying to convince a bog-standard Westerner why they shouldn't support Ukraine: Ukraine was invaded by Russia. Not a "regime change" type invasion, a la USA vs. Iraq '03, not a "peacekeeping" invasion. A "Russia wants some of the land currently controlled by Ukraine to be controlled by Russia instead" invasion. A good, old-fashioned war of conquest for resources. The kind of war that, since 1945, the industrialized West (or "first world") has tried very hard to make sure nobody is allowed to wage, especially not in Europe. And therefore, the West's support for Ukraine is entirely justified by the desire to make sure nobody is allowed to get away with just seizing territory because they want it.

Like I said, maybe he does try to convince the reader why this policy is wrong, but in true Moldbuggian fashion, he uses 10,000 words to say what would be better said with 100.

Or maybe he assumes that anybody paying attention knows why the standard narrative is wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about how and why Russia invaded Ukraine.

As a side note, I do think it's interesting that the both the most radically right-wing Substack author I follow (Yarvin) and the most radically left-wing Substack author I follow (Freddie DeBoer) both think the West's support for Ukraine is bad. Is this just horseshoe theory? They both hate the United States for different reasons and anything it does is wrong by default?

And therefore, the West's support for Ukraine is entirely justified by the desire to make sure nobody is allowed to get away with just seizing territory because they want it.

But why do we want that? The U.S. had a clear interest in preventing this when the spread of Communism was a real threat. But that's not the case any longer. What interest do we have in guaranteeing the rights of the weak everywhere against the strong? (Without taking position on whether or not Ukraine is stronger than Russia, the implication seems to be that they cannot win without massive assistance from us.) Some countries, perhaps, are Too Big to Fail. Is Ukraine really one of them? Is preservation of the status quo worth any amount of blood or treasure? I'm not persuaded of the automatic moral duty of bystanders to intervene when one country consumes another any more than when one wild animal consumes another. In terms of international relations, the world is a jungle and jungle rules and ethics apply.

Is preservation of the status quo worth any amount of blood or treasure?

No, but in Ukraine's case it isn't our blood and only a miniscule portion of our treasure. Bleeding Russia is on sale right now, so we bought a little.

Why is America hostile to Russia. Or China. Or Iran?

Iran gives a lot of financial support and weapons to anti-American forces in Iraq. IEDs killing Americans in Iraq were from Iran.

Again that’s cart after horse. Why is the US in Iraq to begin with.

Is that a serious question for me to answer? The Bush administration seriously misunderestimated how hard nation building can be. Blame them.

Let's not recursively ask questions driving towards "why are all nations not maximally isolationist?" Because they just aren't. That's not a privileged or default state. For many reasons many countries are in conflict. I don't have a pithy satisfying answer to such messy and varied matters.

It’s actually good to try to go to first principles. To try to act like an intelligent alien. Iraq isn’t a state which borders the US. Sure I know the reason why the US is there, but if someone says Iran is our enemy because of what it does in Iraq then it’s reasonable to ask why Iraq.

In the end of all of this I see little or no reflection on the ultimate reasons for US imperialism - or if it benefits the US citizen

Because the American public, with its default prioritization interest in domestic rather than international politics, is most easily moved to care about international politics on the basis of sympathy for an victim or moral offense, and Russia, China, and Iran give plenty of reasons to be offended. Russia acts like a steotypical drunk abusive wife-beater, Iran still chants 'Death to America' and had a non-negligable role in helping bomb Americans (and other people) abroad, and China was gradually seen as both a cheat and threatening a more sympathetic underdog.

That’s doesn’t explain much. These enemies are enemies that the US elites have decided to prioritise. Saudi is an ally and probably a greater influence in the terrorists who bomb Americans.

Because great power politics is zero sum. There's the best, and there's the rest.

NATO is the best. Russia and China are possible nuclation points for the rest.

So, if russia wants to demonstrate themselves as a decrepit kleptocracy and take themselves out of the running for another 60 years, it's worth a few trillion in funny money bucks.

Why does America need to be a hegemon? It is one of the richest countries in the world - the richest per capita since the 19C. It didn’t feel the need for an empire then.

Your causal links are reversed, there.

America is rich because it is absolutly secure, has maximim prestige, is incredibly credible, and controls the global reserve curency.

All those qualities are confered on the US (and on NATO/NAFTA/whatever other treaty partereners it has to a lesser extent) BECAUSE America is the hegemon.

Thus, much like Rome, imperial china, spain, france, england, and etc; being a Hegemon makes you rich makes you the hegemon. Losing your hegemon cred puts you in danger of losing your riches.

Empires can be expensive and will in effect make the US poorer in the king run. And civilisations need to think about the long run.

This is something people say, but is just not true.

Empire is expensive when it starts to colapse. The solution then, is to not let it colapse.

In any case; the USA is in a unique position where they have managed to defer most of the inherently wealth destroying on the ground work to their hegemonic junior partners; and they get to reap most of the benefit of the expensive part of empire; excepting our little short 20 year neo-con adventure in the middle east.

The 19th century was America's century of conquest. Natives, Mexicans, and almost the British Canadians were displaced or conquered.

Canada held on to its independence by the skin of their teeth. Most of Mexico was conquered. Modern day Mexico is the minority of their territory that escaped US conquest.

Being from Britain, American Hegemony is great. America might be the world's first large Empire with such enthusiastic imperial satellites.

Which 19th century are you thinking about?

Many would argue that the US absolutely did engage in bloody imperial conflicts in 19th century, ranging from the support of the Texas succession against Mexico, the Mexican-American war which was a major war of territorial expansion, the civil war against separatist, the various Latin American interventions, and of course the buildup to the Spanish-American war, which saw the US become a formal empire right at the end of the century.

Moreover, the 19th and then pre-WW2 20th century was absolutely a period of repeated American anti-imperialist actions to thwart, counter, or militarily defeat imperialist actions. The Monroe Doctrine, hypocritical as it was, was generated as a way to deny imperial conquests to those who would have otherwise been able to enforce them. American China policy was not only about getting American access to the China market, but preventing and rolling back other empires from exclusive market and political control. The Spanish-American War was driven in the leadup on a wave of anti-Spanish Empire yellow press and fervor. This doesn't even go to the influences those born in the 19th century had in the mid-20th, where the US even threatened to militarily intervene against the British and the French empires over the Suez Crisis.

If you want to appeal to the 19th century US, it's kind of important to remember that the post-Civil War reconstruction was an aberation, not a norm of pacifism. When the US had the ability, it absolutely was the sort to get involved to defend its interests... and regularly framed those interests in opposition to imperialist efforts.

Yes. That’s totally true, and I should have asked in the post why the US wants to be a world hegemon, or empire, which wasn’t the case at the start.

Because they want stuff that we also want or have?

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