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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?
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.
Do you actually believe that the US government's actions abroad are motivated by a principled desire to be good and moral? I cannot possibly understand how you could given the history of the US and specifically their military adventures over the past few decades. When I look at the actual actions and even the statements that come out of the US military, the idea that they base their decisions on morality as opposed to the hard calculations and strategic gameplaying of empire is utterly farcical.
The US has not achieved their goals, and the blowback/second-order consequences from the sanctions they placed on Russia are only beginning to come back around. Cutting off a major energy supplier like Russia is going to cause, and already is causing, severe issues in energy markets. The current conflict and the US response to it is playing a large part in the massive inflation we're seeing all over the western world, and these things are continuing to get worse, not better.
Yes, to an extent. But there's also the practical dimension.
The US signals to others that it won't let Taiwan be easily invaded by China, by supporting Ukraine.
Removing the moral dimension, supporting Ukraine is still a useful measure, because it shows that a smaller country will recieve support when the bigger nation on its borders invades.
Regardless of how the war ends, Russia doesn't look likely to get anything worth the cost. That's a deterrent analogous to MAD in a cold Nuclear War. Pay the price to bring down an enemy up front, so you don't have to pay it further down the road when it's higher.
The RAND corporation, one of the most influential think-tanks in the US government and which put out a paper outlining why starting the Ukraine conflict was a good idea for the US before it happened, has actually started claiming the opposite. The US is going to have a lot of trouble fighting the Ukraine war and defending Taiwan at the same time, and the conflict now risks overextending the US rather than Russia/China. I highly recommend giving the following document a read: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2510-1.html
But either way there's no chance that the US actually shows that signal to anyone. Have you heard of Yemen? The US is assisting Saudi Arabia, a much larger and wealthier country, as it tries to crush the Houthis. The US' actions historically make the idea that "a smaller country will receive support when the bigger nation on its borders invades" a non-starter.
Russia, from the research I have done at least, views this as a fight for survival and self-determinism. What they wanted was a stable buffer zone, and what they are going to get instead is rubble - but that rubble isn't going to be hosting NATO nuclear interdiction systems. What Russia thinks is that the US believes it has the right to launch a nuclear first strike, and that placing those interdiction systems will give them the confidence to do so. From their perspective, a war which knocked their economy back two decades and made them look like fools in US-influenced media would be an absolute bargain compared to the fate awaiting them if they lost.
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