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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32434 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?

I've rarely seen conflicts in the modern world where one side stands for something as much as Ukrainians, by whatever indication one might look at, seem to be standing for Ukrainian independence, territorial unity and separateness for Russia, at the moment.

While that seems to be true, the tragedy is that they forgot that they are neighbors of a at one point superpower. And despite all the moralizing, the mighty do as they please and the weak suffer. Russia can't have NATO next door.

Why not? The only reason to be fearful of NATO at your door is well, if you're planning to do the types of things Russia has been doing for the past year. Sweden and Finland weren't part of NATO for decades, and they seemingly never felt any pressure that NATO was going to invade, because they weren't acting like a weirdo countries.

Again, this isn't some "Russia needed to become Denmark." All they had to be was a regular second-tier authoritarian power, and Europe would've happily gobbled up their gas, oil, and oligarchical money for years until Putin finally kicked the bucket.

Why not? The only reason to be fearful of NATO at your door is well, if you're planning to do the types of things Russia has been doing for the past year.

Or maybe you don't want a military alliance that is at points hostile to you next door? Do you still remember 2016-2020 and Agent Orange? this isn't ancient history. And for another, if you are paying attention you don't thrust yourself into the US foreign policy apparatus, you get backstabbed or left to rot in your time of need.

Why not? The only reason to be fearful of NATO at your door is well, if you're planning to do the types of things Russia has been doing for the past year.

Or perhaps that people like Bolton are in charge of NATO.

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former White House national security adviser, said on Tuesday that he had helped plan attempted coups in foreign countries.

But who is the mighty and who is the weak here? One could argue this whole invasion is simply the end stage of Russia's downgrade into a lesser-tier power. That "at one point superpower" part of your post is doing a lot of the work there.

One could argue this whole invasion is simply the end stage of Russia's downgrade into a lesser-tier power.

it could be, but that is something we will get to see until this war ends.

That "at one point superpower" part of your post is doing a lot of the work there.

we will have to see. They are throwing bodies at the problem as they do.

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