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I keep seeing this take in a lot of social media and I really don't think that it has any relation to reality. It isn't a "fairly moderate chunk of the US military budget" but a massive economic imposition and cost upon the rest of the west. Aside from the direct costs of sending money and arms to one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, the indirect costs from rising energy prices, economic disruption, inflation, sanctions, refugees and the like have made this entire affair incredibly expensive. If the de-dollarisation that the sanctions regime has spurred continues it could ultimately prove to be one of the most expensive mistakes in US history.
Even then, the cost in materiel matters as well. Western supply chains and reserves have been tapped out to funnel that equipment to Ukraine, and those stocks have been considerably depleted (at least among EU member state militaries). While that's bad by itself, it becomes even worse when you remember who Russia's biggest ally is - China. The Chinese government is, presumably, sitting back and rubbing their hands together with glee as they watch the west burn vast amounts of military equipment on a pyre. Every bit of kit that gets blown up in the Ukraine or sold onto the black market by some unscrupulous oligarch is a piece of kit that is not going to be used in any prospective defence of Taiwan - if the US is getting a pretty great deal, you're gonna run out of superlatives when you try to describe the one China is getting.
This conflates a few different topics of wildly different scopes, so I'll focus on the point of energy prices. The energy price rising isn't the consequence of the war, it's the consequence of the Europeans- namely the Germans- refusing energy blackmail. The war was the context of the blackmail, but the capacity for the blackmail was baked into the status quo ante as a result of deliberate central and western European policy choices over the objections / concerns / warnings of US and Eastern European countries. The Russians were always very blatant that they were prioritizing political goals over economic profit with their use of gazprom, and that the German industrial base getting functionally subsidized energy was a means to an end.
The energy costs Europe is experience are the cost of a much delayed structural shift away from a nigh monopoly supplier to more resilient import network infrastructure. This is the epitome of a good cost, and will drastically increase European economic safety over the long term.
For any sort of advocate of European strategic autonomy, this is perhaps the best cost of the entire conflict, and exceptionally well timed as it occurred when there was the US-alliance network to fall back on for sourcing for LNG imports.
Laconic 'If' applies. De-dollarization has been a thing for literal decades, and continues to be a thing, and will continue to be a thing. The reason it always seems to never happen is epitomized by the Russia-India experience in the rupee trade debacle- the other person has to want your currency, and to want your currency at scale it needs to be a a stable and fungible store of value. It's not enough to offer your own money as loans to buy stuff back from you, as is common with the Chinese yuan projects- the currency has to have value with others.
I am happy to concede that China may yet get some value out of the Yuan as a way to facilitate corruption outside of dollar monitoring systems (which is how, say, Lulu got caught for corruption in Brazil)- but this is independent of the war.
They are depleted because they were incredibly thin beforehand, due to decades of neglect and under-resourcing and frankly falling behind the tech curve. Again, this is a good cost to pay if you are any sort of advocate for a strategically resilient and autonomous Europe, as the cost was going to come regardless.
With unavoidable costs, timing is key to relative preference, and the Ukraine crisis is about as ideal a time to restock / modernize, as political support is high, support from the current American establishment is high to subsidize modernization costs, and the political costs of emptying out the outdated cold war stock to free up budget / admin capacity for modernization is practically negative.
...but it was never going to be used in any prospective defense of Taiwan regardless, because water is a thing other than the color blue on a map.
This has been a thing since last year, but it bears repeating: Taiwan is an island. It's not in need of tank columns to drive across the strait. No one is building trench lines in the water. Many of the weapon systems that are very useful in the Ukraine conflict are practically irrelevant in a Taiwan conflict, because even if they were on the island they wouldnt' reach far enough off the island to matter in what really matters in a Taiwan conflict- the ability of the Chinese to maintain a blockade of the island against the US Navy.
In a Taiwan conflict, there will be no Ukraine-style aid packages to fight a major ground war. Only the equipment already on the ground has any relevance, and even then only in so much that it extends the time the Chinese need to maintain a blockade. As long as there is any blockade, no aid package would get through. If there is no blockade, it's because the Americans have beaten back the Chinese navy, and if the Chinese navy isn't there, it's not landing forces.
The Taiwan conflict isn't about ground-force kit, it's about naval assets. Which, notably, have not been sent to Ukraine.
A white elephant.
The Ukrainian crisis demonstrated that several of the assumptions that might have supported a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan in the near term were extremely suspect. This included the power of offense versus defense, assumptions of acceptance by the targeted population, the unwillingness of the Europeans to assume costs to diplomatically resist pressure, and inability of the US to do things, and of course the ability of the Russians as allies.
I don't think this even qualifies as an argument that needs refuting. This loss of energy was understood to be a consequence of military engagement and so because it was a known consequence it doesn't matter? The economic problems and energy supply issues caused by provoking hostilities with your main supplier of fossil fuels are in fact caused by provoking hostilities by your main supplier of fossil fuels!
This isn't happening and Europe is currently undergoing serious economic problems as a result of the lack of fossil fuels. This could indeed be qualified as shift to an import network infrastructure, but the idea that this makes the continent more resilient is farcical. The huge costs associated with importing LNG from the US rather than a pipeline from Russia have no compensating factors, and will continue to act as a drag/tax on the economy as a whole due to the massively important role played by fossil fuels in modern economies. There is going to be less energy, it will be less reliably sourced and it will cost more - this will have a ripple effect through the rest of the economy, and again, I do not think that this is a cost worth paying for the goal of making sure that Kiev can continue to shower the breakaway regions with artillery fire.
That said, the flagrant violation of the sanctions has also contributed - Europe is still using Russian fossil fuels, they're just paying India a premium to do so, and the US doesn't have the stones/capability to sanction India and China. Actually going through with the economic threats and sanctions in a real and serious way, as opposed to paying them lip-service and paying someone else so you can ignore them, would impose such a disastrous political cost that the leaders who did so would be removed from power in short order.
Recent events and sanctions have given that process rocket-skates and supercharged it. De-dollarization is proceeding far more quickly than it was before the war, and the sanctions regime that was imposed upon Russia has contributed to that. You're right when you talk about the problems associated with not using the current global reserve currency, but the problems associated with staying on the dollar are starting to match or even exceed them.
I agree that European militaries were largely jokes, but the supply chain and logistical issues that this affair has exposed are not minor and will take considerable time and investment to fix. Ammunition factories can't be built overnight. Of course, if you're an advocate for a strategically resilient and autonomous Europe you'd have to advocate for getting them out from under the thumb of the USA so this entire affair is meaningless anyway.
I'm taking the Rand corporation's word for it - they're as fanatically pro US empire as it is possible to be, and even they are saying that the engagement in Ukraine is tying up resources which could be used in the conflict with China, which is far more important (source: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2510-1.html ). Most serious pieces I have seen discussing this topic claim that the conflict is drawing away resources which could be used in China.
Moreover, the idea that this materiel is irrelevant because Taiwan will get blockaded is also meaningless, given that hostilities haven't actually started yet and that equipment could be sent there before they do anyway. Anti-air defences and artillery are absolutely the sort of military equipment that could be useful, and those have definitely been showing up in Ukraine.
I think you're wrong but I don't think that there can be an actual resolution of this with words - so instead I'm going to offer a bet. My position is that Russia is absolutely capable as an ally, that western nations are not willing to shoulder the burdens required to prevent the rise of a multipolar world and the US is in fact incapable of achieving their goals. The US failed in Iraq, is failing in Syria, failed in Afghanistan and failed in Vietnam. The recent history of the US empire's military adventurism has been a long litany of defeats, and I see no reason for that to change. If you disagree, I'll give you a chance to put some money on the table - I'm willing to throw 200 USD in monero into escrow for a bet that Ukraine will not retake Crimea and the breakaway republics by the time hostilities cease.
Incorrect. The point is not that it doesn't matter- the point is that the causal mechanism is different. Being a result of energy blackmail as opposed to war is a meaningful distinction because the energy cutoffs could occur in non-war contexts as well- as the eastern Europeans had previously experienced in the 2010s, but which Germany dismissed on arguments that Russia had been a consistent supplier to them so the warnings of the Americans were baseless.
The Europeans did not provoke hostilities, unless you consider the pre-Maidan support by European and especially German economic interests in supporting pro-European Ukrainian groups a form of provocoation.
You can't have it both ways: either the Europeans lack fossile fuels, or the Europeans are still using Russian fossile fuels. Choose one argument and stick to it.
Further disagreements on framing include-
-The US isn't the primary supplier of LNG on the markets, it was the Arabs (who the Europeans bought much of the gas that normally went to Asia, especially China)
-The ability for sea-based LNG imports is what makes the energy import more reliable, as it avoids critical dependencies on any particular provider due to maritime LNG's fungible nature
-The fact that the LNG import terminals are actually importing LNG, while the Russians actually did shut down the gas pipelines on pretext, belies the reliability difference
-The German economic difficulties were a market distortion result of the Russians functionally subsidizing the pre-war German energy market for the purpose of the blackmail setup, which was raised
-The Europeans are paying a premium in a technical sense, not a global market sense, where their price for the Russian products benefits from the price caps
-You continue to misunderstand the design purpose of the sanctions, and chest-thumping bravado is not a superior alternative
This is repeating the same claim, not a counter-argument with any falsifiable new claims. The use of non-dollars for transactions is not a new thing. The reasons it is not an at-scale thing over time is due to the dynamics of reserve currency, and the functions which drive reserve currency usage have not changed. Until they do, 'de-dollarization is proceeding far more quickly than it was before' is synonymous with 'the Russians are sanctioned from the dollar, and are trying to make a virtue of a weakness they've been lobbying to have reversed.'
Setting aside that Europe is not under the US's thumb, it remains better to identify and start fixing logistical issues before they are needed in another crisis. Either the European logistical issue is not an issue for whatever role they might have in a Taiwan crisis- in which case earlier forced awareness is only going to improve the position- or the European logistical issue were insufficient for a Taiwan crisis- in which avoiding the issue (by avoiding the Ukraine crisis) would have been worse, as any Chinese effort willing to take the risk on an assumption of European strength would have been more likely to succeed as the Taiwanese and Americans might have been assuming a level of support not there.
This may be a retreat to a bailey, but it's still a bailey to the original claim of which types of resources matter between conflicts. Your RAND article does not claim the weapon kits and systems being sent to Ukraine are the resources that matter in a China conflict, nor does it address the point on how the cost-value of these resources that were already paid for implies costs in the current era.
Setting aside RAND's own contested history and accuracies, the article's claims regarding China (which is mentioned all of 8 times) center around whether Russia is 'completely' subordinated to it by the end. It makes no claim that the Russian level of support to China in a Taiwan conflict has or would change, not least because it doesn't actually identify the sort of resources / support that would be provided, let alone what would change.
The point remains: the types of resources matter. The types that the Europeans are investing into Ukraine are not the type that would matter in a near-term Taiwan scenario. Unless you believe that the resources / economic costs would have been directly substituted into a maritime naval buildup, these are not costs with a Taiwan-relevant opportunity cost, because the Europeans were never a credible military factor in a Taiwan conflict.
But they wouldn't send significant amounts in advance, for the same reason they didn't go to Ukraine in advance despite Ukraine actually being at far more direct and recent threat: a mix of limitations, their economic interests, and the strategic interests of key European leaders uninterested in being involved in the situation and trying to minimize exposure.
This is an argument that assumes a generosity of the Europeans that didn't exist in their own neighborhood. More to the point, this assumes that they would have been more generous in the face of an uncontested Russian invasion on their borders, rather than finding the advance of Russians in their neighborhood a compelling reason to keep their air defense systems defending themselves, and thus tying down potential resources to Taiwan in a functional strategic fixing action.
I'll disagree, without betting. Setting aside that it's a poorly structured list in measurable and general claims, I don't bet in general.
What?
I legitimately do not understand your position here. If I go to a restaurant that I've been a regular at and decide to chuck a huge tantrum and break some plates and then get banned from returning or doing business with said restaurant, the fact that they could have banned me from entering at any point prior to that does not mean that being banned as a result of my actions is no longer a result of my actions. What, precisely, is the distinction you're making here? How is it relevant to a given incident, at all, that a business could choose to stop selling to me for breaking their rules beforehand? All I can see is playing games with words to disguise the fact that disruptions in energy supplies are a direct result of sponsoring the war.
The Europeans lack the ready access to fossil fuels they had previously - but they are still using Russian fossil fuels anyway by paying middlemen like India, and this is having a noticeable impact on their economies.
The purpose of the sanctions was to reduce Russia's ability to wage war by targeting their economy, and to put pressure on the population in order to achieve a political goal (leadership change/stopping the war). These efforts have failed - the war is still happening and the Russian economy has not been destroyed.
Incorrect - China has been aggressively pursuing de-dollarisation and so has India. They're experiencing difficulties doing so, of course, because financial systems and currencies have a lot of inertia and moving parts. The Global Times, which is essentially a mouthpiece for the Chinese government, has explicitly stated that the weaponisation of the dollar is driving other countries away from it (though they also correctly note that this process takes time and a lot of nations have complicated linkages to the USD which will take time to unwind) - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1289549.shtml
Ok, whatever - a distinction without a difference. I freely admit that a substantial portion of the resources spent on the Ukraine conflict could not be used in any prospective Taiwan conflict. This does not damage my point in any real way - the military equipment is one factor, and the drain on attention, time and decision-making are all relevant as well. Though that said, I will admit that I may have been unclear earlier when I said "at least among EU militaries". I did not exclusively mean EU militaries when talking about the reduction in western capability, and was including the US in that category.
Huh? They did send significant amounts of aid to Ukraine in advance. I'd argue that "the defence minister mentions the event to the press" to meet the threshold of significant - (and no, I am not talking about the exercise that is the main thrust of the article, but the following quote) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29204505
And inserting some text here just to clearly mark the difference between a BBC quote and your post...
The actual bet is very straightforward and specific - will the Ukraine regain control over Crimea and the breakaway republics when hostilities end? Though that said, given that you're not willing, I'm leaving the bet open for any takers, mainly because I don't think even the people arguing that the Ukraine will win this conflict take that belief seriously enough to put money on it (and I'd love to get some free, easy money from anyone who does).
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This isn't quite true. The Chinese can control the strait without being able to control the entire Taiwanese coastline.
It's not the particular coastline, but the ability to deny support from American carrier groups. Sailing between the continent and the island is a flex, but it's ultimately not where the carrier groups that could shut down an invasion would be.
"Sailing between the continent and the island" is how they would land forces. It is possible for the Chinese Navy to be able to do so while being unable to prevent the US from supplying Taiwan via the east side of the island. Not likely, I'll admit, most likely the US denies them the strait. It is also possible they could deny the US ability to supply the island while also being denied the strait, though I suspect this situation would not last long.
Isn’t the western coast of Taiwan famously difficult to land troops on?
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I think I may not have been clear / been on a tangential point. As a clarification of my previous point, not a rebuttal to this point:
My intended point was that if the Chinese cannot prevent the American carriers from operating on the east side of the coast, or the south, or the north, they do not control the western Straight, because the carriers are still able to do their job of launching planes to target invasion vessels with anti-ship missiles. My assessment is that the Chinese generally believe preventing this is a requirement to go ahead with the invasion in any sort of enduring scenario (ie. anything other than an immediate 'run to the ports and rush over' attempt at a fait accompli). This is why the Chinese anti-access / area-denial weapons, such as the vaunted anti-carrier ballistic missile or threats to guam, are so much further outside the range of the straight itself: they need to be to keep the carriers from operating off the east coast of Taiwan, or long-range bombers from taking off in range to cause unacceptable amounts of trouble.
If the Carrier groups are operating off the east, then these systems have already failed. If these systems have failed, the Chinese won't be attempting to launch more landing craft. If the systems succeeded, then the carriers are not there, and the ability to execute the blockade is maintained. Thus, the general importance is on the ability to maintain the blockade, as a failure to be able to do so means that carrier groups are active in the immediate area, which pre-empts the landing flotilla.
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Once again with feeling.
Every Russian soldier killed in Ukraine, every Tank that gets it turret tossed, every aircraft shot down, every missile expended is one less that can be used to threaten Poland, Latvia, Finland or any other NATO power. The money we are paying now to eliminate the Russian military's reserves and reinforce the post WWI norm of "no you can't invade your neighbor" is arguably some of the best ROI we could possibly ask for.
I do not think that the final tally has come in yet, but I absolutely do not believe that this is the case or that this juice is worth the squeeze. That said I don't think this is an argument that can actually be resolved - the facts aren't visible beyond the fog of war yet, although if you have top secret intelligence verifying the exact capabilities of the Russian military please share it with the class.
There has been no reinforcing of this whatsoever, nor is it a norm. The USA has been extremely aggressive militarily and launched invasions all around the world - the fact that they haven't invaded Mexico or Canada means absolutely nothing unless you think it'd be perfectly ok for Russia to launch an invasion of the UK instead because the UK isn't, strictly speaking, their neighbour.
I agree that UN resolutions are a joke, but I must have missed the part where the US tried to incorporate Iraq and Afghanistan as territories.
I highly doubt that's your actual problem with what's happening - would you be perfectly ok with the invasion if Russia simply did to Ukraine exactly what the US did to Iraq and Afghanistan?
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Is the argument here that the US was upholding some important international norm when they kept ridiculous corrupt occupation governments in Iraq and Afghanistan for decades to the great detriment of their populations, and then left them as smoldering ruins refusing to take any responsibility?
Many observers in important positions around the World deducted from these events that American leaders don't give a shit about any of their rhetoric, are short-sighted, unreliable, agreement-incapable and live in their own media narrative where they are always right in the end. They will make up norms when it suits them and adjust them mid-game if it doesn't suit them anymore.
Unfortunately I believe Ukrainians are due to discover this as well after sacrificing their youth and their relations with their only important neighbor for drip-fed fickle promises.
Pick one. Either the US kept "kept ridiculous corrupt occupation governments in Iraq and Afghanistan" or it refused to take any responsibility. The US in fact took on a great deal of responsibility in Afghanistan and Iraq, responsibility the Iraqis and (especially) the Afghans would have preferred we NOT take on.
Why are Romania, Poland, and Hungary not important neighbors again?
It is 2037. After a swift victory over the Ukrainian government which also devastated the country's infrastructure, Russians set up a massive green zone in the center of Kiev and flooded the country with bureaucrats who never seemed to be able to agree why they were there. They were determined to root out any incumbent power structures of the Ukrainian society though, so they spent the first couple of years purging and persecuting a lot of important people and army members without putting any viable alternatives in place. Some of these people re-organised themselves into gangs and the formerly peaceful orderly cities became war zones where the gangs are ruling over the local population, some of them are blowing up Russian troops and organizing under the banner of a radical ideology, and Russian military/intelligence is trying to deal with this by frequent drone strikes and raids on civilian centers. There is no material improvement, people are way worse off since the beginning of the occupation, and almost all the money Russia is pouring into the region gets embezzled by Russian government contractors or local gangs morphing into warlords.
After 15 years during which the lives of the Ukrainian citizens got only worse and worse, the Russian president announces withdrawal. A so-called government is left behind but it will swiftly crumble. As the country has no infrastructure left to speak off, almost all capable people left, child mortality is skyrocketing and political power is wielded by warlords of suicide cults, Russia also blocks its meager foreign currency accounts until they stop rejecting Russian values. Oh and Russians are practically refusing to take in almost any refugees and nearby Russian allies are getting overran with desperate Ukrainian refugees who are mostly military age heavily traumatized ruthless men.
I am sure if this happened, we would have plenty of future Mottizens arguing in favor Russian respect for international norms.
That's all a very nice story but it fails to answer the objection. You've described an occupation that failed, not a failure to take responsibility. If after 9/11 the US had gone in, killed off the then-current generation of Taliban leaders, killed all the Al Queda people it could find, and then left the Afghans to fight it out, THAT would be failure to take responsibility. At this point I've come to think that would have been a good option, but it's not what happened.
I think you’re mistaking rudderless inertia for responsibility.
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