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I know it's beating a dead horse at this point, but this whole Prigozhin situation made one fact crystal clear: American dissident right (and "anti-nato left" by extension) is extremely solipsistic, much more than other factions in American culture war. Just take a look at some of those takes which are prevalent among this crowd
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Essentially, their model of the world looks like: here we are, honest god-abiding Americans, and then there are "elites" — Biden, Hillary, DNC, Podesta, Bill Gates, World Economic Forum. How then do you view something that lies outside your usual experience and ideology? If you are dumb, you deny it altogether:
"Ukraine War is fake, all of it is CGI, Zelensky and Hunter Biden siphon gajillions dollars from American taxpayers to buy mansions in Bahamas"
For those people Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Finns, Prigozhin, Zaluzhny, Macron, Scholz, ... do not exist.
If you are smarter, you align yourself with perceived enemies of the elites: Putin, Xi, Orban, .... You say things like:
totally oblivious of cases like this
https://zona.media/online/2023/06/22/sko
being a regular occurrence in Russia, when a girl is sent to prison for putting anti-war slogans on price tags in a shopping mall. Of course they'll have prepared a long list of grievances with "elites" that are intended to persuade you that whatever happens in the US is much worse than repressions in Russia or China. And, sure enough, all of it "glownigger propaganda" anyway.
You might say: "Well, I don't care about anti-Putin Russians, unfortunate pro-Putin Russians who became victims of the regime, neutral Russians, Ukrainians, Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, ... all I care is that my children don't get castrated and turned into trannies". Fair enough. But then please don't take a high moral ground. You are just as evil as "elites".
Whatever patience I had with American "anti-establishment" right-wingers, it ended. I guess Hanania is the only one I keep reading/listening at this point.
What is so wrong about caring about one's own interests, as opposed to the interests of others? The 'elites' are the ones going out and randomly, incompetently wrecking various countries or behaving incredibly recklessly. Standing aside while others fight is sound policy. We should not get involved in other people's problems. Firstly, it's expensive and makes enemies. Secondly, we don't necessarily understand what's going on and can't necessarily fix it. Thirdly, it benefits special interests and socializes losses. Everyone is poorer due to energy shortages or debt incurred by these wars - the benefits go to military contractors, bureaucracies, favoured NGOs and PMCs.
Just consider the last 20 years of military adventurism. What did we get? A pro-Iranian (wrecked) Iraq, wrecked Libya, wrecked Syria, wrecked Afghanistan. All this came with a huge price tag and a long list of new enemies. The military establishment is not very smart, nor are they good at winning. They are very good at wrecking and lying.
This is what happens when we listen to the 'moral high ground, think of the civil society' camp. We get wrecked countries and 12-figure bills. Why should Ukraine be any different? Long, expensive conflict which doesn't improve our position at all. The realist school has warned and warned that getting involved in Ukraine was a bad idea, that it would make the Russians very angry, that they'd rather wreck the country than let it fall into our hands. They've been totally vindicated. Russia is wrecking Ukraine, missile by missile and refugee by refugee.
How hard would it be to... do nothing? If we had done nothing for the last 20 years we'd be richer, safer and stronger.
People will go on and on about how we have to stand up and support the 'international rules based order' - the biggest crock of shit. What are the rules (is there any clear law anywhere)? Who wrote them? Who agreed to them? Apparently it's OK when we invade or bomb countries, yet it's illegal for Russia to invade its neighbours? This is arbitrary nonsense.
Let's support our interests, which are not present in Ukraine. There's nothing we need in Ukraine, there's no need to get hysterical about it. Ukraine is a core Russian interest and a peripheral interest for the West as a whole. Foreign policy should distinguish between core and peripheral interests.
Ukraine is different. It is a European country that is being fast-tracked into the EU. Those who try to attack my friends, will get harshly punished.
The rules are clear. Just because someone somewhere broke them and didn't get punished is not an excuse.
What rules are clear? Can you name them or provide a link to them? None of this is in the UN Charter by the way - the Security Council decides these things.
The rule that you are not allowed to occupy other countries without a good reason.
The rule is enforced by most powerful countries on this planet, namely, NATO countries who supply Ukraine sufficient weapons so that they can fight against Russian occupying forces.
So the 'rules based order' has nothing to do with coherent, consistent law, it's just an excuse to do whatever NATO wants. You must agree that the choice of judge for 'good reasons' is all-important here. Otherwise we'd all be cheering on the SMO like the Economist did in 1999. They wouldn't print the following: 'Bringing the Ukrainians to heel! A massive bombing attack opens the door to peace'.
Onto my second point, what is the point of NATO influencing Ukraine? Since there's no moral/legal reason, there must be a strategic reason. Ukraine has some agricultural land, some gas, the old T-80 production line - yet that's not really a game-changer for anyone. The bulk of the strategic value is in the Black Sea ports, Crimea, gas pipelines, bases relevant to weakening Russia. Ukraine matters more to Russia than it does to the West, in the same way that Mexico or Cuba matters more to the US than to China. Proximity is important. The obvious reason to seek Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO is to pressure and surround Russia. It's similarly obvious that Russia is angered by this - they made it abundantly clear that they were very angry about this for years and years.
We should not go around antagonizing major powers with enough nuclear weapons to sweep us all into the dustbin of history, not unless core strategic interests are threatened. We should not have undermined coherent, non-arbitrary ideas like 'don't engage in wars without Security Council consensus' - others can play that game too.
I would say that about 30-35 million people that can be added to the global community that is engaged in improving human society is a big deal. It is not only about advancement of technologies because this can be done also in dictatorships like China but about the fabric of the society that is beneficial for all of us. The society is constantly facing different problems (social networks, lockdowns, lack of democracy etc.) that we need more people to deal with these problems in a positively progressive way instead of heavy-handed manner.
The biggest problem with dictatorship is that it is less effective. Putin started a senseless war that hurt Russia a lot. In Western democracies people can also make wrong choices but it is self correcting and it is better in long term development.
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