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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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Our current plan is to give Ukraine every weapon we have, regardless of whether or not the Ukrainians are able to win the war, letting the war drag on while we essentially use up our weapons in Ukraine (which will probably lessen our ability to defend Taiwan (and thus secure our chips supply), lose credibility as it becomes obvious that we can no longer actually deliver on our promises, and Ukraine will probably lose Donbas anyway.

I think it would be better to cede Donbas and arm the remaining and build NATO bases in West Ukraine as a deterrent to further incursions.

arm the remaining and build NATO bases in West Ukraine as a deterrent to further incursions.

wait

are you against sending weapons to Ukraine or not?

And combo "cede Donbas" and "send NATO soldiers to fight against Russia" is quite curious and new to me.

Our current plan is to give Ukraine every weapon we have

This is obviously false. On the contrary, the plan is explicitly not to give many weapons - such as long-range rockets, planes, and many other things - or at least delay giving them as long as possible. If the plan really were "to give Ukraine every weapon we have" it's impossible to explain why ATACMS rockets or modern planes were not given or why modern tanks were only given late this year - we certainly had them way before that, they weren't created this year.

regardless of whether or not the Ukrainians are able to win the war

"Win the war" is a very vague thing - and the extent of how much Ukrainians win right now is a direct function of how much weapons (and what kind of weapons) they have. Right now, their air capabilities are minuscule, and they long-range strike capabilities are such that they can only do sporadic one-off hits, after months of preparation. This is way short of "every weapon we have", unless US military has been lying to us for years about all those advanced weaponry they are supposed to have, and somehow instead spent all those billions on building mocks of all that weaponry that doesn't exist in reality. I don't think even the most committed conspiracy nuts go that far.

letting the war drag on while we essentially use up our weapons in Ukraine

Giving enough weaponry not to lose but not enough to decisively win - which was the actual plan for the last 1.5 years - is a great way to let the war drag on. You concept does not offer any explanation why we're discussing long-range rockets today and not in February 2022. Mine explains it perfectly. I think the concept that explains the available facts

I think it would be better to cede Donbas

Did you wake up yesterday from a 20 year coma? Ukraine has been "ceding Donbass" since 2014. That's when it came under Russian control (fun fact: the guy who organized it, Igor Girkin, is now being slowly tortured to death in Russian prison, because that's how Russian "thank you" looks like) and since then, Ukraine didn't have any control there and could do nothing about it. Just as they could do nothing about Russia owning Crimea (besides completely toothless and impotent "sanctions"). Presenting it as some kind of a "solution", while this was exactly the starting point of the war, is completely bewildering - it's like saying "we could avoid WW2 if only we let Hitler arm himself and signed a peace treaty with him and given him Sudetenland". And it didn't happen in the last century - it happened less than 10 years ago! And still you feel free to completely ignore it. Astonishing.

build NATO bases in West Ukraine as a deterrent to further incursions.

So, your solution is instead of having Ukrainians fight Russians with Western weaponry, is to have Western troops do the same? That would go just fine with German, French and Belgian voters. They dream about their soldiers dying on Ukrainian soil, I am sure, and despite now willing to send about 1 tank per month as soon as the war is out of TV screens, they will surely be glad so send hundreds of them and live bodies in the harm's way because... what? I am not sure how this makes any sense.

fun fact: the guy who organized it, Igor Girkin, is now being slowly tortured to death in Russian prison, because that's how Russian "thank you" looks like

according to unconfirmed reports they let Ukrainian POW to attack and beat him