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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   31833 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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I'll abuse the "related geopolitics" rule and ask:

Let's imagine you're Vladimir Putin and you learn that the US and the EU will stop sending arms to Ukraine and concentrate on Israel for the next few years. Zelensky knows that as well and starts testing the idea of peace negotiations. How much do you demand?

On the one hand, any agreement that is not enforced by boots on the ground is worthless, so asking for no NATO, no anti-Russian censorship, no rehabilitation of WWII collaborators is useless. On the other hand, if you ask for additional territorial concessions, you'll get to pacify many more people that hate your guts, plus the ZSU can go molon lave while they still have materiel and force you to actually come and take it.

So, how much is not too much?

Too much blood has been spilled. Anything short of full liberation of Ukraine will mean the end of Zelensky (and I don't mean only political). And Putin has to deliver substantial victory to justify the economic pain.

For Zelensky to sit on the table means he has to be losing and hard. But in that case why bother for Putin?

But in that case why bother for Putin?

So, the whole Ukraine, all the way to Poland? Not even a puppet rump state?

There will be a puppet state ofc. More like - if Zelensky is ready to sit on the table for negotiations the unconditional surrender is not far away.

Assuming that scenario, you take as much territory as you can while still getting an agreement, and then you implement a campaign of soft ethnic cleansing and population transfer. Make it shitty and annoying to be a Ukrainian in what is now going to be Southwest Russia. Make it terrifically easy and trivial to get a bus, train, or plane out of there. Make it impossible to return. Build a defensive line in the most defensible terrain, being prepared to sacrifice indefensible portions of your new territory if/when there is another round of fighting.

Would that really be necessary? There's millions of Ukrainians who already lived within Russia's pre-2014 borders, and unless I'm very much mistaken I've not heard of much repression or resistance from them.

Well I don’t know for sure. But if you are worried about guerrilla warfare then you’re going to need some level of repression.

Maybe i'm a bit naive here but what exactly are they going to be repressing? Both sides speak the same language, have roughly the same genetic makeup, eat the same foods, have the same religion. What are they going to be repressing? Waving the flag? Wearing blue jeans?

Loyalty to the Ukraine regime? Obviously?

These are the ones who were not just forcibly depatriated.

But politically Biden loses a lot more if Israel is weakened than if Russia keeps larges parts of Ukraine.

Israel is not a partisan issue in the US. Both parties give it unqualified support.

In theory, support for Ukraine is bipartisan as well. In practice, not so much. Ever since 2016, the Democrats have pushed the narrative that Russia is uniquely evil and must be punished. And lately, Republican support has wavered on the the wisdom of dumping hundreds of billions into the Ukraine meat grinder.

The Democrats have made warmongering in Ukraine their thing. It will be humiliating to Biden if the war ends with Russian gaining territory.

In some ways, political support for the Ukraine war feels, to me at least, like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It was clear that the Democrats were against them, loudly even, by 2006 or so. But after Obama was elected we didn't really pull out quickly either, culminating with the Taliban recapturing Kabul during the Biden administration after a withdrawal IIRC mostly negotiated under Trump.

It feels slimy, but like many issues in American politics, it seems like blind polarization to oppose every action of one's opponents regardless of principles. If the Republicans had been in the driver's seat, I'm sure they'd be all in on arming Ukraine and Democrats would be calling them warmongers. But the 2016 Russia stuff does somewhat complicate things as you pointed out.

I’ve made a similar argument before. There was probably a window for the Republicans to adopt this particular cause. Once Biden backed it, though, there was more political advantage in playing the heel.

Jeroboam made some good points, though.

Israel has gotten a lot of egg on its face, but I do not think it has in any way been meaningfully "weakened" by the Hamas attack. If anything it is more likely it has been strengthened through greater public unity

Agreed, but it will be weakened if it does badly in its future invasion of Gaza, and to avoid that outcome it might need US help.

Define ‘doing badly’. Israel will almost certainly win and it will definitely take casualties. And this isn’t on the other side of the world, and they have loose rules of engagement, so they can stick out casualties.

We don't know this. It could be that the small country of Israel takes enough casualties that they give up trying to control all of Gaza.

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