This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Since @greyenlightenment suggested a list of topics that weren't getting enough attention in the previous CWR thread, I decided to write a bit about Russia-Ukraine situation.
The summer campaign has ended, and Ukraine has found itself in an unenviable situation. The much-hyped counteroffensive has achieved only marginal gains, but the EU has exhausted its disposable stocks of arms and armor and the US, which has enough disposable firepower to zone rouge a medium-sized country, is a) not a charity and b) kinda getting busy with other stuff.
All this means Ukraine knows it won't be able to conduct further offensive operations and its most important medium-term goal is to not lose. There are multiple ways it can lose:
Having so many ways to lose means the time is ripe for a ceasefire or even peace negotiations, but when your adversary smells blood they won't be satisfied with just what they have. So Ukraine either:
I think you are overestimating Russia's ability to do get anything done on the offensive; which is at least as bad as Ukraines; and that the time limit goes both ways. Maybe Ukraine looses big daddy MICs black card and needs to go back to moletoves and prayers; maybe someone who has a whole new fleet of shiny f-35s coming in sends their old f16 block 40's to Ukrain and suddenly they have a platform that can fire air launched cruismissles well behind the lines; and can be refit to fire the shit that they aren't forbiden from WAY behind the lines.
Basically, I think Ukraine only gets knocked out of the fiight through wearieness, and the Ukrainians are still all about this shit; mainly because they can all speak russian and can watch russian TV. They know if they give up; they are not in for an easy ocupation.
Those air-launched cruise missiles are not available in large numbers (total number built <2000) and allegedly not that impervious to Russian air defences either.
F-16 aren't magic either. Since NATO is all about lean logistics, no one is going to shift enough AIM-120 missiles to Ukraine. These aren't actually better at all than the long-range missiles Russians are using to keep Ukraine air force down, but they'd help. Except each one costs a million $, and there aren't enough of them.
Russians are currently trying to put rocket motors onto their now ubiquitous sat-guided glide bomb kits, which is going to extend range to 200 km. Currently it's 50 km. Sure, they're not as pin-point accurate as JDAMs, but if you're talking 500 kg bomb, unless the target is a reinforced concrete bunker, missing by 20m is irrelevant.
If Ukraine runs out of theater-level air defense, they're just going to get everything major behind the lines blown up into tiny pieces, and their front line positions deprived of ammunition. With molotovs, you are just dead against modern armor. Molotovs don't really cut it, they weren't really cutting it in late WW2 either.
Ukrainians aren't Japanese. At some point they're just going to stop resisting for lack of ammunition and command.
More options
Context Copy link
Ukraine can already launch cruise missiles from behind the lines. They just don't have enough of them. The main purpose of F-16s is threatening Russian warplanes. Ukrainian armor is beaten by Russian helicopters. Ukrainian fighters could keep the helicopters on the ground, but they are kept on the ground by Russian fighters.
If Ukraine gets enough F-16s they can attack the helis from a safe distance or force Russian fighters into dogfights, thus enabling greater use of armor.
That also, I don't know why I was focused on cruiss missles. 18th century brain. Of cource the main thing is to have an AA missle that doesn;t need pavel to jimmy rig it with bailing wire and a prayer.
Remember though that all the cruiss missiles Ukrain has are either subject to US targeting restrictions or rely on nato platform sauce to work; so having a native NATO platofrm to launch them from will provide a decent increase in their capacity to strike deep.
Even their limited number of ATACMS were of great effect;
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I love the image this tongue in cheek combination of words evokes. Imagine a giga-chad Putin slamming a ballot in a ballot box with strength, determination and style. The ballot box disintegrates into a million pieces, the building he's in is leveled. The dust settles slowly and out of the rubble emerges Putin, the undisputed winner. Cue lights and a wrestling belt over his shoulder.
It's less than 4 months until the election day. No one knows who will run, everyone knows who will win.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
One of the things about the war I've been thinking about lately is how hard it has been to predict what's going to happen next. I'm not sure if there's anyone with a clear bill of being able to predict even the grand trends of the war for the entire duration. To have that you'd need to have:
All things considered, while my guess would be some sort of a ceasefire during this winter with frontlines wherever they are, I fully also acknowledge this has all the chances of being wrong with something else happening, though who knows what.
Only reason for this is how hard it's been to gather real data from the piles of propaganda that's coming from each side, although Ukrainian side has been more perverse with this. Even well respected sources that should be highly analytical seemed to have drank the koolaid.
For the start of the invasion, I think the reason I got it wrong (I thought that Russia would not invade Ukraine, but would officially take the separatist regions) was because of low number of troops that were prepared for the invasion. The Guardian reported 190k troops, which is comically low for any serious invasion of such a large country like Ukraine. Hell, it may not even be enough to take over a city like Kiev with so few troops given that defenders put up a real fight. Some estimates put the total number of troops fighting for Russia at the very start at approx. 250k, that's including the separatist regions that conducted a pretty harsh mobilization a week prior.
Then, I expected Ukraine to have some success simply because of the manpower advantage, but I had no clue how that success would materialize so I didn't make any predictions on that. Ukraine had roughly 250k active military personnel at the start of the war and a robust reservists and territorial defense systems that could mobilize quickly since they've had 'ATO' (anti terrorist operation) since 2014.
For the counteroffensive, I admit that I got completely psyoped by the pro-Ukraine 'experts' and journos. I bought into the western weapons wunderwaffe thesis and that Russian mobilized troops would not have enough experience to withstand the push of well trained and well equipped Ukrainians. I also thought that Russia blundered by wasting their time with Bakhmut, which I assumed lost them a sizeable chunk of wagner reserves that could've been used for strengthening up defense. I thought that volunteer numbers coming out of Russia were completely made up (part of that is because anecdotal evidence - I have Russian friends that still live in Russia and out of my whole circle not one had a close relative or friend that has been mobilized or has volunteered, the result that most likely occurred because of selection bias), making the frontline understaffed on the Russian side once again. The Russian sources I read supported my thoughts - they were heavy in doom and gloom about how they are outnumbered and outgunned, how the defensive line they are building is nothing but a money laundering grift for the big wigs (which given the track record for Russian big wigs sounds pretty true). I expected a Kherson style pace where there's small progress here and there until Russia has to flee to more advantageous line of defense. And well, that clearly didn't happen.
My current prediction is that there won't be an official ceasefire in 2024 because:
I believe the main goal for Russia is Ukraine not 'joining' NATO. 'Joining' is in quotes because I think even more cooperation between Ukraine and NATO without the former officially joining would be considered a threat. And all the talk from pro-ceasefire Ukrainian side right now is about 'exchanging' the lost land for quick NATO accession. I think Russia would not agree to that, and if I'm right then continuing the fight is considered more beneficial by the Russian regime
If Ukraine gets funding from it's allies for 2024, no ceasefire is also a more beneficial position for Zelensky because the war keeps the public from confronting the government about the undemocratic draconian measures that have been bestowed upon them. There's no data on this, but anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of men are going to leave the country the moment they have an ability to do so. The current street price for a get-out-of-Ukraine-as-a-healthy-male card is anywhere between $5k to $12k, a sum many cannot afford. Leaving the border closed after the war is over or on hold would not only raise eyebrows in the West for being undemocratic (how significant this is is debatable, but would definitely not score any democracy PR points for Ukraine) but also anger own constituents. EDIT: not to mention the fact that I believe Zelensky has no chance of winning post war elections. All the losses, corruption, and so on will be pinned on him, so unless he pulls a Putin and elects himself in post war elections, keeping the war going and postponing election is the move for him if he wishes to keep his power (and based on his actions he does wish so)
If Ukraine doesn't get funding (my prediction is it will, maybe just enough to keep in the fight), there's no reason for Russia to agree to a ceasefire. Ukraine has nothing without funding from US, I don't believe EU is willing/able to provide enough for the war.
So I think Ukraine will get funded, the fight will continue into 2024 and probably 2025 with very slow net Russian advances. The wildcard event that I think is possible but highly unlikely is regime change in Ukraine to a pro-Russian (it wouldn't be exactly puppet style pro-Russian, it would probably be more like a regime that's more accepting of negotiations on Russian terms, read Arestovych's recent takes) regime. I put odds of this happening at 3-5% and increasing as war drags on
More options
Context Copy link
I haven't been accurate for the entire duration (the start of the war was indeed surprising) and I don't think picking a specific date is terribly important either, but I've actually been fairly consistent in my beliefs on the Ukraine conflict since before we got kicked off reddit and if anyone actually took the bets I was offering I'd have a 100 percent success rate so far. I think that you're right when you say that predicting the individual events that happen is insanely difficult, the general trend of the war is very easy to work out and extrapolate (the massive nuclear power is going to defeat the small economic backwater immediately adjacent to and financially dependent upon it). People just don't do that because the conclusions you come up with when you take a dispassionate look at the situation aren't very popular on twitter or facebook.
You mean like how the USSR and the US won against Afghanistan?
It's easy to flip this too and say the combined economic output of NATO vs Russia means Russia is destined to lose. That would be a similarly sophomoric analysis.
After Russia started gearing up for a long war and China signaled it didn't want to give overt military support to Russia, it became an almost certainty that the war would be determined by how much military support the West was willing to give to Ukraine. That, and the outside possibility of a black swan event probably from the Russian side.
There are multiple differences that make that comparison useless even in the incredibly glib phrasing I used - financially dependent specifically. But if you want to get into all of the reasons why the course of this war was largely predictable we'd be here for a while.
If you look at the ability to produce arms and materiel, NATO is actually the loser when compared to Russia and Russia's allies (China, Iran, North Korea etc). Comparing NATO to Russia alone isn't really that useful anyway, given that this is a conflict between a NATO proxy and Russia, as opposed to all out war between all of NATO and Russia alone.
I disagree - the west isn't actually able to give Ukraine enough military support to change the ultimate outcome of the conflict. They're currently running out of Ukrainians (you don't start conscripting women and 17 year olds if you have a choice) and they're continuing to run out of territory too. If you're interested in an article that gets my perspective on the conflict across fairly accurately, I recommend https://www.ecosophia.net/notes-on-stormtrooper-syndrome/
The big point here would be China, but since China isn't overtly sending arms to Russia it's a non-factor for this analysis. NATO or even just the EU completely trounce Russia + Iran + NK in terms of manufacturing output, but the problem is political will. You're correct that most people in the West don't really see the war as all that important, which is why the will isn't there.
The arguments saying Ukraine will run out of people are just as silly as the Western articles that predicted that Russia would run out of tanks or missiles. Both types of analyses ignore the fact that new people/tanks/missiles are maturing/convalescing or being produced constantly. There's certainly an argument to be made that Ukraine digging deeper into it's manpower pool will lead to problems in force quality, like how Russia could become production-constrained in terms of certain types of equipment. But this will simply be a force-(de)multiplier that interacts with other strengths and weaknesses. It's silly to think it will be decisive by itself. Most casualty estimates from credible sources have actually been fairly low for a conventional war that's been going on for nearly 2 years.
Incorrect. Military manufacturing takes time to spin up, and the factories that could be converted into arms and materiel factories were moved to China and various other nations. Do you know what the difference in naval manufacturing ability between China and the US is? China has 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the USA. The numbers for various other capabilities are starkly different as well, and this is a problem because ammunition factories take time to start up and you need to train people to work at them as well. Political will makes a difference, but it doesn't matter how much political will there is - you can't convert a manufacturing facility into an arms/ammunition factory when it was sold off to China ten years ago and the town that used to support it is now full of fentanyl zombies, nor can you build a new one in two seconds instead of a year no matter how hard you vote.
There's a big difference between people and ammunition - people take a lot longer to make. If you get started right now, it takes at least 18 years and 9 months to produce a human being, and there are some pretty severe bottlenecks in the process as well (like the number of fertile women). But moreover, there's a bigger difference between those two claims, which is evidence. The Russians are still shooting shells and raining down artillery - but the Ukraine is currently failing to meet mobilisation girls and there's video evidence of women being sent to the frontlines, along with photos of teenaged boys going through military training. Casualty numbers are hard to come by, but the ones I've seen certainly match up with the Ukraine being forced to send women into the field.
On your first point, most of what you're saying is true, but again it must be said that China isn't overtly supporting Russia by sending weapons. If it was, the war would be a completely different ball game. Comparing just NATO countries to Russia (and NK + Iran), the overall manufacturing potential is still overwhelmingly in favor of NATO despite deindustrialization. Political will is the utter decisive factor here, as factories indeed take time to be converted to warmaking potential, but it's been almost 2 years now and quite little progress has been made since there's a distinct lack of urgency.
They're not getting started right now though. Humans don't just start reproducing when a war breaks out, it's a continuous pipeline. Your comment on the 18 years thing is like you're implying there wasn't a single person in Ukraine under the age of 18 when the war broke out, but that's obviously not what you're saying since that's just totally goofy. I really don't know what point you're trying to make here.
Most casualty estimates I've seen are around 150-200K for the Ukrainian side, which is nowhere close to using up all the men in Ukraine. You could double it AND factor in a huge Ukrainian population loss from refugees, and it still wouldn't come close. There have been corruption issues in the Ukrainian mobilization pipeline since the war began, so the anecdotes about women or septuagenarians being kidnapped and being put into uniform are likely that, plus some degree of issues regarding force quality as I mentioned earlier. Mobilization wasn't exactly pretty on the Russian side when they had their big drive, even though they were pulling from a population 4x the size.
Implying a black and white picture of Ukraine being on the verge of having all its military-aged men being dead simply isn't credible.
In terms of ammunition and military supplies, Russia seems to have a clear advantage in the current conflict. Just to be clear, I'm of the opinion that starting this conflict with Russia was a terrible misstep on the part of the west, and the consequences of Western defeat are going to be nasty.
The point was about how any interventions designed to produce more people are going to take a very long time to bear fruit, and the personnel situation really can't be fixed at this point in time.
I don't think we're going to get credible or accurate information about the exact casualty numbers out of Ukraine - there's too much incentive to lie for everybody involved in the process. But every single other indicator we see shows Ukraine having serious recruiting issues, failing to meet mobilisation targets and sending women to the front - which are all things that would not be happening if they had a healthy pool of recruits and lots of manpower.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The US won the conventional fighting in Afghanistan. We withdrew after twenty years of our local Allies surrendering the second we turned our backs.
My point wasn't that Afghanistan is identical to Ukraine, it was that an analysis that says "big country wins vs small country" is too limited.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The US is not immediately adjacent to Afghanistan, and furthermore held it for decades.
My point wasn't that Afghanistan is identical to Ukraine, it was that an analysis that says "big country wins vs small country" is too limited.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
One point that I think bears mentioning more often is that there is a back-channel game at play here: the US probably could fund or supply this war itself, but has been trying to pressure (Western) Europe into properly funding it's own defense.
There is that video of the Germans at the UN laughing at Trump suggesting their military expenditures were inadequate and that Russia was not to be trusted, but official statements about missing NATO GDP targets on defense spending have been going on for multiple administrations. Here is an easy chance for the EU to do so, and it's failing in a tragedy of the commons: Germany isn't likely to get invaded soon, so why should they pay for it instead of Poland?
Also worth mentioning is a political zeitgeist in which the EU has often historically protested American foreign policies (most notably the 2003 Iraq adventure, which I will concede probably deserved it, but also the presence of US troops in the EU, support of Israel, and a few other military activities like Libya), but also expected Team America, World Police to show up when war came to their doorstep. The US seems to be trying to balance its hardware support with a goal of getting the EU to pull it's share.
I'm going to push back on this a little. You are right that there is definitely an attitude among some Europeans that the yanks are a bit too keen on war (though plenty of Americans feel the same), but when the rubber hits the road the Europeans have broadly been willing to muck in. Yes Iraq was an exception - though the Brits were there with you - but as you mentioned the 'Iraq war bad' position has broadly been vindicated. Afghanistan, which was only marginally more justified, got buy in from the Europeans. The Libyan intervention was, if anything, French led. I'm not aware of any major dramas surrounding US troops in Europe, most nations are just happy to have them there. As for Israel, European leaders have generally been very supportive in their rhetoric - often to the detriment of their own internal unity with their Muslim populations. You might argue that only America really offers proper material support to Israel, but this is done for very American reasons (Jewish lobby).
I suppose I hadn't considered the general possibility that the vocal "America bad" peaceniks in Europe might be different than the "increase support for Ukraine" crowd. There's a bit of a generalized fallacy in assuming all of the voices we hear from afar are unified, when it's quite possible that different subsets are making different points.
In 2011, yes, although they notably had to drag the Americans in, with rumors that European forces were running short of munitions, which seems quite relevant to the bigger picture. Libya has come up a few times before: in 1986 the US bombed Libya in retaliation for an attack on a Berlin discotheque, but was denied air transit over continental Europe (instead having to fly around Gibraltar), and afterward received some tacit condemnation from West Germany and France (notably France also struck Libyan targets in the '80s several times for its own reasons). I don't disagree with your characterization, either: the world is a surprisingly complicated place.
They absolutely, positively are two entirely separate crowds, in a way that I would have considered obvious and self-evident to anyone.
I would go further and say that the vocal "America bad" peaceniks and the Greenwald/Chomsky style pro-Russia tankies are the same people, just like they are in the US.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm under the impression that there are relatively few people who are truly sympathetic to NATO and the US presence in Europe, relatively more who are against it out of some lingering cold-war era pacifist or anti-American sentiments, and a large majority that doesn't care either way.
NATO commands a wide majority of support in almost all of the member states, and a majority of support in all of them.
In the UK, support for NATO is one of the litmus test issues used to distinguish between the left and the far left. Jeremy Corbyn personally opposes UK membership of NATO, but he didn't try to make pulling out Labour party policy while he was leader because he knew it would have blown up the Labour party.
My understanding is that this is the same in every European country except France (where the Gaullist right saw NATO membership as subservience to the US) and, historically, Spain (because a lot of the Spanish centre-left blamed NATO for propping up Franco).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think it depends a lot on what you consider the boundary of 'truly sympathetic'. If by that you mean 'full-throated advocacy' then yes what you're saying is probably about right. But most of those who "don't care either way" would come down on the side of NATO and the US if you asked them.*
I also think this is one of those issues where the opinion of the general population deviates substantially from that of the loud and terminally online.
*If I were to bet on one country bucking that trend it would be France. They are quite haughty and resent having to rely on anyone, especially The Anglos, for anything.
That may well be true. I'd say it depends on the phrasing of the question, but to be fair that's all guesswork on my part.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I wish this was the case, but everything I've read and heard from people in the USFG is that US military planners are genuinely worried about preparedness against China, which makes sense since the US defense-industrial base has been a smoldering crater for the past decade or so. That, and polarization makes it hard to get stuff through Congress now.
Really, Europe should be shouldering the vast majority of the burden for Ukraine. It's more important to them than it is to us for reasons of simple proximity. On the flip side, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that Europe will be completely irrelevant (beyond mostly toothless sanctions) if a hot war breaks out over Taiwan, so the US will basically be forced to play the primary role there. Europe certainly has the potential to shoulder the Ukraine issue themselves, and it wouldn't even be that difficult. Yet it's been nearly two years and the entirety of the EU is getting lapped by North Korea in terms of artillery shells contributed. It's farcical.
More options
Context Copy link
Let's be honest. Poland is not being invaded either, nor Romania or Bulgaria. Russia being a non nuclear threat for EU is pearl clutching or statesmen's equivalent of rape fantasy. Moldova maybe. But not west of there.
I think if I were the Baltic states, and I was depending exclusively on the EU (sans America) for protection, there would be some legitimate questions about whether German or Spanish troops were ready and willing to fight on our behalf, or whether we'd be ceded like Czechoslovakia in 1939 for "peace in our time" and continued natural gas to Germany (largely moot post 2022)? Would the French or British use nuclear weapons in our defense?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The russians haven’t made any progress either. When the soviet inheritance is entirely spent, the attritional industrial war will just be western handouts versus the russian economy, and I don’t think russia looks good in this contest. Whether the ukrainians want to keep fighting is their business, but as a western european I’m happy to foot the bill and keep russia busy indefinitely, especially since there is no long-lasting peace on the table, only a provisional ceasefire.
I could lean on zelensky if you offered pre-feb 24 borders, else let’s just keep playing ,who gets uncomfortable first.
Russia is producing ammunition faster than the West is.
Don't worry, you will. Thanks! - American
More options
Context Copy link
Ukraine's military is the size of the French and military put together. Their military is 30% of the US military in size and currently fighting a high intensity war. The amount of resources required to sustain the Ukrainian military is astounding and completely unsustainable. They are consuming many systems at a much higher rate than they are produced. They will have to replace many soviet systems with western systems. Ukraine will need to retrain large portions of their military and continue to take in tens of thousands of recruits per year. Just the minimal training the European militaries have provided a small portion of the Ukrainian military has already had a real impact on the militaries of Europe.
Ukraine's military is heavily dependent on using its professional core. The officers and experienced soldiers are carrying their efforts. These soldiers have soon been at war for two years and are a draining resource.
The western militaries are coming out of 30 years of cutbacks and fighting in the middle east. The western militaries are in dire need of rebuilding themselves. Just sustaining the western militaries would have been hard enough before the war. Now dozens of brigades have to be rebuilt and equipped, several hundred mid and long range SAM systems are needed for Ukraine, millions of shells will be needed after the war to restock the Ukrainian military. Entire supply chains, bases and training facilities will have to be built up from scratch.
The price of Ukraine won't end when the war ends. The Ukrainian military will be getting aid for decades and decades to come after the war ends. It is going to be a constant black hole for resources. Rebuilding their losses and sustaining their new military will make building the Afghan military look like a cakewalk. This is nation building on steroids.
The main problem for the US is that the US military is old, has a decaying industrial base and has pushed long term costs forward for 30 years. At the same time the US is trying to handle multiple areas of conflict at once. The US military has the Ukraine problem, the middle east and China. While each individual conflict is manageable the US is failing to manage all of them at once.
“Completely unsustainable” is, like, our unofficial motto. Betting against the US MIC is not historically a good move.
I do agree that juggling multiple theaters has the potential to drain support for Ukraine. But until we get another priority, the magic sky money will probably keep pouring in.
More options
Context Copy link
Okay, now do the Russian side.
In the short run, Ukraine has depleted a lot of Western military stock. But in the longer run, it’s acting as a reason for the West to get its manufacturing and logistics in better shape. The US et al has been getting a pretty great ROI on Ukrainians destroying Russian military capability, and spending only treasure.
“Nation building” in a place like Afghanistan and “nation rebuilding” in a place like post-war Ukraine are both expensive, but the latter won’t be lighting money on fire.
The US isn’t “managing” several wars either, in any strong sense of the word. It’s supporting Ukraine in a major war, and Israel in a minor one (that seems unlikely at this point to turn into a major one). This isn’t Vietnam or Iraq. Our forces are not being depleted, or somehow becoming incapable of keeping a focus on China. Attention is split more, sure, but we aren’t fighting these wars or making commitments we can’t rapidly shift.
More options
Context Copy link
The amount of resources required to sustain the Ukrainian military is similar to that required to sustain the russian military, only the west is economically about 30 times greater. So assuming the russians go all-in and marshal about 50% of their economy for the special military operation effort, and Ukraine, the sanctions, and technological superiority do nothing, the west needs to assign 1,7 % to that nuisance. That’s relatively high but completely sustainable for a distant power like the US, and outright cheap for the threatened countries of europe.
Yet the west doesn't produce 30 times more artillery shells, doesn't have 30 times the capacity to train troops, doesn't produce 30x the amount of rocket artillery or the amount of SAM-systems. Russian systems tend both to be substantially cheaper, and Russia is spending a higher portion of its GDP. Considering purchasing power parity, Russia's GDP is 1/5 of the US GDP PPP. Money isn't necessarily the biggest bottle neck. The amount of surface-to-air missiles isn't only limited by money, it is primarily limited by production capacity. The west most definitely doesn't produce 30 times the number of artillery barrels or ATGMs.
The issue is that the US and Russia has completely different war aims. The US is trying to dominate the world and is running into a classic limit that large empires face, in which the upkeep of the empire is greater than the ability to sustain it. Russia may lose, Russia may suffer a lot more. However, the combined weight of maintaining the empire is beyond what is sustainable, and the war in Ukraine makes sustaining the empire a lot harder. Spreading queer theory in Afghanistan, having a larger force than the American presence in Vietnam at the peak in Ukraine fighting a much more intensive war and keeping up with China's industrial juggernaut is infeasible. The US is losing its empire at the edges, while costs are running away.
The US military is financed by borrowing money at almost five percent interest. With compound interest, that is destined to run away.
If the entire west doesn't have the industrial capacity to sustain a Ukraine-sized war, then the case for Ukraine aid becomes vastly more urgent, because we need to develop that capacity.
If you want to argue "not worth it, who cares about Ukraine", I disagree but ok, priorities are a thing. But if the argument is that the US, France, Germany, UK, Australia, Italy, etc, etc, etc can't match Russia even while someone else is providing the actual soldiers? That's a catastrophic indictment and we need to dectuple our spending on Ukraine immediately to get weapons manufacturing up to the level we need to be capable of.
Indeed. It's pretty shocking to me just how anemic our war production is. And yet... here we are. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-industry/2023/04/unprepared-for-long-war-us-army-under-gun-to-make-more-ammo/ Most of our 155mm artillery shells (the most common size, and probably the most important weapon for Ukraine) are all made from this one plant in Scranton. And the only reason that plant still exists is that it's on the National Historic Registry of Historic Places, so the building can't be knocked down or altered, and the locals wanted to keep it running for its high-paying jobs.
The numbers are pretty shocking.
So Russia really does outproduce the US in artillery. Ukraine is quickly burning through artillery shells faster than the US can produce it. Instead it's buying artillery shells from other countries, mostly former Soviet Bloc countries like Bulgaria that have a lot lying around. https://youtube.com/watch?v=EMEpxX7rS5I
All I can say is... it's a good thing those countries are on our side! Can you imagine if west to fight against all of these countries working together, back during the cold war? We would have been massively outgunned!
More options
Context Copy link
Money is not the issue. Cost disease and institutional inertia is. You're right it's a catastrophic indictment, but it's not one that can be fixed by allocating more spending or putting out large quantity bids. It's a question of long-term commitment, which requires credibility the US government no longer has and which US industry has totally given up on.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Europe has a bigger economy in the sense that we produce luxury goods that are much more appealing and valuable. It doesn't mean that we just produce more of everything. This is particularly true in cost disease vulnerable sectors... Like defense. French winemakers are maybe more productive than Russian factory workers... But unlikely to win a war.
This isn't to say that Russia has the upper hand, but it's closer than the economic data gives credit for. That's how North Korea can be a threat to South Korea despite the economic imbalance.
We still have German heavy precision manufacturing. Anything there is dual purpose by default. Glock, Heckler and Kock, Beretta - all EU manufacturers. You have the various soviet arms manufacturers in Eastern Europe. Not sure how fast airbus could produce rafalle and eurofighter airframes, but I am willing to bet it is way faster than any EU adversary would like. I am not sure about how fast we can produce nitro compounds that make boom - but with Bayer and Merck being German - I guess fast.
And hell - we have inexhaustible supply of cannon fodder coming trough the Balkans and the mediterranean.
We could supply Ukraine with material and people no one cares about to be wasted in their east for ages without breaking a sweat. For one reason on another we don't want to.
They've ran away to Europe because they didn't want no wars. How exactly do you propose to incentivize them to fight in another one? Promise them citizenship? You would need to make staying as an asylum seeker or an illegal a terrible experience first.
Just press gang all of them, they’ll stop coming or they’ll comply. Win-win.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I agree. If Putin's plan is to run Germany out of machine tools, he isn't going to succeed. If the plan is to take advantage of the fundamental non-seriousness of the current German elite, he probably is.
The biggest known unknown is keeping the Russian factories going. We can see that Russia is still busting sanctions in order to import western-made spare parts - presumably because there are certain parts they need which don't have a direct Chinese equivalent (see the massive increase in German exports of machine tools to Kyrgyzstan - they aren't staying there!). We are already seeing Russian civilian airliners grounded due to lack of Western spare parts - does something similar happen to Russian shell-making machines if the EU gets serious about stopping back-channel sanctions-busting?
If the EU gets serious about stopping back-channel sanctions-busting their entire economy disintegrates overnight as they lose access to Russia-sourced fossil fuels. Right now they're paying a premium to India in order to evade the sanctions, but nothing was actually done to remove their dependence upon Russian energy. Right now Germany is subsidising domestic energy usage due to the massive cost spikes caused by the Ukraine war, and making that problem substantially worse is probably not going to do their manufacturing sector any favours.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Europe doesn't have anything. The entire EU together couldn't come up with its promised million shells. Meanwhile North Korea just pulls that out of its back pocket when Russia calls. It's not a video game, they can't just magically turn GDP into ammunition and arms factories instantly.
Funny that the other Korea is doing the same thing for the other side of the equation.
There's a limit on how long Korea can do that though. Yes they have a lot of shells but they also, you know, need them for their national defense. And like Ukraine, while they do have a lot of old shells stockpiled, they don't really have huge production to build new ones.
To which Korea is that most applicable you think?
Both to some extent, but NK has nukes for deterence and isn't bound by cost disease. They're probably much happier to trade their old shells for hard cash.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I do find the "it's a Korean peninsula proxy war" commentary to be amusing precisely because it's not completely wrong.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Doesn’t need to be instant. I haven’t seen this deficit of european arms and great north korean bonanza result in significant russian victories. To carry on war, three things are necessary: money, money, and yet more money.
You've seen the Ukranian counteroffensive flop while NATO officials openly tell you to "expect bad news" in days to come.
No, you need weapons, which come from factories, which the west by and large doesn't have anymore. The US hopes to produce 100k shells per month by fiscal year 2026, while Russia is expected to ramp up to 2 million per year in the next couple years. Meanwhile the EU says a lot of happy horseshit but gets dunked on by North Korea singlehandedly.
That would be disastrous for Russia if it's true, given the rate they're burning through their artillery stocks. However, you should take into account the possibility that Putin may be able to divert more of Russia's economy to shell production.
More options
Context Copy link
That’s what you pinned your hopes on, cryptic nato comments? Let’s just wait for this crushing north korean industrial superiority to bear fruit. Even if "the factories are gone!", it's helplful to have this low-stakes operation to reflect on and correct our weaknesses.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Generally speaking I am in - I want Russia to win in Ukraine mostly because of the prestige the EU and US have put there and because Zelensky is behaving like entitled brat. But any analysis that doesn't include at least couple of paragraphs on the Russian situation, and the challenges in front of them is incomplete.
Do we have any reasons to believe that Russia will be stronger next year or that at least the decline of Ukraine will be faster that the one of Russia (then the artillery theorem comes into play and Ukraine is fucked). That Russian economy won't crash because of the sanctions kicking in? That Russia's military industrial complex will be able to produce enough stuff that goes boom?
I've spent the last two years waiting for it to crash. It has definitely shrunk, but seems to have stabilized with no new sanctions on the horizon.
It can outproduce the EU, since the EU is involved, but Russia is committed.
The biggest problem Russia has to fix if it wants to win is the quality of its officer corps. Until it's fixed it can only do frontal pushes and is incapable even of Uranus-style pincer attacks.
Of course, it can't fix it because it's afraid of its army. Look at what a single former hot dog salesman could do with his PMC. No one at the top wants a general Rohlin, a colonel Vasin or even a major Kvachkov to rise through the ranks.
Caveat: It can outproduce the EU in specific areas that are very important for Somme 2: Ukraine edition but not in other key areas like say, any plane that isn't significantly older than you.
This puts a limit on their ambitions, and REALLY incentivises them to get this done one way or the other before someone donates a 3rd string f16 block 40 NATO airforce from the 90's to Ukraine.
More options
Context Copy link
Ah, the coup-proofing problem. Give colonels too much independence, and you need to worry about their loyalty. Select colonels for loyalty, and you need to worry about their competence. Russia isn’t competent or efficient enough to thread that needle, so it just errs on one side rather than the other.
Even selecting for loyalty is iffy - loyalties can change quickly. Better just select for incompetence to be safe.
It works out decently for regimes which can pull it off, like Iran and the USA.
The USA, despite its many policy failures, still has a sufficiently meritocratic officer corps. And Iran, being a theocracy, uses piety instead of personal loyalty, which is much less wavering.
Well yes, because piety, either to the religious establishment joined at the hip to the state or to a set of democratic ideals, allows you to give your officers more independence.
I suspect that the spread of monarchy was a way to route around this problem; the person as an institution is a formidable combination.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link