site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1640 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 22, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I found the latest Douthat piece on Ukraine to be quite interesting: https://archive.is/xVlg2 Basically he argues that there is a real tradeoff between helping to defend Ukraine and Taiwan. It's not a question of money, so much as physical equipment. China is doing an intensive modernization of its military, aimed to be done in 2027. That might not mean anything, but it could also be a prelude to invading Taiwan. Which, Douthat argues, would be a much bigger loss for world order than Ukraine.

It's a tough tradeoff. Lots of angles to consider:

  • a real, here-and-now war, vs a potential future war
  • an "emerging" democracy vs a much more stable democracy
  • vague promises to both countries, but no formal treaties
  • the role of Europe and Asian allies in both respective theaters (again, lots of vague promises but no formal treaties)
  • would depleting the US arsenal by sending everything to Ukraine make China more likely to invade?
  • or, would not supporting Ukraine make China more likely to invade?

For what it's worth, Manifold has the odds at 21% now. Not super high but much higher than I would like.

... on the other hand, in my darker moments, I can't say that I'd really hate to see the end of the US-led world cathedral of global liberal capitalism.

According to Wikipedia, US-led alliances have a total GDP (PPP) of 80 trillion USD. The China-Russia-Iran one has a GDP (PPP) of 43 trillion. Even if I generously add every -stan to it (and I'm being really generous, I really doubt Pakistan would join, since it's trying to avoid anything that would cause India to align itself with the US), it's still just 55. The US could easily outproduce China if it really wanted to.

This Russia-Ukraine war should really be a wakeup call for simply assuming that GDP (or PPP) is the same as military production. Russia, by itself, is producing more artillery shells than all of NATO. China is massively outproducing the US in warships right now. Perhaps the US could change that "if it really wanted to," but that's not something you turn on overnight. It doesn't really have a lot of shipyards or heavy manufacturing left at this point.

There's also the small detail that most of the US-allied countries are in Europe, about as far from the Pacific as its possible to get. I don't see most of them helping out in this scenario.

Russia, by itself, is producing more artillery shells than all of NATO.

Slow and placid Western defense companies need a very long time to scale up production. They’ve been starting that process for 18 months, I don’t think extrapolating current production trends to 2027 is valuable because Western defense suppliers will be producing substantially more in a few years.

This has almost nothing to do with the defense companies and almost all to do with the slow and placid governments. To make the investments they need long term commitments, which they have been very slow to get.

Starting the process, but what scale goal do they have? I doubt the European governments, mine among them, are wise enough to seriously prepare for a war against Russia without any US support, which might happen.

Even with a materiel advantage, Russia doesn’t have the manpower to mount an invasion of Europe.

Not all of Europe, no. But a small country perhaps? If the USA pulls out, Putin might want to test Europe's commitment to Article 5 by taking parts of a small country like Estonia.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats