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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   25205 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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Ukraine suspends consular services for military-age men in draft push

Ukraine on Tuesday suspended consular services for military-age male citizens until May 18, criticising Ukrainians abroad who it said expected to receive help from the state without helping it battle for survival in the war against Russia.

Hundreds of thousands of military-age Ukrainian men are living abroad and the country faces an acute shortage of troops against a larger, better-equipped enemy nearly 26 months since Russia's full-scale invasion.

[...]In practice, the suspension means military age men now living abroad will be unable to renew expiring passports or obtain new ones or receive official documents such as marriage certificates.

It's been interesting to watch the reaction from Western pro-Ukrainians to Ukraine's sweeping new mobilization orders. The prevailing sentiment seems to be "that's a tragedy, and obviously the draft shouldn't exist to begin with, but what can be done?" Suggesting that it would be better to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict is outside the Overton window. It's a foregone conclusion that Ukraine must fight to the last man.

There is something hellishly dystopian about fleeing to another country, possibly even across the ocean, and your country of birth is still trying to pull you back. Particularly because women are given a free pass. It's natural to feel like there should be some cost associated with the privilege of not having to be forcibly conscripted to fight against an invading army.

This raises questions about Ukraine's ability to keep their fighting force well-staffed going forward, and also questions about the morale of Ukrainian soldiers. Every conflict has some number of draft dodgers, but I wonder if there are any hard stats about whether dodgers are particularly overrepresented in this conflict? That could help adjudicate the question of whether the Ukrainian resistance is an authentic homegrown phenomenon, or if it's largely being sustained by Western pressure.

That could help adjudicate the question of whether the Ukrainian resistance is an authentic homegrown phenomenon, or if it's largely being sustained by Western pressure.

I am confused by the belief many here express that Ukrainians are being hoodwinked into fighting against their own interests and better judgement, considering the number of examples we have of the West trying to convince a people to fight with the full force of economic and political propaganda and failing spectacularly e.g. Bay of Pigs, South Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela. There's simply no way you can sustain a high-intensity war for over two years on smoke and mirrors if the population is ambivalent, and the moment they become so the front lines will collapse like those of Tsarist Russia or Imperial Germany in 1917-18.

As to your point about the draft, it seems to me like it would only be dystopian if you see the entire concept of nation-states as such. You don't stop being a citizen of your country when you go overseas; they can still make you pay taxes, have you extradited to stand trial for crimes, and compel you in any number of ways. The suspension of consular services for a month is a relatively mild measure as far as these things go, and will probably just create a small undocumented population in several countries. If the Polish or Estonian governments ever start grabbing Ukrainian refugees off the streets and deporting them to the front lines in unmarked vans at Zelensky's request (and if I were a refugee who didn't want to fight, I would definitely want to stay out of countries that hate Russia so much that this is even conceivable), I'll agree that they've gone too far.

I think this belief is, for many, simply downstream from the idea that Ukrainians are just funny-speaking Russians, that the natural course of action for them would have just been to join the Motherland at a drop of a hat and the fact that this didn't happen is an aberration that needs an external explanation, ie. the evil West brainwashing them to fight. The references to videos of stragglers etc. are just marshalled to provide evidence for this preaccepted thesis.

Imperial Germany suffered enormously before capitulating. In the winter of 1916-1917 about half a million people starved to death in the 'Turnip Winter' so-named because that's all they had to eat. The food distribution system broke down completely. By 1918 they were in a famine. Children were running around breaking into warehouses trying to get food and dying in the tens of thousands. This is one of the reasons the Nazis were so fixated on securing agricultural land later on.

In tsarist Russia "Working-class women in St. Petersburg reportedly spent about forty hours a week in food lines, begging, turning to prostitution or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth, and continued to resent the rich."

It takes a lot of pain to bring down a country in a major conventional war. There's a certain level of stubbornness and sunk-cost that seeps in after serious blood has been spilled and national pride is on the line. Attitudes harden. Ukraine has not experienced anything like the mass suffering of a world war. There is no mass starvation in Ukraine, no massive inflation (7% is not great but it's not 90%), no social breakdown. Lessons have been learnt since the world wars and Ukraine enjoys the support of wealthy backers.

Nevertheless there are signs of serious problems - the videos of men being forcibly dragged into vehicles by recruiters, desertion and so on. What is that if not ambivalence/non-cooperation? States can do a lot with ambivalent but not-yet-rebellious people.

Ukrainians do not want "peace" on Russian terms. This is very understandable. Them running away from the ground zero is also understandable, of course. But even Ukrainians who grew up outside ex-USSR are quite certain that the war must go on. So are Americans, therefore it will continue.

I reckon we'll see large scale field tests of Anduril tech before it's over. There really are issues with manpower.

The big issue for Ukraine isn't bodies to fill the military it is demographics and qualified people.

Soldiers take almost a year to train and cost a fortune to train. It is far more demanding to train a soldier than most college degrees. Militaries require officers, NCOs and people with specialized skills that require far more training. During peak Ukraine hype we were sold the idea that Ukrainians could be trained to do mechanized assaults in half the time it takes a western soldier to do basic training. The idea that Ukrainians can be trained extremely quickly died with the Ukrainian counter offensive.

Ukraine's doctrine has been to pool its veterans and experienced soldiers into elite brigades used for offensive operations and for stopping Russian attacks, while territorial defence forces man most of the trenches. These elite forces are heavily attrited, have gotten far less rest than they need and are worn out. Replacing them is going to require vast resources. The Ukrainian military is still largely using soviet equipment for which they can't get new parts. Replacing their gear with western equipment requires much more training. The median age in the Ukrainian army is 43 and these men have had hard lives. Even if the war ended half their soldiers would be over 50 within 7 years. Ukraine needs to train hundreds of thousands of men. This is not easy in the slightest and will be an enormous drain on European militaries that are not scaled for mass training of soldiers. Most western European countries only train a few thousand soldiers a year. Even Japan only trains 10 000 per year. Ukraine has over 3200 confirmed dead commissioned officers. The number of seriously wounded is probably 2-3 times that. Replacing those officers is expensive and time consuming.

The other issue is that most men aren't suitable for the military and those who are are often the most economically productive men. Removing them from the workforce hurts and the draft encourages them to leave and never come back.

Russia's war aim is to ensure that Ukraine can never join NATO. They can ensure that by having a war against Ukraine if Ukraine tries to join. Militarily wrecking Ukraine and creating a major incentive for Ukrainians to leave are ways Russia can keep Ukraine militarily weak.

Negotiating peace is certainly not outside the Overton window especially if that peace is essentially Korea along the current military lines. My guess is Biden would accept those terms immediately, the GOP would cancel all military aid under those terms.

Peace that is Russia annexing all of Ukraine with Putin as the President over the region I guess is but no one from either side even discusses that.

I fully sympathize with Ukrainian exiles, there’s no way I’d have stuck around if I was Ukrainian.

That said, I also sympathize with Zelensky, who is largely doing what his people seem to want him to. If the US or Western European countries were also defending in total war against a larger invasion force I’d imagine similar measures would be implemented here. We should be grateful that is unlikely for now.

I also think that Putin knows he’s winning and is thus unlikely to agree to a peace that is anything less than catastrophically punitive and for which Zelensky would be killed or exiled and blamed for generations by future Ukrainian nationalists.

If the US or Western European countries were also defending in total war against a larger invasion force I’d imagine similar measures would be implemented here.

And I would miraculously become transgender and leave. Who among us would stay and fight, really?

I would at least consider staying and fighting. Just because I don't like it when people start wars in order to annex land or entire countries.

And thus falls Rome Kabul.

We should have polls here; this would make a great question.

If another country issues these guys passports and baptizes them as citizens, would that be a route around this?

This one hits close to home. I have a Ukrainian friend here with his wife. He left because he doesn't want to die in a ditch. He's a nice, young guy (about my age). Last week I had a discussion with him encouraging him to have kids.

The idea that he could get pulled back to his country to go die, especially the idea that our government would help with this, is horrific to me.

Maybe an option would be: cross the Mexican border, come back as a "refugee" without a passport?

Unless the western countries entirely abandon any and all liberal pretence in the coming months, I can’t imagine that this will result in anything other than making it easier for Ukrainian men abroad to claim permanent asylum. Becoming stateless because your state refuses to give you a passport usually strengthens your asylum case quite a bit

There are several million Ukrainians in Russia and around three million Ukrainians have moved to Russia during this war. That isn't people who live on captured territory but people who voluntarily moved to Russia since February 2022. Russia risked losing 10 million Russians by having them live as a minority in a hostile Ukraine and have them slowly integrate in Ukrainian culture. A few million of them have moved to Russia, a few million live in the same place but their home is now controlled by Russia.

Ukraine is losing 4 million or so people in the Donbass, Crimea etc, 3 million moving to Russia and 5 million moving to the EU. This is a country with a birth rate on par with South Korea.

There is something hellishly dystopian about fleeing to another country, possibly even across the ocean, and your country of birth is still trying to pull you back. Particularly because women are given a free pass. It's natural to feel like there should be some cost associated with the privilege of not having to be forcibly conscripted to fight against an invading army.

Very strange how blank-slatist ideas just sort of vanish when any sacrifice from women is involved.

For the record, I am not a blank-slatist, think women should not serve in combat, and think they would make terrible soldiers for the most part. But if we are going to live by the rules of the blank slatist, those rules should at least be applied fairly.

It is even more strange when they stay principled! There are people in the worldnews subreddit arguing that Ukraine should draft women.

The trans debate has taught me to be careful about forcing people to either abandon their position or bite bullets. They just might!

Yes, Ukraine should absolutely draft women and put them in non front line roles. Equality comes with responsibilities, not just rights and Ukranian women should go make the same blood sacrifice their brothers are doing.

What about.. the supply part of the army ? Driving trucks, working in logistics. Any part of that <100 km can be fatal on a bad day if a drone spots it and it's deemed a good enough target.

Don't even have to be blank slatist here. Modern armies have multiple logistics and support personnel behind each solider, many of which are jobs that don't require strength. Women can be conscripted to work those jobs and free up men to go fight on the frontline. The fact that they are not being done so suggests an attitude of valuing female life more than male life rather than mere blank slatism.

In practice, the suspension means military age men now living abroad will be unable to renew expiring passports or obtain new ones or receive official documents such as marriage certificates.

So I guess these measures are designed to drive these men in particular to apply for asylum in their respective host country, with the expectation on the part of Ukrainian authorities that such applications will be rejected. After all, I can hardly imagine that such measures in themselves will be sufficient to make them return home and sign up for the draft. Am I correct?

Who is denying Ukrainian asylum applications now in the West? Most Anglo countries still accept them almost without exception. Refugee programs have in some cases ceased, but that’s different to asylum seeking (which occurs once in country).

A Ukrainian denied asylum would almost certainly win their case before the ECHR anyway.

Who is denying Ukrainian asylum applications now in the West?

Currently nobody, I suppose, but I imagine the Ukrainian government is eager to force their hand.

It seems a major complication that nobody wants fewer Ukrainians in their country.

So now Reuters is stating that Russia is a "larger, better-equipped enemy"? Really? This is where we're at, after more than 2 years? They actually have the cheek to say this? Every single liberal leftist normie-oriented talking head I ever encountered kept repeating for months that the orc invasion force is completely undersized for the task, their rapist orc cannon fodder is deserting en masse and running from their positions like rabbits, they ran out of artillery shells and missiles, have no food, no gear, no body armor, no tanks, what equipment they have is all a piece of crap etc.

Every single liberal leftist normie-oriented talking head I ever encountered kept repeating for months

Any chance these drooling morons exist almost entirely in your imagination and almost not at all in real life?

I know what I've seen and heard. They claimed with absolute certainty that Ukraine will win decisively in a relatively short time.

So now Reuters is stating that Russia is a "larger, better-equipped enemy"? Really? This is where we're at, after more than 2 years? They actually have the cheek to say this? Every single liberal leftist normie-oriented talking head I ever encountered kept repeating for months that the orc invasion force is completely undersized for the task, their rapist orc cannon fodder is deserting en masse and running from their positions like rabbits, they ran out of artillery shells and missiles, have no food, no gear, no body armor, no tanks, what equipment they have is all a piece of crap etc.

Really? I have seen many many "Russia outguns Ukraine" articles over time. Also who the heck claims that Russia has no tanks and run out of artillery shells? Where are you getting your "normies"? Even dumber parts of reddit are not so dumb.

orc invasion force is completely undersized for the task

This one I heard mostly from pro-Russia trolls before full-scale war started in their "Russia has no plans to invade Ukraine full scale and no Russian soldiers attacked Ukraine" mode.

These sorts of articles were all over the place early in the war even in MSM as propaganda to fool westerners into providing aid.

War in Ukraine: Is Russia’s stock of weapons running low? - 13 October 2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-63247287

US official says Russia has probably lost half its tanks, used majority of precision-guided weapons in Ukraine - November 8, 2022 https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-11-09-22/h_1d3301daec6bd4cf650d0151cf751b2a

"US official says Russia has probably lost half its tanks, used majority of precision-guided weapons in Ukraine" is hardly "no tanks" or "ran out of artillery shells and missiles"

0% is not the same as 50%

The invasion force really was undersized for the task, and predictably failed to capture Kiev or much of anything. This is why we're still talking about this 2+ years later. Few people not very high on Kremlin supply expected such a strategy to work, and it really didn't.

The common narrative on all NAFO-adjacent and NAFO-sympathizing mainstream news outlets was that the Russians will not be able to replace their losses in armor, will run out of cruise missiles, their fortified positions will be pounded into dust because they're a paper bear, they're so dumb that they thought they can overrun Ukraine in 3 days with fewer than 200 thousand soldiers etc.

NAFO

If you are getting normies from such groups you really need to recheck your normie supply. Typical person was not engaging in this.

their fortified positions will be pounded into dust because they're a paper bear

I have not really seen it, people making this type of stupid prediction are unaware that fortified positions exist.

When has Russia not had a larger army in this conflict?

Basically for it's entirety. The Russian forces being smaller than Ukranian ones and spread out across very large front was the main reason why 24 February invasion was an idiotic decision. Partial mobilization somewhat helped but Ukraine continues to hold numbers advantage.

Their armed forces in their entirety are bigger. The forces they can realistically deploy in the Ukraine aren't.

This is nothing new. The pro-war case has long rested on cognitive dissonance, holding these two mutual incompatible views at the same time:

  1. Russia is so weak that one more round of $X billion will win the war for Ukraine.

  2. Russia is so strong that if we don't stop them here, they'll take Estonia, Poland, Germany!

What about "Russia is so strong that if we don't stop them here, they may be able to take Moldovia/Estonia! But if delay them and rebuild European armies then risk becomes nonexisting. Also, maybe they will be even kicked out of Ukraine that has not collapsed yet?" for pessimistic version? Without cognitive dissonance?

Just by the by - do you know if this conflict has seen an increase in European military preparedness? That would be a logical response, but I haven't really heard about it.

Several countries went on large equipment buying spree, for example Poland ordered massive amount of wide range of materiel. Delivery of some already started.

I will need to check at some point has anyone thought about building up munition supply and storage.

In general military spending on equipment significantly increased, though mostly for countries on NATO border.

Overall European countries have increased defense spending by about 20% since the Ukraine invasion, but this is heavily weighted to countries near the Russian frontier like Finland and Poland that have seen budgets increase by 50-75%. The Baltics have each tripled or quadrupled spending. Britain and Germany increased spending by 7-9% YoY. The Germans are still only spending 1.5% of GDP on defense despite promising to go up to 2% but are facing issues with their constitution which has (effectively) a balanced budget clause that limits large rises in government spending.

However, given the main issue is munitions - which are not the primary cost center for Western militaries (which is salaries and pensions, and to a lesser extent buying expensive hardware like ships and fighter jets) - the question is more about whether munitions factories can be rapidly scaled up. That’s as much a logistics question as a financial one.

No, it doesn’t.

I’ve laid out the case for deterrence before. That only requires Russia to think they can succeed quickly and easily. Correcting their estimate is valuable.

In the world where we refused to supply any of them, Russia could exert power over its NATO neighbors.

I agree on the theory of deterrence. I am willing to sacrifice 1,000-10,000 Ukrainians to teach Russia a lesson.

How many are you willing to sacrifice?

In the abstract sense of complicity that you’re using? Quite a few. So long as they keep doing it, I’m willing to be an enabler.

Yes, I do think conscription pushes the balance in favor of surrender. No, I don’t think it’s obvious that the modal Ukrainian soldier no longer wishes to risk death.

No, I don’t think it’s obvious that the modal Ukrainian soldier no longer wishes to risk death

I think it's quite obvious that you wouldn't need forced draft otherwise. People just don't want to horrifically die in the trenches. That's why Russia had to also resort to forceful mobilization even with much larger pool of poor people who can bribed to do so.

Conscription is evidence against, but it's not the whole story.

People don't want to do military service even when they agree with the cause and want someone to stay in the fight. Ukraine had an army of 40% conscripts back in 2013 with no trenches in sight.

Yes, I do think conscription pushes the balance in favor of surrender.

"Surrender" implies something like Hirohito in 1945. This doesn't represent the current reality of the conflict. No one is talking about surrender. Some people are talking about peace, which means a negotiated peace. It means Russia would get some of what they want, but certainly not all.

Why? They’re winning for now and Putin’s position is secure. The Russians are in a position to choose not to settle for anything less than maximalist aims. If the Ukrainians balk, Putin can simply dither for six months and the situation will be worse.

We do not know the West limits on escalation. We saw the US dither on aid until it felt like Ukraine was losing and Putin would eventually break thru and maybe take Kiev again.

If Ukranian lines got to a point of collapse the West would still have options. An imminent breakthrough does put things like Anduril tech as suggested in play, Poland entering with a superior fresh army, trad American AirPower. The west may not care much about Ukranian lives, but the closer it comes to threatening core Europe which Poland may be changes a lot of calculus.

The Biden administration has clearly been anti-winning the war but when we hit losing the war points things get done. It’s almost like inflation where 3% inflation the fed is suppose to hike and 1% inflation they are suppose to ease but the 2% line is keeping the war in no one winning position.

If Ukraine cared about their men’s lives they may be wise to lose a few battles at minimal causalities.

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How are you personally sacrificing Ukrainians?

Have you asked the Ukrainians how many they're willing to sacrifice?

Which ones should I ask? The rebels in the east? The regime in Kiev? The more Russian speaking groups in the south and east? The more Ukrainian speaking groups in the west? The ones that have fled to Russia? The ones that have fled to Western Europe?

Too many. The political goals of the Ukrainian government are not worth the deaths of hundreds of thousands of conscripts who were rounded up against their will.

Is conscription always wrong? I wouldn't argue that. It's wrong in this case because the scale of the suffering is too high for the diminishing chances of victory. How many Ukrainians would you be willing to sacrifice? I've given my answer, and the Ukrainian government won't return my emails.

If I were Zelensky, I would immediately call for a cease fire and ask the U.S. to broker a peace deal. I would be willing to give up the territory already lost in exchange for peace. If Putin says no, I'd keep fighting. That's what I would do. But I'd ask the pro-war faction to be equally candid about their goals and what they are willing to give up to achieve them.

I would be willing to give up the territory already lost in exchange for peace. If Putin says no, I'd keep fighting.

Why keep fighting and not offer more territory? Putin, in any case, seems to believe he doesn't need to settle yet.

You position yourself against the "pro-war". Presumably you'd name yourself pro-peace. How high do you price peace that isn't merely full capitulation?

Why keep fighting and not offer more territory? Putin, in any case, seems to believe he doesn't need to settle yet.

Because, like most rationalists, I believe that calculating risk and reward has actual value. This, but unironically:

https://www.theonion.com/no-blood-for-oil-vs-exactly-how-much-oil-are-we-talkin-1819594284

If your only condition for ending a conflict is absolute victory, then yes, you are in fact "pro-war". I am against that. But I am willing to tolerate some limited war in order to achieve limited goals so long as the goals are justified by the costs (which they almost never are).

These statements aren't strictly contradictory, although both are probably stronger claims than I would make. One lesson I've only recently begun to understand about WWII is that, at the scale of warfare required, seizing territory and, by extension, it's populace, gives fodder for larger armies.

This doesn't come up for discussion of American (or even Commonwealth, really) involvement in the war because the Western Allies weren't conscripting from recently-annexed territory, but the German army was much larger for having conscripted Czech and Austrian soldiers. It's not inconceivable that the same units currently armed by the West could be, after a surrender, rearmed by the Russians and marched west.

The only reason I don't find that situation hugely likely is that I'm pretty sure that most anyone can see that, in the case of a true hot war in Europe that NATO was involved in, the result would be a pretty decisive curb stomping on the scale of Desert Storm. Which is, to my mind, a huge argument for maintaining that technical and armament superiority, and also for Europe to step up their commitment to those alliances.

It's not inconceivable that the same units currently armed by the West could be, after a surrender, rearmed by the Russians and marched west.

Yes, it is inconceivable. There is no where for Russia to go. Look at a map of NATO. That's why people are talking about Moldova. It's literally the only European country Russia could reasonably attack.

Increasing the size of the Russian army by 10% with some Ukrainian conscripts who hate you does not move the needle.

Uh, Ukrainian soldiers are much less interested in fighting for Russia than ethnic Germans in Alsace and Sudetenland were in fighting for Germany.

There is a long history of fighting with questionably-motivated conscripts. I'm not convinced individual interest really matters: they seem to either get thrown to the worst fighting on the front, or to quiet rear defensive positions. On the other hand, as far as I'm aware, Vichy French and Norwegian troops didn't see much combat action on behalf of the Axis during WWII.

I think you're right that after two years of brutal fighting, there is too much animosity for that to work today, but early in the current invasion Russia was fielding all the troops they could conscript from separatist regions, so it's not completely out of the question, I think.

Russia is so weak that one more round of $X billion will win the war for Ukraine.

has anyone serious claimed that? Has Biden ever described for example some round as final and sufficient to win the war?

Perhaps not this stimulus or that stimulus, but the implication is that $X will win the war (for some value of $X).

Otherwise, we are just giving money to prolong the conflict, killing hundreds of thousands of young men in the process. And that would be truly evil.

I don't think, in a conflict like this, there's likely to be a binary, clear cut win/lose situation. Western nations providing aid to Ukraine does two things:

  1. Increases Ukraine's ability to exercise military power, increasing the odds of a settlement in its favor, on the sliding scale, and
  2. Increases cost on a hostile foreign power (Russia.) You see some rhetoric along these lines ("killing Russians at no American lives lost is a great deal") in the United States from time to time.

So even if Ukraine "loses" it's possible that military aid to it causes a better outcome than the outcome with no military aid. Notably, the second point holds regardless of the ultimate outcome of the war.

In fairness, it seems possible that things could backfire on one or both of these points (e.g. over the long run Western aid hardens Russian support for the war, driving them to successfully pursue more expansive war aims) – one historical example of this might be England during the US Civil War – but generally speaking "more military power" is traditionally thought to improve ability to negotiate a favorable conclusion to a conflict, even if said conclusion is not entirely satisfactory.

I'll add a third point, that Ukraine holding ground is beneficial to NATO countries in the Black Sea. If Russia had pushed to Odessa early in the war, it would have had significant naval control that would heavily impact counties like Romania and Bulgaria. Instead, with Western support, Ukraine has destroyed (last I heard) about a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet. In fact, Ukraine is shipping more grain now than before the war, despite the 'grain deal' being ended, because Russia can no longer affect trade in the Black Sea. This is a major benefit to Eastern Europe as a whole.

Perhaps not this stimulus or that stimulus, but the implication is that $X will win the war (for some value of $X).

That is true, on assumption that converting this to weapons will be possible. This war is more equipment-constrained than manpower-constrained.

Yeah...lol. The current narrative, as far as I can tell, is that the next target of the orcs is Moldova of all places, because reasons.

It's not 'the current narrative'. It's been the truth that Russia tries to influence Moldova for many years now. Specifically recently, Moldova banned a pro-Russia political party for corruption, and the people from that party have just now reformed a new group funded by the Kremlin.

Probably your mistake is thinking that only troops on the ground matter, when in reality Russia's most potent strength is their disinformation and influence capabilities.

reasons

Moldova is small corrupt weak country not in NATO, already partially invaded by Russia. It is buffered by Ukraine. If Ukraine or at least relevant part would be occupied by Russia - then Moldova is a very likely target.

The distance between Kherson and the Moldovan-Ukrainian border is more than 300 km though. A very likely target that is not.

If Ukraine or at least relevant part would be occupied by Russia

It's hardly realistic to assume that any Russian offensive in the future will even reach the Moldovan border.

It's hardly realistic to assume that any Russian offensive in the future will even reach the Moldovan border.

Interesting, I would expect full collapse of Ukraine to be at least possible - even if not the most likely outcome.

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There are certainly hundreds if not thousands of Russians and pro-Russians on social media talking continously about how Russia will any day now take Odes(s)a (I don't fully understand why Russians are so obsessed with this particular city), which would put them within a striking distance of the Moldovan border.

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I believe the reasons are "Moldova is dealing with a Russia-supported separatist region, which makes it a prime target for action."

Somehow invading Moldova from a separatist region which is geographically akin to a leather belt in appearance, is landlocked, and bordered by Ukraine on the other side would be the mother of all pro-gamer moves, I guess.

Once they have Ukraine that's not a problem any more.

At the beginning of the conflict western countries accepted Ukrainian refugees on very generous terms but did not accept men fleeing the draft from Russia. Morally this feels right but practically it's completely backwards. If you want Ukraine to win you should only accept their children and old people. You should bribe able bodied Russian men between 18 and 30 to seek asylum which would deprive Russia of both soldiers and workers.

You should bribe able bodied Russian men between 18 and 30 to seek asylum which would deprive Russia of both soldiers and workers.

Why we would want Russians as a substantial minority? Especially if you already worries about possibly being invaded by Russia?

See how Russians in Germany organised pro-putin demonstrations. Maybe it was only small minority but enough to put off me from accepting Russians.

(also, exit controls by Ukrainians were mostly covering limiting how many man could leave)

I'm not saying you should necessarily, but if the plan is "accept X Slavic refugees to help beat Russia" then it's more effective if they're Russians instead of Ukrainians.

We already have a substantial minority of Russian speaking people.

My hunch is that a policy of open arms for all (ethnic) Russian immigrants would help with the Polish reputation of being rabidly russophobic, and make it a tiny bit harder for German politicians to explain away a local conflict as something Poland pushed for and maybe even deserved, actually. And anyway, not many Russians would come, I imagine.

I suppose the potential for sabotage is a concern.

My hunch is that a policy of open arms for all (ethnic) Russian immigrants would help with the Polish reputation of being rabidly russophobic

Totally not worth it, even if it would work and change opinion.

And yes, Poland is rapidly against Russian government, for good reasons. Though Russians should be fine, ale long as they are not supporting Russian government or having positive opinion about Putin/Hitler/Russian invasion etc.

But for strategic reasons having substantial Russian minority is a risk that would be nice to be without.

What if Ukraine winning wasn't the goal in the first place but killing most Russians? .... Russia is big. And they can rubberstamp Russian citizenship to anyone wishing to enter EU. Wouldn't work.

Like said below, a huge amount of Russians were accepted. At least here, the eventual reason to close the door mostly had to do with the fears there would be infiltrators sent alongside the rest.

I feel like we need a number here. How many?

a huge amount of Russians were accepted.

ahem. ahem. What means 'huge'? Ever since COVID times, EU does everything to let less Russians in, not more. And they mostly let those Russians the least likely to go to war (e.g. rich).

Okay, I shouldn't have used the word 'huge', but the point was the comment about how EU states did not "accept men fleeing the draft from Russia", which was not correct.

I remember the time when Finnish (or Estonian or Latvian...I can't remember) authorities specifically stated at the time of the Russian partial mobilization that they will not give Russian refugee men asylum. Their foreign minister (as far as I can remember) declared that "coming to Europe is a privilege, not a right". Of course, being relatively old, I remembered the rhetoric of this exact same cabal at the time of the 2015 refugee crisis. I understood that only a pathologically evil cabal can be this shameless and brazen. It's mind-boggling, really.

Finland is a different situation from European countries generally. Russia is actively taking refugees from the middle east and elsewhere and shipping them to the Finnish border where they are provided with bicycles and told to cross. This is a deliberate attack on Finland. Their decision to close their borders to Russian asylum seekers is a response to this abuse of that system by a hostile Russian government.

Russia is actively taking refugees from the middle east and elsewhere and shipping them to the Finnish border where they are provided with bicycles and told to cross.

How is that, in effect, different from what Serbian, Macedonian and Turkish authorities were doing in 2015?

The EU states have tightened their general asylum policies since 2015 precisely because of that crisis. They were already doing pushbacks in Greece in 2020 as a response to asylum seeker entry wave at that time, it was big news before the Covid hit.

There was an exodus of people with wherewithal and high human capital from Russia anyway right?

Seems like a good balance that harmed Russia without causing more drama over even bigger migrants flows.

Housing prices doubled in a year.

That had to result in immense social tension. Can you comment on this?

It's been interesting to watch the reaction from Western pro-Ukrainians to Ukraine's sweeping new mobilization orders. The prevailing sentiment seems to be "that's a tragedy, and obviously the draft shouldn't exist to begin with, but what can be done?" Suggesting that it would be better to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict is outside the Overton window. It's a foregone conclusion that Ukraine must fight to the last man.

I find it interesting in another direction, such as why you believe it's a foregone conclusion, as opposed to a dismissed propaganda narrative that outran its legs.

We have numbers to use, and the war attrition of the Ukraine War is nowhere near that Ukraine is being attrited to such a degree in population terms. The early-war narratives to that effect required the inclusion of the capture of major demographic centers in the east during the early war and projected that forward, but in the time sense Russia hasn't captured the demographics previously associated with the territory, and the combat attrition rates- even factoring in some of the more incredible Russian claims- are nowhere near enough to warrant a demographic-level narrative. Ukraine may be struggling with the manpower to resist the russian manpower, but that's a balance of scale and desire to mobilize available population, not running out of population.

This also turns on the motte-and-bailey of what negotiating a peaceful end of the conflict entails. The Russian terms from the start of the conflict- including the narrative that the West forced Ukraine to cancel a near-deal- have consistently been terms that were, shall we say, not conducive to a negotiated peaceful end of the conflict, as opposed to obvious set-ups for a fourth continuation war to greater Russian advantage by demanding dismantling of Ukraine's means to resist any future invasion and providing Russia a veto over any external support in case of a future Russian invasion. The Russians have been rather consistent on that front, and have further expanded their claims since, and so it generally falls on the advocates of a negotiating a peaceful end of the conflict as to argue as to how the Russian position is compatible with a negotiated peaceful end of the conflict, which itself was the third unprovoked continuation war in a decade.

There is something hellishly dystopian about fleeing to another country, possibly even across the ocean, and your country of birth is still trying to pull you back. Particularly because women are given a free pass. It's natural to feel like there should be some cost associated with the privilege of not having to be forcibly conscripted to fight against an invading army.

Why would you feel it's hellishly dystopian, when it's a positively banal part of the international system and has been for longer than you've been alive? As long as you claim citizenship of Country X, you have reciprocal obligations with country X, and while countries Y-Z often don't go along in enforcing other countries laws regarding those obligations, they often practice similar practices. This ranges from conscription- I've personally met Koreans who left Ivy League colleges to serve their service time- to taxation abroad, to extradition treaties, and so on.

Conscription is not some international abnormality, and neither is it being gender-restricted. If a normality comes off as dystopian, that implies more about the standard of dystopia than the nature.

This raises questions about Ukraine's ability to keep their fighting force well-staffed going forward, and also questions about the morale of Ukrainian soldiers. Every conflict has some number of draft dodgers, but I wonder if there are any hard stats about whether dodgers are particularly overrepresented in this conflict? That could help adjudicate the question of whether the Ukrainian resistance is an authentic homegrown phenomenon, or if it's largely being sustained by Western pressure.

If you lack numbers of draft dodgers to make any judgement on relative numbers, why would you believe the conflict is being sustained by Western pressure as opposed to authentic homegrown opinion? Especially when you already have access to now years of Ukrainian opinion polling by a multitude of actors that go beyond Ukrainian capacity to control?

It's not exactly impossible to do polling in Ukraine without Ukrainian government approval, and the polling efforts that survive scrutiny are generally consistent. Even on conscription, it's not particularly remarkable: individuals don't necessarily like being conscripted, but can accept/support conscriptions as a legitimate and even necessary component of defense.

I'm more curious as to what you think the alleged Western pressure on the Ukrainians to keep fighting is. Typically that refers to the early 2022 breakdown of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which actors claimed were 'close to agreement', but reporting on actual contents of the negotiations include revealed rather significant gaps in position like-

The draft treaty with Ukraine included banning foreign weapons, “including missile weapons of any type, armed forces and formations.” Moscow wanted Ukraine’s armed forces capped at 85,000 troops, 342 tanks and 519 artillery pieces. Ukrainian negotiators wanted 250,000 troops, 800 tanks and 1,900 artillery pieces, according to the document. Russia wanted to have the range of Ukrainian missiles capped at 40 kilometers (about 25 miles).

And included Russians provisions like-

Other issues remained outstanding, notably what would happen if Ukraine was attacked. Russia wanted all guarantor states to agree on a response, meaning a unified response was unlikely if Russia itself was the aggressor. In case of an attack on Ukraine, Ukrainian negotiators wanted its airspace to then be closed, which would require guarantor states to enforce a no-fly zone, and the provision of weapons by the guarantors, a clause not approved by Russia.

I don't think anyone has seriously argued that refusing terms like these requires external pressure, given the rather logical implications for one's prospects for a peaceful future if the current invader insists that they must agree to any international assistance to you in case they invade again after you dismantle your means to resist.

Given that the current Ukraine War is at least the third continuation war in a decade after the occupation of Crimea (the first continuation war being the NovaRussia campaign that was intended to start a mass uprising, and the second continuation war being the conventional Russian military intervention to preserve the enclaves as separatists when the NovaRussia campaign failed), peace talks really do have to address the prospects of future wars, and not treat the current war as one in isolation. Especially as multiple Russian claims as to why their invasion was justified would retain for future use would not be resolved in any near-term ceasefire.

Even on conscription, it's not particularly remarkable: individuals don't necessarily like being conscripted, but can accept/support conscriptions as a legitimate and even necessary component of defense.

Do you have links to this polling? If it shows a majority of draft-age Ukrainian men support conscription as implemented, it would probably shift my view of the conflict.

Do you have links to this polling?

While there's nothing I know of that can't be dismissed if you really want to, this is probably the best / most current public polling that covers this subject.

This is Feb 24 polling conducted by CISR - the Center for Insights in Survey Research- which is the research arm of IRI - the International Republican Institute - which is a non-profit funded by the US government- with this specific research funded by USAID. That does mean it's US-govt funded research, but IRI isn't a US government organ as such- it's actually part of a pair of organizations, with its counterpart being the NDI (National Democratic Institute)- with the board members of each respective organization being drawn from the American Republican and Democratic parties respectively, making it a govt-funded partisan research organization of sorts. That makes it close enough to the US government if you want to insist anything that US government funding touches is propaganda, but it's (a) Republican party propaganda during a period where Republicans as an institution are far from aligned with the US government position on Ukraine, and (b) that's not reason enough to reject all data. The IRI (and similar institutions) may have interests, but they also have an interest in understanding the data to support further policy creation, and aren't exactly organs who present data to drive public policy. Pick fights over the data methodology if you'd like...

...which is described on page 2, with demographics on page 3. Computer-assisted telephonic survey, n = 2000 Ukrainians, nearly 900 men vs 1100 women, response rate of 14% until they got the 2000, etc. etc. Responses are broken down by gender / age, but also by regional breakdowns, but not necessarily gender & age breakdowns. (You'd probably need to request access to the research data directly for more nuanced breakdowns.)

In other words, typical telephonic polling with typical telephonic polling strengths and weaknesses. Sufficiently motivated people will find excuses to reject it, but in lieu of alternative more authoritative polling data, it can serve as a ballpark.

Now for what you're most interested in, go to page 22, 'How do you feel about the current level of mobilization in Ukraine'. (Remember that conscription is functionally synonymous with mobilization as mobilization is just the euphism treadmill for the process provided by conscription.)

If it shows a majority of draft-age Ukrainian men support conscription as implemented, it would probably shift my view of the conflict.

It doesn't show that a majority of Ukrainian men support conscription as implemented- because it actually shows a plurality of Ukrainian men in Ukraine believe there isn't enough conscription (36%) with almost as many believing the current level of mobilization is just right (31%), while only 17% of men believe there is too much.

While there's a notable age bias implicit in that- with about 30% of under-30s (male and female) believing there is too much mobilization compared to 10% of the too-old-for-conscription 60+ pops- even the under-30 bracket is decisively in favor of as-much-or-more mobilization (65% to 29%). The next 3 conscriptable brackets are even more decisively in favor of the current level of mobilization or more, with 'we need more mobilization' increasing as you go up the age bracket, and 'too much mobilization' decreasing as you go older as well.

Does this mean that a majority of Ukrainian men support conscription 'as implemented'? Well, 50-stalins criticism is still criticism. And someone interested in cross-linguistic semantic quibling, there's things you can quibble on.

But there's also an interesting question that was posed, shown on slide 51, which is rather relevant to the conscription-is-unpopular / the most important thing is Ukrainian lives / the West is forcing Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian arguments.

Q: If Ukraine is only able to accomplish one of the following objectives, which do you think is the most important for our country to achieve? "Freezing the conflict at the present lines to stop the loss of more Ukrainian lives" is... 19%.

Which is, admittedly, ahead of full EU membership (11%), but also behind full NATO membership (23%), and less than half (39%) of the dominant answer of what Ukrainians think is the most important objective.

Full-scale war to recapture all lands included in the 1991 borders.

They don't think that's going to be quick or easy, either.

People who think the Ukrainians are war-weary reluctants forced to fight against their will by western powers are woefully unaware. The Ukraine War is a war of nationalism, and the Ukrainians are nuts.

edited for punctuation

I wish to add that Ukrainian troop complaints about mobilization are more 'let me fight well' instead of 'I do not wish to fight'. Ukrainian soldiers in the brigades constantly bitch about not having enough ammo or artillery or mines to fight in the trenches, instead of bitching about why they are forced to fight. Motivation is a more germane concern among the muscovites, which is why their regeneration focuses on central asians and token impressed foreigners instead of the westernized slav elite.

This point in particular

Full-scale war to recapture all lands included in the 1991 borders

really substantiates the thesis that Ukrainians have given up on peaceful coexistence with Russia, and the only thing that would have polled higher is 'full scale war, with the west directly bombing every russian on our soil.'

There is no positive sentiment left in Ukraine for the Russians and the Ukrainians already view themselves in a full scale war. One of the only thing stopping further mass mobilization is limitation in materiel and training capability, rooted in competence and capacity issues. This obviously still doesn't mean Ukraine is going to or will actually win with mobilization, but the narrative internally is 'we want to kill Russians' instead of 1918 era 'our leaders send us to die for nothing and we shall rise against the capitol'.

Of course, there are also Russian complaints in the "let me fight well" territory.

One significant difference I observe is the ethnonationalist motivation in particular. It appears that nationalists are usually the most fervent fighters. Ukrainian nationalists think they're in control of the country. Hell, even Russians are saying that Ukrainian nationalists are in control of the country [and it's bad]. Russian nationalists, the explicit ones, are split between "all citizens are Russians, don't you dare to rock the boat" and "why should we fight for this country while Chechens are taking our money and Tajiks are taking our jobs?".

Thanks for the link. And, yes, it did shift my views toward more Ukraine support (never anti-Ukraine, but more concerned with male wellbeing and disposability). As much as I'd love a poll that got into the nitty gritty of what exactly Ukrainian men think of current conscription/mobilization policy, that seems unlikely, and this poll does suggest they're broadly supportive of it, at least in principle, and I can't think of any quibbles that'd reverse the results.

You are welcome. And if you are interested in that, there's no reason you can't just reach out directly to IRI and ask more about this poll / how to contact the pollsters / let them know you have follow on questions and why.

It wouldn't be an imposition to them, and in fact they'd probably be thrilled to let you know if they had anything else. Researcher groups like that often love when their research is noticed, and policy-support research in particular loves to know when research they provided can change an opinion. You questions / testimony and reasoning why (concern of male disposability) and what assauged your concern (awareness of Ukrainian views on the subject) would be the sort of thing that might tailor future questions and such.

Push comes to shove, most men in the suck accept their duty, if only because adrenaline and testosterone are a helluva drug. Instinctively all men who have done team sports or other forms of group bonding know this, and acculturated messaging about duty and honor go a long way to motivate what looks like irrationality.

What men don't like is dying for nothing, or worse dying for someone elses interest directly against our own. Hence the claims that Ukrainians are dying for NATO or USMC was dying for Haliburton - those claims, if believed, can crush morale. We saw Afghanistan fall when everyone felt that Kabul did not care for even the Pashtuns much less the Hazara or Tajiks, and we saw the Iraqi army all abandon Mosul because dying for Sunnis isn't on the cards for the Shia. Even now we see Palestinians, Lebanese and Houthis continuing to die for Islam/Anti-Israel, even though Iran has thoroughly asspuppeted them. So long as the men believe in the cause, it doesn't matter if someone else actually is asspuppeting them.

Why would you feel it's hellishly dystopian, when it's a positively banal part of the international system and has been for longer than you've been alive? As long as you claim citizenship of Country X, you have reciprocal obligations with country X

You're missing that part that all states conspired to make everyone have citizenship and do not allow to exit citizenship unless person has another citizenship (or guaranteed to obtain it). Exiting citizenship often is difficult thing.

So it's not a choice

There is something hellishly dystopian about fleeing to another country, possibly even across the ocean, and your country of birth is still trying to pull you back. Particularly because women are given a free pass.

No there isn't. The idea that people have duties and obligations to their nation was considered so normal you could mistake it for the air we breathe until, like, yesterday. That women get a "free pass" from violent conflict is basic common sense, a conclusion reached by any society that isn't actively suicidal.

What there is something hellishly dystopian about, is that the very same people who demand you fulfill your duties to the nation, are working tirelessly to abolish the very idea of there being a nation to start with. That they're demanding you fight and die for the privilege of having your replacement shipped in in an Amazon package, from the country of the lowest bidders, and for your children - if you have any, and they make it through the war - to be raised with the values of Californian progressives.

The idea that people have duties and obligations to their nation was considered so normal you could mistake it for the air we breathe until, like, yesterday.

Yeah right around the time that countries decided that they no longer had duties and obligations to their own citizens. The sword cuts both ways here.

Just to use my own country as an example: if we can get back to being self respecting unabashed hardcore nationalists (you know: the standard since the beginning of time), then I can understand a duty to that nation.

Yeah right around the time that countries decided that they no longer had duties and obligations to their own citizens. The sword cuts both ways here.

Well, that's what I'm driving at. The issue isn't as narrow as women not being drafted, as some people say, it's that people are being asked to take one for the team, when the same people who are asking, are deconstructing the team.

Yeah right around the time that countries decided that they no longer had duties and obligations to their own citizens. The sword cuts both ways here.

That would be officially January 20, 1961 in the US, I believe. ("Ask not what your country can do for you....")

That women get a "free pass" from violent conflict is basic common sense, a conclusion reached by any society that isn't actively suicidal.

So not including Israel, I suppose.

Jewish women who request a religious exemption from the draft nearly always have it granted IIRC and they’re not supposed to be in combat positions anyways.

What there is something hellishly dystopian about, is that the very same people who demand you fulfill your duties to the nation, are working tirelessly to abolish the very idea of there being a nation to start with.

Well, there is an argument that what's really being fought for here is not a nation but a federation. Ukraine gives the West/the EU something to rally around, and someone (the European nation most hostile to their vision) to rally against.

So, from the perspective of non-Ukrainians, it may not be incoherent. Ukraine's right to self-determination is important because they chose to join the great melding, and freedom is worth dying for.

The Ukrainians on the ground can fight for some specific, blood-and-soil concept of Ukraine if they want.

That non-Ukrainians are cheering them on makes perfect sense because of "enemy of my enemy...", if nothing else, but acting like this is supporting "self-determination" is indeed incoherent, when you're working day and night to abolish the "self" of Ukraine. This applies to the Ukrainian elites as much es the broader West, by they way.

The Ukrainians on the ground can fight for some specific, blood-and-soil concept of Ukraine if they want.

Letting them believe that this is what they're dying for, and standing by as they're being conscripted, when you know you won't let them keep it when the fighting is over, is precisely the part that's hellishly dystopian.

when you're working day and night to abolish the "self" of Ukraine

I am not, next question please.

I never suspected you to be one of the Western (or Ukrainian, for that matter) elites, so this doesn't come as a surprise.

Well, assuming a Euro win, I'm sure there'll be votes. And, if people vote to become just one part of a Euro federation, who's to say it's a bad choice? They chose it, better than being Belarus.

I'm sure some Irish revolutionary who died wanting wanted a socialist state or some other vision of the country is dissatisfied in his grave. The people seem to be managing fine.

As lines go, not that bad.

Of course, that's assuming a Euro win.

If this is how things are supposed to go, on what grounds are you demanding that anyone fights and dies for your vote to say "fuck that guy, he's already dead"? Go and fight yourself, if you think it's such a great idea.

The self-determination in the current mainstream conception is always individual, though. It makes thus sense once you consider that individuals are indeed more free to live their life in the West than in Russia and self determination is supported on those grounds.

As far as I can tell, this absolutely depends on where in the West, and in what aspect you choose to exercise your individual self-determination. If what you want to do is to criticize Vladimir Putin (something that is important, and something I think everyone should be able to do without fear), the West will almost certainly be freer than Russia every time.

If you want to speak your mind on one side of certain other sensitive culture war issues, Russia is freer than England. If you want to go through life wearing religious apparel, Russia is most likely freer than France. If you want to create and run a hyper-nationalist right-wing party concerned with ethnic unity, Russia may be freer than Germany. If you want to display Soviet iconography, Russia is freer than Latvia. If you want to vote for the Communist Party, Russia is freer than Ukraine (not merely because Ukraine has suspended elections, but also because the Communist Party is banned by law in that country.)

Of note in this discussion, Russia has a conscription system, but so to do several Western states, including several in Europe.

My point here isn't "Russia Good Actually" but that Western states very often are extraordinarily repressive, at least by the standards of the United States (but not so much by the standards of the world as a whole). There's an idea that because Western nations generally have some form of democratic government they don't repress minority groups, and I don't think that's true at all.

My point here isn't "Russia Good Actually" but that Western states very often are extraordinarily repressive, at least by the standards of the United States (but not so much by the standards of the world as a whole). There's an idea that because Western nations generally have some form of democratic government they don't repress minority groups, and I don't think that's true at all.

That's true, but the extend of the repression is simply not comparable between the West and Russia. If you are an influential person who opposes the status quo in Germany, you may have trouble getting a bank account, the media may lie about you, other parties may not want to cooperate with you, you may get expelled from the country if you are a foreign national, and the other parties may try to ban you. You can also go to jail if you express certain opinions, but this is relatively easy to avoid and doesn't hamper your political action much. This is all very bad. Conversely, if you are an influential person who opposes the status quo in Russia, you will get assassinated or put in the Gulag. Sometimes both. Further, the range of not expressible opinions is broad with unclear boundaries. Real opposition parties don't exist and elections are faked anyways.

Well, the vast majority of people aren't influential, though – I don't think measuring the impact on influential people is the best way to evaluate the extent of repression! To pull out the C.S. Lewis quote:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I think Putin is pretty clearly the robber baron here, and from what I can tell at least some of the European states (England specifically springs to mind) strike me as aspiring to be omnipotent moral busybodies. But on the other hand, the omnipotent moral busybody-ness is still aspirational, and on the other I think it's important not to underestimate how chilling pushing a few politically influential people off of buildings is on ordinary, non-influential people. So I think it is best to characterize the European state's oppression as different and bad moreso than worse or something like that (and certainly, all else being equal, literally murdering someone seems worse to me than hassling them over their bank account.)

But it doesn't seem to me that it then follows that everyone will prefer bad Western policies to bad Russian policies. I can imagine some people who would be more impeded by German's restrictive speech code than Russia's. It seems to me perfectly reasonable that some people who aren't me have a preference for the latter because of what they value – and surely a nonzero and in fact substantial amount of such people must exist in real life, choosing to side with Russia instead of fleeing Ukraine for a variety of reasons.

Real opposition parties don't exist and elections are faked anyways.

This may be the case, but I've always been a little puzzled at the allegations that Putin systematically fakes elections (versus pushing people off of buildings, which makes a lot of sense to me). By all accounts (including independent Western polling, from what I recall) Putin is quite popular, and should be expected to win elections. It makes me wonder if these allegations are cope from Western elites that can't understand why people would willingly vote for Putin. (The reasons for voting for Putin should be pretty obvious from looking at how Russia has rebounded since the fall of the USSR, although it is possible that he will end up undoing that progress on his Ukraine adventure.)

On the other hand, possibly there's some quirk of the Russian political system (which I am not particularly familiar with) that makes the extra bit gained fraudulently worth it, or some other risk assessment that is opaque to me.

The other option, of course, is that when people say there aren't "real elections" what they mean is that there's enough voter fraud to swing the vote considerably. This seems pretty bad, and much more plausible to me. But I think it's more precise to describe that as fraudulent than faked – maybe it seems like a weird difference, but e.g. I wouldn't argue the 1960 Presidential election in the United States was fake (which, to me, connotes a complete disconnect between the input and output of the votes) even though it was substantially fraudulent (possibly by enough to swing the election).

You may have considerably more insight into this than I do – when you say they don't have real elections, what precisely do you mean?

The research into Russian elections that's out there (percentage digit anomalies, turnout:percentages correlation anomalies) leads me in the direction of believing they're fake as in they don't count the ballots. They pick a number and say it's the result. At some voting stations there had been videos of what looked like ballot stuffing. Perhaps not in the latest election, but other ones.

Why would Putin do that if he can be confident he'd win? Extra control freaking? Local attempts to ensure the numbers look "correct"? 4D demoralization chess? Your guess is as good as mine.

More comments

In every region in the world the prevailing culture is 'free' to do what's normal in that culture. The question is whether you're free to behave counter culturally. Russians can do many things that are in line with that culture, but if you oppose the prevailing order (esp. Putinism) you are at risk of violence, that's why it's considered less free.

Yes. I just think that in large parts of Europe you're not free to behave counterculturally. In some places (e.g. France' laïcité policies) this is explicit.

Then we're right back to conscription, and why do some people have to fight and die, while others get to enjoy a carefree life in the West.

That women get a "free pass" from violent conflict is basic common sense, a conclusion reached by any society that isn't actively suicidal.

In those societies, men had authority over women in return, similar to how parents protect their children but expect their children to obey them.

It's the modern notion that men are obligated to protect women, but women owe men nothing in return, that seems like a rough deal for men.

similar to how parents protect their children but expect their children to obey them.

Note that modern parenting does not expect this. Obedience is not demanded and disobedience is not punished.

Ukrainian social norms are not particularly like those of the modern west; it’s a strong candidate for the most conservative social norms of any country with a Christian majority and this is apparent from interacting with old country Ukrainians in a way it is not with old country Mexicans or poles or whatever. The idea that Ukraine does not have at least some degree of actual patriarchy to go with women being exempted from the draft is not, it appears, particularly based on fact.

I agree that Ukraine is fairly conservative at the moment, but the question is: for how long? Euromaidan was essentially Ukraine pledging allegiance to Western values. That was the cue for Russia to invade!

This can conservatively be interpreted as “Ukrainians turned away from Russia because they wanted economic growth similar to Poland after joining the EU” but it can also easily be interpreted to mean “Ukraine is now lost to the globo-homo neo-liberal monoculture of which liberal feminism is a fundamental part”. The fact that Ukraine receives the majority of its support from America, and within America from the pro-feminist Democratic party, rather than the Republican party that has the Christians and conservatives, doesn't bode well. I can easily imagine that the Ukrainian women that fled the country end up decrying the toxic masculinity of the men who chose to fight and die for their country (like American liberals would), rather than praising them for their service to their homeland (like American conservatives might).

I can link some of the new aid package grants as backup if you like. There's a lot of "$950,000 for empowering equitable feminist solar infrastructure stakeholder committees in Ukraine."
The country is going to look very different when the US is done with it. And not "richer," since most of the money will end up as kickbacks to western NGOs.

This is Ukraine. The gender studies grants will be stolen. I mean, probably a lot of the grants for normal stuff will be stolen, but Ukrainian elites are smart enough to get that the gender studies grants are ones that no one will even notice if it's all stolen because it doesn't do anything.

That's a feature not a bug. The purpose of these grants is to give money to people or causes without saying that's what we're doing.

men had authority over women in return

That's vague. Men had a higher legal status in some respects and in some situations, but a typical man in a typical historical society had absolutely no authority over any women, except his wife and daughters if he had any.

except his wife and daughters

Well, yes. That's the point. "Men had authority over women in return, similar to how parents protect their children but expect their children to obey them."

This is taxonomic sophistry. Obviously that was implied in what they said. No sane person would claim otherwise an you are arguing against nobody.

Then it wasn't something that men had as men, whereas women had their immunity from conscription as women. Different from today, but not that different, and no solace for an unmarried man who was conscripted (as many young, unmarried men were, sometimes violently e.g. press gangs).

Less antagonistic, please.

You can make this observation—it sure does look like that was already implied by MartianNight—without turning up the heat.

In case it isn't obvious, I did literally just say that both men and women should have obligations to the larger group they belong to, and only imposing obligations on one side is, indeed, a raw deal. I'm not seeing how that implies men's ownership of women, though.

Men fighting and women not fighting makes sense when the social role of women is to provide abundant healthy offspring for your culture. If the women are instead opting out of making babies, moving to other countries, and not possessing in-group preference, there is no longer any moral reason to allow them to abstain from fighting. Ukraine should institute an immediate draft where women who are not pregnant or rearing children are drafted into the frontlines, and women who are raising a soldier’s child get a stipend.

Special demographic operation: drafted to bear children

Ukraine should institute an immediate draft where women who are not pregnant or rearing children are drafted into the frontlines

Or, if not to the frontlines, at least to auxiliary service or work in the defense industry. (Which is basically how single, childless British women were drafted during WW2.)

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!


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