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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.

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.

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.

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