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Well, given the history of the USSR and Russian Empires, I’d say your priors are improperly calibrated
My main point is pretty much that the strategic situation Russia faces today is nothing like the strategic situation the Soviet Union faced in 1945 when they had overwhelming military force, favorable demographics, a vital pan-national ideology, neighboring countries which had been hollowed out by war, a neutral-to-friendly United States, and a regional power vacuum.
So yes, I did consider the Soviet Union and it is precisely that consideration that makes slippery slope arguments seem farfetched
I don’t know how you can observe the last 3 years of war and think Russia would roll over a NATO country
Yeah, and the Ukrainians didn't have a great time. Which is why they're trying pretty dang hard to avoid that fate.
Some Ukrainians didn’t have a great time. Which is why some Ukrainians try pretty hard to avoid that fate. Of all its neighboring countries, Eastern Ukraine is by far the closest linked to Russia
yofuckreddit
18hr ago
You're more right than not! I'm most digitally loquacious after 2 beers.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
19hr ago
Tactical drones are nice and all in trench warfare, but good old-fashioned air dominance is even better when you can get it.
Well, can you? The closest we have seen to an attempt to get it over a country with a modern multi-layered air defense system was in fact Russia over Ukraine, and it failed. Of course, the question is to what extent the conclusion should be "Russia sucks" and to what extent it should be "this is a hard problem", but it's not like Ukraine can fly manned planes close to Russian-held territory either. I imagine the US is actually not convinced that it could pull it off either, and is more interested in maintaining the strategic ambiguity (that maybe it could) than risking rolling the dice and establishing that the answer is no for all to see. (Of course, the possibility that the answer being yes leads to nukes is also a factor.)
I can only say I am looking forward to the day China goes for Taiwan, as it will finally re-peg some of the nationalist hypothesizing about who could win if they really tried to reality.
faceh
19hr ago
Yes, the Taliban pulled this off to massive success (by their standards/on their terms) not too long ago.
But in Ukraine's case, WHAT IS THE LONG-TERM STRATEGY.
Beat back Russia, maybe even join NATO, fine.
Your population still drops off a cliff. Protracting the war is hastening the decline there.
What sort of deal can you make that even lets you feel safe for the next couple decades?
FtSoA
19hr ago
Ukraine is not a NATO country
Huh. [trump_RBG_meme.jpg]
I don’t find the slippery slope arguments convincing.
Well, given the history of the USSR and Russian Empires, I'd say your priors are improperly calibrated.
It would take an immense investment of manpower for Russia to occupy any other Baltic state and crush the resistance.
Probably. Do you doubt Putin's resolve if he were to decide that was his goal?
But a good chunk of Ukraine is not just Slavic but also descended from the Rus, with a long and recent history of being ruled by Moscow.
Yeah, and the Ukrainians didn't have a great time. Which is why they're trying pretty dang hard to avoid that fate.
If Russia can take it, they will keep it without much trouble
Maybe. I have no idea what the chances of an insurgency would be or not. But it seems relatively high, given the years of conflict before the invasion.
faceh
19hr ago
Let's not exaggerate here. The US has in almost no actual way "stretched itself thin" in supporting Ukraine.
I keep reading stories like this:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-stockpiles-missiles/
Now, granted, there is only one possible opponent on the world stage we could maybe be concerned about challenging the U.S. directly.
But I think it's pretty obvious that the U.S. is less able to intervene in various conflicts than it would be in the world where the Ukraine war didn't pop off.
Some places are going to notice that.
If wars of conquest (not motivated by ideological commitments that aren't "rational" in the usual sense) are shown to be more costly than they are worth, even in victory, then that's a huge deterrent.
Right.
And seeing that both you and your potential opponent are in a demographic spiral, the 'costs' of doing so shift. This is the problem as I see it, we have not seen this particular phenomenon in the modern era: governments hitting economic crises that they will only expect to worsen as their populations collapse, and getting desperate enough to try and seize territory and resources to stave off disaster.
so older populations would seemingly be less warlike by default.
The point is more that countries will run out of young, male citizens to man their military force. If your country is composed mostly of the old and infirm... you'll look pretty vulnerable to your neighbors whose population pyramid is slightly more favorable.
This is likely the primary impetus for Russia invading Ukraine at all.
Oh, and having a country made up of the old and infirm means you aren't as productive, so you can't produce as many weapons nor can you afford to purchase as many weapons. Non-nuclear states are going to have a hard time keeping neighbors at bay, potentially.
So I worry that we will simultaneously see economic crises that provide the impetus for wars to seize territory, and demographics crises that make certain countries more vulnerable to such attacks.
ALL OF THIS whilst the U.S. is increasingly less able to intervene in places that flare up.
FtSoA
19hr ago
Look at what they've done to Iran and the Houthis.
The op against the Houthis was kind of a disaster, right?
With Iran, Trump also done fucked up by not letting the Israelis finish the enemy. I suspect that equilibrium will not last.
Instead what you are ignoring is that the American Right has learned from the past 30 years that if America and/or its Allies are winning a war, the left will start calling American (or other) soldiers, generals, and political leaders war criminals
Yeah, except for the part where I had disagreements with a number of MAGA-pilled individuals who believed that actually Hillary was a hawkish warmonger, basically John McCain in a woman's suit. Vs. Trump, the peacenik. As if liberal interventionists like Hillary were exactly the same as hawkish neocons like McCain.
The Bush Administration was retarded about invading Iraq as a war of choice based on what turned out to be false premises, and then botching the occupations of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Luckily enough, Iraq might just turn out alright in the long run, but Afghanistan is back to being a Taliban paradise.
So until Democrats have approximately the same political power nationally as Republicans currently do in San Fransisco, war is kinda pointless.
You're conflating going to war and diplomatic/military strategies around deterrence. The really nice thing about deterrence, is when you're good at it there's no war. And, if deterrence fails, you've already done the prep work to win the war.
You'll note that all my calls for preparation and intervention in these threads have not been: "The US should take military action against an adversary." I would say we should actually blow the fuck out of the Houthis just for being pirates, let alone allies of Iran.
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
19hr ago
I expect that German conclusion that pipeline was blown up by Ukrainians is correct.
Even assuming that this is true, could they really have done it without support or at least acquiescence+aftercare from the US? The way the adjacent Baltic states froze Germany out of the investigation and conclusions seems implausible if it was a Ukrainian solo gig that they were not appraised of, and without US pressure it seems quite strange that Denmark and Sweden would choose to snub Germany (if not the government, then at least its public) so heavily to give a small PR edge to Ukraine. (Meanwhile, with the Assange case, we have precedent showing that the Swedish legal system is happy to engage in perversion of justice at US behest.)
yofuckreddit
19hr ago
You know what? Actually, you're right. I've seen 2 fewer times so I was modifying my perception to account for it but after consideration 1 is superior.
ABigGuy4U
19hr ago
You can be as pedantic as you like, but it’s something NATO is genuinely concerned about.
ABigGuy4U
19hr ago
In a press conference Antony Blinkin stated that Ukraine wasn’t going to have elections until all its territory is recovered, including Crimea. In other words, Ukraine is never going to have elections again. My point is, Zelensky isn’t going to call elections and the US State Department isn’t going to lean on them to either.
LacklustreFriend
37 Pieces of Flair Minimum
19hr ago
You could at least pretend to display some performative scepticism towards a Guardian article on immigration before uncritically accepting the narrative wholesale. Obvious baitpost.
aldomilyar
19hr ago
I live in Malaysia, my wife's family is a good study in that roughly half of her uncles and aunties are Singaporean and the other half are Malaysian Chinese. In my experience, the Malaysian family is first-language Chinese with passable English and Malay plus some dialect (albeit essentially a sliding scale of dialect versus English with each ensuing generation). The Singaporean family is about the same at the generation of my wife's parents, though for context they were about 18-19 at the time of Singapore leaving the federation and the younger generations are 90% English with some spoken Chinese but functionally illiterate.
According to them, the main difference is that in Malaysia the schooling system allows for private schools to be conducted in Chinese which is the only practical way to get literate in Chinese since even the majority of ethnic Chinese Malaysians will be functionally illiterate in Chinese characters. Also there's been a pretty large divergence between Malaysian Chinese (Largely spun off of southern Hokkien/Teochew/Cantonese/Hakka speakers who have remained in touch with mainland trends via the cultural sinosphere) and Mainland-Chinese, even when speaking Mandarin. Malay's an afterthought used for interacting with the government as it's essentially been replaced as lingua franca in Malaysia by English for anybody under the age of 30.
My wife's grandmother is in her mid 70s, she's illiterate despite being a fairly successful small business owner who's since retired to be a landlady and only speaks Hokkien (Possibly Malay but there's also a cultural distaste amongst Chinese when it comes to speaking the language outside of purely utilitarian purposes). Yet understands spoken Cantonese, Mandarin and Malay. Cantonese since it was dominant culturally in entertainment for a few decades, Mandarin though it only really entered Malaysia by the time she was middle-aged and Malay since one must occasionally acknowledge the landlords.
FtSoA
19hr ago
Look, China can do math. All the "resolve" in the world doesn't do us any good without missiles in the warehouse.
We have the USN and USAF and a nuclear triad ready for a full-scale confrontation with North Korea and/or China on any given day and have for decades. We can and should do more on that, but it's not like we don't have a lot of combat power in the region.
Resolve, on the other hand, is trickier. China won't care about escalation risk if they think we don't have the balls to put it all on the line for Taiwan.
If we are confident nuclear madman theory alone is sufficient to deter China, we don't need to do any of the above. But I don't actually think anyone wants to die in nuclear fire for Kiev or Taipei and as such the threat of a nuclear madman is unlikely to be persuasive and, even if persuasive, unlikely to be consistent in a democratic society.
I'd say we need to do both to maximize the chance of deterrence. In the US, we do not democratically launch nuclear weapons. Trump has lost his "madman" edge with respect to China, I think. Not that he couldn't get it back in short order.
But this is why, yes, I think Taiwan is a foregone conclusion if China waits and it's obvious to everyone what cards are on the table and who's bluffing. The Cuban Missile Crisis was about the Soviets parking missiles way closer to the US than we were willing to accept, so we engaged in a bit of brinkmanship and it wasn't a bluff.
But risk it all for Taiwan? For South Korea, in comparison, we have treaty obligations and troops deployed that will act as a tripwire.
naraburns
nihil supernum
19hr ago
He said the interview included discussion of "niche online communities," which it does appear to include. That is nominally "places like TheMotte," but you're right that the actual discussion is quite non-specific.
Turniper
19hr ago
I look like a half irish half mexican man in his early thirties wearing a gigantic grey leather witch hat drinking from a glass gourd. I assume all the other posters are roughly this level of eccentric.
Ukraine is not a NATO country and more deeply integrated into the Russian culture and economy than any other country. The strategic situation is quite different and there is enough delta between the ease with which Russia could take and rule Eastern Ukraine and anywhere else that I don’t find the slippery slope arguments convincing.
Many people in Eastern Ukraine are interested in joining the western bloc for greater economic opportunity. But if they are conquered by Russia and NATO-Russia relations eventually normalize, they will learn to say mnohaja leta instead of mnohaja leeta and get on with their lives.
It would take an immense investment of manpower for Russia to occupy any other Baltic state and crush the resistance. But a good chunk of Ukraine is not just Slavic but also descended from the Rus, with a long and recent history of being ruled by Moscow. If Russia can take it, they will keep it without much trouble
Ukraine was ruled by Russia for 300 years before independence. Eastern Ukraine and Russia are both Rus-descended cultures with a shared heritage. The invasion itself has given nationalism a shot in the arm, but it’s a rather different situation than South Korea or Taiwan.
In Ukraine, we helped the anti-Russia faction gain power in 2014. Taiwan and South Korea have been die-hard against Chinese rule for generations.
popocatepetl
19hr ago
Just reminded of why I cannot play video games (at all). Whole weekend and part of this morning were taken up by civ, when I should have been doing other things.
In an ideal world, video game ratings would not cover violence but addictive content.
On the surface level, it's hard to tell the difference. Mario Kart is harmless. Civilization is risky. World of Warcraft is potentially life destroying. Only after you fall into a few traps yourself can you spot the difference from a distance.
It's worth... well, there's nothing to forgive, so no fairness needed from me since no offense was taken. I am not making a critique about the interview in any sense, merely raising an eyebrow at the pitch / appeal to the audience. Which is not suspected of being Tracing's responsibility in any way.
Maybe it's mentioned in the video and not caught in the text.
anti_dan
20hr ago
Indeed, and it should not. 5 years to score 600 on the LSAT English section or the boot, minimum.
wayfarer
20hr ago
I would say that it hardly counts as encirclement. Maybe encircled by standards of Youtube's "Ukrainians/Russians encircled in Whatewergrod" spam.
Dean
Flairless
20hr ago
Looks like the Count got himself banned over 100% fake news.
Something something karma and bearing false witness, I suppose. I've no intention to tease him with this if / when he returns, but I imagine this will be a poke back he should be expecting for the rest of his time on the Motte going forward.
The US has been exhausting reserves of hard-to-replenish weapons for Ukraine. Air defence, missile defence is possibly the most important thing for Asia. Yet Patriot batteries and interceptors have been sent to Ukraine. Not to mention the rest of the munitions shortages.
Britain fighting Germany in Europe didn't send a signal to Japan that Britain would also fight in Asia, it only weakened British strength in Asia due to forces being tied down in Europe. Japan entered the war for its own reasons which were independent of whether Britain was feeling isolationist or interventionist.
Chinese decisionmaking is mostly concerned with the balance of power in Asia, economic autarky, immediate concerns to China. They'd like the US to be tied down in Europe so the Pentagon doesn't focus all its strength against them. They'd also like the US to be embroiled in the Middle East.
It's not cowardice to assess costs and benefits of a policy and refrain from maximal engagement in a theater. There's much to learn from China's attitude overseas - trade with the Middle East is a cheap and easy way to make friends, wars are a costly and hard way of making enemies. Warfare should only be planned or pursued for key strategic goals with core relevance to national interests. For China that might be securing Taiwan, uniting the Chinese nation, securing a key base in the region. For America that could be ensuring that there are no hostile regimes in the Americas, preventing any hostile power becoming a regional hegemon like the US in the Americas or stopping any one power securing the bulk of the world's energy supplies.
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