domain:acoup.blog
TIRM
9hr ago
Pretty common in my experience. Too many personal anecdotes to bother typing out. This happens all the time.
The erosion of shame as a social force is one of the biggest impacts of the Trump presidencies.
An older one from earlier this year, but applicable. Core argument is that Trump is a product of this trend, not the cause.
US State Department is not adding here much, elections are suspended in accordance of Ukrainian constitution on account of having a war
Remember, the US is the hyperagent. Other countries don't make and execute their own decisions- other countries either act in accordance with American permission, or are forced to respond to American impositions.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
9hr ago
it seems
Yeah, I’d like to see the numbers on this. I remember thinkpieces in Trump 1 about the number of empty positions, the rate of turnover, etc. Was that normal? Was it any different than the attrition today?
I’m going to bet against the vaccine thing.
Not sure if I believe CBS’s suggestion that it’s a show of annoyance at Trump. But the CNN theory is simple enough. There was some infighting between the two of them and RFK axed both. I find that more plausible than a couple staffers having some sort of rogue policy push.
FtSoA
9hr ago
Or the aggressors who have been able to stockpile weapons might believe they've got an opening to re-open old conflicts now that the U.S. has stretched itself thin.
One thing is certain, a lot of Ruskies and Ukes have died to develop the absolutely Bleeding edge in drone-based warfare, which has probably changed the face of any conflicts from here on out. And that's BEFORE we've figured out how to have AI guided drones produced en masse.
Let's not exaggerate here. The US has in almost no actual way "stretched itself thin" in supporting Ukraine. We have not even significantly altered our force posture. (Which we did for Iran recently.)
The USAF and USN would absolutely demolish their Russian counterparts given their abysmal performance against Ukraine. Tactical drones are nice and all in trench warfare, but good old-fashioned air dominance is even better when you can get it.
That's not to say drones aren't important, they are and will be, but the US military is aware of that, as is Palmer Lucky and his competitors.
I also think conflicts have become more likely under current economic and demographic constraints, and that Ukrainian sacrifice isn't doing much to decrease that likelihood because that doesn't change the underlying incentives.
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.
I'd also guess you're very wrong in that age is negatively correlated with aggression and violence, and so older populations would seemingly be less warlike by default.
My knowledge of Ukr politics begins and ends at ‘I support whatever the UGCC wants’, so this is an honest question- does Zaluzhny
I'd preface my response by noting that after Hershs' earlier farce regarding the Nord Stream Bombing, in which he favored a Russian-backed conspiracy theory of perpetrator, with his own falsifiable and falsified narrative, over the implicit and explicit attribution of the European governments including Germany itself (i.e. Ukraine did it), I'd be very, very skeptical of any claim by him for insider insight. Hersh may have his sources, but I would not trust they are sources actually inside the American administration... and if they were, they'd be exceptionally desperate- and motivated- to publicize them via Hersh rather than someone else.
Hersh is a crank when it comes to the Ukraine War. More to the point, Hersh is the sort of person that majority of Trump's Republican administration considers a crank on the Ukraine War. You don't go to the other tribe's conspiracy cranks to launder your own efforts on the subject, unless you want to discredit the premise.
have sufficient internal support to force through a peace agreement over the nationalist’s objections,
Almost certainly not.
The biggest obstacle to a Russia-Ukraine peace agreement isn't the objection of 'the nationalists' to peace, but rather the 'everyone who suspects Putin would attack again' caucus to 'a peace agreement that sets conditions for Putin to attack again.' This is the reminder that the Ukraine invasion was the third, arguably fourth, continuation war by Russia against Ukraine since the invasion of Crimea. The first was the Nova Russia astroturf revolt, the second was the conventional military intervention to keep the separatist republics from falling, and the arguable third was efforts in between those, distinct from the attempts to coerce Ukraine into a state of constitutional paralysis by the inter-war negotiations.
There is no politically viable coalition of people who want to make a deal for the sake of a deal, particularly when Russia keeps claiming that a required condition of the deal is the demilitarization of Ukraine's capabilities to fight back. Just at a game theory level, such a demand requires a certain level of trust in the other player, and in this context- and for the foreseeable future- that other player is Putin.
or to expand the draft until Ukraine is fully staffed again?
Also almost certainly not.
For one thing, there's no particular standard of 'fully staffed.' The only time Ukraine has a meaningful manpower advantage- i.e. 'fully staffed- was pre-mobilization in the first year. This was a result of policy decisions by the Kremlin, not Ukrainian draft politics.
Ukraine has manpower challenges- though you probably look more towards Michael Koffman than anyone posting on the Motte this year for insight on that- but one dynamics of the situation is that the current issues aren't even something that forcibly conscripting more bodies would 'fix.' One of the reasons here is that the technology adaption/evolution of drones has limited the ability of both sides to actually maintain 'full' front line units. The drone dynamics are complicated, but the short end is that the Ukrainians are in some respects doing better defending longer terrain with fewer forces than would normally be considered 'full.'
But the flipside is that this is also applying to the Russians for much the same reason- drones are increasingly too common to allow maintaining massed forces on the battle line, and the more drones there are, the smaller that mass that can stand by gets. This is why the Russians have been getting increasingly effective use out of YOLO motorcycle/golf car assaults as with motorized/mechanized assalts. It's not that either is good, but both are bad, and the speed of the motorized assaults is enough to mitigate the exposure before the Ukrainian infantry can counter attack. Would more Ukrainian infantry in the trenches to resist attacks against the trenches be better? Sure. But it would also mean more exposure to the drones in those contexts.
I'm not claiming that the Ukrainian shortage is secretly an advantage, but it's a disadvantage that mitigates the cost of another significant risk factor. Which is not exactly unknown in conflicts.
Could that be the reason?
Also a third almost certainly not, though I'll pivot here to choosing to interpret 'the reason' as 'motive for the story.'
Hersh aside, the motive for an anti-Zelensky story 'now'- as in, 'why now?'- would probably be the consequence of internal Trump administration politics, as the losers of the cut-all-aid-from-Ukraine caucus shake some trees in hopes something falls. The biggest change in the Ukraine situation recently isn't that the military situation has gotten worse, but rather that the Trump administration relationship got better, and so negative press is part of that 'don't just do nothing, do something' response of people trying to shape an emerging policy.
I do owe a follow-up on late last year / early this year predictions, but one of the bigger predictions I made earlier this year was that the Trump-European relationship was primed to go transactional.
From February-
Low and behold, that's begun to happen, as the recent NATO summit that expanded the NATO spending target to 5% in a yuge win for Trump, also explicitly counts aid to Ukraine as counting for that limit. In turn, and around the time Trump made his more recent 50-day demand towards Putin,* Germany announced it was going to finance Patriots from the US for Ukraine. Europeans can win points from Trump, reduce Trumpian critcism of their defense investments, support Ukraine, and secure the American material that they themselves do not have, all while getting to claim they are meeting their NATO requirements by... buying American stuff for Ukraine.
In other words, the US-European relationship towards Ukraine is shifting from where where Biden donated aid to Ukraine, to where Trump sells aid to Europe who buys for Ukraine. Remember that the Russian theory of victory since choosing to prolong the war was that Ukraine would be cut off from American-European military-economic support and thus fall victim to the greater Russian military-economic mass. Having a transition where the rich Europeans using their economic resources to continue the supply of American munitions is 'better' for Russia than the US outright donating them outright, but it's a Bad Thing for Russian sustainability in the long term (as in- more than 3 years out).
But this is also a Bad Thing, specifically, for a small subset of the anti-Ukraine trump administration caucus who didn't want any military production to go towards Ukraine, at all, in favor of supporting the China buildup (or, more pressingly, Israel and the Middle East). This line of argument is against any diversion of material capabilities, including that which is sold rather than donated, on the urgency-of-China argument.
Well, that caucus has lost the bureucratic fight, and defying Trump openly is political suicide. Therefore, how do you try to undercut a commercial diversion? Lead corruption allegation #XYZ and hope it sticks, reducing / shrinking sales on corruption grounds.
Notably, however- and more relevant for some of the potential media planting efforts- it's not just inner-Trump admin dissidents who don't like the policy change. France and Italy have signaled dislike of the US policy change, less because they don't want to support Ukraine and more that they (especially France) don't want European money going to buy American weapons for Ukraine, as opposed to European (especially French) weapons. If Zelensky is particularly happy with the Trump development- and to be fair it's probably impossible to tell a sincerely happy Zelensky to one desperate to avoid a repetition of the White House blowup conference- then perhaps an alternative to Zelensky would also be more willing to entertain alternative (and long lead time) deliveries of military aid in a context.
I doubt it- I think this is not much ado about even less- but pettier axes have been ground.
*The 50 day puts us towards the end of the fighting season... which is about the point we'd see a summer/fall offensive peter out for the year regardless before the mud and winter season reset. I'll expect pro-forma negotiations there regardless, and that'll probably be when I do a Ukraine review of predictions.
As for Zelenskyy, making high risk maneuvers is far from unknown when leaders sense a direct threat to their power.
I'm not clear what high-risk maneuvers you think Zelensky is making in this context, but if this is referring to any given part of the OP, I wouldn't worry.
I would generally dismiss the objectivity the OP's framing of just about everything to do with Ukraine's negotiations, ranging from the 'surprising move' (something that has been repeatedly going on since the first Trump-Zelensky summit is not a surprise), to attribution of effort (the summer negotiations were not a result of Ukrainian 'trying,' but rather blatant coercion from the US), to even attribution of origin (the 30 day ceasefire demand did not originate from Ukraine, but was Zelensky echoing/supporting a Trump administration position on immediate cease fire).
Then again, I admittedly do have a flinch when I see someone unironically use 'regime journalist' as a way to discredit an objection to a known conspiracy theorist. Nor do I put much stock in the latest iteration of 'Ukraine is about to militarily collapse any month now' narrative that is over three years old at this point.
As far as Zelensky's political risk goes, I'd say his position has gotten stronger, not riskier, since this spring summer. Zelensky went from being 'the President who personally lost almost all American military support' to 'the President who made the American military support less generous but more stable, while offsetting the direct cost to us.' I can see a case for a palace coup against the former, but far fewer people within Ukraine will take the risks to reverse the later. Particularly if the nominal basis for removal- 'we must remove the appearance of corruption'- is to be done by...
Well, does anyone actually believe that the sort of people who think Ukraine shouldn't be given aid on account of corruption are going to be more forthcoming after an easy-to-characterize-as-corrupt palace coup?
(Curse you for directly asking for my opinion! I've been trying to Ukraine War post less this year.)
Yeah it's not really that much and in exchange here's one good advantage of Ukraine, it's an actual war with actual survival pressure making new strong technology for the west. The US Army is so far behind we're bragging about just being able to drop grenades from drones because there's no actual survival pressure on us to do anything.
Israel and Ukraine hold value just by being live testing grounds. If drone warfare is the future (it most likely is a pretty significant part of it) then having an ally actually expanding western drone capability for cheaper is a great return, instead of sticking with this level so bad we're bragging about being able to do things even rebels in Myanmar can manage. Here's Grok doing a comparison, it's baffling how much better the Ukrainians have gotten just by actually facing a real threat
The US Army's Skydio X10D drone costs ~$25,000-35,000, with 340g payload (e.g., M67 grenade) and advanced AI for precision, but high per-unit expense limits scalability.
Ukrainian homemade droppers (e.g., Osa quadcopters) cost $500-1,000, carry 0.5-2kg payloads, and excel in efficiency via mass production and combat-proven low-cost drops, enabling asymmetric warfare advantages.
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
9hr ago
You should meet me, then I could arbitrate for our friend their your net worth and country of origin.
Tiber727
10hr ago
For a smaller country fighting a larger one, a Pyrrhic victory is in some ways the goal. You either surrender, flee, or say, "Fuck it, everyone loses." If the deal is, "I steal everything from you, and you get to do as I say," you mash the defect button and try to make sure they're miserable. The alternative is your state exists only so long as someone else doesn't want it.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
10hr ago
But just generally, the US doesn't need carriers to "win" a Taiwan Strait engagement.
Achieving merely what Ukraine has in the Black Sea would be a victory for Taiwan: area denial to naval and air assets would be a victory, with the potential of blocking significant chunks of commercial traffic to all of China's ports.
faceh
10hr ago
I think you're overly concerned with demographic collapse scenarios and insufficiently concerned with the risk of a resurgence of wars of conquest.
I actually think the former feeds into the latter, so my concern encompasses both.
I'm prepared to defer to Ukraine's wishes on HOW they want to go out. This war has had shockingly little direct impact on my life.
I'm just noting the dismal reality.
Ideally, the Russians have overextended themselves militarily and economically such that some kind of crisis forces the Russians to back off and Ukraine survives.
"Survives" is doing a lot of work here. Check out that population projection. Not enough young people to rebuild and support the older generations = Ukraine has no economic prospects to speak of.
Likewise Russia (the government) probably sees this as an existential crisis, which implies they will NEVER back off unless they run out of men.
and other would-be aggressors are sufficiently deterred from further warmongering then I can only thank the brave Ukrainians and their will to fight for dying on behalf of improved regional security.
Or the aggressors who have been able to stockpile weapons might believe they've got an opening to re-open old conflicts now that the U.S. has stretched itself thin.
One thing is certain, a lot of Ruskies and Ukes have died to develop the absolutely Bleeding edge in drone-based warfare, which has probably changed the face of any conflicts from here on out. And that's BEFORE we've figured out how to have AI guided drones produced en masse.
I have my thoughts on how conflicts will go based on what's been proven to be possible and effective
I also think conflicts have become more likely under current economic and demographic constraints, and that Ukrainian sacrifice isn't doing much to decrease that likelihood because that doesn't change the underlying incentives.
FtSoA
10hr ago
Same exact issue for flinching when Putin talks about nukes.
"Well if he's threatening WWIII I guess we should just let him do what he wants. It's just not worth the risk to confront him."
It's as if a large portion of the American Right has entirely forgotten the lessons of Cold War diplomatic and military strategy. Or very, very obvious game theory re: bluffs and tit for tat.
Yeah it's hard to imagine a situation where giving the egotistical leaders of Russia and China free wins isn't going to empower them and encourage more war.
If you're Putin or Xi and you know America will just walk away bored if you grind out for a few years, then what's the cost of war? Like hell just look at Trump right now, he's giving China high tech AI chips from Nvidia and literally ignoring the law to allow their propaganda site to brainwash teens despite the ban.
Why would Xi have any faith this American apparatus too lazy and scared to even take down Tiktok would actually stick around for long in Taiwan? We're metaphorically bending over and begging for our enemies to fuck us with propaganda and advanced AI capabilities, and yet people are expecting a serious fight when it comes to actual war?
Sure. What do you have in mind?
We need to dramatically increase our advanced missile stocks and production capacities. We should probably just buy ships from e.g. South Korea and Japan, because boy did we fuck up there. We should also make Anduril a very valuable company by having enough autonomous capacities to make the Chinese realize that even if our carrier battle groups can be taken out, Taiwan would effectively be a minefield.
Regardless, this is a semantic discussion: the point is that for China, more US investment in Ukraine is (generally) better, regardless of what that looks like.
No, it's not, because the actual proportion of our commitment of resources matters and you are failing to recognize second-order effects of priming the pump of the defense-industrial complex. As well as the signal of Western resolve and military competence. The best way to deter China is not to have a bunch of missiles in a warehouse. The best way to deter them is making them fear the resolve of the US in defending its friends and allies in the face of risking WWIII.
Since we aren't giving Ukraine any nukes, we have plenty of those laying around. Which is why the question of "will they/won't they" is more important than "just how long will US missile stocks last."
Pasha
Defend Kebab
10hr ago
Both of these things are true in degrees. Humans are obviously capable of learning at least 2/3 languages well given the right social setting and motivation. There are endless examples of this even in the modern world. But they will almost never know all of these languages at a high literary or native-passing level. When multilingual societies exist it’s always with a certain prestige hierarchy of languages.
Typical setup is something like 1 language representing high culture, 1 language for of commerce and 1 is for talking to your grandma. For example an Ottoman Greek of 1890 might read his novels and newspapers in French (always obsessing about having perfect grammar and spelling), do business negotiations and bureaucracy in Turkish (noticeable accent, lacking high vocabulary, but can talk to important men about important things) and in the evening talk to his female relatives in Greek (short sentences, familiar topics, constantly inserting vocabulary from French/Turkish, might struggle to write). This social structure is extremely common in history and is dishonestly presented as proof of how people can be “multilingual”. This man is not a “Greek” yet, he is an “Ottoman Greek”. He sends his sons to the new Greek high school and hopes they will one day read and write their higher ideals purely in Greek instead of Turkish or perhaps even French.
Even the most educated people can typically do high culture in 1-2 languages maximum and any other language acquisition will have to come at some cost. I have in fact lived a short period in Singapore and got to observe a bit how Singlish works. Most people I met who were highly proficient in English (and could code switch to mostly neutral American English) had very limited ability in their parents tongues. As you go lower in social strata you meet more people who juggled 2+ languages daily but weren’t that good in either of them.
FtSoA
10hr ago
I mean... this outcome is almost the precise definition of a Pyhrric victory.
For Russia, yeah. Ukraine has to choose between two bad scenarios for the situation imposed on them--a costly victory or a costly defeat--so they might as well win.
The Ukrainians are intimately aware of the tradeoffs between fighting Russia and being ruled by Russia; I defer to their judgment on that question.
I think you're overly concerned with demographic collapse scenarios and insufficiently concerned with the risk of a resurgence of wars of conquest.
Ideally, the Russians have overextended themselves militarily and economically such that some kind of crisis forces the Russians to back off and Ukraine survives.
But if Russia takes enormous losses in a Pyhrric victory such that they and other would-be aggressors are sufficiently deterred from further warmongering then I can only thank the brave Ukrainians and their will to fight for dying on behalf of improved regional security.
wayfarer
10hr ago
due to fear of torture by Pinochet, then he was a communist
you are claiming that Pinochet regime tortured solely communists, which is a false claim
FtttG
10hr ago
I'm strawberry blonde with 20/20 vision, otherwise right on the money. I'm impressed that you got my age correct: people who see a photo of me or meet me in person often place me a few years younger than I am, whereas people who only read what I've written without seeing what I look like often assume I'm older. I'm something of a young fogey, it seems.
I phrased it poorly. What I mean is, if Alice is accused of having done something bad, and then it's conclusively demonstrated that she didn't do it, the fact that Bob thinks the accusation against her was "plausible" is irrelevant.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
10hr ago
Do you want to explain what you are talking about? And why a single failure nullifies a career of generally decent reporting?
faceh
10hr ago
I mean they can pivot straight over to Palestine or like a half-dozen other slightly more trivial matters.
They're probably already addled with anxiety and depression, so it'll result in a spike of therapist visits.
I'd guess they keep the Ukraine Flag in their profiles for at least a couple months.
These guys could really use a win, but it sure seems like they won't get one. They've been losing ground on abortion rights, gun control, most of their favored economic policies, climate change, affirmative action... and things ain't going well for either Ukraine or Palestine.
Genuinely hope we don't get more of them setting themselves on fire.
Thanks for the links, but I seriously doubt learning a second language degrades your primary language abilities. Your brain is indeed not infinite, but it has a lot of space.
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