domain:parrhesia.substack.com
Shrike
10hr ago
Hypothetically, the US could do a lot to increase its military pressure on China re: Taiwan without taking away from Ukraine support at all. Maybe we could try that first?
Sure. What do you have in mind?
Sure, we lit a lot of money and attention on fire
Money and attention counts on my bogging-down meter, at least half-credit. 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. Obviously there's a sort of "looping back around to being bad" outcome where the US nukes Russia, or switches all its rare earth supply chains to Ukrainian sources, or what have you.
ABigGuy4U
10hr ago
I meant that if all of Ukraine falls you have Poland abutting Russia and Belarus to the east and Russian Kaliningrad to the north.
FtSoA
10hr ago
Look, there's a difference between something not happening and something being impossible. I'm discussing how China would react in a hypothetical.
Hypothetically, the US could do a lot to increase its military pressure on China re: Taiwan without taking away from Ukraine support at all. Maybe we could try that first?
the way one might describe us as being "bogged down" in Afghanistan
We were not even "bogged down" in Afghanistan. As a percentage of our actual military capacities, only a tiny fraction was ever committed to Afghanistan. Sure, we lit a lot of money and attention on fire, but in term of actual combat capacity it was not a big deal to run that occupation. Even with Iraq, it was primarily the Army, and even then not our major units like say armor/artillery (after the initial invasion).
The USAF and USN were either only lightly involved or, by definition, have assets that are very easy to rapidly redeploy.
Vietnam was a much, much larger and costly commitment. One of the very reasons the "forever wars" were "forever" is that it was not that costly to continue indefinitely.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
10hr ago
If you do an effort post that covers all of the topics you brought up, I'd be inclined to make a donation to whatever Patreon-enabled online cause you're into.
wayfarer
10hr ago
Anything that could stop the conflict without getting Poland encircled.
War in Ukraine would need to go truly badly to end with Russian Germany. Or at least Russian-occupied Czech Republic and Slovakia.
wayfarer
10hr ago
because the Russians would be sitting right on the Polish border
and how it would be supposed to be changing things?
Kaliningrad is a thing, Belarus is effectively absorbed as far as military staging goes.
Elections in Ukraine are cancelled indefinitely with US State Department approval
US State Department is not adding here much, elections are suspended in accordance of Ukrainian constitution on account of having a war
wayfarer
10hr ago
to levels that their drones will be able to strike the whole country
interceptor drones are appearing on larger scale and turning out to be quite useful
were pleasantly surprised that the Russians proved so incompetent at modern maneuver warfare, and the Ukrainians so resilient.
I mean... this outcome is almost the precise definition of a Pyhrric victory.
There is not a long term strategy that results in Ukraine happily returning to status as a decently prosperous second-world country. Not that they were very happy before anyway.
I don't want Russia to 'win,' but look at my comment from just over two years back.
What do these facts allow me to predict? Not much. Other than a long, bloody, conflict which will probably result in a Russian 'victory' but also with Russia ceasing to be any kind of major player in world affairs.
(Russia's victory will be Pyrhrric as well, but will at least advance some of their goals)
Oh, and this comment chain from two years ago about the children being kidnapped (Russia KNOWs it needs more young blood), the Ukrainian demographic collapse, and Ukrainian women fleeing the country.
Even if all the people who fled come back there is no chance of Ukraine repopulating over the short term. And it would take hundreds of billions of dollars of investment to rebuild the country. From whence is all that money actually going to come?
All in all, the best case scenarios for Ukrainian survival (regardless of who rules the territory) were:
#1 Russia never invades.
#2 Russia invades, Kiev falls quickly, the country folds, NATO reinforces every border and contains further aggression.
#3 Russia Invades, makes a mess of it, and decides to keep at it, and the U.S. happily works to prolong the conflict to the tune of hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars of military hardware and aid.
...
...
#45 Russia deploys nukes.
We're deep in scenario 3, and whether Ukraine or Russia 'wins' does nothing to solve the demographic hole that's been blown into both countries.
wayfarer
10hr ago
Seymour Hersh claims
why you quote him given his hilarious failure on pipeline story?
is your sourcing for this post equally atrocious for other things you mention?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10hr ago
2-liters-of-soda-a-day
I feel as if I am misreading. That's a lot of soda per day. That's me growing up in the 70s amounts of soda. Quitting or reducing that would substantially improve your insulin sensitivity over time.
wayfarer
10hr ago
There's nothing valuable in the Baltics whatsoever.
are you arguing that Russia will definitely not invade or that whether Baltics will be invaded or not does not matter at all?
Shrike
10hr ago
I don't really think this is true. A lot of it depends on the specific goal the US is trying to achieve. But just generally, the US doesn't need carriers to "win" a Taiwan Strait engagement.
Frankly I'm not sure the US would bother to use a lot of Tomahawks on missile launchers, particularly since the newer ones have an antiship mode.
Shrike
10hr ago
Empirical evidence suggests strongly that it keeps not happening
Look, there's a difference between something not happening and something being impossible. I'm discussing how China would react in a hypothetical.
Furthermore, the Taiwanese themselves (unlike the Ukrainians) are pretty lackluster in their own efforts to build up deterrence to China.
Yes.
Don't confuse stocks and flows.
Sure. Both are important, and which is "more" important depends a lot on your timeline.
They aren't being permanently committed or destroyed.
The munitions, vehicles and weapons we sent there are. I agree that we aren't "bogged down" the way one might describe us as being "bogged down" in Afghanistan, but we are "bogged down" in the sense that it remains a large center of US governmental attention (which is not unlimited) and, for as long as we continue to support the war effort, US industrial capacity (which is also far from unlimited).
Lizzardspawn
11hr ago
or to expand the draft until Ukraine is fully staffed again
Do you think this will help? While team U has shortage of everything, I think their main issue right now is that Russia will soon be able to degrade their air defenses to levels that their drones will be able to strike the whole country. If they get to this point - you won't even be able to build new air defenses or training camps. They will be just sitting ducks.
zeke5123a
11hr ago
I don’t think there is any strong evidence to suggest a frame job here. What is motive of the victim?
Lizzardspawn
11hr ago
Collapse happens first gradually, then suddenly. I have said almost 3 years ago that both sides are losing the war and it is competition which one will lose it faster.
And I am not even sure that West's best toys can turn the tide*. And I suspect that is the reason why they hadn't been delivered to Ukraine. Taurus may be a nice piece of gear. But I am fairly sure Germans doesn't want to give China opportunity to figure out counter measures.
*If you think tide exists. Although it seems that the artillery theorem starts to work in their favor lately.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
11hr ago
Absolutely not. Moving to Japan does not make me Japanese.
Lizzardspawn
11hr ago
And man, a lot of westerners who have staked so much of their personality on the belief that Ukraine can win this thing will presumably be inconsolable for a while if Ukraine throws in the towel with Russia making actual territory gains.
Doubt it. In my bubble those are the same people that wore masks until 2023 and bend the knee for floyd. If Kiev falls - in 24 hours they will find another pet cause. And ukraine war will be memory holed.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
11hr ago
Empathy and shame are certainly valuable, but I think the problem is that in this era of social media and in many cases media in general is that such feelings have quite often been weaponized in order to remove boundaries or excuse behavior or make decisions that are actually long term bad for everyone. Finding a way to create sad puppy content so that the viewing audience feels the pathos that the creators of that content want you to feel, and are thus manipulated into believing that such a thing is disgraceful is tge easy mode of getting people to do what you want. And it’s become fairly common and in my view dangerous, as it prevents people from really slowing down and thinking about it.
And the real danger is exactly what is happening on the right. After years of sad puppy porn used to manipulate people into thinking things that turn out to be wrong and decades of fear being used in much tge same way, people now see those feelings as bad and even dangerous. They see people using pathos for manipulation and react by celebrating the thing that is supposed to be shameful. That’s not a bad thing when the story told is not true, Annnd tge danger is under reaction to a story that is true.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
11hr ago
This is the problem though. Large parts of the right now won't accept being shamed full stop, by either side. They won't be shamed by the left. And they won't shame themselves. Trump has identified accepting shame of any kind as weakness;
I don't think that's correct. There were significant dramas around H1B's, Iran, Epstein, and recently amnesty. All this involves a doing things powerful people don't want done, or not doing the ones they do want done, so it's not an insta- victory for Trump's base, but it does show he responds to shame from his supporters.
To my mind a wise right wing person would accept shame for something like this story, if true.
That's a big "if". There were too many controversies where the right was expected to accept shame, that turned out to be obvious lies. A wise right wing person would not even acknowledge this as a real thing, until several smoking guns are produced. Then we can start talking about accepting shame... though it's a tall order. When I want to talk about the biggest medical scandal of this generation - pediatric trans medicine - I get told that the amount of people impacted is tiny, and so I shouldn't care. So since the impact of this (if it's even true) is one dude, I'm afraid I won't be able to accept more shame than the wise left-wing person does for transing kids.
KingOfTheBailey
11hr ago
Doom in particular got people in trouble not only for being ridiculously addictive, but also because it used broadcast packets to run its multiplayer code. So a few people gaming could have a disproportionate impact on the entire office LAN.
FtSoA
11hr ago
Please do bear in mind that most people who wanted Ukraine to win thought they were going to lose in weeks/months, and were pleasantly surprised that the Russians proved so incompetent at modern maneuver warfare, and the Ukrainians so resilient. This includes the bulk of Western military/geopolitical analysts.
Ukraine continuing to exist as an independent state at all is a "victory" that many thought very unlikely.
If the Ukrainians deem it in their best interest to accept territorial losses then so be it. They fought way harder than was reasonable to expect when this first started.
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.
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