War in Ukraine

Ukrainian nationalism was already predicated on a radicalized visceral hatred of Russians. At this point, I suspect it’s just as likely that Ukrainians turn on their own feckless regime.

 

Just more money they don't have that has to be spent on repression and control of the masses.

 

Ooohh! Ukraine loses the dozens of foreign volunteers it was getting, so their war is essentially over.

It would be hard to imagine a more ignorant propaganda article. When you read "Sources also indicate that US special operations teams have been stationed out of the US embassy in Kyiv since the beginning of the war. Though officials claim that the soldiers do not go to the front lines and stay near the embassy (which begs the question – what's the point of having them there?)." you know that intelligent thought is well beyond their abilities. The U.S. obviously does not want special forces getting too close to the front lines because they might get killed, which will cause people to start asking if they are fighting or observing. Russia would have a field day in the press if they captured one U.S. soldier. They can probably see as much (if not more) from drone footage and other sources--enough to provide advice to Ukraine. Keeping troops in the embassy is in line with our official position of not being involved in the war outside of providing weapons. If U.S. troops were close to the front lines, your same propagandists would be claiming that they are actively fighting against Russia.

And, no, there is no credible evidence that there have been 20,000 foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine. That is a Russian fantasy. I suspect that most of the volunteers are non-fighting volunteers away from the front lines--doctors, nurses, truck drivers, etc.

 

Maybe if the Russians would stop invading their neighbors, their neighbors wouldn't hate them so much.

It's a fairly simple equation, actually. Invade neighbors = neighbors hate you.

Only someone who didn't understand freedom and yearns for captivity and repression would think that Ukrainians were likely to turn on their own leadership, which happens to be some of the best leadership during war that the world has seen since Winston Churchill.

 

There was an early rumor that Russian troops were eating zoo animals. Of late they’re feeding on leopard tanks.

 

Apologies for the brief highjack, but all of this is still related to Russia’s current attempt to normalize conquest.

Unfortunately, you just described China’s Realist view of the world by slightly different means: “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Their only obstacle to their immediate international objectives is the military strength of the United States. It is not any of the things that International Liberal theory postulates, such as economic interdependence, fear of being shamed in UN, or notions that wars for territory are a relic of long-gone times, etc. China is simply not 100% sure (yet) what would happen if they made their move. But they are actively improving their position vis-a-vis the U.S. at a rate that increasingly difficult to ignore.

The U.S. has three realistic options as I see it:

1. Increase the means to match the ends. Exceed the Chinese military buildup, especially in space, and rope the other WESTPAC nations into a formal military defense alliance, like NATO, only have formal rules about defense spending and forward deployments, unlike NATO. Expensive but offers best deterrence for war. A chance that China amends its strategy back to Peaceful Rise for another generation, and — who knows? — maybe a new generation embraces international rules and norms.

2. Strategic withdrawal from the WESTPAC. Demilitarize Guam, no permanently based military west of Hawaii (transiting only), abrogate Taiwan Relations Act as well as all understandings (formal or informal) that might commit U.S. forces in the event that someone other than us is attacked. Cheap but strongly reduces U.S. economic, diplomatic, and informational power in the long term.

3. Continue the current ends-means mismatch and just hope China behaves. We can call this the Jake Sullivan Strategy or, if you prefer, the We Learned Nothing from 2021 Strategy. Maximizes the chance of war in the next five years while minimizing our chances of winning.

Now we all know that #3 is what we have been doing and what we will keep doing. But back to my main point, the real first step to a solution is to set aside notions of International Liberalism for better times and accept, whether we like it or not (and I don’t), that Realism is the game our enemies are playing. And it has a different set of rules.

 

The virulently anti-Putin Mediazona, working in concert with BBC, reports that Russian losses have trickled to 133 in August, 30,000 total. And this includes Wagner.

For perspective, Ukraine has likely lost that, or more, in the three months of the counter-offensive.

 

They must be starving, because they are only eating one or two Leopards a month since the type was introduced. It's a wonder that the Ukrainian troops can even walk, after feasting on several thousand Russian tanks over the course of the war. And the Ukrainians have to much more confident in a western tank, knowing that zero Ukrainian soldiers have died while in a western tank, whereas on the other side, few Russian tankers have walked away from a kill strike to their tank, a.k.a. Suicide-Box-on-Treads.

 

I think that what we're doing can be successful, but only if the countries in Europe are willing to stop doing business with China and continue that policy until China makes some fundamental changes on how they interact with other countries, and how much they invest in their military. One positive first step that should be made is to stop giving China a free pass on things for being a developing country. Once you have a top-2 economy and a top-2 military, you are no longer a developing country. Economic pressure, coming from China's biggest and wealthiest two customers, can do some amazing things when combined with the Chinese government's economic incompetence and inefficiency. Chinese electric cars would be a good thing for Europe to start boycotting (or refusing).

Russia probably cannot be tamed with the same strategy, since most of their economy is based on oil sales, and it would probably be difficult to continue the price controls gambit indefinitely.

 

Completely divorced from reality.

To coin a term: zoosensical.

 

US doesn’t do anything halfway. It’s preparing to lose two wars …

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/preparing-to-lose-two-wars/

 

Yes, you are. And the facts certainly do not support you on this one, which is probably why you avoid dealing with the facts. The Russians have lost thousands of tanks, while Ukraine has only lost five Leopards. No one in their right mind disputes those facts. And the evidence indicates that all Ukrainians in those five tanks escaped and lived to fight another day. Not so for the majority of Russian tankers. I know the truth hurts. But try to accept it.

 

I see that in failing to embrace Realism, you have forgotten the primary means despots have turned to traditionally for dealing with domestic economic problems. It’s not changing economic policies. That is, once more, a flawed assumption of International Liberalism just like “Economically interdependent countries don’t go to war.”

 

The Making of Modern Ukraine that @tampagtr put me on made a lot of great points, but one that really stuck with me was when Snyder was poking fun at Western Europe. He points out their righteous position of being peaceful nations that value free trade as a means to prosperity rather than war. Snyder's point (that I'm finally getting to), was that Europe didn't chose trade. They got their Imperial butts whooped and "had" to give up their swords. One can quibble the details here, but his point is germane to this thread: empires don't stop empiring until it becomes to painful to keep empiring. There aren't many world powers left still trying to be imperial - this is too good of a chance to make one feel sufficient and required pain.

 

Yeah I remember that passage in specific and thinking, oh my God he's right, I hadn't thought of it that way. He was dead on. Glad you're enjoying it.

I really love his easy-going style and quiet non-pretentious authority

 

I just don't see China going through with war plans to invade Taiwan if:

1) The U.S. and Europe are unwilling to trade with China for an extended period of time, until China changes its ways. China has to be nervous that U.S. companies are looking to places like India to replace Chinese companies in the supply chain. Depending on the BRICs countries or African countries to replace the income from the U.S. and Europe is hopeless.

and

2) The U.S. is committed to military intervention to defend Taiwan.


China will almost certainly insist on being on good economic footing before starting an invasion of Taiwan, especially after seeing a 3-day adventure for Russia turn into an 18-month quagmire with no end in sight, and knowing that they will be dealing with the latest and greatest weapons from the U.S., and not 40-year-old storage pieces. Dealing with an economic collapse at the same time as a major war does not seem wise.

I think that a military buildup would temporarily deter China from invading Taiwan, but not permanently. They will bide their time until a U.S. president comes along that announces that U.S. military intervention in Taiwan is off the table, and China will move forward with the invasion.

 

What a whiny article. Whining about spending $41 billion on military aid to Ukraine, which represents 5% of the U.S. annual defense budget, is a joke. Russia is probably around 40% of the REASON the U.S. has a defense budget. We don't spend money on the military because of Canada or Europe or most of the other countries on the planet. It is primarily China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran that we spend money to be ready for. If we start spending over $320 billion a year for Ukraine aid, wake me up.

And, no, the U.S. cannot lose any war that it is not fighting. We are supplying Ukraine with weapons; we are not fighting a war in Ukraine. Anyone with half a brain can understand that. The author must have had a lobotomy recently.

 

I don’t agree with Lindsey Graham these days but he was stating that for something like 3% of our defense budget we have depleted Russian military capabilities by about half.

 

I don’t know what exactly drives Xi but it obviously isn’t the economic well being of his country. Often when autocrats fail economically they look to nationalism and war to rally the citizenry around them.