But now my argument is strong, that this crisis will weaken this nationalism and increase unity and cohesion across Europe. Some proponents of this nationalism are in disarray. They don’t know what to make of Trumps pivot to a Putin fanboy. Many of them while flirting with Russian talking points don’t take seriously the idea of swapping sides, so to speak. Nigel Farage is in this position in the U.K. There are Reform(his party) supporters abandoning Reform over the unpleasant taste of being aligned with Putin. More broadly nationalist support is based primarily on the immigration issue. Not some kind of appeasement, or support for Putin.

All this Putin stuff seems to have come from Trump, who isn’t a nationalist. Although hiding behind the banner of nationalism, he is a demagogue, who aspires to authoritarian rule. Politics doesn’t figure, it’s raw power. — "Punshhh

I think it’s still too early to be optimistic about European reactions. No matter what they are going to decide to counter Russia or to revise the European collective approach to security, European leaders are still slowed down by an aging population which is sticking to mental habits and material privileges coming from the pre-Trump era, but which now do not look anymore adaptive. What needs to be changed is more radical than just re-arming. Europeans need an anthropological change that will take generations.
What’s worse is that the burden of democracy and multilateral agreements within a multipolar world infested by powerful authoritarian regimes, and which Trump looks pretty much determined to unload from the US’s shoulders, is still what European countries are suffering from. As long as they had the US on their side, European political leaders and people could easily ignore this problem, so much so that Europeans myopically abused of their comfort zone. But now European democracies (with their appeal to freedom of speech and universal human rights, and self-deprecating or anti-American rhetoric) do not only have to face the challenges coming from Russia and China, but also from the US.
Good luck with that.

Look. Trump takes these issues quite personally. Notice his rant about "He and Putin" being thrown into fire with the Russiagate. How was Putin under fire? That is the real Trump. Soft-skinned and vindictive narcissist, who has a lot of hate and revenge to give after all those court cases. When Europeans try to be diplomatic, he sees weakness. But when they dare to talk about the Atlantic Alliance, the rules based order, Trump sees just Biden loving liberals who he resents. That's why Europe and Trump are on a collision course and there's no way out of this. — ssu

I think we make a real failure of thinking that somehow Trump has logic and reason behind his actions. He doesn't. People desperately wish there would be and want to see that there is. You see, in his first Administration he didn't actually get much done, which is actually great. — ssu

I deeply disagree with your approach. And I think this deep disagreement has manifested already in other occasions when we talked about Bush’s war on terror or Netanyahu's war on Hamas.
To me, leaders matter to the extent they are supported (actively or passively). Leaders matter to the extent they aggregate, represent, and guide collective interests coming from ordinary people, powerful economic and media lobbies, geopolitical experts, political entourage and advisors. And such interests are related to domestic and foreign challenges. So to make it all about the “erratic” or “vindictive” psychology of the leader or his official speeches or his personal conflict of interests is very myopic to me. One has to understand what are the perceived challenges from whoever supports Trump’s views, approach, official speeches in his background. That’s why I’m talking about logic: the exercise is to understand what could possible be the more widely shared premises (no matter how implausible they look to you) by collective interests which support Trump and then what most coherently can follow from such premises. This holds for Trump, for Putin, for Netanyahu, as any other political leader.
Besides Trump is the product of a political regime which is different from Putin’s. In the US political regime power is much more distributed and therefore constrained than in Russia. For sure Trump has amassed lots of power more than any of his recent predecessors, given the current US regime, and, given his mindset, he could very much exploit such favourable institutional conditions to push further for a regime change in the US in an authoritarian sense. The problem for the Europeans is that they have now not only Putin but also Trump as enemies.

Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Offensive Cyberoperations Against Russia
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/politics/hegseth-cyber-russia-trump-putin.html

You should not convince me. You should convince Trump. I'm talking about his views as I understand them, I've tried to reconstruct his reasoning, from premises to conclusions. For Trump, abandonment could be a policy goal or a bargaining chip. Europeans now have to prepare for both scenarios: https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/briefs/trump-card-what-could-us-abandonment-europe-look
Besides I'm not saying Trump will succeed. That doesn't mean Europe, Russia or China will succeed either. What Trump is injecting into this multi-polar world is the idea that the US has the means to undermine trust and commitments of all the players by exploiting others' weaknesses and making threats: that's not only true for the West but also for the Rest, since Russia can break e.g. from China and Iran. But if anybody is on their own, then the bigger beasts have greater chance to eat the smaller ones and the biggest wins the competition.

In politics, there is nothing more exploitable than feelings. In the West moral outrage as much as anti-Americanism so publicly advertised were exploitable, were exploited and will be exploited by powers hostile to the West AGAINST the West. Looking cynical or hypocritical (or deceitful about one own's feelings), can very much work as defence mechanisms against emotional exploitation and blackmailing.
What's worse is that religious and nationalist fanaticism can be more valuable to politicians than moral standing and pacifism, for the simple reason that the former create the psychological deterrence (they are ready to kill and be killed with not much qualms) the latter is incapable of inducing in perceived enemies.

I'm not really seeing a carrot here though. Threatening to withdraw security guarantees isn't a carrot, it's another stick. It's all stick.

Trump seems to operate on an extreme version of the door in the face policy where he ramps up the rhetoric, then turns it down a bit, only to ramp it back up again if there's no immediate reaction.

If Trump wanted to peel of countries from Europe to firmly anchor to the US, the obvious target would be Britain. Yet by ramping up the rhetoric and questioning US support, the Trump administration is instead causing Britain to deepen it's ties with France. — Echarmion

Right, it’s stick and stick, not carrot and stick, but whatever you want to call it, that’s Trump’s advisor’s proposed strategy. Britain has to deal with Trump’s extortionist approach and to try to hedge against it, if things go sideways but the instinct is still the same: insist on the “special relation” and try to bridge the divide with treats like an “unprecedented” invitation for a second state visit from King Charles.
The US wants to maintain the upper hand in dealing with other countries, it doesn’t matter if they are allies or not, since also allies can defect, betray or abuse of the benefits coming from superpowers' protection. While enemies are more willing to cooperate when they feel too weak.

My understanding is that on one side, the pivot to Asia, namely the incumbency of competing superpower like China, has been a strategic concern for the US politics for a good decade. So an economically/military weak Russia, subordinate to China (which is also eroding Russian influence on its eastern flank), in desperate need to regain its superpower status (like at the end of the Second World War) can be instrumental to the US in exchange for a strategic partnership. — neomac


Eh, I'm not buying it. Russia is in no position to help contain China. Russian demographics don't support it and it's diplomatic capital in Asia is in decline. Russian efforts in Africa seem to have fared somewhat better, but a bunch of mercenaries aren't competitive with the economic incentives China can offer.
And at the end of the day Putin's regime would have trouble selling it's role as the US' new junior party to the russian public. — Echarmion

Russia has a nuclear arsenal, oil and gas to fuel the Chinese economy. Its extension and geographic position can be used to constrain routes from China to Europe and to the arctic region. If the US helps Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine and remove the economic sanctions, Russia won’t feel the pressure to rely on China any more, it will have time to recover its resources to re-assert its dominance against those Russian federal states more vulnerable to the Chinese influence. But the US could help Russia even more to overcome its weaknesses (for example by providing needed technology). Go figure if the US sells weapons which Europeans are not willing to buy to Russia.
BTW also China has a problem of demographic decline.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. The US is China's biggest single customer. And Europe has been moving in concert with the US regarding China for the most part.

Russia has been a bit different due to Europe's reliance on Russian gas but the war has already "fixed" that.

And in terms of military support, European forces where involved everywhere from Afghanistan to Lybia. Sure US relations have been contentious with various European parties, but accusing Europe of "spinning populist anti-Americanism" is just a really weird take. — Echarmion

But you must read more carefully. I wrote “Europe has spent 30 years of globalisation enriching themselves and the US enemies (Russia and China) at the expense of the US”. Germany, France, Europe didn’t buy enough American to balance their business affairs with China.
Surely you too are right to observe that also the US contributed to enrich China. To Trump however that means pro-globalization American establishment is responsible for enriching the enemies of the US. They have to be blamed, not Trump nor the US he represents.
Concerning European populism (especially far right populism), from the US perspective the issue is still the same. The problem is not much the legitimacy of US foreign policy criticisms. The problem is that the combination of aversion to NATO, EU (both instrument of American dominance), US imperialism (see criticisms toward “war on terror”), and Anti-Zionism (see criticisms against Israel seen as instrument of American imperialism) were infiltrated/supported by enemies of the US (Russia, China, Iran), while still Europe was hypocritically enjoying the benefits of the US protection. And their advocates were rising to mainstream politics. So now how can Trump reverse this trend? How can Trump use far right nationalists against Russia, China, Iran, etc.? Starting by reneging NATO, EU (both instrument of American dominance), US neoliberal imperialism, pushing their support to become more mainstream can help, but what about Israel? Trump needs more christian fanatics who are more anti-muslim and anti-arabs, than anti-Zionist not only at home but also in Europe.

Turn European countries into submissive client status and then what? I'm missing the strategic objective here. You talked earlier about the US wanting to avoid being overstretched, but turning allies into clients leads to more overstretching, not less. — Echarmion

The overstretching came from overcommitment to allies and from policing a liberal world order which allies and enemies could benefit from more than the US. Indeed, European allies (in particular Germany as the EU leader, but also France and Italy) didn’t pay their due for the security the US was offering, on the contrary they increased the reputational costs of American foreign policies, while still doing business with Russia and China and without any concern for their hegemonic ambitions and competition with the US. Now there is no liberal world order to police, nor obligations toward allies which do not pay American support as requested. Anybody who wants the US economic and military support has to sacrifice a bigger piece of its economic, political and military independence: markets must be wide open to American products, politicians should literally turn into American cheerleaders and European defense feed US military industry to offset security threats (like Russia). Clients do not lead to overstretching in the racketing business, that’s how mobsters ensure their criminal business to perpetuate.

Honestly I do not think the policies of the current administration correspond to the kind of traditional power politics you're outlining. I think we're seeing attempts by at least some people in the administration to engineer a radical break with all US "entanglements". Elon Musk today tweeted support for the US leaving both NATO and the UN. There was an angry message from Trump towards Europe and Zelensky, followed by significantly more conciliatory tones at a press conference.

The obvious result of this is chaos and uncertainty, not any strategic improvement of the US' geopolitical position. Perhaps the chaos is indeed the point. — Echarmion

What do you mean by “traditional power politics”? My understanding is based on comparing Trump’s current strategy wrt his predecessors’ (given the problems his predecessors had to face like overstretching and pivoting to China ), Trump’s advisors/sidekicks (like Miran, Musk and Bannon), and geopolitical analysts (like Mearsheimer). Trump’s strategy looks to me as an effort to maintain the American supremacy in accordance with the MAGA motto while adapting to the emergence of a multi-polar environment infested by powerful and ambitious authoritarian regimes.
Finally, “chaos” is about uprooting what has been taken for granted by allies and enemies about the US, right? How can such “chaos” serve Trump’s MAGA agenda to you? Maybe some order is still preferable to no order, right? What order is the preferable order to the US? What US preferable order may more likely lead allies and enemies fearing chaos to converge upon, right now , and without falling into the previous toxic dynamics?
Look, I may be wrong, and frankly I wish it to be if that's for the best, but maybe it’s better to take into account the worst scenario consistent with the available evidence. See where believing that Russia wouldn’t eventually invade Ukraine led us.

Europe is not one subject. It can be conveniently fragmented by pushing domestic nationalism. And Europeans, especially the anti-American and pro-Russian nationalists are happy to fragment Europe. Now those very same anti-American and pro-Russian nationalists will get what they wished for. They are going to love it.

There is a dichotomy here, nationalism pulls together for the fight in a war. If the libertarians want to create division in Europe to weaken the EU. Forcing them to step up to defend a European country is not the way to do it. Indeed, the opposite will happen. It will probably end in an integrated European army. I’m reminded of what Sweden and Finland did following Putin’s invasion. Strengthening NATO. They (Sweden) are prepairing for war conducting exercises with Canadian forces. Looks as though the opposite of what Putin wanted is going to happen. — Punshhh

If you think that “integrated European army” is the likely result of Trump’s pressure and an integrated European army is precondition for the European strategic emancipation on world stage, then paradoxically Europeans should welcome Trump’s pressure. However Europe is not just Finland and Sweden, nor is their alliance going to compromise Trump’s agenda. And nationalism can be used also to break European cohesion, as it has been so far. Besides what European may need is not just an integrated army, but also an integrated military-industrial complex, and also a nuclear arsenal. Maybe the latter is even quicker to achieve.

But this doesn't make sense. Fine if you want to downside your military, if you want to go back to the US, be the proverbial isolationist, why then attack your allies? Why go so blatantly and so clearly on the side that is and has been hostile to you? Why vote in favour of Russia and North Korea when even China abstained from the vote in the UN? Why repeat Kremlin talking points? And why then this bizarre ideas about Trump Gaza? Why the attempt to annex Greenland and Panama? The US behavior under Trump is not something what you describe above.

Above all, is Elon cutting dramatically the American military to be half of it's size? Of course not.

And the US people and the politicians? I don't think that they have converged to this idea at all. If they would, then you could post me ample amount of speeches and commentary that this would be the case. — ssu

Here some clarifications:
First, I was talking specifically about the issue of “overstretching”. Imperial overstretch can be broadly understood as the overextension geographically, economically, or militarily that inevitably leads to the exhaustion of vital domestic resources, decline, and fall (https://niallferguson.substack.com/p/debt-has-always-been-the-ruin-of). This risk was abundantly under the radar of American analysts, prior to Obama administration (https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2014/07/15/the-danger-of-imperial-overstretch/)
And it became even more pressing under Obama and the pivot to Asia:
https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/25/04/2017/obama-and-%E2%80%9Cunder-reachover-reach%E2%80%9D-dilemma-american-grand-strategy
Secondly, I wasn’t talking about isolationism. I think Trump is aiming at revising American Imperialism where the US keeps a sphere of influence but more affordable/sustainable (also militarily). And this will take place at the expense of international liberal order. The international liberal was supported by the US during the globalisation but it ended up benefiting, mostly: EU, Russia, and China. Maybe it came natural to many to think that the end of American-led world order automatically meant the end of American imperialism. But if one understands the extent to which the American-led world order was a BURDEN on the US, one can understand why its end doesn’t necessarily compromise US hegemonic ambitions. On the contrary, it can unleash them. Indeed, once the US breaks free from multilateral agreements (that could be vetoed), the costs of policing the world, and spinning the liberal-democratic propaganda, American foreign policies have an “unprecedented” wider spectrum of options (I’ve already talked about this one month ago [1]) also for decreasing their costs. This comes at the price however of accepting greater risks and more fluid alliances, hedged only to the extent the US maintains its military/technological/financial supremacy.
Thirdly, the wide support for Trump’s second mandate in the name of “Make American Great again” evidently show that Trump’s agenda and propaganda were effective to gain popular consensus over internal and external challenges. And things were set in motion already in his first mandate. Notice however that Biden, in between the two Trump’s mandate, kept following the foreign policy trends set by Trump in his first mandate:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/22/biden-us-policy-trump-legacy-foreign-policy-aukus/
https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/07/strategic-change-us-foreign-policy?lang=en
“U.S. Foreign Policy on the Verge of a New Path” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8807368/
Ukraine also provides a case to understand left-leaning attitude toward the risk of overstretching: despite the rhetoric, Biden’s support for Ukraine was pretty much self-restrained (while the support for Israel wasn’t as much) for reasons that do not seem explainable exclusively in terms of military aid capacity or fear of escalation e.g. to a nuclear conflict.
My understanding is that this approach was inspired by the need of containing Russia (and Russia’s influence in Europe) without overdoing, namely, without diverging efforts from the pivot to China, or even letting China profit from Russia’s weakness to increase its regional influence. Indeed, ”China, not Russia, poses the greatest long-term threat to American interests" (https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/03/ukraine-wants-security-guarantees-does-that-mean-america-must-go-to-war/). Biden had also to take into account the raise of domestic concerns from overcommitting  to foreign conflicts (see https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/25/wide-partisan-divisions-remain-in-americans-views-of-the-war-in-ukraine/ where only  “18% say the U.S. is not providing enough support” to Ukraine).
Not to mention the far left which spins anti-imperialist propaganda and keeps invoking restraint and retrenchment: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-review-american-idealism/


[1] https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/963479

As I wrote a while back, the problem the West must face is that if rising anti-Western regimes do not evolve into more Western-style liberal democracies, the West may feel compelled to adopt the characteristics of these anti-Western, militarized authoritarian regimes in order to balance the asymmetry. Meanwhile, nationalist and religious motivations, as well as propaganda, are likely to take precedence over universal human rights motivations and/or propaganda. Imperial ambitions may also become more openly territorial, which AT BEST could lead to a form of agreed-upon, stable (?) spheres of influence. In this scenario, minority groups and non-hegemonic states will likely face oppression, exploitation, or will be used to serve the interests of the dominant powers one way or another through local populist bootlickers.

Trump seems to be reasoning along these lines:

* If Russia can make territorial claims over Ukraine and China can do the same with Taiwan, then the U.S. could claim territories like Greenland, Panama, or even Canada.
* If Russia commits genocide or ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, and China does the same against the Uyghurs, then Israel can act similarly in Palestine.
* If Russia and China can leverage economic pressure or political division to exploit Europe against the U.S., the U.S. can retaliate in the same way against Russia and China.
* If Russia and China reject green agreements, the U.S. can do the same.
* If China exploits Russia to counterbalance the U.S., the U.S. can attempt to exploit Russia against China.
* If Russia and China promote nationalism or religious extremism to advance their geopolitical agendas, the U.S. can follow the same path.
* If Russia and China adopt protectionist policies against the GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), the U.S. can similarly oppose China’s technologies and Russia’s attempts to exploit them against the West the US.

And so on.

the US must avoid to overstretch, must contain China, both European countries and Russia must be more instrumental to the US strategic interests than the other way around, and at this point the US has greater leverage over European countries and Russia. — neomac

What leverage the US has over Russia? Trump has surrendered the position that everybody know how you deal with Russia, from a position of strength. It has thrown away it's own cards and become an subservient to Russia in pushing the agenda what Russia wants. Before the negotiations have even started, it has accepted the major Russian points that Putin has made. So idiot Vance tells that these arguments that Putin has made are "reality". Well, that Ukraine would be fighting a war still after 3 years of the conventional attack wasn't "reality" for anyone except the will of the Ukrainian people. — ssu

To me the war in Ukraine wasn’t primarily about evidently pressing security concerns for Russia (I don’t think they were non-existent but they worked more as convenient pretexts), but about:
1. Russia imperialist ambitions and power projection: reshaping the world order in which Russia could see it self as top-rank superpower beside the US like during Stalin, Soviet Union, Cold War, and related sphere of influence. Feelings there shared not only by Putin but by its political and economic entourage, part of Russian intelligentsia, and Russian people.
2. Grabbing the opportunity provided by a series of favourable conditions: EU unreadiness and fear of escalation, conflicts between EU and the US (anti-NATO and anti-American feelings), US domestic instabilities and US pivoting to Asia. And the pressure of unfavourable conditions: Russia’s incumbent demographic decline and pro-Western ideological corruption of Russian youth especially in the capital (democracy, human rights, freedom etc.)

So the leverage Trump has is to finally satisfy Russia’s aspirations, and to save Russia from China’s fatal hug, in the moment where Russia is more vulnerable since the beginning of the conflict wrt the US and China. Besides what if Trump helps Putin economically recover e.g. by removing sanctions?
I don’t think public declarations alone help us understand the full picture and I can’t discount the possible existence of reserved diplomatic channels where Putin and Trump may have found some basic agreement already by the end of last year. What however strikes me the most is the idea that Trump is taking by far the initiative to reset the relationship with Russia, without much evident concessions from Putin other than political flattery. Anyways, taking into account Trump’s aggressive diplomacy and even extortion (see Miran’s plan), my speculation is that Trump is de facto provoking and humiliating the Europeans to trigger some reaction that can be conveniently exploited against Russia one way or the other. If Europeans will prove to be so determined to counter Russia’s expansionism even by military means, if necessary, Trump can play the role of the good cop offering a partnership to spare Russia’s predicament from getting worse. In exchange, Trump expects Russia to detach from its current allies (China, Iran, North Korea), and avoid to interfere in the Middle East (also in favour of Israel). The cooperation with Russia and Israel will help further isolate China from Europe. If Europeans give up on Ukraine and start to go in different directions, Europe as a common project will likely end , then there will be those which will turn into US bootlickers and those which will turn into Russian bootlickers. The difference is just that if the US bootlickers will be happier than the Russian bootlickers, resentment toward Russia will grow once again and Russia will need to repress, so the burden of overstretching will be put once again on Russia’s shoulders without US antagonising Russia.
In both cases, Trump can sell weapons to Europeans to counter Russia but only for business sake (like Turkey with Ukraine), not because he cares about Russia taking Ukraine or other pieces of Europe to re-establish its sphere of influence. So much so that Europeans are compelled not only buy but also buy as much as possible prior to any conflict with Russia to avoid that the US will stop selling weapons to favour Russia. In both cases, there will be some “bucket-passing” (“when a great power finds itself in a defensive posture trying to prevent rivals from gaining power at its expense, it can choose to engage in balancing or intervene by favoring buck-passing—transferring the responsibility to act onto other states while remaining on the sidelines, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_realism#Theoretical_flaws).
Notice that this speculative scenario is somehow reversing globalization: Europe and Russia will be put one against the other to empower the US and help the US contain US rivals (primarily China, but also Russia and Iran).
It’s a “Weimar moment” for the international order: US resentment + economic weakness (debt) + weakness international institutions and soft power are leading to a more assertive/aggressive and authoritarian US.

Because just look how actually thoughtful and visionary someone like Marco Rubio was before Putin invaded in 2022. (Notably you can see a person who is now a the secretary of defense in his former position in the video). Rubio understood that Russia would attack Ukraine and Rubio had been a very pro-Ukrainian hawk. Here, before the 2022 invasion, he was saying that Ukraine has to be armed. Here's a blast from the past: — ssu

Once one takes into account the full picture one can see better how propaganda is instrumental for longer political trajectories (after putting aside the part in which the propaganda of one side is just trying to put the blame on the opposite side): Russia WAS and IS a threat to Europe and Trump wants to keep it that way (even better if Russia feels threatened by Europe). It’s just that neither Biden-style nor EU-style approach (as shown by European politicians hesitant toward Russia or infiltrated by Russia) could handle the Russian threat the way Trump can to support MAGA. Russia poses a different threat to the US now (before it was too close to Europe, then too close to China), so Trump needs to contain the Russian threat independently from the European contribution to such containment, by offering Russia the US partnership to re-balance.

He might genuinely be so stupid as he comes through his rhetoric and actions, which will just end up in the dismantlement of American power in a very rapid way. Note that Europeans have already seen where this is going. Friedrich Merz said that Europe has to be independent of the US and isn't sure if NATO will be around for the next NATO summit in the summer.

Likely it will be around in the end of June, but the Hague is a great place for Trump to leave NATO. — ssu

We will see. I just believe that Trump’s moves however outrageous to our political habits are more logic than they appear. He’s certainly playing a risky game. And things can go awfully wrong in so many ways. But even if Trump won’t achieve his goals, that doesn’t mean Europeans are going to achieve theirs. As I wrote two years ago: “Outside the EU (or some other form of federation) Europeans might go back to compete one another not only economically but also for security. And outside the US sphere of influence, we might compete not only with Russia, and China and other regional or global competitors, but also with the US. Good luck with that.”

I totally understand that the US is playing a risky game because they might still very much need allies to preserve their superpower status. But in the current predicament they clearly privilege those which are proven to be helpful and faithful to the US’s struggle for supremacy, then it’s matter of European people’s taste: Netanyahu, Starmer, or Salvini? — neomac

Yeah,

Why don't you start with the allies that have contributed soldiers that have participated in the wars you have fought? Wouldn't they be the ones that are important? Or you want those allies that won't do anything, but praise your President? Guess then your most helpful and faithful allies are Bibi and Victor Orban, which the former naturally hasn't ever contributed forces to your wars, but you contribute troops to even today. And why doesn't Trump ask the billions back from Bibi then?

In fact, just in Afghanistan, Denmark suffered the second most casualties compared to the population, which is quite small.

Number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan
Country Deaths Population (2010) Deaths per million
1.USA 2,461* 309 million 7.96
2. Denmark 43 5.5 million 7.82
3.Georgia 32 4.4 million 7.27
4.UK 457 63 million 7.25
5.Estonia 9 1.3 million 6.92
6.Canada 159* 34 million 4.68
7.New Zealand 10 4.4 million 2.27
8.Norway 10 4.9 million 2.04
9.Australia 41 22 million 1.86
10.Latvia 4 2.2 million 1.82

So how is Trump valuing Denmark as an ally and the commitment the small country has made? He wants to buy or annex parts of it, and hasn't refrained from even using military force. In that Trump shows his real face.

Don't ever think that this is normal or belittle the past administrations that they too would be as "transactional" as Trump. For the MAGA crowd, those are the "Deep State". This really isn't normal behavior anymore. — ssu

The problem is that Trump is questioning his predecessors’ strategies based on liberal internationalism and Western alliance, so he doesn’t feel committed to liberal internationalism, nor responsible for its legacy or supporters. I doubt what we are going to see a backlash against Trump from Europe soon, since the closest threat to Europe is now Russia.
But I do wonder what European pro-Russian supporters, even in this thread, would think if Trump materially enables Russia to completely defeat Ukraine. After all it’s always Trump who said he would encourage Russia to ‘do whatever the hell they want’ to any NATO country that doesn’t pay enough.

The Trump administration has fxcked up big time. By cutting USAID they have fallen at the first hurdle. The biggest threat from China over the last few decades has been their aid and investment strategies around the third world(amongst others). Now the influence the U.S. had in these arenas has been handed to China on a plate. While Russia is following China’s example in the African continent and we have the rise of BRICS. — Punshhh

USAID was part of the US soft-power arsenal (something similar holds for China). But America soft-power narrative has been exploited by anti-Americans outside and, most importantly, inside Europe, to further discredit the US foreign policies, or, if you prefer, American imperialism (China wasn’t discredited as much). So if you want USAID now you have to beg for it and stop shitting over US foreign policies or, if you prefer, American imperialism. Besides there are means for the US to mess-up with Chinese investments around the world, by fomenting conflicts or by bending political will with threats (https://www.csis.org/analysis/italy-withdraws-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative) or by extending territorial control (see the story of Panama and Greenland).
I totally understand that the US is playing a risky game because they might still very much need allies to preserve their superpower status. But in the current predicament they clearly privilege those which are proven to be helpful and faithful to the US’s struggle for supremacy, then it’s matter of European people’s taste: Netanyahu, Starmer, or Salvini?

Secondly they have misunderstood the motives in Europe. The failure of the TTIP negotiations wasn’t a failure on the part of the EU, it was them not falling over and becoming an economic vassal block via U.S. litigation which would be imported along with the goods. A colonisation through the economic back door.
Also the deleterious effects the U.S. experienced as a result of globalisation were also felt by European countries. It affected all Western countries and is the primary reason why the EU is struggling economically at this time. — Punshhh

European motives, no matter how legitimate, risk very much to fail when they fly over power relations. And lions want and take the biggest share, no matter how hungry the others are. Maybe Europeans could have played it smarter instead of playing it harder? For sure, they had time. Now time is over.

They will fall at the next hurdle if they alienate Europe and find they have no friends anymore. How sad, although, they will have Putin’s shoulder to cry on I suppose. — Punshhh

Europe is not one subject. It can be conveniently fragmented by pushing domestic nationalism. And Europeans, especially the anti-American and pro-Russian nationalists are happy to fragment Europe. Now those very same anti-American and pro-Russian nationalists will get what they wished for. They are going to love it.

Why the US doesn't see this a hostile intent is beyond me. But I guess too much of "culture war" and too much of the idea that the "Deep State" in the US is the real enemy blurs people from seeing those who really have hostile intent. — ssu

I think that in the US most people and politicians (left or right leaning, it doesn’t matter) have finally converged on the idea that the US can’t afford anymore to overstretch: overwhelming debt for military expenditure, dispersing resources around the world in geopolitical arena without significant return of their political, military, economic investment while enemies and allies grow fatter and hostile toward the US. So now the US is betting on the fact that neither Europeans nor Russia can really profit much from the US downsizing their presence in Europe to threaten the US strategic interests (also in Europe) in the foreseeable future, at least by comparison with China. Russia and Europe look now too weak to challenge Trumps’ game, and their weakness can be played against one another.

If American nationalists wish to keep the US as the strongest superpower, which they most likely do, then Russia can be very much instrumental to contain China (and Iran to make Israel happy!). This likely includes the idea of keeping China and Europe separated. The idea of using Russia to counter China as the biggest competitor to the US supremacy is e.g. what Mearsheimer kept suggesting roughly since the beginning of this conflict. — neomac

And this is so the real insanity, which just show the extreme hubris and utter ignorance and delusions of these "American nationalists".

Perhaps they in their fantasies think of an "Kissinger moment" when Nixon went to China and the Americans enjoyed that "they" had breached the Communist states. Well, that breach happened because Mao was Stalinist and Soviet Union moved away from Stalinism with the two countries even having a border war.

What this friending of Russia, in order to "separate China", will do is for the US just loose it's largest and most trustworthy ally. Allies that really have designed their armed forces to be part of NATO. The trust has already been breached by Trump. Trump has through his actions made it totally clear that it won't stand with Europe and Europe has to go it's own way. The "Europe having to pay" for it's share of the common defense is now only a fig leaf that certainly the Europeans will repeat diplomatically. But they do understand that Trump and Vance don't give a shit about Ukraine and don't give shit about the Transatlantic alliance. Far too liberal in their view. Biden and Obama were liked in Europe, so fuck those people. So the real division here done is an effort to break up the Atlanticism. The US is already an untrustworthy ally.

Besides, these "American nationalists" seem to be totally incapable of seeing this from the Russian perspective. Why on Earth would Russia be against China here? What benefit would have to have hostile relations with it's largest trade partner and a country that is shares a very long border? It's China who has helped Russia here, not the US.

Putin will happily lure these suckers into breaking up their own alliances with empty promises.

Here's a great interview from Gabrielus Landsbergis, a former Latvian foreign minister, who clearly tells the situation as it is now. He gives insight just why some countries (like France) is against the using of Russia's frozen assets to help Ukraine. The reason is that China and Saudi Arabia are against this, which itself is understandable as for these countries such a precedent would be bad. Also the Landsbergis compares of just how little the aid to Ukraine has been compared to how costly the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were. The assistance to Ukraine is counted in few hundred billion, those wars in the Global War Against Terror cost is in the trillions both. — ssu

I don’t think that Trump (and his advisors) ignores the risk of Putin not playing along, or that the US may suffer a significant backlash from European allies, which feel betrayed, but I think they feel the need and see greater opportunities for this strategy to succeed now for the reasons I discussed previously: the US must avoid to overstretch, must contain China, both European countries and Russia must be more instrumental to the US strategic interests than the other way around, and at this point the US has greater leverage over European countries and Russia.
Concerning the relation between China and Russia, the problem is multifaceted: to begin with, the Ukrainian case is important also as a precedent for the case of Taiwan, in the sense China are supporting the Ukrainian territorial integrity to then be able to justify the same demand against Taiwan and US interference. But most importantly, China's growing influence, both economically and militarily, has the potential to impact Russia's security and strategic independence in complex ways (from energy business to technology). A the same time areas of competing interests (Central Asia, Far East, Arctic region) are abundant (they also had border conflict in the past). So Russia is very much unlikely that it aspires to become more vulnerable to China. Besides China enjoys greater appeal in terms of soft power and diplomacy to the Rest. And Slavic Russians feel to be more culturally and ethnically close to Europeans than to Asians, which makes it hard to swallow e.g. for Russian ultra-nationalists (e.g. supporting Putin’s aggression against Ukraine) to tolerate Chinese growing and more assertive influence. So from the Russian perspective (especially Putin’s perspective) it could be more tempting to partner with the US than with China. But is Putin really going to trust Trump and play along? The US frustrated Russia’s expectations so many times. And what if Trump’s mandate ends in four or, worse, two years?
Besides, I don’t think that Trump’s interest is to leave Europe. He wants Europe to turn into submissive clients, more responsive or pro-active in complying with the US demands: you want security? Pay or you’ll be on your own (or, worse, we’ll be against you). You want our market open to your products? Pay or you’ll be on your own (or, worse, we’ll be against you). Sort of a racketeering strategy, which is the other face of the wonderful peaceful multi-polar world which European pacifists were so badly wishing for.

I see a lot of Americans putting all the blame on Trump, and then on Putin who must have blackmailed him, trying to exculpate their country from this utterly blatant act of Machiavallianism.

The next president will be able to claim "it was all Trump" and "things are back to normal again", after which the next lamb will be led to the slaughter. — Tzeentch

Well it depends. If Trump's strategy fails, the next US administration may blame it on Trump, but if it succeeds. They will preserve it. Democrats were complaining about Trump's withdrawing from JCPOA agreements, but then they kept it. Democrats were complaining about first Trump's administration's tariff policies turning the US market more protectionist, but then Biden kept this approach. Democrats (Since Obama) started taking seriously the pivot to Asia, Trump is doing the same but more coherently than the Democrats since the Democrats were more committed to globalization which led the US to overstretch. Overstretching would be a problem for the US in any case (not only for the US geopolitical power but also for domestic political stability). Besides the situation looks particularly favorable to the US now, Trump has amassed lots of power within his country and lots of leverage against Russia and the EU. And the more he succeeds in pursuing his goals, the greater is the chance that Americans want to keep Trump in power or whomever he blesses to be his successor.

But wouldn't the US aligning with Russia create a situation where a disgruntled Europe is now more open to Chinese influence? — Echarmion

Sure, Europeans will be compelled to look for new alliances, like China, if the US is turning into its enemy.
However the first 2 related problems that come to mind to me are the following:
1. China is pretty faraway from Europe and all routes for commercial and security support are mostly under the control of Russia and the US, one way or the other.
2. Europe is not really ONE political subject. It’s many, and they are unable to strongly converge on many security and economic issues (local nationalism contributes to keeping divided, without the interference of foreign powers). And the US strategy is to avoid to overstretch but still preserve an affordable/sustainable sphere of influence over the part of Europe that will submit to its demands for business and/or security and shut up (“How can the U.S. get trading and security partners to agree to such a deal? First, there is the stick of tariffs. Second, there is the carrot of the defense umbrella and the risk of losing it.”), because they are unable to do otherwise under the pressure of the Russian threat, economic recessions, islamic immigration, corrupt politicians, climate change, gender equality, you name it.

If you could choose between retaining an alliance with Europe and gaining one with Russia, why would you choose Russia? — Echarmion

My understanding is that on one side, the pivot to Asia, namely the incumbency of competing superpower like China, has been a strategic concern for the US politics for a good decade. So an economically/military weak Russia, subordinate to China (which is also eroding Russian influence on its eastern flank), in desperate need to regain its superpower status (like at the end of the Second World War) can be instrumental to the US in exchange for a strategic partnership. On the other side, Europe has spent 30 years of globalisation enriching themselves and the US enemies (Russia and China) at the expense of the US, instead of taking a greater responsibility in opening its market to the US, and defending the West through soft-power (instead of spinning populist anti-Americanism, complacency toward anti-Western sentiments in the Rest), and also by military means.
It’s really baffling to hear, even in this thread, Europeans complaining about the US as the Great Satan or as the most powerful and dangerous country in the World, and yet at the same thinking that the best strategy for Europe is to poke the US in the eye by being complacent with Russia (which has invaded Europe more than the US has, even prior the existence of the US) and China, and spin anti-American propaganda.
As Russia and China are using populist nationalism against the transatlantic alliance, the US will be using European populist nationalism to turn their countries into a submissive client status, because they are incapable of turning into strong allies (like Israel). They just acted as US parasites, so they will be treated as such.

Sure, Putin was a convenient figurehead to use for the right wing populists and their nativist, anti-EU and frequently Anti-American agenda.

But that was and is mostly political manoeuvring to appeal to voter blocks. It's hard for me to see why a Europe that was actually ruled by nationalist governments would be friendly to Russia. There is no constructive overlap of interests. The overlap is purely destructive: against the EU and NATO. — Echarmion

Precisely, for Russia the destruction of EU and NATO must be very much functional to weaken the grip of the US in Europe, which is the superpower against which Russia tries to define its hegemonic status.
Besides European nationalisms constrain one another, so it may be in the interest of superpowers (like Russia, but at this point also the US) to keep Europe divided. Dividing Europe may be convenient to avoid the emergence of a European superpower, but also to turn small nations into clients (or worse puppets) otherwise to thwart their exploitation by rival superpowers. In the case of Russia, nationalist Orban is serving Russia. And you shouldn’t discount the largest Russian minority in Europe which is hosted by East Germany and may have very much contributed to rise of AfD, the far right political movement (https://theconversation.com/how-russians-have-helped-fuel-the-rise-of-germanys-far-right-105551). Musk was trying to steal AfD from Putin and it seems he failed, at least for now.
European nationalists serve to keep Europe fragmented and turn them into US bootlickers or Russia bootlickers. Salvini is the prototype of far-right populist which Trump and Putin wish to have in all European countries in which political elites try to resist the US/Russia’s interference or refuse to complain with their demands.

Similarly with US politics, I can see right wing populists using Putin as a sign of their opposition to the status quo. But now that they're actually in power, there seems little reason to care for Russia one way or another. — Echarmion

If American nationalists wish to keep the US as the strongest superpower, which they most likely do, then Russia can be very much instrumental to contain China (and Iran to make Israel happy!). This likely includes the idea of keeping China and Europe separated. The idea of using Russia to counter China as the biggest competitor to the US supremacy is e.g. what Mearsheimer kept suggesting roughly since the beginning of this conflict.
On the other side it is unlikely that Russia is happy to turn into some dumb sidekick of China. Russia current economic, military and political weakness can be exploited by Trump to turn Russia into US’s sidekick (this move reminds me of Nixon's opening to Mao’s China against the Soviet Union). And to make this proposal of partnership credible to Russia, Trump needs to blame everything on Biden, Zelensky and European allies, make them pay for Russia’s aggression of Ukraine and make a good deal of concessions to Putin.

Do not worry, Trump is bringing peace in Gaza as in Ukraine. And you support peace right?

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1894613903302176846

When will it get through to you that what you're seeing now is the true face of the United States? — Tzeentch

you mean this?

What if Mearsheimer is part of the Blob?

His views on the Ukraine conflict:
- May deflect blame from other policy failures
- Justify continued engagement with a weaker Russia to contain a stronger China and maintain hegemonic supremacy
- Limiting the scope of public debate on foreign policy, while providing controlled opposition that gives the appearance of diverse viewpoints within foreign policy discourse.

What's confusing me is that I don't see what either the tech-bros like Musk or the nativists like Bannon (I'm not really sure where Vance falls on this) are getting out of this. — Echarmion

Tech-bros are getting EU laws/tax against American Big Tech down and prevent the formation of European big-tech competitors (keep an eye on AI and how AI will be integrated within military industry or how American crypto currencies will be injected into the European system). Bannon with his fascist-leaning mindset and propaganda aspires to be the guru of European far right movements (see Salvini in Italy who is waving between becoming a Putin's bitch and Trump's bitch, or both), so he helps steal the European far-right movements/propaganda from Russia. All three are helping each other.

It’s good that Trump wants peace. — Mikie

It's called peace by prostitution. If you are a European prepare your lubricant coz you are gonna be next... ah but you are not European but from the US? Tell us your dirtiest desires, master.

Whatever Trump agrees on with Putin about a new world order, it should be maintained under and possibly after Trump presidency (as long as it lasts) and after Putin. What might possibly ensure this?
Whatever Trump is ready to concede to Putin concerning this world order, implies that Putin must be ready to concede the same to Trump: e.g., if I'll break Western alliance to contain Russia, then Russia must break with its alliance (China, Iran, North Korea). If Russia occupies pieces of Ukraine or widens further its boarders, then the US (including Israel) can do the same. If Russia wants to sell oil to Europe, then the US will take Ukrainian resources (like rare earth).

(Don't mind the fact that is breaking international law and setting examples to others e.g. China with Taiwan)

More on Mearsheimer's infallible predictions:

US President-elect Donald Trump won’t end the Ukraine war because he has appointed “a bunch of hawks” who suffer from “Russophobia in the extreme”, international relations scholar John Mearsheimer has claimed.

Mearsheimer argued the West and Ukraine must — but won’t — accept two conditions for Russian President Vladimir Putin to enter negotiations. First, “that Ukraine will never be in Nato”. Second, “that Crimea and the four Oblasts that the Russians have now annexed are permanently lost”. He continued: “I find it hard to imagine the US, even Trump, accepting those two conditions.”

https://unherd.com/newsroom/john-mearsheimer-trump-is-appointing-russophobic-hawks/

So what is it you expect from me? Convince you somehow? To try and 'win the argument’?

If you're not even willing to believe I'm being honest about my credentials, then what possible point would there be to carry on conversation? — Tzeentch

To me the point of this conversation with you has nothing to do with believing your honesty over your credentials or whatever else, of course. As I said, I find it rather irrelevant, even if you were honest: indeed, I find irrelevant any argument from authority if that’s meant to replace arguments de re.
If I do not understand the criteria for sexing chickens, and ask you clarifications, it would be pointless to tell me: “see these two chickens? Well, the right one is male and the left one is a female and the criteria are that I’ve academic credentials on sexing chickens, I’ve sexed chickens for 30 years in tens of farms and I’m honest”. Even if you were 100% right, 100% honest, 100% convinced, 100% believed by all the people in the universe, past, present, future (ME INCLUDED!), yet you didn’t offer any criteria for me to understand how to sex chickens.
I think the purpose of a conversation in a philosophy forum is not just to exchange opinions about things one takes to be evident but also to investigate and question grounds to believe things. That’s why I’ve joined this philosophy forum and this thread. Is this why you too joined this philosophy forum and this thread? If not, for what other purpose are you here?

↪neomac
Out of courtesy I did read your entire post, but I will not be getting into a repetition of moves where we write entire essays about what has already been said. — Tzeentch

Out of courtesy I’m thanking you for your courtesy. However, I doubt the that your problem is repeating moves, as you claim, since you keep repeating moves [1] (including the claim that you have already said this and that so no need repeating [2]). Even in this last post of yours.
You can give synthetic answers to my questions (I consider all of them equally pressing, then it’s up to you), at least we can verify where you said that already as you claim.
Besides, the fact that you keep repeating claims may also point to the fact that you think to win arguments by repeating the same response to challenges against what you keep repeating. Unfortunately, I’m sure you agree that “you don't win arguments by repetition”. Maybe try something else instead of repeating.

[1]
“That's something I've repeatedly argued in this thread: NATO, the US in particular, was purposefully seeking conflict in Ukraine from 2008 onward”.

[2]
“I’ve probably written about a book's worth and can't be arsed to repeat it all”

I'll only answer those questions where I think my position may require clarification.


Could you provide criteria that would make such difference so much morally grey in one case over the other? — neomac


In the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict:
- +/-70 years of thorough documentation
- Mountains of reports by human rights organisations, including those within Israel itself
- Mountains of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions
- Near-unanimous global condemnation
- Condemnation within Israel itself
- Admissions by Israeli politicians
- Having studied the conflict in-depth as part of my academic education, and having visited the region as part of a research tour.

— Tzeentch

In what way this is a clarification of “It is perfectly clear to me what has gone on over the past 70 years, and the world as represented in the UN General Assembly agrees almost unanimously, just like virtually every human rights organisation imaginable, including Israeli human rights organisations” when my explicit challenge to you was: “I find more interesting to discuss explicit moral criteria, hopefully not “ad hoc”, than just provide moral opinions. And I will charitably assume that your criteria are not something like: if after 70 years there is unanimous agreement by all human rights organisation imaginable (excluding Russian human rights organisations, since apparently there aren’t much left there unlike in Israel, even under Netanyahu) on the Russia’s aggression of Ukraine, one is entitled to morally condemn Russia’s aggression of Ukraine” ?
I do not question that you may be more convinced in one case than the other, but I’ll repeat that the criteria you are repeating seem rather arbitrary.
A part from the fact that if a conflict lasts 70 years of course one may have evidence and complaints spanning over 70 years to support the “genocide” accusation, while if a conflict lasts 3 years of course one may have 3 years of evidence and complaints to support the “genocide” accusation. But most importantly, really are you waiting for 70 years of evidence to make moral assessments about wars? 3 years are not enough? BTW moral rules like “do not kill”, “do not lie”, “do not steal”, “do not break promises”, sound rather intuitive, so do you seriously not have amassed enough evidence in 3 years that Russia is committing more violations of moral rules against Ukraine than the other way around in this conflict or its genesis? Or you want to say that Russia’s aggression of Ukraine was a morally “proportional” response to the Ukrainian desire to join NATO while Israel’s response against the massacre of its civilians by Hamas wasn’t? No temporal constraints are part of the legal definition of "genocide".
How fair is it to recall certain criticisms from within Israel vs lack of similar criticisms from Russia given the fact public opinion in Israel is much more free than in Russia?
Concerning your appeals to your expertise or experience (not the first time you are doing it), how is not that convenient, besides being unverifiable to us? Appeal to your authority is as good as an attack ad hominem against your interlocutors. Actually its complement.
Finally, a part from the fact that the accusation of “genocide” is legally different from the accusation of committing war crimes or crimes against humanity, you can read more about appeal to near-unanimous human rights organizations and UN Assembly condemnations against Russia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukrainians_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
So much so that there are ICC arrest warrants for Putin as much as for Netanyahu (and also for Hamas representatives but not against Zelensky).
Concerning the UN Security Council resolution the trick is that it requires the permission of Russia, which is the perpetrator of the alleged “genocide”. Besides the accusation of committing “genocide” against Israel by the Security Council concerns specifically the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, not the current conflict:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel#United_Nations_Security_Council_resolutions
And the problem is not only in the criteria which you mention, but also on criteria which you do not mention now, while being so important to you in other posts. I'm referring to your claim: “it is good for countries to draw a line in the sand in the face of a blatant disregard for their security interests”. You made this claim to justify/explain (until you do clarify better how you distinguish them, I’ll put both) Russian aggression of Ukraine, but not the Israeli aggression on Hamas. Why? Is it “it is good for countries to draw a line in the sand in the face of a blatant disregard for their security interests” a moral criterium for moral condemnation/justification or not?

Concerning genocidal intentions and war crimes, can you articulate a bit more your moral views on that? — neomac


War crimes are an unfortunate reality of war. They happen in every war, and criminals ought to be punished.

Things take on a different guise when war crimes are carried out intentionally on a large scale, at a governmental level. — Tzeentch

That sounds to me a plausible criterium when accusing governments of committing genocides because it stems from the legal definition of “genocide” which includes the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”. The problem is to understand what evidences are needed to prove such an intent in one conflict over the other. There are evidences coming from human rights organizations and UN resolutions, one can check historical patterns, one can check political decisions and declarations. I think one can find lots of compelling evidence in both cases.

I don't believe Russia has genocidal intentions in Ukraine. Ukrainians are returning to Russian-occupied territories every day. — Tzeentch

If the criterium of assessing “genocidal intentions“ is Ukrainian ability to go back to occupied territories, then the same holds for Palestinians, see here : https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/27/middleeast/palestinians-return-north-gaza-intl-hnk/index.html

Anti-Western authoritarian government will do their propaganda, but if people see that things are better in the West than they are under the authoritarian government, they will draw their own conclusions. — ssu

"more than half (52%) of Gen Z thinks that "the UK would be a better place if there was a strong leader in power who doesn't have to worry about parliament and elections" and a third (33%) believe that "it would be better if the army led the country"
https://assets-corporate.channel4.com/_flysystem/s3/2025-01/Gen%20Z%20Trends%20Truth%20and%20Trust_0.pdf

But what happens if none of them can fix it now, in one week, in months, in years, ever? You learn to live with it (hoping that one day it gets fixed) or you try to change the service (and hope the problem won’t replicate). — neomac

You simply have a defective product. It's your loss.

as if you were hinting at some solution, it looks rather empty to me. — neomac

Look, what I'm saying that if you want a functioning democracy, a prosperous country, then a lot of things have to be right.

…

First of all, you cannot think that a country is a democracy without all the necessary institutions and by just having elections.

…

Because you have to start with the reality that you have. Like for example the US. What it desperately needs is for it's citizens to think that the government works for them, and not the oligarchs. The only way for people to change their views is for the government really seen to work for them. — ssu

Not sure if these claims are meant to be objections to my arguments, because they sound pretty in line with what I’ve already said.

But the authoritarian looks at democracies being weak with all the woke nonsense. Yet in fact it's the authoritarians who are in the fundamentally weak, because they actually fear their people. — ssu

Russian is authoritarian, China is authoritarian, the US is moving from democracy to authoritarianism.
Russia, China and the US seem to be stronger than democracies like France, Italie, UK and Germany.
In some sense, in authoritarian regimes political leaders won their fear of people, more than political leaders in democratic regimes.
Besides, after compering authoritarian regimes, one can notice that the popular support for Putin doesn’t seem as weak the popular support for the Iranian leader in Iran.

The only way for people to change their views is for the government really seen to work for them. — ssu

if people see that things are better in the West than they are under the authoritarian government, they will draw their own conclusions. — ssu

Precisely, but the problem is that in authoritarian regimes, “people” exclusively refers to the relative majority that vocally supports or silently tolerates the regime, also in a period of crisis where protracted collective sacrifices are required, the rest is forced into political irrelevance and suppression. While, in democracy, “people” doesn’t exclusively refer to the relative majority that vocally supports or silently tolerates the regime, but includes also people and political movements that criticise the regime. So in a period of crisis where protracted collective sacrifices are required, there are always margins for disputes and blame gaming.

There are 2 issues that I brought up repeatedly in this thread and yet, to my surprise, nobody looks/looked interested in discussing them as vocally as I was: the problematic link between democracy and security, and the problematic link between morality and security.
The first one is worth digging into because it can contribute to explain the authoritarian turn of Trump's administration, his antagonism against EU and Trump’s philo-Putinism.
The second one is worth digging into because it can contribute to better assess analogies and differences between the Ukrainian-Russian conflict vs the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The strategic stakes of the war between Russia and Ukraine were mostly about a new world order in which powerful authoritarian countries can impose their rule over the others through direct negotiations between supreme leaders (independently from the qualms of international law), including Western democratic countries no matter how justified their moral outrage is.

The Ukraine conflict is not comparable to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ukraine is much more morally grey.

In the case of Israel-Palestine, it is not morally grey at all. It is perfectly clear to me what has gone on over the past 70 years, and the world as represented in the UN General Assembly agrees almost unanimously, just like virtually every human rights organisation imaginable, including Israeli human rights organisations. — Tzeentch

In a philosophy forum, I find more interesting to discuss explicit moral criteria, hopefully not “ad hoc”, than just provide moral opinions. And I will charitably assume that your criteria are not something like: if after 70 years there is unanimous agreement by all human rights organisation imaginable (excluding Russian human rights organisations, since apparently there aren’t much left there unlike in Israel, even under Netanyahu) on the Russia’s aggression of Ukraine, one is entitled to morally condemn Russia’s aggression of Ukraine.
Concerning criteria relying on the advise of international law and humanitarian organizations, the allegations that Russia is committing genocide and war crimes in Ukraine do not look so much less severe than the Israeli case to me, see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukrainians_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
What actually sounds even morally worse in the Russian case than in the Israeli case (assumed the notion of “genocide” equally applies to both) is that in his article ”On the historical unity of Russian and Ukrainians“ Putin has claimed “Our kinship has been transmitted from generation to generation. It is in the hearts and the memory of people living in modern Russia and Ukraine, in the blood ties that unite millions of our families. Together we have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people” . (https://www.prlib.ru/en/article-vladimir-putin-historical-unity-russians-and-ukrainians). So Putin’s war against Ukrainians is not only genocidal, but also fratricidal. Nothing of the sort can be said of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Finally, also the moral outrage of the perceived "provocations" look more problematic for Russia than for Israel: indeed, what's evidently morally outrageous in the idea of having Ukraine joining NATO some day in the future compared to the massacre of Israeli civilians in Israel by Hamas?
Concerning history, the struggle of Ukrainians to gain independence from Russia is going on for centuries (the last one is just the 4th war of independence). So the claim that the Ukrainians badly want to be independent from Russia and Russians do not let them doesn’t sound so far fetched. Not to mention the case of the “Holodomor” which looks to me way more atrocious than the “Nakba”. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide" in 1944, explicitly applied the concept of ”genocide” to the Soviet oppression of Ukrainians, including the Holodomor. He considered the destruction of the Ukrainian nation as a "classic example of Soviet genocide" and "the longest and most extensive experiment in Russification”.
Concerning political principles, as I said elsewhere, Russia’s war against Ukraine looks pretty hegemonic in nature. Indeed, Russia not only has a state which Ukraine acknowledges and hasn’t invaded or attacked (at least prior to this conflict), but it has the largest state on earth, and abundant land for hosting way more ethnic Russians than currently exist compared to Israel (the population density in Israel is roughly 50 times higher than in Russia). Besides Russia has previously formally acknowledged Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. On the other side, Israel’s war against Hamas doesn’t look hegemonic in nature. Israel so far is just trying to establish its own nation state and keep it safe from Palestinians’ and other neighbouring middle-eastern countries’ aggressions, and it has never acknowledged the existence of Palestinian state. Besides, in accordance to the premises I made explicit in my previous comment, if one holds the right to people self-determination, it’s much more easy to condemn Russian hegemonic ambitions as violating Ukrainian people’s self-determination, than to condemn either nations between Israelis and Palestinians which are fighting for their right to self-determination over exactly the same land.
So what is it making so “much more” morally grey one case over the other to you doesn’t look evident to me at all. Could you provide criteria that would make such difference so much morally grey in one case over the other?

Second, when geopolitical actors meddle in ways that are misleading and exploitative, I have no qualms with making moral statements about that.

Russia is clearly a wolf and widely perceived as a calculating geopolitical actor. The US on the other hand is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and therefore much more dangerous because people are ignorant to its true nature. — Tzeentch

Well, given the case of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, I thought your moral assessment depends not only on honesty and exploitative intentions , but also genocidal intentions and war crimes.
Concerning honesty and exploitative intentions, since Russia is a “wolf”, what would you consider as misleading and exploitative by Russia in the current conflict with Ukraine? Do you have concrete examples in mind to provide? Maybe the fact that Russia acknowledged Ukrainian territorial sovereignty on many occasions (including the one Mearsheimer wrote an article about in “The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent”)?
Concerning genocidal intentions and war crimes, can you articulate a bit more your moral views on that? Indeed, since you accused others of cognitive dissonance, let me point out that I also see a risk of cognitive dissonance on your part too. Honestly I don’t remember much of your moral statements against what Russia is doing in Ukraine. And the problem is not much that you seem way more focused on the moral status of the US and its European “vassals” than on Russia because, as you claim, the US is much more dangerous than Russia. The problem is that you even look “favourable” to Russia’s aggression of Ukraine, given this comment [1]: “it is good for countries to draw a line in the sand in the face of a blatant disregard for their security interests” (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/968536). Now, if this argument is not apologetics for Russia’s genocide in Ukraine (territorial annexations included), then also arguing that Israel is reacting against the Palestinian aggression (territorial annexations included) is not apologetics for Israel’s genocide in Palestine as “it is good for countries to draw a line in the sand in the face of a blatant disregard for their security interests”. If it is apologetics in one case, than it is also in the other.
Given your views, it must be convenient for you to argue that Russia is not seriously committing a genocide in Ukraine or war crimes (because you are morally against genocide or war crimes, right?), at least until you provide more explicit and non-ad-hoc criteria. The alternative would be that committing genocide and war crimes are morally justified if “it is good for countries to draw a line in the sand in the face of a blatant disregard for their security interests”. Which is it?

Considering the US is objectively the most powerful, and most dangerous, nation on earth, at the very least the idea of deliberate strategy should be exhausted before assuming incompetence. Currently, it remains conspicuously absent from the discussion. — Tzeentch

The principal threat is not an 'angry' US - the US is thousands of miles away across an ocean - but European 'Trans-Atlanticists' prostituting Europe to the American agenda. — Tzeentch

These two comments remind me a bit of the joke “It's Schrödinger's war machine.”
Instead of indulging into sarcastic retaliations, let me highlight the following dilemma.
Either the US is objectively the most powerful and most dangerous compared to Russia, then recalling the geographic distance shouldn’t be enough to dismiss the security threat coming from the US, nor suggest that’s batter to provoke and keep provoking/antagonising the US (so yes one must be definitely be worried about a “angry” US).
Or the US is NOT objectively the most powerful, and most dangerous compared to Russia, then recalling the geographic distance shouldn’t be enough to dismiss the security threat coming from Russia, nor suggest that’s batter to provoke and keep provoking/antagonising Russia (so yes one must be definitely be worried about a “angry” Russia).
Which is it to you?

The Ukraine war neither suggests they have the intention nor the capacity to threaten Europe. — Tzeentch

Are you saying that it’s thanks to the war between Russia and Ukraine that we know that Russia has not “the capacity to threaten Europe”? How so?
Besides, if Russia has not the capacity to threaten Europe, then the fear of an “angry” Russia seems less compelling, do you agree?
These statements in addition to the previous ones do not make it more clear how you assess the Russian threat to Europe. More on this below.

I support Ukrainian independence. What I do not support is incompetent nations like the EU, or exploitative nations like the US leading it down the prim rose path by feeding it fake promises of security. — Tzeentch

How do you know that populist movements or national leaders are less incompetent than EU leaders?
Do you mean that Russia is not an exploitative for making fake promises of security to Ukraine like the Budapest memorandum?

About European 'emancipation' I have little to say. Europe is a lost cause. It will take decades for it to undo the damage of post-Cold War soft power US colonialism. But for the US to leave is obviously a prerequisite for things to get better. — Tzeentch

The problem of the European emancipation must also go with some important acknowledgement from you:
did the US oppress Germany, France, the Ntehterlans or Spain as Russia is oppressing Ukraine?
Obviously, I can get that a nation wants to become independent from foreign interference which is perceived as oppressive. But the US hasn’t been oppressive toward EU countries as Russia is toward Ukraine, or Israel toward Palestine. Actually the EU prospered in peace for several decades. Do you agree?
Besides what do you mean by “for the US to leave”? One can say that Soviet Union has left Hungary, still Hungary has been supporting Russia over EU and the US as a European vassal may support the US. That is to say, that even assuming that the US military bases leave Europe, that doesn’t imply that the US “the most powerful and dangerous” country has not economic and military interests in Europe that will still constrain Europe margins for strategic emancipation (things may get even trickier if "Europe" refers to individual European countries instead of groups of European countries like the EU).

I don't believe in the narrative that the Russians are coming for Berlin. — Tzeentch

Europe's population is roughly four times that of Russia. It's GDP is roughly ten times that of Russia.
Even if Europe organises its defense inefficiently on a country-by-country basis there ought to be no Russian threat. — Tzeentch

First, Russia has military resources to threaten Germany and a nuclear arsenal (indeed Russia has not spared itself from making nuclear threats when its strategic interests are at stake), Germany has an insufficient military capacity wrt Russia, Russia has historically invaded Germany and taken a good piece of it, so Russia doesn’t need to come for Berlin anytime soon to be a security threat to Berlin.
Second, as I pointed out in another post: aggregating GDP (or population) of EU countries doesn't make much sense if one overlooks the deep divisions over security issues among European countries. Besides Berlin is just one European capital, there are other Eastern European capitals for which Russian conventional military aggression could be a serious problem.
Third, most importantly, Russia’s threats to Europe are not limited to conventional warfare. Hybrid warfare must the taken into account and hybrid warfare can be enough to induce concessions to Russia’s demands. So if European countries want to emancipate themselves from being vassals of foreign powers like the US, then the same must hold against Russia. Besides a source of security concerns comes also from Russian minorities populating many European countries (including Germany). They are a good resource for pretexts to rise tensions, covert operations (like sabotaging) and political trafficking.

The only reason Europe is vulnerable is because American interests have infiltrated its every institution like a Trojan horse, disallowing it from making sensible decisions. — Tzeentch

What about a “victorious” Russian interests in Europe? Did Russians infiltrate European institutions and far right populist movements like a Trojan horse? What if the US will leave and Russia wants to ensure that the US doesn’t come back again and for that it will do its best to fill the void of power left by the US? It shouldn’t sound so far-fetched that outside NATO/EU e.g. Hungary might be interested in hosting Russian military bases. Or that European countries which need Russian oil/gas/wheat could be blackmailed in various ways including buying Russian weapon systems to feed the Russian military-industrial complex and its power projection like in the middle east, Mediterranean sea, North Africa and Baltic sea (around Europe).
So while Russia is arguably far more oppressive and aggressive over nations under its sphere of influence than the US is toward European countries, it seems you worry more about a vassal status of the EU toward the US, and as if there was no risk that European countries would turn into vassals of Russia once the US has completely gone. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t even exclude a worse scenario one in which an “angry” US and a “victorious” Russia will turn European states into more submissive vassals (for the US, Italy is a good candidate, as much as Hungary is for Russia).

I thought I was enough clear, the quotes I’ve reported are all linked so anybody can click and get more context. Anyways, I doubt that more context is gonna help address my points, so I’ll try another way. This time I will not use full quotes but I will report your views as I roughly understood them. No sarcasm, no rude tone, ok? Feel free to highlight and correct where I’m badly misrepresenting your views.

There are some basic factual premises which I find handy to start investigating/explaining interstate conflicts. They concern respectively: people’s “right” to self-determination and power relations among countries.
People’s “right” to self-determination (whatever its degree of codification in the international law) can DE FACTO inspire political struggles for greater emancipation from foreign or sovranational powers perceived as oppressive interference, exploitation or occupation (see Ukraine vs Russian, EU vs the US, Palestine vs Israel, Taiwan vs China, European nations vs EU, Catalonia vs Spain, ex-colonies vs ex-colonial powers, Kurds against Middle Eastern regional powers, etc.) and spin propaganda accordingly or be ready to fight down to its most bitter consequences (and fail).
Then there are DE FACTO power relations among countries as a function of their demographic, economy, technology, defence resources, geography, collective psychology, powerful allies, etc. which DE FACTO political leaderships can exploit to advance foreign political agendas. From that perspective, if power relations favour Russia over Ukraine, Russia will more likely prevail over Ukraine on certain contended issues, if power relations favour the US over EU, the US will more likely prevail over EU on certain contended issues, if Israel power relations favour Israel over Palestine, Israel will more likely prevail over Palestine on certain contended issues, etc.
What is the link between people’s “right” to self-determination as a motivational factor and power relations? Well, people’s ‘right’ to self-determination as a motivational factor can nourish people cohesion (e.g. in light of collective historical traumas) and morale (i.e. determination and tolerance for privation and suffering) so this important motivational factor among others can weigh in establishing power balance. On the other side, if power balance is not determined exclusively by collective psychological factors and collective feelings about a political predicament, then it’s possible that power relations will eventually frustrate “people’s ‘right’ to self-determination” aspirations.

What I just drafted shouldn’t be controversial because it’s totally independent from personal preferences, moral/juridical justifications/condamnation or political propaganda. Now, the reasons why I bring that up are two:

1) In some posts you stress the fact that you are explaining not justifying (e.g. when you talk about Russia strategic interests), in other posts you seem condemning more than explaining (e.g. when you talk about the Palestinian genocide by Israel), in some others you seem to mix the two (e.g. when you talk about the US provocations and engage in blame talking). However you do it in ways that look to me somehow inconsistent. Here is a more concrete example: believing that the Ukrainian emancipation from Russian hegemony and the Ukrainian chumming up with the US was perceived as a “provocation” by Russians sounds to me as plausible as claiming that the European emancipation from the US hegemony (especially under the form of anti-American or anti-Washington populism) and chumming up with Russia (especially under the form of anti-American or anti-Washington populism) was perceived as a “provocation” by the US. If Russia’s reaction was justifiable in imposing its will over Ukraine, even brutally, because Russians felt provoked, then also the US’s reaction was justifiable in imposing its will over EU, even brutally, because the US felt provoked. And if US/Ukraine are to be blamed for provoking Russia and Russia’s consequent reaction, then also EU/Russia (even more so the anti-American or anti-Washington populist) are to be blamed for provoking the US and US’s consequent reaction. In other words, the symmetry in attributing “hegemonic aspirations”, “emancipation aspirations” and “provocations” between Russia vs Ukraine and the US vs the EU is such that justification/condamnetion and blame can be equally distributed on both sides. So they can NOT ground the asymmetry you seem to believe in: namely, that the US’s reaction was less justifiable than the Russians’, and that the US/Ukraine are more to be blamed than European populism/Russia for this conflict. And since you mostly insist on the US hegemonic aspirations, US provocations against Russia, and European (especially populist) aspirations to emancipation from the US, my point is precisely that “hegemonic aspirations”, “emancipation aspirations” and “provocations” can be symmetrically distributed so they do not explain the asymmetry of judgement. Other premises must be invoked to ground the asymmetry in judgement and blaming: something like the US provocations against Russia were significantly worse than Russia provocations against the US, or it was the US which started all of it, or the US is more evil than Russia, or I don’t care about Ukrainian emancipation as much as I care about European countries emancipation, and the like. Whatever premises ground your blame attribution and condemnation, I think they would deserve more focus than the US “hegemonic aspirations”, European “emancipation aspirations” and Western “provocations” against Russia.

2) In your “realist” explanations, you often brought up Mearsheimer’s arguments mostly to back up your own views, however I’m not sure how committed you are toward his arguments or where your views diverge from his (the fact that you think there is more strategy than incompetence per se doesn’t improve understanding over the strategy, nor does the idea that the blob hiddenly pushing Trump now is the same crew pushing Clinton/Bush). One related example is when you talk about “the blob”: indeed, one of Mearsheimer’s arguments is that American antagonism with Russia (and exporting democracy) was driven by neoliberal agenda while Mearsheimer’s ideas were more open to accepting a division of sphere of influence to avoid American overstretching and ally with a weaker/declining Russia to contain the rising China. So Trump’s approach seems very much in line with what Mearsheimer’s was suggesting. Yet the problem for the European emancipation from the US hegemony is that the change in strategy from neoliberal to Trump’s (and Mearsheimer’s) doesn’t look less worrisome, on the contrary it looks more worrisome because it’s openly humiliating and threatening European “allies” down to obedience to avoid nasty retaliations. And given Trump-Musk support for European far-right populism (like AfD), I’m not sure if European populism is still the right horse to bet on for European emancipation. So not only changing strategy by the US doesn’t look more promising for European emancipation neither European populism does. Your belief that that the same hidden crew of Washington is frustrating European emancipation aspirations or serving American imperialist aspirations or abandoning allies, before or under Trump’s administration, besides looking unverifiable to me, it doesn’t change the fact that the strategy looks pretty different, the prospects for the European emancipation look rather compromised now, in spite of (or maybe even thanks to) rising far-right populism, and the pattern of American abandoning allies can not be explained via neoliberal hypocrisies because they are grounded on Mearsheimer-style reasoning over foreign politics.

Said that, here are two major differences between my and your views (among others): while you were warning and still keep warning about provoking Russia, Russia’s security concerns and the danger of servile pro-US European elites. I was warning about provoking the US, Russian aggressive imperialism (which goes way beyond than just not having Ukraine inside NATO) and the dangers of servile pro-Russian (and now tempted to turn pro-US) populist movements.
And while, prior to this conflict, the Europeans under the neoliberal agenda (the one you despise so much) grew prosperous and relatively safe, and had the best opportunity to develop a collective European military-industrial complex for their own security (but I suspect you are against a collective European military-industrial complex) without risking the kind of retaliations that a “victorious” Russia and “angry” US are capable of, as of now. You seem/seemed to believe that precisely this Ukrainian conflict was the best chance for Europe to emancipate itself from the US without risking Russia’s retaliations by making political choices that would have anyways led to a “victorious” Russia and “angry” US (and without a collective European military-industrial complex).

Even if Finnish politicians are as virtuous as you claim (the rise of right-wing populism in Finland, pro-Russian sentiment and problematic future of NATO makes me doubt Finns are immune from growing political polarisation and controversies), — neomac

The migration issue has naturally been a similar discussion as in other parts of Europe, however the True Finns -party, which is the local populist party, is and has been accepted into coalitions and actually is now in the present administration. However unlike the typical populists, they are all for Ukraine. Here is the party leader giving a speech to the Ukrainian parliament and getting a standing ovation:


But, more to the point, how much of their satisfying political performance compared to other states’ leaders, does actually empower Finnish politicians to instill wider social cohesion among nations, make them understand the utter peril of political polarization and get the real support of their people, genuinely answer to the worries of the people, and that the best thing is to tell things how they are, don't lie? — neomac

Quite confusing what you say here. First of all, domestic politics should be left to sovereign states. You don't start messing in others own politics and work with all administrations from one country. It's an issue that at normal relations you wouldn't touch at all (unlike Vance did). But to get wider cohesion, well, basically Finland got Sweden also to join in NATO, even if Sweden had to haggle a lot with Turkey. — ssu

OK I’ll note down that you are happier of your politicians than other Europeans of theirs, fine.
But you still do not get how basic (common sensical?) my comment was. I’ll try another way.
Think of ordinary commercial services (like the ones for power supply or mobile communication). What do you do when you have an issue with this type of services? First, you try to see if you can fix it yourself, if you can’t you call the help desk. If the help desk can’t fix it, they will call the admins. If the admins can’t fix it, they will call the experts (development, infrastructure, etc.). But what happens if none of them can fix it now, in one week, in months, in years, ever? You learn to live with it (hoping that one day it gets fixed) or you try to change the service (and hope the problem won’t replicate).
Now we have been discussing for a while of international conflicts like the one in Ukraine or Palestine, or the troubles with the American or Russian foreign politics. These problems are of such kind that single individuals can neither fix by themselves, nor see them fixed just by escalating to higher levels of expertise. Indeed, it’s powerful people on the top of the hierarchy which are struggling to find fixes. Or worse if/whenever they come up with one, maybe it’s not the one you wished for, actually it could even be the opposite.
Keep repeating something like “in Finland things work swell because there are Finnish moral champions running their governments, why can’t they do the same in Russia or the US or the EU, or Israel, etc.?” as if you were hinting at some solution, it looks rather empty to me. Indeed, Finnish politicians’ exemplar behaviour by itself doesn’t trigger the political resolution you wished for. Nor you can escalate those problems to Finnish politicians so that by virtue of their moral virtues those problems get fixed. And the reason of that is not much that the Finnish politicians should not interfere in other sovereign countries politics to fix their problems, but more that Finnish politicians most likely can’t fix those problems even if their moral imperative was to interfere. Why can’t these problems be fixed in a morally satisfying way as in Finland? That’s what needs to be understood better. Maybe it’s because the nature of the conflict in Ukraine or in Palestine is more complex and politically costly than the problems handled by Finnish political moral champions, and/or that pre-existing selective factors that favored the rise of moral champions in Finnish politics do not exists in the US or Russia, etc. In other words, Finnish politicians are not EMPOWERED by their moral status to fix the world issues we are discussing, or worse, to shield Finland from the nasty cascading consequences of those world issues.

In other words, as long as the information flow in Western-style democracies has certain features that by institutional design can be hacked by authoritarian regimes against Western democracies themselves (not vice versa), and independently from Western people or politicians’ best intentions or education, prohibiting social platforms from collecting data won’t off-set this asymmetric advantage which authoritarian regimes are benefiting from as authoritarian. — neomac

First, do cut down with the sentences. Very hard to read.

Secondly, a functioning democracy, a republic, needs a lot from both it's citizens and it's institutions. Those institutions have to function so that the citizens appreciate them, which isn't something that you get only with free elections. Those countries incapable of having a functioning republic will have the extremely stupid idea of authoritarianism being the solution. It won't be, it will make just things far worse, because an authoritarian state can easily just let loose unrestricted corruption, oligarchy or nepotism. — ssu

Stupid or not, the risk of a spiralling political polarization inside democracies can end up in the political protracted paralysis of necessary reforms to effectively addressing growing internal or external challenges. And this polarizing escalation can eventually bring about civil wars or the rise of authoritarianism. Does knowing this risk help people avoid polarization? Hopefully yes, but there are also reasons to doubt. Why? Because in democracy people want to be free to oppose policies and politicians they do not like, vocally and publicly so. That’s an in-built feature of Western democracies. It doesn’t matter which side one is on.
And feeling morally entitled per se doesn’t mitigate this effect at all, and not only because there people can also diverge over moral issues. Indeed, morally self-entitled citizens do not want to self-censor themselves, “people must know the truth” (like that of “universal human rights violation”). And if others warn them about the risks of being instrumental to hostile foreign powers, they may exercise their “critical thinking” and certainly suspect that some immoral political villain is using this argument to induce self-censorship, out of fear that the truth will eventually triumph. So they are going to voice their moral outrage even harder, and if others do not want self-entitled moral political activists to censor themselves on the contrary they give them a megaphone, these others might surely share their moral battles in politics. Unfortunately that’s precisely how foreign authoritarian powers can hack self-entitled political militants to foment political polarization. The paradoxical conclusion is that being instrumental to foreign hostile powers is justified if it is inspired by moral outrage, apparently no matter if this is going to backlash against them.
In other words, democracy + appeal to universal human rights + free speech + critical thinking (all traits typical of Western democratic institutions and pedagogy) put together can be source of polarization that a foreign attacker can exploit against democracy + appeal to universal human rights + free speech + critical thinking.

So here is a bitter conclusion on the limits of viewing politics in moral terms:
1. Appeal to morality doesn’t fixes per se clashes in moral sensitivity over lots of political issues: wealth redistribution, immigration, abortion, gender relations, religion, environment, etc.
2. Leading by moral example is effectively depending on moral sensitivity (e.g. if I'm politically left-leaning I'll look for moral champions in the left-side of the political spectrum, if I'm politically right-leaning vice versa). Besides it doesn’t necessarily bring about the morally desirable collective behaviour in people by itself (namely without law enforcement), because people can be morally fallible no matter what is morally desirable. BTW one way people show moral fallibility is their disposition to detect hypocrisy in others more than in themselves, and often for the wrong reasons (since they assume their moral sensitivity to be the universal moral compass).
3. Political activism to moralize homeland politics is exploitable by rival foreign powers. And anti-Western authoritarian regimes have an asymmetric advantage to sow division over Western democracies.

I agree. Which is precisely why I proposed the prohibition on using personal data as a free resource to allow influence on an industrial scale. Your previously unedited post (thanks for this improvement) seems to consider me hopelessly out of touch with just about everything. So what would you propose to do about this? — Benkei

In this forum I’m more in a contemplative mode and therefore I’m more interested to better understand pros/cons of proposals than to actually “propose” anything to anybody. And this attitude helps me understand that politics may be replete of thorny tradeoffs to make as much as various degrees of tolerance for failure, especially of trust. Of course, the heigher one’s expectations are the easier it is to remain disappointed.

Concerning your proposal, I see three main issues:
1. Business, politicians, and law enforcement are compelled to collect and access personal information to shape and target their business/political/enforcement activity. As I said controlling the information flow is of paramount importance for politicians in democracy as in authoritarian regimes. In democracy, freedom of information, public right to know and security concerns can be always be invoked in democracies (also manipulatively of course). One can at best wish to reconcile this with protecting a subset of personal data, “private data”, hence the regulatory solution.
2. However depending on the technological evolution (especially in the Information Technology field) regulations risk always to lag behind and make it tricky for an executive power to enforce them effectively. Even more so if regulations vary from country to country (e.g. in Europe rules forbid European companies from collecting data about everyone but American do not forbid American companies to collect data from European people). Besides disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence may find smart ways to work around data classified by regulations as private, especially if AI algorithms do not need more personal data to improve user profiling (AI algorithms might be able already or soonish to successfully profile users on the fly even with little personal input from them).
3. Geopolitical competition: preventing social platforms to collect personal data will impact the interference of foreign powers propaganda but also that of local governments. However if a Russian-style, China-style, Iran-style information control over social networks is a valid instrument of control and for nurturing domestic consensus, while interference in democratic social platforms through troll armies, bots and influencers, and trough more traditional means outside social platforms (e.g. corruption of politicians and media) is enough to create the information war asymmetries that are advantageous to their regimes, then prohibiting the usage of personal data didn’t help off-set this asymmetric advantage. In other words, as long as the information flow in Western-style democracies has certain features that by institutional design can be hacked by authoritarian regimes against Western democracies themselves (not vice versa), and independently from Western people or politicians’ best intentions or education, prohibiting social platforms from collecting data won’t off-set this asymmetric advantage which authoritarian regimes can exploit. While turning authoritarian can more easily offset this asymmetric advantage: I think Trump is on this path. Hence my sarcasm: those Westerners who didn’t like hypocritical Western-style propaganda and censorship because at least Russians are non-hypocritical (whatever that means) hoping to get less manipulation and censorship from their Western governments by voicing populist outrage everywhere, including hackable social platforms, now they are risking to experience a rising trend of non-hypocritical Russian-style propaganda and censorship inside the West, then we will see if that's really what they prefer. This makes look such Westerners more as part of the problem than being part of the solution since their moral outrage was intentionally aimed at getting better Western leaders and policies but eventually it worked de facto to discredit Western institutions themselves on world stage and aggravate their dysfunctionality.

Not only, you are 100% unable to find politicians that do what you wish them to do. Not only, you are also 100% unable to persuade enough people to make win politicians which would do what you wish them to do. — neomac

Well, in my country politicians do act like that.


For starters, they understand that they will get to power only by forming a coalition. Now if they go on and personally attack other politicians ad hominem and basically dehumanize other parties, they will surely now that the party won't have anything to do with you and the politician will be your enemy for the rest of your life. The kind of attacks and then total turnarounds that happen in US politics would be treated as utter dishonesty and spinelessness. Sorry, but we don't have that fake Professional wrestling theatre that State side Americans have and love so much.

It's the US that has a severe problem with it's citizens thinking that their real enemy is their own government. That's just a bizarre, unhealthy state which leaves you prone to attacks by your enemies. We here know what a real enemy looks like. We might not like everything the government does, but it still isn't the enemy our grandfathers fought. — ssu

Maybe I wasn’t clear, but it’s not Finnish politicians that you are criticising but American politicians right? (“If you know politics better than the politicians you so bitterly complain about, why don't you yourself fix politics right now?”). Even if Finnish politicians are as virtuous as you claim (the rise of right-wing populism in Finland, pro-Russian sentiment and problematic future of NATO makes me doubt Finns are immune from growing political polarisation and controversies), I would look into historical conditions (like the historical experience of Russian pressure) and geopolitical conditions (being a small and relatively homogenous community, being abundant of natural resources and nuclear energy which have sustained a generous and distributed welfare system, high standards of education, technological progress) that favoured the emergence of such cooperative political environment so far. But, more to the point, how much of their satisfying political performance compared to other states’ leaders, does actually empower Finnish politicians to instill wider social cohesion among nations, make them understand the utter peril of political polarization and get the real support of their people, genuinely answer to the worries of the people, and that the best thing is to tell things how they are, don't lie? how much of their satisfying political performance compared to other states’ leaders, does empower Finnish politicians to influence more than being influenced by major world crisis, like fixing the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and geopolitical competition between Big Powers like the US, Russia and China?
I’m asking also because their example doesn’t seem to inspire all political leaders to become more like Finnish political leaders, right? And that’s why to me assessing the chances of a collective change in society or politics based on decontextualised analogies as you do sounds really misleading to me (it sounds to me as arguing something like: “man, why don’t buy a Ferrari if you like it so much? If I bought a Ferrari so can you, what’s the big deal?”).

The Americans are making mea culpa over the Ukraine debacle? — neomac


Is that not exactly what they are doing? They've all but said that the Russians were right all along, while pinning the principal blame on Ukraine.

I never said the mea culpa had to be sincere or believable. Just that it had to happen in order for negotiations with the Russians to have any chance of success.

And despite being a precondition to peace, if the Europeans can be successfully goaded into continuing the conflict without the US, that's of course a massive new obstacle to peace. But that won't be Washington's problem after they've extricated themselves. — Tzeentch

It is exactly what they are NOT doing. Russians were right all along they say, all right, but they are blaming Ukraine, Europe, and Biden administration. Not the Americans represented by Trump. And it’s not matter of Russia being right for pro-Russian propaganda purposes but of Ukraine and Europe being blamed for the conflict, since Trump could have put all the blame on just Biden’s administration alone. By doing this Trump seems to advocate for total surrender by Ukraine to all Russia’s demands and burdening Europe of the consequences.
All this doesn’t seem to add up with things you said elsewhere. Indeed, despite belonging to the neoliberal blob (as you claimed) the foreign policy of artificially sparkle geopolitical tensions between Europeans and Russians to be more free to pivot to Asia, now it’s Trump that is doing it on steroids, the one you claimed was fighting the neoliberal blob to change American foreign policy. The problem is that Trump changed American foreign policy in ways that are not dictated by the neoliberal approach to American foreign policies (the one that Mearsheimer was bitterly criticising and you were following) but still it is against Europe (in a way that is perfectly in line with Mearsheimer’s idea of sphere of influence where Russia should ally with the US against China). So now not only Russia is threatening Europe (however it is much weaker than it used to be before starting the war) but also the US is threatening Europe. And while insisting on the Russia’s penchant to bond with Europeans just for business (with apparently no threats for Europeans worth warning people about), you have always ignored the Russian penchant for a privileged link with the US to reach a superpower status (perfectly in line with Russian imperialism) and contain China and other Asian countries’ imperial aspirations (like that of Turkey or Iran) which can both weakend Russia’s influence in the Middle East or Caucasus or north Africa or Mediterranean Sea.
What I also find rather baffling in your reasoning is that while you can so easily condemn Western provocations against Russia you do not seem to put any condamnation on Western populism which was provoking the US as you so candidly admit. And if you have predicted that Russia was threatening to wreck Ukraine as a consequence of Western provocations or Ukrainian independence, you seemed very hopeful the US (the Great Satan with plenty of lackeys in Europe, according to you) would have NOT found ways to backfire at European provocations and anti-American emancipation (by European populists whose delusional aspirations do not beed to be condemned). Not to mention that populist anti-Americanism in Europe was also supported by Russia (at least until now since Trump is openly trying to steal European far-right populism from Russian claws) as much as the US was supporting anti-Russian feelings in Ukraine.
The paradox of your reasoning is that on one side you are ready to sacrifice the Ukrainian emancipation from Russia in the name of the European emancipation from the US (so apparently self-determination for Europeans and Palestinians it’s fine but for Ukrainians and Israelis no), on the other side you keep reasoning as if Europeans or the European populism had greater chances to emancipate Europe from the US (the Great Satan which betrays all allies and has all europeans as their vassals) than the Ukrainians to emancipate Ukraine from Russia (which is just happy to have a piece of Ukraine for its existential survival and then just do business as usual with Europeans).

Europe has and has had a massive blindspot for the type of games Washington likes to play — Tzeentch

So you mean that the blob has won again and Trump turned into a blob crypto-puppet?

Flipping Ukraine pro-western has been a decades-long project of the Neocon foreign policy blob, under leadership of chief blob Nuland. — Tzeentch

Many presidents, including Trump and Obama, tried to change the course of US foreign policy, but were unable to fight 'the Blob'. — Tzeentch

The Americans are making mea culpa over the Ukraine debacle?

The Americans making a mea culpa over the Ukraine debacle is a precondition to return to stability in Eastern Europe, which the Russians have been signaling is what they are interested in ever since the war began. — Tzeentch

You said lots of things... you know

Vladimir Solovyov, a leading Putin TV propagandist, has reversed his stance on America after witnessing the Trump administration's efforts to end the war, which included dismissing Europe. Speaking to his viewers on Russian state TV, Solovyov proposed: "Why not create a military coalition of Russia and America and divide Europe to hell?" He added: "Well, who needs it? It's possible - I think it's a great idea, right? " Solovyov envisioned a scenario where Russian and American troops would assume control, thereby relieving Europe of its need for defense forces.
He continued: "Bring in Russian and American troops, and Europe won't have to defend itself from anyone. Quietly, carefully, we'll set up our bases in the usual places. Berlin, Paris, like in 1814.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-s-confident-he-s-on-brink-of-winning-war-with-europe-division-fears/ar-AA1zmoTe

From a geopolitical competition point of view a key problem is that Western democracies have open social media that anti-Western authoritarian regimes can troll and intoxicate with convenient fake news, but Western democracies can't do the same against them. Western democratic regimes are compelled to compensate this asymmetry one way or another, but unfortunately the easiest way they can do it is by turning authoritarian as their rivals. — neomac

Or then, they can try to

a) Instill social cohesion, understand the utter peril of political polarization and how cheap shots at your competing parties can backfire when the political sides don't respect them. Get the real support of their people, don't just assume that if they won some election, they don't have to think about the people until the next elections.

b) genuinely answer to the worries of the people and take these seriously on both sides of the aisle.

c) and the best thing is to tell things how they are. Don't lie. Have the ability that if the country finds itself on really tight spot, the opposition can and the administration can set differences aside and agree on the large issue, even if this naturally gives a lot of points to the ruling parties.

d) Avoid gerrymandering and avoid situations when one party can take all the power. Coalition governments are usually better than one-party governments, especially those that can pass through the representative all kinds of laws. — ssu

First of all, you are still reasoning from what is desirable not from what is feasible. All you just wrote deserves hours of universal standing ovation, sure. Unfortunately the point is that you yourself are 100% unable to do yourself what you expect politicians to do (like telling what they think to be the truth honestly, persuasively and to the best of humans’ knowledge). Not only, you are 100% unable to find politicians that do what you wish them to do. Not only, you are also 100% unable to persuade enough people to make win politicians which would do what you wish them to do. Can you prove me wrong now? Tomorrow? In one week or month or year?
I think that realistic understanding of politics and political competition and debate should start from this very basic fact. This truth should curb any temptation to assess politicians’ performance more subjectively, namely based on what we think it’s desirable independently from what they actually can do. At least in a philosophy forum.
Secondly, politicians do not move in a vacuum of pre-existing contingent cultural and historical factors that constrain and shape their options. Politicians have to work with what they have not with what they wish they had, and with what is attainable given available means and uncertainties not with what they wish they could attain. If Trump has been elected despite being a “fascist douche” and is now able to centralise power in his hands maybe as no other American president could in the past, it would be more enlightening to dig into the pre-existing historical and geopolitical circumstances which favoured his rise to power. And explore his options for achieving what he has promised to achieve to satisfy his supporters better than available alternatives. I’m afraid neither gerrymandering nor the peril of political polarization is the issue among pro-Trump supporters, lobbies and trusted advisors (like Miran or Musk).

What people may happen to disregard is that information is a strategic resource that is contended by competing political forces to aggregate consensus. It's paramount political priority for politicians to control the flux of information - no matter the type of regime or ideology or the degree of leaders' integrity - in a way that best allows politicians do their job for the bad and/or for the good. And since truth, detail and reliability are not the only params that make the information valuable but also TIME, politicians are compelled to control the timing of the information flux and engage in a informational race with their competitors (that's why discovering or knowing since ever that that politician is lying about something is not enough to discredit a piece of political propaganda and related strategic reasons).
It absolutely doesn't matter if or how much people educate themselves and wish to not be manipulated. Believing otherwise it's not only arrogant but evidently self-defeating (BTW this belief is typical of Westerners spoiled by the myth of "critical thinking" and "rights to know" and "freedom of speech"). If you know politics better than the politicians you so bitterly complain about, why don't you yourself fix politics right now? Instead of patronising political leaders, let's see if you can run for president or prime minister of your own country without manipulating or even without being accused of being manipulative by random anonymous people (like on the internet) even when you didn't have absolutely no intention to manipulate anybody or you made your BEST to not look manipulative. Anybody is instrumental to political agendas and everybody has enough blind-spots and biases, independently from their good intentions, and which politicians normally are and MUST be in condition to exploit TO WIN POLITICAL COMPETITORS OR PREVENT POLITICAL COMPETITORS FROM COUNTER-EXPLOITING. It's precisely inherent to their job. At best, ordinary people can make the intellectual effort to understand what side one could be instrumental to in a power struggle by fallible political competitors in certain historical circumstances and have the honesty to acknowledge it.
From a geopolitical competition point of view a key problem is that Western democracies have open social media that anti-Western authoritarian regimes can troll and intoxicate with convenient fake news, but Western democracies can't do the same against them. Western democratic regimes are compelled to compensate this asymmetry one way or another, but unfortunately the easiest way they can do it is by turning authoritarian as their rivals.

Apparently even the guru Mearsheimer [1] didn't expect this turn around which he was so vocally very much predicting suggesting for years: the alliance between the US and Russia against China. The irony.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5-L5pyXLZQ

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