↪boethius I bring up KIA because the Ukraine situation is becoming oddly similar to America's adventure in Vietnam. In both cases, you have a strong power taking on a weak country, with the weak country being supplied and funded by other strong powers. A proxy war, in other words. Eventually, the American public soured on Vietnam, and by the time we left, we'd lost just about 60,000 soldiers. At what point is the Russian public going to sour on Ukraine? — RogueAI

The difference is that Vietnam was thousands of kilometres away and so the reason for the war was an abstract domino theory. There was no practical security threat of North Vietnam to the US and also zero cultural affinity with South Vietnam to make fighting for them emotionally make sense.

In the case of this war, the Russians are fighting to protect Russian speaking separatists and it is obvious what security threat hostile forces in Ukraine would represent for Russia.

It's easy to make a case for the war from the Russian perspective, so you don't have anything remotely similar to the anti-war movement during Vietnam.

Another big difference is that the US was not winning the war in Vietnam; had the US been making steady progress the "we need to win" faction may have prevailed.

Then there's the question of resources that Vietnam didn't have anything of particular importance to the US, whereas Crimea, the Azov sea, the land bridge to Crimea, lot's of arable land and industrial capacity and new Russian citizens and so on, are all positive additions that make the war "profitable" in from a purely imperialistic lens, which I have no problem believing the Kremlin does put on those glasses to consider things, from time to time.

↪boethius My sense is that a total collapse is unlikely, unless the Russians dramatically shift their military operations to a more manoeuvre-style approach. — Tzeentch

Yes, the cause of total collapse would be financial.

People can accept fighting a losing war with horrendous losses ... as long as they're paid.

Likewise, the whole government, pensions etc. is floated by the west.

Hence the publicity stunts like crossing the Dniepre or this recent "invasion" of Russia. to make things "make sense" in the Western media.

Probably they will stick to their slow & steady war of attrition, which leaves enough breathing room for the Ukrainians to stave off collapse. — Tzeentch

Well, until they can't any longer.

Ukraine has a finite man power pool. At some point Ukraine will not have the reserves to throw in to arrest advances and then Russia can manoeuvre at low losses, open new fronts, even return to siege Kiev and the like.

Keeping the fight in the South maximizes the distance Ukraine needs to go to supply the front, so this is a big advantage in the attrition phase; that politically the South being now Russian territory and protecting the separatists one of the main reasons for the war is an additional reason.

However, at any moment Russia can launch an offensive on any other point of the border, including Belarus, where defences are less built up, as we've seen Ukraine just do. Of course, a big maneuver still has the problem of occupation and pacification, and the only war ending maneuver, presumably, is taking Kiev. So, maneuver to go where and do what is a critical question, but my intuition is that there does exist large manoeuvres North that do accomplish more than they cost. We'll see though.

As you're certainly aware, the writing is on the wall, but for the benefit of any others that may have been following my analysis, we are now at the rapid disintegration phase of the war.

However, Russia still cannot conquer all of Ukraine due to logistics, manpower and it often simply not being a good idea to occupy people who really don't want to be occupied (i.e. the Ukrainian speaking regions).

Although small compared to Russia, Ukraine remains pretty big with significant strategic depth of its own, so even in this phase of the Ukrainian front lines disintegrating that does not directly entail defeat.

It could, Russia may have another go at the capital and regime change, but Russia could also just stop advancing at some point, such as after conquering the Donbas.

However, wherever Russia ultimately decides to go militarily will anyways take significant time in terms of planning and logistics.

In the meantime, Ukraine, in particular Zelensky, has other also problems.

As mentioned above, the shortest pathway to total collapse is running out of money. Ukraine just defaulted on their debts. Notably, no Western country stepped in to simply pickup the tab.

Then there's the ever present prospect of a coup.

The two issues are tightly linked. As I explained many moons ago, as long as Zelensky is the avatar that can summon vast sums of cash then other Ukrainian elites need him as the conduit to said cash, but as soon as the spice stops flowing they no longer need him.

Of course, if the West keeps pouring in hundreds of billions of dollars into Ukraine, then the status quo can be maintained, with the front lines moving steadily backward which (if properly managed) could take many more years to get to some sort conclusion, but how much cash the West is willing to spend on Ukraine is a pretty big unknown.

Simply because the Western media takes it for granted that we must send Ukraine as much cash as is needed, does not mean that it's an easy thing for policy makers to do; the cash can be spent on other things.

And that's the main issue that is currently being hashed out: will the West even finance the next phase of the war, which would be just slowly losing at great monetary expense (also expense of lives but Western policy makers don't care about those).

Zelensky's behaviour is becoming very erratic because there is no winning scenario and even in comparatively better scenarios he may still be assassinated. He knows the narrative could change overnight, plug could be pulled at anytime and even if the West continues to prop the show up, his successor could be anointed any minute of the day. You can always make a new avatar and tear down the old posters.

So apparently, the Ukrainian attack into Kursk Oblast was not just a larger cross border raid. Ukrainian troops are apparently still fighting in Russia.

It's possible they're opportunistically exploiting a situation of course and planning to retreat as soon as opposition is stiffening. Too early to tell really.

If this is a sustained operation it's notable in that it would be Ukraine widening the front, which so far they've tried to avoid. A change of strategy? — Echarmion

The strategy is the same of creating a "success story" for the Western media.

This stunt replaces the crossing the Dnieper stunt.

Ukraine has military problems, obviously, but its biggest short term problem is financial. If the money runs out then the whole things collapses overnight.

To solve this financial problem, Ukraine needs the Western media to present things in a positive light and forestall any realistic appraisal of Ukrainian military capabilities relative the Russians.

As soon as the Western media concludes that Ukraine is for sure definitely losing, and the losses so far have been overwhelming terrible and difficult to justify, and also the whole thing makes zero sense, there's zero chance of a military reversal and more fighting just means more death and suffering (mainly for the Ukrainians) for nothing, then the whole "this is just what we do (send arms and money to Ukraine)" current disposition of Western institutions will come under significant pressure.

Attitudes can change organically due to undisputed facts on the ground (Western media does have to maintain some minimum level of credibility) and also simply from orders from the top that it's time to pull the plug.

Zelensky needs to prevent both things from happening, which requires sending good news Westward, which required "successes" that may mean nothing strategically and be nonsensical in terms of resources, such as creating a bridgehead across the Dnieper, but are good enough for Western talking heads to keep patting on the back Western institutional mouth pieces and all is therefore as it should be.

This is the main reason, but an additional reason is that Zelensky is also criticized from the pro-more-war factions of Ukraine (aka. literal nazis for the most part) that believe the problem has been "playing by NATO's rules" and not hitting Russia proper hard enough. These people believe that attacking Russia north of the Donbas is a good idea, and they did so before seemingly by themselves with the media narrative that it's all real Russians leading the way to overthrow their own government, if you remember that episode.

In actual strategic terms, the problem with attacking Russia is that it has enormous strategic depth, a serious problem the greatest militaries of their time, such as the Grande Armée and the Wehrmacht, discovered to their dismay after hundreds of kilometres of offensive maneuvers, and so the idea the Ukrainians are going to get somewhere and accomplish something these previous far more powerful forces didn't, is dismissible offhand.

↪boethius Do you believe the reporting that Russia has suffered around 60,000 KIA? — RogueAI

Exact KIA and casualty figures are hard to come by, but I'd have no problem believing Russia has suffered 60 000 KIA. Seems reasonable.

If your point is that Russia has suffered losses, that is clearly true.

As I've just recently mentioned, my main concern is Ukrainian wellbeing and lives.

I find it highly debatable that the war is harming Russia geopolitically in relative power terms, certainly vis-a-vis Ukraine but also with respect to the US and NATO. For example, the war has done significant harm to the European economy, which may turn out to be bad for NATO, whereas Russia has been able to continue to export commodities and arms and the global uncertainty the war brings may turn out to be good for commodity and arms export.

This has already been discussed at some length multiple times, and the main argument that seems to arise to demonstrate the war is weakening Russia is that it is in fact China the greatest beneficiary of the war and the Russia-China led block has gained significantly as a whole but Russia is a junior partner in that "close friendship". This seems a pretty weak argument to me for many reasons.

However, I'm not so interested in the relative power jostling for power between the US, Russia and China, but more concerned about whether it makes sense for Ukrainians to sacrifice to reduce slightly Russian relative power, even if the were true. If we agree it does not make sense for Ukrainians to sacrifice themselves for US relative power over Russia ... or Chinese relative power over the US and Russia?! (which is what the "real winner is China and Russia is the junior partner" argument seems to imply) then it's of course also interesting to try to evaluate whether Russia is even being harmed in relative power terms. It's a complicated military, economic, political and cultural issue to try to get to the bottom of, necessitating developing a lot of potential scenarios to parse out the benefits and costs of the war to Russia and other relevant parties.

You're welcome to provide this prediction but again so far as I know Mearsheimer has never said anything as specific as "if NATO keeps expanding eastward Russia will eventually invade Ukraine". What he has said is that Russia would react, potentially with military force. — Echarmion

Which is exactly what Russia has done.

I hope you do realize how stupid you sound, and the fact that your moving the goalposts from Mearsheimer can't make any sense of Russia's invasion of Ukraine to ...

What he has said is that Russia would react, potentially with military force. — Echarmion

Creates the reality that you cannot be taken seriously and are simply a bad faith propagadists.

Nothing in this contradicts anything I said. — Echarmion

Yes, obviously it does.

What you stated was:

A comparable decision would be the US directly invading Cuba, but that is not what happened. — Echarmion

An act of war at sea is completely comparable to an act of war on land and considering Cuba is very much an island in the sea one would very much expect acts of war to commence in said sea.

And this failed, which is an argument against this being a good strategy. — Echarmion

The basic issue of contention here is your claim that somehow Russia's invasion of Ukraine cannot be made sense of, at least not in the realist point of view. So let's just note in passing that you can easily make sense of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

So obviously that part of the discussion is resolved, you can easily make sense of Russias invasion of Ukraine and your only actual issue is that Russia responded with the wrong act of war.

As for it being a good strategy or not, obviously time will tell.

As far as I know, Mearsheimer never made any definite prediction that Russia would invade Ukraine. Notably he has not made any prediction on the 2022 invasion before it happened. — Echarmion

Mearsheimer literally wrote an article titled "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent" in 1993 and has predicted since Eastward NATO expansion started that continuing to do so will result in Russia invading Ukraine, which has happened.

Mearsheimer did not predict the exact timing which is not what we expect from a theory of international relations, same way we don't expect an economic theory, much less the economists who develop such theories, to predict exact days bubbles burst.

You are trying to argue that somehow the Russian invasion of Ukraine cannot be accounted for in Mearsheimer's world view of offensive realism, "struggles with the consequences" is the words you use, which is simply a laughably stupid point to make.

To move the goalposts to Mearsheimer did not predict the exact timing of exactly when Russia would invade Ukraine is simply a weak and deluded mind defending its very much unreal view of the world.

What you'd expect is that a state exploits the weakness of neighbours to gain (local) hegemony. Arguably Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine fits that bill. The problem with the 2022 invasion is that there was a huge and obvious risk it would weaken Russia's position instead. — Echarmion

First, Mearsheimer puts significant effort in his theorizing to account for miscalculations. Indeed, it is a central theme of offensive realism that the distrust between states easily induces paranoia and miscommunication easily leading to miscalculation. So, even if what you said was true, that Russia is weakened by the invasion of Ukraine, that isn't unusual in the slightest in an offensive realism analysis. It can, and often is, argued that US was to be weakened by its invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and those invasions and / or subsequent management of the occupations was a miscalculation. Likewise, it can and has been argued that the Israeli genocide in Gaza ultimately weakens its position and is a miscalculation. Offensive realism is first mostly a theory of the prevailing criteria and motivations of state actors in making decisions, i.e. what states tend to try to accomplish (self preservation), and second a theory about how those decisions processes succeed or fail (in seeking regional hegemony, Sadam may have miscalculated for example), and third a theory of the inherent instability of the nation state system (as, by definition, a system of violent competition has winners and losers).

Second, it is very much debatable whether Russia has been weakened or strengthened by the war in military, economic and political terms.

Obviously Russia has paid a cost, but paying a cost for something does not somehow inherently reduce one's position. Obviously, in order to evaluate things both the costs and benefits must be taken into account.

For example, if Ukraine was on an inevitable pathway of a military conflict with Russia, then even if the war is costly it is presumably less costly than a later war with a more powerful Ukraine. Sometimes costs cannot be avoided in which case paying the least price is best option.

Even if Russia has been weakened by the war, it's entirely possible that the end result is a far weaker Ukraine and therefore Russia vastly increasing its relative power to Ukraine. Obviously if we fight and I break my hand, I'm weaker, but if in the process you become entirely paralyzed I have increased my relative strength over you. This maybe nevertheless a mistake on my part if I have other foes to fight and can't prevail with a broken hand, but in the case of Russia there are only a limited list of candidates for further conflict.

So, even if we accept the premise Russia is weaker that is not sufficient to conclude it is weaker in relative terms over the parties that matter.

Then there is the argument that Russia has increased its power by increasing and refining its war machine, creating an essentially independent economic system (i.e. an alternative to dealing with the West), and, in the eyes of much of the world, it is Russia that is "standing up" to US Imperialism and Ukraine a hapless vassal state, and not Ukraine standing up to Russian imperialism.

By which metric (except access to resources in eastern Ukraine, which I have mentioned) has Russia's geopolitical position improved as a result of the 2022 invasion? — Echarmion

As mentioned above, there is increasing in relative power vis-a-vis Ukraine, increasing and refining its war machine, creating an economic system independent of the West and "standing up" to the US.

The narrative fed by Western states it that Russia didn't "win hard enough" and therefore is somehow losing, but the reality is that Russia has defeated Western intelligence and weapons systems as well as defeated Western sanctions. Russia has essentially created both a model, example and system of breaking with the West: intelligence that can deal with Western intelligence, weapons that deal with Western weapons, and an economic system that can deal without Western integration.

In terms of great power conflict with the US, this is the most significant end result of the war.

Except that the US reaction did not in fact lead to a war. A comparable decision would be the US directly invading Cuba, but that is not what happened. Instead the US responded with an aggressive but calculated move that forced the ball back to the Soviet leadership who would then have been forced to escalate the conflict into open warfare. — Echarmion

A blockade is an act of war. Had the Soviets repudiated negotiations because "Cuban rights" then both Cuba and the Soviet Union would be entirely within their right in international law to break the US blockade with force. Fortunately, Soviets viewed the likely end result of defending "Cuban rights" as a nuclear war and so preferred a settlement.

The US blockade was just as much an act of war as Russia invading Ukraine by land, only difference is that the nature of the sea is that a blockade can first result in a standoff.

And, obviously, the US did try to invade Cuba in the Bay of Pigs fiasco precisely to avoid a situation where the Soviets are bringing in nuclear weapons to Cuba in response to US placing nuclear weapons in Turkey.

The point is, obviously you easily understand why the Russians would get aggressive in response to Ukraine trying to form a close military alliance with a hostile great power, and you're argument is simply that the Russians miscalculated in their choice of aggressive action. Had Russia only blockaded Ukrainians ports, it seems you'd be in total support of that.

Now, whether the war is ultimately good or bad for Russia as a regional hegemon in conflict with the United States is very much debatable, but what betrays your role as a propagandist in this discussion is that you have zero concern whatsoever for Ukrainian wellbeing. Your only concern is with arguing US good and strong and Russia bad and weak, you not arguing that somehow Ukraine is better off by the war. You console yourself that Russia must be slightly worse off vis-a-vis great power competition with the United States, while completely ignoring that Ukraine is getting completely wrecked in this war.

If the war is a mistake for Russia because it's not gaining in international power ... well what is Ukraine gaining in the war? Has Ukraine's power and wealth increased?

You don’t seem to follow through your own reasoning here. Indeed, what is true for Russia, it is true for the US and Ukraine too: regardless of what you think about the US and Ukraine, “countries in our system have a right, and rationally do anyways, act in preemptive self defence. What's been referred to as legitimate security concerns.” — neomac

This is in no way the case.

The US has no legitimate security concerns in Ukraine. You cannot invade the US from Ukraine.

If Russia went and built up forces hostile to the US in Mexico, obviously the US would respond to that.

As for Ukraine, when you are a weaker nation beside a much stronger nation, your security is not served by forming military cooperation with another major power thousands of kilometres away that (precisely because you are of no relevance to their actual security) is not going to actually send any armies to come defend you if you get invaded due to becoming hostile to your more powerful neighbor.

For example, Mexico's security is not served by becoming a vassal to Russia to get a supply of arms to then lose a war to the United States.

A smaller state's security is served through a combination of defensive deterrence and diplomacy, without being a threat. Canada and Mexico coexist with the far more powerful United States because they don't threaten the US.

What is obvious common sense when applied to US neighbours does not change in the slightest when applied to Russian neighbours.

When you're a smaller state your legitimate security concern is to avoid being invaded by more powerful states.

As I've explained numerous times, rights are insufficient to determine justification.

Russia has both a right and can actually justify preemptive military action against a smaller state: because it is likely to win. A smaller state has the same right to preemptive military action but is much harder to form a justification if it is unlikely to win.

That "Ukraine has a right to join NATO" is not a justification for trying to do so if the likely result is being invaded, losing large amount of territory, massive economic destruction, mass exodus less likely to return the the more the war drags on, and most importantly hundreds of thousands of maimed and dead Ukrainians.

If Ukraine's "rights" actually were sufficient justification, then the West would have all their militaries in Ukraine right now, but they don't because tying rights to justifications is a fallacy. What are the consequences of doing this or that also matter in forming a justification for actions. The West doesn't like the consequences of actually sending our armies to defend "Ukrainian rights" so we don't consider it justified on that account, and so we don't do it.

A logic that, super ironically, the US just used to try to argue that Iran shouldn't retaliate against Israel for assassinating a foreign leader hosted (and thus under the protection) of Iran because, sure Iran has a right retaliate and any Western nation would do the same without hesitation ... but ... consequences, consequences!!

A logic that is sound and equally applicable to Ukraine, just isn't because Ukrainians serving US administration interests to die to harm Russia is fine by the US administration.

In the case of Iran, we'll see soon enough if the logic is not only sound but also actually true that Iran cannot retaliate against Israel without unacceptable consequences.

In the case of Ukraine we have already seen what the consequences are to evaluate whether it was "worth it" to pursue a particular right.

What I find interesting is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was such an unusual event that even Mearsheimer's take on geopolitics - which due to being offensive should have been better able to account for it - struggles with the consequences. — Echarmion

Which planet are you living on? History is filled with invasions.

The only thing that's unusual in terms of the last few decades it's not the US and co. doing the invading.

So already you start with complete delusion.

Then you go deeper into your delusional fantasy that Mearsheimer somehow struggles to account for the invasion. Russia invading Ukraine is what Mearsheimer has been predicting since the fall of the Soviet Union (going so far as to argue Ukraine should not give up its nuclear weapons) and especially in response to NATO expansion.

That a state will attack another state on its border forming alliances with hostile other states is exactly what you'd expect in the offensive realism point of view.

Anyways I find it pretty interesting that Mearsheimer now claims that the invasion was essentially fake, in that it's main objective was to somehow induce a negotiation rather than a military victory. I think this idea is pretty obviously wrong for a number of reasons, but I still find it interesting to speculate why Mearsheimer is proposing it in the first place. — Echarmion

More total delusions.

Nearly all wars end in a negotiated settlement. It's pretty rare for people to fight to the last person.

The idea Russia attempted and failed to conquer all of Ukraine in 3 days was a Western talking point, made up first by propagandists and then promulgated by delusional sycophants such as yourself, in order to portray Ukrainian losing 20% of its territory in about a week as some sort of victory.

In normal military terms, losing 20% of your territory in a week is called a major defeat.

The reality was that the start of the war was a big debacle for Ukraine. Ukraine offered zero resistance to Russian troops crossing a series of bridges from Crimea to the mainland and could not strike a 70km convey sitting on a highway with anything.

However, in order to sell both Ukrainians and the West on repudiating any negotiations to end the war, it was necessary to portray losing as somehow winning and that Ukraine could simply continue to fight until victory.

If the reality was acknowledged that Ukraine had just lost 20% of its territory in a week and had essentially no chance of recovering that territory with force (having a significant disadvantage in artillery, armour, air power and electronic warfare), then trying to negotiate an end to the conflict makes a lot more sense than the prospect of near total economic collapse, losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and causing a mass emigration which would reverse less and less the more the war drags on.

The narrative that Russia tried and failed to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine was invented simply to make some sort of standard by which Russia conquering and occupying a further 20% of Ukraine was somehow a failure.

That Russia committed roughly 200 000 troops instead of the +2 000 000 troops that would be needed to occupy and pacify all of Ukraine, is Mearsheimer (and plenty other analysts) main evidence that Russia was not trying to conquer all of Ukraine.

I have an intuition that it's an attempt to somehow create a plausible motivation for the invasion that fits the notion of "abstract geopolitical forces". — Echarmion

Well, your intuition is stupid.

The motivation of Russia to invade a state trying to form deeper and deeper military cooperation with states hostile to Russia, literally publishing giant tomes with titles like "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia", referring to Russians as "rivals" when being polite and simply enemies when "straight talking", labelling the Russian leader as literally Hitler, and so on, is a pretty obvious and common sense motivation.

In addition, there was the civil war in the Donbas where Russian speakers were being shelled by literal Nazis, which created significant domestic pressure to intervene to defend those populations.

Not only common sense motivations, but motivations that the US uses all the time to justify its own military actions: we need to bomb so-and-so because they are part of the "the axis of Evil" at worst or some sort of domino of bad at best, and / or we need to bomb so-and-so as a humanitarian mission to protect civilians.

So we're forced to either conclude that Russia's geopolitical interests alone do not explain the decision (which is my view) or we must invent reinterpret the decision as something other than a committment to full scale total war. — Echarmion

We are in no way forced to accept your two options.

Just like the US responded aggressively to the Soviet Union deepening military cooperation with Cuba beyond a tolerable threshold, it is completely adequate an explanation that Russia likewise would and has responded aggressively to the US deepening military cooperation beyond some tolerable threshold in Ukraine (in addition to the killing of Russian speakers in the Donbas for years).

Indeed. And Russia understands this, which is why they are trying to get a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The problem is, Europe does not.

Europe's naivety is the real risk factor here. Zero geopolitical awareness makes them irrational and a willing pawn. — Tzeentch

Well, real risk to Europeans that's for sure.

It's unfortunate to see, being European myself, and will likely result in the right wing making things even worse. To summarize the process, the "centre" neo-liberals do corruption to benefit the US Empire (and themselves personally) whereas the right wing want to do corruption to benefit the local rich in their countries, resulting in a double dose of state asset pilfering and other foul deeds.

Personally, I don't think the eventual war can be avoided, because the US has pressed itself right against China's doorstep where it poses an existential threat by threatening to cut off all Chinese sea trade. (Quite comparable to the situation it created vis-á-vis Russia) — Tzeentch

The problem with the US-China war is there seems to me no way for the US to win. There's also far more costs in a war with China than with Russia due to the global supply chains.

And, of note, the US has not blockaded or otherwise physically interfered with Russia's ability to trade, so that they'd be willing to cross that line with China seems far fetched to me. It's not just the US that depends on Chinese goods but most of the world so that itself does not seem manageable.

Then there's maintaining the blockade itself. China will be "the victim" of this clear act of war and would sink US vessels and down US planes. Even if somehow has a strong advantage to start, China has enormous industrial capacity to build more drones, more missiles, and figure things out.

I just don't see how the US could maintain such a blockade of any extended period of time.

Invading Chinese mainland obviously isn't possible, and the only other option would be to nuke China. China also has nuclear weapons.

So I just don't see a viable endgame for the US to go to war with China.

Now, certainly situation is tense and there could be "events" as tensions rise, essentially border skirmishes of one sort or another, but I don't see either side having any rational to start some sort of actual war which would quickly transition to simply the US blockading China, which seems to me the only conventional "war" move on the table.

So basically it has created a completely unacceptable situation for the Chinese, and any attempt by the Chinese to resolve it will result in war. — Tzeentch

They're obviously accepting it so far.

They don't like it, obviously, but the Chinese have been clearly playing the long game of economics since decades. The "remote Islands game" has no actual strategic impact and is purely symbolic; no one is actually obstructing any shipping from these various islands.

The big issue is of course Taiwan but the Chinese have clearly been able to live with that for many decades and with enough economic ascendency and with the decline of the US Empire it should be possible to simply re-absorb Taiwan eventually.

In other words, the current dynamic favours China as the US is decreasing in relative power as the Chinese increase their own. So why start a war to formally control Taiwan when that's not a critical strategic issue? Taiwan does remain an island at the end of the day that does not threaten mainland China (in comparison to Ukraine that has a 2000 km border with Russia).

An alternative model for the Us-China conflict is the US-Iran conflict. Many powerful people in the US, really, really, really wanted to go to war with Iran, but it's simply not practical to do.

People make business all the time; some successful, some not.

Making things clear on paper is not difficult.

Making things successful is the difficult part.

Son of a bitch.

I'm in.

1. Russia and Europe are in prime position to benefit from a war between the US and China. — Tzeentch

This is true, but Europe and Russia would also anyways benefit from mutual peace.

And if there was no US-China war then Europe, Russia and China would benefit from the peace.

So either way US relative power would decrease.

With the war that doesn't happen but also Europe becomes a vassal province so Europes power is simply absorbed fully into American power.

So even if Russia benefits from the war (something US planners would certainly have thought possible considering their own RAND analysis told them that) and also there is no war with China, having a China-Russia power block and then a US block with Europe as a side kick is a much better prospect to manage US power decline than simply letting the world get on more-or-less peacefully.

Without the war, the Euro could have just quietly overtaken the USD and that would be that.

So you also get the benefits of your point 3:

3. European populism threatens to slip Europe from Washington's grasp, turning it from a vassal into a potential rival. (In terms of potential, Europe even surpasses the US and China) — Tzeentch

Even without a war with China.

The US strategy may not be to get into a war with China, just containment and slowing China down as much as possible while the US consolidates imperial domination where it can.

The current process can be as easily interpreted as US, Russia and China working out the lines on the "spheres of influence" map as it can be an actual conflict between them.

Eternal foes usually become your frenemies, as you must inevitably learn to live together.

There is no available strategy for the US to go out and, through conflict, actually dominate either Russia or China.

There does, however, exist a strategy for the US to go out and, through conflict, dominate Europe.

Now, it could be the US is trying to do something it can't actually do and this second strategy is a byproduct.

Or, it could be the US is trying to do what it can actually do.

This creates fertile soil for conflict in the future. — Tzeentch

This is certainly true, but I think for now the US has as much as it can handle.

There's also Biden's cognitive decline, could he handle an actual crisis? Not just sending weapons to Ukraine and talking a big (but extremely slow) game?

Just doesn't seem doable. To handle a nuclear escalation cycle you need a leader pretty quick on the draw (for a lot of reasons).

Me feeling considering everything, for what it's worth, is that the US has achieved exactly what it set out to achieve with the Ukraine war:

It was a tool to decouple Russia from Europe, remilitarize the region, and sow adversarial sentiment. — Tzeentch

How the US establishment then handles the fact it can't win the war that achieved so much profits already, is to just let if fester, then just walk away one day, start a new war somewhere else, we just "move on" and anyone who's like "what the fuck did we just do in [insert last country to be destroyed]" is a ridiculous anachronistic busybody, a dinosaur from a bygone age, and polite society does not pay attention to such folk and their vapid noises.

It's not just majority rule — Benkei

I think it's also important to consider this part too.

If you occupy a place and expand your territory that way, but don't give the people in that territory any rights, in particular the right to vote, then you're no longer a democracy simply due to this.

You're just a "big aristocracy" just with a geographic class basis, instead of hereditary (or then hereditary due to the geographical distinction).

I'd argue this is likewise true even if you don't formally control the territory but manage to informally control it.

Why this matters is not merely in formulating an appeal to democracy to argue government legitimacy in a particular case or then in general, but also functionally history teaches us that an aristocratic class with special privileges never gives up those privileges willingly.

If the entire West is essentially a geographically segregated global aristocracy (with relatively few exception elsewhere), especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, then not only does this raise questions of just governance, this also functionally explains why the West doesn't make any policies that actually address things like climate change, as that would mean giving up privilege which privileged classes never do (some individuals do, but there's no example of a whole class being like "this is unfair, have some more democracy").

In the case of Israel it explains why they are willing to commit a genocide rather than give up their class privileges.

↪boethius You would think the Poles of all people would understand the potential cost of playing games with the Russians, though when I look at their behavior I am not sure. — Tzeentch

I think they are, that's my argument here.

Haven't they, just like the Romanians, mentioned Art. 5 when supposed missile debris landed in their borders? — Tzeentch

Well they still want to deter the Russians from actually attacking them. Them mentioning Art. 5 does not really indicate they want to escalate and get into a war with the Russians, but more they want to deter both the Russians (and everyone else) "starting shit" due to Art. 5.

Now both of these countries are planning to base Ukrainian F-16s within their borders, which makes them legitimate targets. This would in effect make them direct participants in the war. — Tzeentch

This is obviously a dangerous move, but the delay after delay after delay on the F16s would indicate what these NATO parties are actually trying to do is maintain the status quo, not escalate.

The armour repair facilities are legitimate targets too but Russia doesn't strike those. Why? Because they don't need to, so the F16s as "scary" as they sound can easily be introduced in theatre as more of the same: not worth striking outside Ukraine.

If the F16 do longer represent a real threat (as there is no longer any ground forces of significance to support), one could bet the Russians then wouldn't escalate the matter further.

There's also American influence to consider. The White House is desperate to prop up Ukraine until the election as no one likes a "loser" and all the false promises being clearly demonstrated to be false promises.

Therefore, dangling the prospect of F16s to the Ukrainians is critical in motivating them to keep fighting in hopes this "wonder weapon" changes things, and then if things get too bad may actually be necessary to introduce the F16s to try to stabilize the situation.

Poland may not want F16s on its territory but US officials may both pressure to do it anyways while assuring them they have some way of avoiding escalation (the F16s won't do much, the Ukrainians are functionally defeated already).

If they had no intention of getting directly involved, the US seems to have been successful in dragging them ever closer. — Tzeentch

As mentioned above, obviously US has a lot of influence over what Poland does.

Furthermore, as with Macron, countries still want to threaten to do things as "deterrence" and for "me feel strong" vibes. Behind the scenes things could be very far from any actual escalation.

The thing I am increasingly worried about, is for the US to do something extreme - something that will create a crisis that takes all these nations that have positioned themselves close to the precipice and plunges them in. — Tzeentch

This is certainly something to worry about, but it's possible they already did it.

Blowing up Nord Stream was pretty extreme. If the concert terrorist attack was Whitehouse / CIA, that was pretty extreme too. Likewise plenty other attacks inside Russia, on the bridge, oil refineries etc. seem only possible with CIA and their lapdogs in SAS.

Sanctions was an extreme option too (at least in US policy makers perception as they kept calling it the "Nuclear Option" on their onscreen mutual masterbation sessions).

So lot's of extreme things have happened already.

The problem with escalating to a bigger regional conflict is that there are few ways to do that without front line country participants.

Anything you do to escalate inside Ukraine just results in Russia striking Ukraine harder.

If you did exceed what the Russians are willing to tolerate, then Russia has the option of simply escalating to nuclear weapons inside Ukraine.

The problem in this scenario is that (precisely because Ukraine isn't in NATO and it makes no sense to fight a war simply based on the wish to be in NATO) there's simply no logic in retaliating against Russia with nuclear weapons.

For example, Russia nukes a Ukrainian base, so US nukes a Russian base ... well this will just result in Russia nuking an European NATO base.

Ok, now US has to respond to that, but the Russian response to another nuke will be something like nuking every single NATO base in Europe and then saying the next step is generalized strategic launch if they see even one more missile in the air.

Well what do you do then? This threat will for sure be credible at this stage of escalation.

Obviously you back down. So since this is the result the whole process makes no sense.

Therefore, to avoid a nuclear game you can't win, you respond to Russia nuclear strike in Ukraine with conventional weapons.

However, Russia can just keep nuking Ukraine.

That is the key problem here.

Responding to a Russian nuke with conventional weapons in Ukraine to avoid European bases being hit with nuclear weapons (the likely response to actually nuking a Russian base), simply results in Russia nuking Ukraine into submission and winning that way.

Therefore, escalating within Ukraine to a bigger war can certainly work, but just results in a bigger war in Ukraine involving Russia nuking Ukraine. That is the rational response for Russia in response to anything conventional that does anger them enough or then actually threatens them enough with military defeat.

So, the only other way to broaden the conflict is to get another front line country involved.

The only candidate is Poland as far as I can see.

There's not only the issue of getting the poles involved (as they need to go through several rounds of escalation and need to formally invite NATO to the party), and at some point even corrupt politicians with binders full of compromat may not be willing to start a war on their own territory (only Ukrainians are corrupt enough to do that).

Then there's the problem of Belarus and that Poland doesn't actually border Russia. There's way to manage that problem but it's still an annoying obstacle to escalating WWIII.

Conclusion, although I agree that the White House wants a bigger war (make a bigger problem that kills a lot more people to solve your current problems that are currently killing less people, is the Neocon religion), there are real obstacles to achieving that.

Now, do I share your concern that "life finds a way" and it turns out the frogs are gay, or however that was supposed to work, yes I do, but my difference with your position is that I'm of the opinion that the obstacles are too great and so I'm predicting this escalation won't happen. Could happen. A lot of powerful people want it to happen. Definitely black swans go for cheap nowadays. But still, seems too tall a task even for the rambunctious and wily blackest of black-ops agents at the CIA to pull off.

Sometimes there's just a war too far.

↪boethius In my opinion, war has a tendency to start imposing conditions on its participants. Especially when one of the most powerful nations on the planet, the United States, is pushing for it. — Tzeentch

Agreed, no qualms from me here.

Furthermore, the Europeans seem utterly politically clueless, so I highly doubt Europe as a block will be able to push back on the United States' desire for chaos. — Tzeentch

This is why I focus on Poland. To expand the war you need willing front line participants and the only real candidate for that would be Poland. My understanding of the Poles is that they view themselves as clever enough to have Ukrainians (who they don't like) fight Russians (who they don't like) while also being clever enough to not fight Russians themselves and destroy their country for US interests as the Ukrainians are doing.

Maybe a Pole would contradict me, but my understanding is that Poles view Ukrainians as useful idiots, and they don't view the war as something they want to start fighting on their own territory.

The Baltics don't really matter as they don't actually threaten Russia, they are simply too small so if shit going to start on NATO territory it has to be Poland, and the Poles would have to be willing participants to both let the escalation happen as well as trigger Article 5.

↪boethius While that is certainly true, if the US manages to slowly expand the state of war that already exists, it is a matter of time before Art. 5 can be claimed. — Tzeentch

Well I agree that the US wants more escalation and triggering some messy bigger Eastern European war with Russia if Ukraine front line completely collapses I think would be their preference.

I'm just not sure how motivated Poland is to get into an actual war with Russia.

My reading of the Poles is that they very much like Russia and Ukraine fighting, but that's mainly because they don't like either Russians nor Ukrainians, and they view Ukrainians as corrupt and stupid to get into a war.

It's only in Western Europe and the US (and Finland apparently) that the entire reality can just be denied, but I don't think that's the position of the Poles.

Then there's the problem of Nuclear weapons.

I think you're completely correct that the US power brokers would love nothing more than a bigger conventional war in Eastern Europe with French and English troops streaming to the Polish front, with the US raining down conventional missiles and picking apart Russian air defence.

US can hang back on their Island, commit mostly standoff munitions and not real any troops and Europe has to deal with it. Of course, the West wouldn't defeat Russia, as there's too much strategic depth, but it would be devastating economically for both Russia and Europe (and Uncle Sam likey-like).

However, it seems to me the first thing that would happen is the Russians will immediately respond with Nuclear weapons and we'd enter a cycle of nuclear escalation management where conventional fighting essentially stops.

As I've been arguing for a while now, the US objective is to provoke a large-scale conflict between Europe and Russia.

The latest step in this process is the basing of F-16s in Poland and Romania, which makes the bases in these countries legitimate military targets.

This is of course what the US is hoping to provoke - a Russian attack on NATO soil, after which it can invoke NATO Art. 5 and forcefully drag Europe into the conflict. — Tzeentch

That the bases are legitimate military targets doesn't mean Russia will strike them.

Russia clearly wants to avoid a war with NATO (otherwise they could have easily started on or then made sure "accidents" happen such as actual Russian missile "misses" that hit Poland), as Russia would have a lot to lose in a war with all of NATO even if it didn't go nuclear (and obviously Russia has also been avoiding nuclear war as they can start one of those any time).

It's simply not strategically sensible for Russia to get into a war with NATO as the US is still far away and very protected; taking a bunch of Europe "down too" isn't such a good participation trophy.

And just to make good on my promise of mirthful pleasure, in response to Mr. Corrupt, senior constable, clearly committing to writing that crimes committed against me (including the use of the law to harass me and extort me into signing severance) wont' be part of his investigation, I had to "go philosophy on him" and wrote this dialogue for the benefit of his soul:

Of course, after explaining the money laundering and all the crimes there's clear evidence for:

[Dear Mr. corrupt]

But if you are curious, how I see police actions in this affair:

Police see some corporate board race starting about share ownership and money laundering and email access and shit.

One horse is a mystery box [because I had already reported the above crimes before a criminal complaint was made against me and police never phoned me about what I reported, just went ahead and placed me under investigation, including for defamation to an auditor].

Police are just like ... hmm, I'm going to bet against the mystery box.

Someone says (obviously no one actually did, but for literary purposes): don't you want to see what's in the mystery box before going all in against them, could be just a normal looking horse which may easily win against all these odd looking horses [because the people laundering money are absolute morons].

Police: nah, nah, no need to look, anything in a mystery box is clearly nothing to be concerned about.

Socrates: And is life worth living for us with that part of us corrupted that just action harms and unjust action benefits; So one must never do wrong… Nor must one, when wronged, inflict wrong in return, as the majority believe, since one must never do wrong. But verily, gentle Constable Meletus, you should still probably at least see what's in the mystery box, for it is certainly not some trick designed to fool the gullible if you yourself created the mystery box for no discernible reason or motive. And what is there to fear? Certainly you would have no problem trusting to your own faculties that whatever you see in the mystery box will not fool you but provide additional information in your decision to predetermine the result of criminal reports without doing any investigation at all. Seems a dangerous game constable Meletus.

Police: nah, mystery box we created must stay, we are fully committed to avoid seeing or knowing anything about the horse in the mystery box before deciding they for sure can't possibly win, and to bet significantly agains them in a way that creates stakes for us of which no reward function even exists if we be right or wrong [all local police should do about a report about corporate money laundering is send it to the national police who have jurisdiction over those kinds of things].

Socrates: but Constable Meletus, you crass fool! certainly it's an offence to reason and the gods to take on such blind risks, to harm oneself and others, without even there being any benefits to you! How can siding with injustice, or taking such a risk, not even for any benefit of which a avid man may understand the action, but merely it seems on the principle that injustice is preferable to justice. That you do this in the garments of a police officer makes the offence to reason and, I dare say, Hades itself, certainly all the more destable in the eyes of your peers if you turn out to be wrong in you gamble! All the more baffling Constable Meletus, I must say I truly do not understand. What you seem to say is that injustice must be defended on principle and justice rebuked with significant risks and no benefits to yourself! But how can that be! Say it ain't so Meletus.

Police: Yolo bitches. I grip it and I rip it Socrates. New time new rules. You wouldn't get it. When there's a mystery box that has the potential, once opened, to cause all sorts of troubles, people in our time let it lie, see what happens later: climate change, enabling money laundering, over fishing, destroying forests, gain of function research on dangerous pathogens. We always roll the dice regardless of the risks or whether there's even any benefits to ignoring potential problems down the line. It's called being a baller Socrates, and bigger the unnecessary risks, bigger the balls, higher the views, ca-ching, ca-ching Socrates! We're talking fucking cold, hard, cash, Socrates. But in this case not real cash, at least not for us, just the people laundering money who don't pay us, but some sort of mystical coin none-the-less.

The author: Well, I gotta go, but I'll try to continue this dialogue later, but I think you get the point. — Actual email sent to police in a criminal investigation into myself

What's even more hilarious is Mr. Corrupt, senior constable, recuses himself or is anyways taken off the case when I follow up later.

Socrates strikes again.

Well, be careful not to choke on your ambitions.

I have no experience with this, though a fair amount of experience in compliance in general.

My trying to help might not be so useful to you, but maybe some diversion for us both.

What sort of questions or processes are you trying to work out?

I can have a crack a it. If I come up with the same answers as you, then maybe that increases your confidence somewhat in your conclusions, and if not then we have learned absolutely nothing from the experience and you're no worse off.

In exchange, I'm dealing with my own legal issues of being under investigation since 2021 for defamation for reporting money laundering to the auditor, which is a ridiculous statement, but the law turns into basically a topsy-turvy Alice and Wonderland adventure when reporting people clearly laundering money and destroying evidence (that I still had a copy of, so that was really stupid).

Just to give you an example of how crazy it gets, when I point out the claims of defamation against me are clearly harassment and also used to extort me as I was told I'm under investigation and would be going to prison if I didn't sign a severance package giving up all "claims and pursuit", and what is obviously money laundering and plenty other crimes in the circumstances, police investigating me for crime literally committed to writing:

Hello,

You can always contact a lawyer and ask them about the situation and if they will present you. But in this particular case, you won’t be assigned one so you have to take care of that yourself.

Regarding your counter claims. I have also talked with the leader of the investigation and if you feel like you are a victim of a crime or want to report a crime, you can make a new police report about the matter. But it won’t be handled in this same case and case number I have contacted you about. This case number of 5680/R/6414/22 is about [plaintiffs]’s claims against you.

[Mr. Corrupt]
Senior constable
Central Finland Police Department — Finnish Police

As you may expect, in Finland investigations are supposed to be impartial and neutral (therefore taking into consideration the suspect is actually the victim and the law is being abused by money launderers and police to shut the victim up about that), which is stated quite clearly right in the Criminal Investigations Act:

Chapter 4 – Criminal investigation principles and the rights of persons participating in the criminal investigation
Section 1 – Principle of neutrality
Facts and evidence both for and against the suspect in the offence shall be clarified and taken into account in the criminal investigation.
Section 2 – Presumption of innocence
In a criminal investigation, the suspect in the offence shall be presumed not guilty. — Finland'sCriminal Investigations Act

Aka: I'm supposed to be presumed not-guilty and therefore entirely possible I am in fact the victim, and anyways facts (such as money laundering and threatening me with jail time if I didn't sign a severance package and drop all claims and pursuit, in exchange for both 1 000 000 Euros and "all my legal problems solved"), as it common sense.

It's supposed to be a pretty amazing risk that can easily blow up in your face if you commit crimes and then go and get the victim put under investigation ... and then threaten the victim with prison if they don't sing your deal.

So, not sure what sort of advice you could provide, but at minimum I'm confident you will anyways be entertained.

Anyways, obviously can't do much work as a corporate executive being under criminal investigation, so I have plenty of time on my hands to get into the nuances of EU compliance law.

So, I propose this deal.

(Did you mean "to Russia by" instead of "to Ukraine by"?)

strives to maximize the damage to Ukraine by drip feeding weapons (... just enough to prop it up at an incredible high cost to Ukraine)
— boethius — jorndoe

The policy maximizes damage to Ukraine and damages Russia as a side effect.

Maximizing damage to Russia would be just flooding in all the systems Ukraine could possibly use from day 1. And why even accept the overtone window of Javelins to F-16, why not pour in F-35s and all those fancy drones and so on. Of course, maximizing damage to Russia would likely result in Russia resorting to Nuclear weapons, hence the point of Drip Feed is to make it clear to the Russians that there is no credible attempt to actually cause them much trouble.

As you just posted, Kremlin is happy at war, so the Drip Feed is a favour to the Russian authoritarian power elite (which a large majority of them).

Your "drip feed" theory presumes cohesive organized "feeders" with that (hidden) agenda.
Haven't really heard anyone pushing/discussing that (supposed) agenda, more like the usual debates quarrels dis/agreements bureaucracy. — jorndoe

You haven't heard people openly discussing a hidden agenda?

Hmm, I wonder why that could be.

The policy only requires the United States as the other Ukraine supporters don't have anywhere close the capacity of the United States nor would they escalate beyond what the United States is doing anyways as they know their place: they have neither the means nor the motivation. Germany will supply tanks if the US supplies tanks.

Now, we know there is a hidden agenda because we know we are lied to about the rational behind weapons shipments.

The US spokespeople, including the president, will just take it as essentially common sense that "of course we can't supply Western artillery, of course we can't supply IFV's, of course we can't supply tanks, of course we can't supply short range missile, of course we can't supply long range missiles, of course we can't supply F-16s! we don't want to start WWIII man!!" and then when they change that policy they just ignore what they previously stated.

So, any rational observer can conclude that the reasons behind not only not-supplying the weapon systems in question but stating that it can't possibly be done, and then just going ahead and doing it, is because the criteria of what to supply when is clearly not stated.

The stated reasons for decisions just arbitrarily change without explanation, hence the actual reasons for decisions are hidden from us.

Furthermore, the timing of the escalation to the next weapon system is always in response to Russia getting the upper hand and the new weapons systems trying to restore balance. If you actually wanted to win you'd optimize all your weapons systems at the start; you wouldn't do things like have Ukraine go on an offensive with no air power to support the front nor any no long range missiles to disrupt the Russian rear.

But introducing all the useful systems from the beginning is really absolutely critical as you want Ukraine to not only get experience on those systems that they'd inevitably need to transition to (i.e. have some units using Western equipment as soon as possible so they gain experience and work out doctrine and then can train other Ukrainians in their language with actual battle experience when the transition needs to be scaled up later, when all the soviet equipment has been destroyed), but you'd want to do things like see if sprinkling in more sophisticated Western equipment with soviet systems is a force multiplier. For example, having one or a few Western MBT with better sensors, electronic warfare capabilities, and battlefield awareness with drone and other intelligence connectivity leading a company of soviet tanks and IFV's that are easier to maintain, Ukrainians already know how to use and have ammunition for, are smaller targets and so on, would be something you would want to try out in order to force multiply all the soviet equipment.

Most of all, if you actually wanted to help the Ukrainians, you'd conclude attacking the Russians is really dumb and you wouldn't do that, instead focusing on defence and making Russian progress as costly as possible and holding the card of a credible threat of a major offensive in response to Russian over commitment to their own offensives.

This is what the Finns did in the Winter war; they didn't embark on some suicidal offensive against the Soviets.

The reason this obvious strategy is not employed is because it would then give the game away that the only termination possible to the war is negotiation: we are making Russian progress costly in order to compel them to negotiate.

However, if you admit the only end to the war in negotiation and Ukraine isn't going to achieve any political goal through military conquest, then that obviously begs the question "well what negotiation? why not then go and negotiate an end to the war? avoid more people from dying? why are you here talking to me, go negotiate. I don't get it". Now, since the Russians are happy to negotiate if it was recognized in the West that negotiation was the only termination of the war feasible for the Ukrainians, and the sooner the better (most Ukrainian refugees would have returned if the war ended soonish after beginning, but by now they's largely made entirely new lives), then enthusiasm for the war would have dissipated and focus would have shifted to negotiation and that would have put enormous pressure on political leaders, in the West and Ukraine, to negotiate: sure, maintain the lines, but then use that leverage in a negotiation.

The US didn't want that, therefore negotiations need to be repudiated, the only rational basis to do that in a conflict is because you can achieve your goals by force, if Ukraine can achieve it's goals by force it should definitely go and do that, sooner the better as the Russians are increasing in strength, hence a disastrous offensive into heavily fortified Russian lines without air cover nor long range munitions and plenty of both on the Russian side. Once the offensive starts it's important that it doesn't end quickly as that would again give the game away that Ukraine has no hope of "winning" so it needs to be dragged out to be able to pretend that the offensive lasted so long and accomplished so much (or just people simply forget about their previous anticipation of evaluating Ukrainians offensive capabilities and the implication of that), and before you know it you've burned through your reserves and can no longer even keep up a defensive posture.

It's all very cynical and manipulative and none of this is designed for Ukrainian welfare.

That is my issue here.

Sorry to break up the circle jerk again, but the issues of contention here are:

1. Regardless of what you think about Russia, countries in our system have a right, and rationally do anyways, act in preemptive self defence. What's been referred to as legitimate security concerns. A nuclear power creating missile bases nearer and nearer to you is one such obvious security concern.

2. Regardless of what you think about point one above, it is just dumb to provoke a war, then actually fight a war, on the principle of denying Russia has legitimate security concerns that would lead a rational actor in the international system to wage preemptive war ... when apparently we all now agree that Ukraine would never join NATO anyways, but also not really we'll just go ahead and claim that's going to happen someday from time to time. Fighting for something you can never actually have is dumb.

3. Regardless of what you think about how smart it is to fight for a right to have something the relevant parties never give you (which, if they did, the whole point would be to then avoid a disastrous war such as what is happening right now). Fighting a disastrous war to (maybe, hopefully, wishfully) get something to protect from fighting disastrous wars, is completely moronic.

4. Regardless of what you think about fighting a disastrous war to (maybe) get something that would offer protection (maybe) from disastrous wars, it still only makes sense to do if you can actually win.

For example @ssu's argument at the start was that while agreeing with me that he saw no way Ukraine could win, well maybe Ukrainian general have something or know something we don't and will pull off a brilliant victory. Turns out Ukrainian generals had no such thing and exactly what was predictable given the available information is what happened. The corollary of @ssu's position is that if Ukraine had no surprise then their war effort is a disastrous mistake, immoral, got many people killed for nothing, and definitely they should have taken the Russian's offer at the start of the war (or before the war). But these positions are just conveniently swept under the rug of "Ukrainian agency".

5. Regardless of what you think about fighting a war you can't win, the West's policy has clearly been to make sure of this result by drip feeding in weapons systems. Now that the drip feed of weapons systems has run its course, the West has turned to drip feeding "maybe we will, maybe we won't" send in ground troops to turn the tide, to maintain the policy of having Ukraine fight, giving them hope (such as the next wonder weapon or wonder intervention; something we've already seen at the start with all the hullaballoo about a "no fly zone" which was critical in encouraging Ukrainians to fight while the weapons drip feed system was put into place: as that takes logistics).

As I've argued, this is my main problem with Western policy. We are clearly not even trying to help Ukrainians, but just propping them up to take an absolute beating in order to accomplish other things, all harmful to Europe.

6. Regardless of what you think of the drip feed theory, if there was some genuine intent to use the leverage of clearly being willing to drip feed weapons into Ukraine to seek a diplomatic solution that is favourable to Ukraine, the Western leaders would put on their big boy pants and go and try to negotiate that happening and using their leverage (such as the sanctions and so on; whole point of sanctions being to serve as leverage to compel compliance, if the goal to effect Russian decision making and not just have a big giant war for the sake of all the sweet, sweet profiteering).

Furthermore, sending money to a pervasively corrupt polity is a de facto bribe to the elites of that polity. That the West puts zero controls or supervision on the money nor the weapons sent into Ukraine is making explicit there's not even pretence that this money is not a de facto bribe. That the West recognizes a lot of that money and weapons "disappears" but has not found one single Euro of laundered money or laundered weapons outside Ukraine, is explicitly participating in the money laundering scheme.

And I can go on with even more moral and strategic problems from a "benefit Ukrainian" perspective.

However, I'll stop here for now to point out that even if all this was true:

Incidentally reminded me of some earlier comments, e.g.:

The fact is that Russia simply isn't a normal country that would try to have good relations with it's neighbors. It seeks the role it had when it was an empire/Superpower, makes huge gambles and takes extreme risks. It's extremely reckless. There simply are no benefits in trying to appease Putin.
— ssu
There should be another narrative than the imperialist one when it comes to what Russia is. This narrative creates the reality were Russia sees necessary to intervene and dominate it's near abroad. First and foremost, the collapse of the Soviet Union, is seen as a mistake. An unfortunate accident. Russia is seen to be an multi-ethnic Empire and therefore it should obviously control what has been part of the Empire. And this makes everybody so nervous about Russia. It's not acting as a normal country. Yet the imperialist narrative dominates official Russia. It is fomented with the huge conspiracy that the West is against Russia, hence to defend itself, it has to attack.
— ssu
For Russia to become a normal country and shed it's bellicose aggressive behaviour a humiliating defeat could do it. The Soviet Union came so splendidly and peacefully apart that people like Vladimir Putin understood it as a mistake, something you can and have to fix.
— ssu
But I'm hopeful that Russia can shed it's fascist tendencies and perhaps become a normal democracy someday. But I acknowledge it will be difficult. Yet Spain and Portugal aren't anymore fascist.
— ssu — jorndoe

Clearly Ukraine is not teaching Russia this lesson they are supposed to be learning.

Therefore, the policy of propping up Ukraine is to have it destroyed, have hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed and maimed and traumatized, depopulate the younger generations making the existing demographic collapse that much more catastrophic, simply for the gesture of "our hearts being in the right place" of wanting Russia to lose a war and "learn a lesson".

Notice also, no where in these positions by @ssu is there any concern for Ukrainian welfare.

The war is not existential for the Ukrainian people, Russia has no way of conquering all of Ukraine anyways and clearly doesn't want that headache if they could, the Russian speaking regions have pretty solid evidence they (a lot, perhaps even a very solid majority) happy being in Russia (considering the real repression they experience by Ukrainian speakers).

Therefore, if the war is not existential, there must be some reasonable cost to waging it to accomplish the objectives.

This is the core question, which no one on the self described "pro-Ukrainian" side has even attempted to answer: no matter what you think of "justice" there must be some limit to the cost to Ukrainians in their war. Likewise, regardless of what you think of Ukrainian just cause, it is not good for this so called just cause nor moral in and of itself for the West to continuously manipulate Ukraine with false promises and false assurances.

Really, EU CSRD compliance law?

A man of your talents.

At least you're right that the two situations aren't quite the same. — jorndoe

Which is the point.

Now, whether Russia's war is a just war is a different issue to following the law of armed conflict once a war is started.

The law of armed conflict covers both sides of a war in which, presumably, one or both sides are at fault for fighting the war in the first place.

One can of course argue Russia's cause is not just, I haven't seen any good argument demonstrating that, but certainly it is possible to imagine.

What I care about is that Western policies were clearly designed to create a war (such as negotiating in bad faith the Minsk agreements and threatening to expand NATO infrastructure to Ukraine) and then once the war started strives to maximize the damage to Ukraine by drip feeding weapons (... just enough to prop it up at an incredible high cost to Ukraine). Of course, people can argue that Russia shouldn't respond to attacks on Donbas separatists nor respond to NATO expansion, which people have tried to do.

However, whether the war is just or not on Russia's part, there isn't a genocide.

Israel's genocide on the other hand is not only a genocide, which really should be the key takeaway here, but is also a conflict entirely created by Israel in occupying, oppressing and rendering Palestinians stateless people with essentially no rights.

Israel is responsible for the conflict in violating basic morality and international law in keeping people in a giant ghetto and randomly killing, kidnapping and abusing them (including child abuse), and obviously fully responsible for carrying out a genocide regardless.

It should also be noted that Israel fighting wars with other states cannot possibly form a justification for occupying and repressing and keeping the Palestinians in a ghetto in any case.

Where we certainly agree is that if Ukrainians have a right to resist occupation and thus slaughter Russians, Palestinians too have the same right to resist occupation and slaughter Israelis.

Even if that's the case, Hamas and Palestinians who support Hamas is to be blamed for it. They provoked Israel. Israel has legitimate security concerns. They kept repeating this for decades. Given the disproportionate military capacity of Israel wrt Hamas this would be the likely conclusion. There is no single moment in which Hamas didn't lose the war to Israel. Palestinians should surrender and concede to Israel, to Netanyahu, whatever he asks of them. We should stop supporting Palestine. There was a time in which Palestinians could negotiate peace, but they refuse to accept because some dude from Iran told them to continue fighting. Israel could use nuclear bombs, etc. etc. etc. right? — neomac

The first big difference is the Russians aren't committing a genocide in Ukraine, as I just explained.

Russia is following the law of armed conflict pretty well: extremely far away from starving whole civilian populations to death. And this is born out in the stats of civilians killed during the conflict and in particular children.

The second big difference is that Russia is not implementing apartheid system and occupying parts of Ukraine without giving those occupied peoples any rights. The occupied people of the former-Ukrainian territory can get Russian citizenship, and if they don't they still have their Ukrainian citizenship; either way they are not stateless people kept in a big ghetto.

Third, the territories occupied by Russia have large portions, arguably a majority, of ethnic Russians that actually want to join Russia (hence the separatists fighting for 10 years), so there is not only an element of self-determination in the Russian speakers taking up arms against Kiev oppression of their language and culture, but also no one really cares all that much whether Russian speaking Ukrainians become Russian speaking Russians. Russia isn't conquering territory and then keeping Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians that don't want to be occupied by Russians in a giant ghetto with zero rights and lot's of murder, sexual abuse and so on, for the foreseeable future. Of course there will be exceptions, but in general there has been no insurgency against Russian occupation nor Ghettoizaton of conquered territory.

In otherwords, Russia is implementing a "one state solution" in their occupation of new territory. The one state solution is one of the two solutions that everyone agrees solves these kinds of problems, therefore all is well and you can rest your pretty little head.

The situation in Gaza is simply not similar at all to the situation in Crimea or the Donbas.

Israel does not offer Gazans citizenship and equal rights.

There is not one state or two state solution, but oppressed stateless people in a ghetto that have a right to fight the forces of oppression.

Now, Ukrainians in territory occupied by Russia would have the same right of insurgency against an occupying force (just it's less palpable because they are offered equal rights), but the fact no such insurgency seems to be occurring (perhaps because they are given rights and not kept in a ghetto) is one reason it's extremely foolish for non-occupied Ukrainians to try to reconquer the territory.

But again, mainly, the most important thing, is that Russia isn't carrying out a genocide whereas Isreal is.

So, your argument should be "Even if that's the case [i.e. Israel is committing a unequivocal and clear genocide] then that genocide is squarely the fault of Israelis and all participants in the genocide should be held accountable and the leaders hanged as we did in Nuremberg; they are free to present their defence that they were 'provoked' into genocide, but since that's idiotic they will certainly hang."

So there, fixed it for you.

↪Mikie
The genocide is not a narrative but fact largely self-documented by Israel.
— boethius

I don't think Israel is saying this was an accident. — RogueAI

What makes it conclusively, unequivocally, for sure, take it to the bank, genocide is the starvation.

Trying to reduce the argument of genocide to one bombing is already just stupid.

If it was just bombings then you could play the game you want to play and claim Israel is fighting Hamas and not trying to kills the civilians, much less carrying out a genocide; the proof: Israel is letting in humanitarian aid and civilians are free to get out of the way of danger.

I.e. what the Russians are doing in Ukraine, blowing up a lot of buildings and reducing towns to moonscapes, but! not genocide as Russians give ample time for civilians to exit the battle area, create safe zones, and also don't interfere in humanitarian assistance to the civilian population on either side of the front line. Therefore, when Russian missiles and bombs blow stuff up they can legitimately claim they are trying to avoid that.

It would obviously be disproportionate to do the same in Gaza, where there is essentially no where to go, but obviously you'd have an easier time making your obnoxious apologetics.

However, announcing you are going to starve an entire civilian population, that nothing comes in, and promising to make it hell, and then going and doing that, there is no possible military justification.

It is simple, clearly, unambiguously genocide.

And that's just the starvation.

You can add the destruction of hospitals, murders of medical staff, obstructing delivery of medicine.

You could also add the destruction of other civilian infrastructure required to maintain life.

You could add the destruction of universities and other places of learning.

You can add the mass graves.

You can add a whole bunch of stuff, and also, indeed, the bombings.

But the starvation is already enough, you do not need more tools than that to carry out genocide and that is stated Israeli policy and has been carried out in practice with abundant proof.

There is nothing to equivocate.

What irregularities with choosing jury members have been established?
The judge doesn't establish guilt, even if he were partial (and they all are in the US because it's a political position), what did he do specifically that tanked Trump's defence?
The crime is defined in the law, how is it made up? If his actions met the definition, it's a crime.
Who bought who for what for what money?

You've got nothing except that you're apparently a sore loser like Trump. — Benkei

Although I don't doubt Trump has committed all sorts of crimes, the following explanation by the BBC:

Beyond that, the novel legal strategy taken by the District Attorney in this case may also provide grounds for appeal.

Falsifying business records can be a lower-level misdemeanour in New York, but Trump faced more serious felony charges because of a supposed second crime, an alleged illegal attempt to influence the 2016 election.

Prosecutors broadly alleged that violations of federal and state election laws, along with tax fraud, applied to this case. But they did not specify to the jury exactly which one was broken.

Legal experts say there are questions around the scope and application of the federal law that could form a basis for appeal. Never before has a state prosecutor invoked an uncharged federal crime, and there’s a question if the Manhattan District Attorney had the jurisdiction to do so. — BBC

Does seem honestly bizarre to me.

Prosecuting a political figure under the condition where "never before has a state prosecutor invoked an uncharged federal crime" does seem simply serious corruption of going after political enemies with spurious charges.

If the situation was highly unique, then novel legal arguments wouldn't be surprising, but not only does the situation not seem that unique at all, falsifying business records happens all the time, but the novel legal argument is of an entire category of no prosecutor ever having invoked uncharged federal crimes of any kind in the history of the state (rather than for example no prosecutor has invoked this particular crime, but generally speaking happens all the time with regard to other crimes, in which case, again, if it was augmenting the list of uncharged federal crimes prosecutors have invoked then it would not be so alarming; but that the whole argument has simply never been even attempted before with regard to any other kind of federal crime, seems pretty mind blowing).

Not that someone who pays porn stars for sex (or pretty much anything else about "the Donald") should be in the running for president of "the free world", but does seem to me exactly the abuse of power to go after Trump his supporters complain about, if these BBC statements are correct.

If you would just listen to yourself, you would notice how crazy your specifications for being pro-something are. — ssu

You do realize how many Ukrainians have died in the war, how many maimed, how much the country has been depopulated (of mostly younger people in what is already demographic collapse), how much territory it has lost with no chance of recovering it?

I look at the result of not-peace is, entirely predictable from the beginning if Ukraine rejected peace terms based on neutrality (ideally before the war even started), and the result of our policy choices is absolutely terrible for Ukrainians as well as "Ukraine" as a nation-concept apart from its people, if that matters to you.

Cheering on Ukraine to fight in extremely adverse conditions with a sort of "Rocky underdog" mythical wishful thinking basis that simply ignores reality, does not help Ukrainians.

It sounds good to the Western ear conditioned by Hollywood movies, but it doesn't help Ukrainians to buildup a fantasy based view of the world and make decisions on that basis.

My position that Ukraine should accept neutrality, negotiate on that basis, take the Russian offer (ideally before the war started) but definitely the offer in 2022, is 100% pro-Ukraine as doing that would have saved so much Ukrainian lives and Ukrainian territory; the best outcome for Ukraine achievable considering the Wests' unwillingness to have skin in the game.

Encouraging (aka. bribing) and propping up Ukraine to go toe-to-toe with the Russian military is anti-Ukrainians-living.

Engaging in magical thinking about Ukraine's war prospects is delusional at best and just cynicism at worst (to have Ukrainians die to achieve US objectives for example).

↪boethius, wait, that's (5,7)(9) propaganda in your book? No wonder you see propaganda and conspiracies everywhere. :grin: Especially against Putin. — jorndoe

Your peace suggestions are propaganda because they are completely unrealistic:

Donbas and Crimea to become free transparent independent democracies, under UN supervision (Europol might take a role) until such a time that their developments are deemed sufficiently safe free independent recovered (with borders) for the UN to take leave — jorndoe

Is so unrealistic it's not worth even entertaining for the sake of argument.

Saying "I suggest a totally unrealistic peace deal that the Russians would never accept" is simply stating you want more war but you have come up with some propaganda cover for your desire for more war.

Interestingly, the Kremlin offered a cease-fire and granted Ukraine an opportunity to return to the negotiating table with the March/April 2022 Istanbul accords as a basis.

Personally, I think Ukraine would be crazy not to at least take a seat at the table. But I know better.

I think we ought to read this latest offer by the Kremlin as a "last chance" type deal, before they will ramp up the pressure on Ukraine another time and this time probably with the intention to definitively cripple it until they can impose their desired conditions unilaterally. — Tzeentch

The offer seems to be "based on current lines" so if Istanbul drafts are a basis then it's for things other than territory.

Putin has also stated that Zelensky is no longer a legitimate leader of Ukraine and it would important for them to sign any peace deal with a legitimate representative in order for there not to be any doubts about the deal.

However, no one in the Kremlin believes Zelensky would start any serious negotiations anyways, so this is more just taking jabs at Zelensky because it's easy to do.

The reason for the offer is because it's an easy diplomatic win that makes Russia look reasonable and also makes the "peace talks" in Switzerland without Russia look even more ridiculous than it already is.

So, yes, I completely agree with you that Ukraine should take essentially whatever offer, and would certainly be crazy to reject anything remotely resembling the offer in 2022, but currently the Zelensky regime have literally talked themselves out of negotiation, having made so many uncompromising declarations.

The only pathway to a peace deal is a coup in Kiev. To the extent the "feelers" are for the purposes of actual negotiation at all, it is a message (perhaps also some encouragement) to whoever wins the coup.

Not to say a coup is guaranteed, just that it's a necessary condition for peace talks.

The US strategy is to keep Zelensky in power by paying off everyone else.

For, even with an essentially broken Ukrainian military it's nevertheless unlikely that Russia can conquer all of Ukraine, so the US can simply live with more and more territory losses, even major losses, since as long as Zelensky is in power they can just spin things as "could be worse" and that "they continue to stand by Ukraine".

Of course, as more and more people, in particular the military chain of command, realizes this strategy of just sacrificing more Ukrainian soldiers and Ukrainian territory and more suffering of Ukrainian civil society, the less stable this setup becomes. Keep in mind a coup does not need to be an assassination or otherwise taking power by high ranking officers but can also be an essentially organic process bubbling up from the rank and file and literally leaving the front and marching on the capital.

So we'll see how it plays out but I would suggest understanding any peace terms being thrown around by Russia as messages to current and would-be coup plotters and participants.

Hence why floating these ideas are made public.

The other reason is that the West spins any Russia talk of peace as Russian weakness and Western media and policy makers really take any such signal to heart, which reduces their sense of urgency to send more weapons.

For example, when Russia stopped launching so many missiles, the Western establishment analysis community took that as basically Ukraine had already won the war. People within the policy making community have even noticed this pattern and "we've underestimated the Russians" has become essentially a meme at this point, but the pattern still holds: the recent Russian breakthroughs have been essentially emergency level events right up until this talk of Russian peace terms > Russia must therefore be weak > all is well.

And "Tovarich Trump" will likely disappoint Putin again. — ssu

Trump is a corrupt idiot who will disappoint everyone if he's elected.

Biden is a corrupt formerly-clever-but-now-has-dementia with a disturbing tendency to be seen sniffing and touching children inappropriately, who will also continue to disappoint everyone except maybe literally satan.

That Russia has an overwhelming advantage in a war with Ukraine is simply fact.

That the West can't really do anything about that short of nuclear war which apparently even satan doesn't actually want (it is perhaps more optimum amount of suffering to drag this shit show out a bit longer when you think about it), is again simply factual.

Therefore, based on these facts, my policy recommendation is to use diplomacy to try to avoid further warfare. This would involve compromise and recognizing Russia does have some legitimate concerns that would need accommodating to arrive at a peace.

My pointing out obvious facts and the only thing we can do (other than nuclear war) is painted as pro-Putin.

Now I am pro-Putin to the extent that I am anti-being-nuked and Putin hasn't nuked me yet, so he does have that going in his favour as far as I'm concerned.

When I point out Putin can in fact extort us using nuclear weapons, that is not some commendation of extortion, just pointing out the obvious fact. Saying "bah!!! Putin shouldn't extort us with nuclear weapons, bad Putin!!" may very well be true. We can of course debate whether one man's extortion is another man's deterrence, but doesn't change the fact that either way it reasonable limits our scope of action if we want to avoid being nuked.

Therefore, it does not take much analysis to conclude that Russia can defeat Ukraine and anything the West might do to stop that from happening (including arming Ukraine soon enough and "badass" enough, to use US policy makers technical lingo) will very likely result in a nuclear war that the West also cannot win.

It takes little additional analysis that dragging the war out does not actually harm the Russian state but makes it stronger while the consequences to Ukraine are several orders magnitude greater than whatever this assumed harm to Russia even is.

From here it is then quite easy to see that not only is it completely immoral to prop Ukraine up as essentially a punching bag (just real people die with every punch), but it is disastrous also to the West's policy makers stated aim of domination and subjugation of the rest of the world, not to mention the welfare of the West's own citizens, not that polite society takes that into consideration, but still.

As for Russia itself, certainly plenty to criticize if I moved there and had both the knowledge and sense of responsibility to improve the place, but from my own vantage point and actual responsibilities right now there are simply plenty of states that seem a lot worse than Russia that the West doesn't hesitate to ally itself with in the name of "money". So, that being the case, suddenly moralizing about Russia and what happens in Russia from some puritanical point of view is about the same level of intellectual credibility as farting into a bucket of rocks: it looks stupid and it smells bad.

I do not want Ukrainians to die for the vanity of Western power brokers, which makes me pro-Ukraine.

If the pro-Ukrainiains-dying side of the debate could actually overcome criticism to war aims and the diplomatic and warfare strategy, then I would have done the service to Ukrainian soldiers and civilians of bothering to check if people are dying for some sensible purpose.

Unfortunately, criticism cannot be overcome, the conduct of the war by Ukrainian and Western puppets (of war profiteers) does not standup to scrutiny.

The weapons are drip fed into Ukraine to ensure a Russian victory, plenty of money to defence contractors and destroying Europe as a viable competitor to the United States. The money poured into Ukraine is first and foremost a bribe to Ukrainian elite to do what the US wants.

Europe has been eliminated as a geopolitical threat (to the United States), amazingly, to the cheers of Europeans. It is absolutely stupendous how little Europeans have questioned the policies leading to war and then ensuring more war. The only thing European leaders seem to know how to do is oil themselves up to get into their gimp suit. Their economic advisers are like "that's called reducing friction" and they're all like "ah, ok".

This is sad, but it is pro-actual-Ukrainians to recognize.

It was an attempt to converge acceptability, not a recitation of an old proposal, but to revise bits, hypothesize, and derive whatever therefrom. — jorndoe

Well two years ago when Ukraine still had leverage, talking independence of some kind (such as Russia's offer of more autonomy for the Donbas but remaining in Ukraine) made a lot of sense; I explained at considerable length why it was foolish advocating and lauding Zelensky's no-compromise position; I don't want to go out on a limb and say you were among those advocates as your posts rarely take any actual position but mostly don't say anything and just link to propaganda.

Huh? Where do you see that? As mentioned, it was an attempt to revise an old proposal slightly towards more acceptability, and take it (onwards) from there. (Would you like me to reformulate, maybe in Klingon...?) — jorndoe

Your posts are mostly links to propaganda generally speaking, the. The "old proposal" you're talking about was just a propaganda move due to even the Western press starting to question Ukraine's no-diplomacy strategy.

You can post as much propaganda as you want, but doesn't change the facts on the ground. — boethius

Now, if you wanted to stop linking to propaganda, the statement remains true.

MAGA'ers and boethius echoing the Kremlin circle — "We're invincible" — in words or spirit.
Of course the invaders can be sent home (reportedly a large number already has + o / w). Not via those fatalists though.
By the way, the Kremlin has kicked off another round of their nuclear rattling (rerunning exercises, threatening the UK, France, whoever), I wonder what they're afraid of. — jorndoe

Russia is not invincible, the whole substance of Drip Feed Theory, may main contention over the course of this dialogue, is that NATO could cause significant problems for Russia if it wanted too, but it doesn't.

NATO could have provided all the advanced weapons Ukraine could possibly make use of day 1 of the war, likewise ramped up ammunition production with a state program. The idea that the entire West simply can't match Russia in ammunition production is just dumb, it could if it was a priority, but it's not a priority.

Likewise, NATO could have sent troops into Ukraine from day 1 of the conflict.

Russia is not invincible, but is winning because that's NATO policy for Russia to win.

Undersupplied, outmatched in every category of weapons, a smaller population and terrible demographic situation, Ukraine simply has very little chance of holding lines, much less "winning" on the battlefield.

Why is the NATO policy to allow Russia to slowly win.

The nuclear weapons.

The reason NATO doesn't escalate to causing Russia a genuine problem in Ukraine is due to nuclear deterrence.

Sabre "rattling" only makes sense as an expression when there is no war and everyone agrees there's essentially no prospect of war, then alluding to or brandishing weapons is a weak diplomatic move. When there's a hot war, however, where everyone agrees could escalate further then force demonstrations are not sabre rattling but both demonstrations and preparations for escalation.

This to me is wildly inaccurate to the goings-on in Israel.. especially since over half the population are Middle Eastern Jews.. But also, if that were the case, countries like Saudi Arabia wouldn't be tolerated for their treatment of people and human rights abuses.. It's more about strategic interest and historical affinity, not this Leftist oppressor narrative. — schopenhauer1

Half the population in the Middle East (what I'm talking about) are not Jews.

Of course, the bet that "what happens in Palestine stays in Palestine" has so far proved true.

The genocide is not a narrative but fact largely self-documented by Israel.

Now, if you're thinking about what will happen tomorrow, that tends to resemble today.

What I am talking about is what processes have been started today and where they will lead.

If you take an objective view of the images and video coming out of Palestine (a lot posted by Israelis) you may personally approve and any "oppression" of shooting people for sport is just a leftist narrative people say. You may say shooting people for sport is just good fun and oppression is just a social construct. Ok, sure, whatever.

What is objectively true however is that other people are disturbed by what you find non-disturbing, and a lot of disturbed people can have a consequence through unforeseeable ways.

The hypothesis that this genocide can be perpetrated in broad daylight and there is no consequence for it, things will just go back more-or-less how they were before, to me seems short sighted. American power will wane, Israel power will wane with it, but the memory of what has happened may not wane, but in fact grow stronger.

Simply speaking as a strategist, making so much bad blood seems to me just bad strategy.

If you're betting on continuation of the status quo in the Middle East, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just noting here that my own guess is the terrifying process of the genocide will lay the foundation for still yet more violence to come for years and decades.

I do not think there is any further possibilities of peace here, which is what the Israeli religious fanatics want. Currently there's confident that there is no consequences down the line for a genocide. The foundations of such confidence are exactly as you say: take a very short sighted view of a few actors right now and it's unclear where consequences would come from.

My basic point is that things are a lot more complex than that.

As Benny Gantz and Gallant have critiques Netanyahu for, you need a political end game. — schopenhauer1

My basic point is that there might not be a political end game even in the situation of the erosion of both US and Israeli power.

Things maybe locked into a cycle of violence that lasts another century, in which the only possible termination is an Israeli total defeat (as at the end of day Israel simply doesn't have the numbers to conquer all of the Middle-East).

The reason for this to occur is, forget the current politics, the genocide and the endless pictures and videos of it as well as humiliating rituals like wearing Palestinian women's clothing, may create something entirely new within the Muslim world.

What I am talking about is not necessarily the extension of any current political process or the next act of any participant, but rather a manifestation of a deep trauma to the global mind and in particular the Muslim one.

Israel has assumed, and correctly so far, that both the Muslim and Western world will let them have their Palestinian play thing. It's possible that Israel has simply gone too far and the dynamic that has persisted so far changes.

Things could go back to the status quo, or then a two state solution could happen. But my own guess is Israel has started a process of violence it will lose control of and it's difficult to see how it will unfold but will be long and terrible.

Israel has intrinsic weaknesses in population and geography, so far compensated by being backed by a superpower with a far bigger population and geographic advantages.

Israel's choice for genocide is, in my view, essentially formed by seeing the decline of US empire and therefore it's "now or never". Insofar as this is some sort of strategy at all and not simply delusional religious fanaticism, the danger is changing the dynamic in the Muslim world generally, which can manifest both in unforeseen changes to governance as well as unforeseen changes generally speaking.

Western analysis generally rests on the supposition that there is no empathy for the suffering of brown people, be it working as slaves in a mine or then shot for sport, but this is of course only generally true in the West; there are plenty of brown people who empathize with other brown people, and it is this emotion and its consequence that I would put money on we will see, however unforeseeable it may be in its eventual particular manifestation.

↪Tzeentch, peace, more accommodating than the original, protection of people (was raised by the Kremlin), would show bona fide interest rather than neo-colonialist/imperialist/irredentist land grabbery, ease up on unpopular conscriptions, cut down on the destruction and killing, some sanctions relief (perhaps including frozen assets), in the general interest of affected citizens, a step towards (re)building international trust, would work against European/whatever rearmament, independent Donbas is reportedly the sort of thing older Donbas folks occasionally dream of anyway, ... There could be further revision, e.g. military non-alignment (was raised by the Kremlin), a fresh Kharkiv style Pact, ... Doable? Kyiv would have to make concessions. Too much peace-mongering for war-mongers? — jorndoe

@Isaac and I explained how negotiations work, how compromise works, how leverage works, and Ukraine's interest in negotiating while it still had leverage, over 2 years ago.

Repeating these ideas (that you poorly understand) now is just more copium in your copium pipeline of inane propaganda that does not inform the discussion.

Ukraine can no longer credibly threaten (even at low probability), if not defeating, severely embarrassing Russia on the battlefield (such as routing the Russians in Donbas of even just cutting the land bridge and managing to hold it), so that leverage is gone.

Russia has survived and adapted to sanctions, so that leverage is gone.

The Nord Stream pipeline was blown up, so that leverage is gone too.

The US is backing a literal genocide in Palestine right now so whatever "moral high ground" leverage the US had in terms of non-Western nations, that leverage is gone too.

Negotiations happen with leverage in the real world, not pretending there's still leverage when you try and fail to do things the hard way, is just escaping to delusion instead of facing the reality of having made terrible mistakes which, in this case, have killed hundreds of thousands of people.

That's the reality now: that Ukraine spent its leverage and can't go back to the Russian's offer two years ago, or anywhere close.

There is now essentially nothing Ukraine can do, nor the West can do, that can compel Russia to accept anything remotely close to what you're suggesting here.

Ukraine could probably still negotiate:

1. Giving up even more territory
2. Committing to neutrality and restrictions on its armed forces going forward

Of course Zelensky doesn't want to do that because he's now escaped into some sort of delusional religious zealotry (hence a colonel lead coup was pretty likely and likely to happen again, until it succeeds).

However, Russia doesn't need such a deal either as it can just take more territory by force as is currently happening.

A suggested revision of Ukraine's Peace Formula:

5. Donbas and Crimea to become free transparent independent democracies, under UN supervision (Europol might take a role) until such a time that their developments are deemed sufficiently safe free independent recovered (with borders) for the UN to take leave

7. Investigation of all alleged war crimes, and prosecution where found (e.g. ICJ, ICC)

Seems reasonable enough, as well as technically possible. Or something along those lines. The UN is large enough to handle the load. I'm guessing Kyiv would consider and the Kremlin would deny (pure conjectures on my part). But this could well mean bona fide peace.

Could it be done? — jorndoe

Where are you even getting this from, following your own link:

Number 5 is:

5. Restoration of the Russia–Ukraine border to that prior to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, in line with Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations — Ukraine's Peace Formula

And 7 is:

Prosecution of war crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the creation of a special tribunal for Russian war crimes — Ukraine's Peace Formula

Ukraine is in the process of collapse and no longer has any leverage to use in a negotiation.

You can post as much propaganda as you want, but doesn't change the facts on the ground.

Ukraine is running out of people and whether the recent alleged coup attempt (involving Ukrainian colonels) was real or was the fabrication of paranoid delusions, either way it is not a good sign.

The US is just trying to prop Ukraine up until the US election.

The more diplomatically isolated Israel becomes, the more it turns into a strategic liability to the US.

When US support for Israel starts waning, that's when this ball may finally start rolling. — Tzeentch

Well it might, but I honestly doubt it.

The other option is that the deranged fanaticism in Israel becomes even more entrenched, mainly because less fanatical jews can simply leave so it creates a self selection process.

True, the more Israel becomes an even bigger liability the more likely (though far from certain) the US will put at least some pressure ... but enough for a 2 state solution? Possible, but difficult to imagine. Entirely new politicians may make it happen but think we can agree we're far from that.

The situation can therefore simply fester until a much larger war.

A lot of attention is put on the states of the Middle East and how they don't really want to help the Palestinians nor a war with Israel nor getting nuked by Israel. What gets less attention is the non-state actors and their funding from both states and individuals across the Islamic world and that a literal genocide is going to radically increase that funding.

Simultaneously advanced weapons are becoming far more available on the black market thanks to the war in Ukraine while various technologies are creating new asymmetric tactics generally speaking.

There is therefore a recipe here for more chaos until a much larger war. It may take some years, or even a decade, but seems to me the likely scenario.

Israel has a small population and no strategic depth, so it is very vulnerable to the erosion of technological advantage. Committing a genocide, focused particularly on children, while self-uploading all sort of humiliating acts against the Palestinians is convincing a lot Westerners that Israel is doing evil, it is even more convincing to the Muslim world.

States maybe deterred from going to war, but there is plenty of avenues for action in the Middle East.

True, fanatical factionalism easily just leads to fighting amongst themselves, and that's possible, but Israel's actions may simply be so extreme that it unites otherwise adversaries.

Not to say how this would play out, but more chaotic violence for years to come absorbing more and more people and resources from the region in a gradual way seems as or more likely than a two state solution, and could last a long time without any sort of battlefield resolution. Maybe no state of non-state actor in the Middle-East could defeat Israel in the foreseeable future, but Israel can't achieve some decisive victory either so it can just keep going for a long while.

↪boethius If Putin and the top leadership had known the war would go on this long with this many Russian casualties, do you think they still would have invaded? — RogueAI

Definitely.

The war has gone extremely well for the Kremlin, from what I can tell.

Russia is attritting NATO weapons (not all weapons, but critical weapons such as artillery shells and air defence) in close to ideal circumstances where those weapons do not coherently and cohesively integrate together in rational military plans.

Russia has created a parallel global economy due to Western sanctions; i.e. created another pond in which it is the big fish.

Best of all, the war is accelerating the decline of the US empire.

From what I can tell, Putin and all the Kremlin and military hardliners didn't like so much the collapse of the Soviet Union and the West "winning" the Cold War. They of course recognize it was entirely self inflicted so I do not think there was any desire or even consideration of achieving some sort of revenge against the USA after the Soviet fall. 90s and early 00s Russia was very much about just minding its own business and trying deal with its new position in the world, mostly focused on not falling apart even more.

However, when the US started directly attack Russian interests, not only do Russian elites "need" to respond to that (in the sense of being stuck in the international system and a slave to its dynamic) but I think it kindled within Russian elites a vision of helping accelerate a process within the US (a process of imperial overreach in parallel to deepening dysfunctional corruption and ideological collapse at home) that they saw unfold in the Soviet Union. I don't think it's ideologically motivated on the Russian elites part, but rather I think it's more personal in that Western officials insult them (such as taking advantage of their good will, such as help in logistics for the war on terror, and also in approving the Libyan no-fly-zone, that "bombing everything" is not the definition of a no-fly-zone, as well as bad faith with regard to Minsk and claiming missile bases in Eastern Europe are about Iran and the like) and take them for fools, so the reaction of Putin and the Russian intelligence and military elite around him is "you want to play, let's play; we know this game".

That's my sense of it anyways.

Well, I'll hope this will be such an astounding victory like the Winter War was for Russia. And I'm sure to have found people like you saying so then. After all, they won a lot of territory (even if the Finnish proletariat wasn't liberated from the evil capitalists, but who cares about that), so let's hope for a similar decisive and outstanding Russian victory! — ssu

Again, there's really big difference between this current war and the Winter War.

First, notice that in the photo you just posted there's a lot of snow and a lot of trees, which were significant defensive advantages.

As important as the geographical advantages, the Winter War occurred in the context of WWII and the Soviets could not fully focus on defeating we Finns, so there was also an advantage in terms of the geopolitical context.

Therefore, Finland, while not being in a position to "win" on the battlefield, was in a position to impose a cost great enough to compel the Soviets to settle the conflict.

The Finnish military defence was not "for the sake of it" or as some "quaint gesture" to posterity but was a military strategy imbedded in a larger diplomatic strategy to achieve the political objective of retaining as much independence as possible.

In compelling the Soviets to negotiate, the Finns were realistic and made offers the Stalin maybe willing to accept and ultimately did accept; a realistic strategy involving compromise (some land can be given up, some political humiliation can be accepted, some reparations can be paid, in order to secure 80% of the territory and 100% of the Finns, who did not die in the war). A strategy of compromise that persisted after the war in order to avoid being re-invaded or otherwise absorbed by the Soviet Union; a diplomatic strategy referred to as "Finlandization", which did not involve just telling the Soviets to fuck off at every possible opportunity (but pretty much the contrary).

I do not take issue with Ukraine having a military and fighting the war.

What I take issue with most of all is having no diplomatic strategy.

Ukraine has never proposed any resolution to the war that would be remotely acceptable to the Russians; they simply make maximalist demands.

Which brings up another key difference with Finland in that Finland was more-or-less competently managed by honest politicians during the Winter War, whereas Ukraine is pervasively corrupt. You cannot say a corrupt government "represents the people". When the US first announced Ukraine would join NATO, over 2/3rds of Ukrainians were against NATO expansion into Ukraine; did "Ukrainian agency" or "the will of the people" matter then. Likewise, the poll that was continuously toted to show "Ukrainians want to fight!" was a false dichotomy between complete capitulation and "fighting to a better result", which obviously presumes there's a better result to fight for and by definition if it's better than that's good and we should try to do that.

The West (as in people with power) have no problem outright stating that it's a good thing for Ukraine to make unrealistic demands and just keep fighting without a diplomatic strategy because this imposes a cost on the Russians and Russia should pay a cost for invading another country. The logic is never that Ukraine will militarily achieve its objectives but just that Ukraine is the West's disciplinary rod with which to strike Putin's outstretched hand.

The problem with all this is that there's no "minimization of harm" principle. The policy is to essentially maximize harm to Ukraine as that also harms Russia (maybe).

The money we send to Ukraine is a de facto bribe to Ukrainian elites to do what we want. It's not some free spirited gift but entirely coercive to dictate to Ukraine what it can and can't do. As Borel recently noted, Ukraine would collapse in 2 weeks and the War would end if the West stopped support.

Because the policy is not to seek an end best for Ukrainians, but simply have Ukraine fight the Russians so "we don't have to at home" (even when that's a absolutely moronic statement), the West would just say "it's up to Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia". Why is this the policy? So that there's no Western leverage at play to seek a resolution to the conflict. It's presented as "we're so magnanimous that we won't 'interfere' with Ukrainian's negotiation" but what it is in reality is that the West will not positively contribute to any peaceful resolution, in fact we'll just go ahead and blow up some leverage the West has that could compel a resolution to the war on better terms for Ukraine. Blowing up the pipeline locks in more war, more Ukrainian deaths and less coercive power over Russia to settle on better terms for Ukraine.

We're basically in a frightening Alice in Vunderland version of diplomacy where we seek the maximum destruction and harm to Ukraine while presenting those policies as noble and honourable and in the best interest of Ukraine, which we've redefined as a country that simply nobly and honourably self sacrifices for no practical purpose. We've developed an idealized version of the heroic Ukrainian soldier that self sacrifices on the battlefield by his or her very nature and there need not be a reasonable purpose to it. Our leaders have zero problem lecturing Ukrainians that have dodged the draft or left the country that they need to "fight for their country" and of course must all be sent to the front and we'll help round them up and send them over, even if there's no "strategy for victory" (which the White House never produced in negotiating with the congress), all while simultaneously claiming that the War is Ukrainian business and represents "Ukrainian agency".

It's all very, very dark.

Very far from the white snows of Finland you're nostalgic for.

Winter is coming though, naturally.