For those interested, the authors even make a power-point style summary document of their 324 page (not counting the introduction and other pages outside the main text) where they make all these points super clearly, stating:

Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages. — Overextending and unbalancing Russia Brief, RAND

And they assess the risk to doing so as "high" and likelihood of success as "moderate".

Increasing lethal aid to Ukraine does not even make it to their "Most-Promising Cost-Imposing Options" that they list at the end of the document.

The measures the authors identify that are "most promising" all have a greater favourability than moderate likelihood of success but high risk.

The only high risk option they include is further sanctions but they rate that as having high likelihood of success and high benefits, all the other options being at worst moderate risk but high likelihood of success or then moderate likelihood of success but low risk.

Obviously US policy makers in the Biden administration (which I guess is probably mostly Biden's wife, but who knows) don't follow the recommendations of the paper, but they also do nothing to "change the game" as it were to somehow prove the authors wrong, such as pouring in advanced weapons systems into Ukraine day 1 of the war without restriction in order to prove that Ukraine can indeed win and Russian nuclear weapons are of no concern to them.

Indeed, the US administration explicitly tells us that "why not this weapon system or why not that weapons system" is to not escalate further ... but escalate to where? Obviously Ukraine winning, or even risking that outcome, that's what would be "escalation" in the proxy war with Russia. There is simply no way to cause Ukraine to start winning on the battlefield but also that not being the escalation they are talking about avoiding.

Even Western talking heads would confuse themselves in trying to grapple with what this "avoid escalation" meant in the context of a giant war the US was nominally trying to help Ukraine win. Then they'd confuse themselves even more when the exact escalatory thing that was proposed as "common sense" obviously we can't supply to Ukraine one day was supplied to Ukraine the next day.

There is no theory ever proposed which would demonstrate a pathway to proving the authors of the RAND paper wrong much less any action in accordance with such an alternative theory.

The paper describes what will likely happen if the US policy provoked Russia into a larger war (including just maintaining the existing policy, why the paper recommends trying to resolve the Donbas war and not even just maintain the status quo), the US then does those provocative things the paper describes as bad ideas, the US explicitly tells us aid to Ukraine is limited to avoid "escalation", and then exactly what the authors predict from a major escalation is what occurs: significant costs to Ukraine in terms of lives and territory and also a US policy setback and embarrassment (i.e. loss of prestige).

The idea that US policy makers don't understand their own policy analysts is simply dumb.

The theory that coheres with all the facts is that US policy makers know what they are doing, know it's bad for Ukraine and also US long term interests, but do it anyways for other reasons (partisan, special interests, being pro-evil generally speaking).

I'll only respond to the stupidest part of your comments:

The paper was not an analysis of existing US policy but an analysis of a series of future possibilities. — Echarmion

First you claim the paper is not an analysis of US foreign policy:

You have already quoted the parts of the paper that make clear that it is analysing a course of action where the US intensifies it's efforts. I'm not sure who you're trying to fool by now acting like the paper was an analysis of the US policy. Yourself? — Echarmion

I then explain why it definitely is analyzing existing US foreign, which you have issue with and I respond to with the parts of the paper clearly analyzing existing US foreign policy and the risks already inherent in the existing policy.

Clarifying the purpose of my points with:

I am responding to your statement that the authors aren't analyzing US policy at the time at all. — boethius

To which you then cite this sentence and rebuttal with:

Deciding what your interlocutor is saying sure makes arguing easier. — Echarmion

Since you are unable to deal with the fact the paper obviously does analyze existing US foreign policy at the time.

The paper is not discussing things in some sort of hypothetical vacuum but takes as it's starting point existing relations with Russia and analyses those existing policies as a basis to then consider different policy moves and the benefits and risks of those moves. However, it also considers the benefits and risks of the existing policies, such as the Donbas war already imposing a cost on Russia and that Russia may anyways decide to preempt US actions and counter escalate. Why the paper recommends trying to resolve the Donbas conflict, in which expanding US assistance to Ukraine could be one bargaining chip in a larger diplomatic project. For, although the authors recognize escalation by Russia in Ukraine would be further cost to Russia it evaluates the risks to US foreign police (and also Ukrainian lives and territory) to be not-worth it (noting elsewhere that increasing conflict with a nuclear armed rival for conflicts sake doesn't make any sense).

To sum up:

1. First you deny the paper analyses US foreign policy, which if obviously does
2. Then you can't deal with the direct citations of the paper analyzing the existing US foreign policy of the time (of which I only provided a couple of examples, which is sufficient to disprove your claim the paper doesn't do so)
3. So you deny you ever said that when I explain that it does analyze existing foreign policy, that I'm just randomly deciding what you're saying.
4. Then I cite you your own words quite clearly stating "I'm not sure who you're trying to fool by now acting like the paper was an analysis of the US policy. Yourself?"
5. Now you just circle back to claiming the paper doesn't analyze US foreign policy.

Obviously, being demonstrated to be such a transparently bad faith actor, you're trying to move the goal posts from stating the the paper doesn't analyze US policy (and to claim it does is trying to "fool" people) to that's not the main objective of the paper.

However, saying "the paper doesn't do X" is not stating "the objective of the paper is to do X".

If you say a "paper doesn't mention Paris" and someone can cite the paper in question literally talking about Paris, that is sufficient to disprove the claim that the "paper doesn't mention Paris"; to then try to move the goalposts to "the paper doesn't primarily talk about Paris" is just dumb.

I am aware of the objectives of the authors because I read the paper, and they literally describe the methodology in a section literally titled "Methodology":

After identifying Russia’s perceived anxieties and vulnerabilities, we convened a panel of experts to examine the economic, geopoliti- cal, ideological, informational, and military means to exploit them. Drawing on these expert opinions and on current policy debates, we developed a series of potential measures that could extend Russia. After describing each measure, we assessed the costs and risks associated with each and the prospect of success. Could the measure impose a disproportional burden on Russia, and what are the chances of it doing so? — Extending Russia, RAND

Notice they are basing their work on "current policy debates" which, if you can read English, is another way of saying "analysis of existing US policy", which is what current policy debates are about.

So we not only have the words of the authors describing what they are doing, but then plenty of examples of them actually doing it (i.e. actually analyzing existing US foreign policy) such as statements like:

Rather than returning to compliance with the INF Treaty, Russia might instead interpret U.S. R&D as a sign that the United States is preparing to unilaterally breach or withdraw from the treaty, the way it did in 2002 with the ABM Treaty. — Extending Russia, RAND

They have a footnote for this sentence which reads as follows:

73 Terence Neilan, “Bush Pulls Out of ABM Treaty; Putin Calls Move a Mistake,” New York Times, December 13, 2001. — Extending Russia, RAND

Which is a demonstration of doing what they say they will do "drawing on these expert opinions on current policy debates" in literally citing these experts they are drawing on (i.e. analyzing the existing policy as a starting point).

Notice how this sentence in question does both: it represents an analysis of the policy of withdrawing from the ABM treaty (by simply citing an expert analysis they are going with in their analysis) to evaluate the likely Russian reaction to withdrawing from the INF treaty.

This example not only demonstrates one of many example of analyzing existing policy (along with the previous examples I gave) but is also topical to the original disagreement of whether US action (since the paper) was provocative towards Russia. After this paper is written the US does withdraw from the INF treaty and US policy makers clearly know that it further provocation likely to solicit a response from Russia.

A significant part of the paper, perhaps the majority though I haven't counted, is focused on economic relations. Indeed the very first paragraph of the paper in the summary, page xi, states:

The maxim that “Russia is never so strong nor so weak as it appears” remains as true in the current century as it was in the 19th and 20th.1 In some respects, contemporary Russia is a country in stagnation. Its economy is dependent on natural resource exports, so falling oil and gas prices have caused a significant drop in the living standards of many Russian citizens. Economic sanctions have further contributed to this decline. — Extending Russia, RAND

Which is clearly commenting on the existing US policy of sanctions against Russia, crediting the sanctions to contribution to Russian stagnation, which the paper puts significant focus in further analysis of these economic policies and options to expand sanctions them.

In other words, the paper is not some sort of hypothetical exercise drawing on lessons of history of similar great power conflict or simply positing fictions scenarios, but takes the existing US foreign policy and situation with and in Russia as a starting point to then consider different policy moves from the current situation.

In line with this objective the paper considers the impact (benefits and risks) of existing policies, such as the existing sanctions and existing support to Ukraine.

The authors literally say that's what they are going to do, "drawing on these expert opinions and on current policy debates" (i.e. analyzing existing US policy), and then they go and actually do that. They sometimes even consider different contradicting expert opinions and then give their own opinion about the matter, one topical example is:

Some analysts maintain that Russia lacks the resources to escalate the conflict. Ivan Medynskyi of the Kyiv-based Institute for World Policy argued, “War is expensive. Falling oil prices, economic decline, sanctions, and a campaign in Syria (all of which are likely to continue in 2016) leave little room for another large-scale military maneuver by Russia.”22 According to this view, Russia simply cannot afford to maintain a proxy war in Ukraine, although, given Russia’s size and the importance it places on Ukraine, this might be an overly optimistic assumption. — Extending Russia, RAND

Demonstrating that they are clearly aware of different expert opinions exist, worth considering but they politely make their own position clear that they do not agree with this opinion but find it unconvincing. Of course they use polite diplomatic language as is usual for these kinds of papers, but considering they explicitly state elsewhere the risk of not only Russia escalating in Ukraine in response to US actions in Ukraine but consider is also a risk of Russia even preempting those actions and escalating first anyways.

Now, to remind anyone following along and actually interested in honest debate, the reason for these absurd denials about what the paper quite clearly states, is that the position that the US decision makers know that:

A. Their actions (at the time of the paper and since) were provoking Russia into a larger war: the existing support to Ukraine risked a larger war and in particular actions since the paper was written (in which arms assistance to Ukraine was increased, US more vocal about Ukraine joining NATO, and withdrawing from the INF treaty, all identified as significant risk of provoking Russia into significant escalation).

B. That the likely outcome, according to experts, of a larger escalation of the Donbas war was Ukrainian losing territory and lives and Russia would likely prevail and impose a disadvantageous peace on Ukraine and that would be a setback for US foreign policy.

C. It is highly risky to increase competition with a nuclear armed adversary.

Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. In addition to the specific risks associated with each measure, there- fore, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. Consequently, every measure needs to be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia would bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States, both sides would have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is, in most cases, not a sufficient basis to consider the steps outlined here. Rather, these need to be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation. — Extending Russia, RAND

US decision makers (i.e. whoever is calling the shots in the Biden administration) obviously know all this because they or their assistants read these kind of RAND papers.

It's also just common sense that doing things like military and covert assistance to Ukraine, like building 12 CIA bases in Ukraine, are provocative actions, along with withdrawing from INF and doubling down on Ukraine joining NATO, refusing to discuss, much less any real negotiation, for a broader European security architecture are provocative.

The US own top tier analysis says all this is provocative, that Ukraine will lose significantly in an escalation, that Russia will likely prevail, that the end result is also bad for US policy and prestige, and that obviously you can't go too far in intensifying a conflict with Russia because they have nuclear weapons.

Now, propagandists such as @Echarmion just want to deny the obvious fact that the US knew it's actions were provoking a larger war in Ukraine and that the US knew the super duper likely result of Russia winning such an escalation at significant cost to Ukraine in both lives and territory. Why this denialism is so important as to get to the absolutely stupid situation that @Echarmion needs to then deny his denialism only to go onto deny his denialism of his denialism is that it is so obvious.

You cannot read this RAND paper and then have even a cursory knowledge of the facts (not only arms supply to Ukraine military but to Nazi groups that Western journalists go and verify for us is definitely happening despite Western laws past to make that explicitly illegal), CIA bases in Ukraine, withdraw from INF, being vocal about Ukraine joining NATO "oh ... someday", and so on, and conclude there's not only no provocation but the facts are simply inline with someone reading this RAND report and then simply pushing on all of the buttons the authors identify as likely to provoke a Russian escalation in Ukraine.

You can also not read this paper and conclude that the policy since the war started of drip feeding arms to Ukraine was somehow due to an honest belief that the expert opinion as represented in the RAND paper was somehow wrong and that Ukraine could in fact prevail in a larger war with Russia. The policy of drip feeding weapons to Ukraine is not compatible with the belief Ukraine can "win" despite the extreme disadvantageous position the RAND paper points out, but rather represents the "calibration" of support the paper describes to increase costs on Russia while avoiding an out of control escalation (such as nuclear exchange); of course, a calibration of the conflict far beyond what the authors recommend but nevertheless implementing their basic framework of controlling the escalation so as not to get out of hand.

Likewise, US decision makers are clearly cognizant of the risk of nuclear escalation and their policies clearly reflect avoiding nuclear escalation ... by drip feeding weapons to Ukraine and forbidding Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike deep in Russia, which is another way of saying that US policy makers "calibrate" the conflict at "Ukraine loses" so as to avoid the risk of nuclear escalation.

Now, considering the paper is pretty clear doing all this is bad for US foreign policy, the choice is that US policy makers are just stupid with a kindergarten level intellect (as always promoted in the Western mainstream media when Western policy is counter-productive to any reasonable understanding of Western interests) or then they know what they are doing, as they can read these kinds of papers and know there's no "counter analysis" out there that says differently, but their priority is not some arguably objective US, or West in general, interest.

If you're goal is to have another war to:

1. Distract from the disastrous ending of the last wars and avoid any introspection or accountability.
2. Keep the gravy train of military spending flowing.
3. Sell gas to Europe.
4. Have a "rally around the flag" effect that comes with a righteous war.

And you simply do not care about US long term interests, just making bank for your friends and backers and winning the next election (i.e. the policy need not be "successful" just appear to be successful until 2024), then it would make complete sense to read the paper and then simply push all the buttons that maximize escalation with Russia but nevertheless still calibrate things short of a nuclear war (since fortunately, and credit where credits due, you are not so pathologically insane as to actually want a nuclear exchange with Russia).

If your goals are partisan and special interest, as outlined above, you would not ask yourself the question "can Ukraine prevail so that it's no embarrassing for US policy and prestige?" but rather "can Ukraine seem to prevail, at least 'enough', to get to election 2024? afterwhich we can drop them like a hot pierogi and move onto the next war, as, yeah, sure, maybe 'losing' war after war is 'bad' for the US in the long term but it's highly profitable in the meantime".

So what I would really like to understand is: is it geopolitical and historical reasoning that is blind to universal humanitarian concerns or is it universal humanitarian concerns that are blind to geopolitical and historical reasoning? I think the second is way more likely, hence the spectacular and endless frustration of the universal human rights activists. — neomac

I'm not sure what you mean by "historical reasoning", but both geopolitical analysis and humanitarian concerns can be as informed or then blind to the other.

There are plenty of geopolitical analysts and actors that wish to minimize human suffering, and there are plenty of humanitarian actors that are aware of the geopolitical realities. You can also find the opposite cases, of geopolitical analysts and/or actors that have zero concern for human rights (there are plenty of brutal dictatorships that understand the geopolitics of their situation but are unconcerned with human rights).

In terms of "historical force", most conflicts are framed and limited by humanitarian concerns. The rules of war and international law and WMD treaties and other self-imposed constraints on state actors are the result of a humanitarian tradition to minimize the harms of war and strive to maximize a liveable peace after war, all while recognizing that wars do happen. If there was no humanitarian concern every state would stockpile chemical weapons and strive to attain nuclear weapons and not hesitate to use such weapons, as well as any other weapon on hand, on civilian populations. And not just weapons of mass destruction, there is a long list of weapons that states agree not to use (sound weapons, pain inducing weapons, various forms of terrorism, laser and other blinding weapons and radiation weapons of various kinds) all while competing with each other using as much force as they can muster within this broader humanitarian framework.

There's all sorts of things states could do but choose not to, and the argument that they don't do it because they would look bad simply circles back to the fact they look bad because enough people genuinely believe in the humanitarian principles (such as striving to minimize rather than maximize harm, avoid intentionally harming civilians and so on) that therefore those actions look bad.

The only reason we are discussing Israels breaching of various taboos is because a global human rights movement established those constraints on state actions to begin with. Everything Israel is doing, from intentionally starving a civilian population to compromising supply chains with explosives, could be completely normal acts of war that no one is the least surprised by, as normal as shooting with riffles.

Which is one area where I diverge from Mearsheimer in that states in the current system strive to maximize power but within a collaborative framework of self-imposed constraint due to the genuine belief in principles opposed to power-maximization. Even Israel could have easily carried out the final solution to the Palestinian problem if not for attempting to at be able to keep pretending it conforms to these universal human rights values. Even Israeli propaganda would have difficulty pretending to be a good faith actor if there was not one Palestinian left in Gaza.

And, as mentioned above, these constraints are due to the values and not some second order practical consideration, for we can easily find periods in history where there were no such values and we never find such constraints simply arising anyway due to practical lessons. When it was completely compatible with people's values to be torturing, crucifying (including a tenth of your own men on occasion), poising enemy water supplies, general raping and pillaging and eradication or enslaving conquered people's etc. we never find in history groups of people who have these values (i.e. see no problem with any of these things) but stop doing them because of practical considerations (like "torture doesn't work" for example).

Or she didn’t say that because just a moron would have thought that buying time was an admission by Europeans that Minsk agreements were deceivingly meant to arm Ukraine in order to initiate/pursue a war against Russia. — neomac

That's literally what the expression "buying time" means. It doesn't mean "coercive pressure as one component in a diplomatic strategy to establish a lasting ceasefire", which Merkel could have easily expressed that concept in her own words had she wanted to. She would have also been appraised of the situation that Minsk is not being implemented and is unlikely to be implemented during the entire non-implementation of Minsk while she was in office.

When she made these comments the mood in the West, if you can remember those days, was extreme exuberance for Ukrainian war prospects and people were happy to take credit for the happy situation.

The propaganda and cheerleading in both Western mainstream and social media was extreme with mass Ukrainian flag emojis everywhere you looked. I would go so far as to describe the emotion as catharsis with continued reenactments of Churchillian speeches and steady drip of a little of that VE-Day glorious celebration.

The narrative that Ukraine was just "buying time" for a bigger war preexisted the 2022 bigger war and supported by Ukrainian officials and voices of various sorts, as I cited above. Merkel would have known this faction in Ukraine that actually wants a bigger war with Russia existed and at the time she made her comments it seemed this factions view was validated.

We can go back to those days if you want to be extremely sure that the narrative that Merkel was just decrying a failed bid to maintain a ceasefire is an apologetic invented after battlefield conditions soured, and not before, but the general point that Minsk was not a good faith agreement is supposed anyways by plenty of Ukrainian actions and, more importantly, plenty of Ukrainian and Western actions.

Nowhere Merkel is talking about Ukrainian victory in that comment. That's your rhetoric manipulation. — neomac

She says "buying time" ... buying time for what? To become "stronger as we see today".

The far bigger war with Russia is at that time underway. By "strong" she is obviously implying "able to win on the battlefield".

Otherwise her comments would make absolutely no sense: Minsk was to buy time for Ukraine to be strong ... but alas obviously not strong enough and therefore to ultimately be severely damaged by Russia and forced to sign unfavourable peace terms?!

The sentence clearly and unambiguously is describing "buying time" to successfully deal with Russia in military terms, which nearly the entire West completely believed was happening in December 2022.

You don't "buy time" to suffer the same consequences later, perhaps even worse, you "buy time" to prepare a more favourable outcome. Using a negotiation to "buy time" would be understood by anyone in diplomatic, legal, and/or political circles as the goal is to buy time to prepare for an escalation of the conflict and not buy time in order to implement the spirt of the agreement (which makes no sense: you do not "buy time" in signing an agreement with the intention of fulfilling the agreement, just not now but maybe later?! It's not how anyone speaks with even a cursory experience with this kind of discourse).

Had Merkel actually thought Ukraine negotiated Minsk with the intention to avoid a bigger war and was therefore implementing Minsk with the goal of avoiding a bigger war, but that, alas, supplying arms to Ukraine as part of that diplomatic strategy didn't work but fortunately Ukraine is now better able to deal with Russian bad faith vis-a-vis Minsk, she would have said something along those lines, but she doesn't because she knows very well it is Ukraine the obstacle for either implementing Minsk or then trying to renegotiate it, and likewise the West is an obstacle in rebuking any attempts at a larger negotiation with the main Western powers to arrive at an understanding.

The reason there's no negotiations directly with the West concerning the situation in Ukraine is because the West, in particular the US, knows that Ukraine cannot effectively use Western leverage in a negotiation.

As the RAND paper makes clear, the West was pressuring Russia on several military and economic domains. To take two important domains: in the ABM and INF situation, the West could offer in a negotiation to assuage Russian concerns of nuclear first strike, even in mutual beneficial ways that aim to create a new non-proliferation treaty architecture that is favourable also to the US (vis-a-vis not only Russia but also other nuclear or would-be-nuclear powers); and in the economic sphere obviously the West could approve Nord Stream II that Russia spent some 10 billion dollars building. In direct bilateral negotiations Ukraine cannot offer either of these things as leverage, only in negotiations that involve (at the least) the US and Germany could ABM, INF and Nord Stream II be on the table.

Now, it was presented by Western officials and media at the time that the reason to rebuke any Russian invitations to negotiate all the issues in play, a "new European security architecture" was that this was essentially as a favour to Ukraine in that the West wouldn't go "behind Ukraine's back" and negotiate things with the Russians.

What the West, in particular the US obviously making these decisions on behalf of everyone in NATO and the EU, was actually doing in rebuking direct negotiations with Russia was minimizing the leverage Ukraine had to negotiate a resolution to the disputes in Ukraine. Russia may very well have agreed to favourable terms for Ukraine in not only the Donbas but even Crimea could have changed status (some sort of strange quasi status is had been floated at the time), if Nord Stream II was approved and also some nuclear deescalation (or then at least avoiding further nuclear escalation) which presumably the West should also want. Obviously plenty of other issues such as NATO and so on.

I say all this not only because it is apropos but also Merkel would have known the purpose of US policy was to be provocative and not to try to reach a resolution with Russia.

It's Markel and Holland trying to talk Bush out of declaring Ukraine would join NATO all the way back in 2008, so she is fully aware of the trajectory.

To circle back to her comment of Minsk being used to buy time, she is not some kindergarten level intellect considering only a few surface level facts, appearances and straight-up lies, Western media permits to be discussed (the kind of intellect that truly believes fighting for "the right to join NATO" makes sense). She has a great deal of insight into actors in the West and Ukraine, and in autumn 2022 perhaps antagonizing Russia was still not her "ideal preference" but it did seem to be at least working, everyone was happy about it, and therefore she did not have a problem with saying the truth in a phone call she was unaware was being recorded.

And it is the actual facts which best serve to understand Merkel's meaning. There are no facts available in which to base an opinion that the West was doing everything possible to resolve conflict with Russian in Ukraine and instead there are a plethora of facts available to demonstrate the West, in particular the US, is escalating conflict with Russia (Ukraine being only one area: there's also Libya and Syria, and economic conflict and continuously accusing Russia of meddling in US elections which turn out to be 200 000 USD of Facebook adds purchased by a clickbait farm; though what US elites actually meant when they say things like Russia is winning the information war is that Russia was hiring US dissidents and giving them a platform; i.e. exactly what the West did to the Soviet Union and was good value for money).

If we assume Markel isn't an idiot with kindergarten level reasoning skills and absolutely clueless and oblivious to what was going on during her entire political career, then it is a very safe assumption that Merkel understood correctly the goal of US foreign policy and also the goal of the dominant faction in Ukraine (in line with US foreign policy and CIA assistance) was to have a much larger war with Russia, which they got, seemed to be doing well in, seemed "strong" and it was safe to just say the truth (especially in a conversation that she understood was casual and not recorded).

It's an interesting topic but there's also plenty of other evidence in which to base the opinion that Ukraine was not trying to resolve hostilities in the Donbas but maintaining them while building up their forces for a larger war with Russia.

Now, perhaps the Ukrainian people didn't want the resulting war, and perhaps Zelensky was completely honest in his platform of making peace with Russia, but when you have fanatical paramilitary forces that are outside the control of the central government then what the people want and what their president wants are not necessarily determining factors.

I don't remember anything of the sort. — Echarmion

Then you're obviously not really following events and are just wasting time and space.

When the Western media believed Ukraine was "winning" the conversation (in the Western media) was very different than it was now. The faction in Ukraine that wanted to war and for which Minsk was just to buy time to prepare for the inevitable war seemed completely validated by the West and the Western cheerleaders for the war essentially presented these people as geniuses, both diplomatic and militarily.

You're switching back to full on propaganda here. — Echarmion

Neither the Nazis nor the shelling of civilians by said Nazis are propaganda. The West's own institutions and media recorded both.

Now, I suppose you could argue that yes there was and are Nazis and yes the shelling of civilians was a regular feature of the Donbas war but it was actually moderate regular forces that were shelling civilians. If you're taking this position then I am happy to present the argument of why that is a terrible position to take and in contradiction with the available evidence.

Deciding what your interlocutor is saying sure makes arguing easier. — Echarmion

You can literally click through the series of responses to arrive at your comment:

You have already quoted the parts of the paper that make clear that it is analysing a course of action where the US intensifies it's efforts. I'm not sure who you're trying to fool by now acting like the paper was an analysis of the existing US policy. Yourself? — Echarmion

You're literally accusing me of trying "fool" someone by stating the paper analyses existing US policy.

I then demonstrate that the paper quite clearly is analyzing existing US policy and its benefits and risks as well as considering different directions US policy could go.

For the subject at hand, the paper analyses the US policy vis-a-vis support for Ukraine in the Donbas war (that the paper describes as a proxy war), the existing policy of Ukraine joining NATO (... oh ... some day), and the existing policy vis-a-vis the ABM and INF treaty.

The paper describes all these policies as already provocative to Russia and potentially soliciting a Russian escalation (without even doing anything more), but considers doing more such as more arms and assistance for Ukraine (things like 12 CIA bases in Ukraine would also certainly qualify as more assistance), being more vocal about Ukraine joining NATO, as well as withdrawing from INF. All three actions, which the US then does, the paper describes as likely leading to a significant Russian escalation (indeed, the paper correctly predicts that the Russians would likely respond with offensive actions in response to INF withdrawal rather than defensive actions such as inventing in ABM, but also notes that Moscow is already sensitive to the possibility of a decapitation nuclear strike and the possibility of converting ABM bases, deployed after withdrawal from the ABM treaty, to launch nuclear weapons).

In other words, the paper describes the existing US policy on all the areas directly related to conflict in Ukraine as already provocative and already risking a Russian escalation, and then discusses policy changes that would be even more provocative.

The US then does all those things and you want to just keep denying what the paper clearly says in plain English.

It's really impossible to take you seriously at all at this juncture.

If you're willing to deny what you clearly just stated a few comments ago, that the paper doesn't analyze the existing US policy at the time, you're clearly just trying to waste time.

Now, it's not a waste of my time to demonstrate your bad faith and pure idiocy of your positions, but I'll be selective in responding to you going on, only bothering to respond to your comments if it involves points I wish to make anyways.

However, in the event you have some sort of growth of your own soul (from currently empty to "something") then feel free to actually read the entire RAND paper as there's plenty of interesting conversation to be had based on what it actually says rather than simply repeatedly denying what it says and asking me to cite it continuously.

What the paper says vis-a-vis an escalation in Ukraine is also obviously common sense that Russia will have a significant advantage and a bigger conflict will result in significant losses to Ukraine in terms of lives and territory.

The only reason the situation "appeared" to be different in 2022 is first because the Western mainstream media simply ignored completely the Russian conquest of the entire land bridge to Crimea and how that's a major strategic victory that Russia would then need to consolidate, ignoring disproportionate losses for Ukrainians (often by just repeating Ukrainian loss estimates for both sides) and the fact Russia would likely be more conservative with spending lives (giving Ukraine a temporary advantage in the area of willingness to sustain losses, which Russia could easily compensate in other areas such as air power, artillery and building a sophisticated defensive line, but did allow Ukraine to "compete" for a time those losses were indeed available to lose), and ignored the simple fact that Russia is a lot bigger with better demographics (not "great" demographics but far better than Ukraine, and even that made worse by the mass exodus from the country).

The difference is that the former does not threaten the security of the great powers, whereas the latter undermines it in the most dangerous way possible. — Tzeentch

I wouldn't necessarily agree, as Israel officially adopting mass terrorism is going to motivate similar attacks on both Israel and the US as well as normalize the practice generally speaking which effects also everyone, and likewise eroding the US credibility and diplomatic position is a threat to US interests and thus security while also threatening to drag the US into a disfavour able war, but even assuming what you say is true and the former are of no concern to the US or the other great powers, can the great powers do anything about it?

Simply being a great power doesn't magically make your will happen, in this case even with respect to your own colony that you've setup, funded, nurtured and shielded. We are in an unusual situation where a colony has effectively taken control of the foreign policy of the empire from which it comes.

If not completely, clearly enough to carry out a genocide in broad daylight and boast about the fact, likewise praise rapists and blowup embassies and assassinate high officials left and right. None of this benefits US security since all of these norms are bedrock parts of the "rules based order" US officials keep going on about and some of the rules (like not being explicitly genocidal, explicitly pro raping prisoners, and not blowing up embassies) the US even follows itself (assassination being the one policy US also carries out with the expectation no one does it to them, but even there the US is clearly far more restrained than Israel)!!

Israel is simply not effectively constrained by the great powers at the moment so what the great powers want is not a determining factor in this situation.

On top of all of that, it's also debatable the extent to which US elites are actually against Israel nuking Iran. There's clearly a strong faction of US elites that wants war with Iran while, as @ssu notes, never elaborating how exactly a war with Iran would unfold; perhaps their idea is that Israel will nuke Iran all while being protected by the US from retaliation. They clearly don't have in mind a full-scale invasion, occupation and building up a liberal democracy over several decades only to be defeated by the Taliban again, yet they talk about war with Iran a lot so they must have some sort of idea of how that would actually go. If it is as obvious that Iran cannot be invaded conventionally as everyone familiar with the matter seems to believe, it would seem equally obvious that nuclear weapons is the only recourse that changes that equation.

Nuclear proliferation is one of the only topics the great powers have generally been in agreement over. They realise the consequences to global security, including their own, if the nuclear genie is let out of the bottle. — Tzeentch

Agreed, but Israel already has nuclear weapons and the great powers were unable to prevent that nor would they be able to prevent Israel using those nuclear weapons.

What would ensue after an unprovoked nuclear attack is a mad scramble where virtually every nation on the planet will be trying to get their hands on nuclear deterrents and anti-ballistic missile defenses of their own. — Tzeentch

Agreed. Again, doesn't stop Israel from using nuclear weapons. One may assume that proliferation would lead to Israel eventually being nuked, but they may (whether they are delusional or not about it) believe that preemptively nuking Iran enough will deter that from happening. The US nuked Japan and has yet to be nuked in return; that maybe their model.

At that point, the great powers would likely do everything in their power to crack down on the culprit in an attempt to cool global fear. — Tzeentch

Again, how? And also maybe Israel elites believe, rightly or wrongly, that the US simply won't do any such thing.

For, Israel is a tiny country and so it simply doesn't require that much inputs to keep afloat.

If all the "hippy liberals" and "startup bros" have mostly already left Israel, perhaps those that remain in Israel have little problem with the idea of becoming an insular rogue state exactly as you describe, confident that the US will continue to supply them with whatever they actually need. After the nuking, they'll be able to simply occupy the land they want, kill or displace whoever they want, and after that (at least believe now) they'll be left alone.

Now, the analysis I provide is not meant as a prediction, that this is the most likely outcome. My point is that this is where the trend is going and we'd need a solid theory based on prior knowledge, i.e. evidence, to predict the trend will change before nuclear weapons use.

It could very well be Israel is "escalating to deescalate" and is repeating their former pattern of disproportionate retaliation just with a bit extra "oomph" this time. That their enemies will have "learned a lesson" and will think twice about messing with them again.

It's also possible that the plan is to provoke a conventional war between Iran and the US and that they have some plan how that will go, or anyways think it's a good idea even without an actual plan.

It's likewise possible Israel is simply conquering more territory and once they have it they feel they can defend it at a sustainable cost.

Another possibility is recent events are driven mostly by Israeli internal politics to solidify Netanyahu's hold on power, trying to push the limit to distract from Israeli internal problems while satisfying the population with perceived victory, without intending to go more extreme than the current policies, and the long term security implications are not really a factor (of making more enemies, of losing enormous international sympathy, of not being unable to hold territory in Lebanon assuming that's the case, of angering the entire Muslim world for generations and so on).

So, there are many possibilities, none of which we have much data to exclude nor support above the others, but my basic point is that nuking Iran is one such possibility and directly in line with the current trajectory of going rogue on everything else and detonating taboo after taboo in an accelerating fashion.

In terms of reasoning structure, we need actual evidence (prior knowledge) upon which to base predicting a trajectory in the data will suddenly change.

I gave the analogy of the water. Another analogy would be simply throwing a ball. We know how to predict the trajectory of projectiles and in order to predict a sudden change in the data we'd need actual knowledge of something that's going to affect the balls path. Obviously if we can literally see a building in front of the ball, or we know the ball was thrown at ground level and there's no giant cliffs around, or we know someone is aiming to shoot the ball with a high precision anti-ball system, or someone there to catch the ball, etc. then that's excellent knowledge in which to predict the ball will not simply continue on an expected high-school physics trajectory (speed, gravity, air resistance etc.; which, even that presumes knowledge of the ball being thrown somewhere close to the surface of the earth and not on the moon or elsewhere in space; even the simple prediction "the ball will be stoped by something at some point" requires prior knowledge about the situation).

Now, before Israel blew past all these taboos we did have the prior knowledge that Israel did place limits to its violent actions, so if we were having this conversation a year ago, or perhaps even a few months ago or even literally weeks ago, the "restraint theory" (either self-restraint or then the great powers as you propose above) would have had significant weight. I definitely didn't predict where we are now a year ago; my expectation being things would be bloody but ultimately return to the status quo (as that is what has always happened before).

And certainly the theory that despite appearance we are not actually outside the previous pattern of violence and Israeli war planners fully expect everything to "go back to normal" can be argued. It certainly feels like "things are different this time" but perhaps that is only a feeling and in another year tourists will be back on the beaches, tech bros raving in their techno parties in Tel Aviv, Palestinians still in concentration camps with little international concern for their well being dealing with the raping and murdering as best they can, tensions with Iran exactly as the same as they usually are and the spice continuing to flow from the Middle-East as it usually does. That is possible.

However, when Netanyahu says Iran will be free sooner than expected he may not be referring to the freedom that the US generously brings to a country after a large scale invasion and decades of occupation and tutelage, and he may not just be talking bluster because that's what leaders in wars do, but rather he maybe referring to freeing Iranian spirits from their bodies in by cleansing light of the nuclear flame.

Nuking Iranian leadership and population centres is the only practical interpretation of Netanyahu's words, that is unless I'm missing some other way of exporting freedom to Iran.

Also, notice that in the time we are discussing this a new data point is created by Israel which tracks the nuke Iran trajectory: "warning" the Iranian people themselves so they can say "we warned them and they didn't listen" after everything is made "different" than it was before.

↪boethius I don't think you're understanding the full gravity of what you're describing, which is essentially Israel becoming an aggressive, nuclear-armed rogue state. — Tzeentch

Consider the possibility that you are simply being too polite in your analysis and that death is a vulgar business.

What exactly is the difference between Israel as a rogue genocidal, raping and terrorist state and Israel as all those things in addition to dropping nukes?

It is exactly because the taboo is enormous that Israel is so envious to break it.

You are considering things from your own moral frame of reference.

Free your mind.

↪boethius Take the example given by the report - 25 strikes on military targets. It would inflict a lot of damage, but Iran would remain largely intact. So it doesn't even solve that problem, and it would create a million more. — Tzeentch

From a rational enlightenment humanist position, we're in complete agreement.

Israel is not, however, such an actor.

From the perspective of people who have absolutely zero concern for human life and have now committed Israel (whether due to some actual strategy or for domestic political reasons) to a permanent militaristic path (bye bye tourism, bye bye "startup nation") with every new act simply overcommitting to such a path even more, nuclear weapons use are not seen as simply creating 100 more problems.

Obviously nuclear weapons would create problems, but they also solve problems. Israel can keep building nuclear weapons and can just keep striking Iran, both military facilities and population centres.

Iran would not be "largely intact" but in complete disarray and essentially nuked into failed state status. Israel can make clear that it will simply nuke the populations centres of anyone else that displeases them.

Of course there will be build up and then propaganda justifying this, repeated by US mainstream media: Iran was about to build a nuclear weapon and strike Israel! this was just Israels Hiroshima and had to be done! we need to look at the end result here which is Iran doesn't threaten Israel anymore and that's a good thing! there's only so much unprovoked attacks Israel can take before they just have to act!! Israel warned the world again and again that Iran had to be dealt with and the world didn't listen!! so Israel dealt with the problem and the world should be thanking Israel!!!

"Normal people" will of course be in disbelief both that Israel nuked Iran and Western leaders and media continue to cover for Israel. Seems "unbelievable" but is it really? We've just witnessed Israel carry out a genocide and acts of terrorism by the West's own admission ... yet we see Western leaders and media continue to cover for Israel.

Before these things happened "normal people" would faced with the scenario would be like "nooo! naaah! Israel can't just carry out a genocide broadcast live to the world and the West just do nothing about it except supply more arms, just can't happen in this day and age! Israel can't just get caught on tape raping prisoners and then justify doing so and then the West just politely ignore that, you serious?! Israel can't just blow up embassies and the West recognize you're really not supposed to do that, but like whatever, Israel can! Israel can't just blow up civilian devices in a clear act of mass terrorism and the West be just like 'cool, still terrorism ... but cool'? None of that could happen!!

Obviously can happen and has happened and using nuclear weapons is simply becoming the next "unbelievable" thing Israel could do that the West will cover for and continue to support and supply Israel.

Israel's rhetoric is that Iran is an existential threat to Israel, and therefore nuking Iran is simply a common sense act of self defence in that rhetoric.

The Russia-Ukrainian war can be understood on the terms you're proposing: two imperial systems, operating on some version (no matter how cynically implemented) of rational enlightenment humanism, seriously chafing each other, neither so happy about it but both "rational" enough to keep things under control as there's plenty more empiring to be done and no need to just up and nuke the whole party.

Israel is not such an imperial actor but is a small and vulnerable state surrounded a lot of enemies that is dependent on a distant imperial force that requires constant stewardship to continue extracting various forms of capital, from money to arms to diplomatic cover to direct intervention: a flow of capital that is not guaranteed but could go away at any moment due to US imperial decline or changes in US domestic politics or disruptions to the global system generally speaking.

Some people in a similar situation would conclude that they need to make new friends, but others conclude what they really need to do is nuke their enemies instead.

Leading up to these completely foreseen geopolitical changes there was of course a "make new friends" faction within Israel, but I think it's pretty abundantly clear by now that the "let's not do that" faction has won that argument.

But what's the game plan, to just look at their enemies across the region and say "Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until judgment day and trumpets sound?"

Possible.

But the alternative is to start dropping nuclear warheads on population centres until you declare yourself the winner of the nuclear weapons duelling context.

For, if you're not sure you can survive until judgement day why not just bring judgement day to you?

Personally, I don't find that a very realistic strategy.

It's thinkable that Israel would launch a nuclear strike if its survival is directly threatened, and after a long series of warnings. — Tzeentch

I think you're being a bit naive here.

Israel is the side constantly escalating: genocide in Gaza, blowing up the embassy, assassinating leaders, raping prisoners and then defending the rapists, killing civilians en mass apart from the genocide, in parallel to their rhetoric of explicitly stating their intention of genocide and doing whatever they want (aka. rape children and prisoners) and so on.

All I'm doing is drawing a straight line through these data points and continuing the plot, which should be the base line realism projection. When you have data that can be simply projected you need strong reasons (based on previous data) to believe the trend won't continue.

For example, if I present you a plot of the temperature of my pot of water and it keeps going up in basically straight line, you should expect that to continue unless previous data comes into play. For example, based on previous data about water you are unlikely to continue the projection past 100 degrees Celsius as you know water boils at that temperature. Of course, you maybe aware of a bunch of special circumstances (pressure well above or well below sea level atmospheric pressure) but absent any reason to suspect those conditions actually exist then it's reasonable to expect "normal" water boiling. However, discard all the exceptions and consider the simple case of just boiling water for tea and being provided data about the temperature rising, the point here is if you have no prior knowledge about water then all you can do is expect the simple projection of the data to continue: you're best guess of the temperature of the water in the future is just drawing a straight line; indeed, if you had no prior knowledge of energy and materials generally speaking you'd have no reason to exclude the water reaching a billion degrees.

Bring this water boiling example back to the middle east, I see a line of the most provocative escalations Israel could essentially possibly make including acts that even the Western media admits, even an ex-CIA director admits, is straight up vanilla terrorism, and that after the Western media already admitting that Iran does indeed have a right to retaliate for the bombing of its embassy.

What I'm arguing here is that the prior knowledge you are using to predict this trend would abruptly change before the projection of nuclear strike is reached, is prior knowledge about other people, about yourself. You wouldn't launch a nuclear weapon on a city, hopefully you believe neither would I.

We have no prior knowledge about Israel to arrive at the same conclusion.

Indeed we have the opposite of breaking every rule of war and being proud of it, of breaking every diplomatic norm and being proud of it, of committing a series of acts, and continuing at a regular pace, that by their by their nature irreversible changes to the status quo.

My argument therefore is that the goal is not to return to the status quo, and the only other equilibrium point available is the chilling "day after" the blazing heat of a nuclear strike.

The Iranians are probably smart enough to back down before such a strike would occur and then use the nuclear threats to legitimize its own pursuit of nuclear armament (as may various other actors in the Middle-East).

Back down to where? Israel is the party making the constant escalations and provocations and it is Iran that is the party already constantly backing down, doing the bare minimum to retain basic credibility.

Israel has no diplomatic position of what it "wants" to end the use of force and additionally it is not using force in a manner compatible with negotiating a resolution to anything. You use force judicially if your aim is to apply pressure for a diplomatic resolution, and Israel is essentially as far from a judicial use of force as is possible to get.

I agree, Iran does not want to be nuked and will strive to avoid that.

My argument here is that Israel wants to nuke Iran and is creating the conditions in which that is, if not the natural next step then "makes sense" that they randomly do.
— Tzeentch

Actual unprovoked nuclear weapons use would have global political consequences so dire that they would dwarf any military advantage gained. — Tzeentch

Dire for who?

If Israel has "lost the narrative" in being the actual victim in the situation and their DARVO is wearing thin, then the consequences for Israel of nuking Iran are much the same as the consequences for not nuking Iran, just that nuking Iran would greatly harm one of its enemies and create a deterrent for other parties.

Israel's basic dilemma now is that it has turned itself into a permanent war state and created non-resolvable permanent conflicts with a great many actors but it does not have the size to simply wage war indefinitely (such as Russia can) nor the geographic isolation to simply fester forever in a war economy (such as North Korea can).

How do you end war if making peace is not an option for you?

The answer is nuclear weapons.

It's difficult to take your delusions seriously, but let's give it a go.

I don't see why Israel needs the US to fight its war for it. — BitconnectCarlos

Israel already completely depends on the US for arms supply, significantly greater intelligence capabilities, and deterrence of the US intervention in order to conduct its current wars.

Israel's basic problem is first insisting on keeping Palestinians in a concentration camps and carrying out ethnic cleansing and also a genocide, slow at first but now very rapid, which renders peace impossible and having normal relations with neighbours.

Israel's second problem is that it lacks both population and strategic depth.

If Israel did get into a sustained major conflict with its larger neighbours it would lose due to simply being too small.

Without US support and also direct US intervention Israel could be conquered by its Arab neighbours in any sustained conflict. Israel's population is simply too small.

Now, obviously Israel can "go to war" against people it keeps in a concentration camp, such as the Palestinians, and also against a country with a similar surface area and a smaller population, such as Lebanon.

However, in a war against even half of the middle-east, such as the "cursed half", Israel would lose without US backing and the threat of intervention.

The key questions Israel has needed to ask itself therefore are:

1. How to complete the genocide of the Palestinians and create the living space of the superior Jewish race. I.e. how to implement the final solution to the Palestinian question.

2. Can Israel, as a Western Imperial colony propped up by Western Imperial power in the middle of a sea of people that don't want Israel there, survive without Western imperial power.

Israel's third problem is how to resolve the fanatical drive towards the final solution of the Palestine question with its desire to have long term security.

Insofar as US power was not in question, the problem was that the US itself wasn't so hot on a final solution of the Palestinians. Like, sure, US doesn't like brown people as much as the next superior race, but slaughter them in a giant concentration camp? Seems just a bit much. We're just a bit more sophisticated in our Imperial system nowadays. Therefore, the solution is to essentially take control of the US political process so that there would be no US opposition to Israel ethnic cleansing and genocidal policies, and certainly no hiccups in US arms supply during the final solution itself.

However, as US power wanes, Israel must face the prospect of being a colonial outpost of an imperial system that no longer exists as it once was.

Israel's current actions, whether October 7th was a surprise or not, are to carry out the final solution as well as prepare for the long dark or US imperial decline.

Israel is but the tip of a might US dick that penetrates the Middle East from behind. If the penis goes limp can the tip stay in?

Difficult to judge. History demonstrates that sometimes it's possible, but sometimes the tip of an empire just slips out once the mighty shaft no longer secures it in place.

Now, how exactly Israels actions prepare for this post-US dominance regime, how much is driven purely by Israel internal politics, is up for discussion, but reality is not contained in a few headlines today.

For example:

These past few days Israel decapitated Hezbollah. — BitconnectCarlos

Zero reason to believe this is even bad for Hezbollah long term but Israel maybe simply selecting for Hezbollah their most cleverest commanders to take over. Rarely does assassinating opposing leaders in a war have the desired effect.

Hamas has been neutered. — BitconnectCarlos

Hamas is a concentration camp based force that did not have any capacity to inflict real damage on their concentration camp guards to begin with ... without absolutely massive incompetence (willful or not on the part of the Israelis) as well as a "mass Hannibal" of Israel slaughtering its own citizens for political purposes of justifying slaughtering even more Palestinians.

Hamas doesn't even seem defeated, but even if it was severely diminished it it hardly a great victory to defeat your own concentration camp proxy against yourself (which is what Hamas effectively was) needed to justify your anti-peace policies.

MBS just made a statement that he couldn't care less about Palestinians. — BitconnectCarlos

Which we already knew. What is more important in that interview is MBS clearly stating that his people do care very much and he needs to be responsive to that. Unlikely MBS would join in some war against Israel, but the more domestic pressure he has the less he could obstruct others waging war on Israel much less help Israel as an ally (which was on the table before this recent events unfolded).

A good portion of the Arab world cheers today at the death of Nasrallah while in the west they protest - Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese. — BitconnectCarlos

Which portion? Who is cheering in the Arab world?

But in general, sure, lot's of division in the Muslim world, but the more extreme Israel is the more that creates if not a uniting force then a laissez faire attitude towards conflict between Israel and its clear enemies.

The Arab world is more complex and less unitary than many in the West imagine. — BitconnectCarlos

Certainly true, but neither I nor @Tzeentch are making such an error, but pointing out that Israel committing obvious and obscene war crimes against Arabs has a unifying effect, which does not need to be total to cause an eventual Israeli defeat in a major conflict with various cursed factions of the Middle-East, especially if the other assists in non-overt ways or then simply stays out of it.

Toppling the wicked Iranian regime should be the end goal. Humanity should be striving for that. — BitconnectCarlos

You see this happening? You see anyone lining up to topple the Iranian regime?

No. Mainly because it is essentially impossible to do.

Therefore, Israel would need to resort to nuclear weapons to prevail, at least a time, against Iran and to also deter other aggressions, at least for a time.

It's unclear what would then follow Israel nuking Tehran and other Iranian population centres; seems to me Iranians will then put some effort to strike Israel, with nukes if they can manage but if not conventional missiles, and continue to fire missiles at Israel for a very, very long time.

However, it's equally unclear to me any diplomatic resolution of the current situation. Israel seems to me overcommitted to its genocidal project and there is only further into hell it can go from here.

Yes, we agree on the main points.

Now, if by "victory plan" you mean a rational course of action, then definitely there is no victory plan.

However, nuclear weapons would not be for "victory" but to create long term deterrence that they are willing to nuke anyone, precisely because they are not rational actors. I.e. mad dog strategy ... but you are in fact completely a mad dog, no guessing games or theatre about it.

Interestingly, not only is there a lack of war games demonstrating how Israel could "win" against Iran even with a full scale invasion by the US, but a war game that was conducted by "The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center" concluding exactly that the US is unlikely to intervene to wage war directly against Iran and so Israel is likely to resort to nuclear weapons:

Israel’s actions [i.e. previous escalations of the type we now see], however, fail to bend Iran’s will to continue to wage war. Worse, the United States now urges Israel to stand down. Isolated and desperate, Israel concludes it has no choice: It launches a “precision” follow-on nuclear strike of 50 weapons against 25 Iranian military targets (including Russian-manned air defense sites). The aim is to cripple Iranian offensive forces and perhaps induce enough chaos to prompt the Iranian revolutionary regime to collapse. Almost immediately after the Israeli strike, however, Iran launches a nuclear attack of its own against an Israeli air base where American military are present.

With this move, the game ends.

Many critical questions remain unanswered. Would Israel or Iran conduct further nuclear strikes? Would Israel target Tehran with nuclear weapons? And vice versa, would Iran target Tel Aviv with nuclear arms? Would Russia or the United States be drawn into the war? These many basic unknowns helped inform each of the game’s four major takeaways: — Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

The takeaways are also interesting, the key points being:

The strategic uncertainties generated after an Israeli-Iranian nuclear exchange are likely to be at least as fraught as any that might arise before such a clash. The strategic uncertainties generated after an Israeli-Iranian nuclear exchange are likely to be at least as fraught as any that might arise before such a clash. — Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Although Israel and Iran might initially seek to avoid the nuclear targeting of population, such self-restraint is tenuous. — Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Multilateral support for Israeli security may be essential to deter Israeli nuclear use but will likely hinge on Israeli willingness to discuss regional denuclearization. — Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Little progress is likely in reducing Middle Eastern nuclear threats as long as the United States continues its public policy of denying knowledge of Israeli nuclear weapons. — Wargame simulated a conflict between Israel and Iran: It quickly went nuclear, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

There's more analysis of these points in the article, but I think we can agree that the first two takeaways are extremely "the case" and the last two points are extremely "not the case".

Therefore, the only thing deterring Israel from the use of nuclear weapons I would argue is Iran already having nuclear strike capability.

Why are you so convinced that you alone have correctly understood what she was referring to? — Echarmion

Just empty nothingness.

The West had no problem reporting this interpretation and portraying the Minsk agreements as a brilliant move by Ukraine and the West to prepare for an amazing job in the bigger war that was ongoing and understood to be essentially already won by Ukraine at the time.

It is not "I alone" that has this interpretation. Merkel is only one of many data points in evaluating this particular topic, you also have Ukrainian politicians explicitly stating they never intended to implement Minsk. More importantly there's the actual actions of further support to Nazis to shell civilians which is the surest way to provoke a larger war, which is what the US and Ukraine does and the war that would predictably result from doing that then happens.

'm genuinely confused whether you just don't understand English grammar or whether you're just doubling down to avoid admitting that you overstated your case.

"Would" implies a conditional. Doing A would lead to B. Not (currently) doing A leads to B. — Echarmion

As I clearly explain, the "would" is considering expanding an existing policy of supporting Ukraine to drain Russian blood and treasure in the Donbas which the paper has no problem recognizing is the existing policy.

The first sentence I cite is clearly recognizing the existing policy is to support Ukraine to drain Russian blood and treasure and considers the possibility, the "conditional" you are referring to, of expanding that policy.

I am responding to your statement that the authors aren't analyzing US policy at the time at all.

They clearly are (which is amazingly obvious if you read the paper) and they make that clear in stating making it clear that the status quo of the time is to support Ukraine to inflict costs, in blood and treasure, on Russia.

They consider the possibility of expanding that policy to inflict even greater costs and recommend not doing that.

However, they not only clearly recognize the existing policy as made clear in the sentence you are taking issue with:

Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. — RAND

"Expanding assistance to Ukraine" (which makes it clear there is already assistance to expand) "would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure" (which makes it clear the existing policy imposes costs which would then increase if the existing policy was expanded).

The meaning is very clear if you understand English and it's made even clearer by the context.

I know you would want to quibble by arguing that "expand" could be somehow ambiguous ... even though it's really not: if I say I want to "expand my restaurant" there is almost no English speaker that would interpret that to mean "I don't have a restaurant but I want to start one, thus expanding from zero restaurant", and if you said you wanted to expand your restaurant and it turns out you din't have a restaurant people would feel misled if it mattered (i.e. you were taking in loans backed by the restaurant you're expanding but also don't have) and would take it as a joke if the context was not serious (haha, good one, expand you're restaurant from zero restaurant to having a restaurant).

The authors talk of expanding assistance to Ukraine because they understand the policy is to assist Ukraine in fighting Russian proxy forces (the authors describe the war as a proxy war).

Therefore, knowing you would raise such absolutely ridiculous objections I then go onto cite more of the authors statements that further makes it clear they are analyzing the existing policy and it's consequence and risks:

Risks
An increase in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine would likely lead to a commensurate increase in both Russian aid to the separatists and Russian military forces in Ukraine, thus sustaining the con- flict at a somewhat higher level of intensity.20 Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, argued against giving Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for precisely this reason.

Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace. — Extending Russia ,RAND

Russia may "counter-escalate" and commit "more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine" which is exactly what happens. They even identify this as a risk even if the US doesn't even do anything, clearly stating that Russia may "preempt U.S. action".

As mentioned, they make there position even clearer in their recommendation to resolve the conflict, compared to keeping it going (which may result in Russian preemptive escalation) or indeed expanding lethal aid, what the US actually does (which may also result in Russian escalation).

Conclusion
The option of expanding U.S. military aid to Ukraine has to be evaluated principally on whether doing so could help end the conflict in the Donbass on acceptable terms rather than simply on costs it imposes on Moscow. Boosting U.S. aid as part of a broader diplomatic strategy to advance a settlement might well make sense, but calibrating the level of assistance to produce the desired effect while avoiding a damaging counter-escalation would be challenging. — Extending Russia ,RAND

In other words, the authors get it exactly right: inviting escalation (which includes not even doing anything yet) would likely be a U.S. policy setback and come at significant costs to Ukraine, in terms of lives and territories.

The US, since the paper was written, supplied arms to Ukraine, eschewed negotiations, reiterated Ukraine would join NATO (that the authors also note elsewhere is not only escalatory but would surely solicit a response from Moscow), and the result is exactly what the authors of the paper predict: significant costs to Ukraine, inability for the US to have Ukraine prevail and therefore also a US policy setback.

However, if you read the paper and "US policy" in terms of some arguably sane US foreign policy is not your priority, but rather selling gas and arms to Europe, eliminating Europe as a geopolitical rival, as well as a new shiny war to distract the masses from any accountability for the older less-shiny and disastrous wars, and, unlike the authors of the paper, you have zero concern for Ukrainian territory or wellbeing in the slightest, then you would press all the buttons the authors describe that would help provoke a "somewhat higher level of intensity" in the fighting (aka. a giant war).

If you didn't want the conflict to go nuclear, then you'd drip feed your support to Ukraine so that they are never an actual military threat to Russian forces and therefore Russia would have no need to nuclear recourse.

Which is exactly what actually happens.

Of course, the authors are writing in the past but even more importantly explicitly say they're methodology is simply to consider different policy directions (all in the view of extending Russia to coerce compliance, in particular in the information space: i.e. RT hosting US dissidents basically) and recommendations are based on essentially the subjective intuition of the authors and they are explicitly not quantifying anything in this first paper (but further work would be needed to do that); so if you circle back to your earlier objection that the authors don't exactly quantify the larger war that occurs, that is to be expected as they aren't trying to do that but rather evaluate if that policy direction (i.e. expanding assistance to Ukraine to impose greater costs on Russia) would be a good idea or not. Their explicit objective is to try to identify areas of competition with Russian in which the ground is favourable to the US (and, as has been clearly demonstrated, provoking further escalation with Russian in Ukraine is not such a favourable direction).

Do you genuinely believe US policy makers are so good that they can predict future events with perfect accuracy? Noone, except perhaps the Russian planners, "knew" what would happen in 2022 years in advance. — Echarmion

Again, more pointless quibbling.

US policy makers clearly know by being informed by expert analysis such as the paper in question that their propping up Ukraine and also literal Nazis to fight in the Donbas while being vocal about Ukraine joining NATO ... oh, one day, and also withdrawing from the INF treaty (what the authors warn would almost certainly solicit a Russian response) all while rejecting outright negotiating with Russia, are actions that would very likely provoke a larger war between Ukraine and Russia, a war that Ukraine would almost certainly lose at great cost to Ukrainians.

They know what the likely consequence of their actions are because they not only have expert analysis informing them of the likely consequences but it's also common sense. Sending arms, withdrawing from INF, breaking US laws to make sure Nazis get weapons, are all well considered decisions. I know you would like to portray US policy as essentially a series of well meaning whims, but that's just dumb.

No where do I state the likely consequences (such as the likely consequences of different policy decisions that the RAND paper explains) are somehow "certain", but in this case what is likely is what actually happens.

Experts put significant effort into explaining "doing this will result in that" and then US Policy makers go and do this and the that results. The argument that somehow they thought something else would happen is just dumb.

The additional proof they know exactly what is likely to happen and that is the end result they too are looking for is the drip feed policy. If US policy makers actually thought Ukraine could prevail and actually wanted that to happen then they would not drip feed weapons systems all the way to a handful of F16s in 2024, they would have poured in the armour, the HIMARS, the other missile systems, and much more from the beginning, and if a weapons system really was not yet appropriate they would have been trialing those weapons systems to inform tactics and training for when those systems are required (such as when the Soviet equipment does in fact get all blown up).

Instead, not only are the actual facts that the weapons systems are drip fed, i.e. "calibrated" to support a certain level of conflict without escalating further in the language of the RAND document, but US officials are pretty clear in what they are doing as they don't hesitate to explain that they won't provide this or that so as not to escalate, and assert that as common sense for months ... and then one day provide that very thing.

Escalate to what? Obviously Ukraine actually winning.

And why the about face suddenly one day? Because the weapon system under consideration no longer actually risks Ukraine winning.

Even Western talking heads trying to fully back US policy would have trouble parsing this policy and would even ask themselves confusingly what exactly is the escalation the US Is trying to avoid? Of course then they got the memo to just stop asking themselves that question.

Real world policies of states are not monoliths. — Echarmion

Which is why I have no hesitation to really believe that Zelensky really did want to prevent the war from breaking out in doing things like trying to control the Nazis, but other factions in Ukraine prevailed (such as those very Nazis just straight-up telling Zelensky they wouldn't do what he says), and I'd have no problem believing many elites in Europe didn't want this war either but didn't prevail against US proxy politicians in Europe as well as US pressure and direct actions (such as stating Ukraine would join NATO, those 12 or so CIA bases in Ukraine, direct arms supply to Ukraine and so on).

Nowhere do I present state policy as monolithic.

The goals you're listing are not mutually exclusive. — Echarmion

... Yes, obviously the goals of drip feeding weapons to Ukraine to calibrate the conflict at "Ukraine loses" and profiting immensely from the conflict by locking in Europe to US gas exports and also a generalized arms sales bonanza in starting Cold War 2.0 are ... not mutually exclusive gaols.

I'm not sure what you're responding to, but yes, we agree that drip feeding weapons to Ukraine so that they loose, just slowly, is compatible with immense arms industry and fossil industry profits.

Totally agreed.

A policy you made up. — Echarmion

Not made up, I'll go repost the Western media's own investigations into this issue if you really want me to. Journalists go to see if these Nazi groups are getting Western arms and ... immediately verify that as fact ... and then they publish those finding and nothing change so even if you wanted to pretend it wasn't the policy because "they didn't know" ... as even 12 CIA bases literally right there can't "know everything with perfect accuracy" well they obviously know once it's reported in the media.

The policy is super duper clearly provoke a larger war between Russia and Ukraine and therefore in total consistency with that policy the Nazis are supported as they not only do the most provocative things like shell civilians but are also a provocation by just being their wholesome Nazi selves.

An interesting fantasy but don't you think the fascist boots crossing the border from Russia are a much more effective motivation? — Echarmion

Again, I can repost the West's own reporting on these Nazis and their effect on the Ukrainian political process. Every time I do nothing in the videos is ever refuted or discussed further and the topic suddenly switches, but if you really want to get into those pretty clear video reports that show pretty clearly what the Nazis were up to, I am more than happy to post those reportings again (reports made by the West's own mainstream media as no one at that time had yet gotten the memo that "Nazis are in and making any sort of sense is out").

Having a peace agreement doesn't mean that you are partners. — ssu

It's quite understandable. — Tzeentch

Calling counter-parties partners is pretty usual in corporate and diplomatic speech, rarely means an actual partnership. For example, you may here corporate people say they are "working with their partners to remove unethical slave-labour / exotic materials from their supply chain" but partners in this context just means subcontractors and not actual partnerships.

So, I think in this case it's essentially just a figure of speech.

As the window of US intervention in the Middle-East is closing and the situation there becomes more volatile by the day, Israel is hoping to signal to the US that these attempts at diplomacy haven't completely failed. — Tzeentch

I completely agree with your position except I doubt there was any signalling of this kind going on.

The far greater signal during the UN visit was ordering the strike on the apartment buildings to kill the Hesbollah leader Nasrallah leader.

However, I think these attempts have failed, and that there isn't a single actor in the Middle-East that isn't counting down the days for the US intervention window to completely shut, after which they will fundamentally change their disposition towards Israel. — Tzeentch

I would go further and state that Israel and the US knows this as well.

I think it's more likely that both Israel and the US realize Israel has overcommitted to the genocide in Gaza and that has made irreversible changes.

The situation is now that ultimately the US simply has limits to what it is able to accomplish militarily, but Israel, as a country (i.e. can't now change with a change in political leadership), has no other short or medium term options than to try to force US intervention anyways ... or ... or ... or then just Nuke Iran and maybe others.

Which, seeing Israel's course of action, the nuke Iran plan could be the plan from the beginning, or near the beginning.

For, as much as it's talked about the scenario of Israel dragging in the US in a war with Iran, I've never seen it explained how this war would work exactly. No analyst I've ever seen has even outlined how Iran could be defeated with conventional forces and on the contrary I've only ever seen it explained how this is literally impossible: Iran is too big, too mountainous, too populous, too battle hardened from the war with Iraq and then surviving constant sanctions and proxy actions, to be defeateable.

Therefore, if you war game it out (which all these countries do) the only actual "win" state is nuking Iran.

You have already quoted the parts of the paper that make clear that it is analysing a course of action where the US intensifies it's efforts. I'm not sure who you're trying to fool by now acting like the paper was an analysis of the existing US policy. Yourself? — Echarmion

The paper is an analysis of existing US policy:

Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. — RAND

You need to actually read the paper to play the "what does it say" game.

The word "expand" is used because the existing policy is to assist Ukraine which the paper is analyzing the existing policy of supporting Ukraine to inflict costs, in terms of blood and treasure, on Russia and is considering the possibility of increasing that assistance.

The paper goes onto to consider a bunch of factors, including nuclear deterrence:

Risks
An increase in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine would likely lead to a commensurate increase in both Russian aid to the separatists and Russian military forces in Ukraine, thus sustaining the con- flict at a somewhat higher level of intensity.20 Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, argued against giving Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for precisely this reason.

Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace. — Extending Russia ,RAND

Moreover, the authors asset very clearly that the risk of a larger conflict exists even without further provocations: that Russia "Russia might even preempt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia," which means the existing policy of supporting Ukraine may result in escalation by Russia that comes with significant risks.

The key phase being "significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility" and also "This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows".

I.e. if you actually read the paper the authors are quite clear that the existing policy of supporting Ukraine may result in a larger war which they see is highly risky for US policy as well as a high cost to Ukraine whatever happens. Their recommendation is to resolve the situation, in which further assistance of threat of assistance could be leverage in a resolution, but the authors are quite clear that the risks are very high, in particular to Ukraine, including of simply continuing the existing policy if you want to pretend the US made no further provocative moves between the paper being written and 2022 when Russia does indeed escalate.

Point of all this being: US policy makers knew what their policy was leading to and that the cost to Ukraine to be used as a tool to extend Russia would be enormous.

More importantly than this paper accurately predicting exactly what the consequences for the policy would likely be, the policy of drip feed of weapons systems to Ukraine is simply irrefutable evidence that the policy isn't and never was for Ukraine to "win" (otherwise you'd pour in everything they could use from day 1) but simply to calibrate the conflict at a "somewhat higher level of intensity" to inflict costs on Russia and, even more importantly than that, profit immensely in terms of arms and gas.

And this is all very obvious in only the most cursory analysis of obvious facts, without even need to get into the US policy clearly to arm the most extreme Nazi groups in Ukraine to ensure both the most bellicose actions possible towards the Russians but also to serve as fascist boots on the ground to deal with any Ukrainian resistance to the policy to march to war with a far more powerful neighbour which would obviously harm the country immensely and get a great many Ukrainians killed.

Indeed not only Merkel has NOT admitted what he claims she has, but it can not even be inferred from what she actually said or equated with what she actually said: reinforcing Ukrainian military not only is not incompatible with pursuing a cease-fire but it could also be instrumental to preserving a cease-fire. — neomac

Just gaslighting apologetics. What does Merkel say:

The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. — Merkel

Now this is well into the war. If she wanted to say that the goal of making Ukraine stronger was to deter Russia and so avoid a war ... she would have said that! She's not a moron.

The reinterpretation of what she said as somehow to support a ceasefire through strength, is memory holing the whole episode. Back in autumn 2022 the Western narrative was that Russia was weak, Russia was falling apart, Russia was losing and Ukraine was in the process of inflicting a brilliant victory. The Western talking heads and officials were in a circle jerk of patting each other on the cock in celebration of this brilliant geopolitical strategy, in which the Ukrainian build up, with Western assistance, since 2014 was to credit for Ukraine's extraordinary prowess on the battlefield. Various politicians and officials, in both the West and Ukraine, were taking credit for the brilliant move of using Minsk as a cover to build up Ukraine to defeat Russia.

Merkel in this statement was buying into this narrative of Ukrainian victory and taking a bit of the credit.

And it wasn't just Merkel, plenty did a little victory lap of how Ukraine "outplayed" the Russians and Minsk was part of that deception.

A version of events proudly asserted by Ukrainian politicians even before the larger 2022 war even started:

“From my point of view, the Minsk agreements were born dead,” said Volodymyr Ariev, an MP from Poroshenko’s party. “The conditions were always impossible to implement. We understood it clearly at the time, but we signed it to buy time for Ukraine: to have time to restore our government, our army, intelligence and security system.” — The Guardian

Now, before the war started it would have been controversial for Western politicians to join this narrative, but a few months into the war when the West understood Ukraine and itself to have won, then saying that Minsk was about building up Ukraine into the strong modern nation that is spanking Russia on the battlefield was simply being part of the cool winning club. Seemed at that time (if you believed what you saw everywhere on Western mainstream and social media was even partially correct, that it can't be pure invention) that this duplicitous strategy was working and the people in Ukraine that wanted only to buy time for a big war were correct.

Now, as I mentioned in my comments, more important that what Merkel or anyone else says after the facts, is those facts themselves.

A core element of Minsk was disarming the Nazi groups who literally burned their political rivals (aka. normal fucking people) aline in a building and were constantly shelling civilians.

Western countries had to literally pass laws that arms were not to be transferred to organizations their own governments viewed as Nazi terrorists (which they obviously were). These laws were passed because it's hard to vote against a ban on weapons for Nazis but journalists went regularly to demonstrate the West was not following its own laws much less Ukraine trying to implement Minsk by disarming these non-state groups.

Europe could have put pressure for these kinds of obvious provisions of Minsk to be implemented, which would not only be a demonstration that the agreements were negotiated in good faith and Germany and France doesn't want Nazi's running around with guns and artillery any more than the Russians, but had the various paramilitary explicitly Nazi groups been disarmed and removed from the front lines the actual ceasefire may have been actually implemented by Ukraine professional forces. As important, if you remove fanatical Nazis who explicitly call for a Great War with Russia, explicitly claim war is a way of life for them and they want more of it, don't hesitate to explicitly outline how a war would be a purifying process for the nation, from the front lines then if it is Russia who breaks the ceasefire you could at least plausibly make that claim.

And that's only one element of the agreements that Ukraine did not attempt to implement and the West did not use any leverage to get Ukraine to implement.

You may say "that's what friends do" but the Nazi's aren't "Ukraine's friends", Zelensky even tried going to talk to them to get them to follow orders from the president and they just told him no. Now, had the West put pressure for the disarmament of these groups (i.e. no more weapons until their disarmed and removed from the front lines and the situation on the front professionalized) then that would have actually supported Zelensky's attempt to avoid a war, which I have no problem believing was genuine but it is in fact undermined by not only the West tolerating the arming of literal Nazis but that was clearly the policy in order to "calibrate" a conflict to imposes costs on Russia as the RAND documents happily explains to us.

The continued shelling of civilians made the larger 2022 war inevitable and the West doing nothing to restrain their Nazi dogs is one of the critical contributors to "somewhat higher intensity" fighting that we see.

The position that Merkel was taking credit for Ukrainian "winning" by helping to negotiate a bad faith deal to buy time was not controversial, that was the accepted facts and talking heads didn't hesitate to explain it to us and Merkel didn't run to explain "no, no, no! not strength in the sense of beating the Russians, that we all know is totally happening, but strength to maintain a ceasefire that unfortunately didn't happen!"

The apologetics that Merkel (and plenty of others as seen above) meant something else only arose after it turned out Ukraine wasn't totally and easily beating the Russians and that maybe it would have been better to try to implement Minsk to avoid a giant war that turns out has gotten hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians killed.

You need to reach into the memory hole and dig out what the Western media was essentially playing on loud speaker, on repeat without interruption for months: Ukraine was winning, fighting for the "right to join NATO" (even when you can't actually join NATO because NATO doesn't let you in) is brilliant politics, Russia would collapse any day, and so on, the war was in no way regrettable but "teaching Russia a lesson", and that the West was pure and righteous and never did anything wrong and Ukraine was our innocent child finally taking flight from under our wing and learning to soar on the winds of angelic victory (just as we do since centuries).

Concerning "bad faith" accusations, apparently it's more plausible that Putin (arguably an expert in disinformatia) was duped by the Europeans (however interested in pacifying the conflict to come back to do business as usual with Russia, reason why they have been already rejecting/postponing NATO membership for Ukraine all along), than that Europeans were taking countermeasures against Putin's palpable bad faith back then (having Putin already violated various international and bilateral treaties by illegally annexing the Crimean peninsula and committing acts of armed aggression against Ukraine, and being very much interested in keeping a conflict in Donbas alive, to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, or to allow further annexations). LOL. — neomac

I can't even parse what you're even trying to say ... that concerning bad faith actions Putin was duped by European bad faith actions? Just in a different way than no one made much attempt to implement Minsk (because US policy was to have exactly the conflict we see and European leaders are merely the receptacle of American dick)? Is that what you're trying to say?

For those interested in actual analysis and understanding, rather than just repeatedly gaslighting that a document doesn't say ... exactly what it plainly says in direct terms.

I honestly recommend reading the whole RAND document cited, it's a fascinating read.

And if you read the whole document, not only is it perfectly clear that escalating the various wars at the time, most notably Ukraine, are bad for US interests ... we know because it literally says so in the introduction:

Most of these measures—whether in Europe or the Middle East— risk provoking Russian reaction that could impose large military costs on U.S. allies and large political costs on the United States itself. Increasing military advice and arms supplies to Ukraine is the most feasible of these options with the largest impact, but any such initiative would have to be calibrated very carefully to avoid a widely expanded conflict. — Extending Russia - Rand

Which again "widely expanded conflict" is another way to say "war" just like "losing territory" in a "higher intensity" conflict is another way of saying war, but correctly describes what we're seeing today: the widely expanded conflict in Ukraine is a large political cost to the United States, along with costing Ukrainian lives and territory as the authors note later.

However, steps that can be taken to provoke a larger war in Ukraine with Russia is not limited to just what happens in Ukraine.

If you bother to read the whole document, you'll also find the authors understand things are connected:

Withdraw from the Treaty and Deploy Missiles in Europe

The United States could formally withdraw from the INF Treaty, develop and deploy ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and deploy those missiles in Western Europe. This would enable the United States to deploy ground-based nuclear missiles in more-secure locations that could still be used to target positions along NATO’s eastern flank that are potential, or at least hypothetical, targets for Russian invasion. More worryingly from the Russian perspective, the United States also could target locations inside Russia, enhancing the U.S. capability for a rapid strike on command and control systems or other strategic assets (although the United States already has air- and sea- launched missiles capable of such missions). This policy option could further enhance U.S. conventional capabilities to target Russian air defense assets that could hinder U.S. and NATO aircraft in the event of a crisis. Moreover, the deployment of missiles could send a strong signal that the United States intended to defend its NATO allies in Europe, including with nuclear weapons.

With regard to the potential benefits for extending Russia, deployment of such missiles in Western Europe would definitely get Moscow’s attention. Russia remains highly concerned about the potential for such decapitation strikes with the INF Treaty in place, given U.S. sea- and air-launched intermediate-range missile capabilities, as well as the potential for Aegis Ashore missile defense sites to be altered to fire GLCMs. Those concerns would spike in the event of the return of U.S. intermediate-range nuclear missiles to Western Europe, particularly if they preceded the deployment of any substan- tial Russian intermediate-range nuclear missile capabilities, and could even be interpreted as a prelude to NATO aggression against Russia. This would almost certainly prompt a Russian response, potentially involving substantial resources, or at least the diversion of substantial resources from other defense spending, though it is difficult to assess what share would be directed toward defensive capabilities rather than offensive or retaliatory ones. It is worth noting that numbers of nonstrategic nuclear weapons and launch platforms specific to their delivery are not constrained by New START, and that Russia likely retains vastly more such operational weapons than does the United States, with the potential to rapidly deploy more. — Extending Russia - Rand

Which there's a lot to say about. First that obviously the Russians are naturally and reasonably concerned about the a decapitation strike and the obvious possibility that nominally defensive missile systems are converted to offensive capabilities, indeed literally saying "highly concerned" and "then as the potential for Aegis Ashore missile defense sites to be altered to fire GLCMs" along with the sea based systems. We should note this because at least a dozen pages have been devoted to what is essentially gaslighting that Russia should not be concerned about these systems in the slightest.

But even more notably for the topics at hand, the authors clearly predict that withdrawing from the INF treaty entirely would likely "would almost certainly prompt a Russian response, potentially involving substantial resources, or at least the diversion of substantial resources from other defense spending, though it is difficult to assess what share would be directed toward defensive capabilities rather than offensive or retaliatory ones" which is exactly what Russia does!!

So, if you read this paper and are wondering how to start a big war (rather than the smaller war that was already ongoing) in Ukraine then withdrawing from INF would be one thing on your lists to do in order motivate Russia to "involve substantial resources" in things like defence capabilities ... but also "offensive and retaliatory" actions.

US withdrew from the INF treaty ... when again?

The United States formally withdrew from the treaty on 2 August 2019. — Wikipedia Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

But interestingly US already suspended the treaty in February 2019 and the RAND paper is printed in 2019, so it's almost like this paper was written, someone read it, and the US withdrew from the INF treaty.

Keep in mind also that this is the one measure where the authors use the strongest language to emphasize Russia will definitely for sure respond pretty hard.

Which is exactly what happens.

What falsehoods, you don't bother to read the document and then want to play "what does the document mean" game.

The document is perfectly clear:

While NATO’s requirement for unanimity makes it unlikely that Ukraine could gain membership in the foreseeable future, Washington’s pushing this possibility could boost Ukrainian resolve while leading Russia to redouble its efforts to forestall such a development. — Extending Russia - Rand

This was and is US policy.

Note that it not only clearly describes Russian reaction to US stating Ukraine will join NATO, they also correctly describe that it also boosts Ukrainian resolve, the other key element to escalation.

You seem to be literally trying to memory hole the entire start of the war in which NATO was the main justification. "Ukraine has a right to join NATO" was repeated a zillion times, Zelensky pleading also for NATO no-fly-zone intervention.

As for lethal aid, both Western and Ukrainian leaders have boasted about using Minsk to build up militarily.

And why would the Russians be provoked by the US being vocal about Ukraine joining NATO (which includes such things as rebuffing Russian offers to negotiate a peace architecture with a neutral Ukraine, private leader-to-leader discussions and so on) because even if it's low probability as the authors note, it's not zero possibility (things could change or the US could pullout some diplomatic coup of some sort and the like).

The authors explain the policy is already provocative and being even more vocal is more provocative. US has been super vocal about "Ukraine's right to join NATO", including in the direct lead-up to the war: no negotiations about European security architecture, full rebuff to Russias draft and ultimatum, Ukraine has a right to join NATO, Nord Stream will end if Russia invades Ukraine, was the US diplomatic position that Biden and Blinken made perfectly clear.

And you're just denying these obvious facts that when I have the time I can easily find video of Western leaders and top officials saying all the above on camera.

The document is clear on what will likely provoke a war (or "bigger war" if you prefer), which is what the US does, and the document is clear on the likely outcome of military escalation: loss of territory and lives for Ukraine and a US policy setback. All of which has happened.

You are simply gaslighting and obviously don't bother reading the paper, which is prescient on many points such as the arms sent to Ukraine getting on the blackmarket.

And what's their conclusion on the "lethal aid to Ukraine" chapter?

Again, we fortunately don't have to guess as they have a section conveniently titled "conclusion".

Conclusion
The option of expanding U.S. military aid to Ukraine has to be evaluated principally on whether doing so could help end the conflict in the Donbass on acceptable terms rather than simply on costs it imposes on Moscow. Boosting U.S. aid as part of a broader diplomatic strategy to advance a settlement might well make sense, but calibrating the level of assistance to produce the desired effect while avoiding a damaging counter-escalation would be challenging. — Extending Russia - Rand

The authors are clear: counter escalation by Russia (such as what we see) is damaging to US interests. US interests, in the authors opinion, is served by ending the war in the Donbas, using leverage like arms supply as part of a diplomatic strategy (which the authors even emphasize would be challenging to do even that).

If you want to pretend the authors are somehow only referring to a "small" counter escalation and therefore are not right about the "big" counter escalation, such as interpreting a doctor saying alcohol is bad as somehow not-saying more alcohol is more bad for you, it's simply idiotic gaslighting.

As I explain above, you continue and increase the policies that lead to war because US long term policy interests are not your concern but rather: 1. war profiteering (go ahead and deny that has occurred just so we can all have a good laugh) and 2. being a "tough war president" until the next election, as well as weakening Europe and the Euro and selling LNG and maintaining a little circle of vassals.

In other words, whereas military escalation with Russia through the US proxy that is Ukraine does not serve US national interests in any coherent sense the authors of the RAND paper know of, if you step back from "national interests" and consider US elite interests, the war makes perfect sense.

And it's all documented in honestly surprising detail (such as Merkel just telling us the Minsk agreements were done in bad faith), so you need to practice your memory holing somewhere else because I see no reason to toss pretty clear and vivid memories that have supporting documentation down the memory hole.

Your propaganda is just dumb at this point in the war as Ukraine is clearly losing, the cost to Ukraine clearly enormous, Western policy to prop up this disaster clearly self serving and duplicitous, the weapons drip feed to Ukraine simply to prop them up just enough to experience severe destruction entirely obvious.

Propaganda at least made a bit of sense when the costs to Ukraine was in the future and people could engage in magical thinking that a ragtag group of Nazis could take on the Russian army with sheer grit and tough guy tattoos.

It doesn't say that. You quoted it yourself, it said the US could become more vocal and increase lethal aid. How, specifically, has the US done either? — Echarmion

It's just dumb discussing with you at this point.

No one disputes American military support to Ukraine before the war started, and you have both Western leaders and Ukrainian leaders, including Angela Merkel simply coming out and saying the goal of the Minsk accords was to buy time to build up Ukrainian military capacity.

US continuously affirming Ukraine will join NATO from 2008 all the way to today. Blinken literally just gave another "Ukraine will join NATO" speech like yesterday.

You're just gaslighting at this point because you have nothing, including not a sliver of soul worthy of existence.

But if billions of funds used to bribe ALL Ukrainian elites by the US are “untraceable”, how can you claim with such a certainty that the US is bribing ALL the Ukrainian elites, besides Zelensky?! — neomac

Really stupid quibble considering both the US and Ukraine has admitted that money and arms disappearing is a significant problem.

However, I'm not saying Zelensky isn't also bribed with money, just that he's also an idiot who can be easily controlled by just blowing smoke up his ass that he's a real war hero and not a clown actor in a show.

I prefer to review criteria, compelling facts and, possibly, metrics backing up such sweeping assertions. So far you didn’t offer much to me, but you keep talking as if you did. Rather surreal. — neomac

These are not sweeping assertions. They are very specific assertions that the RAND experts make, all I'm adding since the war started (as the RAND document is written in 2019) is that what RAND describes in their document comes to pass: US did escalate with more arms assistance and more boasting that Ukraine would join NATO, this caused Russia to take more territory and killing more Ukrainians, which is obviously what is called a "war" (or then a "bigger war" if you want to start the war in 2014).

Don’t be scared man of honour, it was just a passtime exercise about you predicting the likely content of a future article which Biden would have "untraceably" bribed some CNN journalist to write.
At this point I think you yourself could write this article for CNN, since you have it all figured out. You could earn some dollars from the US (instead of the usual rubles) , you know,
and come back at us with: "once again, as I’ve predicted, motherfuckaaaas!" — neomac

Biden doesn't need to bribe CNN journalists to do specific things. If you don't see that mainstream journalists are simply on "team elite" and say what their told to say, then there's little helping you.

And did any of that actually happen? — Echarmion

It's exactly what happened. We're at the WTF are you talking about stage of the debate.

The RAND paper describes what will likely lead to "higher intensity conflict":

1. Supplying arms
2. Keep saying Ukraine will join NATO

Then describes the likely outcome:

3. "doing so could also increase the loss of Ukrainian lives and territory"

Ukraine has lost 20% of its territory (so far) and upwards of 700 000 lives, maybe more, and if conquered Ukrainians who are now Russian and emigration that won't return is counted then it's millions of lost Ukrainians.

What RAND says will happen is exactly what has happened and likewise the predicted "serious setback to U.S. policy", which RAND also explains the reason being that Russia will be more committed than the US to any escalation and therefore win.

Which RAND predicts is exactly what has happened.

No, it doesn't, since what we're seeing is an entirely different category of conflict. The paper clearly does not describe a full blown war by Russia, since the writers did not expect Russia would take such a step. If they did want to predict that, they'd have stated it directly. — Echarmion

You have to actually read the paper to play the "what do the authors say in the paper" game.

What I already cited is definitely sufficient, as if the authors are predicting Ukraine losing more lives and territory in an escalation with Russia ... that process obviously happens due to an invasion and therefore war. They use euphemistic and open ended language because that's how people talk in these circles.

But they are extremely clear, they repeat the point several times, here's another:

Alternatively, and more likely, Russia might escalate, possibly seizing more of Ukraine, supporting further advances of the Damascus regime, or actually occupying a wavering Belarus. Such moves would likely impose serious additional strains on Russian defense and economic capacity, but would also represent a serious setback for U.S. policy. Given this range of possible responses, any U.S. moves of the sort described in this chapter would need to be carefully calibrated and pursued within some larger policy framework. — Extending Russia - Rand

What this is the alternative to, and note more likely, is the idea of Russia pulling back due to US escalation in Ukraine.

This is clearly "big moves", including straight up occupying Belarus.

Most importantly for our discussion, Russia escalating and seizing more of Ukraine in a way that induces serious strain.

The authors are clearly describing a process of Russia conquering parts of Ukraine in high intensity conflict that causes serious strain: AKA a war and not just waltzing in unopposed in certain places because it's quick and easy and does require a war to do so.

The authors view is that any escalation of the Donbas hot war is bad for US policy (as Russia will win those escalations) so they make that argument. Escalation results in Ukraine losing more territory and lives and so it follows from this position that escalating to a maximum extent would result in maximum loss of Ukrainian territory and lives.

The authors recommend seeking a diplomatic solution to the Donbas conflict in which lethal aid could be one point of leverage to do so but only makes sense in a larger diplomatic strategy.

You're not reading that properly. It says that a disadvantageous peace settlement of the Donbas conflict would be a setback to US policy. But we're no longer in that stage of the conflict anyways. — Echarmion

No, it says that either Ukraine will lose territory and lives or then be forced into a disadvantageous peace (to avoid said loss of territory and lives).

The authors correctly predict those are the options and we're in the scenario in which Ukraine chose to lose more lives and territory. Had Ukraine taken the peace deal at the start of the war that would have been the disadvantageous peace option, and that too would be a setback to US policy; a much smaller setback but a more sooner and immediate setback where you don't get to play war hero until the next election. Pretending Ukraine can win, is winning, will win allows the setback to be delayed by many years.

Because putting boots on the ground in Ukraine would be so widely unpopular that no government could afford it. — Echarmion

If you're talking costs, Western governments can definitely afford it and it would be a lot cheaper than the hundreds of billions sent to Ukraine.

If you're talking political costs due to unpopularity, obviously true and we can draw several conclusions from this obvious fact.

First, this fact simply emphasizes the disconnect between what Western leaders say and their actual practically available mandate from their own people. Sure, people love putting Ukraine flag emojis everywhere, makes them feel good, but actually going and helping Ukraine directly is essentially unthinkable as Westerners don't wish to pay any real cost. Therefor, when Western leaders say "as long as it takes" and "whatever it takes" and "we'll stand by Ukraine" and talk about how Ukrainian sovereignty is so important and even more extreme things like "Russia must be defeated" and so on, those are all total lies that do not represent what the West is actually willing to do. What the West is actually willing to do is extremely limited in comparison with what is practically possible, and the extent of the willingness is prop up Ukraine just long enough to lose the war (just after the next election), and this policy is maintained by a drip feed of weapons systems into Ukraine, supplying the next only after the impact of the previous is absorbed and adapted to by the Russians and attrition degrades Ukrainian capacity generally speaking.

The second conclusion we can draw is that while Western people don't want lives lost or a nuclear war, they would actually be thrilled by the West seen to "win" some direct confrontation with Russia. The strategy of direct confrontation with Russia did not involve any loss of Western lives; the strategy would be Cuban missile crisis 2.0 which would obviously result in a negotiated resolution.

The reason is not thinkable is because we know Western leaders are duplicitous, corrupt, ineffectual, and have no moral foundation. No Western leader actually cares about the Ukrainian people and we all know that and therefore (unless you have an imagination) there exists no premises out there in which to build such a process in one's mind. Western leaders do not care about Ukrainian democracy, Ukrainian sovereignty, Ukrainian territory, do not care about saving Ukrainian lives, do not care about avoiding violent escalation in Ukraine, simply do not care, they have no principles, they are not moral people, and we all know that and implicitly accept that as the start of any analysis. The mention of principles is only relevant in terms of a game of scoring political points and at no point does anyone in the West believe our leaders have any actual truly felt moral principles.

Therefore, they would not even contemplate going in and "standing up to Putin" because while that could save Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian lives, it what wouldn't it accomplish?

First, it wouldn't accomplish a long war and all the war profiteering that goes along with that.

Second, it wouldn't create a second Cold War.

The result would actually be exactly what Russia has been asking for: a new security architecture in Europe that reduces tensions overall in the long term.

For, if you start war gaming out sending troops into Ukraine to defend Ukraine (something people, especially Western leaders, love to mention at every opportunity that Ukraine is sovereign and therefore can do what it wants, join whatever alliance it wants and so on), the only next step is a negotiated de-escalation of the situation. The chances of nuclear war if the fighting actually starts between Russia and Western troops and aircraft is so great as to be completely unacceptable. The situation would be so intense and obviously dangerous that Western leaders (lacking any actual statecraft skills themselves) would be forced (by common sense and obviously the overwhelming demand of the people) to effectively give up control of the process to the experienced senior diplomats that are still around to rapidly come to a settlement with the Russians.

Had this happened, the end result would be good for everyone, and the maximum good result for Ukraine by avoiding the war that happens instead. We'd be "talking the language" that Putin understands and we'd actually gain respect in Putin and in Russia by having balls.

Once the deescalation occurs Western leaders would be viewed as geopolitical geniuses that "saved Ukraine" by bold action.

Why this is completely unacceptable to the people that actually rule us is that the long term effects are more peace, less arms profiteering, less buying up all the Ukrainian land (that's still Ukrainian) on the cheap, and actually rehabilitating Russia as a player in the Western political system.

The strategy here is not to maintain the "rules based order" but rather to carve it out for the US exclusive dominance, which means separating this system from the other major players: namely Russia and China. Countries that can be dominated by the US will continue to function under the "rule based order" and countries that can't be dominated need to fuck off from it.

As important to ejecting Russia from the system through a war (rather than a standoff that can end in a hug and "we didn't want to blow you up nukes bro", single tears and various hugging memes) is that the war also weakens Europe. With Russia as a energy and resource partner of Europe, the Europeans, with their competitor to the US dollar the Euro, could become equal partners of the US in the "rules based order"; you'd end up with three economic centres: the US, Europe and China all relatively equal in international influence. The US could also simply collapse financially in this scenario due to continued mismanagement.

I could go on, but the point is that it's super telling that when I explain how NATO could use it's "mightiest might that ever might the earth" to deter Russia from killing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and taking large parts of Ukrainian territory, it's "No! NO! Can't do that!! Uh-uh! NO".

But why not? The reason is because our cynical use of Ukrainians not only for Western interests but for US war machine and energy interests, at the expense of both Ukraine and pretty much every other sector of Western society, is completely internalized in the minds of most Westerners.

It doesn't, and you can't start a war that's already ongoing. — Echarmion

"The war" in the context of this debate has been used to refer to the war that started in 2022 of Russia regular forced invading Ukraine in multiple fronts. When people want to refer to the Donbas civil war that preceded that, they usually specify that.

But yes, thanks for recognizing the reality that the invasion in 2022 is an escalation of an already existing 8 year civil war, in which the independent Donbas regions have the right to declare independence and form their own alliances just as Ukraine can form theirs, and that Russia therefore did not start any war but interceded on behalf of allies as allies are want to do. For, in our system, separatism is completely legitimate ... as long as you win. Obviously no one's demanding the US reintegrate as a UK colony.

It doesn't, and you can't start a war that's already ongoing. — Echarmion

Again, if Russia didn't start a war in 2022 then there's not even potential violation of international law, so thanks for that clarification.

However, as mentioned above "the war" refers to the war at hand, and my use of "the war" refers to the war we get starting in 2022, whereas in the paper they use the term "increased intensity" to refer to a larger war between Russia and Ukraine directly, and they refer to the civil war in the Donbas as a Russian proxy war. Sometimes different words refer to the same thing; since this conversation has taken "the war" to refer to the 2022 invasion, as the mainstream media uses that language so we easily know what we're talking about, I use our language to explain the authors meaning. Of course, the authors don't know exactly what escalation will look like, how big it may get; they don't get into that analysis because they view any escalation as bad for US policy.

But thanks for your pointless quibbles that clearly demonstrate you are a a complete idiot.

A war which does not exist. You're talking about a theoretical scenario which did not end up happening. — Echarmion

The war definitely exists, we can see it.

Whether you want to use language in which the war started in 2014 and is one continuous war up until now or then language that breaks up the fighting into first a civil war from 2014 to 2022 and then a Russia-Ukraine war since then.

Of course, the authors wrote in the past, so from their perspective in 2019 the war that starts in 2022 is a hypothetical scenario that is covered by their "higher intensity" language. Obviously what we see is higher intensity and their analysis of higher intensity is exactly correct: Ukraine will lose more territory and more lives and the whole ordeal will be a setback for US policy.

So why the hell did Russia invade? — Echarmion

Simply because the US provokes a larger war to extend Russia and Russia know the US is provoking a larger war to extend Russia does not imply that therefore Russia should not do exactly what the US is provoking.

The same RAND analysis that explains what would the US would need to do to provoke an escalation by Russia explains exactly why Russia would do that: it would be a setback for US policy and a win for Russia.

The paper does not explain why Russia going to war in Ukraine would be bad for Russia as a nation state, but the opposite: summed up in clearly stating escalation will likely be a setback for US policy. Since the paper is dedicated to finding how to extend and weaken Russia, then a setback for US policy is an advancement of Russian policy in this context of relative power analysis.

I can go into all the details (for the n'th time) of why "Russia" when considered as a nation state benefits from the war, but basically: more territory, more people (from refugees out of Ukraine and said territory), more respect in the international system, more arms sales, more "national unity" and a long list of other benefits to the "power" of a nation state (that is a fictitious shared construct of the mind but with very real world effects).

But the main reason for this much bigger war is exactly what you keep mentioning that there's anyways already a war in the Donbas since 2014. This situation simply wasn't sustainable and ending that war is an inevitable necessity. It could be ended diplomatically, that Russia and Ukraine and the West did nominally a whole two times, or then it could be ended by force. By simply maintaining the War in the Donbas (by supplying arms, and training and support and encouragement; i.e. using US leverage to prop up the war rather than US leverage to try to find a resolution) an escalation by Russia is inevitable. Russia could not simply let the Donbas separatists be crushed. Unlike Western people who do not care enough about Ukrainians to take on any actual risk, the people's overwhelming demand in Russia is to defend the ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

By refusing outright to negotiate it then puts Russian leaders in the position of needing to issue ultimatums, which Putin then did, and when your "bluff is called" and you aren't actually bluffing then you are obliged to act on your threat to maintain credibility. Putin made clear that we either come to a a deal, a new security architecture in Europe, or he'll invade Ukraine. The US and Europe "called his bluff", so to maintain credibility when you're not actually bluffing you are obliged to act on your word.

Why try to avoid war if the likely outcome of a war is good for Russia and bad for the US in terms of national state power dynamics? because the likely outcome isn't guaranteed so you have to take into account low probability but disastrous outcomes. A negotiated settlement can easily be worse in terms of likely outcome, but is a lot more predictable process without the risk of low-probability but extreme bad outcomes.

Why then go to war when a peace negotiation doesn't work is if the situation and trajectory have anyways those low-probability but high impact events (such as nuclear missiles in Ukraine being used) in addition to the worse likely outcome (being humiliated by US missiles in your face, loss of economic integration with the Donbas and so on). In terms of the most extreme risks, nuclear war, at some point letting NATO stroll into Ukraine increases the likelihood of nuclear war more than conquering Ukraine. With enough such calculations, a giant war now is the peaceful option.

What actions did the US take? And the result is not remotely described in the document. The document does not describe a full blown invasion by Russia. — Echarmion

When a doctor says "consuming more alcohol increases adverse effects" they are also covering the scenario of consuming a lot more alcohols and getting blackout drunk or even overdosing and dying.

You logic would be that if someone actually went and overdosed and died that the doctors advise is at fault because he didn't specifically say that and therefore we were free to conclude that what he's really saying is that enough alcohol is actually good for you.

I hope even you can see how that logic simply doesn't work; if you say more of A is bad you don't need to go through every level of A and explain in detail why it's bad. If an extreme amount of A turns out to be super bad, that is entirely covered from your relating A to badness.

The authors argue to de-escalation in the Donbas and that arming Ukraine more could be part of a bigger strategy that results in de-escalation. You're basically complaining that they say going in that direction is bad but didn't describe in detail just how bad it can get if you go super far in that direction.

You haven't actually described any of the actions the US took to escalate the conflict so this is an empty claim. — Echarmion

Yes I have, I quoted RAND saying what would escalate the conflict: further arms to Ukraine and simply unilaterally declaring Ukraine will join NATO even if that won't happen soon due to ally objections, I then stated that's exactly what the US did.

Yeah you're making sweeping claims and then accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being a propagandists. Weren't you the one complaining about being called a propagandist? Pot, meet kettle. — Echarmion

First, "pot, meet kettle" if you're starting with the premise that you're a propagandist as there's no other kettles here in the context.

Second, I literally just explained how I'm the only one who's actually explained how to "protect Ukrainian sovereignty" with Western power and why that would have likely worked, avoided all the death and destruction in Ukraine that has happened since, and that I would have been completely in favour of that. Since, as you point out, West is obviously not coming to actually help Ukraine in a "tough bro" way, well it's as obvious as that that Ukraine can't win a war with Russia by itself and so the rational course of action for Ukraine is to negotiate a settlement sooner rather than later (as the more Ukraine is destroyed the more its leverage in a negotiation is destroyed; things don't get better, they get worse when you're losing a war).

Third, my claims are not sweeping, but very specific: you parrot US talking points without any concern for Ukrainian welfare (at no point do you wonder whether Ukraine is accomplishing anything with the price in blood paid so far and what it would accomplish with more blood) because you are a propagandist.

You make up pointless quibbles like "the war" referring to the civil war that started in 2014 rather than what is commonly accepted it refers to in this conversation and the mainstream media of the Ukraine-Russo war proper that started in 2022, a pointless quibble that establishes the point that therefore Russia is simply coming to the aid of their allies in the Donbas who have declared independence (as nearly every country has at some point). You address no substantive point; at no point do you argue that Ukraine losing so much territory and lives is accomplishing something for Ukrainians.

This is a lie. If you don't want to be accused of being a russian propagandist, maybe don't lie. — Echarmion

How is it a lie?

Under normal circumstances both sides would be accusing the other of not abiding by the agreement so this point would be largely moot. However, because our leaders are exceptionally arrogant and stupid, simply came out and said they made the agreement in bad faith, never intended to abide by it and planned from the start not to, but instead prepare for the exactly the war that would result due to reneging on commitments. Therefore, the point of who didn't abide by the peace agreements is not moot but we are entirely justified in assuming it's the people who blatantly say they had no intention to follow the agreement and therefore Russia entirely justified in using force to hold people to their word.

This is complete nonsense. Russia did not abide by the terms either. Not only is your conclusion that Russia would be justified to escalate the war in order to enforce Minsk complete nonsense, it's also factually wrong. — Echarmion

Where's your proof?

We have proof of Western leaders own words they didn't abide by the agreement and never intended to, from before the signing of these agreements. Not only do you provide zero proof Russia violated anything, but anyways any of its violations are subsequent to Ukraine and Western violations who made clear at no point, not even for a single second, was the agreement intended to be followed nor actually followed. These agreements came into being with Ukraine and the West already violating them by already actively planning and continuing actions that breach them.

Now, feel free to provide actual evidence of Russia breaching these agreements and why those breaches aren't anyways justified by the other parties breaching the agreements first.

If you've even read these agreements that is, which I doubt.

Also, to apply your fantastic moral compass to all those Jews killed in ww2: "sorry, they lost!" — Benkei

It's truly remarkable how people can really just not understand double standards and hypocrisy.

Also, Nazi's at least tried to hide what they were doing in concentration camps, which is a more morally laudable position than doing it streamed to the whole world, including raping prisoners in the ass.

This is convenient framing that you, like some other posters, like to proscribe for us. — Echarmion

I've literally been called a paid Russian intelligence officer by members of your "us", multiple times.

Yet, I'm the only one who explained how US / NATO boots on the ground (before or at the start of the war), creating a crisis, could have worked militarily and more importantly diplomatically and avoided the war, and that I'd be totally for that.

The reason that such direct action was and is unthinkable in any Western policy analysis or decision or talking heads of even this forum (except by me), is because obviously Ukrainian sovereignty is not the objective, but "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia" ... which to remind this exact war and it's likely consequences are described in a Rand summary of that very name, presented in a nice little slide show summarizing a much longer document that explains this very war, how to start it, how Russia would react and what the result would likely be.

CHAPTER FOUR
Geopolitical Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Measure 1: Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 — Extending Russia - Rand

Rand discusses exactly the measures that would likely lead to "escalation" by Russia:

The United States could increase its military assistance to Ukraine—in terms of both the quantity and quality of weapons. — Extending Russia - Rand

The United States could also become more vocal in its support for NATO membership for Ukraine. Some U.S. policymakers—including Republican Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio—backed this approach in the past and Ukrainian President Porosh- enko recently promised to hold a referendum on the issue in the near future. While NATO’s requirement for unanimity makes it unlikely that Ukraine could gain membership in the foreseeable future, Washing- ton’s pushing this possibility could boost Ukrainian resolve while lead- ing Russia to redouble its efforts to forestall such a development. — Extending Russia - Rand

And what are the likely benefits?

Well, we don't have to guess as there's a section clearly titled "benefits":

Benefits
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. — Extending Russia - Rand

and of course Rand is full of clever, straightforward and there's always risk when contemplating benefits, and we don't have to guess what those are either as the very next section is clearly titled "risks", starting with:

Risks
An increase in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine would likely lead to a commensurate increase in both Russian aid to the separatists and Russian military forces in Ukraine, thus sustaining the conflict at a somewhat higher level of intensity. — Extending Russia - Rand

Which a full-blown large scale war I'm pretty sure qualifies as "somewhat higher level of intensity".

But by this wording are the authors being simply being coy or do the authors actually believe "somewhat higher" rather than "a lot higher" is the upper bound of risk?

No, because they clearly state what the risk outcomes are in the next section putting it together:

Likelihood of Success
Eastern Ukraine is already a significant drain on Russian resources, exacerbated by the accompanying Western sanctions. Increasing U.S. military aid would certainly drive up the Russian costs, but doing so could also increase the loss of Ukrainian lives and territory or result in a disadvantageous peace settlement. This would generally be seen as a serious setback for U.S. policy. — Extending Russia - Rand

The authors are clearly describe exactly the likely result of escalation which is exactly what has happened:

Loss of Ukrainian lives has increase.

Loss of Ukrainian territory has increased.

This is all generally a serious setback for U.S. Policy.

Notice nowhere in this document or any other U.S. document is there any concern for Ukrainian sovereignty or the wellbeing of Ukrainians. Loss of Ukrainian lives and territory is noted as one drawback of the policy of escalation, but the goal is clearly to evaluate whether that would extend Russia or not. This action is not ultimately counselled by the authors not because a lot of Ukrainians would die in a war but because Russia would very super likely win a larger war and the it would be on the whole worse for the US to simply lose the proxy war in simple terms.

Notice nowhere in this document nor any other similar US policy analysis document you'll find anything describing how Ukraine can actually "win" or discussing US direct intervention to "save the day" if the likely outcome of expanding the war occurs.

Why you may ask?

It's because Ukraine is being used as a proxy to damage Russia without any concern of the outcome for Ukrainians or "Ukraine" as some special entity we should care about apart from the people in it.

The only question this brings up is why does the US not follow the Rand advise and "calibrate" support to avoid a larger war that Russia would win and thus embarrass the US.

The answer, as described above in my previous posts, is called "war profiteering".

If you want to continue the giant war profiteering engine that was Iraq and Afghanistan you're going to need another war. This document in 2019 an answers the question of how to start a larger war in Ukraine, also why that's bad for both Ukraine and US long term interests.

But what if you don't care about Ukraine and US long term interests? What if what you care about are 2 super important things to you:

1. Keeping the war profiteering engine going and even increase military and covert budgets, corporate defence profits, black market laundering, exports!

2. Show the Biden administratoin to be "strong" militarily rather than open to the critique of the pullout of Afghanistan.

Well, this exact war we are considering accomplishes those two things. Maybe the Rand authors really did and do care about US long term interests, but that does not mean people who make policy and reading this document do.

If you have other goals than US long term interests then the questions you'll be asking yourself when faced with the extremely likely loss by Ukraine in a larger war is:

Yeah, but defeated by Russia when?

For, as long as the war can be dragged out until the next election then, after the election, Ukraine dropped like a hot shell, it doesn't really matter that Russia is going to win and US be embarrassed and a new Cold War started and all that, as that doesn't concern you.

What you'll do is have the military war game things out (just not publicly as with this Rand paper) and what those war games will reveal is that Russia has no means of simply overrunning all of Ukraine. The initial invasion will run out of steam, then more will need to be mobilized as Russias standing army in 2022 was simply not that big, with the addition of the problem of pacifying conquered regions and so on. They don't know what Russia will do exactly but what they do know is that Russia is very unlikely to win in direct military terms in any short period of time. They'd also know on the off chance they're wrong and Russia does simply overrun Ukraine then that doesn't really embarrass the US as we all knew "Russia would win in 3 days" anyways, and then Russia is anyways the big meany and sanctions can continue and gas sold to Europe and so on.

Long story short, any war gaming this situation out would likely conclude what is likely to happen in a larger war is exactly what has happened, and what has happened is what was desired by policy makers. We can also be pretty sure of this as independent analysis before the war concluded the maximum Russia is likely to achieve in any short period of time is exactly what has been achieved: a land bridge to Crimea.

Further wargaming would reveal that once fronts stabilized the next phase would be high intensity attrition due to the immense artillery capability of the Russians and that Ukraine, being smaller and less well equipped, will reach a breaking point, but that takes years (aka. after the next election).

So, what we can glean from the US establishments own documents is that they knew exactly how Russia would respond to their actions described in their publicly available document dedicated to finding ways to harm Russia, and then Russia did respond in exactly that way in response to those actions.

If you can look at all this publicly available info and come up with quibbles about Ukraine's status as a US proxy to advance US interests at the expense of Ukraine, then you're engaging in what is obvious propaganda to advance US interests at the expense of Ukraine.

Promulgating the entirely false and ludicrous narrative that the West's policy is to help Ukraine out of the goodness of our hearts, doesn't help Ukrainians but gets more Ukrainians killed.

As for Russia's actions, they are a signatory and so also guarantor of the Minsk agreements, both Ukraine and Western leaders have publicly admitted those accords were done in bad faith with no intention of following them, and indeed Ukraine didn't follow them as was the plan and so therefore Russia is entirely justified in forcing Ukraine to abide by the accords, such as respect the people of the Donbas and stop shelling them.

If implementing these accords by force is somehow breaching the previous Budapest Memorandum then the guarantors of that agreement would of course be justified in similarly implementing that agreement by force.

The guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum do no such thing and so we can conclude that they agree there's no breach happening or then they simply don't care about Ukraine enough to fulfill their written obligations from which we can conclude Ukraine has already been fooled once by the West and is now in the process of being fooled again with the "as long as it takes" talk.

The first rule of start wars for profiteering club is:

We don't talk about the previous wars.

The second rule of start wars for profiteering club is:

We don't talk about the previous wars!

The THIRD rule of start wars for profiteering club is:

WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE PREVIOUS WARS!!!

Like, you're talking as if these people are accountable to someone or something and would need to like someday makeup justifications or something for their actions and even try to make those make some sort of sense or whatever.

You're honestly really starting to scare me.

You mean that Biden has bribed Zelensky to get rid of the Ukrainian ultra nationalists by sending them to certain death with "these kinds of hopeless offensives" because they do not serve anymore the US and then Biden will pay some CNN journalist to write an article to fault the Ukrainains also for this, right? — neomac

It's honestly incredible that you're able to get this close to the truth and yet not get it.

The only thing to change is that the US bribes all the Ukrainian elites with billions of untraceable funds and weapons as well as essentially de facto full immunity for laundering the money anywhere in the West. It's not just Zelensky getting bribed and also Zelensky is an idiot so I have little problem believing that the money is less important to him than playing the war hero in the script given to him.

But yes, spot on, these "ultra nationalists", aka. literal Nazis, are no longer useful to US interests.

These idiots were needed to start the war (i.e. keep shelling the Donbas for 8 years), and impose a terrorizing fascist dictatorship on the Ukrainian people in order to force people to the front (i.e. just straight up assassinate anyone engaging in critical thinking), as well as be propped up as elite soldier heroes for the part of Ukrainian society that actually wants to drink the coolaid.

However, in the phase of the war we're in now, called the fronts are collapsing phase, these Nazis are simply more trouble than their worth.

Solution, let them do what they've been asking for (and sometimes just going ahead and doing themselves on occasion) and invade Russia. For, the weakness of these particular delusional idiots is that they're delusional enough to think their "ultra stupidity" can actually defeat the Russians.

- Blame Zelensky for sacrificing its best combatants and dooming his country to certain defeat since other Ukrainians are too peaceful, coward or corrupt to fight patriotic wars as only Western men of honor can do, right? And therefore for obliging the West to take the hard decision to not support Ukraine's reconstruction after they squandered the Western aids so recklessly? — neomac

- Blame Zelensky for sacrificing its best combatants and dooming his country to certain defeat since other Ukrainians are too peaceful, coward or corrupt to fight patriotic wars as only Western men of honor can do, right? And therefore for obliging the West to take the hard decision to not support Ukraine's reconstruction after they squandered the Western aids so recklessly? — neomac

I'm honestly feeling this vibe pretty hard. You're not just warm, I'd say you're burning hot on this one.

- Or blame Zelensky for understanding too late ultra-nationalists were a real danger (since they pushed him and all Ukraine to a catastrophic war after committing a 8-year genocide in Donbas) after years of lies to silence Western concerns about Ukrainian neo-nazis? And therefore for obliging the West to take the hard decision to not support Ukraine's reconstruction after they squandered the Western aids so recklessly? — neomac

Cold, very cold, far from the prize. This is just way too complicated for a Western audience. What you're describing here sometimes goes by the name of "introspection" and we'll have none of it.

But sure, maybe a little "turns out there's a lot of Nazis" hints and nudges to smooth out "not supporting Ukraine's reconstruction".

- Or blame Zelensky for realizing too late that defeat was inevitable and getting rid of the ultra-nationalists was the only way to finally surrender to Russia's peace conditions, which he didn't need to. Indeed, if he only accepted the Russian deal (see Instanbul Communiquée) as advised by Biden behind doors (to keep publicly honoring Ukrainians' free decision) instead of spreading the lie that the West tried to block it, none of this would happen. And therefore blame Zelensky should be also blamed for obliging the West to take the hard decision to not support Ukraine's reconstruction after they squandered the Western aids so recklessly? — neomac

Again, way too complicated for a Western audience, but elements of what you're talking about maybe tossed around. For sure, "they wanted to fight!" will be the main refrain whenever the absolute disaster is pointed out.

I think you should consider the possibility you're just overthinking things.

US doesn't feel the need to justify anything at all, nor even talk about it.

Even if random Neo-cons blurt out these kinds of talking points (whether true or made-up) the moral of the story is that it won't matter anyways in the mainstream media.

We're entering the "see you in the next war" denouement on this one and things are falling apart, nothing makes sense but it doesn't really matter if you don't actually live in the house you just trashed with your "arch nemesis" frat bro rivals.

Look at how despicable the Americans make excuses for our Kursk offensive. They whine that they did not agree with them, they say that they do not understand what is happening, they begin to mention the ban on the use of American weapons and all that. — neomac

A civilian Muscovite must suffer more than a military Muscovite. War is a complex political decision by the political leadership of the occupying country, elected by the absolute majority of the Muscovite population (> 80%). Accordingly, the majority of Muscovites support the actions of their president, government, defense minister, and army. As long as the civilian population of the occupying country will support the war, the war or the idea of ​​a complete takeover of Ukraine, in case it ends or is suspended, will live in the vile minds of the Untermanches. The more the enemy population will be demoralized, frightened and disappointed by the myth of their own invincibility, the less such revanchist ideas will reign in the enemy's minds. — neomac

You see, even these delusional "ultra idiots" can see the bus the Americans are pointing to Ukrainian elites to prepare (their people) to lie in front of.

Today, the only one who can protect Ukrainians in peaceful cities is a Ukrainian soldier walking on foreign land, killing our enemies. It is difficult for us, it is difficult, many guys after the basic course immediately went to the disco, but this is not the end of the story — neomac

Another prediction I'm pretty extremely confident on is that these kinds of hopeless offensives are mainly about getting rid of these dangerous morons: you want to fight Russians? You think "not-attacking-Russia" has been the big mistake? Have we got the operation for you!!!

Do you read what you write? I got it from your own statements which I quoted and highlighted for you (here again: “You cannot invade the US from Ukraine.”). You are FOCUSING on a hypothetical scenario where Russia invades the US from Ukraine. Why? Because you want us to compare such scenario with the hypothetical scenario where the US invades Russia from Ukraine once Ukraine is inside NATO. How should we logically infer from such a comparison that Russia has “legitimate” security concerns?! And Russia is “justified” to invade Ukraine?! And therefore we should somehow appease Russia?! None of this logically follows, RIGHT? My charitable guess is that if you feel compelled to get to these conclusions from “you cannot invade the US from Ukraine” this is because you are drawing your conclusions also from hidden and uncritically accepted premises. So I’m challenging you to make them explicit. More on this in the following comments. — neomac

Again, unfortunately I still don't have too much time to deconstruct in detail all of your misconceptions and correct them, but I'll do a few.

Yes, obviously the point of pointing out Russia can be invaded from Ukraine is to point out that is therefore a legitimate security concern of Russia, as well as to emphasize that Russia will be much more committed to the war than the US.

However, your main problem is with this term "legitimate security concern". As I've explained many times, I am using the concept functionally as meaningful in the context of a negotiation or then discussing a negotiation.

If you want to get a criminal to talk you may need to get them a coffee as that's a legitimate ask (even from your point of view), whereas you probably won't get them a flying unicorn because that doesn't seem a legitimate ask. If you want nothing from the criminal, then that they want a coffee right now in between designated meals probably doesn't concern you all that much.

It's in the situation of wanting to come to an agreement with Russia that assigning legitimacy to some of their concerns is necessary. Some of that could be purely pragmatic (we don't genuinely agree, but some compromise is needed for a deal) and some could be genuine agreement (for example because we would have the same concern if the situation was reversed; aka. the Soviet Union placing missiles in Cuba).

Now, if you say "Bah!! Nothing the Russians want is legitimate!!" then ok, you can hold that position but what follows from that is therefore more fighting and if that's your position then you need to justify more fighting as a worthwhile endeavour: aka, what's the plan? how to win? what does more fighting achieve for Ukraine? and so on.

Which you've never done!! It's always ... well Ukrainians want to fight, it's their choice.

To which my response is that coercion is not free choice and the West bribing Ukrainian elites as well as bold faced lying to the Ukrainian people is called coercion. Likewise, forcibly drafting people and forcing them to front is also coercion and not "Ukrainians want to fight".

You're theory around these questions is so hopeless confused that unfortunately I don't have the time at the moment to explain exactly why they are hopelessly confused.

And this is on top of never answering simple questions such as how many Nazis in Ukraine would be too many Nazis with too much power and therefore appeasement of said Nazis to not invade? If you have a theory of just war then you should be able to answer this question and then go onto explain that the Nazi levels in Ukraine do reach the required number and influence to morally require un-impeasement which would therefore be exactly the invasion we see.

Also, generally speaking, everything I have predicted is now coming to pass, so it seems redundant to point it out everyday. It's sort of perfunctory at this point, but I'll keep repeating myself when I have a moment.

I'll quote myself when I have the time, but within the first weeks of the war I predicted that as soon as it no longer served US interest the throwing-under-the-bussing would commence and that at anytime the US can simply paint the Ukrainians as losing, and one thing Americans don't like is people who lose, and that the loss is Ukrainians fault, that they should have tried harder and won instead.

But with most of his troops now dead or severely injured, Dima decided he’d had enough. He quit and took another job with the military – in an office in Kyiv.

Standing outside that office, chain smoking and drinking sweet coffee, he told CNN he just couldn’t handle watching his men die anymore.

Two and half years of Russia’s grinding offensive have decimated many Ukrainian units. Reinforcements are few and far between, leaving some soldiers exhausted and demoralized. The situation is particularly dire among infantry units near Pokrovsk and elsewhere on the eastern front line, where Ukraine is struggling to stop Russia’s creeping advances. — CNN - Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

Bt the really key parts of this front page, top right article, is the following statements:

Ukrainian soldiers in the area paint a grim picture of the situation. Kyiv’s forces are clearly outnumbered and outgunned, with some commanders estimating there are 10 Russian soldiers to each Ukrainian. — CNN

and most importantly:

But they also appear to be struggling with problems of their own making. — CNN

So ... who's to blame for the West putting the Ukrainians up to fighting a war with the Russians that every single Western analyst and "decision maker" knew they would lose? (especially as they 100% knew that "whatever it takes" and "for as long as it takes" are obvious lies)

Ukraines fault!!!

The purpose of this article by CNN is to signal to the American elite that the "Ukraine show" is just about wrapped up and to inform them who the blame will be assigned to.

If memory serves me right, when I said the Ukrainians will be thrown under the exact same bus that we threw our "Afghani friends" it was you that explained that it's different because the Ukrainians are more "culturally close" or something along those lines (aka. we wouldn't let down white people).

Well, yes, they're white but very strange ... and also irredeemably corrupt and also fleeing from the battle lines as the above article explains in some detail, and most importantly they're losing and white people who win would really be a lot better.

I agree with Benkei's skepticism.

In fact, I would go a step further and say the WSJ story is obviously bullshit.

What amazes is me is the fact that people are even willing to entertain such a story when it's so obvious who is responsible for this.

It's like the propaganda storm is messing with people's 'bullshit filter'. — Tzeentch

Well then we definitely agree.

So, being a Westerner an'all, sovereignty is not a concern? — jorndoe

Before even getting to my own views on the issue of state sovereignty as an anarchist, the first problem with the sovereignty argument to justify Western policy is that it is disingenuous.

First, obviously sovereignty is of no general concern to the West: did we care about Iraqi sovereignty, Afghani sovereignty, Libyan sovereignty, Syrian sovereignty, and a long list of other countries the West has invaded, attacked, orchestrated coups and so on?

Obviously not. When the ex-CIA director was asked (in the context of discussing alleged Russian interference in US elections) if the US has meddles in other people's elections, his answer was "nium, nium, nium", and basically when we do it it's for a good cause, which obviously renders sovereignty (of others) a non-factor in formulating foreign policy.

So there's the hypocrisy which makes it impossible to take seriously any such argument in the context of Ukraine.

But, let's say we ignore all that and consider this case in a vacuum, the problem is still rapacious hypocrisy because obviously Ukrainian sovereignty is not our objective.

If it was our objective we would have sent in troops day 1 (or even before) to "stand up to Putin" and protect Ukrainian sovereignty. Which, I remind you, I'm the only one in this conversation that actually advocated that and explained the military and diplomatic steps to do it and why creating such an acute crisis is likely to work and actually less dangerous than a long war and slow slide towards nuclear war.

As I clearly stated, had NATO gone in, Russia backed down, we avoid all this death and destruction that has happened since, great! My main concern here is all the loss of lives (mostly Ukrainian, but Russian too), so if NATO did actually do it's "democracy defending" and avoided all or most of that loss of life, great.

Now, the reason such a policy was unthinkable is not nuclear war, that would be fairly easy to avoid in a confrontation (as Russian elites don't want to be nuked either), but rather such an acute crisis would focus attention and make clear that the only resolution possible would be diplomatic, resulting in not-a-long-war (and so not-a-long-war-profiteering) and thus exactly the kind of "new European security architecture" that Russia was asking for, such as a neutral Ukraine.

You could not have an acute crisis without even the Western media getting serious about it and the only options some negotiated resolution (such as the Cuban missile crisis) and thus Russia getting some of what it wants, such as neutral Ukraine, protection for the Russian speakers, at least token rebuke and commitment to "do something" about actual literal Nazis. For, if there was direct confrontation the propaganda of "we can't negotiate with the Russians, that's up to Ukraine, we're not going to 'go around them' " could not possibly apply, and Western negotiation positions can only be so stupid, but not stupider.

It is only as long as only Ukrainians are doing most of the dying that attention can be obtuse and the propaganda of don't-negotiate, unquestioned Ukrainian just cause ("unprovoked") and drip-feed weapons and so on, can be fed to the public without any criticism in the mainstream media.

Now, we can get into all the apologetics of why Ukraine matters but not that much if you wish, but if we go ahead and assume one or another apologetics argument for not going and defending this sacred sovereignty ourselves manages to work and therefore all we can do is send arms and various covert means.

Well why not send all the arms then? Why have this drip feed of weapons systems over more than 2 years? If Ukrainian sovereignty matters (just not so much as to go ourselves) well why not send the good stuff from day one?

The answer is that the concern is not Ukrainian sovereignty but the policy is to try to damage the Russians using Ukraine as a tool to do so.

But the problems don't end there. If Ukrainian sovereignty (i.e. independent free action) is important, why do you have zero concern for the sovereignty of individual Ukrainians to choose not to fight in the war? How does forcing and coercing individual Ukrainians to the front lines to fight for some sort of abstract "Ukrainian state" right to free action make any sense?

And especially if the support for the war is coming from the right, what happened to "So they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first," and yet when Ukrainian men look to themselves and their families first and don't want to sacrifice themselves for "society" ... well, I guess fuck them is the pro-war rightist message today.

And that only scratches the surface. All in the name of the non-existent "society" that is Ukraine, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of movement, due process, free elections must all be jettisoned to prop up what is now a totalitarian state all in the name of freedom.

The idea what is happening is about "sovereignty" is so hypocritically idiotic it is difficult to even formulate the idea in the mind's eye long enough to write down what's wrong with it.

This 'sitting and waiting' reflex seems to be a form of intellectual paralysis, brought on by the fog of war and continuous propaganda campaigns. It's actually one of the goals of information warfare to bring the adversary into that state of mind, in which case it is called strategic paralysis. It hadn't occured to me until now that this also happens to domestic audiences.

Don't get me wrong. I get the reflex out of intellectual rigor, and usually reserving judgement is the 'correct' thing to do, but in this case it's exactly where the propagandist wants you to be. — Tzeentch

Though I agree with your basic point here, @Benkei's issue seems to be the particularly with the story about the plan to blowup the pipelines being essentially a drunken frat prank.

I think some skepticism about this particular story is warranted and seems to play into the propaganda technique of downplaying elite crimes as serendipitous, "boys will be boys" kind of thing, that elite crimes serve no agenda and aren't "really crimes" as any kindergartener might get up to similar mischief, nothing further to analyse.

In this case the drunken origin story portrays the decision to blowup the pipeline as essentially whimsical, and we can just go ahead and ignore the sophisticated planning that goes into such an operation, that there is almost zero chance Ukraine would act without the US' blessing, that Biden stated clearly they'd find a way to end the pipeline, and the immense surveillance system of the US that renders it difficult to fathom that even if Ukraine did come up and execute the plan by themselves that the US did not know about it

Which connects with your point that obviously it is a clandestine operation which we can be positive in any actionable sense that the US carried it out for all intents and purposes, either directly or then indirectly through Ukraine as a backup patsy, but if @Benkei only meant to say he'll wait and see if it was really all planned on puke stained napkin during a binge and then executed by force of willpower and cocaine alone, that seems warranted.

Here your assumptions seem that “legitimate security concerns” for one state is only about being “invaded” by foreign countries, and that the only relevant comparison over security concerns is between the US and Russia. But I deeply disagree with both. — neomac

I don't see where you get the idea that I'm reducing security concerns to invasion. Obviously invasion is topical for this discussion, but there are plenty of other security concerns as well. For example, between the US and Russia, the main security concern would be a nuclear war.

1. As I argued elsewhere, “legitimate” is an ambiguous expression: it can be used to express “accuracy” of one’s judgement about perceived risks in terms of security. In that sense also nazis, terrorists, mobsters have legitimate security concerns, because certainly there historical circumstances that potentially harm nazis, terrorists, mobsters more than other circumstances. In another sense, “legitimate” is about other people’s recognition or acknowledgement about somebody’s rights to commit certain actions within an international legal order. So nazis, terrorists, mobsters violating this legal order can not appeal to “legitimate” security concerns to justify their violations, no right of violating the international legal order can be acknowledged by those who are committed to preserve such international legal order. An unprovoked aggressive war (the one Russia inflicted on Ukraine) is not justifiable by security concerns in light of the legal world order Westerners support, a provoked defensive war (the one by which Ukraine resists Russia) is. “Provoked” is not about hypothetical scenarios but actual offensive acts like actual territorial sovereignty violations (as in Russian actual territorial occupation of Ukraine).
I don’t mind you using the expression “legitimate security concerns” once the distinction of the 2 meanings is clearly stated and acknowledged because we should neither conflate the 2 meanings nor assume that one implies the other. Indeed, one can successfully claim that Russia has legitimate security concerns in the first sense, and yet deny the second after the invasion of Ukraine. — neomac

As I've explained many times, "legitimacy" is a concept that is useful in the context of a negotiation, to denote where your own side sees (or you're arguing should see) the other side as having a point needing to be addressed in some way. I often used the example of detectives trying to get information from a criminal. If the criminal demands a coffee, his right to outside time being respected, and a flying horse, the detectives may conclude between themselves that the coffee and the outside time is a legitimate concern, they should address those if they want the criminal to cooperate, but the flying horse is illegitimate and they'll just have to deny that request.

If the detectives don't want anything from the criminal, they are unlikely to care as much, if at all, about the criminals concerns.

The main thing you are still unable to see is that you cannot go from "rights" or "concerns", of one kind or another, to justifications.

"A right" and "a concern" are one aspect of the situation, if we on our side of a conflict or dispute recognize that the other side does have a legitimate right or legitimate concern then that simply indicates to ourselves that we'll need to pay attention to this aspect of the situation and likely need to address it in a robust way, compared to what we view as illegitimate which can just be dismissed offhand (such as a criminal demanding a flying horse). If you go into a court of law or a negotiation recognizing the counter-party does indeed have a legitimate right or concern, the judge will naturally expect you to address in a sophisticated way and then go onto explain that on the whole that legitimacy on those points are insufficient to make their case and your case is the one that is justified.

For example, in contract disputes it is pretty common that both parties have broken the contract in one and usually several areas, and each side will then argue the other side did it first, did it worse, did it intentionally, caused more damages, didn't reasonable address the issue once emerged, didn't negotiate the contract correctly to begin with, didn't secure the appropriate insurance, didn't amend the understanding correctly on the fly which should have been triple stamped and signed in blood with a notary present, etc. etc. etc.

Legitimacy is simply the opposing demarkation to bullshit. If you receive a longwinded demand from a scummy lawyer, the first thing you'll want to do is separate the legitimate points from the bullshit, either born from incompetence or expressly designed to waste your time (usually its both simultaneously), and then come up with robust arguments that address the legitimate points and witty retorts and dismissals to the bullshit if address them at all.

2. Binding the notion of “justification” to that of military victory and defeat, or war and peace is questionable. Afghans, Palestinians, Kurds are evidence that people won’t renounce to defend what they perceive to be their land and people against foreign oppression because of the disparity of military means and costs for fighting foreign oppression. — neomac

No where have I equated justification with military victory.

Fighting under impossible odds can be justified, but the situation must be extreme.

To argue an action is justified requires arguing the likely consequences are acceptable and preferable. So, to attack your kidnappers with 100 to 1 odds of prevailing over being shot in the head, requires more than the right of self defence to justify, you must argue that the likely result of being dead is preferable to continuing to be captive. Obviously you prefer that 1% of chance of taking down your captors with improvised kung fu, but your action is only justified if you are also content with the far more likely result of being dead. To make things more morally concrete, not just a "you" thing, the situation is that attacking your captors will likely result in you and the other captives you're with also being shot in the head.

If your decision is based purely on the "feeling" that somehow you'll prevail against what you have no problem recognizing is 100 to 1 odds, and you yourself have no problem recognizing the captors will simply leave once they've done robbing the place, then that's just magical thinking that gets people killed for no justifiable reason. However, if the captors are likely to torture, rape and the murder everyone whatever happens, then those 100 to 1 odds are looking pretty good.

Vis-a-vis Ukraine, one can simply argue that land ownership is more important than anything else and it is better to fight to the death than give-up 1m^2 of land. As I and @Isaac made very clear, we obviously don't share that view.

However, even on this premise that fighting to the death for land with low odds of victory is justifiable, it does not somehow just magically justify forcing people into fighting, taking away their right to freedom of movement, taking away their right to free elections and a free press and a due process and pretty much every other right they previously had (however poorly implemented in the pervasively corrupt state of Ukraine).

As I've said many times, if Ukrainians (the individual soldiers) were really fighting of their own choice without coercion with more-or-less correct understanding of the situation, knowing the low odds of success, then I wouldn't have much of a problem and wouldn't have much of an argument. Obviously we could still argue whether that really is a justified position or not, still argue about the strategic military choices, and so on, but if it really was a case of "Ukrainians want to fight"; the situation would be tragic but there would be little to really argue about.

However, when the power of the state is used to corrupt people's understanding with propaganda (both Ukraine and Western governments), a flood of external and contingent (on doing what the West wants) money is bribing the elites in effective control of the state, take away people's rights, coerce them to the front lines, and the end result is massive amounts of death and suffering and nothing to show for it, then there's plenty to take issue with.

The narrative of "Ukrainians want to fight" that's brought out whenever the terrible consequences (slip through the cracks of state propaganda) is just more state propaganda to dull the senses of Westerners who step back a moment from the cheerleading and get uncomfortable with what the actual consequences of our choices are and ask obvious questions (like whether it was a good idea to rebuke Russia's offers to negotiate a liveable peace in Eastern-Europe for decades).

2. If one wants to reason strategically over longer term objectives under evolving geopolitical conditions one can not discount NATIONAL interest as perceived by the concerned nation (Ukrainians and Russians, to begin with) nor discount how all other relevant players are reacting to such conflict. So defining necessary and sufficient conditions as a function of chances of winning or achieving peace as soon as possible (not even as long as possible?) based on current military capacity of the two direct belligerents, and independently from perceived national interest or other actors’ playing strategy, looks historically and strategically myopic to me.
At best, you may wish to persuade Ukrainians (not me) that it is not in their national interest to refuse to become Russian vassals. But I would be surprised if Ukrainians would find your arguments conclusive since their national identity is rooted in a historical opposition to Russian national identity and oppression. It would like to trying to convince them that the Ukrainian national interest is better served by being Russified. — neomac

Right on cue, the exact propaganda I just responded to.

If there was no coercing Ukrainians to fight, then sure, let them fight. However, considering the few Ukrainians outside of Ukraine that return to fight and the many that attempt and do leave, this narrative is simply not true.

As has been repeated many times, my primary issue is with Western policy (as I'm a Westerner and I mostly affect and am responsible for Western policy) and my secondary issue is with Ukrainian policy.

Obviously "Ukrainians" clearly don't want to fight, else there wouldn't be press gangs forcing them to the front lines and there wouldn't be all the whining and bitching about needing Western nations to round up the Ukrainians (refugees from a war; which we proudly recognize the rights of refugees from every other war) who got out and needing to send them back to Ukraine and force them to the front lines.

And, obviously "Ukrainian sovereignty" is not the concern of the West or we would send our own troops to defend this important thing.

The situation is not one of sophisticated moral, political and strategic thinking, but of Western elites cynically bribing Ukrainian elites under the cover of sophisticated propaganda for Western elite purposes, to in turn exploit Ukrainians to fight and die so elites can continue to pocket said bribes.

Furthermore, losing a war now to prevent losing a war later is not sophisticated strategic thinking.

Can't respond more now, but I'll try to make time for it.

↪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).