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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They're obviously accepting it so far.

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

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

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

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

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

Making things clear on paper is not difficult.

Making things successful is the difficult part.

Son of a bitch.

I'm in.

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

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

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

So either way US relative power would decrease.

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

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

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

So you also get the benefits of your point 3:

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

Even without a war with China.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's not just majority rule — Benkei

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So lot's of extreme things have happened already.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, Russia can just keep nuking Ukraine.

That is the key problem here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes there's just a war too far.

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

Agreed, no qualms from me here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then there's the problem of Nuclear weapons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Dear Mr. corrupt]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Socrates strikes again.

Well, be careful not to choke on your ambitions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, I propose this deal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmm, I wonder why that could be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is my issue here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Really, EU CSRD compliance law?

A man of your talents.

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

Which is the point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israel does not offer Gazans citizenship and equal rights.

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

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

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

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

So there, fixed it for you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is simple, clearly, unambiguously genocide.

And that's just the starvation.

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

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

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

You can add the mass graves.

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

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

There is nothing to equivocate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does seem honestly bizarre to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your peace suggestions are propaganda because they are completely unrealistic:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hence why floating these ideas are made public.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The nuclear weapons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine could probably still negotiate:

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

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

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

A suggested revision of Ukraine's Peace Formula:

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

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

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

Could it be done? — jorndoe

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

Number 5 is:

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

And 7 is:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well it might, but I honestly doubt it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definitely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's my sense of it anyways.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's all very, very dark.

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

Winter is coming though, naturally.

Is that international law, or a law of Nature, or a local convention? — unenlightened

Statistics are made by statisticians. It is a convention how unemployment is defined; who exactly fits this definition at any given time would be fact that can be observed but statisticians generally use proxies to the data they seek such as survey data, tax data, unemployment payment schemes, and whatever else may seem relevant to them.

My reason for thinking this might be the case is the context of the figure in the video, and also things like this:

"Teenagers, elderly people and even prisoners are plugging drastic holes in the Russian workforce created by people being recruited into the army or fleeing the country."

Again, if these workers aren't forced then it maybe a good thing that teenagers and old people can work if they want to or the pay is attractive enough to them. Presumably the prison labour is forced and conditions in Russian prisons aren't great anyways, so definitely lamentable.

However, the point of my little lecture about the unemployment statistics is that if you need to resort to the argument that low unemployment is some "great tragedy" that has befallen the Russian people then that's pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel of available gripes.

The fact of the matter is, neither the sanctions nor propping up Ukraine have fulfilled their original promise of doing great harm to Russia (people, institutions, power projection etc.).

Which is what I predicted at the start of the conflict: sanctions are unlikely to work (because they never work), and the war is likely to make Russian significantly more powerful in military terms (as that's what conventional wars generally result in, often for both participants).

Which was the original purpose of my analysis 2 years ago, that rejecting Russias offer would likely result in a stronger Russia, not weaker one (with a chance to result in total collapse of the Russian government: why they would offer and accept a peace deal on favourable terms, as it isn't rational to risk even a tiny chance of total collapse if there is an acceptable alternative). Whereas accepting the offer could easily be presented as a Ukrainian (and Western ) victory and it would debated for a long time who came out on top, but definitely Ukraine and the West could easily tell the story that courageous Ukrainians "stood up to Putin" and Russia was forced to give back the Donbas due to this fierce resistance with Western support. Of course, Russia would have gotten recognition of Crimea in such a deal so it would have gained territory overall from the events put in motion in 2014, but the main takeaway (for Western talking heads) would be the mighty Russian army tried and failed to conquer all of Ukraine in 3 days and the valiant Ukrainians led by the intrepid and daring Zelensky put a stop to their machinations.

Why I was so concerned about the likely result of continuing the war resulting in a stronger Russia is because (despite being continuously accused of being pro-Russian and even a Russian intelligence operative on occasion) I don't actually want a stronger Russia, and worse a stronger China.

I don't like authoritarianism, and although Russia is a democracy and Putin has legitimate broad democratic support, it's still far more authoritarian system than to my nordic liking. However, China and its Orwellian social credit system and mass surveillance systems (that make our own mass surveillance systems look like actual freedom in comparison) is far more concerning. Pushing Russia and China together into an alliance makes China far stronger on the world stage and enables export of its totalitarian technology to any authoritarian of whatever flavour anywhere. The war also significantly weakens Europe that is an actual democratizing force in its institutional international relations (despite many, many flaws).

Western policy has been self defeating in this conflict, mostly due to corruption.

Pointing out Russia is winning and very, very, very likely to win (as @ssu reminds us I predicted 2 years ago) is not pro-Russian, but pro-reality, and if we want to navigate to a better world the starting point must be how the world actually is today, which is one in which Russia can easily win a war on its border, nuclear weapons prevents any "bold action" to change that (aka. starting another World War), and propping up Ukraine is high likelihood of making Russia stronger and sanctions creates a parallel world economy and weakens Western leverage globally, and Europe is severely weakened further eroding Western leverage.

In other words, stupidity in the name of what sounds good, is just dumb. Feeling morally superior by doing something self defeating in service of a buzzword is actually evil when you look at is closely. In a gist, this is the essence of my analysis across these soon 600 hundred pages of discourse.

Well I'm not sure, but I understood that to be a translation snarl. If one put it in the negative - as 96.5% employment, it would be catastrophic, because the old, the infirm, the sick, the insane, and children would be working in huge numbers. And that would be the result of the "disappearance" of men of working age either abroad or into the army/casualty lists. — unenlightened

Unemployment statistics only count people able and looking for work.

Which is of course a somewhat vague concept so it's pretty easy to manipulate these figures by changing how things are counted. Of course, good statisticians can pick a way of measuring and track that competently and changes to that number as a proxy to whatever the "real unemployment" is will give insight into what is happening.

I only elaborate on the issue because "people wanting and able to work having work" being a bad thing, is a neo-classical dogma that is highly suspect.

It makes perfect natural sense from a capitalist class point of view, as when you employ people into your business you ideally want them unemployed so that you have the bargaining power. However, that is a capitalist class desire and not some necessary condition for labour movement; it is perfectly logically possible that you hire someone who is already employed by giving them a better offer than their current work (and indeed, upper-middle-class professionals assume this is how their career will go without any logical problems or believing they are contributing to some economic catastrophe).

Of course, if businesses lose employees and go bust, well they go bust, which (only in this context for neo-classical theory) is a bad thing and not "creative destruction" (which is perfectly acceptable if there's "creative destruction" in ways that transfer wealth from the poor to the rich).

This is maybe not the thread to go further into detail, but I hope I've provided enough information that pointing to Russian near-full employment as some harbinger of doom is highly debatable.

Otherwise, the v-blogger you posted is against the war on moral grounds and is sad by all the death and destruction, so an entirely reasonable position to take, but his points that Russians are literally disappearing and the economy will collapse any-day are essentially just fear-mongering and not serious analysis.

Yes, it is possible that there's some way for Ukrainians to somehow win or then get better terms (... I guess join NATO).

I just don't see exactly how Ukrainians can actually deal with heavy artillery and Russians can simply avoid urban combat.

And, I'm sure you agree that lives should not be thrown away for no reason, they do need to have some real chance of accomplishing the goals you outline. — boethius

Russia is currently winning this war and no amount of social media is going to change that.
— boethius

Well, two years have gone from that remark from you and uh..., oh well. — ssu

Yes, Russia was winning the war 2 years ago, and is still winning the war.

And the whole comment is definitely worth citing:

Yeah, sure, explain the position of Ukrainian Jews to Putin as a diplomatic response if you want.

Or then ignore anything Putin says as your negotiation strategy ... but then why go speak about anything if the plan is just to simply ignore the points of the counter-party?

Or go fight in Ukraine and defend it from Russian aggression.

People seem to be debating based on the premise that keeping social media momentum that any act of defiance no matter how irrelevant militarily speaking (such as just "defying" Putin on this philosophy forum), is going to save Ukrainian lives.

It won't. Russia can't just be cancelled due to social media momentum like some talking head who said the wrong thing on a podcast.

Russia is currently winning this war and no amount of social media is going to change that.

Effective diplomacy can save thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives, and arguably millions due to energy price increases and food shortages by actively making this war more disastrous than it is.

Maintaining a stale-mate by flooding in arms can force an adversary to the negotiation table.

But there is no stale mate, Russia couldn't take all of Ukraine in a week because it's so big ... but for the same reason there is no practical way for Ukrainians to defend all of Ukraine. As long as Russian army is steadily advancing, then it is winning and will simply continue to do so until it has "clearly won", and then will negotiate.

Russia certainly had a very soft invasion to start the war to give the Ukrainians the chance to accept the demands of being a neutral country. For the sake of "having the right to join NATO" which NATO isn't offering, those demands are refused and civilians armed to demonstrate a existential battle to the death and call Putin's bluff.

Well, Putin wasn't bluffing about invading Ukraine in the first place, and isn't bluffing about doing things the hard way (relentless heavy artillery bombardment that javelines and manpads can't do much about, only equally heavy counter battery and the logistics to continuously supply shells and fuel, which Ukraine doesn't have).

It's common sense. If NATO isn't actually letting Ukraine in the club (which, to be clear, they could have done anytime) then if you call Putin's bluff about invading, rather than conceding something you don't even have (being in NATO), you better be right or you've wrecked your country and traumatized every citizen and gotten many killed.

If you stage a media campaign of "existential resistance" and passing out riffles to civilians (who will have no effect in a modern battle field and Russia being "less modern" than the US doesn't change that, and get sent a flood of small arms like javelines and manpads from sympathetic countries), to call Putin's bluff about willingness to use tactics that are effective against small arms (big arms), then, again, you better be right about Putin's bluff otherwise your cities get leveled under relentless heavy artillery bombardment and your small arms tactics are of no use.

If the outcome of the war is the same, Russia wins, what was the point of calling Putin's bluffs, which obviously weren't bluffs? Just to prove that Putin was willing to "do what it takes"?

Ukrainian government has had a "Putin defiance, zero compromises" policy since 2014, and goaded on in the West ... and, sadly it seems, truly believed the West was a friend and not just egging them on. Seems to me real tears over the no-fly zone and real frustration with NATO for not actually helping (small arms are effective against US ... because US is unwilling to level cities to the ground and US, at least pretends, to be occupying places for the citizens own good; and, even then, small arms tactics don't actually push US front lines back or overrun US bases, just harasses US patrols until the will to continue occupying the territory, more importantly the strategic purpose, is reduced to zero and then the American's leave ... and even then takes decades of small arms tactics to get to that result).

Yes, Russia does not have as many smart munitions ... but you don't need smart munitions if sending tens of thousands of incredibly cheap shells to obliterate the entire enemy position from tens of kilometres away, gets the job done.

Effective resistance can, in some cases, encourage a settlement on better terms.

Ineffective resistance is A. ineffective and B. likely just angers the counter-party more inviting harsher tactics and worse terms of a negotiated settlement.

And pretty much every military analysist interviewed on TV says the same things (including the former director of the CIA): Ukrainians are fighting so bravely, we got to support them with arms, punish Russia with sanctions so "they learn", blah, blah, blah, but obviously Russia is going to win and Ukraine can't do anything to change that outcome. Why the small arms then? Just virtue signaling that "we tried ... but not really cause you totally not welcome in our little NATO club"?

Sending someone to die should at least serve some strategic purpose, not simply play well on TikToc. — boethius

At no point has Russia not been winning the conflict.

It conquered about 20% of Ukrainian territory and secured the land bridge to Crimea in the first days of the war, which it still has.

True, I did predict Russian "winning harder" at the start of the war, but that conclusion what based on the assumption that the West would not supply armour, only hand held "defensive weapons"; which, if you remember, the West insisted pretty hard on at the time, and portrayed supplying armour as basically unthinkable.

A few comments later than what you cite above, I explained that obviously armour would be a game changer:

The real game changing weapons would be a lot of armor. There's a reason that Nato assumed that the Soviet Union could just roll through Europe: a shit ton more armor than Nato had. Turns out that the US wildly overestimated the Soviet capabilities (because they hired a Nazi to run intelligence on the Soviets who realized grossly inflating Soviet capabilities would get him more resources and reason to hire his friends), but the basic principle that only a bunch of armor is actually effective against a bunch of armor at the end of the day is pretty accurate (planes and other things can help, but any large scale offensive or counter offensive maneuver needs a bunch of armor--which is why the conscript mobilization playbook also calls for an insane amount of anti-armor mines everywhere). — boethius

With armour the Ukrainians could go on offensives and have some reasonable chance of "winning".

And Ukraine did go on offensives, but only after the supply of a lot of armour to do so.

My analysis from the start was not and has never been that Ukraine had zero chance of winning, just that to have a chance would require far more weapons systems and ammunition.

Something the West could have done, but chose not to because if Russian forces were actually at risk of being routed they could resort to nuclear weapons.

Now, Ukraine eventually got a bit of armour, and then a bit of more armour, then Western armour, and some missiles and so on, and once this process started I updated my analysis to "drip-feed theory", which has been my core thesis here since a pretty long time (I'll check, but if I remember correctly I formulated this thesis shortly after the Russians pulled back from Kiev and the Russian offer was rejected).

Drip Feed Theory (DFT) being that Western policy is to prop Ukraine up just enough to resist the Russian but not enough to actually threaten the Russians, so each weapon system is added only after previous weapons systems fail and the new weapon system can at best keep pace, resulting in a war of attrition that Ukraine will lose.

The victorious Russian Army simply goes onward from triumph to triumph! — ssu

That's literally what's been happening, and the insistence on the delusion of the opposite is mostly what has prevented a diplomatic solution to the war (both before and after it started).

But seriously, Russia does have this year a window of opportunity, but the present aid package will likely get Ukraine well into next year. There's still a lot of unknowns after that. But we can be assured that boethius will give the most positive view of the Russian situation as he has done for two years plus now... — ssu

By positive you mean predictions that have come true.

I predicted small arms and shoulder launch missiles would not be sufficient to do any sort of offensive at the very start of the war when memes like "saint javelin" was a thing. Hear of the miracle of javelins recently?

I predicted the policy is to drip feed weapons systems to Ukraine so that there's no actual threat to Russia; just enough to prop them up, not enough to legitimately threaten Russian forces in Ukraine.

Where are those F16s again? Even Ukrainian generals are saying they are too late to make any difference.

I predicted a WWI war of attrition would result in the weaker side being attrited first, and now "attrition, attrition, attrition" is the mot du jour even in Western media.

I predicted sanctions would not collapse the Russian economy, which they didn't.

I predicted "low morale" would not result in soldiers fleeing from the battle field and topple the Russian government, which it didn't.

I predicted the incredibly hyped Ukrainian counter offensive would make essentially no gains (while some here not only predicted Ukraine would cut the land bridge to Crimea ... but that would be an easy "step 1").

None of these predictions are "the most positive view", just what is essentially common sense if you know even a cursory overview of the subject matter.

The most positive military view would be that Russia would conquer all of Ukraine in a few days or then certainly by now, which I predicted would not happen because Russia does not have the forces to occupy all of Ukraine anyways and Ukraine had the capacity to resist for some time.

Of course, Ukraine's ability to resist is easily predictable: Ukraine is huge and the population is large (just not nearly as large as Russias) and can be supplied with arms, training, intelligence by the West.

As easily predictable that Ukraine can resist a good while as it is that Ukraine cannot prevail in a war of attrition, as man power eventually depletes and Russia can outproduce the entire West in key munitions it seems anyways (the West's support does not actually translate into an advantage in any weapon systems category).

This analysis is just common sense and nearly every single point has started to be integrated in both Western and even Ukrainian discourse. Even the money laundering and arms laundering, which I've also talked a lot about (indeed, my prediction arms to Ukraine would be used in terrorism also came true), is mentioned in Western media as "the way things are" basically.

(Flowery future for these two wonderful persons?) — ssu

Russia is not prosecuting a genocide and has kept the large majority of world public opinion on its side.

Whereas Israel is prosecuting a genocide and is likely sowing the seeds of its future destruction.

6 million Jews will not be able to prevail against the combined disproval of a billion muslims without US backing as the top superpower. The moment that backing or that power goes away Israel can be destroyed by its neighbours. Of course nuclear weapons will be a deterrent but what I predict is an anti-israel force will emerge that is simply not deterred by nuclear weapons. Israel has no strategic depth and using nuclear weapons on its own territory is hardly a good solution and nuking Arab cities is also not a good solution facing an irregular force (who will likely want that to happen).

The animosity towards a Jewish state in Israel is a 1000 years sort of thing, and prosecuting this genocide is the exact opposite thing you'd want to do if you wanted your unwelcome state to survive in these conditions.

Things change and Israel has no capacity to survive by itself, as soon as sufficient external backing goes away Israel will be as much at the mercy of its Arab neighbours as Palestinians are at Israeli mercy today.

Russian policy, you may not like and I don't like it "as such" (just I also view the war as much more a consequence of Western policy), but it's not a genocide and it's also not stupid.

Russia is currently solidifying global diplomatic backing, leading the creation of a parallel global economy, while building and refining the greatest war fighting machine and arms production capital base (of the arms that actually matter in a contemporary high-intensity warfare) in existence today.

Russia can now credibly say to its partners and client states that it knows how to defeat Western weapons, training and intelligence.

This is the situation.

I have not fact-checked this, but offer it as is:– sneer, dismiss, disprove, approve, or something else; personally, I cried, but I am a milk and water liberal pantywaist. — unenlightened

There's not that many facts in the video you posted, mostly just discussing the impact of the war on the Russian economy and citizenry.

It's mostly hyperbole such as describing low unemployment of 3.5% as catastrophic. It's not some neo-classical "optimum" level of unemployment (to make the rich class richer) but it's far from a "catastrophe".

To labour point, the idea that low unemployment is "bad" is from the capitalist class perspective as they need to compete for workers if unemployment is too low and therefore pay them more, and in a Western economy the capitalist class would rather a crisis to bring wages lower than raise wages (so it tends to be a self fulfilling prophecy, if not engineered). The exception to this pattern is in a war (such as WWI and WWII) in which capitalist interests cannot dominate government policy and unemployment drops precipitously in order to fight the war, and yet this does not cause an economic crisis but rather an economic boom (such as the roaring 20s and then later WWII credited with ending the Great Depression). These counter examples of the faith in high unemployment should not only be pause for thought in itself (it's clearly not some sort of economic "law of nature") but Russia is too in a large war so we should prima facie group Russia into the category of low unemployment being an economic good thing such as WWII America. The theory that unemployment is bad of course isn't necessarily bad from the perspective of said workers being paid more. The neo-classical ultimate retort to that is that sure you can pay workers more but that causes inflation, so it doesn't matter, but for that process to happen workers still need more money and more buying power to go around bidding up the price of goods (a process in which they accumulate wealth for inflation to happen).

Point being, it's highly debatable whether low unemployment is some harbinger of economic doom. There's also so much possibility to outsource these days that the situation may simply be very different today anyways, even if this was an actual problem in the past in some conditions.

All of this being very pedantic economic forecasting into the future and little to do with the war at hand. To find fault in a wartime economy in it having too low unemployment

The v-blogger is against the war and finds it a tragic loss of life both on the Russian and Ukrainians side, which is a reasonable position to take, but it is extreme hyperbole to say Russians will disappear, if that's what you're crying about.

Of course, removing the hyperbole, the cost of the war on Russian society is significant, but to make any analytical headway in understanding the war, where is it likely to go and most importantly how it can be ended sooner rather than later, any weakness of Russia needs contrasting with how things are going in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian economy isn't "doing great" and the Ukrainian population pyramid was in collapse before the war started and that has simply been accelerated with a large part of the Ukrainian youth and women of child bearing age leaving Ukraine unlikely to ever return.

After this Palestine thing dies off (like Ukraine did, that thread is very dead)
— Lionino

Not quite ;) — jorndoe

The thread is quieter these days because the "consider reality" side of the debate are currently looking at the reality of Ukrainian lines disintegrating.

It's a bit superfluous to come here and argue that the Western policy in Ukraine of propping up a severely under-matched (in every category of war fighting) war of attrition will result (with very, very high probability) of the larger side breaking the smaller side's line.

As has been pointed out for nearly 2 years, a war of attrition is not a "stalemate" and eventually one side is exhausted and breaks.

Western media ironically quickly made the right analogy with WWI as soon as trench warfare emerged ... but then bizarrely concluded that therefore the war can go on for ever, as if that was the result of WWI.

The Russian strategy since the first phase of the war has been to attrit the Ukrainians, focusing first in attritting Ukrainian / the entire West in air defence—although Ukraine severely attritted themselves on the ground during this phase anyways in both foolish defence of lost positions as well as foolish offensives against well defended positions—now, air supremacy being achieved over the front, Russia can rapidly attrit the remainder of the Ukrainian ground force.

The Ukrainian military is essentially disintegrating in every respect.

Ukrainian reserves, large maneuver capability, air defence being essentially exhausted, Russia can now blitzkrieg deep into the Ukrainian rear forming long salients without fear of a counter offensive cutting off those salients.

Not only can Russia now start a phase of maneuver warfare in what we refer to as "the front" in South-Easter Ukraine (to conquer the entirety of the annexed territories), but Russia can also "big arrow maneuver" at any point on the actual front that includes the entire Ukrainian-Russian border and entire Ukrainian-Belarusian border.

Not only has Russia now:

1. Pacified the territories already conquered
2. Built up a force capable of pacifying far more territory

The two essential elements for more conquest, but the Israeli genocide has also completely changed the optics of what is doable in a war. Before the Israeli genocide, a child merely being injured in Ukraine would be front page news in the West; this standard of outrage will be hard to maintain when the West has participated in outright murdering and maiming tens of thousands of children in Gaza while starving them all.

Of course, optics in Western media isn't everything, but the Kremlin does have to take it into account, there being diplomatic costs of causing too much humanitarian harm, as we see in the case of Israel that they certainly can prosecute the genocide to their hearts content but there is clearly a diplomatic cost to doing so. Russia's policy has been to make similar territorial conquests (but also very different in that conquered people become Russian citizens and there's no apartheid state nor genocide or ethnic cleansing for that matter) while maintaining as good a diplomatic position as possible. The Israeli genocide significantly reduces the diplomatic costs to Russia causing more humanitarian suffering to achieve military objectives.

At the start of the war, US ex-military and ex-intelligence analysts talking heads were so confused and befuddled as to why the Russians didn't use shock-and-awe strategy of completely shutting down the entire civilian infrastructure that they concluded that Russia is either incompetent, incapable or both.

What we can now clearly see is that Russia could shock-and-awe but chose not to ... maybe precisely because the result of the US using shock-and-awe strategy, at the end of the day, is massive diplomatic costs in the long run. The consequence of US "gun-hoism" of basing military decisions simply on the primal desire to see more and larger explosions, resulted in US going from undisputed moral leader of the world at the end of the Cold War ... to ... being full partner in a genocide and the delusional hypocritical gaslighting of their diplomats laughably dismissed as the ravings of mad persons by most of the global diplomatic community.

All this to say, there's neither a Ukrainian military nor diplomatic pressure that can do much about further Russian territorial conquests.

Ukraine military capacity being depleted, there is now very little to negotiate with unfortunately.

At the same time, Russia does not have the capacity nor the desire to conquer all of Ukraine.

The likely outcome therefore is Russia will simply take all the territory it actually wants and create a buffer zone.

Regional players like Saudi-Arabia and UAE express concerns for any military escalation. The hope would be that Israel would act like Trump now (do nothing). But that hardly isn't goint to happen like that. As now Israel has gotten "the right" to go after Iran, it will likely use this opportunity. At some time of it's choosing. — ssu

Israel already attacks Iranian people and assets all the time, including assassinating Iranian citizens within Iran.

Israel has not acquired any "rights" here; indeed, it's Iran that has the right to attack Israel due to blowing up an embassy being a clear and overt act of war.

The purpose escalating to blowing up the embassy was exactly so Iran attacks Israel and the US is "back onside".

The first goal is simply to renew the US backing so Israel can either continue the genocide in Gaza or then stop the genocide in Gaza.

So we'll see.

It could be that Israeli elites have seen they've lost the PR war, lost appetite for the economic cost of the genocide, so doing it this way leaves the last big impression (especially on Americans) that "Israel is under attack" and is the actual victim (in the next news cycle we'll have forgotten all about Gaza).

And that could be the only goal in this tit for tat, that attention is off Gaza.

Iran gets to show strength and measured retaliation for the embassy and Israel is the victim again so that the genocide can continue, so both parties gain in the exchange.

This is certainly what Iran is betting on because Israel has nuclear weapons and probably the Iranian leadership doesn't want to get nuked. Iran's main strategy is to just tolerate Israeli harassment until it too has nuclear weapons. US power is also in decline both globally and particularly in the Middle East, so Iran gains in relative power and can consolidate its power in the ration in playing the waiting game due this also.

That Israel wants to continue the escalation into a regional war to drag in the US to fight Hezbollah and Iran and Syria and a long list of other groups, I think is unlikely due to the simple fact that the US can't win such a war, without resorting to nuclear weapons.

There's no practical way to actually invade Iran. Escalating standoff attacks heavily favours Iran simply because Israel is so much smaller both in territory as well as people. Not that Iranian missiles would likely kill many Israelis if they just start firing missiles and drones at each other, but it's more the economic cost to Israel of the entire population going to bunkers regularly (the low casualties would be due to the bunkers). Israel wouldn't be able to have a similar effect on Iran (without nuclear weapons).

Not to say it won't keep escalating, just in that case Israel is already committed to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran and Hezbollah. Instead of being like "we lost the PR war so we should wind it down" Israeli decision makers (whoever they actually are) could reason "we lost the PR war so we should therefore use nuclear weapons".

Of course this would be pretty horrible and insane, but so too is carrying out a genocide.

And they have here the agency. We are just giving them support. What's so wrong with that. — ssu

We've discussed this probably dozens of times.

The moral issue is giving support based on false assurances and propaganda.

The analogy would be "informed consent" for a risky medical procedure. If the doctor lies about the risk and the benefits, then it's not informed consent and completely immoral.

There's not only the direct lies such as "as long as it takes" and "whatever it takes" and so on, but the CIA crafted a propaganda campaign both with Ukrainian intelligence and media as well as Western media and other governments. The main goal of the propaganda campaign was to make everyone believe the Russians were weak and could be not only defeated but easily so, based on completely made up missions, anecdotes and numbers.

Now all sorts of Western officials are saying that was an "oopsie" and we underestimated the Russians. Again just more lies, it was an obvious truth that the Ukrainians were completely outmatched militarily by the Russians.

Then there's all the manipulations that led up to the war, and the fact that Ukraine is extremely corrupt (meaning people with power do bad things against the interests of the population) and that just sending billions of dollars to Ukraine structured in the form of a slush fund (US officials literally stated they have no way of accounting for the money or the arms once they enter Ukraine) is a de facto bribe to the Ukrainian elite to continue the war as long as the spice flows.

All this and more (such as getting rid of opposition parties and media) is called manipulation.

Now that the war turns out to be a total disaster for Ukraine and not a rational plan, hiding behind "Ukrainian agency" to justify Western policy (we are still responsible for what we do, and the extreme costs of Ukraine for likely failure is written right in the RAND corporation report on "unbalancing Russia"; which, notably, does not mean defeating Russian in any meaningful way) is equally morally vacuous.

They can call it quits and there's nothing that the West can do about it, if that happens. The fact is that Russia simply isn't just going to cede back all the territory if Ukraine will be neutral. — ssu

We can actually do plenty to pressure Ukraine into continuing the war, such as continuing with the above policies.

I would think so too. — AmadeusD

We definitely agree on this point so I will try to synthesize the debate so far as well as transcribe some key passages of MacIntyre.

My position is essentially MacIntyre's position except with a Kantian "boost" as it were to upgrade some of his claims to categorical imperatives.

For example, MacIntyre doesn't like manipulative social relationships, I would simply upgrade that not-liking to a categorical imperative: we can disagree, we can be at odds, we can compete in different contexts, we can try to convert each other to our own view, we can fight, we can come to blows, maybe even kill each other to resolve our differences, but I view it as a categorical imperative not to manipulate you; i.e. deceive you into acting against your own objectives by making you believe falsehoods (which is not required for coercion, which I still view as necessary for society to function, but we can be coercive without being manipulative), which of course is Kant's central thesis: treat people as ends in themselves, as echoes in many religions: do onto others as you would have them do onto you.

That being said, MacIntyre's description of contemporary Western society and how we got here and where it's headed, and his own proposed program I fully agree with; it's all quite brilliant so I will try to do my best in finding the best passages to present it.

As I don't know A.Ms work, I'll take your word for it - but this actually exemplifies exactly what Im talking about. Taking a moral framework pigeon-holes the positions you're allowed to take, and what consittutes a virtue under it. I take no such position so it's somewhat Hard to respond. It all seems incoherent to me without first accepting that Morality is invented and obtains only between the margins of those frameworks. — AmadeusD

I have not yet really presented MacIntyre's argument, but his starting point is exactly that you need a moral tradition in which moral ideas and decisions even have meaning, and it only from the standpoint of one tradition that it is even possible to comprehend the claims of another tradition; one can not be traditionless. I'm not sure that's exactly compatible with "obtains only between the margins of those frameworks", but we can get into that when I make a thread presenting MacIntyre's After Virtue positions.

I'm unsure this has to do with my position. I would, in general, agree, but the social consequences have v little to do with my moral position. My intuitive reaction to them is what informs my moral position on any given act. I couldn't predict what I would think morally correct in a novel situation, for example. My intuitive reaction might include some consideration of the social consequences, but that doesn't support my moral, let's say, claim. The claim is just that it makes me uncomfortable, so I wouldn't do it and prefer others didn't. Because It makes me uncomfortable. No other reasons. — AmadeusD

As mentioned, the purpose of developing the social consequences is claritive.

All these sorts of questions are with the purpose of understanding your position.

As you may appreciate, a significant amount of moral-relativists (whether emotivist or straight nihilists or some other flavour) essentially operate by "grandfathering in" a long list of moral rules and social opinions that they take for granted. The fact that in normal situations it's "off limits" to advocate those positions (such as torturing children) they take to mean it's therefore off limits as criticism (i.e. that they are only defending what is already socially acceptable); however, if someone makes the claim "there are no moral obligations whatsoever" of then "all moral positions are as good as another" what's entailed by that is there is no moral obligation to not torture babies nor interfere with someone so engaged.

Agreed. I largely reject the usefulness of thought experiments for this reason, within moral discussions. — AmadeusD

I strongly disagree here; thought experiments are the primary tool of developing a moral theory.

Of course, I understand you would want to avoid that if you're theory is simply based on spontaneous emotional reaction to situations that arise ... but one such situation that arises is someone putting to you a thought experiment in which you'll have an emotional reaction too.

However, the examples I've provided are not even really thought experiments, they are real examples: people really do torture, murder, rape, extort and take bribes.

It has. But the mistake in the previous seems to still be live, despite your acknowledgement. But, as with the bit you quoted, I could just be misunderstanding, so it's not too important. — AmadeusD

It is not a mistake if a question is honest and not a criticism.

It is not a gotcha. If you propose no moral claim is better than another and are willing to "pay the cost" as MacIntyre says about people who take this to it's logical conclusion, then the debate would proceed from there.

Of course, in normal society a debate is "won" when a proponent (from their point of view of course) leads a position to a conclusion which society already disagrees with (at least in their opinion), ideally some taboo (such as Nazis and pedophiles and so on). But of course, even if those premises are all correct, it simply begs the question of whether "society" really is correct about that moral position. Maybe Nazis were right after all.

An authentic criticism would thus require an actual justification that society is correct on that particular point to form a sound and valid argument.

Which I have not done yet, as I want to fully understand your position before critiquing it.

I'm unsure this has to do with my position. I would, in general, agree, but the social consequences have v little to do with my moral position. My intuitive reaction to them is what informs my moral position on any given act. I couldn't predict what I would think morally correct in a novel situation, for example. My intuitive reaction might include some consideration of the social consequences, but that doesn't support my moral, lets say, claim. The claim is just that it makes me uncomfortable, so I wouldn't do it and prefer others didn't. Because It makes me uncomfortable. No other reasons. — AmadeusD

Well this is quite important to know in order to understand your point of view.

I am not. I am invoking the (probably, largely ignored) fact that the surgeon has taken on the patient's emotional position. If they have not, and are a sociopath, your point would be apt for them. In this way, my personal moral position is just don't hire sociopaths as surgeons to avoid this problem. But that's mechanistic, not moral. The problem is moral and only exists in that I, personally think it sucks the surgeon did that. — AmadeusD

We certainly agree it is better to avoid the situation, but the issue is what duty does the surgeon have to the patient.

In a world of no duties, then the surgeon has no duty to perform the surgery to the best of their ability and obviously until completion.

Obviously in our society the surgeon would be convicted of gross negligence and likely murder, but that process is completely predicated on society's existing belief the surgeon has a duty to perform the contractual engagement, perform as best he can, and certainly "do no harm". However, if the truth is there is no duties then there's no foundation upon which society could legitimately demand any of this and no way to maintain a system (with detectives, prosecutors, judges all performing their duties) to enforce accountability to those demands.

No, there is not. I don't invoke one. There is no duty. There is the fact that, upon hte patient's emotional state, completing the surgery successfully would be preferable. If the surgeon actually didn't go in sharing this state, then fine. Walk away. I don't care. — AmadeusD

Obviously we both prefer no one to be needlessly harmed, so we agree on what is preferable.

The disagreement is on whether what's preferable can also be morally obligatory.

Your view is quite clear on this topic.

It will take another thread to actually critique your view.

I don't understand this passage, or it's genesis apparently. Suffice to say, I disagree. It might be another discussion, once I get across what you're doing with this part of your response.
that society might end. And that might be good. — AmadeusD

Not at all. The quote you present immediately after this is my denying that it matters, or that there would be a 'crisis'. The society would end. So what? — AmadeusD

Again, just trying to understand your position.

All the duties I will argue along with MacIntyre are real actual duties ultimately aim to continue humanity.

If you're ambivalent to the continuation of humanity then that is likely the very heart of the difference.

If people choose, collectively to do things, Great. I don't ascribe any duty to it at all. Society is cool. I have no other thoughts on it really. — AmadeusD

My points were derived from what many moral relativists do which is to deny there are any moral truths (in one way or another) but then continuously argue that society will continue on being "good", which makes no sense if there is not good and bad.

All points of mine on this theme is not only in relation to what moral relativists usually do, but also people in general in Western society: moral relativists language is used to avoid criticism of one's own actions ("don't criticize my diet I can eat what I want!! It's my life!!"), while moral absolutist language is used to criticize opponents ("I condemn my political opponents!! This is a violation!!").

Now clearly this doesn't apply to you, but I spent some time on this post to be sure of it as well as for the benefit of anyone following our discussion.

I would say so, as all these objections sit well with me. I'm not a Libertarian. — AmadeusD

We definitely agree here.

Yep. I also 100% disagree with your framing of the situations you refer to. But, obviously, this is not hte place Apt for it**. I did anticipate this type of disagreement :P — AmadeusD

We definitely will need to go deeper in another thread, so we can maybe return to this point and contrast framings.

This is a bit bad-faithy-sounding. I said nothing of the kind, and intimated nothing of the kind. I spoke about hte emotional undercurrent of the discussions. Obviously it 'has to do' with past colonialism. Heydel-Mankoo covers this from the perspective of a colonised minority (maybe not hte right kind, though ;) ). — AmadeusD

Again, I'm asking a question to better understand.

But as with above, if you're not arguing for some sort of market utopia but we just ignore the initial distribution of wealth, then this isn't too relevant to you.

I've argued a lot with libertarians so all these points are easy to retrieve from memory. However, if you're not a libertarian then markets, today or in the past, isn't really a core issue of contention. However, I have also been thinking of a thread critiquing Western imperialism (as a lot of the differences in other political threads basically come down to "Western imperialism good or bad"), so taking up Heydel-Mankoo would perhaps be more relevant there.

I disagree ;) Particularly that these issues aren't really philosophical. He's ignoring empirical facts about the political state of most countries - the majority of people take no part, and are not involved. But, as I've not read him, I await your thread/s to discuss that bit further ** — AmadeusD

Yes, you may reevaluate your position on MacIntyre after debating the specifics.

MacIntyres historical account is not one of individual political agency, in which case definitely most people have very little and certainly don't perceive themselves as involved in politics (although I would strongly disagree they are not actually involved); he is more concerned with how the moral frameworks in which the political debate of the day occurs develop and are changed. These more fundamental moral changes are mostly a critical mass issue, often happening against the will of the elites; an example of this sort of major change is the reformation.

From this perspective, normal people under feudalism would perceive themselves and be perceived as having even less political involvement that normal people now in Western society, but then they start to rebel against the Catholic Church and consequences are profound. The reformation was certainly not the Catholic Church's idea, nor would it have worked if it was just "an idea" a few intellectuals and nobles had; normal people getting involved, taking significant risks, was absolutely fundamental. This sort of change is what MacIntyre is more concerned with.

No. This is, exactly, what is actually happening as has happened for the majority of definitely Western Culture - perhaps, all culture. — AmadeusD

Certainly has happened until now.

What I am claiming is bold is that ridiculous levels of political stupidity do not now pose an existential risk to humanity. Of course, if you are unconcerned about humanity continuing, as you say above, then seems an irrelevant point to you either way.

Im not sure why you're asking this. I don't think society 'succeeds' or not. It seems odd that your next passage is somehow a reductio to this position. It's not absurd at all. There is no objective measure of success, and I don't have the (socio-political) framework in place to assess the same way you do. Simple :) I could "simply" be wrong about that. — AmadeusD

These points are in relation to your criticism of my claim that Western society is failing.

There is definitely an objective measures of social success, such as people having enough to eat and society at least continuing.

Objective and quantifiable.

You may have no problem with society ending, but I don't see why you wouldn't agree that would indeed be society failing in whatever it was trying to do.

;) You'll need to figure out where I assessed 'success' in moral terms. I can't see it! If i have implied that, please explicitly point it out because I am uncomfortable with that, if it's the case. — AmadeusD

Then you are using the word success in pretty unusual way.

In its usual meaning, success requires some goal which requires some moral framework to formulate.

Your intuitive-spontaneous moral framework is still a moral framework from which you derive your objectives.

This is wrong in terms of my position. I think it is. It isn't successful or unsuccessful. There is no ultimate goal or aim of Western society. It continues to move (forward, backward, whatever). Maybe you can use that as a yardstick in which case my position holds anyway. But that's not me. That's just a suggestion. I don't think it success or doesnt succeed. It just is, or isn't. I admit, entirely, that my asking your view on this was more a poke-the-bear than anything. Defend it failing. I don't think you did, on your own terms. But, that's because I don't recognise what would constitute success or failure in your account/s thus far. — AmadeusD

Seems incongruous to laud Western society in one place and then claim is has no goal or aim in another.

But again, if society destroys itself that is clearly failing.

Your position seems to be that you're fine if it fails as well as humanity as a whole, simply fails and comes to an end.

To argue the more fundamental point that we have a duty to try to avoid humanity failing, will of course take another more dedicated thread to elaborate the argument.

However, my point here is that the assumption that Western society, humanity as a whole, will simply muddle on is a false one; society can end and so cease to muddle.

Yep. I've not called you 'wrong'. I think you're making a mistake in moral reasoning. That doesn't make you wrong - and in fact, could only be true if you were convinced of my position - which would negate that conviction :P This is why my position is consistent. It doesn't apply to anything but me and my actions. — AmadeusD

It's good to see you are advanced enough in understanding your own position to realize it is inconsistent.

And this would be the fundamental moral duty I would put forward: a duty to try to be consistent.

Now, if you are committed to an inconsistent position there is not "arguing against you" per se as you can simply be comfortable with any inconsistency, comfort is your guide, and so there is no problem.

So, perhaps at best we can exchange views, but you clearly like to argue so with enough of it perhaps you simply become uncomfortable with inconsistencies and so convert to my avoid-inconsistencies moral code.

If no one is willing, and it's morally right to defend the country and you're not inferring that conscription is morally acceptable there... then... What are you suggesting? That seems a dead end.

I take the rest of that passage to be incoherent in light of the above, so I wont touch it yet. Could entirely be me. — AmadeusD

Since we've already established you aren't concerned with social consequences, these considerations aren't so relevant.

However, in your framework people can obviously conscript other people and force them to fight at the end of a gun, if they're comfortable doing that.

My goal here is not to debate conscription (I happen to be also against conscription, though not against taxing people who do not server higher for life, to avoid the free rider problem), but again to simply understand your position.

The underlying purpose of questions on this theme is your view of the state. Seems clear you're ambivalent, and don't really care what happens to the state, which is very much compatible with being ambivalent to what happens to society as such.

What I'm reading as childish, is that it seems your passionate responses presuppose your moral framework. It seems your framework has to take account of your emotional positions. It seems you are enacting the exact same, let's say, discontinuity in your position, that you outlined about moral relativists near the top of the post. — AmadeusD

My questions and examples are the logical enquiries.

If someone says they don't view any act as morally better than another, then before debating first principles I want to be sure they really are taking that view.

If you're ambivalent to anyone doing anything at all, just more comfortable with some happenings over others but that's just you're own feeling of comfort and doesn't give rise to any moral claims (including claims about conscription for example), then I want to be sure you really are ambivalent.

As I've mentioned, most people who use moral relativist language are not actually moral relativists, they still want to condemn Hitler and assume that's given to them: but obviously it's not, if no one is right or wrong, Hitler is as right as anyone else.

This is the childish mistake you are making. Your underlying point, I would reply to with "Yes. That's correct".
But the fact you've entered a value judgement on the part of your interlocutor is worrisome. I don't think it was laudable, or detestable. It happened. Does it make me, personally, extremely uncomfortable? Even repulsed? Yep. Which is probably what you want to know. But that's nothing but an emotional reaction to hearing certain information. For me that is absolute, in the sense that I can't, currently, feel another way. But that is a state of affairs. Not a moral claim. — AmadeusD

I said "as laudable" to just mean they are equal (which you can say "equally good" or "equally bad").

Which seems very much your position, you have no particular gripe with Hitler and the Nazi project: happened, they were clearly comfortable with what they were doing so doing right by their own comfortableness (certainly comfortable enough to carry out their project).

Again, it's not childish, it's the adult question to ask: when someone says they see no better or worse morality, then clearly the obvious and logical point is make is that entails Nazism is thus no better or worse than any other ism.

Correct. No issues. It makes me uncomfortable. I have nothing to appeal to in telling them no to do it, other than the potential consequences for them - reason with them. Would I bother? Maybe. If i were uncomfortable enough. — AmadeusD

This is exactly why I develop the consequences of society changing its view of right and wrong, that "you shouldn't do X because society will hold you accountable and there will be consequences" is not a valid argument.

When you say "consequences for them" clearly the negative consequences to serial killing personally to the serial killer would be getting caught. But why would anyone catch you if no one thinks serial killing is bad?

I don't. I haven't presented any. You seem to be importing some upper-limit to your conceivable moral behaviour matrix and ascribing those limits to my position. I don't share them. I have limits of my comfort and pursuit of comfort occurs. These are arbitrary, as far as another person is concerned. But, by-and-large people share the same limits of comfort within a society, and so 'getting on with it' can occur without a shared 'moral' framework. This is, probably, what the West does well, compared with many other societies. — AmadeusD

You just rejected, above, any measure of success or failure in evaluating societies, but say here that Western society does something well. You just said Western society has no goal.

However, it's simply wrong that there is no shared moral framework.

There's a shared core moral framework: such as serial killing is evil and justifies a very large effort in stopping, law enforcement shouldn't take bribes and so on.

It is this core moral framework that is overwhelmingly dominant that allows Western society to function (at least until now and certainly for at least some time further).

Obviously you are well aware of the reaction to serial killing or child torturing of the vast majority of people: that their position is that it's an absolute moral wrong, evil, must be stopped and transgressors put away for some time. Likewise, the reaction to a judge taking a bribe.

This is a shared moral framework.

Of course, even if there's an absolutely dominant consensus on some core values that make civil society possible, there can be visceral disagreements on less-core things, such as abortion. Whether abortion is legal or illegal, society does not simply all apart (such as if murder was made legal).

Where society can afford to muddle is in policy choices that are not existential to the formation of civil society or then any society at all.

I don't, other than to say 'Well, this is what's going on". The norms are the norms and tell me about a collective emotional status of the society. — AmadeusD

Your position is getting pretty confusing to me.

In some places you seem to hold a total ambivalence to what happens and are not concerned with the social consequences whatsoever, and not only are you unconcerned for what happens to society but there is no way to measure the success of society as such (you're ambivalent to society succeeding or failing and moreover assert there is no measure of success or failure anyways), and in other places you seem to argue society, in particular Western society, is doing well.

You seem, at least give the vibe, of being pleased with Western social norms.

This one is troublesome because, prima facie, there shouldn't be. At least not beyond social consequences - which are pretty much arbitrary - and policy is just this, after collective deliberation. BUT, i would freely let you know that the idea of there being no consequences for certain actions makes me uncomfortable. Again, that's just a state of affairs. Not a moral claim. So, I dislike this, and it makes me uneasy, but I take it wholesale to be the case. Legal and social consequences are arbitrary, other than that they meet a collective emotional benchmark. — AmadeusD

Again, arbitrary is a strong word, even your framework is not arbitrary but founded on your spontaneous sense of comfort.

Social consequences are also clearly even less arbitrary. The consequence of going to prison for murder is not arbitrary; if you can just get what you want by killing who you want when you want, then society quickly ceases to function much at all (certainly nothing remotely close to Western society is feasible if murder is permissible).

Likewise, claiming "other than that they meet a collective emotional benchmark" is another way of saying they aren't arbitrary.

Now, it will take another thread to develop an alternative position to your view. To broadly describe it, I will be arguing that emotions are not foundational. For example, even in your own system you are clearly making the claim that "you should do what you're comfortable with"; there's a logical moral structure you're ignoring that takes emotions as inputs and is not therefore by definition itself emotional. However, this would be simply a starting point.

There is not enough space here even to finish responding to your points, so I will have to in another comment.

LOL. ↪boethius It's like he's writing a Monty Python sketch. — AmadeusD

John Cleese once explained that when he started in comedy his of the world was that it was mostly sane and if we just made fun of the small part that insane it would get smaller and eventually go away, but then he started to realize that the world was mostly insane and there was a small island of sanity that was always getting smaller. A true prophet.

But this little recent exchange is a good example of where my mission to develop strategies to deal with bad faith actors comes from. It's difficult enough to advance a debate constructively between legitimately good faith interlocutors, so when bad faith propagandists run amok it's a just a total disaster.