I guess it just seems pointless. Though Qatar has claimed they're close to a deal.

To all this you can only muster 'But the US...!'. Until you understand what the actual CONFLICT is about, you will still be wrong about the direct reasons for the war. — Jabberwock

Well apparently there is no conflict. There's just US imperialism, pulling all the strings.

So this is not a hard question to answer. Yes, you would prefer to live in a world where Israel is in charge. — RogueAI

Unless you're an arab.

It's a bit like arguing Nazi Germany was a perfectly fine place to live. If you were a blond, blue eyed ethnic german.

The world is a better place without Hamas in it, and if Palestinians support the Hamas attacks, the world is a better place with fewer of them too. — RogueAI

My standard response to this is the following:

Since you're in favour of killing people, I think the world is a better place without you. Therefore, please apply your own logic.

Peoples sometimes have to be dragged into the civilized world kicking and screaming. It happened with Germany and Japan. It will happen with Palestine too. — RogueAI

Germany and Japan were not civilised before 1945?

I've made an ethical argument: both Israel and Hamas kill innocent people. Israel stands for democratic rule and protection of women and minorities. Hamas stands for Islamic rule and degradation of women and minorities. Therefore, we should prefer Israel wins. — RogueAI

Which would be an ok argument If you're 9. Are you?

The question is whether we — the US —should have taken the Russian perspective seriously. I think we should have. We didn’t. And that’s why we have the war. — Mikie

That's easy enough to say. But what does "taking the russian perspective seriously" actually imply?

Most of what you said seems to be a certain sentiment except the war imagery at the end. It was probably a mix of just wanting to feel secure and I would think most families would rather the image be collective farmers, fishermen, builders, engineers, etc just living life building the land. Being a citizen soldier is just a necessity not the driving force. If your existence is on the line though, surely fighting in the army is not a remote possibility but a necessity. — schopenhauer1

Well I can't really make any claim in my own right. But it made sense to me as a reaction to trauma.

Israel is not just another nation state. It's not just an anachronistic quasi colonial project. It's also a product of the Shoa. It's a promise that, the next time, the jews will not be helpless.

And if that is so it would certainly have a bearing on the Israel Palestine conflict. It would especially have a hearing on the reaction to a terror attack.

After all people smuggle millions of drugs into this country everyday so I don't see how it will be different with guns. — Lexa

The comparison with drugs ends up very misleading, because it seems to be the case that, where guns are not common, a gun is often a liability for anyone engaged in criminal activity.

The main reason that repression has been ineffective at eliminating the drug trade is that the demand for drugs is inflexible. People addicted to drugs will do whatever it takes, and addiction is very profitable for the sellers.

No such dynamic exists for guns. Most organised crime is preoccupied with making money and staying undetected (or unmolested). In a country where guns are illegal, anyone who relies on criminal activity for their income will think very hard before taking a gun out on the street. Being caught with a gun in a country with strict gun control is one of the best ways to get a whole lot of law enforcement attention on you.

And most of the things these people do don't benefit particularly from being armed. The only area where guns are both a significant advantage and are actually used is in gang-on-gang violence, or occasionally internal disputes / acts of revenge.

On the other hand petty criminals might wish to be armed, but petty crime is already a high risk - low reward kind of deal a lot of the time. The people involved usually carry psychological issues like addiction or are otherwise marginalised. They don't generally have the resources to get a gun.

So the chilling effect of gun control on armed crime is overall much more effective than the one on illegal drugs.

But more proximately, Israel, the modern state, was an idea that came about in the 19th century and borne out of the nationalism that was prevalent of that time. But the same can be said of Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and you name it. The reality of Israel came about through the realization that Jews in the Western world (and that includes populations in Arab centers which traditionally have been "treated" a bit better than Europe prior to Israel), because history has demonstrated a rampant hatred of this group through the generations and culminating with the holocaust (and is that some sort of "End of History" moment for humanity or the Jews in general, or can that happen yet again, and again and again.. hence the idea that perhaps a location related to the group's origins makes sense for there to be at least one place for the people not to be continually at the whims of whatever country they belong). — schopenhauer1

Naomi Klein has pointed out in her recent book, which touches on the middle east, that Zionism used to be simply one part of a wide discussion. Before it turned into a byword for the Holocaust, "the jewish question" was avidly discussed by jews with various views represented.

But the Holocaust destroyed this discussion, both by physically destroying it's participants as well as discrediting the idea that jews could integrate. Zionism ended up the only plausible answer.

Klein argues that Israel offers jews a kind of new identity. A kind of repudiation of the old European stereotypes of jews (intellectuals, merchants, poor peasant communities in eastern Europe). A muscular, tanned figure, rifle in hand, tanks and fighter jets at their back.

It's a truism that you state.

I agree with your truism and then you complain about me agreeing with your truism. — boethius

It wasn't intended as a complaint.

What is not a truism is that we agree that the Russian terms on offer, at least as they appeared to be and were interpreted by diplomats and the West's own media, were reasonable, you even go so far as to say generous (a term I would hesitate to use; generous would be just leaving all the occupied territory).

Now, what is notable, is who doesn't accept this truism is Zelensky. He rejects further negotiation until his demands are met, rather than negotiate and see if there's a deal good enough to take and thus he should take it.

But it's an additional truism that you negotiate before an agreement not after your counter-party accepts your terms.

So maybe it is an obvious truism that you should negotiate and take a good enough deal if it's on offer, but it's clearly not so obvious as to be accepted by Zelensky nor his cheerleaders in the Western media.

Ukraine rejects the terms before the war and also, we are told, the whole Minsk process of diplomacy before was just a ruse and those previous settlements to the conflict were agreed to in bad faith. — boethius

I haven't said anything about what I think the terms actually were, and I have already decided that it's pointless to discuss specifics with you as our views just diverge too much.

Clearly we do not inhabit a shared reality (mentally, that is).

What further fighting improved Ukraine's position? — boethius

Mostly all the fighting in 2022 after the first couple of weeks.

You think now Ukraine is in a better negotiation position than it was at the start of the war? And only going forward from now their negotiation position might decrease? — boethius

Yeah, at least in terms of relative battlefield advantage. You can of course argue that the russian losses will make it harder for Russia to justify any kind of settlement, but psychological effects like this are hard to measure.

It's possible that Ukraine has passed it's peak and the war of attrition will slowly accumulate russian battlefield advantage, as well as erode Ukrainian will to fight. Certainly the very public show of disunity recently is not a good sign.

But there doesn't seem to be a reason to assume either side will collapse any time soon and a lot can happen in a long war.

You obviously didn't read what I wrote.

I explicitly stated I disagree with the narrative that the US forced Zelensky to abandon negotiating but needed to persuade him. I even go so far as use the word seduce. — boethius

Fair enough. I was just reminded of the phenomenon that, in the proxy wars of the 20th century, junior partners often acquire outsized influence, because the prestige of either the US or the USSR was bound up with their fate. So both powers ended up much deeper in wars than they really wanted.

So I think (without agreeing with the sentiment that this is a proxy war) that even if Zelensky is reliant on the west for aid, we should not discount his own influence.

For that matter, an interesting thought is that Russian involvement with the DNR and LNR, which as far as I know was opportunistic and not initially part of some larger strategy, ended up setting up the conditions of the 2022 invasion.

In that sense you maybe are right to point out that Russian support for the separatists was always likely to eventually escalate. Perhaps by sending regular russian troops into Donbas Russia unknowingly (at the time) embarked on the course that would lead to the 2022 invasion.

Sure there is. If I'm an elderly man, I'm weaker than a young burglar breaking into my home. However, if I have a gun, the playing field becomes much more level. — RogueAI

There's always a bigger fish though. There are countless possible advantages, not just muscle strength.

But people do abuse the physical advantage they have over others, and the police can take awhile to show up. — RogueAI

Yes. But then guns only help in a small subset of these situations. You cannot organise a society in such a way that there is zero risk. So again the question isn't "do guns give you a relative advantage sometimes" but: "of all the things you can do to improve society, why are you focused on guns specifically".

They don't have a special standing, but they do make it possible to defend my house very efficiently. — RogueAI

And is that advantage worth the price?

There are over 300 million guns in the U.S. It's ridiculously easy for criminals to get their hands on one. Until that changes, I'm also going to have a gun, and I'm going to support other law-abiding citizens' rights to own guns. — RogueAI

But isn't this ultimately a vicious circle?

You have no choice but to depend on others, period. We are born into this world as dependants and we can only realise our autonomy by engaging in relations with others.

It's one of the fundamental dichotomies of human life: the desire for autonomy and the need for community.

We seem then to be on agreement of the principle point that if there was a suitable peace available based on an "acceptable neutrality", before or at the beginning of the war, then that was far better for Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as living breathing people compared to the situation now. — boethius

This is almost a truism, isn't it? If the deal is good enough to avoid fighting then the deal is good enough to avoid fighting.

Incidentally if that was the case then there was no reason for the invasion in the first case.

What deal would have been attainable at the time we can never know for sure now, but what I think is clear is that Ukraine, particularly Zelensky, believed further fighting would improve their position; my argument of why Zelensky believed further fighting to be a better course is the various myths quickly built up around the war: Russia was incompetent and easy to beat, Putin an irrational actor as well as some sort of nostalgic reenactment of WWII Western allied solidarity ... just without anyone coming to actually help. — boethius

And further fighting did improve Ukraine's position. Whether that will be be the case going forward is another question.

What I notice about your view, and this also goes for @Tzeentch to a different extent, is that in your "myth", or perhaps we should use a more neutral term like "narrative", noone has any agency. Decisions are ultimately just reactions to the shadowy machinations of an abstraction like "US imperialism" or "the neocons". Hence why Zelensky must be manipulated by a myth. Perhaps he is even entirely a puppet. The russian actions, too are ultimately just a reaction to the actions of the masterminds.

One does not need to invoke a master plan to explain Ukraine's decision to fight. They're hardly the first people in history to react with defiance when attacked by a seemingly overwhelming enemy.

A fellow citizen might try to kill you though, so I should hope it would be easier. A gun is a great equalizer in that regard. How do you propose the weaker citizens should defend themselves from the stronger? — NOS4A2

Weakness is relative, so there is no equaliser. One of the tasks of living together is making sure that whoever has a physical advantage in any given situation cannot abuse that advantage.

Guns have no special standing here, they're just another factor to consider.

Americans simply do not trust their government enough, nor should they. — NOS4A2

I don't really buy that though. If you want guns to protect you from the government you can buy your rifle, lock it in a safe and leave it there until you need it. And you can do that in a lot of European countries, too. Sure you need a permit, you actually need the safe etc. So it's bit more effort but entirely doable if you want a gun just in case.

And despite all the performative distrust of "big government" in the US, the US government is not unusually weak or less likely to abuse it's power.

So what's special about US usage of guns is how easily it is to pull a gun on a fellow citizen.

How a term is to be defined depends on its function. Words are tools for communication, they don't contain some deeper truth.

So the question cannot be meaningfully answered outside of a specific communicative context.

As vivid as that prophetic future and possible murder may be in the utilitarian's skull, the insinuation is unjust because it convicts not only those who would commit such crimes (and their victims), but those who would not, punishing them alike. The punishment in this case is to deny people their right just in case, preferring instead to reserve the right for those in power. — NOS4A2

The interesting thing is though that we do that all the time. A dense population cannot possibly function without risk management, and risk management always involves "punishing the innocent", if you want to put it like this.

From drugs to waste management, from driver's licenses to zoning laws, regulation to avoid common risks is entirely normal. And I don't think that guns can be classified as anything less than risky.

And that is the peculiarity to which @Wayfarer also speaks. That in the US, and almost exclusively in the US, guns are not framed as a risk to be managed but instead as an integral part of the person wielding them. It would be only be a slight exaggeration to say that in the US, guns are people.

What is the fundamental difference between information processed by a mechanical computer and a brain? How can there be a fundamental difference in what is happening if all we are is mechanistic?
What is the implication of this for the idea that computers are just too mechanical to be, conscious, to love, to generate or understand meaning, to have a self or to have free will? How would changing notions of consciousness, meaning, morality, free will and self to make them fit with bodies as mechanical as any robot change these psychologically important notions? — Restitutor

I wonder if many people really believe that. Many might believe they believe it, but humans are very prolific in anthropomorphizing. We ascribe inner lifes to everything from our house cats to the weather.

So I think in practical terms it won't require much of a psychological change at all to consider machines as human in everyday interactions, though that will not necessarily extend to treating them as human.

As for the philosophical perspective, we have precious little reason to assume other people who look like us have a consciousness like ours. It's mostly just a practical assumption. What reason do we really have to exclude this or that from consideration?

Interesting that you describe the alleged deal as extremely generous.

Are you agreeing that assuming such terms were on offer (neutrality, recognizing Crimea, Russian speaker protections in the Donbas) that, at least in hindsight, that was a far better deal at that time than continued fighting turned out to be? — boethius

The sticking point is of course what you consider "neutrality" to mean. If it just means "don't join NATO but you get some multilateral security arrangement" then yeah that sounds like a pretty good deal that I would definetly take over fighting.

Of course if "neutrality" is understood to mean that Ukraine ends up internationally isolated, with no ability to, for example, join the EU or make security arrangements with anyone but Russia, then that's a far worse deal, and would likely just be postponing the conflict. I would only accept that if I had some plan to make sure I don't just end up invaded 5 years later in a much worse situation.

Therefore, the plan of keeping the Donbas conflict alive in order to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO essentially necessitates an eventual escalation of direct intervention of Russian forces to prevent the collapse of the separatists. — boethius

In fact we can be sure of this because it happened. In 2014.



An interesting read, but one should perhaps supply some context.

One the central witness for this Theory, Naftali Bennett, has himself addressed the interview and clarified:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230207191917/https://twitter.com/naftalibennett/status/1622571402430750721

So a more accurate translation of what was said is that the negotiations were abandonned by the west, and Bennet at the time thought this was premature and a mistake. The clarification makes clear that a deal was by no means a done deal and that Bennet himself is unsure of whether it would have been a good idea to make such a deal.

The second witness is ex-chancellor Schröder. Now Schröder is of course well known for his personal friendship with Putin and the very lucrative posts he received from the latter. So perhaps we should treat his "impression" with some caution, though of course everyone is free to decide how reliable he is.

Lastly there's the turkish foreign minister. But he doesn't actually say anything about the negotiations itself, and if you watch the interview (it's difficult with the automatic translate but you can pick up some things) you notice that he's emphasising that the negotiation are ongoing and that he will not say that either one side is closer to peace than the other.

So the evidence we do in fact have that Russia offered some extremely generous terms to Ukraine and the west prohibited Ukrain from taking the deal are: Schröders vague allusion and the statements of Mr. Michael von der Schulenburg (who provides no further justification). I guess we could also count the coincidence of Boris Johnsons visit and the end of the negotiations as evidence that Boris Johnson somehow did it, as the article does.

Does that measure up against the likelihood that Russia offered a peace deal that essentially involves a return to the status quo ante?

He did not try to conquer Kiev. The reason he invaded Ukraine is he wanted to force Zelensky to the bargaining table, so they could get some sort of agreement on Ukrainian neutrality, Ukraine not being in NATO. — John J. Mearsheimer

It's beyond me how anyone can take this seriously.

Not only was there no way for Ukraine to join NATO with the Donbas conflict unresolved.

Launching a demonstrative attack on your neighbours capital to get them to not join a defensive alliance with your enemies must be the dumbest plan I've ever heard. "Hey look how easily we can threaten your capital and take your land. Better not get any protection, that'd be bad. Also we're going to retreat after loosing some of our best troops and a bunch of equipment, so you'll know we mean business".

The correlation does exist if you use enough controls (or cherry pick your sample), but then hacking becomes a concern. The correlation is also strong if you consider all gun deaths, but then suicide is normally not what the debate is about (when you see a strong correlation between "gun deaths" and gun ownership, this is including suicides.) — Count Timothy von Icarus

What about studies that exclude suicide but do include accidental deaths?

but what Putin "might" do is "a limited incursion into unoccupied southeastern Ukraine that falls short of a full-scale invasion".

Which, if you haven't noticed, is what Putin ultimately does. — boethius

That's not what happened. I can't tell whether you're brazenly lying to my face or just for some weird reason unable to acknowledge anything that doesn't agree with your beliefs. In any event I see no reason to further engage with you.

Yeah, and if you'd continue reading rather than take out of context the one paragraph that seemingly agrees with you, you'd notice that the report is laying out exactly the plan @Jabberwock and me consider to have been the likely intent. It also supports the argument by @ssu that analysts expected the Ukrainian military to be destroyed as a cohesive fighting force in short order.

If you wanted to prove that you can't be assumed to argue in good faith, then you have succeeded.

Russia has now more soldiers and more experienced and battle hardened soldiers and have learned how to effectively employ combined arms at scale (which they did not have experience with until this war, but only on a much more limited scale) as well as integration with drones. — boethius

Yeah, sure, and no doubt we'll soon see them rolling up the front in their Armata tanks, while a fleet of SU 57 jets clears the way.

there is still this adherence to what should by now be obvious propaganda. — boethius

Oh, the irony!

Russia's war fighting capability is likely far higher now than at the start of the war. — boethius

My god you have completely lost it.

Not only do you believe in Putin the 4D playing master strategist and that all western information is propaganda.

You seriously believe that after taking massive casualties, loosing hundreds of armored vehicles and artillery and bring reduced to buying artillery ammunition from north Korea Russia is at peak fighting capability.

This is no longer just motivated reasoning it's complete fantasy. Not even russian propaganda would make such an absurd claim.

My prediction is this statement will prove to be far more truth for the Ukrainians than the Russians. We'll see how the war ends which side died more on the strength of wishes than sober analysis. — boethius

This seems less a prediction and more an unshakeable conviction, which is why any discussion with you about reality on the ground just runs in circles.

What I would argue is immoral is simply throwing your hands in the air and refusing to negotiate at all. If the war must end in a negotiated peace at one point or another, then at every point in time there is a deal that exists that is reasonable to take. Ok, perhaps it is not on offer, but you cannot know what deal you can achieve if you don't make an honest effort to negotiate. If the initial offer is too high to accept, well maybe your counter party is starting high to then settle somewhere in the middle; you have to actually make counter proposals that are acceptable to yourself in order to see where your counterparty is willing to meet you: this is what Ukraine does not do, the Russians propose something and Ukraine does not bother to even make a counter proposal. — boethius

There were several rounds of negotiations which presumably included an exchange of proposals, so I don't know why you'd assume that it's only Ukraine that doesn't want to negotiate.

The point of maximum leverage for a smaller power is at the start of the war and being able to credibly threaten a long and costly war as well as all sorts of unknowns not only in the war itself but external events (some other crisis may emerge for the larger power, so all these risks need to be priced into the situation). Of course, the point of maximum leverage does not mean your counter party sees it that leverage and responds accordinly, but it's when you have maximum leverage that you want to push for the best deal you can easily achieve. — boethius

As I recall there were constant diplomatic efforts during the troop buildup. Is Ukraine also solely responsible for all of these failing?

Of course, any peace deal would involve compromise and the West immediately framed things as any compromise would be a "win" for Putin, rather than a rational framework where there is some acceptable compromise that is not a win for Putin but as much a compromise for the Russians as for the West and Ukraine, and most importantly avoids immense and prolonged bloodshed, suffering, global food price increases and creates a global schism in economic cooperation. — boethius

So you don't credit the argument that a war of aggression, or a threat with such a war, cannot become an instrument in international politics?

This goes back to the core of the moral question: if we're only concerned about limiting damage, doesn't that leave us fatally exposed to an agreessor?

Can we discount spite as a reasonable response? Might spite not be called for in certain situations?

My main question is: What if there were greater existential threats to humanity than climate change, would the apathy on those issues not be good reason to be spiteful over all the climate change hype? — Merkwurdichliebe

I think this would be entirely to convenient. A nice and easy self-absolution.

If there are greater existential threats, then of course we would have to fight them concurrently. Of course since climate change is heavily bound up with our economic system, we'd need to be doing that regardless.

Spite is the easy way out. Masking your own unwillingness to act by pointing to the hypocrisy of others.

What if the problem of climate change has less to do with human caused carbon emissions, and more to do with the natural phenomenon of human conflict, transgression, &c.? Could science even measure that? — Merkwurdichliebe

Then we'd try to address that. Certainly the problem of climate change goes beyond simply making a few personal choices. It's a systemic issue. But starting from the perspective that it is some metaphysical force that cannot be addressed anyways is again a very convenient way to justify one's one comfortable inactions.

My biggest fear now is that humanity and the earth will be decimated by the attempts to "solve" global-warming/climate-change — Agree-to-Disagree

But the earth and humanity are already being decimated. It seems very silly to cling to this specific status quo as if it were suddenly the divine providence, as opposed to just another contingent situation we find ourselves in.

I understand, self inflicted decimation, so that even if all the models turned out to be entirely accurate, so that the current green revolution were the perfect solution, we will have weakened ourselves in the global arena so much that there is little hope of enforcing the green agenda on the will-be global hegemons that care little for our green agenda. — Merkwurdichliebe

Are you under the impression that the western way of life currently stands any chance of surviving? Because I don't. Right now, the authoritarian, technocratic vision, which in some ways is being pioneered by China, is clearly winning. And this is not just a case of "China taking over" but of an inability to envision an alternative to clearly falling systems.

But if we agree the Russian plan isn't incompetent then that's progress in the debate. — boethius

I think it all depends on what assumptions the planners were making.

Clearly Russia had an immense geographical and political advantage, being able to attack Ukraine at will from several directions with zero fear of a preliminary disruption.

Clearly also Russia had the clear material advantage, and could reasonably assume to have air supremacy as well as a significant advantage in armored vehicles and an overwhelming advantage in artillery pieces.

Overambitious military campaigns have been waged with far less obvious advantages. Indeed if you read military history, the amount of people who have been killed by overconfidence and wishful thinking is staggering.

Now that it is revealed Russia is not easy to beat, suddenly even the Western media is reporting Ukraine has "pressure" to negotiate. Which is the obvious end to this and extremely tragic (at least for Ukraine) as there is no way to get a better deal than what they could have negotiated at the start of the war and there's no way to get the hundreds of thousands of dead back to life. — boethius

There was never any doubt that the war could only end in some negotiated peace. But the conditions of said peace will always depend on the situation on the ground.

Since we're on a philosophy forum, perhaps we should ask the question in terms of moral philosophy: Is the moral choice to give up and negotiate a peace immediately? How much of a chance of success do you need to morally send soldiers to their deaths in a war?

This is also a suitable time to remind everyone here that as I predicted at the start of the war, the advanced hand held missile systems supplied to Ukraine will go straight into the hands of terrorists. — boethius

That's an incredibly sketchy source citing anonymous reports that cannot be checked. I would not put much confidence in this article.

In particular the point about casualties is the main determining factor. — boethius

It's not, however, a quote, so it's really just the author's opinion. And the author is not some military analyst but a venture capitalist (and friend and ally of Peter Thiel, one of the most dangerous evil fuckers on the planet, imho anyways). For someone decrying western propaganda you're very willing to take this all at face value.

Burning irony is a major contributor to global warming. — BC

One could say that, in a sense, spite really is a major contributor.

In Putin's view Zelensky is an actor and so perhaps Putin expects it's entirely possible Zelensky plays whatever part the US wants him to play. — boethius

Putin would know from experience that even your vassals don't always do what you want them to.

Is maybe called "a script" written by Western propagandists to create such a good "episode" as you call it in the Zelensky mythology. — boethius

Maybe, but without evidence, we wouldn't assume such plots.

But even if Zelensky fled, the rest of the Zelensky government (especially anything to do with defence) are right wing extremists, so there would be no reason to expect Zelensky fleeing would somehow mean Ukraine capitulating. — boethius

It would have done serious damage to cohesion and morale. Quite possibly Putin remembered the collapse of the Afghan army when the president fled.

Russia could have mobilized before the war and committed literally millions of troops to conquering and occupying all of Ukraine, or then simply built up a larger standing army over the 8 years of fighting in the Donbas where it is clear a military resolution maybe required.

Russia doesn't do either of these things, but rather prepares a force that can feasibly take and hold the land bridge to Crimea, which is obviously proven by the fact that are there right now as we speak. Further military goals, such as taking Kiev, would have required far more troops or then dedicating essentially their entire force to that one objective in hopes that it ends the war.

Now, why would Russia not mobilize millions of soldiers has the obvious answer of that being disastrous economically, therefore war aims in Ukraine are limited by manpower and resources. — boethius

Sure, this would make sense. But it's simply not what happened. Russia did land it's crack paratroopers at Hostomel. Russia did send a huge convoy towards Kiev. Russia had large amounts of troops around Charkiv.

All of these were destroyed or withdrawn, with large losses in manpower and materiel. The troops on the left bank of the Dniepr fared better, but again were only withdrawn when their position clearly was untenable.

None of that can be explained by your theory, but can be explained by the alternative.

I'm answering the question of whether Putin expected a quick and easy war or then prepared for a long war, which is the topic of discussion at the moment. Building up a large war chest is a pretty strong signal of preparing for a pretty large war. — boethius

Or a long round of sanctions and insurgency. It's not conclusive towards any particular plan.

The Russian troop build up was clearly subtle enough to prevent Ukraine mobilizing and digging North of Kiev and North of Crimea.

Russia would stage a large exercise every year around Ukraine not simply to prepare for an eventual war but to make it unclear if they were actually invading or not. Many commentators were calling it mere sabre rattling and a show of force. You even had Boris Johnson assuring everyone that there wouldn't be tanks rolling across the plains of Europe, that's not going to happen.

Now, the US did publicly say Russia would invade, but this was pretty close to the actual invasion date and it may not have been feasible to mobilize, and, in anywise, Ukraine chooses not to. — boethius

Seems like a rather large gamble, especially since the troops obviously stayed out after the exercise. I suppose we cannot rule out that Russia simply wanted to keep everyone guessing by not making any further preparations.

200 000 troops is simply far too little to achieve the first objective, so if they aren't irrational then that was not their objective.

For the second objective, they achieve it, mostly uncontested in the first couple of weeks, and we have little idea of Russia's actual losses and we have even less idea of what their toleration for losses is.

Certainly it's possible that they expected less losses to achieve more. Or it maybe just the cost of doing business from the Russian command's point of view.

What is clear is that the initial priority is to keep losses to professional soldiers and mercenaries in the first phases of the war, and they do achieve that at least for quite some time. — boethius

Imho the epistemologically sound position is to use what information we have and make an educated guess.

Even if we take reports on russian losses with a heavy dose of salt, and furthermore assume that they'd generally make sound and rational decision the evidence points to various military failures resulting in heavy losses.

Clearly a successful operation should not have resulted in Russia now fighting trench warfare. It should not have resulted in a grinding siege of Bakhmut, or the rout in Charkiv.

Something went badly wrong.

What modern army is going to model their defense on 1940's France? Have you seen a Ukrainian Maginot Line anywhere? — Tzeentch

Kinda. The entire eastern front is heavily fortified. There's a reason Bakhmut and Avdivka remained standing even as russian troops surged from Crimea to Mariupol.

Holding on to Kiev was Ukraine's most obvious goal, so taking Kiev while avoiding the main defensive forces is a non-starter. If anything the main body of the Ukrainian forces was located in and around Kiev. — Tzeentch

All the reports I read assumed that that Ukraine's strongest forces would be at the eastern front, and that cutting them off from Kiev might be a russian goal.

Taking it would have required a force several times larger than what the Russians deployed on the Kiev axis, and months of grueling urban combat. Nothing in the Russian force posture suggests they were getting ready for such an operation. — Tzeentch

But not if a shock-and-awe operation, including a massive airborne flanking move, lead to panic and a collapse of morale.

Furthermore, as I've often argued here, occupying Kiev is unlikely to have been the Russians' goal for several reasons. One reason is that due to extensive US / western support it is unlikely that it would have made a large impact on the military situation. The Ukrainian army remained operational, and leadership of the war could be conducted from elsewhere. — Tzeentch

Well Putin called it a "special military operation" with the goal to "denazify and demilitarise". If that is an indication of how the operation was conceived, then it would suggest that the goal was indeed as least as much political as military.

Even within your own logic, a puppet of who?

Obviously the US, and the US was clearly not interested in peace, rejecting to even discuss Russia's peace proposal before the war nor anything else (as well as forbidding their vassals in Europe of doing so of their own accord).

So, assuming you're correct and Putin views Zelensky a puppet of the US, why wouldn't said US puppet do what he's told and implement US policy of rejecting peace? — boethius

Because in Putin's view, Zelensky is an effeminate westerner. A comedian, a joke.

He'd never put his life on the line. When shit hits the fan he'd turn tail and flee. Even the US apparently did not expect him to stay put, as evidenced by the "I need ammunition, not a ride" episode.

More troops could have been committed to the initial invasion, but if the primary military goal was to secure the land bridge to Crimea then clearly the commitment was sufficient. — boethius

What troops exactly?

Russia built up a massive war chest, over 600 billion USD, over nearly a decade; why would they do that if they were not preparing to finance a potential long war of attrition. — boethius

There's also not only the military sphere, but the Kremlin needed also to prepared and balance things for massive sanctions and economic disruption: hence prosecute the war with professional troops and mercenaries so as to overcome the initial shock of sanctions with minimal additional disruption to the civilian population. — boethius

You're kinda answering your own question here.

Furthermore it doesn't seem like either the russian industrial base or the military establishment had actually prepared for a long war. Nor was the information space prepared. Perhaps the best example is the use of "special military operation" which certainly does not suggest a years long battle of attrition.

Of course, certainly it can be argued a better strategy was available, diplomatic or militarily, but this idea that the war was initiated on some sort of whim without careful thought and planning is really quite ludicrous. There was already a war in the Donbas supported by Russia for 8 years, so clearly it is on the minds of military and political leaders that if there's no diplomatic settlement then a military solution is the only alternative. Putin received far more criticism within Russia for not intervening sooner, but obviously a war of this size and right next to Russia would be complicated, hence clear indications of preparation. — boethius

I don't think people suggest it's a whim so much as ideological blindness from living in a filter bubble - which is a common hazard of an authoritarian regime.

Had Russia mobilized more troops for the initial invasion, it risks Ukraine mobilizing and a blitz to take the key territory becomes harder rather than easier.

Likewise, had things been prepared even better, every soldier knowing they will be going to war and exactly what they will be doing, it again risks Ukrainian mobilization and hundreds of thousands additional dug in troops and the bridges out of Crimea mined, shelled and bombed rather than massive columns of Russian armour just rolling into South Ukraine (which clearly the Ukrainians were not prepared for and completely collapses their lines West of the Donbas allowing the Russians to conquer the land bridge). — boethius

I don't know about that. After all the russian troop buildup was anything but subtle. Secrecy was clearly not the concern. I rather think that the calculus was that the constant pressure would undermine morale and lead to the planned collapse.

In addition to Tzeentch already mentioning that perhaps Russian forces were adequately supplied for the advances they intended to make in the initial invasion, any giant operation is going to have all sorts of anecdotal problems along with major setbacks and confusions. No one here is arguing the Russian invasion went perfectly according to plan, we're just pointing out Russian decisions do make sense.

The idea that Russia is an irrational actor was quite clearly a myth created in the early days and sustained for over a year (sometimes cherry picking true but pretty expected things like equipment SNAFU's as well as obvious lies like exorbitant number of casualties), as it avoids the difficult question of how Ukraine is going to prevail over a far larger opponent.

You don't need a viable plan if you're fighting an army of essentially retarded monkeys. — boethius

As far as I can see the common charge is incompetence, not irrationality.

There's two possibilities: either Russia really planned a sweeping takeover of the country, at least to the Dnieper. In that case the plan clearly failed.

Or Russia simply made an elaborate multi front assault to have an easier time capturing a land bridge to Crimea, as well as Donetsk and Luhansk. In which case they should have had a far easier time and far less losses than they did.

I do wonder why though. What is the specific motivation?

I'm sure there are places that have less corruption than the U.S. I'm not sure their system would work for a country as large and diverse as the U.S. It also amuses me when Europeans trash the U.S. while living under the umbrella of protection we've provided for their whole lifetimes. — RogueAI

This doesn't seem to be an uncommon attitude among Americans. I always found this way of arguing kinda odd.

It is after all precisely because the US provides the umbrella of protection that we Europeans are so interested in US politics.

At least on my part, I'm genuinely concerned about the health of the US democracy. And it would seem to be false pride to reject criticism because you're yet strong.

What we're experiencing with Trump, Fox News, Newsmax, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, this whole phenomenon of alt-right, alt-facts, conspiracy theorists, demagogues, etc. is all what I would call the necessary evil of living in an open, democratic society with free speech. — GRWelsh

It is not simply a question of democracy. There's also the economic system to consider, the state of technology, and who wields it.

The current situation is not simply the result of "free speech running it's course" but of a combination of crises.

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. In order to make a threat you have to be visibly capable of employing a force that is able to fulfill that threat. In fact, usually when you make a threat, you try to exaggerate the projected force.

So: how exactly can you strenghten your position in negotiations by sending against a city an army which is obviously incapable of taking or surrounding it? — Jabberwock

There seems to be some strange compulsion to imagine secret knowledge, that only a select few are privy too. Things cannot simply be how they look. Everyone can infer intentions and goals by looking at the actions taken and statements made.

But some people need to be different. They need to see beyond the veil that ordinary minds cannot pierce. And so there must be shadowy forces that really move everything. You can treat US imperialism just as much as some metaphysical form of evil as imaginary demons. Apparently this even happens to otherwise sane and well informed people.

Do you think that these topics are not relevant to climate change? — Agree-to-Disagree

They are. But it seems to me you're not interested in what everyone else has to say, and rather in having a soap box to display your "scepticism". Which I'm putting in quotes because unlike actual scepticism, it mostly looks like motivated reasoning adopting the aesthetics of scepticism.

Case in point being that you only reply to the bits of posts that you feel comfortable with, ignoring the rest.

So according to you there is evidence for horoscopes, the loch ness monster, bigfoot, yeti, aliens, UFO's, homeopathy, conspiracy theories, ghosts, etc. — Agree-to-Disagree

Sure. There's evidence.

These subjects are in the news repeatedly, but that doesn't mean that the odds of them being true is increased. — Agree-to-Disagree

I was referring to an event specifically, that means something happening at a specific time and place. Things get trickier when we deal with other subjects more broadly, and I wanted to start simple.

Assume you know nothing about either the event X or the sources. In the three scenarios:

A) There's no reporting on X,
B) a single source is reporting X happened,
C) 10 sources report X happened,

would you not agree that the chance that X did actually happen is highest in scenario C?

The ECS has been notoriously difficult to pin down. Even after decades of scientific investigation the IPCC says that there is high confidence that the ECS is within the range of 2.5 °C to 4 °C, with a best estimate of 3 °C. So why should we suddenly believe a new value of 4.8 °C that is reported in the news? This is outside of the high confidence range stated by the IPCC. And as far as I know the IPCC has not accepted this new value. — Agree-to-Disagree

I'm making no argument regarding that specific claim.

I am discussing climate change. What are you doing here? — Agree-to-Disagree

Are you? Because it doesn't look like that's what you're doing.

Plenty of evidence they wanted to get rid of Jews, which is what Balfour intended. — Benkei

Perhaps that was a reason, but whatever the exact intentions behind the declaration it was never turned into British policy.

Unfortunately plenty of people have heard about it and thus remember the history as "Britain promised Palestine to the Jews and thus Israel was created". Really the Balfour declaration has very little to do with the actual formation of Israel.

Meanwhile British policy does have a whole lot to do with the history of Islamism and antisemitism in the Arab world.

Not interested? Ok then. What are you doing here though?