Okay. If it was in the news then it must be correct. :wink: — Agree-to-Disagree

How about some basic epistemology?

If an event is reported in the news, that is evidence the event happened, correct? Mind you, not conclusive proof, but evidence.

And if several news stations report the event, then it is more likely the event did occur, correct? It is possible they're all simply repeating the same story, or have made the exact same error, but prima facie it still increases the odds.

If taking Kiev was the principal Russian objective, how come the fighting around Kiev resembled nothing like we saw in places where actual bitter fighting took place? And how come they only deployed 20,000 troops to participate in the battle and they never made any serious effort to surround the capital let alone capture Kiev? We would expect massed firepower. — Tzeentch

You're merely claiming they did not make a serious effort. But maybe they were simply intending their plan to actually work, take key points around Kiev with an airborne assault and then quickly overrun the defense with air power and one massed column.

They did employ massed firepower, particularly from the air, but apparently underestimated Ukrainian air defense.

The Russians are responding to a western action, namely the militarization of Ukraine. They probably expected 'the West' to be more reasonable.

Instead, the United States is completely content to sacrifice Ukraine, and the EU is too dimwitted to understand what is even going on. — Tzeentch

Straight out of the propaganda playbook. Of course the actual invader who is actually responsible for the wave of death and misery unleashed by the invasion is the good guy. It's all the fault of the evil and stupid West.

It's russians who are doing the killing, not the US. Perhaps you ought to remember.

Nonsense. Jeffrey Sachs gave us clear accounts of what the people involved told him happened. Are you really going to argue he is 'pro-Russian'? The guy is as genuine as they come. — Tzeentch

Yes, actually. He was fucking hosted by Vladimir Solovyov during wartime...

Noam Chomsky, Seymour Hersh - all pro-Russian too? — Tzeentch

Yes on Noam Chomsky, his position against US imperialism mean he will always tend to portray the US as the villain, though he does not actually claim the negotiatians failed because of US and UK intereference, he merely considers it a possibility.

Seymour Hersh is not, though he is perhaps a bit too reliant on sensational anonymous sources in recent times. Still, he has often been proven right at the end. I could not find anything about Hersh repeating that particular claim though. He is mainly known for his theory that the US sabotaged Nord Stream.

Accusing the other side of partisanship is intellectual poverty. — Tzeentch

Looking at the source of a claim which cannot otherwise be checked is basic due dilligence. You wouldn't believe a US press release about them discovering Putin's secret Ukraine plan, dating from 20 years ago, either.

The Ukrainian general staff reported 31 BTGs moving on Kiev. That's roughly 21,000 soldiers. This figure never changed over the course of the month-long battle.

The Wiki article actually says ~20,000 irregulars + 'an undisclosed number of regular fighters' - Yea, I wonder why it's undisclosed? Perhaps the Battle of Kiev couldn't be spun into an 'heroic Ukrainian victory' if the Ukrainians were actually outnumbering the Russians on the defense, eh? — Tzeentch

You're guessing though.

The 60,000 figure comes from a Seymour Hersh interview in which he suggests 40,000 regular troops + 20,000 irregulars, but even if we take your figure and suppose 40,000 defenders, that still puts the Ukrainian forces at a 2:1 advantage. — Tzeentch

I'd have to see the actual interview, since again Hersh has been known in revent years to rely on anonymous sources which tell sensational stories.

For urban fighting a city like Kiev we'd expect 3:1 in favor of the Russians as the bare minimum - we'd expect as much as 10:1 in one were planning for success. — Tzeentch

It is obvious the Russians did not expect Ukraine to fight seriously. That doesn't mean they did no want to take control of the city.

More like, it's impossible to twist the numbers to fit an 'heroic Ukrainian victory' narrative even if you wanted to. — Tzeentch

Russia is an overwhelming superpower that is impossible to defeat. Except when it is defeated, then it was actually weak and it's not really a victory even.

You mean the propaganda you've been binging on over the last year?

Yea. Let's ignore that.

Casualty figures do not suggest the type of bitter fighting we have seen elsewhere in the war. If the Russians intended to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses with massed force and firepower, we would expect an entirely different picture. — Tzeentch

And you would know, because you're the military expert and we'll just have to believe you. The only thing we have actual evidence for, as far as I can see, is that Ukrainian losses were quite light, while the russian advance elements suffered heavy casualties.

This is entirely consistent with Russia abandonning the operation after failing to secure necessary preliminaries, and realising the Ukrainian army was going to stand and fight.

Blah blah.

I hear an exhausted mind. You're just having a hard time coping. — Tzeentch

I figured you deserved a chance at a normal discussion, but alas, it seems I was wrong. — Tzeentch

Whatever. If you want to quit just do it.

Ignore what evidence?

I went and looked for ISW tally of Russian and Ukrainian losses, as even if heavily biased towards supporting Western narratives, I'd nevertheless be surprised if they were arguing Ukraine is inflicting the many multiple times more losses required to win a war of attrition with the Russians.

I ask you to actually cite the evidence you're referring to in the context of you complaining about the lack of evidence to support facts you don't dispute ... and you just claim I'm ignoring your evidence by asking for the actual evidence??

Oryx I also did not ignore but pointed out their methodology of just looking at videos published by Ukraine and taking them at face value is not even moronically intellectually dishonest but pure propaganda; it's essentially just relabelling Ukrainian propaganda and then considering it independent. Absolute rubbish. — boethius

Right, you don't ignore it, it's just all rubbish, presumably compared to some mysterious source you have yet to reveal to us.

What anger. I ask you questions.

That the questions don't need answering because the answers are so obvious closes the case that you are a complete fool. — boethius

And you would know from experience.

You ask for "the evidence" to support my arguments, I ask you what evidence you want to see, and then you say you aren't asking me to prove any of the facts needed to make my argument that: bigger army with more capabilities is very likely to win a war of attrition. — boethius

Perhaps you should reread what I wrote, since I did not ask you for evidence.

Since the invasion, Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands more troops thus essentially creating another army compared to the first army that invaded.

Again, what are you disputing? That Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands additional troops? Or just you'd quibble about calling such a mobilization another army? — boethius

So you do agree that Russia has lost it's entire peacetime army after all?

This is just false. Plenty of military analysts pointed out that 200 000 troops is not enough to overrun Ukraine, that Ukraine is huge, that Ukraine has the largest Army in Europe, can mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional troops, is supported by US / NATO weapons, logistics and intelligence.

Go and find even one expert pre-war military analysis that concluded Russia would overrun Ukraine in weeks, then contrast your failure to find even with "everybody". — boethius

I can find plenty of references ot people saying Ukraine will be overrun within weeks, but no direct claim by any military analyst.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-wrong-intelligence/32275740.html
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2022/03/the-will-to-fight-lessons-from-ukraine.html

So maybe you are right and military analysts did not actually predict this and I merely remember baseless claims from the media.

Can you support your claim of what military analysts said?

Academic, think tank, and even talking heads in the media all agreed that essentially the maximum aim of the Russians would be to create a land bridge to Crimea compared to a minimalist incursion to simply protect the Donbas separatists. The idea Russia would be conquering all of Ukraine in weeks did not exist.

Of course, Ukraine could capitulate, but all there was pretty wide consensus that if Ukraine decided to fight it can put up a serious fight and would not be easy to defeat. — boethius

I think I just provided some evidence to the contrary, but feel free to provide your own.

What parity? — boethius

The parity on the actual battlefield, where Russia is not actually winning currently.

Since it's far larger, Russia can match Ukraine's total war and also keep running its peace time economy at the same time. — boethius

Hence it hiked it's military spending to 6% of GDP which, given the profusion of shadow budgets, translates to somewhere between 10 and 20% of total GDP in terms of actual spending. That's Soviet Union levels of military expenditure.

Russia needs to balance the war effort with maintaining a functioning economy and also domestic support for the war. — boethius

Exactly. Hence why it cannot simply declare total war.

This is what the West was betting Russia would be unable to do, especially under the "nuclear option" of massive sanctions.

That was the theory of victory, some sort of internal Russian collapse. Since that didn't happen, Ukraine is now screwed as there was no military backup plan. Ukraine fighting was supposed to trigger some sort of Russian revolution and so there was no need to defeat the Russian military in the field. — boethius

The plan is merely to increase the price of the war for Russia to a point where the russian regime is no longer willing to pay it. A "collapse" is not required.

Anyways, with the end of the war we'll get a better picture of what the losses have actually been. — boethius

And in the meantime you'll just ignore the evidence because it suits you. Because that's proper epistemology, apparently.

I've provided plenty of evidence throughout this discussion to support my points.

For the matter at hand however, it's not under dispute that Russia is the larger force. You don't dispute that, neither does anyone else. The argument is straightforward that the larger force is likely to win, especially in a a war of attrition that is the current configuration of the war.

The argument is so obvious based on so obvious facts that asking for references just highlights your confusion as to where you are, what your purpose in life is and what is happening generally speaking. For, you, nor anyone else, disputes these facts, so there is no need to support them with citations.

I point out that actual evidence is needed to believe the contrary: that despite being a smaller country with a smaller military and less capabilities, that Ukraine is going to win or there is even a viable path to victory.

You, nor anyone else, can now present such evidence that Ukraine is "winning" against the odds, or even a remotely plausible theory of how Ukraine could potentially win.

The best that is offered is that it's hypothetically possible for a smaller force to defeat a larger force or then larger forces have tired of war and gone home in the past.

Failing to answer such questions and find any evidence, you feebly retreat to demanding I provide evidence to support my position.

You really want evidence that Russia is the larger country with the larger military? Or do you really want evidence that the war at the moment, and since a while, is not a war of manoeuvre but of attrition?

Or do you want me to through the basic arithmetic required to understand that in any attritional process of even remote parity (of which there is no reason to believe any asymmetry is in Ukraine's favour), the larger of the abrading assemblies has the advantage.

Or do you want me to cite CNN citing Ukrainian top officials saying exactly the same thing? — boethius

I didn't ask you to prove any of these, but I'm glad you got all that anger off your chest.

I lauded Finland for using military action to support feasible political objectives and conserving their military force through defending rather than working themselves up into a delusional war frenzy and promising to "retake every inch of Finnish lands" before recklessly throwing themselves at prepared Soviet Defences.

Now, it just so happens that Finland had suitable geography to defend against a larger force, one reason to gamble on costly military defence rather than capitulate.

Ukrainian political leaders are fools for not using their military leverage (before it is exhausted) to negotiate the best possible terms for peace. — boethius

I guess we'll see when the war is over. After all Finnland did loose, while Ukraine hasn't lost yet.

I'm referring to the fact that Russia has far larger professional standing army, far more reservists and conscripts that can be mobilized. Are you disputing this fact? That Russia, being larger, has far more manpower available? — boethius

Yes actually, in terms of effective manpower. It does not have "far more". It has far more population, but it's ability to train and equip effective frontline forces, while still superior to Ukraine's, is not decisively larger. As evidenced by the fact that there's a stalemate and Russia has been struggling to rotate degraded units.

And this famed second army does exist and is still in reserve. It may simply be used to simply continue the attritional fighting and rotate and replenish troops or maybe it will be used for some large offensive maneuver anywhere along the border with Ukraine / Belarus. — boethius

Oh god you're actually serious...

What straw man? I'm discussing the propaganda pervasive at the start of the war that the Russian army was incompetent and easy to defeat. Propaganda that was essential to convince the West and Ukraine to rush into total war. — boethius

At the start of the war everyone assumed the russian army would overrun Ukraine in weeks, as far as I remember.

For, if you paused to reflect that Russia is far larger and the degree to which, man for man, Ukraine would need to outperform Ukraine with less military capabilities (air, sea, armour, drones, electronic warfare etc.) the doubt may creep in that maybe Ukraine cannot win a total war with Russia and it would be much better for the Ukrainian people and Europe to negotiate a peace, compromise with the Russians to save lives and as much Ukrainian sovereignty as possible. — boethius

Maybe it cannot, but for one Russia is not as of now fighting a total war in Ukraine and, for another, military capabilities seem to be about at parity for now, which means that Ukraine certainly has not lost the ability to negotiate from a position of strength.

Of course, no need for such sober deliberations if the Russian soldier is some hapless retarded child wandering around the battle field in a blissfully ignorant whimsy.

Again, the position that requires evidence is the idea that Ukraine can inflict massively asymmetric losses required to win.

My position is based on the facts that are not in dispute: Russia is larger and has more military capabilities and there is no reason to believe Ukraine can somehow win in such a disadvantaged position. — boethius

Again apart from the fact that they have alredy suffered three major defeats in this war and have had obvious problems replacing both men and materiel.

To be sure I'm not claiming Ukraine is certain to win, but so far the war has certainly not demonstrated Russia's overwhelming superiority.

My guess would be something along the lines of:

- Occupy strategically vital areas, ergo landbridge to Crimea.
- Try to force the West to negotiate a quick end to the war through a show of force around the capital. — Tzeentch

Why would "the West" be the one negotiating in such a scenario?

In March/April 2022 the West blocked a peace treaty that was in the final stages of being signed, signaling the end of the first 'phase' of the war. The Russians shifted gears, rearranged their lines to cover vital areas and be able to withstand a long war since they were probably overextended initially.

And that's pretty much the war in a nutshell.

The media has been propping up this war to no end, but it really isn't much more complicated than that. — Tzeentch

Which is still an unsourced claim that's only repeated by people with a known pro-Russia bias.

Clearly. All that connects Crimea to Russia is the Kerch bridge, which would not last a day under normal war-time conditions but was probably spared due to political reasons. (i.e. the Americans pressuring the Ukrainians not to push the Russians too far, as per ↪boethius
arguments).

Imagine what the Russian situation would have looked like had the US been able to continue their militarization of Ukraine. — Tzeentch

So the Americans are holding the Ukrainians back, but at the same time the Americans are the one threatening Ukraine's neutrality. Yeah makes sense....

For example, only 20,000 Russian troops participated in the battle of Kiev. Woefully inadequate to effectively occupy a city of nearly 3 million inhabitants, not to mention the some 40,000 - 60,000 Ukrainian defenders. It's just not feasible by any stretch, considering a 3:1 advantage is pretty much the bare minimum for large-scale offensive operations.

There was a 3:1 advantage alright, in favor of the Ukrainians. — Tzeentch

Not the answer to my question.

Also no idea where you're getting your numbers from. Per Wikipedia Ukraine had 20.000 regulars and 18.000 irregulars across the entire northern front, while Russia had some 70.000 regular troops.

And finally you're assuming perfect information and foresight on the part of Russia.

Of course, this was spun as a heroic defense by Ukraine. It obviously wasn't. — Tzeentch

Obviously. It can't be because that would disagree with your narrative.

The Russians rolled up to Kiev and then stood there for about a month to see if the negotiations would bear fruit. Skirmishes took place and of course the Russians took losses. That's what happens during war. The Russians aren't afraid to break a few eggs in order to bake an omelet. — Tzeentch

Yes, let's ignore the entire well documented battle and go with your fantasy of russian forces leisurely rolling up to the capital to wait for negotiations. Maybe the unicorns also came down to greet them?

It's just sad at this point.

No, I'm not.

The US was investing billions of dollars into Ukraine even before the Maidan and the 2014 Crimea invasion. That's what they're openly admitting. — Tzeentch

Changing the goalposts. Not a surprise.

The US is admitting to giving the Ukrainians billions in military aid - a country that had a critical role of neutral buffer between East and West, and you say "so what"? — Tzeentch

It was not the point under discussion. But do keep changing the subject whenever one of your so called arguments fails.

To put it in academic terms; the US fucked around and found out. — Tzeentch

How many US soldiers died? And how many Russians?

He does not. In his 2022 lectures he says something along the lines of 'the Russians intended to capture or threaten Kiev' (which was already a controversial statement at the time). In more recent lectures he states outright he doubts that the Russians ever intended to capture Kiev, and that's the argument I am making. — Tzeentch

You're not making an argument, you're repeating a claim. If he changed his tune that's too bad, but only illustrates he's loosing his grip on reality. It happens all too often to people who get too drunk on their own theories.

That's not my claim. I just think that's an extraordinarily weak explanation, probably borne of lazy thinking by lesser minds, and not really worth considering. — Tzeentch

Oh, lesser minds, is it? Unlike your, extraordinary mind, which knows all there is to know, without even having to deal with pesky reality on the way.

If the Russians are a bunch of dummies then why are we even discussing? Victory is surely right around the corner. I can't wait to see it. — Tzeentch

Strawman. Not a particularly interesting one either.

Ah, but here's the strategy.

The Russians bit off a strategically relevant chunk that is small enough for them to pacify.

I would not be surprised if there is going to be a second invasion of Ukraine which follows roughly the same pattern. Mearsheimer seems to believe as much. He expects the Russians to take another belt of oblasts to the west of what they have occupied now. — Tzeentch

Using it's secret, second army, which will no doubt ride into battle on their magic unicorns.

But of course you don't think so because Putin the master strategist has already decided he has enough.

War requires sacrifices and military friction supposes failures small and large. That's the nature of war. — Tzeentch

Unless you're Ukraine. Then military friction is actually a sign of imminent collapse and every loss is a devastating defeat.

But luckily for Bibi, for Americans (and the West) there is Judeo-Christian heritage and the Jews are Gods own children, so everything Bibi does is OK. — ssu

Kinda off topic, but this result is so odd given the history. It seems to me that in many respects, Islam is closer to Judaism than to Christianity (the divine law, the fixed rituals, the rules about food and dress).

And the early Arab invaders were described as a Jewish sect by some contemporary observers.

Apparent to whom? What evidence? — boethius

Apparent from reading reports by the ISW, Oryx, or various commentators who cite their sources.

You demand others provide evidence (often of completely obvious things to anyone following the conflict, which is what we do here) and yet provide none yourself. — boethius

I demand argument mostly, and some reference to facts on the ground rather than airy declarations.

You, I might remind you, have provided zero evidence yourself.

While Ukraine was "winning" the battle for Kiev, Russia simply rolled out of Crimea (on bridges that were neither bombed nor shelled) and created a land bridge from Crimea to Russian mainland. — boethius

So are the Ukrainians fools for strategically deciding which front to defend? Because earlier you lauded Finnland for that strategy.

However, true that Ukraine was at least able to defend Kiev and did not entirely capitulate and clearly demonstrated that if Russia was to settle things militarily it would be extremely costly (which it has been). Of course, when a smaller force makes such a demonstration to a larger force it is extremely likely that continued fighting will be even more costly to the smaller force.

Therefore, the smaller force should aim to use the leverage of the prospect of a costly and risky war (not only in itself but in terms of extrinsic events) to negotiate a peace on the most favourable terms. — boethius

These are the kind of airy statements unmoored from facts on the ground that I meant earlier.

Unfortunately, if temporarily winning one battle among many losses, against what is essentially an imperial expeditionary force (not remotely the whole your adversary can muster) — boethius

Hahaha, yeah the famed second russian army they kept in reserve. Too bad it never made it to Ukraine...

Why the myth of the incompetent Russian soldier who essentially wants to die was so critical to make Ukraine's commitment to further fighting and explicit refusal to negotiate make sense. You'd have to believe that the Russian soldier is essentially retarded to maintain the idea that the Russian army won't figure out some effective use of all its equipment, assuming you believed the propaganda that Ukraine was inflicting asymmetric losses on the Russians (rather than what was likely: Ukraine was suffering significantly more losses maintaining ground against Russia's professional and better equipped army and then later mercenaries). — boethius

You're discussing a strawman. The russian army has demonstrated ability to learn in various areas. That said it still seems to suffer from C&C flaws, which aren't surprising in an autocratic regime.

But anyway what's the point of discussing when you're clearly have a very different picture of reality but don't seem interested in naming your sources.

That's not what we saw in the north. — Tzeentch

You should tell the paratroopers at Hostomel. Or all the dead tank crews on the road to Kiev.

You can't win a war without taking casualties. Pretty obvious. — Tzeentch

Pah. A weak evasion. Is that what you call a discussion?

Crimea became strategically vulnerable when the US sought to change Ukraine's neutral status. — Tzeentch

After 2014? Again you're not even trying.

If you're saying that, I highly doubt you actually understand the implications of the size and disposition of the initial Russian invasion force.

It's a clear indicator of the fact that they had limited objectives going in. — Tzeentch

Oh really? What major maneuver forces were held back?

Flimsy? It's right there on the US state department's website. :lol: — Tzeentch

Again you're mixing together times and places to create a lie. Why? I don't believe you're simply unable to keep a coherent timeline in your head.

Or maybe you'd rather hear it from chief neocon Nuland in 2013. Even before the violent coup d'etat of 2014 the US was already deeply involved in Ukraine. — Tzeentch

Yeah "deeply involved", so what?

I never said anything like that. — Tzeentch

In that case I retract my claim insofar as it implied you did. But plenty of people who did now make the same arguments you do.

I've actually extensively argued the opposite. It is clear by Russian troop counts and disposition that capturing all of Ukraine (or Kiev, for that matter) was not their goal. And Mearsheimer makes that point as well. — Tzeentch

Out of curiosity, I looked this up, but all that Mearsheimer says is that Russia would have been unable to take all of Ukraine, but he does actually say they intended to capture Kiev.

Capturing all of Ukraine would be crazy, and would have invited an US-backed insurgency. In fact, there are good indications that is what the US was planning for.

Here is a lovely panel by CSIS in which they elaborately explain why occupying Ukraine would be a terrible idea, and how stupid the Russians are for trying it. The joke turned out to be on them, however, since the Russians never did.

They even invited Michael Vickers - the man responsible for the US-backed insurgency in Afghanistan against the Soviets. He literally states the insurgency they could create in Ukraine would be bigger than the one in Afghanistan. — Tzeentch

I think the joke is on the Russians for failing at their objective. Your claim that Russia couldn't possibly have intended something that would have been a bad idea doesn't seem convincing given that the entire war is a spectacularly bad idea either way.

If Russia was convinced they couldn't possibly occupy Ukraine because of US interference why did they think they could invade in the first place?

The US was in the process of creating a fait accompli. They almost succeeded. — Tzeentch

More empty, outrageous claims.

It's called evidence. Actual evidence is needed to support the idea that Ukraine is winning or can win in this case against a larger and stronger opponent. Otherwise, without evidence to the contrary it is reasonable to assume that the much larger and more powerful force is going to win a military confrontation. — boethius

Ukraine won the battle for Kiev, the battle for Charkiv (that one actually was a major rout) and the battle for Kherson.

Russia meanwhile has demonstrated the ability to take territory by assaulting a relatively small sector of the front with a large, grinding assault. But the losses this causes are apparently very heavy and it's very slow. Ukraine meanwhile has failed to penetrate heavy russian defenses.

That's the evidence, and it doesn't suggest either side is about to win decisively. At best it suggests a status quo peace.

They are winning the war. They have successfully conquered nearly a quarter of Ukraine, and arguably the most valuable quarter in terms of resources and the part that most speaks Russian. — boethius

But that wasn't the russian goal. And they have also wrecked their military to an extent that will likely prevent them from projecting serious military power for years.

That's a major defeat in my book.

Why didn't the US and NATO acolytes pour in all the advanced weaponry they have since trickled into Ukraine from the get go? Why aren't squadrons of f16 with all the advanced sensors and missiles and other munitions not patrolling Ukrainians skies as we speak?

The first year of the war, Ukraine had realistic chances of defeating the Russian forces that had invaded. Russia had not yet even partly mobilized, had not yet built up sophisticated defences, and were prosecuting the war with their professional soldiers and a band of mercenaries.

If the goal was to defeat Russia in Ukraine, it was certainly possible in the first months and year. Of course, that would not end the war but would be a humiliating military disaster for Russia, which combined with the disruption of the sanctions, would have solid chances of unravelling the Russian state as the Neo-cons so desired. — boethius

No-one wants the Russian state to unravel because then the nukes are unaccounted for and who knows what happens.

The point of the restrictions was, in part, to avoid just such an unraveling.

But also because popular opinion matters and while most people who looked at the matter concluded there was very little risk of a nuclear escalation, politicians aren't elected by foreign policy experts. People were very worried about a nuclear escalation, that has mostly faded by now.

Well, this is a discussion forum where people share and talk about their ideas. I'm more than comfortable within these topics not to have to cite sources for uncontroversial claims — Tzeentch

What is there to discuss if you don't justify your claims re the military situation?

Very difficult to understand where you're coming from.

Because the Ukrainians put up a valiant fight means Ukraine is somehow not in the process of losing the war?

I'm sure this type of emotional support counts for something to some people, but it count for nothing in the world of geopolitics. — Tzeentch

How many armored vehicles has Russia lost? How many artillery pieces? How many soldiers?

The defense has been a bit more than a "valiant fight". Russia isn't sitting around leisurely twiddling their thumbs while they wait for Ukraine to surrender. For almost two years they have thrown everything they have into the conflict, and lost a good chunk of that.

Crimea is extremely important to the Russians, so I'd disagree. — Tzeentch

They already had Crimea. Their goals obviously went way beyond that but this doesn't fit your narrative so you'll ignore both the very obvious stated goals (demilitarise and denazify) and also the evidence in the form of actual russian invasion routes.

Yes, and I'm sure that will happen any day now. — Tzeentch

If you think a country can go on spending more than 10% of its GDP on the military without ill effects I don't know what to tell you.

The US attempted to wrench Ukraine from underneath the Russians' noses, and spent some 10 years arming and training the Ukrainians for this very purpose. Financial investments go back even further. Ukraine is the US neocon project. — Tzeentch

So you claim. The evidence for this is flimsy as has been discussed ad nauseum already. In any event Russia had a perfectly good frozen conflict in Ukraine already.

Note, currently. — Tzeentch

Russian troops have been fighting in Ukraine since 2014.

Then Russia drew its line and is currently winning against a combined economic bloc that has over 20 times its GDP. — Tzeentch

If winning is wrecking your military and throwing away your international prestige and various lucrative trade deals, I'd hate to see what loosing looks like.

What has Russia gained, a bit of territory? That won't transform the russian economy. Russian arms have been exposed as sub-par, russian military doctrine as a failure. Russia is loosing influence in it's "near abroad", primarily to China, due to its inability to uphold commitments. The need to keep Chechnya quiet is forcing Putin to allow Kadyrov to amass a significant independent powerbase.

Really for someone to claim they "look at geopolitics" your view seems remarkably focused on a single coloured line on a map. There's a reason states have largely stopped the kind of territorial aggrandisement Russia is undertaking.

Russia's economy would collapse, Putin would be overthrown, the army would rebel, etc. - the Russians would be pushed back to the border and Crimea would be liberated.

It's obviously a humiliation, given how hard they went in with the rhetoric. — Tzeentch

I think you're substituting what officials have actually said with your idea of what they wished for.

What prediction are you even talking about? — Tzeentch

That Ukraine would fall within weeks. That the real russian army wasn't yet fully in the fight.

Kiev was supposed to fall "any day now" as you like to claim. Then it was Charkiw that was about to fall. None of it materialised yet there's still the exact same rhetoric about how Russia, with it's superior resources, cannot fail to win.

You fail to understand that the creation of Ukraine was based on a mutual understanding between NATO and post-Soviet Russia that Ukraine was to be a neutral bufferzone, necessary to avoid conflict. — Tzeentch

Ridiculous nonsense. Ukraine was a SSR and gained independence when Jelzin decided to dissolve the USSR. That was a result of internal USSR politics, not some imagined understanding with NATO.

It's the Americans who in 2008 at the NATO Bucharest Summit stated that Ukraine and Georgia "will become members of NATO", thus clearly signaling they were intending to change Ukraine's neutral status. That's what the Russians are and have been reacting to. — Tzeentch

Which was merely a reaffirmation of the previous policy, and in fact the plan was subsequently put in ice, as has been pointed out in this thread. Plus there's the previous point about NATO membership being impossible since 2014.

This isn't some effort of Russia to 'add Ukraine to its sphere of influence'. What a nonsensical view. — Tzeentch

Someone should tell Putin, because his statements very clearly say that Ukraine is an illegitimate state and should really just be part of Russia.

The binary good and bad, black and white, oppressors and oppressed is the fallacy that is continually made and needs to be examined. Israel’s failure with Netanyahu doesn’t negate Hamas having to be degraded and pushed from Gaza. Then the debate becomes about how to wage that war. — schopenhauer1

But shouldn't the debate be about how not to wage the war?

Seeing as waging the war cannot but advance the objective of Hamas, and that nothing past outright genocide offers itself as a continuation of the policy of containment.

War is the default option in part because of all the prior failures. In part also because Israel, from it's conception, necessitated the construction and entrenchment of a Jewish majority.

Destroying Hamas seems ultimately more a rationalisation than an actual goal. While Hamas is a real organisation with real goals, and it does have a real and specific impact, it seems absurd to assume that it'll be the last of its kind. So to reverse Clausewitz: what's the policy that will be the continuation of this war?

But what you leave out that is highlighted on the graph with a nice red highlighter, is how very out of the 400,000 year cycle the Co2 level is at the moment. We have thrown a C02 quilt on the planet that will warm it to a level unprecedented in at least the 400,000 years of that graph, it being obvious that the actual temperature lags behind the measure of the insulation. — unenlightened

This is usually the elephant in the room when it comes to discussions with climate denialists. Insofar as the denialism is motivated by an emotional need for climate change to not be true, which is often the case, it's usually straight up ignored.

But I do remember that @Agree-to-Disagree did acknowledge the effects of CO2 earlier in this thread, so one does wonder where all of this is going.

Just read the Western press. The fact that the war is going terribly for Ukraine and that Zelensky is facing heavy pressure domestically and internationally is not controversial. — Tzeentch

"It's not controversial" is not a substitute for an actual argument. You make an awful lot of claims but never actually supply anything as justification. Just being able to quote Mearsheimer doesn't make you some sort of authority that merely has to share their wisdom.

Is the war going terribly for Ukraine? By an objective standard, it's not. It went amazingly well earlier, so the current situation might look bad in comparison. But reducing Russia to fight a positional war on a peer footing isn't a small feat for a country that, in 2014, was barely able to react at all.

Russia invaded Ukraine over NATO membership/US influence specifically, and the strategic vulnerability of Crimea more broadly. They have successfully waylaid plans for Ukrainian NATO membership — Tzeentch

Nah. Russia had troops on Ukrainian soil since 2014 an no way in hell is anyone joining NATO that is currently fighting the russian army.

You're not getting around that simple fact. Probably you'll ignore it like the others that make this same argument.

, and have taken 20% of Ukraine in the process, creating a landbridge to Crimea. — Tzeentch

If that was the plan then the Russian leadership must simply be stupid, since there's no way in hell these territories are worth burning through your entire stock of armaments.

The Ukrainian military and economy are badly battered and basically on permanent life-support. — Tzeentch

And so is the Russian military. Their economy is better able to absorb this in the short term, but this will likely be cold comfort to the average russian when the state runs out of means to cushion the domestic economy.

It's an absolute humiliation for the West — Tzeentch

It's an absolute humiliation for Russia. No idea why you think the West is humiliated.

That this would be the predictable outcome was clear to many when the war started back in 2022, and it has been quite frustrating to see how Western opinion got hijacked by propaganda and prolonged this copium-fueled war when it could have ended in March/April 2022. — Tzeentch

You mean it's frustrating that your predictions were wrong but rather than face the facts you're just going to repeat them in the hope that they'll eventually turn out true.

Ukraine's bargaining position has only deteriorated since then, and it still is deteriorating further. Zelensky and the neocons will be unable to admit defeat, and prolong Ukraine's suffering at least until the 2024 elections, which in a cruel irony Biden is set to lose anyway. — Tzeentch

The Ukraine is set to loose, Biden is set to loose, you should play the lottery!

The Russians with their tiny economy somehow managed to completely outfox the collective West. Again, it's the price the West pays for delusional leadership, but it's sad for the Ukrainians that they are the ones that have to pay the bill. — Tzeentch

I'm sure the many thousands of dead russians feel very smug about having outfoxed the west.

Ukraine was not in Russia's sphere of influence prior to the war, — Tzeentch

Apparently Putin did not agree with that though.

You can't make an omelette...seriously though, Germany and Japan suffered civilian casualties many orders of magnitude higher than what Israel has dished out (and will eventually dish out) and became better countries for it. — RogueAI

The burned and mangled corpses of men, women and children made Germany and Japan better countries? That's... a take...

Change is messy. War is hell. Innocent people get killed. — RogueAI

Which is to say, if you don't think about it, it isn't so bad.

What did the Palestinians and Hamas think would happen when they decided to go down this road together? Did they think it would end well? Did they think they could pull off something like 10/7 and not get the shit kicked out of them? — RogueAI

Hamas wants this to happen. They're not idiots, and the Israeli reaction is what anyone could have predicted. Every single dead Palestinian child helps Hamas.

Maybe stop it with the double standards. If Gaza civilians have to accept their fate because of the crimes of Hamas then certainly Israelis should suffer a hundredfold. It's a fucking dumb argument. — Benkei

Agreed. Yet it's very popular. Probably because it's easier to shut your eyes and convince yourself what's happening is not really happening to people like you. They're others who have done something to deserve it. It can't happen to you, you're safe. Looking the horror in the eye is excruciating.

The classic purpose of defending against a superior force that will eventually win is give time for diplomatic actions.

There are only two available:

1. convince other parties to join the war. For example the UK defending against Nazi Germany to buy time for the US to join the war and save them.

2. Negotiate a peace using the leverage of the high cost of further fighting. — boethius

Right, because it's absolutely impossible for a smaller country to win against a larger one. Never happens, ever.

In the case Finland, military defensive strategy coherently supported diplomatic efforts. — boethius

And the Finns were right, while Ukraine is wrong, because?

Now, if you mean that some offensive actions support defence and that by "depends on the circumstances" you agree Ukraine's campaign to "cut the land bridge" and "retake Crimea" was a delusional fools errand, then we agree. — boethius

I don't have access to the intelligence Ukraine had when deciding on that offensive, so I have no idea whether the effort was delusional. They seem to have adjusted their tactics to the situation on the ground well enough.

Help too much the Ukrainians with too sophisticated weapons and Russia can easily say things such as the weapons are entirely dependent on systems and information support outside Ukraine and is de facto at war with NATO and then not only strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons but also strike NATO bases in East-Europe. — boethius

Now *that* is a delusional scenario unless we assume the Russian leadership is a suicide cult.

Russia would not use nuclear weapons in the current situation: because they are winning. Hence, if the West wants to minimize the risk of the use of nuclear weapons, then it needs to keep Russia winning by undersupplying Ukraine — boethius

What are they winning exactly?

I can't really blame anyone for not looking through the constant propaganda barrage, but the Russians are on track to decisively win the war. — Tzeentch

By waving their magic war winning wand, presumably.

He has cancelled elections because by now everybody understands Zelensky wouldn't be re-elected. — Tzeentch

Elections during wartime are against Ukrainian law, but your fantasy is interesting nonetheless. Care to share your evidence that Zelensky wouldn't be re-elected?

While Zelensky is still trying to sell the myth of a Ukrainian offensive, both people in Ukraine and the Western media are openly saying its a stalemate, Ukraine is running out of men, etc. — Tzeentch

Ah yes, "people are saying". Why have evidence or arguments when you can just say what people are saying?

But it's not a stalemate. Ukraine is losing, and it's losing decisively. — Tzeentch

The tanks will be in Kiev any minute. You heard it here first folks!

'Stalemate' is just a cope term, to save face, to avoid having to admit defeat to domestic audiences, and to not have to utter the words "the Russians won". — Tzeentch

Right. Russia lost three major campaigns, but since the Ukrainian offensive also failed to reach it's objective the status quo is now a decisive russian victory. That makes total sense.

If I told you in December 2021 that Russia would expend it's entire peacetime army, it's entire stock of artillery ammunition, a large part of its armored vehicles and artillery pieces, to conquer (parts of) three Ukrainian Oblasts, you'd call that a major victory?

The bottomline now is that Ukraine is not going to join NATO — Tzeentch

Ukraine was never going to join NATO with Russian troops on its soil.

I think this is all quite bleak and tragic, especially for Ukraine itself. I can't imagine having to make such sacrifices only for it to be in vain. But that's the price to pay for politicians who deal in delusions and fairy tales. — Tzeentch

Right, small states should just always do what their bigger neighbours want and not try to get out of there sphere of influence. Unless the neighbour is the evil imperialist US.

Well their projected military budget, if one assumes that all the shadow military budgets rise proportionally, would put Russia at the level of military spending the USSR had in the 80s. That did not go so well.

And all this to defeat just Ukraine. I think it's worth remembering, among the daily back-and-forth of the war, just how unexpected it is that Ukraine can put up this level of resistance at all. And that while Russia has certainly succeeded in wrecking Ukraine, it has also wrecked itself in the process. It'll take at least a decade for Russia to recover from the war, especially the disastrous first year.

In theory, maybe; but not in practice. Empires (via conquistadors, gunships, missionaries & systematic colonization), for example, are not "self-critical" emancipatory projects (pace Hegel, vide Aristotle). — 180 Proof

That's true, but at the same time would the pagan roman empire, if given modern tools, not be even more cruel and rapacious? There is a significant capacity for self-criticism in western philosophy, arguably inherited from the anarchist (or at least anti-authoritarian) side of Jesus' teachings.

I agree, although this point is somewhat self-contradictory in that you say people have agency, but then point out that we need a new mainstream that can steer them in a new direction. Meaning, people do not have agency, they are determined by directions of society. Which is what I say when I talk about narratives. The narratives that shape our perception of reality defines the choices made and if the perception of reality is skewed by power hungry narcissists and we fail to protect democracy from such people because we are lazy and naive, then they dictate the narratives steering society, not people with better intentions for humanity. — Christoffer

I did not mean to imply that the mainstream is some inexorable force. More that we need a mass movement that offers more productive activism.

We can never be free of narratives, they're part of the human condition. We can only focus on forming better narratives that focus on bettering ourselves, improving our well being and progress humanity into a better future for all, if we want that to happen. — Christoffer

Sure, but that doesn't imply the narrative needs to be cynically exploited to steer the stupid masses to enlightened goals.

The problem with the degeneration of democracy is that society have handled democracy in a sloppy and naive way. Instead of installing institutions that self-control democracy so that it never corrupts society from the core values of democracy, we just let society constantly balance on a knife's edge so that a nation could vote away democracy all together if they've successfully been manipulated enough. — Christoffer

There's no way to insulate democracy from the demos. A democracy that's immune to it's self-dissolution is kind of an oxymoron. German has an "eternity clause" in its constitution, stating that certain parts (like the basic democratic constitution) can not be altered under any circumstances. But obviously the constitution is ultimately just a "scrap of paper". Such a clause only works so long as the paper retains legitimacy

Which is why I think the more important institutions are the soft, cultural ones.

As long as democracy focus on voting on specific people and not ideas and solutions, we will always have a corrupt system as we are rather focusing on personality traits and theatrics rather than actual decisions for society. — Christoffer

How would that actually work though? Electoral politics inherently draws certain personalities. It's seems more useful to work around that than try to somehow make the process as impersonal as possible.

I think that the combination of capitalism and democracy have created this self-perpetual machine in which we have power hungry people who care nothing for society, only manage to take decisions for society because capitalism demands it, or else people will revolt.

Basically, no one's at the steering wheel. No vision exist, no ideas are being formed by knowledgeable people and instead society just flows by itself. That would have been good, if not for all the destructive messes it also generates. — Christoffer

This is true in a sense, since there is no overarching progressive vision. But of course there are people who actively do the steering. Some interests groups are definetly powerful and their particular interests have a noticeable effect on policy. It's not simply something as abstract as society in general.

That's only generated more populist movements with people using the speed of online marketing to manipulate themselves into power fast before anyone notice the problems they pull with them.

The solution is to fine tune the democratic system so that populist narcissists and people only interested in power gets replaced by people working for the needs of society more than pushing their own names and egos. If we had systems that removed people in power more easily when they abuse their power, and if politicians were forced to act more in-line with how the core democratic values of being "the people's voice" in politics, that would force democratic politics into being more focused on solving societal problems and help people rather than putting all energy into the illusion of helping or improving. — Christoffer

Isn't that what we're already trying and failing to do? No-one has a recipe for getting "the right people" into the job, and I think this is ultimately a fool's errand. The problem isn't really that the politicians are uniquely bad, it's that they're exposed to pressures and temptations that lead to bad decisions.

The way to avoid this is not to rely on a theoretical superhuman which is somehow pure and good, but to broaden the base these people stand on. More people need to be involved in the nitty-gritty of local politics, so they have an understanding of how they work, broaden the pool of possible candidates and are aware of how to effectively advocate for themselves.

A popular movement need not be populist. Populism is a particular perversion of the popular.

I don't think it collapsed, I think that the critique of capitalism is alive and healthy and with how extreme the difference between the rich and poor through the catalyst of neoliberalism has become I think we'll see more of it as time goes on. There's definitely gonna be pushes for more Marxist ideas through a Hegelian slave/master analysis going forward. — Christoffer

It's been 30 years since the SU collapsed and capitalism is running rampant. How much longer will that take?

The problem is that the polarized masses of left/right people who are uneducated on the actual concepts of criticism against capitalism just forms another part of the radicalized population who are stuck in a loop of non-solutions in society, battling out amateur interpretations and not actually doing proper philosophical discourse on that matter. — Christoffer

So your solution is to somehow conjure up a population of proper philosophers? How would that work?

One solution for the online sphere is to create a new space that is considered better than the rest. I've seen this happen with things like computer software. When all major corporations produce subscription based software that they constantly increase the subscription price on while slowing down on innovation and progress, people get fed up by it and as soon as something that's open source reaches a point where it actually competes with the paid options, people start to move over to it and the corporations lose money. Even if they later put money into innovation, they hardly get the users back since the trust is lost and people don't want to be stuck in a system of manipulation by the companies who mostly put on a smiley face and dance the marketing dance to form the illusion of comfort with their software. — Christoffer

Alternative spaces exist, but so far the holding power of the existing ecosystems seems to be too strong. X/Twitter is a good example where, despite bad management and various alternative platforms, the inertia of its huge membership is keeping it afloat (for now).

Convenience is king in the fast moving world and the social media giants are very adept at offering it.

People don't trust these megacorps, people don't trust Facebook or TikTok, they only tolerate them because there's no wide spread alternative. If an alternative grows and their promise and delivery matches and outcompete the others, that can shift society. It's basically playing by the rules of the free market game, but with open source solutions that democratize spaces away from destructive algorithms. — Christoffer

I would rather say that people live in denial of how they're feeding the machine. It's much easier to project all your fears about surveillance on, say, a vaccine app than to cut your social media ties. The mistrust and the lack of privacy don't have an outlet, so we end up with conspiracy narratives as one option. Or people simply embrace the lack of privacy as the price of admission.

Without a popular systematic critique I don't see how we get enough of a movement going to decisively shift away from the current domination by big platforms.

Think of Wikipedia. It's been tested and found out to be more generally trustworthy for the purpose of sources of knowledge than many established and paid for sources, regardless of what people believe is the case. And because it's widely used, widely known and "open source", there's no destructive algorithms to be found. It's focused on being a good function and a good part of our online experience.

If we can generate better social media spaces that focus on having a similar good reputation, that doesn't have a big business behind it, that doesn't have a tech guru front figure wanting to reshape the world based on their skewed point of view, and that focus on gathering people on positive grounds with algorithms pushing back at destructive actions and behaviors, and being free of ulterior capitalistic motives... then that might save us from these radicalization machines.

But it demands an effort to create something that first and foremost can compete on the free market and deliver a better experience than all the others. Maybe if nations around the world were to have a fund for it. In which democratic nations fund the development and management of such an online space based on principles like the UN, a united space that cannot be corrupted by a single nation or corporation, in which there's no other focus than having a space for all to gather in, free from market movements and the manipulation of the people in favor of the people in power or narratives of nations.

One could dream. — Christoffer

Well we'd need to generate the impetus for such a shift somehow. I don't think there's an alternative to building a movement to provide that.

Wikipedia was lucky in that it came up early, before a monetised alternative took root. With social media, we do not have that luxury.

We have somewhat of a problem today with how single words have become so loaded that any holistic point gets lost due to people just taking aim at singular words, like "these people" or "slaves", without looking at the grander context. — Christoffer

The point I wanted to make is that the people concerned still have agency. Part of the solution involves creating a new mainstream where the energy that these people currently expend on "conspiracy activism" is turned towards actually positive goals.

But instead, everyone polarize themselves into arguing over the symptoms. Trump is only one figure in all of this, there are Trump-like people in power all over the world and the threat to democracy isn't their specific shenanigans, but the underlying manipulation of people making democracy into a system of control. — Christoffer

I think part of the issue is that democracy was already well on the way of becoming a "system of control", because the democratic political institutions were being impoverished and starved.

So the solution probably involves reinvigorating democratic politics. Which means grassroots activism, political involvement beyond the ballot box via vehicles like unions etc. We could probably look at how e.g. Steve Bannon creates his political movement and take some cues from that.

People need to experience politics as something they actively do again, rather than as a succession of narratives being fed to them so they vote the right way once every four years.

The left also desperately needs to be more inclusive and stop focusing on every issue through the lense of one particular identity. Ever since the project of Marxism had definitely collapsed, the left seems to have lost its sense of an overarching, positive vision for the future. There have been important victories in particular fields like LGBTQ rights and anti-raciam and feminism, but arguably at the expense of splitting the left into ever smaller movement of individual identities. People like Bannon step into this vacuum and instead fill it with a horror story.

The counter culture that would help humanity to better ourselves is to fight against the system that radicalize ourselves into oblivion. We need a better internet, we need a better system not based on these privatized giants who doesn't care if the world burns as long as they gain massive wealth on the users. — Christoffer

Yes, we'd need to break the monopolisation of our internet spaces, and turn them into public goods. This will require a break with capitalist ideology, which unfortunately has been almost unopposed for decades now. So first the groundwork would have to be laid to make a critique of capitalism no longer the realm of fringe theorists or extremists. It would really help to have better online spaces for that. It's a real catch-22.

If they are slaves to the wave of misinformation and disinformation that makes them radicalized into things like Trumpism and right wing extremism — Christoffer

I don't think it's very accurate to consider them "slaves" though. Yes once in a certain information environment, it's hard to break out. But this is less because of some outside imposing force and more because emotional needs have become enmeshed with the information environment.

Two things are important to keep in mind: that however wrong the theories, the Trumpian kind of extremism takes up real feelings of alienation and catastrophic breakdown. These feelings aren't particular to Trump supporters. Second, plenty of topics are viable for conspiracy mongering because most everyone is in denial about them to some extent, so this denial is merely rerouted.

"The problem isn't really Trump or his followers, it's how we operate in a world in which this online sphere of influence produces new Trumps all over the place. How do we fix the source of the problem?" — Christoffer

I think the online sphere acts more as a catalyst than as the source of the problem. Social Media in particular has hugely reshaped out culture and our beliefs. But it is not in and of itself the source of the feelings that the conspiracies are a response to. That source is a crisis of western ideology. The new information environment has enabled a radical retreat into a fantasy world that supplies our longing for community, self-actualisation and self-absolution as a response.

Humans don't need any special reason to split themselves up into groups and then hate each other. But Jews and Christians had a peculiar dynamic.

A jew could technically become a christian at any point by accepting the saviour. At the same time, the refusal to do so always included a sort of challenge to the christian majority. Reactions to this differed based in the ebb and flow of the fortunes of the overall community.

Jews were often tolerated explicitly to demonstrate christian superiority. The notion was to keep jews around as distinctly second class citizens to constantly remind them of their inferiority and entice them to convert.

But, when the fortunes of the overall community fell, this notion could fold in on itself. Then the separate, marginalised community could look like an intentional mockery. In the christian anti-semitic tales, such as the blood libel, there seems to be an element of christian practice, reflected in a distorting mirror.

What I wrote assumed Ukraine's goal of "freedom" and pointed out that freeing a few while putting the rest at risk makes no military sense.

Attacking prepared defences in a war of attrition as the smaller party is the opposite of military sanity. This is the point to make it more clear. — boethius

That entirely depends on the larger situation. You can't just sit on the defensive all the time either. There are plenty of plausible reasons why Ukraine might want to push even into prepared russian defenses - to fix troops in place, to keep russian commanders on the defensive psychologically, to seize tactically advantageous positions, to force the russian artillery to fire so they can be targeted with counter-battery fire. I could go on, but the point is your analysis is simplistic to the point of being useless.

Now, if the required sacrifices on the Western political altar led to the promised demise of the Russian state by mechanism that were and remain essentially voodoo (i.e. magical thinking without any precedent in history at all), then the military moves would have had to have made sense had the things that would have made them make sense happened to have actually happened. But they didn't. — boethius

Noone wants the demise of the russian state, that would be a terrible outcome for everyone. The west has plenty of good reasons to want Russia to fail in this endavour, do I need to list them?

But to play along to your obtuse delusions, "freeing" a bunch of people, more so in regions that had already largely been evacuated of anyone who wanted to leave to Ukraine, is not justification for military action — boethius

People have been bashing each other's heads in for scraps of territory for hundreds of years.

There was a tiny number of people to "free" in these regions compared to the total Ukrainian population, so therefore it would not be justified to expend valuable military resources to free a small number of people if it greatly increases the risk to the larger number. — boethius

This completely ignores how humans actually think. Noone is going to just hand away what they think is "their land" if they have a choice.

Going on these offensives is extremely costly to Ukraine in terms of men and material.

Now, if they "win" the war of attrition against Russia, then clearly they had those resources to spare, but if they don't win the war that is actually currently happening then it will become clear what the cost of expending large amounts of resources on offensives actually turns out to be. — boethius

War isn't fought on some excel spreadsheet where losses are added up and then the winner is decided. The territory matters. Initiative matters. Morale matters. Public opinion matters..

Losing 20% of their territory in the first days of the war, not even striking the bridges out of Crimea but letting massive columns go through and behind the prepared defences around the Donbas was definitely a military disaster. — boethius

Nonsense, holding off the russian invasion the way they did was a massive victory, way beyond what anyone had expected. It was a disaster for Russia.

Bahkmut was a military disaster. — boethius

More bullshit. How was it disastrous? Ukraine lost a single city, and that's it. There was no follow up on the side of Russia.

This latest offensive was a military disaster. — boethius

This is at least vaguely plausible, but still there's no evidence Ukraine has been decisively weakened by the failure to push further.

Now, if you think Ukraine can just keep grinding indefinitely like a tech bro in a coffee shop, then you're just completely delusional.

We are now at a phase of the war where it is accepted Ukraine has no potential for victory with some sort of maneuver warfare, which is, by definition, the only way to win against superior numbers and resources, so the only other way to win is through attrition which is a war that Ukraine can't possibly win.

I prepend "military" to all this analysis as there would still be the option of victory through some sort of revolution in Russia or total economic failing under the sanctions (the theory of victory when Ukraine rejected peace talks), which maybe someone here will still argue will actually happen "this time", but that seems a distant dream even to the present dreamers. — boethius

Everyone has limited resources. Russia doesn't have magical endless potential to wage war. Russia can absolutely loose a war of attrition in Ukraine. The soviet union, which was much stronger then than Russia is today, lost a war of attrition in Afghanistan.

Russia's use of glide bombs and attack helicopters has been covered extensively even by the Western mainstream press, so if you don't follow events in the slightest why do you feel you contribute anything to this conversation.

But to satisfy your lazy quest for knowledge here's a journalist from Forbes literally using the words "at will". — boethius

The point of glide bombs is literally that you can use them from out of range of air defenses...

And the helicopters cannot operate at will above the frontline, as the Forbes article you linked shows regardless of the poorly written last paragraph.

He's reporting what Zelensky said to him and his colleagues, what the administration said the day before, it would be a pretty bold lie which others in attendance could easily call him out on. — boethius

Given that he claims the US election was "stolen", bold lies seem right up his alley. What does it matter to him if he is called out? He's a MAGA republican so anyone who calls him out is a globalist shill and that is that.

More to the point, noone else is reporting these bold claims.

hardly implausible that's exactly what Zelensky stated. — boethius

It's very implausible if you actually follow how the war develops day by day.

This is the new copium of choice in recent comments ... for, if there is no collapse ... how exactly does Russia lose exactly? Isn't the key word in a "death by a thousand cuts" the death part? How exactly does Russia die by a thousand cuts without a "calamitous collapse" which could have "unforeseeable consequences for russian internal politics"? — boethius

The same way they lost in Afghanistan, or Chechnya. The same way the US lost in Vietnam or again in Afghanistan. They're fighting a limited war for political goals. Their opponent is fighting a total war. This has not often worked out for the side trying to fight a limited war.

The war is about separating Russian resources from German industry and locking in the Europeans as vassal states without sovereignty being even an option on the table anymore, destroy the Euro as a possible competitor to the dollar while we're at it. — boethius

Oh right, Putin invaded in order to turn the EU into US vassals, that makes sense.

Particularly because the US is well known for its policy of turning allies into vassal states without sovereignty. Just look at....uh....

Obviously if the intention was to actually "beat" the Russians then that's what would have occurred.

It didn't occur because that is not the intention. — boethius

I mean you're right about that, but your reasoning is odd.

There's a very obvious reason why the west wouldn't want Ukraine to "beat" the russians. The same reason why they didn't send their air forces to flatten the russian invaders. The west doesn't want to give Russia an excuse to use nukes.

So yes the western strategy is a kind of death by a thousand cuts. They prefer the russians to bleed themselves dry in a slow grind over some calamitous collapse which could have unforeseeable consequences for russian internal politics. They even prefer Ukraine to loose in a slow grind over such a scenario.

This is made worse by claims in liberal media spaces (e.g., John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight") that economists essentially agree that immigration has net positive impacts for all of society, providing benefits without significant costs. This is simply not the real consensus in the field. — Count Timothy von Icarus

AFAIK, the consensus is that immigration is generally a net positive on total economic output in the long term, and that the long-term overall displacement effect is small. But the displacement effect is there in the short term and it overwhelmingly affects people who are already in a precarious employment. Is that roughly how you would characterise it as well?

More to the point, I wonder if the current left wing stance reveals a bit of internalised market absolutism. The idea that more openness, more trade, more movement of people is always a positive. I would not be surprised if this idea, that exchange fixes everything, a pillar of today's capitalist ideology, is at the root of this.

Easy to be straightforward if you just ignore the parts of the story that don't neatly fit the narrative. Like the fact that the two-state solution was repeatedly rebuffed by Palestinian and Arab representatives as well. Or how the interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran also shape the conflict.



What do we do if noone has a just cause though?

It seems to me that, looking at the broad strokes, no "side" can really claim to have had a just cause. Individuals, certainly, but not those who ended up steering the larger situation.

Obviously we can condemn both sides for their respective unjust actions. But do we act beyond that? Should we revert to consequentialism in a situation where we cannot resolve the "just cause conflict"? Or should we ignore consequences and adopt complete neutrality?

Which then accomplishes what? What did the withdrawal from Kherson and around Kharkiv accomplish for the Ukrainians other than feeding the narrative they can "win"? — boethius

It freed a bunch of their territory and subjects from russian occupation?

That's kinda what the war is about, isn't it?

Oh right, because Ukraine only gets the "next thing" after suffering military disasters and so the "next thing" is no longer an escalation but can drag the war out a bit longer. — boethius

What military disasters had Ukraine suffered?

I just explained to you, after Tzeentch just explained to you, that Russia's aim is to attrit the Ukrainians to the breaking point (which just like every individual, every organization has). They do this by creating cauldron's around Ukrainian forces and hitting them with artillery and glide bombs until they leave. — boethius

So why are they loosing more men and materiel every day? That doesn't sound like winning a war of attrition.

The facts are Ukraine essentially does not have any air power and Russia seems to have now nearly completely attritted their air defence (just as the leaked pentagon papers informed us), enough to effectively use glide bombs and attack helicopters at will. — boethius

And your evidence for this is?

Zelensky was recently in Washington to explain that with 100 000 000 000 USD more that "maybe" they can achieve a stalemate for the next year. — boethius

Lol, yeah according to Josh Hawley, one of the people trying to turn the US into a Putin style "managed democracy". Why would I believe anything a known con-man like this says?

And given support of relevant foreign governments, even such a "clean" strike is not going to help Palestinian aims. But I don't think it follows they shouldn't do anything in such an event. — Benkei

I think this is a very difficult problem to deal with, morally.

If you are in a situation where you are clearly oppressed, but do not see any actually effective way out, what do you do? Are you allowed to attack your captor, jailor, torturer? Even if all that will do is result in one more death on the list? Is "fighting evil" a moral good in and of itself?

One can put the question in the reverse: At what point does participation in an immoral system strip you - in this specific context - of your right to bodily integrity, to liberty, to life?

I don't think this is an alien concept. Self-defense laws often work this way, though usually not explicitly. They follow the dictum that the person who puts themselves outside of the law by their actions then looses the protection of the law from the consequences.

This perspective seems to make the problem clearer: it is with identifying the fight against the system with the fight against specific persons. Maybe in turning yourself into an enforcer for a system, you're morally taking onto yourself its crimes?

"Correct reference" refers to the correct use of language, and "actuality" refers to "that which really is". What constitutes as "correct use" of language is a very complicated subject, as I'm sure you appreciate. It involves a wide variety of context-dependant linguistic and cultural factors that are entirely manmade. Social conventions and laws, political or artistic concepts and a litany of other concepts are all part of "correct reference". — Judaka

Interesting. So, is this a "it's turtles all the way down" situation, where language references only language with no other reference point / correspondence?

A basic example is ownership/private property. "It's true that I own the computer I'm using" is true by "correct reference". It's true according to the social conventions of the society that I live in, since I bought this computer, and it resides in my dwelling and I use it. If you want to treat concepts as though they're above language and manmade rules, and "truth" as beyond such things, then there's zero basis for believing that the concept of "ownership" is real. Or look at a card game like Yu-gi-oh or Pokémon, "It's true that Pikachu is a Pokémon", you'd probably agree, even though it's complete fiction. — Judaka

Of course social constructs like property and fictional entities are ultimately self-referential, and so your argument works here.

But what about rules that don't seem mutable by human though or action? What we call the laws of physics can be expressed in infinite ways linguistically, but the rules remain the same. Gravity will not reverse and pull you into the clouds if you define up as down.

Yep, that's right.

Though "truth" can also be used to directly refer to a hypothetical "correct reference", using the logic contained within words. Such as "hypothetical" applicability, something that could be correctly said, even if it wasn't said. For instance, it's true that I wrote this comment, because it'd be correct to say that I wrote this comment, it's true regardless of whether anybody actually makes the claim that I did. — Judaka

Aren't you making the claim by writing it? This is slightly confusing to me.

Another example is how people say things like "True courage is X", possibly to suggest that it's incorrect to reference Y as courage, because only X is correct to refer to as courage. I could say "I want to find out what true compassion is", "true compassion" is equal to "that which can be correctly referred to as compassion". In summary, your description is correct in this context, but we can manipulate that concept in these ways that you're undoubtedly familiar with. — Judaka

But isn't what people are concerned in this scenario the negation of a value judgement? That is they're not concerned with what the word means in the sense of a dictionary definition. Rather the goal is to exclude a certain behaviour from the positive value judgement that's emotionally connected to the language.

It's based on the "shared human experience", we could agree on that. It's also based on practicality, we want similar functions from our languages. — Judaka

But could it not also be a priori?

Conceptually that's true, but not in practice, as I tried to demonstrate here. — Judaka

Well it's sometimes true in practice. But of course in practice one is almost always wrong in some way.

Technically, truth does not respond to one's wishes, but it does respond to one's desires, values, logic and intended meaning. — Judaka

I think that's the core of our disagreement. From the perspective of some theoretical Maxwell's demon, everyone is wrong and their truths contingent on their beliefs, circumstances etc. But from the perspective of the people doing the talking and thinking, their truth is the truth.

That would be my response to the entire situation. You cannot demand security and refuse to give the other party the same. Reciprocity and all that. Israel has been beating a dog for years and now wants to retaliate because it was bitten. I'm quite certain many now feel justified to kill the dog, looking only at the bite, but any sane person realises that's not the real problem here. — Benkei

While I'm certain you don't intent to denigrate Palestinians, I find the usage of the dog analogy somewhat troubling. Because crucially a dog is not a moral subject and we don't expect a dog to have agency.

Isn't it at the core of human dignity that humans are responsible actors regardless of their situation? That is it would be dehumanising to treat humans simply as objects caught up in some situation, which then excludes agency and responsibility as two sides of the same coin.

If we're making a moral argument - as opposed to simply discussing the correct instrumentality to reach some result - we can't ignore the agency of either side. And this of course goes for Israel as well, where politicians all too often seek to avoid the moral argument by pointing to the allegedly inexorable demands of security.

I wonder if Hamas can only be permanently stopped by a police force within a functioning Palestinian state. Not that I think Hamas is the most pressing problem. — bert1

Hama seems to me to be an embodiment of an idea. Even if you kill every last Hamas fighter, you can't kill the idea.

I do not think it is wholly in the power of Israel or the Palestinians to bury that idea. It's bound up in more global phenomena as well.

Your understanding of the OP wasn't my intention, and I agree with you that truth has the same core function across different contexts.

Where we seem to disagree is on the core function itself.

The point of the OP doesn't make any sense using your understanding of truth's core function as referring to "actuality", and that's maybe why you didn't get it. If you try thinking about it from how I explained "truth" then probably you will. — Judaka

Maybe I should not have used the word "actuality", as it seems to have caused more confusion than it solved. I just meant it as what is actually the case as opposed to what's possible.

But if we both agree that the core function of truth is the same across different contexts, we probably don't disagree all that much.

I tend to stay away from technical discussions about what truth is exactly, since they never seem terribly productive. I like the somewhat playful phrase that truth is that which asserts itself regardless of your wishes.

Are you saying possibility/necessity etc are concepts that exist without language, and language merely corresponds to these (mental) concepts? — Judaka

Yes, though I would not claim it must be these specifically. Or that it's as simple as language using something that's there. It's probably a more messy kind of feedback loop.

But basically it seems to me there needs to be some common mental framework language can use, otherwise I don't see how we can, for example, decipher ancient languages noone speaks anymore.

Right, but it's only true that there's a tiger in the bush if it's "correct to say" that there's a tiger in the bush. It's only correct to say that there's a tiger in the bush if there really is a tiger in the bush. Even if "truth" is "correct reference" or "correct answer", it would have served the function you wanted in the example you gave.

I'll again reiterate that I am confident that you do not use the word truth to refer to actuality, you use it as "correct reference" or "correct answer". — Judaka

I don't understand this, specifically I don't understand why actuality and "correct reference" aren't one and the same here.

To answer if it's true that "There's a tiger in the bush", one must understand the concepts "is", "tiger", "in" and "bush". If the tiger is behind the bush or in front of it, or if it's a lion and not a tiger, or if it was in the bush, but already left, then "There is a tiger in the bush" is false. I could say "There is a predator in the bush" or "There is something in the bush" and these could be true as well as "There is a tiger in the bush". It's clear that "truth" corresponds to the "correctness" of the statement, which is based on the applicability of the language used. — Judaka

So truth always signals the applicability of the language used in the claim to the situation? I mean that sounds vaguely like what I believe, but I'm not sure I really understand.

Why must it do that? — Judaka

I don't know if it must, it just seems plausible to me.

I also find it interesting that the animal kingdom don't seem to have the revenge pressure that we have. — universeness

It's not just a revenge pressure that's notable in humans. Humans have a very acute sense of a) status and b) rules. We react strongly to any subversion of either. It has been shown in various experiments that humans will punish "cheating" even to their own detriment.

It is also I think clearly visible in our social structures, in the way we treat criminals or children.

If I was to offer some plausible sounding evolutionary mechanism, I'd say it's probably related to empathy and the very complex social dynamics we developed. Revenge is a kind of reverse empathy where we wish to punish a transgression by doing something we consider will be painful to the other.

But do note this is a guess which is probably wrong.

I think this is not something we can unlearn, but rather something we must endeavour to notice and (with effort) question.

This is kinda hilarious, given that Ukraine has a history of colonialism, and the coloniser was Russia.

I agree that there is such thinking that doesn't rely on language.

So, what is the relationship you're proposing between these categories and the words used to refer to them? — Judaka

Since humans are capable of entertaining counterfactuals and also of dealing with probabilities and necessary elements, I'd say that there needs to be some faculty for sorting things into possibility/necessity/actuality.

We'd then expect to have language that corresponds to these. So "truth" would correspond to actuality. If it's true that there's a tiger in the bush, I must act immediately. If it's merely a possibility, or a story, the proper reaction would be different.

It could have meant that, but it's part of a paragraph that goes on to explain those changes in qualities, which did not include any major changes to how truth functions. Using that context and my the context of my previous statements, I had hoped my meaning was made clear. Nonetheless, I clarified the misunderstanding, isn't this what I should've done? — Judaka

Well, my problem is that I can't really tell what your point is.

Based on your OP I got the impression that you were arguing for multiple truths. That is truth has multiple distinct meanings, or perhaps we could say functions. For example scientific truth, which is for empirical questions. And perhaps as a counterexample aesthetic truth, which applies for feelings of beauty or taste.

My response to this idea is that I do think truth has the same core meaning, or function, across different contexts. Specifically, truth does always seem concerned with establishing a reliable and reasoned basis for further decisions or debates.

This of course does not mean that any sentence that contains the term "truth" means the same thing. Context matters for language. And also it is obvious to me that a less precise claim, even if it's true, might not strictly imply any further conclusions, while a more precise claim, if true, might then imply very specific consequences.

But the above caveats, to me, are simply about all language in general and have as much to do with "truth" specifically as they have with any other term.

So maybe we actually agree and are just framing the issue differently.

What sort of categories are you referring to? — Judaka

The basic building blocks for thinking and experiencing. Like causality, basic logic operations, basic concepts that allow you to sort and make sense of sensory input.

You don't seem to understand my claim though. You seem to think I'm arguing that the "change" is a literal rewrite of the word's meaning and that's not the case at all. The "change" is:

That context is determinative of truth's qualities. One puts it together for themselves. Whether a truth claim is about "something real" or not. — Judaka

It seems like we're talking past each other and not getting our points across.

If you write that "context determines truth's qualities, then to me that sounds like "a literal rewrite of the word's meaning".

I understand "qualities" to mean the specific attributes that define something and make it distinct from other things.

If truth is a language tool then I think mental concept is equally a language tool. Science is just a biological activity, a special case of the same biological activity that allows the use of words like "truth" and "mental concept". — Apustimelogist

Ok. And how is this relevant?

What is a "mental concept"? — Judaka

One of the categories your mind uses to work.

Aren't all concepts linguistic? — Judaka

I don't see how that could be the case.

We use language to express our thoughts and feelings, a view I'm not convinced you oppose. Language is public, words are used by all, and so even when you say "things we actually expect to be real", you have to be more specific, what makes something real? Is beauty not real? What about kindness, or wisdom or whatever else? Is it not true that some movies are better than others? Or that someone can sing better than someone else? Is it true that I'm as good as Messi at soccer? — Judaka

I don't think it's useful to start fragmenting this into a million little questions if we can't even agree on the basics.

If I say "X is true" is that different from saying "I like X"? That is, is "truth" just an expression of my preferences or is there more to it?

Truth is a word changed by its context. — Judaka

Yes, that is the claim you're making, I know.

If I claimed that "X shop is selling doughnuts at Y price" and you asked, "Is that true?" I would fully appreciate that you wanted to verify the information was reliable. Equally, if I said "The doughnuts from X shop are delicious", and you asked, "Is that true?", I would appreciate that you knew this is not a matter where my opinion was definitive. If you ate some and said they weren't that good, you wouldn't call me a liar, you'd just know it was a difference in taste/opinion. — Judaka

But taste and price are already different. There's no need for truth to be different as well. This example works just as well if we assume the term "truth" does exactly the same in both sentences and the difference lies entirely in the claim itself.

Well, to discuss anything is to discuss language. But the buck must stop somewhere. Language must at some point reference back to a mental concept. Otherwise I don't see how communication would be possible. At some point thoughts must turn to language, and language back to thoughts.

So the question is is there some mental concept we (usually) address with the term "truth"? I'd say there is. It seems to be pretty obvious that we must have a mental concept for "things we actually expect to be real".

I'm not sure where this conversation is going. It seems to me this is turning more towards a general conversation about language and meaning rather than about truth specifically.

It seems to me that, taken to the extreme, your argument would be that "truth" really does not refer to anything specific, and is rather just a way to emphasize a statement. So it's just a language tool.

The contrary argument would be that "truth" is a fundamental category in the human mind. That would mean that regardless of the precision or imprecision of language, saying "X is true" would be an attempt to address this category.

Its hard to say then whether one wants to book. On one side it will never allow them to understand correctly the relationships between things in physics, chemistry and biology as they are, but it would still allow progress of a form. It would provide for all needs. — Benj96

The way I understand it, the book would give you an entirely "correct" understanding of all laws of nature, just that the set of laws would have as little as possible to do with the real underlying reality.

But, seeing as this underlying reality is in any case inaccessible to us, that doesn't seem to me that big of a drawback.