I recently visited what Europeans call Central Europe: Krakow, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague. While I was there someone said, “Every political or historical event is a human one”. I can’t comment on the military aspect but I saw and heard the people there.
In all four cities, there were Ukrainian flags on buildings, some with messages like “Hands off Ukraine Putin”. Ukrainian rallies were held in the large Market Square in Krakow. People were begging for help they will not get: “NATO Close the sky/People don’t want to die.” The refugees had terrible stories to tell. We had lunch in a country inn near Auschwitz and were told all 100+ rooms were occupied by refugees. In my Prague hotel there was a children’s play area with toys in a lobby area by the elevators. I flew out of the Prague airport. The entrance to it had a Czech flag and a Ukrainian one flying side by side.
I got the impression that some people, especially the Poles, are not certain they can rely on their allies if they are attacked. I was told that they had mutual defense treaties with Britain and France in 1939, yet they were liberated by the Soviets who then stayed for 45 years. People there talk as if the Communist era was a dark time which they don’t want to relive. (Someone pointed proudly to the first McDonald’s in Krakow, which is revered as a symbol of the fall of Communism.) They know what they are fighting for and against. I believe many people in that area consider that the Ukrainians are fighting the Russians so the rest of us don’t have to.
If anyone was supporting Putin and Russia, they were keeping quiet.
I should add that I met a man in Vienna who pointed out that parts of the Ukraine were in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, "but you don't see us trying to get it back".
That's because the Austrians wanted to ubify with Germany and other countries kept preventing that from happening. So of course they don't care about some place that isn't ethnically their people
Actually, Orban badly wants Subcarpathia back, not to mention all other pre-Trianon territory (that includes a huge chunk of Romania and an independent Slovakia and Croatia ). That would explain why he is being so hostile to the notion of supporting Ukraine militarily and even of taking in refugees.
I met a few people in Budapest and none from the parts of the country that put Orban in office. I got they impression that the ones I met do not trust their government to do what most of us would consider the right thing.
I attended a panel discussion in which one of the speakers addressed "What makes Hungarians different from others?". His answer was "They tend to side with the biggest in the neighborhood. Opportunism." About territorial claims, he said, "There are no clear answers. Croatia was never Hungarian. It was a vassal state."
Thanks for writing this, I can't believe how easily we are wimping out. Bullies like Russia do not stop until they are stopped. They don't care. I thought one of the lessons we learned in WWII is that appeasement doesn't work. Are we going to wait til they invade Poland?
One can argue the semantics, but the important point is that in 2022 the situation has been much more dangerous, and cool-headed US leadership more important, than it was from 2014-2021.
And who started this conflict in 2014? The US gov't at that time was helping to foment insurrection in Ukraine, which ultimately induced Putin's response in Crimea.
sorry, who was helping to do what in Ukraine? Are you saying the Revolution of Dignity wasn't organic? Because there's a ton of evidence it was organic, and everything I've seen from someone arguing it wasn't basically boils down to either (1) conspiracy rumor-mongering, or (2) reading mountains of meaning into a pretty innocuous speech by McCain or wishcasting chat between Victoria Nyland and Greg Pyatt.
"who started it" was the Ukrainians themselves, throwing off the shackles of being governed by people who took their orders from Moscow. Turns out Moscow didn't like that. But that's hardly a justification for anything Putin did since then. Unless, of course, you believe that there should be master societies and slave societies in this world. Which if you want to argue - feel free! But at least own that point of view.
So Door #1, conspiracy rumor-mongering, then - got it.
Let's start with mislabeling the conflict from 2014 a "US-Russian proxy war". The so-called DNR / LNR forces are not even "proxies" for Russia, they are literal Russian army units, started and led by a FSB Colonel (Strelkov), who eliminated local authorities and compelled young men to either join the military or have no economic prospects. And who are the supposed US proxies? The Ukrainians don't take orders from us, have deferred no interests of their own to please us or the EU. Didn't even start a BS investigation into Hunter Biden to get their Javelin missiles! The UKR-RUS gas disputes alone are evidence of this, among much else. Not all allies are "proxy forces".
This article in general argues (in 2018) against the notion of supporting Ukraine at all, that it would be better if we just had let them get conquered so things could "return to peace". If you think that's still a valid point of view, I refer you to *gestures at Noah's entire article here*. So the guy's credibility (annoyingly, despite him working at my alma mater) is already quite suspect.
He then characterizes the Maidan revolution as being "US-backed" despite providing, I note once again, no evidence. The phone conversation he refers to, "plotting the makeup of a successor government became public", is exactly what I referred to between Nyland and Pyatt - the Wikipedia article gives a relevant transcript, it's innocuous.
"How much of [Maidan] was spontaneous and how much directed, or inspired, by high-level actors in the West also remains unclear."
THEREFORE, he concludes, obviously it was a US-backed coup.
Seriously, in light of everything that has happened, this article is an embarrassment of poor reasoning and poor prognosticating, and from a supposed expert - based on what was known at the time, as well as how things have proceeded since then. It's a mishmash of cherry-picking some things, ignoring others, and in general starting from a conclusion and working backwards. The only thing he's right about is Poroshenko's corruption, which is why even the Galician west of the country voted for the (Russian-speaking jewish eastern-ukrainian) Zelensky in 2019.
I suspect you'll get the same loony band of Putin-Versteher that pollute the comments every time you post on this topic, usually the ones sporting Taibbi, Greenwald, Beijer or some other far left subscription. Might be better to make these posts paid to keep the pollution level low.
The most hilarious comments are the ones that say "don't humiliate Putin, we have to care about his tender feelings." As if it's on the west to make him feel good about his war of aggression. The reason most of those appeasement minded op-ed writers tiptoe around it: because it is still thankfully seen as bad form to demand Ukraine surrender for someone's ideological beliefs in polite society. The only ones who promote this are the far ends of the horseshoe.
To be honest, the far left and far right just seem so similar. Both are obsessed with race and seem comfortable with violence against their political opponents.
Think of political views as less of linear spectrum and more as a circle. The center left and right are on the opposite side of the circle from the far left and right which effectively are indistinguishable.
I share posts like these with a bunch of leftist friends who get propagandised too a lot by your Putin-Verstehers so no I'd like it if these posts are free please.
Though your leftist friends might take away a different message to that intended. To me, for instance, Noah reads here as basically admitting "yes, it's a proxy war, but it's good actually".
I've been on team Ukraine from the beginning but people have to realize that offensive military operations are extremely hard (as we learned watching Russia flounder for the last 100 days) relative to defensive operations. The Russians are now dug in and have a firepower advantage. The question is whether to equip Ukraine for a decisive offensive campaign. That will likely require at least 9-12 months of further mobilization and training by the Ukrainians and much more equipment support of armored vehicles and fast mover aircraft (which is exactly why they're asking for those things). The artillery is great to help them hold the line in Donbass, but offense will require the ability to maneuver. The question is will Europe be willing to endure a cold winter while the Ukies prep for an offensive some time next year.
If the US starts pressuring Ukraine to give up its territory to end the on-going armed conflict, both Russia and Europe will begin to doubt the US commitment in Europe, which can have far-ranging consequences.
Suppose the US pressures Ukraine to make a deal with Russia. Russia takes some territory, but decides that further invasion of Ukraine is impossible. Instead they opt for a small operation in the Baltic states. After all, if the US can't be arsed to send weapons to Ukraine, why would send troops the Baltic states?
This places the US in a bind. Either the US and Europe go into major war with Russia, or NATO collapses and the US-Europe alliance is broken. The latter will have huge consequences with regards to China. Why should Europe help the US in their struggle with China, if the US doesn't want to help Europe in theirs with Russia? Maybe it's better for Europe to ally with China, to help put pressure on Russia?
This is important. While I think Ukraine is going to have to cede territory eventually, the US should protest loudly and go along with a heavy sigh saying "well, it's Ukraine's choice."
This all seems so obvious that to require such an article feels ludicrous.
However, it is required because this seems like a minority view here. it seems like the entire public policy and elite media world has gone insane. Is this a reaction to Domino Theory from the Cold War? Or is this just inconvenient in taking away attention from everyone else’s pet political causes?
I think most people still agree with the viewpoint expressed here. But a few people are starting to drift back toward the mindless Putin-worship of previous years, and we have to constantly guard against that.
The attention span is notoriously low in an inundated with dopamine or adrenaline generating information situation. I assume for most mammals. Including lab mice ( that I worked with at a time). A lot of research bias inducing if not separated. Oh, hey, like us, "evolved" ones.. lol
The general public, probably, but the loudest voices in politics seem to lean that direction. Definitely would concede the point on “most people”, when putting aside emotion and the over representation of those with media or Twitter megaphones.
However, I’m not sure it’s Putin worship.
White House (staffers) have rumbled that it would like to move on (and have inflation come down), even though the US is still one of the strongest backers. Germany has been squirming in the hot seat of guilt (again) but kind of would be happy if this all disappeared especially with a lot of politicians in power having been on the “wrong side”. France has always liked to be edgy. It’s pretty much Eastern Europe holding the political line (and the UK for its own political reasons as well).
Can’t fault people their political interests, though I think most of them are rather short-sighted (as you point out). Merely annoying to hear certain voices talk about peace at all costs by taking actions that raise the probability of more hot war. Obviously, I agree with your analysis though and my priors square with yours—it’ll take some extraordinarily disadvantageous conditions to prevent Xi from wanting to tidy things up before the end of his term.
Right on, Noah. The minimum which the Ukraine could or should accept is a return to the status quo ante, with third parties guaranteeing their borders against future Russian aggression. Ideally, m the Donbas should be fully returned to Ukrainian control. Crimea is more difficult, since Russia does have historic claims there. However, since it represents a bottleneck in Black Sea shipping for both countries, some sort of neutralization might be plausible.
The appeasement punditry is insufferable. If Ukraine cedes more territory to Russia, that just sets them up for the next invasion. You would have to be asleep since 2014 not to realize that by now.
That being said, brokered cease fires might be a respite, but even then Putin has shown that he has no intention of honoring those beyond what might be useful for the Russian military to re-position and re-supply.
Russia has to lose if Ukraine is going to have any security at all, IMO,
Ukraine is pretty much guaranteed to lose no matter what happens. The Russians are rotating their soldiers in and out, they haven't even formally declared war so they're using much less soldiers than they need to. The only difference is how many people on all sides does before the Russians get their geopolitical objectives or a neutral or pro-russian Ukraine.
I agree with almost everything you have written in this article except your point that fighting a proxy war with Russia by supplying Ukraine with weapons will prevent world war 3 when there is a risk of the exact opposite. There is a possibility that the current conflict with Russia which has an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons may escalate if Putin is cornered and decides to launch nukes. This risk has to be part of the analysis when deciding if it's worth prolonging the conflict or pushing both parties towards a negotiated settlement. That does not mean that Ukraine doesn't have the right to defend itself against a brutal illegal invasion of their country but while I hope that they can defend and retake lost territory the sheer numerical imbalance in arms between both sides (the west has not sent nearly enough weapons to allow the Ukrainians to go on the offensive) this conflict could turn into years of protracted brutal WW1 trench/artillery destruction where tens of thousands of more people perish. I think the only hope beyond some sort of internal revolt in Russia which seems unlikely is for Russia to take over the portions of the Donbas they control and for them to get out of the rest of Ukraine as I don't believe the Ukrainians will ever accept peace until they reclaim the southern portion of their country.
Would you extend this logic to open war between the US and Russia (say, in Ukraine, where we commit to not crossing the Russian border)? Deterrence should hold just as well then as now -- after all, neither side wants to end the world.
The risk is just that at some point someone will screw up and blunder into a nuclear war no one wants. The more intense the US-Russian conflict, the likelier this fatal accident gets.
Whether dragging out the conflict in Ukraine reduces the *net* risk of nuclear war I don't know. You make some good arguments about Putin's long term plans and WWIII. But there *is* a near-term risk: low, but not zero, and higher the longer the war goes on.
The problem is that if Ukraine were to (eg) win the war, the perceived threat to Russia and the regime could easily lead to a situation where Putin believes his personal chances of survival are improved if he launches a small nuclear attack.
Like imagine he ends up in a situation where his personal calculus is, "If I don't launch, 95% chance I end up deposed and dead in a year's time. If I do launch, 90% chance everyone dies, but 10% chance NATO backs down and I'm a hero again."
I'm not sure about the latter - Russian propaganda transmits quite unequivocal message "there's no use for the world without Russia" and Putin himself used this self-sacrificial mood to rally nationalists around himself since 2012
In one of his recent rallies in March he repeated it with a biblical quote "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends."
His behavior has been often characterized as madman strategy. But there's a non-trivial chance he became actual suicidal maniac. Sort of fake-it-till-you-make-it way.
russia has policies that describe the situations where it will use nuclear weapons. these situations boil down to "the kremlin is about to be burned". existential threats basically. russia also has a no-first-use policy. unless nato premptively nukes russia you've got nothing to worry about. the nuclear sabre rattling is just talk.
Sure, I agree that it's more likely bluff than a serious threat.
However there are few non-zero risks:
1. Interpretation of 'existential threat' is completely up to Russia. They already called NATO expansion existential threat.
2. As an extension of 1, interpretation could be largely up to Putin himself and/or a few very close cronies.
I think Western public generally underestimates flexibility of Russians' understanding of codified law. Yes, Putin is formalist and he'll try his best to follow the doctrine but he has enough power to 'adjust' it very quickly if it's in the way of higher goals. The very video you cite shows how Putin changed the doctrine twice in opposite directions depending on circumstances.
In USSR there was Politburo that could safeguard against a crazy ruler, in case of Putin's Russia - I'm not sure.
Of course there's also "Stanislav Petrov's factor" - that someone downstream the chain of command will refuse launching the rockets. But having thousands of missiles and maybe dozens men controlling them someone probably won't refuse.
It's a low probability for sure, but non-zero, and hard for a lay person like me to estimate.
Generally true. But it applies to strategic nukes. Tactical nukes , on the other hand are not specifically covered. There's the loop hole. Yes. a tactical nuke is waaaay less destructive and more limited. But it's a darn escalation that might provoke a response. I would not hang my hopes on Putin being a stickler for strategic ( in doctrine) vs tactical ( not in the doctrine) nukes. Hope genuinely your prediction prevails, nonetheless. Because that will be a hell of an escalation.
I wish you would provide a steelman of the opposing view. Which, as I'd summarize it, is this: the longer this war continues, the likelier escalation between the US and Russia becomes. (It's cumulative! Only has to happen once.)
Dragging the conflict out reduces the odds of WWIII through some pathways, as you've mentioned, and raises the odds through other pathways. How that nets out is not clear. But just waving away the most serious near-term risk is not a good way to look at things.
In my experience, people who request a "steelman" of the opposing view really.just wish I'd switch my view. But no. I'm just going to argue for what's plainly right, as I did here.
I don’t think there’s any productive response to an assertion all other views are plainly wrong, so I’ll settle for wishing you a pleasant weekend and Vladimir Putin an unpleasant year.
I think the best arguments against the “Negotiate” Caucus are:
(1) Small countries matter and they have agency. From a moral perspective it is unethical for large countries to simply impose their will on the smaller ones. The Melian Dialogue is instructive on this issue. Ukraine, by virtue of its valor has shown that the agency of smaller powers can and should be respected.
(2) From an American standpoint, the USA is at its best when it respects the agency of small nations and supports them in defense of their own sovereignty. It gains respect and moral force by doing so. It also makes it the “ally of choice.” Thus it is no surprise that America has more allies than any country in history. If America can grow its Alliance network it can only benefit more.
The US generally does not respect the sovereignty of small nations. Looking at the entire history of their sphere of influence in the western hemisphere...
But if “peace” is actually just a short ceasefire that gives putin time to launch another invasion a few years from now, we haven’t actually moved away from world war 3. I think territory changes should be on the table when real peace comes but it’s very clear that right now putin has no interest in long term peace
On that "short" ceasefire objection: based on the gap between the 2014 and 2022 invasions, that "short ceasefire" could last something like 8 years. Considering that Putin's already 69 years old, and perhaps, according to rumor, seriously ill, such a "short ceasefire" could get Ukraine to a victory by default.
Well, personally i am extremely skeptical of the “putin dies now everything is fine” narrative everyone keeps assuming. A Putin replacement is likely someone from his circle who is going to largely continue in his path
On the other hand, a ceasefire will give Ukraine (and Moldova and whoever else) a chance to seriously harden their borders and also train on modern NATO weapons.
Right, I think we agree. It’s a bad situation. Very possibly pushing for a big Russian defeat is best, even from the standpoint of minimizing nuclear risk.
My point is just that that’s not obvious and there are also low-probability, high-downside near-term risks, which people for a variety of reasons don’t want to consider.
Are you the same guy who said at the start of this war that the valiant to last man defense of Snake Island might prove to be the defining image of this war ? I think you might be right. You need to double check your thinking after falling for that clearly orchestrated bit of propaganda.
It is of supreme relevance, not only to this topic and this writer but to all topic, writers and thinkers. Just as learning how to obtain and prepare good food is of greater importance than exactly what dish you want for dinner tonight, learning how to obtain information and how to correctly draw conclusions from it is much more important than having the right position on any particular topic.
Once you learned that you've been fooled, it behooves you to mentally back track and learn exactly how it happened. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
In the particular case of the defenders of Snake Island, Noah was sucked in and signal boosted some obvious lies. That's bad, very bad.
After I heard the story I hunted around to see if there was another version of events, there was. I started to construct various scenarios to determine which version of events most closely matched other known facts of reality. I cam to the conclusion that although the Russians might be lying the Ukrainians were reporting as FACT events that they had no possible way of knowing for sure. If there is an attack on an isolated position and communications are cut, how can the commanders know that all are dead, some are dead, some wounded or captured ? Other smaller details such as the highly emotive but also highly edited radio transmission gave weight to my hypothesis that the story was disinformation and propaganda.
It's my belief that we are deep into an information war. Those who refuse to learn mental self defense aren't patriots or even partisan pundits, they're chumps. Noah has trodden on at least one land mine, without walking a lot more carefully he's in danger of stepping on many more.
Right so, the point in contention is who should decide when the Ukrainians sue for peace? The is issue is that there are Western intellectuals and some political leaders suggesting that Ukraine should attempt to end the current fighting by ceding land to Russia.
The question then is whether or not doing so is a good idea for Ukraine? An associated question is who should be making that decision?
Whether or not Noah fell for Ukrainian propaganda on a separate issue has nothing to do with the question at hand.
It's the SAME issue. How do we know what we know ? We're dealing with an unreliable information stream being processed with faulty reasoning. How many pieces of information are there in this essay that are highly emotional (rapes, massacres etc.) have only a single source, an anonymous source or a proven politically biased source ? At least make a serious attempt to acknowledge and fix the faults in your machinery before relying on it again to do any serious work. Once you find a fault in the system stop work and try to find the fault. The fact that the matter at hand is literally life and death makes that more important not less.
I recently visited what Europeans call Central Europe: Krakow, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague. While I was there someone said, “Every political or historical event is a human one”. I can’t comment on the military aspect but I saw and heard the people there.
In all four cities, there were Ukrainian flags on buildings, some with messages like “Hands off Ukraine Putin”. Ukrainian rallies were held in the large Market Square in Krakow. People were begging for help they will not get: “NATO Close the sky/People don’t want to die.” The refugees had terrible stories to tell. We had lunch in a country inn near Auschwitz and were told all 100+ rooms were occupied by refugees. In my Prague hotel there was a children’s play area with toys in a lobby area by the elevators. I flew out of the Prague airport. The entrance to it had a Czech flag and a Ukrainian one flying side by side.
I got the impression that some people, especially the Poles, are not certain they can rely on their allies if they are attacked. I was told that they had mutual defense treaties with Britain and France in 1939, yet they were liberated by the Soviets who then stayed for 45 years. People there talk as if the Communist era was a dark time which they don’t want to relive. (Someone pointed proudly to the first McDonald’s in Krakow, which is revered as a symbol of the fall of Communism.) They know what they are fighting for and against. I believe many people in that area consider that the Ukrainians are fighting the Russians so the rest of us don’t have to.
If anyone was supporting Putin and Russia, they were keeping quiet.
I should add that I met a man in Vienna who pointed out that parts of the Ukraine were in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, "but you don't see us trying to get it back".
And the Polish-Lithuanian empire. Ukraine has been empire-d many times over the centuries.
That's because the Austrians wanted to ubify with Germany and other countries kept preventing that from happening. So of course they don't care about some place that isn't ethnically their people
If every European country should take back land they had at one point ...
Actually, Orban badly wants Subcarpathia back, not to mention all other pre-Trianon territory (that includes a huge chunk of Romania and an independent Slovakia and Croatia ). That would explain why he is being so hostile to the notion of supporting Ukraine militarily and even of taking in refugees.
I met a few people in Budapest and none from the parts of the country that put Orban in office. I got they impression that the ones I met do not trust their government to do what most of us would consider the right thing.
I attended a panel discussion in which one of the speakers addressed "What makes Hungarians different from others?". His answer was "They tend to side with the biggest in the neighborhood. Opportunism." About territorial claims, he said, "There are no clear answers. Croatia was never Hungarian. It was a vassal state."
Oh come now. I think we should give Putin something for all this effort.
A novelty t-shirt, perhaps? Maybe a matching mug? "I invaded Ukraine and all I got..."
"Here's your off-ramp."
Thanks for writing this, I can't believe how easily we are wimping out. Bullies like Russia do not stop until they are stopped. They don't care. I thought one of the lessons we learned in WWII is that appeasement doesn't work. Are we going to wait til they invade Poland?
Relevant: We really, really don't want this war to still be going on in 2025, when DJ Trump may again be president.
Not a point I've seen discussed anywhere, for some reason.
This war has been going on since 2014, and I'd be willing to bet will still be going on in 2025.
One can argue the semantics, but the important point is that in 2022 the situation has been much more dangerous, and cool-headed US leadership more important, than it was from 2014-2021.
And who started this conflict in 2014? The US gov't at that time was helping to foment insurrection in Ukraine, which ultimately induced Putin's response in Crimea.
sorry, who was helping to do what in Ukraine? Are you saying the Revolution of Dignity wasn't organic? Because there's a ton of evidence it was organic, and everything I've seen from someone arguing it wasn't basically boils down to either (1) conspiracy rumor-mongering, or (2) reading mountains of meaning into a pretty innocuous speech by McCain or wishcasting chat between Victoria Nyland and Greg Pyatt.
"who started it" was the Ukrainians themselves, throwing off the shackles of being governed by people who took their orders from Moscow. Turns out Moscow didn't like that. But that's hardly a justification for anything Putin did since then. Unless, of course, you believe that there should be master societies and slave societies in this world. Which if you want to argue - feel free! But at least own that point of view.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/four-years-of-ukraine-and-the-myths-of-maidan/
So Door #1, conspiracy rumor-mongering, then - got it.
Let's start with mislabeling the conflict from 2014 a "US-Russian proxy war". The so-called DNR / LNR forces are not even "proxies" for Russia, they are literal Russian army units, started and led by a FSB Colonel (Strelkov), who eliminated local authorities and compelled young men to either join the military or have no economic prospects. And who are the supposed US proxies? The Ukrainians don't take orders from us, have deferred no interests of their own to please us or the EU. Didn't even start a BS investigation into Hunter Biden to get their Javelin missiles! The UKR-RUS gas disputes alone are evidence of this, among much else. Not all allies are "proxy forces".
This article in general argues (in 2018) against the notion of supporting Ukraine at all, that it would be better if we just had let them get conquered so things could "return to peace". If you think that's still a valid point of view, I refer you to *gestures at Noah's entire article here*. So the guy's credibility (annoyingly, despite him working at my alma mater) is already quite suspect.
He then characterizes the Maidan revolution as being "US-backed" despite providing, I note once again, no evidence. The phone conversation he refers to, "plotting the makeup of a successor government became public", is exactly what I referred to between Nyland and Pyatt - the Wikipedia article gives a relevant transcript, it's innocuous.
"How much of [Maidan] was spontaneous and how much directed, or inspired, by high-level actors in the West also remains unclear."
THEREFORE, he concludes, obviously it was a US-backed coup.
Seriously, in light of everything that has happened, this article is an embarrassment of poor reasoning and poor prognosticating, and from a supposed expert - based on what was known at the time, as well as how things have proceeded since then. It's a mishmash of cherry-picking some things, ignoring others, and in general starting from a conclusion and working backwards. The only thing he's right about is Poroshenko's corruption, which is why even the Galician west of the country voted for the (Russian-speaking jewish eastern-ukrainian) Zelensky in 2019.
What a load that article is. BRB taking a shower.
Go away troll.
I want to ask all the appeasers if returning Ukrainian children that were taken to Russia should be a condition for peace.
They'll probably brush that off as "western propaganda." While uncritically spouting the Russian kind.
I suspect you'll get the same loony band of Putin-Versteher that pollute the comments every time you post on this topic, usually the ones sporting Taibbi, Greenwald, Beijer or some other far left subscription. Might be better to make these posts paid to keep the pollution level low.
The most hilarious comments are the ones that say "don't humiliate Putin, we have to care about his tender feelings." As if it's on the west to make him feel good about his war of aggression. The reason most of those appeasement minded op-ed writers tiptoe around it: because it is still thankfully seen as bad form to demand Ukraine surrender for someone's ideological beliefs in polite society. The only ones who promote this are the far ends of the horseshoe.
Taibbi and Greenwald are far left? Curiouser and curiouser. Go read their comments section and get back to me.
To be honest, the far left and far right just seem so similar. Both are obsessed with race and seem comfortable with violence against their political opponents.
Think of political views as less of linear spectrum and more as a circle. The center left and right are on the opposite side of the circle from the far left and right which effectively are indistinguishable.
I share posts like these with a bunch of leftist friends who get propagandised too a lot by your Putin-Verstehers so no I'd like it if these posts are free please.
Though your leftist friends might take away a different message to that intended. To me, for instance, Noah reads here as basically admitting "yes, it's a proxy war, but it's good actually".
I've been on team Ukraine from the beginning but people have to realize that offensive military operations are extremely hard (as we learned watching Russia flounder for the last 100 days) relative to defensive operations. The Russians are now dug in and have a firepower advantage. The question is whether to equip Ukraine for a decisive offensive campaign. That will likely require at least 9-12 months of further mobilization and training by the Ukrainians and much more equipment support of armored vehicles and fast mover aircraft (which is exactly why they're asking for those things). The artillery is great to help them hold the line in Donbass, but offense will require the ability to maneuver. The question is will Europe be willing to endure a cold winter while the Ukies prep for an offensive some time next year.
There's more at stake than Ukraine.
If the US starts pressuring Ukraine to give up its territory to end the on-going armed conflict, both Russia and Europe will begin to doubt the US commitment in Europe, which can have far-ranging consequences.
Suppose the US pressures Ukraine to make a deal with Russia. Russia takes some territory, but decides that further invasion of Ukraine is impossible. Instead they opt for a small operation in the Baltic states. After all, if the US can't be arsed to send weapons to Ukraine, why would send troops the Baltic states?
This places the US in a bind. Either the US and Europe go into major war with Russia, or NATO collapses and the US-Europe alliance is broken. The latter will have huge consequences with regards to China. Why should Europe help the US in their struggle with China, if the US doesn't want to help Europe in theirs with Russia? Maybe it's better for Europe to ally with China, to help put pressure on Russia?
Ukraine is not a NATO member and has not provided a treaty of alliance with the US, therefore it will not change things much.
This is important. While I think Ukraine is going to have to cede territory eventually, the US should protest loudly and go along with a heavy sigh saying "well, it's Ukraine's choice."
This all seems so obvious that to require such an article feels ludicrous.
However, it is required because this seems like a minority view here. it seems like the entire public policy and elite media world has gone insane. Is this a reaction to Domino Theory from the Cold War? Or is this just inconvenient in taking away attention from everyone else’s pet political causes?
I think most people still agree with the viewpoint expressed here. But a few people are starting to drift back toward the mindless Putin-worship of previous years, and we have to constantly guard against that.
The attention span is notoriously low in an inundated with dopamine or adrenaline generating information situation. I assume for most mammals. Including lab mice ( that I worked with at a time). A lot of research bias inducing if not separated. Oh, hey, like us, "evolved" ones.. lol
The general public, probably, but the loudest voices in politics seem to lean that direction. Definitely would concede the point on “most people”, when putting aside emotion and the over representation of those with media or Twitter megaphones.
However, I’m not sure it’s Putin worship.
White House (staffers) have rumbled that it would like to move on (and have inflation come down), even though the US is still one of the strongest backers. Germany has been squirming in the hot seat of guilt (again) but kind of would be happy if this all disappeared especially with a lot of politicians in power having been on the “wrong side”. France has always liked to be edgy. It’s pretty much Eastern Europe holding the political line (and the UK for its own political reasons as well).
Can’t fault people their political interests, though I think most of them are rather short-sighted (as you point out). Merely annoying to hear certain voices talk about peace at all costs by taking actions that raise the probability of more hot war. Obviously, I agree with your analysis though and my priors square with yours—it’ll take some extraordinarily disadvantageous conditions to prevent Xi from wanting to tidy things up before the end of his term.
Right on, Noah. The minimum which the Ukraine could or should accept is a return to the status quo ante, with third parties guaranteeing their borders against future Russian aggression. Ideally, m the Donbas should be fully returned to Ukrainian control. Crimea is more difficult, since Russia does have historic claims there. However, since it represents a bottleneck in Black Sea shipping for both countries, some sort of neutralization might be plausible.
The appeasement punditry is insufferable. If Ukraine cedes more territory to Russia, that just sets them up for the next invasion. You would have to be asleep since 2014 not to realize that by now.
That being said, brokered cease fires might be a respite, but even then Putin has shown that he has no intention of honoring those beyond what might be useful for the Russian military to re-position and re-supply.
Russia has to lose if Ukraine is going to have any security at all, IMO,
Ukraine is pretty much guaranteed to lose no matter what happens. The Russians are rotating their soldiers in and out, they haven't even formally declared war so they're using much less soldiers than they need to. The only difference is how many people on all sides does before the Russians get their geopolitical objectives or a neutral or pro-russian Ukraine.
This isn't aging well.
headline I just saw on TPM....
Talking Points Memo
Putin Suggests Russia Is Entering A Period Of Indefinite Expansion
Josh Kovensky - 9h ago
I agree with almost everything you have written in this article except your point that fighting a proxy war with Russia by supplying Ukraine with weapons will prevent world war 3 when there is a risk of the exact opposite. There is a possibility that the current conflict with Russia which has an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons may escalate if Putin is cornered and decides to launch nukes. This risk has to be part of the analysis when deciding if it's worth prolonging the conflict or pushing both parties towards a negotiated settlement. That does not mean that Ukraine doesn't have the right to defend itself against a brutal illegal invasion of their country but while I hope that they can defend and retake lost territory the sheer numerical imbalance in arms between both sides (the west has not sent nearly enough weapons to allow the Ukrainians to go on the offensive) this conflict could turn into years of protracted brutal WW1 trench/artillery destruction where tens of thousands of more people perish. I think the only hope beyond some sort of internal revolt in Russia which seems unlikely is for Russia to take over the portions of the Donbas they control and for them to get out of the rest of Ukraine as I don't believe the Ukrainians will ever accept peace until they reclaim the southern portion of their country.
We have nukes too. Putin doesn't want to lose in Ukraine, but he REALLY doesn't want Russia to be totally destroyed for all eternity.
Would you extend this logic to open war between the US and Russia (say, in Ukraine, where we commit to not crossing the Russian border)? Deterrence should hold just as well then as now -- after all, neither side wants to end the world.
The risk is just that at some point someone will screw up and blunder into a nuclear war no one wants. The more intense the US-Russian conflict, the likelier this fatal accident gets.
Whether dragging out the conflict in Ukraine reduces the *net* risk of nuclear war I don't know. You make some good arguments about Putin's long term plans and WWIII. But there *is* a near-term risk: low, but not zero, and higher the longer the war goes on.
The problem is that if Ukraine were to (eg) win the war, the perceived threat to Russia and the regime could easily lead to a situation where Putin believes his personal chances of survival are improved if he launches a small nuclear attack.
Like imagine he ends up in a situation where his personal calculus is, "If I don't launch, 95% chance I end up deposed and dead in a year's time. If I do launch, 90% chance everyone dies, but 10% chance NATO backs down and I'm a hero again."
I'm not sure about the latter - Russian propaganda transmits quite unequivocal message "there's no use for the world without Russia" and Putin himself used this self-sacrificial mood to rally nationalists around himself since 2012
https://www.commonspace.eu/ru/commentary/umremte-zh-pod-moskvoy-kak-nashi-bratya-umirali-citiruya-lermontova-putin-prizval
In one of his recent rallies in March he repeated it with a biblical quote "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends."
His behavior has been often characterized as madman strategy. But there's a non-trivial chance he became actual suicidal maniac. Sort of fake-it-till-you-make-it way.
you should read russian nuclear doctrine.
Could you please elaborate and save me some time figuring out what are you actually trying to say?
russia has policies that describe the situations where it will use nuclear weapons. these situations boil down to "the kremlin is about to be burned". existential threats basically. russia also has a no-first-use policy. unless nato premptively nukes russia you've got nothing to worry about. the nuclear sabre rattling is just talk.
check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxOO0hCCSk4
Sure, I agree that it's more likely bluff than a serious threat.
However there are few non-zero risks:
1. Interpretation of 'existential threat' is completely up to Russia. They already called NATO expansion existential threat.
2. As an extension of 1, interpretation could be largely up to Putin himself and/or a few very close cronies.
I think Western public generally underestimates flexibility of Russians' understanding of codified law. Yes, Putin is formalist and he'll try his best to follow the doctrine but he has enough power to 'adjust' it very quickly if it's in the way of higher goals. The very video you cite shows how Putin changed the doctrine twice in opposite directions depending on circumstances.
In USSR there was Politburo that could safeguard against a crazy ruler, in case of Putin's Russia - I'm not sure.
Of course there's also "Stanislav Petrov's factor" - that someone downstream the chain of command will refuse launching the rockets. But having thousands of missiles and maybe dozens men controlling them someone probably won't refuse.
It's a low probability for sure, but non-zero, and hard for a lay person like me to estimate.
Generally true. But it applies to strategic nukes. Tactical nukes , on the other hand are not specifically covered. There's the loop hole. Yes. a tactical nuke is waaaay less destructive and more limited. But it's a darn escalation that might provoke a response. I would not hang my hopes on Putin being a stickler for strategic ( in doctrine) vs tactical ( not in the doctrine) nukes. Hope genuinely your prediction prevails, nonetheless. Because that will be a hell of an escalation.
I wish you would provide a steelman of the opposing view. Which, as I'd summarize it, is this: the longer this war continues, the likelier escalation between the US and Russia becomes. (It's cumulative! Only has to happen once.)
Dragging the conflict out reduces the odds of WWIII through some pathways, as you've mentioned, and raises the odds through other pathways. How that nets out is not clear. But just waving away the most serious near-term risk is not a good way to look at things.
In my experience, people who request a "steelman" of the opposing view really.just wish I'd switch my view. But no. I'm just going to argue for what's plainly right, as I did here.
I don’t think there’s any productive response to an assertion all other views are plainly wrong, so I’ll settle for wishing you a pleasant weekend and Vladimir Putin an unpleasant year.
Noah,
I think the best arguments against the “Negotiate” Caucus are:
(1) Small countries matter and they have agency. From a moral perspective it is unethical for large countries to simply impose their will on the smaller ones. The Melian Dialogue is instructive on this issue. Ukraine, by virtue of its valor has shown that the agency of smaller powers can and should be respected.
(2) From an American standpoint, the USA is at its best when it respects the agency of small nations and supports them in defense of their own sovereignty. It gains respect and moral force by doing so. It also makes it the “ally of choice.” Thus it is no surprise that America has more allies than any country in history. If America can grow its Alliance network it can only benefit more.
The US generally does not respect the sovereignty of small nations. Looking at the entire history of their sphere of influence in the western hemisphere...
Hence why I said “at its best…”
Fighting shy of the strong version of the opposing view means what you're arguing isn't "plainly" right.
But if “peace” is actually just a short ceasefire that gives putin time to launch another invasion a few years from now, we haven’t actually moved away from world war 3. I think territory changes should be on the table when real peace comes but it’s very clear that right now putin has no interest in long term peace
On that "short" ceasefire objection: based on the gap between the 2014 and 2022 invasions, that "short ceasefire" could last something like 8 years. Considering that Putin's already 69 years old, and perhaps, according to rumor, seriously ill, such a "short ceasefire" could get Ukraine to a victory by default.
Well, personally i am extremely skeptical of the “putin dies now everything is fine” narrative everyone keeps assuming. A Putin replacement is likely someone from his circle who is going to largely continue in his path
On the other hand, a ceasefire will give Ukraine (and Moldova and whoever else) a chance to seriously harden their borders and also train on modern NATO weapons.
Right, I think we agree. It’s a bad situation. Very possibly pushing for a big Russian defeat is best, even from the standpoint of minimizing nuclear risk.
My point is just that that’s not obvious and there are also low-probability, high-downside near-term risks, which people for a variety of reasons don’t want to consider.
Are you the same guy who said at the start of this war that the valiant to last man defense of Snake Island might prove to be the defining image of this war ? I think you might be right. You need to double check your thinking after falling for that clearly orchestrated bit of propaganda.
You have a very smudgy telescope.
What relevance does this have to the topic of this article?
It is of supreme relevance, not only to this topic and this writer but to all topic, writers and thinkers. Just as learning how to obtain and prepare good food is of greater importance than exactly what dish you want for dinner tonight, learning how to obtain information and how to correctly draw conclusions from it is much more important than having the right position on any particular topic.
Once you learned that you've been fooled, it behooves you to mentally back track and learn exactly how it happened. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
In the particular case of the defenders of Snake Island, Noah was sucked in and signal boosted some obvious lies. That's bad, very bad.
After I heard the story I hunted around to see if there was another version of events, there was. I started to construct various scenarios to determine which version of events most closely matched other known facts of reality. I cam to the conclusion that although the Russians might be lying the Ukrainians were reporting as FACT events that they had no possible way of knowing for sure. If there is an attack on an isolated position and communications are cut, how can the commanders know that all are dead, some are dead, some wounded or captured ? Other smaller details such as the highly emotive but also highly edited radio transmission gave weight to my hypothesis that the story was disinformation and propaganda.
It's my belief that we are deep into an information war. Those who refuse to learn mental self defense aren't patriots or even partisan pundits, they're chumps. Noah has trodden on at least one land mine, without walking a lot more carefully he's in danger of stepping on many more.
Right so, the point in contention is who should decide when the Ukrainians sue for peace? The is issue is that there are Western intellectuals and some political leaders suggesting that Ukraine should attempt to end the current fighting by ceding land to Russia.
The question then is whether or not doing so is a good idea for Ukraine? An associated question is who should be making that decision?
Whether or not Noah fell for Ukrainian propaganda on a separate issue has nothing to do with the question at hand.
It's the SAME issue. How do we know what we know ? We're dealing with an unreliable information stream being processed with faulty reasoning. How many pieces of information are there in this essay that are highly emotional (rapes, massacres etc.) have only a single source, an anonymous source or a proven politically biased source ? At least make a serious attempt to acknowledge and fix the faults in your machinery before relying on it again to do any serious work. Once you find a fault in the system stop work and try to find the fault. The fact that the matter at hand is literally life and death makes that more important not less.