As someone from the tech world who had never been involved with defense before, I've recently been helping out on a defense startup. As an element of what you said on "Rebuild the U.S. defense-industrial base": Having software backing every process has made a lot of American companies efficient and strong. It seems the DoD spends a relatively tiny, tiny percentage of their budget on software relative to private-sector companies and, where it does, doesn't have the procurement procedures in place to do it as well as companies to.
Software eating everything is one of America's greatest strengths and the DoD should take advantage of this strength too (with appropriate cybersecurity measures... which I admit is very hard.)
I spent several years working on Navy-funded encryption startup. The biggest surprise in this process was to discover that (1) direct gov't research funding is basically a subsidy to defense contractors who have (nearly) zeroed out their R&D spend, hence (2) the end-goal of these research programs is to pressure startups into bad joint ventures with the major defense contractors. If you're manufacturing a sensor that can only be used on an F-35, that makes sense. For software companies that have dual-use applications it's throwing money in the trash. We ended up selling our company to a large non-US tech firm.
The actual lesson here is that US DoD does not really seem capable of using the output of SV startup culture, and this needs to change. Maybe collaborations with Palantir, Google, Anduril etc. are evidence of change. But I worry that the large tech companies have other priorities, and the small nimble startups will be driven away by a military that works for defense contractors.
We will need to do quite a bit more to restore the Arsenal of Democracy. I refer you to the outline set forth in "American's Advanced Manufacturing Problem - and How to Fix It," by David Adler and William B. Bonvillian, American Affairs, Fall 2023, Vol. VIII, No. 3, pp. 3-30. Also, the tax and financial incentives that influence how executives decide upon making capital investments must be drastically changed.
Overall, count me as a conservative who would agree with you on all of these, even #5. But they're not easy:
1) "Putin’s territorial ambitions in Europe go well beyond Ukraine." You keep saying this as though it's obviously true, but it is not. Russia appears to have neither the political interest nor military ability to pick a fight with a NATO country. Europe should take the lead on Ukraine because it's in their backyard and our checkbook is masking that reality. As long as we keep writing bankrolling them, the EU will keep pretending that Putin is Hitler.
2) "a large chunk of the GOP now views Ukraine as a culture-war issue" You sometimes misdiagnose Republican motivations, but this one is a whopper even for you. Republicans are tired of protecting Ukraine's borders and ignoring our own. That is not a "culture war" issue; it's a basic rule of law issue. Either you control who enters your country or you cease to have a country.
3) "the defenders of liberal democracy are still at a disadvantage in the global war of ideas" What political party are they in? "A [Enlightenment] liberal government telling the story of what it means to be liberal" only works if you actually a government that believes in Enlightenment liberalism, Locke's value-neutral state. Western governments and parties (whether Left or Right) no longer appear to. As a side note: "liberal-democracy" has always been an oxymoron.
4) We can have India as an ally, but not if the US government keeps making culture war issues (LGBT, trans, womens' rights, abortion, etc...) the litmus test for US friendship. Modi's BJP is a Hindu version of Orban's Fidesz. We treat Hungary as if it's a fascist dictatorship despite the objective fact that it is not. If we go down that road with India, we will lose them. Losing Hungary is no big deal; losing India would be catastrophic.
1. Can you explain your logic on #1? If you listen to Putin's speeches and the writing of those that inspire those speeches, he is actually quite straightforward about his aims, which include domination of all the former SSRs. So it has political interest aplenty, and Putin has repeatedly followed through on those aims, starting 8 wars or annexations to do so. He proceeds in small bites. Now that he has the Russian economy tooled again as a war machine, he is more capable of annexing territory than before 2022. The most recent Ukraine episode demonstrates that a well-supplied army with built-up defensive lines can hold off his forces, but he's otherwise able to annex territory without such defensive lines, and in any case can inflict casualties at a volume that Europe and the US are so far unwilling to contemplate. This puts the future of the Baltics, which are NATO members, in play.
2) The Republicans had a border enforcement agreement with practically their entire list of wants, and then didn't take the green light. This alone shows that it is not a priority issue for congressional Republicans. Noah's claims here are correct: outside congress, in several polls, a majority of Republican voters favour aid to Ukraine, but a plurality of the remainder seeing it now through the culture war.
3) As a side note, liberal democracy has never been an oxymoron. It's a form of judicial-political system adopted - via many forms - throughout the west. Liberal democracy is distinguishable both from authoritarian, illiberal democracies, and all undemocratic forms of government.
4. Agreed. Allies are made by interests and shared values, but never the latter to the exclusion of the former.
#1: Russia has been extremely upfront about its concerns in Ukraine: it considers NATO nuclear missiles on its border and 4 minutes from Moscow an existential threat. This is not an unreasonable position. Kennedy attempted to invade Cuba and overthrow its government -- exactly what Russia attempted in Ukraine -- based in part on these concerns.
Russia has expressed its opposition to NATO expansion for decades. Some of our own ambassadors warned that NATO expansion was seen as a threat to Russia. Russia made peace offers prior to the invasion which requires limitation on NATO expansion -- NATO rejected this. Russia made peace offers in Constantinople 2 months after the invasion that all revolved around NATO limiting expansion -- Boris Johnson convinced Zelensky to reject them.
Bottom line: Russia's words and actions are rational and have been consistent for decades: NATO missiles on their border are unacceptable. (Ironically, they now face exactly that problem in Finland, but that's a separate issue.) Might Putin want to "reconstitute the old Soviet Union"? Sure. But that's not what's going on here. I think Latvia should be concerned, and they're fools to believe we would risk a strategic nuclear exchange over Riga, but again, not what's going on here.
#3:
Liberal = "a belief that law is based in universal, individual rights that can not be legitimately infringed under any terms" This is Locke's value-neutral state.
"Democrat" = "a belief that law is based in the will of the people living under it"
The only way these two can be merged is by the existence of a pre-liberal moral order, which limits the liberal Overton window and thus confines the "will of the people" to a narrow range. In the West, that order was historically provided by Christianity, but, as Patrick Deneen has written, this arrangement was doomed from the start, since liberalism prmotes maximal personal autonomy as its highest good and thus undermines the very moral framework it depends on. Mill was the shot across the bow. Nietzsche was the first torpedo. WWI blew up the engine room. And the postmodernists broke the keel and sank the boat. Our society is now living on the driftwood.
The missile time argument in 1962 was soon obsolete, and has been since. 4 minutes vs same 7 minutes and now Russia faces nuclear proliferation in eastern Europe. That's not logic in Putin's favour.
So it's not about missile time. NATO expansion is a much poorer explanation than revanchism at explaining Putin's various adventures in 2022, latter 2014, earlier in 2014, 2008 or 2001.
There is a logic to revanchism, but it became obsolete in 1945. It does not remain rational.
As for peace offers, Russia has ignored its previous agreements with Ukraine, ensuring that no one trusts it on the matter. As for Johnson, his default mode is to lie, and he told just another porkie among his many on that one.
#3: :Liberal = a belief in the primacy of individual rights and civil liberties. Liberals can believe that such rights are not absolute, that there are legitimate infringements upon them. Locke's liberalism evolves to "[individual rights and civil liberties] subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
Liberal democracy, being a subjective, human project, has some contradictions to navigate but has proven surprisingly durable and anything but oxymoronic.
You and I will simply disagree about Russia's ambitions. That's fine. Neither of us know, and neither of us are in a position to make policy, so it doesn't really matter.
I hope you're correct about liberal democracy, but I'm nearly certain it's doomed. If it fails, it collapses into tribalism. If it succeeds, it become totalitarian ("salute the Pride flag, you bigot, or we'll bankrupt you!") The only reason it looks durable is because burning through 1700 years of shared Judeo-Christian cultural inertia takes a while. Having burned through it now though, liberalism's contradictions are becoming clearer. This is not my thesis; Patrick Deneen wrote a great book on this. Rysard Legutko did as well.
I would never argue that there aren't contradictions within liberal democracy, and I agree that Christian cultural inertia was a necessary antecedent. But I believe that Christian cultural inheritance remains enough. So I'm not at all convinced by Deneen's thesis (I haven't read Legutko).
I am concerned about new threats to liberal democracies: changes in communication technologies with the loss of authority and decline of ontological certainty; increased robustness of centralized decisionmaking enabled by the digital era; decreasing adherence to values needed to grow social capital; mitigating distributed externalities that accumulate; complexity in systems becoming beyond our collective capacity to manage - are just a few.
I don't know if you're American, but if we are to limit our conversation to the USA's liberal democracy, then yes, I'm quite concerned that its tribalism is terminal. Even though tribalism has sometimes been reversible elsewhere, I don't currently see a path back for the US. Even more concerning, I believe the demise of American liberal democracy would have a markedly deleterious (although not necessarily fatal) effect on the other liberal democracies, beyond the change in security. Nonetheless, there are a mosaic of liberal democratic traditions across the world, and liberal democracy that is not robust can still be resilient and rejuvenated.
Agreed. Reversing tribalism is only possible by creating a larger tribe, by finding shared beliefs and practices with "the other tribe" that you can use as a basis to include them in yours (and visa versa). Sebastian Junger's book Tribe is really good on this point. The very fact that our disagreements are increasingly more theological than political implies that we (in America at least) are failing to do that.
Interestingly, I think Europe has gone further toward a new tribal model. WWI and WWII shattered their historical cultural and religious shibboleths earlier. EU culture today is distinctly not (sometimes even anti-) Christian. It is not liberal (in an Enlightenment sense.) It is expressly secular and rationalistic. This alone is worrisome, since the 0th century saw several cultures built on secular materialism that became quite barbaric. However, even if Europe is able to avoid that fate (the collective memory of the world wars will likely prevent that) both birthrate and immigration patterns call into question the long term viability of a Europe built on the secular Trinity of liberte, égalite, fraternite. They've made a new tribe, but that tribe does not appear to be able to reproduce itself or defend itself from other tribes.
Neither Biden nor Trump seem to think of India as a fascist dictatorship. The media definitely does. It's close but India's far too huge and has an electoral track record and a machinery that would be nigh impossible to dismantle. If anything, BJP's authoritarianism is welcome by the majority, especially on economic matters. I don't think it's possible to 'lose' India. However, it's hard to know what India could possibly offer. There's no willingness in India to get involved in great power politics or to police the seas and ensure shipping routes are safe. Indian foreign policy historically has never been about not taking sides (or, increasingly, taking sides with whoever serves its interests best which almost never has been the US apart from the IT sector). Heck, American corporations talk a big talk but will never pull out of China and relocate supply chains significantly in India simply because the country can't match China as a market or an alternative industrial base.
If there is a war between China and Taiwan, I don't know to what extent India would even want to support any efforts by 'New Allies' to try and mediate. What can India do? Manufacture stuff for the Allies? Why not pick Philippines which is closer? If India does offer any overt support then won't China, whose military is vastly superior, then invade the Himalayas? There's an entire Indian state they covet as their own. India will throw bodies at the problem but will struggle to match China's military and industrial might. Heck, their drones could probably take care of most Indian soliders. Whatever support the US will send will be consistently delayed.
The world is stupid. Trump will aim to make peace when he's in power, there will be a photo-op and China will slowly but surely squeeze Taiwan into submission instead of attacking it outright. If Trump indicates in any way that he doesn't want the US to be involved in any other wars then they'll go ahead and subjugate Taiwan.
Suhas, thanks for your views on this. My knowledge of India is limited to what my own media and NHK News provide, so your perspective really helps me. India's response to US-led Russian sanctions certainly supports your view, and our lack of response to their refusal to comply implies that American policymakers realize their lack of leverage.
"BJP's authoritarianism is welcome by the majority"
This is the point I was making. George W Bush famously said that he was "making the world safe for democracy" (yeah... it sounds funny in hindsight, but we bought it at the time.) However he didn't mean that. He meant "we're making the world liberal". But most of the world doesn't want anything-goes, "if it feels good do it", how-dare-you-judge-me, Western liberalism. Indians appear to want to live in a country that defends a shared Hindu moral order. We gave Afghans the chance to have Western liberalism -- they rejected it. Turns out Afghan women don't want to wear miniskirts and own businesses; they want a broadly shared social order based in Islamic philosophy. Hungary is a Christian country, both historically and Constitutionally. Hungarians have rejected Western liberalism, LGBT imperialism, and unchecked immigration, favoring a majority Magyar society rooted in historical Christian norms of behavior.
I believe the dominant question our ruling class faces is whether they can accept these decisions as legitimate. Can they "live and let live" even with other countries and peoples who make radically different choices about how to live? Or must the Pride flag fly from every US embassy and every foreign aid decision be prefaced on the recipient ensuring free elections and abortion on demand (even if the populace votes against it)?
Forcing the latter position will only speed our imperial decline.
Hm I do feel, though, that in the long run, most societies will be more similar to Western societies. Firstly, the unparallel influence of American pop culture means that the youth worldwide have largely adopted liberal norms. Secondly, Western media outlets dominate news media norms. Whether the American government should deal with foreign nations on a shared values-based outlook is up for debate.
Given that MAGA politics is mostly a rural and exurban thing, and that these areas have a culture of celebrating (fossil-fuel-intensive) consumerist excess in the form of huge houses and monster SUVs and pickup trucks, I wonder how much their politics is an example of what James Howard Kunstler said back in 2005:
"Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar."
(Substitute "McMansion" and "McSUV" if desired!)
Their fondness for Russia is likely because Russia is a petrostate, which they see as making them a natural ally against environmentalists who crusade against fossil fuel consumption. The "based Christian Russia" propaganda (which after all has little basis in reality) is probably just an alibi to divert attention from this economic/lifestyle motivation.
And similarly, their extreme nativism is likely driven by expectation that the borders of the US and other Global North countries will come under ever-increasing assault from millions of climate refugees. While the original German Nazis wanted to slaughter tens of millions of Slavs in order to re-create the American frontier culture in eastern Europe, today's far-right populists are willing to sacrifice any number of Global South denizens in order to protect their own right to burn as much fossil fuel as they want.
This argument is dripping with contempt for ordinary people whose support you need if any of your policy preferences are going to become reality. Cast off the superior attitude and try to build some trust with practical steps that take their concerns into account, and you might get somewhere.
I certainly wouldn't deny that the "defense of the fossil-fuelled way of life" argument is highly distasteful (and Kunstler is certainly a misanthrope), but I don't see any other reason why Westerners would support an imperialist Russia that seems to have hardly any positive qualities.
Putin's Russia can't even be portrayed as a champion of the working class, in the way that the old Soviet Union tried to portray itself. (Although people in Global South countries could conceivably see it as a champion of natural resource exporters in general.)
George, I have to ask whether you actually know any Trump voters. Because the ones I know are nothing like what you describe. You're taking policy disagreements over levels of immigration or global warming and turning them into ad-hominem attacks on the character of those who disagree with you. This is the worst kind of politics.
If Trump voters actually believed what I describe (which is by no means certain: I admit it's just a hypothesis I've got) do you really think they'd admit it publicly?
Although isn't the phenomenon of "rolling coal" an example of pretty blatant anti-environmentalism among right-wing Americans?
Since your post begins with "[I am a] conservative who would agree with you on these", I'd be interested in hearing about the agreements. As written, your post expresses fundamental disagreements with the core premise of all of Noah's arguments.
1) I agree with Noah that the defense-industrial base needs to be rebuilt. Donald Trump paved the way for this by breaking the back of the free-trade-at-all-costs, globalist uniparty, but he didn't really do much after that. Joe Biden has taken the Overton Window that Trump moved and actually used it to accomplish things. But much more needs to happen and much faster.
2) Europe needs to take the lead on Ukraine. I would go further and say NATO should be recentered in Paris (Macron would love that), Berlin or Brussels instead of in Washingon DC. Europe was the silent partner in 1946; the US should have become the silent partner after 1991.
3) I would love to add "liberal propaganda" to our messaging ecosystem. Let's start with the very liberal premise that everyone has a right to life. That everyone has a right to freedom of religion. That everyone has a right to freedom of association. That everyone has a right to freedom of speech. I would love to live in a Millian world, but I don't. My disagreement with Noah is not whether this is a good idea but whether we have leaders who actually believe in it.
4) This is absolutely critical, but pushing #3 makes #4 harder. India and Indonesia are not WEIRD countries; they don't share our obsession with Lockean / illian / enlightenment liberal rights.
5) I agree whoeheartedly on this one. We have lots of oil and coal, and electrification is making those commodities less critical long term. It's time to treat the crazy Muslims in the Middle East the same way we treat Africa: ignore them.
Noah and I come from opposite political persuasions, but on these issues there's much more agreement than not.
We need to break up the conglomeration of defense industry into smaller units, individual companies, that will have a reason to compete against each other, instead of just be part of a massive group.
The world took a peace dividend, in President Clinton's words, and spent it in such a way that consolidation took place. Individual companies have to be more nimble and quick, and find new applications for their tools and aims. A big behemoth can just glide alone on his inertia.
The U.S. made a strategic mistake, it had been worried about Russia for so long, that it took its eye off the long term problem of China. If it had considered that, it might have kept the arsenal of Democracy intact.
Nothing says “sign up for the axis of good guys” like dropping a long-standing close ally while it’s fighting a theocratic genocidal mafia next door, amirite?
Tomato tomahto I suppose, but in the scheme of trillion dollar annual defense budgets, $15B once a few decades does not strike me as a terribly large commitment. (Especially when we don’t mention the counterfactual - namely, that Israel spins up an arms industry of its own and partners with non-US countries to manufacture Israeli designs. Look up the Lavi project if you want to better understand why aid money gets flung at Israel frequently.)
That kind of thinking comes from decades of being able to outspend and outbuild adversaries. But that's no longer the case.
When behind on military purchasing parity against China, another $16B for Israel places the US all the further behind. Yes, I understand that much of the funds bound for Israel will purchase US arms. That arms funding could be used against Russia and to deter China rather than pursuing a needless and distracting war with Iran.
Despite Bibi's latest gambit to draw us into a wider war with Iran by flattening their embassy in Syria. AIPAC got him his $24 billion; he should be content with that.
The shipbuilding part is incredibly important. Earlier this year 85% of subcontractors for the construction of Aircraft carriers said they had difficulties finding workers. I have a feeling this is primarily caused by reliance on skilled machining in these types of industries. What we really need is a super capital intensive, advanced manufacturing firm to enter the market and start competing for these bids. My concern however, is that the imposition of soft (or hard) SBA requirements on the Navy makes this type of entrance very difficult. Additionally, at least for contracting with Huntington Ingalls Industries, if you want to even be considered as a supplier, you have to wait for 18-24 months with no promise of orders at the end of that period. So yes, we need to make it easier to build factories, but we also need to make sure that, in as many places as possible, we expedite the process of creative destruction within the industrial base.
TL;DR -- Takes too long for navy contractors to accept new subcontractors, so we don't see replacement of dead firms, nor competition with the existing ones.
Is this a case of US naval shipbuilding missing out on the CNC revolution and still relying on old-style dumb machine tools which require highly-trained skilled workers to use them: workers which are increasingly scarce as CNC adoption in other sectors means new workers are no longer being trained in such techniques?
You know, I've been trying to figure that out and the conclusion I've kinda come to is it depends. Some of the most commonly subcontracted out components are things like steam valves and the firms that make these are pretty advanced, but I think that's because there is outside demand for it (drilling rigs, for instance, use similar equipment), so the levels of capital investment in CNC machining are easy to justify. On the other hand, a lot of the special equipment (electrical equipment, arresting gear, etc) doesn't have a lot of outside competition so for these firms its really just outlast your aging competitors.
Further, because of the scarce number of orders, it is very hard not only to hire and train highly skilled workers, but also to keep them! layoffs and scalebacks are rampant in the aircraft carrier industrial base (I imagine its the same for the other ships as well). My thought is really rather than supporting a lot of old, non-innovative small businesses, the Navy should be supporting Huntington Ingalls and their other primary contractors to find (or even fund) a conglomeration of their industrial bases -- but I imagine this would get pushback from the SBA.
To answer your question more directly: yes --- but even then the story goes deeper.
The argument for turning our defense priority to Asia is compelling, but hanging our Israeli allies out to dry is not going to help us make the case for the alliances we need to do that successfully. We can’t always do things exactly as we want.
Look at China vis a vis Ukraine/Russia. Has China ever criticized Russia's war? at all? I can't find it anywhere. They aren't even willing to say "we understand Russia's reasons for fighting, but we are critical of this or that specific tactic." They recognize who their ally is, and lend basically unconditional support to her.
Putting aside the question of whether Israel should be an ally, or whether their recent conduct is beyond what we can accept from an ally, the hard reality is that the US is a comparatively fickle ally. We can tell ourselves that we are doing the *good* kind of allyship, tough love and all that, but we shouldn't be surprised if the world finds the kind of allyship that China is selling more attractive.
RE: TikTok forced sale.. I don't agree with it for two reasons.
First, I believe that the free world's biggest *flex* is allowing precisely the type of communications asymmetry that Noah decries. We let China run TikTok in the US, even though it's banned in China (alongside virtually all Western social apps). A direct corollary of the first amendment is the right to "receive information from any source". The message is- *they* don't trust you to see all the news and think for yourself, but *we* do. I think it would be a huge mistake to stoop down to their level on this one.
Second, I don't think TikTok is really all that potent of a weapon. Being a social media app for "young people" is kind of a curse. Ask Facebook. Young people get older and then the new young people want a new app that's free of the oldies.
There was probably a genuine moment, around ten years ago, when many folks were new to social media and relatively easily fooled by fake news. That was a long time ago. Nowadays, everyone knows that social media is a cesspool of misinfo. We are attuned to the biases of each platforms. TikTok is not known for political content, but the present legislation treats the prospect of such content as a latent threat. People would notice if TikTok started pushing a political agenda. It would lead to ridicule. People would sign up just to see the silly propaganda, and then make fun of it on YouTube or Instagram.
We allow openly declared communists, Islamists, and white nationalists to print opinion pieces in the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, etc. The most cogent anti-American content you can find in English comes directly from our university faculty, paid for largely with taxpayer dollars. The most viral anti-American social media posts are written by Americans and posted on apps owned and operated by Americans. We allow all of this because we believe in free speech, and crucially, we believe in the ability of our citizenry to process information from competing sources and decide for themselves what is reality. TikTok is a drop in the bucket of the anti-American media landscape. We are throwing away our biggest flex, stooping to their low level, to weed out an app that is totally insignificant to the political information landscape. Let's not!
Generally I agree - and to me the related point is that all of the social media (and Amazon and Google and Apple) track what you are doing and resell it. A lot of what China could get from Tik-Tok, they could simply buy from data brokers..... That is a far more fundamental problem....
As far as using Tik-Tok to influence, have folks watched youtube or read twitter or ... Foreign countries have zero problem dumping disinformation and influence peddling in plenty of places besides Tik-Tok.
NOW, if someone really want to do something, then stop selling all the info these platforms gather through data brokers, etc... And if you really want to deal with disinformation (leaving aside the whole free speech debate), then deal with it directly. Whether we believe our citizenry can process information successfully is a good question, but that is the real discussion that is needed on disinformation.
I agree with Michael that Tik-Tok is a drop in the bucket of this problem - and it would be just as big a headache if it were owned by Austria....
Another extremely insightful and relevant post by Noah on the steps needed to militarily, economically and geopolitically create the strength sufficient to deter Xi from moving on Taiwan and launching what will likely become WW3.
But Noah needs to rethink his phrasing regarding, "We need to focus on China, while the EU helps Ukraine."
Ukraine *is* the current war, and expanding our munitions manufacturing capacity to supply them in their fight against Russia, not only updates our own stockpiles with brand new gear, but stands ready to supply our own forces for a >2026 war in defense of Taiwan. In other words, regarding Ukraine, it's 'all hands on deck'. Putin needs to be stopped cold, stopped NOW, and his armies bled white to force him into a long period of neutrality during which he will unwilling/unable to join Xi in China's war. This also sends a strong message to Taiwan--and our potential allies India and Vietnam--that we can and do protect our friends. Especially when a Democrat is in the WH.
No one wants a kinetic war with the US. Our opening capability is devastating. China would love to trigger a US buildup so we spend a lot of money, while they work on their economy. This has been their strategy for a long time. We should focus on information and economic warfare.
India is a rising power. Yes, build Indonesian (and other parts of Asia) economic competition against China. As well as Africa. That may well include ship building, for US defense, out of SK, Japan, etc. There is really no reason for US to build this capacity when we have partners that can do it right now.
We can keep sending money to Ukraine, but that war will not end unless Europe or we step up and put our troops/air assets into the mix. We need to call Putin's bluff. Bribe his generals to capitulate and hit with a level of force he can not tolerate. No one wants to do that, but that is what would be required to end it. We could probably end it in a week with our B2s dropping JDAMs. But we won't and we do not have the political fortitude to take the risk. We will keep delaying with more money and UKR deaths.
People are worried that if Europe or the US enter directly, and make Putin think he's at risk of actually losing (and perhaps eventually getting deposed), he will start throwing nukes around. It doesn't seem crazy to think he might. You'd have to count on other people within the regime, who think they could be part of whatever comes after him, to make sure nothing actually launches.
Putin won’t use nukes. His only options are to either a) use them on Ukraine, which he won’t do because it doesn’t gain him anything, what’s the point of ruling over a fallout zone? b) using them directly on NATO territory, which he’d have to be completely suicidal to do, or c) using them on Russian soil to deal with an rebellion within his own ranks, which would be incredibly unpopular and ultimately ruinous. He really doesn’t have anything useful to do with those weapons unless NATO decides to drive tanks towards Moscow, which they won’t.
Wouldn't Putin launching his nukes be basically a "drag the whole word down with me" move if he suspect he's personally doomed anyway: either because he's losing the war and expects his own people to kill him for it, or even just because he's dying of natural causes?
Putin *could* use a few nukes in Ukraine--if NATO sends troops--precisely as a sort of warning shot, because he knows the US/NATO would never reciprocate against targets inside Russia.
American tactical nuclear launch protocols that existed during the Cold War targeted static Warsaw Pact supply nodes in East Germany, Poland, etc.; as well as on-the-fly opportunistic strikes on the masses of Soviet armor that would've been surging across the N German plain. Targets inside Russia proper were strictly off limits, for the obvious reason. A similar operations framework existed for North Korean aggression. It would be interesting to learn what, if any, protocols now exist for US tactical nuclear usage.
Any hypothetical troop deployment to Ukraine would have to be defensive in nature, as any serious ground penetration into Russia would almost certainly trigger some form of nuclear response.
Understood. The Russian's know their nuclear missiles are wobbly. Its important to bribe some of the intermediaries to be sure launch command does not get implemented. Paying someone 100M, or 50M, to stop a launch is good insurance.
A general I know spent time with some ex-Warsaw block generals. He said they universally wished the US had invaded in the 80s so they could all be free. The world has changed, but our calculus needs to include weakness in Russian command structure.
I can see why the president does not want to try this path, but ultimately we need to increase the cost of war and or it will continue. We made a huge mistake dragging our feet at the start, out of fear.
Indeed. So the answer is we send billions to Ukraine. The war continues. And Ukrainians continue to die because no one is willing to risk confronting Putin. How dow we stop that?
If we and the EU ramped up our munitions production to be on par with that of Russia/China, and continue propping up the Ukrainian economy, the Russian military will continue to be bled white. Putin would thus be in no mood to join China when they make their move on Taiwan. That is the best possible scenario.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is self-limiting, as long as they aren't able to consolidate gains and move on to new targets. Russia has trashed its entire economy by turning it into a war machine, they've lost nearly 3000 tanks. The benefit they've received from this is a few patches of muddy ground in Eastern Ukraine that wouldn't be worth the cost of rebuilding and welfare spending, plus a Black Sea port they already owned and still can't put warships in. The only possible "win" for Russia is if the West folds and guarantees Russian security within Ukraine so that Putin can move on to targets that have actual value. Failing that: once Putin dies or loses power, the war will end too. (And the sooner Russians realize that the West isn't going to fold, the faster those other outcomes may arrive.)
Putin is a sociopath, whose prime concern is himself. In a hypothetical scenario between where he faced being deposed and executed, or nuking, say, Odessa, which would he choose?
I could see him using a tactical nuke or two in Ukraine if NATO enters the fray to warn off the Western Imperialist Nazi aggressors.
That scenario (and its reaction) only makes sense if foreign troops are marching to Moscow, which is not in the cards. If Putin is being deposed, that's by internal actors, and ordering Odessa nuked would only hasten his execution.
The tactical nuke scenario has been beaten to death. Putin loses all his leverage by using them, while virtually guaranteeing that NATO engages further, not less. It's a losing move, and also enhances Putin's risk of being deposed.
The EU does not need to directly engage Russian forces to place their forces in check. The EU, or a coalition of EU countries, upon the invitation of Ukraine, should send air defense and air superiority forces into western Ukraine and declare a no-fly zone east of the Dnipro River. Get EU pilots in F-16's in the air, and EU soldiers on the ground manning anti-air weapons. Make a statement that no matter how the Russo-Ukrainian war turns out in the east, western Ukraine is off limits for further aggression by Russia. Think about the advantages that would immediately materialize. Western Ukraine can begin to rebuild its infrastructure and war factories can produce without hindrance, the bulk of the Ukrainian diaspora can begin to return, supply lines are shortened to the front, Ukrainian air defense and air forces can focus on the front and the defense of eastern cities, troops can R&R west of the Dnipro, and on and on. The threat from Belarus and Moldova is eliminated. Risky, yes. But could this be the checkmate move?
Very good points. Probably worth the risk. Western forces can rule the air. Western forces are not great on the ground in these type operations. We do not have munition production because under US doctrine the war would be over by that point. UKR would do fine on the ground with western air.
Just on a pure policy level - I want to make absolutely clear that I wholeheartedly support increasing ALL immigration, INCLUDING from India - I’m slightly skeptical of eliminating the bias towards small countries.
My thinking is that making sure we reserve space for ALL countries helps make America more diverse. It enriches America’s gloriously beautiful melting pot when we say, “Oh, you’re from some tiny island nation or landlocked principality where people barely ever make it to America? Sure thing, front of the line! WE WILL ADD YOUR DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN!”.
I’m not coming at this from a restrictionist POV; I’m sincerely interested in finding ways to satisfy both objectives: (1) keeping America diverse and (2) increasing ties with potential allies like India. I just don’t want us to sacrifice the 1 in the rush to achieve 2.
"And helping Israel prosecute its fairly brutal campaign in Gaza weakens America’s moral standing in the world, especially in the eyes of majority-Muslim Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia."
You really need to add something about the sitting Israeli officials who have openly advocated for removing all of the locals from Gaza and repopulating it with more amenable settlers. Your silence on people like Ben Gvir (the National Security Minister) advocating for Gazans to leave and Jewish settlements to come in, is a glaring ommission in the linked piece.
And, even if you have a .... "eh" view of the hard liners in the Israeli government who have spent the past 30 years talking about fully annexing the West Bank and Gaza..., Indonesians and Malaysians are also paying attention.
I dunno man, that's kinda just how democracy works. You'll always have a few crazies in the parliament. What would you have America do about Israel's far right members of parliament? We have our own far right members of congress and there's nothing we can do about it here either.
My objection was to Noah Smith not mentioning about these guys. His previous article was ignoring the fact that there are active people in the government who want to remove all of the palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. That fact is very important when discussing the morality of a bombing campaign that has displaced more than a million people. The Steelman of the protester position is that they don't want the US to ACTIVELY ship several million dollars of offensive military equipment to Israel only to see in 2027 that half of the previous population of Gaza is gone and new settlements are going up there.
This has been openly advocated by cabinet members in Netanyahu's government. It is super disengenuos not to mention it is a reason people are protesting against the war in Gaza.
The worry and the point of the protests is that the Non Netanyahu supporting Israelis will pocket the gains from the illegal settlements and brutality.
Modern Americans accept and agree that President Jackson evicting the Cherokee from Georgia was a monstrous crime. The Supreme Court at the time even said it was a monstrous crime.
But even with that agreement, it isn't like modern Americans gave the land back after Jackson was gone.
President Jackson died eventually... but I don't think that made the Cherokee feel any better.
If Netanyahu leaves, that's nice... but his coalition is busy building "facts on the ground" that won't be reversed even after he leaves.
Why do you care so much about Gaza's residents? They obviously don't care about you. They abducted American civilians, ally with Iran whose slogan is "death to America" and celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
“So U.S. leaders have to continue to push very hard for deepening integration with India — investment, trade, diplomatic coordination, military exercises, multilateral alliances and regional pacts, and so on.”
Indian-Americans have deep roots in U.S. businesses, as well as in the STEM sector and healthcare professionals. U.S. businesses are establishing important high-tech footprints in Malaysia and Indonesia. Japan also has a presence (e.g., Samsung). The largest Silicon Valley corporations have been working to establish ties and build within India. I believe the incentives for U.S. businesses in these countries are compelling.
Increasingly, the Mideast countries are aligning with Israel as a defense against Iranian influence and power. This is similar to the EU stepping up its role, via NATO, as a defense against Russia. Note the cooperation of Mideast intelligence and military assistance with Israel when Iran fired missiles and released armed drones. Ten years ago, this would have been unthinkable.
It seems to me countries that have been sitting on the fence for years are being forced to pick a side.
In general I agree with you, but sorry, #3 is absurd on multiple levels. Fox et al want the US government to be weak and the country divided; just look at their behavior. We can argue about their motivations, but the impact is obvious, and quite detrimental to US security. As for the NYT, their endless bothsiderism and relentless refusal to recognize the danger that MAGA and RW media represent to the US and liberal democracy makes them part of the problem, and very unlikely to be part of the solution.
I can't argue with a word that Noah has written about rebuilding our defense industrial base, or about cultivating allies in the Asia Pacific region. If Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India do not want to find themselves under Chinese domination, they need to join us to preserve another way of life.
Standing together as a counterweight to China is going to be a century-long task.
For more thoughts see my post: It's Hostile, It's Real, but Don't Call It Cold Warhttps://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/its-hostile-its-real-but-dont-call
Creating functional a functional alliance to counter China that includes Vietnam and India will take a lot of work. Especially considering how badly Trump/GOP reduced the State Department budget.
Does Tiktok divestiture really going to stop Chinese and Russian propaganda? Weren’t they already distributing it freely using Facebook, Twitter and Youtube? Not clear to me how this will change anything really
You've gotta start somewhere. This will put the issue on the table. TikTok has mostly been suppressing China- critical viewpoints rather than supporting Chinese propaganda.
As someone from the tech world who had never been involved with defense before, I've recently been helping out on a defense startup. As an element of what you said on "Rebuild the U.S. defense-industrial base": Having software backing every process has made a lot of American companies efficient and strong. It seems the DoD spends a relatively tiny, tiny percentage of their budget on software relative to private-sector companies and, where it does, doesn't have the procurement procedures in place to do it as well as companies to.
Software eating everything is one of America's greatest strengths and the DoD should take advantage of this strength too (with appropriate cybersecurity measures... which I admit is very hard.)
I spent several years working on Navy-funded encryption startup. The biggest surprise in this process was to discover that (1) direct gov't research funding is basically a subsidy to defense contractors who have (nearly) zeroed out their R&D spend, hence (2) the end-goal of these research programs is to pressure startups into bad joint ventures with the major defense contractors. If you're manufacturing a sensor that can only be used on an F-35, that makes sense. For software companies that have dual-use applications it's throwing money in the trash. We ended up selling our company to a large non-US tech firm.
The actual lesson here is that US DoD does not really seem capable of using the output of SV startup culture, and this needs to change. Maybe collaborations with Palantir, Google, Anduril etc. are evidence of change. But I worry that the large tech companies have other priorities, and the small nimble startups will be driven away by a military that works for defense contractors.
We will need to do quite a bit more to restore the Arsenal of Democracy. I refer you to the outline set forth in "American's Advanced Manufacturing Problem - and How to Fix It," by David Adler and William B. Bonvillian, American Affairs, Fall 2023, Vol. VIII, No. 3, pp. 3-30. Also, the tax and financial incentives that influence how executives decide upon making capital investments must be drastically changed.
Thanks, I'll check it out!
Overall, count me as a conservative who would agree with you on all of these, even #5. But they're not easy:
1) "Putin’s territorial ambitions in Europe go well beyond Ukraine." You keep saying this as though it's obviously true, but it is not. Russia appears to have neither the political interest nor military ability to pick a fight with a NATO country. Europe should take the lead on Ukraine because it's in their backyard and our checkbook is masking that reality. As long as we keep writing bankrolling them, the EU will keep pretending that Putin is Hitler.
2) "a large chunk of the GOP now views Ukraine as a culture-war issue" You sometimes misdiagnose Republican motivations, but this one is a whopper even for you. Republicans are tired of protecting Ukraine's borders and ignoring our own. That is not a "culture war" issue; it's a basic rule of law issue. Either you control who enters your country or you cease to have a country.
3) "the defenders of liberal democracy are still at a disadvantage in the global war of ideas" What political party are they in? "A [Enlightenment] liberal government telling the story of what it means to be liberal" only works if you actually a government that believes in Enlightenment liberalism, Locke's value-neutral state. Western governments and parties (whether Left or Right) no longer appear to. As a side note: "liberal-democracy" has always been an oxymoron.
4) We can have India as an ally, but not if the US government keeps making culture war issues (LGBT, trans, womens' rights, abortion, etc...) the litmus test for US friendship. Modi's BJP is a Hindu version of Orban's Fidesz. We treat Hungary as if it's a fascist dictatorship despite the objective fact that it is not. If we go down that road with India, we will lose them. Losing Hungary is no big deal; losing India would be catastrophic.
1. Can you explain your logic on #1? If you listen to Putin's speeches and the writing of those that inspire those speeches, he is actually quite straightforward about his aims, which include domination of all the former SSRs. So it has political interest aplenty, and Putin has repeatedly followed through on those aims, starting 8 wars or annexations to do so. He proceeds in small bites. Now that he has the Russian economy tooled again as a war machine, he is more capable of annexing territory than before 2022. The most recent Ukraine episode demonstrates that a well-supplied army with built-up defensive lines can hold off his forces, but he's otherwise able to annex territory without such defensive lines, and in any case can inflict casualties at a volume that Europe and the US are so far unwilling to contemplate. This puts the future of the Baltics, which are NATO members, in play.
2) The Republicans had a border enforcement agreement with practically their entire list of wants, and then didn't take the green light. This alone shows that it is not a priority issue for congressional Republicans. Noah's claims here are correct: outside congress, in several polls, a majority of Republican voters favour aid to Ukraine, but a plurality of the remainder seeing it now through the culture war.
3) As a side note, liberal democracy has never been an oxymoron. It's a form of judicial-political system adopted - via many forms - throughout the west. Liberal democracy is distinguishable both from authoritarian, illiberal democracies, and all undemocratic forms of government.
4. Agreed. Allies are made by interests and shared values, but never the latter to the exclusion of the former.
#1: Russia has been extremely upfront about its concerns in Ukraine: it considers NATO nuclear missiles on its border and 4 minutes from Moscow an existential threat. This is not an unreasonable position. Kennedy attempted to invade Cuba and overthrow its government -- exactly what Russia attempted in Ukraine -- based in part on these concerns.
Russia has expressed its opposition to NATO expansion for decades. Some of our own ambassadors warned that NATO expansion was seen as a threat to Russia. Russia made peace offers prior to the invasion which requires limitation on NATO expansion -- NATO rejected this. Russia made peace offers in Constantinople 2 months after the invasion that all revolved around NATO limiting expansion -- Boris Johnson convinced Zelensky to reject them.
Bottom line: Russia's words and actions are rational and have been consistent for decades: NATO missiles on their border are unacceptable. (Ironically, they now face exactly that problem in Finland, but that's a separate issue.) Might Putin want to "reconstitute the old Soviet Union"? Sure. But that's not what's going on here. I think Latvia should be concerned, and they're fools to believe we would risk a strategic nuclear exchange over Riga, but again, not what's going on here.
#3:
Liberal = "a belief that law is based in universal, individual rights that can not be legitimately infringed under any terms" This is Locke's value-neutral state.
"Democrat" = "a belief that law is based in the will of the people living under it"
The only way these two can be merged is by the existence of a pre-liberal moral order, which limits the liberal Overton window and thus confines the "will of the people" to a narrow range. In the West, that order was historically provided by Christianity, but, as Patrick Deneen has written, this arrangement was doomed from the start, since liberalism prmotes maximal personal autonomy as its highest good and thus undermines the very moral framework it depends on. Mill was the shot across the bow. Nietzsche was the first torpedo. WWI blew up the engine room. And the postmodernists broke the keel and sank the boat. Our society is now living on the driftwood.
The missile time argument in 1962 was soon obsolete, and has been since. 4 minutes vs same 7 minutes and now Russia faces nuclear proliferation in eastern Europe. That's not logic in Putin's favour.
So it's not about missile time. NATO expansion is a much poorer explanation than revanchism at explaining Putin's various adventures in 2022, latter 2014, earlier in 2014, 2008 or 2001.
There is a logic to revanchism, but it became obsolete in 1945. It does not remain rational.
As for peace offers, Russia has ignored its previous agreements with Ukraine, ensuring that no one trusts it on the matter. As for Johnson, his default mode is to lie, and he told just another porkie among his many on that one.
#3: :Liberal = a belief in the primacy of individual rights and civil liberties. Liberals can believe that such rights are not absolute, that there are legitimate infringements upon them. Locke's liberalism evolves to "[individual rights and civil liberties] subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
Liberal democracy, being a subjective, human project, has some contradictions to navigate but has proven surprisingly durable and anything but oxymoronic.
You and I will simply disagree about Russia's ambitions. That's fine. Neither of us know, and neither of us are in a position to make policy, so it doesn't really matter.
I hope you're correct about liberal democracy, but I'm nearly certain it's doomed. If it fails, it collapses into tribalism. If it succeeds, it become totalitarian ("salute the Pride flag, you bigot, or we'll bankrupt you!") The only reason it looks durable is because burning through 1700 years of shared Judeo-Christian cultural inertia takes a while. Having burned through it now though, liberalism's contradictions are becoming clearer. This is not my thesis; Patrick Deneen wrote a great book on this. Rysard Legutko did as well.
I would never argue that there aren't contradictions within liberal democracy, and I agree that Christian cultural inertia was a necessary antecedent. But I believe that Christian cultural inheritance remains enough. So I'm not at all convinced by Deneen's thesis (I haven't read Legutko).
I am concerned about new threats to liberal democracies: changes in communication technologies with the loss of authority and decline of ontological certainty; increased robustness of centralized decisionmaking enabled by the digital era; decreasing adherence to values needed to grow social capital; mitigating distributed externalities that accumulate; complexity in systems becoming beyond our collective capacity to manage - are just a few.
I don't know if you're American, but if we are to limit our conversation to the USA's liberal democracy, then yes, I'm quite concerned that its tribalism is terminal. Even though tribalism has sometimes been reversible elsewhere, I don't currently see a path back for the US. Even more concerning, I believe the demise of American liberal democracy would have a markedly deleterious (although not necessarily fatal) effect on the other liberal democracies, beyond the change in security. Nonetheless, there are a mosaic of liberal democratic traditions across the world, and liberal democracy that is not robust can still be resilient and rejuvenated.
Agreed. Reversing tribalism is only possible by creating a larger tribe, by finding shared beliefs and practices with "the other tribe" that you can use as a basis to include them in yours (and visa versa). Sebastian Junger's book Tribe is really good on this point. The very fact that our disagreements are increasingly more theological than political implies that we (in America at least) are failing to do that.
Interestingly, I think Europe has gone further toward a new tribal model. WWI and WWII shattered their historical cultural and religious shibboleths earlier. EU culture today is distinctly not (sometimes even anti-) Christian. It is not liberal (in an Enlightenment sense.) It is expressly secular and rationalistic. This alone is worrisome, since the 0th century saw several cultures built on secular materialism that became quite barbaric. However, even if Europe is able to avoid that fate (the collective memory of the world wars will likely prevent that) both birthrate and immigration patterns call into question the long term viability of a Europe built on the secular Trinity of liberte, égalite, fraternite. They've made a new tribe, but that tribe does not appear to be able to reproduce itself or defend itself from other tribes.
Neither Biden nor Trump seem to think of India as a fascist dictatorship. The media definitely does. It's close but India's far too huge and has an electoral track record and a machinery that would be nigh impossible to dismantle. If anything, BJP's authoritarianism is welcome by the majority, especially on economic matters. I don't think it's possible to 'lose' India. However, it's hard to know what India could possibly offer. There's no willingness in India to get involved in great power politics or to police the seas and ensure shipping routes are safe. Indian foreign policy historically has never been about not taking sides (or, increasingly, taking sides with whoever serves its interests best which almost never has been the US apart from the IT sector). Heck, American corporations talk a big talk but will never pull out of China and relocate supply chains significantly in India simply because the country can't match China as a market or an alternative industrial base.
If there is a war between China and Taiwan, I don't know to what extent India would even want to support any efforts by 'New Allies' to try and mediate. What can India do? Manufacture stuff for the Allies? Why not pick Philippines which is closer? If India does offer any overt support then won't China, whose military is vastly superior, then invade the Himalayas? There's an entire Indian state they covet as their own. India will throw bodies at the problem but will struggle to match China's military and industrial might. Heck, their drones could probably take care of most Indian soliders. Whatever support the US will send will be consistently delayed.
The world is stupid. Trump will aim to make peace when he's in power, there will be a photo-op and China will slowly but surely squeeze Taiwan into submission instead of attacking it outright. If Trump indicates in any way that he doesn't want the US to be involved in any other wars then they'll go ahead and subjugate Taiwan.
Suhas, thanks for your views on this. My knowledge of India is limited to what my own media and NHK News provide, so your perspective really helps me. India's response to US-led Russian sanctions certainly supports your view, and our lack of response to their refusal to comply implies that American policymakers realize their lack of leverage.
"BJP's authoritarianism is welcome by the majority"
This is the point I was making. George W Bush famously said that he was "making the world safe for democracy" (yeah... it sounds funny in hindsight, but we bought it at the time.) However he didn't mean that. He meant "we're making the world liberal". But most of the world doesn't want anything-goes, "if it feels good do it", how-dare-you-judge-me, Western liberalism. Indians appear to want to live in a country that defends a shared Hindu moral order. We gave Afghans the chance to have Western liberalism -- they rejected it. Turns out Afghan women don't want to wear miniskirts and own businesses; they want a broadly shared social order based in Islamic philosophy. Hungary is a Christian country, both historically and Constitutionally. Hungarians have rejected Western liberalism, LGBT imperialism, and unchecked immigration, favoring a majority Magyar society rooted in historical Christian norms of behavior.
I believe the dominant question our ruling class faces is whether they can accept these decisions as legitimate. Can they "live and let live" even with other countries and peoples who make radically different choices about how to live? Or must the Pride flag fly from every US embassy and every foreign aid decision be prefaced on the recipient ensuring free elections and abortion on demand (even if the populace votes against it)?
Forcing the latter position will only speed our imperial decline.
Hm I do feel, though, that in the long run, most societies will be more similar to Western societies. Firstly, the unparallel influence of American pop culture means that the youth worldwide have largely adopted liberal norms. Secondly, Western media outlets dominate news media norms. Whether the American government should deal with foreign nations on a shared values-based outlook is up for debate.
Given that MAGA politics is mostly a rural and exurban thing, and that these areas have a culture of celebrating (fossil-fuel-intensive) consumerist excess in the form of huge houses and monster SUVs and pickup trucks, I wonder how much their politics is an example of what James Howard Kunstler said back in 2005:
"Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar."
(Substitute "McMansion" and "McSUV" if desired!)
Their fondness for Russia is likely because Russia is a petrostate, which they see as making them a natural ally against environmentalists who crusade against fossil fuel consumption. The "based Christian Russia" propaganda (which after all has little basis in reality) is probably just an alibi to divert attention from this economic/lifestyle motivation.
And similarly, their extreme nativism is likely driven by expectation that the borders of the US and other Global North countries will come under ever-increasing assault from millions of climate refugees. While the original German Nazis wanted to slaughter tens of millions of Slavs in order to re-create the American frontier culture in eastern Europe, today's far-right populists are willing to sacrifice any number of Global South denizens in order to protect their own right to burn as much fossil fuel as they want.
This argument is dripping with contempt for ordinary people whose support you need if any of your policy preferences are going to become reality. Cast off the superior attitude and try to build some trust with practical steps that take their concerns into account, and you might get somewhere.
I certainly wouldn't deny that the "defense of the fossil-fuelled way of life" argument is highly distasteful (and Kunstler is certainly a misanthrope), but I don't see any other reason why Westerners would support an imperialist Russia that seems to have hardly any positive qualities.
Putin's Russia can't even be portrayed as a champion of the working class, in the way that the old Soviet Union tried to portray itself. (Although people in Global South countries could conceivably see it as a champion of natural resource exporters in general.)
George, I have to ask whether you actually know any Trump voters. Because the ones I know are nothing like what you describe. You're taking policy disagreements over levels of immigration or global warming and turning them into ad-hominem attacks on the character of those who disagree with you. This is the worst kind of politics.
If Trump voters actually believed what I describe (which is by no means certain: I admit it's just a hypothesis I've got) do you really think they'd admit it publicly?
Although isn't the phenomenon of "rolling coal" an example of pretty blatant anti-environmentalism among right-wing Americans?
So what’s wrong with that? You need to argue for that position.
What's wrong with _what_ ?
Since your post begins with "[I am a] conservative who would agree with you on these", I'd be interested in hearing about the agreements. As written, your post expresses fundamental disagreements with the core premise of all of Noah's arguments.
1) I agree with Noah that the defense-industrial base needs to be rebuilt. Donald Trump paved the way for this by breaking the back of the free-trade-at-all-costs, globalist uniparty, but he didn't really do much after that. Joe Biden has taken the Overton Window that Trump moved and actually used it to accomplish things. But much more needs to happen and much faster.
2) Europe needs to take the lead on Ukraine. I would go further and say NATO should be recentered in Paris (Macron would love that), Berlin or Brussels instead of in Washingon DC. Europe was the silent partner in 1946; the US should have become the silent partner after 1991.
3) I would love to add "liberal propaganda" to our messaging ecosystem. Let's start with the very liberal premise that everyone has a right to life. That everyone has a right to freedom of religion. That everyone has a right to freedom of association. That everyone has a right to freedom of speech. I would love to live in a Millian world, but I don't. My disagreement with Noah is not whether this is a good idea but whether we have leaders who actually believe in it.
4) This is absolutely critical, but pushing #3 makes #4 harder. India and Indonesia are not WEIRD countries; they don't share our obsession with Lockean / illian / enlightenment liberal rights.
5) I agree whoeheartedly on this one. We have lots of oil and coal, and electrification is making those commodities less critical long term. It's time to treat the crazy Muslims in the Middle East the same way we treat Africa: ignore them.
Noah and I come from opposite political persuasions, but on these issues there's much more agreement than not.
We need to break up the conglomeration of defense industry into smaller units, individual companies, that will have a reason to compete against each other, instead of just be part of a massive group.
To what extent was defense industry consolidation a _consequence_ of the collapse in global demand for weapons after the end of Cold War I in 1991?
The world took a peace dividend, in President Clinton's words, and spent it in such a way that consolidation took place. Individual companies have to be more nimble and quick, and find new applications for their tools and aims. A big behemoth can just glide alone on his inertia.
The U.S. made a strategic mistake, it had been worried about Russia for so long, that it took its eye off the long term problem of China. If it had considered that, it might have kept the arsenal of Democracy intact.
Nothing says “sign up for the axis of good guys” like dropping a long-standing close ally while it’s fighting a theocratic genocidal mafia next door, amirite?
There's a difference between dropping Israel, providing it variable levels of aid, and prosecuting a war on its behalf.
The US should pick somewhere cheap behind door #2.
Completely agree - and I have good news: that’s almost exactly what the US is doing at this very moment.
A $15B commitment to Israel is not that minimal.
Tomato tomahto I suppose, but in the scheme of trillion dollar annual defense budgets, $15B once a few decades does not strike me as a terribly large commitment. (Especially when we don’t mention the counterfactual - namely, that Israel spins up an arms industry of its own and partners with non-US countries to manufacture Israeli designs. Look up the Lavi project if you want to better understand why aid money gets flung at Israel frequently.)
That kind of thinking comes from decades of being able to outspend and outbuild adversaries. But that's no longer the case.
When behind on military purchasing parity against China, another $16B for Israel places the US all the further behind. Yes, I understand that much of the funds bound for Israel will purchase US arms. That arms funding could be used against Russia and to deter China rather than pursuing a needless and distracting war with Iran.
… no, it comes from basic numeracy.
Despite Bibi's latest gambit to draw us into a wider war with Iran by flattening their embassy in Syria. AIPAC got him his $24 billion; he should be content with that.
The shipbuilding part is incredibly important. Earlier this year 85% of subcontractors for the construction of Aircraft carriers said they had difficulties finding workers. I have a feeling this is primarily caused by reliance on skilled machining in these types of industries. What we really need is a super capital intensive, advanced manufacturing firm to enter the market and start competing for these bids. My concern however, is that the imposition of soft (or hard) SBA requirements on the Navy makes this type of entrance very difficult. Additionally, at least for contracting with Huntington Ingalls Industries, if you want to even be considered as a supplier, you have to wait for 18-24 months with no promise of orders at the end of that period. So yes, we need to make it easier to build factories, but we also need to make sure that, in as many places as possible, we expedite the process of creative destruction within the industrial base.
TL;DR -- Takes too long for navy contractors to accept new subcontractors, so we don't see replacement of dead firms, nor competition with the existing ones.
Is this a case of US naval shipbuilding missing out on the CNC revolution and still relying on old-style dumb machine tools which require highly-trained skilled workers to use them: workers which are increasingly scarce as CNC adoption in other sectors means new workers are no longer being trained in such techniques?
You know, I've been trying to figure that out and the conclusion I've kinda come to is it depends. Some of the most commonly subcontracted out components are things like steam valves and the firms that make these are pretty advanced, but I think that's because there is outside demand for it (drilling rigs, for instance, use similar equipment), so the levels of capital investment in CNC machining are easy to justify. On the other hand, a lot of the special equipment (electrical equipment, arresting gear, etc) doesn't have a lot of outside competition so for these firms its really just outlast your aging competitors.
Further, because of the scarce number of orders, it is very hard not only to hire and train highly skilled workers, but also to keep them! layoffs and scalebacks are rampant in the aircraft carrier industrial base (I imagine its the same for the other ships as well). My thought is really rather than supporting a lot of old, non-innovative small businesses, the Navy should be supporting Huntington Ingalls and their other primary contractors to find (or even fund) a conglomeration of their industrial bases -- but I imagine this would get pushback from the SBA.
To answer your question more directly: yes --- but even then the story goes deeper.
The argument for turning our defense priority to Asia is compelling, but hanging our Israeli allies out to dry is not going to help us make the case for the alliances we need to do that successfully. We can’t always do things exactly as we want.
Strong point.
Look at China vis a vis Ukraine/Russia. Has China ever criticized Russia's war? at all? I can't find it anywhere. They aren't even willing to say "we understand Russia's reasons for fighting, but we are critical of this or that specific tactic." They recognize who their ally is, and lend basically unconditional support to her.
Putting aside the question of whether Israel should be an ally, or whether their recent conduct is beyond what we can accept from an ally, the hard reality is that the US is a comparatively fickle ally. We can tell ourselves that we are doing the *good* kind of allyship, tough love and all that, but we shouldn't be surprised if the world finds the kind of allyship that China is selling more attractive.
RE: TikTok forced sale.. I don't agree with it for two reasons.
First, I believe that the free world's biggest *flex* is allowing precisely the type of communications asymmetry that Noah decries. We let China run TikTok in the US, even though it's banned in China (alongside virtually all Western social apps). A direct corollary of the first amendment is the right to "receive information from any source". The message is- *they* don't trust you to see all the news and think for yourself, but *we* do. I think it would be a huge mistake to stoop down to their level on this one.
Second, I don't think TikTok is really all that potent of a weapon. Being a social media app for "young people" is kind of a curse. Ask Facebook. Young people get older and then the new young people want a new app that's free of the oldies.
There was probably a genuine moment, around ten years ago, when many folks were new to social media and relatively easily fooled by fake news. That was a long time ago. Nowadays, everyone knows that social media is a cesspool of misinfo. We are attuned to the biases of each platforms. TikTok is not known for political content, but the present legislation treats the prospect of such content as a latent threat. People would notice if TikTok started pushing a political agenda. It would lead to ridicule. People would sign up just to see the silly propaganda, and then make fun of it on YouTube or Instagram.
We allow openly declared communists, Islamists, and white nationalists to print opinion pieces in the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, etc. The most cogent anti-American content you can find in English comes directly from our university faculty, paid for largely with taxpayer dollars. The most viral anti-American social media posts are written by Americans and posted on apps owned and operated by Americans. We allow all of this because we believe in free speech, and crucially, we believe in the ability of our citizenry to process information from competing sources and decide for themselves what is reality. TikTok is a drop in the bucket of the anti-American media landscape. We are throwing away our biggest flex, stooping to their low level, to weed out an app that is totally insignificant to the political information landscape. Let's not!
Generally I agree - and to me the related point is that all of the social media (and Amazon and Google and Apple) track what you are doing and resell it. A lot of what China could get from Tik-Tok, they could simply buy from data brokers..... That is a far more fundamental problem....
As far as using Tik-Tok to influence, have folks watched youtube or read twitter or ... Foreign countries have zero problem dumping disinformation and influence peddling in plenty of places besides Tik-Tok.
NOW, if someone really want to do something, then stop selling all the info these platforms gather through data brokers, etc... And if you really want to deal with disinformation (leaving aside the whole free speech debate), then deal with it directly. Whether we believe our citizenry can process information successfully is a good question, but that is the real discussion that is needed on disinformation.
I agree with Michael that Tik-Tok is a drop in the bucket of this problem - and it would be just as big a headache if it were owned by Austria....
End the internet!
Seriously, summary drawing and quartering for networking two computers together. Need to do things the right way
Another extremely insightful and relevant post by Noah on the steps needed to militarily, economically and geopolitically create the strength sufficient to deter Xi from moving on Taiwan and launching what will likely become WW3.
But Noah needs to rethink his phrasing regarding, "We need to focus on China, while the EU helps Ukraine."
Ukraine *is* the current war, and expanding our munitions manufacturing capacity to supply them in their fight against Russia, not only updates our own stockpiles with brand new gear, but stands ready to supply our own forces for a >2026 war in defense of Taiwan. In other words, regarding Ukraine, it's 'all hands on deck'. Putin needs to be stopped cold, stopped NOW, and his armies bled white to force him into a long period of neutrality during which he will unwilling/unable to join Xi in China's war. This also sends a strong message to Taiwan--and our potential allies India and Vietnam--that we can and do protect our friends. Especially when a Democrat is in the WH.
No one wants a kinetic war with the US. Our opening capability is devastating. China would love to trigger a US buildup so we spend a lot of money, while they work on their economy. This has been their strategy for a long time. We should focus on information and economic warfare.
India is a rising power. Yes, build Indonesian (and other parts of Asia) economic competition against China. As well as Africa. That may well include ship building, for US defense, out of SK, Japan, etc. There is really no reason for US to build this capacity when we have partners that can do it right now.
We can keep sending money to Ukraine, but that war will not end unless Europe or we step up and put our troops/air assets into the mix. We need to call Putin's bluff. Bribe his generals to capitulate and hit with a level of force he can not tolerate. No one wants to do that, but that is what would be required to end it. We could probably end it in a week with our B2s dropping JDAMs. But we won't and we do not have the political fortitude to take the risk. We will keep delaying with more money and UKR deaths.
People are worried that if Europe or the US enter directly, and make Putin think he's at risk of actually losing (and perhaps eventually getting deposed), he will start throwing nukes around. It doesn't seem crazy to think he might. You'd have to count on other people within the regime, who think they could be part of whatever comes after him, to make sure nothing actually launches.
Putin won’t use nukes. His only options are to either a) use them on Ukraine, which he won’t do because it doesn’t gain him anything, what’s the point of ruling over a fallout zone? b) using them directly on NATO territory, which he’d have to be completely suicidal to do, or c) using them on Russian soil to deal with an rebellion within his own ranks, which would be incredibly unpopular and ultimately ruinous. He really doesn’t have anything useful to do with those weapons unless NATO decides to drive tanks towards Moscow, which they won’t.
Wouldn't Putin launching his nukes be basically a "drag the whole word down with me" move if he suspect he's personally doomed anyway: either because he's losing the war and expects his own people to kill him for it, or even just because he's dying of natural causes?
Putin *could* use a few nukes in Ukraine--if NATO sends troops--precisely as a sort of warning shot, because he knows the US/NATO would never reciprocate against targets inside Russia.
American tactical nuclear launch protocols that existed during the Cold War targeted static Warsaw Pact supply nodes in East Germany, Poland, etc.; as well as on-the-fly opportunistic strikes on the masses of Soviet armor that would've been surging across the N German plain. Targets inside Russia proper were strictly off limits, for the obvious reason. A similar operations framework existed for North Korean aggression. It would be interesting to learn what, if any, protocols now exist for US tactical nuclear usage.
Any hypothetical troop deployment to Ukraine would have to be defensive in nature, as any serious ground penetration into Russia would almost certainly trigger some form of nuclear response.
Understood. The Russian's know their nuclear missiles are wobbly. Its important to bribe some of the intermediaries to be sure launch command does not get implemented. Paying someone 100M, or 50M, to stop a launch is good insurance.
A general I know spent time with some ex-Warsaw block generals. He said they universally wished the US had invaded in the 80s so they could all be free. The world has changed, but our calculus needs to include weakness in Russian command structure.
I can see why the president does not want to try this path, but ultimately we need to increase the cost of war and or it will continue. We made a huge mistake dragging our feet at the start, out of fear.
Only two or three nukes need to get through to ruin the whole day for about a million people.
Indeed. So the answer is we send billions to Ukraine. The war continues. And Ukrainians continue to die because no one is willing to risk confronting Putin. How dow we stop that?
If we and the EU ramped up our munitions production to be on par with that of Russia/China, and continue propping up the Ukrainian economy, the Russian military will continue to be bled white. Putin would thus be in no mood to join China when they make their move on Taiwan. That is the best possible scenario.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is self-limiting, as long as they aren't able to consolidate gains and move on to new targets. Russia has trashed its entire economy by turning it into a war machine, they've lost nearly 3000 tanks. The benefit they've received from this is a few patches of muddy ground in Eastern Ukraine that wouldn't be worth the cost of rebuilding and welfare spending, plus a Black Sea port they already owned and still can't put warships in. The only possible "win" for Russia is if the West folds and guarantees Russian security within Ukraine so that Putin can move on to targets that have actual value. Failing that: once Putin dies or loses power, the war will end too. (And the sooner Russians realize that the West isn't going to fold, the faster those other outcomes may arrive.)
Nukes are a losing move for Putin, and he knows it. They are much more useful as a threat.
Critically, nukes are more of a total loss for Putin than losing Crimea.
Putin is a sociopath, whose prime concern is himself. In a hypothetical scenario between where he faced being deposed and executed, or nuking, say, Odessa, which would he choose?
I could see him using a tactical nuke or two in Ukraine if NATO enters the fray to warn off the Western Imperialist Nazi aggressors.
That scenario (and its reaction) only makes sense if foreign troops are marching to Moscow, which is not in the cards. If Putin is being deposed, that's by internal actors, and ordering Odessa nuked would only hasten his execution.
The tactical nuke scenario has been beaten to death. Putin loses all his leverage by using them, while virtually guaranteeing that NATO engages further, not less. It's a losing move, and also enhances Putin's risk of being deposed.
Home before the leaves fall. Where have we heard that before?
The EU does not need to directly engage Russian forces to place their forces in check. The EU, or a coalition of EU countries, upon the invitation of Ukraine, should send air defense and air superiority forces into western Ukraine and declare a no-fly zone east of the Dnipro River. Get EU pilots in F-16's in the air, and EU soldiers on the ground manning anti-air weapons. Make a statement that no matter how the Russo-Ukrainian war turns out in the east, western Ukraine is off limits for further aggression by Russia. Think about the advantages that would immediately materialize. Western Ukraine can begin to rebuild its infrastructure and war factories can produce without hindrance, the bulk of the Ukrainian diaspora can begin to return, supply lines are shortened to the front, Ukrainian air defense and air forces can focus on the front and the defense of eastern cities, troops can R&R west of the Dnipro, and on and on. The threat from Belarus and Moldova is eliminated. Risky, yes. But could this be the checkmate move?
Very good points. Probably worth the risk. Western forces can rule the air. Western forces are not great on the ground in these type operations. We do not have munition production because under US doctrine the war would be over by that point. UKR would do fine on the ground with western air.
Just on a pure policy level - I want to make absolutely clear that I wholeheartedly support increasing ALL immigration, INCLUDING from India - I’m slightly skeptical of eliminating the bias towards small countries.
My thinking is that making sure we reserve space for ALL countries helps make America more diverse. It enriches America’s gloriously beautiful melting pot when we say, “Oh, you’re from some tiny island nation or landlocked principality where people barely ever make it to America? Sure thing, front of the line! WE WILL ADD YOUR DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN!”.
I’m not coming at this from a restrictionist POV; I’m sincerely interested in finding ways to satisfy both objectives: (1) keeping America diverse and (2) increasing ties with potential allies like India. I just don’t want us to sacrifice the 1 in the rush to achieve 2.
"And helping Israel prosecute its fairly brutal campaign in Gaza weakens America’s moral standing in the world, especially in the eyes of majority-Muslim Asian countries like Indonesia and Malaysia."
You really need to add something about the sitting Israeli officials who have openly advocated for removing all of the locals from Gaza and repopulating it with more amenable settlers. Your silence on people like Ben Gvir (the National Security Minister) advocating for Gazans to leave and Jewish settlements to come in, is a glaring ommission in the linked piece.
And, even if you have a .... "eh" view of the hard liners in the Israeli government who have spent the past 30 years talking about fully annexing the West Bank and Gaza..., Indonesians and Malaysians are also paying attention.
I dunno man, that's kinda just how democracy works. You'll always have a few crazies in the parliament. What would you have America do about Israel's far right members of parliament? We have our own far right members of congress and there's nothing we can do about it here either.
My objection was to Noah Smith not mentioning about these guys. His previous article was ignoring the fact that there are active people in the government who want to remove all of the palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. That fact is very important when discussing the morality of a bombing campaign that has displaced more than a million people. The Steelman of the protester position is that they don't want the US to ACTIVELY ship several million dollars of offensive military equipment to Israel only to see in 2027 that half of the previous population of Gaza is gone and new settlements are going up there.
This has been openly advocated by cabinet members in Netanyahu's government. It is super disengenuos not to mention it is a reason people are protesting against the war in Gaza.
The Israelis will get rid of Netanyahu and his despicable allies soon. He would be gone already if we had not been so vacillating in our support.
The worry and the point of the protests is that the Non Netanyahu supporting Israelis will pocket the gains from the illegal settlements and brutality.
Modern Americans accept and agree that President Jackson evicting the Cherokee from Georgia was a monstrous crime. The Supreme Court at the time even said it was a monstrous crime.
But even with that agreement, it isn't like modern Americans gave the land back after Jackson was gone.
President Jackson died eventually... but I don't think that made the Cherokee feel any better.
If Netanyahu leaves, that's nice... but his coalition is busy building "facts on the ground" that won't be reversed even after he leaves.
Why do you care so much about Gaza's residents? They obviously don't care about you. They abducted American civilians, ally with Iran whose slogan is "death to America" and celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
“So U.S. leaders have to continue to push very hard for deepening integration with India — investment, trade, diplomatic coordination, military exercises, multilateral alliances and regional pacts, and so on.”
Indian-Americans have deep roots in U.S. businesses, as well as in the STEM sector and healthcare professionals. U.S. businesses are establishing important high-tech footprints in Malaysia and Indonesia. Japan also has a presence (e.g., Samsung). The largest Silicon Valley corporations have been working to establish ties and build within India. I believe the incentives for U.S. businesses in these countries are compelling.
Increasingly, the Mideast countries are aligning with Israel as a defense against Iranian influence and power. This is similar to the EU stepping up its role, via NATO, as a defense against Russia. Note the cooperation of Mideast intelligence and military assistance with Israel when Iran fired missiles and released armed drones. Ten years ago, this would have been unthinkable.
It seems to me countries that have been sitting on the fence for years are being forced to pick a side.
In general I agree with you, but sorry, #3 is absurd on multiple levels. Fox et al want the US government to be weak and the country divided; just look at their behavior. We can argue about their motivations, but the impact is obvious, and quite detrimental to US security. As for the NYT, their endless bothsiderism and relentless refusal to recognize the danger that MAGA and RW media represent to the US and liberal democracy makes them part of the problem, and very unlikely to be part of the solution.
I can't argue with a word that Noah has written about rebuilding our defense industrial base, or about cultivating allies in the Asia Pacific region. If Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India do not want to find themselves under Chinese domination, they need to join us to preserve another way of life.
Standing together as a counterweight to China is going to be a century-long task.
For more thoughts see my post: It's Hostile, It's Real, but Don't Call It Cold Warhttps://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/its-hostile-its-real-but-dont-call
Creating functional a functional alliance to counter China that includes Vietnam and India will take a lot of work. Especially considering how badly Trump/GOP reduced the State Department budget.
And how shaky our reliability as an ally has become.
Does Tiktok divestiture really going to stop Chinese and Russian propaganda? Weren’t they already distributing it freely using Facebook, Twitter and Youtube? Not clear to me how this will change anything really
You've gotta start somewhere. This will put the issue on the table. TikTok has mostly been suppressing China- critical viewpoints rather than supporting Chinese propaganda.
It’s only unclear to you because you haven’t thought for two seconds about the difference between allowing and amplifying distribution.
The essence of our division is each side blaming the other for it. It takes two.