Or we could keep supporting Ukraine in big enough ways till Russia breaks. Whether militarily or politically.
Personally, I am uninterested in waiting 75 years to see Ukraine integrated in Europe. And I'm willing to spend something upfront to make sure we don't have to. Whether the rest of the Europeans (Germans...) have the balls/brains for that, I don't know.
I just don't think they have the manpower to take land back until and unless Russia collapses from internal problems. You need a 2 to 1 advantage to take the offensive, and Ukraine just doesn't have the people for it, no matter what weapons we give them. Be patient. Putin's regime is not as solid as people think.
I agree Putin's regime is (probably) fragile. But an actual victory in Ukraine (even one with asterisks) would bolster him no end. People like leaders who win wars. As you pointed out, that's why Trump made sure the US defeat in Afghanistan was left to his successor. And why Biden got so much slack for an evacuation that went as well as it could, given the circumstances.
And that was in a pissing contest of no real importance to the USA anymore. Imagine if the USA was at war with Mexico and grabbing Texas was the prize. You think a win or loss there would not radically alter the US President popularity and support?
I want us to keep bleeding Russia and destroying its military till they cave. And while I'm no military expert, the counter invasion of Kursk proves that the 2 to 1 ratio is a flexible one.
If the Russian losses keep mounting, I hope they crumble within a couple of years. That's a lot better than waiting 75 years.
We might get lucky and see Putin's regime crumble in a couple years, but I doubt it. More likely 15 years or so, after he dies and his inevitably incompetent successor mismanages everything.
The real question is what Russia does after it "takes the deal." Previous cease-fires were just an excuse to re-arm and mount a bigger invasion. I assume that will be the main question on Ukraine's mind.
Yes, a viable security guarantee for Ukraine is essential to an enduring peace.
I wonder if NATO and USA can agree to a security guarantee without Ukraine actually becoming a member of NATO.
NATO and USA might agree to not station any troops on Ukrainian soil as long as Russia agrees to allowing NATO and USA to give Ukraine substantial military aid, training and satellite surveillance data.
So far, that's a sacrifice that is not being required of westerners. Ukrainians are doing the dying for us. Something that I am immensely grateful for and something that deserve us doing the bare minimum of supporting them militarily to the greatest extent possible.
Not to mention, French soldiers and French kids could easily end up dying if Russia wins in Ukraine and decides to continue invading small bordering nations.
You guys are always the ones bringing up Chamberlain and the Munich agreement and how appeasement never works. Well, now, at least, you know why Chamberlain caved to Hitler.
Sure but I would be really unhappy if he was to march on Warsaw or Berlin. And those countries don't have nukes.
If Trump decides Article 5 is more of a guideline than a rule, it's really down to the French and the UK. I'd rather we help the Ukrainians destroy his regime in Ukraine.
See above. Who says NATO is still a thing? Trump is famously uninterested in it and, tbf, if the US has no strategic interest in Ukraine, it has no strategic interest in Poland or Germany or France either. Be consistent.
I certainly don't mind a greater part of the French military budget being used for that purpose and accelerating our 'gifts' of older military equipment. That's what I said.
At the broader budgetary level, I feel like France has to allocate more to defense at present (alas) and, while I think we ought to cut spending elsewhere, if we cannot find a way to do it, then a small tax hike is something I'm willing to countenance to avoid the prospect of a far bigger bill in the future if Russia decides to make good on its threats against Poland or Finland or Estonia.
I don't care when (or if) Ukraine is "integrated into Europe". I don't think most Americans do either. Why do you? If Europe cares, let them worry about it. (And please, no one come back with the "what about the Rhineland" or "Putin is Hitler" comparisons -- they're dumb and obviously false by now.)
Fundamentally, America will never care more about Ukraine than Russia does. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse.
Our industrial base is shot. Our country has a deep philosophical divide. Our military probably can't win against a near peer competitor. And we now have one. And we've given Russia 3 years of experience defending against some of the best NATO tech. We have a narco-state on our southern border and they're exporting a million people a year to us against our laws. Oh... and our debt is 120% of GDP.
Something's got to give. And I choose for that something to be Ukraine.
This is pretty silly, man. Ukraine aid has prompted America to start revitalizing our defense industrial base. Not fast enough yet, but a hell of a lot more than we were. Just ask Palmer Luckey.
I didn't see that in your article, and I can give you that. I still think it was a dumb and highly destructive way to motivate ourselves, but I agree that we are at least starting to wake up to the threat.
Would you say that because China cares more about Taiwan than the US does, we should do nothing if they invade? Or if Russia invades the Baltics because they care that they used to be part of the Russian Empire, maybe we should ignore those NATO treaties and do nothing?
I think that countries that are not tyrannies have a common interest in maintaining the norm that conquest through violence is unacceptable.
Noah made a very strong case a couple of weeks ago that Taiwan matters to America, and I told him so in the comments at the time. But the case he made had little to do with "countries that are not tyrannies have a common interest in maintaining the norm" and everything to do actual American economic and strategic interests vis-a-vis China.
Show me why America has any interest who controls the Donbass. I'll wait.
Putin's military is overextended in the war in Ukraine, it is not competent to go anywhere else on a sustainable basis. Tying down the Putin's military is a strategic advantage for the West including the US.
Russia is considered a near peer. The US Government and successions of administrations have funded the US military to deter the prospects of a Euro war repeating. If for no other reason, it's really really bad for business.
As China develops its offensive capabilities and power to project influence, the US response is to shift focus on what it would/will take to deter China.
We, the US do not have the capacity to fight a two-front war with a near peer. We are very good at sustaining third would active suppression by means of military power. It's very costly but focuses on small conflict doctrine.
With Putin's obsession of expansion for domestic and economic reasons, the West is better off equipping Ukraine to decimate the Russian military.
If the last 3 have clarified anything it is that Russia is most assuredly not a "near peer" even to Germany, much less America. Even if you belief about Putin's motivations is correct, it's clear what he has ain't the Soviet Red Army anymore.
China is a near peer. We agree on that. So why are we wasting material and resources in Ukraine (against a has-been power) and allowing a China ally a chance to learn how to defend against some of our best equipment and current tactics?
Putin remains a threat to NATO. So much so Poland is rearming to the tune of4.7% of its GDP. Eleven Nato nations are meeting the defense requirements were only four had prior to the invasion of Ukraine.
By taking Ukraine, Putin controls economic output of that Nation and pushes his defensive lines closer to Poland.
The US tests its military forces regularly. Viet Nam to Gulf 1 to Iraq to Afghanistan. From a draft military to an all-volunteer force. Upgrading equipment and capabilities, training and logistic streams and war fight capabilities.
European land warfare is different than naval warfare. Amphibious warfare is different and more complicated. China's military is untested. If, on par with today's Russian military the near peer is a percentage not an absolute.
Depleting Putin's military is a lesson China takes seriously. The best NATO equipment is limited in its deployment. Drones on the other hand have changed the face of ground combat and beyond. Nato is learning lesson also.
I don't really agree with it but I accept the fundamental point that the USA does not have strong strategic interest in Ukraine. This is mostly on Europeans. Either we rise to the challenge, realise the USA is an unreliable partner and prone to ill placed delusions of grandeur (Iraq) as well as bouts of isolationism (presently) or we don't and face the consequences.
The one pushback I got is - you think that giving up on Ukraine is going to help with everything or indeed anything you listed? C'mon... 'Help' to Ukraine (really, a subsidy to US military industrial complex/a refresh of US Army material) is a rounding mistake in the US budget and something you kind have to do if you want to stand up to China.
The current US administration has no interest in giving Ukraine a blank check and in fact ran on the promise that they would stop doing so. That's the problem with democracies, people are not going to do what you want them to do.
It's also past the point where American equipment alone will do the job. MAGA voters did not like sending American dollars to Ukraine. Thay are *really* going to hate sending American soldiers in addition. Plus, I really don't want two nuclear armed powers duking it out on a battlefield. Do you?
Who said anything about US troops? American equipment, in size, and in the type needed (long range missiles etc) is absolutely proving equal to the task.
2 nuclear powers duking it out. I feel that's inevitable anyhow. See the discussion above about Taiwan and the fact that even Brian thinks the US should intervene there. As long as everyone remembers the rules of the Great Game (only losses of national territory and direct invasion triggers total war), it's a (very stupid, negative sum) game that can be played by nuclear powers. TBF, the Cold War worked like that too. You take losses (and gains) in peripherical theaters where you can afford to say "we'll have better luck next time".
To be crystal clear - I fucking hate this is where we are/where we are headed. But Xi and Putin left us no choice.
Assad, who had seamlessly fought off siege after siege for over a decade, and had a vice grip on his population, ran in the middle of the night to Moscow. And it happened a little under 2 years after the invasion. Russia couldn’t scramble a crack squad of operators in the area to protect one of very few Russian naval outlets in the Mediterranean. Syria was once thought of as important to Russia as Iran, i dont think that was the case. They were always the baby brother of the terrorist proxy states. If we fight for another two years maybe North Korea or Iran crumble. Or maybe both and the Russians after continued resistance in 26 and 27. Ukraine is becoming a fucking monster economy with legit arms manufacturing for obvious reasons, alongside those important grains and gasses and minerals. We have to keep supporting Ukraine. Because as Assad has shown. This isn’t just the battle in Ukraine. It’s the support against Lukahanko and the Former South Korean President and his guard and Kohmeni and the Revolutionary Guard. In transnistria and in Georgia
The unrest in SEA. It’s against Russian disinformation and disruption. Putin is the super villain we think he is. Apparently he spent the past couple of years during the war getting a doctorate of history on a certain ethnic Russian historical narrative. I’m not even kidding. He unironically wrote a doctorate thesis on his plan.
Americans, myself included, don’t know enough of the history of the region. There are people in Ukraine who always identified as both Russian and Ukrainian. They have many kind of pigeon mixture languages. Most people speak both languages. Places next to each other can have the same language and different autonomous governments. Austria and Germany and Switzerland.
We have to stay strong with Ukraine. If only someone could explain to him that one of Obamas biggest mistakes was doing nothing against Putin and guaranteeing a path for nato membership for Georgia. Don’t appease Putin.
The way to checkmate Putin very quickly would be for several willing EU countries, upon the request of Ukraine, to take over the air defense of western Ukraine, west of the Dnipro River. With EU forces in Ukraine, but well away from the Ukrainian front lines with Russia, Putin's gambit is over. Putin would not risk escalation directly against EU forces for fear of a larger retaliation by other EU countries or perhaps NATO. Putin does not have the forces nor the economy to widen the war.
Additionally, with the end of aerial attacks into Western Ukraine:
--Ukrainian forces could focus on the front lines
--Western Ukraine would be a safe haven for rest, refit and training
--Supply lines would be shortened
--Rebuilding of western Ukraine could commence
--The Ukrainian diaspora could begin to return
Further, with western Ukraine secured and guaranteed by Ukrainian allies, the possibility of attacks from Belarus or Moldova are eliminated. The front would be shortened and confined.
And all this might permit Ukraine to renew its offensive and kick a demoralize Russia completely out of Ukraine.
Yes, that is the problem. There's no Churchill'ish figure in office at the moment, someone who clearly sees the long-term problem of letting Russia win, and who could persuade their country to do the right thing now.
This is not a Churchill problem. This is a European voters problem. Supporting Ukraine means significant defense investments, short term and long term. That is simply not a sacrifice European voters are willing to make.
I'm not sure that I agree with you on this, but I don't personally know many Europeans. But I suspect that they are not that much different from Americans when it comes to responding to well-reasoned arguments backed up by clear facts from trusted leadership that sees the whole picture. Without leaders actually leading, little changes. That's what's missing in Europe in this crisis. Leadership needs to paint the picture for its voters of what Europe will look like with an emboldened Russia on its doorstep and millions of Ukrainian refugees flooding into their countries.
Sorry for coming in to this late, but I have a couple of friends in Germany I've asked about this quite a bit. I've also asked our host about this.
These are just two dudes, so they cannot be taken to represent the broader body politic. However, they are not demographic outliers in any way (regular office worker CDU voters). Their statements to me are that west Germany was fine during the Cold War and they frankly don't give a damn if the Russians reconquer Eastern Europe. They know Putin doesn't have the resources to take Berlin, so as long as he stops at Poland, they're...just fine with it, honestly. I mean they'd certainly *prefer* he didn't, in a perfect world, but it's like those surveys you see about how much Americans are willing to pay each month on their electric bills to mitigate climate change - they're basically totally unwilling to roll back any facet of the welfare state to put resources towards defense. As long as they themselves are not directly conquered, they just don't give a shit and will vote against anything other than getting the cheap gas turned back on.
Except that places NATO countries in direct conflict with Russia. When Russia responds by striking the bases (in Poland and Germany) where those planes and interceptors are operating out of, what then? That's precisely the scenario everyone (incl Putin) has been trying to avoid for 3 years, since it leads to WWIII.
That is the risk of course. But Russia will never be weaker, unable to follow up an attack with sustained force, than they are now. I would fully expect a measure of retaliation by Russia, which I think would manifest in some clandestine attack, rather than a direct provocation as you describe. EU air defense forces in western Ukraine would not be directly attacking Russians but rather shooting down as best they could Russian missiles and other unmanned aircraft. As far as has been reported, no manned Russian aircraft are operating behind the Ukrainian front lines. With EU air defense in place, no Russian pilot would be foolish enough to attempt to do so and end up facing EU anti air artillery and EU fighter planes. What Russia might do is up its unconventional aggression, such as further sabotaging EU infrastructure. They might sink a ship somewhere. But realizing that their long-term goal of eliminating Ukraine could not be achieved, and facing re-invigored Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine, the gamble is that Putin would seek a negotiated way out rather than escalate.
But as David Abbott pointed out, what EU country would put a team on the pitch right now?
You're the one who wants to roll nuclear dice here. I have as much interest in who controls the Ukrainian steppe as in who controls the Eastern Sahara -- none.
France has spent a long time in the Sahara though, so they clearly feel differently. If France or Germany want to send warplanes to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, let them. But I'll not join them.
To be clear "enforce a no-fly zone" involves shooting down Russian MIGs -- that's an act of war against a nuclear power. I think that's a bad idea.
I will never forgive the spineless Republicans who withheld all of this under Biden purely for political gain. We could have done more during the last two years of the Biden administration, but Republicans screamed bloody murder and now they're going to reap the political rewards. I despise these dreadful, unserious, and greedy people who are part of the Trump movement.
Truly incredible to me how you and many others have managed to convince yourselves that Republicans are to blame when Europe is just sitting back, relaxing and ploughing every ounce of surplus into pensions and pensioners, rather than stepping up and providing for their own security.
I will never forgive the war-mongers (of both parties) who stupidly promised to "back Ukraine for as long as it takes" when they knew our industrial base wasn't up to the task and should have known that we could never care about Ukraine more than Russia does.
As a Ukrainian, I find this analysis quite positive. Maybe even too positive. There is a number of differences between Finland's case and ours, and I feel like we won't be left alone like them.
Oh well, at least Trump didn't sell us out on day one.
Grim post. Maybe you’re right, maybe not. If there’s one thing got stuck with me over these three f.cking years is that nobody knows what happens tomorrow. It’s possible the reality will be much worse than even this scenario. But there’s also hope it somehow will be better.
Cheers and thanks for keep writing about Ukraine 🇺🇦
Ukraine is now systematically destroying Russia's energy and military infrastructure. Since early January, they've taken out dozens of refineries, oil and arms depots, critical factories and more. There has never been a strategic bombing campaign of this magnitude and—most importantly—efficacy. WWII and the Gulf wars involved a lot of shock and awe. But Ukraine's strikes have been meticulously precise. Fifty thousand dollar drones attacking a 500 million dollar facility doesn't get more asymmetrical. As oil disappears, Russia is going to seize up. Meanwhile, Ukraine will go after secondary targets, like the electric substations that power the rail system. And they can do this indefinitely, because Russia has run out of air defense missiles and munitions. Give it a couple more months...
I doubt this. If this were true, if Russia was actually teetering under a Ukraine strategic bombing campaign, they would already have detonated a tac-nuke over the Black Sea.
That's the fundamental problem here. You can't do regime change in a nuclear power. Well, you can' but the collateral damage is so high no one will.
I think you're correct about what Putin would order, if the pressure on Russia reaches a point where there are food shortages in the region of Moscow and a popular revolt seems possible.
But when he gives that order, his generals might say, "You've lost your mind, we're deposing you and settling this." I'm sure he's _tried_ to pick people who will be unquestioningly loyal to his crazy vision of history and destiny. But it's extremely hard to know from the outside, what the breaking point might be for a despot's most important enforcers.
"His generals might say, 'You've lost your mind, we're deposing you and settling this.' "
I'm unwilling to roll those dice, but I suspect you might be right. As I recell, Saddam Hussein's underlings were unwilling to tell him he didn't have WMDs. Dictatorships aren't known for getting good information up the chain to decision makers.
You're right that it'd be a substantial risk. And I generally agree with Noah's overall take that a settlement where Putin takes some small slices of land would be preferable.
But we also can't tolerate a situation where just because Russia has nukes, they can blackmail all of Europe into giving them whatever they want. That's not acceptable now, any more than it would've been acceptable to cave to the USSR and let them roll across Western Europe back in the '60s.
Honestly the scariest thing about the possibility of Putin throwing a small nuke at Ukraine is that rather than working with allies to step up sanctions and raise the pressure until there's a regime change from within, Trump might decide it would be cool to launch a nuke of his own, and that really _would_ kick off WW3.
There is a very interesting book I just finished that you might like: The Second Nuclear Age by Paul Bracken. It's about exactly what you're talking about, all the ways nuclear weapons can be and have been made use of without actually launching any of them.
"More sanctions, of course, will do little to hurt Russia, since the U.S. has pretty much already done all it can do on that front."
Come on, Noah - this is obviously not true! As Keith Kellogg correctly stated, 'Sanctions enforcement on Russia are “only about a 3” on a scale of 1 to 10 on how painful the economic pressure can be.' Here's just a short list of examples:
- Not all Russian banks are cut off from SWIFT and not all are under sanctions. Yes, this is mostly Europeans' fault, but the US should push the EU and the UK to fix it.
- A number of European banks, with very sizable USD-based operations, are still operating inside Russia. Why are these banks not sanctioned by the US yet?
- The US still tolerates the European dillydallying around seizing the Russian financial assets and using them to fund the Ukraine military and post-war reconstruction.
- Only a small fraction of the Russian shadow tanker fleet has been sanctioned.
- US companies like Schlumberger are still allowed to service the Russian oil and gas sector
- Blatant violations of export sanctions by countries like Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Central Asian countries allow Russia to continue buying dual-purpose technology needed for their military production. Where is the enforcement of those sanctions?
Sanctions imposed by the Biden administration were designed more to make the administration feel good about themselves (Hey, we are doing so much!) and not to cripple the Russian militarized economy.
Ukraine is also a bit like the Spanish civil war- a proving ground for new weapons and tactics.
When you do an article on DOGE how about a little time spent on why they are not going after all the government contractors/consultants? Or is the end game to hire them to take the place of fired workers if the gutted agency needs more personnel?
And what of the territory Ukraine holds in Russia? That is a significant bargaining chip opening, as part of any deal, the possibility of territory swaps.
Negotiated plebiscites in the parts of occupied Ukraine to decide which future they want: Russia or Ukraine might also offer a degree of legitimacy to any final deal.
It is also noteworthy that not joining NATO does not preclude joining the EU, nor of joining any EU defence pact (there are moves underway in the EU regarding defence).
Problem is that Jimmy Carter will not be running those plebiscites in occupied Ukraine. Russians have practiced rigging elections for decades now. Don't you know that 97% of the people in that part of Ukraine already voted to become Russian in September 2022?
I was thinking the same thing the fact that the Russians have not been able to dislodge Ukraine from Kursk - and according to some reports has now run out of tanks and is sending soldiers into battle in tinpot Ladas may mean the situation is not as dire as feared.
The more likely scenario is a frozen conflict like with the Crimea from 2014-2022. In that way Putin ensures Ukraine will be forced to keep a large standing army for a long time and thus unable to invest in critical sectors such as infrastructure and the civilain economy unlike with Finland. Finlandization only works when the nation is not threatened by a another war or a small scale proxy war (donbass war), which Finland never experienced from 1944-1991 or 2022.
I know no one on the Right who "blames Ukraine". We blame American politicians who kept pushing NATO eastward despite Russia's repeated warnings about this. I don't fault Ukraine or Zelensky -- they were looking for ways to avoid the (temporarily slumbering) 800 pound gorilla next door, and NATO said "come on in!"
The Right's point is NOT "Ukraine is to blame." If you think that, you have completely missed what the Right has been saying for 3 years: America can never care about Ukraine more than Russia does.
"The whole MAGA narrative about Russia’s motives is false. Putin has always wanted to conquer Ukraine. It was never really about NATO, or about protecting Russian speakers, or any of that stuff."
Noah, you don't know that, and we'll never know. What we do know is that Putin has spent the better part of 15 years warning that NATO expansion was a redline and no one listened. And y'all don't have a lot of credibility on Putin's motivation, since you've spent 3 years screaming, "we have to stop Putin in Kiev or he'll march on Krakow and Berlin!" Which has been an obvious lie since the first week of the war.
Now you act like "Finlandization of Ukraine" would be a great success. That's what we said 3 years ago! Again, welcome to the party man, too bad you didn't get here before a few million people died in a stupid, pointless war the West could have prevented by doing (3 years ago) exactly what you're advocating now.
"Putin naturally sees little reason to relent."
Of course he does. Because he's lost a million Russians and needs a real victory for domestic reasons. 3 years ago, a different set of peace terms were possible. (The reveals of the Turkey peace talks have made that clear). But battlefield gains ARE reality. Russia is winning, so now the terms are different. What's tragic is that the Western establishment ("we're backing Ukraine for as long as it takes") convinced Zelensky against making a deal 2-3 months in.
All of this is so frustrating to those of us on the Right. And what's most frustrating is that those of you on the Left (willfully?) pretend to misunderstand what we've said all along about this conflict.
"'NATO said "come on in!'" This proves that the MAGA narrative is false. When was the invitation to join NATO extended to Ukraine? In 2008 Bush and Merkel famously said Ukraine and Georgia would not be admitted to NATO and then what did Putin do? He invaded Georgia despite the fact that the threat of NATO had just been explicitly removed.
If you don't think Putin has had designs on conquering all of Ukraine then you are being willfully ignorant about his philosophy and the concept of "russkiy mir." Noah is right: it was "never about NATO." Why no response when Poland was admitted in 1999, putting a NATO country right on russia's borders?
It has been the policy of NATO for decades to extend membership to essentially anyone who wants it. Despite Russia's very long term statements that this was a provocation they could not endure. The only countries ever refused membership (really just told they couldn't join... yet) were because of active military conflicts (either external or civil) on their territory.
Again, look at a map of NATO expansion. How would Russia NOT see that as a threat?
And yet they never responded to previous bouts of NATO expansion so doesn't it seem likely that that's a false narrative w/r/t Ukraine? Seems like it was something they could endure. And again, NATO membership has never been on the cards for Ukraine. Bush explicitly ruled it out in 2008 and then russia invaded in 2014, which would essentially rule out accession so long as that conflict persisted.
The document you're citing from 2023 is after the full scale invasion started so not sure of the relevance there.
They did respond, diplomatically and vigorously. But Russia was in no position to argue in 1995 or 1999 (Boris made Biden look competent). By 2008, they started making more noise, but no one was listening. So they invaded.
I'm not arguing they're the good guys or that they were justified, only that NATO and the Western foreign policy establishment had a huge hand in bringing the current state of affairs about. Academics like Fukuyama and his "end of history" hypothesis fed political opportunists like GW Bush to "promote liberal democracy" using economic (or actual) guns. They were wrong. And from Egypt to Iraq to Russia to India to China, we are now reaping the consequences of that failure.
History decided not to stay dead, but the Fukuyamas of the world that run the State Dept never noticed. Until Russia decided to upend things in a way they couldn't ignore.
There are plenty on the Left who have agreed with you from the start, but we are a smaller and less influential group than the left-center crowd which gets all the press.
that makes sense. At least on the right there was debate over Ukraine. My side was still a minority, but you could ask the question, "is this in US national interest?" The Left spent all of the first Trump administration screaming "Russia, Russia, Russia...", thus when Russia invaded, Ukraine rapidly became one of many Leftist purity tests.
One should keep in mind that Russia is fundamentally different from the old Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union, with all its flaws and horrors, did adhere to its international commitments. Countries, signing treaties with the Soviet Union, could reasonably expect that the Soviet Union would honor its obligations.
Putin's Russia has demonstrated time and again that it cares nothing for treaties it signed just a few years ago. So no treaty, no agreement with Russia, Finland-like or Korea-like or any other, will offer lasting security protection to Ukraine. Only the NATO membership or the US military presence in Ukraine (similar to Japan or South Korea) can do that.
The USSR under Lenin signed treaties recognizing the sovereignty of various newly independent countries in Eastern Europe... Poland, the Baltic States, Finland... and broke them as soon as it was in a position to do so. Firstly, on the day after the Armistice in 1918, when with Germany out of the war the Bolsheviks renounced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and reinvaded all the former Russian subjects whose independence they had recognized earlier that year. And again in 1939 and 1940 when Stalin invaded Poland, Finland, and the Baltic States, and in all those countries except for Finland, proceeded to execute about ten percent of the male population just to keep them submissive. Vladimir Putin is a bad man, but he has yet to engage in brutality on that scale.
I think "after WWII" would be the correct modifier to the original post. Once the Cold War started, making and abandoning treaties stopped being a good strategy for the USSR.
Perfect. Love it. By the way, last year I organized an effort by the private school I worked at for the students to pack and assemble what we called "Foxhole Aid Kits." These were one gallon storage bags filled with everything from hand warmers to toothpaste to candy. The 100 kits made it to a front-line medical unit, who were so pleased to receive them they sent the school a copy of their battalion flag, signed by the troopers. Our kids were extremely proud to have participated in a very hands-on way to help Ukraine.
If any of you would like more information about this effort, I can send you extensive instructions on how to pull this off with your own local school or community group.
Putin lost the Ukrainian War when his battle plan was stopped and shredded in the first few weeks by asymmetrical warfare. It’s nothing short of amazing how much Ukraine could accomplish with so little, and how little Russia could accomplish so much. Go back and read all the Pentagon, politicians, pundits, and thought-leaders prediction just prior to and after Russia’s invasion. All of them were wrong. In fact, none of them envisioned what has been accomplished: Russia lost the land battle, all but one of its Navy ships (+90) retreated in the Black Sea (it couldn’t defend them from novel weapons deployed by Ukraine); Finland and Sweden (countries that participate in NATO military exercises) joined NATO which doubled NATO’s border with Russia. Additionally, millions of Russia’s educated and tech-savvy youth fled to NATO countries. This will hurt the Russian economy for generations. Imagine how the parents left behind feel about Putin. And these Russian economic refugees didn’t choose to flee to Hungary. In fact, Hungary has experienced the same outward migration of its educated, tech-savvy youth, so much so that Orban has lifted immigrant restrictions in an effort to import outside labor. By any measure, Orban and Hungary are paying a price for supporting Putin. This, too, will hurt Hungary for generations. In a very short period of time, Ukraine has built drone-manufacturing capacity (4 million/year) that the U.S. hasn’t. Ukraine has rare earth minerals, a very powerful bargaining chip. Anyone who doesn’t think the Ukrainian mining industry can rapidly expand to serve demand isn’t paying attention.
This is Putin’s Pyrrhic victory. By no long-term meaningful measure— military or socio-economic — has Russia won this war. The world has less reason to fear Russia’s military.
This is a trend: Russia, Hungary, Syria, Iran all have failing regimes. Yet we hear the refrain in mainstream media, et alia, how the bad guys are winning. Xi may learn from this, maybe not. But Trump will overreach and flameout in spectacular fashion with his second attempt to take over the U.S. government. Trump, Musk, and leaders of the Big-Tech behemoths have underestimated the American people. Like it or not, the Andreessen techno philosophy that he and people like him should rule the public as if they were vassals is delusional. If your workforce doesn’t like you or your politics, your company has a dicey future.
There's a lot for me to agree with in this article. I've actually been predicting "Finlandization" as the war's most likely outcome since way back in late 2022, long before Donald Trump was reelected. https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/putins-war-at-ten-months
I think that you are putting too much of the blame on Trump for developments in world affairs that have been going on since long before his rise. (For instance, Russia's conquest of the Crimea, and other nations' failure to do anything about it, happened under Obama). My own thesis is that the United States has overextended itself by offering a mixture of formal and informal security guarantees to countries that are so far away that its interest in actually going to war on their behalf is small - but by offering the guarantees it encourages said countries to take a lackadaisical attitude toward their own defense. And this is happening in both Europe and East Asia.
My thesis is that, had NATO expansion never happened, countries like Ukraine, Poland, Czechia, and so forth would have realized that they needed to rely on local alliances for their safety, they would have built stronger militaries, and if Russia had invaded Ukraine anyway (unlikely, but possible) then a bunch of other European nations would have joined the war quickly, since they would know that they're choosing between fighting the Russians alongside the Ukrainians, or getting picked off one by one. As it is, though, most Europeans countries have neglected their militaries and outsourced their defense to the USA, meaning they're too timid to act without US leadership, and the United States (under Obama and Biden, not just Trump!) has not treated Russian expansionism as a critical threat - since to the US itself, with big oceans on either side, it isn't one. Thus Ukraine has ended up fighting Russia alone, and being outnumber 4-to-1 in manpower means it has little chance of prevailing no matter how much money and weapons it gets from the US.
The problem in East Asia is similar. And I actually agree with your thesis that Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines all need stronger militaries with perhaps one of them getting nuclear weapons. The non-proliferation treaty had a laudable goal, but it depended on a small set of nuclear powers doing whatever it took to prevent predatory wars by other nuclear powers... and that hasn't actually happened; America's cancelation of its mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China way back in 1979, plus Britain and America's failure to act decisively when Russia invaded Ukraine (which gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s in exchange for an explicit guarantee that this would not happen!) means that by now, for a vulnerable country to exchange its right to field nuclear weapons for security guarantees from a faraway ally like the US is a fool's bargain. And this isn't Donald Trump's doing - the world was moving in this direction before he entered politics.
That's the real tragedy here. There were lots of people who advocated for Noah's plan in early 2022, but they were called appeasers and compared to Chamberlain. (Can we please stop comparing everything to the Nazis!)
So the war mongers spent 3 years insisting that Putin wanted to conquer all of Europe -- despite the fact that he couldn't even conquer half of Ukraine -- and now that they've depleted Western stockpiles of everything, declare "gee, Finlandization is a great idea".
And we're supposed to congratulate them on their brilliance.
The US has gone through phases of isolation before, notably before WWII. When things get scary enough, e.g,. even a single US base get bombed, everything can change.
This is true, but most great powers are not rash enough to do what Japan did in December of 1941. Also, our biggest rival right now, China, is much closer to industrial and technological parity with the Americans than Hirohito's Japan was... so the risk that, sometime in the next ten years, Xi Jinping bombs the bases in Okinawa into rubble, and the US, unable to project power so close to the enemy's homeland, retreats with its tail between its legs, is disturbingly high.
The solution is to pressure the maritime powers of Asia - Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea - to build air and naval forces capable of fighting China on roughly equal terms without American aid. Since war would be existential for these countries (but not for the US), Xi Jinping would be far less likely to start a war knowing that his principal opponents have no retreat and are likely to fight to the death. (This is all explained in Sun Tzu.)
I worry that the Iraq war ruined a generation of Americans’ brains, and that the next time a base is bombed the response will be “why are we even there in the first place?”
Your thesis seems to rely on a critical difference being perceived by Putin between NATO expansion and ad-hoc local alliances between nations with built up militaries (mini-NATOs?). In either case, I think Putin sees an increased military threat and reacts, as per the standard right wing apologists for his invasion of Ukraine.. That is, I don't buy your thesis.
While Putin would no doubt feel threatened by any alliance between his geopolitical rivals, the difference is that a purely European alliance - preferably one centered on Poland - would have a much stronger incentive to act decisively than NATO does. Right now, Poland is probably the NATO country that most enthusiastically supports Ukraine (and for good reasons!), but because Poland, like most Eastern European countries, is heavily dependent on the United States for its defense, it is too timid to join the war without the US doing likewise. And stopping Russian expansion isn't nearly as important to US interests as it is to Polish interests, so nothing decisive gets done.
Fair enough. If the United States sees little or no threat in allowing Putin to annex his neighbors, and if the EU does see the threat but is too feckless/weak to do anything about it, then Russia can do as it pleases. On the other hand, the west faces threats from China, the Mid East, and Russia. Russia is currently very weak. Allowing it to win, re-arm and continue apace, is, IMO, simply stupid. I don't see a better opportunity to contain its rapacity in the future compared to today.
Or we could keep supporting Ukraine in big enough ways till Russia breaks. Whether militarily or politically.
Personally, I am uninterested in waiting 75 years to see Ukraine integrated in Europe. And I'm willing to spend something upfront to make sure we don't have to. Whether the rest of the Europeans (Germans...) have the balls/brains for that, I don't know.
I just don't think they have the manpower to take land back until and unless Russia collapses from internal problems. You need a 2 to 1 advantage to take the offensive, and Ukraine just doesn't have the people for it, no matter what weapons we give them. Be patient. Putin's regime is not as solid as people think.
Well, fine, but that's not what you wrote?
I agree Putin's regime is (probably) fragile. But an actual victory in Ukraine (even one with asterisks) would bolster him no end. People like leaders who win wars. As you pointed out, that's why Trump made sure the US defeat in Afghanistan was left to his successor. And why Biden got so much slack for an evacuation that went as well as it could, given the circumstances.
And that was in a pissing contest of no real importance to the USA anymore. Imagine if the USA was at war with Mexico and grabbing Texas was the prize. You think a win or loss there would not radically alter the US President popularity and support?
I want us to keep bleeding Russia and destroying its military till they cave. And while I'm no military expert, the counter invasion of Kursk proves that the 2 to 1 ratio is a flexible one.
If the Russian losses keep mounting, I hope they crumble within a couple of years. That's a lot better than waiting 75 years.
We might get lucky and see Putin's regime crumble in a couple years, but I doubt it. More likely 15 years or so, after he dies and his inevitably incompetent successor mismanages everything.
The real question is what Russia does after it "takes the deal." Previous cease-fires were just an excuse to re-arm and mount a bigger invasion. I assume that will be the main question on Ukraine's mind.
Yes, they will arm to the teeth.
Yes, a viable security guarantee for Ukraine is essential to an enduring peace.
I wonder if NATO and USA can agree to a security guarantee without Ukraine actually becoming a member of NATO.
NATO and USA might agree to not station any troops on Ukrainian soil as long as Russia agrees to allowing NATO and USA to give Ukraine substantial military aid, training and satellite surveillance data.
Me to. End this now, the right way.
If you are willing to spend something to prolong the war ‘till Russia breaks’ please feel free to send as much of your money as you want to Ukraine.
And your kids.
So far, that's a sacrifice that is not being required of westerners. Ukrainians are doing the dying for us. Something that I am immensely grateful for and something that deserve us doing the bare minimum of supporting them militarily to the greatest extent possible.
Not to mention, French soldiers and French kids could easily end up dying if Russia wins in Ukraine and decides to continue invading small bordering nations.
You guys are always the ones bringing up Chamberlain and the Munich agreement and how appeasement never works. Well, now, at least, you know why Chamberlain caved to Hitler.
Whether Putin has the desire to march on Paris, I have no idea.
That Russia lacks the ability to do so, I am quite certain.
Sure but I would be really unhappy if he was to march on Warsaw or Berlin. And those countries don't have nukes.
If Trump decides Article 5 is more of a guideline than a rule, it's really down to the French and the UK. I'd rather we help the Ukrainians destroy his regime in Ukraine.
Russia couldn't defeat an economically and militarily backward foe 1/4 of its size even with a huge tank force. It is certainly no threat to NATO.
See above. Who says NATO is still a thing? Trump is famously uninterested in it and, tbf, if the US has no strategic interest in Ukraine, it has no strategic interest in Poland or Germany or France either. Be consistent.
I certainly don't mind a greater part of the French military budget being used for that purpose and accelerating our 'gifts' of older military equipment. That's what I said.
At the broader budgetary level, I feel like France has to allocate more to defense at present (alas) and, while I think we ought to cut spending elsewhere, if we cannot find a way to do it, then a small tax hike is something I'm willing to countenance to avoid the prospect of a far bigger bill in the future if Russia decides to make good on its threats against Poland or Finland or Estonia.
I don't care when (or if) Ukraine is "integrated into Europe". I don't think most Americans do either. Why do you? If Europe cares, let them worry about it. (And please, no one come back with the "what about the Rhineland" or "Putin is Hitler" comparisons -- they're dumb and obviously false by now.)
Fundamentally, America will never care more about Ukraine than Russia does. This is the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse.
Our industrial base is shot. Our country has a deep philosophical divide. Our military probably can't win against a near peer competitor. And we now have one. And we've given Russia 3 years of experience defending against some of the best NATO tech. We have a narco-state on our southern border and they're exporting a million people a year to us against our laws. Oh... and our debt is 120% of GDP.
Something's got to give. And I choose for that something to be Ukraine.
This is pretty silly, man. Ukraine aid has prompted America to start revitalizing our defense industrial base. Not fast enough yet, but a hell of a lot more than we were. Just ask Palmer Luckey.
What's silly is 3 years of insisting that Putin was Hitler and anyone who proposed exactly what you're saying now was Neville Chamberlain.
To be fair, I don't think you personally did this. But the ruling class of the entire Western world did.
You're missing my point. Supporting Ukraine gave us the kick in the butt we needed in order to start preparing for the real threat.
I didn't see that in your article, and I can give you that. I still think it was a dumb and highly destructive way to motivate ourselves, but I agree that we are at least starting to wake up to the threat.
Would you say that because China cares more about Taiwan than the US does, we should do nothing if they invade? Or if Russia invades the Baltics because they care that they used to be part of the Russian Empire, maybe we should ignore those NATO treaties and do nothing?
I think that countries that are not tyrannies have a common interest in maintaining the norm that conquest through violence is unacceptable.
Noah made a very strong case a couple of weeks ago that Taiwan matters to America, and I told him so in the comments at the time. But the case he made had little to do with "countries that are not tyrannies have a common interest in maintaining the norm" and everything to do actual American economic and strategic interests vis-a-vis China.
Show me why America has any interest who controls the Donbass. I'll wait.
Putin's military is overextended in the war in Ukraine, it is not competent to go anywhere else on a sustainable basis. Tying down the Putin's military is a strategic advantage for the West including the US.
Russia is considered a near peer. The US Government and successions of administrations have funded the US military to deter the prospects of a Euro war repeating. If for no other reason, it's really really bad for business.
As China develops its offensive capabilities and power to project influence, the US response is to shift focus on what it would/will take to deter China.
We, the US do not have the capacity to fight a two-front war with a near peer. We are very good at sustaining third would active suppression by means of military power. It's very costly but focuses on small conflict doctrine.
With Putin's obsession of expansion for domestic and economic reasons, the West is better off equipping Ukraine to decimate the Russian military.
If the last 3 have clarified anything it is that Russia is most assuredly not a "near peer" even to Germany, much less America. Even if you belief about Putin's motivations is correct, it's clear what he has ain't the Soviet Red Army anymore.
China is a near peer. We agree on that. So why are we wasting material and resources in Ukraine (against a has-been power) and allowing a China ally a chance to learn how to defend against some of our best equipment and current tactics?
Seems like a bad plan to me.
Putin remains a threat to NATO. So much so Poland is rearming to the tune of4.7% of its GDP. Eleven Nato nations are meeting the defense requirements were only four had prior to the invasion of Ukraine.
By taking Ukraine, Putin controls economic output of that Nation and pushes his defensive lines closer to Poland.
The US tests its military forces regularly. Viet Nam to Gulf 1 to Iraq to Afghanistan. From a draft military to an all-volunteer force. Upgrading equipment and capabilities, training and logistic streams and war fight capabilities.
European land warfare is different than naval warfare. Amphibious warfare is different and more complicated. China's military is untested. If, on par with today's Russian military the near peer is a percentage not an absolute.
Depleting Putin's military is a lesson China takes seriously. The best NATO equipment is limited in its deployment. Drones on the other hand have changed the face of ground combat and beyond. Nato is learning lesson also.
I basically got no real problems with that take.
I don't really agree with it but I accept the fundamental point that the USA does not have strong strategic interest in Ukraine. This is mostly on Europeans. Either we rise to the challenge, realise the USA is an unreliable partner and prone to ill placed delusions of grandeur (Iraq) as well as bouts of isolationism (presently) or we don't and face the consequences.
The one pushback I got is - you think that giving up on Ukraine is going to help with everything or indeed anything you listed? C'mon... 'Help' to Ukraine (really, a subsidy to US military industrial complex/a refresh of US Army material) is a rounding mistake in the US budget and something you kind have to do if you want to stand up to China.
The current US administration has no interest in giving Ukraine a blank check and in fact ran on the promise that they would stop doing so. That's the problem with democracies, people are not going to do what you want them to do.
It's also past the point where American equipment alone will do the job. MAGA voters did not like sending American dollars to Ukraine. Thay are *really* going to hate sending American soldiers in addition. Plus, I really don't want two nuclear armed powers duking it out on a battlefield. Do you?
Who said anything about US troops? American equipment, in size, and in the type needed (long range missiles etc) is absolutely proving equal to the task.
2 nuclear powers duking it out. I feel that's inevitable anyhow. See the discussion above about Taiwan and the fact that even Brian thinks the US should intervene there. As long as everyone remembers the rules of the Great Game (only losses of national territory and direct invasion triggers total war), it's a (very stupid, negative sum) game that can be played by nuclear powers. TBF, the Cold War worked like that too. You take losses (and gains) in peripherical theaters where you can afford to say "we'll have better luck next time".
To be crystal clear - I fucking hate this is where we are/where we are headed. But Xi and Putin left us no choice.
Assad, who had seamlessly fought off siege after siege for over a decade, and had a vice grip on his population, ran in the middle of the night to Moscow. And it happened a little under 2 years after the invasion. Russia couldn’t scramble a crack squad of operators in the area to protect one of very few Russian naval outlets in the Mediterranean. Syria was once thought of as important to Russia as Iran, i dont think that was the case. They were always the baby brother of the terrorist proxy states. If we fight for another two years maybe North Korea or Iran crumble. Or maybe both and the Russians after continued resistance in 26 and 27. Ukraine is becoming a fucking monster economy with legit arms manufacturing for obvious reasons, alongside those important grains and gasses and minerals. We have to keep supporting Ukraine. Because as Assad has shown. This isn’t just the battle in Ukraine. It’s the support against Lukahanko and the Former South Korean President and his guard and Kohmeni and the Revolutionary Guard. In transnistria and in Georgia
The unrest in SEA. It’s against Russian disinformation and disruption. Putin is the super villain we think he is. Apparently he spent the past couple of years during the war getting a doctorate of history on a certain ethnic Russian historical narrative. I’m not even kidding. He unironically wrote a doctorate thesis on his plan.
Americans, myself included, don’t know enough of the history of the region. There are people in Ukraine who always identified as both Russian and Ukrainian. They have many kind of pigeon mixture languages. Most people speak both languages. Places next to each other can have the same language and different autonomous governments. Austria and Germany and Switzerland.
We have to stay strong with Ukraine. If only someone could explain to him that one of Obamas biggest mistakes was doing nothing against Putin and guaranteeing a path for nato membership for Georgia. Don’t appease Putin.
The way to checkmate Putin very quickly would be for several willing EU countries, upon the request of Ukraine, to take over the air defense of western Ukraine, west of the Dnipro River. With EU forces in Ukraine, but well away from the Ukrainian front lines with Russia, Putin's gambit is over. Putin would not risk escalation directly against EU forces for fear of a larger retaliation by other EU countries or perhaps NATO. Putin does not have the forces nor the economy to widen the war.
Additionally, with the end of aerial attacks into Western Ukraine:
--Ukrainian forces could focus on the front lines
--Western Ukraine would be a safe haven for rest, refit and training
--Supply lines would be shortened
--Rebuilding of western Ukraine could commence
--The Ukrainian diaspora could begin to return
Further, with western Ukraine secured and guaranteed by Ukrainian allies, the possibility of attacks from Belarus or Moldova are eliminated. The front would be shortened and confined.
And all this might permit Ukraine to renew its offensive and kick a demoralize Russia completely out of Ukraine.
This might work if Europeans had balls
Yes, that is the problem. There's no Churchill'ish figure in office at the moment, someone who clearly sees the long-term problem of letting Russia win, and who could persuade their country to do the right thing now.
This is not a Churchill problem. This is a European voters problem. Supporting Ukraine means significant defense investments, short term and long term. That is simply not a sacrifice European voters are willing to make.
I'm not sure that I agree with you on this, but I don't personally know many Europeans. But I suspect that they are not that much different from Americans when it comes to responding to well-reasoned arguments backed up by clear facts from trusted leadership that sees the whole picture. Without leaders actually leading, little changes. That's what's missing in Europe in this crisis. Leadership needs to paint the picture for its voters of what Europe will look like with an emboldened Russia on its doorstep and millions of Ukrainian refugees flooding into their countries.
Sorry for coming in to this late, but I have a couple of friends in Germany I've asked about this quite a bit. I've also asked our host about this.
These are just two dudes, so they cannot be taken to represent the broader body politic. However, they are not demographic outliers in any way (regular office worker CDU voters). Their statements to me are that west Germany was fine during the Cold War and they frankly don't give a damn if the Russians reconquer Eastern Europe. They know Putin doesn't have the resources to take Berlin, so as long as he stops at Poland, they're...just fine with it, honestly. I mean they'd certainly *prefer* he didn't, in a perfect world, but it's like those surveys you see about how much Americans are willing to pay each month on their electric bills to mitigate climate change - they're basically totally unwilling to roll back any facet of the welfare state to put resources towards defense. As long as they themselves are not directly conquered, they just don't give a shit and will vote against anything other than getting the cheap gas turned back on.
Russia is at no risk of winning. The real stakes are who controls Zaporizia.
Tell us more about this.
Except that places NATO countries in direct conflict with Russia. When Russia responds by striking the bases (in Poland and Germany) where those planes and interceptors are operating out of, what then? That's precisely the scenario everyone (incl Putin) has been trying to avoid for 3 years, since it leads to WWIII.
That is the risk of course. But Russia will never be weaker, unable to follow up an attack with sustained force, than they are now. I would fully expect a measure of retaliation by Russia, which I think would manifest in some clandestine attack, rather than a direct provocation as you describe. EU air defense forces in western Ukraine would not be directly attacking Russians but rather shooting down as best they could Russian missiles and other unmanned aircraft. As far as has been reported, no manned Russian aircraft are operating behind the Ukrainian front lines. With EU air defense in place, no Russian pilot would be foolish enough to attempt to do so and end up facing EU anti air artillery and EU fighter planes. What Russia might do is up its unconventional aggression, such as further sabotaging EU infrastructure. They might sink a ship somewhere. But realizing that their long-term goal of eliminating Ukraine could not be achieved, and facing re-invigored Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine, the gamble is that Putin would seek a negotiated way out rather than escalate.
But as David Abbott pointed out, what EU country would put a team on the pitch right now?
If the Europeans feel like rolling these dice, let them. I want nothing to do with it.
Is there any dice you're willing to roll?
I'm just curious but would London matter? Tokyo? If yes, why? They're far away islands that are irrelevant to the US mainland too.
You're the one who wants to roll nuclear dice here. I have as much interest in who controls the Ukrainian steppe as in who controls the Eastern Sahara -- none.
France has spent a long time in the Sahara though, so they clearly feel differently. If France or Germany want to send warplanes to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine, let them. But I'll not join them.
To be clear "enforce a no-fly zone" involves shooting down Russian MIGs -- that's an act of war against a nuclear power. I think that's a bad idea.
I will never forgive the spineless Republicans who withheld all of this under Biden purely for political gain. We could have done more during the last two years of the Biden administration, but Republicans screamed bloody murder and now they're going to reap the political rewards. I despise these dreadful, unserious, and greedy people who are part of the Trump movement.
It was very shameful
Truly incredible to me how you and many others have managed to convince yourselves that Republicans are to blame when Europe is just sitting back, relaxing and ploughing every ounce of surplus into pensions and pensioners, rather than stepping up and providing for their own security.
Well yeah, it doesn't have to be one or the other!!
I don’t vote for European politicians
Europe has given more in aid (both in pledged and actually delivered) than the U.S.
They don't have the ability the US does to run 37 + trillion dollars in sovereign debt for one thing.
The other half is why isn't the US supporting its pension system which is underfunded when the solution is obvious.
I will never forgive the war-mongers (of both parties) who stupidly promised to "back Ukraine for as long as it takes" when they knew our industrial base wasn't up to the task and should have known that we could never care about Ukraine more than Russia does.
As a Ukrainian, I find this analysis quite positive. Maybe even too positive. There is a number of differences between Finland's case and ours, and I feel like we won't be left alone like them.
Oh well, at least Trump didn't sell us out on day one.
Thank you for another Ukraine post.
Nevermind, the backstab has arrived.
Grim post. Maybe you’re right, maybe not. If there’s one thing got stuck with me over these three f.cking years is that nobody knows what happens tomorrow. It’s possible the reality will be much worse than even this scenario. But there’s also hope it somehow will be better.
Cheers and thanks for keep writing about Ukraine 🇺🇦
Well, Ukraine has held a line for three years, so I'm betting that's what they're going to do tomorrow, too.
Ukraine is now systematically destroying Russia's energy and military infrastructure. Since early January, they've taken out dozens of refineries, oil and arms depots, critical factories and more. There has never been a strategic bombing campaign of this magnitude and—most importantly—efficacy. WWII and the Gulf wars involved a lot of shock and awe. But Ukraine's strikes have been meticulously precise. Fifty thousand dollar drones attacking a 500 million dollar facility doesn't get more asymmetrical. As oil disappears, Russia is going to seize up. Meanwhile, Ukraine will go after secondary targets, like the electric substations that power the rail system. And they can do this indefinitely, because Russia has run out of air defense missiles and munitions. Give it a couple more months...
I doubt this. If this were true, if Russia was actually teetering under a Ukraine strategic bombing campaign, they would already have detonated a tac-nuke over the Black Sea.
That's the fundamental problem here. You can't do regime change in a nuclear power. Well, you can' but the collateral damage is so high no one will.
I think you're correct about what Putin would order, if the pressure on Russia reaches a point where there are food shortages in the region of Moscow and a popular revolt seems possible.
But when he gives that order, his generals might say, "You've lost your mind, we're deposing you and settling this." I'm sure he's _tried_ to pick people who will be unquestioningly loyal to his crazy vision of history and destiny. But it's extremely hard to know from the outside, what the breaking point might be for a despot's most important enforcers.
"His generals might say, 'You've lost your mind, we're deposing you and settling this.' "
I'm unwilling to roll those dice, but I suspect you might be right. As I recell, Saddam Hussein's underlings were unwilling to tell him he didn't have WMDs. Dictatorships aren't known for getting good information up the chain to decision makers.
You're right that it'd be a substantial risk. And I generally agree with Noah's overall take that a settlement where Putin takes some small slices of land would be preferable.
But we also can't tolerate a situation where just because Russia has nukes, they can blackmail all of Europe into giving them whatever they want. That's not acceptable now, any more than it would've been acceptable to cave to the USSR and let them roll across Western Europe back in the '60s.
Honestly the scariest thing about the possibility of Putin throwing a small nuke at Ukraine is that rather than working with allies to step up sanctions and raise the pressure until there's a regime change from within, Trump might decide it would be cool to launch a nuke of his own, and that really _would_ kick off WW3.
There is a very interesting book I just finished that you might like: The Second Nuclear Age by Paul Bracken. It's about exactly what you're talking about, all the ways nuclear weapons can be and have been made use of without actually launching any of them.
I am curious about this claim. Can you source it? Thanks!
"More sanctions, of course, will do little to hurt Russia, since the U.S. has pretty much already done all it can do on that front."
Come on, Noah - this is obviously not true! As Keith Kellogg correctly stated, 'Sanctions enforcement on Russia are “only about a 3” on a scale of 1 to 10 on how painful the economic pressure can be.' Here's just a short list of examples:
- Not all Russian banks are cut off from SWIFT and not all are under sanctions. Yes, this is mostly Europeans' fault, but the US should push the EU and the UK to fix it.
- A number of European banks, with very sizable USD-based operations, are still operating inside Russia. Why are these banks not sanctioned by the US yet?
- The US still tolerates the European dillydallying around seizing the Russian financial assets and using them to fund the Ukraine military and post-war reconstruction.
- Only a small fraction of the Russian shadow tanker fleet has been sanctioned.
- US companies like Schlumberger are still allowed to service the Russian oil and gas sector
- Blatant violations of export sanctions by countries like Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Central Asian countries allow Russia to continue buying dual-purpose technology needed for their military production. Where is the enforcement of those sanctions?
Sanctions imposed by the Biden administration were designed more to make the administration feel good about themselves (Hey, we are doing so much!) and not to cripple the Russian militarized economy.
“The Biden administration did something that makes us feel good about ourselves instead of achieving the goal” many such cases…
Ukraine is also a bit like the Spanish civil war- a proving ground for new weapons and tactics.
When you do an article on DOGE how about a little time spent on why they are not going after all the government contractors/consultants? Or is the end game to hire them to take the place of fired workers if the gutted agency needs more personnel?
Syrian Civil War was like this too
that cuts both ways. I fear what Russia has learned vis-a-vis NATO tech in the last 3 years that they're undoubtedly sharing with the Chinese now.
And what of the territory Ukraine holds in Russia? That is a significant bargaining chip opening, as part of any deal, the possibility of territory swaps.
Negotiated plebiscites in the parts of occupied Ukraine to decide which future they want: Russia or Ukraine might also offer a degree of legitimacy to any final deal.
It is also noteworthy that not joining NATO does not preclude joining the EU, nor of joining any EU defence pact (there are moves underway in the EU regarding defence).
They'll give that up, I think.
Problem is that Jimmy Carter will not be running those plebiscites in occupied Ukraine. Russians have practiced rigging elections for decades now. Don't you know that 97% of the people in that part of Ukraine already voted to become Russian in September 2022?
I was thinking the same thing the fact that the Russians have not been able to dislodge Ukraine from Kursk - and according to some reports has now run out of tanks and is sending soldiers into battle in tinpot Ladas may mean the situation is not as dire as feared.
The more likely scenario is a frozen conflict like with the Crimea from 2014-2022. In that way Putin ensures Ukraine will be forced to keep a large standing army for a long time and thus unable to invest in critical sectors such as infrastructure and the civilain economy unlike with Finland. Finlandization only works when the nation is not threatened by a another war or a small scale proxy war (donbass war), which Finland never experienced from 1944-1991 or 2022.
“Never experienced” and “was never threaten with” are two different things.
I know no one on the Right who "blames Ukraine". We blame American politicians who kept pushing NATO eastward despite Russia's repeated warnings about this. I don't fault Ukraine or Zelensky -- they were looking for ways to avoid the (temporarily slumbering) 800 pound gorilla next door, and NATO said "come on in!"
The Right's point is NOT "Ukraine is to blame." If you think that, you have completely missed what the Right has been saying for 3 years: America can never care about Ukraine more than Russia does.
"The whole MAGA narrative about Russia’s motives is false. Putin has always wanted to conquer Ukraine. It was never really about NATO, or about protecting Russian speakers, or any of that stuff."
Noah, you don't know that, and we'll never know. What we do know is that Putin has spent the better part of 15 years warning that NATO expansion was a redline and no one listened. And y'all don't have a lot of credibility on Putin's motivation, since you've spent 3 years screaming, "we have to stop Putin in Kiev or he'll march on Krakow and Berlin!" Which has been an obvious lie since the first week of the war.
Now you act like "Finlandization of Ukraine" would be a great success. That's what we said 3 years ago! Again, welcome to the party man, too bad you didn't get here before a few million people died in a stupid, pointless war the West could have prevented by doing (3 years ago) exactly what you're advocating now.
"Putin naturally sees little reason to relent."
Of course he does. Because he's lost a million Russians and needs a real victory for domestic reasons. 3 years ago, a different set of peace terms were possible. (The reveals of the Turkey peace talks have made that clear). But battlefield gains ARE reality. Russia is winning, so now the terms are different. What's tragic is that the Western establishment ("we're backing Ukraine for as long as it takes") convinced Zelensky against making a deal 2-3 months in.
All of this is so frustrating to those of us on the Right. And what's most frustrating is that those of you on the Left (willfully?) pretend to misunderstand what we've said all along about this conflict.
Russia’s not winning
"'NATO said "come on in!'" This proves that the MAGA narrative is false. When was the invitation to join NATO extended to Ukraine? In 2008 Bush and Merkel famously said Ukraine and Georgia would not be admitted to NATO and then what did Putin do? He invaded Georgia despite the fact that the threat of NATO had just been explicitly removed.
If you don't think Putin has had designs on conquering all of Ukraine then you are being willfully ignorant about his philosophy and the concept of "russkiy mir." Noah is right: it was "never about NATO." Why no response when Poland was admitted in 1999, putting a NATO country right on russia's borders?
1995 - https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49212.htm#study
1999 - https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/1999/9904-wsh/pres-eng/04open.pdf
2008 - https://www.nato.int/docu/update/2008/04-april/e0403h.html
2023 - https://www.nato-pa.int/document/2023-open-door-policy-preliminary-draft-report-azubalis-029-pcnp
It has been the policy of NATO for decades to extend membership to essentially anyone who wants it. Despite Russia's very long term statements that this was a provocation they could not endure. The only countries ever refused membership (really just told they couldn't join... yet) were because of active military conflicts (either external or civil) on their territory.
Again, look at a map of NATO expansion. How would Russia NOT see that as a threat?
And yet they never responded to previous bouts of NATO expansion so doesn't it seem likely that that's a false narrative w/r/t Ukraine? Seems like it was something they could endure. And again, NATO membership has never been on the cards for Ukraine. Bush explicitly ruled it out in 2008 and then russia invaded in 2014, which would essentially rule out accession so long as that conflict persisted.
The document you're citing from 2023 is after the full scale invasion started so not sure of the relevance there.
They did respond, diplomatically and vigorously. But Russia was in no position to argue in 1995 or 1999 (Boris made Biden look competent). By 2008, they started making more noise, but no one was listening. So they invaded.
I'm not arguing they're the good guys or that they were justified, only that NATO and the Western foreign policy establishment had a huge hand in bringing the current state of affairs about. Academics like Fukuyama and his "end of history" hypothesis fed political opportunists like GW Bush to "promote liberal democracy" using economic (or actual) guns. They were wrong. And from Egypt to Iraq to Russia to India to China, we are now reaping the consequences of that failure.
History decided not to stay dead, but the Fukuyamas of the world that run the State Dept never noticed. Until Russia decided to upend things in a way they couldn't ignore.
There are plenty on the Left who have agreed with you from the start, but we are a smaller and less influential group than the left-center crowd which gets all the press.
that makes sense. At least on the right there was debate over Ukraine. My side was still a minority, but you could ask the question, "is this in US national interest?" The Left spent all of the first Trump administration screaming "Russia, Russia, Russia...", thus when Russia invaded, Ukraine rapidly became one of many Leftist purity tests.
One should keep in mind that Russia is fundamentally different from the old Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union, with all its flaws and horrors, did adhere to its international commitments. Countries, signing treaties with the Soviet Union, could reasonably expect that the Soviet Union would honor its obligations.
Putin's Russia has demonstrated time and again that it cares nothing for treaties it signed just a few years ago. So no treaty, no agreement with Russia, Finland-like or Korea-like or any other, will offer lasting security protection to Ukraine. Only the NATO membership or the US military presence in Ukraine (similar to Japan or South Korea) can do that.
The USSR under Lenin signed treaties recognizing the sovereignty of various newly independent countries in Eastern Europe... Poland, the Baltic States, Finland... and broke them as soon as it was in a position to do so. Firstly, on the day after the Armistice in 1918, when with Germany out of the war the Bolsheviks renounced the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and reinvaded all the former Russian subjects whose independence they had recognized earlier that year. And again in 1939 and 1940 when Stalin invaded Poland, Finland, and the Baltic States, and in all those countries except for Finland, proceeded to execute about ten percent of the male population just to keep them submissive. Vladimir Putin is a bad man, but he has yet to engage in brutality on that scale.
I think "after WWII" would be the correct modifier to the original post. Once the Cold War started, making and abandoning treaties stopped being a good strategy for the USSR.
Yep, agreed - good correction
The topic is worrying, but here is a laugh. My only doubt is that these guys may be spending more time in the gym than in the frontline.
https://twogrumpyoldmenonukraine.substack.com/p/video-ukrainian-eye-candy-for-the
Perfect. Love it. By the way, last year I organized an effort by the private school I worked at for the students to pack and assemble what we called "Foxhole Aid Kits." These were one gallon storage bags filled with everything from hand warmers to toothpaste to candy. The 100 kits made it to a front-line medical unit, who were so pleased to receive them they sent the school a copy of their battalion flag, signed by the troopers. Our kids were extremely proud to have participated in a very hands-on way to help Ukraine.
If any of you would like more information about this effort, I can send you extensive instructions on how to pull this off with your own local school or community group.
Tim
Putin lost the Ukrainian War when his battle plan was stopped and shredded in the first few weeks by asymmetrical warfare. It’s nothing short of amazing how much Ukraine could accomplish with so little, and how little Russia could accomplish so much. Go back and read all the Pentagon, politicians, pundits, and thought-leaders prediction just prior to and after Russia’s invasion. All of them were wrong. In fact, none of them envisioned what has been accomplished: Russia lost the land battle, all but one of its Navy ships (+90) retreated in the Black Sea (it couldn’t defend them from novel weapons deployed by Ukraine); Finland and Sweden (countries that participate in NATO military exercises) joined NATO which doubled NATO’s border with Russia. Additionally, millions of Russia’s educated and tech-savvy youth fled to NATO countries. This will hurt the Russian economy for generations. Imagine how the parents left behind feel about Putin. And these Russian economic refugees didn’t choose to flee to Hungary. In fact, Hungary has experienced the same outward migration of its educated, tech-savvy youth, so much so that Orban has lifted immigrant restrictions in an effort to import outside labor. By any measure, Orban and Hungary are paying a price for supporting Putin. This, too, will hurt Hungary for generations. In a very short period of time, Ukraine has built drone-manufacturing capacity (4 million/year) that the U.S. hasn’t. Ukraine has rare earth minerals, a very powerful bargaining chip. Anyone who doesn’t think the Ukrainian mining industry can rapidly expand to serve demand isn’t paying attention.
This is Putin’s Pyrrhic victory. By no long-term meaningful measure— military or socio-economic — has Russia won this war. The world has less reason to fear Russia’s military.
This is a trend: Russia, Hungary, Syria, Iran all have failing regimes. Yet we hear the refrain in mainstream media, et alia, how the bad guys are winning. Xi may learn from this, maybe not. But Trump will overreach and flameout in spectacular fashion with his second attempt to take over the U.S. government. Trump, Musk, and leaders of the Big-Tech behemoths have underestimated the American people. Like it or not, the Andreessen techno philosophy that he and people like him should rule the public as if they were vassals is delusional. If your workforce doesn’t like you or your politics, your company has a dicey future.
There's a lot for me to agree with in this article. I've actually been predicting "Finlandization" as the war's most likely outcome since way back in late 2022, long before Donald Trump was reelected. https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/putins-war-at-ten-months
I think that you are putting too much of the blame on Trump for developments in world affairs that have been going on since long before his rise. (For instance, Russia's conquest of the Crimea, and other nations' failure to do anything about it, happened under Obama). My own thesis is that the United States has overextended itself by offering a mixture of formal and informal security guarantees to countries that are so far away that its interest in actually going to war on their behalf is small - but by offering the guarantees it encourages said countries to take a lackadaisical attitude toward their own defense. And this is happening in both Europe and East Asia.
I wrote about this last year in an article called "The Poland Paradox - How Faraway Allies Make Small Countries Less Safe." https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-poland-paradox
My thesis is that, had NATO expansion never happened, countries like Ukraine, Poland, Czechia, and so forth would have realized that they needed to rely on local alliances for their safety, they would have built stronger militaries, and if Russia had invaded Ukraine anyway (unlikely, but possible) then a bunch of other European nations would have joined the war quickly, since they would know that they're choosing between fighting the Russians alongside the Ukrainians, or getting picked off one by one. As it is, though, most Europeans countries have neglected their militaries and outsourced their defense to the USA, meaning they're too timid to act without US leadership, and the United States (under Obama and Biden, not just Trump!) has not treated Russian expansionism as a critical threat - since to the US itself, with big oceans on either side, it isn't one. Thus Ukraine has ended up fighting Russia alone, and being outnumber 4-to-1 in manpower means it has little chance of prevailing no matter how much money and weapons it gets from the US.
The problem in East Asia is similar. And I actually agree with your thesis that Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines all need stronger militaries with perhaps one of them getting nuclear weapons. The non-proliferation treaty had a laudable goal, but it depended on a small set of nuclear powers doing whatever it took to prevent predatory wars by other nuclear powers... and that hasn't actually happened; America's cancelation of its mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China way back in 1979, plus Britain and America's failure to act decisively when Russia invaded Ukraine (which gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s in exchange for an explicit guarantee that this would not happen!) means that by now, for a vulnerable country to exchange its right to field nuclear weapons for security guarantees from a faraway ally like the US is a fool's bargain. And this isn't Donald Trump's doing - the world was moving in this direction before he entered politics.
That's the real tragedy here. There were lots of people who advocated for Noah's plan in early 2022, but they were called appeasers and compared to Chamberlain. (Can we please stop comparing everything to the Nazis!)
So the war mongers spent 3 years insisting that Putin wanted to conquer all of Europe -- despite the fact that he couldn't even conquer half of Ukraine -- and now that they've depleted Western stockpiles of everything, declare "gee, Finlandization is a great idea".
And we're supposed to congratulate them on their brilliance.
The US has gone through phases of isolation before, notably before WWII. When things get scary enough, e.g,. even a single US base get bombed, everything can change.
This is true, but most great powers are not rash enough to do what Japan did in December of 1941. Also, our biggest rival right now, China, is much closer to industrial and technological parity with the Americans than Hirohito's Japan was... so the risk that, sometime in the next ten years, Xi Jinping bombs the bases in Okinawa into rubble, and the US, unable to project power so close to the enemy's homeland, retreats with its tail between its legs, is disturbingly high.
The solution is to pressure the maritime powers of Asia - Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea - to build air and naval forces capable of fighting China on roughly equal terms without American aid. Since war would be existential for these countries (but not for the US), Xi Jinping would be far less likely to start a war knowing that his principal opponents have no retreat and are likely to fight to the death. (This is all explained in Sun Tzu.)
I worry that the Iraq war ruined a generation of Americans’ brains, and that the next time a base is bombed the response will be “why are we even there in the first place?”
Your thesis seems to rely on a critical difference being perceived by Putin between NATO expansion and ad-hoc local alliances between nations with built up militaries (mini-NATOs?). In either case, I think Putin sees an increased military threat and reacts, as per the standard right wing apologists for his invasion of Ukraine.. That is, I don't buy your thesis.
While Putin would no doubt feel threatened by any alliance between his geopolitical rivals, the difference is that a purely European alliance - preferably one centered on Poland - would have a much stronger incentive to act decisively than NATO does. Right now, Poland is probably the NATO country that most enthusiastically supports Ukraine (and for good reasons!), but because Poland, like most Eastern European countries, is heavily dependent on the United States for its defense, it is too timid to join the war without the US doing likewise. And stopping Russian expansion isn't nearly as important to US interests as it is to Polish interests, so nothing decisive gets done.
Fair enough. If the United States sees little or no threat in allowing Putin to annex his neighbors, and if the EU does see the threat but is too feckless/weak to do anything about it, then Russia can do as it pleases. On the other hand, the west faces threats from China, the Mid East, and Russia. Russia is currently very weak. Allowing it to win, re-arm and continue apace, is, IMO, simply stupid. I don't see a better opportunity to contain its rapacity in the future compared to today.