Shrike
12hr ago
Aha, good find! Have you read it? This is exactly the sort of digging into the context that I am unfamiliar with that I was hoping someone would bring out, and I'm genuinely very grateful to you for flagging this for me. (Stuff like this is what makes The Motte so great!)
Apocalypticism is a dominant theme from early Christian documents.
And also in late(r) ones! My understanding is that Revelation was believed to have been written around the time of John. And it's been a recurring theme ever since.
They expected Jesus to return soon, because Jesus said he was returning soon.
Yes! But He also gives a large number of parables where He cautions that He will be gone long enough to tempt some people to believing He will never come, including in this passage, and as I believe you mentioned, 2 Peter 3 talks about this explicitly – there's apparently not much consensus as to when it was written but it seems like it could have been written earlier than Matthew. Peter certainly seems to be counseling believers to be prepared to extend ~infinite patience while still living as if Christ would return tomorrow. (And of course I'd say this is also what Christ Himself is pointing towards in the very next chapter, 25).
Finally, in the plot of Matthew itself, Christ is giving the disciples this advice at a time before they realize He is going to be crucified. Afterwards, in Matthew 28, He gives them the Great Commission, which is still ongoing (but see also of course Matthew 24:14).
The prima facie reading would be what people back then understood.
Wasn't Christ in this very passage already "problematizing" prima facie readings? He references the defilement of the temple (in Daniel) as a future event, which Jews at the time would have recognized as a past event, wasn't He? So it seems to me that a prima facie reading of this passage is that Christ is being deliberately cryptic at least at points.
Now as I already pointed out to Quantum, Christ Himself satisfies Quantum's prima facie requirement – Christ is still alive! But of course I think that's really the sticking point – either Christ rose from the dead (and there's some good reasons to believe this! – I think fair-minded people can acknowledge this even if they are not personally a Christian) in which case I don't think this passage should stand in the way of being a Christian. Or – He didn't, in which case this passage could be very explicable and it would not move the needle much.
I know that in real life things are a bit less reductive than that – people are swayed by something like the weight of evidence as a whole – but I think you can see why people who aren't completely satisfied by explanations of passages like this do believe. Most Christians can't explain every possible objection to Scripture, any more than a scientist of any given discipline can explain every scientific anomaly. But just as the inability of science to close the case on outstanding questions does not make the framework it has established useless, the fact that Christians still wrestle with the text centuries after it was written does not make the moral and historical framework it has established obsolete. (I'd actually argue this is a feature, not a bug!)
Shrike
16hr ago
I hope you can see why drawing a box around all the confusing, falsifiable bits and saying “yup those are the metaphors” might be unsatisfying.
Definitely! As I've said, a lot of the ideas we have discussed aren't satisfying to me. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Now, with that being said, would note there are other falsifiable bits (e.g. the existence of Pilate, or Christ Himself) that Christianity is pretty unambiguously correct on, so I would contest the idea that Christianity draws a box around all falsifiable bits. Some falsifiable bits have just resolved in Christianity's favor, so nobody contests them.
But more to the point, I'm not sure that the default mode of interpreting a confusing 1st century apocalyptic passage in Scripture should be modern literalism! I don't think that this is special pleading on the part of Christians, either, Jewish pre-Christian literature has a lot of similarly (and intentionally) vague passages – Christ is quoting Daniel in this one – and I think that reading them symbolically/non-literally predates Christ. So I'm cautious about reading the text and taking the most obvious and straightforward surface-level interpretation (particularly in a translation) as the correct one. (That's part of what's been very interesting and helpful to me about this discussion, is getting a feel for why people think it should be interpreted this way. As I think I mentioned, I do not have a settled opinion).
If it makes you feel better, I (and Christians more broadly) don't just apply this to disputed stuff like this with there is arguably a falsifiability question at play – I think, for instance, that Christ's telling His disciples that the bread at Passover is His body isn't literal – and in fact I think it's a (Trinitarian) reference to the afikomen. This isn't clear from the text itself, you have to understand Jewish culture accept that Christ isn't speaking literally. But obviously that interpretation could be wrong and it wouldn't have any real bearing on the truth of Christianity. Broader point here being – Christians often interpret Scripture metaphorically even when it's not related to one of the "falsifiable bits."
Can you offer anything to better represent “modern scholarship?”
Not on this issue! But on some other issues that I used to track with a bit more interest, my recollection was that there were definite movements in the field since the early 2000s. Perhaps that does not generalize.
Shrike
16hr ago
My personal observation (as an outsider who is not even particularly familiar with the LDS) is that it seems like the LDS spent a century bending over backwards to be normal and finally reached the apex of mainstream acceptance by having a member of their faith nominated for President of the United States, only for Mitt Romney to be compared to Hitler and then of course lose the election.
Setting the question of LDS theology aside, the lesson I drew from that is that you might as well be weird.
Shrike
21hr ago
I don't think you even need confusion on the part of the author, there – from what I understand manuscripts at the time were not necessarily always good at section breaks (chapters and verses were a more recent innovation) and text might not fully capture clarifying content that would be found in conversation. We read it as one long answer to three questions, but it seems possible to me that it person it might have been more clear which question was being addressed at which time.
You can even see how this might work on a skim – something like 1 - 25 are direct actionable pieces of advice for the Apostles concerning the near future, 26 - 31 is a contrast to 1 - 25, and the subsequent parable of the fig tree is referring to the things that they would experience and that did happen at the time with 26 - 31 not being referred to in this parable because it was a digression. That might be clearer in an in-person conversation than it would be written down. (I'm not particularly attached to this reading and haven't dug into it at all, so there might be slam-dunk reasons it is wrong, I'm just using it as an example of how the text might not capture what was and wasn't a digression.)
You also see double meanings fairly often in Scripture, where one event typifies or resembles another. (This reminds me of Isaiah's prophecy against the king of Babylon, which goes on to talk about a far greater power).
Shrike
1d ago
Again, I've looked through many commentaries, they are pretty unambiguous about this line.
I don't think the idea I've suggested is unique to me, but I've seen nothing to indicate it's a mainstream view.
a group of people - contemporary people
Sure. But given that Christ accuses the exact same contemporary people of a centuries-old murder, it seems...not completely unreasonable to suggest if the group of contemporary people existed before Christ (hence the murder) they would exist after Him. I'm far from confident in this, mind you, I'm just not sure it's implausible.
This is not a particularly dynamic field
Sadly I don't have my finger on the pulse as much as I would like to, but from what I can tell – less true than you might think. I'm not saying that sources from 2004 are bad but I'm also not sure that 2004 is "contemporary scholarship."
it refers to his contemporaries, not just Jews or men in general
Still not really seeing engagement with my point about Matthew 16:4. Which is probably fine – I am suspicious of arguments that rely too much on "hyperliteral interpretations of the text" and I think that argument tilts that way.
Shrike
1d ago
I'd like to get a bit more blow-by-blow of how you think preterism resolves Matthew 24.
On that note, one could just apply the text to Christ Himself (see Matthew 26:29, 28:20).
Shrike
1d ago
Because that's how it's translated in like every English translation, such as the NRSV, the biblical scholar version.
I think this is a pretty compelling reason, but I'd really like to know mechanically why.
academicbiblical
You'll be forgiven if I take a Reddit source (which itself sources to scholarly works from between 15 and 20 years ago to represent the modern academic consensus) with a grain of salt. I'm not sure that it's wrong, necessarily, but 2009 was a long time ago. Their argument for the mechanics (which I am pleased that they have) is "context." Which is fine, as that goes, but I'm not sure I'm satisfied with it.
The text you quote suggests that it's a close parallel to 23:36 and that we use that for context. You'll note that I reference this in my text, and it seems to me that this (mildly) strengthens the non-temporal interpretation. Christ there says that the scribes and Pharisees murdered "Zechariah, son of Berechiah" who – was (it seems likely) a historical figure who lived hundreds of years prior to the time of Christ. Christ says elsewhere (Matthew 16:4) that no sign would be given to this generation except that of Jonah – but the people living at the time were given many miracles, and the like, so one interpretation would be that by "this generation" Christ is referring to a group of people (the scribes and Pharisees), right? So if we take Matthew 16:4, roll it forward to Matthew 23:36, and then (in agreement with the scholarship here) apply that here to Matthew 24:34, it seems like using generation to mean a period of time makes less sense than using generation to refer to a group of people – who are (thematically, at least) not limited to a "generation" in a temporal sense.
I'm not sure I'm very happy with that explanation either – it seems more straightforward just to accept that Christ is speaking non-literally in Matthew 16:4 about the zeitgeist. But of course one could roll that forward to 24:34 as well.
John, the last gospel to be written (multiple generations after Jesus's death)
The consensus for scholarship seems to be circa 100. I suppose it depends on what you define as a generation!
Shrike
1d ago
For something amusing, see John 21:22 - 23.
More seriously, why do you think "generation" is the best translation for genea here (which can also be translated "nation" and or refer to a people group – Christ repeatedly, including in the section immediately prior, uses this word when referencing the Jews who opposed his teaching.)
And why do you think "this generation" refers to the generation of people alive at the time, as opposed to the generation that sees the beginning of the things (note the text in question comes at the end of the Parable of the Fig Tree) Christ is speaking of?
It seems to me there's some latent ambiguity in the text and I think that you can claim just about any text makes bad fundamental truth claims if you take the weakest possible interpretation of a single sentence.
(I should mention this is all my surface level reading here. I don't understand much about the period-appropriate Jewish conception of the end times, and given how referential Jewish Scripture is that seems very important – and there's likely other important context too. I am also not getting into the question of whether there's a different topic started at some point, given that the disciples asked three questions and Christ's answer, as recorded, does not necessarily signpost whether it stops addressing one question and starts addressing another – at least, not to the point where it's unambiguously clear to me in the interpretation. I believe some Christians believe that there's a division after verse 35 or so, the preceding verses were fulfilled in the Fall of Jerusalem, which is fairly tempting when because the timeline – and at a minimum some of the signs – line up. But the truth is that I don't feel like I know enough on those questions to have a strong opinion myself. If you, or someone else, has a strong opinion I'd love to hear it.)
Shrike
1d ago
They are likely superior to anything India can field
India has the Meteor, which I believe should be [contingent on public figures being ~true] comparable to if not superior than an export PL-15 in range (Pakistan gets downgraded stuff, I believe) unless the Indian Meteor is also downgraded. The Meteor's ramjet should give it an edge in certain circumstances, but I don't think the Meteor has an AESA seekerhead, and I believe the PL-15 does, so that definitely gives the PL-15 an edge of its own.
Shrike
2d ago
Interesting, thanks! Looks like Pakistan has mostly SRBMs and MRBMs and cruise missiles? Pakistan definitely doesn't have the strategic depth that the US/USSR have but I don't know enough about ABMs and in particular India's ballistic missile defense program to know if that gives India much of an edge there.
Definitely makes striking the launchers prior to launch easier though!
Shrike
2d ago
Why would it be more favorable sooner? Do you think they expect Pakistan's arsenal to get considerably stronger? Wouldn't India's BMD benefit from more development and deployment time, or do you think it's already capable of meaningfully blunting a Pakistani attack?
I don't know much about India/Pakistan so I don't have a strong opinion, very curious!
Shrike
2d ago
UPDATE Multiple Pakistani news outlets claim that Pakistan has shot down two Indian Rafael fighter jets.
Nuclear war between India and Pakistan, Thales Group hardest hit?
Shrike
2d ago
We also have to take into account that none of the accounts of Jesus we have are even claimed to be first-hand accounts
This definitely isn't true!
Even setting aside the authenticity of the Gospels for the sake of argument, (and while I am not familiar with all of the fanfic-tier works, my understanding are that it's generally pretty easy to separate the fanfic-tier stuff from the canonical works due to anachronisms and such) Paul claims to have had a firsthand encounter with Christ and from what I understand mainstream academia typically recognizes many of the Pauline letters as authentic and very early dated.
See for example 1st Corinthians, which as I understand is generally believed to be genuine and originally written about twenty – thirty years after Christ's death, and in which Paul specifically claims to have met Christ (1 Corinthians 15:9).
Some Roman guy writing centuries later recounted Jesus's execution as a fact
This also isn't a remotely accurate description of the historical evidence at play. Here's a short list of non-Christians who wrote about pretty unambiguously about Christ within a single century of His death:
- Josephus (the exact original passage is disputed but it is generally agreed that he references Christ)
- Pliny the Younger (referencing the worship of "Christ as a god" around 110 AD)
- Tacitus references Christ's death at Pilate's hands in his history written around 116 AD
Before 200 AD Christians were a significant enough phenomenon that a Greek playwright wrote a parodic play featuring them. It's pretty clear that Christianity wasn't something that got dreamed up a few centuries after the fact – Romans and Greeks were writing letters and plays that display a clear familiarity with Christians and their doctrines well before that time, and we have some early Christian inscriptions as well that rule that out.
And of course this is all without reference to Christian primary sources, such as the Pauline letters (as I mentioned) or the Didache that are believed to be written relatively recently after Christ's death.
Shrike
3d ago
The Amish and similar groups exist and are real, and they are arguably more radical than what the Benedict Option calls for. They don't have elite power, either, although they do have elite allies (and I do agree that you should get elite allies if you can).
Shrike
4d ago
Yeah, heaven only knows what things are going to look like in 10 - 20 years. No point in getting locked into a flowchart.
I was homeschooled and dated and married basically entirely "within" the broader conservative religious universe – which wasn't necessarily 100% homeschoolers but had a lot of overlap, and I personally was homeschooled. I met my wife, who had a similar background, at a college with a statement of faith and we married shortly after we graduated. I have zero regrets about any of the above and plan to raise my children relatively similarly.
To the extent that I've had a better outcome than the stereotypical homeschooler (which might not be the case – in my experience homeschoolers often turn out fairly well) it might be in part because my parents were always very confident in their children and our ability to succeed outside of the house and "in the real world," whether that was in romance or on the job or in areas of basic life competency. My parents never really expressed anxiety about our ability to work, or find a wife, and never seemed fearful about our future, or overprotective. They were never hectoring about the "basic life script" but there was an implicit assumption that we would follow it, not because they insisted on it but because we were capable of it.
One concrete thing I would say is that my wife and I both took a few community college classes in high school and found that very good for starting the transition out of the home. I think it's worth considering even if your kids are in public or private schools – it's a good introduction to the college format.
Shrike
4d ago
The former prescribes manning up. The main problem is boys refusing to step up and take risks. The latter focuses primarily on anti-feminism and identifies girls' attitudes as the primary problem.
I suspect part of the reason that the former is popular in certain circles isn't because there's necessarily a denial of the attitudes of some women, but because the idea is "you don't want to marry that sort of woman anyway."
Which, on the one hand, might be true. On the the other hand, it might be good for there to be more of the sort of woman "you" would "want to marry." On the gripping hand, it's often considered unseemly for men to tell women how to comport themselves, which tends to explain why men often restrict their public advice to other men and boys (or, if they do give women public advice, is along the lines of telling them that they deserve good marriage material in a man, which, while not necessarily bad advice, is at least to some degree indirect advice to men about what sort of men they ought to be).
Shrike
4d ago
I don't recall, good point! But if they were never going to use them as a carrot, I don't understand why they are still "frozen" – the "give the frozen assets to Ukraine" idea has been floating around for a bit but as far as I know hasn't even partially materialized. Presumably they are still on the table for a reason – although perhaps that's less strategy and more bureaucratic/legal hang ups somewhere.
Shrike
6d ago
I don't know for sure but I suspect the German Council on Foreign Relations may be manipulating the facts somewhat.
Really funny if true, because I suspect the normal American response to this will be "get your act together" rather than being more inclined to help.
How do 160 million beat 3-4x their number in an offensive war?
First off I would remind you that this sort of feat of arms is historically pretty normal. Small European detachments operating alone conquered entire kingdoms. The United States and its allied conquered Iraq in less than a month with about 600,000 men against an army of 1.3 million in a country of nearly 25 million.
I realize it's very popular at this point, of course, to say "well Arabs can't fight in modern wars" – but can Europeans?
With all that being said, though, I tend to agree with you that Russia just meat-grindering through Europe is very unlikely.
Let's take what I think is a more realistic scenario (inasmuch as it does not presume Russia is acting like an omnicidal entity):
-
Russia, perhaps out of paranoia over NATO preparations to put more troops in the Baltic states, decides to seize them. It decides to launch a three-pronged assault from Kaliningrad, Belarus and Russia proper, cutting through Lithuania and Latvia to secure a land bridge to Kaliningrad and isolating Estonia. Because none of these nations have military capabilities to speak of (about 8,000 active personnel in Estonia, about 20,000 in Latvia and Lithuania each, and currently no tanks, no fighter aircraft or attack helicopters, although there is a NATO air policing mission there, very limited air defenses, etc. etc.) the Russians, after a preparatory barrage, are able to cross the border without meaningful resistance and cut logistical lines flowing from Poland to Narva. Rather than attack large towns, the Russians simply put blocking detachments with ATGMs and tanks outside of them. The Latvians do not have a navy to sink, so the Russians steam their least valuable destroyer into the Gulf of Riga and park it there to interdict commerce.
-
Russia then begins to lay literally three million land mines between Belarus and the Baltic sea. Russian troops surround Estonia but do not invade. The governments of the Baltic states are given 72 hours to agree to neutralization. Although all three countries have large reserve forces they can call up in theory, Russian cruise missiles have hit all telecoms and VDV detachments have seized the power plants via heliborne assault – the power is out nationwide. Spontaneous disorganized resistance with small arms might be effective against an occupying force, but the Russians are less occupying and more raiding. Commerce is stopped, and any troop concentrations are dispatched via Iskander or Su-34, but the Russians aren't trying to go door-to-door. In order to fight them, the Latvian military and reservists who survived the blitzkrieg are going to have to attack Russian positions that they are fast preparing. Just as the Russians were able to slice off and fortify parts of Ukraine, they also expect to be able to, at a minimum, cut out and hold a land belt between Belarus and Kaliningrad by direct force while using a stranglehold on energy and communications to force the now-isolated Baltic states to the table. And, unlike Ukraine, the Baltics have no strategic depth. Russian helicopters and attack aircraft can operate throughout the region, and artillery from Kaliningrad and Belarus can cover the entire Polish-Lithuanian border.
Now in this circumstance NATO's entire point is to uphold the sovereignty of its member states. But it can't win this fight by waiting for the Russians to run out of men to push through the meat grinder. Instead they have to have enough forces in Poland to contain Kaliningrad and push Russian troops out of the Baltic states quickly before they are able to build fortifications (or, alternatively, have the ability to clear three million land mines) systematically while under fire and hoping that the population of the Baltics doesn't freeze to death in the intervening period.
Obviously for the sake of the scenario I granted the Russians the ability to pull this off, which is probably debatable. (I think they could easily beat the Baltics, the problem would be being sneaky enough about preparing to beat the Baltics that the US or someone didn't move an armored division there while you were preparing.) But you see my point about the need for a military force that can do more than just attrit the Russians over a long period of time. Just like the Ukrainians, if they wanted to preserve their full sovereignty, needed to be able to protect or reclaim Crimea, NATO as a whole needs to be able to protect or assemble a force that can reclaim the Baltics. Ukraine failed unambiguously. I don't think Russia cares that much about the Baltics, but if you're NATO, you have to have some means of assuring the sovereignty of your member states.
Ukraine's rare earths exist but they're not valuable in any significant sense.
Hmm, I hope we're able to scrounge some up regardless. I'm given to understand the problem with rare earths is more in refining them, rather than finding them?
Shrike
6d ago
Yeah, I was responding to Ranger's phrasing, which was saying that Europe had conventional superiority. But the phrasing might have come out wrong...
I also suspect, functionally, that if there's any big USA/EU split, England will go with the US. So if we count the US out, in some scenarios France is the only European nuclear power.
Shrike
6d ago
I guess it's unlikely they'd have the will to do this but that brings us back to will, not capability.
While I take your point, I kinda disagree. A lack of will is a lack of capability. It also seems like there are real questions about the actual capability of Europe sans American support right now:
Europe lacks heavy transport aircraft, military cargo ships and the specialized vehicles required to move tanks and armored units.
The article as a whole is about NATO sans the US, not an EU peacekeeping force in Ukraine, and I do think that Europe could manage to get together such a force if it had the will. But I do think it's worth noting that there are actual capability gaps that only the United States can fill right now. If Europe and the United States can figure out an equitable division of responsibilities, it's not necessarily a problem, but if Europe needs to send tanks to Ukraine and it can't transport tanks, that's a problem even if Europe has the will.
It makes no strategic sense to send peacekeepers to Ukraine.
I think the point of sending peacekeepers to Ukraine is to raise the stakes for a second Russian invasion by making it likely you'll spread the conflict elsewhere. Whether or not that makes strategic sense depends a lot, I think, on if Europeans think that Putin will come for them, next, if it can "finish off" Ukraine, but also on their economic prospects within Ukraine, and on the cost-benefit analysis of whether ending the war sooner is worth the increased risk of sending peacekeepers (assuming here that a European willingness to commit troops will help end the war sooner, which perhaps it won't.)
Not pretend rare earths reserves
These are real, right? But it looks like the US of A got there first, so it might be sort of pointless for Europe now? Not exactly sure how the trade deal shakes out. Certainly Europe could benefit from a diversified control of rare earths.
I think it's all a giant façade. This is the best explanation for the humiliating 'yes we will, no we won't' approach by Keir Starmer and Macron, they're in a dreamy state between the MCU and reality.
This definitely seems plausible to me. But I also wonder if EU politicians really believe they need to do something but then realize that what would be necessary to actually accomplish such an effort is unpalatable, so they bounce back and forth between wanting to do something and failing to do it. Modern democratic politics does in theory, I think, have a sort of trap wherein cutting programs is political suicide, raising taxes is political suicide, and so it can be very hard to actually do something about threats that are real but not immediate. Not sure if that's what is happening here.
if you have more of everything save nukes then you ought to win, regardless of whether the front line becomes marginally shorter or longer.
European NATO doesn't have more of everything except nukes. They have an edge in tactical aircraft, I think. They might have an edge in tanks and IFVs right now, particularly with Russian losses, but the Russian industry can probably surpass them in 3 - 5 years of postwar production [my source for this is vibes, I am open to correction on this!] I've seen claims they have an edge in artillery, but I question if this is including older systems that aren't nearly as relevant in modern warfare. Either way, Russia has a huge edge in shell production. Russia has vastly more surface-to-air-missile systems. I am pretty sure Russia also has (or again, will quickly have once they stop shooting them) an edge in cruise missiles, and as far as I know no European nation (except, I think, Turkey) has produced a tactical ballistic missile, which the Russians use regularly. Europe has no strategic bombers (Russia has more than 100, a combination of Tu-92s, Tu-22Ms, and Tu-160s, the last of which has reentered production). Russia has an edge in nuclear submarines (Europe has ten nuclear attack submarines, Russia eleven plus four Oscar cruise missile submarines plus an extra ten that Wikipedia says are not in frontline service but either placed in reserve or undergoing a refit. Ballistic missile submarines are unlikely to be frontline combatants but of course Russia has an edge there too, with nine active and three being refitted or overhauled, versus eight in the Anglo-French nuclear deterrent). The Europeans will have more conventional submarines (although they are much less capable in terms of range than nuclear submarines, so it's worth asking if e.g. Grecian submarines will be able to meaningfully participate) and I think a larger surface fleet, although the Russian fleet might actually be better equipped as an anti-surface force as a general rule (I think at the end of the day Europe still has the edge as long as the single French carrier isn't in drydock, but Russian anti-ship missiles are no joke). The Russians will also, I am quite confident, have a massive advantage in mine warfare both on land (with potentially literally millions of mines in their inventory, although who knows how many were used in Ukraine) and at sea.
I'm not really a fearmonger about Russian intent. I don't particularly think Putin wants to invade Germany or something. But I do think it's important to understand why Europe is uncomfortable about having Russia on its borders (particularly now that they have done their darndest to kill Russians by the hundreds.)
If the much richer, more advanced, populous EU can't beat a corrupt Russian oligarchy without the US despite the enemy having a fraction of the resources then there's no point in defending it
Yeah, I mean that's the big question isn't it? Europe seems quite mad at the United States for having the audacity to consider a pullback and pivot to Asia, even though the EU is the world's largest economy and even by purchasing-power-parity has, I believe, a tremendous edge over Russia. So why can't they handle this ~on their own?
Shrike
6d ago
I suspect part of the issue here is that Trump actually has a pretty good carrot for Putin to end the war – sanctions, and frozen assets. But the problem is that it's hard to make that offer expire – even if Trump threatens to take it off the table, if Russia keeps winning, at some point Ukraine will be in such a bad place that they will beg him (or whoever is president at the time) to put it back on again. So Russia does have an incentive to make peace, but it's really at their leisure, once they get everything they want out of the war.
A proposal sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to impose new sanctions on Russia and 500 percent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, gas and aluminum has received broad bipartisan support in the Senate, possibly even a veto-proof majority.
This would probably completely bork US relations with India, right? Doesn't India buy oil from Russia? Probably won't happen, right?
Ukrainian defense guaranteed by Europe
It seems like this was also a missing part of the puzzle: Europe is unwilling or unable to put boots on the ground in any significant number.
I keep being told that Europe is going to actually get real, for real this time, they're going to militarize, it's going to be gnarly, the US will regret ever awakening the European dragon, they're going to pivot to China...and then I see stuff like this.
It's really a shame, since I actually think (even under pivot-to-Asia conditions) the US can make a very good deal with Europe/NATO that is mutually beneficial while still drawing down the US commitment to Europe.
I would tell Europe that the US is trimming its army and pulling out most of its units (I'd leave tripline forces there so that if Russia shoots at Estonia or something it's uncomfortably likely to kill Americans; their job in a real war would be to coordinate joint efforts). But the goal of pulling those forces will be to reinvest that funding into the US Navy and into mass munitions stockpiles. Ultimately the deal with European NATO, I think, should be as follows:
- The US provides strategic bombers with a deep stockpile of weapons
- The US provides the blue-water navy, aiming to keep the sea lanes clear in the event of a Russian invasion of NATO
- The US provides tactical aviation and force enablers like cargo aircraft and refueling aircraft, although not necessarily forward-based in Europe
- The US continues to cut Europe into R&D, selling munitions, aircraft like the F-35, &ct. to keep Europe's teeth sharp and short.
- The US will continue to cooperate on cybersecurity and intelligence
- The US provides the nuclear-stockpile-of-last-resort that is a counterweight to the massive Russian nuclear arsenal (to increase strategic uncertainly from Russia's POV, France and the UK should be encouraged to continue to maintain their own nuclear stockpiles)
The main thing the United States is not aiming to provide in this scenario is ground forces or day-one aviation. In the event of a war with Russia, the United States is still prepared to come save Europe's butt, but this will be by air and by sea.
European NATO is responsible for:
- The Army. Tanks, air defense, infantry, tube and rocket arty, the whole shebang.
- Reciprocating their R&D advances with the US (I know this is already a thing!)
- Green/brown water navy (this means conventional submarines, minelayers/sweepers, missile boats and pocket forces of surface combatants)
- "Day one" tactical aviation assets in sufficient numbers to fight – we can plan for these to be supplemented by a surge of aircraft from the United States as a war drags on, but Europe should have its own air force in sufficient numbers to be able to fight after a Russian "day zero" cruise missile attack.
- Building infrastructure like airfields and munitions depots
This arrangement provides Europe with a lot of confidence in its ability to deter Russia on its own, even if the United States derps off in a fit of isolationist rage (we're building a Russian-equivalent ground force here) while also providing the United States with assurance that Europe isn't going to develop as a rival superpower (the US navy will remain without peer). It saves Europe billions in developing and maintaining a massive nuclear arsenal while also saving the US billions in maintaining a peacetime army that is expected to fight the Russians at the drop of a hat. And it funnels US production into capabilities that are flexible – forget about the 600 ship navy (well, no, don't, let's do that too) but have you considered the 6 million missile military? A robust navy and in particular tens of thousands of cruise missiles can be aimed just as easily at China as they can at Russia. Thus, instead of endangering global peace by being not-quite-strong-enough to fight Russia or China (while still trying to maintain security commitments – or ambiguities – that contain both) the US is able to continue to provide its traditional role of ruling the waves and backstopping local allies.
And, ultimately, I think it's reasonable. In many ways, this sort of split already exists, or at least did during the Cold War, where nations like West Germany focused on their army and coastal fleets while the US focused on its air force and navy, so doubling down on it should be easy and natural (it's not like asking Europe to develop ICBMs and field them in 5 years, or something). European NATO is getting the good end of the financial bargain, too, since fielding troops and tanks is cheap compared to aircraft carriers and intercontinental bombers. The European Union's economy is only slightly behind the US, in purchasing power parity. Since the end of the Cold War, we've "flipped" some of Warsaw Pact's most feared enemies, like Poland and East Germany, into allies. So, ultimately, it should be very doable, on paper, right?
Unfortunately my confidence in the ability of Europe to achieve even this limited goal is falling by the day. The US maintains about 100,000 troops overseas in Europe. If Europe can't deploy a quarter of that number to Ukraine as peacekeepers, how much help are they actually going to be if they actually have to defend Estonia or Latvia?
Sorry for the digression! This turned into a bit of a monster of a comment. I have my dissatisfactions with the United States and the way it has handled itself. But at least it's pretty clearly still a live player.
I'm glad to hear that! Really appreciate you taking the time to reply, that is very encouraging.
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