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There is still no deal that Putin would offer that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people would accept, and Trump's claim that he could end the war in 24 hours is laughable and delusional. Until at least one of Putin or Zelensky are utterly desperate, no peace will be possible. Ukraine is definitely hurting right now, but it's still sitting on more territory than it was in August 2022, and none of Russia's attacks have come close to the scale of territorial gains of the Kharkiv counteroffensive.
Now, would Zelensky's calculus change if the US threatened to cut off aid? Yes, but this would massively alienate Biden from Democratic leadership and American allies in Europe. It's a different story for Trump, of course; not only is there support for these tactics among many in his leadership team, but even European leaders recognise that this is a policy he campaigned on, so he has a democratic mandate to push for it. By contrast, it would seem to many in Europe and in the Democratic party to be a gross betrayal if Biden were to threaten to withhold aid.
That said, I think even Trump will have a harder time of it than he expects. Any pressure applied to Ukraine will also change Putin's calculus, insofar as it will incentivise him to exploit Ukraine's new weakness to push the lines of battle further in Russia's favour. Creating enough desperation on the Ukrainian side without creating corresponding greed on the Russian side will be a very hard needle to thread.
There's also the European factor. If Trump pushes Zelensky too hard (as perceived by Europe), there's a real possibility of a hard transatlantic split emerging. While Europe would struggle to fill the void left by the US if all aid was blocked, it would be interesting to see how far they could "step up", especially if they supplemented their military production with purchases made on Ukraine's behalf from suppliers like South Korea, Turkey, and Pakistan. And while the US has been supplying the lion's share of lethal aid, Europe is sitting on a gold mine in the form of Russia's $180 billion in foreign exchange reserves held at Euroclear in Belgium. Additionally, the US in some cases has been using its diplomatic efforts to restrain transfer of weapons from European countries, most notably Sweden's Gripen with its long-ranged Meteor missiles, which would be far more useful to Ukraine than F-16s and AIM-120s.
That said, I think this scenario is quite unlikely, because it would be the biggest breakdown in Transatlantic relations since at least the Suez Crisis. It would be a huge fillip to European defense contractors like Rheinmetall and Thales - and a corresponding disaster for Lockheed, Northrop, General Dynamics, etc. - insofar as it would make it politically and strategically very difficult for Europe to buy American arms and equipment for decades to come. It would strongly increase the probability of European neutrality in any conflict in the Pacific, and could tempt Europe to closer economic relationships with China, as well as leading to a wider cooling-off of co-operation in the Middle East and beyond. The French in particular would be ecstatic at all of this. Consequently, I think it's unlikely that even a Trump White House would push Ukraine so hard as to prompt a split in American-European policy. But hell, Bolton seems to think Trump will pull out of NATO, so anything is possible. It would sure as hell be interesting times if they did.
Desperate or dead. Yes, they might get replaced by someone even more hawkish, but that's not a given. For example, Ruslan Stefanchuk doesn't strike me as a hawk. And since the line of succession stops at him, if he ends up dead as well, then Ukraine will have to deal with its kryptonite: multiple concurrent hetmans.
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A week or so ago, I posted a comment that appears to have been mostly ignored. In it, I referred to the work of William Spaniel, a political scientist of game theory and international conflict, who was in turn referring to a Trumpist think tank plan to end the war. Short short story is that it's basically a two-sided threat to make both Putin/Zelensky, well, not necessarily "utterly desperate", because from his academic view, you don't need utter desperation to make peace. Instead, simply shift their estimates of the costs/benefits enough to overcome whatever bargaining friction is still getting in the way. (One needs some Lines On Maps lore from his channel to understand that the major view of his discipline is that wars don't just happen because of substantive disagreements; you need both a substantive disagreement and a bargaining friction.)
Maybe to go into slightly more detail, the proposed plan is not to try to simply manage Russian greed in some way. Instead, it's to just straight threaten them, too. If they don't agree to basically whatever Trump has decreed, he will flood Ukraine with unthinkable quantities of top-tier weapons (and remove many of those silly restrictions on them). That would shift Putin's calculus to being almost entirely about whether he actually can really escalate against a full-fledged and unleashed American proxy without being even more directly escalated on. Because if not, that's a pretty significant threat that opens up a wide range of plausible bargains.
I didn't go into full detail in my other comment, but he thinks that the spectre of Trump (and possibly this Trumpist plan) could have been part of the impetus for both Ukraine's Kursk offensive and also Russia's recent ramping up in the east. If they think that Trump could get elected, roll in, threaten the crap out of both of them, and just up and declare that he thinks the solution should be X (plausibly with it corresponding to the current state of the war, with some horsetrading), and if at that point they'd have nothing better to do than accept, then they're both incentivized to rapidly ramp up as much as they can and make as many gains as they can now, before Trump draws his line, probably even if it's unsustainable.
That threat to Putin is oversold though.
First, it's not immediately clear extra military aid will be a decisive war-ending move, an extra thousand armored vehicles or guided missiles will help, sure, Ukraine will certainly welcome it, but currently the greatest challenge for the Ukrainian military is a manpower shortage, that the extra metal does not solve. Even with "lend-lease on steroids," I don't believe it to be likely that Ukraine will be able to push the Russians back to the 2022 borders, maybe it'll just be enough to stabilize the front lines.
Second, Trump has an electoral mandate to reduce aid to Ukraine, not increase it. That's what he ran on. Putin knows this. This makes Trump's threat of increasing Ukraine aid a lot less credible. He knows that if Trump follows through with this threat, the American electorate will become displeased that the aid dollars doubled and yet the war still has no end in sight.
On the first point, I don't think the requirement (from his academic view) is that it needs to be a decisive move or push the Russians back to the 2022 borders; it just needs to be enough of an increased threat of costs (on both sides) to overcome the bargaining friction that is keeping the war going. I've been kind of slow to take on this sort of mental shift after watching his videos for a while, but I'm finding the logic relatively more compelling over time.
On the second point, I don't really know. I don't pay attention to all the details of political campaigns. My non-hyper-focused read was that he just campaigned on, "The war is really bad and destructive; I'm going to end it; I'll do it immediately; don't ask me how." I don't know that he ever really committed to any sort of plan. It's worth pointing out here that this includes him not committing to this think tank plan... or even really ever acknowledging it at all, as far as I know. It's just an idea that's out there that seems interesting and has bounced around in my mind.
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Yeah, besides a lot more Abrams and Bradleys and F-16s (which definitely aren't nothing, but aren't superweapons either) it's not really clear to me what the US has left to give at this point. We won't give them F-35s. We probably won't give them the other really wacky silver bullets we have.
He also put Rubio in SecState. Rubio voted against Biden's Ukraine aid bill in April. So I think that signals where he's gonna go, although I don't consider Rubio a Russia dove or something.
I do think I kinda agree with @Dean above, though, that in a sense it's a gift to Trump. Gives him maximal leverage and, as Dean points out, since it's a lame duck call it's less likely that Putin will escalate (at least in the short term, until he susses out Trump's negotiation posture).
More missile AA. Ukraine is generally good at counterbattery fire, but needs something to counter Russian precision-guided bombs. One Patriot per 50km of frontline will change a lot.
I suspect we're in a bad way on Patriot ammo, which matters a lot if we go up against China. We might be able to get the ones Israel recently retired.
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Spaniel is good, and you're accurately reflecting much of what he's said over the last months. Kudos for keeping attuned!
Spaniel's work does have a weakness, though, in that he approaches his work (videos and books) from a more game-theory/'lines on maps' perspective, of more direct actor cost-benefits, and doesn't really touch on coalition management. That's not to say he doesn't think of it- he may leave it out for simplicity's sake- but he doesn't necessarily show that he thinks of it either.
This mattes because Spaniel often frames things like the Kursk offensive in terms of what Ukraine is trying to do towards Russia (for peace negotiations), as opposed to something Ukraine was doing towards it's backers (trying to change the risk calculus for operations on Russian territory). Similarly, he's more inclined to frame western support dynamics in terms of Russian negotiation calclulus, as opposed to 'what keeps the western coalition together.'
Which is a underrated paradigm for analyzing the conflict, because from my perspective it seems obvious that the Biden administration made a very deliberate and explicit priority of keeping the Western coalition together, even when it could have unilaterally rushed various things to the front under Presidential authority, in part for just the sort of dynamic we're seeing emerge with Trump: a coalition that was larger and more than the US, which could (potentially) make do without the US being the dominant lead party, and setting conditions for the Germans / Europeans to take a lead if the US was unable to.
A significant step to that occurred last week, with the German government triggering a new election and an attempt to break the German debt break. This is almost certainly was decided as a consequence of Trump winning, so that the German government- depending on how it reforms next- can try to start assuming debts needed to power a major European increase in aid and orders for Ukraine.
At the risk of sounding like I'm just trying to defend some random video-maker's honor, I'd say that I don't think he totally ignores that stuff. For example, here. I would agree, however, that even his analysis of coalition dynamics is a bit America-focused (which somewhat makes sense, since America is the big dog in the coalition and has some of the most important political dynamics happening right during this time), and a little less of getting into the nitty gritty of the other individual coalition nations' politics. He hasn't made a video specifically on that German development yet, though I think it would plausibly fall within the general thrust of the description of European dynamics in the video I linked in this comment.
Of course, I would like to know more about the coalition dynamics and how they could come into play. Do you think the Europeans are getting their business up to snuff enough that even if Trump tries to utilize this "concept of a plan" dual-threat that Europe will be able to promise enough support for Ukraine in the event that America abandons them that Ukraine's estimate of the costs won't shift enough to overcome the bargaining friction? Or is there some other dynamic of the coalition management that you think is more salient to be thinking about?
No sounding risk there! I fully support a vie is that he's writing to his topic, and not other relevant topics, which makes my point only a quibble that has weight if he doesn't write on them because he doesn't think of them. If he thinks of them, but chooses to write to other points, that is in no way a failing of him (as opposed to just an unavoidable limitation of limited materiel).
Shrugs No one knows. The coalition is in the process of changing right now, and no one can actually speak for what the next form will reflect.
Part of this is the Trump ambiguity, but another is Germany, who is a key requirements to answering that question and will become clear in March, when the German election occurs. One of the key points of the German government decision to trigger early elections is to break the debt limit so that they can spend more aggressively to support things like Ukraine.
IF that happens, then there is a much greater chance for Ukraine aid to continue going forward because Germany may be able to help offer 'enough' to keep the Ukrainians willing to fight. This, in turn, changes any Trump calculus- not only would Trump have less leverage (Ukraine is not solely dependent on him), but he might even take credit for the expenditures ('see what I could do that Biden couldn't') and even conditionally support expanding aid ('Germany, I'll give you a good aid to buy more ammo from me on the cheap'). On the other hand, if the post-election coalition can't change the debt limit, then Trump has more leverage... but that leverage may be translated not into actually revoking Ukraine aid, but getting other policy concessions.
I think it would be a good video for the good professor, who will absolutely do some good lines on maps if it becomes more relevant!
That makes sense. I'd imagine that a lot of eyes would be on trying to estimate the electoral dynamics, and there's obviously a lot of probability there. All parties will care a lot about assessing the following lines-on-maps: what might it look like if they take a Trumpist think tank peace plan essentially on day one; what might it look like if Ukraine burns Trump enough that he withdraws support and they have to proceed with the war with just other European support; what might it look like if they successfully delay the Trumpist stick from being final until after the German election (and the resulting German policy becomes more clear).
I doubt that either Russia/Ukraine can afford to basically totally avoid talking to Trump until the German election; they both have a bit too much to lose. But they both probably have to work through the various probability assessments to determine whether they want to approach Trump with a, "You're so great, Donald! You can make peace happen; let's do it right now!" or a, "You're so great, Donald! You can make peace happen; let's begin a deliberative process to start working through our negotiating issues over the next few months. There are a lot of intricate details, but we know that you're an incredible negotiator who will have no trouble working through all of them once we can (eventually) get everything on the table for you." We'd probably need to draw some decision trees and estimate some probabilities/costs have any sense for which parameter regions lead to which results.
I would suspect that there are a number of possible regimes, too. If the Trumpist think tank plan really does have strong enough sticks, there might be enough of a bargaining range already and enough risk in waiting that it best serves both sides to agree quickly. (Notwithstanding any concerns about whether US Intel is capable of making such an assessment either way... or whether Trump would believe their assessment and go in with a correct estimate of the other parties' interests.) I would also suspect, with lack of any other looming possible game changers in the near future, the most likely outcomes are either 1) Negotiated peace almost immediately (in diplomatic timescales) after Trump takes office, 2) Negotiated peace soon after the German election, or 3) Something significant enough happens in the German election that lead to a parameter regime such that war continues for some time, with or without US support. Or, of course, 4) Someone screws up trying to string Trump along, he loses it, they get the stick, then scramble to get back to the negotiating table and salvage anything they can salvage. Of course of course, Trump could also lose interest, not pursue this think tank plan, do something wild and completely different, or whatever. It's kind of an annoyingly big game tree... :/
But you are putting in the thought, and as they say plans inevitably fail but planning is priceless. It's easier to recalibrate an imperfect model than to try and create a new inevitably flawed model instead.
Yup. And we've seen evidence of that on both ends, including Zelensky's late-election engagements with Trump.
Zelensky has played this much, much safer (and smarter) than many of his European peers. When a lot of the European elites were happy to publicly dump on Trump after he left in 2020 on the assumption he'd never be back, Zelensky never took the opportunities he might have had to join in to the partisan delight of the current-month losers. While there are doubtless countless Ukrainians who perceive Trump as pro-Russian as many Europeans do, Zelensky maintained a neutrality with Trump directly- even at the cost of enduring swipes- that has kept Trump relatively restrained as well, and thus in a position to work with.
If I had to make my own decision tree metaphor, I'd expect Zelensky's preference/plan to be that he views going along with Trump enough to keep Trump from doing a cut-off, but also more than happy to let negotiations fail so that Trump blames Russia. There are a lot of ways for Russia, or even the Europeans, to snarl talks in a way that Trump doesn't blame Ukraine/Zelensky. If Trump is empowered to do the talks, but the talks then fail, most of the threat of a Trump cut-off go away.
A possible sticking point / friction is the European-held Russian foreign assets and European sanctions on Russia, including gas sales, which are a medium-term need for Russia to re-fund it's economic rebalancing. Regaining those funds and restoring gas sales has been a major reoccuring demand to date, and it is something I think Americans who just want an end to the war underestimate Russia's willingness to press on. It matters in our discussion context because it's an issue the Ukrainians have no actual leverage on- the Ukrainians can't compel the Europeans to agree- and Trump in turn can't blame the Ukrainians if the Europeans refuse despite Ukrainians 'willingness.'
This may be a major asset for the Europeans to keep Trump supporting Ukraine, if only because it can also be used to backstop more or less 'bribes' to convince Trump to continue support. Things like 'the frozen funds will be used to cover the costs of American arms / buy American,' either directly (interest on the investments going to loans for buying American arms) or indirectly (the Germans agree to spend their new debt on buy american). Especially since it would be relatively politically popular in Europe to refuse a Trump demand for a concession to Russia that can be used to help the Ukrainians, which is three distinct politically popular things.
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This would be a huge Russian victory. I don't think it would be remotely hard for them to make nice with Germany if the EU broke from the States, particularly since that plausibly means the end of NATO, no more US troops in Europe, no more US nuclear umbrella, no more US replacement for cheap Russian gas...
England would stick with the US and FVEYS would become the new NATO. The rest of Western Europe, led by Germany, would count the beans and bullets and make nice with Russia. (France and some of the former SSRs might have different ideas).
In the scenario we are looking at (where NATO breaks up because Trump offers parts of eastern Europe to Russia as a sphere of influence), this is a tough call. Trump and Russia are extremely unpopular in the UK - we just had a general election where the Trumpy party got 14% of the popular vote and 5/650 seats. And that was with the other three medium/large parties proudly supporting Ukraine and Farage shutting up because he knew that even among his target vote being pro-Russia was a loser. Starmer, essentially everyone in his government, and the civilian Establishment/Deep State would all want to choose Europe over a post-NATO MAGA US, and would by default have public support to do this. (There is, unsurprisingly, an even broader consensus that being forced to choose is a disaster and that we should hedge in so far as it is possible).
Under normal circumstances, if Starmer tried to do this he would be foiled by the UK national security Deep State, who are integrated with their US counterparts through arrangements like FVEYS in a way which would be ultra-painful to unwind.* But Trump is appointing a DNI who is sympathetic to Russia with a mandate to purge the US national security Deep State of the kind of people who make FVEYS work. So the UK Deep State has the choice of "Do we stick with our friends and risk being shafted they get purged and Tulsi sends all our secrets to Moscow, or do we throw our hat in with the dastardly Frogs who are at least sane?" And that is a sufficiently close call that "the elected politicians we nominally work for favour Europe" could be a deciding factor.
* Left-wing lore in the UK is that the military has coup plots in place in case a Labour government tries to break the alliance with the US. It isn't clear how plausible this is because the anti-American wing of Labour has never been within sniffing distance of power. Corbyn came closest during the 2017-9 hung Parliament, but part of the reason why Johnson was able to run rings round his opponents was that the Remainer establishment were more committed to preventing a Corbyn government than they were to preventing Brexit - including 20+ members of the Remainer establishment who were Labour MPs.
This is mostly a nitpick in the context of the rest of your post but a third party getting 14% of the vote in the UK is a pretty big deal.
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I think part of the issue is that in a post-NATO world, there's a good chance that there's no "Europe" to choose from.
The implicit threat of US violenceNATO is what holds Germany, France, Poland and Hungary together. My bet is that if NATO evaporates tomorrow, Germany extends the hand (or bows the knee) to Russia relatively quickly. So, far from being a unified front against Russia that England could join, there's actually going to be a band of squabbling nation-states fighting over the best response to massive, combat hardened Russian army on their borders.That's not to say that there won't be an anti-Russian European coalition that England could be part of and that they would support. But England and the United States have a common interest in preventing a unified and strong Europe. They are natural allies in that regard.
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While that’s a strategic Russian victory- at least in the short to medium term- it’s also a huge lift, Germany knows what side of the bread is buttered. You can expect Europe to stick with the states despite the usual grumbling in every scenario short of unilateral U.S. nato withdrawal or civil war.
To be frank, I don't think Germany (or most of NATO) knows shit. They've been getting hard carried for over half a century now and have consistently demonstrated an inability to act either in their own interest or when prodded by the US. They basically exist (along with much of NATO) as the laziest vassal states of all time. If the US withdrew and Russia announced an invasion of Poland in 2034 I doubt Germany would respond until he was past Warsaw, more likely they'd do nothing and surrender when he got to the Neisse river.
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Germany has been sitting around on the fence despite all the butter we've put on their bread for years. I suspect that they think that Russia is permanent and must be negotiated with, and that one of these days the United States is going to nope off into another isolationist fit (they're probably correct). So while I agree it's a huge lift and don't predict it, I get the feeling people overestimate German resolve for a confrontation with Russia.
I would add at least one more scenario: Trump releases evidence that the US blew up Nordstream. (NB: I'm not claiming that's what happened. Just a black swan that popped into my head!)
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I agree this would be a huge victory for Russia - far more meaningful than the last bits of Donetsk/Luhansk/Zaporizhzhia. Cracking apart the European-American alliance has long been a primary geopolitical objective of the reactionary nationalist strain in Russian politics and an absolute precondition for other territorial ambitions. That said, it's going to be challenging for Russia to pull this off - Putin was doubtless hoping/expecting that the Anglo world would be more hawkish on Ukraine than the European world, but if anything the reverse is true, and there's no strong equivalent to America-first isolationism in most of Europe. Consequently, he can't split America from Europe by asking the latter "why are you paying for America's war-mongering?"
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