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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   31616 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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How do you know a hero when you see one? Can we predict heroism or cowardice?

Typically I’m more in the “Great Forces of History” camp than the “Great Men of History” camp, more Hobsbawm than Carlysle. Current events might be changing my mind.

The conventional wisdom from Kofman to Ilforte to my Polish cousins seems to be that Putin made a tremendous blunder in invading Ukraine and attempting to implement regime change. That the balance of forces was always against Russia, and that invading only made that apparent. But I’m not sure that follows the available evidence available before the invasion. Putin’s strategy meetings might have amounted to “Lads, it’s Tottenham”; but they were wearing Tottenham jerseys after all.

It seems to me more likely that Putin took a gamble, a good gamble, which had positive expected value, and came up absolutely snake eyes on the heroism of a relative handful of Ukrainians. It’s wildly unfair to blame Putin for not expecting this guy would start acting like a Slavic Churchhill, when one could have expected a performance more akin to Ghani or at best like Tsikhanouskaya. If you really drew an org chart with leadership roles and dates of events, there were maybe 100 Ukrainians, from TDF and police commanders who chose to fight in Kyiv at key moments to key governmental figures without whom the whole Ukrainian resistance project would have collapsed, to a handful of nationalist psychopaths who chose what seemed like certain death over letting down the side.

But let’s focus on the guy at the top: Zelensky. His early life contains few signs of heroism, or even of particular nationalism or patriotism, very little of obvious self-sacrifice and duty. He’s been in the media industry for his entire adult life. Nor in media was he some Mishima-esque hyper-patriot, he voiced Paddington Bear in the dubs and some of his movies were banned in Ukraine under nationalist laws he opposed, not a bloodthirsty nationalist. Obviously I lack the language skills to really delve into his oeuvre or personality, but there’s little there that would predict that when the chips were down he would stay in Kyiv..

I’m having trouble tracking down citations, but I recall pre-war and in the early war the theory that NATO would immediately evacuate Zelensky and enough of his government to form a reasonable government-in-exile for Ukraine, while funding/arming terrorist groups inside Ukraine, gleefully described as “making Ukraine into Russia’s Afghanistan.” Had Zelensky chosen to go along with that plan, I think Kyiv falls by the end of March, even with a higher assessment of Ukrainian skill today than I had then. [It’s in the nature of asymmetric wars

that demonstrative symbolic victories

are critical to maintaining popular support. Fleeing was a choice he very much could have made, that many leaders have made, that some would call not the cowardly choice but the humanitarian choice to spare his people the suffering of war. But he didn’t.

And I’m left asking, can we predict that? How can we predict how leaders will react under pressure? How can we predict how wars and matters of state will conclude if they hinge on these personal decisions of individual, fallible, men?

Maybe we can blame that on systems. Maybe hyper nationalist Ukrainian networks were ready to kill him if he jumped, and the guy was stuck between picking how to die. But that strikes me as a little too pat an explanation, eliminating the individual by inventing a system that we can put our faith in.

Or maybe there’s some psychological profile? Surely the armies of the world have looked into this, studied this? What conclusions have been reached, and how can we apply them?

I don't have much to add about Zelensky's personality, but I would strongly urge everyone to consider that in 5-10 years time you might have a very different memory of the person and the country. Many events and considerations that took place in the first weeks of the war (some of which are likely really not that heroic) are totally unknown right now and Ukrainian government essentially outlawed any real opposition and critical journalism. Western media is in full war footing.

At some point emotions will cool down and Westerners will mostly forget about the country called Ukraine. Just like how nobody even seemed to have realized the recent political happenings in Iraq while it used to be the center of the world for a while. The incredible cost of rebuilding an already crazy corrupt, poor and now depopulated country will become an uncomfortable topic. You will start to hear Ukraine more in connection with Hunter Biden type of corruption stories than "heroic grandma quotes inspired by brave president" stories. Zelensky's hero status will hit the realities of ruling a country like that (is there any past Ukrainian president not totally discredit by now?).

I have the grim prediction that unless if he dies before the end of the war, he will probably go down in the history as someone whom we would prefer to forget.

Can we predict heroism or cowardice?

At the risk of sounding flippant, the answer is a flat "No". This is one of those problems that some of the greatest minds in human history have been pondering for millennia and have yet to produce anything in the way actionable advice. If there was an easy answer you'd better believe that politicians, preachers, and the military industrial complex would be all over that shit.

Less flippantly, there's a popular line amongst ex-SF guys that is alternately attributed to Antoine de St Exupery or Edward Gibbon that goes "courage is a cheap thing, it's mostly a matter of being stupid and/or pissed off". I'm not sure how much I agree with that sentiment but anecdotally there is certainly an element of truth to it. After all, "brave" is what you call a soldier or mercenary when you can't think of anything nicer to say about him. Concurrently, proper heroism seems to be the product of "grit" combined some other je ne sais quoi. Call it the rage, the glimmer, the martyr's spark, the eye of the tiger, whatever. Some people have it, some don't, but you know it when you see it. The former is fairly straight forward (if painful) to test for, the latter, well that's the hard part.

While Zelensky showed some indications of grit early on, I don't think anyone who didn't know him intimately could have predicted that he would "step up" when the time came but when he did step up it was plain as day.

You're calling the game over in the 4th inning.

This war, while started over the Ukraine, was not about just securing the Ukraine. It is clear that Putin knkws the US establishment will not rest until Russia is as clearly vassalized as Germany, until there are military bases in Moscow and the Russian border barely reaches the Urals, and until he is tortured and hung by some US supported Russian faction.

Therefore, because of the nature of this war, Putin is playing it as if he is fighting all of NATO, because he is. How many videos does one have to see of "Ukrainian" forces all communicating in English as they use NATO supplied equipment before that becomes clear and obvious to all parties?

Russia has already called the US establishment "not agreement capable". This title, normally reserved for backwater countries, means that the power and order of a state is such that any diplomatic agreements you might come to with one state entity, will be completely ignored by another entity, or even that very same entity. Do you think that Putin is unaware that such an irrational opponent would never let up its attempted chokehold?

Have you read any of the latest speeches out of our new Adolf figure? It is clear to me, not very hidden between the lines at all, that Putin knows that this war is the final one, that it will not end until NATO or Russia is no longer willing to fight at all, ever again.

So sit back and watch, we have only just begun WW3, even if the public thinks it is only some remote possibility.

It is clear that Putin knkws the US establishment will not rest until Russia is as clearly vassalized as Germany, until there are military bases in Moscow and the Russian border barely reaches the Urals, and until he is tortured and hung by some US supported Russian faction.

This war become dangerous to Putin, not to Russia.

And it is not a computer game.

This scenario will not happen.

I don't think I called the game at all. To stick with the metaphor, I offered commentary on the top of the first inning. Which is a really important question: how do we predict human performance for the rest of the game?

Fleeing was a choice he very much could have made, that many leaders have made

He is alleged to have fled to Lviv early in the war.

Some of the early videos were thought to be done using bluescreen..

It looks suspicious, the mismatch in lighting and color alone is somewhat odd, and there are many more anomalies.

Later came the the hard to believe trip to Kiev by various prime ministers from staunchly anti-Russian countries. Hardly believeable, because at the times there were Russian units within artillery range of the rail tracks, etc.

A American journalist in Russia wrote an article that claims Zelensky fled to either Lviv or a NATO base in eastern Poland.

I've checked the various claims about the layout of train station, and yes, the Kiev station doesn't look like the one purporting to be the Kiev one in the photos.

Again, truth is immaterial, of interests only to weirdoes and autists; what matters is what people believe. And they believe Zelensky is somehow the next Churchill(ha!). Ukraine was reportedly ready to make peace in March, not sure on what terms, but that was scuttled by BoJo playing messenger boy, saying "we are not ready for peace now".

  • -10

Hardly believeable, because at the times there were Russian units within artillery range of the rail tracks, etc.

Why?

I want to remind about August 12, 2008 in Tbilisi. President of Poland visited it during ongoing invasion by Russia.

Today it is Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the day after tomorrow the Baltic States, and then perhaps my country, Poland

And yes, it was quite risky but it was done when situation was relatively stable and expanding Russia is a nightmare scenario for Poland/Estonia/Lithuania and so on. So yes, it was risky - but politicians actually did what they should be doing for once.

A American journalist in Russia wrote an article that claims Zelensky fled to either Lviv or a NATO base in eastern Poland.

"journalist"

This website has following articles on its main page

21 Years Later: Did Israel Nuke The United States of America on 9/11?

UFO: Documentary Proves Billy Meier’s UFO ‘Not A Hoax’!

A Member of the Illuminati Tells All?

VT Nuclear Education: The Beirut Nuclear Coverup ("Is Beirut the first major city to be nuked? Would you believe it's not even close?" "not just the missiles but the Israeli F 16s as well with many videos of them diving over apartment buildings before the massive blast" "Israel nuked the US on 9/11 and VT has proven it beyond a doubt.")

Masonic Rothschilds got caught in Switzerland—again

The Rape of Nanking: Fact or Fiction? ("The Rape of Nanking appears to be the work of the war propaganda in the United States and perhaps the Chinese authorities at the time. ")

Exclusive: US Army Brought COVID-19 to China with Fake ‘Military Games’ Team (March 2020 story)

Review: The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews – Part One

Yeah, very reputable journalists. This article is likely to be true - as much as that article about Israel nuking USA on 9/11 and Beirut. To say nothing about UFO.

From this group article about "Masonic Rothschilds" and Jewish Jesuits are most likely to be true, and that is saying something.

Why?

Because prime ministers are well known for going by train into combat zones and dodging artillery shells. Yes, yes. that's what they do.

Yeah, very reputable journalists. This article is likely to be true - as much as that article about Israel nuking USA on 9/11 and Beirut. To say nothing about UFO.

US media is tightly controlled, if you are not on message you won't get published. Hence why e.g. Steve Sailer has to publish over at unz.com.

Could you not be an NPC and look at the actual claims ?

Look at the Uke photos of the visit. Look at the railways stations photos.

I did. The article seemed to check out, and I found the idea that multiple prime ministers would make a very risky trip into a place where their train might get bombed. (gee, we thought it was carrying munitions, sorry) just plain crazy.

  • -12

Could you not be an NPC and look at the actual claims ?

You've been warned four times now to stop with this low-effort, dripping-with-contempt antagonism.

This gets you a three day ban. Stop doing this.

Because prime ministers are well known for going by train into combat zones and dodging artillery shells. Yes, yes. that's what they do.

Some of them do. Some of they overdo, plenty of Polish politicians died in Smoleńsk as result of overly risky visit (and in that case it was a really dumb risk).

Tbilisi and Kiev visits were more useful and ended well.

And "A very rarely do Y" is a good starting point, but not enough to convincingly reject claim that specific event happened.

Could you not be an NPC and look at the actual claims ?

I have limited time and I refuse to treat seriously website that published claim that 9/11 and Beirut explosion were an Israeli nuclear attack. I would treat it more seriously if article would be published on Substack or self-hosted website.

Reading Ukraine-adjacent conspiracy theories by you and coffee was mildly amusing but I am not going to spend a lot of time on it. Especially if it is published on garbage tier website filled with blatant low quality garbage, and by all indicators is also a garbage.

I am curious: are you claiming that Beirut and 9/11 were an Israeli nuclear attacks?

as result of overly risky visit

There was little threat of enemy action there. It was a typical case of politicians, being macho probably telling pilots to stop being pussies, disregard problematic weather and just land. (I don't know if this was the case but it very often is in celebrity crashes)

Going by train into a half-besieged city in the middle of the most kinetic war since '45 is something qualitatively quite different.

I would treat it more seriously if article would be published on Substack or self-hosted website.

It was published first on as self-hosted website. The images there were improperly hosted and would not load, hence I posted the VT link.

It's also hosted on 'nakedcapitalism', whatever that is.

I did. The article seemed to check out, and I found the idea that multiple prime ministers would make a very risky trip into a place where their train might get bombed. (gee, we thought it was carrying munitions, sorry) just plain crazy.

Why would it benefit Russia to accidentally blow up Boris Johnson? Why would the Poles hate Russia less if Duda gets got? Why would the EU change their policy after he blows up a bunch of their diplomats?

I wouldn't doubt it was communicated backchannel to Russia, because they don't want to get into a thing with NATO either.

Why would it benefit Russia to accidentally blow up Boris Johnson?

Not Boris Johnson. Kaczynski, Fiala and Slovenian PM.

But given the performance of the Russian army so far, would you be willing to trust they'd refrain from shooting ?

Why even go into artillery range in a major war for .. no good reason, really.

into a thing with NATO either.

They'd say NATO prime ministers have no business being deep inside a country they're fighting with and that they could've just as easily met at the border.

Which is almost certainly what happened if you look at the alleged 'Kiev' station pictures..

Really, if you go into Kiev for a photo-op, why wouldn't you take picture at some minor landmark while you're there ? Or snap a picture in front of the presidential palace they say they visited? All we got was a very carefully composed group photo in front of a train, and photos from windowless meeting rooms.

Why even go into artillery range in a major war for .. no good reason, really.

The risk is realistically very low. Even presupposing that Russia isn't actively trying to avoid killing major NATO government ministers, my opinion, the risk that any random person in Kyiv gets got on any given day is exceedingly low. It's a city of millions that has suffered civilian casualties (and military casualties from indiscriminate air strikes/artillery bombardment) in the low thousands.

Against that very low risk is a very good photo op. For the first few guys to show up, they looked like brave heroes because it did seem very risky with bad information at the time. After that, it became increasingly important for everyone else to do it, because once someone else did it, it reflected poorly on you if you didn't.

They'd say NATO prime ministers have no business being deep inside a country they're fighting with and that they could've just as easily met at the border.

Really, if you go into Kiev for a photo-op, why wouldn't you take picture at some minor landmark while you're there ?

So which is it? You can't have it both ways. Either the Russians would want to kill the NATO potentates and claim it was an accident, hence they wouldn't take pictures at landmarks; or Russia doesn't want to kill them, in which case it isn't that dangerous to enter the country openly.

I tend towards the latter view. If anything, when Boris Johnson entered Kyiv he probably casts an aura of protection over the area he is in. The Russians benefit Zilch from killing a NATO minister.

the risk that any random person in Kyiv gets got on any given da

We're not talking about any random person, we're talking about a train.

Civilian trains in Ukraine have been hit because they apparently put military equipment on them and Russians really do not care to fall for that kind of ploy.

The Russians benefit Zilch from killing a NATO minister.

Well, you think so? Most Russians would be happy that has happened.

So which is it? You can't have it both ways.

They allegedly went into the fucking presidential palace, a distinctive building. Snapping a picture or better shooting a quick video in front of it while you are there is zero risk and would definitely prove they were there.

No picture. No video. No picture of them having been at Kiev train station either.

Also, it is not like Russia has history of performing successful precision attacks.

Why would it benefit Russia to accidentally blow up Boris Johnson? Why would the Poles hate Russia less if Duda gets got?

At least in my case, that would improve my opinion of Russia.

To be fair, when someone suggested Biden visit my first thought was "As long as Nancy and Kamala ride in the same car."

And I’m left asking, can we predict that? How can we predict how leaders will react under pressure? How can we predict how wars and matters of state will conclude if they hinge on these personal decisions of individual, fallible, men?

I think at least Re: Zelensky, there is a plausible, well worn model: Follow the money. Specifically, Zelensky and many of the people that kept Kiev Ukrainian have patrons in Western Europe, patrons whose interests are not served at all (or mostly not) by a government in exile. Since Euromaiden there has been lots of investment in Ukraine. Investments that would be seized and redistributed to Russian oligarchs if Ukraine falls. There are lots of politicians who have a finger in these investments. Some of the legitimate kind, and many of the Paul Manafort/Hunter Biden grifty kind. Sure, being under Putin would be a bit worse for the average Ukrainian, and some people legitimately believe in spreading Democracy, but its much easier to understand if you realize that there are large interests in maintaining a West-friendly kleptocracy, as well as lots of interests in spending lots of money to make things go boom, and Americans and Europeans have no stomach for their own boys doing this at the moment, so Ukrainian boys making Russian boys go boom with Lockheed supplies is great for business.

I don't think that answers the question at all.

Let's accept all your assumptions, I'm still left asking how Victoria Fucking Nuland was sitting in an office in Foggy Bottom and saw the Jewish comedian doing gay Cossack bits on tv and said "That's our guy, he won't let us down. Under pressure he's gonna blossom into a wartime leader." With that talent spotting ability, I hope the Eagles bring her in for the combine!

Saying he's a ride-or-die corrupt criminal is just changing the phrasing of the question.

Both are far too valorizing of Zelensky. He just kept making the choice that was best for him personally. If I do a date-limited search about him you get results like this:

Right Before the Invasion: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/ukraine-russia-zelensky-putin.html

The tenor of all the articles I found is this: Zelensky is inherently an actor, he plays what role he thinks suits him.

Now lets go right after: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/volodymyr-zelensky-profile-cmd-intl

Tenor is: He's picked his role, and that role is hardass.

Now a few months after the invasion: https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-is-volodymyr-zelensky-ukrainian-president-11646161781

Grizzled face of the Ukrainian resistance.

But what changed about his posture? Nothing ever. He just kept doing what was best for his image, and the press slowly came around to embracing the image that gave him the most prestige and power. The posture has allowed him to crack down on domestic opposition parties, Russian-connected and not. Its gotten his country a military slush fund. What would fleeing have brought him? An end to his political power, an end to his future financial prospects, and embarrassment as Ukrainian militias kept up the fight as he hides in Warsaw.

Sure, being under Putin would be a bit worse for the average Ukrainian

That seems underestimate likely effects given all that "Ukraine is fake country, Ukrainians are Russians" and so on from Putin and Russia.

patrons whose interests are not served at all (or mostly not) by a government in exile

though yes, this + realpolitik is explanation why there is interest here, and Armenia gets ignored.

And I’m left asking, can we predict that? How can we predict how leaders will react under pressure? How can we predict how wars and matters of state will conclude if they hinge on these personal decisions of individual, fallible, men?

I think that it is relatively hard to predict, especially for critical pressure where things cannot be really tested.

Though obviously there are some indicators, lowlife cheater and scammer is less likely to be heroic than average. But during German occupation there were also cases of dedicated antisemites risking their lives to rescue Jewish children. And supposedly noble people becoming traitors with a small push.

Some of Zelensky’s appearances strongly suggest he uses a green screen. With technology it is trivial to place Zelensky anywhere you want in Ukraine. I do not believe for one moment that he spends a majority of his time in Ukraine. But that’s neither hero nor there, because it is a smart choice to base your operations in Poland.

What makes Zelensky not a hero is that nothing he does is heroic. It is not heroic to be the figurehead for NATO operations in Ukraine. It is not heroic to be the darling of an oligarch who already fled to Israel, who boosted him up to Presidency. It is not heroic to sign someone else’s children up to die or to command to shoot defectors when they leave. Zelensky has only moderate skin in the game, no matter what he will be safe in NATO territory.

Ask “if Zelensky were a coward, what would he do differently?” Here we have to rely on the claim that he spends most of his time in Ukraine. Everything else he would do is identical. Even a coward can be secretly bussed into Ukraine from time to time for a photo shoot like in Bucha, and the claim “Zelensky is in Kyiv!” is suspect given the nature of 21st century warfare and technology.

  • -11

With technology it is trivial to place Zelensky anywhere you want in Ukraine.

Not really. See say this and that - to fake that you would need massive CGI support and ridiculously sized conspiracy.

Also, given that not even Putin or Russian propaganda or their milbloggers are claiming this, you would need a really convincing evidence to get us to treat it seriously.

I do not believe for one moment that he spends a majority of his time in Ukraine.

Your claim is entirely based on "appearances strongly suggest he uses a green screen" claim without evidence and your non-existent authority.

April 4. The allegations were he was in Poland between the shit kicking off and Russian withdrawal from around Kiev.

As seen in https://www.themotte.org/post/133/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/19694?context=8#context it is not limited to that :)

(I promise, coffee is not my false-flag account)

I'm not a big fan of coffee, either the poster or the drink.

It doesn't look like a green screen to me, and I don't doubt Zelensky has returned to Kiev since Russians withdrew.

Well of course. I look at it, and it looks like a green screen to me.

  • -11

There wouldn’t be evidence he is out of Ukraine, because it’s wartime where secrecy of the location of an assassination target is paramount. The question is (1) does it appear he uses a green screen (2) is it more likely that NATO places him in Poland or keeps him in Ukraine. Per 1, many of his videos look a lot like a green screen to me.

It’s not some elementary variation of “absence of evidence”, because we should expect that if he were in Poland, we would not have evidence of that, like how we didn’t have evidence that Bin Laden was in Pakistan (amplified by 100, because NATO is in charge of his location)

  • -13

All of that just sounds like nothing but "I am ideologically on the pro-Russian (or at least anti-anti-Russian) side, and thus am by definition bound to find Zelensky non-heroic."

All of your comment reads “I am unwilling to consider any other viewpoint or my opponent’s arguments”. Seriously, you just ignored my assertions completely and boldly. Maybe even heroically!

https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/mystery-volodymyr-zelenskiy

https://www.occrp.org/en/the-pandora-papers/pandora-papers-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-ukrainian-president-and-his-inner-circle

https://worldview.stratfor.com/situation-report/ukraine-president-zelensky-and-oligarch-kolomoisky-pandora-papers

https://amp.spectator.co.uk/article/who-is-ihor-kolomoisky-/amp

https://twitter.com/ReflectionsV2/status/1581954021039869953

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1579541849240670208

Yes, we (or at least people who have followed Ukrainian affairs for some time) know about Zelensky's status as a comedian, or connections to Kolomoisky, or corruption, or whatever. The whole point of the post you were replying to was that he's an unlikely hero due to that stuff! It's not a debunking to post the same stuff that essentially forms the crux of the argument!

You believe heroes can have offshore banking accounts paid for by corrupt oligarchs now hiding in Israel which comprise a permanent “nest egg” to fall back on. That’s great! I disagree. So what we have is a disagreement, which this forum was made for. Claiming that my entire post boiled down to “sounds like nothing but I am ideologically on the pro-Russian” is asinine and unproductive.

You believe heroes can have offshore banking accounts paid for by corrupt oligarchs now hiding in Israel

btw, you betrayed your ignorance on the subject by not knowing that Kolomoisky is not in Israel right now, and he wasn't there for the last 2 years. As well by the fact there is a case opened against him in Ukraine, so he stays there. Before talking about things, you better educate yourself.

Kolomoisky has Israeli and Cypriot citizenship and is banned from the US. He is either in Israel of Cyprus but Israel is the most likely location.

Btw, just out of curiosity, how did you find themotte? I noticed that you’re not a native English speaker and only post about Ukraine when it comes up.

He is either in Israel of Cyprus but Israel is the most likely location.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tNuRUY0Pxew

Here he is, visiting an Anti-Corruption Agency in Kyiv for questioning several days ago. So you just don't know basic facts.

Btw, just out of curiosity, how did you find themotte? I noticed that you’re not a native English speaker and only post about Ukraine when it comes up.

I read Scott back when he was posting on lesswrong, so I might ask you the same question. Did you come here from /r/conservative, /r/conspiracy or some other subreddit filled with low information people? Because it certainly looks like that.

post about Ukraine when it comes up.

I just posted here 3 times, I think. Yes, I am not really interested in discussing some outrage du jour about transsexuals or whatever constantly preoccupies your mind. Just called out ignorant comments several times (were those yours as well?)

More comments

You believe heroes can have offshore banking accounts paid for by corrupt oligarchs now hiding in Israel which comprise a permanent “nest egg” to fall back on[?]

Yes. Or perhaps some thin-slicing is necessary here to get away from laurel-wreath title of "Hero" that seems to choke some people: it is possible for such a person to behave heroically, under important circumstances, in a way that is important to the outcome of major events. Given that difficulty of predicting heroic behavior, that a guy who looks like a joke president could step up under pressure, is there a more useful pre-event gauge of who is going to do what when the chips are down, or is it cursed to seem random to human observers?

I find the questions "Is Zelensky a good guy" and "Did Putin make a good call" the least interesting parts of the discussion. I'm interested in how Motte-rs go about best-guessing how leaders will react under pressure.

I've already written elsewhere that a lot of people are talking about the war the way they some people were talking about Trump's 2016 victory. "Of course Trump was going to win, the writing was on the wall." "Of course Ukraine was not going to fall, the writing was on the wall."

None of this was obvious. Both Putin and Clinton squandered their advantage, but both almost won. A few more corrupt Ukrainian officials, or a luckier Gostomel airport opertion, or a narrower front, or Zelenskiy dying or fleeing - a lot of things could've turned the tide.

The bigger fault of Putin's plan is betting everything on a single outcome: the special military operation will trigger an overwhelming and quick regime change. Zero contingency plans. And I'm not talking about foreseeing the whole fiasco.

  • what if your army gets bogged down sieging the cities?

  • what if the Ukrainian army doesn't surrender?

  • what if Ukraine abandons the left bank and leaves actually competent insurgents behind your lines?

  • what if anything happens that turns your quick SMO into a slog? The response from the US to your posturing has been "bring it on" so far, are you sure you can weather their response?

"Of course Ukraine was not going to fall, the writing was on the wall."

None of this was obvious.

Dunno. Maybe I was just biased and happend to get lucky against the odds, but I believed from the start that things were not going to go well for the Russians and put it in writing as early as March 2nd:

[M]y prior is a conversation I had a few years ago with friend, a young Ukranian woman, about her participation in Euromaidan. The kind of determination and bravery that she described, in the face of harrowing, quasi-military oppression, was utterly astonishing to me. It made me incredibly thankful for having lived my life so far in peaceful countries—and it also made me sure that YOU DO NOT WANT TO MESS WITH THE UKRAINIANS.

Evidently the Ukrainians' grit and resolve wasn't obvious to most until the fighting actually started. Were most westerners typical-minding things? After all, if the UK got invaded I can only imagine that most of us would be trying to flee or at least keep our heads down and not get killed. But that's not what I expected the Ukrainians to do, and they didn't.

I expected Ukraine to fall, but I expected Putin to do it slow and methodical, not with a coup de main. For instance, roll tanks into the Donbas. Take that, fortify and regroup. Take the rest of Eastern Ukraine, fortify and regroup. THEN try for the rest.

It is hard enough for people to update with new information. To actually update with new information and remember they used to have the incorrect information is rare.

I absolutely thought that Kiev would fall and fall quickly. (Should I have known this based on information I had available at the time? Good question.)

I absolutely thought that Kiev would fall and fall quickly.

That's only imaginable if there is very little to no resistance. A city can be defended very easily, and unless you're dealing with an extremely casualty insensitive army, no one's gonna just drive in while vehicles are blowing up left and right around them.

Russians thought nobody would seriously fight, and the units weren't ready to steamroll even the modest opposition they encountered.

Mind you, most 'armored vehicles' Russia uses are paper armored due to flotation requirements, everything but the tanks can be killed with a .50 BMG.

So a couple of heavy machineguns inside buildings can be extremely dangerous to an 'armored column'. (NATO is slightly better in that regard, typically their infantry vehicles are armored to withstand the easily man-portable heavy machineguns. But they don't float at all, of course)

A city can be defended very easily, and unless you're dealing with an extremely casualty insensitive army, no one's gonna just drive in while vehicles are blowing up left and right around them.

I also expected Ukraine to fall rather quickly, but I didn't expect anything like this.

I expected cities with major resistance to have their supply lines cut until the majority of the populace went elsewhere (or starved, but the former seems much more likely). Cities don't tend to have the huge food reserves they used to when sieges were more common.

I was also surprised when Kiev didn't fall and the war dragged on. My perception was that Ukraine was a European version of the regime in Afghanistan, and would fold before determined attack because no one was truly loyal to it.

I think a lot westerners just kind of assumed that the Euromaidan and Reginonv parties were functionally equivalent in much the same way that Republicans and Democrats often are in the US or Torys vs Labour in Britain. Unless you were the sort of person who was already paying specific attention to the defense situation in and around the Black Sea prior to the invasion you wouldn't have known who Zelensky was, or that the Yanukovych and Azarov were even on the outs, nevermind why. (assuming you knew who Yanukovych and Azarov were in the first place)

My model was not Afghanistan. It was Crimea. Russia would roll over it, the West would be Really Mad, but then shrug because what can you do?

"Of course Trump was going to win, the writing was on the wall."

Who even claimed that?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/hillary-clinton-election-president-loss

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/09/20/why-hillary-clinton-lost/

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-hillary-clinton-lost-bad-campaign-perspec-20161114-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-kamala-harris-hillary-clinton-20190126-story.html

All deride Hillary's supposedly obvious and massive flaws as a candidate, while ignoring that she was inches from winning. Massively flawed candidates don't end up there. Massively flawed soccer teams don't lose on penalties in the world cup final, they fail to qualify for the tournament at all. Hillary was a hugely talented presidential candidate who ran a very effective campaign (especially behind the scenes and within the establishment) who lost to another hugely talented political/media savant.

2nd place finishers are always underrated in today's culture.

Maybe it's a scapegoating thing. Losing always tends to make people suddenly notice all your flaws and laser-focus on them, trying to fit them into the explanation of why you didn't come in 1st.

It's more a combination of the adulation heaped on the winner and the just world fallacy. 2017 Trump is the most powerful man in the world, 2017 HRC paid $1 for a coffee like everyone else. If that came down to luck, it makes the world too frightening for most people.

I disagree with your Hillary point, in that I disagree with your evaluation of how hard it is to do what she did. Given how sloped the media and social media environment is, my prior is that any Democrat that doesn't win in a landslide is a schmuck.

Sure, but the primary accomplishment is beating a bunch of other Democrats. Beating them so bad, so conclusively, they didn't even show up. Hillary was a football team so fucking good that the whole rest of the division said "2016 is more of a rebuilding season for us."

whole rest of the division said "2016 is more of a rebuilding season for us."

Did you see who was available? They said that because it was literally true. Basically everyone's been bemoaning what Obama did the the DNC's bench since 2014.

Elsewhere in the thread, other replies insulting Trump and refuting my claim that he was a good politician, argue that the 2016 Republican primary challengers were all chuckleheads too. At some point, we have to accept that somebody somewhere is good at winning elections, after all people keep doing it. If all the mainstream Rs and Ds were really this bad at politics, the weirdo 3rd parties we all support might actually win on occasion.

Jeb was pretty uniquely bad, and had gobbled the institutional support, which made the rest of the field weird. In the end the other problem was Ted Cruz was the Trump challenger the people wanted, but none of the institutions wanted to try that until way too late.

John, My Father was a Postman, Kasich basically ego'd Trump to a smooth victory instead of what could have been an interesting match.

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Note that each of those articles were written after the fact. None of those outlets, especially not the Grauniad and Chicago Tribune, would have countenanced the possibility for Trump winning prior to November 7th 2016.

For reference here is the Culture War thread from the week of the election.

Exactly, after events happened some people were claiming that was inevitable and obvious despite claiming exactly opposite before event.

I agree with you, I'm just pointing out an obvious problem with @FiveHourMarathon's alleged evidence, and offering counter-evidence of my own. The thing about going back to the thread from the day of is that even though a lot of the more ardent Clinton supporters have since deleted their posts, you can see the shift happening in real time as Trump goes from "joke candidate who will never win" to "president-elect".

I'm not really sure what the problem is, so either it's so obvious I'm missing it or we've lost the plot here.

The whole original context of that link dump was supporting @orthoxerox comparison:

I've already written elsewhere that a lot of people are talking about the war the way they some people were talking about Trump's 2016 victory. "Of course Trump was going to win, the writing was on the wall." "Of course Ukraine was not going to fall, the writing was on the wall."

The whole point is that the newspapers (and internet blowhards) went from pre-election/prewar certainty that Clinton/Russia would win in a brutal stomping, to finger-wagging smug certainty that "everyone knew Clinton/Russia's campaign was fatally flawed and that Trump/Ukraine were guaranteed a win." With the side dish of "Trump/Ukraine supporters weren't brave smart contrarians because they were just pointing out the obvious things we all knew."

This whole "Hillary and Trump were both trash politicians" thing quickly requires that "Rubio and Cruz and Bush III and every Democrat who stayed out of the race for fear of Hillary are all Trash Politicians" and then once you start working your way down we haven't had a decent politician since like Nixon or LBJ. Clearly someone is winning all these elections, and since nobody else can, we have to assume that the winners are pretty good at something.

Hillary was a hugely talented presidential candidate who ran a very effective campaign (especially behind the scenes and within the establishment)

Here's where you lost me.

Hillary is a good servant but a bad master, by which I mean that having her in your administration is not a bad idea, but letting her be the boss giving orders to everyone else is a bad idea. I genuinely feared that if elected she would pick a fight with Putin to show off how strong she was, and I haven't changed my mind on that since.

Her campaign was trying to copy that of Obama, with the fixed notion that "Big Data won it for him". Adulatory articles in the media and online about how sophisticated it all was, that the old days of candidates on the doorstep were gone with the Ark, how Robbie Mook (and boy did nominative determinism strike again) was a genius. The campaign, in fact, got so cocksure they spent more time knifing each other in the back as to who would get the closest access to The Empress and thus the pick of the choice spoils once she was enthroned and the handing out of plum posts was in her gift.

Both comedians and current affairs shows made great hay of laughing at the very notion of Trump even having a snowball in Hell's chance in the election. There is still great Schadenfreude to be gotten from watching the smug prognosticators ending up with egg on their faces in videos like this. How's your "it'll be interesting tomorrow night when Hillary Clinton wins that Donald Trump will have lost this election from the very first day he announced" looking now, Hillary Rosen? Or your "big beautiful brown wall", Maria Cardona?

Afterwards, of course, everyone had hindsight as to what went wrong and what she should have done and how she should have listened to Bill when he was telling her when and where to campaign. The fact is, she was not very likeable with little to no charisma as a candidate, she seemed to change her mind with every wind that blew from focus groups, and the "basket of deplorables" remark - made to a fundraising dinner for rich LGBT folk where she and they laughed at the very notion of the plebians - didn't help her at all to overcome the "scolding schoolmarm" image.

having her in your administration is not a bad idea,

I mean, she was the architect of the Libya intervention, which went spectacularly badly. Similarly, she was in favor of Iraq II, which also went spectacularly badly. Her domestic proposals - notably Hillarycare - bombed spectacularly. She didn't have a significant record of either drafting/sponsoring major legislation while she was in the Senate, or being a particularly-effective bureaucrat while at state.

No, I don't think that having her in an administration would be a good idea.

I think Hillary was a massively flawed candidate because it was so close. 2016 was a cripple fight, not a clash of the titans. Trump was an appalling candidate and in 2016 he didn't have incumbency or anywhere near the fully developed cult of personality he did by 2020. Clinton had a trainload of baggage, including an active FBI investigation and decades of GOP attacks. I think it's quite probable that if Tim Kaine (or almost anyone basically competent who wasn't as politically radioactive as Clinton) had been at the top of the ticket then the Democratic candidate would've won handily and we'd be talking about how weird it was that the GOP nominated an insane reality tv star as their candidate. Conversely, someone like Rubio or Jeb might've been mediocre candidates in the grand scheme of things but they probably would've mopped up Hillary.

I find it entirely normal that journalists try to come up with all sorts of explanations for an election outcome that was relatively surprising. So the arguments in these articles don't strike me as anything extraordinary. But they aren't the equivalent of the revisionist narrative, to the extent that it even exists, that "Trump was going to win anyway".

All deride Hillary's supposedly obvious and massive flaws as a candidate, while ignoring that she was inches from winning. Massively flawed candidates don't end up there.

Yes, inches from winning against someone universally derided as a laughingstock! That's hardly an argument against her being deeply flawed.

But Trump isn't universally derided. He is, in fact, immensely popular.

As far as I can tell, Trump and his presidential bid was universally derided as a laughingstock by the great majority of polite society and the mainstream media. In retrospect, we know that he was popular, that much is true.

"Demeaned by polite society" isn't the same as "universally derided". Yes, Blue Tribe -- both its left wing members and right wing members -- revile Trump. But they are not everyone.

I guess we disagree here. If political skill is a concept that exists, Trump has it. He KOed Republican primary challengers like he was prime Tyson, one after another. He built a base of enthusiasm like nothing we've seen before or since.

That says more about the rest of the challengers than his political skills, I think.

Assuming elections are basically real (and this conversation is kinda dumb if we assume they aren't) then it's sorta bass ackwards to say that nobody who wins elections nationally or in big states is good at politics. They went through a selection process where hundreds of smart talented guys would have wanted their spot, and they won, they clearly had something the other guys didn't.

He built a base of enthusiasm like nothing we've seen before or since.

Obama. Just like Trump, Obama's cult of personality hollowed out the infrastructure of the party he hijacked, upending more "establishment"-connected figures left, right, and center. Also like Trump, Obama's coalition was not associated with any particular policy innovations, but generally was based on vibes ("he's young! Slim! Black! At home in celebrity culture!") that eventually settled into having most relevance in culture war issues that the candidate himself historically flip-flopped on (Trump on abortion, Obama on gay marriage). The parallel isn't exact, but it's a lot stronger than it seems like it should be on the face of the matter.

Maybe it's a perspective thing, but I don't recall Obama ever having Trumpian levels of support. The biggest thing with Trump was the grassroots nature of his support, which maybe Obama never had the chance to form because the media loved him so much. Trump supporters made their own billboards for him. Obama never had that kind of spontaneous outpouring of faith, outside of the Black community.

My experience is that Obama's support among the people was equivalent to Trump's, but that Obama also had the media fawning over him, which amplified the personal charisma to legendary proportions. I say this as someone who voted for Obama when I first turned eighteen, so I was in the enthusiastic youth cohort.

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This is so obvious I feel dumb for not noticing it. And Obama left the DNC amazingly unsupported by the end of his presidency, too. You kind of expect Trump to not give a shit about the GOP, but surely Obama cares about the institution of his party, right?

(I think Obama kept his email fundraising list out of the DNC's hands, but I am having trouble googling this to confirm.)

Massively flawed candidates absolutely can get close to winning if they have found ways to use back-channels to force out opposition before elections start.

I believe that if the democrats had run Webb or Sanders they would have beaten Trump handily, but instead they ran a candidate who was literally the poster child for "Corrupt Washington insider" against a candidate who's whole brand was essentially "to hell with those guys" and were surprised when it turned out that "to hell with those guys" was a fairly widely held sentiment.

I am not much of a Hillary Clinton fan, and I think you might be overstating her qualities: I do think that she seems to have a certain negative charisma, and unlike soccer teams competing for a spot in the World Cup final, she actually never went through the lengthy vetting at lower political levels that most Presidential candidates do Her only elective office was US Senator from NY, where she ran effectively unopposed in the Democratic primary in a state in which the Dem nominee is a virtual lock in the general election.

That being said, another data point in favor of your argument is that she did exactly as well as predicted by models based only on underlying fundamentals of the election (i.e., that ignore candidates, polls, etc).

Your description of her Senate run overstates her case a bit. New York is seen as a Democratic lock now but in 1999 it was widely believed that Rudy Giuliani was going to run for the open seat, and he was expected to beat every Democrat who had expressed interest at the time. After Clinton threw her hat into the ring the field, such as it existed, stepped aside as the party believed that only a candidate with Clinton's star power would be enough to challenge Giuliani. So right off the bat, she had the crowd cleared for her and didn't even have to run in a competitive primary. Then, Giuliani's marriage fell apart right around the time he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he decided not to run. Now she's running against Rick Lazio, who was less well-known and more conservative than Giuliani. And she underperformed here, too. Though she ended up winning by 12 points, polling was much tighter than anyone had anticipated; Lazio made it a real ballgame. More importantly, though, while 12 points is a healthy margin, Al Gore ended up winning the state on the same ballot by 25 points. In other words, a significant number of Democrats decided that they'd rather vote for a Republican nobody than vote for Mrs. Clinton. This should have been a prodrome for the future but the Democratic establishment never quite got it. It's no coincidence that when Democrats nationwide were given a choice they chose freshman Senator who had made a good speech a few years prior despite the "aura of inevitability" the party sought to create. It was no coincidence that after the part establishment sough to rectify this in 2016 by clearing the field to an unprecedented degree an old socialist who would have been a fringe candidate in any other election threatened to win the nomination, and was possibly only thwarted by the specter of superdelegates whose assumed positions made all media reports look like Clinton had the nomination locked up before the first primary.

I agree on all your negative points, I really disliked her and most every policy she stood for. And, fwiw, when I say "Hillary" I think it's best to just include "the Clinton machine" or "Hillary's advisers" and "Bill working for Hillary" within the shorthand "Hillary." Because it's not really possible to separate them in any meaningful way. It's like using "Taylor Swift" as the shorthand for "Taylor Swift's musical production team" when talking about who tops the charts.

But I still think you're underrating the value of the behind the scenes wrangling she was able to engage in to achieve those stations of power without getting elected in an open competition. Tons of people would love to get parachuted into a safe Senate seat, she got it. She finished second in 2008 to a generational talent in Obama. She cleared the decks of primary challengers before running in 2016, her only opponents were joke candidates. Having the political skill and wherewithal to avoid having to fight a real primary is an underrated ability in America. It's like being such a dominant light-heavyweight that all your would-be challengers go up to heavy or down to middle because they already know they won't beat you. That's a singular achievement! Compare to Biden, who had to slog through a dozen idiots and a few good candidates; or Mitt Romney, who probably has a much better shot in 2012 if he doesn't get dragged for months by Santorum over his weak conservative Bona Fides.

In a similar vein, Mitch McConnell is the most talented politician of our generation, and he gets consistently underrated because it is almost all behind the scenes stuff, off camera stuff, that makes him great.

But I still think you're underrating the value of the behind the scenes wrangling she was able to engage in to achieve those stations of power without getting elected in an open competition.

Yes, this is true; however: 1) As you note, I think this was more a function of the Clinton machine, rather than her per se; 2) I took the OP to be talking about her electability in a general election, rather than her acumen at negotiating intra-party politics and/or the [invisible primary])(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_primary)

So, ability behind the scenes, ala Mitch McConnell or someone who might well have him beat, Willie Brown is not the same as ability as a candidate.

Having the political skill and wherewithal to avoid having to fight a real primary is an underrated ability in America.

But is is really healthy to have such a lock on your national party that no meaningful opposition can run against you, you own them due to lending them money and having a firm grip on the pursestrings of campaign money so that you can funnel it where you want it (if the allegations are to be believed ), and your campaign is run basically on the idea that "it's my turn now, given that Obama stole my chance in 2008"?

I mean, it is great political machine manoeuvring to plan for years to run your campaign to get elected to the highest office in the land as your right, and to be able to get parachuted into a safe seat so you have the minimum necessary experience in office as yourself (rather than on the coat tails of your spouse) to run, and to have bribed/persuaded/terrorised other rivals off, but is it really good for the body politic no matter which party does it, in any country?

I doubt it's good for the long term health of the body politic, and you shouldn't throw hard sliders if you want to keep your original elbow ligaments, but we're not here for the long term we're here to win elections/baseball games. Saying someone who was a couple of lucky breaks from winning the presidency of the United States of America was a bad politician is a rabbit hole of constantly claiming that everyone is shit that leads nowhere useful. Somebody is good at winning elections because somebody keeps winning them.

I don't know who Nate Silver had in mind.

By contrast, some traditional reporters and editors have built a revisionist history about how they covered Trump and why he won.

I can definitely remember numerous cultural and political commentators expressing their complete confidence in Hillary's victory, and ridiculing anyone who dared to doubt it, and a different and much smaller group of commentators making the argument after the election that this cocksure approach had no basis in reality, as most polls predicted Trump having roughly 30% of a chance immediately before the election. I never heard the argument in the original comment anywhere, not even from dissidents.

some traditional reporters and editors have built a revisionist history

I mean, come on, Nate. Could you be less specific?

I think if you read the actual link you will see that he is quite specific about what he means, though he is talking about something rather different than the views posited by OP.

Putin didn’t know his army was complete shit. He didn’t take a good gamble and get unlucky. Some limited nato training since 2014 simply eclipsed the entire Russian military.

How do you know here or great men?

  1. Jobs is a great man. Not for inventing the smart phone but for his design ability. We would have bbm or microsoft designed phones. Not sure if this on net was good because industry structure would be completely different and phones probably go the way of being cheaper with many producers.

  2. Musks is a hero. Electric cars might exists without him but he sped it up. And the rocket industry is decades ahead because of Musks.

  3. The founding fathers were heroes. Jefferson and other writers of the constitution and Declaration of Independence gave this country a special mission. America should have been rich because of our geographic advantages and raw resources. But it’s not like great countries haven’t failed before (China disappeared for a millennia and I don’t think their national mythos and authoritarian state is good). I’m fairly certain saying constitution and Thomas Jefferson = good makes me a heretic today.

  4. Milton Friedman was a hero. He gave the intellectual framework to defeat communism and rejuvenate the US economy.

A lot of people in history I believe were just marginally better and someone else would have pushed thing forward a year or two later. But these are some of the people that changed the paths that others built on.

I’ve always liked and believed in the idea of psychic history and mathematical formulas and believe most of history resolves around the sun of many forces. But I do think there have been some key battles or people who changed history.

An interesting debate for an atheist would be whether Jesus Christ changed history or if Roman power meant that the world was ripe for a slave religion to develop and it would have happened as a physics equation to develop an alternative for those under Roman power.

Electric cars might exists without him but he sped it up.

Electric cars are shit. They're bloody expensive, have shit range, are massive fire hazards and the infrastructure to transmit the enormous amounts of energy they use them doesn't bloody exist. Something like doubling grid transmission needed.

Meanwhile, the option for 'energy independence' for europoors was always there. Very simple, mine the fucking brown coal you have tons of, make synthetic gasoline out of it. Worked for the Wehrmacht, worked for Southern Africa, would have worked for Europe. Or if you want to be fancy, use nuclear reactors, get hydrogen through thermal decomposition of water and combine it with carbon from plastic waste and biomass.

Trying to 'save the planet' by crippling your own economy while India and China and anyone else who can is busy rolling out massive amounts of coal power stations while trying to shake you down for 'climate funds' is a mug's game. You could easily prepare for 'massive warming' by doing R&D and preparation for sulphates injection, and if India or China objects tell them to STFU and point meaningfully at their emissions.

Meanwhile, I suspect there's going to be retreat from electric cars because everyone is going to get poor, and the absolute deluded cucks who keep mandating them (in EU, the 'tards in Brussels) are going to get ran out of a town on a rail due to their manifold failures.

Worked for the Wehrmacht

You have really curious definition of "worked". German army never solved its crippling lack of fuel.

The problem was not up to scale, but they'd have been absolutely boned in '44 without the synthetic fuel program, which was developed over a long time and at a considerable expense.

They were also completely fucked up anyway. Maybe it would be marginally worse, but their position in 1944 is hard to describe as working.

Putin didn’t know his army was complete shit.

Yeah, getting high on own propaganda supply was a fundamental reason for this war.

It is especially painful as utter corruption of Russian army was not something secret, just underestimated.

liked and believed in the idea of psychic history and mathematical formulas and believe most of history resolves around the sun of many forces

Cliodynamics does this and has a healthy amount of publications!

Putin didn’t know his army was complete shit. He didn’t take a good gamble and get unlucky. Some limited nato training since 2014 simply eclipsed the entire Russian military.

Perhaps, but if Ukrainian leadership had panicked and fled, I doubt the training makes a difference. See the Afghan Army and security forces in the face of the Taliban just last year.

Even if the war wasn't the utter disaster for Russia, I don't see any plausible scenario where it ended up net beneficial to Russia. It could've been a perfectly smooth two week conquest, but after that Ukraine would remain a constant simmering pot of rebellion that sucks up money for little gain. And Russia would still end up with massive sanctions.

Had the upper and middle ranks stayed, but leaders have fled, it could easily have ended the same way as now.

It doesn't matter if the idiot president flees; if the army has enough brave men willing to put up a fight against an enemy who expects potshots, you can still win by making the enemy stop which gives you time to regroup and prepare a defense.

The attack was noted to have been lead completely contrary to Russian army doctrine and approved tactics.

One standard I can think of for whether someone is a Great Man in a world-historic sense is simple; if you took them out of history, imagined that they didn't exist, how much do you think history would change?

In that sense, it's too early to say if Jobs or Musk are Great Men, though I'd say that businessmen rarely are - if you took any single businessman out of history, their function in the global scheme of things would probably be replaced by someone else. "Too early to say" also goes for Zelensky, though from what I observed many prominent Ukrainian politicians also made a point of sticking around and being combative during the very early days of the invasion.

One guy I can feel pretty confident about saying would be an example of a Great Man in world-historic sense is Lenin; reading about the Russian Revolution, the rise of Bolsheviks (as a precise faction) to power in Russia was a wildly improbable event, there were several places where the party almost took decisions that probably would have led to them not attaining power and getting crushed, and Lenin almost singlehandedly steered the party into what turned out to be the correct decision. Without Lenin, the revolution would still have happened and it is likely that some sort of a socialist faction would have risen in power at least momentarily, but Bolsheviks were, even by the standards of Russian socialist movements or Marxist movements in Europe generally at the time, quite distinct in many ways, and without them Russia might have turned out quite differently indeed. Of course, it would have probably been better that day, being a Great Man does not mean you're a good man, or that you did good things, just that your actions had a world-historic effect.

Some limited nato training since 2014 simply eclipsed the entire Russian military.

More like a force of 150k couldn't fight a force of 900k. We'll see how this plays out on a less uneven field soon.

Are you comparing total army size (Ukrainian side?) with deployed combat troops (Russian side?)

See tooth-to-tail ratio why it is misleading. Even Russian army has significant logistical tail.

I think that the leaders perform more like PR function and due to their power we cannot really think of terms we use for common men. Zelensky definitely played a role of inspiring leader and helped a lot in this war. But I suspect that Ukrainians would have fought bravely regardless and they are real heroes.

When people resist occupation risking their lives like in Bucha or the conductor was shot for refusing to play at the occupiers' concert, they are real heroes. If a robber comes to your house and at the gunpoint demands you to give all valuables, it would be insanity to refuse because your life is more valuable. However, during the war you are defending your country and if you are a civilian who decides to resist despite torture and risk of death then you are a hero. Many many Ukrainians turned out to be heroes.

There has been no independent inquiry in Bucha. It’s Ukraine / NATO claims without any real evidence for anything. No photographs of the faces of the victims, no consulting the family of the victims. Some of the corpse piles were surrounded by Russian aid packages, so to me it’s more likely to be “Azov killed innocents who took Russian aid” than “Random professional Russian soldiers randomly killed innocents after giving them aid packages”.

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no consulting the family of the victims

another blatant lie, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre :

Businessman and former 2004 Ukrainian presidential election candidate Oleksandr Rzhavskyy was killed in Bucha at his estate. Rzhavskyy was previously noted to be a pro-Russian politician, criticized the post-2014 Ukrainian government and praised Vladimir Putin. According to his daughter, he had been abducted twice by Russian soldiers at his estate who had demanded a ransom, and during a drunken binge, the Russian soldiers shot him dead.

An extraordinarily convenient line for the death of a pro-Russian politician. I love the idea of Russia being fine with soldiers killing influential pro-Russian politicians in key areas.

This is fake too, I imagine: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0gip7ibW_5Q

I love the idea of Russia being fine with soldiers killing influential pro-Russian politicians in key areas.

I am not claiming that Russian invasion was competent.

This is fake too, I imagine: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0gip7ibW_5Q

Ja niponimaju.

No idea what it is, I do not speak Russian. And RT branding and tiny account and that you posted it does not encourage me to spend time on it.

I don’t think anything would encourage you to spend time on a Russian-sourced claim.

As evidence for Bucha, you provide me with (1) the death of a prominent Russian-aligned politician whose son was murdered in 2018, (2) whom Russia was in contact with encouraging to flee Bucha, and (3) who we are to believe was killed by a random violent drunk Russian soldier, even though with certainty he would have had communication with the officers.

I am… not going to believe that.

I don’t think anything would encourage you to spend time on a Russian-sourced claim.

Oh, I am doing this. I admit that I am limiting it primarily to "oh look what silly thing they are putting as an official claim" and to confirm things bad for them.

But well sourced claims also would be convincing, especially takedowns of Ukrainian lies. I am pretty sure that I become aware of Ukrainian official accounts posting game screenshots as real from such source (but it could be also Oryx retweeting them).

And I believed them as they provided an actual evidence.

I also spend some noticeable time on reading what Putin wrote (that blabbing how Ukraine is fake nation and so on). And self-published reports from Russians.

And treating RT with deep suspicion is well-warranted.

I am… not going to believe that.

Yes, Red Army occupation tends to include pro-russian people getting killed by a random violent drunk Russian soldier.

In similar way how German Third Reich managed to convince people that USSR occupation is preferable (and similarly, how in some areas Gestapo managed to become preferable to NKVD). Both sides put massive effort on self-sabotage.

Going back to ongoing situation. Armies have loooooooong history of murdering random people. In fact, it is really impressive when such murders are non-existent or extremely rare. Which seems to be standard reached by Ukrainian army, but not Russian.

And obviously I am not trying to convince you, but other people reading this (and to have pretext to read more about this topics).

Given that you claim that Zelensky never visited Bucha and that all photos and videos from there are CGI I am not expecting to be able to convince you. In the same way as sometimes I may engage in discussion with flat-earther (or person running false-fag trolling).

Given that you claim that Zelensky never visited Bucha and that all photos and videos from there are CGI

No one claimed this

More comments

so to me it’s more likely to be “Azov killed innocents who took Russian aid”

we literally have satellite imagery of dead bodies lying on streets at time of Russian occupation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre#Satellite_images

without any real evidence for anything

This is blatant lie and denial of reality.

Dead bodies lying in the street, in position that look like they haven't even attempted to flee are more suggestive of people getting killed by a stray artillery shot than having been shot. They'd have been running after the first shots, so it'd look different.

In any case, Ukraine is claiming there are 'hundreds of bodies' and insinuating Russia murdered them all without really saying so. More likely is, the weeks of fighting and artillery exchanges killed most, soldiers being dicks / panicking / untrained most of the rest and as to executions, they're quite likely. Both sides have been noted saying they kill or want to kill those reporting their positions to the enemy.

In any case, Ukraine is claiming there are 'hundreds of bodies' and insinuating Russia murdered them all without really saying so.

I never claimed that Ukrainian claims are 100% accurate, and I can say that their claims are not fully accurate. They were publishing screenshots from flying games in the beginning of war and their count of shot down planes is a total fantasy.

Also, there were hundred of bodies, murdered by Russian invading army. And Ukraine has not merely insinuated this but openly claimed that - and as far as I know it was an accurate claim.

Dead bodies lying in the street, in position that look like they haven't even attempted to flee are more suggestive of people getting killed by a stray artillery shot than having been shot.

Even if that is true it reveals complete and blatant lies from Russians who claimed that they have harmed noone in Bucha.

Russia claims that the bodies had been "staged" by the Ukrainian side after the withdrawal of Russian troops were contradicted by satellite images from mid-March that were provided by Maxar Technologies to The New York Times.[81] The images of Yablonska Street show at least 11 "dark objects of similar size to a human body" appearing between 9 and 11 March.

And for:

soldiers being dicks / panicking / untrained most of the rest and as to executions, they're quite likely

that + looting and rape and torture is exactly what is being described as Bucha massacre.

that + looting and rape and torture is exactly what is being described as Bucha massacre.

No, publicly, people are saying Russians 'murdered' hundreds of people. It's all over twitter, for example. If you search for it, tweets pop up, every one saying Russians 'slaughtered' those people, as i if they, in a contested town on the front line had nothign better to do than kill thirty civilans each day.

If you look a little closer, the official claims are 'hundreds of people with signs of violent trauma' which is what you'd expect to happen in a town that wasn't evacuated and where the invading army is getting shot at for weeks.

It's not clear to me why the people haven't fled, did the Russians think having them around would help ? Probably, Russians were never very nice people, and even though they probably know it'd not stop Ukraine from firing at them, they thought 'why not', it costs us nothing and maybe it'd help.

It's not clear to me why the people haven't fled

People outside were very likely to be murdered/raped/tortured by Russian occupiers so most tried to wait.

Also, many has fled and remaining were less able/willing to escape.

as i if they, in a contested town on the front line had nothign better to do than kill thirty civilans each day.

I never claimed that Russian soldiers have good priorities. If anything, I claimed exact opposite. Which is self-proving by fact that they are Russian soldiers.

And I have no idea why you are surprised by that: we have long history of armies murdering civilians for no good reason, often with harm to themself. Russian army has even more clear history of being absurdly evil.

We also have quite good evidence of Russian army murdering some specific people in this specific case.

Bucha atrocities have been very well documented and confirmed by several independent sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre

Russian narrative about it hasn't been confirmed, that's true.

the conductor was shot for refusing to play at the occupiers' concert,

This sounds so fake I can't possibly believe it. Yet every single fake news media is repeating it as fact, solely on the claim of a ukrainian authority about en event that supposedly happened in a city currently occupied by a hostile force.

How can nobody in the entire world have questioned this yet?

I would be shocked to discover that Russian army has not murdered any people for trivial defiance.

Not investigated this specific case.

It might not be true but it is very believable. Extrajudicial killings in occupied areas happen very frequently on both sides.

The Obama-era status-quo, which neither Trump nor Biden appeared to be particularly interested in changing, allowed Russia to comfortably maintain its control over the Crimea, the prime strategic reason it invaded/coup’d in 2014.

Maybe. But this isn't just about the Crimea.

Even if, sometime down the line, a future Ukrainian government made a serious pass at actually retaking Donetsk (or even more laughably, Crimea, which everyone had tacitly accepted was Russian), Russian forces could simply be bolstered on an ad-hoc basis.

Why do you assume it's necessarily laughable?

As far as I can tell, the Ukrainian army has been preparing, with NATO support, since the outbreak of the Donbass conflict for a best-case scenario that is essentially the copy of Operation Storm in 1995, when the Croatians, with US assistance, swiftly regained the territory of Krajina from Serbian control, in a successful military operation against an already weakened enemy in positions difficult to hold. This explains the preparations they have slowly but surely made since 2014, and - in my view - the very obvious reluctance they and their American supporters have shown to have the entire Donbass crisis resolved diplomatically one way or another, through a ceasefire or a creation of a DMZ, akin to Korea or Vietnam etc.

This isn't a pipe dream by any stretch. Putin was already old, with no successor either named or at least with a clear chance to succeed, ruling a demographically contracting, stagnant nation. Based on what we can conclude from Russian history, it has been entirely logical for years to assume that whoever succeeds Putin (assuming there's a peaceful transition of power in the first place) will be a weak-handed reformer whose economic policies ultimately fail (like those of Khrushchev or Gorbachev) while trying to ease tensions with NATO, which eventually make him look naive and weak. As far as I know, multiple historians have argued that the Russian state does traditionally have a significant weakness, namely that it's prone to collapse if central rule is weak, or is perceived to be weak, because the institutions of the state are themselves weak and lacking innate authority/legitimacy.

In other words, the Ukrainians simply needed to wait. Time was on their side. After all, can anyone picture a destabilized and economically collapsing Russian state, ruled by a reformer who is essentially a laughingstock, successfully mounting a military operation to repel a concentrated Ukrainian attack on the Donbass separatists? I think not. And if the Donbass folds, the Crimea is also very likely to follow.

This is the likely future scenario the Russian regime has been facing since 2014.

but the Isthmus of Perekop is very easily defensible

Yeah, sure. But what if US has given Ukraine HIMARS, with which you can literally snipe bunkers from 100 km away.

Any static defensive line is dead meat, unless you use AA missiles to shoot down incoming rounds.

But you can only afford that for critical targets, as otherwise it's a fool's game because each missile costs about the same as a GMLRS (what HIMARS fires), and US empire is far richer.

These points are all logical and valid. On the other hand, I'm sure you could've made similarly logical and valid arguments in 1994 about the Chechen insurgency having zero chance of success, or the *Kursk *never suffering a fatal accident etc. And we had all the reasons say, 3 years ago to think that the Afghan Army, despite all its flaws, can surely defend at least Kabul in the foreseeable future. Right? But in the real world, demoralized armies can fall apart to an extent that most people cannot even imagine.

If Putin was worried about succession and destabilization, he could have worked domestically to plan for them.

Yes, he could have. And he probably does. Toyotomi Hideyoshi made elaborate plans as well. But nobody can control events from his grave. But what reason does any Russian ruler have to trust his successor to continue a policy line he (in this case, Putin) envisions for the future? Why would he be sure that the regime even wants to preserve his legacy?

Deep down I’ve always believed Russia feared cultural conquest. A rich western aligned happy Ukranian people on Russias border would be noticed by Russian people which would then lead to pressure on the Russian regime. Which meant that while the nationalist would want a Russian Aligned Ukraine a wrecked Ukraine still protects their interests.

Russia failed at shock therapy. The Baltics and Poland did not. Ukraine undergoing to that process would culturally conquor traditional Russia. Which is why peace is so hard for Russia now and the 2014 lines are not viable to them.

Geopolitical games about defensive lines don’t matter. A rich Ukraine that doesn’t invade is an equal threat as a warmongering Ukraine probably worse. Russia can fight a Ukranian invasion with tanks and artillery. A culturally powerful Ukraine they have no weapons to fight.

Russia failed at shock therapy. The Baltics and Poland did not. Ukraine undergoing to that process would culturally conquor traditional Russia.

Ukraine failed at shock therapy even worse.

If one listens to Peter Zeihan, the war was motivated by Russia's long-term unenviable defensive position: there are virtually no geographical barriers within the Russian heartland, and with population set to fall, defending Russia is an expensive proposition (young men in productive economic activity or in civil defense; pick one). Hence all the wars since the early 2000s to reunite Russia with strategic and defensible passes that were part of the USSR: these can be garrisoned at much lower manpower, leaving the heartland to economic activity.

Or if one listens to such Russian writers as Alexandr Dugin, rejection of Western hegemony and reconquering of Soviet nations is just part of the Great Geopolitcal Game.

Defending Russia is purely a matter of being willing to absolutely nuke any enemy battlegroup on your own soil. Nobody can object to you dumping a hundred megatons on invaders on your own soil.

Maintaing a nuclear arsenal is expensive, but doable for a nation of that size.

Nobody can object to you dumping a hundred megatons on invaders on your own soil

The reality is often not quite simple, especially if you are a ridiculously multi-ethnic country like Russia with enemies very willing and capable to arm a myriad of groups with some grudge against you. Even if any Russian leader was this naive, they were surely shaken out of it by the time of the Chechen wars.

It seems to me more likely that Putin took a gamble, a good gamble, which had positive expected value, and came up absolutely snake eyes on the heroism of a relative handful of Ukrainians. It’s wildly unfair to blame Putin for not expecting this guy would start acting like a Slavic Churchhill, when one could have expected a performance more akin to Ghani or at best like Tsikhanouskaya.

Ukraine wasn't a disaster because of Zelensky. Ukraine was going to be a disaster because a critical mass of the Ukrainians were plainly and already primed towards an insurgency that was going to be a disaster where instead of stay-behind actors doing rear-area spotting for artillery strikes behind the front lines in a conventional conflict, the flood of MANPADs and ATGMs going into the region from NATO were going to make Iraq look quaint. The cause of this sentiment isn't because Zelensky is popular, but because Russia was already hated by so many, and only going to get hated more when they moved in and started executing their pre-planned targetting lists of anti-Russian/pro-western actors. The same sort of people who manned territorial defense units will to go out and launch attacks on Russian armored columns are also the sort of people who would be ambushing Russian counter-insurgency columns.

Zelensky isn't the guy who made it cool to oppose the Russians, he's the guy who kept the Ukrainian government together, keeping a conventional war going instead of an insurgency war. Cratering the Ukrainian government was a clear Russian intention, but Putin's initial invasion force wasn't any better set up to deal with an insurgency than it was serious conventional resistance. Remember, one of the 'war isn't going to happen' arguments pre-invasion was that Putin's buildup was too small to do a meaningful occupation of the country.

Putin's fundamental mistake is that he discounted the relevant of the Ukrainian public's views, not because he didn't foresee Slavic Churchuill. Not taking into account the viewpoints of the nation you are invading is kind of the opposite of a good basis for a gamble.

Ukraine wasn't a disaster because of Zelensky. Ukraine was going to be a disaster because a critical mass of the Ukrainians were plainly and already primed towards an insurgency that was going to be a disaster where instead of stay-behind actors doing rear-area spotting for artillery strikes behind the front lines in a conventional conflict, the flood of MANPADs and ATGMs going into the region from NATO were going to make Iraq look quaint.

If I were a Ukrainian citizen, especially one living anywhere west of Kharkiv, I think I'd see the current situation as a significant upgrade from "decades long grinding insurgency." Leaving aside romantic nationalism, the human suffering involved in a society supporting an insurgency is massive, outstripping that involved in a conventional war by an order of magnitude. To say nothing of the suffering that seems to be inflicted in areas occupied during this war.

And "occupying the major cities/seat of government" and work from there is what Putin would have gotten, and he tried to get it on the cheap. You can argue it would have been a long and bloody occupation and ultimately a negative for Russia, but that's not really the point, it would have been different had they taken Kyiv. It is unlikely sanctions would have lasted at their current, mutually destructive level had Kyiv fallen. It is unlikely that no European country would make a serious effort towards a compromise peace if Kyiv fell.

Zelensky was and remains a nepotistic, peace-loving, PR-obsessed, meddling clown (which is, of course, still an immensely better background for a national leader than «KGB officer»; Russian people's love for tryhard strongmen characters, culminating in this obscene Sorokin-esque siloviki regime, is a disaster). If Zelensky is to be called a hero, that must prompt us to reassess the very notion of heroism. But eh, not the first time in this war. Very few people have not had to rethink some basic notion, probably.

I reject the premise that him or his top aides fleeing was a priori likely or could determine the outcome of the war. In my opinion, this is all grounded in hubristic and ignorant imperialist attitude, whether native or imported by osmosis from Russia, an attitude that cannot tell Ukrainians from Afghans.

Ukrainians are stubborn. Obstinate. Pig-headed even. They're the type to say «Fuck me!? No no buddy, fuck you» to any perceived slight (e.g. offhand mention of pigs) and think about details later. Maybe that is sufficient to make heroes? In any case, this trait is not dependent on political leaders and, in fact, is the age-old bane of their political leaders. Were he to pull a Ghani, he'd have earned contempt of his electorate (and maybe eventual assassination); army, nationalists and very soon other sections of society would have rallied around, I dunno, Zaluzhnyi to say their fuck you to Putin and the rest of Ruskie Swine. They don't depend on Strong Leaders. They create them out of the crowd. The latest iteration of their culture had begun with telling a spinelss president to go pound sand. In a conflict with a competent power capable of penetrating Kiev in under, say, five hours that'd not have been good enough. But they had to fight Russia, and Russia gave them more than enough time.

This is ethnic psychology. There were more mundane reasons as to why Zelensky was unlikely to flee. Chief among them is that the AFU is (de facto) not that subordinate to the political authority and has had a lifetime of nationalist upbringing and 8 years of war to gain skills and dig in; hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have gone through the war zone, probably as many were exposed to some extent to territorial defense training. Also important was Europe and USA supplying them with defensive weaponry guaranteed to blunt the first wave of armor and aviation, and of course with intel. The attack was not shocking to them. This fact was shocking to Russia. That's about all. Zelensky or not, they'd have responded because that's what their job was and soldiers rarely just ditch their job.

I don't remember, was it you or someone else early into the war, there was a post with phrasing like «I'm sure Russians too have analytic centers with very smart people dedicated to planning this stuff, and we're seeing the result of one hyperintelligent network beating another, but it's a high-level play, full of feints and moves we cannot comprehend with our limited info». And well, no. Russians don't have anything like that. I'll fully believe if after the war they publish evidence showing that Putin didn't even consult with his «folders» but just watched Evening With Vladimir Solovyov to stay informed. Accordingly, his gamble was not grounded in realistic assessments of his or Ukrainians' forces.

They only needed to be slightly less delusionable to get the upper hand.

I respect wanting to tone down the circlejerking on the Z-Meister. This isn't a movie, and mythologizing individuals is almost always a mistake.

Ukrainians are stubborn. Obstinate. Pig-headed even. They're the type to say «Fuck me!? No no buddy, fuck you» to any perceived slight (e.g. offhand mention of pigs) and think about details later. Maybe that is sufficient to make heroes?

On the other hand, mythologizing an entire nation is perhaps even less realistic. Which is more likely? Thousands of heroes spontaneously emerging among the population or one guy who's been on TV having an existing complex that compelled him to treat this war like a film?

Zelensky or not, they'd have responded because that's what their job was and soldiers rarely just ditch their job.

In Arab and african states soldiers frequently just ditch their job. Sometimes they'll even just go over to the other side.

Morale definitely depends on more than one person and practice, but to crystalize my argument I believe there is a bit of an X-factor between Zelensky and the Ukranian army. I don't think that makes me a bleeding heart romantic, because even small differences in effectiveness and resistance snowball when combined with great western weaponry/intelligence.

I don't think you're giving enough credit to the speeches and PR Zelensky did when the war started. His UN, EU and zoom tours brought on sanctions and the whole SWIFT response, the german cutoff of russian energy reliance and the whole world's UNIFIED response much, much more quickly than it would have otherwise come (if at all), especially if he fled. And it was exactly that unified western response that is swinging the tide of the war, not the Ukrainian pigheadedness.

His speeches were theatric epiphenomena of a process already set into action. There was a precommitment to most/all of that, e.g. SWIFT ban has been on the table for months. (That's just in official speeches. In fact I still have a patriotic newspaper from 2018 calling Putin's attention to this risk.) I am also not sure if it was strategically effective or just a retaliation tool to unbank me and other plebs.

NATO would have lost all credibility with Poles, Balts and more if they abandoned Ukraine to an imperialist aggression after dangling those sanctions and supplying materiel just because the President got cold feet; it would reinforce the post-Afghanistan narrative of the declining power and bolster China wrt Taiwan, destabilize their entire sphere of influence. It's absurd to posit that Zelensky's eloquence and bravery is what made American Empire's geopolitically necessary acts of self-preservation possible. It's comic book logic.

I don't remember, was it you or someone else early into the war, there was a post with phrasing like «I'm sure Russians too have analytic centers with very smart people dedicated to planning this stuff, and we're seeing the result of one hyperintelligent network beating another, but it's a high-level play, full of feints and moves we cannot comprehend with our limited info».

Weren't me. If anything, as I said at the beginning, I tend towards the view that the detailed intelligence stuff is made-up bullshit. Either we imagine it into existence altogether, or intelligence operatives imagine it is important to justify their budgets. Most of the forces at play here can be figured out from things like GDP figures in this day and age. I remember the posts you were talking about. My comment from the first week of the war is that the reliable leading indicator of Ukrainian collapse and defeat would be when leadership (governmental and military) starts disappearing from Ukraine and showing up in the EU, we have not seen that in any significant numbers today to my knowledge.

Ukrainians are stubborn. Obstinate. Pig-headed even. They're the type to say «Fuck me!? No no buddy, fuck you» to any perceived slight (e.g. offhand mention of pigs) and think about details later. Maybe that is sufficient to make heroes? ... This is ethnic psychology.

Sure, cool, great, Ukrainians are all fiery independent descendants of Cossacks ready to fight at the drop of a hat, and ready to fight before the hat is halfway to the ground if it's Russians. That didn't kick in until the Russians were Nine miles from the city center of Kyiv and had already enveloped Mariupol and taken Kherson. And it didn't kick in in 2014 until the Russians/proxies had already taken Crimea and the majority of Donetsk and Luhansk. So I suspect the best Ethnic Psychology is going to get us is a post-facto just-so story, it has relatively little predictive value.

Were he to pull a Ghani, he'd have earned contempt of his electorate (and maybe eventual assassination); army, nationalists and very soon other sections of society would have rallied around, I dunno, Zaluzhnyi to say their fuck you to Putin and the rest of Ruskie Swine.

Sure, but they would have done it without half their country, and without the kind of conventional and political Western support in training and equipment that has proven decisive in allowing Ukrainian forces to face Russian forces in conventional battles and retake territory. Which, at the very least, is a significant downgrade for the majority of Ukrainians. Conventional war is hell, but I'd rather fight a conventional war than an insurgency. Delivering that improvement on the margins is what holding Kyiv delivered, and Kyiv was only a few decisions from falling.

If Zelensky is to be called a hero, that must prompt us to reassess the very notion of heroism.

Which brings me to this. How do you define a hero? Taking a significant risk to one's own life (remaining in the capital, ten miles from an army that wants you dead rather than fleeing to Poland) to deliver an improved situation to your nation/ethnos/whatever (bloody conventional war over Slavic Syria) seems to fit the bill for me.

That didn't kick in until the Russians were Nine miles from the city center of Kyiv and had already enveloped Mariupol and taken Kherson. And it didn't kick in in 2014 until the Russians/proxies had already taken Crimea and the majority of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Blitzkriegs can happen irrespective of psychology; Russia has «conquered» (covered) a lot of land then and did not secure any of it, the AFU were reasonable to allow it to break against Kiev which the army of invasion had no means to secure.

In 2014, UA army was genuinely incapable of fighting and reasonably retreated.

More important facts are that Kherson and Melitopol fell basically like Putin expected them to, and Kharkov did not. There were some grounds for expecting Ukrainian surrender, but I maintain that it didn't rely on a few individually heroic people, or even on hundreds of people. In Kherson, there was a substantial consensus against making a stand. In Kiev, it was the other way around by a tremendous margin. You have to recognize that Zelensky was known to be a peacenik, and suspected to be Russian agent by nationalists. His individual cowardice wouldn't have come as a great shock; everyone fighting now had more trustworthy and committed superiors. And seeing the army remain unbroken, the populace would have reacted much the same. It was possible this'd have upset the Ukrainian response a little bit. But Russians couldn't really find and kill Zelensky, and the first guy to recognize that they'd be unable to kill him too would have sufficed as an acting President.

I also do not believe that Western diplomatic and military support would have faltered upon his flight. Ghani had been abandoned before he fled, it was an inevitability since the decision to withdraw American forces was made under Trump. Here, on the other hand, Ukraine as a nation was receiving increasing commitments before the first Z vehicles crossed the border.

How do you define a hero?

A hero is someone who contributes his life to greatly advance a noble cause. But there are disqualifying criteria: irresponsibility, fame chasing, fraud. Zelensky did fuck all to prepare for war, and perhaps even degraded Ukrainian defense capability, betting on Putin's peacefulness. Starting as a clown LARPing as a president, he's secured the office for real, and now he's enjoying the role of a hero, enabled by others, merely a banner.

At most his contribution excuses what he was before the war. A Churchill can only be a hero inasmuch as he's not a Chamberlain. Roll them into one, and you get a fool's redemption arc, not a hero's journey.

I guess Zelensky counts as a Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks hero, though.

Isn't someone sharply and dramatically learning about their deficiencies and delusions a critical part of the hero's journey? That's not to say that a story cycle actually defines a hero. Maybe Zelensky isn't a hero. Maybe we should use a more functional definition of a hero, and he is a hero because that is the role he is acting in for his people. Maybe not. No matter what, I don't think someone's earlier mistakes counts as a disqualification from being a hero.

A Churchill can only be a hero inasmuch as he's not a Chamberlain. Roll them into one, and you get a fool's redemption arc, not a hero's journey.

I am not aware of Zelensky doing Chamberlain-level mistakes.

Well, then maybe you didn't follow Ukrainian news before these events.

https://www.5.ua/polityka/popry-vsi-dani-rozvidky-zelenskyi-pobachyv-u-ochakh-putina-bazhannia-zakinchyty-viinu-208051.html

He was an appeaser, and he merely failed to erode all army reforms that Poroshenko had initiated. His idea was that escalation of the war is unlikely so Ukraine should focus on civilian infrastructure. Notably, this wasn't a belief shared by most of Ukrainian leadership.

His main strength is PR skill and lack of scruples in the electoral competition. Were he a dictator, he'd more likely than not have compromised with Putin against his people's wishes. But it was politically impossible.

This whole hero discussion is ridiculous. People just love to idolize politicians and root for the team, I guess.

Well, then maybe you didn't follow Ukrainian news before these events.

Exactly, and my image of him is definitely overly positive so I am interested in reading more

This whole hero discussion is ridiculous. People just love to idolize politicians and root for the team, I guess.

"Hero" label is still useful, and not using it ever is not the best idea.

I don't remember, was it you or someone else early into the war, there was a post with phrasing like «I'm sure Russians too have analytic centers with very smart people dedicated to planning this stuff, and we're seeing the result of one hyperintelligent network beating another, but it's a high-level play, full of feints and moves we cannot comprehend with our limited info».

I have a pretty good memory for that stuff, this is the comment you're thinking of. My reply downthread:

There's actually an idea in FP that essentially all wars are due to someone being very wrong in predicting how the war will go. If both sides know that an invasion would stall into a bloody mess, it won't happen. If both sides know that one side will confidently win, then they can extract concessions without fighting. It's only when one side is confident they will win with acceptable costs, and the other side knows they are wrong, when war happens.

Similarly: the worst hand in Poker isn't 27o -- it's KK when the guy across from you is holding AA. The former player just folds. Latter player loses his stack.

It seems to me more likely that Putin took a gamble, a good gamble, which had positive expected value, and came up absolutely snake eyes on the heroism of a relative handful of Ukrainians.

All speculations about Putin’s plans being actually smart or reasonable or a part of some 4d chess master plan, must factor in the fact that, as it turned out, Russian military was in shambles, badly provisioned and making blunder after blunder especially when it comes to logistics.

Like if Putin’s so smart, then why is he unable to execute? One would expect the value calculations to be on basically the same level of competence: old man’s delusions weaved out of the lies of his sycophant inner circle.

People execute with the military and the information they have, not the military and information they want to have - Putin would hardly be the first leader to be undermined by the incompetence of others. I would be reluctant to say that Putin's war failed because of his personal failings. I don't think, for example, that the US war against Saddam Hussein was successful because of some awesome talent on the part of GWB.

People execute with the military and the information they have, not the military and information they want to have

This sounds a lot like a famous Donald Rumsfeld quote.

It seems like bad-logistics was something that Putin could have known if he had bothered to check.

Is it? What would checking actually involve? Would it involve Putin personally visiting storage facilities and conducting MOTs on all the thousands, hundreds of thousands of vehicles used by the Army? Unlikely. Certainly that's not what Biden would do. Biden, like Putin, would convey instructions to the ministry in charge of the Army, which would then be written into doctrine, which would then be given to the army, who would then act on that doctrine, write a bunch of reports, that would then percolate back up to officers who might then report back to the President. He would rely on the diligence and willing cooperation of hundreds or thousands of people, which in turn, depends on having a professional and effective military culture which is developed over years, if not decades. On the other hand if the military culture is one of negligence and corruption, then there's countless opportunities for that long, delicate chain of information to be corrupted.

Putin has been president since 2000. Two decades should be enough to build an organization -- from doctrine to senior appointed personnel -- that gives if not accurate, then directionally truthful reports. Ukraine built a fighting army in 8 years. In the meantime, Russia has had an epidemic of people falling out of window.

I don't know how long it takes to build a nation, or to change a low-trust society into a high-trust one. I would say somewhere between five and five hundred years.

Have you considered that maybe the Russian army was so bad that what we are seeing is actually the vastly improved version? I mean Russians didn't perform well at the current war so far but it hasn't been catastrophic compared to the massacres of Chechnya for example (I have a strong prior that the casualty numbers put out by the Ukrainian government are totally made up).

"He took a gamble that didn't pay off" is not equivalent to "4d chess master plan."

It seems obvious that if the government had fled Kyiv, that would have negatively impacted the resistance from Ukrainian forces. There really wasn't a lot of ground left to give at key spots before kyiv fell, and if kyiv fell, then there's likely a quisling government there right now. If there's a quisling government in the historic capital, there would be more international opposition to support for the rump Ukrainian state lead by a government in exile. Without near unanimous NATO/EU support the Ukrainian resistance in maneuver warfare is DOA.

Playing aggressively isn't always a losing strategy just because you actually lost.

Playing aggressively isn't always a losing strategy just because you actually lost.

Playing aggressively is, however, a generally losing strategy in iterative social games where you're the weaker party more susceptible to catastrophic defeats undercutting future goals compared to the richer, stronger, bigger club whose main limitation is consensus. Underdog aggressors have to be successful every time, in order to catch up with accumulated power, but by the same respect every failure- or reversal- costs them more. Given that Putin and Russian narratives have repeatedly framed this not in terms of Russia-vs-Ukraine, where Russia is the overdog, but in Russia-vs-the-US/West/NATO, where Russia very much is the underdog, an aggressive under-dog strategy is high-risk, without corresponding high-rewards.

Putin is the worst of both worlds as a strategist, as he's an aggressive player who historically goes for low-risk options. In iterative strategy games, this is a bad option that gets worse over time, because it greatly increases the reputational costs that drive other people's decision-making against you, even as the low-risks that generally entail low-stakes mean that the gains are marginal. The reputational damage that Russia got in, say, Georgia in 2008 far outweighs the benefits of South Ossetia as a Russian-backed unrecognized state, and didn't exactly deter other post-Soviet countries from seeking closer ties to NATO/European countries, but it absolutely validated and strengthened the Russia-skeptic factions in other governments, who would get further empowered by further Russian opportunistic actions.

As a result of such past actions, there were no low-cost options in Ukraine, no matter how aggressive Russia chose to be. Aggression itself was the wrong play, as either Russia was going to find itself in an insurgency, or a (surprise surprise) conventional conflict, neither of which it was prepared to execute in a way where the cost-benefit would reward aggression.

Given that Putin and Russian narratives have repeatedly framed this not in terms of Russia-vs-Ukraine, where Russia is the overdog, but in Russia-vs-the-US/West/NATO, where Russia very much is the underdog, an aggressive under-dog strategy is high-risk, without corresponding high-rewards.

Framing oneself as the underdog is not equal to being the underdog or even believing oneself to be one. Downplaying one's strength advantage is the default posture of the strong (or those imagining themselves to be strong), rarely wholeheartedly believed. American posture in the «war on terror» and this current «strategic competition with China» is often painfully disingenuous too; cheap mop-up operations disguised as struggle for survival of the valiant minority standing up to some looming civilizational threat. Ministries of War have been renamed to Departments of Defense for a related reason.

Every autocrat, according to his PR, «stands up to the globalist West» as a valiant underdog, to build up a sieged castle mentality, even West-friendly ones like Erdogan. Or Orban. It's clear from his actions, though, that he does not believe the West to be actively invested in toppling Orban, and fights for real mainly with the domestic opposition, being very much the overdog there. Now we see that Putin, likewise, tawked a great deal about the Western threat – but genuinely thought that the West won't care enough to maintain support in the event that Ukraine doesn't fold rapidly, that his lobbying in Europe is reliable, that this is a low-stakes war on a cheeky backwater, in and out for 5 days; that Western politicians are tawking about their commitments only to dupe the plebs, like he does.

It's important to realize which fight exactly you are in.

\8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.

Framing oneself as the underdog is not equal to being the underdog or even believing oneself to be one. Downplaying one's strength advantage is the default posture of the strong (or those imagining themselves to be strong), rarely wholeheartedly believed.

I don't think this is generally true. The late 20th/early 21st century West has the heroic archetype of "plucky underdog who defeats superior force through extreme physical and moral courage, ingenuity, and luck" which causes Western overdogs to falsely claim to be plucky underdogs in order to make themselves feel heroic. It also has a set of egalitarian instincts (one of the other consequences of which is vulnerability to wokeness) which make underdogs more sympathetic, other things being equal, therefore creating another incentive to claim to be the underdog. Everywhere else, "the nail that stands up and is pounded down" is a strong anti-heroic archetype and third parties are most likely to choose the side which is more likely to win. So the incentive is to signal strength, and people did.

Incidentally, the fact that the most broadly popular media franchise in the early 21st century West is actually the MCU suggests that normies prefer heroes who don't falsely claim underdog status and Han Solo didn't actually succeed in changing the basic rules of Story.

Don't MCU characters, superhuman though they are, often fight Avenger Level Threats? It's one of the reasons I hate MCU, it's clear that their opponents are monsters of the week, but the presentation is exactly that Avengers are desperate underdogs. There are weak antagonists (Ivan and some old man from Iron Man 1-2 etc.) but Ultron is an AGI; Dormammu and Thanos are ontologically superior to the cast, even to relatively strong heroes (i.e. not Hawkseye); there usually are gimmicks that make heroes even bigger fish in theory, some artifact or cosmic energy or whatever that blonde butch has, but the stakes are high, and villains often gloat, and boast of being inevitable, crushing maggots or something. So it is congruent with the underdog aesthetics.

I concede that there's more power-worship in non-Western cultures. But it's inconsistent. Russia stronk big can destroy the world, but also is bullied by the decadent, rich, plotting West surrounding us with military bases. Crucially, Russians think of themselves as «weak and bullied» in the context of Ukraine, not trying to annex an (assumed to be weaker) neighbor but bravely standing up to the oppressive West, allegedly swinging the nuclear baton in self-defense. China has a similar but more verbally assertive and less actually aggressive posture («whoever tries to humiliate us will smash his head against the iron wall of 1.4 billion Chinese people», then allows Pelosi to land), and thus both countries abuse anticolonial rhetoric.

I think consistent affirmation of one's collective power may be characteristic of somewhat less developed groups with surviving honor culture – MENA, LatAm, Turkic and perhaps all/most Muslim countries. @2rafa, what's your impression?

China has a similar but more verbally assertive and less actually aggressive posture («whoever tries to humiliate us will smash his head against the iron wall of 1.4 billion Chinese people», then allows Pelosi to land), and thus both countries abuse anticolonial rhetoric.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning

"China's final warning" (Russian: последнее китайское предупреждение) is a Russian proverb from the 1950s, which originated in the former Soviet Union, referring to a warning that carries no real consequences.[1]

American military fighter jets regularly patrolled the Taiwan Strait, which led to formal protests being regularly lodged by the Chinese Communist Party in the form of a "final warning", for their fighter maneuvers in the strait. However, no real consequences were given for ignoring the "final warnings".

More than 900 Chinese "final warnings" had been issued by the end of 1964.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the proverb has remained a common metaphorical catchphrase within the post-Soviet countries, especially in Estonia.

The war started eight years earlier and the Ukrainians have only shown resolve the entire time. How could anyone expect the botched escalation by Russia to change things? The prior eight years only hardened the hearts of Ukrainians and gave the West time to prepare to support them.

Ukrainians have only shown resolve the entire time

That sounds like a very much anachronistic claim to me.

I'm unsure why Zelensky fleecing the west, consolidating power, and eliminating domestic opposition is heroic. Sure, he could have fled the country, but why? It was perhaps brave in the war's beginning, but once it became clear Russia had drastically less competence than expected the calculus changes. Zelensky is setting himself up to be President for life and a heroic icon. Fleeing would be worse for him.

  • -12

Not fleeing when his country was invaded by a superior military power, which very clearly intended to at least imprison and probably kill him, is almost definitionally heroic. I speak not of righteousness or wickedness, it doesn't really matter whether the cause underlying the conflict favors one side or the other or neither, there were heroic actions on both sides of WWI and in WWII and the Crimean war and Waterloo. I've no doubt that there are thousands of Russians who have behaved heroically in this war; I'm impressed that Russia's equivalents to neocons at least occasionally put their money where their mouth was.

Not fleeing when his country was invaded by a superior military power

But his country was invaded by Russia.

  • -17

Are you claiming that Ukraine was militarily superior to Russia, as of 2022-02-24?

I am claiming that the Ukraine military with western support is on par with the Russian military. Were Ukraine on its own, totally fucked, but they aren't on their own.

As of 2022-02-24 Ukraine had no certain western support, and even now it is inferior to Russian military.

Russian government delivered more ready-to-use heavy machinery such as tanks than any other country.

There was never a serious chance the west wasn't going to support Ukraine. We gleefully egged this entire war on.

We gleefully egged this entire war on.

Given that the decision to have a war was entirely Russia's, this doesn't make sense. Nobody in the West was gleefully encouraging Russia to invade Ukraine - not even in a semi-ironic "Bring. It. On." type of a way.

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Did you predict this outcome before it became apparent? I sure didn't.

I predicted that Russia would win but it would be slow, bloody, and unpleasant affair lasting a few years. I'm less confident in that prediction with how pathetic Russia's been, but I can't say for sure I was wrong until late 23 or so. I will say Russia's incompetence was surprising; I knew they'd declined, but the degree of that decline was above and beyond.

What do you mean declined? They are still stronger than they have ever been post Soviet collapse. A late 90s Russia was a Potemkin force pretending to be a world power.

Russia now is a Potemkin force pretending to be a world power.

If you predicted Russia would win, then how do you think Zelensky should have known ex ante that they weren't being invaded by a superior military power?

I predicted Russia would win after a multi-year slog that does not result in Zelensky's exile, death, or imprisonment, and also does not end in the dissolution of the Ukrainian state. That has been my stance since all of this began: that Russia will win, that it is not worth it for them to win, and that we really just should have stuck with the pre-Maidan status quo rather than meddling and fucking everything up. This entire affair was a masterstroke of the very American hegemony I loathe as an American and I hate every side involved.

I apologize for boiling that down to low-light "lul Russia" quips. I will respond more seriously to you:

My explicit position is that this entire war is a senseless tragedy provoked by western interests. Putin is a terrible man and he is ultimately responsible for his actions, but provocation is real and we have been poking the bear for a long time for no reason other than a deep-seated hatred of Russians swimming in the very DNA of our ruling class. Russia has been a boogieman since the fall of the Soviet Union used to drum up support and justification for the ever-expanding grasp of the American leviathan. Our interference in Ukraine years ago is what set the stage for this inevitable conflict -- a conflict which at best will be a Pyrrhic victory for Russia, for even if they seized Ukraine their reward is merely having Ukraine, in no way worth the grotesque costs piling up.

The only winners are America and their chosen ones. In the Ukraine, this is Zelensky. He's a pretty face whose primary skill is performance art. He has become a culture hero for doing what would be expected of any man in his position; "run away from your country at the start of a grueling war" is not an expected default action for leaders. He's used the war to implement strongman leadership, purge political rivals, and secure his personal legacy for the rest of his life.

He is not a good leader. He has not risen above his station or demonstrated strength of character. He is a symbol of the inevitable triumph of American imperialism, and his reward will be either a long-term dictatorial political career or a cushy post-politics speaking tour on the first world's elite media circuits.

All of this is nakedly transparent. Ukraine is grossly corrupt. Zelensky is grossly corrupt. It's not even hidden, you don't have to trawl conspiracy websites, it's all in the open. People handwave it away with "oh but Putin is so super duper evil", and then worship Zelensky like he's a superhero, and it's so fucking pathetic that it arouses in me an immense fury. The shallow principles of the world -- Zelensky violates the same core liberties we allegedly damn Putin over, yet because Zelensky's the chosen one (much like Fauci for COVID), his blatant maleficence is gaslit away.

Russia sucks. They're big and have lots of production capabilities. They could probably blow up the world. But this abundance of arms and potential for the ultimate escalation doesn't make Russia an elite modern military force that can reasonably expect to steamroll the west; Ukraine's loss will be after a horrific meat grinder of a war that lasts years, costs tons of lives, and doesn't hurt Zelensky at all.

Yet Zelensky's the hero. The corrupt strongman demanding we give him more money so more of his people can die, and regardless of the country's fate or how many bodies his pride puts into the ground, a self-centered actor with no respect for the principles we've collectively enshrined in him will go down as their defender.

He's garbage, Russia's garbage, Ukraine's garbage, Putin's garbage. The only people involved who aren't trash are the ones dying so that American leadership can be satisfied they slew the Great Beast of their forefathers.

Eh, I actually agree with many of your premises and conclusions (US provoked Russia although Russia is responsible for its act, it's a masterstroke for US interests, Ukraine is kind of a shitty corrupt country, both sides will suffer horribly in this meat grinder of a war, etc.), but I do think there's something innately heroic about defending your homeland from invaders even at great cost, and I think you understate the difficulty of what Ukraine and Zelensky have achieved, and the personal risk that he and his family took by remaining. Yes, Zelensky is a pretty face with a background in TV comedy, but playing well on TV is exactly what helped him rally the West behind his cause. I think it's incredible how well suited he was for his moment, and how well he has done with it.

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For the third time, I've said Zelensky's choice to remain in the beginning is brave. I have no dispute with that.

"perhaps"

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Heroism applies to perceived threat.

If greatness is born, achieved or occurs through happenstance, Zelensky may be among that last category, seemingly the most luck-oriented and difficult to predict.

Zelensky

comments that don't praise Zelensky get downvoted it seems. War has always been popular. Even ww2, in which there was trepidation initially, had the full backing of the public (obv. Pearl Harbor). Then when it fails (like Iraq or Vietnam) we can say in hindsight it was a bad idea after it's no longer popular to support it .

I actually would be interested in something about Zelensky that is not hero-worship.

But completely missing point is not interesting. At least this take is not babbling about green screens.

I downvoted because it seems like a gross denial of reality.

"I can't see why a political leader who had every chance to flee his country while his city was being attacked and live in comfort at the head of a government-in-exile as opposed to staying and risking very real death might be heroic" seems like someone deliberately failing to understand something very obvious.

Imagine if I came in and said "I'm unsure why abortions are considered evil by some people.". The answer is very obvious, oft-repeated and you have to work very hard to avoid hearing it. The same is true for Zelensky not fleeing Ukraine.

Why flee to be a leader in exile when you can stick around, outlaw your political rivals, and establish a cult of personality? The idea Zelensky is standing against an oncoming tide, a bereft underdog, utterly fails to recognize the absolute deluge of nonstop western support propping the country up, and has to acknowledge Russia's own humiliating underperformance significantly reducing any serious risk to Zelensky's health.

The only risk Zelensky's taking is that he might end up sore from the entire fucking world jerking him off.

  • -10

But even the West's CIA predicted a Russian invasion of Ukraine and that it would topple the country quickly. That doesn't sound like something the overdog anticipates, if it's comfortably over.

I trust nothing said by US intelligence by default, sorry. I did not predict a quick toppling and I don't think anyone serious did, either. Ukraine isn't some goat-herding bunch of terrorists shaking AKs... and even the goat herders didn't go down quickly.

I trust nothing said by US intelligence by default, sorry. I did not predict a quick toppling and I don't think anyone serious did, either. Ukraine isn't some goat-herding bunch of terrorists shaking AKs... and even the goat herders didn't go down quickly.

Russia predicted a quick toppling with sufficiently high probability that soldiers packed dress uniforms for the victory parade. Scott Alexander reported that the big US-facing prediction markets all briefly traded at >50% probability of Kyiv falling by April 2022.

If prediction markets thought a war was going to be quick that bodes poorly for prediction markets.

CIA had better intel from inner circles of Kremlin that enabled them to predict that Putin will start a war. It is not that hard to predict if you have inside info. But apparently even CIA underestimated Ukrainians and their resolve to fight and their preparedness. Anyone who had talked to Ukrainians for the last 8 years would have known how serious they were to fight and resist. It is strange that CIA miscalculated so much.

Yes, in hindsight decisions always look low-risk because the the other outcome didn't happen. I'm not a Zelensky stan (and in all honesty I don't care that much about the war in Ukraine despite being very surprised by the sheer Russian inability to win), but I'm not claiming he's considered heroic because of what he did today.

Staying in your country when the West is offering peaceful and safe asylum at the point where your enemies are bombarding the city you're living in and nobody (and if you personally called the course of this war back in February I apologise, but you'd be just about the only one) thinks you have any real chance of victory is brave. By the standards of modern politicians I'd say heroic. Perhaps Zelensky somehow knew they'd push the Russians back, but considering he apparently didn't even believe they were going to invade I find that unlikely. Staying and fighting in what everyone - including likely Zelensky - thought was a doomed effort to repel the Russians and save his country is genuinely admirable, and even if you disagree I don't see how you don't get that other people consider him heroic.

The fact that Ukraine went from 'doomed' to 'holding out exceptionally well and pushing the Russians back in a major counter-offensive' is true, but how could he have known that?

Zelensky maybe didn't believe that Russians will attack exactly at this moment but as Ukraine was already in war with Russia, he already had a strategy to fight regardless when and how Russia attacked. Most likely he minimised the risk of potential attack in order to reduce panic. Had the EU accepted Ukrainian refugees before 24 February? It would have been very messy at the border.

I predicted that Russians might take over larger part of Ukraine but they won't be able to obtain compliance by locals. It will lead to terrible atrocities committed by Russians. Luckily Russians were able to only take over less Ukrainian territory but the point about atrocities remain. Eastern part has more Russian loyalists and potentially less need for Russians to terrorize the population and yet they are doing it anyway, like shooting the conductor at his home for refusing to take part in their concert. But if Russians had taken Kyiv, it would be the same as in Bucha except 100 times greater in scale.

There was an idea (and still suggested by some) that the west should not help Ukraine because that will only prolong the inevitable defeat of Ukraine. I counteracted that actually by letting Russia win, it can cause a second Holodomor. We need to provide all help to Ukraine to defend themselves. I am ambivalent about the Crimea and Donbass. Ultimately it is not that important about whether some territory is lost or gained (although it may cause a bad international precedent). Ukraine still needs more defence capabilities so that at least civilians in the rest of Ukraine don't get blown up regularly.

I predicted a war that would take three to five years to resolve. I also predicted this would go in Russia's favor, but the important thing is that it was never going to be fast. Anyone who thought it was was engaging in ridiculous wishful thinking -- nothing like this is fast. Savages in the hills last for decades, why would a modern state with a roughly modern if not amazing military not, especially with such significant backing?

Even now, I think Russia's eventual victory is more likely than not (though this changes bit by bit daily), but it will never be a quick victory. There will always be plenty of time for Zelensky to get out of Dodge if he really needs to, though I don't think he will -- even if Ukraine loses, I don't think the loss will be so total as to endanger him.

Savages in the hills last for decades, but the important thing is that Zelensky isn't one of the savages! He's one of the important people Russia would very much like to get their hands on. The obvious parallel is Saddam Hussein. America wanted Saddam dead and got it, even though the insurgency went in a completely different direction. That insurgencies last for decades doesn't mean the state does. Iraq took less than a month to be knocked out, Saddam went into hiding and was captured a couple of months later.

Again, right now all the things you're saying seem obvious because they're being said with the benefit of hindsight. Of course the Ukrainians would hold the line (no matter that virtually nobody believed this six months ago), and of course the Russians wouldn't be able to land a knockout blow, but given that the entire world seemed blindsided by this, why should have it been obvious to Zelensky that it was true? It's one thing to assume someone will notice the very obvious, but if everyone misses it, perhaps it wasn't as obvious as all that?

Saddam didn't have a friendly border to slowly fall back to and ultimately cross. Ukraine is much muddier than Iraq, and obviously the Russian military is not the US military. Even assuming exemplary performance by the Russians, a walking person would have stayed ahead of their advances, on average.

These things were obvious to me before this all played out, so I reject your claim it's hindsight. Russia has been an over-inflated boogieman for a long time.

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Russia was on paper far superior to the Ukrainian forces early in the war. They were shelling Kiev and there was a very real fear it could fall, before Russian logistical and morale problems forced a retreat. No one, not even the Russians themselves, expected such a pathetic showing by the Russian armed forces.

Had the contest ever been "Russia, at max powerlevel, against Ukraine", sure. But Russia has been obviously not as powerful as its loudest detractors say for a long time, and the western world united to support Ukraine in every way. I agree, on paper, the first one suggests Russia will steamroll.

I don't think that first one was ever on the table, though, and people who said so were off base. The war was always going to be Ukrainians supported by the US and its friends against a larger but more sclerotic foe. While Russia's since embarrassed itself, anyone predicting a steamroll was engaging in wishful thinking -- the more reasonable expectation was always a long, drawn-out grind that Russia's got an advantage in, but not an uncontestable one.

and the western world united to support Ukraine in every way.

We didn't send troops.

Bodies are a necessary component of a war effort, but not the primary one these days. The weapons and the intelligence dominate.

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Hindsight is 20/20. You act as if all of these facts were established before the war started.

Yes, I conceded that one could call it bravery to not flee immediately when invaded -- but it became quickly apparent that the Russian machine is dysfunctional, and anyone paying attention has recognized Russia's threat has been exaggerated for decades in service to the interests of western spooks.

Indeed. It's not like he's on the front line, eating bullets and killing Russians. Zelensky is bravely encouraging Ukranians to die for him and the west to fund him. And the first is fine, let a man choose what cause he dies for, the latter irritates me. His reward, should he survive -- which by all appearances he's going to -- is a lifetime of hero worship from the global masses. There won't be a sorority house in the world lacking a woman willing to drop to her knees and salute the Ukranian flag.

I'm not even saying Zelensky's a uniquely bad man. He seems unremarkable to me, other than being photogenic and knowing how to play to a crowd with his performance background. He's just Justin Trudeau by way of pop culture Che.

  • -10

Kiev was the front line for a good portion of the early war.

And I’m left asking, can we predict that? How can we predict how leaders will react under pressure? How can we predict how wars and matters of state will conclude if they hinge on these personal decisions of individual, fallible, men?

How about predict that things will be dragged out forever without a resolution , nor nuclear war. That is what I was saying in Feb. would happen and has played out. No one knows what to do but to adopt a watch and wait approach (except for aid). Putin knows this well and knows that time is working on his side. With Trump gone, Putin saw an opportunity , knowing no one would be able to do anything, nor would have the inclination to, and jumped on it.

It seems to me more likely that Putin took a gamble, a good gamble, which had positive expected value, and came up absolutely snake eyes on the heroism of a relative handful of Ukrainians.

Not sure how we can calculate an expected value on a one-time occurrence. If we use proxies such as stock market performance, Russia miscalculated, but it's not even a year yet. I think too many people overestimated the likelihood of something big happening. BLM protests, Jan 6th, antifa, Russia, etc. ..history comes so close to changing, and then when it seems like we're on the precipice of some major upheaval, the hand reaches down pulls us back.

How about predict that things will be dragged out forever without a resolution , nor nuclear war. That is what I was saying in Feb. would happen and has played out.

Can you link to your predictions in Feb.?

Also seems a bit early to call a forever war. Feels like we should give it at least a full year or two before making that call.

Can you link to your predictions in Feb.?

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/swhod5/comment/hxmh01e/?context=999

and

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/sz54ia/comment/hy6esvk/?context=999

I was wrong about the first part of my prediction. But right (so far) about the second part.

others

https://camas.unddit.com/#{%22author%22:%22greyenlightenment%22,%22subreddit%22:%22themotte%22,%22resultSize%22:5000,%22after%22:%222022-02-01T07:00:00.000Z%22,%22before%22:%222022-03-31T06:00:00.000Z%22,%22query%22:%22russia%22}

I don't see a prediction that this would turn into a forever war. Your first linked post predicts that it won't turn nuclear (I mean, fair, but there's no honor in predicting that low-probability high-magnitude events won't happen) and your second linked post predicts that Russia won't invade.

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