This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Are they really worried about WW3 or does that just sound better than telling everyone that it's an inherited forever-war that's been unwinnable at any worthwhile cost for over a year and they don't feel like squandering air defense munitions on it indefinitely with China looming?
I have been repeatedly assured that fears of WW3 are sincere and responsible, with all the negative moral accusations or insinuations that skepticism to that thesis entails. I have not seen any particular evidence or compelling reason to believe that Ukraine was/is a forever war, given how the Russian sustainment has been by the very much finite depletion of Cold War stockpiles and generally observable quality issues.
Which air-defense munitions particularly useful against China do you believe were being squandered, given that the Ukrainians weren't exactly being given from the US Navy or indo-pacific stockpiles?
Particularly when the key lesson of the Ukraine War was that the armament production base- not stockpiles- was needed, with support for said conflict being the political/congressional basis for funding expansion of production?
The 'the US can't afford to keep supporting Ukraine' argument has never carried fiscal weight, particularly in the China context. Ukraine had been the bipartisan basis for expanding defense production to overcome a shortage- if that was too much fiscally for the advocates of cutting off Ukraine, there's no particular reason to believe they are willing to fund the much larger, more expensive, and more enduring industrial ramp up needed for a China contingency.
To me, one of the most reliable indicators of a Forever War is attempts to engage in "limited" warfare in pursuit of a nebulous goal. Ukraine certainly seems to be an example of "limited" warfare in pursuit of a nebulous goal, so it trips my Forever War sense.
The expected rejoinder is that the Ukraine conflict has concrete goals: defeat Russia, restore Ukraine's pre-war borders, prevent Russia from trying anything like this again.
Restoring Ukraine's pre-war borders is the most concrete of these, but it's dependent for it's meaning on defeating Russia and preventing Russia from trying anything like this again. As people frequently point out, rolling the borders back does no good if Russia just re-invades next year.
Preventing Russia from trying anything like this again is pretty nebulous. Russia has a lot more leverage on its immediate neighbors than we do, simply due to distance. A functional Russia is a Russia that can do stuff like this again. Maybe if Russia is defeated, though, it might lose sufficient capability to prevent further extraterritorial ambitions?
So that brings us to defeating Russia. What does that look like, concretely? Can you give some recent examples of what "defeating" an enemy looks like? We "defeated" the Taliban, drove them from power, had them hiding in caves and living like hunted men for two decades, we directly killed a large percentage of their leadership and many, many of their rank-and-file. And yet, twenty years later, the Taliban rule Afghanistan. Okay, maybe we didn't use enough firepower. How about Ghaddafi? Ghaddafi was overthrown and sodomized to death with a bayonet on live TV; I think it's fair to say that we "defeated" him. What was gained by that victory? How did the world improve? How about Saddam? We smashed his army, occupied his nation, dragged him out of a rat-hole and hung him. We purged his party from the Iraqi government, hunted those who resisted relentlessly, and took absolute control of their territory. We pretty clearly defeated Saddam. What was gained by that victory? How did the world improve?
If we kill off the whole Russian army, what happens next? If we successfully sneak a missile into one of Putin's cabinet meetings and wipe out his entire inner circle, what happens next? If we humiliate him badly enough that the Russians rise up and overthrow him, what happens next? How do things shake out? How is the world improved? My guess is that the likely outcome is something like Libya, only significantly worse: all the ambitious bastards whose names we've never heard of because Putin has been sitting on them get to make their play, and we get large-scale chaos, quite possibly with a fun stir-in of loose nukes.
Suppose, for a moment, that Russia collapsing into significant chaos might actually have some bad consequences for the rest of the world. Now you don't just want to defeat Russia, you want to sort of defeat Russia, but without actually compromising its stability too badly. How does that work? I have no idea, but maybe you or someone else can lay it out in a straightforward manner.
In one of our recent conversations, you linked this document as an example of the consensus thinking on our recent wars. One of the first lines:
...Why should I believe that this is true? I mean, I don't particularly disagree, the theory seems sound, but why are we entering this conversation with the assumption that "Ultimate success in COIN" is a thing that we have any understanding of at all? Where would that understanding come from? Which COIN successes are providing the grounds for anyone to speak with any authority at all? And this question seemed directly relevant to every sentence of the entire document. It's pure B-type thinking, outside-looking-in, illusion-of-control.
And so it is here. I do not believe that killing Russian soldiers makes the world a better place in any sort of linear fashion. Certainly the amount we have assisted in killing to date does not seem to have improved things, and I am deeply skeptical that killing more will suddenly begin making a difference. I do not think "defeating" Russia in some weak sense will make the world a better place. I do not think defeating Russia in a strong sense will make the world a better place either. I used to believe that stomping on villains was a straightforward way to improve the world. Then I watched that belief be implemented in a succession of examples, and I watched the results, and I updated my beliefs based on the new evidence.
If we are worried about an aggressive Russia, the proper way to handle that is to pick a line and declare that whatever Russia crosses it with, we will destroy with the full power of our entire empire. Crucially, this line should probably not be on Russia's immediate border, nor should it steadily move closer to Russia's border year after year. Then if Russia wants to cross the line, we drive them straight back, and if they are crazy enough to escalate to tactical nukes, we tactical-nuke them back, and if they decide to initiate doomsday, well, you can't win 'em all. But the key here is predictability and stability: we want things to settle into a static position, and then stay there.
This is not the strategy we've been pursuing; in fact, we have been doing the exact opposite for some decades now. I think this is very foolish, and to the extent that you disagree, I'm curious as to why.
More options
Context Copy link
Ukraine has burned through 10 percent of all the Patriot batteries that exist in the entire world. Part of the reason they need those Patriot batteries so much is to protect their very vulnerable power infrastructure. That vulnerable power infrastructure was supposed to be protected by heavy concrete bunker complexes, but unfortunately they just stole all the money the United States gave them to build those bunker complexes and funneled it into some Swiss bank account somewhere.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link