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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   1613 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 20, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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What's your current take on the ongoing Ukraine diplomatic drama? Are the Trump Talks likely to lead to the Trump Treaty? Or are they just ongoing comedy and flailing? What does a durable peace treaty look like these days?

What's your current take on the ongoing Ukraine diplomatic drama? Are the Trump Talks likely to lead to the Trump Treaty? Or are they just ongoing comedy and flailing? What does a durable peace treaty look like these days?

Trump squandered hard won leverage for nothing in return.

Ceasefire is a good idea. But the terms hugely favor Russia. By freezing current boundaries, they give Russia full control over the Dniper river. For all intents and purposes, this will doom Ukraine to Russian control. Trump held all the cards, gave Russia everything they wanted, and asked for nothing in return. I don't get it.

The standard argument is that American resources can't be stuck in Europe. The next war will be in the Indo pacific, and resources need to be focused there. I agree on all points. But then, why not force Russia to economically decouple from China ? Post-Ukraine-war, Russia has become economically dependent on China, ending up as the clear junior partner in a fast developing 2nd front. Before the war, Russia was economically coupled to the EU. From an objective perspective and from the perspective of political maneuvering, this sudden ceasefire doesn't help him or his allies. The US might be able to refocus on China militarily, but I don't see them gaining economic leverage on China.

Everything from now is speculation and likely won't happen, but Trump's actions increase the possibility of the following events if nothing changes. Here goes: Ukraine is too dug in. Lot more Ukrainians will die before they formally concede. Now that Ukraine is caught with their pants down, Russia is free to mount a fresh offensive come spring. EU will have to choose between focusing their large capital expenditures on reindustrializing vs rearming. With the (arguably misplaced) paranoia of a hot-war with Russia, they will be forced to pick the latter. Therefore, they'll losing vital ground to China as it eats more of Europe's high-skill industry lunch. Ukraine's reliance on EU will make it bad optics for Europe to repair ties with Russia. As a result, Russia will build deeper ties with China formalizing the 2nd front for good. By creating strong incentives for an economically strengthened China, a concrete China-Russia block & a weakened EU, I fear that Trump might have kick started the end of the empire.

I don't believe that Trump is a Russian asset. But the man is following every step of the 'is a Russian asset' playbook.

P.S: My fanfic assumes that the publicly shared details of the deal are what the deal is.

Trump squandered hard won leverage for nothing in return.

Trump doesn’t have any leverage, because Biden and Zelensky spent the last three years pissing all the leverage away. The Kursk salient just got rolled, probably to the tune of 30,000 Ukrainian casualties. There are multiple Russian breakouts happening on the Pokrovsk, Kupyansk and Zaprozhia axes. Ukraine’s power and transport infrastructure has been destroyed along with much of their air defense. We are probably looking at the complete collapse of eastern Ukraine in the next four months. Belarus is mobilizing for an incursion into Western Ukraine this September. Short of rounding up NATO and sending half a million troops to directly enter the war, what exactly can Trump do here? Putin has zero incentive to agree to any kind of real ceasefire, because he’s about to win the war.

Il take a three to one bet that you're wrong on both counts by the time specified + 2 months. For a what counts as "complete collapse" of eastern ukraine; a thread on the culture war roundup that has at least three known posters stating it as something close enough (with no more than half of those posters changing their mind within one week)

I highly doubt you will agree to these very favourable terms. Hopefully the end result will inspire you to be more critical of your information sources anyway.

For a what counts as "complete collapse" of eastern ukraine

Collapse by it's nature is impossible to time right. The USSR caught by surprise everyone. So did Arab spring. It came to Assad after he had won ... Ukraine collapsing or Russia is both in the cards in any moment. Or even Turkey.

Or even Turkey.

Erdogan was democratically elected.

So was Putin.

Touché.

Still my sense is that Turkey is substantially more democratic than Russia (I haven't heard of Erdogan's opponents being thrown out of windows). I'm no expert though, so will defer to those who are.

We had a university annul Erdogan's main rival's diploma, so by turkish law he can't run in the upcoming elections, also he got him elected. Also erdogan has had constant purges of the judicary, military since he came to power and threw around 30000 people in jail after the coup.

Yeah, sure. That's why I'm not betting 100% on it. I give it 5% odds of it happening personally.

Might want to specify which claims you're counting as counts, since there are more than two involved.

Would recommend a followup in 4 months regardless, though I don't think we have an iRemindMe feature here.

  1. Eastern collapse in 4 (+2) months 2. Belarus mobilization and incursion in September (November).

Big fan of your Ukraine posts! Reddit and here.

Appreciated, though it was something of a new year's resolution to try and post less about it this year.

Putin has zero incentive to agree to any kind of real ceasefire, because he’s about to win the war.

Let's assume that your rosy picture of Russian armed forces is accurate.

Just stay the course, few more months of grind to flatten the Ukraine and it is done. Ukraine army is broken, Zelensky dead or in Florida, Russian flags fly over Kiev and Odessa. It is over.

Now what? The sactions last, new Russian territory is not recognized by the "international community", frontier states are frantically rearming, including nuclear weapons. Hundreds of billions of Russian funds are never going back. Russia won ... patch of devastated land where anyone who could fled and only the elderly pensioners are left.

Putin can present it in TV to Z audience as glorious victory, but that's all.

As opposed to what? It's not like a ceasefire would result in frontier states not rearming, or sanctions being lifted. All that is gonna happen anyway, and Russia appears to be fine with it.

new Russian territory is not recognized by the "international community"

Israel's settlements aren't recognized by the international community, yet they persist and expand. This war is about facts on the ground, not words on a page. Sanctions are a perfect example: Russian oil just goes via India off to Europe. The demand for luxury European cars has risen enormously in Azerbaijan...

Besides Ukraine, Europe is also a clear loser, even if they're brave enough to seize Russian assets. Apparently the war already cost Europe some 700 billion Euros by mid-2023:

if you include the support that the European governments have had to pay in order to help their families and firms to face the high prices of electricity, of food, the subsidies to our people in order to face the consequences of the war is €700 billion – ten times more than the support for Ukraine.

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/singapore-speech-hrvp-borrell-shangri-la-dialogue_en

Israel's settlements aren't recognized by the international community, yet they persist and expand.

Because Israel has the demographics to get make settler colonialism work. Russia uh… doesn’t.

Seriously when your core demographic has a tfr of like 5(and zionists/likud supporters have a higher fertility rate than already high Israeli general fertility) you can do things to conquered territory that would make no sense if your core demographic(and ethnic Russians have a lower fertility than Russia in general) has an Eastern European fertility rate and your population density is already one of the lowest in the world.

Israel’s fertility is terrible with the exception of the Haredim, who refuse to hold productive jobs or serve in the military.

That is not true. Secular Israeli Jews have a fertility rate of 2, and that’s the lowest Israeli Jewish fertility gets.

And if their adversary and neighbor was North Korea that would be pretty good. But they have the misfortune of being in conflict with one of the few remaining fertile groups on the planet.

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Most of the people in Donbass, Crimea and so on are Russian. They speak Russian, many of them are fighting for Russia.

Russians seizing a part of the world with cities founded by Catherine the Great, literally named Novorossiya, isn't settler colonialism.

Is Israel (ie the Jewish seizure of Judea) settler colonialism? I would argue it is (And That’s A Good Thing), you seem to be suggesting otherwise.

I have nothing against settler colonialism in general and it wasn't even part of my main point, nearly everyone has done it at some time or another.

To a certain extent Russia is gaining Russians by invading Ukraine, Israel isn't gaining Jews by annexing various parts of Palestine, they're just securing land. That's relevant to hydro's point.

eh, they're still better off than Europe. Ethnic German tfr isn't any higher than ethnic Russian. The Europeans have inflated their numbers by importing foreigners, but this is actually a long term detriment. Currently in modern countries you need around a 70iq to at least function, but with ai and multi function robots around the corner this is increasing. Wouldn't be surprising if around 85 is needed to function by 2040-50. Assuming we aren't all obsoleted by some kinda singularity level event.

Majority of immigrant populations are maybe 85 iq. So about half of them will be societal deadweight, at the same time the productive population is declining. It's worse in some places, somalis are maybe 70 IQ, and they have a TFR of 5 or so in Sweden.

Really only east asia is looking good these days. US might just avoid Europe's fate if populism can kick out the globalists. Oceania despite their best efforts might be saved by geography. It's east asia's century though.

Russia has the second largest illegal immigration problem in the world, behind only the USA, and its youth population is increasingly Muslim steppe peasants with IQ’s suppressed by generations of cousin marriage. The idea that it’s ‘resisting demographic change’ in a way Germany isn’t is risible.

No doubt Russia in 2100 will speak Russian and have ethnic Russians occupying top spots. But that’s because it’s an empire. How many Puerto Ricans are there in the senate? Descendants of illegals?

with IQ’s suppressed by generations of cousin marriage.

wouldn't that mean that IQ gets leap back in just 1 generation after?

By freezing current boundaries, they give Russia full control over the Dniper river.

Huh? The Russians aren't controlling the bank of the Dnieper anywhere besides a small area in the vicinity of Kherson. Their forces aren't anywhere near the river.

They aren't anywhere near the city of Dnipro, but they control the other side of the bank for the last 400 kms leading to the mouth.

These are the control maps as they stand: [1] [2]. The 400 km stretch gives them plenty of bottlenecks to choke Ukraine's economy with plausible deniability and limited military intervention.

I guess I was a bit tired when I replied to your comment. Your argument seemed to me to be that Russia fully controls the left-bank Ukraine when in reality, as I can now see it, it is that Russians can interdict river transport on the Dnieper. I’ll not argue with that.

What does a durable peace treaty look like these days?

Nonexistant. In the Rules Based Order, wars never end, at best you get cease fire and permanent demilitarized zones.

That’s blatantly not true, though.

Not that I would expect Russia to pull out in shame.

That’s blatantly not true, though.

This is blatantly true, and getting even more true every day. Ruled based order is order of permanent gangrenous wounds that will never heal.

North vs South Korea. Armenia vs AZ. North vs South Cyprus. Israel vs Syria and Lebanon. India vs Pakistan. Etc, etc. There is no active shooting war for most of the time, but there is no peace either, and no hope there will ever be one.

For comparison, see, for example from 19th century, war of 1870. War ended with great victory for Germans, great humiliation for French. France lost two provinces, lots of cash and honor.

What happened afterwards? Peace. Bad feelings remained, but diplomatic relations were restored, French could travel to Germany and vice versa, no walls and barbed wire on the borders. Not thinkable today.

Not that I would expect Russia to pull out in shame.

Do you expect the relationships returning to normal, do you expect the "international community" recognizing that things are back as they were in 2014, only Russia got little bigger.

No. End of the war would mean permanent ceasefire and permanent DMZ, permanent walls and mine fields watched by killer robots. Good for nature and wildlife, not for anyone else.

North vs South Korea. Armenia vs AZ. North vs South Cyprus. Israel vs Syria and Lebanon. India vs Pakistan. Etc, etc.

The United Kingdom vs Argentina, France vs Algeria, Vietnam vs France and then America..

For comparison, see, for example from 19th century, war of 1870. War ended with great victory for Germans, great humiliation for French. France lost two provinces, lots of cash and honor.

What happened afterwards? Peace. Bad feelings remained, but diplomatic relations were restored, French could travel to Germany and vice versa, no walls and barbed wire on the borders. Not thinkable today.

...well, that's certainly one reading of the war that did more than anything else to set up two world wars and the repeated future ethnic cleansings of Germans.

For comparison, see, for example from 19th century, war of 1870. War ended with great victory for Germans, great humiliation for French. France lost two provinces, lots of cash and honor.

What happened afterwards? Peace. Bad feelings remained, but diplomatic relations were restored, French could travel to Germany and vice versa, no walls and barbed wire on the borders. Not thinkable today.

It was precisely this war, however, that deepened Franco-German resentment, which contributed to both World Wars, as both empires sought to see the other ground under their heel in the name of their blood feud.

Extra thick tinfoil hat take:

This is all kayfabe, and deal, big beautiful deal, had already been made - deal trading Ukraine for Syria and Iran. The surprising fall of Syrian regime had been only the beginning, and Iran is next on the chopping block.

Just one current puzzle piece supporting this take - not only US and Israel, but Azerbaijan too seems to be readying.

Yes, it is something from Tom Clancy novel - US air, naval and space forces engage in brilliant shock&awe campaign, while mighty Azeri Army rolls to Tabriz and Tehran and inside Iran several unexpected surprises in September 2024 style happen. Freedom wins, bald eagles rejoice, all who remember 1979 get their revenge.

But current world is place where things are against happening in true Hollywood kino way. The new screenwriters hired in 2020 are pros who know their job.

My Iranian coworker (who travels back once or twice a year) says he does get the impression that over the last two years, the ideological basis for the current regime seems to be running on fumes, even beyond the kind of affluent North Tehran circles that were always ambivalent about the Islamic revolution. One of those things where it feels like it could all crumble tomorrow and most people would just shrug. Best to let it happen on its own, I think.

Do the Azeris have any significant grudges against Iran? I'm not too familiar with the history there.

Yes, Iran is closer to the Armenians, Azerbaijan’s primary foes. This is responsible for some strange bedfellows. Like the Azeri-Israeli alliance.

Huh.

Iran oppressed Azeris a little bit and they’re enemies for regional political reasons.

I was going to write a top level post about it but I decided not to rush it. The situation is still evolving by the day with the potential for outcomes to swerve wildly, and it will take at least a few months or more to really get perspective on Trump’s actions over the past two weeks.

My main fear here is that we’re going to end up with the worst of both worlds. Europe is already talking about canceling deals with American defense contractors… which is, ok fine, people voted for more isolationism so more isolationism is what we’ll get. But the problem is that we’re still sending aid to Ukraine, on top of freaking out our allies in Europe and making ourselves seem like a less reliable partner.

The idea of being more isolationist is that we get to stop throwing money into the black hole. If we’re still doing that, and everyone hates us anyway, then what’s the point? You either go all in or all out, don’t half ass it.

I've not kept up with it so much, but I noticed a few people on /r/conservative commenting on how Putin made Trump look weak by making him wait on their recent phone call. Most Trump voters probably won't care - the MAGA crowd will support anything he does, and Ukraine isn't a priority to most of his other voters - but I wonder if there's a contingent of his followers he feels he's starting to lose face in front of.

/r/conservative is regularly brigaded by liberal reddit users that upvote RINO comments. It's pretty dead now, everything is on x.

Related to @IGI-111 's post: https://www.themotte.org/post/1754/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/310065?context=8#context.

This is why I've always thought "party switch" arguments to be sophomoric. Politics is about coalitions. Any glance at any country's political history would tell you that political positions are driven by the expediencies of retaining a coalition that can maintain power, and literally nothing else.

After the recent federal elections, the victorious conservative CDU are looking to give themselves financial leeway by undoing the the so-called "debt brake", written into the constitution, which strictly limits how much debt the government can build up to balance its budget. In order to do so, they called upon the old parliament to quickly push through a slew of constitutional changes including the relaxation of the debt rules. In order to collect the required two-thirds majority, the CDU has given the Greens a constitutional commitment to climate neutrality by 2045.

In order to govern, the CDU aims to form a coalition with the Social-Democrats. And those have now announced their demand: Unconditionally legalize abortion. A trifle compared to what the greens got, who will not even be part of the coalition.

During the election the CDU played the part of the culture-warriors standing up for conservative Germans. They broke taboos to demand a crackdown on immigration, painted the Greens as agents of deindustrialization and poverty, and made a stand on balancing the budget without further debt. But that was then, and now it's time to jettison the drama in favor of getting along with everyone except the nationalist AfD who, I remind you, received the second-largest share of votes.

This is pretty much telling the stupid neo-nazi tinfoil hats that yes, they were right, the establishment is entirely willing to conspire against the people, democracy is a sham and the constitution is a worthless piece of paper.

Looking forward to a great four years.

This is pretty much telling the stupid neo-nazi tinfoil hats that yes, they were right, the establishment is entirely willing to conspire against the people,

"The people" are only the 20% that voted for AfD?

It sounds to me like the CDU gave away nothing and got everything they wanted. Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70% and as for the green stuff thats far away and the constitution can obviously just be changed (like this time) if it becomes a problem.

They willingly and fully betrayed their own voters.

Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70%

If Wikipedia is to be believed, abortion in Germany is banned except for when it's necessary for saving mother's life and also the ban is not enforced for the first 12 weeks. I think that's something that not only 70% of US population, but the majority of Republicans would be ok to sign up with. It's interestingly how Germany with it's Euro-leftist tendencies and seemingly wide support for abortions, has the laws that if implemented in the US, would be universally called "far-right abortion ban".

That's because Europe hasn't had a US style batshit insane anti-abortion movement outside small rare niches. Meaningful opposition to abortion has been almost purely from catholic conservatives where the dynamics have been different and that faction has fairly decisively lost the battle. The result is that abortion is viewed as a practical health issue where the de facto status is what matters instead of what the official wording is. So you have things like Germany's "prohibited in theory but in practise entirely legal" where the nominal prohibition is kept due to a technicality and as a way to allow conservatives to signal "morally appropriate behavior".

You're leaving out the part where abortion is only legal the first 12 weeks, which progressives in the US think is a far-right abortion ban but which here in germany is considered perfectly fine by most.

No, I’m explaining why people in Germany and Europe overall consider that state as ”Abortion is legal.”. There is no meaningful group trying to ban abortion and thus no opposite group pushing for equally ridiculous policy in the other direction. Then it becomes a boring matter for medical professionals and ethics theoreticists to debate over 12 vs 16 weeks. You can’t run up furor over those sorts of numbers, particularly when people are just going to look at neighbouring countries with very similar rules.

There is no meaningful group trying to ban abortion and thus no opposite group pushing for equally ridiculous policy in the other direction.

The whole conversation started with how there is a push towards ridiculous permissiveness. As you note there is no corresponding push to criminalize it, so this entire Myth of the Reasonable European seems to be on very shaky ground.

This is because anything other than fully taxpayer funded abortion up to birth is a ‘far right abortion ban’.

I'm not even sure in "up to birth" part: https://www.nationalreview.com/2008/08/why-obama-really-voted-infanticide-andrew-c-mccarthy/ I'm not sure where's the real line - when the fetus is old enough to vote? Drink? Collect Social Security? Who knows.

Are they going to get the immigration crackdown?

The 20% who voted for the AfD, the 28.5% who voted for the CDU given its campaign promises, and the 4% who voted FDP...

I'm not saying that these are the people and others are not. I'm also not saying that the CDU traded poorly on Realpolitik. I'm saying that the CDU is extremely brazen in how it goes back on its promises, and that this gives credence to the far-right's usual accusations that no matter which establishment party you vote for, you're getting the same policies either way.

Presumably, the CDU also conspired against all of its own voters who believed the CDU’s rhetoric. A democracy simply cannot work if parties gain votes by promising to do A and then do -A when in power.

The lack of faith and interest in democracy corresponds directly to this tendency.

”You see, there's an implicit pact offered to every Minister by his senior officials. If the Minister will help us to implement the opposite policies to the one that he is pledged to, we will help him to pretend that he is in fact what he was going to do in his Manifesto.”

Yes, Minister

The CDU explicitly campaigned on being responsible stewards who abhor the proposition of new debt by the Ampel. "The green stuff" is, according to german lawyers, directly hamstringing current efforts to build up important infrastructure, such as energy, especially since it's overly vague and german courts tend to err on the green side when given the leeway.

Also, abortion is already legal, easily accessible and the implementation is a broadly popular compromise - what the SPD wants is late-term abortion & allowing doctors to actively advertise/promote abortion services, which is the equivalent of spitting into conservatives' faces.

Pretty much everything the CDU is doing right now is exactly the opposite of what they have been campaigning on right up to the vote. It's ridiculous.

And this is all happening in the country held up by liberals everywhere in Central and Eastern Europe as the shining light and saviour of the rules-based liberal democratic international order.

Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70%

Are you talking about support for uncoditinally legal abortion?

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