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All excellent points. Thanks for the write up. I think people from countries undergoing recent nation building processes have a more instinctive understanding of the addictive emotional appeal as well as the absurdity and fragility of the whole thing compared to the Anglos on this platform.
Have you read Naipaul’s Among the Believers?
Good point, often very much overlooked. Soviet industries were designed for interdependence at a gigantic continental scale. Putting (economically) arbitrary borders in the different parts of these supply chains have been absolutely disastrous for everyone involved except the people looting and selling out the factories. Sealing shut the Belarus and Russian borders will destroy any remnants of Ukrainian industry and even if they manage to integrate into European scale supply chains this will be a very painful very long term project.
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