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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31676 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Some complaints about Netflix's new adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front.

Im Westen nichts Neues is one of my most beloved books, and it had a profound effect on me reading it as a teen. Moreover, the First World War is a period of history that has always fascinated me. Consequently, I have Strong Opinions on Netflix's adaptation. In general, I try to avoid watching adaptations of my favourite books, and I haven't seen either the 1930 film or the 1979 TV series. Yet bored in a hotel room, I decided to watch this one (warning - spoilers ahead).

In short, while the movie was a visual feast and was highly evocative (and Daniel Brühl is a consistently fine actor), it also spectacularly missed the point of the novel. To wit...

(1) The title of the novel literally means "nothing new on the Western front", reflecting a central theme of the novel concerning the ubiquity and mediocrity of human suffering in this period - Paul's death isn't even a footnote in dispatches. By shifting the action of the story to the final day of the conflict, you lose the sense of mediocrity and genericity - the dispatches from November 11 1918 most certainly did NOT read "Im Westen nichts Neues". Consequently, the adaptation misses one of the central themes of the novel.

(2) Additionally, by making the denouement of the movie a senseless attack ordered by a deranged general, the hamartiology of the movie is fundamentally undermined. A big part of the novel is that if there was evil in the trenches, it was deeper, systemic, engrained in our species and society rather than locatable within a particular malevolent actor. But we all know exactly who to blame for the final, utterly pointless assault at the end of the movie - the cartoonishly nationalistic and stupid General Friedrichs.

(3) Arguably the most powerful part of the book - aside from the eternally haunting crater scene (which I'll grant the movie did well) - is when Paul returns home to the village of his birth, and finds himself utterly alienated from his former community. This is something we feel powerfully as a reader, too - after the torrent of horror and futility we've been reading, there is a tonal whiplash returning to a civilian setting that emphasises the naivety and lack of understanding of Paul's former mentors. The idea that warfare fundamentally damages and dislocates combatants from their pre-war communities is one that's now firmly in our cultural DNA thanks to the flood of post-Vietnam movies exploring alienation and PTSD, but Im Westen nichts Neues was one of the earliest works to explore it. Yet this whole scene is utterly absent from this adaptation, again because of the foolish decision to shift the focus to an incredibly compressed time window at the end of the war.

(4) As an amateur military historian, I found lots of things that made me grind my teeth (in contrast to Sam Mendes' relatively punctilious 1917). I won't list them all, you'll be glad to know, but just to highlight one, the movie depicts an array of threats and modern horrors, from planes to tanks to flamethrowers, in an unrealistically condensed and spectacular fashion. This would be understandable if we were being shown an edited "highlights reel" of several months of fighting, but we're expected to think this all happened in a single day! In fact, the majority of deaths in WW1 were due to artillery, not machine guns as the mythology would have it. Moreover, most of these deaths happened not in mass 'over the top' assaults but while soldiers huddled in dugouts. The First World War was largely a miserable boring conflict in which death could come at any time due to a shell landing in the trench next to you.

(5) The decision to explore the armistice negotiations was an interesting one, and Matthias Erzberger is a fascinating figure. But if this was what Director Edward Berger wanted to explore, he should have made a different film. As it was, these scenes were utterly underdeveloped, and we didn't get much insight into why Germany was forced to negotiate, or the various factions involved on the German side. The growing effects of the British blockade, the abdication of the Kaiser, the failure of the U-boat campaign, the horrific losses and disappointment from the 1918 German Spring Offensive, the Russian revolution, fears of the nascent threat of Communism, the collapse of the Danube front - all of these themes are important and interesting if one wants to tell a story about why the war ended. As it was, the Armistice scenes detracted from the film's ability to tell Paul's story at the frontline, while failing to deliver a particularly rich or historically-informed narrative about the politics.

I will resist the opportunity to go on a further rant about public misperceptions of World War 1, but I will say that while I love Blackadder Goes Forth with a passion, it has - in combination with the "lions led by donkeys" trope - helped cement many misunderstandings about the war, especially in the British mindset, and this film perpetuates many of these myths.

For example, the First World War's causes were not some terrible accident or obscure diplomatic nonsense involving an ostrich. It had been brewing for decades as the balance of power in Europe shifted, Germany and Russia sought to flex their muscles, the Ottoman Empire declined, and France sought to undo the losses of the Franco-Prussian War. It very nearly happened several years earlier during the various Morocco crises, for example. All of the players had very good (political) reasons to fight. The involvement of the UK in particular was triggered by the German invasion of Belgium, a neutral country whose defense we were explicitly committed to. The death-toll and misery and human suffering of the war was obviously colossal, and from a moral perspective of course the war was a species-level mistake. But it was a disaster arising from deep systemic factors, and without radically revising the world order as it was in 1914, it's not clear how it could or should have been avoided.

Relatedly, there were no 'easy fixes' for the stalemate of trench warfare. As everyone knows, the balance of military technology at the time made sustained offensives very costly and unlikely to result in breakouts. However, defense was also very costly; in the majority of German offensives, for example, the Allies suffered more casualties as defenders than the Germans did as attackers. Ultimately, when you have large industrialised countries with huge populations that are engaged in what they see as a war for national survival, they will send millions of soldiers to fight and die; these nations can "take a punch", as Dan Carlin memorably put it, and there's no "One Weird Trick To Fix The Trench Warfare Stalemate". When various powers did try alternative approaches - for example, the Gallipoli landings or the Ostend Raids - it generally backfired. While the likes of John French and Douglas Haig were mediocre commanders, even the best and most innovative officers of the war (such as John Monash) sustained eye-watering casualties.

Despite all the above complaints, I do think the film is worth watching; it is a visual feast, as I say, and some scenes are spectacularly well done: the famous crater scene, as well as the 'uniform scenes' added at the start that KulakRevolt discussed here. However, as an adaptation of the book or as a rumination on the nature of evil in warfare, it is distinctly lacking.

The involvement of the UK in particular was triggered by the German invasion of Belgium, a neutral country whose defense we were explicitly committed to.

That is the official reason, because the UK government knew it would be hard to convince the British public that Serbia was worth fighting over, but they were keen to get involved from the very start.

Indeed, Britain's involvement is what really set it off as a "World War", whereas if they had stayed out it would've probably been a larger repeat of something like the Franco Prussian war. I've felt for a while that their decision to join the war was ultimately the most disastrous foreign policy decision the UK ever made.

I had a hard time enjoying the "Haunting of Hill House" series because of this. I know I should go back and watch it on its own terms, but why on earth did they have to give it that title?

I don't know that much about WWI but I got the sense that it was a very theatrical and "hollywood-ized" depiction of the war. I watched the 1930 years ago in college and I especially remembered the scene where their kindly postman becomes a tyrannical bully once he's in uniform. I was disappointed not to see that in this movie.

I'm in 100%, total agreement with you, as a big fan of the book and someone very interested in the world wars. I've mentioned before here that the depiction of the Germans as over-eager in the final days of the war isn't just a baffling reversal of the book's finish, but also likely to give the average viewer the completely wrong impression about what the German morale and position was like come November 1918.

Over time I've become less and less tolerant for movies that take historical liberties. I don't really care about names or places or specific dates, or getting all the period details of dress and costume and dialogue correct. But the average person should be able to get, emotionally and intellectually, a roughly accurate impression of the era depicted. The average person knows fuck all about history EXCEPT for what they get from pop culture, and so in that respect I do feel that film/tv/video game creatives have some responsibility to get the broad stuff right. In an age of decreased literacy they do shoulder more of the burden (extremely sadly) for explaining history. And I think it's much more important that the larger public have a decent sense of our shared history than most people would reckon.

I will resist the opportunity to go on a further rant about public misperceptions of World War 1, but I will say that while I love Blackadder Goes Forth with a passion, it has - in combination with the "lions led by donkeys" trope - helped cement many misunderstandings about the war, especially in the British mindset, and this film perpetuates many of these myths.

YES. I remember watching a few of the episodes in high school history class and it was one of the first time that I realised how, with just a little bit of obsessiveness about history in my spare time, I already knew more than a lot of well-educated adults.

However, to paraphrase what has been said about Neville Chamberlain, World War I British have about as much chance of being remembered as competent decision-makers in a new and difficult environment as Pontius Pilate has of being remembered as a competent Roman official.

Does Trump sue just to fundraise?

Throughout the early history of the American legal system, if you wanted to sue anyone in court you had to follow this arcane and inconsistent labyrinth of common law pleading rules. What we today generically call "lawsuits" were pointlessly split up into "actions at law" or "bills in equity" or whatever, all of which had different pedantic rules depending on the jurisdiction you're in (for a long time, federal courts dealing with state law had to apply procedural rules that were in effect at the time the state joined the Union). When the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were first created in 1938, the intent was to get rid of the stodgy traditional requirements in favor of something comparatively more informal. As reflected in Rule 8, all you really need to file a lawsuit is a "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief" in your complaint.

This "permissive" paradigm was put to the test in front of the same guy who was responsible for writing those new rules, Judge Charles E. Clark. The 1944 case Dioguardi v. Durning is a fun read, and involves a handwritten lawsuit filed by a guy with a very questionable grasp on the English language complaining about a customs official seizing "tonic" bottles "of great value" imported from Italy. Clark ruled that "however inartistically they may be stated" the guy was clear enough to meet the new pleading standards. For a more modern example from a much more complicated case, see the complaint that was filed in the Tesla Securities lawsuit (I know nothing about this case, just picked it at random for an example). Despite the complex subject matter and the number of people involved, the complaint is only 58 pages and is structured logically enough to make it relatively easy to follow. It establishes why the court should hear the case, some background facts, and then articulates in clear detail who harmed who and why the court should do something about it.

In contrast, compare the lawsuit that Lance Armstrong filed against the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in 2012. The Judge took one look at the PDF, saw that it was 80 pages long, and promptly dismissed it with a "I ain't reading all that" ruling:

Armstrong's complaint is far from short, spanning eighty pages and containing 261 numbered paragraphs, many of which have multiple subparts. Worse, the bulk of these paragraphs contain "allegations" that are wholly irrelevant to Armstrong's claims and which, the Court must presume, were included solely to increase media coverage of this case, and to incite public opinion against Defendants. See, e.g., Compl. [#1] ¶ 10 ("USADA's kangaroo court proceeding would violate due process even if USADA had jurisdiction to pursue its charges against Mr. Armstrong."). Indeed, vast swaths of the complaint could be removed entirely, and most of the remaining paragraphs substantially reduced, without the loss of any legally relevant information. Nor are Armstrong's claims "plain": although his causes of action are, thankfully, clearly enumerated, the excessive preceding rhetoric makes it difficult to relate them to any particular factual support. This Court is not inclined to indulge Armstrong's desire for publicity, self-aggrandizement, or vilification of Defendants, by sifting through eighty mostly unnecessary pages in search of the few kernels of factual material relevant to his claims.

Since lawsuits are already a vehicle to air grievances, it's understandable when clients/lawyers try to sneak in as many parting shots as possible. Lawsuits are endowed with an aura of gravity and seriousness that a bare press release or op-ed outlining the same grievances would lack. Unless things get *too *egregious, there's not a whole lot a judges can do to stop the practice of trying to disguise a press release under a legitimate lawsuit costume.

Back in March of last year, Trump filed a wide-ranging 108-page lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and several dozen other defendants. You can read the entire lawsuit yourself here but the basic allegation is defamation over claims/insinuations that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. The complaint was later "amended" in June to include yet more defendants, and ballooned to 193 pages in the process.

The Trump v. Clinton et al lawsuit eventually got dismissed last September. For a full accounting as to why you can read the 65-page opinion but the short summary is the lawsuit was a confusing constellation of disconnected political grievances Trump had smooshed together into a laundry list of allegations that could not conceivably be supported by any existing law. For example, Trump's lawyer Alina Habba alleged malicious prosecution without a prosecution, alleged RICO violations without predicate offenses, alleged obstruction of justice without a judicial proceeding, cited directly to reports that contradicted their claims, and on and on. None of these problems are supposed to be common knowledge, but it is *very *basic stuff any lawyer filing a federal lawsuit should either know or research before they step foot on a rake. But when the defendants in this case pointed out the problems, Habba's response was to just double down instead of correct them. My favorite tidbit was when they justified why one of the 30+ defendants, a New York resident, was being sued in a Florida court (even federal courts need personal jurisdiction established) by claiming that defendant should've known that the false information they were spreading would end up in Florida, and also that they "knew that Florida is a state in the United States which was an important one."

When someone is served with any lawsuit, they have an obligation to respond or risk losing the entire case by default. In very rare circumstances (namely with handwritten complaints from prisoners with nothing better to do), a lawsuit is so patently bogus that a defendant can sit on their laurels doing nothing, confident it will get dismissed without them having to lift a finger. Before Trump's lawsuit was dismissed, a veritable legal machinery from the 30+ individuals/corporations sued whirred into action, ginning up an eye-watering amount of billable hours in the process to investigate and respond to the allegations. The judge in this case was seriously annoyed by all this and on Thursday she imposed sanctions by ordering Habba and Trump to pay everyone's legal bills, totalling almost $938,000. You can read the 46-page opinion here.

I've written before about pretextual excuses, such as when NYC *claimed *their employee vaccine mandate was for public health reasons, but then implemented exceptions that were inconsistent with their lofty claim. I argued it's reasonable to conclude NYC was lying. Similarly, Habba may claim as a lawyer that her lawsuit was to pursue valid legal remedies on behalf of her client, but when her efforts are completely inconsistent with that goal, it's perfectly reasonable to conclude she's lying. If valid legal remedies was the real goal of the suit, even someone like me --- with no experience civil litigation --- can contemplate trivial changes which would have significantly improved its success (most obviously don't wait past the statute of limitations, don't try to sue 31 different entities all at once, don't try to sue in a court that lacks jurisdiction, don't try to sue fictitious entities, etc.). So if that wasn't the real goal, what was?

The judge in this case strongly suspects the real purpose of the (bogus) lawsuit was to use it as a vehicle for fundraising. The vast scope of characters sued matches with this explanation because while a disparate cast of defendants legally frustrated the lawsuit in the courtroom, it does make for a better headline when soliciting donations (Clinton! Adam Schiff! James Comey! Lisa Page! Peter Strzok!). Trump has a pattern of filing frivolous lawsuits (like suing the Pulitzer Prize Board for defamation for awarding NYT and WaPo) and then following up with "breaking news alerts" soliciting donations for his Save America PAC, so the timing matches up. The fundraising efforts appear to be working well, with the PAC having about $70 million on hand as of last fall.

The sanction this judge imposed is the highest by far imposed on any of Trump's attorneys. It's possible this is a coincidence, but the day after the sanctions, Trump voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit he filed in Florida (??) against New York's Attorney General. I'm assuming the judge hopes the $1 million penalty will discourage further waste of time for the courts and other potential defendants, but the fundraising mechanism I described feeds itself. The higher the sanction imposed, the more urgent the breaking news alert begging for money will be.

=edited

It's not like anyone objects (or should object) to shots taken at Biden. I'm starting to feel like this place may have a problem.

Your post was high quality. One can always disagree on substance, but their criticism of the form doesn't hold water. Partisan complaints based on impossibly high standards shouldn't be rewarded with edits, let alone apologies and bans.

Thank you. It's certainly possible that some partisans want to react to arguments they don't like by throwing a tantrum instead of engaging with the argument itself, but given the amount of productive feedback I received in this thread, it's worthwhile to remain receptive to valid criticism and acknowledge it.

I think any issues it had were solved with changing the headline to:

Does Trump sue just to fundraise?

I actually ignored the post from the start, but I can understand someone being frustrated at essentially being Rick-Rolled into reading another "Orange Man Bad!" post. Likewise the "You're about to be triggered" warning was picking a fight. The post as it is now, is perfect.

I actually ignored the post from the start, but I can understand someone being frustrated at essentially being Rick-Rolled into reading another "Orange Man Bad!" post. Likewise the "You're about to be triggered" warning was picking a fight.

I agree with this criticism, and credit to @aqouta for convincing me of the errors of my ways. I feel silly that I did not consider "open question as headline" as an option before.

Seeing ymeskhout and Nybbler duking it out is like seeing mommy and daddy fighting. Stop it, think of the children!

That said, the post was good and informative and Trump should not be above reproach. The attempts to raise the costs for criticising Trump on The Motte reads to me like a cheap attempt to enforce consensus. That is not why we're here.

This is my read of it as well, particularly considering how many are coupling with the thought-terminating cliche phrase "Orange Man Bad". It is highly ironic to me that this phrase, supposed to mock "NPC-like" left-wing behavior, has just become a reflective crutch to be employed by MAGA and MAGA-adjacent folks every time someone criticizes Trump for anything, anywhere, no matter the quality of the criticism.

Trump is the former US president and quite potentially a future US president as well! He should be criticized, and criticized a lot, for his various maneuvers and wheeling and dealing!

Well, I wouldn't use it if the criticism was substantive, but most times it does amount to nothing more than "Orange Man Bad". Trump is supposed to be uniquely awful. Situate him in the context, demonstrate that this is so and that it's not the equivalent of an instance in the past when everyone was shocked and horrified by how uniquely awful and unprecedented such and such was.

We're currently seeing with Biden, for instance, that taking batches of classified documents home with you after leaving office is not a once-off, uniquely Trumpian, case. And indeed Biden did it before Trump, after leaving office as Vice-President for Obama. But somehow this is different. "Oh but Trump opposed and fought, Biden co-operated". Biden had these documents for six years, had no idea he had them, left them lying around in cupboards to be found by people clearing out old offices, and in his garage. Of course he didn't fight, he was all "I have classified documents? Okay, if you say so". Is this supposed to be better?

We're currently seeing with Biden, for instance, that taking batches of classified documents home with you after leaving office is not a once-off, uniquely Trumpian, case. And indeed Biden did it before Trump, after leaving office as Vice-President for Obama. But somehow this is different. "Oh but Trump opposed and fought, Biden co-operated". Biden had these documents for six years, had no idea he had them, left them lying around in cupboards to be found by people clearing out old offices, and in his garage. Of course he didn't fight, he was all "I have classified documents? Okay, if you say so". Is this supposed to be better?

Yes. Being in violation of the rules because of negligence and then cooperating to rectify the mistake is better than openly flaunting the rules, if you believe the rules are just. Which I do in this case, even if its enforcers aren't.

Well, in this case, I find it pretty hard to argue that it's a substantial criticism, in the way that I haven't seen this particular criticism before and it adds to the image of a Trump being a type to ignore the formal rules of the system to pursue personal agendas, surely something one would mostly not want to see in a president. Furthermore, it taught me things about the American legal system I hadn't read about or even considered before. Summarizing this particular post just as "Orange Bad Mad" seems, indeed, nothing more than a reflex, and it's not the first time I've seen this thought-terminating phrase just being used as an automatic dismissive reaction to any and all criticism of Trump.

Yes, yes, heaven forbid that people are informed what the thread is about, so they can scroll by if they're not interested.

Trump is the former US president and quite potentially a future US president as well! He should be criticized, and criticized a lot, for his various maneuvers and wheeling and dealing!

Criticize President Trump? Inconceivable! It has never been done before!*

*) Which is to say: there's nothing wrong with beating a dead horse, but stop acting like criticizing Trump is what people have an issue with.

I haven't seen this particular criticism of Trump before, and I found it interesting to read.

Sure, I'm not saying it shouldn't be posted, just that people miffed because this wasn't what they were signing up for have a right to be miffed.

arguing with Nybbler means you're probably gonna lose

Definitely curious to hear what you think of what folks like Lawfare called the "speaking indictments" of Robert Mueller. They used this term specifically to describe an indictment that is aimed at "telling a broader story" rather than narrowly focusing in on specific crimes. Are you similarly critical of legal actions taken to harm Trump?

Can you point to a link about what you mean about "speaking indictments"? I'm familiar with the term only generally and don't immediately see the relevance.

I have my beliefs but I also like to think I just follow where the evidence takes me. Here's me being critical of the case Liz Cheney was trying to build against Trump regarding his knowledge about the crowd on J6. I'm sure there are other examples.

This link has an example of the phrase:

The document is what prosecutors term a “speaking indictment”; that is, it describes facts about the defendants’ activities beyond what is strictly necessary for the counts it charges. The purpose of a speaking indictment is more than to simply list charges; it is to tell a story...

I don't have much of an opinion of it. What they call speaking indictments looks like it has about the same amount of detail that I see in charging documents I deal with every day in state court. In your link it's clear why the prosecutors assumed a jury trial would never happen, so adding details into an indictment makes sense. Shrug? Sorry, I'm not sure what you're asking.

I'm confused. Do you disagree with their assessment that prosecutors make a distinction along the lines they described? Do you agree that prosecutors make that distinction, but your assessment is that this particular one isn't in that bucket? Or maybe you think that they're right that some prosecutors make that distinction, but you think those prosecutors are just full of bollocks or something?

I don't know enough about federal criminal indictments in general to have an opinion on this. "Speaking indictment" appears to me to be more like a term of art descriptor than an exact distinction.

Would you stipulate that the authors are plugged in with what federal criminal prosecutors think about such indictments in general? Then, under the assumption that they're right enough about the idea that such a thing was what happened here, would you be even remotely as concerned about it?

I think you're overstating the choice of venue issue. In practice it's pretty flexible.

Look at when SDNY when after Bannon et al. None of the defendants were in its jurisdiction. They couldn't find a victim. The case was similar -- residents of SDNY heard about "build the wall" so they had jurisdiction.

For things like libel you're supposed to be able to sue in your home state. If the defendant is politically connected (eg NYT) it'll often get transferred, but that's more of an exception.

There have been a few explanations floated for how the lawsuits proceeded...

Fundraising was undoubtably a goal.

Stating all of the allegations in one place for the historical record was probably a motivation. Multiple separate lawsuits wouldn't have been able to convey Trump's side clearly.

The choice of lawyers was questionable. Trump has a thing for hiring ex-prosecutors. They don't have the right experience for this sort of litigation. I suspect that they are grifting Trump... filing half-assed lawsuits so they can bill him and say they did something. Ex-prosecutors aren't the sort of people who actually want to present a strong case against powerful federal insiders.

Another probable goal was just to get to some level of discovery. Getting the various defendants to admit to various facts not in dispute would have been good for Trump's record. It would have been something historians would have needed to acknowledge.

A more out there explanation I've heard is that the goal of the lawsuit was to create a single intelligence silo. It provided a justification to read in all of the lawyers on information that's still classified. Multiple lawsuits would have meant that lawyers could only be read in on specific information relevant to that specific case.

Filing before the statute of limitations had expired was impossible in this case. He wouldn't have been able to sue as president. Legally he could, but it wasn't practical to. Plus high level bureaucrats have too many ways to slow things down... information came out as a trickle, then he had to wait for official investigations to wrap up.

I think it would be helpful if you pointed to links or sources for your claims. For example, I don't know where you're basing the claim that personal jurisdiction is flexible. The wikipedia page on the topic should be enough to showcase how complicated the analysis is and cases get bounced all the time for failure to establish personal jurisdiction (which typically happens because the plaintiff either wants to sue in their home turf for convenience or is maybe judge shopping). Similarly how does filing a frivolous lawsuit help the "historical record" versus just writing a book or issuing a press release? Etc

Content Warning: This post criticizes Trump

This is obnoxious and unnecessary.

Some people thought that my post was a pretextual excuse where I discuss the US legal system just as a vehicle to criticize Trump. The whole point of the post was to criticize Trump, so I wanted to make that clear to anyone who would read this. How else would you propose I address this concern?

How else would you propose I address this concern?

Don't use something deliberately provocative like "Content Warning". If the point of your post is to criticise Trump first, and the legal arcanities are second, then state that at the outset: "I want to criticise Trump from the standpoint of the lawsuits he takes".

You're perfectly free to say "Orange Man Bad" but why drag us through a history of "bills in equity" to get there? In fact, I think if you did do a post about the history of lawsuits, it would be more informative, more entertaining, and more acceptable as well as more in keeping with the spirit of this place.

Yes, the spirit of this place is about arguments and disputes, but don't be boring while you do it.

reposting, does this provide any insight as to why I included the history?

I do often wonder if I am overexplaining things. Because of my job, I don't think I am well calibrated on how much non-lawyers need/want something explained. I'm a nerd about minutiae like the history of civil procedure and personally find the subject interesting so when I started writing about a "bad" lawsuit, it seemed relevant to include some background on what makes a "good" lawsuit. The point, one which I probably should've been clearer about, is that we used to have this very formal and stodgy standards for how lawsuits are worded but that changed in favor of something less formal. The intent was to encourage people to speak more plainly, and I showcased the Dioguardi case to highlight how low the bar was. The risk with less formal standards is that people might ramble on, and so I thought it was relevant that courts want you to get to the point when you file a lawsuit.

All those things combined (less formality, preference for short and plain statements) showcase the challenge judges have with strictly policing the gratuitous parting shots lawyers/clients include in their lawsuits. So towards that end I highlighted Armstrong's example as a rare case of a lawsuit being dismissed for being too long, as a way to illustrate the limits of what judges are willing to put up with. The point was to set the stage for how Trump's 193-page lawsuit should be evaluated. I think if I just linked you a 200 page PDF and said "this is bad", few people would understand why.

I hadn't read the earlier version or the exchanges of opinion. So I came in to the "Does Trump sue just to fundraise?" version.

It seemed to be leading into an interesting wander through the history of American lawsuits and how that developed, but then that was set aside for "Orange Man Bad".

I don't think I'm a Trump partisan, but I don't much appreciate thinking you're offering me a slice of apple tart and then it turns out to be stewed prunes. I like stewed prunes, but if I'm all set up for apple tart, that doesn't please me.

It would have been better to dump the history of lawsuits if you were just going to go "Trump is a big poopy-head for suing Hillary". Then I could have skipped the entire thing.

Conversely, if you had left out the "Trump is a big poopy-head" stuff and told me about Italians and Lance Armstrong, I'd have read and enjoyed this and possibly upvoted.

As it is, the impression I have of this entire exchange is you sneering about "partisans" not appreciating your legal genius, and the people you're arguing with sniping back at you. I. Don't. Care.

The 'overexplanation' here was great, and I'd have enjoyed reading another eight paragraphs of it.

Same here. Leave out the Trump stuff, give us the legal "did you know?" No I didn't, tell me more!

Thank you, I appreciate that. I'm embarrassed to admit that those few paragraphs took literally hours to write, mostly because I kept getting distracted by research rabbit holes. If there's ever a topic you'd be interested to see me cover lmk

I saw the down thread squabbling and can registering nothing beyond a desire to recoup the precious minutes wasted in reading it. I will be brief for the sake of you and others. Your disagreement would be best resolved by not having happened, the second best solution is to have it be ignored or at least contained to the offending response thread. Editing your post in any way to make this disagreement more visible cannot possibly improve it. If you wish to make someone seem like an unhinged partisan for dismissing valid criticism this is practically the worst way to achieve your goal. You know, I know and everyone reading your post knows that this warning has no purpose other than to sneer.

You make a good point about visibility, and I edited the content warning to a more natural sounding open question. I put [edited] at the bottom. I would have edited more of a note but I'm already at 9991/10000 characters.

Significantly better, thank you.

Adding the other poster's name was gratuitous but I think the content warning was fine as it was. People are mad at you because they don't enjoy reading long posts criticizing Trump and they admit as much. The content warning gives them a chance to minimize it and move on, which is what they should do instead of getting mad and telling you to delete your post.

Partisans here know what they're getting into when they read long form analysis of Trump lawsuits. A content warning is as much of an insult to the reader's intellect as a warning that an aquarium may contain fish. @ymeskhout frequently makes posts of this type that I genuinely find valuable, especially with the aggressively neutral wording emblematic of a good lawyer that lets the facts and framing damn their opposition in a way low effort swipes simply irritate. It's frankly below them.

I don't think partisans do know what to expect.

My own biases are flattered by @ymeshkout's take, but if certain usernames were at the top, I'd go in assuming apologetics. Or at least "Here's why there's a problem Trump wants to combat."

For what it's worth, coming into the version that asks "just to fundraise?" I think it's pretty reasonable. That's a hypothesis, it's made clear from the start, and then the rest defends it. I read it as less stilted than a Content Warning and less of a bait-and-switch than just segueing partway through.

People are mad at you because they don't enjoy reading long posts criticizing Trump and they admit as much.

Some people did have thoughtful feedback downthread which I found persuasive and noted accordingly. For that reason, I'll hold out hope that people are not mad over something as petty and childish as what you're describing.

I've written before about pretextual excuses, such as when NYC *claimed *their employee vaccine mandate was for public health reasons, but then implemented exceptions that were inconsistent with their lofty claim.

Or, for instance, when someone writes a long comment purporting to be about the US legal system, but is really just a vehicle to take a shot at Trump.

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Or for instance, when someone writes a short comment purporting to make a point, but is just trying to dismiss anything that might be critical of Trump.

@Dean believes that I may have misinterpreted your post as if you were accusing me of pretending to write about the US legal system just as a vehicle to criticize Trump. Could you confirm that my interpretation was off-base? As I said before, the whole point of the post was to criticize Trump's behavior. Was that not sufficiently sign-posted?

I apologize for the inclusion of your name in my content warning edit. Could you provide me any suggestions on what I could have done differently to address your criticism above?

The post to me read as just a shot at Trump, not so much criticizing him for engaging in lawfare but gloating over him being sanctioned for it. The whole long introduction on the legal system read as an attempt to add verbiage to make the post acceptable as a Motte top-level post. As for what you should have done, either not posted it or gotten to the point more quickly.

I sincerely appreciate you took the time to respond to my question. Which part do you identify as "gloating"?

Distributed throughout the second half. The whole tone of that half strikes me as just gleeful that Trump's people are being sanctioned.

I don't see what you're referring to. Can you point to any sentence and maybe provide an example of how you would rephrase it?

It's less about general criticism, and more that this is ymeskhout's specific hobby horse that has been flayed for years at this point, and regularly comes with standards called for against Trump that were not followed or applied (in general or by ymeskhout personally) on the lawfare against Trump. As with other pet topics, it repeats old themes to the point of evaporative cooling, which then leverage's ymeskhout's bad habit of dismissing/forgetting/claiming prior engagements on points either didn't occur or have been dismissed, for lack of an engaged opposition to engage otherwise.

As far as Trump-related lawfare goes, ymeskhout's a partisan and an old one at this point. At this point I only pay attention when he starts being petty towards people calling him out, like how this time he edited-in a callout- against The_Nybbler and then edited it out after being called out for it.

It's less about general criticism, and more that this is ymeskhout's specific hobby horse that has been flayed for years at this point, and regularly comes with standards called for against Trump that were not followed or applied (in general or by ymeskhout personally) on the lawfare against Trump.

You're not wrong, but if we modded everyone who flays dead horses, we'd have a lot fewer regulars.

(I like his posts because he explains law stuff in a lawyerly way, even if he is a bit cute sometimes when specifically criticizing Trump. But his theory that Trump is engaging in lawfare as a fundraising project does not seem unreasonable to me.)

The collapse button is helpful in this case.

You're not wrong, but if we modded everyone who flays dead horses, we'd have a lot fewer regulars.

I'm not precisely sure what drives 'if we modded this' comes from, because to the best of my knowledge neither myself or the Nybbler have called for mod-hat moderation of it. I cannot speak for @The_Nybbler, but I know I did not report the post.

(I like his posts because he explains law stuff in a lawyerly way, even if he is a bit cute sometimes when specifically criticizing Trump. But his theory that Trump is engaging in lawfare as a fundraising project does not seem unreasonable to me.)

It's certainly an argument... but it also runs into the general point of 'and this is not new or unique to Trump,' which comes back, as many things do, to whether Trump is uniquely bad, or if Trump is getting unique censure for things that go on as a matter of course. Lawfare and fundraising is an incredibly well established practice in a diversity of forms, from non-governmental agencies like the ACLU running literal solicitation campaigns to continue legal activity broadly seen as ideologically partisan now adays to government-entangled ones such as the Obama-era practice of offering corporate settlement offers that resulted in corporations giving money to non-profits or interest groups aligned with the party of government that was taking the corporations to court. There is an entire spectrum, and entire genres of fundraising solicitation emails of '[important thing] is at court- we need YOUR money NOW!'

Which, of course, brings back to the point of distinction of when someone is accused of pretext. 'I know it when I see it' is not a credible standard when highly subjective, and 'this is a Serious Thing' is not a credible claim when contextual examples of lawfare are available that were not held to similar standards. Selective appeals or enforcement of standards are related to the concept of anarcho-tyrrany precisely because the choice to enforce them is generally pretextual. When a general category of action is widespread, the choice to enforce sanction can simultaneously be 'valid' (there is a broken rule) and pretextual (the broken rule is not the reason the sanction is being enforced).

Okay, cool, so is your complaint that he's attacking Trump in an unprincipled fashion, or that he took a poke at nybbler in the process? Because I have some sympathy for the latter complaint (and believe me, it's hard for me to muster any sympathy where nybbler is concerned), but for the former, I have none, because whether or not I agree with your criticisms, this is exactly the kind of argument that is the Motte's bread and butter.

Okay, cool, so is your complaint that he's attacking Trump in an unprincipled fashion, or that he took a poke at nybbler in the process? Because I have some sympathy for the latter complaint (and believe me, it's hard for me to muster any sympathy where nybbler is concerned), but for the former, I have none, because whether or not I agree with your criticisms, this is exactly the kind of argument that is the Motte's bread and butter.

Solely Nybbler and the edit-trolling, and I have made no request or advocacy for mod action against even that.

As mentioned in a different post, I try to no longer engage ymeshkout on top-level post topics due to my judgement of him as a bad-faith actor in iterative engagements. I don't use block lists as a general principle, so the primary instances I respond are when he [insert potentially imprecise but generally negative action] other posters.

Really though the first three meaty paragraphs are wholly unnecessary to the post. I don’t think that should be subject to moderation but should be discouraged. Part of “speaking plainly” is getting to the point.

Really though the first three meaty paragraphs are wholly unnecessary to the post.

I do often wonder if I am overexplaining things. Because of my job, I don't think I am well calibrated on how much non-lawyers need/want something explained. I'm a nerd about minutiae like the history of civil procedure and personally find the subject interesting so when I started writing about a "bad" lawsuit, it seemed relevant to include some background on what makes a "good" lawsuit. The point, one which I probably should've been clearer about, is that we used to have this very formal and stodgy standards for how lawsuits are worded but that changed in favor of something less formal. The intent was to encourage people to speak more plainly, and I showcased the Dioguardi case to highlight how low the bar was. The risk with less formal standards is that people might ramble on, and so I thought it was relevant that courts want you to get to the point when you file a lawsuit.

All those things combined (less formality, preference for short and plain statements) showcase the challenge judges have with strictly policing the gratuitous parting shots lawyers/clients include in their lawsuits. So towards that end I highlighted Armstrong's example as a rare case of a lawsuit being dismissed for being too long, as a way to illustrate the limits of what judges are willing to put up with. The point was to set the stage for how Trump's 193-page lawsuit should be evaluated. I think if I just linked you a 200 page PDF and said "this is bad", few people would understand why.

With all that said, do you still think the intro was totally unnecessary?

I think your post is very good. It flowed well and the order of presentation made sense to me (setting the legal context up first--it could have been shorter but I greatly appreciated the history lesson; it's funny how much understanding you can get from finding out that things used to be done very differently, or are done differently in other places).

FWIW I'm not sure that asking everyone for more explicit feedback is worthwhile. I think there are multiple comments in this thread that are really desperately scrounging for a criticism and aren't engaging in good faith. Asking them what they want is pointless, because what they really want is for their opponents to go away, but they can't really say that.

Thanks, I still think asking for feedback is worthwhile because it gives people the opportunity to rebut the conclusion that they're only upset because I criticized something they like. If they refuse to do so, that's on them. If they provide helpful feedback, then it's a win for both of us.

Yes. Because it wasn’t really about pleading. The issue at hand is lawfare. That is, the rules relating to pleading don’t really implicate why Trump lost and lost “bigly.” The second part is interesting on its own which is you (and seemingly the court) think Trump is using the court for extralegal reasons. But hey, thanks for the free content (I don’t mean that sarcastically — my comments are just my two cents).

On the other hand, I haven’t done Civ Pro since my 1L year (in a transactional practice) so perhaps not the target audience.

Because it wasn’t really about pleading. The issue at hand is lawfare.

We might ultimately disagree on this point but I still would be interested in any thoughts you might have. How the pleading was structured seems core to my argument that it was a pretextual lawsuit from the start. I can't read Trump or Habba's mind, but I can look at the pleading and immediately notice some red flags which are inconsistent with "good faith lawsuit".

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Usually discouragement comes in the form of downvotes and feedback, which he's getting plenty of. Generally I don't think it's the mods' role to discourage prolixity.

Agreed — shouldn’t be a moderation point.

Is there any theme discussed at this point on the Motte for which one could not make the exact same argument as the one you make against @ymeshkout?

People tend to have their opinions, which they change rarely through discussion. And culture war issues are only so many.

If your contention were made into a rule, this site would need to shut down.

This mistakes my contention. The contention is not that a position doesn't change and this should be banned- the contention is that the position is re-raised regularly without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements, and with poor conduct towards other in the process.

Ways to avoid this include not misrepresenting people's current positions, not mis-representing previous engagements, and not making one's hobby-horse a top level post with regular slights towards other posters.

This mistakes my contention. The contention is not that a position doesn't change and this should be banned- the contention is that the position is re-raised regularly without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements, and with poor conduct towards other in the process.

This also describes many other regular posters on the Motte (and @ymeskhout much less so than many others I could name), and yet strangely receive far less pushback, and even provoke resentful carping when they push it too far and get modded.

Most reports we see are 100% partisan and can be summarized as "A person I don't like said something I don't like."

Both sides(tm) do this, but because of the increasingly skewed nature of the Motte, the majority is directed at people like ymeskhout expressing left-wing viewpoints.

This also describes many other regular posters on the Motte (and @ymeskhout much less so than many others I could name), and yet strangely receive far less pushback, and even provoke resentful carping when they push it too far and get modded.

What's strange about it?

The well established climate currated by the mods here is that not pushing back against many sorts of posters is a survival strategy, as the sorts of posters who would push back strenuously against the Darwins or Julius's of the motte were also the ones more likely to be banned than the Darwins or Julius's of the Motte. When moderates have open commentary on calibrating mod action based on political composition of forum, or accuse censored posters of ban-worthy tresspasses while simultaneously not doing so, it creates a pretty clear climate of what is more or less acceptable, and 'more pushback' is often the less acceptable path for long-term motte posters if they want to remain long-term motte posters. This is an old and well established failure state of the Motte, where bad posters both poison the culture and get the mods to ban better posters reacting against them, but this has been defended in the past an acceptable cost for the target goal of the Motte to not punish what people say, but how they say it.

But it is still a basic punitive incentive structure as enforced by the mod team, and as a consequence pushback that does occur will exist within other contextual boundaries- such as the acceptable areas of criticism such as treatment of other posters, or when it exists within the space allowed by the social dynamics of when a mod is involved. These social dynamics involved when mods don't want to be involved in moderating either other mods (internal group dynamics of people who do/have worked together for common causes, a desire to privately raise concerns out of public view) or when mods don't want to get involved in the personal non-mod disputes of a mod and other conflicts (public optic dynamics of not wanting to present mod solidarity). This creates greater conflict space- an overton window if you prefer- for more pushback to people who act within the ven diagram overlap of 'takes condemnable swipes at other posters' and 'is a mod.'

In so much as this is a problem for the broader motte space, the solution is to reduce the ven diagram overlap.

Most reports we see are 100% partisan and can be summarized as "A person I don't like said something I don't like."

I imagine most non-quality post reports would be summarizable as 'A person I don't like said something I don't like' whether it was partisan or not. Most internet fights seeking higher sanction against another are not between people who like eachother fighting over how much they like eacother.

Both sides(tm) do this, but because of the increasingly skewed nature of the Motte, the majority is directed at people like ymeskhout expressing left-wing viewpoints.

Is ymsekhout being criticized for expressing left-wing viewpoints, or is ymeskhout being criticized for his character in how he responded to a very minor barb about how his own post could be viewed from a non left-wing viewpoint?

The well established climate currated by the mods here is that not pushing back against many sorts of posters is a survival strategy, as the sorts of posters who would push back strenuously against the Darwins or Julius's of the motte were also the ones more likely to be banned than the Darwins or Julius's of the Motte.

"Pushing back" against the Darwins and the Juliuses never got anyone banned. Losing one's emotional equilibrium and going off on them did. I won't deny there is a failure mode here where someone very good at writing provocative posts that fall within the rules can result in some decent posters losing their shit when they can't take it any longer and getting themselves banned. On the other hand, someone who only does that once or twice doesn't get banned for very long, and Darwin and Julius both eventually got booted long-term. We have never had a great solution for getting rid of bad but effortful posters who poison the discourse without breaking the rules, and I have yet to hear proposals that don't amount to "Ban this hobby horse" or "Just admit that this person is terrible and ban them." (The latter we very occasionally do under the egregiously obnoxious wildcard rule, but every time we do it burns some of the membership's goodwill... remember, there are people who got on our case every time we modded Julius, and some of those people were not Julius's alts.)

I also do not think ymeshkout can fairly be compared to Darwin or Julius.

I imagine most non-quality post reports would be summarizable as 'A person I don't like said something I don't like' whether it was partisan or not. Most internet fights seeking higher sanction against another are not between people who like eachother fighting over how much they like eacother.

I am saying a large percentage of reports are "non-quality" as you put it - not people genuinely concerned about the tone and quality of arguments here, but simply seeking to punish their enemies.

Is ymsekhout being criticized for expressing left-wing viewpoints, or is ymeskhout being criticized for his character in how he responded to a very minor barb about how his own post could be viewed from a non left-wing viewpoint?

Both, IMO. He writes long, effortful posts that are hard to take apart on the facts, as you'd expect when debating a lawyer, but he also criticizes Trump a lot, so a lot of people see "Long-winded criticism of Trump" which makes them angry, but they can't really muster a cogent response to explain why the criticism is wrong, but they also notice him taking a few pokes at his interlocutors, which triggers even more rage. No, I seriously do not think he would get this kind of pushback if he were writing similar posts about how corrupt Joe Biden is. (He'd get some, but not like this where you're trying to make him the new Darwin.)

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This is as good of a place as any to say. While I had nothing at all to do with past mod actions giving you and other users warnings for calling me a liar, I've strenuously disagreed with that and have asked the mod team to stop enforcing that rule with me. You are welcome to accuse me of being a liar, although ideally you showcase evidence to prove your point. You can even call me a liar without evidence if you so desire, no matter how silly that might look.

Do you have any examples of other posters who regularly post top level threads about a singular topic without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements, and with poor conduct towards other in the process? Particularly examples of posters who do it more than @ymeskhout, but I'll settle for anything really.

I know you think I am an insipid partisan dick, but I would have readily pushed back against anyone repeatedly calling out other users and picking fights in top level posts, regardless of their ideology - but I haven't seen any other top level posts doing that. Did I just not want to see them?

without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements

Is this what you believe I do? I'm honestly surprised to hear this accusation coming from you. I specifically praised you in this post as a good example of someone who asked me pointed questions here which prompted productive introspection on my part. Having my beliefs scrutinized is something I genuinely wish happened to me more often. You never responded to that post (and I didn't necessarily expect you to) but I thought my responses to your questions were thorough, and I would be curious to know what your opinion on that effort is. You are also more than welcome to call me out on any other specific examples you have about me either disregarding or inaccurately reflecting on any engagements.

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Do you have any examples of other posters who regularly post top level threads about a singular topic without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements

Yes, but I am not going to call them out by name. Also, there are several people who rarely or never post top-level threads but will regularly go off in a subthread about their hobby horse.

and with poor conduct towards other in the process?

Other than being slightly patronizing and snarky at times, I do not think @ymeskhout shows poor conduct. And while we discourage snarkiness and sarcasm, even from mods, it's a flaw most of us fall prey to occasionally, and piling on him for "poor conduct" because he was a little snide in responding to someone who constantly engages in bad faith partisan sniping does not move me to demand an apology.

I know you think I am an insipid partisan dick

People always think they know what I think based on my modding, and they're usually wrong.

but I would have readily pushed back against anyone repeatedly calling out other users and picking fights in top level posts, regardless of their ideology

FWIW (and @ymeskhout can confirm this) I have privately voiced my objection to this kind of "calling out" of people just because you've had an argument with them in the past. But a lot of people seem to interpret "criticizing Trump"/otherwise expressing a partisan viewpoint as "picking fights."

but I haven't seen any other top level posts doing that. Did I just not want to see them?

As a top-level post, it's not that common. As petty sniping in the threads, or in reports - it's constant.

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Both sides(tm) do this, but because of the increasingly skewed nature of the Motte, the majority is directed at people like ymeskhout expressing left-wing viewpoints.

If Janny Duty is any indication, I'd say this is false. Most "reporting for disagreement" posts I've seen where targeted against people expressing right-wing viewpoints. Maybe if we divided each by the number of right/left leaning posters the results would come out different, but I have a hard time estimating the denominator here.

If Janny Duty is any indication, I'd say this is false. Most "reporting for disagreement" posts I've seen where targeted against people expressing right-wing viewpoints.

Are you talking about somewhere else where you are a mod? On a typical reddit sub, I can easily believe that's the case, but I'm talking about here.

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without regard or even accurate reflection of previous engagements

I asked before but I'll try again and hopefully get a more helpful answer: what information, context, link, source, claim, assertion, citation, whatever, etc. do you believe is missing from my post above?

I asked before but I'll try again and hopefully get a more helpful answer: what information, context, link, source, claim, assertion, citation, whatever, etc. do you believe is missing from my post above?

This would be an example of you not accurately reflecting previous engagements, as the previous engagements precede your post above, and so obviously and temporally did not address it, and insinuating they did is the sort of mis-representation you stand accused of conducting on a regular basis.

I'm trying to read and understand what you're writing to the best of my abilities. I'm just asking "what am I missing?" and it's not helpful for you to play a game of riddles. It doesn't make sense why you'd waste so much time and energy evading questions with purportedly trivially obvious answers.

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I honestly don't see where ymeshkout would be representing falsely or correctly any previous discussion in this forum in his top-level post, which appears to me to simply report on recent law- and culture war related news, concerning a person of obvious political and cultural interest.

I believe furthermore that the trigger warning does accomplish the contrary of what ymeshkout states it is aiming at, and that it should go.

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. What do you think the post above is missing?

It's absence. Not liking Trump is fine. Regularly and consistently making top-level comments about it with poor conduct towards the posters you are a moderator for is not. The dead horse doesn't become less dead if there's more of it to beat, especially when the complaint is about the stench.

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He doesn’t “regularly” make these posts. Going off memory it’s once every 2-4 weeks. The post is high quality in every way I can think of. It’s informative, relevant to the news du jour, written well and gratuitously sourced. I’m saying that as someone who would vote for Trump again (if I thought he had a chance of winning).

The nitpicking that some replies do is so annoying. I don’t see why someone would presume the right to call a consistently good contributor “beating a dead horse”. Trump is a relevant and divisive figure and so criticism of him is expected for purposes of culture war discussion. This particular avenue of criticism is novel and interesting.

It’s informative, relevant to the news du jour, written well and gratuitously sourced.

It's context for the complaints that I see sometimes about egregiously bad solicitations from Trump organizations.

Do you like my writing when I don't criticize Trump?

Not particularly, but it's considerably less one-note and lacking. Your posting is unexceptional, but you intend to insult fewer people and ignore fewer prior discussions than when you fixate on Trump unprompted.

If you meant your writing on a technical level, I find it generally poorly structured and lacking in content, conflating a lot of words with good word choice and links for sufficient sourcing. The arguments are often too reliant on insinuation by word connotation in lieu of supporting arguments, and generally lacking in the ability to anticipate or address counter arguments completely or factor in contextually relevant history while relying on narrative momentum for an emotional climax. It's passable verboseness, and I am certainly a sucker for long-winded arguments, but also leads to basic failures like overly long intros that fail the principles of effective written communication, or speaking around past and still standing counter-arguments.

And I say this as someone who is naturally prone to comma splicing and writing essays on my hobbies, and who writes more the groggier she is.

I didn't notice your edit until now, and so I'll repeat this request:

Hopefully this can help both of us: can you point me to any Trump criticism that you respect and explain what about it I should emulate? This sounds like a win/win for both of us because the worst case scenario is the status quo. Best case scenario is that I adopt the worthy parts and my writing becomes less painful for you to encounter. Of course, if you can't point to any Trump criticism that you respect, that would be an interesting answer on its own...

I have trouble parsing your feedback because it reads as conclusory and is lacking in specifics. If you say poor structure, poor structure how? If you say links to court documents are not sufficient sourcing, then what is? If you say arguments are too often reliant on insinuation by word connotation, what's an example of where I did that? If you say I'm lacking the ability to address or anticipate counter arguments, where did I do that? If I'm speaking around past and still standing counter-arguments, which ones? And so on. I concede that I can be verbose, but that should only make it that much easier to point out the many many flaws you claim to have identified.

Thank you for the thoughtful and actionable feedback, you've given me a lot of useful pointers to think about and implement.

Recently my girlfriend and I took an online BDSM test and it told me that I was only 32% on the sadistic scale while my girlfriend was 76% on the masochism scale. There's a disconnect in that I'm very uncomfortable with inflicting pain on others, even though my girlfriend is actively inviting me to hurt her. I would feel a similar discomfort about someone who does not like my writing yet actively continues to subject themselves to it. I don't want to want to continue hurting you Dean. If Trump criticism upsets you and you dislike my writing so much, you might experience an increase in your quality of life with some blocking tools or word filters. All the best my friend. I love you.

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I only like it when you flatter us endlessly, like in your article about TheMotte.

The post was awesome, informative, and even cited. Why quibble?

Sorry for the misunderstanding, the post was fully intended from the beginning to be about the $1 million sanction Trump and his lawyer received this week. As I started writing it, it made sense to include background info on pleading standards as way to showcase contrasting examples (Armstrong lawsuit vs Tesla lawsuit). Which part do you find pretextual? Would you find it helpful if I included a content warning at the top?

Edit: I apologize if my overly long introduction left you feeling duped about the content of the post. I added a content warning to make it clear what the core subject of the post is. If you have any other suggestions please let me know.

You should get a couple days ban for being so antagonistic. That edit to the original post is a shameful act for someone that's supposed to be a mod.

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@The_Nybbler believes that my post was pretextual, in other words that I was falsely claiming to write a post about the US legal system as a way to conceal my hidden purpose of criticizing Trump. I maintain that my real purpose was always from the beginning to write a post criticizing Trump, but given how long my intro about the US legal system was, I can understand why someone might potentially be mislead. Since I can't add a title to the comment I added a content warning to more explicitly signal what the post was about. What would you alternatively suggest for me to do to address The_Nybbler's concerns?

I'm not saying I agree with Nybbler. Someone behaving poorly does not excuse behaving poorly yourself. That edit's purpose is to be a petty insult, if it wasn't there'd be no reason to mention the person you're insulting. You could have easily just left the name out, but you wanted it to be insulting. I was asked to review the original post before I went into the thread and I thought it needed a warning because of the way it just called out another user seemingly for no reason. But after reading your post in response, the edit of that, and then the edit of the original post. It's just pure insult and pretending to be otherwise. I can understand banter and swipes and barbs to people with whom we disagree. But you go out of your way to humiliate and troll other users and get away with it because they made a mistake and were wrong and you are right. It's an aggressive and uncharitable trend you make a habit of and it disappoints me immensely that you can just get away with it because you do it with a smile and a bunch of links.

That edit's purpose is to be a petty insult, if it wasn't there'd be no reason to mention the person you're insulting. You could have easily just left the name out, but you wanted it to be insulting.

I understand your point about including his name and have edited it out. If you have any suggestions on how I ideally should have responded to The_Nybbler 's claim that my post was a pretext for criticizing Trump I'm all ears. It's weird to be accused of hiding a motivation I'm not hiding, so it seemed logical to respond by double-underlining the core topic of the post with a banner explicitly announcing the topic up top. How else am I supposed to respond to that kind of accusation?

But you go out of your way to humiliate and troll other users and get away with it because they made a mistake and were wrong and you are right. It's an aggressive and uncharitable trend you make a habit of and it disappoints me immensely that you can just get away with it because you do it with a smile and a bunch of links.

I remain open to receiving feedback on what I write and I genuinely don't understand how the first post is an example of trolling. I thought I was transparent when I wrote: "If I'm being fully honest, the scenario I would find the most emotionally satisfying and personally motivated towards pulling off would be where motteposting blunders haplessly into my trap and exposes himself as a complete hypocritical partisan about the standards of credibility he applies. I must admit that I did not get that, and I'll specifically give credit for things he did that were commendable." I'm not sure what is ambiguous about that or what else I'm supposed to say. What do you think is missing?

I similarly don't understand the criticism over the second link. DradisPing refused to admit they made a mistake and as far as I know this remains the case to this day. Do you think it's inappropriate to point out when someone confidently asserts false information and refuses to admit error? Furthermore, I maintain that examining why someone's mistakes happen to fall in the same direction is a topic worth examining. Which part do you disagree with?

Focusing on a single person for no reason to expose them as a bad faith actor is trolling. People are not ants in an antfarm. Not giving a person any time to respond at all before you make a top-level post detailing how wrong they are and pointing them out by name over and over is not the act of a person engaging in a debate. It's rude, tactless and unnecessarily aggressive. But it's clear to me that you are either unable to understand how your actions can affect other people or simply don't care. You wrap it all up in nice-seeming language but it's not. These are things you do to people you see as enemies. We're supposed to be having discussions and arguments with people that we may disagree with but they're still people. You are not treating people who disagree with you as people, you're treating them like they're enemies that need to be dissuaded or dismantled. Charity: from where I'm sitting you give it to no one.

You're losing me on the definition of trolling you're using. I don't see anything wrong with exposing someone's mistake, especially if I am emphatically accommodating rehabilitation ("it's fair to conclude DradisPing was mistaken. If so, I will preemptively praise them for editing their post and admitting their error."). I don't see the problem with this approach because I explicitly invite others to do the same to me. A good example of where I was scrutinized and a situation I wish happened more often is this post by @Fruck where they ask genuinely thoughtful and penetrating questions about why I had the beliefs I had. I walked away grateful for that exchange because it prompted productive introspection on my end.

If someone pointed out a mistake I made and gave me space to either correct it or justify it, I can't think of a reason why I would register that as a hostile act.

@The_Nybbler believes that my post was pretextual, in other words that I was falsely claiming to write a post about the US legal system as a way to conceal my hidden purpose of criticizing Trump.

Strangely, @The_Nybbler did not say that you were falsely claiming to write a post about the US legal citizen as a way to conceal your hidden purpose of criticizing Trump.

We can tell this because on reviewing what @The_Nybbler wrote, which you quoted, which was-

Or, for instance, when someone writes a long comment purporting to be about the US legal system, but is really just a vehicle to take a shot at Trump.

...which does not say you were falsely claiming to write a post about the US legal system, or that you were doing so as a way to conceal a hidden purpose, or that your purpose of critizing Trump was hidden. In fact, key framing words such as 'falsely' and 'hidden' do not appear, which the key word 'vehicle' as a metaphor in the context of a criticism of pretext is removed, thus creating substantive change of position from what Nybbler wrote and what you claim he said.

This would politely be called strawmanning, except that strawmanning is a device when engaging in an argument with someone, but you aren't engaging with Nybbler, you are deliberately re-characterizing what Nybbler said in conveyence to external audience.

Which would politely be called 'lying about what someone said to someone else.' Which is a reoccuring feature of yours.

I maintain that my real purpose was always from the beginning to write a post criticizing Trump, but given how long my intro about the US legal system was, I can understand why someone might potentially be mislead. Since I can't add a title to the comment I added a content warning to more explicitly signal what the post was about. What would you alternatively suggest for me to do to address The_Nybbler's concerns?

Delete the post, apologize for poor writing quality, and apologize to @The_Nybbler for poor conduct.

Edit: And I see he has edited back out the troll he had edited in, but no apology in the post. Typical and meeting expectations, I suppose.

I don't have a dog in this fight having skipped the main post until i saw the back snd forth. But i interpreted theNybblers response in exactly the same way ymeskhout did.

I don't know if that was what he meant, but it is how it read to me.

Same. I felt that Nybbler was being clearly antagonistic and snide, without any sort of provocation.

I thought it was a bit of a joke. The OP started with “standards for clear concise pleading” and then sorta strayed away from that into a discussion about lawfare. Thus, the joke is that OP’s post arguably contradicts the clear concise pleading because the first half is irrelevant to the second half.

I didn't mean it as a joke but admit that I inadvertently got myself owned

Strangely, @The_Nybbler did not say that you were falsely claiming to write a post about the US legal citizen as a way to conceal your hidden purpose of criticizing Trump.

I interpreted his statement to mean that my post was an example of a pretextual excuse, and I don't know how else the statement would make sense given what he was directly responding to ("pretextual excuses, such as when..." flows into "Or, for instance, when someone..."). So if @The_Nybbler wasn't calling my post a pretextual excuse to criticize Trump, something which requires lying, then I will apologize for the misunderstanding. I still would be eager to understand exactly how I managed to misinterpret that sentence.

Delete the post, apologize for poor writing quality, and apologize to @The_Nybbler for poor conduct.

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback. Which part do you believe constitutes bad writing?

The Big Serge has a good overview of the RU-UA war. The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel, hence Germany's reticence to send Leopards. One should understand that Europe's and even America's production capacities have atrophied badly over the decades. Losing hundreds of tanks - the number that Ukraine is asking for - isn't something you replenish within a year.

Serge's prediction that Ukraine will lose the war "gradually, then suddenly" seems plausible given Russia's attrition strategy. If we assume that Russia will win this war, then the question needs to be asked.. how much will actually change? Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.

I keep hearing hysterical rhetoric that the West must win this war or... something something bad. It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory' that was used to justify the Vietnam intervention. While I don't think NATO will ever proceed towards direct intervention á la Vietnam, I can't help but think that too many of the West's elites have trapped themselves rhetorically where Ukraine's importance is overblown for political reasons (so as to overcome domestic opposition towards sending arms) and it has now become established canon in a way that is difficult to dislodge.

Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important

It depends what you mean by that, indeed a russian takeover wouldn't directly change the world but Ukraine and Russia are the largest food exporters in the world IIRC.

Ukraine also has (had?) a monopoly in noble gas.

Ukraine was a key driver of Soviet science, engineering and military tech, see e.g the antonov which would BTW enable cheaply to have a potent successor to Hubble if anyone cared as usual.

However Ukraine has lost all its technological glory since the population will to stay in the USSR has not been respected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum

It's pretty important to understand what was being voted for here. Just understanding the context of the original asked question offers clues:

Do you consider it necessary to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of a person of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?

This is connected to Gorby's drive to salvage the rapidly decaying Soviet Union by reforming it as a decentralized state. In other words, if you're voting "Yes", you're not voting for "old" Soviet Union, you're voting for a new decentralized state, where the autonomy of the individual republics would be greatly expanded.

However, as the site says, there was an [additional question in Ukraine](Do you agree that Ukraine should be part of a Union of Soviet Sovereign States on the basis on the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine?):

Do you agree that Ukraine should be part of a Union of Soviet Sovereign States on the basis on the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine?

Note well: the Union of Soviet Sovereign States. This already presumes the existence of a whole new kind of an entity. Moreover, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine stated:

The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Декларація про державний суверенітет України, romanized: Deklaratsiia pro derzhavnyi suvernitet Ukrainy) was adopted on July 16, 1990, by the recently elected parliament of Ukrainian SSR by a vote of 355 for and four against.[1][2]

The document decreed that Ukrainian SSR laws took precedence over the laws of the USSR, and declared that the Ukrainian SSR would maintain its own army and its own national bank with the power to introduce its own currency.[2] The declaration also proclaimed that the republic has intent to become in a future "a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs," and that it would not accept, nor produce, nor procure nuclear weapons.[2]

What exactly was the difference between this and independence? Beats me! This referendum was accepted by 80% of the votes, and as others point out, after the Gorby's reform plans fell through, Ukrainian voters confirmed formal independence with 92 % of votes.

Presenting the 1991 Soviet referendums as some sort of a yes/no vote on independence with no votes winning is quite misleading. It was all part of an ongoing process leading to Ukrainian independence, and indeed can be considered more as further indication of the popularity of independence, rather than opposition to it. In any case it seems obvious that early-90s Ukrainian voters wanted more sovereignty from Moscow. That, quite clearly, has not been Moscow's intent.

Ukraine also has (had?) a monopoly in noble gas.

Certainly not. They were a major producer, but there are other sources including the United States, and US production ramped up after the annexation of Crimea.

As for Ukraine's "will to stay in the USSR", that would have been rather tough given the events subsequent to the referendum that resulted in the dissolution of the USSR. Ukraine was a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States until 2018.

Certainly not. They were a major producer, but there are other sources including the United States, and US production ramped up after the annexation of Crimea.

They may be thinking of neon specifically. IIRC, pre-2022 Ukraine exported half of the world's industrial-grade neon.

I am also thinking of neon specifically. I'm fairly sure that "exported half of the world's industrial-grade neon" refers to exports only; it does not take into account neon sold domestically (which is significant in both the US and China, at least). They still had a big chunk of the market but not quite so catastrophic as it seems.

However Ukraine has lost all its technological glory since the population will to stay in the USSR has not been respected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum

Very slippery. Are you unfamiliar with Ukrainian history or were you being mendacious?

However Ukraine has lost all its technological glory since the population will to stay in the USSR has not been respected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum

Well, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum had 92% of support after it become obvious to everyone that USSR imploded.

The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel, hence Germany's reticence to send Leopards.

If this is the level of analysis on offer, it's beyond worthless. Russia too has "burned through" much of their advanced equipment and is now mostly limited to their own domestic new production or mothballed shit from the '50s and '60s. Of course Ukraine wants good weapons, rather than the outdated military surplus most countries have been dumping on them. This is not an indication that anyone is "winning" or "losing". This is what happens in attritional combat.

Germany isn't reticent to send Leopards because the Ukrainians are losing, they're reluctant to send them because they don't have very many and their politics is incredibly fucked up around military matters, for understandable historical reasons. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/21/what-is-stopping-the-supply-of-german-made-leopard-2-tanks

Here's a technical video about IFVs specifically, what sorts are involved, how many, tactics etc. https://youtube.com/watch?v=UGZi-F3tz-o

Germany isn't reticent to send Leopards because the Ukrainians are losing, they're reluctant to send them because they don't have very many and their politics is incredibly fucked up around military matters, for understandable historical reasons.

I'm nor particularly persuaded by German appeals to history on this. It hasn't stopped the large-scale export of German arms in general, or the export of other German arms to Ukraine, or the historical point that one of the biggest victims of German aggression in WW2 was the Ukrainians themselves. Appealing to history is more often a pretext to some other interest, the question being what.

The three that come to mind for me are Scholz seeking domestic/western concessions, maintaining Russian energy imports as long as possible as a way to gain time before a total energy cutoff, or a desire to keep the Americans from benefiting from a general European military-recapitalization in tanks, which would happen if everyone's German tanks were sent to Ukraine. No one of these has to be dominant, as all are mutually reinforcing.

For the first, seeking a concession, there is something to be said that Scholz is in a poor position internally and approving arms exports is a tool in his tool kit for internal political compromises. The better part of a year later, it's clear that the much-vaunted German turning point has been mostly wasted and wanting for the last year. The Defense Minister was uninterested in military reform, it's not clear the Ministry is capable of it, and it remains to be seen if the new Defense Minister wants to do it as well, or if he'll go through the motions but happily slow-walk while making the right noises. What people do miss is that slow-walking can serve multiple purposes- it can be a way to frustrate things you don't want to happen, or to solicit concessions in exchange for speeding up. If Scholz approves tank transfers in general, he's unable to gain concessions- domestic or external- in exchange for doing so going forward. Call this the 'is seeking a bribe' option- and what the 'bribe' is could be anything, from American concessions on the Inflation Reduction Act industrial subsidies that Germany can't match, to coalition partner concessions improving Scholz's internal political stability.

For the second, for all the media hub-up of sanctions on Russia, it's very easy to miss that Europe continues to import quite a bit of energy from Russia, and that Germany's expenses with the winter energy crunch could still get much, much worse. In this framing, Germany is blocking tanks in order to keep Russian energy exports coming to Germany / Europe, rather than a more severe restriction. On one hand this is a concession to energy blackmail, but in another this is a time-buying strategy in order to continue to establish alternative energy export infrastructure. The longer the final Russian cutoff can be prevented, the better, and a German perspective could well be that tanks are unnecessary to more or less sustain the current position, which is preferable to a swing towards Ukraine that cuts into German energy before all/more infrastructure import infrastructure comes online.

Finally, the third is a military industrial complex interest objection. Basically, military budgets are rarely consistent across years, but come in waves as militaries inject new capital into their armies via new purchases/modifications, or entire re-capitalizations of existing forces. These recapitalizations are really lucrative if you can sell to it due to the nearly guaranteed follow-on contracts for decades after. This was more or less achieved by Germany during the cold war / post cold war, selling the Leopard tank to Europe. To a lesser degree it's also a benefit of the 'ring swap' agreements, where Germany agreed to send German vehicles to Eastern European countries to backfill the Warsaw Pact surplus they sent to Ukraine. The Germans would be getting new service/maintenance contract customers over the long haul... unless, of course, these are in turn sent to Ukraine, leaving the donor states truly empty and needing recapitalization to get new tanks.

The issue for German arms industry is that they're not in a place to support an expansion of tank production and arms sales to compete for major tank recapitalization. The German industry isn't enough to maintain Germany's own tank fleets, let alone replace everyone else's. If everyone were to give up their Leopards, Germany would both lose the current Leopard support contracts, and lose out on the replacement contracts. In the short term, the only credible immediate replacement for Europe would be Abrams tanks from stockpiles, and the Americans have already been sweeping the European air force recapitalization efforts with the F-35. If the Americans brought out Abrams from stockpiles not for Ukraine, but to back-fill the Europeans who give their Leopards to Ukraine, that would be a long-term loss of German contracts and defense-industry influence.

In this final reading, Scholz's reluctance to send tanks is a more French-style nativist industrial self-interest of 'buy (German) European.' The reason for Germany to not only not send it's own tanks, but not signal that it will approve other people sending their German tanks, is to ensure that German tanks remain on the books in European inventories. If the German tanks disappear in Ukraine, there's a very strong chance that many established German tank partners will not replace them with German kit, but with American surplus Abrams, which could be procured cheaper and faster from American refurbishment than entirely new German tanks at a time when Germany's own tank force needs recapitalization. And if the Americans get in the European tank market, then it will be very, very hard to get them out, as the Abrams themselves could be updated for who knows how long, and political dynamics of Ukraine have made American defense ties stronger than the pre-war appeals of Strategic Autonomy => Buy French/German European kit.

This view would also partly explain the reported German demand that the Americans send Abrams into Ukraine in exchange for the German permission for others to send Leopards. The point is less the Abrams effectiveness, but rather to keep the American refurbishment committed to supplying Ukraine, rather than displacing Leopards in European countries, giving the German arms industry and government time to try and preserve more of the European tank market market share.

Finally finally, there's also the black-comedy take that Scholz is actually a secretly brilliant and cold-blooded manipulator who wants to extend the war, seeking to both maximize the damage to Russia and use the European energy crisis to disrupt less stable/subsidized economies in Europe, increasing Germany's relevant power within the union. In this read, Scholz is the most ruthless pro-American prime minister in ages, deliberatly sabotaging the political viability of the German pro-Russia/anti-American movement, and otherwise trying to get the American more and even over-committed to helping Ukraine, so as to prevent the Americans from working too hard against China as Germany tries to use the opportunity to make favorable engagements with China to maximize the German position further.

This one is a bit silly, but it would explain a number of German slow-walkings, as a form of perpetuating the war and driving other actors, including the US, Poland, and Russia, to over-commit resources to German relative advantage.

hub-up

Just as an FYI, this is hubub: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hubbub

What kind of inept denial is this? You seriously believe Russia will run out of tanks before Ukraine? You are wrong by multiple order of magnitudes.

Also the purity thinking that modern military machines transcend the old ones is very common and childish. In fact considering the very strong economic and usefulness diminishing returns of the newer iterations, peak maximally useful military machines are generally from the 70s + a few cheap modernisations on top such as a 1 dollar gps/glonas chip.

  • -20

You seriously believe Russia will run out of tanks before Ukraine?

I'd love to know where you read that, because it wasn't in my post.

the purity thinking that modern military machines transcend the old ones is very common and childish.

Once again, you're reading things I didn't write.

Do you have any criticisms of what I did write?

Is your handle consciously ironic?

You seriously believe Russia will run out of tanks before Ukraine?

I'd love to know where you read that, because it wasn't in my post.

You are very clearly implying that,

The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through

You answered originally about a statement that Ukraine is suffering major hardware attrition (implied including tanks)

if this is the level of analysis on offer, it's beyond worthless.

The fact that Ukraine will loose the war abruptly (even non-linearly) is trivial and will happen when they e.g. mostly run out of tanks.

This analysis while simple is not worthless but quite obvious and potent and also at this rate will happen in less than 2 years.

Russia too has "burned through" much of their advanced equipment

Your "too" make it seems as if the losses are proportionately comparable, they're largely not since russia has much more reserves, and not just 1960s stuff. Besides contrary to popular belief 60s tanks are still effective. In most cases even modern shielding is insufficent against an ATGMs and therefore useless. It's more a number game.

  • This is not an indication that anyone is "winning" or "losing"

Russia is winning the attrition war even though at great losses, and therefore it is an indication that russia will win (if western countries do not send massive amounts of tanks)

So yes you clearly implied that Russia will not win the attrition war.

the purity thinking that modern military machines transcend the old ones is very common and childish.

Once again, you're reading things I didn't write.

You said that idea in a mild form and it is the default mental belief in online forums:

mothballed shit from the '50s and '60s. Of course Ukraine wants good weapons, rather than the outdated military

The difference in effectiveness is extremely overatted however my argument mostly stand for the 70s, less so for the 50/60s but still stands.

You are very clearly implying

You're either illiterate, illogical or lying. Readers can choose. This may adjust their priors on whether anything else you say can be relied upon.

I did not say, imply, or even discuss who is going to run out of what first. Both sides have burned through a lot of gear, so claiming that one side's consumption of military ordnance is a sign of defeat is fallacious. The same argument could be made about Russia, and would be just as stupid. I didn't say anything at all about tanks specifically, so your assertion that I "implied" that Ukraine would run out of tanks first is bullshit top to bottom. You are making this up, which brings up the more interesting question: why?

When someone is this desperate to argue against a strawman, it makes me wonder about motivation. My post wasn't a reply to you. You clearly didn't read it. Your metrics for talking about military conflicts are (charitably) total amateur hour. You obviously know next to nothing about warfare, as evidenced by your discussion of military vehicles and technology.

You accuse me of making specific claims that never appear in my writing. Let's drill down on something you claim:

peak maximally useful military machines are generally from the 70s + a few cheap modernisations on top such as a 1 dollar gps/glonas chip.

Go ahead, tell me where exactly you put your "one dollar GPS chip" in a BMP-1 to make it work. Do you just glue it to the engine manifold, or does it have to be connected to anything? Does that thing cost any money? Does it need electrical power? Does it need an antenna? Does it need encryption? Whose GPS satellites are they going to ping? Do you think that those satellites might have the ability to collect that data? Could the US department of Defense knowing where all your BMPs are have any repercussions if they were to tell the Ukrainians?

On what do you base the judgement that "maximally useful" military vehicles were built in the 1970s? The fact that the Russians mothballed most of them would seem to suggest that they do not agree. Your assertion is not that the vehicles are useful, but that they are "peak maximally useful". That would seem to be both laughable, and contrary to the belief of every military in the world. People use old 1970s tech not because it is "maximally useful", but because they can't afford the stuff that is maximally useful, and the old stuff works well enough in most situations*.

Since you seem to be a tank-wanker, let's put this in direct terms. If you were Russia, and you had the option of a T-72 or a T-14, you're saying the T-72 is the clearly superior choice? Let's put this on record so we can tease out how much we should trust your opinions on the matter.

*Exceptions for people fighting armies that do have the "maximally useful" stuff.

peak maximally useful military machines are generally from the 70s + a few cheap modernisations on top such as a 1 dollar gps/glonas chip

Are you actually serious about this? Or is it some joke? Or is it "effectiveness over resources, assuming that soldiers and their training costs nothing"?

Are you claiming that it applies to such types of military machines as planes, satellites, night vision, AWACS, drones and communication gear?

And AT, ASAT, PGM etc?

For what your claim applies? Definitely not for static machine guns (here peak is earlier), maybe for standard issue riffles. Anything else?

What kind of inept denial is this? You seriously believe Russia will run out of tanks before Ukraine? You are wrong by multiple order of magnitudes.

Multiple? Can you clarify what you think is the difference of tank count between Ukraine and Russia?

Are you aware of what "order of magnitude" typically means?

Are you claiming that Russia has 100x or 1000x more tanks thank Ukraine? Because that is a quite brave claim.

Finally someone on a tribe topic that can answer one of my comments through curiosity and truth-seeking driven questions rather than baseless denial and non-constructiveness.

peak maximally useful military machines are generally from the 70s + a few cheap modernisations on top such as a 1 dollar gps/glonas chip

Are you actually serious about this? Or is it some joke?

I am very serious about this, I have studied most of the Soviet hardware that exists.

Or is it "effectiveness over resources, assuming that soldiers and their training costs nothing"?

? I did not factor training costs much in my analysis but that's not the salient part and anyway training costs and training time (incapaciting inertia) have allegedly massively got up with modern (90s+) hardware especially ineptly for the F-35 and for the Abrams (22 weeks for a tank! although most of it is probably actually unecessary).

The russians tanks brought autoloaders which reduce by 1/5 the number of soldiers needed to operate them but that is only a marginal optimization.

effectiveness over resources

Yes as you've seen I am mentioning economics but not only.

Are you claiming that it applies to such types of military machines as planes, satellites, night vision, AWACS, drones and communication gear?

It applies mostly for the main two salient categories, aircrafts and tanks.

satellites, night vision, AWACS, drones and communication gear

Of course not but those are cheaps and have all mostly plateaued regarding metrics. About AWACS/radars there are still advances needed towards exploiting anti-stealth loopholes but that is a "niche" topic.

For what your claim applies? Definitely not for static machine guns (here peak is earlier), maybe for standard issue riffles. Anything else?

static machine guns

well considering Ukraine is successfully using the Maxim gun from 1884, that can be a valid point.

Little known fact is that USSR has superior machine guns because of a trivial technology, they are propelled by gaz instead of electric cable, that imply that they are transportable instead of fixed, but the main usefulness is that they start to spin and are ready to fire faster. However as with most modern weapons (my salient point) that is only a very marginal optimization that supposedly does'nt make much of a difference.

maybe for standard issue riffles

yes

So about tanks:

The T-72-B3 (from the 70s) are great tanks with an effective shielding, an autoloader which abrams lacks and a larger gun than the abrams too. BTW kinda ridiculous that Abrams lacks explosive reactive armor, which modernized T-72 are getting. However the competition on shielding and gun size has become mostly useless for most purposes, it is trivial to understand that the shielding coverage of a tank only cover specific parts, especially: the gun has zero protection, the turret is a weak point and a tank is useless without a working continuous track. Even on the parts covered with large shielding, it is generally ineffective against an ATGM.

Therefore gun and shielding have reached extreme diminishing returns. However a T-72 cost 5 to 10 times less than a T-90M/Abrams.

That makes T-72 extremely superiors to modern tanks as with the same money and closely comparable effectiveness/survivability (low in both cases) and I can assure you 10000 T-72B3 would destroy 1000 Abrams/T-90M both psychologically and effectively.

It is essential to understand that because the U.S and to a lesser but significant extent Russia fails to realize the plateauing and the non-linearity of economic costs, those countries are actively becoming weaker and weaker militarily.

The T-14 armata is a clever optimization (unmaned turret but with less shielding...) but is probably less effective than a T-90-M if I understand correctly, as while it improves humans survivability, it lowers the tank survivability, which is inept.

About anti-air:

By far the most important anti-air hardware is the S-300 (IIRC the partiots are largely inferior) from the end of the 70s. The S-400 is simply not cost effective and therefore mostly a failure.

about aircrafts:

The same goes on and even more potently,

The SU-25/27 (70s) cost approximately 10 times less than the F-35 while having 2 to 3 times larger payload and almost twice faster max speed. Of course the F-35 is stealth but with its prohibitive cost, stealth paint maintenance, very small payload, probably doable stealth loopholes (SU 27 have IRST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_search_and_track, SU-35 have L bands radars, etc.. or simply optics)

The SU-75 is an interesting development regarding costs but still very high https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-75_Checkmate

The F-35 even has a x band signature, with some machine learning/hardcoded recognition software, given its static structure, I'd bet even without said loophole it is very much doable to make its stealthless useless. Besides, it becomes detectable as soon as it deploy its weapons.

But the best way to take down a F-35 would be to deploy 1 0 0 0 0 0 loitering drones at 1000 dollars piece, after all that's exactly the cost of an F-35 and they are as much optically visible and loud as your regular aircraft.

For those reasons investing in a large army of SU-25/27 is much less risky than a few F-35 with probably soon to be broken stealthness, however given the extreme sucess of S-300 and other SOTA anti-air, one should be lucid and understand that the SU-25/27 are also obsolete and that we should mostly return to extremely cheap turboprop WW-2 style aircrafts.

Such planes can be made to have modern variants optimized for cost at aproximately between 0.1 to 1 million dollars, therefore costing less than the modern anti air missiles and having increased maneuvrability/reusable weapons vs drones.

Both drones and those planes very ironically are said to be stealth for X-rays, as they can fly low, fly "slowly" and are more stealth than F-35 X ray only stealth, as they have smaller hitboxes and low thermal signature (against ISRT). The same way birds are actually stealth.

Thus they could ironically have increased survivability against S-300 and ATGMs vs the SU-25/27, but most importantly they are so cheap they can be replenished quickly and do psychological and tactical swarm.

In that regard, at a 1000 vs 1 ratio, it is plausible that aircrafts have peaked in the 50s.

Moreover, those planes could have even better stealthness and dramatically reduced cost by making them out of wood, like many of the very sucessfull WW2 USSR airplanes.

It is important to realize though that those planes should still be modernized variants regarding avionics/radars. And that air to air missiles have not peaked in the 70s, and despite the significant cost increase putting very long range missiles on those remarkably cheap planes can be very worthwile and is trivial.

Another thing to realize is that turboprop planes can be quite fast actually, if made with contra-rotating propellers, a technology that has only seen the light after turboprops were no longer trendy see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95

What I believe the most in though would be drones with guns such as https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-drone-that-can-fire-a-sniper-rifle-while-flying-developed-2022-1?r=US&IR=T

or https://www.newscientist.com/article/2227168-turkey-is-getting-military-drones-armed-with-machine-guns/

In fact it is doable and has been done to design hardware and software stabilizers for guns on drones.

Guns are disruptively superior to missiles since you can only have a very small amount of missiles on a drone but can have a lot of gun ammo.

Add to that the cheap cost of a swarm of 10000000 of those drones and you supposedly insta-win a war.

To understand that properly, one has to observe a few things:

  1. war performance is autistic. Nothing like on the movies, humans are rightfully afraid of dying thus they are not actively focusing on killing others but on intimidating others and reducing their exposure. People with guns, aircrafts, helicopters, it doesn't matter it's all the same, haven't you realized it yet? They all do fake shots in the background.

A couple of periodic rounds/fire all day long in a given vague angular direction. It maintains the enemy at bay but to precisely aim at others needs to expose yourself to too much risk. Therefore the reality of war is mostly dumb firing at nothing.

This disruptively change with a drone with a gun, a currently non-existent concept in ukraine. Because the drone operator mostly don't care if the cheap drone is destructed. Most videos of drones are autistic to watch, they really take their time to drop one little grenade unacurately that might kill one guy and gone is the payload the drone needs to be refueled.. despite soldiers being AFK and completely unaware their is a drone right above their heads.

With a gun and a stabilizer, you can multiply the number of kills per drone by 10X-100X, especially compounding the innovative psychological terror.

All my points, the extreme diminishing returns of military performance metrics of most hardware classes, the extreme non-linear increase in cost, and low industrial production capabilities and the superiority of cheap swarming and of non-human fear impaired aiming, each of those individual 4 points are basic and are enough to disrupt the effectiveness of military powers.

I was curious about the specific numbers.

If we go by public figures from last year, Russia was supposed to have 12,500 tanks and 30,000 armored vehicles for Ukraine's 2,500 tanks and 12,300 armored vehicles. Those were the optimistic estimates on either side including reserves and old models.

So 5x and 2.4x. Which, while not as crazy as multiple of the typical orders of magnitude is still a pretty extreme military advantage.

How much that's evened out by the West's production and how much has been destroyed on either side I think is impossible to know reliably at this point, for obvious reasons. But if we assume similar levels of attrition that's a lot of difference to make up for.

You might be interested to read my analysis regarding optimal military hardware composition https://www.themotte.org/post/317/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/56897?context=8#context

So 5x and 2.4x. Which, while not as crazy as multiple of the typical orders of magnitude is still a pretty extreme military advantage.

Right it's not multiple order of magnitudes per se currently, but semantically they are not on the same scale which is my point.

However the multiple order of magnitudes could already be true through attrition,

if we suppose for example that Ukraine has lost 2000 tanks and still has 500, and make no asymetric assumption and therefore suppose ukraine ha lost 2000 tanks and therefore still has 10,500,

10500 / 500 == 21X so one order of magnitude of difference

now the attrition continues 1 year later,

10100 / 100 == 101X, 2 order of magnitudes, see the argument?

still a pretty extreme military advantage

adds to that, that russian tanks are more moderns than the Ukraine ones

and that on frozen fronts like bakhmut or all of the last months, the offender has a major attrition advantage supposedly since Russia has 100X more artillery (let alone precision missiles, and drone superiority)

off topic but I find it kinda weird they didn't manage to make Ukraine army totally incapacited by banning their access to GLONAS.

People also fail to realize that Ukraine has better military hardware than France, UK and germany quality wise.

But quantity wise the difference is beyond crazy, the ignorance of the layman is so strong, France has 200 tanks, UK has 300 tanks

Tank wise, Ukraine could have invaded France and UK 10 times each. 10 France

Ukraine has possibly the best anti-air on earth, etc..

Worth noting is that in both cases unknown part exists only on paper. Many of this 12 500 tanks were stored in Siberian mud, under open air, without maintenance, for decades. For obvious reasons that is not good for tanks. Ukrainian military got better, but was extremely corrupt and Russian military corruption was not much better and has not really improved - so many of this tanks were sold for scrap or only rusting shell remains as someone has stolen everything steleable.

No idea how many of this tanks can be refurbished into something mowing under own power. Maybe half?

Disparity is a bit lowered by fact that for Russia option "we lost every single tank in this war" is worse than for Ukraine.

Note also that some tanks were delivered - for example Poland send 230+ tanks (so far the largest delivery), more may come while Russia has no real resupply options.

On the other hand, Russian factories are producing new ones - though hopefully war will not go for so long that it will change total numbers much.

And yes, overall that is really really bad for Ukraine. But not by multiple order of magnitudes, unless taking base 2 or other trickery.

And for example in https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status/1616478656863571969 this twitter poster demonstrates being unable to distinguish between "losses and captures confirmed by reliable public info" and "actual losses and captures".

And fails to understand that Russia has more weaponry than Ukraine.

Or is deliberately lying and misleading pro-Russian troll. Or both. Take your pick.

is twitter poster demonstrates being unable to distinguish between "losses and captures confirmed by reliable public info" and "actual losses and captures".

...that was absolutely a case of sarcasm, Oryx is deemed very unreliable by the pro-Russian side as people took a look at his claims and found he'd verify a loss based on a photo that was e.g. not even from the war,etc..

Oryx is apparently run by some Bellingcat guys, of the 'Russia will run out of cruise missiles any minute now' fame.

Oryx is deemed very unreliable by the pro-Russian side

I wonder what this people think about Russian MoD claims :)

Has Big Sergei made fun also of all Russian MoD claims that were equally suspect as Oryx listings?

And is rejection of Oryx based "he refused to list 'destroyed' HIMARS" or anything more serious.

as people took a look at his claims and found he'd verify a loss based on a photo that was e.g. not even from the war,etc..

Is it just me or

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is displayed?

I seem to remember that ArmchairW was definitely not some epitome of high quality.

And overall I expect that in thousands of cases some sneaked through, Oryx is quite good but not some god. Definitely at least some checking is done, many many claims were rejected as invalid or pointed out to be duplicates.

I would care more about response to discovered problems and is it something systematic.

I seem to remember that ArmchairW was definitely not some epitome of high quality.

He, like SergeW, are partisan and thus prone to biases, but his reviews of Oryx were more or less correct.

I've noticed him having not the best record in prediction and being too optimistic many times, but he's still one of the better pro-Russian accounts.

However in regards to the reviews of Orxy, I've gone through several of them, and he wasn't being irrational about it - just well motivated to find problems.

Another demonstration of why adversity is absolutely necessary for any measure of quality.

Is it just me or

Locked account.

Dude was under severe attack from the malformed dogs and got burnt out on the whole thing of spending hours daily researching and posting.

He kept locking and unlocking his account even while he was active.

It got to the point they were making up stories about his time in the army, photoshopping pictures of him etc, making parody accounts etc.

The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel,

wat?

First of all, they were asking for WW III at the start (AKA no fly zone, AKA "close the sky").

Asking for NATO matériel is also not a new thing. They were asking for modern tanks and planes from start.

And obviously, in large scale war you will burn though armaments. Russia also did this. Ukraine is trying to get supplies from NATO, gets ammo from weird African countries and diesel and shells from Bulgaria. Russia get cruise missiles from Iran and supplies from North Korea.

No idea why either is surprising to anyone, even pro-Russia twitter trolls like Big Serge. It just proves that leadership on either side is not a total idiot and war in ongoing on a large scale.

Russia get cruise missiles from Iran and supplies from North Korea.

They're getting Doritos aka the cheap drones with moped engines from Iran, there were some mentions of cruise missiles but have they actually been used ?

Yeah, I meant Shahed-136. Probably should refer to it as a drone like everyone else rather than argue that it is closer to shitty cruise missile than shitty drone.

Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.

This is an oversimplification, there's no such thing as the "Ukraine population": different people have different believes. This is like saying the "USA population" believes X. Sure, some do, but not all.

You can say the majority of the population is likely to be hostile to Russia (I have my doubts about that), but some will not.

Why do you have doubts about the majority of Ukraine being anti Russia?

Ukraine is not one but two countries, split roughly in half, see pasts presidential election polls to contemplate the seggregation

Because if you look at historical polls and elections you can see Ukraine has been pro-Russia a substantial amount of its short history, in particular the regions in the east, and in particular the regions in the east that speak Russian. If you look at recent polls like "Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war" you can see these regions as not particularly eager to continue fighting, it's only the western regions that want to fight, and in particular Kiev. If you look at a density map you'd see the south-eastern regions are particularly denser.

There's also the referendums where a significant part of the population voted to join Russia. Even if you consider them a complete sham, there are interviews of people voting clearly wanting to be part of Russia.

I believe people underestimate the desire for peace and having a normal life, and also the devastation of war. Which is why I don't find surprising at all the westerns part of Ukraine so eager to continue the fight: they haven't seen any of it. The regions who have been devastated by the conflict the most are the ones most eager for it to stop.

Moreover a lot of things can change, for example there's talk of Poland absorbing part of the western region of Ukraine, other neighboring countries could also do the same. If that happens Ukraine will be left without the most anti-Russian population.

Plus, Russia is already helping the new territories it has annexed, that could sway opinion in their favor.

And finally there's a lot of information in Telegram channels which if true would paint in a greener light the Russian forces and the Ukrainian ones much less so, which will eventually move public opinion.

In just don't trust Western mainstream media to paint an accurate picture of what Ukrainian people actually want.

for example there's talk of Poland absorbing part of the western region of Ukraine

That is coming only from blatant pro Russia-propaganda. Notably, in Poland it is treated less seriously than proposals to take Moscow by land invasion. And the second one is proposed by narrow group of edgy teenagers.

If you treated either of this "talks" seriously then you need to reevaluate sources of your info.

That's probably coming from Ukrainian nationalists too, who have also accused Orbán of wanting a piece of Ukraine..

who have also accused Orbán of wanting a piece of Ukraine..

In case of Hungary it may be not utterly baseless due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakarpattia_Oblast and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarians_in_Ukraine

..didn't they also accuse Poland of trying to get a piece of Western Ukraine on account of it previously having been in Poland ?

Russian state TV had claims that Poland will partition Ukraine, though they were rather lying about plans to cooperate than accuse. I think.

There were also unverified but relatively credible claims that politicians in Poland had offers from Russian officials about participating in invading/partitioning Ukraine, for many years.

Obviously that would be idiotic for multiple reasons. At least it turns out that sometimes people manage to learn something from history, even politicians.

That is coming only from blatant pro Russia-propaganda.

I do not follow Russian sources. If you want me to follow up on my sources I can do that, but to dismiss everything if that turned out to be unsubstantiated is a fallacy.

I do not follow Russian sources.

Maybe in this case they has fallen for some absurd claims? Or Korwin is trying to find new topic for hot takes?

Either way as someone from Poland this has basically zero support and is about as likely as annexing Kaliningrad.

I am curious what is your source of that claims.

but to dismiss everything if that turned out to be unsubstantiated is a fallacy.

Definitely, but confidence in such source should be reduced.

I do not follow Russian sources

They didn't say that you did.

And I did not claim that they said that I did. But if I'm not following Russian sources it means I got the information from a non-Russian source, and I can tell you they are generally reliable.

It's possible that my source is right. Just because something happens to be used in Russian propaganda doesn't mean it's wrong.

I'm curious to hear what you think of his analysis on the Ukrainian counteroffensive at Izium.

It is obvious why Ukraine would want to dislodge Russia from Izyum. This would simplify and secure lines of communication to Slovyansk and greatly complicate the Russian push in the Donbas by freeing Ukraine’s northern flank. To achieve this, they are attempting a thrust toward Kupyansk, with the aim of cutting the line connecting Izyum to Belgorod in the north. This operation, I believe, is doomed to spectacular failure.

He wrote this on September 9th... and Izium fell to Ukraine two days later.

But I doubt I'll actually get a response. You linked a blatant propaganda account to claim Ukraine is doomed, and have refused to respond to anyone who's called you out on it.

I don't think anyone has had a spotless record in this war. US intelligence got the invasion right but then publicly claimed that Kiev was in danger of falling 'within days'. How did that pan out?

But the facts speak their own language: if Ukraine was doing well, they wouldn't need to ask for NATO materiel when the same NATO countries no longer have "easy" choices available to them, such as mothbolled ex-Soviet stuff.

At any rate, trying to handicap the chances of UA victory wasn't the primary aim of my OP, but rather to question the assumption that victory in this conflict for the pro-NATO side is of such titantic importance that the media and the political class would have us believe. As I outlined in my OP, Russia is unlikely to be a long-term winner even in the event of battlefield victory and Ukraine's importance has also been grossly overstated.

I don't think anyone has had a spotless record in this war. US intelligence got the invasion right but then publicly claimed that Kiev was in danger of falling 'within days'. How did that pan out?

I think that a lot of people in the US Intelligence Apparatus and State Department seriously underestimated both the Ukrainian public's willingness to fight, and the degree to which the UAF had reformed itself post Yanukovich. As usual they were more interested in their own pet theories and political narratives than they were looking at the ground-level truth. Accordingly they, much like the Russians, expected the UAF to fold rather than fight which is probably a major part of why they were able to call the invasion correctly.

Meanwhile you have guys like me and the former French Minister of Defense who back in January of 2022 were claiming that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was unlikely precisely because any attempt to occupy western Ukraine was likely to end very badly for the Russians and "Putin is not that stupid". Ok we turned out to be wrong about Putin (or at least his level of confidence in his own troops), but back in April of 2022 I predicted that Russia would be unable to actually hold any territory west of the Dnieper, this was characterized by many here (including yourself IIRC) as a "bold take" but almost a year later I'd say my priors have been pretty well born out by events. How about yours?

I don't think anyone has had a spotless record in this war.

OK, what Big Sergei predicted? Can you link to some brilliant analysis that was validated by now?

I looked at their Twitter account and it is as bad as you would expect from "pro Russian Twitter account making bold predictions".

US intelligence got the invasion right but then publicly claimed that Kiev was in danger of falling 'within days'. How did that pan out?

It was in the danger of falling. Had the airport been secured, Russia would've been able to double the size of its Ćernobylj-Buća force, allowing it to push forward.

I don't think anyone has had a spotless record in this war. US intelligence got the invasion right but then publicly claimed that Kiev was in danger of falling 'within days'. How did that pan out?

Pretty well.

The US intelligence assessment that Kiev was in danger of falling led to Western policy changes that including flooding the Ukrainians with man-portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry that could be widely and rapidly distributed to both formal and informal forces with minimal training, and with far less risk of being intercepted/destroyed by local Russian air/artillery capabilities than conventional weapon systems. These asymmetric capabilities thus allowed Ukrainian irregulars to greatly slow and even stop Russian mechanized forces, allowing Ukrainian artillery to do decisive damage while mitigating key Russian strengths that- had there been a lack of anti-armor and anti-air capability- could have been far more successful.

This is a classic case of an intelligence assessment driving the policy changes that change the underlying assumptions that drive the intelligence assessment. That is the entire point of investing in intelligence as a national capability- not so that someone will tell you what will occur if you try policy X, but what will occur if you DON'T try to change a situation. And this doesn't even get to the dynamics of publicizing intelligence to drive public support for policy to achieve results supported by not-publicized intelligence.

But the facts speak their own language: if Ukraine was doing well, they wouldn't need to ask for NATO materiel when the same NATO countries no longer have "easy" choices available to them, such as mothbolled ex-Soviet stuff.

Why not? No one aside from you claimed at the time, before aid or during aid or after aid deliveries, that the amount of aid delivered was expected to be enough for Ukraine to wage the rest of the war successfully. Key categories of aid- especially munitions- being insufficient has been a reoccuring point of discussion since the start of the war.

Ukraine doing well due to receiving an influx of expendable resources establishes a correlation of doing well with getting expendable resources. Asking for [Type NATO] expendable resources as [Type Soviet] expendable resources is exactly what you would expect if doing well is a result of expendable resource delivery.

At any rate, trying to handicap the chances of UA victory wasn't the primary aim of my OP, but rather to question the assumption that victory in this conflict for the pro-NATO side is of such titantic importance that the media and the political class would have us believe. As I outlined in my OP, Russia is unlikely to be a long-term winner even in the event of battlefield victory and Ukraine's importance has also been grossly overstated.

You relied heavily upon a propaganda fluff piece author whose thesis has been claimed for most of the war despite all operational developments to the contrary, and you didn't even identify specific claims of gross overstatement.

You done goofed on the central and ancillary points of your argument. 'For the sake of argument, what if we assume the Russian propagandists are right' is not a particularly interesting or compelling argument when the reasons why the Russian propagandists are wrong is also applying to other areas of the discussion.

So as far as I can tell, Russia is losing this war, as it is almost a year later and they have failed to complete their objectives in forcing Ukraine back into their sphere of influence or secured territorial integrity. All observers assumed Russia would swiftly win this war, but their armies and industry are in such a shambles that they are unable to defeat the Ukrainians in the field and are reduced to terror bombing with artillery and missiles.

Against an inferior foe which they (according to Serge) have destroyed multiple times over. How could you not have great gains against a numerically and qualitatively inferior foe?

Does this sound like the strength of a great power to you?

The 'attritional strategy', so as far as I know, is a cope. There was no grand plan to grind the Ukranian resolve to fight through manpower and material because that would be planning for defeat, and even worse, planning for defeat against an inferior power. Now Russia is isolated and scraping the bottom of the barrel for allies while the entirety of the Western military-industrial complex is pumping every available resource into the country.

The Soviets, with their empire, couldn't match the American spend on military, much less all of NATO. How can the Russian Federation - a faded, declining power in comparison - hope to match a richer, larger version of the alliance? So as long as the Ukrainians want to fight, they will have the latest and greatest in NATO arms. The only hope for the Russians was to win early and decisively. If Serge's narrative is for a long war then there really is no hope of victory left - one that is worth throwing away the last of the Russian youth and prosperity.

reduced to terror bombing with artillery and missiles.

As far as I can tell, you are taken in with propaganda. There's terror bombing in Ukraine, but most of that was going the other way, and always explained as 'Donbass has been shelling itself since '14)

The recent 'terror bombing' by a repurposed anti-ship missile was almost certainly a successful interception that failed to detonate.

I say this because the missile Kh-55 is well within the parameters of S-300 which Ukraine uses, yet they're lying about this, in spite of the data showing it's well within the abilities of S-300 is all over the web, and you can also find reports of past intercepts by UA, as The Times noted.

The Arestovych who admitted the truth due to possibly miscommunication had to resign.

The Soviets, with their empire, couldn't match the American spend on military, much less all of NATO. How can the Russian Federation - a faded, declining power in comparison - hope to match a richer, larger version of the alliance?

...uh... what? No, seriously, you think present-day US military or NATO as a whole has more conventional weaponry than it had back in the day?

That's beyond laughable, as any look at the order of battle, production numbers and so on would reveal. I thought it was common knowledge that conventional forces have contracted greatly not just in Russia?

Russia has some major problems with its army and industrial organisation, as despite being able to produce as much as steel as US in WW2, and something like ..20% of world's fertilizers, they don't have all the artillery ammo they need at the moment.

The quality of military analysises on the web is very low as usual.

People think that if the U.S was invading Ukraine they could do it in a matter of months, spoiler: they can't.

Firstly occidental populations are past the point of dying for killing humans, the number of americans willing to die is a scarcer resources than in authoritarian countries.

Secondly, war has changed the prior advantage of air superiority and tank superiority is gone. Anti air such as S-300s have broken the economics and impact of aviation. Secondly ATGMs have broken the economics of tanks.

This is it, we can no longer make disruptive military attacks, it's all a slow attrition and geographic crabbing, with extreme losses of military machines.

I could argue that soviet miltary machines are in many regards highly superior to their U.S counterparts both in metrics and in economics but that is besides the point, for both superpowers, the efficiency and economics of past wars is long gone as Ukraine spectacularly shows.

The only remaining "hopes" for military tactical disruption would either be true drone swarming, which russia doesn't do enough, or tactical nuclear bombs, or bio-weapons or a much more highly targeted attack on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine.

The only classical card Russia has not played is the real terror bombing of using bombers which russia has not used a single time in this war. While modern antiair would destroy a lot of bombers during a swarm, if russia sent enough they would achieve disruptive destruction also, it would be interesting to see the TU-160 in action since it is the fastest military aircraft to exists.

edit tu-160 is the fastest bomber, not the fastest aircraft.

It is the largest and heaviest Mach 2+ supersonic military aircraft ever built and second to the experimental XB-70 Valkyrie in overall length. As of 2022, it is the largest and heaviest combat aircraft, the fastest bomber in use and the largest and heaviest variable-sweep wing airplane ever flown.[2]

  • -16

Anti air such as S-300s have broken the economics and impact of aviation. Secondly ATGMs have broken the economics of tanks.

  1. Whether integrated air defenses can truly withstand competent airforces who also have things such as stealth cruise missile is unclear

Secondly ATGMs have broken the economics of tanks.

  1. Oh yeah. Is an ATGM cheaper or more expensive than the dead simple dumb muniition used by APS systems ? Cause these aren't expensive to make, and almost completely negate legacy ATGMs unless paired with a sophisticated jamming attack ..

APS surely are an interesting topic:

The U.S does not yet seems to have a soft kill APS in production but Russia uses the

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtora-1 on T-80 and (all?) T-90s

According to the manufacturers, Shtora decreases the chances of a tank being hit by an anti-tank missile, such as the Dragon, by a factor of 4–5:1.[10]

While russia has in addition 3 generations of hard kill APS, the U.S has 2 independent proof of concept models

first APS in history:

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

Although reported to offer an 80% increase in survival rate during its testing in Afghanistan, the radar was unable to adequately detect threats and the firing of its rockets caused unacceptably high levels of collateral damage.[1]

later succeded with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_(countermeasure)

The computer has a reaction time of 0.05 seconds and protects the tank over a 300-degree arc, everywhere but the rear side of the turret. The system engages targets within 50 metres (55 yd) of the vehicle it is defending, and the ammunition detonates at around 1.5 metres (1.6 yd) from the threat.[10] It will engage any threat approaching the tank between the velocities of 70 metres per second (230 ft/s) and 700 metres per second (2,300 ft/s), and can detect false targets, such as outgoing projectiles, birds and small caliber bullets.[11] Arena works during the day and night, and the lack of electromagnetic interference allows the system to be used by multiple vehicles as a team.[23] The 27-volt system requires approximately one kilowatt of power, and weighs around 1,100 kilograms (2,400 lb).[11] Arena increases a tank's probability of surviving a rocket-propelled grenade by between 1.5[11]–2 times.[24]

Despite being very interesting, It seems this system is not in use but is available for export versions

Last gen deployed on Armata vehicles:

Afganit (Russian: Афганит, lit. 'Afghanite') is a Russian active protection system (APS) employed on modern Russian Armata family of vehicles.[1] It is intended to supersede the Arena APS and utilises radar and electro-optical sensors in the ultraviolet and infrared bands.[2][3] The millimeter-wavelength radar detects and tracks incoming anti-tank munitions. The system can reportedly intercept armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot kinetic energy penetrators in addition to high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) munitions.[4][5] Currently, the maximum speed that can be intercepted is 1,700 m/s (Mach 5.0), with projected future increases of up to 3,000 m/s (Mach 8.8).[6] According to news sources, it protects the tank from all sides.[7][8]

A few armata (not the T-14) have been seen in Ukraine but not meaningfully deployed yet.

Interestingly Ukraine has its own APS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaslin_Active_Protection_System however I have no clue how much it is used in practice?

About the US prototype APS:

n 2006–2007, the Institute for Defense Analysis found Quick Kill to be relatively immature and had significant development risks. Important components such as the radar were not yet fully developed and testing of the system as a whole was on hold while the warhead was redesigned. They also found Trophy, which uses a shotgun-like kill mechanism, to be the most mature of the 15 systems they analyzed.

while the other one seems promising:

However, in August 2018 the Army decided not to continue qualifying Iron Curtain onto the Stryker, saying that while the system "generally worked in concept" and was "generally able to hit its targets," it was still not mature enough.[11]

China recently deployed the GL-5 which has a range of 100 meters, twice that of arena (no clue for afganit)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GL5_Active_Protection_System

innovative since it launch 2 rockets.

The irsaely trophy seems interesting. Gun based.

almost completely negate legacy ATGMs unless paired with a sophisticated jamming attack ..

This is an unrealistic claim as of yet.

Firstly as we can see, at least for Russia and the U.S, hard kill APS are nothing more than uncertain and possibly buggy proof of concepts.

Russia did deploy some successfully in afghanistan but the fact they didn't deploy them shows that the tech is mostly not ready.

It could be that the new APS system on armatas is disruptives and working well, but that is unproven. It's possible but uncertain that using recent machine learning techniques would yield lower danger/false positives but given the classical inertia, if that were the answer, we're not ready to see that deployed until 20 years, and even so ML techniques have generally dangerous error rates.

It would be interesting to evaluate how much deployed in the wild are the ukrainian and chinese and israeli APS systems are though.

and what about hard kill APS for aircrafts/helicos?

As for soft kill APS, well russia is the only to have one widely deployed but Ukraine still manage to destroy T-90s just fine.

beyond the real world production ready-ness/falsepositives issues/safety of hard kill APS, what the manufacturer says is not necessarily objective truth

about the range, the claimed 360 degree coverage, reaction time, etc

especially I suspect many APS are weak and possibly useless against top-down attacking ATGMS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_protection_system#Top_attack_munitions

Overall I am very curious about the future of this technology and we might get answers either by:

studying academic papers/experiments about them

waiting for a china-taiwan war (unlikely)

waiting for a new israel based war (no idea)

waiting for the ukrainian APS system to be deployed or for western countries giving APS to ukraine (e.g. germany supposedly has one)

waiting for the armata systems to see some action in Ukraine, most likely but only if the war last a few years.

But your initial point is wrong, ATGMs have currently and probably for the foreasable future, destroyed tanks economics.

This is an unrealistic claim as of yet.

No, pretty much Israeli trophy use fighting Hezbollah showed that is the case.

Feel free to prove me wrong there, however. That's what I remember as being the case.

Also, iirc, US and other NATO are going to buy Trophy and install it.

People think that if the U.S was invading Ukraine they could do it in a matter of months, spoiler: they can't.

Well, if USA would invade Ukraine then large part of population would be really happy and even larger part would immediately start to think how to profit from that.

Even if we assume that Ukrainian military fights as much as it can, then we get Gulf War rerun.

the number of americans willing to die is a scarcer resources than in authoritarian countries.

Still larger enough to maintain military.

Anti air such as S-300s have broken the economics and impact of aviation.

not sure

Secondly ATGMs have broken the economics of tanks.

Definitely not true.

This is it, we can no longer make disruptive military attacks

And that is why Kharkiv offensive has not happened.

bio-weapons

that is a dead end as far as military use goes, mentioning them seriously is really weird here

The only remaining "hopes" for military tactical disruption

Or proper use of existing tools. Assuming no nukes, USA would be able to simultaneously take Kyiv and Moscow and all major cities in both Ukraine and European part of Russia. Even if Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Finland and Baltic states would be hostile to USA.

If USA army would deploy in Ukraine (and gremlins would steal Russian nukes) then the war would be over within months - and that is only because Crimea would be really annoying to retake without heavy casualties.

That is why America entered into a grueling, year+ long advance and retreat conflict with Iraq which completely degraded the 11th armored cav and the rangers and needed to reactivate the draft leading to... Wait a second, that didn't happen at all!

Listen, if a wizzard magicked all nukes out of existence, Nato could turn Russia into a parkinglot in a couple weeks. Shit, the US could probably do it on their own.

They would then inevitably lose the occupation, but lets not talk about that.

So what the worlwide coalition in the gulf war managed to destroy Irak air defense quickly and that allows you to generalize from a single event to the U.S having a power that make it transcend Russia performance in Ukraine? What is this imaginary magic technology they have that disrupt their abilties? None, you are just wishful thinkingly over-generalizing.

I have not extensively studied Irak military but:

  • They had osbolete air-defense, zero S-300..

  • I have heard that the Irakis aircrafts pilots universally refused to fly, no will to fight what a joke

“When United States and coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003 [during Operation Iraqi Freedom], they faced no Iraqi Air Force opposition. Not one Iraqi warplane attacked the invaders as they proceeded toward Baghdad,” Daniel L. Haulman, PhD Air Force Historical Research Agency.

It seems they didn't use air force significantly in gulf war either.

  • probably not enough modern ATGMs and probably no GLONAS/GPS

So Irak air defense and will to fight was basically in practice a joke, not something comparable to Ukraine in any realistic way.

Note though that during the Vietnam war, North Vietnam even with virtually no air force managed to take down a crazy high number of U.S planes: 8,540 + 1,351 allied

Nato could turn Russia into a parkinglot in a couple weeks.

A groundless childish fiction based on a weak and uncomparable single event with zero a priori argument, the only one would be the 100 million dollars "stealth" F-35 on which I call bullshit as being not enough to disrupt a war especially considering their weak payloads, maintenance burden and vast detectability loopholes. Besides that point U.S and russian hardware are largely comparable in most cases.

the TU-160 is... the fastest military aircraft to exists.

You might have drunk a bit too deep of the propaganda.

You are right I misremembered but:

It is the largest and heaviest Mach 2+ supersonic military aircraft ever built and second to the experimental XB-70 Valkyrie in overall length. As of 2022, it is the largest and heaviest combat aircraft, the fastest bomber in use and the largest and heaviest variable-sweep wing airplane ever flown.[2]

Well that's all well and good, but you could say exactly the same things about Ghani's Afghanistan vs. the Taliban. Indeed, the Taliban had zero state resources compared to Russia's nonzero. But despite receiving infinity NATO materiél, Ghani's Afghanistan fell the instant there weren't Coalition troops on the ground. Ukraine doesn't have Coalition troops on the ground, therefore...

I find it pretty hard to cast the Russians in the role of the Taliban considering that the Taliban was the group resisting a foreign invasion and not the other way around. The Americans lost to the Taliban despite not even resorting to drafting soldiers, why do you think the Russians are ahead of the curve on this?

I feel like I'm being gish-gallopped here, because now you're moving the goalposts into the conscript/professionalism of the army and home ground advantage and whatever. The only point I'm making is that receiving a jillion dollars' worth of NATO aid didn't help the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan much, so there's hardly a guarantee it'll help Ukraine. Indeed, iirc pre-war Ukraine was about as corrupt as Afghanistan, so we might expect most of the materiél is getting pawned rather than used on the front, which is why the NATO dollars weren't much use in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan fell apart because the government wasn't full of rabid nationalists but full of tribals profiteering off the war.

It's a completely different situation in Ukraine.

No, I'm pretty sure that the NATO dollars weren't any use in Afghanistan was because Islamic republic of Afghanistan troops saw Islamic emirate of Afghanistan forces and promptly surrendered or ran away. This does not appear to be a major problem for the Ukrainian Army. Despite a lot of the aid getting embezzled, IRA forces generally held an equipment advantage over taliban troops, they just refused to fight(and thus lost).

The only point I'm making is that receiving a jillion dollars' worth of NATO aid didn't help the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan much, so there's hardly a guarantee it'll help Ukraine.

What does helping Ukraine mean to you? The last big movement of the war, the Kherson retreat, was enabled by Western long range artillery making the supply situation of the Russians on the western side of the Dnepr untenable. There are hours of video material showing how Western weapons are being used effectively by the Ukrainian forces.

The Afghan army, aside from never receiving gear as advanced as Ukraine, had a fundamental issue with morale. This is not the case in the current war AFAICT. The comparison with Afghanistan seems like a stretch to me.

iirc pre-war Ukraine was about as corrupt as Afghanistan

Not according to the Corruption Perceptions Index:

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

Naturally an imperfect measure, but do you have a better one?

The idea that Russia is winning or win an attritional war against a united NATO (more so than since the Berlin Airlift); I'm completely astounded that people can look at the last year and think Russia is a near-peer. They chose a blitz to Kiev because a long attritional war against a united NATO is precisely what they wanted to avoid.

NATO Goals:

  1. avoid a large-scale nuclear exchange

  2. prevent Russia occupation of territory that shares a border with NATO; related to point 1.

  3. damage Russia enough so as to impact their ability to aggress in the future

What we see now is, literally, perfect. Ukraine would prefer a quicker resolution; they're paying in blood. But, unfortunately, there is no easy resolution here. For reasons I'll get to, I think NATO could amp it up a bit and absolutely defang Russia's capability to wage any sort of conventional war -- but that is a less-than-desirable outcome. A slow bleed is preferable than a Russia shocked into even more humiliation (and credible reasons to fear for it's own safety). If Ukraine is willing to fight -- and polling indicates that they are -- then NATO has no reason to disrupt this status quo.

Feel free to disagree with me; I'd like to hear opposing viewpoints:

Even if the US is limited to contributions of material, intelligence, and resources: I rate their current involvement a two out of ten. There are many, many options available -- the difficulty is finding the appropriate balance point between preventing a UKR collapse and accidentally going to far and causing the collapse of the entire Russian war effort.

Observations:

Intelligence/Precision Fires

  • They're slinging missiles at cities; this makes no sense at all unless they lack the capability to engage worthwhile military targets. When has strategic bombing ever actually worked? Strategic bombing of civilian centers is a (cold-blooded) gift to Ukraine; Zelensky's task of maintaining NATO support is easier when Kremlin TV runs segments of civilians shrieking in terror, bombs, and syncopated cheering. https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1580196518765551616

  • Despite Russia's claims, no visual evidence that they've destroyed a single HIMARS; I think the 80km precision fire capability is a genuine problem for Russia; note the quantity of destroyed C2 vehicles (visually-confirmed; https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html). This is weird; so is the quantity of KIA RUS field/general officers.

Kharkiv Offensive

  • This was a rout; the sheer quantity of abandoned material is absurd. 100+ tanks, 100+ IFVs, 80+ APCs, 60+ arty... and many of these were left in working order; i.e., Russian forces didn't even take the time to disable them.

  • Some of Russia's elite broke: T80s were recovered; only the elite get those. Specifically, 4th Guards Tank Army; stationed in Moscow... these are Russia's best.

NATO "shortage"

  • This has got to be sheer cope; nothing contributed thus far (or ever) will actually weaken any NATO countries security posture. All this old stuff was kept around specifically for this purpose; e.g., fucking around in regional conflicts. And to say that NATO -- as a collective -- is incapable of diverting the resources necessary to produce more... how does that make any sense at all? GDP is a component of military effectiveness, and NATO enjoys a 15:1 advantage. Given the long-term attritional nature of the conflict thus far, even if Russia were to miraculously transform itself, pick up momentum, and even if they shifted to a full-scale war economy with no internal friction... this really changes nothing at all. To think that the US would just say "aww shucks; we're a bit low on arty shells, guess we lost" is ridiculous.

I have no doubt that if the US actually sent over the good shit, then in conjunction with the battle planning and intel... Russia's conventional force would be lambs for a slaughter. How could they maintain logistics for 300k+ combatants when every single GLOC is actively observed and within reach of precision munitions.

We'll know more over the next few months; mud season ends by May. Should Russia start gaining momentum, I'd expect to see more zany attacks designed to disrupt logistics/C2. Note: Russia withdrew from Kherson shortly after the Kerch Bridge was disabled. Critical GLOC.

They're slinging missiles at cities; this makes no sense at all unless they lack the capability to engage worthwhile military targets.

Are you being serious here, I mean, what ?

You are taking the propaganda about the Dnipro apartment block at face value - that it was nothing but a terror attack, and that Russia lacks missile that can hit point targets of their choice ?

One follow up question. Do you expect that Ukraine will take back Russian controlled territory in Donbas and Crimea? That seems to be the objective I hear these days, admittedly, from online people, rather than anything official. So I don’t k ow the stated Ukrainian objectives.

If the answer is no, and the war ends with the lines as drawn today. Who has won?

I'm no expert, but I think the Donbass is highly likely, but Crimea is pretty unlikely.

Crimea is extremely defensible, so I would put low odds on it being recaptured militarily. On the other hand, if Putin is ousted/killed somehow I think the odds of Crimea being offered up as a way for Russia to exit the war are fairly good.

Sure, if Putin kicks the bucket, all kind of interesting things can happen, especially if the carrot of "drop all this silliness and accept you're a second-tier power who could sell all the oil and gas you want to Europe and Central Asia, but continue to treat your own people like crap, and we won't care since we think your authoritarianism is f'ing you long term" is put forward, which I think is entirely possible.

I'm no expert either, but isn't Crimea pretty easily embargoed? IIRC, Ukraine recaptured Kharkiv by threatening Russia's supply lines, and I don't know why they couldn't do the same to Crimea.

There's a new road/rail bridge over the Kerch strait (though it has also come under attack and might be considered vulnerable), and with control of the Black Sea Russia can supply Crimea via sea as long as it wants. The Soviets (and subsequently Germans) both maintained Crimea after its land connections were severed in WWII.

My understanding is that Crimea's main vulnerability was its water supply, which might be a longterm consideration in peacetime but isn't so crucial during the war.

I wouldn't think so; even if you took out the Kerch Strait Bridge entirely, supply by sea should be quite possible if more expensive.

It's hard to imagine a plausible cessation of hostilities that isn't preceded by RUS regime change. Likewise, why would UKR or NATO agree? Russia already has imperiled demographics; the longer this war goes on the more they write themselves out of the future.

To answer your question -- if the war ended today; both Russia/Ukraine lose, NATO wins.

Not who you responded to, but I'll answer anyways. It's certainly plausible that Ukraine successfully counterattacks, but hardly a forgone conclusion.

A stalemate around the current battle lines would be a draw of sorts, but more of a win for Ukraine than Russia. Remember that Russia's original goals were a complete decapitation of the current democratic Ukrainian government, and to effectively turn the country into a Belarussian-style puppet state. At the very least, they would have preferred to federalize the country to retain influence so it couldn't be used as (what Putin perceives as) a threat. That option is basically gone now, and even if Russia recaptures Kherson and even Kharkov they'd still have to contend with the rest of Ukraine, which will hate Russia for the next century. Ukraine might be economically and politically diminished to some degree in such a case, but that's still not a "win" for Russia in any grand sense.

Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel

That's technically correct but deeply misleading. Ukraine always has been at very deep disadvantage against Russia in almost every armament there is. Western supplies helped to reduce this disadvantage a little, but they were not even nearly enough to close the gap, and for ammunition, the supplies were always below what is being spent on the battlefield and what is necessary for overcoming Russia's size advantage. Not because the West doesn't have it - but because the West is reluctant to get deeply involved. There's nothing to "reduce" and "multiple iterations" have always been way below Ukrainian needs. So there's absolutely nothing new there. Ukraine begged for Western support since day one, and the West didn't give them enough since day one, and still doesn't.

Germany has been reluctant to send heavy weapons since day one, and even a cursory look at the ties of German elite with various Russian business enterprises and "German-Russian friendship societies" can give an ample explanation why. Exhibit 1, Boris Pistorius, Germany's minister of defense. Who has argued against sanctions on Russia, was member of parliamentary "friendship society" maintaining links with Russia's "parliament", and is a close ally of Gerhard Schroeder (of Gazprom fame). One can only wonder why such leadership is not sending modern tanks to Ukraine...

Does not sending tanks prove collusion for any other country, or is it just for Germany?

Not sending tanks does not prove collusion, collusion explains not sending tanks. German elites were in bed with Russia way before the question of tanks has arisen - and, tbh, nobody was really bothered by it too much, exactly because they didn't foresee they'd have to send tanks. But now, when it is obvious that Russia is not what the kumbaya squad though it was, that collusion explains why they are so reluctant to change their actions.

The American ploy of 'if you send Leopard 2s to Ukraine, we'll give you Abrams on the cheap' - isn't it a rather transparent attempt at fucking the German economy even more ?

I don't think the price of a dozen (or even several dozens) tanks plays a significant role in the trillion-dollar budgets/GDPs here. It's sounds like a B-movie plot rather than something that actually happens. The US is trying for a long time to get Europe to do 2% of military expenses that they agreed to, and I think it still didn't happen, Germany barely getting to 1.5. With this level of spending, I don't thing fucking the economy is a big concern.

Also, from what I understand, the manufacturer of these tanks said that they can't make too many more than they do now anyway, at least soon, so I am not sure who is being fucked by replacing them with Abrams, if that indeed might happen. Also, according to the Wiki, Germans plan to replace them anyway by 2030, which again makes the plan of fucking the German economy by temporarily replacing some tanks not a viable plot.

Also, Germans until this point objected to Poland sending L2s to Ukraine too, which does not have any potential to affect German economy at all, except maybe Poland buying more modern tanks to replace the old ones (where Leopards would be the first choice since they already have everything set up for them) - again, nothing fucking German economy here. And now Netherlands wants to buy some L2s from Germany to give it to Ukraine - again, no fucking the German economy I can detect here. I am not sure whether the Germans would agree - but I think it'd be a good deal for them, unless there are some non-economic reasons not to do that.

Europe has cca .. 3600 Leopard 2s. If eventually say, 1000 get sent to Ukraine, to replace the destroyed Ukrainian T-64s, that'd mean a lot of lost contracts for Germans.

so I am not sure who is being fucked by replacing them with Abrams, if that indeed might happen.

The war stimulated defense spending, it's reasonable to expect they'd have attempted to revive the manufacturing.

If 1000 gets sent to Ukraine, the war will end pretty soon after. But right now we're not even near that level of commitment, good thing if they manage 10% of that. So far I understand it's more like 1%: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/01/22/germany-okays-a-dozen-polish-tanks-for-ukraine-hundreds-more-could-follow

But I don't see how it's "a lot of lost contracts for Germans" - if these tanks are already bought, the contracts are already paid for. Now imagine they all get sent to Ukraine and stay there (either somehow destroyed, or hanging around keeping the peace after the victory). I imagine they would need eventually to be replaced. Since the rest 2600 are Leopards, and having similar tanks is easier than having different ones, for obvious reasons, that mean the same Europeans now come to the Germans and say "give us more of those Leopards, we need to replace those we sent to Ukraine". I'm not sure I understand - how is this a loss for Germany in your book? Of course, if somehow Americans had a Jedi trick that would make the owners of those 2600 to replenish the missing 1000 with Abrams, that would be a lost opportunity for Germans - but I don't see how it would suddenly happen. As far as I know, militaries don't just jump to an entirely different supplier on a dime. If they planned to replace L2 with Abrams, that decision wouldn't be caused by giving tanks to Ukraine - it'd be taken independently, and there would not be additional loss to Germans to allow the tanks to be given to Ukraine - if country X intends to no longer buy Leopards, it'd not buy regardless of what happens to existing Leopards, whether they go to Ukraine now or sold to Saudi Arabia in 5 years.

Not a parsimonious explanation. If collusion explains not sending tanks in the case of germany, how do you explain the reluctance to send tanks for similar countries (US italy france etc) ?

US does not want to get involved in a war in Europe. Or at least some part of the US doesn't. That's the same story since WW1. If you ask why US wants to be involved in Libya or Iraq or Somali, but not in Europe - I don't have a good answer for you, it is what it is.

As for the rest of them, its a combination of Russian ties (Germany was leading the way, but Russian money and Russian energy dependency is all over Europe, it's not unique to Germany at all, though France has much less energy dependence due to the developed nuclear production - I always was fascinated how unexpectedly sane French approach in this area has been) and again, reluctance to get involved in a far away conflict that they feel they don't have much stake in.

a whole smattering of reasons. Anyway, it appears germany will give tanks after all, and the US too. That's what I'm talking about. Are you confused by that, is your theory refuted?

Germans could be fighting russians in kiev in 2 years, and you'd still find people saying 'we must not forget their entire political class has been bought by russian money. Ex-Bundeskanzler Schröder...... etc '.

Are you confused by that, is your theory refuted?

I am not confused by that at all. State politics is not a one-bit switch. It is a complex combination of thousands of complex interests. There are powerful interests in Germany against intervening in Ukraine, and less powerful in the US (coming more from isolationist place than anything else, unlike Germany) but still existing. There are also pressure from the other side to help Ukraine, aided by the revelations of more and more war crimes committed by Russians. The outcome of this interplay of interests can change over time, there's nothing confusing here and nothing refuting the existence of these interests. The pro-Russia fraction was powerful in Germany, but its power is not infinite and gets eroded as the war goes on - now to the point that they are too weak to prevent Polish tanks to be sent to Ukraine. One day, hopefully, they'd be so weak they couldn't prevent the same for German tanks. It does not refute their existence at all.

Germans could be fighting russians in kiev in 2 years,

Unlikely, for several reasons. First, if Russians get as far as going into Kiev, the EU would decide the war is lost for Ukraine and would cut the losses. One of the reasons they are increasing the help now because they are seeing their help can do something and not just increase the losses. Second, I do not see Germany committing any number of troops to fight Russia anywhere. Poland - maybe. Estonia or Latvia - maybe. US - very, very unlikely but there's a tiny chance. Germany? No way. Third, German army is right now not exactly in the fighting condition, as I read. They have a lot of iron and so on, but they suffer from long neglect and disarray. I don't think they want to fight anybody.

we must not forget their entire political class has been bought by russian money. Ex-Bundeskanzler Schröder...... etc

Obviously, we must not. Why would we forget the fact, which is true? I don't think removing true information from consideration makes any model better.

now to the point that they are too weak to prevent Polish tanks to be sent to Ukraine. One day, hopefully, they'd be so weak they couldn't prevent the same for German tanks.

No, they are sending their own tanks. These powers of collusion are that weak. They are at present invisible, indistinguishible from null. Again, and in real time, your belief in german-russian collusion has failed to pay dividends.

Unlikely, for several reasons.

That's not the point. Actual boots on the grounds war is just the maximal opposition one state can express in relation to another, I was contrasting it with a belief in collusion between them. In other words, I was trying to find a hypothetical that would falsify your belief. You maintained it, so I can now declare it unfalsifiable.

I don't think removing true information from consideration makes any model better.

True information should always pay rent, and this one's behind.

More comments

It is a sufficient explanation, not the only explanation.

If in february you were adamant there was collusion (because of German-Russian friendship societies etc), you would have predicted a degree of support for ukraine from germany that would be considerably less than what actually happened. The belief is epistemic dead weight.

Strelkov, who for all his craziness seems to me to have demonstrated the best intuition regarding the dynamics of this war and the modes of operation and capabilities of each side so far, advanced a theory I thought interesting on Telegram yesterday. According to him, the Western coalition is deliberately trying to bait Russia into believing that the next two weeks are a now-or-never window to start another offensive - the failure of Ukraine to start any serious large-scale counterattacks, the published timelines for the delivery of the next packages of Western weaponry, the inexplicable publicity of the US supposedly strongly advising Ukraine to pull out of Bakhmut already, and the show of Scholz still refusing to send Ukraine tanks but it only being a matter of time until he has to bow to pressure all are meant to create a picture that now is a high point of the ratio of Russian to Ukrainian preparedness and from March onwards Ukrainian conventional firepower is on track to eclipse Russia's for good. (...and for some reason we may never now all details of, proactive nuclear escalation by Russia has been taken off the table.) All of these are inconsistent with a posture you would adopt if you were actually going through a concerning stretch of weakness, and so this would suggest that the West believes that it can win against whatever Russia throws at it now (and all things equal we may be past the "more war = more free economic stimulus" point and winning sooner is better).

Interesting perspective, but that's almost certainly attributing more coordination and Machiavellian aptitude to the organization than NATO actually has. It's still the traditional worry about "escalation", along with Germany's domestic politics making it a perpetual stick-in-the-mud.

in my opinion that is not good analysis at all.

Losing hundreds of tanks - the number that Ukraine is asking for - isn't something you replenish within a year.

yes, it is. Ukraine is asking for 300 tanks. The US alone has over 6,000. The trickle of weapons extends the war.

If we assume that Russia will win this war,

you need to define what winning this war means when discussing outcomes. Rarely do I see people other very pro-UA or pro-UA thinking either side will reach all their objectives. As for the importance of this war, it is the largest European war since WW2. That is significant in and of itself.

the flawed 'domino theory' that was used to justify the Vietnam intervention

Let me see. The domino theorists said if the communists win in one country, they'd try to take over more. But in fact, in your universe, that wasn't what happened. There was no attempt by communists to take Korea (half-success), Viet Nam (success), Cambodia (success), Cuba (success), communist takeovers all over Africa, communist ownership of Eastern Europe (including brutal suppression of any attempt to create even minimal independence), invasion of Afghanistan, and so on, and so forth. In fact, it sounds weird why anybody would support such a flawed theory, given the facts that communists never intended to spread their ideas internationally, promote World Revolution and actively sponsor revolutionary forces all over the globe. It's all pure "hysterical rhetoric".

communists win in one country

To be precise, in a particular region. The Domino Theory is that once communism has a foothold in a region, it will spread across that region unless halted by extreme measures, like tough anti-communist dictatorships or supporting civil wars against the communists. So, if you want to avoid those extreme measures, don't let communism gain a foothold.

Communists took over Russia, then most of the former Russian Empire and Outer Mongolia, then Eastern Europe. (Confirmation of the Domino Theory)

Communists failed to advance across Korea in 1950 and didn't spread into Japan. (Confirmation of the Domino Theory)

Communists succeeded in advancing across Vietnam in 1974-1975 and took over Cambodia/Laos. They did not take over more of SE Asia due to the US's willingness to back very tough anti-communist governments in Thailand, Indonesia, the Phillippines, Taiwan etc. (Confirmation of the Domino Theory)

Communists took over Cuba, then took over Nicaragua. They did not spread over more of Central and South America due to the US's willingness to back very tough anti-communist governments in the region and do everything possible to undermine communists in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Chile. (Confirmation of the Domino Theory)

Communists took over Guinea in 1958, the Republic of the Congo and Somalia in 1969, and by 1975, African communists had taken over Benin, Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. The spread of communism across Africa was slowed by the tolerance of the South African and Rhodesian regimes by the US and its allies. It was finally stalled by supporting anti-communist guerillas in Angola and Mozambique, who took up the efforts of the Cuban soldiers who had been pivotal to communism's spread in many of these countries. The last triumph of communists in Africa, Burkina Faso in 1984, was stopped by a military coup in 1987, which many link to France (Confirmations of the Domino Theory)

This empirical evidence for the Domino Theory is not decisive - for instance, you could argue that US involvement in Vietnam actually precipitated the revolutions in Laos and Cambodia - but the historical evidence is at least prima facie on the side of the Domino Theory. It became unfashionable for the same reason that the idea of communist infiltration because unfashionable: after McCarthyism, the US intelligentsia began to view US conservatives as a bigger threat to them and their social democratic/democratic socialist ambitions than the communists, and the Domino Theory was seen as a US conservative charade.

I am generalising about the US intelligenstia, of course. For example, Sidney Hook was a democratic socialist who nonetheless never succumbed to the temptation of seeing US conservatives as a bigger threat to democratic socialism than Soviet communists.

Since Russia’s surprise decision (surprising to him, he was proclaiming that the Ukrainian army had already been defeated before this point) to voluntarily withdraw (lol) from west bank Kherson in the first week of November

Again, a lack of territorial progress from either side is a clear sign that russia is winning the attritional war. The ukrainian units are 'shattered', 'destroyed' and 'pulverized' until, presumably, the russians have to voluntarily withdraw again.

While the Ukrainian military exists at least partially as a continuous institution, its combat power has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times at this point through western assistance.

A fanciful but necessary theory given he has already described the total destruction of the ukrainian army multiple times.

This led to General Zaluzhny’s now-famous interview with the economist in which he asked for many hundreds of Main Battle Tanks, Infantry Fighting Vehicles, and artillery pieces.

Oh wow, the ukrainians ask for weapons, I'll have to update my priors on that one.

My suggestion would simply be that NATO does not believe in Ukrainian victory.

This is not just completely wrong, it shows a real failure to conceptualize the opposition. Even he must realize Ukraine has been outperforming from day one, and kept going. NATO wants to keep things cheap and avoid humiliating russia.

The whole Ukraine-Russia war is a geopolitical jackpot for the US. Ukraine is now universally considered properly European, when nobody cared about the country before the invasion. US interests in Europe are secured for another decade and the Russian war effort will inevitably be crushed under Western industrial superiority.

This scenario where Western arms can be donated to a capable military that directly kills Russians was the dream of American Cold War planners, and now it's a reality because of Putin's idiocy. Russia is currently serving as a warning example for Chinese military planners, so there's no way the US or its European allies will give up.

I strongly disagree. This position presupposes that the Russians are/were a siginificant geopolitical threat to American interests, and ignores the decades of prior American foreign policy that led to this postion in the first place i.e. in some sense, the US is just 'solving' a foreign policy crisis it created in the first place.

The first is an issue because Russian geopolitical interests since the crisis of the 90s have been strictly regional, limit to Eastern Europe (and not even all of it), Central Asia and not much else. These are areas of relatively little interest or importance to the US, other than the mostly ideological (but not much else) goal of "democratising" the former Iron Curtain. Even if the idea is to somehow stop the "domino effect" of a resurgent Russia controlling Eastern Europe (a pretty unlikely scenario relying on some questionable assumptions) the reality is that Russia is not capable of excerting global influence even if it were to gain control of much of the former Soviet Union/Russian Empire. It's economy is weak, population dwindling, technology stagnant. It would take many decades of miracles for Russia to ever develop the power and influence to be a serious global player as it once was. The US has spent a lot of time, money, manpower and lives that could be been used elsewherte.

Second, the US has deliberately (or at least intentionally failed to avoid) developing an antagonistic relationship with Russia in the first place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the first place. There was originally a real sense of optimism in the 90s for reconciliation between Russia and the US which was ultimately sabotaged (intentionally or not) by US actions which I have described in a previous comment on the Motte. US economic foreign policy towards Russia in the 90s is partially responsible for the creation of Putin's Russia in the first place. So it can be argued that the US, even if they are enjoying a geopolitical success with Ukraine, mostly just solving a problem they contributed to.

Third, even if Russia is weakened or neutralised by Ukrainian victory (whatever that entails), it's not exactly clear to me that will result in geopolitical success in the long term. The elephant in the room is China. A weakened Russia will almost certainly turn to Chinese patronage for support and protection, which would be a disaster for the US, give that China is that actual global geopolitical rival, not Russia. Even before this war, US antagonism towards Russia caused strange bedfellows as it pushed Russia and China together, two countries who have competing interests in Central Asia and would probably be weakly competing rather than weakly cooperating as they are now. If the concern is that the USA shouldn't cooperate/should be antagonistc to Russia on (liberal democratic) principle, fair enough, though I will point out that's not an issue with other counties and allies, most obviously Saudi Arabia. There are so a lot of actual really bad outcomes that could result from Russian collapse, including but no limited to: the rise of an extremist ideology in Russia, nukes being used (either by current Russia or successor state) the increase of global terrorism, including Islamic terrorism, based in Russian territory.

Lastly, it's not even clear if the US has gained any clear long term economic advantage. Yes, other countries have become more dependent on US gas exports, which is good for US gas industry, but this ignores the huge damage the supply chain and economic disruption has caused to the global economy, including the US (broken window fallacy?). Maybe the US gains a relative economic advantage over China (probably not significantly if at all), even if US citizens have to suffer for it. Increased dependency on US gas might also be short lived, because the lack of cheap Russian gas has renewed efforts in Europe and elsewhere to seek alternative forms of energy, though it remains to be seen how that plays out.

Your first two points are just a Mearsheimer-esque restatement of the "blame the US for everything bad in the world" philosophy. It's "boo outgroup!" dressed up in academic jargon that paints equivalent actions from the US as evil and unjustified, while those originating from Russia are claimed to be reasonable and defensive.

The US-led democratic world order cannot be upheld by the US alone. It requires buy-in from Europe and democracies in Asia. A Russia that didn't become entrenched in liberal institutions like the EU was always going to try to reassemble the borders of the Soviet Union, as it's basically a geographic imperative. This puts it at odds with the democracies of Europe, which thus puts it at odds with the US. Sure, the Russia of today is corrupt, has a relatively small economy, and has deep institutional failings, but the same could be said of the USSR, which was still enough of a match to be the US's primary antagonist for decades.

Increased gas revenues are not a major benefit to the US. Obsession with US gas is an element of pro-Russian propaganda to try to insinuate that the US somehow baited Russia into invading as a dastardly ploy to get rich off Europe's weakened bargaining position. In reality, gas is only a tiny element of the US economy, the vast majority of Europe's new gas isn't coming from the US, and the primary reason Europe was vulnerable to Putin's gas blackmail in the first place was because German Greens decided to scrap the country's nuclear reactors.

The main advantage is that it pushes the US and Europe closer together, hampering efforts by China to split the alliance. It also weakens the US's second most pressing adversary, one which was almost certainly always going to try carve out a slice of Europe for itself no matter what. Putin just jumped the gun and did it before the US was distracted with a crisis in Asia which will almost certainly happen in the next 10-20 years. Better to get it over with now while the US's hands are free than have to deal with both simultaneously.

Russia is the USA's second greatest geopolitical threat behind China, and are currently waging a hot war against the expanding US sphere of influence in Ukraine, and if successful will continue to chip away at said sphere. They consistently fund and supply advanced weapons to the the enemies of the United States. They have been sending troop to kill and bomb US allies even before the Ukraine war. They are an existential threat, being the only other country in the world to rival the US nuclear arsenal/capabilities.

Even if their actual economic, demographic or military value did not threaten the USA, they are invaluable as a source of fear for European countries to be integrated into the US lead military coalition NATO, and dependent on US resources. If Russia did not exist, the USA would try to create a Russia. A friendly version of Russia to the EU would see a marked decrease in American influence in Europe, hence why the French are so keen to play good cop.

As for their cooperation with China, that is already occurring, China did not participate in the US sanctions. They only way for that cooperation not to occur is for as you point out, Russia to be strong, meaning the USA will have two strong enemies that collude together with friction vs one strong and one weak that collude with less friction.

I addressed most of your points in my original post. Ukraine isn't of real important to US interests, but the US has made it important to them for some (ideological) reason.

Calling Russia an existential threat to the US is ridiculous. How are they an exetential threat exactly? The only way I can see this as realistic is Russia a nuclear power - but then war and antagonism only increases the likelihood of nuclear exchange, not decreases it.

If Russia did not exist, the USA would try to create a Russia.

This is a good point, but this pivots the argument from "beating up Russia is good because Russia is an actual serious threat" to "beating up Russia is good because it's a scare tactic to keep the Europeans under American influence". It also basically concedes the point that Russia is an enemy of the US's own making. Although, I'm not really sure how important keeping the Europeans on tight American leash is given that the future geopolitical battle ground is primarily East and South-East Asia.

As for their cooperation with China, that is already occurring

Yes, but it wasn't occuring 25 years ago, but began occuring as a result of the deliberate antagonism towards Russia from the US over this period. That was my point - there is easily an alternate reality where Russia and China are instead regional rivals rather them cooperating as they are now.

Calling Russia an existential threat to the US is ridiculous.

made it important to them for some (ideological) reason.

I will expand, Russia’s very existence as a hostile nuclear power is an existential threat to the United States as it currently conceives itself, the uni-polar world leader of capitalist liberal democracy and the largest influence in European culture. When they remove their nuclear arsenal, capable of causing human extinction, they will go back to just being a regular enemy. To be clear I am not acting as an advocate for all ideological reasons, but rather stating they are operating under the logic a great power operates under.

Ukraine isn't of real important to US interests,

It also basically concedes the point that Russia is an enemy of the US's own making. Although, I'm not really sure how important keeping the Europeans on tight American leash is given that the future geopolitical battle ground is primarily East and South-East Asia.

Russia being usefully used as an enemy does not mean they are secretly a friend. Europe makes up ~25% of the worlds nominal GDP. Even excluding cultural, racial and intellectual ties, that figure alone should justify the US’s interest in it. Especially given that Europe united, would have more wealth/population than the US and could ideologically drift from it. The reason that the East and Southeast of Asia are the coming battle grounds is that the USA and liberal capitalist democracy has already nearly won in Europe, these last 25 years have been a clean up operation.

but began occuring as a result of the deliberate antagonism towards Russia from the US over this period.

Even during the Sino-soviet split they were funding the same proxy-wars together. Refusing to sanction the Soviets for wars like in Afghanistan. I am sure you know most of this, the USA did not expand NATO passed Germany till 1999. Yet in 1992, a mere year after the dissolution, Yeltsin was already in China signing a "Joint Statement on the Foundation of Mutual Relations , in which the two countries pledge to establish good-neighbourly, friendly and mutually beneficial relations" among 24 other agreements. By 1996 they were shipping advanced weapons production capabilities to China, though at this point ascribed to a response to possible NATO enlargement, as some Eastern European states declined joining Russia's Commonwealth of Independent States. If the Russian’s would like to play a junior partner role to the Chinese instead the Americans/EU then that is their choice, however I doubt they will bend the knee to either unless forced. They could have formed another powerful regional block, that is aligned with NATO sometimes, but not worth the USA giving up half of Europe for, as was Russia’s desire at the end of the Cold War. Please do not link Stalin's 1954 proposal to join NATO.

What exactly are you envisioning here between the USA and Russia? The United States does not view Russia as a current or future world superpower. They are viewed as a falling regional power with an oversized military and nuclear arsenal, temporary products of a bygone era. There is not going to be an even split of what the USA considers it’s sphere of influence with a country that has a smaller GDP than Canada. Ukraine and Belarus will likely join the EU and NATO. Probably also Russia at some point, but as just an ordinary member. And we will likely see Ukrainian soldiers in Americas next foreign war akin to the Poles in Iraq.

Personally, I would have preferred any integration travel more slowly to not spill any European blood, but I don't believe the parties involved are as sentimental.

Yep, that about sums it up.

Well said.

You and @Ben___Garrison both - please avoid low-effort one-liners. If what you have to say can be summarized by an upvote, just click the upvote button.

The whole Ukraine-Russia war is a geopolitical jackpot for the US. Ukraine is now universally considered properly European, when nobody cared about the country before the invasion. US interests in Europe are secured for another decade and the Russian war effort will inevitably be crushed under Western industrial superiority.

Also side benefits like choking an alternative to US liquified natural gas and/or putting a dent in an industrial competitor in Germany who's now facing energy issues (due in part to their own silly policies).

Not to mention giving the European countries in NATO a big kick in the ass for both their own military contributions and their strategic independence from American enemies

I keep hearing hysterical rhetoric that the West must win this war or... something something bad. It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory' that was used to justify the Vietnam intervention. While I don't think NATO will ever proceed towards direct intervention á la Vietnam, I can't help but think that too many of the West's elites have trapped themselves rhetorically where Ukraine's importance is overblown for political reasons (so as to overcome domestic opposition towards sending arms) and it has now become established canon in a way that is difficult to dislodge.

Ukraine is fairly small economically, yes, and its production capacity will not fall to zero if it is under Russian administration, yes. So it would seem that Russia's victory (of dubious probability) would not change much. But that ignores Ukraine's importance as a corrupt western-friendly country with concentrated, exploitable resources such as fossil fuels. For the US, as a whole, or the EU, as a whole, it is seemingly unimportant. But for a few well-connected people, it represents a large portion of their personal cashflow and financial interests. So, it is indeed, in an isolated way, very important.

It is also very important because of the west's extremely lax refugee standards which means countries will be flooded with Ukrainian men looking for work using the crisis as an excuse.

Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important

There is no way a European country of 40 million people can ever be considered "not particularly important" by the Europeans at the very least. It's also of great importance to the countries outside of Europe that used to import Ukraine's food, nevermind the untapped gas reserves that could go a long way towards replacing Europe's imports from Russia. All the fuzz around Ukraine is very much justified.

It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory'

This invasion is the third domino after Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. What is there to doubt?

It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory'

This invasion is the third domino after Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. What is there to doubt?

Excuse me for the potentially physics-ignorant analogy, but dominoes work because the potential energy released by a domino falling is greater than the force required to knock a domino over.

In the age of industrial warfare, the windfall Russia will get from a complete annexation of Ukraine (if that's even on the table?) is lower than the costs required to conquer it — maybe it will pay off on the timescale of decades but I doubt it. This is probably true even if the US and EU weren't doing their best to make Ukraine into sandpaper.

"Actor did A, then B, then C" is different from "Actor did A which empowered them to do B which empowered them to do C".

In the age of industrial warfare, the windfall Russia will get from a complete annexation of Ukraine (if that's even on the table?) is lower than the costs required to conquer it

This is evident now, due to a not-insignificant amount of effort on everyone's parts.

But, arguably, this wasn't the case with Crimea. If it was then the most that can be said is that Putin had goals that weren't purely economical, which doesn't mean they're irrelevant.

Could a disaster at Crimea have prevented this? Mayhaps.

Also: we don't know if Russia intended a full annexation of Ukraine or some sort of puppet government + demilitarization + seizing the most Russia-friendly regions and cutting it down to size. A more "realistic" goal.

The domino theory was not that A empowers the actor to attempt B. It is it emboldens the actor to attempt B.

The domino theory was not that A empowers the actor to attempt B. It is it emboldens the actor to attempt B.

This is a textbook motte and bailey.

Perhaps YOU, @Gdanning, are scrupulously consistent in every discussion you've ever had that Domino Theory describes emboldening only, but many/most proponents of the theory are not.

I don't think you understand what "motte and bailey" means. My definition, it requires a person to make two arguments, the first bold and the second much less so, and the second being advanced in response to criticism of the first. I have made only one.

Russia had continuously been getting involved into larger and larger wars and territorial conquests. If Ukraine wasn’t fought over then tomorrow it’s Estonia. The domino theory actually was occurring with Russia.

Poland’s probably too strong today for Russia to war but if Russia had the ability to take Poland I would have little doubt that Putin would choose that after taking Ukraine.

Poland’s probably too strong today for Russia to war but if Russia had the ability to take Poland I would have little doubt that Putin would choose that after taking Ukraine.

Conquering and occupying a country of 40 million people who aren't inbred idiots, in this day and age ?

Look how well that worked out in Iraq - whose resistance movements had no great supporters abroad.

It's as inane as that time when BAP got drunk and suggested if Russian army wanted it they could be in Berlin in three weeks.

I don't necessarily think Estonia would have been next considering its explicitly under the American nuclear umbrella, but a place like Finland could have been plausible, especially if Ukraine went smoothly to free up the Russian army to deal with Finland before it could join the alliance.

My guess would have been Ukraine -> Moldova -> Finland.

There's a classic imperial overstretch dynamic that Russia has had since 2008. Beating up Georgia seemed fun at the time, but it soured relations with Ukraine and indicated to pro-Western Ukrainians that they needed NATO membership if they wanted to be securely in power without the threat of a Russian invasion/insurgency.

A quick win over Ukraine would have created a massive crisis for Moldova. If the Moldovan policy response had been to move closer to NATO, that could have resulted in another Russian invasion.

Then, with Finland planning to join NATO, why not reunite the Karelian people?

It's the same dynamic that has been the bane of many empires. It can be managed by sometimes accepting humiliations, e.g. the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was humilitating but good for the US's long term interests.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about Moldova. They almost certainly could have been next, given the situation in Transnistria and the fact that a decent chunk of the population is relatively pro-Russian.

I don't see how Russia ever would've been bold enough to attack Finland. Not only are there practically zero Russians in Finland, the country is thoroughly ensconced within western Europe culturally (even if not militarily/diplomatically). The international sympathy it would draw if it were the victim of Russian aggression would dwarf that of Ukraine. Also it has a very competent military, and a state that is vastly more coherent and capable.

I think you significantly over-estimate how much the international system cares about northern europe. There is certainly an argument that Western Europe would have cared far more, but this would have been far more due to the dynamics of Finland being a European Union member but not a NATO member. Were Germany and France unwilling to help a non-NATO EU member- or worse, try but fail- all pretense of strategic autonomy from the US in favor of the EU would have been shattered.

It's hard to say how such a campaign would have gone- 'how' the Russians have a hypothetical win in Ukraine to embolden/allow them to try such a thing matters- but for all the very real good things that can be said about Finland, it remains a country of less than 6 million, compared to Ukraine's 40 million, with only one strategically relevant invasion corridor along the south. A much greater size disparity, in a much smaller space where Russian artillery really could pay to its strengths, in the midst of a regional crisis as the European interests disagree over how to relate to Russia after a dominant success in Ukraine...

Too many variables to make a strong claim, but 'the international community would not stand for it!' isn't one I'd bet on.

I agree that a Russian attack would be very unlikely, unless circumstances were to change a lot. However, it would be more likely given Russian successes in Ukraine and Moldova.

Russian intervention in Ukraine was also linked to its successful intervention in Georgia in 2008, via at least two ways:

(1) The success of the annexation of Georgian territory bolstered Putin's confidence in such interventions.

(2) The breaking of the post-USSR acceptance of SSR borders by Russia gave a reason for Ukrainians to fear the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas. Of course, the Georgia-Russia war was also a reason for non-Pro Russia Ukrainians to fear an attack if they got into power.

(1) The success of the annexation of Georgian territory

Now that again, but slowly.

The success of the annexation of Georgian territory

Sure: The success of the annexation of Georgian territory (the country, not the US state).

Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke from Georgia in 1990-1992 when Putin was insignificant.

Russian forces stay here but these regions are not incorporated into Russia, that's what annexation means, Abkhazia apparently would consider armed resistance if Russia tries to annex it.

Ok, if you prefer, the Russian recognition of South Ossetian independence and the successful ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia by a Russian client statelet, ending any hopes of it becoming reintegrated into Georgia.

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

The "jaws of victory" he's drawn on the map look a lot like the plans drawn ten months ago. Russian armed forces failed to spring the trap then, what makes Big Serge think they will succeed this spring?

It's not at all obvious. One of my cousins volunteered for the war in April and immediately found himself in a training center and then at the front. My own brother was mobilized in October and he still comes home for the weekend. The capacity of the training and supply centers cannot cope with 300,000 mobilized. Probably, Russia can train about 80,000 people per month, maybe 100,000.

And the meaning of the war of approximately equal in quality armies lies in quantity. Ukraine successfully advanced near Kharkov, not because Himars and not because Javelin. But because they were able to bring their army to almost a million people (And NATO provided them with equipment, equipment and artillery) against 300 thousand Russians.

The reduction in the numerical advantage of Ukraine after mobilization led to the stabilization of the front line and a small advance of the Russian army. But if Western countries are able to ensure the mobilization of Ukraine about 150-200 thousand soldiers per month, then at some point they will achieve a numerical superiority sufficient for a new successful offensive. And it does not look impossible for NATO countries.

They will have to give a significant percentage of the current stocks and equipment in service with NATO countries, but this is not impossible.

As for what? Well, because since 2014 a lot has been invested in Ukraine. Authority, money, prestige. All this is worth something. It does not matter for what reason politicians have committed themselves to support Ukraine. What matters is that they took it. Secondly, after the end of the war, Russia will obviously take vengeance. If there's a guy in Iraq who wants to shoot Americans, he'll get whatever weapon he wants. ATGM, MANPADS, explosives. And if he is competent enough, then the Kinzhal missile to fight aircraft carriers.

Wagner, significantly reinforced, will continue to attack European colonies in Africa and this will require a large number of resources to counter. For NATO countries, it is much more profitable to continue the conflict in Ukraine, so as not to get a conflict with Russia around the world. It's just that NATO only spends money in Ukraine. In other hypothetical conflicts, NATO will waste money and the lives of their soldiers. This is a significant difference.

And most likely politicians in NATO understand this. And I would expect a really huge supply of the Ukrainian army in the coming months. It is strange that Germany does not want to supply its tanks now, but I would bet that the US will be able to convince them in time.

Does Ukraine have the men to keep pushing into the army? It seems like they've probably exhausted their supply of able-bodied conscripts.

All my friends from there are still alive and mostly not conscripted. Yeah they can keep going. They can triple their forces if need be.

All my friends from there are still alive and mostly not conscripted.

..and how many of them are out of the country ?

One hears stories of teenage Ukrainian boys getting draft notices in Prague and not being seen since, but one also sees Ukrainian men in the workplace who seem perfectly healthy and in no rush to go off fight the Asiatic hordes.

I mean specifically Ukrainians in the country.

You didn't make it clear enough, though. You said 'from there', not 'there'. Important distinction. I've met a lot of guys 'from there' while working various shit jobs 'over here'.

Tactfully, I'm not asking them if they're draft dodging.

I'd be interested in seeing a good report on UA draft, % evasion, actual number drafted, and how many they've shot for desertion.

Russians are the only ones with incentives to be interested in that, so possibly some of the more clever nationalists has a good writeup based on open data and leaks.

Lol. With a population of 70 million, Germany mobilized about 18 million people during the Second World War. And Germany needed industry and economy to support the front. Someone had to make tigers, panthers, fokewulfs, shells and wheat. Ukraine does not need any industry or economy. Hence they can mobilize a larger percentage of people. They certainly have more old people, but they have fewer children. So with a population of 36 million (optimistically) people, they could well mobilize more than 9 million. They have many refugees, but almost all of the refugees are women, so migration has little effect on mobilization potential.

The refugees that have shown up in my area (rural-ish Canada) definitely include families and single men -- it doesn't seem overly disproportionate towards single women. There's been a lot of incentive for males to get out of the country -- does anyone have actual stats on this?

In Germany, we have quite a few refugees, including in our town. They are all women and chlidren. There are no men that I know. Perhaps some very old ones, but I haven't seen them.

Men have been banned from leaving Ukraine since February 2022. Someone could pay a bribe (And people who can afford to go to Canada can also afford to pay a bribe), but it is likely that the gender ratio of refugees as a whole is highly disproportionate in favor of women.

But even if it is not 9 million but 4 million. The mobilization potential of Ukraine is still far from being exhausted.

I haven't enquired as to how they managed it, but these guys definitely left post-invasion, and have been accepted as refugees by Canada.

The point being that while in theory there's no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is. While the stats I seek probably aren't available from the Ukrainian government, they might be from countries accepting Ukrainian refugees. This would be much more useful than "it is likely that the gender ratio of refugees as a whole is highly disproportionate in favor of women", which happens to be contradicted by my lying eyes.

But even if it is not 9 million but 4 million. The mobilization potential of Ukraine is still far from being exhausted.

But either way the vast majority of this cohort will have no better combat usefulness than the equivalent Russian mobilizee -- of which they surely have just as many to throw in the meatgrinder?

With all due respect, this is one of those cases where your lying eyes can be expected to give a not terribly accurate picture. Most Ukrainian refugees went to Poland, and the vast majority are in Europe. The group that went to Canada is by definition atypical.

Oh sure -- that's why I'd like to see some actual statistics.

But in the absence of statistics, choosing whether to believe my lying eyes vs internet randos and/or motivated parties, well...

But either way the vast majority of this cohort will have no better combat usefulness than the equivalent Russian mobilizee -- of which they surely have just as many to throw in the meatgrinder?

Except that Ukraine has a better chance of getting equipment for those men. Russia has to make everything for itself.

In modern warfare this is not an insignificant difference.

Russia also has to worry about potential state protection; an autocrat's army is never just for external opponents and even the Russian people may have limits on what they'll tolerate if the war is manifestly going poorly and Putin is squeezing more and more people in its name.

Russia has to make everything for itself.

Russia has been making everything for itself for 100 years -- can they no longer do it? I don't know, and unless you are involved in the Russian MIC, neither do you.

even the Russian people may have limits on what they'll tolerate

As may the Ukrainians, one might suggest?

More comments

Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.

Ukraine has a deep ethnic split between Ukrainians and Russians that goes back to the border between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth_at_its_maximum_extent.svg

You can see it was still reflected in the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election#/media/File:%D0%94%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80_2010_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%85-en.png

And Putin is still following the pattern:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/0003/production/_127630000_ukraine_invasion_south_map_x2_nc.png.webp

Putin's ideal outcome is to take the entirety of the provinces Russia currently controls most of, then add on Odessa. He'd also have a land bridge to Transnistria. Basically make Ukraine a land locked country.

A lot of the ethnic Russians left after the domestic conflict broke out in 2014. Between Russian speakers returning and Ukrainian speakers leaving, he probably wouldn't have much trouble integrating that strip.

Integrating the rest of Ukraine is clearly impossible. He'd probably like to leave the rest of the country independent and de-militarized. It's just not part of his vision of historic Russia.

Relatedly, the internal boarders of the commonwealth between Poland and Lithuania from the Union of Lublin in 1579 are the current border between Belarus and Ukraine.

Ukraine has a deep ethnic split between Ukrainians and Russians

This dichotomy lost its importance by 2016. Having lived in Eastern Ukraine, everyone lost any faith in Russia seeing the Donbas turn into a looted mafia run hellhole, with militias forcing people to sign their assets away etc. Culture, language etc. are meaningless compared to not wanting to be impoverished worse than the 90s. The Ukrainian army is very happy to use Russian, Azov's main language was Russian and had many Russians from Russia in its ranks. Many are now switching languages, building negative associations with Russian, due to the war.

One confounder is Zelensky himself, commonly found on Russian TV, who ran on a campaign to ease tensions and move on from the Donbas conflict. In spite of this, he surprising ended up not vetoing (middling) anti-Russian language laws. I haven't been able to determine why he switched then - but it does echo popular opinion in the East too. Here Zelensky sings on a Russian New Year's special: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lkdDQX06ISI The channel currently does nothing but war propaganda, featuring some audience members.

I've written about identity in Ukraine in other posts: https://www.themotte.org/post/269/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/50553?context=8#context

These claims are very odd. To point out a couple

This dichotomy lost its importance by 2016.

do you have some sort of empirical evidence of this other than your anecdote. I have seen many videos that would show contrary. For an empirical example this poll by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in (sep2022) states that "The poll showed that 57% of Ukraine's ethnic Russians" do not support making territorial concessions to Russia while almost 90% of Ukrainians do not as a whole. That is as significant difference in opinion to me. This poll did not include all of Luhansk, Donetsk, Crimea oblasts either.

I haven't been able to determine why he switched then - but it does echo popular opinion in the East too.

Again the poll by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology "At the same time, it is mostly supported by residents of the West and the Center (respectively, 79.4% and 66.2%), the least - residents of the East (38.8%, while 55.8% do not support)."

In spite of this, he surprising ended up not vetoing (middling) anti-Russian language laws.

I don't find this surprising in the least bit

Consider half the country uses Russian as their main day to day language, but not even a fifth claim it as their native language (which also means something different than in English), and 57% of that less than a fifth of "Russians" have an opinion on a poll? That's less than 10%. Of the "Ukrainians", you'd be hard pressed to find any (besides in the far West) who don't have a Russian grandparent (or 3). Along the same lines, even in Siberia or Vladivostok, half the people you find will have a Ukrainian or Polish grandparent. This does not impact what ethnic identity they write in surveys.

The Big Serge has a good overview of the RU-UA war. The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel, hence Germany's reticence to send Leopards.

...what?

Ukrainian ammo shortage has been the story of Ukrainian requests for aid since the very start of the war, when Zelensky memorably asked for ammo, not a ride. The entire early war Western response was focused on trying to get Warsaw Pact equipment and ammo to Ukraine in the near term to enable to keep fighting for the long-term effort of an eventual shift to NATO-produced material. These efforts were why Europe did 'ring swaps' of having various countries give their Warsaw Pact gear to Ukraine in exchange for getting NATO surplus. This also came with the obvious point that, because NATO does not produce Warsaw Pact material, would have to gradually train up the Ukrainians to western equipment in order to sustain a meaningful war effort.

This has been a very long-running item since the initial 'will the Ukrainians last another month' phase of the war passed. This is not new, nor have the Ukrainians been 'reduced to begging' for active NATO systems. Transitioning to NATO equipment has been the point for months now.

There's certainly plenty that could be said about Germany's reticence, but it's not because Ukraine is begging from a position of weakness. Germany is reluctant because Ukraine is asking from a position of strength, and if it got the tanks it was asking for the German government position is that it's afraid the German tanks would be enabling Ukraine to beat the Russians so badly the Russians might escalate. Take the German position with a graint of salt, but it's nowhere near a position that Ukraine has burned through everything, it's a fear of the Ukrainians doing even better.

As for this overview being 'good'...

A very cursory look at this account is that 'The Big Serge' was one of the 'there is no Russian panic' sort of accounts during the Kharkiv offensive last September, which is memorable for just how paniced the Russians were and how much war material they abandoned to the Ukrainians. On 9 September, this person was writing how Ukraine could not and would not make meaningful progress towards operational objectives towards Izyum. This was after the Ukrainian breakthrough had begun, and two days before the Russians announced a formal withdrawal from Kharkiv oblast.

This was after a six-month retrospective piece which characterized the Russians as fighting an 'intelligent' war, typical revisionism of the scope and objective of the Russian advance on Kyiv at the start of the war, right down to the 'it was a feint, bro' narrative, and of course the 'Europe's economy is going to crash this winter' predictions. These were accompanied by predictions that the 'rest' of the Ukrainian capabilities were in the process of being attrited to the point that static defense would no longer be possible, and Western support would dry up in the near future... as of half a year ago. Ukraine would have no hope of waging a successful offensive, and of course "Ukraine cannot achieve strategic objectives - all they can do is trade the lives of their men for temporary tactical successes that can be spun into wins by their propaganda arm."

This writer has not, shall we say, had a good run of analyzing the war so far, or for staying clear of the pro-Russian propaganda tropes in the course of resisting pro-Ukrainian ones.

Serge's prediction that Ukraine will lose the war "gradually, then suddenly" seems plausible given Russia's attrition strategy.

...what?

Serge's prediction has been that a Ukrainian attritional collapse would be happening any month now for over six months now, which is another way of saying that he's been saying it for over half the war now. Notably, Serge was claiming this before one of the largest Ukrainian resource infusions of the war at Kharkiv, as well as the successful Ukrainian attrition campaign at Kherson.

The Russian attrition strategy for months now hasn't been meaningfully based on attriting the Ukrainians at a military level, but the western support at an economic-warfare level. This was the crux of both the Ukranian power grid attacks- which, you might note, have decreased in effectiveness and frequency- but also the gamble on European winter energy. The gamble for some time has been that the Europeans would have to capitulate and seek concessions based on the winter energy crunch.

This has not, shall we say, turned out as the Russians or pro-Russians like Serge were predicting in the summer and fall. European energy is rough, and the long-term impacts will be considerable, but there's a reason that questions of aid focus more on whether Republicans will be sufficiently overwhelmingly supportive in general to avoid embarassing trips rather than the capacity of Europeans to keep funding.

I keep hearing hysterical rhetoric that the West must win this war or... something something bad. It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory' that was used to justify the Vietnam intervention. While I don't think NATO will ever proceed towards direct intervention á la Vietnam, I can't help but think that too many of the West's elites have trapped themselves rhetorically where Ukraine's importance is overblown for political reasons (so as to overcome domestic opposition towards sending arms) and it has now become established canon in a way that is difficult to dislodge.

Appeals to the flawed domino theory tend not to address the fact that when Vietnam fell, there were successive communist successes in the region of SE Asia. Not just South Vietnam, but also Laos and Combodia did fall. If you want to analogize Russia and Ukraine to the Domino Theory historical results, it absolutely would imply that Russia keep going, and/or that other countries will seek nuclear breakout capability, whichever your historical metaphor target is.

Germany is reluctant because Ukraine is asking from a position of strength, and if it got the tanks it was asking for the German government position is that it's afraid the German tanks would be enabling Ukraine to beat the Russians so badly the Russians might escalate.

A far, far more plausible explanation is that US is promising to give mothballed M1 Abrams tanks right now to those who give their Leopard 2s to Ukraine, which would lead to German companies entirely losing all those armies as customers and would be a great boost to US defence contractors.

Leopard 2 is a good tank, but against what the Russians have, it's only a very small part of a combined arms puzzle.

Something like HIMARS is far more impactful.

If you want to analogize Russia and Ukraine to the Domino Theory historical results, it absolutely would imply that Russia keep going

Where would Russia go if Ukraine fell this year? I can only think of Moldova and maybe Georgia. Finland is part of the EU which has a common defence clause which in turn would automatically drag in NATO since most of the EU is also part of NATO. Baltics are self-explanatory. Moreover, this all assumes that UA's population would be passive which isn't at all my assumption.

If Russia were to win on the battlefield, they'd have to deal with a restive and deeply hostile population and perhaps even insurgencies. Hence my skepticism that winning the UA war is somehow a geopolitical necessity of titanic proportions, which is what the narrative coming from Western capitals and large parts of the media would have us believe.

Where would Russia go if Ukraine fell this year?

This year? Home to lick it's wounds. The strategic defeat to Russia is already in place, due to Domino Theory warnings last year shaping last year's western support last year to Ukraine to the point that Ukraine tore the juggular out of Russia's offensive warfare capability. Russia has lost as many tanks/planes/precision munitions/ammo reserves because of the policy responses of the people who took domino theory seriously.

In the future? That depends on the context of how the conflict ends. Quite possibly back into Ukraine.

Finland is part of the EU which has a common defence clause which in turn would automatically drag in NATO since most of the EU is also part of NATO.

This is incorrect. NATO does not automatically drag in all members to any other member's conflicts, and the EU common defense clause does not invoke NATO assets or resources, not least because many key NATO countries are not part of the EU. This is the crux of the argument about European Strategic autonomy being duplicative and at the expense of NATO- the resources, and the burden for supplying them, are not shared by design.

While the Americans would very likely support an EU defense, it is far less clear that they would support activation of NATO into direct combat operations... not least because a failure in Ukraine will likely be a consequence of the very European leading countries who would be trying to involve the US having pressured/compelled a cessation of aid to Ukraine. My guess is that the Americans would provide intelligence, but otherwise work through the European belligerants and sell munitions and equipment to those like Germany who refused to supply the Ukrainians.

Moreover, this all assumes that UA's population would be passive which isn't at all my assumption.

This comes down to 'what does Ukraine falling mean?' The linked source falls into the general theme of Russia Stronk propaganda that relies not only only a view of Russian cultural cohesion, but an assumption that the West, but especially Ukraine, are lacking in it. This derives from the Kremlin view that Ukraine is not a 'real country,' with what that means for the population indication to resist.

But this is where we get to the point of underlying assumptions contaminating the topic question. If there is a restive Ukrainian population to be filtered, there is a Ukrainian nation trying to resist. If the Ukrainian nation tries to resist, the only place a Ukrainian nation-state will not exist are the places where Russia is occupying. But Russia is not able to penetrate and occupy Ukraine, due initially to a lack of logistical capacity but now a lack of advanced warfare maneuver capability that has since been attrited. Attrition does not mean the Russians will wipe away the last Ukrainian defenders and there is nothing less- an attrition of Ukrainian capabilities means the Ukrainians start conserving ammo and start trading space for time to receive new supplies and generate new forces for defensive positions to fall back into.

Which means, well, Ukraine is not fallen, especially as the westerners can always supply more ammo. Which they've been doing for nearly a year now, with no signs of being unable to continue. Which defeats the starting assumption that Ukraine is falling.

If Russia were to win on the battlefield, they'd have to deal with a restive and deeply hostile population and perhaps even insurgencies. Hence my skepticism that winning the UA war is somehow a geopolitical necessity of titanic proportions, which is what the narrative coming from Western capitals and large parts of the media would have us believe.

This makes no sense on a structural level. There is no such thing as a 'geopolitical necessity of titanic proportions,' there are geopolitical dynamics that people might assign titanic weight to. That is a position completely unremoved from your skepticism- your skepticism is not a requirement for the emotional weight other people put onto it.

Nor is there any obvious division here. The way Ukraine would have a meaningful insurgency is if someone supplies insurgency weapons. These insurgency weapons will, for reasons of geography and interests, come from NATO neighbors. But if these NATO neighbors are willing to supply munitions to Ukraine for an insurgency, they could also supply munitions for Ukraine to continue fighting conventionally.

It's not somehow more in NATO's interest to fund a neighborhood insurgency than having a major Russian buildup on their borders nominally there to resist the insurgency they are supplying to keep the Russians occupied.

One should understand that Europe's and even America's production capacities have atrophied badly over the decades.

This seems like the crux of the prediction.

However, scanning through the overview you linked, I'm finding little sources to back this up. For example:

Furthermore, the United States has taken new, unprecedented steps to supply Ukraine with shells. Just in the past week, they have dipped into its stockpiles in Israel and South Korea, amid reports that American stocks are so depleted that they will take more than a decade to replenish.

If you click on the link in that paragraph, you're taken to a reuters article where a European ammo manufacturer predicts it will take 10-15 years to replenish ammo stocks; he also describes his difficulties in ramping up production. But Serge's paragraph is about America and American stockpiles--so why link to a piece about European supply issues?

Now, with that being said, at this point it does not appear that NATO wants to give Ukraine main battle tanks. At first it was suggested that tanks from storage could be dusted off and given to Kiev, but the manufacturer has stated that these vehicles are not in working order and would not be ready for combat until 2024.

Again, the paragraph speaks about NATO, but the linked article focuses on German difficulties in getting tanks ready for any sort of transfer. (The article itself then links a piece about the UK sending a handful of tanks to Ukraine).

I think, in general, the problem I see with the linked piece is that it goes into technical details about Russian anti-artillary or into grand strategy theorizing, but gives very scant evidence about "the West's" production capacities, even though that seems like one of the more important if not the most important parts of the theory.

Edit: Also, Serge provides no evidence about Russian production capacity. If this is a war of attrition, it seems like a crucial piece of information to bring to the argument. It doesn't matter if NATO stockpiles are running low if Russian ones are running low faster.

But Serge's paragraph is about America and American stockpiles--so why link to a piece about European supply issues?

Poland and other countries have ordered HIMARS already in 2018 but still haven't gotten deliveries. Why do you think America has outsourced significant parts of F-35 production to friendly countries? It no longer has the domestic capacity to fully manufacture the plane at scale. It isn't only Europe which has cut back massively on military production. Equipment has gotten more expensive and fewer units are built, along with lower investment in manufacturing more generally.

That doesn't address what I said. I said that Serge put forth a claim about American production capacity and then supported it by linking to a piece that has absolutely nothing to do with American production capacity.

That's shoddy writing. Worse, it's shoddy thinking--bold claims, no evidence. Why the hell would I trust the guy after this?

F-35 production

That seems like a poor way to argue that USA atrophied, Russia stronk.

Compare 890+ built F-35 to 11 claimed serial Su-57. And that, I think, includes the first serial Su-57 crashed during factory trials.

Currently 156 F-35 are produced each year. There are 11 serial Su-57 since 2019.

Add to that dramatic inferiority of Su-57 to F-35.

What next, maybe we will compare satellite constellations? Or logistics? Or carriers? These is one of few places with more hilarious disparity than in production of advanced fighters.

Poland and other countries have ordered HIMARS already in 2018 but still haven't gotten deliveries. Why do you think America has outsourced significant parts of F-35 production to friendly countries? It no longer has the domestic capacity to fully manufacture the plane at scale. It isn't only Europe which has cut back massively on military production. Equipment has gotten more expensive and fewer units are built, along with lower investment in manufacturing more generally.

...which is, of course, why the F-35 program is developed in a way that expands European military production, lowers the cost per unit such that a fifth-generation multi-role fighter is competitive on cost grounds with fourth-generation European staples, allowing larger and higher quality air forces than otherwise supportable while also crowding out a number of competitors to such a point that the closest European alternative, are talking delivery dates in the late 2030s to 2040s.

Set aside that the United States ran an entirely separate and exclusive fifth-generation air-superiority program to completion in parallel. The F-35 alone has been structured in a way to ensure that involved parties are buying into an American fighter programs and so will continue to align their defense policies with the US for as long as they want to maintain the F-35s they have bought and built. It also, by virtue of serving as a common platform, expands the capacity for cross-servicing and loaning as parts of coalitions and alliance burden-sharing, meaning that partners across Europe, Asia, and in the Middle East can surge capacity hardware to eachother in case of crisis, without having to establish entirely new training programs or logistic trains, greatly expanding the speed and flexibility of alliance-level response coordination. The interoperability savings are a significant advantage that directly addresses one of the current observed difficulties of the Ukraine war, of the trainup to foreign equipment.

'The F-35 is built with partner assistance because the US is weak' is trying to invent a sin out of a virtue. The F-35 is built in foreign countries so that they will buy it, and in doing so create economies of scale that benefit not only all participants, but swept the European airforce recapitalization market of the late 2010s and so far going forward in the 2020s. The F-35 program has been one of the most ambitious defense industry programs since the Ford super-carriers, and more importantly has become one of the most successful aviation projects of the last half century in terms of international scope and expanding production of a new air fighter.

The problem is that with a few words changed, everything you've said also applies to Russia.

Russia can't replenish its materiel at the ridiculous rate it has been expending it and even the deep soviet stockpiles will begin to run dry. It's worth noting that the single greatest donor of weapons to Ukraine has been Russia courtesy of many gifts left behind in good will gestures.

As for rhetoric, if what we're hearing in the west is hysterical then I lack words for what prevails in Russia. I recall discussions of sinking the UK under a giant tidal wave caused by nuclear explosions airing on Russian national television and the ongoing drumbeat of how this conflict is an existential crisis for Putin Russia.

Nobody on this earth knows how this war will end, or when. Some people may think they do and some might even turn out to be correct, but that will be a coincidence. This kind of business is far too large, complicated and full of moving parts to understand from any angle while it remains in motion, only once all the pieces have stopped will we be able to pick it apart and declare how obvious it was how things would turn out.

That said I still favour Ukraine over Russia on this one, they've got much stronger backing, have proven to be surprisingly competent and far more motivated than their Russian adversaries. The Russians by contrast have a military so dysfunctional that it verges on that of an Arab state, which seems to be institutionally more focused on battling with reality than with the enemy. Incidentally this aspect has been somewhat dissapointing for me, a long time fan of Russian doctrine, who has frequently argued that the Ivans are not as incompetent at warfare as is popularly believed. Apparently this sage wisdom must be updated to include military as well.

The biggest handicap to Ukrainian victory at this moment is the strange reticence of some western politicians to cheaply win a decisive victory over a long term adversary.

The biggest handicap to Ukrainian victory at this moment is the strange reticence of some western politicians to cheaply win a decisive victory over a long term adversary.

The strange thing to me is this Bizarro-world some some people are living in, where Russia is the West'l long-term adversary.

Other than CNN telling you that it's so, is there actually any post-1991 evidence that Russia is, in fact, our "long-term adversary", or is it just something that certain people keep repeating to try and meme it into truth?

is there actually any post-1991 evidence that Russia is, in fact, our "long-term adversary", or is it just something that certain people keep repeating to try and meme it into truth?

  1. Not rejected its imperial aspirations and have not even pretended that it will give up "sphere of influence" that includes my country (unlike Germany)

  2. Bombing country next to mine and murdering civilians there and trying to destroy its economy

  3. Doing its best to disrupt global food supply by invading Ukraine and blocking grain shipments (they were strongarmed into suspending this)

  4. Have not clearly rejected USSR as awful and evil failure (unlike Germany with Third Reich)

  5. Repeated use of its position of cheap energy supplier for blackmail

  6. Invading other countries in Europe (they have not got memo that European countries decided that this is not acceptable after WW II mess)

  7. Being so corrupt that they are not usable as ally for example ally against China

  8. Being utterly useless as an ally (as Armenia discovered)

  9. Assassinating people in Europe without even enough decorum to keep it hidden

  10. Repeated extreme war crimes (for example: using hospital list in Syria as target list, Bucha)

Overall Russia is overambitious corrupt, useless as an ally, extremely aggressive lead by idiot that dragged it into a tragic war. That demonstrates it clearly enough even for Germans, but it was obvious already earlier.

And no, Russia is not entitled to empire in the central Europe - nor powerful enough to build one again, at least for now.

Well stated! I'm quite deeply shocked that someone wouldn't consider Putin's Russia quite antithetical to the West. The fundamental one is "invading another country in Europe". All the rest was kind of generic and shitty dictatorship stuff, but that one crosses a rather literal line.

today - Georgia, tomorrow - Ukraine, the day after tomorrow – the Baltic States, then, perhaps, it will be my own country, Poland'

President of Poland in 2008, in Georgia, Tbilisi

(if anyone is confused why support to Ukraine is over 1% of GDP of Estonia and Poland gave Ukraine 230+ tanks and other equipment)

Other than CNN telling you that it's so, is there actually any post-1991 evidence that Russia is, in fact, our "long-term adversary"

They don't have gay pride parades.

This is a low-effort sneer, not an actual observation or even a speculation. You've received a warning and a tempban already for this kind of thing. Since that seems to be all you're here to do, banned for another three days (not escalating this time because this was such a trifling comment that normally would have only gotten a warning, but expect the next one to be significantly lengthier if you keep it up).

It's an overly succint reply that unjustifiedly presumed familiary with the SSC blogpost corpus.

E.g.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/08/gay-rites-are-civil-rites/

Russia, in a sense, is not just a strategic enemy of the US because it threatened US economic and military dominance of Europe, but also represents nationalism / christianity, the enemy that managerial regime has completely defeated in the West.

Russia has been an opponent of Western interests in several areas since 1991: Yugoslavia, the Caucauses, and now Ukraine. Even in the 1990s, when Western aid was keeping the lights on and the bread in children's mouths in Russia, Yeltsin was often willing to challenge Western interests in Yugoslavia, as much as Russia could (not much). Under Putin, Russia has become an ally of pretty much every anti-Western government in the world.

It's not a symmetric adversary, in the sense that Russia has long ceased to be an existential military threat to NATO countries, Japan etc. That doesn't mean that it's not an adversary, and while Russia is not very important in comparison to China, it's been a lot more willing to stage external military operations.

I think it facts checks true that Russia is a long term enemy. It doesn’t need to be that way but their behavior has created the situation. They’ve got about a 100 years consistently chose to fight on the anti-west team except for the 5 years in ww2.

If someone keeps going to war with you then I think I can fact check it true that they are the enemy.

chose to fight on the anti-west team except for the 5 years in ww2.

I would rather phrase it as "Hitler kicked them out of his own team and had no choice than cooperate with West"

I feel like Poles need to recuse themselves from talking about Russia entirely.

It's fairly clear now that Stalin's plan was for Germany to repeat WW1, exhaust the West and then use war fatigue and the Red Army to secure more land for USSR.

I feel like Poles need to recuse themselves from talking about Russia entirely.

I can do it in exchange of Russians recusing themselves from invading countries in Europe (I am single person but just recusing from specific way of murdering other people in specific part of the world is much smaller sacrifice, or at least it should be).

As far as Russian resources being depleted, is it true that they've largely restrained from using air power? If so their aircraft resources would seem to be in good shape.

is it true that they've largely restrained from using air power? If so their aircraft resources would seem to be in good shape.

Given that they restrained from it due to being shot down when they tried to use it, I am not sure. On the other hand not sure whether even F-35 would survive for long in area so covered with AA.

The Serbs figured out how to shoot down stealth jets in the 90's, so we can probably assume that first world militaries all have anti-stealth jet capability.

The serbs shot down one stealth jet (that is an order of magnitude less stealthy than an F35 or F22) out of dozens of bombing runs in the exact same flight path. Not exactly a good track record.

Still, USA in Serbia got quite cocky (flying the same routes over and over again) and F-35 may have some new tricks as stealth is not some boolean yes/no switch.

Airpower in the sense of aircraft? Yes. Airpower in the sense of precision munitions? No.

Since the early days of the war, air defense on both sides of the conflict has kept airpower to a minimum. The threat of surface-to-air missiles has kept aircraft flying low, which is one reason why so many man-portable weapons got kills in the opening weeks/months. Since then, helicopters and fixed-wing have stayed behind the lines and supported as a rocket/missile firing platform. This means they still exist in good numbers, but aren't being risked.

However, a key capability is the capacity for precision fires. Airpower is incredibly effective when it can put a bomb/rocket/missile onto a target in ways that ground forces or artillery can't. Here, the Russians have attrited themselves pretty heavily. It's not that the Russians were ever an American-style smart-bomb air power- the Russian doctrine is expecting to steadily lose the air war against American air power- and so the Russian focus is more on presision rockets / missiles that can do the key targetting fast and early enough to let the ground forces advance.

In this respect, the Russians have shown signs of severely depleting their stockpiles. This is very normal, but we're talking 'hundreds per week in the opening weeks, versus dozens produced per month.' The Russians have implicitly shot through many of their stockpiles, as things such as anti-ship cruise missiles have been used in ground-attack roles for non-tactical targets. Even the entire Ukrainian energy infrastructure attacks late last year are indicative of depletion- that sort of goal was not only a considerable sink of resources, but resources that were presumably bet on being more successful at delivering strategic results than being used tactically.

Between expenditures and such, Russia has lost many of its long-range precision fires... including those carried by aircraft. While the platforms are still there, and certainly have more munitions to load, Russia has largely 'shot its load' in terms of precision air power systems that can be used safely, and while more fires will come these will lack the intensity and disrupting effect of the early-war period.

The usual "military expert" answer is that both countries have inherited Soviet AA, so both Russian and Ukrainian aircraft are in danger of being shot down.

they've largely restrained from using air power?

Both sides have done so, IIRC because right now the balance is strongly towards AA over air power.

Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.

Ukraine is extremely important when it comes to base level goods like grain and iron. If Russia manages to capture just a decent chunk of Ukraine it could considerably strengthen any leverage it has over NATO and the EU. On top of that Russia as a government seems to be open to Asian immigration. It doesn't need to integrate Ukrainians, though it certainly can to an extent. Russia can just ethnically replace the population. Where the western elites have trapped themselves rhetorically as well.

Russia can just ethnically replace the population.

Russia has its own demographic crisis looming. One potential reason for this war is to secure the grip on or even outright absorb ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Replace them with who? The Chinese are allies but not family and the various Russian minorities may be growing faster than the ethnic Russian population but they're not large enough to replace Ukrainians and have their own issues.

I don't know if you are an ethno-nationalist but these priors of racial families don't need to apply if folks writing policy happen to not be ethno-nationalists. If Russia opens the gates to large scale Asian immigration, which doesn't have to come from just China but the various Asiatic regions surrounding Russia, they can easily be underway to repopulate the region. In a few decades time there will be no reason to even consider Ukrainians to ever have existed in the first place, as far as Russia is concerned. Ukraine, not that anyone would ever call it that, could just be a regional melting pot of various immigrants of diverse ethnic backgrounds that exists within Russia. And if we cut the same historical corners as is being done in Europe and the US, we can say that it was never anything more than that in the first place.

Who are those Asiatics "surrounding " Russia you talk of — like, Uzbeks? And do you suppose the Chinese will flock to war-torn Russia-controlled Ukraine?

Russia already has very lax immigration policy and conducts population replacement, the popular sentiment among politicians is that Slavs are inferior workers and voters who think too highly of themselves. There's just nowhere near enough people in Central Asia to make it matter for purposes of repopulating Ukraine, and even Central Asians will be reluctant to say the least. I get the feeling that your model of the situation is informed by, like, 19th century racial stereotypes — Yellow Menace and stuff.

Along with Tajikistan and Kazakhstan and anywhere else.

I suppose migrants will flock to the regions that offer some economic salvation. I don't think I'm making predictions grander than any of the predictions already made by market speculators about the potential gains to be made through investing in war ravaged Ukraine after most of the fighting dies down.

Better paying jobs, higher quality of life. Indoor toilets. And all the other stuff that makes the third world move to or as close as they can to the first.

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Russia's primary money maker is exporting fuel and other natural resources. The parts of its industrial sector that rely on Western inputs are going to suffer from sanctions or, worse, be made unproductive.

Not a great environment.

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Wait, Russia wants to conduct population replacement? And who do they want to replace their population with? I was under the impression that the country was fairly racist and slavic-supremacist.

Wait, Russia wants to conduct population replacement?

In effect yes. Or at least people who matter in Russia do and act on this intention. You can consider this analysis to be representative of the underpinning rationale. Immigrants are an economic necessity in the simplifying Russian economy (simplifying, to some extent, because of adaptation to uneducated slave labor), see. Russians don't want to work for subsistence wages, don't breed enough, and we sure can't entice people from nations with high human potential to come over.

Moreover, even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, Russia continues to be in need of foreign workers. Marat Khusnullin, RF Deputy Prime Minister, in an interview with the RTVI television channel at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, emphasized that "...the lack of migrants is a great risk for the country's economy, and now is the main problem in construction. Nearly 50 per cent of migrants work in the construction sector. And unfortunately there is a low level of productivity in construction which makes it impossible to do without migrant labour in the next one to two years. Russians, unlike migrants, are not prepared to work 12 hours a day at a construction site for around 50,000 rubles at the most. The average wage makes up 25 per cent of the cost of construction and up to 50 per cent in some cases. Using the labour of migrants reduces the cost of construction. [46].

Of course, one must recognize that experts arguing for it are mostly blank slatists with leftist politics (and their sponsors are capitalists who couldn't care less about identities of worker bees), so they're not really thinking of this in terms of population replacement where populations are substantial entities. Like the late demographer Vishnevsky (also known as Rabinovich) argued,

Russia does not need Chinatowns or African villages, but a real migrant adaptation machine. [...] When there was a mass migration of peasants to cities in the USSR, essentially they were the same Africans. Yes, the language was the same, the people were identical, but very different cultures clashed. There was a system of "digestion": elimination of illiteracy, workers' schools, cultivating a desire for education. It was not always good, but it was implemented on a large scale and more or less functioned, allowing many immigrants from the countryside to master the urban culture. The authorities recognised the need for this work and allocated funds. Teachers were enthusiastic and felt they were missionaries, bringing culture to the masses, and their work was not tedious. If we managed to re-create something like this in relation to migrants, there would be a result. But there is no demand for it. Meanwhile, it would be fatal to hesitate: the larger the population of a country, the more migrants it can digest. Right now we have one hundred and forty-three million people, and when we finally recognize what needs to be done, there may only be one hundred million left.

So, if done well, there's no loss here, Russians and non-Russians are fully fungible.

And who do they want to replace their population with?

The same offer you've seen above, Central Asian Turkic peoples mainly.

I was under the impression that the country was fairly racist and slavic-supremacist.

Sure, that's what one can get from listening to Western Neo-Nazi Putin Stans and from resentful Washington "policy experts" of Baltic stock (who are, ironically, wielding quasi-woke anti-colonial discourse and Pride badges to obscure their own SS roots) alike. Or from our pal Kamil Galeev, who seeks to advance his tribe and admits gleefully to exploiting gullible Westoids by feigning admiration of their naive slogans. There's plenty of trivia to substantiate the accusation. «Russians have a slur for every nation and ethnicity they've interacted with», so popular on Twitter (who doesn't?). «Russian landlords discriminate against non-Slavs» (of course, Americans of all people know how this goes and just why the market may reward making inferences from a person's ancestry; except their supposedly most-oppressed minority is American, genetically different but of the same language and faith and comprehensive civilizational background, and not straight out of an impoverished society stuck between tradition and modernity, in the middle of a tribal conflict, rife with opiate abuse, underground Salafi mosques and ISIS sympathies). «Here's a list of a dozen minority surnames of military dead in Ukraine, this is evidence Ruskies have smuggled an ethnic cleansing into the war!» Or, like, «there was an unironic Neo-Nazi march in Moscow... just 10 years ago!» People who seriously parrot this crap are either ignorant or knowingly deceptive, just happy to get some rhetorical ammo for their preconceived attitude with regard to Russians.

In reality, Russians are about as racist and supremacist as is typical for Eastern Europe. Of course, far more ethnic Russians than Western Europeans are racist as hell, but they have about as much systemic power to act on this prejudice as Appalachian Whites. Many, especially of the older generations, are thoroughly brainwashed by the false Communist era messaging of давно поперемешались все/нет никаких русских – «we've all been mixed up long ago anyway/there aint such thing as an [ethnic] Russian» – message that fails to convince peoples with healthier ethnic self-identification and thriving diasporas. All have to respect the authoritah of «ethnics»; not a single one among well-known people in Russia is more dangerous to offend than Ramzan Kadyrov, privates serving on a strategic nuclear site can be wantonly bullied and robbed by a random local ethnic bandit, and for your average small business owner local Dagestani mafia matters at least as much as local cops. Putin tries to appeal to our schizophrenic «multinational Russian people» by saying he's a Lakh, an Ingush and so on. He sometimes courts with Russians too, saying that we should try to attract diaspora Russians even more than other immigrants. And of course there's the 'Triune Russian People' pretext for the war.

But that's about it.

Interesting. It seems like there’s not enough people in the stans to actually replace Russia, and even the would be replacement theorists know it.

Stans have high (and increasing, post-USSR) TFR, so in the long run something may work out, but yeah, this far it only slows down the process of decline, even in Russia alone. Which is why the suggestion to repopulate Ukraine with those guys is preposterous.

I don't know if you are an ethno-nationalist but these priors of racial families don't need to apply if folks writing policy happen to not be ethno-nationalists.

I don't think you can boil down Russia to a simple ethnonationalist picture, but they've been talking about defending Russian minorities for years and how Ukraine (especially the eastern half) was basically Russian in a very ethnonationalist way.

If Russia opens the gates to large scale Asian immigration, which doesn't have to come from just China but the various Asiatic regions surrounding Russia,

If. But do we have reason to think that Russia has the disposition of Canada here? Their demographic problem has been obvious since the chaos of the collapse of the USSR but they haven't done anything like Canada's...robust 1% immigrant intake from what I know.

I mean, yeah, if. By the same token there was no reason to think Russia would actually invade Ukraine. Despite having 'issues' with them for the better part of two decades. Some things don't happen until they do. Same was true for mass migration into Canda.

I don't think anyone can logic their way into the correct position here. The main point I'm making is that Russia has options. Arguing whether they will or wont is, to me, irrelevant to that point.

By the same token there was no reason to think Russia would actually invade Ukraine

I don't agree with this claim and find it highly dubious.

As I said to another person it was predicted - down to the year!- by Peter Zeihan.

Beyond that, John Mearsheimer also argued back after Russia conquered Crimea that Russia would likely continue its imperialism in Ukraine, though his accuracy may have been let down by the belief that Russia was too smart to go for maximalist goals and annex the country (though, in his defense, mayhaps Russia wasn't actually trying to annex the whole thing but to overthrow the government and replace it with a puppet combined with perhaps claiming the more Russian regions).

If you wish to go back to before the first invasion...I reject that too. Russia has always been clear that it considers NATO expansion aggravating, even back in the more conciliatory Yeltsin days. American strategists like Kennan specifically noted this and lamented expansion for the dangers it would bring - even when Russia appeared prostrate. Putin was also consistently against it and consistently concerned with Ukraine in particular. Crimea was obviously of strategic importance. The idea that Russia would act after the revolution/coup and US officials on the ground triumphantly crowing and trying to pick Ukrainian government officials isn't fanciful. How do I know? Because Bush pushed for Georgian and Ukrainian entry into NATO and his own European allies blocked everything beyond a tepid claim that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join without any backing. Why do you think this was except for fear of Russian action?

(Which then promptly came against Georgia btw)

Same was true for mass migration into Canda.

This is also a very dubious claim. Canada is a settler state. Open immigration predates the modern era. What's new is unconstrained mass immigration from non-whites.

It's the same situation as Australia; it has always been a land that took migrants. The cultural change is the nature of the migrants and the consistency of huge inflows.

Now, it's true that that was driven by the demographic decline but Canada and Australia already had a "hook" they could hang this new brown immigration on - "we're a nation of migrants".

You can't craft that narrative today; especially while talking about unifying or protecting the various Russian peoples as a goal.

The main point I'm making is that Russia has options.

And I think those options are vastly more constrained than you imply.

Ukraine is huge. To demographically replace it would take huge numbers of people* that are a) untrustworthy (Chinese) b) too small (Russian minorities) c) not necessarily popular amongst the very people Russia wants to rule - if Russia gains anything it'll be the Donbass. Are Russian speakers - allegedly happy to join Russia - going to be happy being ethnically cleansed from their own land? I thought the whole point was the unification of ethnic Russians!

* Canada needed 300,000 people to keep up with its one percent per year target, Ukraine is slightly larger than Canada at 43 million to 38.

I don't agree with this claim and find it highly dubious.

If you didn't cut the claim up into pieces then it would be easier to digest.

This is also a very dubious claim. Canada is a settler state. Open immigration predates the modern era. What's new is unconstrained mass immigration from non-whites.

Yes, it's new. Which was my point. How is the claim dubious? The immigration numbers into Canada today are completely unprecedented. Settling unsettled land is not the same as migrating into a city like Toronto.

It's the same situation as Australia; it has always been a land that took migrants.

Every land, by definition, has always been a land that has taken migrants. Or by definition could be called a 'settler' state. This is exactly the kind of corner cutting history I mentioned in an earlier comment. The point being made is the obvious difference between what is happening today and what was taking place earlier in time. Since you have already acknowledged the obvious differences I am at a complete loss as to what you are trying to say.

And I think those options are vastly more constrained than you imply.

They're not. You could bring up every single one of these arguments in relation to muslim immigration into Europe. Still doesn't change the fact that it can take place. It doesn't matter how incompatible the Koran is to French liberal egalitarian values. You just need to move people around. Moreover, you don't need to replace every single person in the country. You just need to have enough working age people to fill in the bigger industries. Your argument is simply not serious or thought out. We are talking 10 million tops. At a migration rate of 500k a year we are talking 20 years. Which is exactly why I said that it could be done in a few decades time.

I thought the whole point was the unification of ethnic Russians!

Nowhere did I mention 'the unification of ethnic Russians'. This is bordering on not being worth my time.

The Russian birth rate is 1.5 which is more or less the same as Western Europe and higher than much of Europe. Russian demographics aren't really that bad. Considering that Russians die younger, they are in far better shape than Italy that has a lower birth rate combined with people who are retired for decades.

The Russian birth rate is 1.5 which is more or less the same as Western Europe and higher than much of Europe.

The simple answer is that Western Europe (and Japan and South Korea) is in trouble too, so this isn't comforting at all. Being around the same spot as other demographic decliners sounds good until we zoom out.

Considering that Russians die younger

Russia is also the one part of Europe trying to fix problems via mass military conquest and action. Wars are best fought with young men and a consistently (very) sub-replacement birth rate means that that pool is not going to replenish as much or ever be as big.

(This is actually why Peter Zeihan predicted Russian imperialism by 2022 - because he thought it would be the point of demographic no return - in one of his surprisingly nakedly correct bombastic predictions. He...makes a lot of them)

And while it may be beneficial to avoid as much of a short-term financial crunch it's still sub replacement and countries still need people for work and consumption.

It also goes without saying that Russia has challenges that Italy/other US-aligned states doesn't that matter here like:

  1. Sanctions on Western companies working for it which means Russian industry & workers will have to pick up more slack - if they even can.

  2. Sanctions on resource exports that Russia uses for money (and to support welfare )

(This is actually why Peter Zeihan predicted Russian imperialism by 2022 - because he thought it would be the point of demographic no return - in one of his surprisingly nakedly correct bombastic predictions. He...makes a lot of them)

Peter Zeihan is interesting to me. I enjoy watching him, but very much from a 'where can I poke holes in the argument, and what is left.'

There are a number of things I'd give him high marks for, but also a plethora of areas where I go 'but this specific prediction does not follow from the supporting argument.' I'd tend to call him directionally correct, and strongest at the macro-level where he's a bit more forward leaning/seeing than a lot of contemporary wisdom, but weaker when he goes from theory into actual policy impact. There are things where he's absolutely grounded- Peter was identifying the policy paralysis/failure implications of the Chinese COVID response before the public breakdown of Chinese COVID policy- but there are places he misses the boat, either for not recognizing other pre-requisite factors (piracy is not going to instantly pop up to cripple global naval trade; a failure of the Chinese economic model does not mean a collapse of the Chinese state). Sometimes these are part of his bombastic showmanship- the man's job at this point is to shock you into paying attention to his underlying points- and parts are more general analytic failures.

I'd put him in the category of 'you need to be able to support wheat from chaff', but once you do Peter is interesting because he's comfortable bucking the conventional consensus and saying the parts out loud that leading conventional wisdom in the future. Over the last decade it's been interest as a number of things Peter has been saying when they were controversial are uncontroversial now. It's not that he's alone in saying them- the future implications of demographic trends has hardly been a secret- but he's rare in being consistent, public, and most important making specific predictions (some nations will make 'now or never' policies before demographic issues) and translating broad knowledge into actionable advice (demographics + regions at most risk for instability -> specific industrial relevance). He has enough expert/rare knowledge it identify specific indicators or specific disruptions- the Ukraine war's impact to neon production to chips is an example- and a willingness to share perceptions that aren't typically held/propogated by the prestige/establishment media (a recent video on the prospect of nuclear breakout by American allies- not a common media topic).

He's not always right, but he's consistently enjoyable with genuine insights often enough to be worth paying attention, if only to try and define why you disagree with his arguments.

Peter Zeihan is interesting to me. I enjoy watching him, but very much from a 'where can I poke holes in the argument, and what is left.'

Yeah, I enjoy Zeihan but I do go find some reviews to read after I'm done with his books. I have a much longer "digestion" period for his work than most others.

He's managed a blend of demographic studies, manufacturing and geopolitics in a way that makes him very attractive as a popular-facing commentator (if you start with Zeihan you'll get a broad outline of the questions, if not the answers). But he goes a bit over the top and the trouble is that his reach is so broad and he projects so much certainty that - unless you're a domain expert yourself- you're not sure when he's on firm ground (in terms of things like US demographics it's not a big risk but what about when he starts talking about things way out of his field like the politics of Tanzania?). You have to go back and pick through all of it without the distorting effect of his charisma.

I get that part of it is just his humorous writing/speaking style and it clearly seems to work for him since he seems to be permanently on tour. But some of the stuff he says is simply too much

(piracy is not going to instantly pop up to cripple global naval trade; a failure of the Chinese economic model does not mean a collapse of the Chinese state)

Case in point.

It's one thing to say China will collapse as a nation - that's already eye-catching enough. Saying things like China will collapse this decade, "for sure" (which I've heard him say)...too much for me. Most academics I read don't talk this way.

I think this is a very fair critique, and specifically the point of recognizing the effect of his charisma and tour model. He is, at the end, in the business of convincing you to either buy his book, pay him to show up and talk, or both. Having that sort of overriding interest doesn't make everything he says suspect, but as you say it needs to be digested.

Ukraine has little value from an economic standpoint. When you look at the amount that Ukraine produces, you'll see it's very little. Wheat for example: 20 million tons at $300/ton or just $6 billion/year. That's about 3% of the world supply or about 1% of the yearly revenue of Wal-Mart. If Ukraine production in all categories went to zero overnight, the market would barely even notice.

Possible counterpoint: Commodity prices went up because of the invasion.

Counter counterpoint: Commodity prices went right back down again now trade at pre-invasion levels.

Ukraine has little value from an economic standpoint. When you look at the amount that Ukraine produces, you'll see it's very little. Wheat for example: 20 million tons at $300/ton or just $6 billion/year. That's about 3% of the world supply or about 1% of the yearly revenue of Wal-Mart. If Ukraine production in all categories went to zero overnight, the market would barely even notice.

...what?

Ukraine produces about 33 million tons of wheat, which is a bit over 4% of global production, but it exports about 19million tons, which is 9% of global exports. Taking nearly 10% of wheat exports off the global market is not 'market would barely even notice,' it's 'arab spring food riots,' because most of the most volatile countries in the world are not food self-sufficient.

Similar deal with other crops. Ukraine only produces about 3.5% of global corn, but what it does produce is 12% of the global export market. You're looking at even larger fractions of other items- 17% barley, 20% rapeseed, and around 50% of global export share of sunflower meal and oil. These are non-trivial shared of the global food market.

https://www.fas.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/Ukraine-Factsheet-April2022.pdf

This gets even worse when one considers the Pakistan flooding, which has wiped off a considerable share of the global export rice market off the market for this year.

It's not about dollar revenue, it's about control over natural resources. Ukraine has some of the most arable land in the world as well as holding significant shares of the total amount of high quality iron ore reserves and various other metals. If Russia holds power of the lion share of these various resources in conjunction with China they can turn the western dominated 'economic sanctions game' on its head. Just like Russia did with gas.

*edit, I should have added that the geographic location of Ukraine is also very relevant, considering the ease of European access to said resources.

they can turn the western dominated 'economic sanctions game' on its head. Just like Russia did with gas.

I'm almost positive I'm being heavily downvoted for being a contrarian (oh the irony!) but this is the kind of misconception that I'd like to counter.

Russia's gas supplies were quickly replaced after some painful short-term disruptions. The world has centuries worth of coal which Germany is so giddily burning right now. One commodity can be replaced with another.

Likewise, Ukraine's wheat production or rapeseed or iron isn't important. Reduce world exports 10% and the price will spike, followed by a demand response, and shortly thereafter a supply response, and pretty soon the price of wheat will be right back where it started. I'm heavily invested in commodities and have watched all this develop before and will again.

I don't see the misconception. The point being made is that in a war of commodities having control over resources is important. Controlling more of X is better than controlling less of X. It's not about the sky falling on the heads of those who get economic sanctions applied to them. Of course markets adapt to their conditions as best they can. But the more or less leverage you have, the more or less impactful the sanction.

I think these tend to be short term issues. The world has plenty of arable land to feed itself it’s just that it cheaper to use ukranian land than unused land elsewhere. In the short term shutting down ukranian production means big price spikes because hungry people pay what it takes. In the long term you just start producing elsewhere on lower quality land and prices are 5-10% higher than before.

In the long term you just start producing elsewhere on lower quality land and prices are 5-10% higher than before.

Maybe, but spike in food costs and permanent 5% increase is not "the market would barely even notice". And that may be enough to trigger new waves of migration counted in tens of millions.

"wheat is 10% more expensive" is noticeable for people in USA or Europe but they will at most complain and may push them to vote differently. It is different where people spend 50% of budget on food where that may be enough to trigger riots, famine and mass migration.

The world has plenty of arable land and is also a very small place when Russia and China are throwing their weight around. The argument here isn't that the sky will fall. The argument is that the leverage the west has over the rest gets weaker. Potentially getting turned on its head.

One should understand that Europe's and even America's production capacities have atrophied badly over the decades.

In sharp contrast to Russia's, which is on such a fanatical war footing and so replete with materiel that it can afford to throw heavy anti-ship missiles into apartment buildings?

This is a war of attrition alright. Ukraine is not a player in this sense; its only contribution is manpower (plus publicity, such as cringeworthy woke-style attempts to cancel Atomic Heart developers and harass other random Russians online). The competitors are Russia (not even other "Authoritarian Axis" nations, which are increasingly distancing themselves from this clusterfuck) and NATO, with support form NATO-in-all-but-name allies like Japan. The question is: would NATO accept to lose to Russia in a war of attrition, with all that means for its credibility and for viability of major land grabs, or would it rather accept some upfront cost to de-mothball military production lines – that, I should note, may come in handy in a world war against China?

This doesn't look like a hard choice to me.

In the beginning of this war I've translated some Atomic Cherry posts. I think he's still very good. He predicts a major offensive by AFU in 2023, enabled by Western aid. Translation technology is good enough now that I'd rather not waste space here.

The question is: would NATO accept to lose to Russia in a war of attrition, with all that means for its credibility and for viability of major land grabs, or would it rather accept some upfront cost to de-mothball military production lines

Because the actual enemy of USG and it's satrapies are the people who would gain wealth by producing things such as arms. Deindustrialization of the west wasn't an accident and it wasn't the result of "economic forces" - it was the result of a series of deliberate choices. Reversing that trend after the Regime has gone mask off would be very high risk.

USG

What you mean by USG here?

US Government

Pretty sure he means the Octopus, or what Moldbug calls the 'Cathedral'.

Empires usually don't fall by being steam rolled by an enemy. The risk for the American empire isn't Russians steam rolling across the world, it is an inability to maintain the empire. The taliban lost engagement after engagement, but won in the end due to them being too expensive to subdue. The US Marine Corps can't defend feminism in Iraq and fight high intensity wars in the Pacific. Social workers with guns patrolling deserts for years on end are a world away from amphibious jungle operations.

The US military spending in 2005 was 1.5 times the 10 following powers combined, today it is on par with their spending. Meanwhile, the US has much higher spending on wages, a less efficient industrial base, huge costs for pensions, medical care and education and much more expensive logistics as the US wants to retain a global footprint. After 20 years of investing in wars in the middle east the US has never had such old equipment and needs major investments just to keep currrent levels.

Keeping parity with China while China has the world's largest civilian ship building industry, low paid sailors with much higher recruiting standards and sailors that can take the subway home when they reach port is going to be tough for the US with sailors serving halfway around the world. Especially while having most of the logistical responsibility for Ukraine, who are fighting a war with poorly trained troops and a non-existent supply chain for western systems.

The question isn't can the US stop Russia, the question is can the US handle a whole host of simultaneous crises.

Humiliating and economically and molitarily destroying a threat to Western Europe, a major China supporter and potentially crucial resource supplier is handling a whole host of simultaneous crises. Let's stop pretending this doesn't make geopolitical sense.

The US Marine Corps can't defend feminism in Iraq and fight high intensity wars in the Pacific.

I suspect they very much can and that Chinese military will not substantially outperform the Russian one, but in any case the materiel going to Ukraine is chump change in comparison to its benefits, whether political or logistical. Everyone is upping their defense budgets; do you think it'd have been such an easy sell without supporting Ukraine?

I wish Western "anti-Interventionists" and such were honest about their beliefs, instead of coming off as two-bit dictator stans with motivated reasoning. What the US is doing now is executing a rational strategy for a soon-to-be total hegemon. This is the birth of the empire; mopping up Taliban will become trivial after these big wars with nuclear-armed sources of systemic interference are done. If you have any real criticism of Pax Americana, do make it.

Humiliating and economically and molitarily destroying a threat to Western Europe, a major China supporter and potentially crucial resource supplier is handling a whole host of simultaneous crises. Let's stop pretending this doesn't make geopolitical sense.

Look at Marseille, what is the biggest threat to the city? Russians plowing through half of Europe and temporarily holding it for a period of time that will be insignificant in the grand scale of things? Rather, it is globalist interests who want to replace the nations of Europe with a global market run by a handful of financial interests who bombed Libya to pieces and flooded Europe with migrants. The invasion of Iraq was a much bigger threat to Europe than Russia and China ever were. China has no chance whatsoever to actually occupy Europe or North America. It isn't a threat. The main threat is due to the same financial interests who now want another third world war, wrecking their own countries by outsourcing production to China to dump their working class. '

The same globalist interests that opened up for islamic immigration leading to waves of terrorism in the west on top of vast problems with rape, were the same people who's pointless war in Afghanistan caused a surge in the supply of heroin in the west. The war in Afghanistan caused a large wave of migrants, and the war was neatly summarized by NATO troops loading hundreds of migrants onto cargo jets to fly them to people who had nothing to benefit from this war. I am not really pro taliban, but their delivery of karmic justice to the people who cut the heroin price in half in Europe while getting eight people in Sweden stabbed by an Afghan refugee is something I applaud.

The US empire is crumbling which the increased spending on the military shows. Empires require expansion, and there are few good provinces left for the US to incorporate. Meanwhile, the imperial core is withering and the cost of maintaining the empire is surging. The current rhetoric is around increasing spending to defend Taiwan, not to go on some new venture of expansion. Slowed growth with increasing maintnance costs and lower cohesion in the core are solid signs of an empire in decline. Russia and China are not going to steam roll the US just like the British Empire wasn't steamrolled by another power. It simply became impossible to maintain.

Empires require expansion, and there are few good provinces left for the US to incorporate

The reason empires require expansion is because the parasitic imperial class grows (it takes an interest in the system as a whole to slow this growth and everyone in the system is interested only in maintaining his position in the system - hence, no one checks the growth of the parasitic load). The US empire is mainly a system of parasitism on Americans rather than one where foreign conquest yields returns.

Even the foreign clients are much like domestic USG clients - an excuse to take money from Americans, take a cut and give it to the foreign client in exchange for their main service - hostility to USG enemies (Americans).

This makes the historical comparisons difficult - this is rather a unique historical situation.

Of course the one way that USG actually does collect a benefit from running its empire is that the empire uses dollars and USG controls those and can issue them at will - that acts as a silent tax on the entire empire that can't be evaded.

Big Serge, who I have followed on Twitter throughout the war, has a long record of being flagrantly wrong in his various war prognoses. Some examples include this (yes, I know, many people were skeptical about the ongoing eternal Herson offensive, including me, but in the end, one still can't deny he was wrong!), as well as tweeting this just before the Ukrainian victory at Lyman led to the Russian withdrawal from the entire Kharkiv area and this before that.

He's a perfect example of a very typical Russophile (I don't think he's Russian himself?) milblogger/miltwitter type: a continuous undertone and often overtone of "stupid Westerners soyfacing over Ukrainian propaganda will never understand that Russia is simply destined to win like it always does, unlike us clear rational thinkers" belying the fact that they keep predicting Ukrainian losses and Russian wins that then never arrive and never adjusting their priors when these predictions keep getting proven wrong. Of course, many such cases in all (geo)politics!

He's also a cheerleader on US politics: https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status/1589406021726130176?cxt=HHwWgMDSjeKW2o4sAAAA

I find it much more probable that Russia is going to lose gradually then suddenly, because it is less supported by outside forces and their weapons are obviously obsolete.

Ukraine is being supplied both by NATO and captured Russian gear. So it's doubly problematic.

Many people have compared this to the Winter War. Soviet performance was similarly inept there, but they did basically win in the end, getting relatively modest territorial concessions though rather than total control of Finland. Maybe that's the best thing to expect here too.

It appears that Finland in 1939 had much more limited materiel support and commitment from the "big players" than Ukraine today: Germany had then a treaty with the Soviets and intercepted the Italian aid (arms and planes). The US was neutral, but there was some private fundraising. The Allies (France and UK) sold planes that didn't arrive in time to affect the course of war. (However, the threat of an Allied intervention via Sweden was very likely a factor in Stalin had to take into account.)

Sweden provided significant support (guns, ammo, and Wikipedia page says the Swedish volunteer air wing in Finland operated a third of Swedish air force's fighter planes). Also some Hungarian support. However, Sweden and Hungary were regional powers at best.

In contrast, Ukraine has near full materiel support of NATO and EU in quantity if with some limits in quality. (Hi-tech indirect fires like HIMARS and gigantic funding packages from the US and EU: yes. Western-made fighter planes and main battle tanks: none yet). But there is a noticeable difference between the incumbent president signing a lend-lease contract vs ex-president soliciting donations for a humanitarian aid fund.

they did basically win in the end

I've never given much credence to the notion of the winter war being a Soviet victory. They had to settle for the demands they levied at the start of the war, which were a paper thin pretense for starting a war that would let them seize the whole of Finland.

If I went to steal someones wallet and came away with a black eye, 3 missing teeth and a torn note clutched in my bloodied hand, I don't think I'd consider that a victory.

The Winter War is in my opinion a very good example of a Pyrrhic victory.

If the lines of conflict were frozen today, would you consider it a victory for Russia?

Not particularly, failure to meet objectives, massive cost in casualties, prestige, manpower, etc. Failure to seperate/expose the west as weak, now heavily reliant on a not particularly trustworthy ally.

I also think that freezing the conflict indefinitely ala a Korean war style situation wouldn't be advantageous to Russia. It seems that the primary goal (of the Russian leadership at least) has been to prevent Ukraine from leaving "Russias orbit" and showing that it's possible to succeed under alternative systems of government/life is better on the outside. The west actually has quite a strong record of succeeding in this regard, at least once a conflict has become properly frozen.

Victory as compared to January 2022, not as compared to some hypothetical in which tanks roll into Kiev unopposed in February.

No, because of all the reasons I listed above.

The date doesn't particularly matter here, because victory is determined based on the goals of the various combatants and those haven't meaningfully changed.

This seems like a non-central definition of 'victory', not least because it depends on mind-reading.

If Mexico developed a bold plan to roll tanks through the American South all the way to Washington, but somehow managed to take and hold (only) Texas, would you consider this a loss for Mexico?

Victory in war is largely a subjective concept, particularly in limited wars, how you perceive an outcome of a war depends on how you assess the goals/outcomes of the various groups impacted by the war.

My assessment on the war in Ukraine is that any gains the Russian government could make here is far past the point of the juice being worth the squeeze. It's possible for Putin to declare that the Russians have achieved an arbitrary goal in Ukraine, so that he can "win" and declare a victory, but it would be phyrric at best,more likely a victory in name only. Russia has wasted an absurd quantity of lives, money, materiel, prestige, etc, on this war and there's nothing they're going to get out that's going to make up for the cost.

Serge's prediction that Ukraine will lose the war "gradually, then suddenly" seems plausible given Russia's attrition strategy. If we assume that Russia will win this war, then the question needs to be asked.. how much will actually change? Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.

It's unlikely that Russia is in a position, economically or militarily, to occupy all of Ukraine. Russia is also in steep demographic decline and the population seems to have little stomach for sacrifice, which is presumably why Putin is only spending about 5% of Russian GDP on this war. Russia needs a guerilla war in Ukraine like it needs a Third, Fourth, and Fifth Chechen War.

Their best-case scenario (which I suspect is their current strategic aim) is to occupy the areas that they have claimed so far, ethnically cleanse most of the Ukrainian population in these areas as they have begun to do (taking children to Russia and giving them to Russian families) and to hope for a gradual rapproachment with the West, just as happened over the annexation of the Baltic States. For example, that could happen if Russia implicitly or explicitly sided with the US in a conflict with China, just as Western mollification over the annexation of the Baltic States was eased by the USSR inadvertently ending up in the war against the Nazis.

The annexation would never be recognised in the West, but it would eventually cease to be an issue that inhibits Russian trade, finance, diplomacy etc.

However, it's worth noting that that analyst is adopting a "broken clock" strategy towards predicting a Russian victory. I see no reason to take them particularly seriously.

The failure of the Kherson counteroffensive will accelerate progress towards the two tipping points, both by degrading the Ukrainian army further, and souring westerners on continuing to support Ukraine. Winter and the ensuing economic chaos will do the rest...

Ukraine cannot achieve strategic objectives - all they can do is trade the lives of their men for temporary tactical successes that can be spun into wins by their propaganda arm.

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-russo-ukrainian-war

Their best-case scenario (which I suspect is their current strategic aim) is to occupy the areas that they have claimed so far, ethnically cleanse most of the Ukrainian population in these areas as they have begun to do (taking children to Russia and giving them to Russian families) and to hope for a gradual rapproachment with the West, just as happened over the annexation of the Baltic States. For example, that could happen if Russia implicitly or explicitly sided with the US in a conflict with China, just as Western mollification over the annexation of the Baltic States was eased by the USSR inadvertently ending up in the war against the Nazis.

The annexation would never be recognised in the West, but it would eventually cease to be an issue that inhibits Russian trade, finance, diplomacy etc.

Yes, I agree with you. As noted in my OP, however, my intention was not primarily to handicap the war so much as to question the importance of this conflict and of Ukraine more generally. There's a whiff of existential crisis in the coverage of the war, which is frankly absurd if you take a step back and look at the stakes rationally. A potential loss in Ukraine for NATO isn't going to end the West just as defeats in Vietnam or Afghanistan didn't.


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