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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   26941 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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I don't believe for a second that giving weapons to Ukraine is saving Ukrainian lives. Especially now that it's apparently devolved into a static almost trench warfare situation. Every weapon given to them prolongs the conflict by X amount, and certainly results in some amount of casualties during that interval.

Every weapon given to them prolongs the conflict by X amount

I believe you vastly overestimate Russian resources. The war is absolutely winnable for Ukraine + Western aid combination. If Ukrainians were more directly assisted or given even more advanced long-range toys, it'd have been winnable quickly. But alas, nuclear blackmail (increasingly non-credible) and so on, so they'll keep throwing men into the grinder, getting closer to the objective very slowly and at a staggering cost.

You know, there's the issue with the proposal of distant appeasers which isn't well understood, I imagine. You still live in 2022, if not in 1980s like some Chomsky. But this is late 2023. The war has not just eroded Russian credibility as a military power or a rational agent in the international arena, screw that – it has eroded the credibility of the state itself. It has become a clown show worse than any pro-Western transgender performance. Yes, muh "Ukraine is corrupt shithole failed state" is a cope, Russian rule has become an unambiguously worse option, and not only for nationalist reasons as it could be believed in 2004 or so. The thin, see-through veneer of "based traditional Orthodox white nation" or whatever, which still held for some delusional people, has cracked. It's a feudal absurdity that puts patriots in prison and has to cowardly assassinate near-successful insurrectionists after loudly pardoning them, an ostensibly democratic and by all appearances authoritarian polity where some Muslim warlord's fat son pummels insufficiently obsequious citizens and law enforcement sticks their tongues into their asses, as we put it, a superpower of wounded soldiers forgotten on tarp under the sun, propagandists who don't even try anymore, every promise broken. It cannot credibly offer you prosperity or freedom, but also cannot guarantee you peace and stability. It is no longer capable of bribing anyone into obedience, not even the most naive Eastern Ukrainians of Russian descent who have survived the last two years.

It is virtually politically impossible for Ukraine to give up on restoring at least 2021 effective borders, and for the West to give up on Ukraine.

Dollars to donuts, if we'd given the Ukrainians our entire arsenal the week the war started the current situation would not be different by more than 10%.

Please do not put words in my mouth - Russia is not the good guy. Ukraine is not the good guy. They're both essentially shitholes except now one is being propped up with my tax dollars for some reason. I would never choose to live in either.

As much as the war has eroded Russian credibility, it's eroded US and NATO credibility. We put sanctions on Russia and... well that doesn't seem to have collapsed their economy as promised, does it. We fed Ukraine all this training and money and materiel for a massive summer offensive and... basically nothing was accomplished.

Now BRICS countries have a wedge to build a non-Dollar denominated global trade system. Now we've shown China that THE ENTIRETY OF NATO, US INCLUDED, can't produce enough munitions to match Russia in a large regional war. What exactly have we gained here? How are we going to gain? I don't see how Ukraine even gets back to status quo antebellum without NATO boots on the ground and planes in the sky. And then we're in a shooting war with a nuclear weapons state, which is terrible enough that I will fight to avoid it at all costs. AND FOR WHAT? FOR WHAT? Some Eastern European mudhole?

nuclear blackmail (increasingly non-credible)

You think Putin would not start nuking things if the Ukranians were advancing across the boarder and throwing conventional cruise missiles at targets in the interior?

You think Putin would not start nuking things if the Ukranians were advancing across the boarder and throwing conventional cruise missiles at targets in the interior?

Why cruise missiles, why this specific modality of escalation and not any other? I mainly meant more drones for the interior, but even for missiles, what does it matter?

Reminder: Russian interior is being routinely attacked now. Sometimes it's an entire border region being wrecked, sometimes it's a military airfield many hundreds of kilometers from the border, sometimes it's Moscow proper, and not just «a building» but a part of the city's business core, where progressive and corrupt Muskovites exchange crypto for USD under the watchful eye of FSB minders on a direct line to their Seychelles office, a sacred place. Sometimes it's straight up Kremlin. Ukrainians are routinely destroying infrastructure, have assassinated more than one propagandist near the heart of Russia, and in general are acting with complete brazen confidence that Putin is a bluffing bitch ruling a pyramid of treachery, grift and sheer indifference. What is the reason to believe otherwise? Answer me honestly, would you have anticipated two years ago that all this can be done to the Second Strongest Military Superpower without triggering the Judgement Day?

No, I am not 100% sure there is no level of attack which will trigger a nuclear response. But I am mostly confident it's not about Russia. Touch Kabayeva's child, Shoygu or Zolotov, you'll risk a great deal. Leave them alone and you're free to win the war by any means available. Even nuking major cities might not be off limits. Putin does not give a shit about much of anything geopolitical, he's shallower than a right-wing Twitter influencer, has no commitments and values his own life dearly.

@Botond173, do you have any argument except a sneer that looks to be frozen since 26/02/2022, when steel columns of Russian forces were advancing towards Kiev?

It was clear that yes, they actually believed that the Russkies will not actually respond if their units are “accidentally” smashed by cruise missiles.

And? Where's the punchline that teaches us how they were wrong and you were right?

It was "advancing across the border" and cruise missiles -- with the advancing being the most important part. I do think if American cruise missiles were in frequent use by Ukraine rather than whatever bullshit they have cobbled together at the moment things would be considerably twitchier.

The point being that the fact that nothing so far has happened that approaches (what I imagine to be) Russia's nuclear threshold does not make me feel comfortable that the threshold does not exist somewhere in the near-ish possibility space.

I recall a quip from an acquaintance or maybe a channel in Telegram that "Ukrainians deliberately struck the Moscow skyscrapers outside of working hours because they were afraid of Retaliation otherwise". I suppose the Red Line is now at "you can drone our capital as long as you don't accidentally kill anyone".

The cruise missile strikes were accurate enough that no Russian units were hit. We know that. But it was possible for things to go a different way. Thankfully we didn't have to learn if those critics were right or not.

Yes, this is what ardent supporters of the Ukraine basically believe, unironically. Namely that, in the end, all Ukrainians lands can and will be liberated by force, and that either Putler will not dare to escalate the war so as to avoid complete defeat, or that whoever replaces him after a palace coup, revolution etc. will not dare either. You’d think that basing your entire policy on this assumption is lunacy, but this is where we’re at.

Incidentally I observed the same attitude when Trump ordered missile strikes on Syrian military bases back in 2017 and 2018. There were reasonable people who made the argument that launching cruise missiles at military targets in a country where Russian anti-aircraft and air force units are present might result in rather dangerous escalation if any of those units are hit by mistake. A bunch of people on the net immediately waved these concerns off and trivialized the whole issue, saying “nah, everybody involved is just posturing, it’s just bullshit, if anything happens, they’ll just sort it out in some backroom deal”. But based on their opinions voiced before, it was clear that what they actually mean is “nah, the Moskal will not dare to do anything”. It was clear that yes, they actually believed that the Russkies will not actually respond if their units are “accidentally” smashed by cruise missiles.

Russia isn’t going to nuke Washington DC or New York if the Ukrainians fire some missiles into the interior, and in any case they don’t have the manpower to attempt a land invasion or anything close to it. But I don’t think @DaseindustriesLtd is a particularly ill informed NAFO shill and, in any case, I’d wager he knows more about Russia than you.

You're right, but that's not what I've meant. It's conceivable that the Russians would deploy nuclear weapons against Ukrainian units if the collapse of the Crimean front seems imminent.

I have actually bet money, on terms that seemed favorable, on Russia nuking major bridges over Dnieper (yes, including Kiev), more than a year ago. You can imagine how it went.

Anyway, the most important question is: does the US need to make totally sure that Russia won't nuke Ukraine? Because I think "oh shit, Russians have nuked Ukraine in desperation" is not the worst piece of news for the State Department.

Indeed it isn't, but that's not the point.

Surrendering seems unlikely to be good solution or better solution.

That’s far from clear

Well, I assume that if Ukraine would surrender and be digested by Russia - then Russia would proceed with next invasion. So Ukrainians would be dying in large numbers in stupid war started by Russia anyway AND you would have Russian occupation with all its consequences.

Well, I assume that if Ukraine would surrender and be digested by Russia - then Russia would proceed with next invasion.

You assume that (at least in part) because that's what you've been told -- upon which first principles do you base this assumption?

Declarations and behaviour of the current Russian government. And history of what Russia did in the past.

Also, if Ukraine would surrender without fight it would definitely embolden them to repeat this trick on other countries. And sooner or later there would be a war, worst case scenario is NATO dissolving, with direct NATO-Russia war being also quite bad thing.

upon which first principles do you base this assumption?

Observed behavior of the current Russian government.

Is this meant to be a reference to the South Ossetian war? Which was started by Georgia?

Dunno man, they aren't exactly blitzkreiging into Paris -- it's been almost ten years and so far they are mostly just messing around in areas that have a lot of ethnic Russians anyways. Not that any of this is right, but if Putin is Hitler it's 1949 and he's farting around in the Alsace or something.

Of course, if Ukrainians gave up immediately, most of their lives - except those who Russian would execute, torture to death or otherwise "disappear", but how many could they realistically kill? probably not too many, right? - would be saved, and they would live happily ever after under the benevolent rule of Putin. Too bad they are too stupid to realize that and give up finally...

I don’t think anyone supposes that Putin is a benevolent leader.

I don’t see Ukraine being particularly worse under Russian suzerainty than under some other conditions. It’s never going to be paradise.

That's one part of it. Another is that it's not like the alternative is between slaughter and no slaughter. Based on the observed behavior of Ukrainian national guard and police units and paramilitaries, any Ukrainian territory being recaptured would also result in mass executions and torture, "disappearances" etc.

What's your estimation on the amount of these that have happened in the territories Ukraine has already recaptured from the invasion?

How am I supposed to have estimations? After all, I'm sure nobody dares to try keeping track or count of these. In fact, nobody involved in any way has any incentive to raise the issue at all.

An excellent point. The Ukrainian ultra-nationalists have not been kind to the Russian speaking populations over the last decade plus.

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