15. Our game theory seems aggressive and less than ideal, but much better --worse-- than that which the public would favor, which would be kind of totally nuts.
If you want up to date map, I suggest this: https://liveuamap.com/. I use it in combination with Google Maps. Btw. I do not think that Russia is on track to loose the war.
"I am going to be very surprised if I hear a semi-plausible defense of The Jones Act."
If you are genuinely interested in this I would be happy to provide such a defense. But especially if I add a lot of detail, I would like to know it's not just me writing into the void.
Yikes, I tried doing this and got "Please type a shorter comment". I tried cutting a lot out but got the same message. Come on Substack, that's what "read more" is for. Ok, I'm going to cut even more, break into two parts, and, sorry, it's going to seem disorganized.
Part 1 of 2:
Two quick disclaimers: (1) This is me playing Devil's Advocate. Personally I'm ambivalent on the matter and I just don't think it's a big deal: it wouldn't make my top 100 in any kind of rational prioritization of reforms, and (2) Like a lot of subjects with long history of many different legal interventions by a large number of states, the rabbit hole for this one is both deep and fractal and the opportunity cost of getting far enough along the learning curves to speak intelligently on the topic is huge because it takes a lot of investment in time to acquire specific knowledge that has - so as I can tell - nearly zero application outside the profession. People should practice humility and hesitate a little before jumping to 'obvious' conclusions.
Alright, let's get into it. There are actually several prongs to a full defense, for example, I could discuss regulatory takings / arbitrage or explain that the Jones Act just isn't a big deal, but I'm going to focus on the following one in the interest of time:
It is in the national interest for America to subsidize the domestic maritime economy to the extent necessary to keep it from going completely extinct.
This is not quite how cabotage began in the US, which was that in WWI the American merchant fleet and related industries existed in healthy numbers and were also growing fast, but was still not big *enough*, such that, in the event of huge war across the ocean, dependency on foreign ships which could refuse to move American stuff was thought to be a serious risk.
In contrast, today, the American fleet and industry barely exists *at all* and what exists survives only on welfare. The Jones Act functions as just a part of that welfare scheme, which is pretty extensive and generous, but - this is the key fact to keep in mind - *is still not enough* to sustain private commerce in the industry at anything above the level of mere existence.
This fact has apparently encouraged many people like the folks at CATO to make what I think is a frankly bizarre or perverse argument along the lines of, "The Jones Act should be repealed because it doesn't accomplish its goals of a big fleet and industry." This is like saying, "A tax on carbon of one penny per ton did not accomplish the goal of emissions reduction, and therefore the tax should be abolished."
Um, what? No, it means that you failed because the tax was too low, not too high, and that, if you want to reduce emissions, you need to raise the tax, not abolish it. Likewise, the Jones Act doesn't 'work' because what would 'work' would be as shocking as the difference between a mile of subway in NYC vs. Wuhan.
There is also the argument which is a valid catch-22, "US industry can't scale because it's too expensive, and it's too expensive because it can't scale," but from which the conclusion is apparently, "Therefore let it die" instead of "double down on subsidies over and over until we bootstrap it back up to scale so it's cheap and competitive again." I am not in favor of the latter conclusion, but neither am I in favor of the former, and while "keep it on life support" is a bad answer it seems less bad than the two alternatives.
So the policy question is whether to let the Angel of Economic Death put the last nail in the coffin, or to hold her off with another "not today". The defense of the Jones Act is that it is important for policy to say "not today", and this is probably the most politically feasible way for it to say "not today", especially since it is not meaningfully different in terms of economic efficiency or redistributional equity from any of the other possible ship welfare schemes, and whatever that juice might be, it isn't worth the squeeze of a major political effort that would more-or-less amount to the same thing.
The big picture context is that this is one of those many important areas in which, for whatever reasons, the costs of doing something in America is not just a little higher than in some much cheaper places, but insanely higher than even in comparably developed countries.
If you want to know why, then, remember what I said about fractal rabbit holes and opportunity costs, but the short answer is mostly bad law and bad governance, not "comparative advantage" based in the fundamentals of economic production absent those legal impediments.
This is not like some ECON-101 example of trying to grow pineapples in Antarctica, which is dumb. This is trying to grow pineapples in Hawaii, which is smart, but the Hawaiian government suddenly says that every single pineapple plant is entitled to legal representation and cannot be harvested until all its appeals are exhausted.
Obviously Hawaii should just repeal this dumb law. But, assume that there is an even dumber meta-law that defines the structure of Hawaiian politics and that says that we are *stuck* with the pineapple-lawyers. Probably the pineapple lawyers have a lock on this particular political question that would make the National Association of Realtors lobbyists blush. Also assume it's not just one dumb law, but thousands of dumb laws which accumulate into epic levels of stupidity. Then what?
Then your choice is either (1) The Hawaiian pineapple industry goes extinct, which might as well be permanent, because even if your tried to restart it later, no one local will remember how the job is done, or (2) The price of pineapples for anyone in the reach of the law has a floor that is high enough to pay the billable hours. There will be fewer pineapples, but better represented pineapples, but also *insanely more expensive* pineapples.
But, at least there would be *some* domestic pineapples, and *some* domestic pineapple farmers preserving knowhow and capacity. They would otherwise be the biggest losers from the dumb law, and in a just world, the subsidy to keep them afloat would come from (1) People with huge consumer surplus in pineapple, which they give up by buying at high prices, (2) whoever was morally responsible for the dumb law (we might say 'the public'), and also (3) the prime beneficiaries, members in good standing of the pineapple bar, esquires. In our vale of tears, however, this is going to be done with crude taxes, subsidies, quotas, tariffs, and import restrictions. All of these things are evil, but the forced and uncompensated extinction of a viable legal industry is more evil.
Ok, so how much more expensive is it to build big major ships in the US? About 6-10x more: so reasonable to say "order of magnitude" level.
Again, this isn't just vs. the obvious examples of say China or India. This is also vs. Japan, Korea, Northern Europe. Something is deeply and peculiarly wrong with America, whether it's subway miles, nuclear plants, big ships, etc.
What this means in practice is that America just doesn't build big ships unless they are for the government, the vast majority being military. There are only *two* domestic major shipyards left that do *anything* but produce big ships for the government. Philly Shipyard tried making or repairing tankers, nearly went bankrupt (again), and had to be bailed out with an order of five NSMVs for the Navy and Coast Guard. Eastern Shipbuilding would have gone bankrupt on the cutters fiasco had they not received a bailout chalked up to "hurricane damage". These 'businesses' are in reality effectively quasi extensions of the state, and of course it matters a lot whose district they are in.
How does two semi-private major shipyards compare? Well, Japan has over 1,000 and China more than 2,000. The US doesn't even rate with Vietnam or Romania.
American domestic coastal freight movement has become negligible compared to trucks and rail. Which is fine, because rail is somewhat elastic and trucking really elastic, while port capacity is, ahem, not, and also, because rail and trick prices in the US are about what foreign ships would cost to move things up and down the coast anyway.
And - another important fact to keep in mind, which you may remember from watching Season 2 of The Wire - American ports suck. Suck as in leeches or ticks or vampires, as in, they suck the money out of your bottom line. All except for a few state-run ports are strictly unionized and only partially automated if at all. So, American per container "terminal handling charges" (sometimes called fees or tariffs, but these are not 'customs and duties' tariffs) are - no surprise - the highest in the world.
So here's a test to show that this kind of thing is more important than the Jones Act. The Jones Act doesn't apply to shipping to and from Mexico or Canada, which are of course right next door, share coasts with the US, and do a lot of bulk cargo trade with the US. And they don't do it by ship! Not even the cheapest ships that are foreign-built, foreign-crewed, and foreign-flagged. They mostly use truck and rail instead, because the port pain alone discourages shipping.
That's the reason the Jones Act only matters in terms of prices for Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. That's the cost, but the benefit is keeping the industry afloat and maritime and mariner fleet flagged in the US (thus subject to US law, especially in case of war or emergencies) in existence.
And even that cost is not fully attributable to the Jones Act. For example, there is the Cargo Preference Act which required a minimum of 50% of impelled cargoes to be carried on US-flagged vessels. Fractal alert! What the heck is an impelled cargo? It means somehow US tax money was involved in subsidizing or paying for some aspect of the shipment, and so, the logic goes, it only rightfully should be carried by US-flagged ships. Or at least 50% of them should be.
Starting in Obama's first term, this was also applied to the ships carrying the parts from abroad that would be assembled in the US into other ships. The jokes write themselves. For example, the US-flagged fleet doesn’t even have any of the best ships for shipping ship parts, so this must be done on less ship-part-worthy ship-part shipping ships. Which is, you guessed it, much more expensive.
Sometimes people blame the Jones Act for raising prices because it requires the use of US crews, who get paid a lot more, especially because they have to pay income taxes, which other countries (or 'open registries' pretending to be associated with countries) don't charge their own mariners. Now that's true. But guess what, there are other laws that cover this cost!
The Maritime Security Program pays - I am not joking - a "retainer fee" to the 60 biggest Jones Act-qualifying ships for the promise to be available and dump any other shipping contracts in case of emergency or war. It's about $5M per ship per year which, miraculous coincidence, is almost exactly the labor cost differential between US crewed and foreign crewed ships. So consumers and shippers don't even notice this aspect of the Jones Act in quoted prices (though taxpayers take the hit).
Anyway, I'm just going to stop here since this is already longer than I intended. If you have any questions or points, just shoot and I'll do my best to get to them in reasonable time.
First, this is purely a defense of our shipbuilding capacity but NOT for the requirements that the ships have American crews or fly American flags. Is there a defense of those requirements? Your defense here seems like 'this isn't that big a deal' rather than giving any reason.
Second, the central question. Let's say you want American shipbuilding. I don't think this is obvious. Yes, this would be useful in event of (1) war that (2) disrupts ability to buy elsewhere and (3) lasts long enough this matters, which means it (4) didn't go nuclear, and that seems... kind of unlikely? Whereas 'agree that given ship will drop what it's doing and help us in a war' does seem worth having on retainer, that seems good.
But even if you do want that, having a requirement that X be done in method Y in order to get more Y, is bad if it simply means there is no more X, since it doesn't help with Y.
If we want to make American shipbuilding competitive, then we need to solve whatever the problem is that makes construction way more expensive here than elsewhere - otherwise, we're paying 6x cost in order to in theory have the ability to pay 6x cost in future in a war, whereas we'd probably instead... buy them from Japan anyway? Cause it would take years to scale?
I mean, sure, maybe it's not in that big a deal so it's not worth bothering with for non-symbolic reasons, but that's in turn probably because we made our ports so terrible...
Great questions, I'll try to get to them this weekend (day job and all that). Quick point is one rationale for a US flagging requirement is that certain US maritime laws can only be legally imposed on those US flagged ships. The rationale for US crews is said to be loyalty (they swear oaths as Merchant Marines) and also uncontroversial personal jurisdiction under US laws without potential extradition issues. Crews of foreigners will sometimes just balk or sabotage the shipment depending on their loyalties, and this was said to have actually happened a few times in the first Gulf War.
Once again, the US wants to have this ability to flex a substantial amount of peacetime capacity into wartime logistics mobility capability, and when it does so, it wants to have maximum crew loyalty and maximum legal power, control, and leverage over that capability. But being US owned, flagged, and crewed is incredibly burdensome and expensive. So, if the US thinks the option value of a capability of this character in event of major war is really that high, then it needs to either make it cheaper to do, as in the rest of the developed world, or pay the piper. I think doing the former is obviously superior to the latter, but if it's not politically feasible then the question is how best to do the latter, and I don't think the alternatives that would have to substitute for a repealed Jones are so much better than Jones that repeal is some pressing issue.
What is pressing is getting to the bottom of "Why is it that building so many big things in America has become so insanely more difficult and expensive than in other comparable places?" and fixing *that*. If anything, maintaining Jones requirements forcing high costs on various powerful stakeholders is kind of like a penalty incentive that provides just a little more motivation for them to throw their political weight and influence behind the hard business of "Make American Costs Sane Again". The easy wrong is to just try to evade the terrible cost structure. I absolutely understand why this is tempting. The hard right is to fix the terrible cost structure such that Jones requirements would be unnecessary.
The only area of thought that won't age well is "The penalty for being late". It's very China-specific; the counterexamples I can show to invalidate the theory are Germany (still buying Russian oil) and India.
I think you're interpreting this more narrowly this-War-focused than I intended, but I certainly hope you are wrong. I certainly agree that India isn't anywhere close to getting generally sanctioned (individual companies/people maybe if they step in the wrong thing, but even then not second+ order). But long term, it seems like India is indeed wise to be very worried that this could happen to them e.g. in a war with Pakistan, or for some human rights violation involving a crackdown on muslims or democracy, or whatever. I do sense a general choice to be made - either India commits to 'don't piss off the Western cultural elite' or 'prepare for what happens when you eventually do.'
Also, my expectation is that in the event of sufficient escalation we would indeed force sides to be chosen - e.g. if Russia used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, although I don't think that is the only possible trigger.
I wonder a bit if India would risk being on the China side of a US/China pissing match. As much as India might dislike the West, they have had actual shooting conflicts with China recently. Maybe they would paper that over to join a coalition with Russia to act as referee, but that seems riskier than putting up with some periodic western nonsense. Then again, if India were to openly start a war with Pakistan and invades, I would take that as a sign they have worked out a way to be cool with China.
Even on China, it's hard to imagine a benign endgame to western penalizing of the country.
China has massive headwinds anyway - very rapid aging, pervasive corruption, and now some want to add in doubling down on trade sanctions. The threat they are sending implicitly will have China very worried.
The country will aim to develop foreign-proof weapons supply chains, starting right at the raw materials, as it will notice that Russia has become a pawn because it doesn't have them. But interdependency in weapons trade has a great advantage: wars become exceedingly unlikely among traders, because the army can't fight, because war would wreck the arms supply chain.
Thus conflict with an autarkic China becomes more likely.
A cut-off China will also aim to secure natural resurces, and what better way than to invade the resource-rich international pariah to its north which has no troops or people in that area within its borders?
Thus conflict with an autarkic China becomes more likely.
Even though it seems counter-intuitive, the West should trade with China until its window of aggressive opportunity has closed due to old age of the population. That's at most thirty years away.
All major countries work to foreign-proof their weapon supply chain. The reason it's such a crapshow for Russia is that they are so corrupt that the official policy to do import-substitution was never rewarded, while people who outsourced important technical skills were rewarded.
That's not correct, and you know it. All EU members, India, Japan, and all African, South American and South Asian regional powers never even pretended to be serious about foreign-proofing.
That said, it's also way harder to do sustainably than it seems. That's because autarky invariably cuts you off from the cutting edge, and instead of modernizing you, it makes you a tech laggard. Economies that tried import subsitution know that very well.
Good overview from the "western" perspective however ... I believe that Western military analysts who are busy disparaging the performance of the Russian military are making a grave error... The propaganda from the west is so effective right now to suggest that Russia is on the verge of collapse when in reality things are likely very different.
Let us compare the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to many retired U.S. military officers populating the punditry ranks on the cable channels, the Russian military is a joke and are bogged down in Ukraine. But the Russian performance in Ukraine is anything but pedestrian. Consider the following:
Russia invaded Ukraine with 150,000 troops (according to western media) and seized territory comparable to the United Kingdom in one week. The Russians reached Kiev in three days and have been methodically surrounding the city in the ensuing 15 days.
The United States invaded Iraq with 100,000 troops in March 2003. It took them two weeks to reach the outskirts of Baghdad and another week to “secure” it. The U.S. declared victory on May 1 (remember George W. Bush declaring “Mission Accomplished”?).
Russia faced a well equipped Ukrainian Army with competent Air Force, air defense systems, armor and artillery. Russia quickly dismantled the air force and air defense systems and created major disruptions to the Ukrainian lines of communication.
The United States confronted a disillusioned, disorganized Iraqi Army bereft of air cover, artillery and coherent armored units. The United States enjoyed air supremacy from the outset and was able to easily defeat any attempts by Iraqi units to thwart American advances.
Ukraine, in terms of geography, is one third larger than Iraq and has more rivers that pose obstacles to the advance of mechanized units.
Russian forces continue to advance on multiple fronts and are in the process of isolating what is left of Ukrainian military units. Western military analysts have mistaken Russian caution in inflicting civilian casualties and destroying key infrastructure as weakness. It is nothing of the sort. The Russians are showing a remarkable maturity in carrying out the offensive to defeat the Ukrainian military and “de-Nazify” Ukraine. But this caution has a limit. If the Ukrainians rebuff repeated opportunities to surrender Russia is likely to step up its level of violence against the resistance.
The reality is this–Russia has occupied more territory in 19 days and defeated Ukrainian military forces that are far superior to anything the Iraqis fielded against the United States in 2003. It took the United States more than 26 days to achieve comparable results.
Also consider the message that the use of the hypersonic weapon sent to NATO/US.
From ASB Military news reports
"In a warning to NATO, Russia fired the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ‘Dagger’ hypersonic missile in combat for the first time to engage targets in Western Ukraine, neutralising a large underground warehouse in the village of Delyatyn in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk region near the country’s border with NATO’s Poland — over which it has a been receiving the bulk of military supplies, and reportedly destroyed a huge quantities of munitions. This is the first and only known use of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. This footage is unconfirmed — there’s no known confirmed footage of the missile at the moment. — However, the use of the missile has been officially confirmed.
These strikes are a deadly reminder to NATO that Russia is serious about destroying NATO military supplies and, if present in Ukraine, military and intelligence personnel providing training to Ukrainian military and paramilitary groups.
What is shocking to U.S. military leaders in EUCOM is that the Russians hit both sites and Ukraine was unable to raise an alarm warning of an impending attack and was unable to shoot down the missiles. This may explain NATO’s renewed hesitancy to sending MIG-29s to Ukraine."
Your suggestion for the US to immediately increase wheat production is excellent. The west does not understand how the sanctions will back fire and result in a coming food crisis...
I just re-read your excellent overview and noted that you did include Samo Bruja and some quick notes on Iraq comparison. I do think Samo is probably the most "accurate" external view of the ground right now... so appreciate you linking and covering him.
This analysis and also Bruja's seem to be pretty off the mark to me. Most importantly,
"The reality is this–Russia has occupied more territory in 19 days and defeated Ukrainian military forces that are far superior to anything the Iraqis fielded against the United States in 2003. It took the United States more than 26 days to achieve comparable results."
On the other hand:
1. Unlike the Iraqi army, the Ukrainian army doesn't appear at all defeated.
2. The Russian army has expended and lost a lot more of it men and combat capability.
3. The Russian army hasn't succeeded in any of its obvious territorial objectives.
4. Unlike the American army that conquered Iraq, the Russian army isn't backed by infinite economic might and political will.
The fact that they're begging MREs from China and recruiting mercenaries from the Central African Republic instead of, you know, sending stockpiles of Russian food and calling up Russian reserves is telling here.
The upshot of it all is that Russia doesn't have the ability to sustain this operational tempo, and they also don't seem to have the political will to dig in and throw unending masses of their own people at the problem.
On Bruja I think this quote covers the lack of "balanced" coverage in the West which makes Bruja seem "off the mark" and controversial..
"In light of recent developments in the information-sharing community/OSINT & news— the team has decided to end our coverage of the Ukraine-Russia war. It’s too risky for some members of our team who reside in countries where authorities don’t tolerate people providing alternative coverage to the mainstream narrative and they refuse to take that risk. We hope you guys find good coverage elsewhere. We will continue to cover the Middle East as normal."
Quote above from ASB Military News.
I think unless you speak multiple languages its almost impossible to get any sense of the reality in Ukraine. The propaganda is too strong - be it Ukraine/Western aimed at its western audience or Russian which is aimed more internally to its Russian people.
As for MREs from China? Please provide evidence. This sounds like "fake news". Is Hunter Biden involved?
Mercenaries from foreign countries are not being hired by Russia. Putin said in his speech that foreign volunteers are invited to fight if they want but will not be compensated. (Is this true? Impossible to know). The fighters who seem keen to come help Russia are from Syria where they have experience in door to door urban combat which is likely where this war will go until AZOV "neo nazis" and hold outs surrender or die. Sadly civilians will die.
Russian forces are in the process of kettling up Ukraine’s most potent units, the notorious Azov battalions I mentioned above, along the Donbass line in the east. There are a lot of them. They are surrounded, cut off from their central command, and now given the choice of surrendering or being slaughtered. For the moment, it is Ukraine’s choice.
The operational tempo for Russia seems longer than NATO and the US colony of Ukraine because to Russia this is a war for survival.
It is an existential matter, something the Russian have faced before and understand the stakes of — think Napoleon and Hitler. The US has shown, at least, an exorbitant will to antagonize Russia using Ukraine.
If anything the West need Russia more than the other way around. Where is the US/France going to get enriched uranium for its nuclear reactors? Heavy crude for Diesel/Kerosene/Jet Fuel? Crystals required for micro processor fabrication? Fertilizer inputs?
I'm no fan of the Russia state or the authoritarianism creeping in the west but understanding this war one needs to be very skeptical of western media accounts of "Russia on the brink of losing this war."
The world has shifted to a multi-polar order and America is no longer in charge. Just reality. Look at Saudia Arabia taking about Petroyuans while inviting Assad to their Arab conference while ignoring calls from Biden.
As a non American I'm not so confident in the 'infinite economic might and political will of America". Is that the economic might I see in Skid Row Los Angeles or on the border? Seems like that is a smoke screen backed by nothing. Disintegrating society...
The US is interested only in dissolving boundaries — geographical, as in its boundary with Mexico, behaviorally, as in the boundary between male and female, psychologically, as in the boundary between reality and fantasy, and existentially, as in being alive or dead...
Another American based out of Greece seems to be one of the few sources offering a complex view of the situation
> As for MREs from China? Please provide evidence. This sounds like "fake news".
Take it up with Zvi. He put up the post and, in fact, provided evidence. You can choose whether to believe it or not.
> Mercenaries from foreign countries are not being hired by Russia. Putin said in his speech that foreign volunteers are invited to fight if they want but will not be compensated. (Is this true? Impossible to know). The fighters who seem keen to come help Russia are from Syria ...
Uh huh. This is kind of a Schrödinger's cat level of argument. Sure, I can't say for sure whether the cat's dead or alive in the poisoned box. Sure, it's impossible to know if die-hard Syrian freedom fighters are volunteering to go reenact the battle of Stalingrad without pay. "We just can't know".
On the other hand, we can know that seeking to bring in a bunch of 3rd world reservists in lieu of mobilizing one's own forces seems like an indication that Russia's theoretical force potential is quite a lot lower than believed.
This, again, sort of gets to the point of Russian staying power. If they were going to fully mobilize and crush Ukraine, they would have had to meaningfully start months ago.
> Russian forces are in the process of kettling up Ukraine’s most potent units, the notorious Azov battalions I mentioned above, along the Donbass line in the east. There are a lot of them. They are surrounded, cut off from their central command, and now given the choice of surrendering or being slaughtered.
And you know this how? You were just saying we don't know anything. I've been hearing this for weeks now. Any day now, the Russians are going to spring their trap and destroy the encircled Ukrainians. Except... I was hearing that weeks ago and it still hasn't happened.
> As a non American I'm not so confident in the 'infinite economic might and political will of America". Is that the economic might I see in Skid Row Los Angeles or on the border? Seems like that is a smoke screen backed by nothing. Disintegrating society...
Sick burn, dude. But... that's not at all what was being talked about. You were talking about the invasion of Iraq. If you want to just riff on how much you think America sucks, fine, then be on your way.
But... you are so pre-occupied by your America Suxism that you've abandoned your military analysis. If you are comparing the Iraq invasion to the Ukraine invasion, the US had basically unlimited resources except for men to through at the problem. Quite aside from whether it was smart to do so, that's just a fact. the American army didn't have to worry about running out of men, tanks, missiles, ammo, gas, or anything else.
Russia does.
Motivated reasoning for your side doesn't cancel out motivated reasoning for the other side and somehow get to the truth.
We should be aiming to deescalate the terrifying war mongering in America and figure out an end to end the war... Figure out some way to give Putin an exit to save "face"... An ISIS like situation in Ukraine full of CIA trained Neo-Nazis is not in Europe's interest. Nor is it the average Ukrainian persons interest.
As for Russia running out of oil, fuel, food, soldiers... seems like propaganda to me.
Those sanctions are already back firing with massive protests in Spain, Greece and italy against raising food costs etc.
As for why the the russians are taking so long... The Russians are not into Shock and Awe. From what it looks like they want to capture Ukraine complete, and as undamaged as possible. Demilitarize it. Nato Free and Denaziify of it the far right extremists while killing less people. The Russians helped Syria do the same thing. Slowly weed out ISIS in Syria... They'll eventually use their chechens to weed out the hold outs in Ukraine.
As for America sucks. Not at all. Great culture , great people. Just anti-neo cons who are out of touch with reality and think war is something to make money on.
Ukraine refuses to provide support to areas under threat of falling (like Mariupol); likely due to the fact that it cannot.
Ukrainian vehicles, ammo and fuel stockpiles are constantly tracked and destroyed - both around frontlines and at the back of the country.
The endgame will be Ukrainian army that is _unable_ to move out of cities and eventually left without equipment and ammunition; with Ukrainian daily losses increasing over time while Russian losses will decrease.
The Ukrainian forces don't seem to have moved much over the past couple weeks. Neither have the Russians. This is what stalemate looks like. Neither side is going to be able to achieve victory on the battlefield.
Ukraine will be resupplied and supported by its allies. Russia will be resupplied and supported by itself. The differences are:
1. Russia politically probably can't politically afford a complete call up of troops and can't replace its advanced equipment very quickly. Modern armor and missiles literally take years to stock up on, and compared to past wars, inventories are quite low. Compared to say, WWII, the Russians can't just afford to throw human waves at the problem. Even a dictatorship has political considerations that push against such things.
2. Ukraine, on the other hand, has relatively simple resupply requirements. ATGMs and MANPADS are relatively small and easy to make, and everyone to their west is willing to hand them over as quickly as possible. And, they have no shortage of willing fighters.
Thus, the likely result is that neither side can advance very much, but also unlikely they can be pushed back very far. So at some point there will be a negotiated settlement akin to the starting point. A pointless and horrible war all around.
Russians are slowly capturing small settlements around Kiev; sometimes Ukraine tries to push back/defend, but there doesn't seem to be any successes lately.
Ukrainians seem to have problems with even most basic gear like helmets and armor vests for men they draft; people are directed to _buy_ them for themselves. It doesn't seem to be much better with weapons (as they try to requisition even hunting gear).
Hiding MLRS trucks in malls doesn't stop Russians from tracking them from firing positions then blowing them all up with missiles.
_Massive_ number supplies being sent would be vulnerable to being bombed from the air; slow trickle of supplies will not be enough to sustain current level of Ukrainian activity.
Meanwhile Russians only have to be careful about Ukrainian ambushes.
1. By estimates Russia haven't even used up half of missiles it has available.
There is no need for "human waves", Russia only has to destroy Ukrainian equipment faster then they lose theirs - and Ukraine had less of it in the first place. Eventually Ukrainian MLRS launchers, AA systems, tanks, and APC will run out, and "one ATGM fired" doesn't equal "one tank lost".
2. Having enough willing fighters doesn't help if they cannot be properly equipped and their barracks/hotels get missile strikes.
> By estimates Russia haven't even used up half of missiles it has available
What's the source for this? The way you phrase it, it sounds like they've used up close to half of their missiles, and then they got no more left, but I'd want to read your source.
Russia is pulling back troops from their other contested regions. I assume that Georgia didn't suddenly get more peaceful.
To head off made-up strawmen, I'm not saying that Ukraine is going to win. But I do call bullshit on the concern-trolling people who pretend to care about Ukrainian lives and say they should just give up. Ukrainians seem able to make that decision on their own.
While Russia obviously does not have political will to conduct WW2 level total mobilization, this does not mean they are maxed out. They might be, but probably aren't.
Other thing I would question is whether it is really the case that Ukraine needs only cheaper defensive equipment. Currently it looks like Mariupol is encircled, Chernichiv and Sumy are either encircled or nearly encircled, and Kharkiv might well be encircled soon. Those are major Ukrainian cities. If all of them would fall, entire Ukrainian position east of the Dnieper river would be in ruins. And that is half of the country. If, in such hypothetical but likely situation, they would want to take it back by force, they would have to engage in offensive operations against defending Russians. Could Ukrainians do it without some sophisticated and expensive heavy weaponry? Perhaps, but I am sceptical.
Finally I would question that EU and US have an infinite will to resupply Ukrainian army. My theory is that current wave of solidarity with Ukraine will gradually peter out over time
Is Russia maxed out? Without quibbling over absolutes, I'd argue they're closer to it than not.
1. Typical military rule of thumb you want to attack with at least a 3:1 advantage. Russia didn't do this. Part of this, I think, is that they were wildly optimistic about their relative strength and the relative unwillingness of the Ukrainians to fight. Another part is that a general call up would further erode any element of surprise. But both of these ideas are also the motivated thinking that armies do when they're not given what they actually need.
That is, the simple solution would just have been to mobilize ahead of time. And failing that, to be doing large scale mobilization now. The fact that this isn't happening is strongly suggestive of Russia believing it either can't do it politically or the forces it would bring to bear wouldn't be any good (because they'd be poorly motivated, trained, equipped, and led).
2. This is why they're trying to get fighters from Syria and trying hard to get Belarus committed to fighting. If they weren't already stretched thin, it seems unlikely they'd be working hard at this.
3. This goes beyond manpower... again, sourced in the OP.. the Russians are literally trying to get their hands on food.
What's the Ukrainian need for weapons and the situation east of the Dnieper?
1. Russia taking the cities (or simply leveling them in the case of Kharkiv and Mariupol), is probably a likely. But it's a huge distance from those cities to the Dnieper, and Russia has shown no ability to actually extend its supply lines in the occupied areas. This is why they haven't be able to advance any further.
2. Does holding the cities make it easier to advance their supply lines? No, not really. Because they take a lot of troops to pacify and the infrastructure necessary to extend their logistical train is still very exposed.
What does taking a city get you if the city is unfriendly and can't be used as a springboard for further offensive actions? In a way, it's a problem for the Russians. Their whole cause de guerre is that they're saving the oppressed Ukrainians. Having to destroy the villages in order to save them is something they may be willing to do, but even that approach is very costly. Having to pacify large and unfriendly population is going to, again, require an order of magnitude more troops.
3. This gets us back to the Ukrainian needs. My point is they can (and seem likely to) engage in a protracted asymmetric war. They don't have to mount an armored offensive to get the Russians out. They just have to wage enough of a guerrilla war in the face of Russian occupation to get the Russians to quit.
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I don't see how this works for either side. The Russians can destroy stuff, but in doing so, I think they also destroy their chances to make much in the way of territorial gains outside of a corridor to the Crimea. Everywhere else, they'll be met with an endlessly hostile population that would probably be counterproductive to try and pacify.
The Ukrainians simply aren't going to get Crimea or the breakaway republics back. Because those populations have been cleansed of most of their pro-Ukrainian elements, just as the Ukrainians have cleansed the rest of Ukraine of truly "pro-Russian" elements. Can either side further grab territory and then simply wipe out the opposing population? I suppose it's possible, but it's a massive undertaking, especially with the other side getting support from the outside. And, it's monstrously evil.
You know, I largely agree with this. Imho both sides are in a bad situation; on balance I am more optimistic about Russian ability to solve their problems than about Ukrainian ability to do the same.
Major element in my thinking is that Ukraine and its Western supporters are carried on by the state of war euphoria, which will imho peter out and then things will get tougher. Whereas Rusia is not, so they cannot loose it. But who knows
Comparing Iraq and Ukraine is a fools method. For one, the language differences is drastic, and intel is much harder to come by. Russians and Ukraine speak the same rough language. So the whole war dynamic is categorically different, and war is nothing but deception. Its why every ancient book says make peace with a neighbor.
Second, the Ru have not covered the same distance. The US came from half the globe away.
Third, Baghdad fell.
Fourth, the circumstances as you say are completely different (hot vs cold climates). So what. Just because Russia is doing something strategically and tactically foolish and sort of holding up, doesn't mean squat. You don't have to apologize for winning.
Yeah, I think this is largely correct, except for the part about Russian restraint.
If Putin escalated violence above current level (which I personally regard as totally horrific, but you have different value system, I guess), that would risk more sanctions and generally would be detrimental to his goals. While I very much dislike his goals as well as methods, I do not think he is stupid or crazy, so I do not expect further escalation to happen.
Oh, there are lot of steps that could be taken. They are just very costly for the West, drastic from humanitarian perspective and carry significant escalatory risks.
EU countries could stop paying for Russian oil and gas. All Russian institutions could be banned from SWIFT. Imports of pharmaceuticals to Russia could be banned (from what I gather from Russians on social media, they are worried about medicine supply, so this would get their attention and presumably brought some heat on Putin). All Western companies could be ordered to stop selling stuff and services in Russia, instead of few of them doing (or pretending to do) that under Twitter pressure. Non-Western countries trading with Russia could be sanctioned.
Have you seen the protests in Spain and Greece. More sanctions will just back fire on Europe and make it if anything more dependent on America. How is Germany going to keep those export oriented jobs when imports for fuel, gas, raw materials stop?
I doubt many Western Europeans care whether sanctions imposed because of the war would make EU more dependent on the US.
There clearly isn't political will to impose sanctions which would be too visibly costly on the Western public, but that is now. If Russia would step up their atrocities, I think this would change.
Recall that in polls, double digit percentages of Westerners already report that they support literal war with Russia. I take such results with a grain of salt, but they do mean that potential political space for counter-escalation exists.
Anecdotal of course, but on my [American] twitter timeline, more people seem to be blaming greedy capitalists for rising prices than sanctions/the war. I haven't seen much coverage of protests in Spain and Greece, but how sure are you that the protesters there are actually asking to end sanctions?
I'm somewhat appalled that we haven't gotten onto a war-footing of "insulate Europe, install heat pumps in Europe." It is the kind of thing that everyone should get behind.
I'd like someone to pretend like this is important. Pouring shitloads of money and fuel and arms into Ukraine is awesome, but we can do awesome things that build stuff up, too.
On the topic of Good Causes refusing money from Bad People, there are genuine reasons to do so, mainly involving the reputation of the Good Cause. If my charity accepts a donation from, say, a billionaire who just made national news for being a child molester, then I have to worry about other potential supporters thinking my charity supports child molestation. This will make it more difficult for me to raise funds in the future, and also make potential recipients and allies more reluctant to work with me to accomplish my charitable goals. Better to refuse/return the money, and avoid the reputational hit.
(Yes, yes, that just moves the irrationality back a step. Most humans are irrational, what can I say?)
>West is creating a very big ‘penalty for being late’ problem, where any deviation from our agenda, or in some cases even from a very left-wing agenda, results in massive punishments.
I would like some examples of this, especially the "very left-wing" part. We are currently sanctioning Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela, and none of the reasons cited for those sanctions strike me as "punishing someone for deviating from a very left-wing agenda." (In the case of Cuba and North Korea we're sanctioning them for being *too* left-wing.)
Additionally, I don't see how the metaphor even works in this case. We drew a very clear line (if you invade Ukraine, we will sanction you really hard), and then only sanctioned them when they crossed it. If they hadn't, we wouldn't have. (Or rather, we would have stayed at the level of sanctioning we were at after the 2014 invasion). So really, the dilemma they're facing looks like this:
"Comrade Putin, what is the punishment for invading Ukraine?"
"Death."
"And what is the punishment for not invading Ukraine?"
"Nothing. But in a few more years we might share a border with an EU member."
"Clearly, death is preferable."
Like, it's fair to say that we've demonstrated that getting sanctioned by the US really hurts and that other countries will take notice of this fact, but your claim that we've somehow sent the message of "you must 100% align with the US agenda on everything or die" seems completely unsupported.
> I seriously have never, ever, ever understood the thing where Unknown Person gives money to Good Cause, then Unknown Person turns out to be Bad Person for some reason, and then Good Cause decides to give the money back to Bad Person.
The only way I can understand this is that deontologists are the scorpion and consequentialists are the toad. They'll sting us every time, because Kant says they have to tell the murderer the truth.
> The danger is if the West effectively penalizes anyone who violates any of its many rules with effective death, then it will have a hard time maintaining any sort of coalition or getting anyone to trust it not to cut someone else or another country off on a whim, perhaps even the whim of left wing advocates who hold commanding cultural heights.
There is very little to back this up. It confuses the liberal hegemonic propoganda that accompanies most US foreign policy, for the actual goals and strategy. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan, and many other examples over the years shows that America is a lot more realist and strategic than it is given credit for. Similarly, the Ukraine response is primarily driven by war at the Wests' door step, rather than countering authoritarian overreach or illiberalism.
Countries become allies because of shared strategic interests. Alliances dissolve when those interests dissolve.
And countries like India would be stupid to think it works any differently. Culture and ideology doesn't explain why the U.S was closely aligned with Pakistan rather than India till recently; Afghanistan and geographic closesness to the Soviet-Union did. And post-Afghanistan withdrawal, the U.S moves closer to India.
Modi/BJP will continue to get a lot of slack as long as they remain popular, strengthen trade ties, and India provides a reasonable counter to China.
Lastly, there is a case to be made that Foreign Policy is one of those areas where Public Opinion generally follows Government Policy rather than the other way around.
> On 3/20, Zelenskyy bans activities of pro-Russian political parties until war is over. This does not seem like either great optics or like it is good for Ukrainian democracy, and no I wouldn’t have known this (at least right away) without a Russian-oriented source.
Important context here which the Russian side is not reporting:
* This is not a ban "all opposition parties". Zelenskyy's party is in the centre on the pro-EU/pro-russian spectrum, and it still faces a significant pressure from the three pro-EU, pro-Ukrainian-language parties.
* This should not be read as "ban of all left parties". By european standards of left-right there were none to begin with; don't let the "Socialism" in the name fool you.
An aside on Ukrainian political left:
Opposition Platform for Life (the largest pro-russian party banned) is center-left.
In the late 90s and 00s there were two left parties in Rada: Communist Party and Socialist Party. They were minority parties constantly in decline. But times has changed since then and by 2014, there was a common consensus on communtism being a reactionary, pro-Russian ideology, and as Soviet crimes against Ukraine became common knowledge, laws were passed to disband Communist party and treat communism equally to nazism (criminalized glorification and symbols). By association, no member of socialist party has been elected into parliament for more then 10 years, and the party became a proxy used by the pro-Russian party.
Unfortunately, no "new left" movements — greens, pirates, etc — have yet arisen in Ukraine.
However, I conjecture people in the US would consider two parliamentary parties - Zelenskyy's Servant of the People and oppositional Batkivshchina - to be left judging by their economic policies, like government handouts.
(end aside)
Anyway, the main reason for this move is that the regional MPs of pro-russian parties are becoming collaborants, and are using their status to justify their legitimacy on occupied territories. Undemocratic and disproportionary, sure — But Zelensky is one of those leaders whose vision of the government is very anti-democratic-institutions even in the peacetime.
just wanted to say i completely agree - banning those parties was not censorship. in czechia we have the same problem with "communist" party which is openly pro Putin and pro Russian. I imagine that they would be banned in the moment our country would enter into any kind of conflict with Russia. so Zelenskij is just doing what is necessary, which might be hard to understand with American optics.
15. Our game theory seems aggressive and less than ideal, but much better --worse-- than that which the public would favor, which would be kind of totally nuts.
If you want up to date map, I suggest this: https://liveuamap.com/. I use it in combination with Google Maps. Btw. I do not think that Russia is on track to loose the war.
"I am going to be very surprised if I hear a semi-plausible defense of The Jones Act."
If you are genuinely interested in this I would be happy to provide such a defense. But especially if I add a lot of detail, I would like to know it's not just me writing into the void.
I'd be interested, sure, at least a few paragraphs worth.
Ok, will do, might be a day or two.
Yikes, I tried doing this and got "Please type a shorter comment". I tried cutting a lot out but got the same message. Come on Substack, that's what "read more" is for. Ok, I'm going to cut even more, break into two parts, and, sorry, it's going to seem disorganized.
Part 1 of 2:
Two quick disclaimers: (1) This is me playing Devil's Advocate. Personally I'm ambivalent on the matter and I just don't think it's a big deal: it wouldn't make my top 100 in any kind of rational prioritization of reforms, and (2) Like a lot of subjects with long history of many different legal interventions by a large number of states, the rabbit hole for this one is both deep and fractal and the opportunity cost of getting far enough along the learning curves to speak intelligently on the topic is huge because it takes a lot of investment in time to acquire specific knowledge that has - so as I can tell - nearly zero application outside the profession. People should practice humility and hesitate a little before jumping to 'obvious' conclusions.
Alright, let's get into it. There are actually several prongs to a full defense, for example, I could discuss regulatory takings / arbitrage or explain that the Jones Act just isn't a big deal, but I'm going to focus on the following one in the interest of time:
It is in the national interest for America to subsidize the domestic maritime economy to the extent necessary to keep it from going completely extinct.
This is not quite how cabotage began in the US, which was that in WWI the American merchant fleet and related industries existed in healthy numbers and were also growing fast, but was still not big *enough*, such that, in the event of huge war across the ocean, dependency on foreign ships which could refuse to move American stuff was thought to be a serious risk.
In contrast, today, the American fleet and industry barely exists *at all* and what exists survives only on welfare. The Jones Act functions as just a part of that welfare scheme, which is pretty extensive and generous, but - this is the key fact to keep in mind - *is still not enough* to sustain private commerce in the industry at anything above the level of mere existence.
This fact has apparently encouraged many people like the folks at CATO to make what I think is a frankly bizarre or perverse argument along the lines of, "The Jones Act should be repealed because it doesn't accomplish its goals of a big fleet and industry." This is like saying, "A tax on carbon of one penny per ton did not accomplish the goal of emissions reduction, and therefore the tax should be abolished."
Um, what? No, it means that you failed because the tax was too low, not too high, and that, if you want to reduce emissions, you need to raise the tax, not abolish it. Likewise, the Jones Act doesn't 'work' because what would 'work' would be as shocking as the difference between a mile of subway in NYC vs. Wuhan.
There is also the argument which is a valid catch-22, "US industry can't scale because it's too expensive, and it's too expensive because it can't scale," but from which the conclusion is apparently, "Therefore let it die" instead of "double down on subsidies over and over until we bootstrap it back up to scale so it's cheap and competitive again." I am not in favor of the latter conclusion, but neither am I in favor of the former, and while "keep it on life support" is a bad answer it seems less bad than the two alternatives.
So the policy question is whether to let the Angel of Economic Death put the last nail in the coffin, or to hold her off with another "not today". The defense of the Jones Act is that it is important for policy to say "not today", and this is probably the most politically feasible way for it to say "not today", especially since it is not meaningfully different in terms of economic efficiency or redistributional equity from any of the other possible ship welfare schemes, and whatever that juice might be, it isn't worth the squeeze of a major political effort that would more-or-less amount to the same thing.
The big picture context is that this is one of those many important areas in which, for whatever reasons, the costs of doing something in America is not just a little higher than in some much cheaper places, but insanely higher than even in comparably developed countries.
If you want to know why, then, remember what I said about fractal rabbit holes and opportunity costs, but the short answer is mostly bad law and bad governance, not "comparative advantage" based in the fundamentals of economic production absent those legal impediments.
This is not like some ECON-101 example of trying to grow pineapples in Antarctica, which is dumb. This is trying to grow pineapples in Hawaii, which is smart, but the Hawaiian government suddenly says that every single pineapple plant is entitled to legal representation and cannot be harvested until all its appeals are exhausted.
Obviously Hawaii should just repeal this dumb law. But, assume that there is an even dumber meta-law that defines the structure of Hawaiian politics and that says that we are *stuck* with the pineapple-lawyers. Probably the pineapple lawyers have a lock on this particular political question that would make the National Association of Realtors lobbyists blush. Also assume it's not just one dumb law, but thousands of dumb laws which accumulate into epic levels of stupidity. Then what?
Then your choice is either (1) The Hawaiian pineapple industry goes extinct, which might as well be permanent, because even if your tried to restart it later, no one local will remember how the job is done, or (2) The price of pineapples for anyone in the reach of the law has a floor that is high enough to pay the billable hours. There will be fewer pineapples, but better represented pineapples, but also *insanely more expensive* pineapples.
Part 2 of 2:
But, at least there would be *some* domestic pineapples, and *some* domestic pineapple farmers preserving knowhow and capacity. They would otherwise be the biggest losers from the dumb law, and in a just world, the subsidy to keep them afloat would come from (1) People with huge consumer surplus in pineapple, which they give up by buying at high prices, (2) whoever was morally responsible for the dumb law (we might say 'the public'), and also (3) the prime beneficiaries, members in good standing of the pineapple bar, esquires. In our vale of tears, however, this is going to be done with crude taxes, subsidies, quotas, tariffs, and import restrictions. All of these things are evil, but the forced and uncompensated extinction of a viable legal industry is more evil.
Ok, so how much more expensive is it to build big major ships in the US? About 6-10x more: so reasonable to say "order of magnitude" level.
Again, this isn't just vs. the obvious examples of say China or India. This is also vs. Japan, Korea, Northern Europe. Something is deeply and peculiarly wrong with America, whether it's subway miles, nuclear plants, big ships, etc.
What this means in practice is that America just doesn't build big ships unless they are for the government, the vast majority being military. There are only *two* domestic major shipyards left that do *anything* but produce big ships for the government. Philly Shipyard tried making or repairing tankers, nearly went bankrupt (again), and had to be bailed out with an order of five NSMVs for the Navy and Coast Guard. Eastern Shipbuilding would have gone bankrupt on the cutters fiasco had they not received a bailout chalked up to "hurricane damage". These 'businesses' are in reality effectively quasi extensions of the state, and of course it matters a lot whose district they are in.
How does two semi-private major shipyards compare? Well, Japan has over 1,000 and China more than 2,000. The US doesn't even rate with Vietnam or Romania.
American domestic coastal freight movement has become negligible compared to trucks and rail. Which is fine, because rail is somewhat elastic and trucking really elastic, while port capacity is, ahem, not, and also, because rail and trick prices in the US are about what foreign ships would cost to move things up and down the coast anyway.
And - another important fact to keep in mind, which you may remember from watching Season 2 of The Wire - American ports suck. Suck as in leeches or ticks or vampires, as in, they suck the money out of your bottom line. All except for a few state-run ports are strictly unionized and only partially automated if at all. So, American per container "terminal handling charges" (sometimes called fees or tariffs, but these are not 'customs and duties' tariffs) are - no surprise - the highest in the world.
So here's a test to show that this kind of thing is more important than the Jones Act. The Jones Act doesn't apply to shipping to and from Mexico or Canada, which are of course right next door, share coasts with the US, and do a lot of bulk cargo trade with the US. And they don't do it by ship! Not even the cheapest ships that are foreign-built, foreign-crewed, and foreign-flagged. They mostly use truck and rail instead, because the port pain alone discourages shipping.
That's the reason the Jones Act only matters in terms of prices for Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. That's the cost, but the benefit is keeping the industry afloat and maritime and mariner fleet flagged in the US (thus subject to US law, especially in case of war or emergencies) in existence.
And even that cost is not fully attributable to the Jones Act. For example, there is the Cargo Preference Act which required a minimum of 50% of impelled cargoes to be carried on US-flagged vessels. Fractal alert! What the heck is an impelled cargo? It means somehow US tax money was involved in subsidizing or paying for some aspect of the shipment, and so, the logic goes, it only rightfully should be carried by US-flagged ships. Or at least 50% of them should be.
Starting in Obama's first term, this was also applied to the ships carrying the parts from abroad that would be assembled in the US into other ships. The jokes write themselves. For example, the US-flagged fleet doesn’t even have any of the best ships for shipping ship parts, so this must be done on less ship-part-worthy ship-part shipping ships. Which is, you guessed it, much more expensive.
Sometimes people blame the Jones Act for raising prices because it requires the use of US crews, who get paid a lot more, especially because they have to pay income taxes, which other countries (or 'open registries' pretending to be associated with countries) don't charge their own mariners. Now that's true. But guess what, there are other laws that cover this cost!
The Maritime Security Program pays - I am not joking - a "retainer fee" to the 60 biggest Jones Act-qualifying ships for the promise to be available and dump any other shipping contracts in case of emergency or war. It's about $5M per ship per year which, miraculous coincidence, is almost exactly the labor cost differential between US crewed and foreign crewed ships. So consumers and shippers don't even notice this aspect of the Jones Act in quoted prices (though taxpayers take the hit).
Anyway, I'm just going to stop here since this is already longer than I intended. If you have any questions or points, just shoot and I'll do my best to get to them in reasonable time.
OK, so a few things.
First, this is purely a defense of our shipbuilding capacity but NOT for the requirements that the ships have American crews or fly American flags. Is there a defense of those requirements? Your defense here seems like 'this isn't that big a deal' rather than giving any reason.
Second, the central question. Let's say you want American shipbuilding. I don't think this is obvious. Yes, this would be useful in event of (1) war that (2) disrupts ability to buy elsewhere and (3) lasts long enough this matters, which means it (4) didn't go nuclear, and that seems... kind of unlikely? Whereas 'agree that given ship will drop what it's doing and help us in a war' does seem worth having on retainer, that seems good.
But even if you do want that, having a requirement that X be done in method Y in order to get more Y, is bad if it simply means there is no more X, since it doesn't help with Y.
If we want to make American shipbuilding competitive, then we need to solve whatever the problem is that makes construction way more expensive here than elsewhere - otherwise, we're paying 6x cost in order to in theory have the ability to pay 6x cost in future in a war, whereas we'd probably instead... buy them from Japan anyway? Cause it would take years to scale?
I mean, sure, maybe it's not in that big a deal so it's not worth bothering with for non-symbolic reasons, but that's in turn probably because we made our ports so terrible...
Great questions, I'll try to get to them this weekend (day job and all that). Quick point is one rationale for a US flagging requirement is that certain US maritime laws can only be legally imposed on those US flagged ships. The rationale for US crews is said to be loyalty (they swear oaths as Merchant Marines) and also uncontroversial personal jurisdiction under US laws without potential extradition issues. Crews of foreigners will sometimes just balk or sabotage the shipment depending on their loyalties, and this was said to have actually happened a few times in the first Gulf War.
Once again, the US wants to have this ability to flex a substantial amount of peacetime capacity into wartime logistics mobility capability, and when it does so, it wants to have maximum crew loyalty and maximum legal power, control, and leverage over that capability. But being US owned, flagged, and crewed is incredibly burdensome and expensive. So, if the US thinks the option value of a capability of this character in event of major war is really that high, then it needs to either make it cheaper to do, as in the rest of the developed world, or pay the piper. I think doing the former is obviously superior to the latter, but if it's not politically feasible then the question is how best to do the latter, and I don't think the alternatives that would have to substitute for a repealed Jones are so much better than Jones that repeal is some pressing issue.
What is pressing is getting to the bottom of "Why is it that building so many big things in America has become so insanely more difficult and expensive than in other comparable places?" and fixing *that*. If anything, maintaining Jones requirements forcing high costs on various powerful stakeholders is kind of like a penalty incentive that provides just a little more motivation for them to throw their political weight and influence behind the hard business of "Make American Costs Sane Again". The easy wrong is to just try to evade the terrible cost structure. I absolutely understand why this is tempting. The hard right is to fix the terrible cost structure such that Jones requirements would be unnecessary.
All good. Thanks for the post!
The only area of thought that won't age well is "The penalty for being late". It's very China-specific; the counterexamples I can show to invalidate the theory are Germany (still buying Russian oil) and India.
I think you're interpreting this more narrowly this-War-focused than I intended, but I certainly hope you are wrong. I certainly agree that India isn't anywhere close to getting generally sanctioned (individual companies/people maybe if they step in the wrong thing, but even then not second+ order). But long term, it seems like India is indeed wise to be very worried that this could happen to them e.g. in a war with Pakistan, or for some human rights violation involving a crackdown on muslims or democracy, or whatever. I do sense a general choice to be made - either India commits to 'don't piss off the Western cultural elite' or 'prepare for what happens when you eventually do.'
Also, my expectation is that in the event of sufficient escalation we would indeed force sides to be chosen - e.g. if Russia used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, although I don't think that is the only possible trigger.
I wonder a bit if India would risk being on the China side of a US/China pissing match. As much as India might dislike the West, they have had actual shooting conflicts with China recently. Maybe they would paper that over to join a coalition with Russia to act as referee, but that seems riskier than putting up with some periodic western nonsense. Then again, if India were to openly start a war with Pakistan and invades, I would take that as a sign they have worked out a way to be cool with China.
Even on China, it's hard to imagine a benign endgame to western penalizing of the country.
China has massive headwinds anyway - very rapid aging, pervasive corruption, and now some want to add in doubling down on trade sanctions. The threat they are sending implicitly will have China very worried.
The country will aim to develop foreign-proof weapons supply chains, starting right at the raw materials, as it will notice that Russia has become a pawn because it doesn't have them. But interdependency in weapons trade has a great advantage: wars become exceedingly unlikely among traders, because the army can't fight, because war would wreck the arms supply chain.
Thus conflict with an autarkic China becomes more likely.
A cut-off China will also aim to secure natural resurces, and what better way than to invade the resource-rich international pariah to its north which has no troops or people in that area within its borders?
Thus conflict with an autarkic China becomes more likely.
Even though it seems counter-intuitive, the West should trade with China until its window of aggressive opportunity has closed due to old age of the population. That's at most thirty years away.
All major countries work to foreign-proof their weapon supply chain. The reason it's such a crapshow for Russia is that they are so corrupt that the official policy to do import-substitution was never rewarded, while people who outsourced important technical skills were rewarded.
That's not correct, and you know it. All EU members, India, Japan, and all African, South American and South Asian regional powers never even pretended to be serious about foreign-proofing.
That said, it's also way harder to do sustainably than it seems. That's because autarky invariably cuts you off from the cutting edge, and instead of modernizing you, it makes you a tech laggard. Economies that tried import subsitution know that very well.
You okay?
Good overview from the "western" perspective however ... I believe that Western military analysts who are busy disparaging the performance of the Russian military are making a grave error... The propaganda from the west is so effective right now to suggest that Russia is on the verge of collapse when in reality things are likely very different.
Let us compare the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 with the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to many retired U.S. military officers populating the punditry ranks on the cable channels, the Russian military is a joke and are bogged down in Ukraine. But the Russian performance in Ukraine is anything but pedestrian. Consider the following:
Russia invaded Ukraine with 150,000 troops (according to western media) and seized territory comparable to the United Kingdom in one week. The Russians reached Kiev in three days and have been methodically surrounding the city in the ensuing 15 days.
The United States invaded Iraq with 100,000 troops in March 2003. It took them two weeks to reach the outskirts of Baghdad and another week to “secure” it. The U.S. declared victory on May 1 (remember George W. Bush declaring “Mission Accomplished”?).
Russia faced a well equipped Ukrainian Army with competent Air Force, air defense systems, armor and artillery. Russia quickly dismantled the air force and air defense systems and created major disruptions to the Ukrainian lines of communication.
The United States confronted a disillusioned, disorganized Iraqi Army bereft of air cover, artillery and coherent armored units. The United States enjoyed air supremacy from the outset and was able to easily defeat any attempts by Iraqi units to thwart American advances.
Ukraine, in terms of geography, is one third larger than Iraq and has more rivers that pose obstacles to the advance of mechanized units.
Russian forces continue to advance on multiple fronts and are in the process of isolating what is left of Ukrainian military units. Western military analysts have mistaken Russian caution in inflicting civilian casualties and destroying key infrastructure as weakness. It is nothing of the sort. The Russians are showing a remarkable maturity in carrying out the offensive to defeat the Ukrainian military and “de-Nazify” Ukraine. But this caution has a limit. If the Ukrainians rebuff repeated opportunities to surrender Russia is likely to step up its level of violence against the resistance.
The reality is this–Russia has occupied more territory in 19 days and defeated Ukrainian military forces that are far superior to anything the Iraqis fielded against the United States in 2003. It took the United States more than 26 days to achieve comparable results.
Also consider the message that the use of the hypersonic weapon sent to NATO/US.
From ASB Military news reports
"In a warning to NATO, Russia fired the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ‘Dagger’ hypersonic missile in combat for the first time to engage targets in Western Ukraine, neutralising a large underground warehouse in the village of Delyatyn in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk region near the country’s border with NATO’s Poland — over which it has a been receiving the bulk of military supplies, and reportedly destroyed a huge quantities of munitions. This is the first and only known use of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. This footage is unconfirmed — there’s no known confirmed footage of the missile at the moment. — However, the use of the missile has been officially confirmed.
These strikes are a deadly reminder to NATO that Russia is serious about destroying NATO military supplies and, if present in Ukraine, military and intelligence personnel providing training to Ukrainian military and paramilitary groups.
What is shocking to U.S. military leaders in EUCOM is that the Russians hit both sites and Ukraine was unable to raise an alarm warning of an impending attack and was unable to shoot down the missiles. This may explain NATO’s renewed hesitancy to sending MIG-29s to Ukraine."
Your suggestion for the US to immediately increase wheat production is excellent. The west does not understand how the sanctions will back fire and result in a coming food crisis...
I just re-read your excellent overview and noted that you did include Samo Bruja and some quick notes on Iraq comparison. I do think Samo is probably the most "accurate" external view of the ground right now... so appreciate you linking and covering him.
This analysis and also Bruja's seem to be pretty off the mark to me. Most importantly,
"The reality is this–Russia has occupied more territory in 19 days and defeated Ukrainian military forces that are far superior to anything the Iraqis fielded against the United States in 2003. It took the United States more than 26 days to achieve comparable results."
On the other hand:
1. Unlike the Iraqi army, the Ukrainian army doesn't appear at all defeated.
2. The Russian army has expended and lost a lot more of it men and combat capability.
3. The Russian army hasn't succeeded in any of its obvious territorial objectives.
4. Unlike the American army that conquered Iraq, the Russian army isn't backed by infinite economic might and political will.
The fact that they're begging MREs from China and recruiting mercenaries from the Central African Republic instead of, you know, sending stockpiles of Russian food and calling up Russian reserves is telling here.
The upshot of it all is that Russia doesn't have the ability to sustain this operational tempo, and they also don't seem to have the political will to dig in and throw unending masses of their own people at the problem.
On Bruja I think this quote covers the lack of "balanced" coverage in the West which makes Bruja seem "off the mark" and controversial..
"In light of recent developments in the information-sharing community/OSINT & news— the team has decided to end our coverage of the Ukraine-Russia war. It’s too risky for some members of our team who reside in countries where authorities don’t tolerate people providing alternative coverage to the mainstream narrative and they refuse to take that risk. We hope you guys find good coverage elsewhere. We will continue to cover the Middle East as normal."
Quote above from ASB Military News.
I think unless you speak multiple languages its almost impossible to get any sense of the reality in Ukraine. The propaganda is too strong - be it Ukraine/Western aimed at its western audience or Russian which is aimed more internally to its Russian people.
As for MREs from China? Please provide evidence. This sounds like "fake news". Is Hunter Biden involved?
Mercenaries from foreign countries are not being hired by Russia. Putin said in his speech that foreign volunteers are invited to fight if they want but will not be compensated. (Is this true? Impossible to know). The fighters who seem keen to come help Russia are from Syria where they have experience in door to door urban combat which is likely where this war will go until AZOV "neo nazis" and hold outs surrender or die. Sadly civilians will die.
Russian forces are in the process of kettling up Ukraine’s most potent units, the notorious Azov battalions I mentioned above, along the Donbass line in the east. There are a lot of them. They are surrounded, cut off from their central command, and now given the choice of surrendering or being slaughtered. For the moment, it is Ukraine’s choice.
The operational tempo for Russia seems longer than NATO and the US colony of Ukraine because to Russia this is a war for survival.
It is an existential matter, something the Russian have faced before and understand the stakes of — think Napoleon and Hitler. The US has shown, at least, an exorbitant will to antagonize Russia using Ukraine.
If anything the West need Russia more than the other way around. Where is the US/France going to get enriched uranium for its nuclear reactors? Heavy crude for Diesel/Kerosene/Jet Fuel? Crystals required for micro processor fabrication? Fertilizer inputs?
I'm no fan of the Russia state or the authoritarianism creeping in the west but understanding this war one needs to be very skeptical of western media accounts of "Russia on the brink of losing this war."
The world has shifted to a multi-polar order and America is no longer in charge. Just reality. Look at Saudia Arabia taking about Petroyuans while inviting Assad to their Arab conference while ignoring calls from Biden.
As a non American I'm not so confident in the 'infinite economic might and political will of America". Is that the economic might I see in Skid Row Los Angeles or on the border? Seems like that is a smoke screen backed by nothing. Disintegrating society...
The US is interested only in dissolving boundaries — geographical, as in its boundary with Mexico, behaviorally, as in the boundary between male and female, psychologically, as in the boundary between reality and fantasy, and existentially, as in being alive or dead...
Another American based out of Greece seems to be one of the few sources offering a complex view of the situation
Alex Christoforou from the Duran @
https://odysee.com/@alexchristoforou:7
Recommended. Thanks for reading. We only hope the war ends soon.
> As for MREs from China? Please provide evidence. This sounds like "fake news".
Take it up with Zvi. He put up the post and, in fact, provided evidence. You can choose whether to believe it or not.
> Mercenaries from foreign countries are not being hired by Russia. Putin said in his speech that foreign volunteers are invited to fight if they want but will not be compensated. (Is this true? Impossible to know). The fighters who seem keen to come help Russia are from Syria ...
Uh huh. This is kind of a Schrödinger's cat level of argument. Sure, I can't say for sure whether the cat's dead or alive in the poisoned box. Sure, it's impossible to know if die-hard Syrian freedom fighters are volunteering to go reenact the battle of Stalingrad without pay. "We just can't know".
On the other hand, we can know that seeking to bring in a bunch of 3rd world reservists in lieu of mobilizing one's own forces seems like an indication that Russia's theoretical force potential is quite a lot lower than believed.
This, again, sort of gets to the point of Russian staying power. If they were going to fully mobilize and crush Ukraine, they would have had to meaningfully start months ago.
> Russian forces are in the process of kettling up Ukraine’s most potent units, the notorious Azov battalions I mentioned above, along the Donbass line in the east. There are a lot of them. They are surrounded, cut off from their central command, and now given the choice of surrendering or being slaughtered.
And you know this how? You were just saying we don't know anything. I've been hearing this for weeks now. Any day now, the Russians are going to spring their trap and destroy the encircled Ukrainians. Except... I was hearing that weeks ago and it still hasn't happened.
> As a non American I'm not so confident in the 'infinite economic might and political will of America". Is that the economic might I see in Skid Row Los Angeles or on the border? Seems like that is a smoke screen backed by nothing. Disintegrating society...
Sick burn, dude. But... that's not at all what was being talked about. You were talking about the invasion of Iraq. If you want to just riff on how much you think America sucks, fine, then be on your way.
But... you are so pre-occupied by your America Suxism that you've abandoned your military analysis. If you are comparing the Iraq invasion to the Ukraine invasion, the US had basically unlimited resources except for men to through at the problem. Quite aside from whether it was smart to do so, that's just a fact. the American army didn't have to worry about running out of men, tanks, missiles, ammo, gas, or anything else.
Russia does.
Motivated reasoning for your side doesn't cancel out motivated reasoning for the other side and somehow get to the truth.
The side I'm on is ending the war.
We should be aiming to deescalate the terrifying war mongering in America and figure out an end to end the war... Figure out some way to give Putin an exit to save "face"... An ISIS like situation in Ukraine full of CIA trained Neo-Nazis is not in Europe's interest. Nor is it the average Ukrainian persons interest.
As for Russia running out of oil, fuel, food, soldiers... seems like propaganda to me.
Those sanctions are already back firing with massive protests in Spain, Greece and italy against raising food costs etc.
As for why the the russians are taking so long... The Russians are not into Shock and Awe. From what it looks like they want to capture Ukraine complete, and as undamaged as possible. Demilitarize it. Nato Free and Denaziify of it the far right extremists while killing less people. The Russians helped Syria do the same thing. Slowly weed out ISIS in Syria... They'll eventually use their chechens to weed out the hold outs in Ukraine.
As for America sucks. Not at all. Great culture , great people. Just anti-neo cons who are out of touch with reality and think war is something to make money on.
Ukraine hasn't mounted any major offensive.
Ukrainian forces are consistently pushed back.
Ukraine refuses to provide support to areas under threat of falling (like Mariupol); likely due to the fact that it cannot.
Ukrainian vehicles, ammo and fuel stockpiles are constantly tracked and destroyed - both around frontlines and at the back of the country.
The endgame will be Ukrainian army that is _unable_ to move out of cities and eventually left without equipment and ammunition; with Ukrainian daily losses increasing over time while Russian losses will decrease.
The Ukrainian forces don't seem to have moved much over the past couple weeks. Neither have the Russians. This is what stalemate looks like. Neither side is going to be able to achieve victory on the battlefield.
Ukraine will be resupplied and supported by its allies. Russia will be resupplied and supported by itself. The differences are:
1. Russia politically probably can't politically afford a complete call up of troops and can't replace its advanced equipment very quickly. Modern armor and missiles literally take years to stock up on, and compared to past wars, inventories are quite low. Compared to say, WWII, the Russians can't just afford to throw human waves at the problem. Even a dictatorship has political considerations that push against such things.
2. Ukraine, on the other hand, has relatively simple resupply requirements. ATGMs and MANPADS are relatively small and easy to make, and everyone to their west is willing to hand them over as quickly as possible. And, they have no shortage of willing fighters.
Thus, the likely result is that neither side can advance very much, but also unlikely they can be pushed back very far. So at some point there will be a negotiated settlement akin to the starting point. A pointless and horrible war all around.
Russians are slowly capturing small settlements around Kiev; sometimes Ukraine tries to push back/defend, but there doesn't seem to be any successes lately.
Ukrainians seem to have problems with even most basic gear like helmets and armor vests for men they draft; people are directed to _buy_ them for themselves. It doesn't seem to be much better with weapons (as they try to requisition even hunting gear).
Hiding MLRS trucks in malls doesn't stop Russians from tracking them from firing positions then blowing them all up with missiles.
_Massive_ number supplies being sent would be vulnerable to being bombed from the air; slow trickle of supplies will not be enough to sustain current level of Ukrainian activity.
Meanwhile Russians only have to be careful about Ukrainian ambushes.
1. By estimates Russia haven't even used up half of missiles it has available.
There is no need for "human waves", Russia only has to destroy Ukrainian equipment faster then they lose theirs - and Ukraine had less of it in the first place. Eventually Ukrainian MLRS launchers, AA systems, tanks, and APC will run out, and "one ATGM fired" doesn't equal "one tank lost".
2. Having enough willing fighters doesn't help if they cannot be properly equipped and their barracks/hotels get missile strikes.
> By estimates Russia haven't even used up half of missiles it has available
What's the source for this? The way you phrase it, it sounds like they've used up close to half of their missiles, and then they got no more left, but I'd want to read your source.
Russia is pulling back troops from their other contested regions. I assume that Georgia didn't suddenly get more peaceful.
To head off made-up strawmen, I'm not saying that Ukraine is going to win. But I do call bullshit on the concern-trolling people who pretend to care about Ukrainian lives and say they should just give up. Ukrainians seem able to make that decision on their own.
I think many of your assumptions are problematic.
While Russia obviously does not have political will to conduct WW2 level total mobilization, this does not mean they are maxed out. They might be, but probably aren't.
Other thing I would question is whether it is really the case that Ukraine needs only cheaper defensive equipment. Currently it looks like Mariupol is encircled, Chernichiv and Sumy are either encircled or nearly encircled, and Kharkiv might well be encircled soon. Those are major Ukrainian cities. If all of them would fall, entire Ukrainian position east of the Dnieper river would be in ruins. And that is half of the country. If, in such hypothetical but likely situation, they would want to take it back by force, they would have to engage in offensive operations against defending Russians. Could Ukrainians do it without some sophisticated and expensive heavy weaponry? Perhaps, but I am sceptical.
Finally I would question that EU and US have an infinite will to resupply Ukrainian army. My theory is that current wave of solidarity with Ukraine will gradually peter out over time
Is Russia maxed out? Without quibbling over absolutes, I'd argue they're closer to it than not.
1. Typical military rule of thumb you want to attack with at least a 3:1 advantage. Russia didn't do this. Part of this, I think, is that they were wildly optimistic about their relative strength and the relative unwillingness of the Ukrainians to fight. Another part is that a general call up would further erode any element of surprise. But both of these ideas are also the motivated thinking that armies do when they're not given what they actually need.
That is, the simple solution would just have been to mobilize ahead of time. And failing that, to be doing large scale mobilization now. The fact that this isn't happening is strongly suggestive of Russia believing it either can't do it politically or the forces it would bring to bear wouldn't be any good (because they'd be poorly motivated, trained, equipped, and led).
2. This is why they're trying to get fighters from Syria and trying hard to get Belarus committed to fighting. If they weren't already stretched thin, it seems unlikely they'd be working hard at this.
3. This goes beyond manpower... again, sourced in the OP.. the Russians are literally trying to get their hands on food.
What's the Ukrainian need for weapons and the situation east of the Dnieper?
1. Russia taking the cities (or simply leveling them in the case of Kharkiv and Mariupol), is probably a likely. But it's a huge distance from those cities to the Dnieper, and Russia has shown no ability to actually extend its supply lines in the occupied areas. This is why they haven't be able to advance any further.
2. Does holding the cities make it easier to advance their supply lines? No, not really. Because they take a lot of troops to pacify and the infrastructure necessary to extend their logistical train is still very exposed.
What does taking a city get you if the city is unfriendly and can't be used as a springboard for further offensive actions? In a way, it's a problem for the Russians. Their whole cause de guerre is that they're saving the oppressed Ukrainians. Having to destroy the villages in order to save them is something they may be willing to do, but even that approach is very costly. Having to pacify large and unfriendly population is going to, again, require an order of magnitude more troops.
3. This gets us back to the Ukrainian needs. My point is they can (and seem likely to) engage in a protracted asymmetric war. They don't have to mount an armored offensive to get the Russians out. They just have to wage enough of a guerrilla war in the face of Russian occupation to get the Russians to quit.
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I don't see how this works for either side. The Russians can destroy stuff, but in doing so, I think they also destroy their chances to make much in the way of territorial gains outside of a corridor to the Crimea. Everywhere else, they'll be met with an endlessly hostile population that would probably be counterproductive to try and pacify.
The Ukrainians simply aren't going to get Crimea or the breakaway republics back. Because those populations have been cleansed of most of their pro-Ukrainian elements, just as the Ukrainians have cleansed the rest of Ukraine of truly "pro-Russian" elements. Can either side further grab territory and then simply wipe out the opposing population? I suppose it's possible, but it's a massive undertaking, especially with the other side getting support from the outside. And, it's monstrously evil.
You know, I largely agree with this. Imho both sides are in a bad situation; on balance I am more optimistic about Russian ability to solve their problems than about Ukrainian ability to do the same.
Major element in my thinking is that Ukraine and its Western supporters are carried on by the state of war euphoria, which will imho peter out and then things will get tougher. Whereas Rusia is not, so they cannot loose it. But who knows
> the Russians are literally trying to get their hands on food.
Russia is a food exporter. They are asking for MREs from China, which is valid information pointing to them needing ways to deliver it to their troops in Ukraine. And https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/22/russian-invaders-have-three-days-of-supplies-left-says-ukraine-military may be more evidence. If they have to do a rushed unfocused retreat it is going to be a goddamned bloodbath.
Whichever side loses, though, it is going to be a "gradually, then all at once" thing.
Comparing Iraq and Ukraine is a fools method. For one, the language differences is drastic, and intel is much harder to come by. Russians and Ukraine speak the same rough language. So the whole war dynamic is categorically different, and war is nothing but deception. Its why every ancient book says make peace with a neighbor.
Second, the Ru have not covered the same distance. The US came from half the globe away.
Third, Baghdad fell.
Fourth, the circumstances as you say are completely different (hot vs cold climates). So what. Just because Russia is doing something strategically and tactically foolish and sort of holding up, doesn't mean squat. You don't have to apologize for winning.
Yeah, I think this is largely correct, except for the part about Russian restraint.
If Putin escalated violence above current level (which I personally regard as totally horrific, but you have different value system, I guess), that would risk more sanctions and generally would be detrimental to his goals. While I very much dislike his goals as well as methods, I do not think he is stupid or crazy, so I do not expect further escalation to happen.
What do the next level of sanctions look like?
Oh, there are lot of steps that could be taken. They are just very costly for the West, drastic from humanitarian perspective and carry significant escalatory risks.
EU countries could stop paying for Russian oil and gas. All Russian institutions could be banned from SWIFT. Imports of pharmaceuticals to Russia could be banned (from what I gather from Russians on social media, they are worried about medicine supply, so this would get their attention and presumably brought some heat on Putin). All Western companies could be ordered to stop selling stuff and services in Russia, instead of few of them doing (or pretending to do) that under Twitter pressure. Non-Western countries trading with Russia could be sanctioned.
Have you seen the protests in Spain and Greece. More sanctions will just back fire on Europe and make it if anything more dependent on America. How is Germany going to keep those export oriented jobs when imports for fuel, gas, raw materials stop?
I doubt many Western Europeans care whether sanctions imposed because of the war would make EU more dependent on the US.
There clearly isn't political will to impose sanctions which would be too visibly costly on the Western public, but that is now. If Russia would step up their atrocities, I think this would change.
Recall that in polls, double digit percentages of Westerners already report that they support literal war with Russia. I take such results with a grain of salt, but they do mean that potential political space for counter-escalation exists.
Anecdotal of course, but on my [American] twitter timeline, more people seem to be blaming greedy capitalists for rising prices than sanctions/the war. I haven't seen much coverage of protests in Spain and Greece, but how sure are you that the protesters there are actually asking to end sanctions?
If we've lost Greece we've lost the war.
/s
I'm somewhat appalled that we haven't gotten onto a war-footing of "insulate Europe, install heat pumps in Europe." It is the kind of thing that everyone should get behind.
I'd like someone to pretend like this is important. Pouring shitloads of money and fuel and arms into Ukraine is awesome, but we can do awesome things that build stuff up, too.
On the topic of Good Causes refusing money from Bad People, there are genuine reasons to do so, mainly involving the reputation of the Good Cause. If my charity accepts a donation from, say, a billionaire who just made national news for being a child molester, then I have to worry about other potential supporters thinking my charity supports child molestation. This will make it more difficult for me to raise funds in the future, and also make potential recipients and allies more reluctant to work with me to accomplish my charitable goals. Better to refuse/return the money, and avoid the reputational hit.
(Yes, yes, that just moves the irrationality back a step. Most humans are irrational, what can I say?)
(Shameless self-promotion warning) I wrote up my prediction on the outcome of the war here: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-216/comment/5641841?s=r (see also comments for a clarification)
>West is creating a very big ‘penalty for being late’ problem, where any deviation from our agenda, or in some cases even from a very left-wing agenda, results in massive punishments.
I would like some examples of this, especially the "very left-wing" part. We are currently sanctioning Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela, and none of the reasons cited for those sanctions strike me as "punishing someone for deviating from a very left-wing agenda." (In the case of Cuba and North Korea we're sanctioning them for being *too* left-wing.)
Additionally, I don't see how the metaphor even works in this case. We drew a very clear line (if you invade Ukraine, we will sanction you really hard), and then only sanctioned them when they crossed it. If they hadn't, we wouldn't have. (Or rather, we would have stayed at the level of sanctioning we were at after the 2014 invasion). So really, the dilemma they're facing looks like this:
"Comrade Putin, what is the punishment for invading Ukraine?"
"Death."
"And what is the punishment for not invading Ukraine?"
"Nothing. But in a few more years we might share a border with an EU member."
"Clearly, death is preferable."
Like, it's fair to say that we've demonstrated that getting sanctioned by the US really hurts and that other countries will take notice of this fact, but your claim that we've somehow sent the message of "you must 100% align with the US agenda on everything or die" seems completely unsupported.
> I seriously have never, ever, ever understood the thing where Unknown Person gives money to Good Cause, then Unknown Person turns out to be Bad Person for some reason, and then Good Cause decides to give the money back to Bad Person.
The only way I can understand this is that deontologists are the scorpion and consequentialists are the toad. They'll sting us every time, because Kant says they have to tell the murderer the truth.
Great post. A counter on:
> The danger is if the West effectively penalizes anyone who violates any of its many rules with effective death, then it will have a hard time maintaining any sort of coalition or getting anyone to trust it not to cut someone else or another country off on a whim, perhaps even the whim of left wing advocates who hold commanding cultural heights.
There is very little to back this up. It confuses the liberal hegemonic propoganda that accompanies most US foreign policy, for the actual goals and strategy. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan, and many other examples over the years shows that America is a lot more realist and strategic than it is given credit for. Similarly, the Ukraine response is primarily driven by war at the Wests' door step, rather than countering authoritarian overreach or illiberalism.
Countries become allies because of shared strategic interests. Alliances dissolve when those interests dissolve.
And countries like India would be stupid to think it works any differently. Culture and ideology doesn't explain why the U.S was closely aligned with Pakistan rather than India till recently; Afghanistan and geographic closesness to the Soviet-Union did. And post-Afghanistan withdrawal, the U.S moves closer to India.
Modi/BJP will continue to get a lot of slack as long as they remain popular, strengthen trade ties, and India provides a reasonable counter to China.
Lastly, there is a case to be made that Foreign Policy is one of those areas where Public Opinion generally follows Government Policy rather than the other way around.
8. No we don't. Please read https://www.dorussianswantwar.com/en
That website is way too fancy for its own good. If you know the people in charge tell them to stop using animations to load text.
> On 3/20, Zelenskyy bans activities of pro-Russian political parties until war is over. This does not seem like either great optics or like it is good for Ukrainian democracy, and no I wouldn’t have known this (at least right away) without a Russian-oriented source.
Important context here which the Russian side is not reporting:
* This is not a ban "all opposition parties". Zelenskyy's party is in the centre on the pro-EU/pro-russian spectrum, and it still faces a significant pressure from the three pro-EU, pro-Ukrainian-language parties.
* This should not be read as "ban of all left parties". By european standards of left-right there were none to begin with; don't let the "Socialism" in the name fool you.
An aside on Ukrainian political left:
Opposition Platform for Life (the largest pro-russian party banned) is center-left.
In the late 90s and 00s there were two left parties in Rada: Communist Party and Socialist Party. They were minority parties constantly in decline. But times has changed since then and by 2014, there was a common consensus on communtism being a reactionary, pro-Russian ideology, and as Soviet crimes against Ukraine became common knowledge, laws were passed to disband Communist party and treat communism equally to nazism (criminalized glorification and symbols). By association, no member of socialist party has been elected into parliament for more then 10 years, and the party became a proxy used by the pro-Russian party.
Unfortunately, no "new left" movements — greens, pirates, etc — have yet arisen in Ukraine.
However, I conjecture people in the US would consider two parliamentary parties - Zelenskyy's Servant of the People and oppositional Batkivshchina - to be left judging by their economic policies, like government handouts.
(end aside)
Anyway, the main reason for this move is that the regional MPs of pro-russian parties are becoming collaborants, and are using their status to justify their legitimacy on occupied territories. Undemocratic and disproportionary, sure — But Zelensky is one of those leaders whose vision of the government is very anti-democratic-institutions even in the peacetime.
Good context, but this does not make me that much less sad.
just wanted to say i completely agree - banning those parties was not censorship. in czechia we have the same problem with "communist" party which is openly pro Putin and pro Russian. I imagine that they would be banned in the moment our country would enter into any kind of conflict with Russia. so Zelenskij is just doing what is necessary, which might be hard to understand with American optics.