Rather than attempt a synthesis this time around, I’m going to experiment with the opposite. Over the course of the last three weeks, I kept adding to a long list of sources and interesting things the same way I do for Covid-19 posts, but without an overall update type of post there was nowhere for them to go.
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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'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
> 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.