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Hmm, I didn't know about that, thanks for the tip. Very busy right now, and moving shortly anyway, but I'll look into it in a while :)
No, I think Zvi meant that Ukraine isn't paying Russian soldiers enough money for defecting.
On the prize of fertilizer, Peter Zeihan explained on Feb 15 that "Russia and Belarus are the worlds second and fourth largest suppliers of potash. Nitrogen fertilizer is disappearing because of what is going on in energy markets. Phosphate fertilizer is disappearing because of what is going on in China. And if this war happens [this was on Feb 15], potash fertilizer globally has a shortages as well."
Peter Zeihan is prone to hyperbole and overstatement in pursuit of clarity. I have no problem with this, but it should be labeled as such.
More typos:
Cumulation --> Culmination x2
I don't have anything to say just.... Know that the world is with you.
Don't blame yourself for what you can't do. Rarely is the question of who to blame so simple.
I shall! Thank you :)
You interpret that as being specifically a warning against overt deployment of troops to Ukraine?
I think it was deliberately vague. This allows Putin room to choose his response due to exact later consequences, without being bound to his own word. The way NATO is interpreting it sure seems to be that weapons are ok but troops are not, and Putin has accepted that, with only some non-committal grumbling. I think the fact that NATO was already providing that before the invasion makes a strong "status quo" argument. Also it has historically counted as "not participating", however ridiculous and arbitrary this may seem. Scott Alexander wrote more on this.
While at the outset I can see that being a strong reason at the beginning of the war, i.e. "Don't take my attempt at a quick victory away from me or else I'll nuke you", I don't know how feasible that remains over time. Putin can't think that if the war goes on for months without victory that everyone would just sit on the sidelines forever.
In my understanding this is very feasible indeed. Within hours of the invasion, the new status quo had emerged: NATO was sending weapons/money/intelligence and doing sanctions/UN hearings/etc, and Russia was advancing conventionally. The status quo hasn't really changed since then, except that a; Ukrainian resistance is is much stronger than expected, and b; western sanctions are much stronger than expected. If China came down on one side or the other, that would shift the status quo; or if Russia goes through with it's chemical weapons gambit, or if NATO escalates support. Or if the ground war starts leaning one way or the other. Breaking the status quo is always counted as a "Move", however contrived the status quo.
if say a THAAD battery near the Polish border with Ukraine engaged a Russian fighter jet
I think this would be a major major crisis, going down in history alongside the Cuban missile crisis. I think Putin would basically interpret this as a totally unprovoked attack, at least publicly, likening it to Russian forces shooting down NATO planes inside NATO airspace. It would be a massive escalation, and Putin would have to do something in response, or loose all credibility. Whether that thing would then escalate further is hard to know. I don't want to find out.
I'm not read up on the "MiG Valley" history, but my understanding is that a; everyone pretended that the pilots were not Russian, and b; this was before the doctrine of MAD was fully established. But again, I don't know the history around it. If there was direct fire exchanged between Russian and NATO troops today, however circumstantial, It would make the history books for sure.
the situation is a lot more nuanced than "If NATO fires a single bullet at a Russian it's the end of civilization".
Agreed.
I'd rather see counterpoints to my arguments than blanket assertions
My apologies. I found myself convinced of these very points after reading the article, but I can see now how my words could come across as standoffish. No insult intended :)
Failure to perform the fait accompli means that options other than nuclear retaliation are possible.
My reading of both the text quoted and reality as presented, is that this line of thinking only applies when operating inside or very close to the opponents red lines. The next paragraph starts:
Avoiding this problem is why NATO is structured the way it is: promising a maximum response for any violation, however slight, of the territory of any member. The idea is to render the entire bloc immune to piecemeal maneuvers by putting all of it behind the red line (or at least letting the USSR think it is all behind the red line).
And Ukraine is not a member. NATO's red line is crystal clear. Ukraine is outside of it. Everyone made it very clear to Putin that they didn't want him to invade, and that they would impose "costs" on him if he did. But no one threatened to nuke him over it.
NATO can clearly signal via way of action that it has no intention of threatening the existence of the Russian state.
Putin made it very clear on the day of the attack that he was threatening nukes to anyone who "interfered" in Ukraine, with his infamous "the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history" -speech. NATO has been helping Ukraine by training their forces and supplying materiell for years before the invasion, and vowed to keep doing so. This can be considered "calling his bluff" to an extent, or as a piecemeal maneuver in it's own right. Yet they withdrew their personell from the country in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. Some have called Biden weak for doing that, essentially "clearing the way" for Putin by removing the tripwire force, and maybe he is. What is clear is that he didn't want for that bluff to be called.
Sending NATO troops into Ukraine to engage Russian forces is a very clear escalation, that Putin has specifically warned against. If this were to happen, Putin would have every incentive to nuke them inside Ukraine, or worse. He might be bluffing. I wouldn't bet on it.
"Red lines" aren't always geographical. Currently (it looks to me like) NATO's unambiguous red line is it's geographical border, while it is trying to establish some strategic ambiguity over use of chemical/biological weapons. This is going so-so, especially after the US's bluff was called in Syria with no consequences. Meanwhile (it looks to me like) Putin's unambiguous red line is Russia's geographical border, and he is trying very successfully and believably to assert a red line over any direct military intervention inside Ukraine, and less successfully over less direct help. Since he was deliberately unspecific in his threats, he can gracefully back down from the supply of weapons without loosing face. That does not mean he would back down from other more direct help, with the infamous Polish fighter jets toeing the line too close for comfort, so the US backed down on that one.
When Putin called that obvious bluff, it would have damaged the credibility and thus the deterrence
The start of the very same paragraph reads:
The logic of deterrence – in particular the fact that it is both very high stakes and also based entirely on perception – explains why NATO and especially the United States took any direct military action off of the table quite loudly well before the conflict began. Saying that ‘all options are on the table’ – as the United States routinely does with Taiwan – would have been a fairly obvious bluff. When Putin called that obvious bluff, it would have damaged the credibility and thus the deterrence
Now, as for fait accompli:
Beaufre notes that for piecemeal maneuvers to be effective, they have to be presented as fait accompli – accomplished so quickly that anything but nuclear retaliation would arrive too late to do any good and of course nuclear retaliation would be pointless
I think the phrase "have to be" above is not to be taken as absolute. The same paragraph continues:
Thus Beaufre suggests that the piecemeal maneuver is best accomplished as a series of coups de main accomplished with fast moving armored, mechanized and airborne forces seizing control of the target country or region before anyone really knows what is happening. The attacking power can then present the maneuver as fait accompli and thus the new status quo that everyone has to accommodate; if successful, they have not only made gains but also moved everyone’s red lines, creating more freedom of action for further piecemeal maneuvers.
Everyone agrees that the maneuver "is best accomplished" if it can be performed quickly. Obviously Putin would be in a much stronger position if he would have been able to conquer Ukraine within a few days. Almost tautologically so. But considering how US Intelligence were consistently calling his shots days in advance during the weeks leading up to the invasion, Putin never managed to establish very much of a smokescreen for this operation, and thus I don't see this ever being presented as fait accompli to anyone, no matter how it would have turned out on the ground. Unlike his annexation of Crimea, where that tactic was much more successful.
Thank you :)
See also this much more in-depth and well researched analysis of nuclear deterrence in general, and how it applies to the situation in Ukraine in particular. And this other post by the same author posted on the day of the invasion, already then presenting a picture clearer than I hold now.
Did you read the linked article? It argues extensively and precisely why what you suggest is not something that NATO can risk.
It is a total war for Ukraine, not for Russia. And even less for NATO.
No one doubts that NATO could obliterate Russia's conventional forces, if it were guaranteed not to escalate beyond conventional warfare. Putin knows that too. Which is precisely why he couldn't and wouldn't leave any such guarantee.
Thank you for posting this! AAA++, 11 out of 10, would recommend, will read again!
See also another post on the same blog about chemical weapons: acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/
I have already started searching through the archives over there. Any more such gems?
"But I don't even think this discussion has been really adversarial"
I'm relived to hear it!
re:Ulterior motives
I believe we are mostly in agreement over the underlying forces behind this conflict then.
"That's exactly one of my suspected ulterior motives"
Then we are in agrement here.
"If we believe that it is not a solvable problem"
I didn't say that it definitely isn't solvable, I conceded that it might not be. It certainly won't be if we aren't even trying, and I'm claiming that we aren't really trying. This would naturally include perpetually ongoing work on the world stage to prevent such developments as you describe. To be clear: I am not calling for unilateral disarmament. I understand that this would not be helpful. I am calling for gradual, universal disarmament, to the furthest extent possible. A de-escalation to mere nuclear deterrence without MAD, would be an unimaginable win for the probability of the survival of human civilization long term, sanity in general, and literally all known life. I understand that it won't be easy, and that MAD is an attractor in policy-space etc, etc, etc, but I can not agree with your seemingly defeatist acceptance of MAD as the only solution. To be clear: I understand the logic behind it. I can see your point. It has merit. I don't accept the conclusion.
Thanks for your feedback :)
This is a good point, I have been using that term very loosely. I guess what I mean is a massive loss of support and legitimacy, as we have indeed seen already. I agree that for a dictator this probably means a shift to a more authoritarian style before it means being ousted, and that the likelihood of a coup depends in large part on things like palace security.
North Korea is indeed a chilling example, and Russia's new economic reality has already been widely compared to North Korea in mainstream media. I think Russia has enough widespread internet access, and not enough Putin-worship for the comparison to hold very far, but it can indeed get very ugly in the meantime.
As for that prediction market, that looks low to me, considering how it's worded. I'd expect at least that much chance of Putin dying a natural death before 2024, and that might well be described as a "regime change" by popular media, so that leaves no room for a coup. Also the fine print stating that it doesn't count if Putin "voluntarily resigns", is very vague, and indeed a way he might try to make it look if he sees that he is loosing power. Still I'm updating some.
Meta-discussion sidenote: I didn't intend for this discussion to escalate and become adversarial. Please see the first part of this comment. No ill will garnered, and no offence taken :) If you think this is discussion is less than constructive, I'm perfectly willing to drop things here.
That said:
"A quick google search can easily disprove that"
I only claimed that they are trying. And that this is a significant escalation since pulling out of the treaty. If they think they'll succeed to some significant extent in 15 years, that sets a hard time limit on Putins plans.
"And it will much more likely be either in the US or China, since these countries actually invest in R&D instead of the oligarchs stealing everything."
Case in point. He is falling behind, and he knows it. If he counts loosing SuperPower status as a complete loss condition, he has to do something drastic, and the sooner the better.
"It doesn't because full nuclear de-escalation is realistically impossible"
For me, Good-guy status is a scale. Holding the world hostage lowers your place on the scale significantly. The fact that others are even worse does not change this. If I had seen a strong, deliberate and sincere effort for mutual nuclear disarmament after the fall of the USSR I would be less harsh, but I haven't. I'm not saying this is a solvable problem, it might not be. I'm saying we aren't really trying.
"why aren't I allowed to have doubts, and mistrust the official justifications?
Sorry but this comment of yours just doesn't make any sense. What it seems to me is that you, and others, are maybe trying a little too hard to play devil's advocate with Putin. Or, I don't know, oppose me just for intellectual fun?"
Of course you are! I think this conversation has been constructive, if a bit adversarial. Sorry about that! It has helped me shake down my picture, and I guess playing devils advocate is the best I can do to understand what is going on. This (obviously) does not imply that I agree with any of Putins actions (goes without saying). I also don't necessarily expect us to be able to converge our understanding, since we have different priors and different information. Sorry if you felt pressured, that is not my intent :) I am happy to leave this debate here if it doesn't feel productive to you. I don't think I'm likely to change my stance much at this point without new information or arguments, and I'm not necessarily saying that you should either. If some confusion remains as to what my stance is, I am happy to elaborate.
That said:
"Words can justify actions and yet not coincide with the real motivations behind said actions."
Sure. There might be an endless series of masks behind masks. But when we see that his actions consistently line up with a certain layer of mask, then that is evidence that that mask contains some real information. Basically; which of his words has predicted his actions, so far? Those might continue to do so. Obviously many of his words are blatant lies, like "we won't invade", "The Ukrainians are bombing their own people", "Zelenskyy is a Nazi/Nato puppet" etc, but if we can consistently differentiate between this surface level of lies (this outermost mask), from the lower levels that may or may not have predictive power, then we might learn something about his real motives. As it happens, it seems to me that some of what he has been saying has predictive power. I'm trying to extract that. This is not a reliable process, what with all the deliberate misinformation going around, but I hope to be able to do better than chance.
"the ulterior motives of Nanda Ale's comment"
Could you summarize what they are? I'm not sure what you are referring to specifically. "Consolidate power" is super vague at best, and I think the opposite is happening right now. If you have a different take, I'd be interested in that too.
I'll grant that it'a an optimistic take. I have certainly seen military analysts say that Putin won't be able to keep it up for very long, or won't be able to hold the territory even if he does manage to grind the cities to rubble, like retired US Lt. Gen. Hodges, or indeed the linked article. But I'm sure the Russian armed forces could just keep shelling and bombing, and never really loose in the conventional sense, barring large scale desertion. But it's political suicide for Putin to do that. Just like it is suicide for him to give up right now. One potential out from that dilemma might be for him to escalate like you say, and therefore it is of paramount importance that we don't give him any excuse to do that. This might not stop him, he certainly has a track record of escalating all by himself, but without an excuse that is political suicide too. Hence the comment of digging his own grave. The tragedy of course, is all the other lives he is taking down with him. On both sides, I certainly don't blame the Russian conscripts in this.
What our contingency should be if he does escalate is a tougher question. There I don't know. Maybe that's the time to enter militarily, after it's been thoroughly established that he escalated first. Or maybe not, I don't know. You are right, it does beg the question.
Yeah, I guess that sums it up and explains why I felt a little bit uneasy with it. After taking Lsusr's comment into account, I think the title would have been more like "Why a No-Fly-Zone might benefit Putin, and Why Zelenskyy keeps asking for it".
How do you feel about click-bait-adjacent titles? I can't make up my mind.
"he was an actor. I don't see any reason to believe he understands this"
This is of course true. But surely he has people around him who are experts? And foreign advisors? And surely the specifics of what gets delivered is negotiated behind closed doors (excepting certain Polish Mig29s), when it can be explained in full detail. I mean, every mainstream news outlet has explained this again and again for over two weeks, it's not missable. And it sure seems to be working.
Ahh, interesting, so the English version is not just a translation then, but rather a very different version, is that right? Very cynical, for the same new agency to write different articles for different audiences.
In that case I would think a fair bit of information could be extracted from the difference between the different versions, even for someone who is more likely to trust an official Russian news source.
Unfortunately it also means that my window into the Russian media landscape is less clear than i hoped.
Thank you!
I am very open to any recommendation for sources from within Russia, whether for or against the war. I don't know Russian, unfortunately.
You are of course entirely correct.
I suppose the would-be-good-for-Putin take relies on a limited conflict with the US, which feels unlikely at best.
That Russia's conventional armed forces is entirely outclassed in every conceivable way by the US, virtually guarantees that it wouldn't stay conventional.
Wow, I really wish I had a good answer. Instead the current conflict makes for an almost maximally hostile epistemic environment. I think the realistic thing to do is to accept that it is really hard to know what is actually happening with any certainty. This is by design. The whole problem is anti-inductive by nature: As soon as you find such a method that works, there will be an incentive by others to circumvent it. Know that there is propaganda and bias on this side too though less overt.
This gloomy view is of course not the same as saying that there is no information to be extracted. Try non-news sources. Like the UN page condemning Russian aggression. I don't know if your family and friends would except that as strong evidence. Does the Pope have any credibility in Russia? I would never trust the Papacy myself as I'm atheistic, but some regard him as an authority on moral matters, and he seems to think there is a war going on at least.
Perhaps consider Aljazeera as an alternative, clearly-not-US news outlet? They are often used by Swedish media as an alternative to CNN and BBC. Or Indian media, like WION, though WION are prone to hyperbole, and not very thorough in checking their sources. They have been very active on Youtube lately. This clip might be effective at showing that there is a lot of suppression going on, if that was ever in doubt. Of course, asymmetric suppression of information severely reduces the expected truth-value of any information that is allowed to stay, which is obvious to most here, but not necessarily easy to explain or convince people of.
Or, you know, anything that media on both sides agree on. I've been looking at English rt.com from time to time to get a glimpse of the narrative in Russia. Here are some RT articles that might show cracks in Putins picture. I would be very interested to know if you can access the English version in Russia, and if the translation matches the original.
I would also be very interested to read anything and everything you have to say about what the situation looks like from inside of Russia.
Stay safe. People have been warning that Russia will close it's borders soon. If you want to get out before then, there is no time to loose. I am not saying that you should, and I don't know if you could. If you do, you are welcome to stay here, in Sweden, send me a PM. Last I heard the border to Finland is still open, but requires a Visa.
"But it's a very hypothetical one."
Putin believing it to be real makes it real. That's all it takes. The physical nukes in their physical silos are not hypothetical.
"current war is a much more probable threat"
This only holds if you don't consider a long-term loss if influence as bad as utter defeat. Putin has explicitly stated as much.
"They joined 18 years ago"
18 years ago Russia didn't have the power, it was still a mess (even more of a mess). The fact that he didn't escalate to nuclear threats then speaks very well of him. (Not well enough. Not by a mile. But by some.)
"Why wait for Ukraine?"
In this view, it would be a case of a slowly rising tide, versus a line in the sand. Putin would have much preferred NATO to stay out of the Baltics too, but didn't have to power or leverage at the time, and/or believed assurances that NATO wouldn't expand further. On December 2021 Putin "politely" asked NATO to reverse all expansion to pre- 27 May 1997, saying basically that everything since then was unfair.
"We still haven't invented anything that can block a nuke"
They sure are trying. The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems basically shoots nukes out of the sky. That way they won't detonate, merely spread a plume of radioactive debris. It's far from perfect, but it is definitely tipping the power balance. Russia has a counterpart that protects Moscow, that was developed in the 80's. The US system attempts to protect the whole US mainland. Missiles are easier to intercept the further away they are launched, so the proximity advantage is huge. There was even a treaty between the US and USSR/Russia banning use of more than two ABM installations per side, and 100 ABM missiles per installation, basically in order to maintain MAD at a reasonable cost. The US opted out of the treaty in 2002, and now has 44 installations, presumably with hundreds of intercepting missiles at each installation. Russia followed suit, but can't afford very many installations. The US does not have enough still to intercept every missile of an all-out Russian attack, yet. Russia isn't even close.
"China only has around 300 nukes"
Yes, China has a much more sane (less mad) policy, of maintaining enough nukes to be a real deterrent, without aiming for MAD. Way less mad than the US, USSR and Russian policies.
"should China invade South Korea and Japan, because it fears that MAD between the two parts is not exactly balanced?"
I don't know. I sure hope they don't feel that way. By the logic of MAD they probably should, if they could get away with it. The US is terrible at backing down in situations like this, which might force Chinas hand, either to invade or to build many more nukes. I hope the US backs down instead. Just like I wish NATO would have backed down in the mid 90's, at least as long as Russia could have been negotiated to reciprocate. Instead NATO adopted an "Open door policy". Backing down is of course only viable if it is mutual.
"Or maybe, should it actually act not-insane"
MAD sure is mad. It has it's own, cold, internal logic to it though. I want to reject that whole world order. By your words here, you do too. That will only be possible if nuclear powers back down. Elsewhere you wrote "Everybody wants to rule the world. It's better if the good guys do it." And I fully understand the sentiment, but this is the inevitable consequence of that view, if there is anyone anywhere that doesn't consent to the rule of your "good guys". One might even say that holding the whole world hostage by threat of nuclear annihilation automatically disqualifies "good guy" status. Yet some nuclear powers are worse than others.
I would add that overt US intervention might trigger a wave of patriotism in Russia too, and enable Putin to spin the whole thing as a war of survival. Which it very well might be at that point, I for one do not think a No-Fly-Zone -like conflict would stay restricted to Ukraine, or to the sky for that matter. Seen in that light Putins trade off matrix before the war might have looked like a win-win; Either the US doesn't intervene, and then he can take Ukraine easily: Or, the US does intervene, and then he can blame the capitalist world order. The worst outcome is Ukraine repelling him without the US.
"that's what he has been saying all along"
So you are basically saying that you agree that his words matches his actions, but since you don't believe his word and can't find any ulterior motive, you are confused by his actions. I don't understand. If you agree with this, his actions should be evidence that he does indeed believe what he says. Not counting all his surface level lies and obvious propaganda here.
I think this might be the crux of this whole debate to be honest: Me and several others have tried to explain different takes in different words, and you seem continuously dissatisfied with them (and I appreciate your dedication to finding an answer, even if at some point I run out of things to add). It is absolutely worth looking for ulterior motives, but I don't necessarily expect to find any major ones at this point. The time to really suspect ulterior motives are when the words and actions don't match up, or the words themselves don't make sense.
"I believe that love for personal power/wealth/influence is stronger than nationalism"
I think that varies tremendously from person to person, more so than from era to era. I think what varies between eras is the Overton Window.
"does this war actually help"
Not the way it is currently playing out, no. If he would in fact have been greeted with flowers, and taken most of the country in a few days with little resistance, it would have been a huge win for him. This is evidence that he thought this would happen.
I agree. The rest of the world does too. It would be very nice if everyone were nicer.
But can't you understand the perspective of how a more and more unbalanced Mutually Assured Destruction is a threat to Russia? I think MAD is mad, and that every effort should be made to dismantle it. But in lieu of that, it works to keep the peace to the extent that no-one wins in case of war, and thus no-one wants war. If one side has more modern delivery systems, more forward bases, and better missile defenses, that tips the power balance massively, and at some point, Destruction is no longer Mutually Assured. Or not Mutually Assured enough. This breaks the underlying core of how MAD hinders conflict.
Now, I can't see the current west launching a preemptive strike at Russia. But in the context of MAD, it makes complete sense for a slowly-loosing party to change to a more desperate strategy before things progress that far. You and I might have thought MAD an old horror story from the middle of the last century, and not formed our understanding of the world around it, I certainly didn't. But if Putin thinks MAD is alive, then MAD is alive.
And from a dictator's perspective, democracies are scarily unstable. Just because I can't see the current west as doing something like that, that is no guarantee that no such leader will ever be elected, or that relations won't sour in the future. As indeed they have.
Trying to map hypothesis space of the Real Reason (tm):
1: Basic western narrative. Putin feels backed into a corner, like he is slowly but surely loosing influence to the West. He has the Mafioso-nature, and thought that taking back Ukraine would be easy, popular at home, a real show of force to the rest of the world short term, and could even be an economic win long term after consolidating the new territory and work force, plus it would cement his legacy as a Great Russian Tzar. But he has lost some of his touch and miscalculated, and is now a dangerously flailing wounded animal. Maybe also influenced by the newly found gas fields i Ukraine.
Most of my probability mass is spread around here, though not really sharply concentrated anywhere within this branch.
2: Basic Kremlin narrative. Russia feels backed into a corner, like they are slowly but surely loosing influence to the West. The anti Russian Rusophobic sentiment in Ukraine is real, and the Azov Battalion is only the tip of the iceberg, and Putin wants to save his fellow Russians and Little Russians from US/Nazi oppression. Zylenskyy may or may not be a literal nazi and/or Jewish, but he definitely is a literal actor, and is playing the media and the west like a grand piano, according to the whim of the US, while the US is making biological and/or chemical weapons (the story varies) in Ukrainian labs to kill all Russians. Also they never even invaded Ukraine in the first place.
This story isn't even trying to make sense.
3: Putin might have some brilliant ace up his sleeve that will make it all come into a new light once it is revealed. I'd be very surprised at this point. It would have to be a very brilliant ace indeed. The only thing that even comes to mind is that this is a ruse to fool the west into thinking that the Russian military is weaker than it really is, then ???, then profit.
I don't see it.
4: This invasion might itself be a reaction to something hidden, like a forced move due to invisible-to-us forces. Either in the Kremlin, on the streets of Russia, other world leaders, or China. If this comes from outside of Putins control, that could explain why the invasion seems so rushed and ill-prepared. But this also doesn't really seem very likely, when the very basic narrative seems to explain what we see equally well, but has fewer moving parts. Also, he has been nourishing this conflict for years, built his troop presence for months, and has been writing and opining about Ukraine for long time, so it doesn't look like a forced move. Hard to tell. If this was the case, then I wouldn't really expect anyone in the west to be able to see it until after the fact.
5: There is some huge benefit that he's after, but that we can't see. Maybe there are some complex ethnic stuff that the west hasn't picked up on (there surely are ethnic tensions, but the ones I've heard about seem inadequate to motivate all this). Maybe there is some complex strategic reason, having to do with the specific ranges of different launch systems and their positioning.... But I don't see it. Maybe there is some forgotten secret Soviet research facility hidden somewhere in Ukraine. Maybe the Lost Ark is in a catacomb under Kyiv.
This line of reasoning is highly speculative at best, but would of course be an enormous breakthrough and of extreme strategic importance if it was true and could be found out. I don't think it is true.
6: Truly alien motives. For example, Putin has himself stated that the Cold War era was better and safer for the world, and that this dangerous era of "monopolar" power distribution is terrible. Maybe the entire point is to spark a new Cold War.
6.5: Putin is literally going mad, after years of self-imposed isolation and KGB-trained paranoia, maybe with a flavor of dementia in old age.
7: ???
In the end I don't really feel very confused about this war. It took me a few days for the shock to wear off, but to me it frankly looks a lot clearer than most wars I've ever studied in detail. This is not to claim that I got it right, of course. Most of my probability mass is within the scope of the mainstream western narrative. I would like to note however, that IFF he would indeed have taken Ukraine in a short, heroic war were he was welcomed by a sizable part of the population, many of these benefits would have likely materialized, regardless of our misgivings. Crimea worked out great for him. I don't think he miscalculated by all that much, aside from the true shape of his fighting forces, and the degree of support in the Ukrainian population (huge though those are). Note that I am in no way saying that the entire mainstream narrative is accurate or anything sweeping like that. Just that I haven't yet found any compelling evidence far outside of it. If you feel like you have some, I'd be most interested.
"That's not a good example", "Soldiers usually know little"
Fair.
"the war could last years"
Now that Putin is bogged down, apparently unable to make militarily advances, but politically unable to back out, it might well drag on for years. I didn't hear anyone predicting that until after the advance seemed to stall out though (again, me not hearing about it is not proof of absence. I'd be very interested to find an analyst who predicted this from the start.).
"All it takes is a bit of common sense"
This is not how it looks to me. But if grant that it is obvious, and was well known to all involved players, then that really raises the question of what Putin thinks he is gaining from a long, unpopular, expensive war with his "beloved brother-nation". Which I suppose was the question that you posed to start with, so fair enough :)
Most of my probability mass is still concentrated around Putin simply being mistaken about how he would be received, and thus how things would turn out, like I've outlined above. I realize that this is basically the common western propaganda narrative, and I agree that that should make us extra critical. But the fact remains that it sure looks to me like he is deep in the shit now, which clearly implies that something didn't turn out the way he wanted it to. See also new thread.
I certainly believed that Russia could take Ukraine in a few days. That Ukrainian forces would be simply overwhelmed with heavy weaponry. So did the alleged Russian soldiers who packed parade uniforms rather than food, their alleged schedules of orders printed on paper in lieu of radio communication, and the apparently pre-prepared Russian media reports of Russian victory after only a few days. I acknowledge that some of this is probably propaganda, but I note that both sides seems to have been essentially saying the same thing here, and also that it seems much more plausible for Putin to come out on top if it had in fact gone according to that plan, and thus much more plausible for him to have gone ahead with the attack in the first place if he thought that was a likely outcome. After all, the Coalition forces took Iraq in only a matter of weeks with comparable numbers of troops. Of course, that is turning into a very inadequate comparison, but I was certainly under the impression of Russia as a "near peer adversary", similar in capabilities to the US, a view that is falling apart rapidly. This change in optics in itself is a massive, massive loss for Putin, plausibly bigger than the outcome of the war itself.
If this was obviously false to you ahead of time I applaud your ability to (seemingly at least) do better than most public military analys in the west over the last decade or more. I certainly did not. And judging by how the war is going, neither did Putin. I agree that 10 years in Chechnya, or the US in Afghanistan for that matter, should be counted as evidence against this view, and that it is indeed not holding up. This incompatibility indicates to me that Putin really did think that he'd get a heroes welcome, at least by a sizable part of the population. If he did belive that, invading makes all the more sense.
I do agree that it is in the Wests interest to portray Putin as failing, and that spreading rumors of his plan being implausibly optimistic ahead of time might have been part of that strategy. A strategy like that might backfire though, if it demoralizes defending troops before the attack (I personally would be inclined to desert if my own leaders thought we would loose within days anyway). Right now it is clearly in the interest of the west to fuel and maintain a narrative of a weak, disorganized and outdated Russian army, and this incentive should make us look more closely at the evidence. As far as I can see (which is not very far, certainly not further than anyone else with an internet connection) it seems to more or less check out.
A note on Reservists: Many reservist forces take months to mobilize and retrain even at the best of times, and will have to be processed in batches. Ukraine only activated it's reservists on the day of the invasion. Apparently they have temporarily stopped taking more people in, due to training facilities being flooded with more volunteers than they can process. Russia has not (yet) called for remobilization of reservist forces, that we know of. If they did, that would amount to Putin admitting that something has gone horribly horribly wrong, in a way impossible to hide from the general population.
The way the war is currently turning out does not seem to be a benefit to Putin at all, almost regardless of what happens next. Thus I don't think it is going according to his plan, whatever his motives were. I don't think that is in question, and I'm not seeing anyone arguing differently. They question as I understood it is rather about why it might have seemed a good idea in the first place, and that is what I tried to address.
By the way, this is a good thread that has helped me clarify my own thoughts on the subject :) Don't be discouraged by the fact that asking for an explanation of something that seems to break your world-model inevitably invites lots of arguments against that model. I also often find myself defending the position of the very question I posed, while trying to understand. Thank you for posting!
The different question about the cost-benefit analysis of western expansionism in general is a larger topic, that I won't debate deeply here. If you want to have that debate, lets start a new thread or something, though I am not claiming to be a great source or representative against that view, merely that I don't hold it unreservedly. Let it only stand that your motivation stated above is one side, the traditionally American side, and that not all westerners agree with that assessment. I can try to give a surface level summary of my position here if you would like.
- If Ukraine can sell gas to the EU, then Russia looses an immensely strong advantage. The size of Russian gas reserves in Siberia makes no difference for that. All that is needed is for Ukraine to have enough gas to supply Europe for another few years/decades, until the Green energy revolution comes along further.
- I totally thought at first that Russia would gobble up Ukraine in a few days. Now that it didn't work out that way, everyone agrees that Putin made a bad move, presumably Putin too. And there will never be a satisfying explanation for why it was secretly a smart move, aside from counterfactuals. Had Ukraine indeed capitulated and in large part welcomed the Russian forces, the whole war would have been over by now, and Putin would in many ways have been proven right, and would have to weather some sanctions etc, but that worked ok for him last time. But it didn't pan out that way. I agree with you that Putin is a smart guy, but that doesn't mean he will never make mistakes, and mistakes never look smart after the fact.
I don't think Putin fears a NATO invasion of Russia. I think he fears a decline in Russian influence.
Consider the British Empire. It was a superpower of it's time, and is a nuclear power today. Yet it is not a superpower anymore. Influential; sure, powerful; yes, but not even remotely comparable to the US, China or the USSR of old. Yet it was. And it's decline happened entirely without invasion of it's homeland. Portugal and Spain has similar histories.
Putin might think of that as loosing utterly, utter humiliation. If you regard Russian loss of superpower status as a loss condition, then NATO's expansion looks different. Putin described the fall of the USSR as "the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century" which... is pretty absurd considering what else happened during the twentieth century, but is consistent with the above viewpoint.
The comparison with the British Empire has many faults. Yet Putin might think that it is a valid comparison in a few narrow, critical ways.
I fully agree. My point was not that NATO and the Warsaw Pact were morally comparable or equivalent. They are not. They were comparable in a strategic, power-balance sense however. For some people, that is all they see. See also longer response above.
I basically agree. My aim was to provide a-way-to-see-the-war-that-makes-sense, not a solid argument for it's moral validity. Which I don't think is possible. Obviously. But doing my very best to steelman it might give hints as to the real reasons.
With that in mind, here are some further thoughts/nitpicks:
"The US can't be compared to the Warsaw Pact and the USSR."
Can you compare apples and oranges? Well, famously not. And they taste very different. But they are still both food. As a matter of history, I totally agree that "the free state of FloriTexas" makes no sense whatsoever, and is a terrible analogue for Ukraine. That part was merely trying to pump intuitions. But NATO and the Warsaw Pact are both still power projections on the geopolitical stage, and in many ways the same sort of entity (Explicitly so: The Warsaw Pact was created to balance NATO), however different the values they represent. The US and the USSR/Russia (as well as both the EU and China for that matter) are also very different from each other. Yet they all have the superpower-competing-at-the-world-stage nature. If you view the world as a game board, they are the principal different colors that have amassed lots of pieces, and are posturing and threatening and playing each other for advantage, even if the types of pieces are often very different. Some pieces looks like 'nuclear warheads'. Other pieces looks like 'moral validity'. These are very different, yet both grant enormous power to the wielder, and can indeed sometimes be used as direct counters to each other. Now of course, you and I care about moral validity in itself, as an intrinsic value for it's own sake, just like we are against nuclear warheads: But if all you see is the power game, they are both just pieces. This is not a complete view of their entire natures, but it is a true one. Narrow, but true.
It is indeed understandable that countries want to join NATO and the EU, and for all the right reasons. This involves Putin loosing pieces, thus he will oppose. It only makes sense for him to oppose, he is playing the game. Of course he feels threatened by NATO absorbing the old USSR states. He is loosing pieces. And of course we applaud and support this victory of democracy and moral values. This merely means that we are enemies of Putin. Thus the conflict.
When people say that "the West started it" by expanding NATO, this is what they mean I think. And maybe, just maybe, the fledgling Russian Federation would have felt safer and less pressured if NATO hadn't added Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to it's territory in March of 1999, and maybe, just maybe, someone more diplomatic and friendly to the West than Putin would have then been chosen to replace Boris Yeltsin 6 months later. Maybe. Personally I doubt it. But I think this is a very reasonable line of argument. If the West won't stop playing for power, then it's hard to expect the weakened Russia to stop. Maybe if NATO had ben dissolved in the mid 90's. Maybe if Russia had been formally asked to join. I would have liked to see more effort made in this regard. Either way, invasion is not the way in which NATO threatens Putin.
"NATO is far from perfect"
My biggest gripe with NATO is not corruption or other such imperfections, but it's intrinsic meddling-superpower nature. To be sure, the US had done it's fair share of coercion too over the years. (I am not claiming that the US is "just as bad". Merely that it is some degree of bad, and that I am vehemently against that part. The USSR, Russia and China are all clearly a lot worse. I am against that a lot more. If backed into a corner I will join the US/NATO every time. I hope I don't get backed into a corner. And I hope that everyone can be less bad going forward.)
"No wonder "everyone" wants to join NATO!"
I live in Sweden, which is not part of NATO. I really don't want to have to join, and I would be very sad if it came to that. I think the world would be better if superpowers did less meddling and grandstanding (naive, I know, still), and NATO is directly contrary to that wish. Yet Putin acting the way he is acting now is pretty much the only thing that could force me to agree to a NATO membership.
A perhaps more selfish reason that I don't want to join NATO is that Sweden would be required to send troops if, for example, China took Guam. That would be a terrible development, but should not involve Sweden. At least not definitely, pre-determinedly, obviously, involve Sweden.
"[Are] Western values of democracy and human rights [...] really specifically Western"
I think no, in the sense that they are not intrinsically western, or that no other people hold them. I think yes, in the sense that it is the values that the Western powers are in fact championing. Kind of like how the ideals of Communism weren't inherently Eastern (there were and are still communists in both Europe and the US), but were in fact championed by Estern Powers.
"If that's expansionism, then I'm all for it"
I guess this sums up my point pretty neatly. That is indeed what Western expansionism is. I am not "all for it", I am rather very conflicted about it. I'm all for the democracy and freedom and so forth, but not the geopolitical power projection that tends to come with it. On the other hand I'm definitely for defending those values against attack, and when non-democratic power tries to do it's power projection, I am for countering it. We might have been able to play this better in the past, I'm not sure. In regards to Ukraine, this was a complicated question until Putin started overtly using force, then it became very simple (simple in principle, the game still has to be played on the object level).
Zelenskyy knows that a No-Fly-Zone is both untenable tactically, and impossible politically. Surely, he knows all the arguments against, and also that it wouldn't even work. Yet he keeps repeating it.
Of course, for Ukraine the war is already there, whether or not it will be called WW3 in the history books, so he has everything to gain and nothing to loose from draging NATO into the war at this stage. (Except that WW3 would presumably be vastly more destructive, especially for Ukraine if it becomes it's first/major battleground. But the logic still holds.)
Yet he isn't asking NATO to send troops, or bomb Moscow, or even to shoot down Russian planes; He asks specifically for the No-Fly-Zone. Repeatedly. It's a vague but plausible-sounding request, that is abstract enough and hard enough to understand and far-mode enough that lot's of people who wouldn't call for WW3 will rally around this one, oddly specific, completely misplaced strategy as their rallying cry. I think the point is specifically what you bring up: To have the masses call for something the leaders of the west can't and won't do, meaning 1; that they have to scramble to do everything else that they CAN do to compensate, and 2; their own voters are giving them all the political leverage they need to pull it off, both domestically and geopolitically ("it" being everything short of WW3). I don't think Zelenskyy expects to ever get that one specific thing, but he's here to win the war, not to "close the skies" specifically.
Idk, just a thought.
I think the idea of NATO as an ideologically neutral, purely defensive alliance is a very western perspective. I think Putins perspective of NATO is more akin to our picture of the Warsaw Pact: Neutral defense on paper, but blatant ideological warfare and power projection in practice and intent. If you view NATO in that light (whether accurate or not), NATO's expansion eastward following the fall of the USSR looks like a blatant power grab while Russia was weakened. If you also have a view of all the former parts of USSR as essentially part of the "real" Greater Russia, the expansion of NATO into not only former Warsaw Pact members, but USSR states as well looks exceptionally aggressive.
A faulty comparison, but perhaps useful as an intuition pump:
Imagine if the USSR hade in fact "won" the Cold War in a similar fashion to how the West did; by essentially economically outproducing the USA, until it collapsed financially (only one limited version of events I know, but bear with me), resulting in many US states being left to their own devices after the shattering of the Union, all media being invaded by communist propaganda, and lots of Eastern thinkers and commentators having an opinion on the NewUS's constitution and internal affairs. You asked them then to guarantee your safety, and in response got vague promises of being left alone. In the years that followed, before the NewUS had time to re-consolidate, the Warsaw Pact expanded (by propaganda and bribery) to include most of Europe, Central America, and Mexico. It didn't change in character, instead it grew rich, but lazy and complacent with it's own success, ever self-righteous and condescending. The newly (temporarily?) independent states of Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico followed a few years later, over your protests. By the time the NewUS is starting to emerge from the ashes and have some power to wield again, however hobbled and outmatched, the independent state of FloriTexas, representing a huge portion of former US population and influence, and by many considered part of the former USA's "heartland", starts the process of joining the Warsaw Pact. This process involves the careful dismantling of everything a patriot would call "American" about the place. You were a lowly CIA spy when the old US fell, but you're now the President of the remaining 32 states, and have been pleading, arguing and maneuvering for the communist states to Just Leave The Fuck Alone, Like you Promised but to no avail. The people around you in government are weak and have lost vision. You yourself are growing old. If you ever want to realize the dream of a reunited USA, FloriTexas is the Line in the Sand, the Last Chance for that to ever be possible. A Fall from Grace, and a Destiny Unfulfilled. What do you do?
Of course there are many problems with this comparison. I won't try to list them all here, think of it only as an intuition pump. But in this view, the Warsaw Pact/NATO looks very threatening.
Even taken at face value, this represents at best a caricature of the Nostalgic/Patriotic USSR perspective, and of course Putin is a shrewd intelligent man who probably won't adhere to any such simplistic narrative. But to the extent that I understand what is going on at all, I think this tugs at similar heartstrings. Tugging heartstrings is of course not the same as legitimization. Among many other problems, this view of NATO and "westernization" doesn't care about democracy or national self-determination at all. But of course, that seems to be quite true for Putin.
Now, that being said, I don't agree with the view of NATO as purely a neutral defense pact. It in fact places clearly ideological conditions on it's members, some of which are overtly political: (emphasis mine) "Countries aspiring for NATO membership are also expected to meet certain political, economic and military goals in order to ensure that they will become contributors to Alliance security as well as beneficiaries of it.". There is also the fact that the USSR tried to join NATO when it was first formed (or rather, they called the bluff on it's neutrality), and both Gorbachev and Putin have allegedly floated the idea since (wikipedia source only, sorry no time), but it was dismissed as "a dream".
So much for the historical backdrop. As for the war itself, it does of course look like a huge mistake right now, from the western media perspective. I am leaning towards that perspective holding up, but that is not quite settled yet I think. It is largely based on the premise that Putin thought he would win in a few days, which is often recited, but I have only seen a few smallish pieces of evidence for this myself (could easily be that I missed it, please enlighten me. Mainly the accidental(?) publishing and subsequent retraction of pre-written news articles lauding Russian success). If Putins plan all along was to slowly but surely take Ukraine using slowly advancing tank columns supported by heavy artillery, like the Russian army does best, then it would have been in the US interest to oversell Putins plan to start with, so that he looks weak now that negotiations are starting. There might be some of this going on, but in the end I think I basically buy the "huge mistake" theory. Taking Crimea was a huge success for Putin domestically, and was very easy for him to pull off at the time. It could have worked a second time.
This is only my take, apply salt as needed. I am but a lone keyboard warrior in a big big sea of history, propaganda and geopolitics.
This is the analysis I like the best so far.
Published 29th of January, 3 weeks before the invasion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJNtfyq3TDE
And followup, published 5th of March:
I don't have any great recommendations, and I don't have any primary sources. But a few of the sources I have found myself coming back to are:
SpeakTheTruth - Two US vets with a youtube channel. The are not trying to be neutral in the conflict, but I've found their commentary on the strategic and tactical situation more informed and in-depth than most other sources. One of them speaks some Russian, and have previously visited Ukraine. I don't know or care about any of their other content or opinions.
James Acton - Has seemed like a generally sane commentator to me, but I don't know of him from before this conflict.
RT - Russia Today - Russian state sponsored news agency. Terrible as anyone's only source of news, but very interesting point of comparison. Some articles are clearly much more heavily biased than others. Overall the level of censorship is lower than I was expecting. Sputnik is another example.
Sweden does not have a sponsorship program like you describe, but seems positive to taking refugees (in Swedish, sorry. Suggestive, but in no way firm confirmation. I strongly believe refugees from Ukraine would be let into Sweden at this time, though I have no special knowledge beyond being a Swedish citizen.)
I was just going to post something along similar lines. I live in Sweden and don't know how to help usefully, but if anyone ends up hereabouts and needs a place to stay, let me know at johan.domeij@gmail.com
Stay safe, and good luck.
If anyone here happens to end up in Sweden due to the current conflict, and needs a place to stay, let me know at johan.domeij@gmail.com.
Thank you for uploading this.
Please do upload any further conversations that take place (you or anyone).
This feels like a good start, but there are many subjects left untouched. In fact, this feels like context rather than addressing the core issues brought up by Zoe Curzi and Jessicata and others.
How many roads must a man walk down?
Plus a million points for "IMO it's a reason for less secrecy"!
If you put a lid on something you might contain it in the short term, but only at the cost of increasing the pressure: And pressure wants out, and the higher the pressure the more explosive it will be when it inevitably does come out.
I have heard too many accounts like this, in person and anecdotally, on the web and off for me to currently be interested in working or even getting to closely involved with any of the organizations in question. The only way to change this for me is to believably cultivate a healthy, transparent and supportive environment.
This made me go back and read "Every Cause wants to be a Cult" (Eliezer, 2007), which includes quotes like this one:
"Here I just want to point out that the worthiness of the Cause does not mean you can spend any less effort in resisting the cult attractor. And that if you can point to current battle lines, it does not mean you confess your Noble Cause unworthy. You might think that if the question were, “Cultish, yes or no?” that you were obliged to answer, “No,” or else betray your beloved Cause."
You are worthy of love.
And also (separately), I like you.
(I mean, I've never met you; but I have read a lot of what you write around here, and I like your reasoning, your tone, and what you choose to write about in general.)
"And if I ended up in a conversation where it was obvious that someone hated me, yeah, that wouldn’t be fun."
That sounds just about right. I strive to have accurate feelings: Being actively disliked isn't supposed to be fun. But also, it's not supposed to threaten the very core of my sense of self-worth.
Thank you for writing this. You're not the only one working on it.
Software: OpenCPN
Need: Chart plotting software for navigation at sea; integration with AIS, radar and other NMEA connections; displaying GRIB files.
Other programs I've tried: Garmin, Simrad, B&G etc proprietary solutions (only sold with GPS plotter hardware); Navionics, Isailor, Nimble Navigator, ZyGRIB (only does GRIB files).
I do a fair bit of ocean sailing on small sailboats (between 1 and 3.5 circumnavigations so far, depending on how you count). Unlike on land with Google Maps or Maps.me, at sea most modern navigation solutions center around an expensive GPS-plotter unit, that comes with proprietary software. While some are better than others, they are all A: universally and ridiculously overpriced, and B: quickly outdated with no upgradeability. The one thing they have going for them is that the hardware is generally ruggedized for the marine environment. I have tried many different units on different boats, but never found one that I like. This situation means that many boats have an old (10 or 20 years) plotter unit around that they don't generally use and that might not work anymore, and instead use an app like Navionics or Isailor on a tablet (Navionics in dangerously bad imho, Isailor is marginally better). While this can be convenient for casual use, it is not a fully fledged system, and I consider that practice unsafe (un-ruggedized hardware, tablet might randomly hang or refuse to work (for example without internet access), automatic background updates can suddenly break things, tablet can easily be lost overboard, loosing or destroying your charging cable now becomes a life-threatening danger, etc, etc. The problem is mainly that many people don't realize the degree of trust they are actually putting on the system).
OpenCPN is an opensource alternative that in my opinion handily beats all alternatives that I have tried in pretty much every way. It displays both raster and vector charts of many formats, handles both routing, tracks and waypoints and can send commands to the autopilot, and it displays AIS signals in the most intuitive, informative yet unobtrusive way I have yet seen implemented. It can even be ECDIS-compliant (legal for use on big ships), if paired with compliant hardware and set up right. It is very stable, and has extensive documentation and a helpful community. It runs easily on a RaspberryPI or similar low power devices (very important on some sailboats with limited power available, or as a backup unit). While the software is free, charts and hardware needs to be supplied by the user. High quality charts are provided for free by the governments of some countries (US and New Zealand for example), can be found for free online (pirated), or purchased. Hardware can be anything that runs Windows, Linux, OSX, BSD or Solaris (or Android, see below). I make sure that my primary unit is rugged and protected (like a Panasonic Toughbook for example), and run a backup copy on every single computing device onboard.
Issues with OpenCPN include horrible touch-support (there is an android version, but it sucks, useful as an emergency backup only), some unintuitive and quirky solutions (akin to many other opensource programs), lack of polish of the user interface compared to some proprietary solutions (again, akin to many other opensource programs), along with the need for more technical skills, especially for setting it up. There are some bugs and some missing features, but fewer than any other modern system that I've used.
I regularly set out to sea, literally and directly trusting OpenCPN with the life of me and my crew.
I realize that this is pretty niche and probably not relevant to most readers here, but it's the one area where I feel like I might have something to add :) Hope it's helpful for someone! If you are interested, I'm happy to chat more about OpenCPN, navigation or sailing in general.
Klaus was my first thought too! I found this when I first got my Forklift license :P
This is an amazing initiative! Even aside from providing an excellent service, and also lowering the bar for those of us who feel less than confident writers, I also think it will help center the community around Lesswrong.
I am by no means a professional-level proof reader, but I might still find some errors here and there. I would be really excited to provide what help I can, as long as I don't feel like I'm the only one looking and all the expectations (and thus obligations) are on me. Is there a way for me to be one-among-several proofreaders? If crowd-sourcing isn't the model you are going with for now, then I fully understand.