There is a chronic and yawning gap between our collective awareness of major social, environmental, political and economic problems, the capacious way in which we address those problems in policy discourse and the resources that are actually mobilized to meet the challenges we can clearly see ahead of us.
it should not surprise you that we live in a capitalist economy. Select company stock prices being over-bloated beyond any reasonable narrative support, that too for DECADES at a time, are not unheard of in capitalism! Meanwhile the very overvaluation of stock, immensely, and reflexively, aids the company so blessed with such media hype.
Imagine the military windfall.! That money will color society in toto. It will certainly color the universities:
Looks and feels like that wars are something of a gift that keep on giving...at least for a select clientele who profit immensely from the pain and sorrow others experience, one new share price peak at a time ☑️
Imagine the socked away, "savings" / endowment, from excess billing of congress, of the pentagon! Just imagine the size of it, and the perpetual yield it earns !
I'm not interested in the gap... I'm interested in my country ceasing to overthrow governments and caused civil wars that require their neighbors to react by installing governments that are openly hostile to them on their borders and that abuse, murder and discriminate against 50% of their own population. America is on the wrong side of the civil war in Ukraine. Point blank. Nothing else to be said.
And what's more tragic is America caused the escalation of these tensions to war by funding and arming the right wing extremist and Nazis within that country since World War II because they wanted to destroy the Soviet Union. Which, by the way, meant they were funding them INSIDE of the Soviet Union until 1991. Only the most disgusting human beings in the world would fund the war criminals who committed mass genocide against the Soviets because they think their ability to profit might be affected. Our CIA has a lot to answer for. They should be disbanded and tried in international courts for their crimes against humanity.
As a person who's family lives in Ukraine I am saying that the right wing extremist government elements that were installed in the 2014 coup discriminate against the population that speaks Russian or is of Slavic/Soviet heritage and those from Transcarpathia. You are there so you must be aware of the legislation that has been passed discriminating against those groups - as it has been widely documented internationally and within the country.
My town mayor Alexander Sinkevich, my half-Korean governor (Vitaliy Kim, most famous governor in the country) are native Russian-speakers who address their people in Russia quite often. Our minister of defense Reznikov is a native russian-speaker. Our own president barely spoke Ukrainian before the elections and people liked him because he represented the average Joe no matter what language he speaks.
You can't imagine how bizarre your claims sound to me. I sincerely feel bad for you, because someone filled your head with this trash. I especially "love" when ignorant westerners point to some boring local politicians and say: "Aha! He's the neo-nazi leader!". My whole soviet apartment block loses IQ points when I watch videos like that.
But I'll address some of your points.
"discriminate against the population that speaks Russian or is of Slavic/Soviet heritage"
Like 95% percent of population is of Slavic heritage here. Who do you think Ukrainians are? Arabs?
"You are there so you must be aware of the legislation that has been passed discriminating against those groups "
Are you implying I'm missing that I'm being discriminated against? A bold claim, don't ya think?
And it took me 15 seconds to find a Ukrainian TV channel (FREE ДOM) well-known online media (СТРАНА.ЮА) that broadcast and post only in Russian.
I feel like I've encountered someone with a conspiracy-theorist's mindset so I won't be getting into a long conversation.
The best thing for your case would be just visiting me. I live in Odessa. One of the most diverse and Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine. Here's me email address (tomat300@gmail.com) in case you decide to do it. Man I can even call you personally and talk Russian to you and show my geolocation if you don't believe me!
Yes. My relatives who live there and all of the reporting on these problems I'm sure are just filling my head with lies 🙄 I'm sure you don't represent the other side of a Civil War in a very convenient western driven propaganda campaign where you are able to erase the existence of the other part of the population's opinions.
But any respectable person would be able to acknowledge the millions of people who are on the other side of this conflict within their own country. They would be able to acknowledge why the separatist movement happened and what those people wanted. They would be able to acknowledge the reality of a coup - because a few thousand people in the streets and some right wing extremists armed with guns that America funds (and passes out cookies for?) don't equate to a democracy. As anyone should understand... Even if you have thousands of people in the streets the outcome of a democratically elected president being run out of the country at gunpoint with the United States picking their replacement is not democracy.
You can keep pretending that the Ukrainian government as of now is a thing that represents all Ukrainians - but the reality was spelled out when the breakaway regions voted to separate back in 2014. The erasure of the part of the population that identifies as Russian in heritage who did not want to move closer to the west and you pretending that the laws have not changed to target those people is a choice... But anyone who has the ability to do basic research can come across reporting on these laws and problematic actions like the changing of laws around languages taught in schools, outlawing of left-wing parties and labor unions and churches on their own... Even through the propaganda blitz and erasure of History and many resources that accurately depicted the conflict before America decided it was set on its War to sink Russia.
You lied. Russia kills civilians and is especially successful in areas where the majority speak Russian. And at the same time, Russia takes care of and gives Ukraine the soldiers of the Azov regiment, for example.
I mean do you want me to post video clips of the people of that region saying that they wanted Russia to enter? Or do you want me to post the war crimes that they were committing prior to Russia entering? There is a massive amount of documented evidence of this.
Civilians are getting killed on both sides and I don't think there's any question about that because this is a war and that is deeply tragic no matter what. But Russia also evacuated many areas to try to minimize that in the Donbas. And up until Russia entering in the past year more than 90% of the casualties were on the side of the residents of the Donbas and they were being killed by Ukrainian groups like azov and right sector and eventually the official Ukrainian military - which at the point of Russia entering had already killed 12,000 people.
I definitely don't agree with you that Russia was handing over civilians to their opposition. That is just nonsense.
And war crimes in terms of killing people who have surrendered and the situations occuring in the cities that Ukraine has reclaimed who voted to be separate are pretty far-reaching and awful. I'm happy to share videos where people talk about that as well.
The fact of the matter remains that city is like Kiev have never been under attack. It's the residence of the separatist regions who are having their homes destroyed and their lives ruined and they have been since 2014. Which should raise lots of questions for people on this narrative of the goal of the Russian invasion being to take over Ukraine and then the rest of Europe - things that have never been said by Putin or the Russian government and things that all of their actions indicate are not their intentions.
War is terrible and people dying because of this conflict is a tragedy no matter what side they were on. It's a tragedy for the Russians as well. America's culpability in overthrowing the government, supporting right wing extremists and Nazis who undermined peace treaties, our own lack of support for peace treaties and the fact that we have scuttled them, and the fact that we are dumping billions upon billions of dollars of weapons into Ukraine that caused the escalation of what was already a very problematic conflict is deeply irresponsible and against international law. We are a belligerent in this conflict based on international law. We are just unfortunately using the bodies of ukrainians in our awful plans.
I believe this war was completely avoidable. It never needed to escalate. The will of the citizens in these regions should have been respected. And Russia was perfectly willing to let them stay under the mantle of Ukraine if they were allowed to separate. That's what's in Minsk 2 - the treaty Russia agreed to but that the US and its NATO allies said was just a ploy to allow them to buy time to send weapons.
Dude, I'm from Russian-speaking Kharkov. Your nonsense is hard to even read. Answer why Russia bombs civilians but changes prisoners from the Azov regiment who, according to you, committed war crimes.
Dude, it totally sounds like it! I mean it doesn't make any sense at all but why not say it in hopes of confusing people. Azov is the opposing army... So unless you mean they are surrendering when they lose what you are saying is not only illogical but doesn't align with reality.
This is obviously an article written by an economist and Mr. Tooze suffers from one of the ills he himself mentions in this and the FT article.
The west has provided all the military aid available in Eastern Europe, the one that was meaningfully useful to Ukrainians. Western military aid was in short supply and now is in even shorter supply. Americans have admitted that they cannot provide long range missiles because they don't have enough for themselves.
Also studies have shown that military productive capacity in the west is inexistent, at least for what Ukraine would need. So, even if Ukraine were to receive all the money in the world, that cannot buy anything, no new tanks, no artillery, no shells, no precision shells, nothing. Similarly, no amount of money could buy all those destroyed transformers and other parts of the electrical grid.
The spending for other wars by the west and Americans being so much larger in the past is perfectly explained by the personnel costs that US/West put on the ground in those places. And the contractors that came with, as remoras follow sharks...
Then is the cost that Europe had to put up to pacify its population after cutting its nose to spite its face, sorry, I meant to say after cutting itself of Russian cheap energy and raw materials. That would need to be considered as well, no? The home front?
So the analyses presented here are all very flawed and useless. Why don't we go with all the tanks and other systems provided to Ukraine (include also what Ukraine had to start with as an army) and see how the tally (including personnel) compares with the tally in Iraq, Kuwaiti, Afghanistan. Adjust for salaries payed to soldiers and contractors as well as for supporting the respective governments (adjust for the differences in costs as well).
Thus the comparison has to include material things (tanks vs tanks, etc.) salaries vs salaries, refugees supported vs refugee supported (i.e. how much Turkey got for sheltering Syrian refugees compared to how much was spent for sheltering the Ukrainian refugees) per capita? So all that is actually material put as it is, and then talk about funds sent to Ukraine (Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwaiti, etc.) to prop up governments budgets.
Then we can talk. Until then this is not even toilet paper because it cuts the bum...
Fact: IF there is anyone who can see the shortfall between the cultured-pearl-idea of "massive support to Ukraine" (which we in the west rest our mind-space on ) and ground reality, it's Zelensky.
Fact: We are told the go no-go decision pursuing this war is under Zelensky's command. NATO only provides support, subject to his wish.
Given the above 2, why is Zelensky continuing war? Why is he not agreeing security guarantees to Russia and be done with it. Of course the goalposts may have shifted, but it doesn't appear to be so: I can only infer from Russia having not sent missile barrages on Kyiv, or the like (ostensibly to keep the population on board for a future peace). What about Zelensky's "agency problem" in this war?. How long does he stick to his principle of a holistic ideal Ukraine, versus reality? [Was Ukraine that united from the Azov view, going-in, even pre-maidan?] How much sacrifice will he choose for his country?
Instead, I only see the theater widening: China is circling the event horizon (once it's crossed, it's crossed, with weapons sales to Russia); Moldova is asking to have their resident businessmen ("oligarchs") arrested(!). There is talk of bombing Crimea to smithereens.
Clearly the facts are not what they've been presented, and also, Zelensky is not being rational?.
Because we would lynch him on a street if he wouldn't. He no longer decides if the war will go on. He only manages the country and think he's doing a good job, honestly.
We see it as an existential war for our existence. Russians call us a fake nation and parasites in personal conversations (my own example) and openly use genocidal rhetoric in their state media. In USSR my parents were humiliated for speaking Ukrainian and now their kids speak Russian instead. We don't want to be a part of that kind of country again. I don't want to be tortured by FSB for being a speaking-Russian person who wishes for a united Ukrainian state if we lose the war. Things like that happened a lot in a town 1 hour away from me which has been under occupation for 9 months.
I'm sorry if this is not what the western politicians and oligarchs want but they've never been in a situation like we are right now. One of the opinions I heard from young men is "Even if we lose, our history will end at proud moment because even we didn't know we could achieve this much". And I agree.
And yeah, you probably didn't know, but Azov was founded by and consists of mostly Russian-speaking Ukrainians from Donbas and surrounding regions. Outside threats radicalizes people. Especially people whose home towns were in danger of being turned into bandit-run shitholes like DPR/LPR. Now they are the best trained units in our Armed Forces and have enormous morale. Ol' Putin wanted to "return" Ukraine to Russia? Now he reaps the whirlwind.
"The reality gap closing under the pressure of crisis, rather than as a result of strategic foresight and leadership." Do you really expect "foresight and leadership" from Jake Sullivan, Blinken, Nuland, Baerbock, Liz Trust, Boris Johnson et al?!
I would love to know what percentage of the supposed trillion dollar aid packages to Ukraine, is made up of outdated military equipment, which had, up to then, been languishing for years in warehouses, and accounted for in these packages at top dollar.
Like many people I know, I sent a (small) monetary contribution to Kiev, but stopped when I heard of those trillions being sent. I didn't realize that it was all on paper and far from reality.
Not to mention the history of corruption in Ukraine does not inspire confidence that either funds or military material will actually end up being used in theater ...
No. Russia will not do that. They went to protect Ukrainian pro-Russian elements who were being bombed every day for years. There was a chance in the Minsk agreements to resolve this and Ukraine and the US vetoed it (after Ukraine had agreed it). But Taiwan is actually PART of China. The Donbas is part of Ukraine. Annexation was probably illegal (despite using the same justification that NATO used when it 'liberated' Kosovo) but is it illegal for China to claim an island that even the USA recognises as part of China?
There is ample evidence against that and John Mearsheimer for instance has presented it. If you were to know the realities on the ground, just starting with the ethnic split (ukrainian/russian) in south and eastern part of Ukraine, never mind with the ever mentioned and ever emphasized red line that Russians put in the face of the US, which was Ukraine, you would know that no, Russia has no intention to go further.
You say, “China cannot invade itself, eh?” but much of the world says Israel is “occupying” itself by holding on to lands from the Mandate of Palestine that had been set aside for the creation of a nation state of the Jewish people in a portion of their historical homeland. That land was seized in violation of international law, not to mention the UN Charter, by Arab countries who invaded lands not their own and to be expelled after a 19 year illegal occupation. Somewhere along the line, when Jordan gave up its claims (not that it had any legitimizes), these lands morphed into “occupied Palestinian Territories” on behalf of a people who never in history were a sovereign entity.
Will the world proclaim a liberated Donbas and Crimea “occupied Russian territories”? Russia surely has a better historical claim to such a title than the Palestinians. For once upon a time and in a not very distant past at that, Russia did actually exercise sovereignty over them.
So, to answer your question: anything is possible, it’s just politics and international gamesmanship.
International mandate decided by a couple of countries, above the heads of the people living in those countries. Let's be serious here for a second, will you?
The Ottoman Empire lost the war and its territories were ultimately turned into the several Mandates by the League of Nations. That is the foundational international law that governs today.
Sure, you can argue that this was the will of a minority worldwide but (1) when in history has that not been the case and (2) the same can be said of any decision by the UN as it has an absolute majority of countries whose governments do not reflect the will of their people.
If you want a world under rule of law, then the Arab countries had no right to invade the nascent country of Israel. Rather than being penalized, they have been accommodated to this very day. One might say that this was the point where the UN lost its legitimacy and integrity and has since shown no signs of recovering it.
It’s not for nothing that most Arab countries support Russia, as it too sees a neighbor with no right to independent existence, no separate history and no individual identity.
Not quite sure how China thinks it needs another 24 million people -- on top of its billion or so -- who clearly don't want to be any part China -- for many clearly good reasons.
China definitely doesn't need another American base in their proximity, that is for sure... And probably that is worth even getting rid of 24 million, when they have to defend 1.3 billion.
Where did you see endorsement? But in Beijing's calculus, the 1.3 billion on the mainland have primacy, their well being and security comes first and a Taiwan embrace of US would give a lot leeway to Beijing in face of their own population.
American aid to Ukraine has in part been sold as a great "Bang for our Buck," a position I find morally offensive since the most important "cost" is death and suffering and grief.
As well, we have to take into account the bill to reconstruct and repair the devastation to Ukraine. In a fair world, Russia would pay, but I don't see that happening. No one can predict what that bill will be, but a trillion dollars is not a bad guess.
I wrote a short post about this, in case anyone is interested.
1) Is there any reason to think anyone knows how the war is progressing, really? Why are people here so certain of their estimates? This seems absurd though of course it is not absurd to say that Putin has the capacity to keep this going for quite some time. This doesn’t generally tell you much when it comes to invasions and the desire of people being invaded to resist that invasion. It can go on as long as people are willing to let it go on. How long they are willing to go on is not knowable. 2) What we can know are the things AT has mentioned---what is being supplied and whether it is adequate to prevent greater territorial gains by Russia. The statistics are incredibly eye-opening, and this should make us circumspect about believing what we hear about the war. I wish more people would run the numbers, as they say. It tells us something, maybe the only thing that we can be told. 3) Some of the comments here are ridiculous. I suppose this is a feature of comments generally.
The news is never reliably accurate. Due to conflicts of interest,reports of such war's are always exaggerated and distorted. The End product is barely a semblance of the truth.
The wars are not comparable. You’re comparing wars where Americans fought directly with Ukraine. But the correct compactors are other proxy wars -- eg, the Mujahideen war. If you compare with that effort, the support for Ukraine emerges very favorably.
Moreover, there are limits to how many weapons, ammo and dollars we can send over that have nothing to do with our constraints. Rather they have to do with the absorption capacity at the receiving end.
Finally, we’ve sent so much that we’re running dangerously low on munitions stocks. That’s a direct constraint on how much help can be furnished. What if China assaults Taiwan? The longer this goes on the more tempting this gets for the Chinese.
It would be incredibly stupid for China to start a war, whatever our munitions stocks. Maybe they are stupid---who can say? But our munition stocks don’t make it any less catastrophic for them. If they can’t see how disastrous it would be, then they are utterly mad. There is no reason conditions at hand will give better or worse reasons to a madman.
Once you understand that the principal beneficiaries are western contractors, everything makes sense.
That's actually a good point, one should look anyway into who's really profiting and how from this invasion aka war.
it should not surprise you that we live in a capitalist economy. Select company stock prices being over-bloated beyond any reasonable narrative support, that too for DECADES at a time, are not unheard of in capitalism! Meanwhile the very overvaluation of stock, immensely, and reflexively, aids the company so blessed with such media hype.
Imagine the military windfall.! That money will color society in toto. It will certainly color the universities:
Harvard Director Paul Peterson: https://ibb.co/PmBksXJ and https://ibb.co/vJRGSHV
Think tanks, movies, sports.......
Looks and feels like that wars are something of a gift that keep on giving...at least for a select clientele who profit immensely from the pain and sorrow others experience, one new share price peak at a time ☑️
Imagine the socked away, "savings" / endowment, from excess billing of congress, of the pentagon! Just imagine the size of it, and the perpetual yield it earns !
I'm not interested in the gap... I'm interested in my country ceasing to overthrow governments and caused civil wars that require their neighbors to react by installing governments that are openly hostile to them on their borders and that abuse, murder and discriminate against 50% of their own population. America is on the wrong side of the civil war in Ukraine. Point blank. Nothing else to be said.
And what's more tragic is America caused the escalation of these tensions to war by funding and arming the right wing extremist and Nazis within that country since World War II because they wanted to destroy the Soviet Union. Which, by the way, meant they were funding them INSIDE of the Soviet Union until 1991. Only the most disgusting human beings in the world would fund the war criminals who committed mass genocide against the Soviets because they think their ability to profit might be affected. Our CIA has a lot to answer for. They should be disbanded and tried in international courts for their crimes against humanity.
Excuse me, are you implying that Ukraine discriminates 50% of it's population? This is an honest question from a Ukrainian citizen.
Like how are you imaging it? Or am I just missing the sarcasm because I'm not fluent in English?
As a person who's family lives in Ukraine I am saying that the right wing extremist government elements that were installed in the 2014 coup discriminate against the population that speaks Russian or is of Slavic/Soviet heritage and those from Transcarpathia. You are there so you must be aware of the legislation that has been passed discriminating against those groups - as it has been widely documented internationally and within the country.
My town mayor Alexander Sinkevich, my half-Korean governor (Vitaliy Kim, most famous governor in the country) are native Russian-speakers who address their people in Russia quite often. Our minister of defense Reznikov is a native russian-speaker. Our own president barely spoke Ukrainian before the elections and people liked him because he represented the average Joe no matter what language he speaks.
You can't imagine how bizarre your claims sound to me. I sincerely feel bad for you, because someone filled your head with this trash. I especially "love" when ignorant westerners point to some boring local politicians and say: "Aha! He's the neo-nazi leader!". My whole soviet apartment block loses IQ points when I watch videos like that.
But I'll address some of your points.
"discriminate against the population that speaks Russian or is of Slavic/Soviet heritage"
Like 95% percent of population is of Slavic heritage here. Who do you think Ukrainians are? Arabs?
"You are there so you must be aware of the legislation that has been passed discriminating against those groups "
Are you implying I'm missing that I'm being discriminated against? A bold claim, don't ya think?
And it took me 15 seconds to find a Ukrainian TV channel (FREE ДOM) well-known online media (СТРАНА.ЮА) that broadcast and post only in Russian.
I feel like I've encountered someone with a conspiracy-theorist's mindset so I won't be getting into a long conversation.
The best thing for your case would be just visiting me. I live in Odessa. One of the most diverse and Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine. Here's me email address (tomat300@gmail.com) in case you decide to do it. Man I can even call you personally and talk Russian to you and show my geolocation if you don't believe me!
Yes. My relatives who live there and all of the reporting on these problems I'm sure are just filling my head with lies 🙄 I'm sure you don't represent the other side of a Civil War in a very convenient western driven propaganda campaign where you are able to erase the existence of the other part of the population's opinions.
But any respectable person would be able to acknowledge the millions of people who are on the other side of this conflict within their own country. They would be able to acknowledge why the separatist movement happened and what those people wanted. They would be able to acknowledge the reality of a coup - because a few thousand people in the streets and some right wing extremists armed with guns that America funds (and passes out cookies for?) don't equate to a democracy. As anyone should understand... Even if you have thousands of people in the streets the outcome of a democratically elected president being run out of the country at gunpoint with the United States picking their replacement is not democracy.
You can keep pretending that the Ukrainian government as of now is a thing that represents all Ukrainians - but the reality was spelled out when the breakaway regions voted to separate back in 2014. The erasure of the part of the population that identifies as Russian in heritage who did not want to move closer to the west and you pretending that the laws have not changed to target those people is a choice... But anyone who has the ability to do basic research can come across reporting on these laws and problematic actions like the changing of laws around languages taught in schools, outlawing of left-wing parties and labor unions and churches on their own... Even through the propaganda blitz and erasure of History and many resources that accurately depicted the conflict before America decided it was set on its War to sink Russia.
https://freedomhouse.org/report/analytical-brief/2018/far-right-extremism-threat-ukrainian-democracy
Best of luck to you and your propaganda campaign 👍
And no one ever said that people didn't speak Russian... Here's an article from Human Rights Watch about concern over the legislation that was passed.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/19/new-language-requirement-raises-concerns-ukraine
You lied. Russia kills civilians and is especially successful in areas where the majority speak Russian. And at the same time, Russia takes care of and gives Ukraine the soldiers of the Azov regiment, for example.
I mean do you want me to post video clips of the people of that region saying that they wanted Russia to enter? Or do you want me to post the war crimes that they were committing prior to Russia entering? There is a massive amount of documented evidence of this.
Civilians are getting killed on both sides and I don't think there's any question about that because this is a war and that is deeply tragic no matter what. But Russia also evacuated many areas to try to minimize that in the Donbas. And up until Russia entering in the past year more than 90% of the casualties were on the side of the residents of the Donbas and they were being killed by Ukrainian groups like azov and right sector and eventually the official Ukrainian military - which at the point of Russia entering had already killed 12,000 people.
I definitely don't agree with you that Russia was handing over civilians to their opposition. That is just nonsense.
And war crimes in terms of killing people who have surrendered and the situations occuring in the cities that Ukraine has reclaimed who voted to be separate are pretty far-reaching and awful. I'm happy to share videos where people talk about that as well.
The fact of the matter remains that city is like Kiev have never been under attack. It's the residence of the separatist regions who are having their homes destroyed and their lives ruined and they have been since 2014. Which should raise lots of questions for people on this narrative of the goal of the Russian invasion being to take over Ukraine and then the rest of Europe - things that have never been said by Putin or the Russian government and things that all of their actions indicate are not their intentions.
War is terrible and people dying because of this conflict is a tragedy no matter what side they were on. It's a tragedy for the Russians as well. America's culpability in overthrowing the government, supporting right wing extremists and Nazis who undermined peace treaties, our own lack of support for peace treaties and the fact that we have scuttled them, and the fact that we are dumping billions upon billions of dollars of weapons into Ukraine that caused the escalation of what was already a very problematic conflict is deeply irresponsible and against international law. We are a belligerent in this conflict based on international law. We are just unfortunately using the bodies of ukrainians in our awful plans.
I believe this war was completely avoidable. It never needed to escalate. The will of the citizens in these regions should have been respected. And Russia was perfectly willing to let them stay under the mantle of Ukraine if they were allowed to separate. That's what's in Minsk 2 - the treaty Russia agreed to but that the US and its NATO allies said was just a ploy to allow them to buy time to send weapons.
Dude, I'm from Russian-speaking Kharkov. Your nonsense is hard to even read. Answer why Russia bombs civilians but changes prisoners from the Azov regiment who, according to you, committed war crimes.
Dude, it totally sounds like it! I mean it doesn't make any sense at all but why not say it in hopes of confusing people. Azov is the opposing army... So unless you mean they are surrendering when they lose what you are saying is not only illogical but doesn't align with reality.
"Russia bombs civilians"? You mean the documented fact that the Ukrainian army has been putting military installations in the middle of civilian infrastructure? Yes that was covered by organizations like Amnesty International. It is considered a war crime. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/ukraine-ukrainian-fighting-tactics-endanger-civilians/
This is obviously an article written by an economist and Mr. Tooze suffers from one of the ills he himself mentions in this and the FT article.
The west has provided all the military aid available in Eastern Europe, the one that was meaningfully useful to Ukrainians. Western military aid was in short supply and now is in even shorter supply. Americans have admitted that they cannot provide long range missiles because they don't have enough for themselves.
Also studies have shown that military productive capacity in the west is inexistent, at least for what Ukraine would need. So, even if Ukraine were to receive all the money in the world, that cannot buy anything, no new tanks, no artillery, no shells, no precision shells, nothing. Similarly, no amount of money could buy all those destroyed transformers and other parts of the electrical grid.
The spending for other wars by the west and Americans being so much larger in the past is perfectly explained by the personnel costs that US/West put on the ground in those places. And the contractors that came with, as remoras follow sharks...
Then is the cost that Europe had to put up to pacify its population after cutting its nose to spite its face, sorry, I meant to say after cutting itself of Russian cheap energy and raw materials. That would need to be considered as well, no? The home front?
So the analyses presented here are all very flawed and useless. Why don't we go with all the tanks and other systems provided to Ukraine (include also what Ukraine had to start with as an army) and see how the tally (including personnel) compares with the tally in Iraq, Kuwaiti, Afghanistan. Adjust for salaries payed to soldiers and contractors as well as for supporting the respective governments (adjust for the differences in costs as well).
Thus the comparison has to include material things (tanks vs tanks, etc.) salaries vs salaries, refugees supported vs refugee supported (i.e. how much Turkey got for sheltering Syrian refugees compared to how much was spent for sheltering the Ukrainian refugees) per capita? So all that is actually material put as it is, and then talk about funds sent to Ukraine (Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwaiti, etc.) to prop up governments budgets.
Then we can talk. Until then this is not even toilet paper because it cuts the bum...
Excellent once again!
Fact: IF there is anyone who can see the shortfall between the cultured-pearl-idea of "massive support to Ukraine" (which we in the west rest our mind-space on ) and ground reality, it's Zelensky.
Fact: We are told the go no-go decision pursuing this war is under Zelensky's command. NATO only provides support, subject to his wish.
Given the above 2, why is Zelensky continuing war? Why is he not agreeing security guarantees to Russia and be done with it. Of course the goalposts may have shifted, but it doesn't appear to be so: I can only infer from Russia having not sent missile barrages on Kyiv, or the like (ostensibly to keep the population on board for a future peace). What about Zelensky's "agency problem" in this war?. How long does he stick to his principle of a holistic ideal Ukraine, versus reality? [Was Ukraine that united from the Azov view, going-in, even pre-maidan?] How much sacrifice will he choose for his country?
Instead, I only see the theater widening: China is circling the event horizon (once it's crossed, it's crossed, with weapons sales to Russia); Moldova is asking to have their resident businessmen ("oligarchs") arrested(!). There is talk of bombing Crimea to smithereens.
Clearly the facts are not what they've been presented, and also, Zelensky is not being rational?.
"why is Zelensky continuing war? "
Because we would lynch him on a street if he wouldn't. He no longer decides if the war will go on. He only manages the country and think he's doing a good job, honestly.
We see it as an existential war for our existence. Russians call us a fake nation and parasites in personal conversations (my own example) and openly use genocidal rhetoric in their state media. In USSR my parents were humiliated for speaking Ukrainian and now their kids speak Russian instead. We don't want to be a part of that kind of country again. I don't want to be tortured by FSB for being a speaking-Russian person who wishes for a united Ukrainian state if we lose the war. Things like that happened a lot in a town 1 hour away from me which has been under occupation for 9 months.
I'm sorry if this is not what the western politicians and oligarchs want but they've never been in a situation like we are right now. One of the opinions I heard from young men is "Even if we lose, our history will end at proud moment because even we didn't know we could achieve this much". And I agree.
And yeah, you probably didn't know, but Azov was founded by and consists of mostly Russian-speaking Ukrainians from Donbas and surrounding regions. Outside threats radicalizes people. Especially people whose home towns were in danger of being turned into bandit-run shitholes like DPR/LPR. Now they are the best trained units in our Armed Forces and have enormous morale. Ol' Putin wanted to "return" Ukraine to Russia? Now he reaps the whirlwind.
"The reality gap closing under the pressure of crisis, rather than as a result of strategic foresight and leadership." Do you really expect "foresight and leadership" from Jake Sullivan, Blinken, Nuland, Baerbock, Liz Trust, Boris Johnson et al?!
I would love to know what percentage of the supposed trillion dollar aid packages to Ukraine, is made up of outdated military equipment, which had, up to then, been languishing for years in warehouses, and accounted for in these packages at top dollar.
Like many people I know, I sent a (small) monetary contribution to Kiev, but stopped when I heard of those trillions being sent. I didn't realize that it was all on paper and far from reality.
I wish the media would be more honest.
Not to mention the history of corruption in Ukraine does not inspire confidence that either funds or military material will actually end up being used in theater ...
We can only hope this war is ended soon - and the quickest way is that Russia should prevail.
And after that...what? The Baltic states? Poland? NATO falls apart? China invades Taiwan?
No. Russia will not do that. They went to protect Ukrainian pro-Russian elements who were being bombed every day for years. There was a chance in the Minsk agreements to resolve this and Ukraine and the US vetoed it (after Ukraine had agreed it). But Taiwan is actually PART of China. The Donbas is part of Ukraine. Annexation was probably illegal (despite using the same justification that NATO used when it 'liberated' Kosovo) but is it illegal for China to claim an island that even the USA recognises as part of China?
Is the annexation illegal though?
http://www.fletcherforum.org/home/2023/1/12/invoking-the-kosovo-precedent-can-we-dismiss-the-russian-argument
You lied in every sentence. Russia has already killed ten times more Russian speaking people than died before 2022.
People that were sent to their deaths by their Russian speaking president, isn't it?
There is ample evidence against that and John Mearsheimer for instance has presented it. If you were to know the realities on the ground, just starting with the ethnic split (ukrainian/russian) in south and eastern part of Ukraine, never mind with the ever mentioned and ever emphasized red line that Russians put in the face of the US, which was Ukraine, you would know that no, Russia has no intention to go further.
China cannot invade itself, eh?
You say, “China cannot invade itself, eh?” but much of the world says Israel is “occupying” itself by holding on to lands from the Mandate of Palestine that had been set aside for the creation of a nation state of the Jewish people in a portion of their historical homeland. That land was seized in violation of international law, not to mention the UN Charter, by Arab countries who invaded lands not their own and to be expelled after a 19 year illegal occupation. Somewhere along the line, when Jordan gave up its claims (not that it had any legitimizes), these lands morphed into “occupied Palestinian Territories” on behalf of a people who never in history were a sovereign entity.
Will the world proclaim a liberated Donbas and Crimea “occupied Russian territories”? Russia surely has a better historical claim to such a title than the Palestinians. For once upon a time and in a not very distant past at that, Russia did actually exercise sovereignty over them.
So, to answer your question: anything is possible, it’s just politics and international gamesmanship.
International mandate decided by a couple of countries, above the heads of the people living in those countries. Let's be serious here for a second, will you?
The Ottoman Empire lost the war and its territories were ultimately turned into the several Mandates by the League of Nations. That is the foundational international law that governs today.
Sure, you can argue that this was the will of a minority worldwide but (1) when in history has that not been the case and (2) the same can be said of any decision by the UN as it has an absolute majority of countries whose governments do not reflect the will of their people.
If you want a world under rule of law, then the Arab countries had no right to invade the nascent country of Israel. Rather than being penalized, they have been accommodated to this very day. One might say that this was the point where the UN lost its legitimacy and integrity and has since shown no signs of recovering it.
It’s not for nothing that most Arab countries support Russia, as it too sees a neighbor with no right to independent existence, no separate history and no individual identity.
You think the Arab countries have been accomodated...? I think that is a very big stretch...
"cannot invade itself"
Not quite sure how China thinks it needs another 24 million people -- on top of its billion or so -- who clearly don't want to be any part China -- for many clearly good reasons.
China definitely doesn't need another American base in their proximity, that is for sure... And probably that is worth even getting rid of 24 million, when they have to defend 1.3 billion.
You're endorsing or promoting a potential genocide? Classy ..
Where did you see endorsement? But in Beijing's calculus, the 1.3 billion on the mainland have primacy, their well being and security comes first and a Taiwan embrace of US would give a lot leeway to Beijing in face of their own population.
Cross out "We" and replace it with "I".
Corrected it for ya!
Борис, ты снова водку забыл в офисе!
Or maybe the declared intentions are not the real intentions
And I hope they put Victoria Nuland in there right alongside them.
American aid to Ukraine has in part been sold as a great "Bang for our Buck," a position I find morally offensive since the most important "cost" is death and suffering and grief.
As well, we have to take into account the bill to reconstruct and repair the devastation to Ukraine. In a fair world, Russia would pay, but I don't see that happening. No one can predict what that bill will be, but a trillion dollars is not a bad guess.
I wrote a short post about this, in case anyone is interested.
https://robertsdavidn.substack.com/p/the-pottery-barn-rule
Would have loved to see more about the political economy of these. The relative spending decision reflects voters preferences.
1) Is there any reason to think anyone knows how the war is progressing, really? Why are people here so certain of their estimates? This seems absurd though of course it is not absurd to say that Putin has the capacity to keep this going for quite some time. This doesn’t generally tell you much when it comes to invasions and the desire of people being invaded to resist that invasion. It can go on as long as people are willing to let it go on. How long they are willing to go on is not knowable. 2) What we can know are the things AT has mentioned---what is being supplied and whether it is adequate to prevent greater territorial gains by Russia. The statistics are incredibly eye-opening, and this should make us circumspect about believing what we hear about the war. I wish more people would run the numbers, as they say. It tells us something, maybe the only thing that we can be told. 3) Some of the comments here are ridiculous. I suppose this is a feature of comments generally.
The news is never reliably accurate. Due to conflicts of interest,reports of such war's are always exaggerated and distorted. The End product is barely a semblance of the truth.
The wars are not comparable. You’re comparing wars where Americans fought directly with Ukraine. But the correct compactors are other proxy wars -- eg, the Mujahideen war. If you compare with that effort, the support for Ukraine emerges very favorably.
Moreover, there are limits to how many weapons, ammo and dollars we can send over that have nothing to do with our constraints. Rather they have to do with the absorption capacity at the receiving end.
Finally, we’ve sent so much that we’re running dangerously low on munitions stocks. That’s a direct constraint on how much help can be furnished. What if China assaults Taiwan? The longer this goes on the more tempting this gets for the Chinese.
It would be incredibly stupid for China to start a war, whatever our munitions stocks. Maybe they are stupid---who can say? But our munition stocks don’t make it any less catastrophic for them. If they can’t see how disastrous it would be, then they are utterly mad. There is no reason conditions at hand will give better or worse reasons to a madman.
Excellent commentary . I might add that much of this analysis fits project management in general .