American Politics Discussion Thread

[BING_XI_LAO]

Can we take bets on Ukraine war now that we have 2 and a half months to look back on?
I stopped posting for a while because I was embarassed having predicted that Russia would only go into LDNR because "Putin is cautious", but give it two months and we're seeing attritional siege warfare using long distance artillery - just what a cautious man would prefer. Also, the withdrawal from Cherniyiv and Kiev fronts, plus partial withdrawal from Kharkov front, fits with the idea of a cautious approach - it wasn't completely forced on the Russians, they could have mobilisied more men if they really wanted to retain those areas.

Seems like Russia is making constant progress in Donbass, and that's the most heavily fortified area. If it can make progress there, it can make progress anywhere, it's just a matter of time.
Assuming Russia never calls a general mobilisation, how long will it take before one or both sides is willing to make enough concessions for a peace with the other, and where will the border be? Ukraine's government is supervised both by American neocons from above and by ultranationalist military from below, so it is not really able to make concessions.

On the economic front, I don't think Russia is doing much worse than the West, and domestic opinion supprts the war and blames the sanctions on the West, not on the government's actions. Even if you opposed the war, you wouldn't want foreigners to be able to establish a precedent of veto-ing your government's policies with the threat of economic sabotage.

So I don't think Russia will collapse in terms of morale, economy, supply of material, or manpower: but I also don't think Ukraine will surrender until it truly has no choice, and it clearly takes a long time to clear out these fortified positions including settlements. perhaps the end of the war will be in three years' time?

[Ginger()]

Again the main problem with hoping strong and effective dictators (flavor there of) will do the right thing is A) even the most secure have to keep secure in their position which often means pandering to the rich and powerful B) very few with that much power remain even partially uncorrupted for long, and C) even if you do somehow get a "great" leader, eventually they die. Even just a sniff of history shows that the pursuit of power is very destructive and corruptive.

The really strong autocrats don't have to pander to the rich, the weak ones do for sure - but how is that any different from the typical anglo/western democracy? Even if it's only sporadic, at least sometimes an autocracy can rise above subservience to the merchants. And it's not like democracies have been held back from exercising their power in destructive ways either. I think just about any random dictator trying to run a strategic vision of foreign policy wouldn't be as consistently wrong as the neocons, because he would have some random set of ideas and quirks, instead of reliably horrendous concepts of nation building etc.

edit: I suppose you are less pessimistic than me, I think this is a decaying civilisation for a lot of reasons, it's allowing educational standards to constantly decline out of sheer limp-wristedness for example. I want to shake things up, looking for consistently great outcomes is fabulously optimistic.
Of course material conditions are stilll great, but those were inherited, the political and cultural situation is trash.

If there's one thing that supports horseshoe theory, it's the resounding pessimism on the extreme left and right. "We're decaying, it's the end of times, the power of ((insert scapegoat outgroup)) is usurping our traditional privileges."
 I mean sure, the pendulum swings, we go from "End of History and the Last Man" and the early 90s optimism to the rampant pessimism in the wake of autocratic resurgencies, and now with the Ukraine fiasco exposing the cracks and corruption of the second most powerful autocracy—there's some renewed optimism.
People love autocracies because they "do something" (or at least maintain the image of "doing something"). It's bold, dashing, and decisively plowing ahead to solve the nation's most pressing problems.

The problem with this mythos is twofold
A) since the "doing" is justifying the existence of abusive executive powers, and those powers will be revoked or eroded once the problem is gone, the aspiring autocrat must always create new "problems", a new bait or pogrom to flash in the eyes of the media and public to distract.

B) Not all of society's problems are solved by government action, and even well-intentioned policies can muck up the waters and cascade unintended consequences. Sometimes doing nothing and waiting for private sector or cultural changes to swing around is the preferable state policy.

Almost all the indicators for world living standards have gone consistently up the last 70 years, and while there's many problems in the west, it's truly myopic to decry the current status quo and advocate for radical political policies or—as you put yourself, burn anything bipartisan in a fire. I can't shake the metaphor that this autocratic siren call is akin to burning down the house because our fingers are cold.

[Ginger()]

Can we take bets on Ukraine war now that we have 2 and a half months to look back on?
I stopped posting for a while because I was embarassed having predicted that Russia would only go into LDNR because "Putin is cautious", but give it two months and we're seeing attritional siege warfare using long distance artillery - just what a cautious man would prefer. Also, the withdrawal from Cherniyiv and Kiev fronts, plus partial withdrawal from Kharkov front, fits with the idea of a cautious approach - it wasn't completely forced on the Russians, they could have mobilisied more men if they really wanted to retain those areas.

Seems like Russia is making constant progress in Donbass, and that's the most heavily fortified area. If it can make progress there, it can make progress anywhere, it's just a matter of time.
Assuming Russia never calls a general mobilisation, how long will it take before one or both sides is willing to make enough concessions for a peace with the other, and where will the border be? Ukraine's government is supervised both by American neocons from above and by ultranationalist military from below, so it is not really able to make concessions.

On the economic front, I don't think Russia is doing much worse than the West, and domestic opinion supprts the war and blames the sanctions on the West, not on the government's actions. Even if you opposed the war, you wouldn't want foreigners to be able to establish a precedent of veto-ing your government's policies with the threat of economic sabotage.

So I don't think Russia will collapse in terms of morale, economy, supply of material, or manpower: but I also don't think Ukraine will surrender until it truly has no choice, and it clearly takes a long time to clear out these fortified positions including settlements. perhaps the end of the war will be in three years' time?

I'll bite (with the acknowledgment that we're just pathetically regurgitating our media consumption given that I assume none of us have inside sources or experience as war analysts)

I think the Russian state apparatus has a tight enough clamp on media and information flow to prevent any significant dissent if they don't order general mobilization. So I don't buy predictions of a toppled government or crushed economy, so I think that's relatively stable, although there's always the possibility for yet more sanctions. 

On possible additional sanctions, I'm sure the Biden's administration would love the invitation to do so, but it's clear that he's letting Europe take the lead on this issue as a way to prove that it's united western consensus and not whatever "US/Nato imperialism" crap the tankies are pushing these days. I doubt the tinfoils are convinced, but its probably important to internal signaling among western allies that this isn't a US diktat a la Suez. Diplomacy isn't just for your enemies. 

As for the military situation, I don't really see how Russian incremental gains in the Donbas will be permanent. Their logistics are terrible and the financial/manufacturing capacity to replace lost heavy equipment is probably not there, especially with sanctions. I've seen reports of the old T62 series being returned to service, and that really gives the impression of scraping the bottom of the barrel. The situation for Ukrainian equipment is opposite, more weapons and supplies ship in from the west daily. 

Furthermore, Putin's advance isn't cautious by choice. He wanted to kick down the front door, and Wham Slam Bang end the war in a week. This wasn't their war planning or their doctrine. Furthermore, the Russia military doctrine relies on heavy weaponry superiority and the sheer accounting of their losses plus the fact that Ukraine still has a functional Air Force spells failure there. How long did it take for the Russians to give up on SEAD missions? Like 3 weeks and they decided to quit on air superiority because they didn't have enough to maintain the effort?
That was Putin's best chance to win the war, because the west would be reluctant to engage in a military conflict when Ukraine had not been signatory to any pacts. But, in the amusing words of one commentator I heard, given 1 week, 2 weeks and NATO finally decides what biscuits to serve at the meeting on whether there should be a meeting. The EU organizes sanctions, and now finally a couple months later, a fully industrialized lend-lease commitment is made by the US. Recently burned by Afghanistan, I think there was a deep distrust in the American government about the capabilities of their would-be allies. The abject corruption and poor army morale and total reliance of the Afghan government soiled a lot of analyst expectations on what the Ukrainian resistance might look like. They didn't want to jump in headfirst into the potential next big fopo catastrophe. They offered Zelensky safe conduct to exile because that was what they expected of him and the UA, ie, very little. However almost immediately, Putin's notion of Ukraine being a "fake nation" was laid to rest and with a proven willingness to fight, you saw a collective "ah this is somebody I can work with" from offices like the British MoD and American intelligence agencies as they began coordinating supplies and technical support. 

I think now that the shoe has dropped, this war has maybe a year or two left in it at most. Take that with a grain of salt, as I was never good at judging time, which is why I've signed up for pitboss games   
But here's my take for the end result of the war:
I think the best-case scenario for Putin is he gets to keep Crimea, some token settlements in the east, and a recognition of the 2014 "referendum", while acceding to an expansion of western defensive alliances under either the NATO or EU umbrella. 
There's no ending for this war that doesn't involve Ukraine joining a western defensive pact. Russia proved repeatedly that they wouldn't honor the 1997 friendship treaty, and that their state narrative changes on the whims of an elite disconnected from reality (another weakness of autocracies). 
I will say that I'm skeptical that Putin will get that best-case scenario, the Eastern European members of the EU and Nato are out for blood, they want to see the invasion end in complete humiliation otherwise they run the risk of a repeat attempt in a decade like with Chechnya. Frankly I agree with their reasoning.
 Zelensky is probably aiming for a restoration of the pre-2014 borders and Russian acceding to Ukraine signing defensive alliances. The icing on the cake for the Ukrainians would be some partial demilitarization of the Russian border with Ukraine, but I doubt they'll be able to impose those terms. 

The wrench in all of this is if Putin decides to go all-in with a general mobilization, which would probably strain domestic support to the breaking point(?). Again idk about this last point and its really hard to judge. Of course if you ask most Russians, they'll say they support the regime. But of course you say that when you live in an autocracy. One calls to mind the Stazi polling >70% support for the SED on the eve of the wall falling.

[Charriu]

It's also worth mentioning that Putin already lost in some way. That being that Sweden and Finland are joining NATO and I don't see how he can prevent that in any way. And I doubt that they will be the only ones.

[Charriu]

Typical Erdogan I would say

[Mjmd]

It's also worth mentioning that Putin already lost in some way. That being that Sweden and Finland are joining NATO and I don't see how he can prevent that in any way. And I doubt that they will be the only ones.

Even if Turkey blocks, you will still see bilateral security agreements like the one they signed with UK.

If Putins goal was to divide the west or stop NATO expansion, he failed. He has lost by his own stated goals.

If he doesn't call general mobilization Russia is going to get ground down. There are also problems with general mobilization. I recommend the Perun youtube channel because he is a reasonable voice and focuses pretty heavily on supply chain type issues (which tickles my fancy).

[Mjmd]

Again the main problem with hoping strong and effective dictators (flavor there of) will do the right thing is A) even the most secure have to keep secure in their position which often means pandering to the rich and powerful B) very few with that much power remain even partially uncorrupted for long, and C) even if you do somehow get a "great" leader, eventually they die. Even just a sniff of history shows that the pursuit of power is very destructive and corruptive.

The really strong autocrats don't have to pander to the rich, the weak ones do for sure - but how is that any different from the typical anglo/western democracy? Even if it's only sporadic, at least sometimes an autocracy can rise above subservience to the merchants. And it's not like democracies have been held back from exercising their power in destructive ways either. I think just about any random dictator trying to run a strategic vision of foreign policy wouldn't be as consistently wrong as the neocons, because he would have some random set of ideas and quirks, instead of reliably horrendous concepts of nation building etc.

edit: I suppose you are less pessimistic than me, I think this is a decaying civilisation for a lot of reasons, it's allowing educational standards to constantly decline out of sheer limp-wristedness for example. I want to shake things up, looking for consistently great outcomes is fabulously optimistic.
Of course material conditions are stilll great, but those were inherited, the political and cultural situation is trash.

Again I've defended this pretty heavily in the past vs Boro, so I would go back and look at those posts. Democracies have to care some* about citizens*. If you look at strength of democracy vs a corruption index there are also some very heavily correlation.

Democracies can be less effective in the short term. Foreign policy and domestic having back and forth plans is probably worse than having a bad single plan (unless its really bad - which you can see quite a few of with dictators in the 21st century). I like thinking of civilizations as systems of energy (created, used, lost). The main problem with autocracy is even if they can maintain a higher energy output for a little bit, over the long haul the main problems of power transfer and maintenance will erode them to a lower energy.

[darrelljs]

Well I guess I’m pretentious because I think the article is spot on .

Darrell

[Mjmd]

I think its natural to want to blame something that isn't human nature.... But then you look at history and you realize it isn't a new thing. I mentioned the fall of Italian democracy a ways back. Its a good example.

How many innumerable time has one side said "our side is the bestest and the other side is garbage". I would actually argue technology has helped eliminate some of the power of governments and political parties to drive wedges for power. Humanity may still fall for it....... but at least there is more of a chance of getting different view points even if there are also more chances for your current view points to be reinforced. There is a chance to realize that most people are just people trying to live their lives instead of an enemy / barbarian that doesn't deserve consideration. There is a reason authoritarian states try to limit different view points.

[Mjmd]

Just in case people haven't seen this:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022...anger.html
All the geopolitical maneuvering.