"In particular, note that our forceful backing of Euromaidan in 2014 looks in the fullness of time like a successful gambit to weaken Russia but has done the Ukrainian people no favors."
I disagree that it has done them "no favors" (else they wouldn't be fighting to the death to defend it) but in what way was our backing of Euromaidan "forceful"?
"What the United States really needs to do is ultimately hand off the European security portfolio to the countries of Europe. ... France has nuclear weapons."
France has under 300 nuclear weapons. Russia has almost 5,000.
"Dans dix ans, nous aurons de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes. Eh bien je crois qu'on n'attaque pas volontiers des gens qui ont de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes, même si on a soi-même de quoi tuer 800 millions de Français, à supposer qu'il y eût 800 millions de Français." —De Gaulle
"Charity" ? "Somewhat carelessly" agreed to defend Latvia? Hey, Matt, have you ever been there? As a 15-year emeritus visiting professor of SSE-Riga, NE Europe's finest business school, you have no idea. These are people like us -- no, make that probably like an idealized "us." If we can't defend the Baltic States, that means we can't defend liberal democracy at all.
Dostoevsky and Gogol, although they were very great artists, were also intense Russian nationalists and would 1000% have supported the annexation of Ukraine.
Gogol (who was Ukrainian) wrote a whole novel, Taras Bulba, about heroic Cossacks fighting to win Ukraine back from the evil Poles. It ends with the dying main character prophesying that one day a great Tsar will come to rule the whole earth...
Im not sure about #8. Putin is acting a bit deranged, which is beyond scary. The nuke alert was stupid, showing weakness in Russian campaign, not power. WAIT until the war is over before deploying more NATO troops. BTW, if anything happens to Selensky.....
I have to ask stupid question that I haven’t seen really explained anywhere:
1) why did Putin invade NOW? I know he wanted to avoid the Olympics not to piss a China off, but the threat of NATO membership for Ukraine has been steady for a while right?
2) if Putin wants a puppet regime, is there a strong pro-Russian opposition party in Ukraine that we expect to take over? Is Zelensky leaving as part of surrender the only way out?
>>More than sanctions, more than support for Ukraine, what we need now is a real plan for the defense of NATO’s frontline countries. That means the “provocative” moves that have been avoided in the past, including stationing large numbers of troops in the area in question.<<
I think this indicates exactly the opposite. The Ukraine war is actually a template for defending frontline states facing Russia, especially the Baltic states. Like with Ukraine, and despite what some think Article V implies, this doesn't require forward positioning defensive forces capable of defeating or seriously slowing a Russian offensive until further forces can arrive.
The truth is that we cannot station sufficient forces to serve as a credible defensive wall. It would be too expensive and too provocative to a future Russia. Geography is against us: big Russia is very near, and the US is very far away. We're not going to put the entire US Army (including Reserves/National Guard!) in these frontline states. Nor can we count on forces being deployed in time. Much of my work before retiring was exploring how quickly the Army could deploy major forces (armor, mechanized, combat aviation, support units) to Eastern Europe. The answer was pretty fast if they made serious efforts, but never as fast as next door Russia could move overwhelming force.
What the US and its allies *can* do is make the costs of invasion so severe that the threat of it either deters or, if that fails, utterly change the strategic calculation Russia would have to make during ongoing operations. And that -- so far -- is exactly what we're seeing. The West's economic advantages over Russia are so vast that the latter now fundamentally understands that an invasion can portend its own economic collapse. While Russia may ultimately crush Ukraine militarily -- even as it faces the risks of insurgency afterward -- the economic pain it is almost sure to suffer will leave a deep and lasting impression.
So does Article V mean that a *military* response is mandatory? No, as it states, military means are just one of possible responses. And it may not be the best.
“To avoid a nuclear war, we need a concrete and plausible strategy to fight and win a conventional one.”
I agree, and it’s scary. History suggests there is no way the US can A) persist its self-image as a shining beacon of liberty and B) avoid fighting in this war. I fear we'll ready ourselves for WWIII before we let go the notion that we stand for global democracy. I also fear that we won't.
"The security umbrella we’ve extended to Eastern and Central Europe really is a favor the United States is doing. Which means there are inherent questions about its credibility. Which means trouble.”
If I can be allowed a small degree of misogyny for the sake of comedy, a la Mr. Seinfeld (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUokuCZmz2s), this a mistake as old as human history. If you’ve seen Estonian women, you can understand why Bush agreed to the favor.
“By the same token, the arrangement where Finland, Sweden, Austria, and Ireland are in the EU but not NATO seems very ambiguous and dangerous to me.”
It does to Zelenskyy, too. Certainly ambiguous enough to actively test what the difference is in a time of desperation.
Anybody got any ideas for off-ramps? It's a tough one for me because on an emotional level giving Putin anything feels just repulsive. OTOH, nuclear war is one of the most repulsive things I can possibly imagine. My armchair suggestion is giving Putin the Donbass in exchange for a Russian pull-out of the rest of Ukraine and guarantees of Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine gets EU membership and the EU/NATO pays to relocate any citizens in the Donbass that want to be citizens of democratic Ukraine. This idea stinks as I don't want to give Putin anything but if it lets him save face and averts a nuclear exchange while preserving Ukrainian sovereignty it might just work. What do you guys think? Feel free to dunk.
I think the only realistic off-ramp is that the war in Ukraine goes so poorly (with very generous NATO backing to the insurgency), and the Russian economy collapses so hard, that there's a coup that forces Putin out of power. That's not a great solution, but I think it's the only one that will work
Wrt point#3, doesn’t Ukraine have a bunch of oil and gas deposits that Russia wanted (and wanted Ukraine not to have to maintain a Russian monopoly)? Doesn’t Ukraine also have fresh water that the Crimean peninsula depended on until Ukraine shut down the canal system supplying Crimea?
WRT nuclear, it seems that Russia's actions may have been extreme enough that even the German green party is considering keeping a few nuclear plants running.
"In particular, note that our forceful backing of Euromaidan in 2014 looks in the fullness of time like a successful gambit to weaken Russia but has done the Ukrainian people no favors."
I disagree that it has done them "no favors" (else they wouldn't be fighting to the death to defend it) but in what way was our backing of Euromaidan "forceful"?
"What the United States really needs to do is ultimately hand off the European security portfolio to the countries of Europe. ... France has nuclear weapons."
France has under 300 nuclear weapons. Russia has almost 5,000.
"Dans dix ans, nous aurons de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes. Eh bien je crois qu'on n'attaque pas volontiers des gens qui ont de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes, même si on a soi-même de quoi tuer 800 millions de Français, à supposer qu'il y eût 800 millions de Français." —De Gaulle
"Charity" ? "Somewhat carelessly" agreed to defend Latvia? Hey, Matt, have you ever been there? As a 15-year emeritus visiting professor of SSE-Riga, NE Europe's finest business school, you have no idea. These are people like us -- no, make that probably like an idealized "us." If we can't defend the Baltic States, that means we can't defend liberal democracy at all.
Dostoevsky and Gogol, although they were very great artists, were also intense Russian nationalists and would 1000% have supported the annexation of Ukraine.
Gogol (who was Ukrainian) wrote a whole novel, Taras Bulba, about heroic Cossacks fighting to win Ukraine back from the evil Poles. It ends with the dying main character prophesying that one day a great Tsar will come to rule the whole earth...
I believe Solzhenitsyn also thought, much later, that Ukraine should be part of Russia.
Im not sure about #8. Putin is acting a bit deranged, which is beyond scary. The nuke alert was stupid, showing weakness in Russian campaign, not power. WAIT until the war is over before deploying more NATO troops. BTW, if anything happens to Selensky.....
Does he retreat to Lviv or surrender to the Russians?
Someone probably already made this point, but not only can war be zero sum, it is usually negative sum, making everyone (much) worse off than ex ante.
I have to ask stupid question that I haven’t seen really explained anywhere:
1) why did Putin invade NOW? I know he wanted to avoid the Olympics not to piss a China off, but the threat of NATO membership for Ukraine has been steady for a while right?
2) if Putin wants a puppet regime, is there a strong pro-Russian opposition party in Ukraine that we expect to take over? Is Zelensky leaving as part of surrender the only way out?
Trump delayed arms deliveries until 2019. We are coming out of the pandemic. Germany new leadership. Biden increasing arms sales.
I think they want a puppet regime in south and east. Kiev and Lviv regions, not so sure. Likely Ukraine will give some land to Belarus.
>>More than sanctions, more than support for Ukraine, what we need now is a real plan for the defense of NATO’s frontline countries. That means the “provocative” moves that have been avoided in the past, including stationing large numbers of troops in the area in question.<<
I think this indicates exactly the opposite. The Ukraine war is actually a template for defending frontline states facing Russia, especially the Baltic states. Like with Ukraine, and despite what some think Article V implies, this doesn't require forward positioning defensive forces capable of defeating or seriously slowing a Russian offensive until further forces can arrive.
The truth is that we cannot station sufficient forces to serve as a credible defensive wall. It would be too expensive and too provocative to a future Russia. Geography is against us: big Russia is very near, and the US is very far away. We're not going to put the entire US Army (including Reserves/National Guard!) in these frontline states. Nor can we count on forces being deployed in time. Much of my work before retiring was exploring how quickly the Army could deploy major forces (armor, mechanized, combat aviation, support units) to Eastern Europe. The answer was pretty fast if they made serious efforts, but never as fast as next door Russia could move overwhelming force.
What the US and its allies *can* do is make the costs of invasion so severe that the threat of it either deters or, if that fails, utterly change the strategic calculation Russia would have to make during ongoing operations. And that -- so far -- is exactly what we're seeing. The West's economic advantages over Russia are so vast that the latter now fundamentally understands that an invasion can portend its own economic collapse. While Russia may ultimately crush Ukraine militarily -- even as it faces the risks of insurgency afterward -- the economic pain it is almost sure to suffer will leave a deep and lasting impression.
So does Article V mean that a *military* response is mandatory? No, as it states, military means are just one of possible responses. And it may not be the best.
— Size and economic strength matter; One Billion Americans!
Economic size matters. A healthy middle class matters. Other than that, get everyone else out.
Look at Brazil for what one billion Americans would look like in the way you are advocating.
Does your newsletter have any subscribers?
“To avoid a nuclear war, we need a concrete and plausible strategy to fight and win a conventional one.”
I agree, and it’s scary. History suggests there is no way the US can A) persist its self-image as a shining beacon of liberty and B) avoid fighting in this war. I fear we'll ready ourselves for WWIII before we let go the notion that we stand for global democracy. I also fear that we won't.
"The security umbrella we’ve extended to Eastern and Central Europe really is a favor the United States is doing. Which means there are inherent questions about its credibility. Which means trouble.”
If I can be allowed a small degree of misogyny for the sake of comedy, a la Mr. Seinfeld (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUokuCZmz2s), this a mistake as old as human history. If you’ve seen Estonian women, you can understand why Bush agreed to the favor.
“By the same token, the arrangement where Finland, Sweden, Austria, and Ireland are in the EU but not NATO seems very ambiguous and dangerous to me.”
It does to Zelenskyy, too. Certainly ambiguous enough to actively test what the difference is in a time of desperation.
Since I am in California I just turned the heat off (it's chilly in the morning, but it will warm up). Thanks for the suggestion!
My top three Yg takes here are 14, 22, and 23. Also, 23 is my least favorite because that's just unfathomably scary.
Anybody got any ideas for off-ramps? It's a tough one for me because on an emotional level giving Putin anything feels just repulsive. OTOH, nuclear war is one of the most repulsive things I can possibly imagine. My armchair suggestion is giving Putin the Donbass in exchange for a Russian pull-out of the rest of Ukraine and guarantees of Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine gets EU membership and the EU/NATO pays to relocate any citizens in the Donbass that want to be citizens of democratic Ukraine. This idea stinks as I don't want to give Putin anything but if it lets him save face and averts a nuclear exchange while preserving Ukrainian sovereignty it might just work. What do you guys think? Feel free to dunk.
I think the only realistic off-ramp is that the war in Ukraine goes so poorly (with very generous NATO backing to the insurgency), and the Russian economy collapses so hard, that there's a coup that forces Putin out of power. That's not a great solution, but I think it's the only one that will work
Does this qualify as a "take-storm"?
Wrt point#3, doesn’t Ukraine have a bunch of oil and gas deposits that Russia wanted (and wanted Ukraine not to have to maintain a Russian monopoly)? Doesn’t Ukraine also have fresh water that the Crimean peninsula depended on until Ukraine shut down the canal system supplying Crimea?
WRT nuclear, it seems that Russia's actions may have been extreme enough that even the German green party is considering keeping a few nuclear plants running.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-mulls-extending-nuclear-plants-life-span-economy-minister-2022-02-27/
Not clear if it'll actually happen, and it would only be a few plants, but at least it's something.