1. I don't think Hanania is correct about the main causes of the war (Donbas, Crimea, and NATO). Donbas and Crimea became issues when Russia couldn't force Ukraine to abandon its aim to join the EU. In that sense, the war started 8 years ago.
2. American views, on both the left and the right, are largely formed with respect to domestic political interests. If you're a neocon, you're salivating to sell arms and change the regime. If you're vaguely "on the right" and feel like you don't have a home, you look at Twitter and mainstream media and think this mob runs the country. If you're a casual not strongly affiliated person, you look at one country invading another as a relic of a savage past that shouldn't be tolerated. If you're on the mainstream left that's welcomed the neocon element into the Democratic Party establishment and pushed nonsense about "Russian interference" you see the KGB under every bed. If you're on the hard left, you just kind of call for chaos and misrule as usual, and aim potshots at targets of opportunity.
The common element is simply that everyone's priors are based very little on Ukraine and Russia and very much on whatever they were originally concerned about. As such, I have very little concern that the US will much influence a settlement to the war.
3. That, a negotiated settlement to the war, will probably happen sooner rather than later.
3A. Contrary to Hanania, Russia has no practical military options for victory. It can cement control over territory it already controls. But unless it resorts to nuclear weapons, which would unleash long-term consequences that would probably be counterproductive to the Russian regime, it has no practical means of victory. Its army is fully extended and exhausted as a fighting force. Modern operational tempo and equipment are simply not sustainable in war, and there's no practical means for Russia to effect the sort of WWII mobilization that people are crediting them with as being capable of. Nor would it be effective if they did. Instead, note that they're rather pathetically trying to recruit Syrian and Central African (Replubican?!) mercenaries. This, coupled with their stalled offensives and rapidly dwindling supplies of advanced arms, is a strong signal of the end. Stalemate at best.
3B. Likewise, Ukraine has no practical method of recovering Donbas or Crimea. Contrary to what the Twitterati might think, this isn't a video game. They're dying in large numbers and want that to stop. Which is why, by every account I've seen, both sides have called negotiations productive. Counter to the anti-Twitterati, it's extremely irrational to believe that they are going to be influenced by Twitter or by the silky words of American politicos to actually "fight to the last Ukrainian" unless they want to fight to the last Ukrainian. Assuming otherwise seems to be an assumption of extreme irrationality that we would never employ upon ourselves.
Simply put, if you consider yourself rational enough to know that the talking head's words of encouragement on CNN are empty, the folks who are living in the Kiev metro system to avoid shelling probably can too.
‘… there just aren’t enough young people to grow the economy.‘
That’s because about half of them will get unproductive jobs where they will get a wage without having to generate a profit, in the many Government department offices dotted round the Country, in quangos, or in the industrialised charity business, causes and activist lobby groups, and jobs such as outreach officers, climate change and gender equality compliance, plus of course all those on welfare.
Nearly 50% of European economies have able to work citizens in parasitical jobs paid via the State with money plundered from the other half and redistributed, or from begging-bowl donations from a gullible public.
The birth rate isn’t the problem, too many who produce no wealth and live off the rest, is.
"Some on the Right have seen in Putin a counter-example to Western decadence — this, because he promotes religion, and stands against wokeness (e.g., “antiracism,” gender ideology). I get the temptation, and I have praised Putin in this space before for things he has said about wokeness. Some things are true even if Vladimir Putin says them. That said, you don’t measure decadence only by whether or not a leader says the right things about religion, family, and sexual morality."
Truth, as well as goodness, remains true and good even if bad people claim them. They are bad for their bad actions, despite being true or good in some other actions.
Kotkin claims the West standing up to Putin shows that we are not decadent, Dreher (and I) disagree:
"we are busy destroying the family, the bedrock institution of any civilization. In Florida, the state passed a law forbidding teachers from talking about sexuality and gender to children up through third grade — that’s nine years old — in response to widespread reports of indoctrination aimed at small children, without the knowledge or permission of parents. This is denounced by our propagandistic media as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, and Disney is now seeking to punish Florida politicians for defending parental rights in this way. Gov. Ron DeSantis makes the necessary point — one far too rarely made by Republican politicians — that the interest of parents has to be more important than the desires of woke corporations like Disney".
As usual, Rod writes a long column (almost daily!), more than Freddie and maybe more than Scott Alexander. If the West can use the finance/ bank power against evil Putin, they can and will use it against protesting truckers or those protesting election irregularities and possible fraud.
In colleges and now in jobs, our elites are being indoctrinated to lie, in order to get along and continue in living an upper-middle class consumerist, secular lifestyle. The lying is terrible.
Also see Glenn Loury on the truth about Roland Fryer, young Black professor at Harvard:
"One reason US policy is so frustrating is that it seems to be putting a lot of stock in this outcome, and I think it’s unlikely."
Is Hanania talking about US policy here, or the opinions he reads on Twitter? What makes him think the US government is banking on a Ukrainian victory? I haven't seen any evidence of this.
Obviously they aren't going to say publicly that the Ukrainians are going to lose.
"The same thing is happening everywhere in Eurasia."
True, but it can't go on forever, and so it won't.
A sufficiently determined state can reverse this the moment it thinks it can get away with what is required to make it happen. My guess is that we'll see these measures within 15 years, probably in China.
If you ask someone at the UN Commission on Population and Development or at Harvard's School of Public Health how to reduce a country's fertility rate, they will not hesitate to answer additional female education and participation in the workforce.
If you ask them if that process runs in reverse if you wanted the opposite effect, they will call in an air strike on your position. Because it does.
Many countries have done nothing but display the impotence, so to speak, of more palatable efforts like just giving people money. What's acceptable doesn't work, and what works isn't acceptable. Something's got to give.
So, sooner or later - and I'd bet sooner - some state out there powerful enough not to care what anybody else thinks is going to decide that what needs to be done is more acceptable than the alternative.
Some people want to smash the patriarchy, and they don't realize it already got smashed. But just wait until it smashes back.
Re Hanania: I do not know what the Administration is telling Russia in private. At the least it should be offering Putin the status quo ante bellum. No Russia troops in Ukraine (except Crimea). No sanctions. No NATO for Ukraine. Putin's fall from power ought not to be necessary to achieve that (although some nervousness about internal discontent with the war ought to help him make the right decision).
Re West: Financing SS with a wage tax was a forgivable mistake in the 30's; the VAT had not been invented. to continue that mistake today is really unforgivable. Not only would the wage tax require constant adjustments to keep revenues and expenditures in balance (that would be true for a VAT as well if less so) but it also biases employers against labor costs over other inputs. That it is capped only makes it worse.
I don't think that this was the primary motivation, but was rather a side effect of the government seeking more moolah. I don't think the book goes into enough detail on the Bernard Baruch / Wilson WWI war communism apparatus as an example of an alternative way to mobilize more of the economy for war purposes. Also I suppose WWI's war mobilization task was quite different from the task in WWII, because in WWI it was mostly about exporting commodities and munitions whereas in WWII it was more about exporting lots of trucks, ships, munitions, sophisticated weapons systems, and other things that just required a more sophisticated system.
1. I don't think Hanania is correct about the main causes of the war (Donbas, Crimea, and NATO). Donbas and Crimea became issues when Russia couldn't force Ukraine to abandon its aim to join the EU. In that sense, the war started 8 years ago.
2. American views, on both the left and the right, are largely formed with respect to domestic political interests. If you're a neocon, you're salivating to sell arms and change the regime. If you're vaguely "on the right" and feel like you don't have a home, you look at Twitter and mainstream media and think this mob runs the country. If you're a casual not strongly affiliated person, you look at one country invading another as a relic of a savage past that shouldn't be tolerated. If you're on the mainstream left that's welcomed the neocon element into the Democratic Party establishment and pushed nonsense about "Russian interference" you see the KGB under every bed. If you're on the hard left, you just kind of call for chaos and misrule as usual, and aim potshots at targets of opportunity.
The common element is simply that everyone's priors are based very little on Ukraine and Russia and very much on whatever they were originally concerned about. As such, I have very little concern that the US will much influence a settlement to the war.
3. That, a negotiated settlement to the war, will probably happen sooner rather than later.
3A. Contrary to Hanania, Russia has no practical military options for victory. It can cement control over territory it already controls. But unless it resorts to nuclear weapons, which would unleash long-term consequences that would probably be counterproductive to the Russian regime, it has no practical means of victory. Its army is fully extended and exhausted as a fighting force. Modern operational tempo and equipment are simply not sustainable in war, and there's no practical means for Russia to effect the sort of WWII mobilization that people are crediting them with as being capable of. Nor would it be effective if they did. Instead, note that they're rather pathetically trying to recruit Syrian and Central African (Replubican?!) mercenaries. This, coupled with their stalled offensives and rapidly dwindling supplies of advanced arms, is a strong signal of the end. Stalemate at best.
3B. Likewise, Ukraine has no practical method of recovering Donbas or Crimea. Contrary to what the Twitterati might think, this isn't a video game. They're dying in large numbers and want that to stop. Which is why, by every account I've seen, both sides have called negotiations productive. Counter to the anti-Twitterati, it's extremely irrational to believe that they are going to be influenced by Twitter or by the silky words of American politicos to actually "fight to the last Ukrainian" unless they want to fight to the last Ukrainian. Assuming otherwise seems to be an assumption of extreme irrationality that we would never employ upon ourselves.
Simply put, if you consider yourself rational enough to know that the talking head's words of encouragement on CNN are empty, the folks who are living in the Kiev metro system to avoid shelling probably can too.
“When you’re rich, they think you really know!” -Tevye
‘… there just aren’t enough young people to grow the economy.‘
That’s because about half of them will get unproductive jobs where they will get a wage without having to generate a profit, in the many Government department offices dotted round the Country, in quangos, or in the industrialised charity business, causes and activist lobby groups, and jobs such as outreach officers, climate change and gender equality compliance, plus of course all those on welfare.
Nearly 50% of European economies have able to work citizens in parasitical jobs paid via the State with money plundered from the other half and redistributed, or from begging-bowl donations from a gullible public.
The birth rate isn’t the problem, too many who produce no wealth and live off the rest, is.
Rod Dreher writes on Kotkin,
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-west-still-declining-russia-ukraine/
"Some on the Right have seen in Putin a counter-example to Western decadence — this, because he promotes religion, and stands against wokeness (e.g., “antiracism,” gender ideology). I get the temptation, and I have praised Putin in this space before for things he has said about wokeness. Some things are true even if Vladimir Putin says them. That said, you don’t measure decadence only by whether or not a leader says the right things about religion, family, and sexual morality."
Truth, as well as goodness, remains true and good even if bad people claim them. They are bad for their bad actions, despite being true or good in some other actions.
Kotkin claims the West standing up to Putin shows that we are not decadent, Dreher (and I) disagree:
"we are busy destroying the family, the bedrock institution of any civilization. In Florida, the state passed a law forbidding teachers from talking about sexuality and gender to children up through third grade — that’s nine years old — in response to widespread reports of indoctrination aimed at small children, without the knowledge or permission of parents. This is denounced by our propagandistic media as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, and Disney is now seeking to punish Florida politicians for defending parental rights in this way. Gov. Ron DeSantis makes the necessary point — one far too rarely made by Republican politicians — that the interest of parents has to be more important than the desires of woke corporations like Disney".
As usual, Rod writes a long column (almost daily!), more than Freddie and maybe more than Scott Alexander. If the West can use the finance/ bank power against evil Putin, they can and will use it against protesting truckers or those protesting election irregularities and possible fraud.
In colleges and now in jobs, our elites are being indoctrinated to lie, in order to get along and continue in living an upper-middle class consumerist, secular lifestyle. The lying is terrible.
Also see Glenn Loury on the truth about Roland Fryer, young Black professor at Harvard:
https://glennloury.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-roland-fryer?s=r
His careful research showed the police were NOT using more lethal force against Blacks. That's not the BLM/ Dem truth that the elites want known.
Good little documentary (25min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8xWOlk3WIw
"One reason US policy is so frustrating is that it seems to be putting a lot of stock in this outcome, and I think it’s unlikely."
Is Hanania talking about US policy here, or the opinions he reads on Twitter? What makes him think the US government is banking on a Ukrainian victory? I haven't seen any evidence of this.
Obviously they aren't going to say publicly that the Ukrainians are going to lose.
"The same thing is happening everywhere in Eurasia."
True, but it can't go on forever, and so it won't.
A sufficiently determined state can reverse this the moment it thinks it can get away with what is required to make it happen. My guess is that we'll see these measures within 15 years, probably in China.
If you ask someone at the UN Commission on Population and Development or at Harvard's School of Public Health how to reduce a country's fertility rate, they will not hesitate to answer additional female education and participation in the workforce.
If you ask them if that process runs in reverse if you wanted the opposite effect, they will call in an air strike on your position. Because it does.
Many countries have done nothing but display the impotence, so to speak, of more palatable efforts like just giving people money. What's acceptable doesn't work, and what works isn't acceptable. Something's got to give.
So, sooner or later - and I'd bet sooner - some state out there powerful enough not to care what anybody else thinks is going to decide that what needs to be done is more acceptable than the alternative.
Some people want to smash the patriarchy, and they don't realize it already got smashed. But just wait until it smashes back.
Re Hanania: I do not know what the Administration is telling Russia in private. At the least it should be offering Putin the status quo ante bellum. No Russia troops in Ukraine (except Crimea). No sanctions. No NATO for Ukraine. Putin's fall from power ought not to be necessary to achieve that (although some nervousness about internal discontent with the war ought to help him make the right decision).
Re West: Financing SS with a wage tax was a forgivable mistake in the 30's; the VAT had not been invented. to continue that mistake today is really unforgivable. Not only would the wage tax require constant adjustments to keep revenues and expenditures in balance (that would be true for a VAT as well if less so) but it also biases employers against labor costs over other inputs. That it is capped only makes it worse.
RE: Social Security and Medicare: this pamphlet from the Army War College argues that one of the primary purposes of entitlements is to create a tax structure that can support greater levels of wartime government spending. https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/2015/pubs/gold-blood-and-power-finance-and-war-through-the-ages/
I don't think that this was the primary motivation, but was rather a side effect of the government seeking more moolah. I don't think the book goes into enough detail on the Bernard Baruch / Wilson WWI war communism apparatus as an example of an alternative way to mobilize more of the economy for war purposes. Also I suppose WWI's war mobilization task was quite different from the task in WWII, because in WWI it was mostly about exporting commodities and munitions whereas in WWII it was more about exporting lots of trucks, ships, munitions, sophisticated weapons systems, and other things that just required a more sophisticated system.