"it became clear that Ukraine could fight back and the US could help it do so effectively"
Your argument for Ukraine continuing to fight assumes the above statement still stands today despite the fact that the median age of a Ukrainian soldier is now 45. In other words, the cost of Ukraine appearing effective was slaughtering a generation of its own men. Also, does "preserving norms" mean anything more substantive than the ability of the demons who run US foreign policy to go on TV and make sweeping statements?
Also, if it's acceptable for Ukraine to negotiate with Worse than Hilter™ right now, why wasn't that acceptable in early 2022? In fact, if negotiation was ever acceptable in your mind, war should have never been on the table. Instead, the US couldn't resist using Ukraine as cannon fodder, and they did so with the full throated support of every shitlib with an MBA who thinks I'm a mouth-breather "because Trump". If anything, you should have taken an even more contrarian position as events developed in real time.
To end on a positive note, thank you for your continued takes on crime/Bukele.
For a sense of perspective, France had a population of around 40 million in 1914 (perhaps 10-20% more than Ukraine had in 2020) and about 1.4 million men in uniform died. 4 million wounded. I'd say that's what losing a generation of men looks like. Ukraine had something like 70,000 dead after 1.5 years.
To be clear, I don't wholly disagree with you. I have mixed feelings about the morality of using a blank-check subsidy to back a country's use of conscripts in a stalemated, attritional war against an invader with a non-genocidal agenda. But I still think the scale of the war needs to be kept in perspective. And if I'm honest, I'd had fewer reservations about the subsidy if the opponent were more menacing and our own government less so.
I don't know what TFR was in France in 1918, or if it's even possible to know, but it was definitely above replacement. In Ukraine, it's 1.22. I don't know what formula you should use to assess how significant their losses are in the context of low fertility, but you can't simply compare them. Combined with emigration, a demographic death spiral doesn't seem out of the question.
French fertility started declining in the 18th century; on the eve of WW1 it wasn't much above 2.0. But France's population was still growing due to favorable momentum.
To be sure, Ukraine the state was in an emigration-and-fertility death spiral even before the war and things look even worse for it now. Every former Warsaw Pact country has had this problem to some degree, including the GDR, and Ukraine had it worst of all. But I'm not convinced that the Ukrainian state even has any positive value we should ascribe to it, independent of the lives of the Ukrainian people.
A very large portion of those people might hold the Ukrainian state with some regard in their hearts, but again, even pre-invasion, they wouldn't want to do anything crazy like actually live within its borders unless they had no choice.
Also, I'd argue that if we want to start comparing the value of individual lives, Ukraine sending 45 or 50-year-olds with few-if-any children to die in the trenches is better than France sending 18-year-olds.
Just realized I replied at the wrong level. More embarrasingly, to a reply that answers my question. Though, to be more clear, while Ukraine was already in the classic European demographic death spiral, I think the migration that was specifically due to the war should be considered, even if it's true that it's far less gruesome and tragic than them getting killed in the frontlines.
"Ukraine had something like 70,000 dead after 1.5 years."
You just made this number up. Ursula von der Leyen let it slip in late 2022 that 100k Ukrainians had died in the war. And that's before the Bakhmut meatgrinder and the failed counteroffensive. You're also neglecting the fact that millions of Ukrainians have moved out since 2022, and millions more are currently living in Russian-controlled territory. The population Ukranian controlled territory is only ~30 million right now.
2. Addressed all this elsewhere. Including the fact that I'm skeptical of anyone who thinks they know the number with great precision (sounds like confirmation bias if you think random European bureaucrats are omniscient), but it doesn't make any difference to my original point if the number is 3x.
Ugh, I meant to say half a generation. I'll add a caveat that it's worth counting the dead, wounded and people who have fled elsewhere. I'm wondering when the powers that be will really pull the plug on this. Private equity firms need something left on the carcass by the time a settlement is inevitably reached.
More than losses, the median age went up because they began drafting/calling up basically every able bodied man in the country, as opposed to relying overwhelmingly on the younger cohort of pre-war active duty soldiers.
As for casualties, I don't think anyone really knows, but even if it's 3x this number (which I seriously doubt), it changes little in comparison to a war like WW1.
The war refugees need to be viewed in the context of Ukraine losing somewhere over 10 million people -- 20%+ of its population -- from 1990-2020 to emigration and low fertility. Nearly all the young people with the means and an ounce of ambition already left because wages are 300% higher in freaking Poland.
Ukraine was already a failing state, a husk of a country with or without Western arms, that's why everyone thought Russia would roll over it. But again, I have doubts that preserving Ukraine as a state is worth very much. Better to get out and live someplace better.
I don't mean to minimize people being dislocated by war, I'm sure it sucks, but in the context of Ukraine a lot of what's happening is just an acceleration of the emigration that would have happened in the next 10 years anyway.
Perhaps, but I doubt either way the maximal Russian desires include Kiev, or anything on the West part of the Dnieper minus Odessa and a land bridge to it. There is no benefit to absorbing those territories, as they are some of the least economically productive and the most hostile to Russia.
Indeed, Ukraine will be portrayed as having achieved a noble victory because Russia did not take over 100% of the country. That was never in the cards to begin with, but that's the narrative the powers that be are spinning up. Richard Haas, spawn of Satan himself, just said the same thing on Morning Joe.
Congrats for being one step ahead; that is you've already bought into the next round of Ukraine gaslighting.
It will be hard for them to do it in a way that convinces anyone, though. A handful of holdouts still claim Saddam sent his WMD's to Assad in Syria, or that Iraq's GDP is much higher today than pre-invasion if you forget that Iraq was sanctioned and bombed for a decade in 2003. And somehow that justified the invasion. But no one outside of the neocons takes that seriously.
Russia is not going to stop fighting until at minimum they have a strong guarantee that Ukraine never joins NATO, the 4 territories they annexed are agreed to be permanently ceded to Russia, and Ukraine agrees to significant restrictions on what military they are allowed to have. The deal that was close to being agreed to in March of 2022, when Russia was on the outskirts of Kiev, was far better for the Ukrainians than that.
Was it wrong for France to fund our revolution and supply us with arms? If Ukrainians want to fight for their country I fail to understand how it's immoral for us to help them do it.
When did the US ever stop Ukraine from negotiating? It was always acceptable for Ukraine to negotiate if it so wished. What was unacceptable, or at least undesirable, was for the US to pressure Ukraine to negotiate with the explicit or implicit threat of withdrawing support from Ukraine if it did not negotiate.
When RW Populists (sometimes rightfully in the modern context) complain about the American Empire, they are referring to Samantha Power and pride flags in Kosovo, not Henry Kissinger and overthrowing communist hellholes.
That might be true, but I also don't think many people on the right really hate Kissinger or sympathize with the Communists that found themselves in his crosshairs. There are still memes out there about Pinochet tossing Communists out of helicopters.
Similar to how conservatives who are skeptical about Israel aren't going to exactly go out and love the Palestinians, unlike the left. Being skeptical of the police doesn't cause someone on the right to want to create a mural of George Floyd as an angel.
Isolationism isn't really a positive belief. It's a negative response to what's seen as the current menu of foreign interventions. The response can change if the menu of foreign interventions changes.
What a great post, Richard! I'd been a fervent leftist until about three years ago, when I started to see the faces behind the masks. A friend gave me a copy of The Origins of Woke, and now I'm a subscriber to your Substack newsletter and a fan of your POV of the world. Who would have thought?!
"But elites in Washington by and large believe in free trade, prices being set by markets"
Can't believe I initially missed this howler. Do you picture Washington elites handing out The Road to Serfdom to some benighted 3rd world despot? The same people set up Russia's economy as a literal oligarchy after the Soviet Union collapsed and blew up a pipeline last year that prevented our ally from buying cheap natural gas. Nothing free market about that, unless the free market is defined as unimpeded US hegemony.
Russia became an oligarchy because of russian culture. They couldn't convert from a communist dictatorship to a liberal democracy for their own cultural issues.
Proof is other non-orthodox former communist countries like baltic states and Poland not ending up like Russia.
Both things can be true. Post-1991, the OG cold warriors were horrified at how the new guard was taking it to Russia. Why do you (and Richard) picture Washington elites as noble rationalists going to backwater countries spreading pure-hearted wisdom of Adam Smith? It's a ridiculous paradigm to operate from; almost as insane as thinking they favor free markets at all.
I think you're underrating Sailer's "dirt theory" of war. Things didn't change much even as Trump was explicitly insisting the US should withdraw because the US is not actually that pivotal to outcomes abroad.
> the interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were such disasters that we are unlikely to make the same mistake again
The fact that Libya occurred despite the prior two examples being available to learn from suggests otherwise. As does our famous misadventure in Vietnam occurring before all of them.
As I understand it, the "dirt theory" is saying that countries were apt to fight wars for land ("dirt") back when land was much more valuable, the key source of a central government's wealth and power.
A very topical point in favor of the "dirt theory" occurs to me. Egypt doesn't even want Gaza and will refuse to annex it. That particular patch of dirt is worth less than zero, because of the people residing on it.
The premise that those wars were mistakes at all from the perspective of the men who waged them is questionable. GWB has never expressed any meaningful regret over his wars that I'm aware of, nor have most of his underlings or those with foreign influence like Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lots of people don't admit their mistakes. But the neoconservatives wrote a lot about why it would be a good idea, failing to anticipate that it would strengthen their enemy in Iran (an enemy Israel feared much more than Iraq). GWB seemed to really think there were WMDs there, and after it became clear evidence of them was unlikely to turn up pivoted toward nation-building, resulting in a (Iran-leaning) Shia-dominated polity strong enough to suppress Sunnis via sectarian death squads but not strong enough to stand up to ISIS even with much larger numbers and US material support. Lots of cynics regarded it as a war for oil, but it was in fact a war for LESS oil (wars consume oil and suppress its production & distribution).
"The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Zero Covid policy in China are mistakes on a different level than the worst of what we’ve seen in Western democracies".
You don't consider the "war on terror" to be on that level?
Russian fatalities are so far 120,000. American fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq together were 7,000 (over nearly two decades). So, clearly not.
With that said, RH is clearly wrong about the Russia-Ukraine war. Supporting Ukraine early on turns out to be have been a pretty good bet, but there should have been immediate peace negotiations followed by a restoration of roughly pre-war borders. The evidence strongly suggests that, absent US pressure, there would have been. Since then, Ukraine society has been thrust into a meat grinder to achieve what will almost certainly be a much worse deal. The only way to really justify US policy is that they got to blow up Nord Stream and permanently sever Russia from Europe, but the problem with that is that it's, umm, evil (at least if you are broadly positively disposed to Europe).
> immediate peace negotiations followed by a restoration of roughly pre-war borders. The evidence strongly suggests that, absent US pressure, there would have been.
And we thought that only Leftists lived in a bubble. Our enemies want to end the threat of US alliances so that they can murder each other for global dominance.
OK, so to be clear, my interest in Objectivism is literally 0. My interest in Ukrainian nationalism and the recovery of the Dubansk or whatever it's called (don't care enough to Google it) is even less that 0. However, if your goal is Ukrainian territorial maximalisation, then the best time to negotiate was after Russia's initial military strategy fell apart, but before Russia was able to ramp up military production to levels that gave it a long term advantage in the meat-grinder war (which has now happened).
Either the West is militarily defended or the religionists and nationalists will militarily end it. RussiaChina and Islamists publicly identify globalism is their purpose
Putin has never said he has any interest in peace negotiations nor has the Ukrainian population ever given anyone any reason to think they would ever be interested in peace negotiations. Why do so many people say there should be peace negotiations when neither side wants them? If our country were invaded, how many states would you be willing to give to the invaders? If it's only Texas and Arizona would that be acceptable to you? Personally, I wouldn't surrender an inch to the bastards. Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute!
The part of Ukraine that was initially invaded in 2022 had been shelled for the previous eight years by Kiev, not Russia. These parts of Ukraine voted to separate from the Kiev government after the US overthrew the elected government in 2014.
So your Texas/Arizona comparison does not hold water, but I'm sure it would make a nice comic book story.
According to the same sources that said the Russians were going to run screaming from the amazing Western weapons in the Spring counteroffensive, and Zelensky would be dining in Melitopol by August.
Russia has a good chance of creating a permanent buffer zone between Ukraine and Russia, and perhaps eventually extend its own borders. While land alone does not make a great nation, as Russia has long proved, it is the sole moral justification for wars of aggression, being that national control of land is always zero sum. It is difficult to put a price tag on territory, which is why so few nations sell it off post-19th century. The lives and effort spent on Iraq and Afghanistan would have been far better spent on many other things.
Much simpler theory: lower post-WW2 death rates are just the consequence of refrigeration, antibiotics, and the Haber–Bosch process.
The imperialist coups and wars that "moderates" have waged do not promote peace. Virtually every war from the start of the 20th century has been one of Western hegemony, if not American hegemony. Even washing our hands of the October Revolution is questionable considering the immense aid we gave the Soviets to keep them afloat (thanks Herbert Hoover), and the proposition is totally absurd post-WW2 when FDR very explicitly supported Stalin in every effort, creating not a period of American dominance but nuclear duopoly, which would lead to the extermination of millions more throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East into the 1970s. Bringing up Iranian theocracy and ignoring the Western reasons for why it came to be (the overthrow of Mossadegh under a relatively liberal Iran and appointment of another corrupt Western-controlled "moderate") is laughable.
From a safe position on the other side of the world it's easy of course to pretend consequentialism isn't a thing in geopolitics, that we are only responsible for the direct violence of our puppets and have no responsibility for any ensuing civil or regional war when those puppets are removed. But the second another 9/11 hits, how quickly the tune changes.
Good post thank you. To steelman Taleb a bit, I don't think he disbelieves the data showing we're more peaceful, rather his point is that Pinker's book would have made a lot of sense based on data, if it were published in 1913.
Very interesting point, but it's also worth pointing out that we lost more lives in the civil war than WW2, so the data may have still been accurate in 1950. And given that there hasn't been a WW3 nor does one seem likely, WW2 looks more like a last gasp on the way to a more peaceful future than a return to normal. But who knows.
I would suggest you enlarge your Overton window to include a multipolar vision. America as the global policeman is going away, probably in your lifetime. Hard no to this: “If anything, we might now be too hesitant to overthrow governments.”
If the dominant power player in the world uses their power for good, then global interventionism is a good thing and vice versa. The US fulfilling that role since the 40’s was generally a net positive for the world, until a little over two decades ago.
US military involvement should only occur, after CAREFUL CONSIDERATION, to achieve a specific/set aim, for the right reasons. Profits, the exportation of ideology, nation building etc are definitely not the right reasons. Doing so based upon lies is despicable. Virtually every military intervention the US undertook, since the first Gulf War, brought zero net positives to the world. All they did was drain America’s resources/national treasure, tarnish our reputation/standing in the world and sacrifice the lives of our best & bravest. Worst of all, we could have accomplished infinitely more by embracing the doctrine of Peace Through Strength.
America’s most powerful/impactful tool for improving the world is undoubtedly economic aid. When used properly, foreign aid and withholding aid become the proverbial carrot and stick.
Unfortunately, the US can’t seem to get this right either. Case in point- Biden and Iran. Since being elected, Biden has lifted sanctions, reopened nuclear talks, gifted them billions in seized funds and what have we gotten in return? Over one thousand dead Israelis, thousands of dead Palestinians and chaos around the world. Iran is universally recognized as the world’s leader in fomenting/exporting terrorism, why on earth should we reward them?
American foreign policy is responsible for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as well. Russia made it crystal clear that Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO was a red line for them and we refused to listen. The color revolution the US initiated, along with a dozen other things over the last decade or so led to that conflict.
Once US foreign policy morphed into a visit from Victoria Nuland meant chaos down the road, we ceased to be beneficial to the world. Once the US started using its military power to unilaterally eliminate government heads, creating a destabilizing power vacuum at the top, we became a threat to the world.
There’s a reason the world is happy with our spiral towards destruction.
Where did you get this idea that because someone sets a red line and you cross them, the crosser is therefore in the wrong? When the line-setter has no right to set that line, the correct action is to tell him to go fuck himself.
Was America wrong when it threatened the Soviets with nuclear destruction if they didn’t pull out of Cuba? No of course not. President Kennedy couldn’t allow any foreign power to park nuclear missile batteries 90 miles from our coast. The USSR crossed America’s red line and Kennedy made it clear to Khrushchev that we considered that an act of war and proceed accordingly. Thankfully for all parties involved, Khrushchev pulled out of Cuba de-escalating the situation.
During the 1990 negotiations to reunify Germany, the US made “iron clad guarantees” to the Russians that NATO would not expand “one inch eastwards.”Starting in the mid 90’s Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, among others, were all admitted into NATO, infuriating the Russians and convincing them of a need for a red line. Once talks began for admitting Ukraine and Georgia, protests escalated to sabre rattling. Russia, just like the US, was not going to allow its enemies to stage forces on its doorsteps.
Russia is a superpower just like America. Their nuclear arsenal is larger than ours and their delivery systems are more advanced than ours. The US/NATO can’t treat them as if they’re dictators from Iraq or backward ideologues from Afghanistan. Every nuclear superpower must be given the respect and deference their armaments demand. Failure to do so risks global annihilation.
Putin’s a bad guy. Russia’s a bad country. They had no right to invade Ukraine but they most certainly have a right to defend themselves, even if that entails taking offensive measures to secure their defense. The US was warned REPEATEDLY, the US and NATO were stockpiling arms/equipment in Ukraine prior to the conflict. A peace deal could have been struck one month into the conflict with the Russians agreeing to withdraw to the positions it held at the start of the invasion, in exchange for a guarantee that Ukraine would not seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.
Sounds reasonable huh? So what happened? Zelensky received a visit from British PM Johnson who told Zelensky to scrap the agreement and stop negotiating with the Russians. This fact alone proves that Russia had a need and a right to establish their line. The US provoked this conflict and kept it going through today, knowing for 6 months to a year that the Ukrainians had little to no chance of winning. 2-3 generations of Ukrainian men have been lost in the meat grinder for nothing. When the next peace treaty is finally inked, the Russians will have proven their commitment to defending their red lines, ability to do so and gained a significant amount of Ukrainian lands. US and NATO military might will suffer another embarrassing defeat.
All because the US provoked a battle that should have never took place. Respect for your adversaries, pragmatic problem solving/compromise and a doctrine of peace through strength works- Trump proved as much.
First, I don't think that the analogy to the Cuban Missile Crisis works - the whole point of the Cold War ending is that the bad old days of little countries being pure chess pieces of the two superpowers is supposed to be over, and sovereign states are supposed to, y'know, actually be sovereign. But even if I *did*, I should rather accept that the US was wrong in the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is tenable, than that Russia is right here, which is not.
There were reports immediately after October 7 that the Hamas attackers were working under direct guidance of Iran, but Iran has always denied it, and Blinken himself said he was aware of no such evidence.
A thought: the apparent stupidity of certain dictators is an application of the Peter Principle.
A dictator is a guy who has been repeatedly "promoted" on account of his high degree of competence at one field of endeavor (outmaneuvering domestic political opponents). Unfortunately, many of these skills and talents don't necessarily transfer to economic administration, geopolitical strategy, or military strategy.
Though most dictators are still very good at the "suppressing domestic opponents" part of the game. They're tough to dislodge unless foreign intervention is involved.
Great article, but it's laughable to think Hamas wouldn't have attacked Israel if Trump had been president. It's not as if Hamas has the military power to stop Israel from killing them all, the addition of American military force doesn't do anything to change their situation. Hamas knew they were going to sacrifice vast numbers of their population in this fight, that's part of the point of doing it. Trump saying awful things about Palestinians would have just fueled the fire for exactly what Hamas wants, an all out war between the Muslim and Jewish/Christian world. If he ads a few more rockets to the battle, what's the difference?
It's not as if Biden could actually convince Israel to change anything about the war. Bidens policy has been to say in public that they shouldn't kill too many civilians while also trying to get them more weapons with which to fight the war. The only difference in US action if Trump were president would be for him to say something about how Israel should be killing more civilians and how Jewish Americans should have given him more votes. Nothing material about the US response would have changed.
Trump had some foreign policy successes but mostly served to weaken the ability of the US to project force abroad. He repeatedly abandoned US allies such as the Kurds and Afghan government and everyone knows he would have abandoned Ukraine. He said multiple times that it should belong to Russia. Remember that Russia had already invaded Ukraine while Trump was president and he repeatedly tried to prevent the US from sending them military support but was overriden by congregational Republicans. He's said repeatedly that we should get out of NATO and he certainly wouldn't do anything to stop China from taking Taiwan. Trump does not share your views on furthering the American Empire, he just likes having the power to order the occasional drone strike.
Definitely -- the U.S. should invade the Ukraine, put the Zelensky regime and assorted neo-nazis on trial for war crimes and international terrorism and force them to adopt democracy and a transparent market economy. Win-win-win.
> A hawkish policy on the Middle East makes sense. When it comes to questions surrounding how much to defend Taiwan or Ukraine, the issues involved are complicated by the fact that in each situation the US might find itself in conflict with another nuclear power. But in the Middle East there isn’t a similar reason to not strike hard against those who are hostile to American values or interests.
Pakistan has nukes, and also has crazy Islamist politicans. So the nuclear risk is not zero. Also, there is always the risk of provoking more 9/11-style attacks against the US homeland.
> It’s difficult to believe that Hamas would have undertaken an operation like that of October 7 if Trump was still in office. It’s clear that their entire strategy was based on the West pressuring Israel on human rights. It needed liberals, or quasi-liberals like Bush, to be in power, for it to have a chance of success.
This is true, but it's only one side of the coin. An Israeli government that was totally unbound by human-rights considerations would simply kill or evict all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, which would destroy Hamas. But an Israeli government that truly desired compromise and peace would have (years ago) stopped settlement in the West Bank and continued negotiations with Fatah; this would also have led to the eventual end of Hamas.
The right thing for US to do right now, is to fully support Israel going postal on Hamas in Gaza, but conditioned on Israel stopping abuses in the West Bank.
If only Israel gave a shit what we think. Biden has to support them for politeness reasons, you don't want to be the country that didn't offer solidarity after 9/11. But it would be a mistake to think that the support we give Israel translates into any kind of influence over what they do. It clearly never has in the past.
"And among autocrats, the Chinese are the smart ones. Most dictatorships, and even democracies, are run by people who are much stupider than Xi Jinping."
Xi Jinping also has to juggle competing priorities for China. I think the most obvious one is: do you want to be a world power that can project its power to every continent, or do you want to have a "security ring" of economically well integrated neighboring countries that see their prosperity and stability inherently attached to yours? (for the US think of Canada, Mexico, DR)
Xi seems to have chosen the former considering judging by the obsession with taking control of the South China Sea even if it means ditching any chance of having a good relationship with Vietnam and the Philippines.
"Third world countries are basket cases for a reason, and the few things the leaders of such nations do right are often the result of them being disciplined by international markets, global institutions like the IMF, and the shadow of American coercion."
This also works for America. Trust on America as a benevolent world power depends to a certain degree on the existence of international institutions (UN, security council, Non-Proliferation Treaty) were the US voluntarily participates and subjects itself to their rules thereby showing restraint.
The US military doesn't usually deploy in the West, at least since World War II (and no, Latin America is not the West). I actually agree with Richard that third world leaders are on average dumber than developed countries' leaders and American leaders in particular. I just think that restraints (think of constitutional restraints in the case of America) are a good think in general and it's just as good for developed countries' leaders to submit to them also.
Appeasement? Is it appeasing the leaders of basket case countries or their citizens?
"it became clear that Ukraine could fight back and the US could help it do so effectively"
Your argument for Ukraine continuing to fight assumes the above statement still stands today despite the fact that the median age of a Ukrainian soldier is now 45. In other words, the cost of Ukraine appearing effective was slaughtering a generation of its own men. Also, does "preserving norms" mean anything more substantive than the ability of the demons who run US foreign policy to go on TV and make sweeping statements?
Also, if it's acceptable for Ukraine to negotiate with Worse than Hilter™ right now, why wasn't that acceptable in early 2022? In fact, if negotiation was ever acceptable in your mind, war should have never been on the table. Instead, the US couldn't resist using Ukraine as cannon fodder, and they did so with the full throated support of every shitlib with an MBA who thinks I'm a mouth-breather "because Trump". If anything, you should have taken an even more contrarian position as events developed in real time.
To end on a positive note, thank you for your continued takes on crime/Bukele.
For a sense of perspective, France had a population of around 40 million in 1914 (perhaps 10-20% more than Ukraine had in 2020) and about 1.4 million men in uniform died. 4 million wounded. I'd say that's what losing a generation of men looks like. Ukraine had something like 70,000 dead after 1.5 years.
To be clear, I don't wholly disagree with you. I have mixed feelings about the morality of using a blank-check subsidy to back a country's use of conscripts in a stalemated, attritional war against an invader with a non-genocidal agenda. But I still think the scale of the war needs to be kept in perspective. And if I'm honest, I'd had fewer reservations about the subsidy if the opponent were more menacing and our own government less so.
I don't know what TFR was in France in 1918, or if it's even possible to know, but it was definitely above replacement. In Ukraine, it's 1.22. I don't know what formula you should use to assess how significant their losses are in the context of low fertility, but you can't simply compare them. Combined with emigration, a demographic death spiral doesn't seem out of the question.
French fertility started declining in the 18th century; on the eve of WW1 it wasn't much above 2.0. But France's population was still growing due to favorable momentum.
To be sure, Ukraine the state was in an emigration-and-fertility death spiral even before the war and things look even worse for it now. Every former Warsaw Pact country has had this problem to some degree, including the GDR, and Ukraine had it worst of all. But I'm not convinced that the Ukrainian state even has any positive value we should ascribe to it, independent of the lives of the Ukrainian people.
A very large portion of those people might hold the Ukrainian state with some regard in their hearts, but again, even pre-invasion, they wouldn't want to do anything crazy like actually live within its borders unless they had no choice.
Also, I'd argue that if we want to start comparing the value of individual lives, Ukraine sending 45 or 50-year-olds with few-if-any children to die in the trenches is better than France sending 18-year-olds.
Surely the out-migration of Ukraine in the eve/beggining of the war has to count too, right?
Just realized I replied at the wrong level. More embarrasingly, to a reply that answers my question. Though, to be more clear, while Ukraine was already in the classic European demographic death spiral, I think the migration that was specifically due to the war should be considered, even if it's true that it's far less gruesome and tragic than them getting killed in the frontlines.
"Ukraine had something like 70,000 dead after 1.5 years."
You just made this number up. Ursula von der Leyen let it slip in late 2022 that 100k Ukrainians had died in the war. And that's before the Bakhmut meatgrinder and the failed counteroffensive. You're also neglecting the fact that millions of Ukrainians have moved out since 2022, and millions more are currently living in Russian-controlled territory. The population Ukranian controlled territory is only ~30 million right now.
1. Didn't make it up.
2. Addressed all this elsewhere. Including the fact that I'm skeptical of anyone who thinks they know the number with great precision (sounds like confirmation bias if you think random European bureaucrats are omniscient), but it doesn't make any difference to my original point if the number is 3x.
Ugh, I meant to say half a generation. I'll add a caveat that it's worth counting the dead, wounded and people who have fled elsewhere. I'm wondering when the powers that be will really pull the plug on this. Private equity firms need something left on the carcass by the time a settlement is inevitably reached.
More than losses, the median age went up because they began drafting/calling up basically every able bodied man in the country, as opposed to relying overwhelmingly on the younger cohort of pre-war active duty soldiers.
As for casualties, I don't think anyone really knows, but even if it's 3x this number (which I seriously doubt), it changes little in comparison to a war like WW1.
The war refugees need to be viewed in the context of Ukraine losing somewhere over 10 million people -- 20%+ of its population -- from 1990-2020 to emigration and low fertility. Nearly all the young people with the means and an ounce of ambition already left because wages are 300% higher in freaking Poland.
Ukraine was already a failing state, a husk of a country with or without Western arms, that's why everyone thought Russia would roll over it. But again, I have doubts that preserving Ukraine as a state is worth very much. Better to get out and live someplace better.
I don't mean to minimize people being dislocated by war, I'm sure it sucks, but in the context of Ukraine a lot of what's happening is just an acceleration of the emigration that would have happened in the next 10 years anyway.
The terms of negotiation whenever it may happen will be different if the front line is Donbas or downtown Kiev.
Perhaps, but I doubt either way the maximal Russian desires include Kiev, or anything on the West part of the Dnieper minus Odessa and a land bridge to it. There is no benefit to absorbing those territories, as they are some of the least economically productive and the most hostile to Russia.
Indeed, Ukraine will be portrayed as having achieved a noble victory because Russia did not take over 100% of the country. That was never in the cards to begin with, but that's the narrative the powers that be are spinning up. Richard Haas, spawn of Satan himself, just said the same thing on Morning Joe.
Congrats for being one step ahead; that is you've already bought into the next round of Ukraine gaslighting.
It will be hard for them to do it in a way that convinces anyone, though. A handful of holdouts still claim Saddam sent his WMD's to Assad in Syria, or that Iraq's GDP is much higher today than pre-invasion if you forget that Iraq was sanctioned and bombed for a decade in 2003. And somehow that justified the invasion. But no one outside of the neocons takes that seriously.
Russia is not going to stop fighting until at minimum they have a strong guarantee that Ukraine never joins NATO, the 4 territories they annexed are agreed to be permanently ceded to Russia, and Ukraine agrees to significant restrictions on what military they are allowed to have. The deal that was close to being agreed to in March of 2022, when Russia was on the outskirts of Kiev, was far better for the Ukrainians than that.
Was it wrong for France to fund our revolution and supply us with arms? If Ukrainians want to fight for their country I fail to understand how it's immoral for us to help them do it.
With that comic book level of understanding, you're going to be failing to understand a lot of things.
When did the US ever stop Ukraine from negotiating? It was always acceptable for Ukraine to negotiate if it so wished. What was unacceptable, or at least undesirable, was for the US to pressure Ukraine to negotiate with the explicit or implicit threat of withdrawing support from Ukraine if it did not negotiate.
I’m glad you’re getting around to this.
When RW Populists (sometimes rightfully in the modern context) complain about the American Empire, they are referring to Samantha Power and pride flags in Kosovo, not Henry Kissinger and overthrowing communist hellholes.
You clearly haven't listened to a lot of RW populists. Henry Kissinger is not someone they admire. They are isolationists, not Machiavellian realists.
That might be true, but I also don't think many people on the right really hate Kissinger or sympathize with the Communists that found themselves in his crosshairs. There are still memes out there about Pinochet tossing Communists out of helicopters.
Similar to how conservatives who are skeptical about Israel aren't going to exactly go out and love the Palestinians, unlike the left. Being skeptical of the police doesn't cause someone on the right to want to create a mural of George Floyd as an angel.
Isolationism isn't really a positive belief. It's a negative response to what's seen as the current menu of foreign interventions. The response can change if the menu of foreign interventions changes.
Wow, Richard. This was very good.
What a great post, Richard! I'd been a fervent leftist until about three years ago, when I started to see the faces behind the masks. A friend gave me a copy of The Origins of Woke, and now I'm a subscriber to your Substack newsletter and a fan of your POV of the world. Who would have thought?!
"But elites in Washington by and large believe in free trade, prices being set by markets"
Can't believe I initially missed this howler. Do you picture Washington elites handing out The Road to Serfdom to some benighted 3rd world despot? The same people set up Russia's economy as a literal oligarchy after the Soviet Union collapsed and blew up a pipeline last year that prevented our ally from buying cheap natural gas. Nothing free market about that, unless the free market is defined as unimpeded US hegemony.
Russia became an oligarchy because of russian culture. They couldn't convert from a communist dictatorship to a liberal democracy for their own cultural issues.
Proof is other non-orthodox former communist countries like baltic states and Poland not ending up like Russia.
Both things can be true. Post-1991, the OG cold warriors were horrified at how the new guard was taking it to Russia. Why do you (and Richard) picture Washington elites as noble rationalists going to backwater countries spreading pure-hearted wisdom of Adam Smith? It's a ridiculous paradigm to operate from; almost as insane as thinking they favor free markets at all.
I think you're underrating Sailer's "dirt theory" of war. Things didn't change much even as Trump was explicitly insisting the US should withdraw because the US is not actually that pivotal to outcomes abroad.
> the interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were such disasters that we are unlikely to make the same mistake again
The fact that Libya occurred despite the prior two examples being available to learn from suggests otherwise. As does our famous misadventure in Vietnam occurring before all of them.
As I understand it, the "dirt theory" is saying that countries were apt to fight wars for land ("dirt") back when land was much more valuable, the key source of a central government's wealth and power.
A very topical point in favor of the "dirt theory" occurs to me. Egypt doesn't even want Gaza and will refuse to annex it. That particular patch of dirt is worth less than zero, because of the people residing on it.
The premise that those wars were mistakes at all from the perspective of the men who waged them is questionable. GWB has never expressed any meaningful regret over his wars that I'm aware of, nor have most of his underlings or those with foreign influence like Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lots of people don't admit their mistakes. But the neoconservatives wrote a lot about why it would be a good idea, failing to anticipate that it would strengthen their enemy in Iran (an enemy Israel feared much more than Iraq). GWB seemed to really think there were WMDs there, and after it became clear evidence of them was unlikely to turn up pivoted toward nation-building, resulting in a (Iran-leaning) Shia-dominated polity strong enough to suppress Sunnis via sectarian death squads but not strong enough to stand up to ISIS even with much larger numbers and US material support. Lots of cynics regarded it as a war for oil, but it was in fact a war for LESS oil (wars consume oil and suppress its production & distribution).
"The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Zero Covid policy in China are mistakes on a different level than the worst of what we’ve seen in Western democracies".
You don't consider the "war on terror" to be on that level?
Russian fatalities are so far 120,000. American fatalities in Afghanistan and Iraq together were 7,000 (over nearly two decades). So, clearly not.
With that said, RH is clearly wrong about the Russia-Ukraine war. Supporting Ukraine early on turns out to be have been a pretty good bet, but there should have been immediate peace negotiations followed by a restoration of roughly pre-war borders. The evidence strongly suggests that, absent US pressure, there would have been. Since then, Ukraine society has been thrust into a meat grinder to achieve what will almost certainly be a much worse deal. The only way to really justify US policy is that they got to blow up Nord Stream and permanently sever Russia from Europe, but the problem with that is that it's, umm, evil (at least if you are broadly positively disposed to Europe).
> immediate peace negotiations followed by a restoration of roughly pre-war borders. The evidence strongly suggests that, absent US pressure, there would have been.
And we thought that only Leftists lived in a bubble. Our enemies want to end the threat of US alliances so that they can murder each other for global dominance.
OK, so to be clear, my interest in Objectivism is literally 0. My interest in Ukrainian nationalism and the recovery of the Dubansk or whatever it's called (don't care enough to Google it) is even less that 0. However, if your goal is Ukrainian territorial maximalisation, then the best time to negotiate was after Russia's initial military strategy fell apart, but before Russia was able to ramp up military production to levels that gave it a long term advantage in the meat-grinder war (which has now happened).
Either the West is militarily defended or the religionists and nationalists will militarily end it. RussiaChina and Islamists publicly identify globalism is their purpose
Russia wasn't interested in giving back territory to Ukraine.
Putin has never said he has any interest in peace negotiations nor has the Ukrainian population ever given anyone any reason to think they would ever be interested in peace negotiations. Why do so many people say there should be peace negotiations when neither side wants them? If our country were invaded, how many states would you be willing to give to the invaders? If it's only Texas and Arizona would that be acceptable to you? Personally, I wouldn't surrender an inch to the bastards. Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute!
Naftali Bennett is on record as saying both sides were close to agreement and outside pressure, principally American, scuttled it.
Good point. There's also confirmation from Erdogan and Fiona Hill on this.
The part of Ukraine that was initially invaded in 2022 had been shelled for the previous eight years by Kiev, not Russia. These parts of Ukraine voted to separate from the Kiev government after the US overthrew the elected government in 2014.
So your Texas/Arizona comparison does not hold water, but I'm sure it would make a nice comic book story.
"Russian fatalities are so far 120,000."
According to the same sources that said the Russians were going to run screaming from the amazing Western weapons in the Spring counteroffensive, and Zelensky would be dining in Melitopol by August.
What's your number?
Russia has a good chance of creating a permanent buffer zone between Ukraine and Russia, and perhaps eventually extend its own borders. While land alone does not make a great nation, as Russia has long proved, it is the sole moral justification for wars of aggression, being that national control of land is always zero sum. It is difficult to put a price tag on territory, which is why so few nations sell it off post-19th century. The lives and effort spent on Iraq and Afghanistan would have been far better spent on many other things.
Much simpler theory: lower post-WW2 death rates are just the consequence of refrigeration, antibiotics, and the Haber–Bosch process.
The imperialist coups and wars that "moderates" have waged do not promote peace. Virtually every war from the start of the 20th century has been one of Western hegemony, if not American hegemony. Even washing our hands of the October Revolution is questionable considering the immense aid we gave the Soviets to keep them afloat (thanks Herbert Hoover), and the proposition is totally absurd post-WW2 when FDR very explicitly supported Stalin in every effort, creating not a period of American dominance but nuclear duopoly, which would lead to the extermination of millions more throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East into the 1970s. Bringing up Iranian theocracy and ignoring the Western reasons for why it came to be (the overthrow of Mossadegh under a relatively liberal Iran and appointment of another corrupt Western-controlled "moderate") is laughable.
From a safe position on the other side of the world it's easy of course to pretend consequentialism isn't a thing in geopolitics, that we are only responsible for the direct violence of our puppets and have no responsibility for any ensuing civil or regional war when those puppets are removed. But the second another 9/11 hits, how quickly the tune changes.
Why was Mossadegh overthrown?
Good post thank you. To steelman Taleb a bit, I don't think he disbelieves the data showing we're more peaceful, rather his point is that Pinker's book would have made a lot of sense based on data, if it were published in 1913.
Very interesting point, but it's also worth pointing out that we lost more lives in the civil war than WW2, so the data may have still been accurate in 1950. And given that there hasn't been a WW3 nor does one seem likely, WW2 looks more like a last gasp on the way to a more peaceful future than a return to normal. But who knows.
"Very interesting point, but it's also worth pointing out that we lost more lives in the civil war than WW2"
That's a very American centric view of the war, which killed tens of millions of people around the world.
I would suggest you enlarge your Overton window to include a multipolar vision. America as the global policeman is going away, probably in your lifetime. Hard no to this: “If anything, we might now be too hesitant to overthrow governments.”
If the dominant power player in the world uses their power for good, then global interventionism is a good thing and vice versa. The US fulfilling that role since the 40’s was generally a net positive for the world, until a little over two decades ago.
US military involvement should only occur, after CAREFUL CONSIDERATION, to achieve a specific/set aim, for the right reasons. Profits, the exportation of ideology, nation building etc are definitely not the right reasons. Doing so based upon lies is despicable. Virtually every military intervention the US undertook, since the first Gulf War, brought zero net positives to the world. All they did was drain America’s resources/national treasure, tarnish our reputation/standing in the world and sacrifice the lives of our best & bravest. Worst of all, we could have accomplished infinitely more by embracing the doctrine of Peace Through Strength.
America’s most powerful/impactful tool for improving the world is undoubtedly economic aid. When used properly, foreign aid and withholding aid become the proverbial carrot and stick.
Unfortunately, the US can’t seem to get this right either. Case in point- Biden and Iran. Since being elected, Biden has lifted sanctions, reopened nuclear talks, gifted them billions in seized funds and what have we gotten in return? Over one thousand dead Israelis, thousands of dead Palestinians and chaos around the world. Iran is universally recognized as the world’s leader in fomenting/exporting terrorism, why on earth should we reward them?
American foreign policy is responsible for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as well. Russia made it crystal clear that Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO was a red line for them and we refused to listen. The color revolution the US initiated, along with a dozen other things over the last decade or so led to that conflict.
Once US foreign policy morphed into a visit from Victoria Nuland meant chaos down the road, we ceased to be beneficial to the world. Once the US started using its military power to unilaterally eliminate government heads, creating a destabilizing power vacuum at the top, we became a threat to the world.
There’s a reason the world is happy with our spiral towards destruction.
Where did you get this idea that because someone sets a red line and you cross them, the crosser is therefore in the wrong? When the line-setter has no right to set that line, the correct action is to tell him to go fuck himself.
Was America wrong when it threatened the Soviets with nuclear destruction if they didn’t pull out of Cuba? No of course not. President Kennedy couldn’t allow any foreign power to park nuclear missile batteries 90 miles from our coast. The USSR crossed America’s red line and Kennedy made it clear to Khrushchev that we considered that an act of war and proceed accordingly. Thankfully for all parties involved, Khrushchev pulled out of Cuba de-escalating the situation.
During the 1990 negotiations to reunify Germany, the US made “iron clad guarantees” to the Russians that NATO would not expand “one inch eastwards.”Starting in the mid 90’s Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, among others, were all admitted into NATO, infuriating the Russians and convincing them of a need for a red line. Once talks began for admitting Ukraine and Georgia, protests escalated to sabre rattling. Russia, just like the US, was not going to allow its enemies to stage forces on its doorsteps.
Russia is a superpower just like America. Their nuclear arsenal is larger than ours and their delivery systems are more advanced than ours. The US/NATO can’t treat them as if they’re dictators from Iraq or backward ideologues from Afghanistan. Every nuclear superpower must be given the respect and deference their armaments demand. Failure to do so risks global annihilation.
Putin’s a bad guy. Russia’s a bad country. They had no right to invade Ukraine but they most certainly have a right to defend themselves, even if that entails taking offensive measures to secure their defense. The US was warned REPEATEDLY, the US and NATO were stockpiling arms/equipment in Ukraine prior to the conflict. A peace deal could have been struck one month into the conflict with the Russians agreeing to withdraw to the positions it held at the start of the invasion, in exchange for a guarantee that Ukraine would not seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.
Sounds reasonable huh? So what happened? Zelensky received a visit from British PM Johnson who told Zelensky to scrap the agreement and stop negotiating with the Russians. This fact alone proves that Russia had a need and a right to establish their line. The US provoked this conflict and kept it going through today, knowing for 6 months to a year that the Ukrainians had little to no chance of winning. 2-3 generations of Ukrainian men have been lost in the meat grinder for nothing. When the next peace treaty is finally inked, the Russians will have proven their commitment to defending their red lines, ability to do so and gained a significant amount of Ukrainian lands. US and NATO military might will suffer another embarrassing defeat.
All because the US provoked a battle that should have never took place. Respect for your adversaries, pragmatic problem solving/compromise and a doctrine of peace through strength works- Trump proved as much.
First, I don't think that the analogy to the Cuban Missile Crisis works - the whole point of the Cold War ending is that the bad old days of little countries being pure chess pieces of the two superpowers is supposed to be over, and sovereign states are supposed to, y'know, actually be sovereign. But even if I *did*, I should rather accept that the US was wrong in the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is tenable, than that Russia is right here, which is not.
Ukrainians have no agency according to you?
Nope, they're entire government has been underwritten by NATO since 2014, and couldn't survive without us.
There were reports immediately after October 7 that the Hamas attackers were working under direct guidance of Iran, but Iran has always denied it, and Blinken himself said he was aware of no such evidence.
A thought: the apparent stupidity of certain dictators is an application of the Peter Principle.
A dictator is a guy who has been repeatedly "promoted" on account of his high degree of competence at one field of endeavor (outmaneuvering domestic political opponents). Unfortunately, many of these skills and talents don't necessarily transfer to economic administration, geopolitical strategy, or military strategy.
Though most dictators are still very good at the "suppressing domestic opponents" part of the game. They're tough to dislodge unless foreign intervention is involved.
Where would Russia be under a liberal democracy today?
Great article, but it's laughable to think Hamas wouldn't have attacked Israel if Trump had been president. It's not as if Hamas has the military power to stop Israel from killing them all, the addition of American military force doesn't do anything to change their situation. Hamas knew they were going to sacrifice vast numbers of their population in this fight, that's part of the point of doing it. Trump saying awful things about Palestinians would have just fueled the fire for exactly what Hamas wants, an all out war between the Muslim and Jewish/Christian world. If he ads a few more rockets to the battle, what's the difference?
It's not as if Biden could actually convince Israel to change anything about the war. Bidens policy has been to say in public that they shouldn't kill too many civilians while also trying to get them more weapons with which to fight the war. The only difference in US action if Trump were president would be for him to say something about how Israel should be killing more civilians and how Jewish Americans should have given him more votes. Nothing material about the US response would have changed.
Trump had some foreign policy successes but mostly served to weaken the ability of the US to project force abroad. He repeatedly abandoned US allies such as the Kurds and Afghan government and everyone knows he would have abandoned Ukraine. He said multiple times that it should belong to Russia. Remember that Russia had already invaded Ukraine while Trump was president and he repeatedly tried to prevent the US from sending them military support but was overriden by congregational Republicans. He's said repeatedly that we should get out of NATO and he certainly wouldn't do anything to stop China from taking Taiwan. Trump does not share your views on furthering the American Empire, he just likes having the power to order the occasional drone strike.
"He repeatedly abandoned US allies such as the Kurds and Afghan government and everyone knows he would have abandoned Ukraine."
So we should have stayed in Afghanistan forever, overthrown Assad?
Definitely -- the U.S. should invade the Ukraine, put the Zelensky regime and assorted neo-nazis on trial for war crimes and international terrorism and force them to adopt democracy and a transparent market economy. Win-win-win.
I'm picturing Blackrock executives enlightening some Ukrainian arms dealer with the wisdom of Von Mises as they nobly "modernize" the economy.
> A hawkish policy on the Middle East makes sense. When it comes to questions surrounding how much to defend Taiwan or Ukraine, the issues involved are complicated by the fact that in each situation the US might find itself in conflict with another nuclear power. But in the Middle East there isn’t a similar reason to not strike hard against those who are hostile to American values or interests.
Pakistan has nukes, and also has crazy Islamist politicans. So the nuclear risk is not zero. Also, there is always the risk of provoking more 9/11-style attacks against the US homeland.
> It’s difficult to believe that Hamas would have undertaken an operation like that of October 7 if Trump was still in office. It’s clear that their entire strategy was based on the West pressuring Israel on human rights. It needed liberals, or quasi-liberals like Bush, to be in power, for it to have a chance of success.
This is true, but it's only one side of the coin. An Israeli government that was totally unbound by human-rights considerations would simply kill or evict all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, which would destroy Hamas. But an Israeli government that truly desired compromise and peace would have (years ago) stopped settlement in the West Bank and continued negotiations with Fatah; this would also have led to the eventual end of Hamas.
Netanyahu and co. have always known this. That's why they deliberately kept Hamas alive; an intransigent counterparty excuses their own intransigence. https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2023/10/27/netanyahus-support-for-hamas-backfired-2/
The right thing for US to do right now, is to fully support Israel going postal on Hamas in Gaza, but conditioned on Israel stopping abuses in the West Bank.
If only Israel gave a shit what we think. Biden has to support them for politeness reasons, you don't want to be the country that didn't offer solidarity after 9/11. But it would be a mistake to think that the support we give Israel translates into any kind of influence over what they do. It clearly never has in the past.
> It clearly never has in the past.
It totally has. Pressure from the Eisenhower administration was instrumental in putting an end to the Suez war, for example.
"And among autocrats, the Chinese are the smart ones. Most dictatorships, and even democracies, are run by people who are much stupider than Xi Jinping."
Xi Jinping also has to juggle competing priorities for China. I think the most obvious one is: do you want to be a world power that can project its power to every continent, or do you want to have a "security ring" of economically well integrated neighboring countries that see their prosperity and stability inherently attached to yours? (for the US think of Canada, Mexico, DR)
Xi seems to have chosen the former considering judging by the obsession with taking control of the South China Sea even if it means ditching any chance of having a good relationship with Vietnam and the Philippines.
"Third world countries are basket cases for a reason, and the few things the leaders of such nations do right are often the result of them being disciplined by international markets, global institutions like the IMF, and the shadow of American coercion."
This also works for America. Trust on America as a benevolent world power depends to a certain degree on the existence of international institutions (UN, security council, Non-Proliferation Treaty) were the US voluntarily participates and subjects itself to their rules thereby showing restraint.
Trust on America as a benevolent world power depends on the US military defending the West. Restraint is, of course, barely hidden appeasement.
The US military doesn't usually deploy in the West, at least since World War II (and no, Latin America is not the West). I actually agree with Richard that third world leaders are on average dumber than developed countries' leaders and American leaders in particular. I just think that restraints (think of constitutional restraints in the case of America) are a good think in general and it's just as good for developed countries' leaders to submit to them also.
Appeasement? Is it appeasing the leaders of basket case countries or their citizens?