"The international community has an interest in maintaining the territorial integrity norm. We cannot countenance a country taking land from others just because it can."
How should the international community deal with Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, others parts of Syria and parts of Lebanon?
Israel should stay in the Golan heights. The Druze of the Golan strongly prefer to live under Israeli rule than under al-Sharaa. More and more take Israeli citizenship. Al-Sharaa will give it up. Before the war, Netanyahu held talks with Syria on giving up the Golan for peace https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-held-serious-talks-with-assad-on-relinquishing-golan-ex-adviser/ . But given the situation in Syria now, and how it's a somewhat unstable third-world basket case run by a regime that the Druze do not trust, giving the Golan back to Syria would be silly and destabilizing. As part of an Israel-Syria peace deal, Syria should concede the Golan. Better yet, they should agree to sell it. Israel should perhaps pay Syria for that a la Gasden purchase. Syria is a basket case and needs money. Israel should withdraw from other parts of Syria and Syria should join the Abraham Accords. It's understandable that many people doesn't trust al-Sharaa given that he is a former al-Qaeda and given the sectarian violence in Syria. Of course peace would be good.
Israeli occupation of various territories since 1967 is more like the Turkish occupation of Cyprus since 1974 Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara since 1975 or the Armenian occupation of various parts of internationally recognized Azeri territory from 1991-2025 than it is like Putin writing a speech on the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians and then invading and occupying Ukraine with the intent of destroying the Ukrainian nation. The international community doesn't really need to "deal with" these things, as they've been somewhat frozen for decades even though there is still a flare-up of violence. Putin invading Ukraine in 2022 is clearly very different. Even Putin invading Ukraine in 2014 arguably belongs in the first category.
In fact, Nagorno-Karabakh was arguably like the Golan Heights. The Armenians there preferred Armenian rule. Similarly, the Druze in the Golan prefer Israeli rule to al-Sharaa's rule.
Russia would make (and has made) the same kinds of arguments with respect to the territory it is occupying in Ukraine: the "Ukrainian regime" is a threat to Russia, "ethnic Russians" want to be ruled by Russia etc. So from Hanania's perspective, the "international community" ought to be similarly concerned.
Umm do you remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians ? I don't remember anyone in Israel to the left of Smotrich or Ben-Gvir making such an irredentist argument. The settler far-right embraces this irredentism and it sucks, and we're the only ones in Israel to oppose the Trump Gaza deal since they wanted to resettle it. However, everyone else in Israel - the left, center, Haredim, and mainstream right like Netanyahu himself - do not.
Anyway, I do think Russia has a stronger case when it comes to Crimea. Navalny didn't oppose Russia taking Crimea. I don't think Putin has ever said that Ukraine would carry out an October 7 style attack if Russia withdrew. Israel has certainly made that argument about the West Bank. If a better, less corrupt, and less autocratic post-Putin leader comes to power and negotiates with as much good faith as Israel has negotiated with her Arab neighbors, I would love to strike a peace deal that integrates Russia into the family of negotiations, even if Ukraine has to give up Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine. By "better, less corrupt, and less autocratic" I don't mean that he has to be like a Swiss leader. A Russian Orban would be totally fine. I'm not really a big Russia hawk, but it's clear to me at this point that we can't have peace with Putin.
And again, low-IQ third-world Arabs and Ukrainians are completely different populations. They behave differently. You of all people should understand that. People argue that Ukraine would somehow mistreat its Russian speakers and that Ukraine is Nazi when a Russian-speaking Jew is running Ukraine. Meanwhile there are actual massacres like Suweida against the Druze population. It's extremely hard to imagine a Druze or Christian guy running Syria. If a Druze guy won the Syrian election with 90% of the vote, giving back the Golan would be on the table.
Yes, people make "similar arguments" about different populations. So? Sometimes two people make similar arguments about different populations, and one is correct but the other is wrong. Seriously, you of all people should know that. If you say that mass unselected migration of Somalis would be bad for America, people complain that they said the same about Italians and Irish. Maybe, but it was wrong about the Irish and Italians and right about the Somalis. Seriously, I don't understand these dumb blank statist arguments from you of all people. Don't you understand that third world populations are different, and that this is a concern that has to be taken into account?
Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would ultimately result in a giant war of the kind we are seeing now, which would outrage the international community more. The international community is far more outraged about Gaza than about the West Bank. Russian withdrawal from Ukraine would not lead to Ukraine doing a 10/7 style attack against Russia, and a subsequent giant war. The situations are not the same.
"Low-IQ third-world Arabs and Ukrainians are completely different populations."
Basically every Arab country for which we have data has a lower homicide rate than Ukraine (and Russia). Europeans outside the Hajnal line are quite different from those inside it.
OK so Ukraine and Russia have average IQs in the 95-100 range rather than being the 100ish of Northern Europeans. Russia has a marginally higher murder rate than the US and Ukraine's is lower. Perhaps Ukraine's homicide rate is about double the rate for White Americans. Are you going to seriously compare the civilizational and cultural achievements of Southern and Eastern Europeans, and their ability to sustain liberal democracies and otherwise stable societies, with those of Muslim Arabs? There is obviously a massive IQ gap between those two groups. This is not even mentioning the high cousin marriage rates in the Arab Muslim world, the clan-based culture, the different age structure of the population, and so on.
I also don't think the Hajnal Line stuff has really borne out? We have polygenic scores and I heard that apparently it's not a big deal, that there are modest genetic differences but nothing tremendous. Anyway, I am not a huge expert on the Hajnal line and probably shouldn't get into an argument with the editor of Aporia about it.
Looking at national homicide rates is misleading. For instance, Israel has a low homicide rate, but it's higher than that of Egypt and Jordan. However, this is not because of Israeli Jews who have a very low murder rate. Israeli Arabs are 20% of the population but commit 80% of the murder, so their murder rate is comparable to America or Russia and definitely higher than Ukraine's. This is even though Israeli Arabs are as rich as Greeks and are much richer than Ukrainians. The reason is that Israel is a liberal democracy that does not have the death penalty, so there is less deterrence against crime. This is also why South Africa and Jamaica are so dangerous. They are two of the richest black countries and are also two of the most free. When you have a sub-Saharan African population in a free country where they don't just execute criminals you get a lot of crime. So anyway, these Arab countries can just do extremely illiberal things to deal with criminals.
France doesn't publish crime statistics but I would guess that French Arabs are overrepresented among crime. It seems that it is less true of British Muslims. I read your post about that. British Muslims generally aren't Arabs. It's not a "Muslim" thing but more of an Arab thing. Pakistan sucks for many reasons, but it's not known for exceptionally high murder rates. Malay Muslims don't have such high IQ but don't do a lot of crime. I don't think Iranians or Turks, who are by the way smarter than Arabs, do a lot of crime.
Looking at the US homicide rate and drawing inferences about the violent propensities of white Americans would be erroneous because we know the US rate is driven by black Americans. But Ukraine does not have any such minority group that drives its high homicide rate.
Morocco and Algeria have abolished the death penalty in practice, but both have lower homicide rates than Ukraine (and the differences are not even particularly small).
1. Israel's occupations occurred as part of defensive wars that Israel won. And Israel claimed since that those territories, if returned, will again be used to attack Israel.
2. The legal status of the West Bank & Gaza has been sort of an international law grey area. There were tentative plans on how to partition the land, but those never came to pass (partly by Palestinians refusing to accept the UN plan).
The international norm is about established and clear borders. Israel occupations are grey area.
The only clear case are the settlements. But this is different from occupation/war in a couple ways.
1. Well, Israel started the Six-Day War. But Israel did explicitly say that if Nasser blockaded the Straits of Tiran that they would consider this a casus belli. And then Nasser did that. A blockade is an act of war.
2. Yes, it is relevant that Israel offered various peace deals and the Palestinians said no.
Yeah, that's right it's a gray area. See also North Cyprus, Armenia-Azerbijian, Western Sahara, Abkhazia, and so on. No one is really outraged about these.
Yes the isolated settlements are not good. The ones just over the Green Line are obviously not a real problem.
Exactly. All your examples are various status quo of grey area situations, and nobody - reasonably - gets involved out worked out much.
The Putin invasion of Ukraine was a clear breach of long established international borders, and without any normal justification even. Ofc, complicated excuses and logic can always be concocted. But give me a break
You will always run into a mountain of "Hasbara" when you try to tell the truth about Israel and the Palestinians.
In case you didn't know, Hasbara is politely called..." the a government-led effort to explain Israel's actions, origins" What it plainly is Israeli state propaganda, that glorifies Jews and dehumanizes Palestinians. Hasbara is a Jewish supremacists mythology.
Hasbara has been employed since Israel's early days. It is taught in synagogues. It is promoted by Israeli lobbies. It is deeply believed by American Jews and non Jews alike.
It has been an ongoing narrative since 1948, that has dominated the public in the west's perception of the state of Israel. It has been especially successful in the US. The average person in the US, if they know any of the story and history of the conflict, knows the Israeli version. Hasbara has been aped in our establishment media. It's been artfully presented in our cinema and literature. It is repeated by our politicians
Hasbara get's massive exposure. The truth gets buried and discredited by unfair associations.
Even most Americans who have sympathy with the Palestinians, are very under educated about the truth. Most don't realize how consistently one sided, with Israel as the aggressor, the conflict has been since the start.
A bit cynical, but probably a good idea. Not sure it will happen unless the Europeans get on board with the idea since Trump (or Vance) is not keen on helping Ukraine at all. I think it's unlikely that Ukraine could pull it off alone.
But I wonder if Russia might just end up doing the exact same thing if it did happen, and you'll end up with one Kenyan man fighting for the Ukranians, while his cousin got hired to fight for the Russians.
As for the argument that Africans would be bad at modern warfare, I disagree. Africans and other 3rd world folks seem to adapt to technology quite fast - smart phones, automobiles, and other tech have all become ubiquitious in the last few years.
Russians are bad at fighting because of their leaderships' unwillingness to empower soldiers at the squad and individual level to make decisions - as well as their reliance on mass attack strategies. If Africans are trained and manged by Ukraine or westerners they would likely do well. If they are trained and managed by Russians then they would suck just as much as the Russians do.
> But I wonder if Russia might just end up doing the exact same thing if it did happen, and you'll end up with one Kenyan man fighting for the Ukranians, while his cousin got hired to fight for the Russians.
It's possible, but I suspect in this scenario, the Kenyans would greatly prefer to fight for the Ukrainians, since I doubt Ukraine will be as callous and spendthrift with their lives as Putin would be.
Ukraine already has a foreign legion, the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine. The wages are high enough to be competitive with the rates mentioned for UAE soldiers, and there is the potential for citizenship at the war's end (also very good for the Nigerians, etc, who would be fighting for freedom against Putin's evil regime, and it is much easier to convince people to accept immigrants who literally risked their lives fighting for their country's independence).
It seems like the biggest problem is that many African governments actively prevent their citizens from joining; Algeria and Nigeria both completely ban it. Presumably, a bit of western pressure might be enough to break this, at least in some cases.
Okay, TAANSTFL. Who is going to pay for this, cheap or not? Americans don't want to pay for Africans to have cheap medications for common diseases let alone to fight as mercenaries for Ukraine. Can Ukraine finance this without taking out a bunch of loans? Who supplies the loans? Europe?
Also, aren't you basically training a bunch of guys from extremely unstable, violent parts of the world how to do cutting edge warfare with drones? I can imagine any number of ways that might not have the outcome you anticipate.
Some sort of sign on bonus with an open invitation for anyone from anywhere to come fight for Ukraine sounds useful, but don't they already have something like this?
Of course, there could possibly be an issue if the African stick around after the war is over. That shouldn't be too much of a problem, just give them temporary visas or something.
I think the Koreans were probably useful for a front where Russia was trying to (reasonably) quickly overrun an enemy who was not very well entrenched. In contrast, on the eastern front, it seems that technology and coordination of small teams play much bigger roles. The Africans’ lack of familiarity with technology and poor ability to interface with Ukrainian leadership would make them minimally effective. The same is likely true on the Russian side, which is why Koreans had a limited use case. They were prepared for an older style of warfare where you need large numbers of infantry, not a small number of well trained soldiers and some drones.
I am not an expert on this stuff, just musing (obviously). But I think the different nature of the fighting along the main front may explain these decisions just as well as the ones laid out in the post.
I understand Russia used the mutual defense pact with North Korea as a cover for the deployment of North Koreans troops in Kursk. The action was presented as a defensive campaign. Putin couldn’t use or Jong-un couldn’t endorse the same excuse for a clearly offensive campaign in Ukraine.
I propose that the CIA (under the aegis of the National Endowment for Democracy) organize a battalion of veterans from the Syrian Civil War to fight in Ukraine and their name would be the Moderate Rebels after Aaron Mate's podcast.
This is a good idea. Why just Africans? Why not help the poor regardless of race ? Ukraine needs a foreign legion.
They should have divisions based on language. Spanish, Arabic, the more than a dozen African languages, Cambodian, whatever... (I bet you a good part of their pay could come from private donors, large and small )
That in your dream you limited your call to arm White Ukraine with only poor Black people says something. But to make this proposal on a blog you had to realize that imagery in your dream would be provocative. I think it's you baiting liberals and giving cons some red meat.
The sad thing about the way you did it is... it's a good idea. But instead of trying to present it in a way that might sway liberals to Ukraine's case, you set a trap for them that many will not be able to resist. They will ignore your wisdom in your general idea, and reflexivity oppose you and your idea on the grounds that you are a bigot.
You placed owing libs over your own admirable dream of getting Ukraine the help it needs and giving third worlders a path out of lifelong poverty.
I understand that Russia has been running PR campaigns in Africa contrasting themselves favorably with other Western powers, and those PR campaigns have worked surprisingly well. If Ukraine starts hiring Africans, Russia might be able to do so in even greater numbers.
On the other hand... money talks, and this is a method that Europe could use to leverage its paper GDP advantage over Russia into battlefield advantage?
Reversing Russian territorial gains would come with a significant risk of nuclear war. Especially if that goes as far as the Ukrainians would like and they push toward the pre 2014 borders.
I just hope you keep your sense of humor and fair play when it's the Chinese, say, who pay others to kill Americans, and some Chinese Substacker is writing "here's a plan to maximize the slaughter of Americans, and here's what weapons we can send the [insert your name of enemies of freedom here] so that they can strike deeper and cause even more victims." It's all fun and games when it's us euros being killed, we'll see how much you enjoy it when it's in your own continent.
I must say that I thought about this solution, but I could not bring myself to proposing it. It takes Richard Hanania’s intellectual courage to come up publicly with it. (I guess he could have spared us the aside on whites greatly enjoying blacks’ physical strength feats, which is a bit reminiscent of gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome)
"The international community has an interest in maintaining the territorial integrity norm. We cannot countenance a country taking land from others just because it can."
How should the international community deal with Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, others parts of Syria and parts of Lebanon?
As for the West Bank, it would be nice to have Jordan take over the West Bank, since Jordan was ruling it prior to 1967. An independent Palestinian state while in principle not a bad idea and something Israel has offered several times (see https://thirdnarrative.org/palestinians-still-reject-clinton-parameters/ and https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-pa-rejects-clinton-parameters-20-years-later-opinion-658864 ) would be an obvious Gaza-style disaster and lead to more violence. Unlike Ukrainians, Palestinians are low-IQ and violent third-worlders. See this article https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-palestine-cant-deliver-peace by Richard. In the absence of any viable peace process, Israel needs to continue to occupy the West Bank. Gaza is notably absence from your list, but the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza has been a total disaster.
Israel's occupation of Southern Lebanon should end when Hezbollah disarms. Hezbollah has not fully disarmed, in explicit violation of UNSC 1701 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1701 . Lebanon should join the Abraham Accords and normalize with Israel.
Israel should stay in the Golan heights. The Druze of the Golan strongly prefer to live under Israeli rule than under al-Sharaa. More and more take Israeli citizenship. Al-Sharaa will give it up. Before the war, Netanyahu held talks with Syria on giving up the Golan for peace https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-held-serious-talks-with-assad-on-relinquishing-golan-ex-adviser/ . But given the situation in Syria now, and how it's a somewhat unstable third-world basket case run by a regime that the Druze do not trust, giving the Golan back to Syria would be silly and destabilizing. As part of an Israel-Syria peace deal, Syria should concede the Golan. Better yet, they should agree to sell it. Israel should perhaps pay Syria for that a la Gasden purchase. Syria is a basket case and needs money. Israel should withdraw from other parts of Syria and Syria should join the Abraham Accords. It's understandable that many people doesn't trust al-Sharaa given that he is a former al-Qaeda and given the sectarian violence in Syria. Of course peace would be good.
Israeli occupation of various territories since 1967 is more like the Turkish occupation of Cyprus since 1974 Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara since 1975 or the Armenian occupation of various parts of internationally recognized Azeri territory from 1991-2025 than it is like Putin writing a speech on the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians and then invading and occupying Ukraine with the intent of destroying the Ukrainian nation. The international community doesn't really need to "deal with" these things, as they've been somewhat frozen for decades even though there is still a flare-up of violence. Putin invading Ukraine in 2022 is clearly very different. Even Putin invading Ukraine in 2014 arguably belongs in the first category.
In fact, Nagorno-Karabakh was arguably like the Golan Heights. The Armenians there preferred Armenian rule. Similarly, the Druze in the Golan prefer Israeli rule to al-Sharaa's rule.
Russia would make (and has made) the same kinds of arguments with respect to the territory it is occupying in Ukraine: the "Ukrainian regime" is a threat to Russia, "ethnic Russians" want to be ruled by Russia etc. So from Hanania's perspective, the "international community" ought to be similarly concerned.
Umm do you remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians ? I don't remember anyone in Israel to the left of Smotrich or Ben-Gvir making such an irredentist argument. The settler far-right embraces this irredentism and it sucks, and we're the only ones in Israel to oppose the Trump Gaza deal since they wanted to resettle it. However, everyone else in Israel - the left, center, Haredim, and mainstream right like Netanyahu himself - do not.
Anyway, I do think Russia has a stronger case when it comes to Crimea. Navalny didn't oppose Russia taking Crimea. I don't think Putin has ever said that Ukraine would carry out an October 7 style attack if Russia withdrew. Israel has certainly made that argument about the West Bank. If a better, less corrupt, and less autocratic post-Putin leader comes to power and negotiates with as much good faith as Israel has negotiated with her Arab neighbors, I would love to strike a peace deal that integrates Russia into the family of negotiations, even if Ukraine has to give up Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine. By "better, less corrupt, and less autocratic" I don't mean that he has to be like a Swiss leader. A Russian Orban would be totally fine. I'm not really a big Russia hawk, but it's clear to me at this point that we can't have peace with Putin.
And again, low-IQ third-world Arabs and Ukrainians are completely different populations. They behave differently. You of all people should understand that. People argue that Ukraine would somehow mistreat its Russian speakers and that Ukraine is Nazi when a Russian-speaking Jew is running Ukraine. Meanwhile there are actual massacres like Suweida against the Druze population. It's extremely hard to imagine a Druze or Christian guy running Syria. If a Druze guy won the Syrian election with 90% of the vote, giving back the Golan would be on the table.
Yes, people make "similar arguments" about different populations. So? Sometimes two people make similar arguments about different populations, and one is correct but the other is wrong. Seriously, you of all people should know that. If you say that mass unselected migration of Somalis would be bad for America, people complain that they said the same about Italians and Irish. Maybe, but it was wrong about the Irish and Italians and right about the Somalis. Seriously, I don't understand these dumb blank statist arguments from you of all people. Don't you understand that third world populations are different, and that this is a concern that has to be taken into account?
Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would ultimately result in a giant war of the kind we are seeing now, which would outrage the international community more. The international community is far more outraged about Gaza than about the West Bank. Russian withdrawal from Ukraine would not lead to Ukraine doing a 10/7 style attack against Russia, and a subsequent giant war. The situations are not the same.
"Low-IQ third-world Arabs and Ukrainians are completely different populations."
Basically every Arab country for which we have data has a lower homicide rate than Ukraine (and Russia). Europeans outside the Hajnal line are quite different from those inside it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#/media/File:World_map_of_homicide_rates_per_100,000_people.png
OK so Ukraine and Russia have average IQs in the 95-100 range rather than being the 100ish of Northern Europeans. Russia has a marginally higher murder rate than the US and Ukraine's is lower. Perhaps Ukraine's homicide rate is about double the rate for White Americans. Are you going to seriously compare the civilizational and cultural achievements of Southern and Eastern Europeans, and their ability to sustain liberal democracies and otherwise stable societies, with those of Muslim Arabs? There is obviously a massive IQ gap between those two groups. This is not even mentioning the high cousin marriage rates in the Arab Muslim world, the clan-based culture, the different age structure of the population, and so on.
I also don't think the Hajnal Line stuff has really borne out? We have polygenic scores and I heard that apparently it's not a big deal, that there are modest genetic differences but nothing tremendous. Anyway, I am not a huge expert on the Hajnal line and probably shouldn't get into an argument with the editor of Aporia about it.
Looking at national homicide rates is misleading. For instance, Israel has a low homicide rate, but it's higher than that of Egypt and Jordan. However, this is not because of Israeli Jews who have a very low murder rate. Israeli Arabs are 20% of the population but commit 80% of the murder, so their murder rate is comparable to America or Russia and definitely higher than Ukraine's. This is even though Israeli Arabs are as rich as Greeks and are much richer than Ukrainians. The reason is that Israel is a liberal democracy that does not have the death penalty, so there is less deterrence against crime. This is also why South Africa and Jamaica are so dangerous. They are two of the richest black countries and are also two of the most free. When you have a sub-Saharan African population in a free country where they don't just execute criminals you get a lot of crime. So anyway, these Arab countries can just do extremely illiberal things to deal with criminals.
France doesn't publish crime statistics but I would guess that French Arabs are overrepresented among crime. It seems that it is less true of British Muslims. I read your post about that. British Muslims generally aren't Arabs. It's not a "Muslim" thing but more of an Arab thing. Pakistan sucks for many reasons, but it's not known for exceptionally high murder rates. Malay Muslims don't have such high IQ but don't do a lot of crime. I don't think Iranians or Turks, who are by the way smarter than Arabs, do a lot of crime.
Looking at the US homicide rate and drawing inferences about the violent propensities of white Americans would be erroneous because we know the US rate is driven by black Americans. But Ukraine does not have any such minority group that drives its high homicide rate.
Morocco and Algeria have abolished the death penalty in practice, but both have lower homicide rates than Ukraine (and the differences are not even particularly small).
1. Israel's occupations occurred as part of defensive wars that Israel won. And Israel claimed since that those territories, if returned, will again be used to attack Israel.
2. The legal status of the West Bank & Gaza has been sort of an international law grey area. There were tentative plans on how to partition the land, but those never came to pass (partly by Palestinians refusing to accept the UN plan).
The international norm is about established and clear borders. Israel occupations are grey area.
The only clear case are the settlements. But this is different from occupation/war in a couple ways.
1. Well, Israel started the Six-Day War. But Israel did explicitly say that if Nasser blockaded the Straits of Tiran that they would consider this a casus belli. And then Nasser did that. A blockade is an act of war.
2. Yes, it is relevant that Israel offered various peace deals and the Palestinians said no.
Yeah, that's right it's a gray area. See also North Cyprus, Armenia-Azerbijian, Western Sahara, Abkhazia, and so on. No one is really outraged about these.
Yes the isolated settlements are not good. The ones just over the Green Line are obviously not a real problem.
Exactly. All your examples are various status quo of grey area situations, and nobody - reasonably - gets involved out worked out much.
The Putin invasion of Ukraine was a clear breach of long established international borders, and without any normal justification even. Ofc, complicated excuses and logic can always be concocted. But give me a break
His reasoning was that the situation of Russians in Donbas was not dissimilar to the situation of Albanians in Kosovo. Which is not a bad point.
You will always run into a mountain of "Hasbara" when you try to tell the truth about Israel and the Palestinians.
In case you didn't know, Hasbara is politely called..." the a government-led effort to explain Israel's actions, origins" What it plainly is Israeli state propaganda, that glorifies Jews and dehumanizes Palestinians. Hasbara is a Jewish supremacists mythology.
Hasbara has been employed since Israel's early days. It is taught in synagogues. It is promoted by Israeli lobbies. It is deeply believed by American Jews and non Jews alike.
It has been an ongoing narrative since 1948, that has dominated the public in the west's perception of the state of Israel. It has been especially successful in the US. The average person in the US, if they know any of the story and history of the conflict, knows the Israeli version. Hasbara has been aped in our establishment media. It's been artfully presented in our cinema and literature. It is repeated by our politicians
Hasbara get's massive exposure. The truth gets buried and discredited by unfair associations.
Even most Americans who have sympathy with the Palestinians, are very under educated about the truth. Most don't realize how consistently one sided, with Israel as the aggressor, the conflict has been since the start.
A bit cynical, but probably a good idea. Not sure it will happen unless the Europeans get on board with the idea since Trump (or Vance) is not keen on helping Ukraine at all. I think it's unlikely that Ukraine could pull it off alone.
But I wonder if Russia might just end up doing the exact same thing if it did happen, and you'll end up with one Kenyan man fighting for the Ukranians, while his cousin got hired to fight for the Russians.
As for the argument that Africans would be bad at modern warfare, I disagree. Africans and other 3rd world folks seem to adapt to technology quite fast - smart phones, automobiles, and other tech have all become ubiquitious in the last few years.
Russians are bad at fighting because of their leaderships' unwillingness to empower soldiers at the squad and individual level to make decisions - as well as their reliance on mass attack strategies. If Africans are trained and manged by Ukraine or westerners they would likely do well. If they are trained and managed by Russians then they would suck just as much as the Russians do.
> But I wonder if Russia might just end up doing the exact same thing if it did happen, and you'll end up with one Kenyan man fighting for the Ukranians, while his cousin got hired to fight for the Russians.
It's possible, but I suspect in this scenario, the Kenyans would greatly prefer to fight for the Ukrainians, since I doubt Ukraine will be as callous and spendthrift with their lives as Putin would be.
Totally agree. The Russian military is a meat grinder.
Ukraine already has a foreign legion, the International Legion for the Defence of Ukraine. The wages are high enough to be competitive with the rates mentioned for UAE soldiers, and there is the potential for citizenship at the war's end (also very good for the Nigerians, etc, who would be fighting for freedom against Putin's evil regime, and it is much easier to convince people to accept immigrants who literally risked their lives fighting for their country's independence).
It seems like the biggest problem is that many African governments actively prevent their citizens from joining; Algeria and Nigeria both completely ban it. Presumably, a bit of western pressure might be enough to break this, at least in some cases.
Okay, TAANSTFL. Who is going to pay for this, cheap or not? Americans don't want to pay for Africans to have cheap medications for common diseases let alone to fight as mercenaries for Ukraine. Can Ukraine finance this without taking out a bunch of loans? Who supplies the loans? Europe?
Also, aren't you basically training a bunch of guys from extremely unstable, violent parts of the world how to do cutting edge warfare with drones? I can imagine any number of ways that might not have the outcome you anticipate.
Some sort of sign on bonus with an open invitation for anyone from anywhere to come fight for Ukraine sounds useful, but don't they already have something like this?
Of course, there could possibly be an issue if the African stick around after the war is over. That shouldn't be too much of a problem, just give them temporary visas or something.
Pretty sure the possibility of immigration is a big part of why this would work not just the money
I laughed at the Ken Burns reference.
I think the Koreans were probably useful for a front where Russia was trying to (reasonably) quickly overrun an enemy who was not very well entrenched. In contrast, on the eastern front, it seems that technology and coordination of small teams play much bigger roles. The Africans’ lack of familiarity with technology and poor ability to interface with Ukrainian leadership would make them minimally effective. The same is likely true on the Russian side, which is why Koreans had a limited use case. They were prepared for an older style of warfare where you need large numbers of infantry, not a small number of well trained soldiers and some drones.
I am not an expert on this stuff, just musing (obviously). But I think the different nature of the fighting along the main front may explain these decisions just as well as the ones laid out in the post.
I understand Russia used the mutual defense pact with North Korea as a cover for the deployment of North Koreans troops in Kursk. The action was presented as a defensive campaign. Putin couldn’t use or Jong-un couldn’t endorse the same excuse for a clearly offensive campaign in Ukraine.
I propose that the CIA (under the aegis of the National Endowment for Democracy) organize a battalion of veterans from the Syrian Civil War to fight in Ukraine and their name would be the Moderate Rebels after Aaron Mate's podcast.
What would Richard Hoste say about this proposal? Well, he'd probably bring up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dingo
This is a good idea. Why just Africans? Why not help the poor regardless of race ? Ukraine needs a foreign legion.
They should have divisions based on language. Spanish, Arabic, the more than a dozen African languages, Cambodian, whatever... (I bet you a good part of their pay could come from private donors, large and small )
That in your dream you limited your call to arm White Ukraine with only poor Black people says something. But to make this proposal on a blog you had to realize that imagery in your dream would be provocative. I think it's you baiting liberals and giving cons some red meat.
The sad thing about the way you did it is... it's a good idea. But instead of trying to present it in a way that might sway liberals to Ukraine's case, you set a trap for them that many will not be able to resist. They will ignore your wisdom in your general idea, and reflexivity oppose you and your idea on the grounds that you are a bigot.
You placed owing libs over your own admirable dream of getting Ukraine the help it needs and giving third worlders a path out of lifelong poverty.
This is a ridiculous swing and miss.
"But Africans in particular would pose more of a PR nightmare for Putin than for Ukraine."
Lol, no. He would not care about that at all. It would be a PR nightmare for Ursula von der Leyen and the rest of the woke EU chickenhawks.
I understand that Russia has been running PR campaigns in Africa contrasting themselves favorably with other Western powers, and those PR campaigns have worked surprisingly well. If Ukraine starts hiring Africans, Russia might be able to do so in even greater numbers.
On the other hand... money talks, and this is a method that Europe could use to leverage its paper GDP advantage over Russia into battlefield advantage?
I did find this video of Nigerians who clamored to fight for Ukraine early in the war: https://old.reddit.com/r/Nigeria/comments/t7znqj/nigerian_youths_stormed_ukrainian_embassy_in/
Reversing Russian territorial gains would come with a significant risk of nuclear war. Especially if that goes as far as the Ukrainians would like and they push toward the pre 2014 borders.
Brilliant- worth trying!
I just hope you keep your sense of humor and fair play when it's the Chinese, say, who pay others to kill Americans, and some Chinese Substacker is writing "here's a plan to maximize the slaughter of Americans, and here's what weapons we can send the [insert your name of enemies of freedom here] so that they can strike deeper and cause even more victims." It's all fun and games when it's us euros being killed, we'll see how much you enjoy it when it's in your own continent.
I must say that I thought about this solution, but I could not bring myself to proposing it. It takes Richard Hanania’s intellectual courage to come up publicly with it. (I guess he could have spared us the aside on whites greatly enjoying blacks’ physical strength feats, which is a bit reminiscent of gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome)