At first, no one could imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian war could begin. And yet it began. And now, no one can imagine how it will end. And yet end it will.
War is ultimately about politics. That Ukraine is winning on the battlefield matters because Ukraine is exerting pressure on Russian politics. Tyrants such as Putin exert a certain fascination, because they give the impression that they can do what they like. This is not true, of course; and their regimes are deceptively brittle. The war ends when Ukrainian military victories alter Russian political realities, a process which I believe has begun.
The Ukrainians, let’s face it, have turned out to be stunningly good warriors. They have carried out a series of defensive and now offensive operations that one would like to call “textbook,” but the truth is that those textbooks have not yet been written; and when they are written, the Ukrainian campaign will provide the examples. The have done so with admirable calm and sang-froid, even as their enemy perpetrates horrible crimes and openly campaigns for their destruction as a nation.
Right now, though, we have a certain difficulty seeing how Ukraine gets to victory, even as the Ukrainians advance. This is because many of our imaginations are trapped by a single and rather unlikely variant of how the war ends: with a nuclear detonation. I think we are drawn to this scenario, in part, because we seem to lack other variants, and it feels like an ending.
Using the mushroom cloud for narrative closure, though, generates anxiety and hinders clear thinking. Focusing on that scenario rather than on the more probable ones prevents us from seeing what is actually happening, and from preparing for the more likely possible futures. Indeed, we should never lose sight of how much a Ukrainian victory will improve the world we live in.
snyder is a really good comprehensive source. here’s an interview with him where he touches on a lot of the same points and more. with a callout to measheimer and other realists
a ukrainian drone maker has been collecting and studying russian-used drones in the war. the latest being iranian shaheed/geran’-2. they took them apart, found chinese and american components in there, and passed this to american sanctions commission, to close up the supply.
he also commented on how shaheeds are being used. latest zaporozh’e bombings done with shaheed’s was in a swarm formation, with a preprogrammed changing route to avoid and confuse air defense. a swarm of 12 might look like a single threat to an s-300, which would fire only a single intercept missile. and thus, only 6 out of 12 drones were shot down. i think the next tech advancement will be swarms of drones that take out swarms of loitering drones.
anyways, back to what you posted. the same guy said that comparing the drone tech that ru forces are using to what the AFU is going to start using very shortly, there will be AFU drone strikes on moscow (!) before the end of the year. moscow is 600km from ukraine. that’s 3x longer than the kaluga strike, but AFU is definitely getting there.
Agreed, “we have always been at war with East Asia” can just as easily be “We have never been at war with East Asia, and if you disagree, here’s some polonium.”
in other news, it’s putins’ 70th birthday today. he got a total of 6 congratulatory phone calls from world leaders so far. but the internet (which he does not use) is full of birthday memes. here’s a selection of pro-ukraine ones
Unify the threads, or just make the LC thread “War in Ukraine, Realism, and You” and limit it to noninterventionism discussion. Or call it “Geopolitics 1970s edition.”
