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Comment by throwaway22032 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway22032

I don't really understand what the endgame of the sanctions and various actions are here.

The idea that the populace will rise up seems like a super high risk maneuver - it's like going all in. Like let's say it's X% Putin isn't in power next year. What happens in the other 100-X% case now they have nothing left to lose?

Is the idea that we just say "right, that's it, Russia is isolated forever now" and there we are? e.g. "we" showed that trade doesn't work, so instead we go for a kind of indefinite containment strategy?

It just feels like a really stupid path to go down in my view because once you eliminate interdependence via trade you've now removed another barrier to Russia just deciding to take another country.

Sure, NATO, MAD and all of that - but all of that was already there anyway.

Once you get to the point at which the Russian state sees loss of their own territory as being a declaration of war, I don't see anything other than full blown WW3 being on the table. If anyone tries to reclaim Crimea, the Donbass, or in a few weeks maybe other parts of Ukraine-now-Russia by force, SHTF.

I feel like all of this is getting lost in accusations of propaganda or being on the right side of history or whatever else. There seems to be no realistic climbdown being presented, if Russia fully pull out tomorrow, what do they get back and when?

Are governments even in control of this any more or has Moloch taken it and gone for a run?

View on HN

This is going to be a really out-there take on this, but what if, instead of pride and posturing, the Russian government changed their course because they realized what an awful thing this is for the Russian civilians they purportedly represent?

Replace Russia with North Korea and ask the same question.

Autocrats can hold power for a very long time with the asymmetric tools of oppression and control we have that are only getting more advanced with each passing version upgrade.

And the more we cut a country and its people off from the rest of the world, the easier it is for the autocrat to maintain control.

North Korea only exists because the Chinese government wills it. Maybe we are trading Russia for Taiwan to the Chinese with the option on an uprising as best case.

71% support the war. 71% have never traveled abroad. They watch government tv, trust Putin and trust propaganda. Most of them are on a very low wage, have got next to zero savings, financially illiterate, don’t know any foreign languages.

71% welcomes all sorts of isolation, sanctions. They don’t care if tomorrow all western companies shut down business in Russia. “Iran has coped, so do we”.

All currently imposed sanctions hurt neither Putin nor his “electoral base”.

Around 20% of the population in Russia are intelligent and educated people who don’t support that shit. Just because it is absolute bonkers to invade another country.

Those 20-25% are badly beaten by sanctions. And they are fleeing Russia, or trying to restructure their businesses and lives in the new distopian reality.

The majority of what is being imposed on Russia right now affects the vulnerable middle class in Russia. And they have two options: immigrate or (if immigration is not an option) shut their mouth and deal with the orwellian reality.

> 71% welcomes all sorts of isolation, sanctions. They don’t care if tomorrow all western companies shut down business in Russia. “Iran has coped, so do we”.

Yeah, this is strictly not true.

Economic isolation is the harshest move you can do short of direct military conflict. It may be that the right answer to military is military, but I'm okay with sanctions as a buffer before troops on the ground.

As for WW3, what kind of WW3 do you imagine? What kind of multi-system war would that be? One where China and Saudi Arabia is standing with Russia? If Russia flies nukes then they will lose what little support they have in the world.

What alternatives, other than sanctions, do you think would be better?

It's the endgame I'm concerned with, the inevitable peace treaty, whether that's in a week or a century. Not the actions being taken at present.

I suppose really all of this stuff takes place behind closed doors anyway and what we're seeing on the news is total bollocks.

Russia and Japan still do not have a peace treaty from WW2.

This can go on for a very long time.

My impression is that Russia was disappointed that the allies didn't invade Japan so they could grab that up too.

See also Manchuria:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria

Officially reversing the post-coup additions to the Ukrainian Constitution that make direct overtures to joining NATO?

Russia has made this clear since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They invaded Ukraine after the Ukrainian coup in 2014. In theory, this made it impossible for Ukraine to join NATO. And yet here they are pushing (or being pushed by the US) to join NATO, despite knowing this will 100% begin WWIII.

So yes, the answer is what it always was. Ukraine can't join NATO, if they want peace with Russia. This is not a mystery.

What is the action that you are suggesting?

It's in my last sentence. Ukraine can never be allowed to join NATO by anybody who hopes to avoid WWIII.

"Look what you made me do baby, you know I love you so much I just can't handle it when you talk to other alliances."

You are arguing that Ukrainians are to be denied self determination?

Even Boris Johnson admits in his op-ed that NATO membership was never in the cards for Ukraine. [1] At some point we need to be realistic when talking about these issues. If you disagree, you don't need to tell HN anything; start with Boris Johnson instead.

[1]: https://nyti.ms/3HJtyuv

Nobody should take Boris Johnson's word at face value.

It's sort of the reality of geopolitics though. How would the US respond to Mexico joining some adversarial pact with China?

And keep in mind the Ukrainian constitution forbade this as well, until the coup/revolution in 2014, and the further laws passed recently bringing this closer to reality all but guaranteed a Russian response.

> How would the US respond to Mexico joining some adversarial pact with China?

I do not think the US would invade Mexico as a result. How do you think the US would respond?

There is 0% chance that the US would not respond to eliminate that adversarial pact, with violence if necessary. The US just wrapped up two 20 year wars, one of which had nothing to do with anything.

And yet it is Russia invading and killing its neighbors as we speak, not the US (which admittedly is quite far from perfect too).

As someone who lived under Soviet occupation, we never had any doubt which one is the evil empire. Joining NATO is just good sense for countries unlucky enough to be geographically close to Russia. One does not just live next to Mordor.

>Joining NATO is just good sense for countries unlucky enough to be geographically close to Russia.

The issue is for the good of the world, they can't be allowed to join NATO. If the price to pay to avoid WWIII is that Ukraine just doesn't join NATO, that's worth it. It worked for years. Clearly Russia views it as a direct threat, since NATO is really just an extension of the US military.

The price to stop a madman with nukes and drunk with power increases with time and appeasements. You may hope that sacrificing people and countries now to his insane desires will buy the rest of the world time, but in reality that time will be used in the dictator's favor since he is the one with a terrible purpose: getting to you.

The price to stop Putin in 2014 would've been a local war with NATO losses. The price to stop him now is to risk walking the nuclear line. The price to stop him in another 10 years will be guaranteed nuclear war.

>The price to stop Putin in 2014 would've been a local war with NATO losses.

The price in 2014 was just to not overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine, and rewrite the Constitution to change their stance on joining NATO. What is the value in skipping past that part and pretending it doesn't matter?

Oh you mean the government that won the elections promising to bring Ukraine into Europe, then made a full 180 into Russia's waiting arms - thus proving itself Putin's puppet and betrayer of its people? The same government Putin wants so badly to reinstate that he is willing to bomb women and children for it?!

No, Ukrainians knew why they took it down. Eastern European people are not so easily fooled, we see quite easily through Russian deception and propaganda.

Politicians lie all the time, that doesn't legitimize having a coup. You throw them out at the next election if you don't like how they ran the country. That is how democracy works.

Invading peaceful countries, bombing innocent women and children and threatening nuclear apocalypse is how Russian "democracy" works.

Many would say the same thing about US democracy, would they not?

Sure they would say it, but none of them would be willing to live under Russian occupation.

what do you think the logic of the Cold War was? It was exactly this. Economic isolation and forcing them into a military arms race worked once. And Russia today is no match for the Soviet Union.

We've had threats of nuclear annihilation and proxy wars literally for decades, the world didn't start in the 90s. Go watch some TV commercials from the 70s and 80s.(https://youtu.be/F0OPVi90-lg), this is how most of the latter half of the 20th century looked like.

That was when China had a GDP of $400B, as opposed to now ($15T).

So? It's not China that's marching on Kyiv.

how can you say that when they are about to annex taiwan?

Give them russia instead

and we're talking about a confrontation with Russia right now, not with China. If China wants to pay the bill for Russia's adventures they're free to do so, but from their ambivalent reaction it's pretty obvious that they're not to keen on it either. The West is 50% of the world's economy, Russia 2%. China knows this.

There's no reason to instinctively flinch every time someone in the Kremlin or in Beijing throws a tantrum. Leadership in China and Russia responds to strength and making countries pay a price for moving borders violently is going to make the world more stable.

The US and Europe aren't going to get nuked, where do you think the children of all those leaders live right now? You think they're gonna glass their own kids in those fancy apartments in Rotterdam, London or New York? It's just bluster.

... but Russia and China are 100% synergistic. Russia has natural resources, which China needs. Russia is 11% of the world's land area.

China is getting to the point where it doesn't need the West, but it definitely needs resources to feed growth.

The Logic of the cold war was to enrich a ton of politically connected companies. Whom I am sure will be right there to make a shit ton more money off the American Tax Payer, Present and Future

> Like let's say it's 50% Putin isn't in power next year

The world doesn't care who's in power so much as we care about what they do.

>Is the idea that we just say "right, that's it, Russia is isolated forever now" and there we are?

The idea is negative reinforcement. You get the belt until you stop doing the bad thing. Whether it's Putin or some other person, as long as they continue bombing, we continue sanctions. When they stop, we will likely stop. In fact, us stopping and them stopping will likely be brokered in a single deal.

> e.g. "we" showed that trade doesn't work, so instead we go for a kind of indefinite containment strategy?

Trade works just fine. It works so well, that not having it is a punishment.

> It just feels like a really stupid path to go down in my view because once you eliminate interdependence via trade you've now removed another barrier to Russia just deciding to take another country.

It won't stop hurting the Russian economy. Trade isn't just a bilateral political tool, it has real benefits to both parties. No matter how long you go without it, you will miss it.

> Once you get to the point at which the Russian state sees loss of their own territory as being a declaration of war, I don't see anything other than full blown WW3 being on the table. If anyone tries to reclaim Crimea, the Donbass, or in a few weeks maybe other parts of Ukraine-now-Russia by force, SHTF.

That's not really an action the western world is taking, so not sure what the criticism here is. "Russia has nukes, so if they want something we have to let them take it"?

> I feel like all of this is getting lost in accusations of propaganda or being on the right side of history or whatever else. There seems to be no realistic climbdown being presented, if Russia fully pull out tomorrow, what do they get back and when?

There is a ton of propaganda, but there are two very obvious climbdowns. Either Russia backs down, and so does the western world, or they don't and they continue to pay a huge economic price for an indeterminant (but likely not indefinite) amount of time. I'd bet my money we wind up in one of those two scenarios.

> Are governments even in control of this any more or has Moloch taken it and gone for a run?

I don't get the reference, but I don't think things are in as much of a tailspin as you seem to think. I could definitely be wrong, but I don't see a good case for that at the moment.

> When they stop, we will likely stop. In fact, us stopping and them stopping will likely be brokered in a single deal.

The devil is in the details. What does "us stopping and them stopping will likely be brokered in a single deal" mean? What about the scenario where Russia doesn't care about the West and continues to occupy Ukraine for months, maybe years, in the future? What happens if Ukraine capitulates? What are our answers for every scenario that could potentially happen? Right now I see a lot of "we apply pressure Until They Stop (TM)" but I don't see where "Until They Stop (TM)" ends unless we're planning to enter another Cold War where we sever communications with Russia forever.

> The devil is in the details. What does "us stopping and them stopping will likely be brokered in a single deal" mean?

It means a single agreement would outline both conditions. Not sure what isn't clear there.

> What about the scenario where Russia doesn't care about the West and continues to occupy Ukraine for months, maybe years, in the future?

I believe I commented on that exact scenario: "sanctions would continue for an indeterminant (but likely not indefinite) time."

> Right now I see a lot of "we apply pressure Until They Stop (TM)" but I don't see where "Until They Stop (TM)" ends unless we're planning to enter another Cold War where we sever communications with Russia forever.

Seeing as how we didn't sever communications with the USSR forever in the first Cold War, I doubt that'd be a thing we did in the second. Like with everything else, we'd keep punishing them until we stop feeling the need. Right now there is a need: maybe it pulls them off of Ukraine. If that winds up not happening, maybe we keep them going for a while as punishment. Its a pretty simple give and take.

> "sanctions would continue for an indeterminant (but likely not indefinite) time."

Right, so here "indeterminant" is the "devil in the details". Is this the matter of days? Weeks? Months? Years? Decades? Sanctions are always a calculated risk. Their goal tends to be to destabilize regimes by making it difficult for members of the regime to move money or otherwise live their lives, placing hopefully direct pressure on the regime itself. But if the regime feels comfortable staying the course despite the sanctions, then what are we achieving here? I'm not against sanctions and I think sanctions are a necessity for modern diplomacy; but they need to have a clearly understood end goal in mind. Right now there seems to be a lot of moralizing and very little actual game theory in an escalating conflict with a nuclear power. Is the end game here to morally shame Russia or is it to end this conflict?

> Seeing as how we didn't sever communications with the USSR forever in the first Cold War

Communications between citizens of the West and the USSR was effectively severed for the duration of the Cold War. That's the question. Is the end game of these sanctions to start another Cold War or not?

> Is the end game of these sanctions to start another Cold War or not?

End game as in intent, or end game as in result?

The intent is stopping the war in Ukraine. The result remains to be seen.

End game meaning intent. Is this meant to be a punitive action or is it meant to hasten the war to a close, and will sanctions lift if the war in Ukraine ends with the loss of Ukraine or a months long conflict?

It's meant to make the war more expensive, financially and politically, than originally planned, potentially changing the ROI enough to change Putin's mind. The longer it goes on, the greater the cost.

I think I see what you're getting at - there is some point at which the cumulative damage of loss of trade is worse for Russia than the benefits to be gained in Ukraine.

My point is that I'm not sure this is even in the hands of governments any more. A state can withdraw jets, it can't deal with hundreds of companies pulling out entirely, a collapsed stock market, etc.

Basically you can't actually unwind the sanctions, just like you can't unbomb a Ukrainian village. If it gets bad enough then there's surely a point of no return somewhere.

Yeah, painting Putin to a losing corner will just mean possible more destruction including nukes, he must have a face-saving out, because kicking him and expecting him to retreat with his tail between his legs before he's exhausted all options is unrealistic. IMO that's why NATO doesn't want to get involved (yet), the USA can bomb Putin's forces out of Ukraine, but it'd be too embarrassing for Putin to accept without a fight, and for that fight he still has... nukes.

> Basically you can't actually unwind the sanctions, just like you can't unbomb a Ukrainian village. If it gets bad enough then there's surely a point of no return somewhere.

The longer things go on, the higher the perceived risk will be for companies returning, but there will always be an incentive for companies to return to take advantage of arbitration opportunities, considering Russia's depressed state. Whether they back down sooner, later, or never, is just risk companies need to price in when doing business there. Changes in the risk will change the benefits to the Russian people, and the profiles of the companies that show up in their markets, but hell, even Indonesia gets trade.

There is never a point of no return, not so long as Russia has a resource to trade.

It's virtue signaling. Companies are trying to outdo one another in showing support. This is why we get insane things like Namecheap threatening to cancel domains belonging to anyone registering from Russia.

Pretty sure the namecheap thing was because they have 1000 Ukrainian employees who were threatening to quit in mass if Russia wasn't completely cut off.

> I don't really understand what the endgame of the sanctions and various actions are here.

Simple, get Russia to stop killing Ukrainians and invading their country.

   > if Russia fully pull out tomorrow, what do they get back and when

Everything and immediately, is generally how it works. That's the climbdown. I don't get the pearl-clutching about being mean to a bully. And it's not like China has stopped trading with them. China as a trading partner is a hell of a long way from "nothing left to lose."

Anyway judging by their performance in Ukraine, I'm not convinced they have enough shit left in them to reach a fan. Who's to say their nukes work any better than their air force?

What happens if Ukraine surrenders or they conquer Ukraine? Does that also cause it to end?

I doubt it because half the value is signalling. If the signal is “if you win we stop” then putin will make sure he wins faster in future. And China too.

For me that's actually 30% of my worry-o-meter. MAD works two ways, you have to convince the "other" side your tools work, but what if your stage performance sucks? What if they convince western military planners that a preemptive strike is a viable option? Where's the cutoff? 30 of their nukes reaching their targets? 60? 100?

What if the west is certain they can take down their land based launch sites? What if they only need to concern themselves with the submarines? What if the west knows where those are? (Sonar has had huge developments 1990-$NOW) What if sonar technology has developed to a point the west have a fix on 50% of Russian subs? What then?

MAD only works if MAD means MAD, not if MAD means 50% assured destruction... The loss of life, wealth and security if one side of this insane pact ever lets down their part of the deal...

Everything and immediately, is generally how it works.

I think Ukraine should demand more than returning to the pre-invasion state. I don't know exactly what, but it seems like they should shoot for some verifiable changes in Russia's government, laws, military, or the like, and tie them to milestones for sanction reduction. If nothing else, that might help anchor negotiations in Ukraine's direction.

Why are you people so obsessed with regime change?

Russia has to be severely penalized so that they or others don’t repeat the same actions in the future.

>I don't really understand what the endgame of the sanctions and various actions are here.

For example Chechnya is in Russia only as long as Russia transfers huge money there. Many other regions are somewhat similar.

>The idea that the populace will rise

The populace doesn't matter. The Russian elite got used to a comfortable life of mini-Gods, and they might finally decide that they don't want to go down with Putin, and instead they may want to just give up Putin and let the populace work to pay the damage to Ukraine while they are back into their London mansions.

Unfortunately, everything I've read suggests it's quite unlikely anyone will be willing or able to overthrow Putin. What sanctions can do is diminish Russia's strength so it is less able to prosecute the invasion of Ukraine[1].

1. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/08/sancti...

I don't have a good read on the average Russian's opinion of Putin but I think a major risk here is these sanctions & pull outs having the opposite effect. If the main point of the effort is to drive a wedge between Putin and the people he really may be able to use this as a way to make it more of an "us" against "them" thing. Which then keeps him in power and he remains a risk for the world. Either way though it will likely work to depress their economy and make it more difficult for them to wage war on a larger scale that just takes a while to play out.

Everyone keeps talking WW3 but the more I think about it the less worried I become. I think the only real risk to that is if Putin literally is an irrational mad man. As in he is hell bent on destroying the west even if the price is his own country and maybe the world. This is possible but not that likely. When you follow that logic he also isn't likely to go after a NATO country and expand the war because he can't win and rational people want to win. It's entirely possible that the yes men he has built into the Kremlin told him this whole thing was going to be a cake walk because they were afraid to tell him otherwise and had no idea. He may want this to end as much as the next guy but now needs to save face and show something for the massive problems that he created.

It doesnt sound like they are trying to punish Russia, just encountering operational difficulties.

MAD would mean no way out.

I think the theory goes like this: Putin going down is a way out, and there are younger, hungrier deadly men in the military, and really scary oligarchs and gangsters with the resources to give Putin a good fight. He can't unilaterally initiate nuclear conflict, because Russia put competent people and rules in place to avoid self-destruct failure modes. The idea is that the world makes it clear that the choices are massive conflict, up to and including nuclear, or taking Putin down. This puts Putin in the place between Russian rock and the nato hard place, giving him the option of backing down.

If Putin just doesn't give a fuck anymore, if he is ill or just feeling like it's time to go out in a blaze of glory, we'll see what other actions the geniuses in power decide on.

Russia is holding the knife of thermonuclear war to the world's throat while it decimates cities full of men, women and children. Damn right we're going to do anything and everything in our power to cut them off from any source of aid or comfort. The alternative is direct military intervention, and no one wants to go down that road.

76% of Americans want to go down that road, based on surveys around establishing a no fly zone over Ukraine.

I do too. This is being played tactically rather than strategically. The knife of thermonuclear war will still be there in 5 years and in 50 years. If we cave to it, we lose in the long term:

- Russia will do whatever it wants, until it crosses a line where we're drawn into WWIII; or - Other countries develop nuclear programs, if it gives a carte blanche to do anything they want

Belarus is going nuclear, thanks to our (lack of) reaction. That's just a start of what's coming.

Whether Putin launches nukes is up to Putin. It might be a bluff. It might not be. If it's not a bluff, we'll get to that point soon enough....

Kennedy was able to blockade Cuba without the conflict escalating into nuclear war, so there is precedent.

I honestly don’t see the strategic value in launching a 1st strike for an altercation outside your own territory. If Putin wants territory or a legacy, launching nukes is a failure because:

1) no one is around to care, or those that survived will always hate you

2) you end up destroying the very territory you wanted

But then again, you’re only wrong once.

You're wrong only once, but assuming:

1) Putin is crazy enough to launch nukes; and 2) that Russian nukes work in the first place

Which decision is more likely to trigger Putin to launch nukes is still an open question.

My tactical analysis says appeasement is most likely to avoid nukes tomorrow. My strategic analysis says that containment is the right strategy to avoid nukes in my lifetime. Aggression can't be rewarded.

The actual sanctions imposed by actual governments do make sense - they target specific companies and oligarchs, attempting to incentivize them to ditch Putin.

The rest is just virtue signaling. People feel that they need to do something, so they do something. Not entirely logical. Not centrally coordinated. Mostly, acting upon emotions. Same mechanism as cancel culture, just against an external enemy now.

What baffles me more is the Russia's endgame here. Unlike Crimea and Donbass, the rest of Ukraine has always been much more anti-authoritarian than Russia. So annexing it would yield millions of highly pissed off disloyal population, that has nothing to lose, and blends fairly well Russians in a crowd. Recipe for decades of pretty bloody tensions if you ask me.

1 - reduce war capacity of Putin's Russia by limiting money inflow through eg. taxes and loans

2 - limit cyber security risks worldwide

3 - limit propaganda/disinformation

4 - limit troop capacity, since Russia wants to use internal state propaganda for mobilizing troops/reservist

The main take is that there won't be a world war, if Russia can't fund a world war.

1 - there will be no Ukraine by the time any of current measures start hurting anyone other than pedestrians. the measures that would work are not being considered seriously by anyone that matters

2 - state-funded actors will still have access to the internet

3 - state agencies will still have access to the internet

4 - pedestrians will still have access to the intranet

5 - it doesn't do anything about the nukes, and as for the threat of Russian tanks rolling their way into Germany, which has been on everyone's minds for the past 8 years, well, don't you feel silly now

The question was what's the goal.

It's not just limiting current war capacity, but also limiting future war capacity and funds.

From my POV, that seems to be working. You say it isn't, based on what?

> the measures that would work are not being considered seriously

And what are successfull measures according to you?

Additionally, you are severely underestimating what Russia requires to occupy Ukraine vs. Invading. They need an additional willing 500 k. Troops for that. They don't have the numbers and even their FSB report mentions that.

Ps. His children live in Europe, i doubt he'll drop bombs here.

>From my POV, that seems to be working. You say it isn't, based on what?

China. they're doing fine without the internet

>And what are successfull measures according to you?

military intervention from the US

>Ps. His children live in Europe, i doubt he'll drop bombs here.

I wish I had your certainty. I've given up trying to predict the future. I hope you're right

China isn't that disconnected, the question is how many know English which accomplishes most of their goals. Many IT Russians know English and they are fleeing the country.

Military US intervention is dumb at the current time. US is near China to protect Taiwan, intervening for Russia would be an overreaction at this point.

Europe can handle this if it escalates, Russia isn't that powerful in their army as their propaganda claims.

In practice, they sold most of their modern equipment to have money. Europe didn't need that.

Just look at the numbers, eg. GDP. Russia is way overreaching it's hand.

It isn't the Soviet era no more when it was somewhat equal to the US.

I don't like this situation either and it's cruel. But crunching the numbers, knowing that their equipment is mostly of the Soviet era and not maintained + ignoring propaganda makes it more 'comfortable' to not 'overreact'. Eg. Who will even maintain their tech systems? The people that know English ( and can use it to learn) are fleeing the country. I see thousands of Russian tech people trying to get out of the country mostly to Europe/Canada.

There is no one to immediately replace them. solely learning English takes long enough and that's just a single bottleneck they are experiencing now.

> there will be no Ukraine by the time any of current measures start hurting anyone other than pedestrians. the measures that would work are not being considered seriously by anyone that matters

The measures that would work such as direct sanctions and seizing the assets of a bunch of oligarchs, Putin and his ministers? Which were step 1? Or freezing the Russian central bank's foreign currency reserves?

Furthermore, 2 weeks in, Ukraine is holding out, Russia is bleeding men and equipment, and their advance is pretty much stalled on almost all fronts. They're mobilising museum pieces from the Far East and random civilians vehicles to send to Ukraine, so it doesn't seem like the equipment situation is great. I doubt a mass mobilisation will be gladly accepted by the Russian population, so to what extent they can deal with those loses is yet to see.

Even if Russia manages to conquer all of Ukraine, they couldn't occupy it for lack of troops.

>The measures that would work such as ...

measures that would get Russia to withdraw

>Even if Russia manages to conquer all of Ukraine, they couldn't occupy it for lack of troops.

the only if in this war is whether Ukraine surrenders before or after its cities get Second Chechen War treatment

You haven't given any example.

The best measure for forcing Russia to withdraw is lack of funds.

At least give a decent alternative that would work... I tried to think of "any" other and there is no viable one.

Except if China would remove the lifeline, which they won't. Since they can buy Russian energy/food companies for pennies on the dollar.

https://wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/international/... ( + other sources are easily found)

Looks like modern colonization to me.

It’s more than an emotional overreaction - it’s a massive own goal. The globally connected internet (in addition to the many of the other American companies stopping operations in Russia) is a major source of soft power for the US. This is literally doing Russia’s work for them - they have been trying to partition networks and services for years so that they can be independent of American tech companies and what they consider their control and propaganda - and now at a critical point for data flows and Western media operations, the US is going to help them build the wall. It feels unreal.

Indeed, this is amazing.

First, destroy confidence in property rights by seizing central bank reserves (US debt). Why should anyone invest in US Govt debt after this, without a hefty political risk premium?

Then, try to disconnect Russia from the internet. Why should anyone trust American tech after this?

All this does in the end, is just hurting the regular people, who don't even have any input on the situation whatsoever. So, apparently Putin is a dictator, therefore we must punish people who didn't even elect him....? Is this sound logic?

Meanwhile let's make sure with all sorts of carve outs that oligarchs still have their billions, but also make sure the Russian hoi polloi don't even have access to Western media.

It seems to me, it's far simpler mentally to directly blame the vendors pulling out, rather than "Putin did something the West does all time, but it's only OK when they do it, not us. Then the West pressured their vendors into pulling out and reneging on contracts, which is only for our own good, therefore we must rise up and re-make Russia's political setup to Western preferences, so that we can use Apple Pay again".

The conclusion of all this isn't going to be "We must rise up against Putin", but it will be simply "IKEA bad".

The world has been taken hostage by the business model of the media: which is fear and outrage porn.

Whatever narrative tugs at the heartstrings the most and gets the most clicks and shares becomes the only permitted reality that the mainstream public and government functions off of.

The public is wholly ignorant of that region’s history and energy politics and everything involved yet yet they think they’re experts. You have people who are literally crying about this conflict and trying to get involved solely because the media told them that they had to care: most of these people never even noticed Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine before because they were never told to care.

It's incredible how rapid and sticky the narrative shift has been. Literally from 24/7 covid to 24/7 ukraine in a matter of days.

Are there ways to objectively measure narrative penetration, and how far back did the previous approved narrative slid on some objective measures: "eyeballs time spent" or something?

> Literally from 24/7 covid to 24/7 ukraine in a matter of days

Almost like these are really rare, important and newsworthy events.

The first war of this scale in Europe since WW2...I wonder why it's on the news.

I really despise this line of thinking. Are you saying you can't care about objectively innocent peoples homes, cities, lives being destroyed unless you have in depth knowledge of the regions history and energy politics?

And honestly your assumption that most of these people don't remember Georgia or 2014 is ridiculous.

Caring about average people caught in the crossfire through no actions of their own is perfectly natural and great. If you're able to do something genuinely useful like give some housing to a refugee family who fled, hey good for you.

It's the rush to only parrot the list of acceptable ideas that the media tells you that people are allowed to think, emotionally overreact and go out of your way to try and not try and understand the conflict, trying to shut Russia out of the world that's going to really escalate this. It's important to understand this region better: Russia has been talking about NATO/EU encroaching on them for about 20 years. There's bad stuff going on all around the region and most people are ignorant about everything other than the current news cycle.

And yes, I stand firm on people not having a clue about recent history . Most people don't remember that they were in a state of mass panic about Omicron and Covid less than a month ago and have seamlessly transitioned to caring about the latest bad thing (TM) that they're told to consume.

So I guess you’re the arbiter of what people should and should not care about?

Not exactly. All individuals are always entitled to personal opinions, even when those opinions are dumb and held for dumb reasons. And unlike the governments of the world that lockup people for "wrong" opinions or the social media firms that employ "fact checkers" to justify whatever censorship they want or the children on Twitter that try to bully or silence people into submission, I advocate absolutely no censorship of any kind.

I'm simply an individual trying to learn and reason through some of these issues because I think it's very important both to me and the world.

1) Given the existence of cancel culture, as somebody who holds unorthodox views, I think others' bad ideas represent a large threat to my well-being so it's reasonable for me to care deeply about how people arrive at their conclusions based on what information they take in and process.

2) There are indeed serious and important issues in the world: and solving one of them the wrong way would lead to really bad outcomes. The situation we have right now where one of least self-aware groups of people on the planet (journalists) are able to use emotional manipulation to influence the world into taking the complicated risk-management decision that they feel is best is very concerning to me.

> others' bad ideas represent a large threat to my well-being

I’m sorry you feel threatened by other people’s ideas.

> There are indeed serious and important issues in the world: and solving one of them the wrong way would lead to really bad outcomes

That sounds right to me about any important decision, at the individual or the global level.

> one of least self-aware groups of people on the planet (journalists)

That doesn’t sound like a fair or even knowable criticism to me, just bashing an entire profession.

At a fundamental level, the collection and distribution of information is important for decision making, so there’s probably an advantage for groups that can share information effectively. I personally would love access to quality, well sourced information. But everyone is biased. If you started writing articles, I don’t think it would be as easy to remove your personal bias as you might think. It’s easier than ever to be an independent journalist with a substack account, or a self-hosted WordPress blog, so you’re of course free to try and improve upon what we currently have.

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