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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

There is a perfect level of cynicism here. The people want a simple model of reality. It shows up immediately at all levels of society. Simple messages work in the family, win elections, and persist for centuries whether they work or not when implemented. The tech industry is interesting as an example closer to HN for how management regularly assumes situations are simple despite endless counterexamples.

There are threads in the media that are probably government sponsored (topically, John Brennan going CIA->MSNBC or the Twitter files). The oversimplification is likely because people don't engage with complexity without shutting down. The refusal of the corporate media to learn that War is Bad is probably government sponsored. Even then, the military industrial complex and regulatory capture muddies the water somewhat about who is motivating the madness.

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Multiple actors likely co-operate and help each other without explicit communication. (Is that still conspiracy?)

The corporations wouldn’t want a government created issue, like war, go to waste, and will play along to make some profit. The media will self-censor to avoid losing advertising customers.

As far as they are concerned war is bad sometimes, depending if doesn’t or does further their interests. I remember people watching the US invasion of Iraq invasion on CNN. CNN didn’t start it but it a great boost of views from it.

> people want a simple model of reality

> War is Bad.

Come on!

I dunno. I'm arguing that the media is only going to settle on a simple model of reality and I'm proposing the closest-to-reality model as the one that they'd settle on if not for financially/politically motivated reasoning.

The US has pretty much bankrupted itself and achieved not much useful for themselves with their global military expeditions. I think almost everything they've done in the last 50 years has been an embarrassment for them. I dunno, any successes? The worm is even starting to turn on Ukraine as people note the consequence, expense and general lack of good outcomes as the China-Russia-Iran axis gets welded together. They could have shortened the leash of the coup-organisers back in the early 2010s, left Ukraine as a buffer state and avoided the whole situation with better results for ... maybe literally everyone. I mean, it is starting to look like the 2024 Russia-Ukraine border will be the one that could have been settled on pretty early in the conflict with a bit of diplomacy; then everyone digs in and settles for the long stalemate.

It beggars belief that a neutrally motivated reporter would still be gung-ho about sending in the troops before thinking. I suppose reporters are a bit slow, but the track record is appalling and the alternatives - some more cooperative diplomacy - so obvious even Trump was talking about it. It was a mistake to demonise that part of his platform.

Unless the goal was more war, in which case well done another mission accomplished.

The US is very much not bankrupted. I'll forgive conspiratorial thinking but don't be bad at economics too!

They're at debt levels consistent with fighting in WWII [0]. And interest payments on the debt have overtaken military spending. It is going to get paid back banana-republic style. You can quibble the word choice if you like, but the military policy was a big contributing factor to this outcome.

Assuming that the Russia-Ukraine conflict settles down, Iran doesn't act up and the South China Sea stays peaceful. Fingers crossed the US is about to enter a period of peace-by-lacking-affluence rather than something ugly happening.

Bonus graph: You can see China unloading their holdings [1] as fast as a trillion dollars can be moved. It makes entertaining viewing. Good luck to Japan who look to be the bag holders on this one. It'll be intriguing to find out who is on the other side of the tax havens too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_St...

[1] https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-cent...

EDIT Occasionally people bring up Japanese debt at this point in the conversation. For reference on that topic, note that on balance they are net creditors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_p...

It's funny that in a thread with so many unhinged comments (psyop or psychosis), someone notices that China is the lone country dumping its dollars and comes to the tamest, most naive conclusion, that they employ better economists than the rest of the world.

That wasn't my conclusion. Although I would respect someone arguing that Li Keqiang (RIP) was a great economist.

> They're at debt levels consistent with fighting in WWII [0].

And what happened to the US after WWII? Without looking it up I seem to remember it becoming the only superpower.

> It is going to get paid back banana-republic style.

Our debt is denominated in our currency and people accept that because they like our currency.

We have indicators of whether or not people trust us there and they look OK, unless you thought we were about to collapse in 1990.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/REAINTRATREARAT10Y

> Fingers crossed the US is about to enter a period of peace-by-lacking-affluence rather than something ugly happening.

Who's lacking affluence? The 2023 US economy is the best US economy of my or most people's lives.

And since the economy isn't a morality play, good performance doesn't automatically mean it's about to fail.

I would rather use Argentina as an example. They've done as bad a job as you can possibly do managing their economy, defaulted several times, and even that result is not that bad. Everyone still lends to them even. When you're a country, you don't have to be on your best behavior, because there's no other planet for the lenders to move to.

Everything aside (i mostly agree), your take on Ukraine is rather naive.

It is clear that Putin wanted to occupy Ukraine - the whole lot of it - in some way and anex parts of it. Destroyed convoys with riot gear were biggest tell. The anexation was done according to plan even on lands not controled by ru.

There was no room for negotiations there. There is not much room in negotiations with russian anyway. They will take your wallet and then negotiate how much they should give back if you apologize for calling them thieves.

Nobody who was serious about geopolitics entertained idea of Ukraine joining nato or eu. Finland didn't join nato as to not provoke russian (but russian had forced their hand and they joined now for obvious reasons).

> It beggars belief that a neutrally motivated reporter would still be gung-ho about sending in the troops before thinking.

The media is to be used as source of facts, their opinions are not source of anything good. For most parts its either simplistic take or outright propaganda.

I think everyone agrees that once the Russian army started moving it was to late to stop them invading Ukraine. The issue I have is that "Putin wanted to occupy Ukraine" is too simplistic. We should be asking why he felt forced to occupy Ukraine. Russia can't realistically afford to do what they're doing, it is ruinous for them too and they all know it. The US strategy is to bleed them white while expending Slavic blood on both sides. Which to be honest is a pretty good and cost-effective strategy locally speaking, I'd actually say it was a good idea except Russia has nukes, oil and strategically the US really need to be working on isolating China which this failed spectacularly at.

Russia underestimated how active the US was in Ukraine. They weren't expecting the level of resistance they encountered and it is pretty obvious that Ukraine would have folded immediately if the US wasn't backing them. Given that the Russians are probably moving from fear of NATO and it turns out NATO was conspiring against them in Ukraine, I have difficulty accepting that "Putin wanted this". It looks a lot more like "Putin thought he could find a diplomatic solution and realised the only option left was to invade, but it was too late and didn't send enough forces". If their rationale was the obvious one (fear of NATO moving in Ukraine) then the invasion revealed that not only are those fears justified, but they were in fact underestimating the threat.

If you are not Russian then I am so sorry for you falling for their conspiracies, Russia is not the victim here, they always think of themselvees as a super power that God himself given them the right to screw smaller countries over.

I do not think diplomacy could have solved this, only way this could have been prevented if is Kremlin would not have been so corrupt and incompetent, if Putin would have known that the 3 day operation would be at least a 3 year one he would not have started this war. (or special operation if you live in that democratic country where you are not allowed to name a war a way ).

I was just reading this https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/12/28/russian-poet-sen...

Putinists explain how Russia was forced to put people in prison for their opinions.

> Putinists explain how Russia was forced to put people in prison for their opinions.

Only if those poor people did not have opinions - said heartbroken krenlin apparatchik

It boggles my mind how people can come up with victim narratives for a conquest war, but here we are.

> We should be asking why he felt forced to occupy Ukraine.

We can certainly think about that academically, but it matters about as much as why Hitler invaded Poland. The reason matters far less than the fact that sovereign nations have no valid reason to attack another sovereign nation without being attacked first or defending an ally who has been attacked.

> It looks a lot more like "Putin thought he could find a diplomatic solution and realised the only option left was to invade, but it was too late and didn't send enough forces".

Ironically, this is the simplification that you speak of. It is an extremely simple narrative that people are trying to sell as a sophisticated analysis. It completely ignores the immediate 70 years of history still in living memory, and the preceding five centuries. No "scholar" and "expert" pushing this narrative ever speaks about Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and others, about the secret protocol between the USSR and Germany that divided Europe for half a century; about occupied countries and genocide committed by Russians, and the legacy of all that and its influence on the present day. Completely missing.

For example, explain within your framework why in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden abandoned neutrality that they had maintained since the Napoleonic era.

Sweden has been close to NATO for decades. There is not much to explain. It just does not matter very much, Russia would not have invaded Sweden anyway.

It's different for the baltic states. They were lucky to be able to join NATO without any major trouble from Russia. Russia was still weak in 2004.

I think it was in 2007 that Putin felt strong enough to oppose NATO enlargements in eastern Europe (his speech at Munich security conference).

Georgia caved in in 2008, they don't like dying for Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The nationalists in Ukraine are less pragmatic, even Minsk 2 was too much for them.

https://www.thelocal.se/20220314/explained-what-are-the-argu...

> It just does not matter very much, Russia would not have invaded Sweden anyway.

Swedish military experts think otherwise. If Russia were to invade Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then one could reasonably expect that they would close the Suwalki gap that connects Lithuania and Poland, to cut the land route between them end rest of Europe, and invade the Swedish island of Gotland, to prevent any supply over sea or air routes. It would require an effort comparable to Normandy landings to liberate the invaded countries; unlikely to happen.

Hence the Swedish reaction, to prevent that chain of events from starting in the first place:

> During the 20th century, infantry, artillery, air force and naval elements were stationed on Gotland as part of Sweden's defense system, until all permanent military units were stood down in 2005. With tensions in Northeastern Europe and Russia escalating in 2014–2015, the Swedish government has taken a new interest in remilitarizing the island. And in September 2016 regular troops were once again stationed on the island, albeit as an interim measure until a permanent garrison could be reestablished. As of 1 January 2018 Gotland has re-established the Gotland Regiment.

And even larger policy shift followed the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, from entry into NATO to establishment of joint air force command for Norway, Sweden and Finland - because the scale of Russian aggression against Ukraine made abundantly clear that none of them would be equipped to fight something like that off alone, and that Putin was willing to unleash it without provocation.

The typical "america bad" narrative pushed by useful idiots completely fails to explain these developments.

Ok, technically the occupation of Gotland would be an invasion of Sweden.

My intuition is that in the event of a war with Russia, the Baltic would be a no go area for warships anyway.

Attacking ships with missiles and drones is quite popular und succesful at the moment.

We can be glad that it was much harder for the Germans in WW II.

As a person born in one of the ex soviet countries, i hate the narrative of 'nato expansion'.

NONE of those countries were acquired,forced, or coersed by Nato, they all 'beg, borrowed and stole' in order to get into the Nato.

Because all of them knew acactly what will happen otherwise. Precisely to avoid what was happening to Ukraine (russia defacto controlling it via puppet politicians) and now being actively invaded by russia.

Russia complaining about 'nato expansion', is akin to wife-beater complaining his wife run away and got a restraining order.

>NONE of those countries were acquired,forced, or coersed by Nato, they all 'beg, borrowed and stole' in order to get into the Nato.

I agree and it worked for many countries.

Though it did not work any more for Georgia and Ukraine.

The Ukrainian nationalist course may have been morally correct, but it was definitely risky and failed.

> For example, explain within your framework why in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden abandoned neutrality that they had maintained since the Napoleonic era.

Because they're worried about being invaded by Russia, think NATO is substantially more powerful and likely to aid them? That seems like a pretty obvious one to me.

> Ironically, this is the simplification that you speak of...

Yeah. My argument is that only simple messages propagate. I don't know why people feel compelled to point out I'm pushing a simple message. Complex messages don't work.

The issue I'm pointing out is that the current in-vogue simple message is catastrophic in consequence. US foreign policy has managed to go from unassailable global hegemon to conceivably taken out in a 3 front war + debt crisis by 2035. Not likely, but uncomfortably possible and there was no need to be staring at a debt crisis or to provoke a 3-front war - in 2016 it looked like the US and Russia could even have become friends aligned lightly against the threat of the Chinese military going rogue. There are 350 million people in the US, surely they can find another Bismarck instead of the clowns that were responsible for the clown show that was 2000-2020.

> Because they're worried about being invaded by Russia, think NATO is substantially more powerful and likely to aid them? That seems like a pretty obvious one to me.

Why should they be worried about being invaded by Russia, if their policy was to stay neutral and accommodate Russia as much as they could, like Putin's apologist recommend?

I think you're reading something I didn't write; it is pretty obvious why they should be worried about Russia and why they'd want to join NATO. Everyone wants to join NATO. Even Russia has tried to join NATO [0].

But the issue here is that Russia's actions if Ukraine joins NATO were very easy to predict. And we've discovered through the Ukraine war that Ukraine is already partially under the NATO defence umbrella. So Russia actions here are not random imperialism but actually fairly predictable from their long-standing defence interests. If the US (and maybe the EU, I dunno much about German/French politics) hadn't been flirting with coup support and closer military ties in the 2010s then war could probably have been avoided; especially if the diplomatic efforts of the Trump administration had been encouraged.

As it stands, the US has managed to piss off the people who control the world's largest nuclear arsenal and top-10 oil reserves, done who-knows-what long term to their relationship with Germany through the Nordstream sabotage, run Russia's military through a whetstone so they'll be a lot more battle-ready and is encouraging that package to form a China/Iran/whoever alliance because they have no other choice. And re-militarise Europe after 70 years of relative peace. It is obvious that the US doesn't see diplomacy as an option and will not negotiate in good faith. This outcome is so bad that it would be more sensible not to have been provoking a fight in Ukraine. We can only hope that the CCP doesn't know how to take advantage of the gift that the US State Department is handing them.

[0] Would probably have been a good idea to figure out a way to bring them in back when that was something they were trying to do.

> But the issue here is that Russia's actions if Ukraine joins NATO were very easy to predict.

Ukraine has not joined NATO, and is not going to in any foreseeable future. At Russia's request, Ukraine and Georgia were denied entry into NATO already in 2008. The topic was completely off the table. And yet Russia invaded both of them. Leaving Georgia and Ukraine out in the cold decreased the risk for Russia and increased the likelihood of aggression against them.

> I think you're reading something I didn't write; it is pretty obvious why they should be worried about Russia and why they'd want to join NATO.

It's not obvious to me, if I accept the notion that Russia merely reacts to NATO. Sweden was not in NATO and accommodated Russia every way they could. Why did they abandon this policy? Why did Finland do the same?

Finland is particularly notable, because its foreign policy gave birth to the term findlandization: "The term is often considered pejorative. It originated in the West German political debate of the late 1960s and 1970s. As the term was used in West Germany and other NATO countries, it referred to the decision of a country not to challenge a more powerful neighbour in foreign politics, while maintaining national sovereignty. It is commonly used in reference to Finland's policies in relation to the Soviet Union during the Cold War."

If we accept the idea pushed by Putin's apologists that countries in Eastern Europe should stay away from alliances, remain neutral, sit silent and hold their breath to avoid angering Russia, then Sweden and Finland were doing exactly that.

Why did this approach become utterly discredited in early 2022? What changed for Sweden and Finland?

Unfortunately "has not joined NATO" has strong overtones of a bully's "stop hitting yourself!" routine. Russia has invaded Ukraine and encountered NATO materiel paid for by NATO money and NATO trained soldiers using NATO intelligence to kill Russian troops and generals. This is all happening according to achieve strategic objectives held by NATO. I'm just speculating from the sidelines here, but I suspect they see NATO aligning itself with Ukraine and I doubt the Russian leadership agrees with you. And they've probably pegged the Euromaidan as being organised by the US. They may have come to the mistaken conclusion that NATO is active in Ukraine.

This compares to the US invading Iraq where there was a sound like a rodent becoming flat. I mean, maybe there was a huge amount of Russian support during the war and NATO just flattened it, but as far as I recall Iraq stood very alone.

> It's not obvious to me, if I accept the notion that Russia merely reacts to NATO.

Aha, we have found the point of difference. You are incorrect in thinking that Russia only reacts to NATO. I think in the Ukraine war Russia is reacting to NATO. Although there is probably a roenxi-equivalent in Russia who is thinking "this invasion is damn stupid and dooms us all, we should have kept trying diplomacy", but in Cyrillic.

> Why did this approach become utterly discredited in early 2022? What changed for Sweden and Finland?

Well, I'm not sure what their strategists are thinking but my take is the US demonstrated that peace was not an option and they are going to keep increasing the temperature until Russia's red lines get crossed. With that context, it makes sense to be on the side that will win the upcoming conflict(s). It is better than risking a US-backed coup, although I doubt that would be necessary in the nordic countries.

> Russia has invaded Ukraine and encountered NATO materiel paid for by NATO money and NATO trained soldiers using NATO intelligence to kill Russian troops and generals.

They did not. It took 8 years, until the renewed invasion, before any meaningful supplies began arriving in Ukraine. Western leaders had to be shown mass graves before they were willing to provide heavy equipment.

> Well, I'm not sure what their strategists are thinking but my take is the US demonstrated that peace was not an option and they are going to keep increasing the temperature until Russia's red lines get crossed. With that context, it makes sense to be on the side that will win the upcoming conflict(s).

Sweden had been neutral since 1814: it went through both world wars and the Cold War without choosing sides. If we accept the premise that Russia is reacting to NATO and that the Americans are responsible for everything, then why would the events in Ukraine drastically change the outlook for Sweden?

You can't give a plausible explanation, because there is none, because the situation has nothing to do with NATO or the Americans.

Russia has begun violating agreements that even the USSR adhered to, such as the 1975 Helsinki Accords (in short: no violent territorial changes in Europe)[1]. For a long time, Sweden and Finland believed that they could avoid Russian aggression through careful diplomacy, and stand against Russia independently when required, but the war against Ukraine was unprovoked and far beyond Nordic military capabilities, dashing both hopes.

So now you have two key factors:

1. Increasingly hostile neighbour.

2. Insufficient military strength.

How do you respond?

Nordic military and political leaders concluded that tighter international cooperation is the only way to survive this situation. For example, a country with 5 or 10 million people can't afford air defense network that could protect their people from such drone and cruise missile attacks like Ukraine is experiencing; they need external help.

Nordic countries have a fair bit of history with Russia too and can see through the bullshit that many westerners don't immediately recognize. You know where "Molotov cocktail" came from? In 1939, Russians staged the shelling of Mainila[2], claiming that Finns were responsible. Four days later, Russians launched unprovoked war against Finland. As Russian planes were bombing Helsinki, Russian propaganda kept blasting that the planes were delivering food to starving Finns. Molotov cocktail was the hot drink Finns devised to go with the "bread baskets" that bombers were dropping.

And like the fake republics of Luhansk and Donetsk that Russians set up in Ukraine, Russians had established the Finnish Democratic Republic[3], ready to take over the entire Finland as soon as Russian tanks rolled over it. But Finns put up a stiff resistance and kept their independence.

All that is still in living memory, people still have grandparents alive to tell how it was back then. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, using the same methods, leaves no room for doubt for what's really going on and who's responsible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Accords

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelling_of_Mainila

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Democratic_Republic

> We should be asking why he felt forced to occupy Ukraine

That's a hell of a take, I will give you that. I am not even sure where to start off with it. Looking back to europe's past. Poor hitler was forced to attack poland and rest of europe due to Treaty of Versailles. Helpless uncle stalin did same as his oppressed people buckled to outside influences.

Your statement is hair away if not already trying to justify the invasion.

> The issue I have is that "Putin wanted to occupy Ukraine" is too simplistic

Its simplistic but the reasons that caused it are more complicated. For one putin is dreaming of recreating ussr. He made many statements about it, he wrote an academic paper about it too.

His power is slipping, he needed a distraction, a win. Dictators need to perpetuate image of being strong and successful - putin riding a bear with AK waving russian flag. That image was degrading as putin's popularity was waining.

Natural resource grab. The anexed republic are rich in new oil and other heavy industry. New source of money for putin and his mafia to loot.

Growing internal opposition, Navalny while not such saint himself exposed and fought image of putin as beloved ruler

1) The Treaty of Versailles led directly into to WWII. At the time, I would have been strongly with Keynes - it was a stupid treaty, it caused massive amounts of damage, the victors should have negotiated a fair peace and the allied powers may as well have started re-arming immediately on the assumption that war was coming.

If you assumed German policy was motivated by some level of cause-and-effect it is hard to avoid that treaty being an expensive mistake. And in the aftermath of WWII, note that the policies were occupation and rebuilding. Indeed, the US's learning "don't do another Versailles" lead to the peaceful reconstruction of Japan and Germany in a way that should be the gold standard for every post-war strategy.

2) Your statement is hair away if not already trying to justify the invasion.

If you take a holistic view, you'd probably guess (correctly) that I think this invasion is unjustified, but is in the same class of unjustified invasions as Iraq or Afghanistan - unjustified, they happen from time to time and the best that can be done is just calm the situation down ASAP. It was always a better option to go with more diplomacy and the US should be assisting in that.

But the Ukraine invasion wasn't a flight of fancy, everyone who has looked at the topic seriously agrees there is a long backstory of build ups. The only real debate point is which ones are more significant. I think US pressure, since the US is the most powerful entity involved in the war there and it is unlikely that started with Russia crossing the border.

its a circular logic. Nobody has any agency we are forced to do stuff due to external factors.

Ukraine using its puppet US forced poor russia to attack them.Holocaust was jew's fault, and twin towers crashed into planes.

Truth is a lie, lie is a truth. A quintessential russian credo.

You are dressing simple victim blaming in fancy paragraphs, but it doesnt change your twisted logic.

Generally speaking, the most agency goes to the most powerful entity. So in this case, the most agency is held roughly by the US, then the EU, then Russia, then Ukraine in that order.

Every conflict that lasts for decades tends to generate its own structures and strategies. And the conflict between Russia and the West has been going on for a long, long time.

One strategy of Russia is to say all the things. The West is not a homogenous political entity and in more radicalized nations like the US the opposition will almost always be against the opinion of the governing party. Then there are the isolationists that think sticking your head in the ground will make it all go away. So Russia will always flood the ether with all the things and many western parties will pick those up that fit them and ignore the rest.

But lets take a look at the acts Russia did, not the words.

It never ceased its occupation of part of Moldovia.

It reconquered its Chechen colony.

In 2008 it occupied part of Georgia, now it plans to build a military port and there are talks about a "referendum".

In 2014 it annexed part of Ukraine and started a proxy war in the east.

In 2022 it came back for the rest.

And yes, Putin wont attack NATO members right now. Next stop would most likely be Moldovia. But you can be sure that Putin will use his minions like Orban to break up the EU and NATO and wait for an opportune moment to grab another part of the lost Russian empire.

Here’s a read on Russian doctrine:

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/strategy-policy-th...

Excerpt that’s relevant:

Russia’s scheme for war occurs in six stages, beginning before the war actually begins. At the low end—in peacetime and under military threat—Russia will conduct nonkinetic warfare (cyber and psychological operations) against enemies while publicly demonstrating new nuclear weapons, raising overall readiness and alert levels, and deploying weapons for potential use. In a “local war,” Russian strategy calls for “grouped use” of precision strike conventional weapons to inflict damage on enemy territory, strikes on conventional military targets, and threatening to use nuclear weapons.

Under “regional war”—war with NATO or China—Russia would employ “massed use” of precision weapons on enemy forces, adding “single or grouped use” of tactical nuclear weapons, possibly to demonstrate that Russia is willing to use them.

In “large-scale war,” Russia would make “large-scale use” of nonstrategic nuclear weapons, and conduct both strategic and nonstrategic nuclear strikes on enemy economic targets. Finally, under “nuclear war,” Russia would unleash “mass use” of its nuclear triad against military and nonmilitary targets.

The precursor stage to war—setting a favorable atmosphere for Russia to prevail—employs “nonmilitary means,” which broadly include “political, information (both psychological and technical), diplomatic, economic, legal, spiritual/moral, and humanitarian measures,” according to a 2011 Russian defense paper. Overt tactics in this stage include “implementing economic sanctions, imposing economic blockades, forming coalitions and unions, breaking off diplomatic relations, and conducting information warfare,” it said. Prevailing political conditions will determine when and to what extent these means are used, and they must be constantly adapted to the fluid situation, the authors note.

Nonmilitary means of war are a “force multiplier,” Russian doctrine holds, which “serve to weaken and reduce an opponent’s forces and capabilities, and even completely eliminating a military threat.” Coordination between military and nonmilitary means are a must. In fact, a 2013 defense article by Russian Army Gen. Valery Gerasimov, head of the military forces, contends that “in a number of cases,” nonmilitary means of coercion “significantly surpassed the power of weapons in their effectiveness.” Gerasimov said the ratio of nonmilitary to military methods of warfare is 4-to-1.

It’s important to separate the way that Russia fights from their strategic objectives, especially in light of maskirovka. With Russia, it’s often many levels of intent with hidden objectives.

I think you are giving Russia too much credit. This is the same doctrine Russia used when invading Ukraine. I am sure all those agents and paid propagandists told their FSB and GRU superiors whatever they wanted to hear while pocketing most money for themself.

Putin is a gambler that has inherited lots of resources and wants to make high probability low risk bets. If he loses a round he goes double or nothing since he can do that a few times. Of course that potentially opens him up to ruinous catastrophic losses if confronted by a competent adversary. Then he will cry: "but my nukes....." and hopes everybody backs off.

As for propaganda I think they just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. All is reactive post hoc information warfare unless there are meaningful consequences.

Btw to think that Russia would have taken any statement regarding NATO expansion seriously without it being written and ratified in a treaty is beyond comical.

> War is Bad

Compared to what?

Our noble war is good compared to their barbaric war. Simple as

War! What is it good for?

Good god y’all! Absolutely nutthin.

Say it again!

They didn't get you, given the downvotes. Could at least have watched rush hour or something if they don't listen to music :-D

For the winners?

Traditionally: slaves and loot. Or new land to settle.

Today it is somewhat more complicated, but there are still winners in war. It usually just ain't those, who are fighting in it. And obviously not those, who just get bombed to death.

It's perfectly valid to make that statement without a requirement for relativism. War is bad, absolutely. Our enemies may be worse than war, but that doesn't change the fact.

You can make that statement but all decision making is relative.

Lol this Warlord trying to impart their Martian philosophy.

Respectfully, you can't "but" a statement as an effective rebuttal when the statement addresses the exact "but" that you claim.

I can make that statement because while all decision making is relative, characteristics of those decisions still have an absolute nature. War (intense pain, psychological destruction, mass violent death, generational effects, the freedom to commit evil acts only for the sake of them) is bad, period. Whether or not the decision to wage it is for a relative good (except when it isn't).

The only escape from this moral reasoning is nihilism. That is, giving up one's human nature.

Taoism aside.

You can make the case that everything you do in life is bad for something else, the point is that all choices must be ranked so stating that something is BAD is useless because arguably everything is BAD. That is not nihilism and I'm certainly not an advocate for war, I am an advocate for seriously considering choices. I said "compared to what", stating that "war is bad" again does not address the question.

It is nihilism, as explained. I did address the question.

One can't make the case that "everything arguably is bad", unless you are relativistic and reductionist to the point that any "arguable" negative consequence to anything is morally tantamount to the negative consequences of war. This is the type of moral absurdity that nihilists deal in.

Considering choices has nothing to do with the absolute characteristics of those choices.

Only nihilists feel the moral freedom to re-label absolute bad as not, if it is for their relative benefit.

I didn't say that you weren't free to do bad (I'm purposefully not using the word "evil" in order to maintain a tight reign on adjective use) in the service of what you feel is good. That might be an aspect of inescapable human nature (see factory farming).

What I imply is that human action isn't completely morally relativistic. Only nihilists or zealots with occluded moral reasoning think otherwise. No offense.

Maybe taoism is for you. It would allow you to resolve moral absurdity that you are otherwise trying to escape with nihilism. Personally, I'm not as atheistic as that. But at least it would be more consistent.

So you have some absolute line in the sand which exists for you to measure whether something is bad or not. Still it does not help you choose between two bad choices so how useful is that for you?

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